Julian Assange, diasporans

[colorblue]

Kate Harding's post on Julian Assange's rape charges

Public evidence, as the Times noted, is scarce. So, it's heartening to see that in the absence of same, my fellow liberal bloggers are so eager to abandon any pretense of healthy skepticism and rush to discredit an alleged rape victim based on some tabloid articles and a feverish post by someone who is perhaps not the most trustworthy source. Well done, friends! What a fantastic show of research, critical thinking and, as always, respect for women.

Also, how a debate on wikileaks took an unexpected turn to: Diasporans: The Fraction we can't name, in Zimbabwe:

"Of course I do," I mourned once more, felled yet again. "One day during the Second World War, Winston Churchill staggers into a room, dead drunk as usual. You know Churchill had a drink problem?" This time around I decided I had had it. I was ready to throw back to stop this vain block. "The way George Bush had the same? Have you read his memoirs, Decision Points," I shot back.

This one had to catch him. I hoped to transfer the plague of insufficiency by which this vain man got at me. Cleverly, he hurried past the innuendo, the sly political MDC man. "Seeing that the Prime Minister of Britain was drunk, dead drunk, one lady plucked courage and confronted him. Without wasting time, she barked a sharp rebuking order, one that reversed power relations. Temporarily at least. "Mister Prime Minister, you are drunk. Get out of the room!"

The error you cannot mend

"You know how it is with drunks and I am sure you appreciate what a drunk wielding enormous power does." I wondered whether my interlocutor was not making another go at me. I don’t drink, have never taken in alcohol. He was appealing to the unfamiliar to compound my insufficiency, I reasoned.

Another condescending assault from this bastard! "The drunk Briton, the drunk British Prime Minister, doddered forward, towards the cheeky woman who had dared him. Once satisfied that he had gained suitable distance for a maximum uptake of his piece of mind, the Prime Minister, letting out thick fumes of the substance, pauses for a dramatic while, hardly steady and upright. Then the bombshell: "My good lady, I am druuuuuunk, and I don’t deny dzat.

"But tomorroooow morning, tomorrow mooooorning, I shall wake up sober, possibly with a small, nagging headache which will vanish together with early morning dew. But as for you, darlin’, you are ugly, uuuuugly. Let’s see how you will look tomorrow."

[ETA: The blogpost is about diasporans and how hierarchies define identities and the current situation in Zimbabwe, as well as Churchill being appallingly sexist.]

Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms ring, Council of Europe reports

[acari]

Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms ring, Council of Europe reports

Kosovo's prime minister is the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.

Hashim Thaçi is identified as the boss of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the runup to the 1998-99 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country's government since.

The report of the two-year inquiry, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, has been obtained by the Guardian. It names Thaçi as having over the last decade exerted "violent control" over the heroin trade. Figures from Thaçi's inner circle are also accused of taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market.

Kosovo physicians accused of illegal organs removal racket

The story of how Kosovo hosted an illegal market in human organs began to unfold today in a district court in the capital, Pristina. As armed special forces stood outside, the court heard how desperate Russians, Moldovans, Kazakhs and Turks were lured into the capital "with the false promise of payments" for their kidneys.

EU prosecutor Jonathan Ratel told the court the organs had been illegally removed from victims and transplanted into wealthy recipients in the clinic, known as Medicus. Those who paid up to €90,000 (£76,400) for the black-market kidneys included patients from Canada, Germany, Poland and Israel, Ratel said.