[An Nahar] The Moroccan teenager at the center of Silvio Berlusconi's ...current Italian prime minister, known for his plain (for a European politician) speaking and his liking for hookers a third his age or less... trial for sex with an underage hooker has had a baby fathered by a nightclub owner more than twice her age, Italian media reported on Tuesday.
Dancer Karima El Mahroug, better known by her stage name "Ruby the Heart-Stealer," was just 17 when the then prime minister allegedly paid to have sex with her last year, a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
If convicted, the 75-year-old Berlusconi also faces up to 12 years in prison for abuse of power after he allegedly put pressure on the police to have El Mahroug, now 19, released from custody in an unrelated case.
Prosecutors allege that Berlusconi paid for sex with El Mahroug several times between February and May 2010. At the trial, which is ongoing, a police officer earlier this month testified that El Mahroug was a hooker.
Berlusconi has denied all charges and claims he only gave El Mahroug some money to help her out of a tight financial spot and intervened in her arrest because he thought she was the niece of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... You can see the family resemblance in the photos...
The trial began earlier this year when Berlusconi was still in power but has been delayed for months by a number of motions put forward by his defense lawyers, as well as the slow-moving Italian judicial system.
The reports said baby and mother are fine, and the father, 42-year-old Luca Risso, who owned two discotheques in Genoa in northern Italia where El Mahroug worked, said his "happiness is impossible to describe."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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The hot half-Korean Babe from Guam - who knew!?
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Joseph Kabila was sworn in on Tuesday for another term as president of DR Congo, a job also claimed by his main rival following disputed polls that have plunged the country into deep crisis.
The 40-year-old incumbent was last week confirmed the winner by a Supreme Court the opposition says he packed with loyalists just before the Democratic Republic of Congo's November 28 polls.
The ceremony took place in the so called African Union city close to the Tshatshi military camp and was attended by guests from the neighbouring Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania.
Zim-bob-we's Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... was the only head of state who attended the function.
The ceremony came after results of a chaotic vote criticised by observers and rejected by opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who has proclaimed himself the people's president and is planning his own inauguration on Friday.
After taking the oath in front of a large crowd of supporters, Mr Kabila vowed to "safeguard national unity and allow himself to be guided only by the general interest and the respect of human rights". ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... The 79-year-old Tshisekedi has stopped just short of calling mass protests and urged the security forces in Africa's second largest country to defect and recognise him as the elected president.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Zim-bob-we President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... has castigated his ministers for having extra-marital affairs.
President Mugabe, who was speaking at the wedding of his niece, said he knew some of his ministers' girlfriends by names.
This was the second time the octogenarian leader had spoken out against senior government officials having extra-marital affairs this year.
In September, he told an AIDS conference that he knew of government officials living with the disease and who had multiple sexual partners.
"Cases of promiscuity are now rampant even in Zanu PF. Sometimes you wonder why someone opts to drive by himself but there are personal drivers we have provided them. Why?
"They could be going for such evil acts of promiscuity. This is not good at all," said Mugabe.
The veteran ruler had an extra-marital affair himself that resulted in the birth of a daughter with his current wife Grace.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Change "castigating" to "castrating", for much greater effect.
A baby in danger of becoming the victim of an 'honor killing' because she was born as the result of her unmarried Muslim mother's secret affair must be adopted to keep her safe, the Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.
Three senior judges rejected an effort by the one-year-old girl's natural father to have her live with him and his wife. The child's natural mother is in favor of adoption so that her own family will not find out about the birth. The judges imposed wide-ranging reporting restrictions banning the publication of all names and locations linked to the case because of the continuing dangers faced by mother and child.
The appeal court rejected an appeal by the father "F" against the decision last July refusing him a residence order allowing the baby to live with him. The judge ordered that "baby Q" should be adopted by a couple, also Muslim, from the same country as the mother, but from a different community.
She ruled there would be "a very significant risk of two and two being put together" if the child went to the father because Q was obviously not the child of his wife, who had a child of her own. If the child's maternal grandfather discovered the affair "it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family," said the judge.
On Wednesday, the appeal court said, "It was plainly the judge's view that this might provoke action to preserve the family's honor."
The mother had consented to the adoption by the couple, who had been looking after her since December 2010.
The appeal judges said Baby Q was conceived in a relationship "which was unacceptable to M's traditional Muslim family and conducted in secrecy."
Both the unmarried mother and her lover were from abroad and moved to Britain in the last decade. Although both Muslim, there is a "profound cultural difference" between them.
When M realised she might be pregnant she ran away from home. She was "terrified" over how her family would react. As soon as Q was born, she gave her daughter up for adoption because she "genuinely feared for Q's safety should (her father) become aware of, or forced to acknowledge, her existence."
