[Straits Times] A MALAYSIAN lorry driver survived a crocodile attack by poking the reptile in its eyes repeatedly when it refused to let go of him.
Mr Mathias Winston, 37, from Kampung Semada Belatok, had gone to the river for a bath at about 6.30pm on Wednesday when the five-metre-long crocodile struck.
'While I was having my bath the river seemed to be clear. Then suddenly, a crocodile bit my legs from under the calm water. I tried to prise open the crocodile's jaws but it would not let go. I then poked its eyes until it released me,' he said at the Sarawak General Hospital here where he was being treated for injuries to his hands and legs on Thursday.
Mr Mathias wrestled with the creature for about 10 minutes at Sungai Semada, Balai Ringin, near here before screaming for help.His wife Mira Dehim, who was cooking in their house near the river, heard him and rushed to his rescue.
'I ran to the river bank and was shocked to see him being attacked by the crocodile. I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him out. I thought he was going to die as the crocodile was so big,' she said, adding that this was the second such incident in the village.
In 2008, a villager was attacked by a crocodile but survived with injuries to his hips, thighs and ribs.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
For the last time dear wife Mira Dehim, why must you continue to throw the chicken bones and table scraps into the river?
#2
Now, now honey. You're just tired from work. Why don't you go and have a nice, relaxing bath in the river? Don't forget to moisturize first with chicken fat, or you'll get dry skin.
And don't worry so. I'm not the least bit angry about you forgetting our anniversary, or saying that a second wife would help you remember.
#3
Mr. Winston's guardian angel has been nominated for the January "Employee of the Month" award. (The winner gets some gift cards and the use of The Boss' parking space for a month.)
Posted by: Mike ||
01/23/2010 11:38 Comments ||
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#1
I did get to go by their booth and thank them for their fine sights. I looked closely at various sights and found references appended to each scope's serial number. (Someone had claimed that you had to dis-assemble the scopes to see the references.) This was not so on the scopes I saw. I still want one, WITH the reference. Damned fine weapons sights.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
01/23/2010 9:23 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The ethnic majority in US territory of Guam fear the US planned influx of military personnel will swamp the original inhabitants of the island.
Hey Joe, you gonna let Iran Press TV talk to you like that?
Washington is planning to relocate some 19,000 personnel and their families to Guam from southern Japan.
"This proposed military build-up, with our current political status, will result in the cultural and racial genocide of the Chamorro people," said Frank J. Schacher, the chairman of the Chamorro Tribe Inc, referring to the indigenous people who make a third of the present population of the island.
"It is our island, our ancestral remains, our sacred artifacts, our waters, our culture, and our right to exist as a race that would be destroyed by these intended actions," he added.
The island, east of the Philippines, was taken over by the United States in 1898 and its people are considered statutory US citizens.
Schacher, a 10-year veteran of the US Air Force, had previously warned that "by 2014, we are going to have an additional 78,000 active duty military, military dependants, civil service.... After 30 days on this island, they will be eligible to vote in any of our elections."
Some 8,000 of the troops are to be taken out of the Japanese island of Okinawa, where locals have for long protested the presence of US military personnel who are allegedly involved in crime, pollution, noise and accidents in the Japanese territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Didn't fear the "influx" of the 77th Division in July of 1944 however. Those little fellas from the Japanese mainland played bloody hell with the locals. Keep bitching Frank, maybe they'll let you run the BX.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A former US Defense Department official has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of spying for China and lying to investigators.
James Fondren Jr., 62, was accused of providing classified Pentagon documents to a naturalized US citizen from Taiwan, Tai Shen Kuo, who had close contacts with an unnamed Chinese government official.
Fondren was also in email contact with the Chinese official and met him during a visit to China in 1999.
Fondren provided classified information to Kuo between 2004 and 2008, while he served as the deputy director of the Washington liaison office of US Pacific Command. The Justice Department did not describe the type of documents that were transferred.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Three whole years. Wow. You get more than that for sticking up a liquor store.
#3
Holder took the "Justice" out of DOJ his first day in office. The recent move to try terrorists in US civilian courts is simply a method to avoid the death penalty and keep Barry's good name OFF of military tribunal death sentences, which he would have to ultimately sign as Commander in Chief.
#4
Compare to the gentleman who passed information to Israel, who got life in solitary confinement. Clearly Israel is a more dangerous enemy to the United States than China is.
#6
Barry should just hang out a shingle advertising "govt positions available for occidental people to make love to oriental officials who butter our bread, political style."
