NAOMI CAMPBELL & DIAMONDS

British supermodel Naomi Campbell, testifying at the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, said on Thursday she had been given a pouch containing small, rough diamonds while in South Africa but did not know who they were from.

Complaining that having to appear in court was a "terrible inconvenience," Campbell said two unidentified men came to her bedroom after she attended a charity dinner with Taylor and then South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997.

"I was sleeping and had a knock at the door that woke me up. Two men were there and they gave me a pouch and said: 'A gift for you'," she told the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague.

"I went back to bed. I looked into the pouch the next morning," the model said. "I saw a few stones, they were very small, dirty looking stones."

"I'm used to seeing diamonds in a box ... If someone had not said they were diamonds, I would not have known they were diamonds," she said.

Prosecutors summoned Campbell to support their allegations that Taylor received so-called "blood diamonds" from rebels in Sierra Leone and used them to buy weapons during his 1997 trip to South Africa. Taylor has denied the allegations as "nonsense."

He is charged with 11 counts of instigating murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscription of child soldiers during wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in which more than 250,000 people were killed. He denies all the charges.

"NOT ABNORMAL"

Under defense questioning, Campbell stressed she did not know personally whether the stones came from Taylor. She said she had handed them to the manager of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund on boarding a luxury train the following day and asked him "to do something good with them."

The supermodel said she recounted the incident at breakfast to actress Mia Farrow and modeling agent Carole White.

Surprised?... not me. Typical behaviour for these so called super models. Money and diamonds... that's what counts,... all the rest is landscape, or if prefer entourage.

TRANSPORTS OF DELIGHT

London's transports of delight

A KEEN cyclist, Gulliver has been rather over-excited by the prospect of London’s new bike-hire scheme, which was launched today. So, having signed up for a year’s access (at a cost of £48, including a pass-key), I decided to test it out, hiring a bike for the trip from Waterloo station, a big London terminus, to  office in the West End—a journey of slightly more than a mile.

The scheme seems to have piqued the interest of Londoners and, as if to emphasise the fact, within seconds of climbing into the saddle, I was accosted by a man demanding to know what I thought about it all. He turned out to be the transport correspondent of The Times. The bike is somewhat clunky, I told him. Heavy, with the turning circle of an articulated lorry. But then they weren’t designed for the hill stages of the Tour de France. Rather they have to cope with London’s bumpy streets, novice cyclists and the attempts at vandalism that will follow closing time in the city's pubs.

Getting people onto bikes for short journeys has to be a good idea in a city where the alternatives are breathtakingly expensive taxis, sweaty and overcrowded underground trains and buses that often crawl along congested streets. And the scheme has laudable ambitions. As Boris Johnson, London’s affable mayor, puts it: “In 1904, 20% of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see that kind of figure again.” (Adding: “If you can’t turn the clock back to 1904, ladies and gentlemen, what is the point of being a Conservative?”)

Central London is not ideal for cyclists but neither is it imperfect. There are plenty of cycle lanes (albeit often used as convenient parking spaces by van drivers) and the terrain is pretty flat. Apparently one problem with cycle-hire schemes in less horizontal cities is that bikes accumulate at the bottom of hills, as nobody has the energy to ride them back up.

The first stage of London's scheme will see 6,000 bikes spread around 400 docking stations. On top of an access fee, which in these early days must be paid in advance online or over the phone, there is an hourly hire charge which increases incrementally the longer you have the bike. This has caused some comment. The mayor says he wants the bikes to be used for short journeys, so the first 30 minutes are free. However, if you keep a bike for a whole day you'll pay £50, for longer than 24 hours £150, and if you don't return it at all £300.

There were a few downsides to my journey. The huge docking station at Waterloo station was almost bereft of bicycles. A friend also told me he’d bagged the penultimate bike at Vauxhall, another busy overground station. The mayor accepts that it will take time to calibrate the system and get the bikes where they are most needed, but I suspect the large train stations will need more.

Conversely, the closest bay  in Pall Mall, was full of bikes, leaving nowhere to deposit mine. In such circumstances, you are supposed to be able to push a button, learn where the nearest bay is, and then have an extra 15 minutes, toll free, to get there. But in this case the system wasn’t working, and I had to dash around the corner to St James’s Square where I nabbed the very last space.

All this dashing, coupled with a muggy London morning, meant that when I did get to the office I was, shall we say, glowing (“Glowing the office out,” commented one colleague, somewhat harshly). This would have to be a consideration were I about to rush into an important meeting, and it might limit the programme's appeal to business travellers. Nevertheless, I fully intend to make use of the scheme whenever possible. And judging by my 15-minute cycle, the competition seems worried. I inadvertently cut up a taxi on the Strand, and then saw the driver wind down his window and bellow "you could get someone to drive you for that price!" Sadly he sped off before I had a chance to ask him the last time he drove someone for free.

COSTS OF WAR ....

US$ 1,024,366,950,540  One trillion, twenty four billion, three hundred sixty six million, nine hundred fifty thousand, five hundred and fourty dollars and counting....!!!!!*
Uff, even writting the number that's a hard job. What is that for ?
This is the number representing the estimated  cost of war Against Terror started in 2001 till today,  ( ie Irak and Afganisthan ).  Do you remember it ?
For what, shall we ask ? Do you know ? Under a simple statistics analysis as a trade off, we could say, all this money would pay in US:

     161,677,766 People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR

 15,851,218 Police or Sheriff's Patrol Officers for One Year OR

 18,317,348 Firefighters for One Year OR

 132,716,897 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR

 188,536,667 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550 OR

 395,755,864 Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year

OR under a global perpsective, far bigger that the yearly GDP of countries** such as;


Australia or South Korea or Netherlands or if you prefer  Switzerland, Austria and Sweden together ! Impresive... What could we say if this money was applied to fight poverty and health or even science ?

Who benefits from this? In thesis, all the Bush's, Cheney's & pals of this life. But it was really so, I doubt it.  What I'm sure is all americans lost and as a domino everybody else across globe.
Irak is nowadays far worse ( in every perpsective ), than it was under Saddam Hussein's govnerment. Afganisthan, no comments needed .... 


Under a managerial perpective, all these actions were and still are, a total disaster and complete faillure!  

As a balance, US managed to concentrate the hatred and comtempt of the large majority of countries worlwide, and a debt that is taking US ( steadly ) to the Bankrupcy. If it wasn't the "creative accounting"  during recent years, they certainly would be under Chapter 11 protection since sometime ago. 
What can Obama do? Not much. Probably create a special programm for americans migration towards South. Who know's? Might be Mexicans accept you, as a trade off.




* Data from Costofwar.com
** Data from IMF 2009 figures.