Senin, 30 Juni 2014

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HOW THE OVERSHADOWED 90 IS SHAPED OUR WORLD

How the overshadowed '90s shaped our world

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Monica Lewinsky's sudden return to the spotlight and Hillary Clinton's possible return to the White House evoke memories of a decade obscured by the transformative '80s and the tumultuous '00s, and squeezed between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.
How to characterize the 1990s, which saw the fall of Soviet communism and the rise of the Macarena, the end of the superpower nuclear arms race and the beginning of reality TV, the promise of the World Wide Web and the tragedy of Black Hawk Down?
In some ways, the '90s were the best of times, including prosperity at home, relative peace abroad, a falling crime rate, an explosion in digital technology, even a federal budget surplus.
It was certainly preferable to what came next: the worst terror attack on U.S. soil; two long, inconclusive wars; two stock market crashes; and a financial crisis that precipitated a deep recession. After the '90s, says Kevin Howley, a DePauw University communication professor, "It's as if history jumped a track.''
Yet the '90s also were years when much of what bedevils us today — global warming, terrorism, health care costs, gun violence — had causes or antecedents. Opportunities were missed, perils overlooked.
Take the economy. The stock market boomed, productivity increased, unemployment fell and GDP rose 40%. But real wages lagged, many workers lacked skills for Digital Revolution jobs, and the gap between the rich and everyone else widened. Sound familiar?
When the decade began, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the wife of a Southern governor known for his endless speech at the Democratic convention in 1988. Vladimir Putin was an undercover KGB officer in East Germany filing reports no one read. Xi Jinping was head of the Communist Party School in a provincial capital. Steve Jobs was still in exile from Apple.
There was no peace in Northern Ireland and no justice in South Africa, where a rebel named Nelson Mandela had been in prison for 27 years.
When the decade began, no one had texted, used a ThinkPad, PowerBook or PalmPilot, or taken Viagra. Politicians talked about reforming welfare. After years of losses, Starbucks was about to report a measly profit of $812,000. "Squeegee men" annoyed and sometimes frightened motorists at intersections in New York City.
On Jan. 1, 1990, no one dreamed that one of the world's best basketball players, Magic Johnson, would be infected with HIV or that one of the world's most powerful men, Bill Clinton, would have sex with a White House intern.
Michael Jordan had played in the NBA for five years without winning a championship. No one was asking if O.J. did it, or what Mark McGwire took so he could do it. No one had ever heard of Rodney King or Tickle Me Elmo. No one was shouting, "Show me the money!''
In 10 years, this and much else would change.
Here's how 2014 was shaped by the events of the '90s:
GLOBAL TERRORISM: THE RISE OF AL-QAEDA
Nov. 8, 1990: An FBI raid of the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair discovers evidence of a terrorist plot to blow up New York City skyscrapers.
Dec. 29, 1992: In al-Qaeda's first terror attack, two bombs detonate in or near hotels in Aden, Yemen. Bombings are directed at U.S. soldiers en route to Somalia. Al-Qaeda leaders claim it frightened Americans away, but in the USA, the attack is virtually ignored.
Feb. 26, 1993: Islamist extremists detonate a truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand.
May. 18, 1996: Osama bin Laden flies from Sudan, where he's no longer welcome, to Afghanistan, where Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Taliban regime promise support for jihadist missions.
Aug. 28, 1996: Bin Laden declares war on the USA, saying its forces in Saudi Arabia make that nation, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, "an American colony.''
Aug. 7, 1998: Simultaneous bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya kill more than 220 people. Bin Laden is indicted on charges of plotting to kill U.S. citizens.
Aug. 20, 1998: In retaliation for the embassy bombings, U.S. ships fire cruise missiles at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan (bin Laden flees unharmed) and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that the United States says made chemical weapons — a claim investigations refute.
June 7, 1999: Bin Laden is placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
ECONOMIC EQUALITY: THE 1% GET RICHER
