MICHIGAN`S ECONOMY WORSENING

While no doubt that the BIG THREE are in great difficulties,other sectors of the economy are slowing down significantly.The unemployment in Michigan is the highest in the nation.In Detroit only is at 30% and parts of michigan have it at 10%-20%.There is rampant foreclosures and the housing prices have hit rock bottom.It`s one big mess that no governor could be able to solve it.Retail sector suffers too because there is little money if none for consumers to spend.Certainly,governor Engler made it worse for the michiganders,but it is the companies that have no other alternatives in the current global market.Aside all this,michigan has no other sectors to drive it`s growth.They all depend afterwards if there is jobs,which there are not and consumer spending which is at its lowest.What alternatives are left for michiganders other then to migrate to other states, where there is actual jobs and real perspective growth.

ARMENIA,AZERBAIJAN:A CHANCE FOR KARABAKH PEACE?

Undaunted by their failure to broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict last year, international mediators are making another push for an Armenian Azerbaijani peace accord.
The U.S., French, and Russian mediators acting under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group hope that their prolonged efforts will at last yield fruit in the second half of 2007. They regard the months following the May 12 parliamentary elections in Armenia as another unique "window of opportunity" to end the 19-year-old conflict.
The Minsk Group's U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, sounded optimistic about the prospects for a Karabakh peace when he spoke to RFE/RL's Armenian Service on February 7. The conflicting parties, Bryza said, agree on most of the basic principles of the settlement plan proposed by the co-chairs. Those basic principles amount to holding a referendum on self-determination in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic years after the liberation of at least six of the seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding the disputed enclave that are currently occupied by Armenian forces. "They don't agree 100 percent on the basic principles, but they are close, very close," Bryza said, adding that Armenia and Azerbaijan disagree only on a number of unspecified "technical issues."

ARIEL SHARON REMARKS ON KOSOVO

CRISIS IN THE BALKANS; Ariel Sharon Fears Refugee 'Terrorists'


April 7, 1999, Wednesday
(AP); Foreign Desk
Israeli Foreign Min Ariel Sharon warns that an independent Kosovo could become base for Islamic terrorism and further undermine stability in Balkans; Prime Min Benjamin Netanyahu quickly distances himself from remarks, saying Israel fully supports NATO bombings of Yugoslavia; four Israeli Air Force planes fly in supplies to vast refugee camp in Macedonia.

