Auld Lang Syne to the decade begone

Oh! boy, oh! boy, oh! boy the first decade of the first millennium is finally over, today, just like that and i chose this time because i believe nobody  is lagging. By now every country has to be firmly footed into the first day of 2010-Hawaii, American Samoa; greetings from Kiribati and Sidney. You guys in?
Well, though it was the first decade of the millennium which without a doubt puts it firmly in the 'once in a lifetime' pantheon of events [of course, unless you live to see the year 3000] i have to say it was fraught with challenges from the word go that is, year 2000- i will talk about that later.

Am i the only one who is gloating about the fckd up stuff of the last decade? i am being mild here because honestly i believe the whole decade was f... er,  just a complete mess-at least most of the times. Or is it just our demeanor as  humour writers- as they say first rule of humour writing; you have to hate everything around you.

And this 'hate' apparently included Christmas[for chrissake!] and the New Year- i didn't celebrate both in the earthly sense ifyouknowhatamsayin'[iykwas] especially the new year as i was busy tucked  away, not sleeping but with my transistor radio in moderate volume religiously following up events and celebrations around the world .

So, in actual sense i would like to say i was celebrating with my audience which is and has been as long as i can remember, the world and it's wide variety of cultures and peoples.

You might say am a news junkie,maybe. I tuned in to other stations both news and entertainment but subconsciously gravitated back to....wait for it...BBC world service, there i said it but i still insist am no news junkie- i love dancing Thriller style.

If we look back at the events of  of the last 10years which changed the world as we knew it, attacks on the WTC, credit crunch and CCC will summarise everything in a fantastic fashion but the in betweens of simultaneous wars, increased bigotry and terrosrism, deaths of pop icons and movie stars might top your long list of negatives. After all good news hardly makes the headlines  but let me not bore you with News Ync. stuff. There must have been a glimmer of hope somewhere.

Iraq is doing better than just okay, midyear the crunch is over- at least according to Greenspan, Africa is improving- don't ask me how and best of all being able to read this from a secure/unsecured, filtered/unfilterd   networks might mean you lived through all this-Alive and well hopefully.

Which brings me to the forgotten story of the Y2K bug, how it made bureaucrats jumpy, running up and down like lab mice on amphetamines. That was way before any 'major world changing event' as we know now but it sure kept the world's media talking and people fretting as if it were the end of the world.

Now we realise the scientists had anticipated it 5 years earlier and taken all necessary tests and precautions to ensure 'business as usual' were over in good time. Not that Y2K was not real hell no!! it was as real a terrorist threat by machine but preparation, goodwill and precaution saved the decade.

If only the same can be done now, we surely have reason to look forward to a 2010 of pleasant surprises.

Whether we should sing an auld lang syne for the ten years gone by or for the new year we are welcoming or both,well, over to you.  

 ©2010 newsync





Eneza

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al-Qaeda faces funding crisis: US Treasury

In a surprising twist of happenings but sort of predictable, Newsync is proud to report secondhand that al-Qaeda is broke. According to Newsync who according to BBC who according to Senior Treasury official David Cohen, al-Qaeda has made several un-ashamed appeals from well wishers to finance recruitment and training of personnel, purchase of mission critical equipment like suicide jackets to accessories like a nice clean robe, Jambiyyas(daggers), Pesh kabz and Barongs.
“Kandahar may be a long way away from WallStreet and it's hard to imagine that when America sneezes, Afghanistan catches the sniffles” said Ustad(Master) Nasrudin a religious teacher and al-Qaeda sympathizer at Madrassatul Hamza on the outskirts of the city. “ but that is exactly what is happening, the financial crisis is finally hitting our proud Organisations” he added.

Indeed the financial crisis has not only hit al-Qaeda hard but it has shaken it's once strong financial pillars to it's very foundations leaving them as steady and stable as the Stonehenge, and rattled once confident Mullahs reducing them to “aggressive panhandlers” which according to Wikipedia means begging for a donation in a supplicating albeit intimidating and/or intrusive manner.

With the remaining charities operating abroad facing closure and the last of their assets tracked down and frozen by the Obama administration, the noose is clearly tightening on al-Qaeda just as former President Bush predicted.

