Hispanics made up nearly half of the more than 1 million people who became U.S. citizens last year, according to a Hispanic advocacy group. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said the number of Latinos who became Americans in fiscal year 2008 more than doubled over the previous year, to 461,317. That's nearly half of the record 1,046,539 new citizens overall in 2008, a 58 percent increase from 2007.
"Latinos who naturalize are eager to demonstrate their commitment to America by becoming full participants in our nation's civic life," said NALEO president Arturo Vargas, whose nonpartisan group works to improve the citizenship process and increase Latino participation in civic activities.
NALEO based its findings on Homeland Security Department data on the number of new citizens last year who immigrated from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries. In a report released in March, the agency attributed the record number of new citizens to the nearly 1.4 million citizenship applications it received in 2007. Most were from people who wanted to beat a $265 increase in the citizenship application fee, from $330 to $595.
But the department also credited "special efforts" by Hispanic media, community groups and a union with high immigrant membership, all of which urged eligible permanent residents to pursue citizenship.
In fiscal year 2008, 231,815 people originally from Mexico became citizens, up almost 90 percent from 2007. Increases in citizenship among Latino immigrants from other countries were: 39,871 from Cuba, up 160 percent from the previous year; 35,796 from El Salvador, up 109 percent; 17,954 from Nicaragua, up 120 percent; and 17,087 from Guatemala, a 109 percent rise.
Most of last year's new Hispanic citizens lived in California, followed by Florida.
Vargas cited the data to encourage the Obama administration and Congress to ease the cost of applying for immigration benefits. How do we get the free goodies?
"Despite the record number of naturalizations, there are still millions of eligible legal permanent residents who have not yet applied for U.S. citizenship or who encounter barriers in the naturalization process," Vargas said. Like rules, laws and paperwork.
Maybe they don't want to be citizens. Maybe they want to retain citizenship in their country of origin. Maybe they're comfortable with their status.
#1
This is a problem?
Of course Obamagod can control the sun as his worship desires. (Do I really need to add SARC?)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/08/2009 14:17 Comments ||
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#2
Just when I've finished reading two books that explain that physicists really don't have a clue what they are talking about, their theories don't have an experimental basis and they basically pull facts out of thin air.
#3
So you're gonna to cool the Earth's atmosphere, boobie?
Whatchoo gonna do when that in turn shortens the growing season and we can grow less food around the world? (Assuming you can do it, of course.)
Will you clowns be the first to volunteer to go hungry? Or is that just for the little people, too?
IDIOTS.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/08/2009 15:28 Comments ||
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#4
Sounds like they are hedging their bets. If the earth warms, the "noble" experiment just wasn't enough. If it cools, then that's proof that they "saved" the world from "evil" warming. Since the sun seems to be in a somewhat extended period of low sunspot activity, we are currently having a slight cooling. It may continue to the point that we get some serious cold. It may resume producing sunspots. Science doesn't know enough to be able to predict that. But this new "rainmaker" type hype would be their cover if things do cool down a bit more. Smart move if you want to keep the con going.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
04/08/2009 15:46 Comments ||
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While patient safety in US hospitals is improving, "medical mistakes still occur at an alarming rate," according to the sixth annual HealthGrades study of patient safety in American hospitals, released today.
Between 2005 and 2007, medical errors cost Medicare over $6.9 billion and were responsible for more than 92,000 potentially preventable in-hospital deaths among Medicare beneficiaries, report Dr. Rick May and others at HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings organization in Golden, Colorado.
May's group used a Medicare database to evaluate 12 patient safety indicators at nearly 5000 hospitals. The 242 best-performing hospitals were recognized with the HealthGrades 2009 Patient Safety Excellence Award.
#2
Note that this is of Medicare patients. Medicare pushes for high patient turnover rates, so doctors and nurses have less time per patient, and patients are shuttled about faster than are private patients.
Medicare is also oriented towards older patients, who it has long been noted get inferior care compared to younger patients.
I did see one hospital where they confronted this head on. They went to great lengths to take their time and do a good job with each patient, and both the quality of care and patient satisfaction went up strongly.
It means shepherds at the farm may need to use methods such as beating the ground with sticks and waving their arms to control the flock.
Sheepdogs herding a flock may be a familiar farmyard scene, but it could soon be confined to the past if bosses at Tesco have their way. The supermarket chain has told its major supplier of lamb to stop using dogs, which it claims cause stress to the animals.
It means shepherds at the farm may need to use methods such as beating the ground with sticks and waving their arms to control the flock.
Wouldn't that also stress the sheep?
Outraged staff at Silver Fern Farms in Fairton, New Zealand may now have to get rid of up to 60 dogs to comply with the orders, meaning several of the animals will be destroyed. Shepherd Mick Pethram told the Telegraph newspaper: 'New Zealand sheep are used to dogs, they know dogs. There's more stress in a human herding and manhandling them, waving their arms and beating sticks. Dogs are part of a sheep's life. This is absolute baloney.'