ISRAEL CALLING KOSOVO ALBANIANS NARCO-TERRORISTS

Jews Still Islam’s Favorite Dupes
Julia Gorin
It is somewhat pathetic that even after 9/11, and even after a nearly four-year trial at the Hague disproving “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in Kosovo (something the late reporter Daniel Pearl uncovered as early as 1999), the Jewish community still insists on being used to promote the agenda of the Albanian lobby that allied us with the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was trained by al Qaeda in 1999. As part of his PR push to see the West seal its 1999 blunder that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Jews, Serbs and other non-Albanians from Kosovo — which is well on its way to being an ethnically and religiously pure state of Saudi-financed mosques — former Rep. Joe DioGuardi, an ethnic Albanian, reminds Jews of the lead they took “in pressing President [Bill] Clinton to bomb Serbia, because they instinctively understood the nature of genocide and were determined to keep it from being repeated.” (“Jewish Support For Kosovars Sought,” Dec. 29)The reason Jews took the lead in that misadventure is that Albanians hired PR firms to convince Jews that Kosovo was another “genocide,” just as the Bosnians and Croats had done.In 1993, the president of Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, James Harff, gave a candid interview to French journalist Jacques Merlino, which was reprinted in Midstream magazine. In response to Merlino’s question, “What achievement were you most proud of,” Harff answered, “to have managed to move the Jewish opinion to our side. This was extremely delicate, as…[Bosnian] President Izetbegovic…strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state. Moreover, the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-Semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. …We outwitted three big Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the [American] Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress. We suggested to them to publish an advertisement in the New York Times and to organize demonstrations outside the U.N. This was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the (Muslim) Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind…”DioGuardi is asking the Jews to continue buying into this colossal hoax which will end in the establishment this year of a narco-terrorist mafia state in Europe. He wants us to believe that independence is “the only way to secure stability in the Balkans.” This is in fact a veiled threat. Kosovo Albanians have been using violence against NATO peacekeepers and the UN since 2000 as a means of persuading the international community that there is only one acceptable outcome to Kosovo’s final status: complete independence without border compromises. Stability is precisely what has suffered by our signing on to Muslim land grabs in the Balkans, which emboldened Albanian separatists in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia. An independent Kosovo will serve as a nod to secessionists around the the world. The Balkans have also given Islam its long-sought gateway into Europe, as the Kosovo connection to the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London demonstrates.Albanians argue that their fight for Kosovo is not an Islamic movement but a national one. (DioGuardi himself is Christian.) Palestinians, of course, make the same claim. But the big picture is the same: jihadists. If the international community is “backing away from prompt implementation of independence for Kosovo,” as DioGuardi observes, it isn’t “out of a misguided inclination to appease Serbia,” as he states. Rather than a state to be appeased, Serbia is still seen as a pariah. The new wariness about Kosovo independence is a result of both the terror connections and the daily attacks against the remaining non-Albanians.So the Albanians are once again turning to the well-meaning but gullible Jewish community. In its current leg of the PR campaign to get the Jews on board, the Albanian lobby is peddling the story that Albania was the only European country that didn’t turn over any Jews in WWII and saved 2,000 Jews during the German occupation of Albania. Indeed, on the eve of World War II there were 600 Jews in Albania, 400 of them refugees from elsewhere. Many historians believe “it was the Italian occupation of Albania that ‘rescued’ the Jews rather than the local population,” according to the Jewish Virtual Library.Once the Germans took over Albania and annexed Kosovo, Albanians volunteered to form an SS division that committed atrocities against Jews and Serbs.In more recent history, Albanians pushed the Jews out with the rest of the non-Albanians after NATO occupied Kosovo in 1999. (I profiled one such Jewish family for The Jerusalem Report in 1999.) Today, Albania and Kosovo are virtually free of Jews.One should view the ubiquitous “Nazi” analogies hurled at the Serbs — the designated villain of the Balkans — with great skepticism, considering they originated with Croatian former Nazis and their Bosnian and Albanian former allies. There’s a reason that unlike Europe’s other concentration camps, which were placed in remote areas, the Sajmiste camp was in clear view of Belgrade’s populace. “[T]hat was the intention, to intimidate other Serbs by showing them what was going on inside because Serbs were much more courageous in resisting the Fascists than other nations,” Aleksandar Mosic explains in his book “The Jews in Belgrade.” Note that it was Belgrade, not Tirana, that Hitler bombed.When the world—American Jewry included—sided with the Croats, Bosnians and Albanians against Serbs in the Balkan civil wars, Israel was a notable exception. But the PR blitz in support of “Kosovo” has done its work: Last week the Kosovo Democratic party chairman and ruthless KLA commander Hasim Thaci was received by Shimon Peres, and claims to have received assurances that Israel will support an independent Kosovo. If so, Israel is supporting a precedent for immediate Palestinian statehood. As a Jew who expects people to do their homework before taking a position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I became committed to doing my homework on the Balkans in 1999. It’s too bad that, eight years later, my fellow Jews still haven’t bothered. nJulia Gorin serves on the advisory board of the American Council for Kosovo.
Special To The Jewish Week

IRAQI KURDS PONDER? WITH TURKS OR THE AMERICANS?