UMERKOT: January brings good or bad tidings, as the case may be, for the eternally indebted peasants in Tharparkar. They look forward to this month with more anticipation than one feels for Eid or Diwali and rightly so because their landlords settle accounts in January each year, enabling them to lay hands on their hard earned money or seek more debt.
They feel genuine happiness when their accounts are settled even though, in most cases, they are told that a lion's share of their earnings will go into clearance of debt they seek as advance from time to time throughout the year and payment of bills for agricultural inputs, including seed, ploughing, sowing, soil development, fertiliser, pesticides as well as medical facilities.
Nabi Bux Machhi, a peasant, is under Rs40,000 debt. He lives near Lakhoo Mori, a small settlement near Umerkot and wants to remarry after the death of his wife six months ago but can not do so because of debt.
His landlord is not ready to lend him more money for fear he may escape after getting the money. Increase in incidents of peasants' escape has made the landlords wary and now they show reluctance to give advance loans.
Machhi said that he had so far changed eight landlords. His landlords forced him to work more than his duties as peasant. He would collect firewood, cut grass, work as labourers in construction of his house and also listen to abusive language.
He suffered losses during migration but he had to, not in search of better master but just for a less abusive and less inhumane one. All his children work at the farmland.
He confirmed that expenses of soil development, sowing and threshing were borne by the peasant. If a peasant leaves a landlord during Rabi when the crop is ready to be harvested he is made to bear expenses of land development, ploughing and sowing but deprived of his share in the crop, he said.
The new peasant looks after the standing crop, which includes irrigating, harvesting, threshing, packing and bringing it to the landlord's home but he, too, is denied any share in the harvest, he said.
He complained that their women were routinely abused and assaulted but they had to turn a blind eye because they were poor and helpless.
Asked why they have made it a habit to take advance loans, Machhi said that they had no other means of livelihood. They used advance loans to pay for their basic needs or clear debt of previous landlord, he said.
Thus, the vicious cycle perpetuates and we have accepted it as a way of life. It's a chain of bondage and they are sold like a commodity,' he said.
Dharmoon Oad, a peasant, complained that he had cultivated mustard (toorio) on six acres, which were infertile and could not produce any crop but the landlord entered in his accounts Rs18,000 under land development and ploughing charges.
Chothio Kolhi who was migrating to the lands of his new landlord said that last year he was hired by landlord Allah Warayo and obtained Rs60,000 as advance loan.
He and his family cultivated cotton on nine acres and red chilli on one acre. But their hard work throughout the year could not save them even a penny. They sold their cattle and total harvest to the landlord to clear their debt.
He said he had again obtained Rs70,000 from the new landlord.
He also complained about manipulation of accounts.
Taju Bheel, president of Sindh chapter of Workers and Peasants Group said that although peasants were basic stakeholders but their living standard had never changed for centuries.
He said that in January each year, their accounts were settled and earnings of 75 per cent peasants swallowed up by debt clearance. They debt includes advance peshgi' sought at the time of hiring, expenses incurred on seed, ploughing, sowing, soil development, fertiliser, pesticides and medical facilities.
Young girls were routinely assaulted but mostly it depended on a landlord's character as well as peasant's, he said. About 67 per cent peasants were sold by one landlord to another each year in Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Badin, Thatta and Matiari districts, he said.
He said that 77 per cent peasants were forced to leave their landlord who would them to another in return for his advance loan peshgi'. It was a form of internal human trafficking, he said.
When a peasant offers his services at an agricultural farm his whole family become virtual bonded labourers and will have to obey orders of the landlord,' he said.
He said that the peasant had no right to question rate of the crop or other expenses. If a peasant dares to question he is implicated in false cases of theft,' he said.
The landlord buys fertilisers and pesticides from fertiliser agencies and earns handsome amount as commission. He swallows the commission and enters the amount with interest in the peasants' accounts.
He also eats up sugar provided to him by sugar mills. In case of disaster or floods, the government writes off loans, revenue and taxes, which benefits only the landlord and brings no relief to the peasant.
In some cases, peasants seek courts' help to gain freedom from bondage and the courts pass orders, declaring them as free but this does not make them free.
It takes extra efforts by NGOs to get them released. They stay in NGOs-run camps, where they suffer lack of facilities and in some cases their girls are sexually assaulted by the camp organisers. In short, life becomes more burdensome for them in freedom than in bondage, he said.
G.M. Bhagat, an intellectual, said that after settlement of accounts the peasants obtain more loans to buy new clothes for family, a nice turban, tape recorder and cassettes and live happily for 10 to 20 days. They had accepted it as a way of life and believed they would never be able to clear their debts, he said.