He continued: 'We'll be desperately trying to sell them, but most of us will end up putting down three or four each. These are good dogs. Taking away our dogs is like taking a hammer away from a builder; we can't do our job without them.'
In New Zealand, abattoirs are attached to farms and dogs are usually used to herd the sheep before slaughter. Buyers for Tesco visited Silver Ferns Farm, which is one of the chain's biggest suppliers of lamb, earlier this year and were said to be upset at the dogs 'running riot'. A spokesperson for the store said: ' We don't have a problem with sheepdogs, but we need to make sure they treat the sheep in a considerate manner, so they don't stress the sheep out.'
Scientists have found evidence that causing stress to animals before slaughter can cause the meat to become pale and watery. However a spokesperson for the National Farmers Union said there was no evidence that sheepdogs caused animals to feel stressed.
#3
' We don't have a problem with sheepdogs, but we need to make sure they treat the sheep in a considerate manner, so they don't stress the sheep out.'
Anthropomorphic twits.
Anyone who has ever been around sheep and watched a good sheepdog (a thing of beauty in itself) trying to do its duties knows why it 'runs riot' when trying to control them. Domestic sheep are pretty stupid, 'stressed out' most of the time anyway and don't follow human orders well (even beating the ground with sticks would only cause them to look at you once or twice and go back to grazing). You need to push, shove, drag or 'nip' them to get them to go in a predetermined direction.
My great uncle (who kept a few) told me that the domestic sheep would be one of the first animals to die off if humans ever became extinct as they are pretty incapable of fending for themselves, other than eating whatever is around them.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/08/2009 8:09 Comments ||
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#4
The West is rapidly committing cultural suicide.
#5
I believe New Zealand and Australia are leading suppliers of mutton to Saudi and other ME markets. Sounds like the Muzzies are 'offended' again and supermarket is bowing to Muslims.
[Maghrebia] The European Union on Monday (April 6th) officially suspended co-operation with Mauritania for two years, international press reported. "Without a consensus and a return to constitutional order, there is no possibility of any substantial resumption of EU-Mauritanian co-operation," the EU Council said in a statement. Regular monitoring missions will be sent to the country during the 24-month period to assess progress towards the return of constitutional order. The EU statement noted, however, that the measures "do not close the door to political dialogue between the EU and the Mauritanian parties".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Update...
NDJAMENA (AFP) Helicopters led an international military manhunt Wednesday for an armed French foreign legionnaire who killed four people in Chad and fled across the southern Sahara on a stolen horse.
"The guy is dangerous because he is armed and he has a psychological problem," a French military source told AFP on condition of anonymity. "He will have been trained in desert survival techniques, which will make it all the harder to find him."
The private soldier, attached to a European force in the central African desert state, killed two fellow legionnaires late Tuesday plus a Togolese soldier operating within a UN force that is taking over peacekeeping operations. The killings took place inside their military camp, with the runaway legionnaire then shooting a Chadian farmer dead for his horse and taking flight between Abeche and Guereda in north-eastern Chad towards Sudan, his superiors said.
UN agencies highly active in the Abeche region, where camps are home to some 450,000 Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians, have ordered the local staff to avoid travel because of the risk of running into the renegade. "We have been asked not to move. We've warned our partners in the field," Annette Rehrl of the UH High Commissioner for Refugees office in Abeche told AFP.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin told France Info radio that soldiers are searching for the unnamed man "with everything at our disposal" including help from the Chadian authorities, but that they had yet to locate his whereabouts. Helicopters were scouring the arid terrain -- with just enough trees to enable him to hide from daylight aerial surveillance -- as troops from EUFOR, the UN's MINURCAT mission and Chad, as well as local police, hunted the fugitive.
The French military source said the legionnaire could last several days on the run even in such harsh conditions."We teach them to last several days in difficult conditions and he will be better equipped than a cadet fresh out of university, but we're not talking about Rambo, or the type you see in certain films," the source stressed.
Morin said the authorities had no explanation for the soldier's killing spree "other than that he flipped." He described the man's actions as "totally out of order and intolerable." The minister insisted that the soldier had undergone a series of psychiatric tests before being accepted into the Legion in February 2007 and that none of the examinations had hinted at such potential behaviour. "His marks were good," Morin added.
Captain Christophe Prazuck of the French military high command described the man as "deranged" on Tuesday. "Gunshots were heard in the (military) camp and then the two legionnaires were found and then a little further away the body of the Togolese soldier was discovered," he said.
Within Abeche, "life is going on as normal," a local civil servant told AFP. "Most of the people here haven't been informed of this incident."