Iraqi Kurdish leaders are debating whether they should peg their future with Turkey or with the United States as they see growing uncertainties in Iraq…According to sources close to the leadership there are two schools of thought that are clashing. One says they should rely on Turkey for their future and closely ally themselves with Ankara while opponents say Turkey is facing serious troubles and its ability to influence regional developments in weakening and thus they have to closely associate themselves with the Americans.
The supporters of strong ties with Turkey say the potentials and strength of Turkey cannot be denied and the Kurdish region of Iraq is the economic, social and even political hinterland of Turkey.They say Turkey should become a political and economic partner of the Kurds and not the "big brother" that dominates and dictates its terms on the Kurds.They also stress that Turkey is the only democratic and secular neighbor of the Iraqi Kurds who can help them in building up their system on modern grounds.Supporters of Turkey say Turks are already dominating trade and the contracting sector in the Kurdish region. Turkish contractors are doing business at the tune of one billion dollars and Turkish traders sell goods worth two billion dollars annually to the Kurdish area. They say Turkey can offer its vast potentials to the area.They also say in the future when the Kurds extract their own oil the only outlet will be through Turkey. There are also talk of building a pipeline to carry the Kurdish oil to the Turkish oil terminal of Ceyhan as well as to build a railroad from Nusaybin into Silopi and Zakho that will extend to Erbil and Suleimania. There are suggestions to link the information backbone of the Kurdish region to Turkey.The opponents of Turkey say the Turks are facing serious problems at home and abroad. Their effort to join the European Union has stalled and they are at fight with many of their neighbors. The rising nationalist fervor and the domestic debates over the election of the president has further weakened Turkey. So they say Turkey does not have much to offer to the Turks under these circumstances so the Kurds have to seek support from the Americans.There is talk of asking the Americans to set up bases in the Kurdish regions. They say the U.S. needs the Kurds in its struggle against Iran and the Syrians. It also needs their political clout in Baghdad. Supporters of Turkey say without Turkish blessing it will be practically impossible for the Americans to provide long term backing to the Kurds. In the past the Americans were regarded among the Kurdish leadership and especially on the Barzani side as unreliable. Kurds pointed out that the Americans had let the Kurds down in 1975 and in 1991 and should not be trusted.Massoud Barzani was convinced in 2002 that this time the Americans meant business and gave his full backing to the Bush administration to bring down Saddam Hussein and this was a key element in the fall of the regime in Baghdad in 2003.Since then the Iraqi Kurds and the Americans have been going through a phase of close collaboration and cooperation.This has created the impression among Kurds that the Americans will never desert them again and that the U.S. will support the Iraqi governorates run by the Kurds.The Baker-Hamilton plan to end the violence in Iraq was a wake up call for the Kurds who felt the plan was clearly against their aspirations of self rule and running their own oil industry. Bush did not adopt the plan and instead has used the Kurds to help end the violence in Baghdad by deploying their troops. But Kurds now realize that there are Americans who are still prepared to turn their backs on the Kurds…The Kurds feel they have to be prepared for the day when Bush leaves office and if the Baghdad administration collapses leaving the Kurds in the air...

GOOGLE UNDER FIRE FOR ITS PRACTICES

Google loses copyright case, cuts newspaper links in Belgium13 February 2007 A Brussels court has ordered internet search giant Google to pay a fine of €25,000 ($32,500) a day for violating of copyright laws by publishing links to Belgian newspapers without permission.
The Brussels Court of First Instance also ordered Google to remove all Belgian news content, setting a precedent for future cases in Europe. There's ``no exception'' for Google in copyright law, the court said.
Mountain View, California-based Google said it has already removed the content and will appeal the ruling. However, for now, the case may restrict free copying of newspaper content on internet sites in Europe.
The ruling came on a petition filed by Copiepresse, a group representing 17 French-and German-language newspapers, including La Libre Belgique and Le Soir.
The newspapers argued that Google shouldn't be allowed to link to their content for free.
Google will have to reach a deal with newspapers to link content. ``There is a tendency for Google to use things for free and reach a deal later,'' said a lawyer.
The daily fine imposed on Google has retrospective effect, dating back to 139 days when the search engine was first asked to remove the content, a lawyer for Copiepresse said.
Google last year postponed plans for a Danish news site after newspapers complained. In 2005 French news agency AFP sued Google for linking to its content for free.
The newspapers have also threatened legal action against Microsoft Corporation and Yahoo! Inc. if they continue to use their stories.

WHY KOSOVO MERITS INDEPENDENCE?

What indepence may mean
Independence for Kosovo is, indeed, the only way to turn the resentful, impoverished population of Kosovo into a pillar of an international order in which they will have a stake and the same rights as other European nations. With their status and borders guaranteed, with their advancement in Europe conditional on their good behaviour, the Kosovo Albanians will have a strong incentive not to pursue any destabilising policy vis-à-vis the Albanian minorities in neighbouring countries - both Macedonia and Serbia proper experienced Albanian uprisings in the period following the Nato entry into Kosovo, a situation that the lack of definite borders only encouraged.
The Kosovo Albanians have had a very poor record where treatment of the Kosovo Serb minority is concerned, involving, in the orchestrated riots of March 2004 in particular, pogroms and the burning of Serb homes and churches. Yet with the Kosovo Serbs no longer representing a barrier toward independence, there is some reason to hope that Albanian behaviour toward them will improve.
The Islamophobic propaganda of Kosovo's enemies notwithstanding, the province was never a hotbed of al-Qaida or Islamist activity. On the contrary, Albanians are noted for their extremely moderate version of Islam; Kosovo was probably the only Muslim-majority country where the population demonstrated in favour of the US intervention in Iraq - as Saddam Hussein was widely viewed as a counterpart of the hated Milosevic. Independent Kosovo will not be a threat to European security.