Faqir Haji Ilyas Rajar, a landlord, said that in past peasants owned oxen and other agricultural inputs but now landlords bore all such expenses including tractor, trolley, thresher and treatment.
He said there were no private jails in Umerkot and blamed some vested interests for raising the bogey of private jails to serve their own interests.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/23/2010 12:32 ||
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The feudal Muslim landlords of the Punjab backed Jinnah and his Pakistan because they feared the land reforms promised by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress party after the British left India.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/23/2010 12:37 Comments ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Action to seize the assets of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has begun following a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) order asking the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration to freeze all his assets under its jurisdiction.
Besides other properties, NAB's latest order would immediately hit the 2,460 kanals of Sangjani land, which was a frozen asset before the NRO, but was unfrozen in early 2009 and transferred in the name of a private company owned by President Zardari, his son Bilawal Zardari and others.
The NAB spokesman Ghazni said that NAB is acting strictly in accordance with the law and the Supreme Court's decision and weekly progress reports is regularly being submitted to the apex court, The News reports.
Within a few days of the December 16 short order of the Supreme Court, the NAB had issued freezing order for the assets of all other NRO beneficiaries, but in case of Zardari, the NAB did not move apparently due to his constitutional immunity.
However, now after the announcement of the detailed judgment, which directed NAB and all other concerned authorities to revive the pre-NRO position in all cases, the NAB has also moved on Zardari's case.
Earlier Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has said President Zardari does not enjoy 'legal immunity' in the wake of the Supreme Court's order on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
Interacting with reporters, Sanaullah said, "The president has no immunity under Article 248(2), because the SC verdict does not addressed the article and its specific clause."
The Daily Times quoted Sanaullah, as saying that Parliament's decision regarding providing immunity to the President under the Constitution is yet to come.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2010 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] MALAYSIAN police said on Friday they had arrested seven more people over a spate of attacks on churches that have escalated ethnic tensions.
The violence, which saw 11 churches and two Muslim prayer halls targeted, was triggered by a court ruling that overturned a government ban on non-Muslims using the word 'Allah' as a translation for 'God'.
Earlier this week eight people were detained over the first of the attacks, on a church in suburban Kuala Lumpur. The seven new accused were arrested in raids late Thursday and early Friday over firebombings of a church and a convent school in northern Perak state on January 10.
'They are being investigated for throwing Molotov cocktails at the All Saints' Church and the convent school in Taiping,' a senior Perak police official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the seven were all aged between 17 and 19.
Religion and language are sensitive issues in multi-racial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969. The row over the use of 'Allah' is among a string of religious disputes that have erupted in recent years, straining relations between Malays and minority ethnic Chinese and Indians who fear the country is being 'Islamised.'
The High Court last month ruled in favour of the Catholic Herald newspaper which has used 'Allah' as a translation for 'God' in its Malay-language section. The ruling was suspended pending an appeal.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/23/2010 00:00 ||
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#5
Impeach Holder now, lest he do even more damage.
Posted by: Albert Ebbager8936 ||
01/23/2010 9:38 Comments ||
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#6
Just keep compounding a second rate break-in intimidation act into a full blown conspiracy and obstruction gig. We'll refurbish the John Mitchell wing at the Fed Pen for you.
#9
...it the hard left. As repeated in Cuba, the Soviet Union, North Korea. Having control of everything just allows them to cover it up better in the other locations.
Excerpt: The U.S. Army is betting big on laser warfare -- designing, testing and perfecting ultra-precise weapons based on devastatingly powerful beams of light. And given recent developments, it's only a matter of time until the military has in its arsenal a weapon that until now has been the staple of science fiction -- the ray gun.
#1
Laser tactics will require that the same target be covered by conventional weaponry, because lasers are inherently susceptible to obscuration. This also means that lasers are redundant.
#2
But as ROE evolve to only being allowed to hit only the actual individual being targeted (and maybe in only a specific anatomical location) the laser will be essential, not redundant.
#4
Speaking as a lifetime (So far) Science Fiction Devotee, Lasers are impractical close range weapons, a reflective belt buckle would-could fry the attacker, yet not provide safety, both would be burned.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/23/2010 12:33 Comments ||
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#5
Personally I think it would be better whilst at war to cut research and let the military on the ground buy more of what they want and less of what the MoD/Pentagon thinks is fun.
#6
Well a laser might not be as random as a blaster but they would be invisible (except for the red dot) so in theory they'd make nice assassination weapons assuming you didn't have to hold it on target too long to do the deed.
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.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A former US Defense Department official has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of spying for China and lying to investigators. 
