The Minister of Education, Mr. Aboubeker Benbouzid has criticized the conduct of some schools separating between female and male students at the same classroom, and during the sport program, refusing flatly such practices and calling them strange to the sector, adding that the teaching of the Islamic principles is capable of making the students immune of all bad conducts.
I tend to disagree with the last element of that kinda run-on sentence, but I'm comforted by the rest of it. Reminds me that not all Islam is Wahhabism. If it's going to survive as a religion -- and as a culture -- it's got to find its strain of rationalism.
In this regard, Mr. Benbouzid has indicated that he has discovered recently at some primary schools in Medea central province, that female and male pupils are separated from each other, even worse an isolator has been put between both innocent sexes, and preventing from playing and speaking with each other.
"As the twig is bent, so the tree's inclined," like it used to say on my Goldenrod school tablets. Catch 'em young enough and you can warp them for life.
Seizing the occasion yesterday of the awareness meeting about the educational guidance, the Minister has described these practices as dangerous as they are segregating between the pupils rather than unifying them, adding that this conduct has bad consequences on child education to appear in the future. Mr. Benbouzid has accused the adults of being behind such practices without naming the teachers.
Look for the ones sporting the bushiest beards. Check them for explosives before inviting them in for that "private counseling session."
He further said that the Ministry guarantees the teaching of Islam, for primary, fundamental, and secondary schools students.
Whether your kids are Muslim or not...
The Minister has criticized sharply such a conduct, schools in Algeria, are open for both sexes, and they will be so forever, added Mr. Benbouzid, we are not different from Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, which do not separate between both sexes, concluded the same speaker.
This article starring:
Aboubeker Benbouzid
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05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Egypts 27-year state of emergency is to be extended by another year because legislation aimed at replacing it with a new anti-terror law is not ready, a parliamentary official told AFP on Saturday. On Monday the state of emergency will be extended by one year because the Egyptian government has not yet presented the anti-terror law to parliament, said the official on the condition of anonymity.
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05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Egypt, and I'm not being sarcastic, is the most enlightened & liberal Arab country.
The death toll from two weeks of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa rose to 50 on Sunday as concerns mounted for an estimated 35,000 people who have been displaced by the backlash.
The Red Cross in South Africa said it is caring for 25,000 destitute people around violence hotspot Johannesburg with another 10,000 sheltering at community centres and police stations in the tourist hub of Cape Town.
Police said 50 had died in the wave of murders, rapes and looting in the Johannesburg region, which began on May 11 before spreading nation-wide. An estimated 700 people have been arrested.
"The death toll is now at 50," a police spokesman for the Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, told AFP, saying the revised figure came as "a few bodies were picked up here and there after the violence."
As thousands headed for the borders to return home, a growing humanitarian crisis was developing domestically as hordes of foreigners fled their slum homes and poured into police stations, community centres and churches.
Sunday newspapers made for alarming reading, with The Sunday Times headlining with "It's a State of Emergency" and The Sunday Independent front-page announcing "Ethnic Cleansing, SA Style."
National police spokesman spokesman Dennis Adriao said there was fresh violence in four provinces overnight, but that there had been no new fatalities.
"In the four provinces, it has been mainly looting of shops and burning of shacks," he told AFP, adding that 91 arrestes had been made in the 24-hour period leading up to 6 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday.
The city of Cape Town revealed Sunday the magnitude of the problems they face in caring for an estimated 10,000 people who have been displaced. Violence spread to slums around the picturesque tourist hub last week.
"The number of people in civic centre halls yesterday was 7,120," said opposition councillor JP Smith, who chairs the city's safety committee.
"There is probably at least half as much in private halls so we are probably looking at about 10,000."
Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, warned Saturday of the danger of illness among the displaced and said the government needed to make a decision on how victims would be looked after.
Vimla Pillay, executive director of the Trauma Centre, an organisation providing counselling to victims in Cape Town, says the victims are devastated.
"They had high hopes about South Africa, but many of them are saying they want to go to other countries," she said.
President Thabo Mbeki, facing increasing criticism of his handling of the crisis, bowed to pressure to call in troops on Wednesday after a request for support from the embattled police force.
He called the violence a "humiliating disgrace for our nation" on Saturday as more than 2,000 people marched in central Johannesburg to protest against xenophobia.