Jan. 1, 1994: The North American Free Trade Agreement creates a free-trade zone for Canada, Mexico and the USA. Business groups claim the deal will raise living standards; organized labor says it will send U.S. jobs to Mexico. Both prove correct.
Dec. 5, 1996: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan uses the phrase "irrational exuberance" to warn of possible overvaluation of stocks. After the dot-com bust, it becomes the era's epitaph.
Jan. 30, 1997: Greenspan tells Congress that worker insecurity is a significant factor in keeping inflation low, thus promoting long-term investment.
Dec. 16, 1997: A study by the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows the average income for the richest fifth of U.S. families jumped 30% from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s and fell 21% for the poorest fifth.
Aug. 16, 1999: The season's top-rated TV show debuts: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Nov. 25, 1999: Pets.com, which sells pet supplies online, sponsors a float featuring its dog sock puppet mascot in Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. In a year, the company will be out of business.
Nov. 30, 1999: Tens of thousands of anti-globalization demonstrators disrupt a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle to protest economic globalization. They close streets, destroy property and battle police.
Dec. 21, 1999: Based on employee feedback, Fortune magazine names Enron one of the "100 Best Companies to Work for in America." After accounting abuses come to light, thousands of employees will lose jobs and savings.
Dec. 31, 1999: The NASDAQ composite index, heavy with tech stocks, closes at 4,069, up from 455 on the same date in 1989.
PUBLIC SHOOTING SPREES: A BLOODY DECADE
Oct. 16, 1991: A man crashes his truck through a window of a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas, and fatally shoots 43 people before killing himself after a shootout with police. It's the deadliest such rampage in U.S. history.
April 22, 1992: Adam Lanza is born. After he starts elementary school in Newtown, Conn., he'll be diagnosed with sensory-integration disorder. He will become fascinated with mass shootings.
Feb. 28, 1994: The Brady Law institutes federal background checks on firearm purchasers with a five-day waiting period.
Sept. 13, 1994: The Federal Assault Weapons Ban restricts sales of some newly manufactured semiautomatic firearms. Possession and transfer of existing weapons are not restricted, and the law expires in 2004.
Jan. 1, 1996: Texas law requires authorities — previously able to exercise their discretion — to issue a permit to carry a concealed handgun to any and all qualified applicants who pass a criminal background check. A woman who was at the Killeen Luby's during the massacre backed the law, saying she left her gun in car that day for fear of breaking concealed weapon law.
June 27, 1997: The Supreme Court rules the Brady Law requirement that state and local law enforcers perform gun sale background checks is unconstitutional.
July 15, 1997: Designer Gianni Versace is shot dead outside his Miami Beach mansion by Andrew Cunanan, who's killed four other men over the previous 10 weeks. Eight days later, Cunanan commits suicide.
Jan. 18, 1999: Seung-Hui Cho turns 15. He is under treatment for depression and an anxiety disorder, selective mutism. A good math student, he'll get into the college of his choice: Virginia Tech.
April 20, 1999: Two teens kill 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado.
GLOBAL WARMING: GROWING EVIDENCE, PERSISTENT DENIALS
Aug. 30, 1990: A 75-nation United Nations panel of scientists and government officials says humankind is warming the Earth's atmosphere and calls for an international effort to combat pollutants that accelerate the "greenhouse effect."
June 28, 1991: Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the keys to the first road-legal Hummer, a new civilian version of the military Humvee. The hulking vehicle gets about 13 miles per gallon.
June 1, 1992: In his book Earth in the Balance, Sen. Al Gore warns of ecological catastrophe and proposes a "Global Marshall Plan" for the environment.
June 14, 1992: At the Earth Summit in Brazil, 24 nations promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000.
Oct. 20, 1992: President George H. W. Bush calls Democratic vice presidential nominee Gore "ozone man" in an attempt to paint him as an extremist on climate change.
March 23, 1994: Eric Holdsworth, associate director of Global Climate Coalition, a group that represents manufacturers, says the fluctuation in Earth's temperature is natural and more study is needed to prove greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere will lead to global warming.