** *** *** **
There remains the question of how Serbia will react to the eventual emergence of an independent Kosovo that its politicians have almost unanimously insisted they will not accept. A lot has changed in Serbia since Milosevic's heyday, and Serbian politicians can no longer mobilise mass popular nationalist feeling over the Kosovo question. This was demonstrated by the Serbian constitutional referendum - more truly a vote on whether Kosovo should remain part of Serbia. Even after it had disenfranchised the Kosovo Albanians, the Serbian government barely scraped past the 50% turnout threshold required to validate the referendum.
Furthermore, this number was reached only at the very end of a two-day ballot, amid a quite unprecedented level of propaganda from all sections of the political elite and media pressurising (indeed morally blackmailing) Serbian citizens to vote. The tactics included door-to-door canvassing and mass text-messaging; saturation media coverage of "patriotic" examples of the elderly, invalids, priests and others voting; and "patriotic" television programmes about the 1389 battle of Kosovo. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that the Serbian people voted in favour of Kosovo's independence. They are resigned to it; there will be no Serb-nationalist backlash against it.
More dangerous, however, is the intransigence of the Serbian government, which may attempt to obstruct the process indefinitely, in part through attempting to amputate the northern, Serb-held part of Kosovo centred on the city of Kosovska Mitrovica. This territory was overwhelmingly Albanian-majority until the war of 1999, but Serbian leaders may attempt to repeat the strategy of territorial dismemberment previously attempted by Milosevic unsuccessfully in Croatia and with partial success (and massive human cost) in Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the very least, they may try to weaken the new state to the maximum, create as much regional instability as possible and extract the maximum concessions from the international community.
Whether the Serbian leaders succeed will depend upon the resolution of the international community in insisting on good behaviour. The UN already agreed, at Serbia's request, to postpone the announcement of Ahtisaari's plan until after the January 2007 parliamentary election in Serbia, out of fear that the plan would encourage support for the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party. Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica and President Boris Tadic then unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the international community to delay the plan's announcement further until a new Serbian government had been formed.
Western leaders understandably want to appear receptive to Serbian concerns, but they may also realise that Serbia's dead-end policies toward Kosovo can only prolong regional instability. With Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece already in the EU, and Nato and Croatia set to join soon, Serbia naturally belongs in both organisations, but it will be a better member of both if it drops its unrealisable claim to Kosovo - much as Romania dropped its claims to parts of Ukraine and Moldova as the price for Euro-Atlantic integration.
Serbia's readiness to create trouble will depend to a large part on the role of Russia, which is using Serbia as a pawn in its own imperial game, and looks set to withhold UN recognition from Kosovo unless it receives concessions elsewhere - possibly over the question of Abkazia and South Ossetia, formally autonomous entities in Georgia that broke away in the 1990s with Russian support, and whose reintegration into Georgia Russia is preventing.
Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's constitutional relationship to Georgia superficially resembles Kosovo's constitutional relationship to Serbia, yet there is no reason why the US and EU should conflate the two issues and permit Russian interference in a region - the western Balkans - that was not in the Russian sphere even during the cold war, and that is now entirely encircled by Nato and EU members.
Opponents of Kosovo's independence argue that it will set a precedent and trigger a chain reaction of conflicts over other secessionist territories that would then demand independence - according to Serbian foreign minister Vuk Draskovic, these would include northern Cyprus, the Basque country, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Ossetia, Chechnya and Taiwan.
This rather comical argument ignores the fact that throughout its history, Europe has embraced the emergence of newly independent states, from Switzerland and the Netherlands in 1648 to Montenegro in 2006; indeed, most states in Europe today originally seceded from a larger entity - as indeed did the United States. The emergence of new states has never meant the collapse of the international order or a free-for-all, but is simply an inevitable, unavoidable and ultimately desirable part of Europe's evolution.