The president faced a front-page demand from national newspaper the Sunday Times to step down.
"Throughout the crisis, arguably the most grave, dark and repulsive moment in the life of our young nation, Mbeki has demonstrated that he no longer has the heart to lead," it said
Soldiers were sent on to Johannesburg's streets on Thursday for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994. They have been providing logistical support and back-up during search and arrest operations.
Foreigners in South Africa, many of whom have fled economic meltdown in neighbouring Zimbabwe, are being blamed for sky-high crime rates and depriving locals of jobs.
The unrest is seen as a result of policy failures to address critical housing shortages, illegal immigration and the poverty-ridden conditions in the slum areas that surround South Africa's cities.
#1
Soldiers were sent on to Johannesburg's streets on Thursday for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994. They have been providing logistical support and back-up during search and arrest operations.
Ensuring the peace by keeping the warring parties, tribalists and thugs SEPARATED. What a novel phueching idea! Dogs and sjamboks, that's the ticket. Peace will be breaking out in no time.
Zimbobwe's President Robert Mugabe is threatening to expel the U.S. ambassador, criticizing him for advice he has given Mugabe's opponent in a presidential runoff.
Mugabe says Ambassador James McGee publicly urged opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to return to Zimbabwe to lead his embattled supporters. Tsvangirai returned Saturday after more than six weeks abroad.
Mugabe says that if McGee continues offering advice to Tsvangirai, he will kick McGee out of the country.
Mugabe, speaking Sunday at the formal launch of his election campaign, also ridiculed claims the opposition leader was the target of a military assassination plot.
#1
Zimbob has no taste for Ambassador McGee? Must be something to do with McGee's time in Vietnam in the USAF where he earned three Distinguished Flying Crosses fighting the communists. Send him on back to the States Zimbob. Folks here are looking for a good African American to be our next president.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday for an election run-off with President Robert Mugabe and said the veteran leader wanted to "decimate" MDC structures.
"Decimation" doesn't involve killing everybody in sight, just one in ten. Maybe that's what Morgan actually means in this case.
Tsvangirai arrived at Harare airport aboard a regular South African Airways flight around 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT) after cancelling his homecoming a week ago after his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it had learnt he was the target of a military intelligence assassination plot. The government dismissed the plot as a propaganda stunt.
They woulda dismissed his bullet-riddled corpse as a propaganda stunt, too, secure in the knowledge nobody was gonna do anything about it.
Tsvangirai told a news conference that Mugabe and the ruling ZANU-PF party had launched a concerted campaign against the MDC, which has seen 42 people killed and tens of thousands displaced. "ZANU-PF wants to decimate MDC structures," Tsvangirai said, adding that many opposition officials were in hiding.
I think ZANY/PF's time has gone and that Morgan (or his immediate successor, assuming he ends up a bullet-riddled corpse in a propaganda stunt) is going to win in the end. I'm not so sure he's going to be all that different from Bob in method, the precedent having been set. Probably ten years from now we'll be writing things like "he seemed such a nice man." That's assuming the limitations of attention span allow us to remember at all. Able Muzorewa seemed like such a nice man, too. And Joshua Nkomo, though he did have his dark side, which was tut-tut regrettable, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and grating some cheese and heating the pan, can you?
He said he was confident of victory, although conditions are not conducive for a free and fair election and ZANU-PF was trying to destroy his MDC before the run-off. "The conditions on the ground for a run-off are not perfect, and will never be perfect. But we are saying with the support of SADC (Southern African Development Community), putting in election observers and peacekeepers, we can instill confidence in the people of Zimbabwe".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Probably ten years from now we'll be writing things like "he seemed such a nice man."
In Africa, sameness does not end with skin colour.
ROBERT MUGABE flew to the Far East last week for the kind of medical treatment no longer available in his run-down hospitals in Zimbabwe, leaving loyalists in the ruling party to wonder who was really in charge with just a month to go before a run-off in the countrys presidential election.
Add it to our list of other international notables who have terrible diseases that will shortly put them out of the gene pool and make the world a better place.
Sources close to the government said the 84-year-old president travelled to Singapore on Wednesday to undergo tests for prostate cancer. He was due to return home today.
Remember the report a few years ago that Qadaffy had cancer and was going to die soon? Must be in remission.