[Al Arabiya Latest] Male officers in the Kuwaiti army have expressed embarrassment at having to salute female superiors as the interior ministry denied rumors it was considering offering monetary compensation to female officers in return for not demanding to be saluted by male officers.
According to reports in local media, the Ministry of Interior was looking into alternatives after receiving complaints from male officers. One suggestion was to give each female officer an allowance of 50 dinars ($172) in return for not making male officers of lower ranks salute them.
Another option mentioned was to penalize any officers who refuse to abide by military rules, though there were concerns this could potentially lead some men not to join the army and put the ministry in an even more awkward position.
The ministry, however, denied reports it is considering alternatives to the saluting controversy. "The ministry treats men and woman equally," an official with the ministry, Colonel Mohamed al-Sabr, told AlArabiya.net. "The salute is done in respect to rank and not individuals."
The controversy started with statements by the head of the GCC Sharia Scholars Union Dr. Ajil al-Nashmi in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan where he said women can only join the military in limited circumstances. "Women can join the military in cases like searching other women at the airport or on the borders," he told the paper. "Otherwise, it is not recommended."
#1
The military hand salute is a western colonial servile invention which clearly has racist overtones and origins. As equals, it is best the practice be done away with entirely. A simple wink or nod should suffice. [snark off]
#5
I'm surprised that Obama's clique haven't publicly considered imposing "Order #1", that was used by the democratic Russian Menshavik Duma, that abolished the rank structure in the military, as well as saluting, and required that all military decisions be made by vote.
#6
Good Gawd. Make them take out their own trash and make them pick up cigarette butts for a few hours. They'll remember to render a salute after that business.
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today alleged that the BNP-backed students were creating anarchic situation in educational institutions in guise of Bangladesh Chhatra League.
The leader of the House in her speech in the parliament also said the BNP and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal were responsible for tainting image of the BCL.
Hasina blamed the situation at different universities and colleges on late president Ziaur Rahman saying he slapped martial law in the country and distributed arms among students after 1975.
[Bangla Daily Star] Bangladesh Regulatory Reforms Commission (BRRC) Chairman Dr Akbar Ali Khan today said electricity is more important than democracy for the country right now.
I guess if you've got neither you're really up the creek, aren't you?
CARACAS, Venezuela A three-judge panel of Perus Supreme Court on Tuesday convicted former President Alberto K. Fujimori of human rights abuses and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The abuses included the killing of 25 people by a military death squad created by Mr. Fujimori in the early 1990s as the country was locked in a bloody conflict with Maoist rebels.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Venezuela's President, praising Obama's promise to free the world from nuclear weapons, calls for US apology to Japan over nuking the country.
"It is very encouraging that the president of the United States called for the end of, and the destruction of, nuclear arms in the world," Hugo Chavez told reporters in Tokyo, where he signed an investment deal with Japan.
"Obama launched a missile -- an Obama missile," he added, according to AFP.
Earlier on Sunday at an EU summit in Prague, the US President Barack Obama vowed to lead the quest for a world free from nuclear weapons.
Obama's call to cut stockpiles, restrict testing, cut back on fissile production and to secure loose nuclear material, comes at a time when the US still possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
The US is "the planet's number one nuclear power. It is also the only country in the world that dropped the atomic bomb," Chavez said. "At any rate, I think America should apologize to Japan."
#2
You know Hugolito, the second time is much easier.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:31 Comments ||
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#3
"It is also the only country in the world that dropped the atomic bomb,"
A staple of Kremlin rhetoric during the Cold War(and of lefty academics to this day), as though Stalin would have refrained from nuking Berlin if it had been within his power.
#4
It would have been much better if we had bombed the railroads so that the food could not have gotten from the farms to the cities, resulting in mass starvation. Starvation is a slow, painful, horrible way to die. Probably millions of Japanese would have died.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/08/2009 7:09 Comments ||
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#5
Suggested wording for the apology:
"Yeah, we're sorry you followed a berserk military cult into a war you couldn't win, slaughtered and raped your way across half of Asia, butchered prisoners of war, forced tens of thousands of women into sexual slavery, and dispersed your war industries throughout your fire-trap cities; but, hey, it does seem that you learned your lesson. We sincerely apologize for not being ready to kick you into the Stone Age in 1941, a consequence of listening to peacenik assholes like the ones who fawn over Chavez today and work around the clock to make sure Iran can get its own nuclear weapons."
Lt George Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot, was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles south of Tokyo, in September 1944 - and was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.
The horrific fate of the other eight "flyboys" was established in subsequent war crimes trials on the island of Guam, but details were sealed in top secret files in Washington to spare their families distress.