Feb. 3, 1995: A report by the Accu-Weather forecasting service finds no convincing evidence to support claims that hurricanes, tornadoes and other examples of extreme weather are increasing. Accu-Weather's Joe Sobel says that, despite warnings about the impact of global warming, "the data show that hurricane frequency is not increasing, the number of violent tornadoes is not increasing, and temperature and precipitation extremes are no more common now than they were 50 to 100 years ago."
April 7, 1995: Three years after Brazil's Earth Summit, few nations that promised to reduce greenhouse emissions are on target. "A shift in the world economy is required … a shift in consumption and lifestyle patterns," says Norway's environment minister, Torbjoern Berntsen.
HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL: POLITICAL DISASTER
Jan. 25, 1993: Five days after taking office, President Clinton appoints his wife, Hillary, to head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform — unprecedented authority for a first lady. The panel is to design a plan for a dramatically different health care system for submission to Congress by May.
Feb: 24, 1993: Three groups sue to force Hillary Clinton to open meetings of the Health Care Task Force to the public and news media. As the case drags on, it feeds the sense that the panel is elitist and secretive.
Sept. 8, 1993: A TV ad features "Harry and Louise," a fictitious middle-aged, middle-class suburban couple befuddled and dismayed by Clinton's health plan. The pair urge viewers to contact their congressional reps to express concerns.
Sept. 22, 1993: The president presents a health care plan to a joint session of Congress. "Millions of Americans are just a pink slip away from losing their health insurance," he says, "and one serious illness away from losing all their savings. … And over 37 million Americans — most of them working people and their little children — have no health insurance at all.'' The plan runs more than 1,000 pages and includes a controversial requirement that employers provide coverage to all employees.
Jan. 9, 1994: Senate Finance Chairman Daniel Moynihan, a Democrat and nominal ally of Clinton, says, "We don't have a health crisis in this country." He later admits to a "health insurance crisis" but says, "Anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn't living in it."
Sept 26, 1994: Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell acknowledges the obvious: The health care overhaul is dead. Unacknowledged: The attempt to pass it has been politically damaging to the president and his party. Unforeseen: Democrats will lose control of both houses of Congress in November.
A DIGITAL REVOLUTION: CELLPHONES, LAPTOPS AND THE WEB
Dec. 20, 1990: British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who's proposed what will become the World Wide Web — using hypertext "to link and access information of various kinds as a web … in which the user can browse at will" — tests the world's first website.
Dec. 9, 1991: President Bush signs the High Performance Computing Act, sponsored by Sen. Gore, which funds and encourages development of the "information superhighway.''
Jan. 23, 1993: Mosaic is released. The browser vastly expands popular use of the Web. Funding for Mosaic development came from a 1991 federal computing bill.
May 26, 1995: Microsoft CEO Bill Gates issues the "Internet Tidal Wave" memo, calling Netscape, with its Navigator browser, a "new competitor 'born' on the Internet." The memo says Microsoft failed to grasp the Internet's importance and must adapt.
July 9, 1997: Apple CEO Gil Amelio is ousted after years of financial woes. Steve Jobs – Apple's co-founder who left after losing a power struggle and was brought back by Amelio as an adviser – becomes acting CEO and begins changing the product line.
Aug. 15, 1998: Apple introduces the iMac personal desktop computer designed by a team led by Jonathan Ive, who will work on the iPod and iPhone. The company, once nearly bankrupt, is profitable by year's end.
March 9, 1999: Gore says he "took the initiative in creating the Internet'' – a reference to his 1991 computing bill. He's ridiculed for the comment, commonly repeated as "I invented the Internet.''
Dec. 7, 1999: The Recording Industry Association sues Napster, a pioneering file-sharing Internet service that allows people to share music files. RIA alleges copyright infringement, part of a long-running argument: Who owns what in the Information Age.
Dec. 31, 1999: In 10 years, U.S. households with a personal computer have gone from 15% to 50%, and from 30% to 75% if the household had kids. Four years after the decade began, world information storage capacity has increased six times over what it was four years before the decade began.
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MARIENE DISAPPEARED IN IRAQ