Yesterday the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, also returned to Harare, the capital, with the aim of defeating Mugabe in the election on June 27. Tsvangirai had planned to arrive last weekend but pulled out after his party announced he was on an army hit list.
For Mugabe who has been in power for 28 years but faces a fight for his political life after losing the first round to Tsvangirai in March to leave last week suggested the visit was urgent. He is thought to have had cancer for some time; observers said the trip might indicate a deterioration in his condition.
Or the fact that Grace felt the urge to go shopping in Singapore.
Sources close to the government said the tests were being conducted by a top Malaysian urologist who was also known to have provided certain financial services for Mugabe.
"Bob, that lucre looks filthy! Ya want man to launder it for you, old buddy?"
In recent years the Far East has become a favourite destination of the president and his much younger wife, Grace,
"How much younger is she?"
"On their first date he had to burp her after he fed her!"
who are banned from Europe and America. Most of their assets were transferred to the region after western sanctions were imposed. Family members continue to be educated there and Mugabe has a close relationship with Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Poor bastard. Too much curry powder and custard in his Bobotie no doubt.
Members of Russia's Commie Party are calling for a nationwide boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archaeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.
It hit Russian screens Thursday.
Commie Party members in St. Petersburg said on a web site this week that the Soviet Union in 1957 "did not send terrorists to the States," but launched a satellite, "which evoked the admiration of the whole world."
Moscow Commie lawmaker Andrei Andreyev said Saturday "it is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War."
#3
saw it yesterday - the commies that are crying are ridiculous, and should be ridiculed for their thin skin.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/25/2008 16:10 Comments ||
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#4
Someone should clue the commies that it is just make-believe and that no one in their right mind takes Hollywood seriously anyway. Not to get their panties bunched up over nothing.
#5
by the way - it was pretty good. Not the best of the Indy films, and not even better than Iron Man (which I thought was great), but pretty good. Can't wait for The Dark Knight now....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/25/2008 19:35 Comments ||
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China and Russia on Friday signed a one-billion-dollar deal to expand a nuclear energy facility in the Asian nation, a Russian official said. Shortly after both proclaimed that the US missile defense system was the root of all evil.
and shortly after an earthquake destroyed a major Chinese military nuclear lab.
"We have completed negotiations on construction of a uranium enrichment factory," Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, told reporters in Beijing. He was speaking during a visit to Beijing by new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is on his first foreign trip since taking office this month.
The deal will include construction of a fourth block of a nuclear facility that enriches uranium in China as well as the delivery of partially enriched Russian uranium, Kiriyenko said. "The contract is worth more than one billion dollars, about 500 million dollars for construction and another 500 million for delivery of uranium," Kiriyenko said.
China has been seeking to expand its use of nuclear power, which accounts for less than two percent of its total energy production. The fast-growing economic power is highly dependent on coal, which is blamed for worsening pollution and proved risky when supplies were cut off by severe snowstorms during the winter.
Russia has been competing with Western nations and Japan for a slice of China's nuclear power market. French nuclear giant Areva last year sealed a deal to deliver two advanced reactors for eight billion euros (12.6 billion dollars).
Russia's first 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor in China, at Tianwan in the east, went into commercial operation in June last year after numerous delays while a second went into operation in September. Russia supplies fuel for both reactors in accordance with earlier agreements.
Kiriyenko said that Russia and China were also in talks on the construction of two more 1,000 megawatt reactors at the Tianwan facility. The original contract, signed in 1997, was worth 3.3 billion dollars.
China currently has 11 nuclear reactors in operation and will need up to 30 more atomic power plants if it expects to realise its target of producing 40 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2020.
Police have detained nearly 200 youths after rioting in Brussels sparked by a simmering dispute between rival groups after a soccer match.
Police spokesman Gerald Noon says 26 people, including 14 police officers, were injured in the clashes late Friday that officers believe were prearranged by troublemakers over the Internet. Noon says the violence stemmed from a confrontation last weekend between North African youths and fans of Anderlecht soccer club after it won the Belgian Cup Final. He told VRT radio Saturday that further arrests could follow after investigators analyze camera footage to try to identify troublemakers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Presumably they detained the Anderlecht fans and not the North African youths, otherwise the riots would be continuing (mustn't disrespect their religious sensitivities, you know.)