Q's grandmother had told the police that, if her husband found out about the child, "he would consider himself honor-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother's other children."
Because nothing restores honor like a good old-fashioned family massacre.
Upholding the first judge's decision to make an adoption order, the appeal judges said: "The mother's evidence, supported as it was by her actions, and the evidence of (the father) and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm. In our judgment this conclusion cannot be criticised."
The adopting couple were Muslims who had been advised by their imam that they could adopt Q.
Ten former and two current government officials with possible involvement with illegal loans made to the state of Coahuila have been summoned to answer questions about their role in the scandal, according to Mexican press accounts.
The Procuradoria General Republica (PGR) or attorney general announced Tuesday that none of the officials being investigated include former governor Humberto Moreira Valdez or Jorge Torres, the interim governor, but they will be subpoenaed to testify in their roles.
Moreira quit his post as governor almost a year ago to take the top spot in the Partido Revolucionaio Institucional (PRI), a post he was forced to relinquish because of the expanding political troubles and investigation surrounding illegal loans made during his administration of Coahuila when he was governor.
The PGR announcement is the first official national investigation into the crimes which led to the tremendous increased debt of Coahuila state. PGR's investigation will likely lead to jail time for some, if not all of the officials named.
The total debt the state has acquired to date had ballooned to MP $36 billion (USD $2,613,600,000), the highest debt load per capita of any state in Mexico, and has forced credit ratings agencies such as Fitch's to lower the state's creditworthiness, and Coahuila state itself to institute severe austerity measures to pay back the money owed.
The officials include
Juan Ochoa Jesus Galindo, Coahuila's current finance secretary.
Hector Hernandez Javier Villarreal, former head of Servicio de Administracion Tributaria del Estado de Coahuila (SATEC), or Tax Administration Service. Javier Villareal has been mentioned in Mexican press numerous times for his role in questionable loans, and he was arrested by Coahuila Minsterial police agents in November as he tried to leave the country aboard a private aircraft.
Sergio Ricardo Fuentes, ex-Administrador General de Politicas Publicas del SATEC, or Administrator General of Public Policy of SATEC.
Carlos Mauricio Aguill"n, ex Direccion General de Politica Financiera de la Secretar"a de Finanzas, or Director General of Financial Policy of Coahuila finance ministry.
Victor Manuel Zamora
Miguel Ramon Rodriguez
Alfredo Vald"s Menchaca
Enrique Ledezma, undersecretary of Politicas Financieras del SATEC.
Juan Manuel Froto, director of the Fondo de Financiamiento para el Estado or Trust Fund for the state.
Juan Manuel Delgado, a manager who worked for Coahuila.
Fausto Destenave, director general of the Comision Estatal de Aguas y Saneamiento de Coahuila or Water and Sanitation Commision.
Jaime Jim"nez, director of Deuda Publica de Entidades y Municipio, or Public Debt of Municipalities and Entites.
Reforma news daily reported that the crimes being investigated include forgery, conspiracy and illegal use of official stamps, none of which are considered serious offenses.
Five claims are being investigated for illegal loans, four of which took place during the administration of Moreira.
Moreira for his part spent weeks after news of the debt broke dodging responsibility for the scandal, at first attempting to turn back those charges by making unrelated countercharges, then by pointing out that officials in Mexico City knew about the loans but received the documents anyway.
However, by December 2nd, Moreira bowing to pressure inside PRI and his political opponents inside and outside PRI, stepped down as leader of PRI, only days after he told a highly respected senator, Manilo Beltrones, basically to shut up.
Moreira was also facing a revolt within PRI for his policies while leader of PRI, including the way to rammed through an alliance between PRI and Partido Verde Ecologistia de Mexican or Greens Party
The final act that sealed his tenure as president of PRI came when he was told he would lose immunity ex-elected officials receive when they end their terms.
A union delegate fired for mocking a Muslim colleague as a "bacon hater" on Facebook has won back his job. Glen Stutsel, a driver with transport company Linfox, also verbally abused two of his managers on the social networking website.
While discussing the habits of bears in a Facebook chat with another employee, he said: " ... I admire any creature that has the capacity to rip Nina and Assaf heads off, sh*t down their throats and then chew up and spit out their lifeless body!"
The two managers, Nina Russell and Michael Assaf, called the comments racially derogatory, sexual discrimination and harassment. Linfox sacked the 22-year veteran. But he got back his job with back pay after taking an unfair dismissal case to Fair Work Australia.
Tribunal commissioner Michael Roberts found Stutsel's treatment was "harsh, unjust and unreasonable". Russell had complained she was "deeply upset that an employee working within the contract I manage appears to have articulated in graphic detail what can only be described as my torture, mutilation and death".