Marine who disappeared in Iraq in U.S. custody


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A Lebanese-born U.S. Marine who allegedly deserted his post in Iraq and then faked a video showing his capture by militants is in U.S. custody after being on the lam for about 10 years, the Marine Corps said Sunday.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service worked with Cpl. Wassef Hassoun "to turn himself in and return to the United States to face charges under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice," the Marine Corps said in a statement.
A Defense official said he was flown to the United States from a Middle East country, where he negotiated his return. The official asked not to be named since he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. Hassoun has family in Lebanon.
Hassoun, now, 34, allegedly walked off his base in Fallujah, Iraq, sometime before June 20, 2004, taking with him his service-issued 9mm pistol. Hassoun was a motor transport Marine by training but was serving as an Arabic translator.
He had been listed as a deserter after disappearing from the base. About a week after he left the post, a video surfaced showing him blindfolded with a masked man holding a sword over him. The military changed his status at that time to captured.
In a bizarre twist several weeks later, on July 8, he turned himself in to the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.
From there he was flown back to the United States where he faced desertion, theft and other charges at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
Investigators believe he was never captured, according to the official.
He was granted leave to visit his family while awaiting judicial proceedings. He never returned to base and was again listed as a deserter in January 2005.


The case invites comparisons with that of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who allegedly walked off his post in Afghanistan five years ago and was captured by the Taliban. Bergdahl was freed May 31 in a deal in which five Taliban militants being held at Guantanamo Bay were released.

NORTH KOREA SCANDAL

N. Korea preparing to indict 2 American tourists

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Monday it is preparing to indict two American detainees for carrying out what it says were hostile acts against the country.
Investigations into American tourists Miller Matthew Todd and Jeffrey Edward Fowle concluded that suspicions about their hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their testimonies, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said in a short report.
KCNA said North Korea is making preparations to bring them before a court.
Both Americans were arrested earlier this year after entering the country as tourists.
Fowle entered the county on April 29 and North Korea's state media said in June that authorities were investigating him for committing acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit. A spokesman for Fowle's family said the 56-year-old man from Ohio was not on a mission for his church.
KCNA said Miller, 24, entered the country April 10 with a tourist visa, but tore it up and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum.
North Korea has also been separately holding Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae since November 2012. He is serving 15 years of hard labor for what the North says were hostile acts against the state.
The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, so Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, oversees consular issues for the U.S. there. Unless a detainee signs a privacy waiver, the State Department cannot give details about the case.
The Korean Peninsula is still in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from the North.

ISIS =WHO CONTROL TIKRIT

Key question in Iraq right now: Who controls Tikrit?

By BEVANKEVIN
June 29, 2014 -- Updated 1633 GMT (0033 HKT)