#3
The Riots in Brussels After the Belgian cup finals between RSC Anderlecht and AA Ghent Sunday evening, won by Anderlecht, fights broke out between Anderlecht supporters and immigrant youth. The immigrant youth were threatened by skinheads.
A blog called upon North African youth to "settle matters with the white supporters of the football club Anderlecht" Friday, and to "burn down cafes, houses and cars." More than 600 youth responded to the posting.
...
Anderlecht asked meanwhile to close down the blog. The public prosecution is already conducting an investigation into the bloggers, who come from abroad.
The mayor thinks youth from other municipalities also took part in the fights.
Posted by: ed ||
05/25/2008 12:27 Comments ||
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#4
There definitvely was a racial/religious angle in that, and not a simple hooligans fight; the vids on Evil Youtube had the belgians (including girls and other non-hooligan types) chanting "ici c'est chez nous", here it's our land.
Youths used blogs to coordonate and call for confrontation, like during the 2005 ramadan riots in France, calling to show the Racists "who dominate the city".
And apparently, from what I've read from belgian and bruxellese commenters, the start of all this is not a football match, but the gangrape of a 14 years old girl a couple weeks ago, which led to Youths being assaulted, then to larger fights, and then to this.
Btw, belgian authorities clearly were scared, you could tell that from the teevee vids shown on the internet, with for example the local bourgmestre acknowledging that the gangs were ethnically homgenous (european belgians vs north africans), but quickly saying nobody should draw premature conclusions from that, that racist infiltration should be avoided, and that Diversity should be preserved... police deployment was heavy, mounted cops, helicopters buzzing over Bruxelles since it started according to locals (though now it is apparently over), and while french languages belgian news clips whitewashed it as hooligans fights (like here), IIUC, the dutch language ones clearly spoke about the ethnic angle.
It's not a Nation-shattering event, but it is an another symptom. Oh, well, at least, they have a governement now (I think).
A co-chair of Hillary Clinton's National Hispanic Leadership Council has defected and pledged his support to Barack Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was joined by another California superdelegate.
The defections came as a new poll showed that Obama would handily defeat John McCain in California in November and do so by a larger margin than Clinton would.
We'll see when the Defense of Marriage amendment gets on the ballot ...
U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, whom Clinton named to his Hispanic leadership post in December, shortly after Cardoza announced he would support her for the nomination, announced he was switching sides on Friday. "I believe that Senator Obama will inevitably be our party's nominee for president," Cardoza, a Democrat from Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley, said.
He was joined by another California superdelegate, U.S. Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat from Fresno.
Cardoza's endorsement of Clinton occurred when she appeared to be the odds-on favorite to win the nomination, with more than twice as many superdelegate supporters as Obama. That was before Obama won the Iowa caucuses and began his drive toward front-runner status.
In more recent weeks, as Clinton's lead evaporated, Cardoza and his fellow superdelegates have been getting more pressure from Obama's camp to join the winning team.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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The defections came as a new poll showed that Obama would handily defeat John McCain in California in November and do so by a larger margin than Clinton would.
The "evil" Rove has struck again. Both Dems reading what they want from his research and both determined to fight to the bitter end.
The man who helped establish Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's controversial Honduras program defended it as a worthwhile effort, saying authorities here are getting photos for a facial-recognition database designed to combat terrorism.
Speaking publicly about it for the first time, Deputy Chief Dave Hendershott also said the department's use of tens of thousands of dollars to send personnel to the Central American country to train the police force is a good thing to do. It has helped root out corruption on the Honduran police force and taught officers to investigate crimes better, Hendershott said.
Sheriff's officials consistently deflected questions and criticism since reports of the program surfaced in late February. The program raised eyebrows, in part, because the department has spent more than $150,000 of taxpayer money in salaries for sheriff's employees and at least $30,000 in money seized through racketeering investigations, at a time of severe budget problems.
The spending from the Racketeer Influenced, Corrupt Organizations fund prompted the state's auditor general to move up an audit scheduled for 2009.
Hendershott would not go in depth about certain details, including how many photos and of whom the Honduran police are providing to the Sheriff's Office. Nor would he give specifics about how the sheriff's efforts have helped uncover or fight corruption within Honduras' police force. Nor would he say whether the compact between the two entities has resulted in any crimes being cleared.
