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Non-Tech : The ENRON Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (4903)	7/8/2003 12:05:10 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 5185

Enron's was George W. Bush's political contributor. Lay will remain free, I guess. Was Skilling a big campaign contributor? I am not sure.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (4903)	7/8/2003 10:35:38 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5185

The crooks or the warlords are back in business in Afghanistan. And Bush & Co don't seem to mind.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (4903)	7/8/2003 10:38:45 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 5185

Kandahar berates Straw for a leftover life of gun law and broken promises " The Taliban are still a menacing presence in Kandahar province, travel is hazardous, corruption is endemic, opium production dominates economic life and a warlord, Gul Agha Sherzai, not the central government, is the provincial governor." Ewen MacAskill in Kandahar Wednesday July 2, 2003 The Guardian guardian.co.uk The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, having completed a round of diplomatic talks in Kabul on Monday, said he wanted to confront the reality of life in Afghanistan. He got his wish yesterday. He left the relative stability of the capital to fly to Kandahar, the country's second-biggest city and the former heartland of the Taliban, to check reports that the country outside Kabul is in a state of lawlessness. In Kandahar he came face-to-face with the scale of the problems the US and Britain have to deal with 18 months after the Taliban were overthrown. The Taliban are still a menacing presence in Kandahar province, travel is hazardous, corruption is endemic, opium production dominates economic life and a warlord, Gul Agha Sherzai, not the central government, is the provincial governor. The night before Mr Straw arrived in Kandahar a grenade exploded in the Abdurrab mosque, injuring 19 people. The provincial government, the police and Mr Straw blame the Taliban. The mosque is the base of Mullah Abdullah Fyaz, an arch-critic of the Taliban. Mr Straw stopped to visit a US base where six of the most seriously wounded were being treated. He spoke briefly to one: the others were unconscious. He said afterwards: "It is strange again that the victims of the Taliban extremists are always likely to be fellow Muslims." Lack of law and order was the main complaint at a meeting between Mr Straw and 100 tribal leaders held in the open air in Mr Sherzai's compound. In comments echoed by other leaders, one said: "The promises and commitments that Blair made and that are in the Bonn Accord (the framework for Afghanistan's political future agreed in December 2001) have not been met yet. "There is no security, there is unemployment, we are still living under the gun, and majority rights are trampled underfoot." The UN and most aid organisations have not returned to the city since a fatal attack on a Red Cross worker on the road from Kandahar earlier this year. An attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and Mr Sherzai was made in the city last year. Mr Straw told the tribal leaders: "I promise I will take away these important messages and that they will be acted upon. Everyone has named security as the number one issue and we fully accept that." He added: "You need a well-trained police force and, sadly, an army, and good equipment and guns." As he was leaving the meeting, one of the tribal leaders alarmed Mr Straw's bodyguards by standing in front of him, shouting excitedly and waving his arms about, forcing the Foreign Secretary to lift an arm in protection. A spokesman for the provincial government, Khalid Pashtoon, said the tribal leader had been emotional rather than hostile on the security issue. Mr Straw encountered Afghan reality again later when he visited a clinic run by women to help overcome the country's desperate child mortality rate. Of the nine midwives he spoke to, at least four had lost a husband or father or other close relative during the 23 years of war. According to Afghan journalists, Mr Straw is the first senior western politician to visit Kandahar since the fall of the Taliban.