Assaf said he was "horrified to see that Mr Stutsel had made comments of a religious nature on Facebook". Stutsel said his Facebook account had "maximum privacy restrictions" and was not then "open to the public". He denied making racist remarks and making a statement about Russell that amounted to sexual discrimination or harassment.
Roberts was told the reference to "bacon hater" was not an expression of racism but was "totally inappropriate and totally regrettable workplace banter". The bear comments contained "no real threat of violence towards any managers" and were simply an expression of some antipathy and hostility.
Roberts found that Stutsel was not guilty of serious misconduct and there was no valid reason to fire him.
Finnish authorities on Wednesday impounded 160 tons of explosives and 69 surface-to-air missiles found on a British-flagged cargo ship ultimately destined for Shanghai, China, officials said. "they're fireworks. China imports fireworks all the time"
The M/S Thor Liberty sailed from the north German port of Emden on Dec. 13 and two days later docked in Kotka, southern Finland, to pick up a cargo of anchor chains, Finnish Customs spokesman Petri Lounatmaa said. so, is Germany missing some Patriot missiles?
Investigating officers didn't know the origin of the Patriot missiles or who was supposed to receive them, he said. "It's a complete mystery to us" Start with the obvious: did Finland ever buy Patriot missiles?
"We have impounded the explosives and missiles and asked the Defense Ministry to transport and store them," Lounatmaa said. "At this stage we don't know where it (the cargo) was loaded on the ship or if the Thor Liberty planned a drop before its port of destination in China."
Detective Superintendent Timo Virtanen of the National Bureau of Investigation said dock workers found the explosives - picric acid - badly stored on open pallets instead of in closed containers. They alerted inspectors who found the missiles in containers marked as holding fireworks. "see? Properly documented"
Interior Minister Paivi Rasanen said she had not heard of a similar case.
"Of course, there are legal transports of weapons or defense material (through Finland) but in this case the cargo was marked as containing fireworks," Rasanen told national broadcaster YLE TV. "That is quite unusual." Departmentof Understatement
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2011 15:40 ||
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IIRC there is an Iranian MV anchored widin India's EEZ - its just sitting there doing nothing, albeit is there legally vee International Law, but is arousing the suspicions of local + Centre authorities.
Why doesn't George Soros share some of his billions?
"Imagine if MoveOn disappeared?" That's the warning in a shocking new E-mail from the left-leaning organizing group that has done so much since 1998 to elect Democratic candidates like President Obama.
Executive Director Justin Ruben suggests that the activist group could go belly-up if supporters don't raise $400,000, and fast.
[Iran Press TV] US police have tossed in the calaboose nine Occupy protesters in Denver, the capital city of the central state of Colorado, and dismantled their camp, which was put on fire during the violence.
Police tossed in the calaboose nine protesters on Tuesday during the confrontation with anti-corporatism demonstrators, said Denver Police front man Lieutenant Matthew Murray.
It was not immediately known who set ablaze the camp, set up by protesters in Civic Center Park outside the Capitol building in downtown Denver.
Once police pushed protesters back, firefighters extinguished the fire and "public works crews" dismantled the camp, he said.
Over the past few weeks, police have broken up Occupy encampments in cities and towns across the US, harshly attacking and arresting dozens of protesters.
The anti-Wall Street protest in Denver was one of the last encampments in a major US city as part of a countrywide Occupy movement. The protest movement, which gave voice to outcries and grievances of people against poverty, unemployment, war, and corporatism, first began in Spain before gaining prominence in the US and then moving to other countries
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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then moving to other countries
Of course, they don't have to worry about it moving to Iran, because it'd never happen in an islamic paradise.
If it ain't reported, it didn't happen, right?
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/21/2011 6:23 Comments ||
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Without any counduit to express their frustrations, they'll be back. Silencing them does not address the very real hardships people are experiencing. It only buys some time for politicians to get past this next election cycle, they hope.
#3
Without any counduit to express their frustrations, they'll be back. Silencing them does not address the very real hardships people are experiencing. It only buys some time for politicians to get past this next election cycle, they hope.
I hope you'll forgive my cynical laughter. A "conduit to express their frustrations" complete with an amorphous set of complaints and antics that eventually could not be hidden by the regular media is a long-running temper tantrum, not a movement.
They're getting evicted and arrested because they've outlived their political usefulness and lost their cultural novelty. Sucks, but that's show business.
[Dawn] Taking suo motu notice of a swara case, Chief Justice Beautiful Downtown Peshawar High Court Dost Mohammad Khan on Monday directed the provincial government and the relevant district administration to provide security to the four-year-old victim of the child marriage custom and her family.