He said to give details might put some lives at risk. "The value of raw intelligence data that law-enforcement agencies, whether they be local or from different countries, is enormous," Hendershott said. "The development of cooperative partnerships is immeasurable when it comes to mutual cooperation in solving crimes on the local and international level."
Manuel Johnson, a spokesman for the FBI office in Phoenix, did note this month that the FBI shared information on a case with the Sheriff's Office, knowing that sheriff's personnel would be in Honduras. He declined to elaborate because the case is ongoing.
The photos that Maricopa County receives from Honduran authorities are passed on to the facial-recognition database to which law-enforcement agencies have access at the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center. The database has 20 million photos and, at a large event such as the Super Bowl, can scan up to 10 faces at a time, searching for matches with known criminals, Hendershott said.
When Sheriff Joe Arpaio was first asked about the department's trips to Honduras, he said the agency had received "millions" of photos from Honduran officials. Although Arpaio said the program was being reviewed when it first came under fire months ago, deputies have traveled to the Central American country since then and there are no plans to suspend the program.
It's not unusual for law-enforcement agencies to have working agreements with other countries, but it's more common for the contract to occur between border states and their neighbors. The Department of Public Safety has an agreement with Sonora, Mexico, to collaborate on crime fighting, just as California and Texas law-enforcement groups have pacts with their counterparts across the border.
The relationship between the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and Honduras, 2,000 miles away, is unusual.
The accord between the Sheriff's Office and Honduran law enforcement began when Roger Marshall, at the time a retired sheriff's homicide investigator, was doing missionary work on Roatan Island, a scuba-diving destination off northeastern Honduras. He was attempting to establish a shelter for battered women.
Marshall, who has rejoined the Sheriff's Office, recognized the need for Honduran police forces to receive proper investigative training, ranging from traffic accidents to sex crimes to preserving evidence at crime scenes, according to documents. Marshall began making connections between the Sheriff's Office and Honduran police in 2006, and by early 2007, a formal agreement was in place and the first group of sheriff's representatives was headed to the island.
Within the next 14 months, groups of sheriff's employees, ranging in size from two to seven, would take six trips and spend a few weeks at a time training hundreds, documents show. Some employees spent the equivalent of six to 10 weeks in the country in the past year. "We use very intelligent commanders and trainers to get the return on investment for actually setting up a non-corrupt, secure relationship with a foreign country," Hendershott said.
The department's deal with Honduras has spawned speculation that Hendershott has an inappropriate relationship with the facial-recognition software provider - a local company called Darcomm - or has land and business interests in Honduras. Nothing in the reams of public records the Sheriff's Office has released about its Honduras operations shows a relationship between Hendershott and the software provider or the Central American country, where tracing land ownership is a tedious process.
"I have no business arrangement with any county vendor, nor does my wife, nor does any member of my family," Hendershott said. "I do not own a single stitch of property outside the United States."
The Maoists are one short step from having what they need to consolidate power and rule the country, and China is one short step from having a new front on India.
KATHMANDU - Nepal's prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, has asked Maoist former rebels to form a new government after their election win, a minister said on Saturday, in a sign he will not impede the process. Koirala's call to Maoist chief Prachanda to press ahead ends a month of unclear signals from Koirala's side following the former guerrillas' unexpected victory in April.
The move came after several Maoist leaders demanded the prime minister's immediate resignation to clear the way for them to form a new cabinet. He ignored the demands. "The prime minister has urged Prachanda to initiate moves to forge the necessary political consensus to form a new government as the biggest political party in the constituent assembly," Ram Chandra Poudel, the peace and reconstruction minister, told reporters after a meeting between the two leaders. "Prachanda will come up with a proposal now," he said. He did not give details on how the government might look.
Although Koirala has been elected into the new assembly, it is unclear what position he will hold under a Maoist-led government. Some analysts said his long post-election silence could have indicated that he was negotiating with the Maoists for a suitable role.
The former rebels do not have an absolute majority in the 601-member assembly. They are urging other political parties, including the centrist Nepali Congress headed by Koirala, to join a national coalition government headed by Prachanda. Many have refused. They say the former rebels have not given up the violent and intimidating practices honed during their decade-long war against the monarchy, despite striking a peace deal in 2006.
Do tell. Someone at least understands what Maoists are like ...