“When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose” seems to be the attitude of the general members as they weather the storm of this man made financial turbulence.But as day turns into night, there is the constant fear of someone being rendered redundant, therefore jobless and as a result homeless.
“If things keep going the way they are, and no green shoots of recovery sprout out of this dusty, sun-baked, heaven-forsaken terrain of the Mazar-e-Sharif any time soon, I swear by my great-grandfather's Faizullah-Ul-Haq grave am going to start an ice-cream business to support my family” said Ahmet al-Faizul a third generation Afghan-Turk.


“ The Banks may kick me out of my cave but never will I allow them to foreclose the family tent.” he added.
And such is the hidden desperation faced by many but mentioned by the few and outspoken like Ahmet.

On the contrary, another terrorist Organisation, the Taliban of Afghanistan which only came a distant second [at most] compared to al-Qaeda in terms of liquidity,fiscal policy, human resource management and general running of terrorism affairs and was generally considered a regional outfit is doing better than just okay; in fact it is [actually] thriving in the worst recession ever since the Soviet invasion in the '80's.

This, said Shaikh Abu Nizamuddin Zakariya, Second in Command, is attributable to the shrewd extortionist tactics against legitimate businesses in form of 'protection money' domestic tax from the sale of Poppy, the country's leading cash crop and many other traditional income generating channels such as charities, donations and 'corporate taxes' on kidnappings and Russian gun and tank runners.

“of course it will be unfair not to mention the great wisdom of our leaders like Mullah Abdul Jabar, Mullah Abdul Matin,Mullah Dadullah to mention but three and am not telling who is alive or dead ha!gotcha! We know better than Hamas- the Infidels will kill them with their Drones and Apache gunfire-for those who are still alive that is” he added.

Definitely, the Taliban is becoming international to the extent of forming strategic alliances with homegrown start-ups like Lakshar e-Taiba (Army of the Good) now headquartered in Pakistan, to perpetuate 'common badness' across the civil world.
“and if things keep looking up as they do right now, we're going to be the new kids on the mountain valleys; replacing al-Qaeda; just as it replaced the People's Mujahideen. Behold the dawn of a New World Order beckons ”. He concluded
Copyright© 2009 newsync

Uncle Bob Finally Allows BBC In Matabele..eh..Mugabe Land

In an unprecedented yet, maybe, anticipated move, the Zimbabwean government has allowed the British Broadcasting Corporation back into the country after many years of being locked out, following allegations describing Robert Mugabe as an ape man, early man or a demented old circus monkey or..just something ape like.

According to our reliable sources, bbc reporters reported happenings inside Zimbabwe from neighboring xenophobic Republic of South Africa or, sneaked through Mugabe International Airport -formerly Harare- as British tourists dropping by to have a sip of Zimbabwean beer and take a few snap-shots of the sights and sounds of the breathtaking Thompson falls and magnificent golden Velds, only to end up picking sound bytes from the locals with their well concealed portable recorders. Sound bytes which put Zimbabwe and by proxy Mugabe in a bad picture to the rest of the international community.

These bad pictures varied; from the important issues like not having enough food to eat and what Britain described as the," indespicable, undemocratic act" of beating up Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters, to the mundane like too much money chasing after too few goods-inflation in layman language- and barter trade.

BBC's Alastair Leithhead who made living history as the first reporter in the country after the 'reporting embargo' was lifted, was flanked by Morgan Tsvangirai, now Prime Minister and shown around the New Zimbabwe. After which he was embedded by Mugabe's personal guards-considered a privilege- to one of his ranches near the Zambezi river where the threesome had a civilized round table discussion [Prez, PM and reporter] on the future of bbc reporting inside Zimbabwe,freely. while at the same time, Alastair being careful not to mention the words 'Whites' and 'farms' in the same sentence.

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, when asked why they had called President Mugabe 'Robertus Mugabeus' in the first place, BBC's director of communications Sir Martin Spinnaker passed it off as a smear campaign by a little known Minnetonka, Minnesota based heavy metal rock radio station WDMQ with it's parent company in the Republic of South America[RSA].

Copyright© 2009 newsync.blogspot.com