Under swara widely prevalent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... and adjoining tribal areas, girls are married mostly against their will to men of rival families to end blood feuds.
The chief justice had converted an application of girl Asma's brother belonging to Upper Dir into a writ petition before holding a hearing into it.
After killing the girl's father and brother, the accused have reportedly been threatening the family with death in case of rejection of the swara request. The accused said the girl's elder sister had defamed them by getting divorce from their relative and therefore, they wanted the four-year-old's marriage to one of their family's members for repair of their honour.
The chief justice ordered the DIG Malakand Range and district police officer of Upper Dir to arrest the four people and produce them before the court on the next hearing fixed for Dec 29.
He observed that the life of the girl and her family members was under serious threat and that the relevant record showed that the accused were involved in the 'highly detestable crime, which is against Shariah and laws of the land'.
"Seeking a girl in swara is a serious crime and impermissible," he said.
Justice Dost Mohammad ordered the provincial home secretary, the commissioner and the deputy inspector general of Malakand, and district police officer of Upper Dir to ensure immediate provision of protection to the girl and her family and deployment of personnel at their house.
The court also asked the Peshawar capital city police's chief to provide special police squad to the girl and her brother, Hafeezur Rehman, on their return from Peshawar to their village in Upper Dir.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Forty-three women have been killed under the brutal custom of Karo-kari in Sindh during the first three weeks of this month while the year's toll has already reached 577, the Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday.
The issue was raised by politician Nusrat Bano Seher Abbasi of the Pakistain Moslem League (Functional) through a point of order, while drawing the attention of the house towards the increasing incidents of Karo-kari in the province.
She said a woman was recently killed in Garhi Yasin, Shikarpur district, and her body was buried reportedly without shroud at some unknown place.
She asked Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wasan to take effective measures to check the murder of women in the name of honour.
Instead of giving floor to the home minister, Speaker Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, who was presiding over the session, expressed grave concern over the number of killings in December and said that it would be better if the politician provided the details of women killed during this month.
Ms Abbasi said she quoted the figures from a Human Rights Commission of Pakistain report which indicated that 577 women had been killed in the name of honour in the province this year so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Pathfinder is developing a large wind power project, planning to build 2,100 megawatts of wind power on more than 100,000 acres near Chugwater, Wyo., said John Reed of Pathfinder. The Zephyr project would originate in Chugwater and terminate in the Eldorado Valley just south of Las Vegas.
The 500,000-volt line would be a direct current line that's projected to cost about $3.5 billion. The project would help transport electricity generated from Wyoming wind farms to California, which has set a renewable target to obtain one-third of its power from renewable sources by 2020. On somebody else's property, with the transmision lines acorss other states, keeping Cali-for-ya "green". I wonder how much a kilowatt hour of this is gonna cost? Want to kill it? Have someone plant the news that it's somehow related to the Keystone pipeline.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/21/2011 13:01 ||
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I hope my friends and neighbors use these Californian pieces of crap windmills for target practice.
If you've never seen a windfarm in person, they are ugly as sin. I wish they'd rip everyone of them out and pull them down.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
12/21/2011 17:10 Comments ||
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if built and operating it will be a huge transfer of money from red california to blue wyoming
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/21/2011 19:29 Comments ||
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Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division Ditto.
They are going to build sixty shortly in our area. They can't build them in cities. Union work. Gravel roads and no trespassing signs.
Ugly for sure. Great for graffti. Tax money to build them. Power and money goes wherever. They want them turned off at night so people can sleep because of the noise they make.
...the rial fell to unprecedented lows against the dollar Tuesday, amounting to a 15 percent loss in value over the past three days, the Fars News Agency reported.
"There is sheer panic in the market," one steel trader said. "The price of the dollar is increasing by the hour." The Iranian Rial is quite a wackadoodle of a currency with lots of ups and downs - see the Iranian rial vs us dollar here
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Fear not-eth, Iran, for your President Moud is on the case!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] The Moroccan teenager at the center of 
Zim-bob-we President 
For a map, click 
A union delegate fired for mocking a Muslim colleague as a "bacon hater" on Facebook has won back his job. Glen Stutsel, a driver with transport company Linfox, also verbally abused two of his managers on the social networking website. 
Taking suo motu notice of a swara case, Chief Justice 
[Dawn] Forty-three women have been killed under the brutal custom of Karo-kari in Sindh during the first three weeks of this month while the year's toll has already reached 577, the Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday.
Pathfinder is developing a large wind power project, planning to build 2,100 megawatts of wind power on more than 100,000 acres near Chugwater, Wyo., said John Reed of Pathfinder. The Zephyr project would originate in Chugwater and terminate in the Eldorado Valley just south of Las Vegas.