The Maoists say they hope to form a new government after the first meeting of the assembly next week, but it is unclear if it will be coalition or a minority government.
That meeting is expected to declare an end to centuries of monarchy and turn Nepal into a republic, a key condition in the 2006 peace deal that ended the conflict in which more than 13,000 people were killed. The assembly will then begin work on a new constitution for Nepal, a job which is likely to take at least two years.
Not that the Maoists will wait that long to consolidate power and open up the execution chambers and corrective labor camps.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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The head of the party leading Pakistan's ruling coalition unveiled proposed constitutional changes on Saturday that would take away President Pervez Musharraf's powers. "We intend to walk him away, rather than impeach him away," said Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded his late wife Benazir Bhutto as leader of the Pakistan People's Party after her assassination last December.
Zardari said the amendments would remove the president's right to dismiss the government and pass responsibility for appointing heads of the armed services and provincial governors to the prime minister. The proposed amendments included a bar on a president running for office for more than two terms.
The PPP has to consult its three coalition allies over the 62 proposed amendments, that could be put before parliament by the end of June. The coalition allies defeated pro-Musharraf parties in a general election in February, and a government was sworn in at the end of March under Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a PPP loyalist picked by Zardari.
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05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) spokesman Farhatullah Babar was moved to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) emergency department on Saturday evening following a stroke. PIMS spokesman Dr Waseem Khawaja told Daily Times that Babars condition was stable. He said Babar had immediately been moved to the Critical Care Unit, where a five-member team of doctors was treating him. Khawaja said a brain scan had confirmed Babars condition was not more serious. Doctors said a small clot that had formed in a minor vessel in Babars brain had now gone.
This article starring:
Farhatullah Babar
Waseem Khawaja
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Myanmar must grant "unhindered access" to cyclone-devasated areas as a condition for receiving more American aid, a top U.S. official said Sunday. Dealbreaker, I'll bet.
Scot Marciel, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, has told an international donors conference in Myanmar that the United States is prepared to offer significant aid for cyclone survivors if the junta allows foreign experts to assess the affected areas. He told the conference the U.S. has already provided more than $20.5 million in aid.
Cyclone Nargis struck three weeks ago. Myanmar's ruling generals told the United Nations on Friday they were now willing to allow all foreign aid workers into the devastated Irrawaddy delta to assess the damage.
#1
Three weeks into it an just now talking tough?
Well, it it the DOS, so I guess they get a pass...
In the meantime, how many died that could have been saved with timely aid deliveries?
Aid agencies are preparing to help inhabitants of Myanmar's cyclone hit Irrawaddy Delta, after the country said it would open its doors to international relief workers. But on Saturday only a single aircraft carrying water treatment equipment was reported to have left for Myanmar from an aid co-ordination centre in Thailand.
After weeks of refusing outside assistance, Myanmar's ruling generals told the UN they would open the borders to relief teams of all nationalities.
But there has so far been little sign of the progress Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, promised following his talks with the generals. "We're pretty shocked that the secretary-general seems to have accepted this at face value," Jeremy Woodrum, director of the US Campaign for Burma, told Al Jazeera. "The regime is willing to talk to them as always but it never seems to lead to any progress. I'm hopeful there could be some progress in the next couple of days but that would be a definite break from history," he said.
"If the military regime lifts checkpoints that allow aid agencies to go into the delta region that was hit by the cyclone, then that would be real progress, but as long as those checkpoints are in place, I have difficulty seeing it as a real breakthrough."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Oscar-winner Jessica Lange bashed the Bush administration and denounced the war in Iraq during a commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College.
The star of "Tootsie" and "Blue Sky" was applauded by students Friday at the small liberal arts college after comparing the conflict with the Vietnam War. She said the graduates have "a heavy burden" to chart a new path for the country.
"We are living in an America that, in the last seven and a half years, has waged an unnecessary war, established prison camps, condoned torture, employed corporate armies, eliminated the right of habeas corpus, practiced extraordinary rendition, and believe me, this is only a partial list," Lange said.
Lange asked the graduates, including her 22-year-old daughter Hannah Shepard, to commit themselves to the "pursuit of peace."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Again, these jerks refuse to discuss the legal status of irregular combatants who are captured in failed states.
#4
What are these people going to do after Bush leaves office? They are going to collapse in a pile of quivering goo with no where to direct their hate.