Iraq executions, atrocities on both sides

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Iraq's government is touting its offensive to recapture Saddam Hussein's hometown
  • But some residents tell CNN a different story: "There are no Iraqi troops here"
  • Iraqi security forces were routed by ISIS fighters earlier this month
  • Iraq has now turned to Russia and Belarus to buy fighter jets
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government touted its military offensive to recapture Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit from extremists, with some officials taking to state-run television over the weekend to declare the army had defeated the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
But those who live in the city nestled along the Tigris River, about 140 kilometers (about 87 miles) northwest of Baghdad, told a different story on Sunday.
"There are no Iraqi troops here," one woman told CNN by telephone from Tikrit. The only presence, at least in her neighborhood, is the "Islamic state," she said, referring to ISIS.
The woman, who asked not to be identified over concerns for her safety, said she could hear the sounds of a fierce battle, in the form of shelling, being carried out by both sides.
A video posted on YouTube appears to support her assertion. In it, a man gives a tour of the city to show, he says, that there were no Iraqi security forces on the streets on Saturday -- the day Iraqi forces said they launched the offensive.
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On the video, the man can be heard repeatedly saying "June 28, 2014," presumably to offer evidence of the date.
The man says "Thank God, Tikrit is safe and still in the hand of tribesmen and not troops of 'al-Haliki,'" a derogatory reference to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that refers to his death.
The video also shows a concrete blast wall erected around government buildings being taken down.
At the same time, state-run Iraqi TV showed video footage of large plumes of black smoke billowing from the city. Another video, released by the Ministry of Defense, showed Iraqi troops and convoys loaded with heavy weapons driving through the desert. The video was titled "cleansing the road between Samarra and Tikrit."
CNN cannot independently confirm the claims.
Possible turning of the tide for Iraq forces?
Iraqi security forces were routed by ISIS fighters earlier this month during a lightning advance that saw the al Qaeda offshoot seize large swaths of northern and western Iraq.
State-run Iraqiya TV reported that the Iraqi army and volunteer militia groups had cleared ISIS fighters from the city, having advanced on the city from four directions.
Sheikh Khamis al-Joubouri, a key tribal leader in Tikrit, told CNN on Saturday that the Iraqi security forces entered the city supported by special forces and fighters from among the local tribes and had gained control.
He said ISIS fighters retreated in the direction of Kirkuk and the province of Nineveh.
But a combatant told a CNN freelance reporter that ISIS fighters remained in control of Tikrit, though there were fierce clashes in an area about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city center, toward Samarra.
CNN cannot independently confirm the claims.
State-run TV aired footage Sunday of the arrival overnight of five Russian Sukhoi fighter jets. They are the first of 25 warplanes expected to be delivered under a contract agreed to by Moscow and Baghdad, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement provided to CNN.
The announcement follows a comment by al-Maliki that militant advances might have been avoided if Iraq had proper air power, in the form of fighter jets that Iraq has been trying to get from the United States.
"I'll be frank and say that we were deluded when we signed the contract" with the United States, al-Maliki told the BBC in the interview last week, which was released Friday.
Iraq has now turned to Russia and Belarus to buy fighter jets, he said. "God willing, within one week, this force will be effective and will destroy the terrorists' dens," he said.
U.S. officials were quick to reject al-Maliki's complaints. U.S. fighter jets have not been slow in coming, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told CNN. The first two promised F-16s "weren't expected to be delivered until the fall, which is still months away," Kirby said. "And we were in the process of working towards that delivery."
The advance of the al Qaeda splinter group "couldn't have been stemmed through the use of two particular fighter planes," he said.
Al-Maliki's statements about the need for air support came as American and Arab diplomats told CNN that the United States is unlikely to undertake any military strikes against the militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and its allied fighters before a new government is formed in Iraq.
State Department: Iraq helped create this problem
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN that Iraq helped create the crisis.
"This kind of blame of others on the outside is quite frankly part of what's gotten Iraq into the situation it's in today. It's helped create the crisis. When we left Iraq, we gave the Iraqis the ability to create a better future," she said. "And unfortunately, leaders across the spectrum didn't step up and take the opportunity. They blamed others and didn't bring the country together."
Al-Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government have been under pressure by the Western and Arab diplomats to be more inclusive of Iraq's Sunni minority, who say they have been marginalized and cut out of the political process by the government.
Al-Joubouri said that the Sunni tribes in and around Tikrit were not aligned with the government or with ISIS and had stayed out of the fight until now.
But, he said, when ISIS fighters who arrived in Tikrit robbed banks and carried out executions, as well as bringing the local economy to a standstill, the tribal leaders offered their help to the Iraqi security forces poised outside the city.
The tribal leaders shared their knowledge of the city, including routes and known ISIS positions, he said.
Also, Human Rights Watch has reported the discovery in Tikrit of two mass graves believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians killed by ISIS and its militant allies.
In addition to the alleged executions in Tikrit, reports continue to emerge of atrocities committed by both sides.
Human Rights Watch, citing displaced residents and local activists and journalists, said Saturday that ISIS fighters kidnapped at least 40 Shiite Turkmens, dynamited four Shiite places of worship and ransacked homes and farms in two villages just outside Mosul.
The few Sunni villagers who remained in Guba and Shireekhan told those who fled that at least some of the kidnapped Turkmens had been killed, the rights group said. However, they had not seen bodies and could not give more information.
ISIS destroyed seven Shiite places of worship in the predominantly Shia Turkmen city of Tal Afar, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Mosul, earlier in the week, Human Rights Watch added, citing local sources.
But the allegations of atrocities are not just limited to ISIS. Amnesty International has said it has gathered evidence pointing to a pattern of "extrajudicial executions" of Sunni detainees by government forces and Shiite militias in Tal Afar, Mosul and Baquba.