#6
When she was young and HOT she looked great in a LANGE SKI WEAR AD. We would all drool over her bod. I don't think any of us said "I wonder if her mind is something to drool over.". Even King Kong drooled over her.
So as the years run on ... one wonders how the hot bods - now old hags become commencement speakers...
#7
Moose, most of the 'unemployed' are the one's with graduation papers label with some sort of 'studies' department title on their diploma. Which is tough with all that debt accumulated over the years attending all those classes that prepared them for real life outside.
..comparing the conflict with the Vietnam War
You mean the one where hundreds of thousand went to 'reeducation camps' or the hundreds of thousands who didn't make it in the boats or the million and a half butchered in the third Holocaust of the 20th Century, aided and abetted by the likes of people you swim with?
#8
she was good in Rob Roy. As a political thinker? ....she was good in Rob Roy
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/25/2008 11:57 Comments ||
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the "pursuit of peace."
Jessica still has the MILF thing going on, but I'd have more respect for her opinions if she made that speech in front of the corpses from Saddam's mass graves, nerve-gassed Kurdish villages, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the friends and enemies he put through industrial shredders, rape rooms, acid baths and Abu Graib prison when he owned it.
And yes, the conflict in Iraq is just like Vietnam, but only if you are ignorant of everything that has happened in the world for the last 50 years.
Posted by: George Smiley ||
05/25/2008 14:54 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Lets see, Jessica, you credentials are...? Hmm, none. Your experience in the ME are...? Hmm None. Your combat experience and toeuring and facts on Iraq are based on personal experience, and up to date unbiased observation? Hmm, no.
In other words who asked you?
You opinion has less value than a plumber - and in the case of my plumber, a ton less since he actually served a combat tour over there with his National Guard unit.
#12
I saw the account of her commencement speech in our local paper this a.m. You wonder why institutions of higher learning invite the people they invite as commencement speakers.
I prefer P.J. O'Rourke's recent commencement speech that can be found at:
Jessica Lange ought to get over her phony self-righteous indignation and get a life and take a hard, critical look at the world. She might then realize that what she thinks or says makes her sound like a blithering idiot and doesn't stand for much.
A fairly lengthy excerpt from O'Rourke:
Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?
Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."
Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.
Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?
So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.
#14
I'm afraid I already know what Jessica would do on 9/11. The same thing Jimmy Carter would do and the same thing Obama would do.
Basically to give Osama and the Terrorists everything they ask for - total Dhimmitude. We'd all be required, by law, to pray to the moon god 5 times a day - lest we offend our betters.
Only after everything has been surrendered will Jessica and her leftist friends discover the other use the Islamics have for cranes and hemp as their gay and drug-addled friends are hoisted up by a hemp necktie.
Yes, I do think she's foolish enough to think 'they' will escape the islamic noose.
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.
The Minister of Education, Mr. 
The death toll from two weeks of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa rose to 50 on Sunday as concerns mounted for an estimated 35,000 people who have been displaced by the backlash. 
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday for an election run-off with President Robert Mugabe and said the veteran leader wanted to "decimate" MDC structures.
ROBERT MUGABE flew to the Far East last week for the kind of medical treatment no longer available in his run-down hospitals in Zimbabwe, leaving loyalists in the ruling party to wonder who was really in charge with just a month to go before a run-off in the countrys presidential election. 
China and Russia on Friday signed a one-billion-dollar deal to expand a nuclear energy facility in the Asian nation, a Russian official said.
A co-chair of Hillary Clinton's National Hispanic Leadership Council has defected and pledged his support to Barack Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was joined by another California superdelegate. 
The head of the party leading Pakistan's ruling coalition unveiled proposed constitutional changes on Saturday that would take away President Pervez Musharraf's powers. "We intend to walk him away, rather than impeach him away," said Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded his late wife Benazir Bhutto as leader of the Pakistan People's Party after her assassination last December.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) spokesman 
Aid agencies are preparing to help inhabitants of Myanmar's cyclone hit Irrawaddy Delta, after the country said it would open its doors to international relief workers. But on Saturday only a single aircraft carrying water treatment equipment was reported to have left for Myanmar from an aid co-ordination centre in Thailand. 
Oscar-winner Jessica Lange bashed the Bush administration and denounced the war in Iraq during a commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College.