Mr Bradley has established that they were tortured, beaten and then executed, either by beheading with swords or by multiple stab-wounds from bayonets and sharpened bamboo stakes. Four were then butchered by the island garrison's surgeons and their livers and meat from their thighs eaten by senior Japanese officers.
[Jakarta Post] President Raul Castro met Monday with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, his first face-to-face discussions with U.S. leaders since he became Cuba's president last year.
State television showed images of Castro, who holds the rank of four-star army general, wearing a business suit instead of his trademark olive-green fatigues and sitting down with Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, and other members of the American delegation behind closed doors.
Seven Democratic representatives traveled to Havana but an official communique read on the air said only six attended the meeting with Castro. The statement provided no details of what was discussed or how long the meeting lasted. It added that the group also spoke in recent days with the head of parliament and the country's foreign minister.
The lawmakers came to talk about improving U.S.-Cuba relations amid speculation that Washington is ready to loosen some facets of its 47-year-old trade embargo against the island.
The meeting came as Fidel Castro said Cuba is not afraid to talk directly to the United States and that the communist government does not thrive on confrontation as its detractors have long claimed.
In a column published in state-controlled newspapers earlier Monday, the 82-year-old former president also praised U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, saying the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "is walking on solid ground" with a proposal to appoint a special envoy to reshape U.S.-Cuba relations.
Fidel Castro wrote that "those capable of serenely analyzing the events, as is the case of the senator from Indiana, use an irrefutable argument: The measures of the United States against Cuba, over almost half a century, are a total failure."
Though they share a strong and mutual distrust of Washington, both Castro brothers have said for decades that they would be willing to talk personally with U.S. leaders. Fidel repeated Cuba's desire for dialogue in the column, saying direct negotiation "is the only way to secure friendship and peace among peoples." Currently, the countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.
"There is no need to emphasize what Cuba has always said: We do not fear dialogue with the United States," he wrote. "Nor do we need confrontation to exist, as some foolish people think. We exist precisely because we believe in our ideas and we have never feared dialogue with the adversary."
Suffering from an undisclosed illness in a secret location, Fidel Castro was succeeded by the 77-year-old Raul as president last February.
Lawmakers in both houses of the U.S. Congress have proposed a measure that would prohibit the president from barring Americans from traveling to Cuba except in extreme cases, effectively lifting a travel ban that is a key component of the embargo.
Lee has said tat many of the representatives, who arrived in Cuba on Friday and are scheduled to leave Tuesday, support the travel legislation.
Democratic Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina said Monday that Fidel Castro's column made it "clear that both countries can exist without either dialogue or adversity to each other."
"But wouldn't it be so wonderful," he added, "if we struck a dialogue and found the things that were mutually advantageous and mutually of interest to our two countries and stopped the historical divisions that have separated us (though we are) so close geographically?"
#3
Only a Democrat could meet with a leader clad in Fatigues and think is just some swell guy who is no threat to anyone. Please stay there, we won't miss you.
#4
Following their Cuban adventure, here's an international discrimination cause celeb that the BCC can clearly undertake. It's a long flight, but just south of the southern border of Botswana lies a small village called Pomfret. If it's not been bulldozed, it is home to a few hundred veterans of the 32nd Battalion and their families. They are brave blacks of predominately Portuguese ancestry who, under the former flag of South Africa, fought the communists for years. Oh, forgive me. I just stumbled onto the reason why the CBB won't want to get involved.
Just how much is The Globe losing The Times? Executives told union leaders that the paper lost $50 million last year, and would lose $85 million this year.
But why did the Times Company threaten The Globe with a shutdown? It's something we've seen a bit of recently: The Newhouses did it with The Star-Ledger in Newark; the Hearst corporation with the San Francisco Chronicle. For a company as big as this, $20 million doesn't seem like a make-or-break sort of cut, especially when the paper is supposedly losing so much more.
And, as Mr. Keller said, Boston is an elite market. The New England Media Group, with The Globe representing the biggest breadwinner, brought in $523 million in revenue last year--not exactly chump change. Can an organization with $523 million in revenue really be on its last limbs over $20 million?
"At this point, it's primarily a negotiating strategy," said John Morton, the newspaper analyst. "The likelihood that The Times would shut down The Globe is pretty remote, but it does suggest that no company is required to lose $50 million a year."
This is the Sulzberger-Ochs family, we've been told more than once: They build newspapers, they don't dismantle them. So what is the real breaking point for The Boston Globe?
"It's really the trend," said Ed Atorino, the analyst from Benchmark Company who specializes in media. "The single number is not the key. If you're losing $85 million and you thought next year it's $40 million, you would ride it out. But if you're losing $85 million and you think the next year it's going to $100 million, and you think there's no stopping it, you can't let this continue."
[Mail and Globe] Shares of Ford soared 16% on Monday after the company said it completed tender offers that will reduce its debt by 38% and shave millions of dollars off its interest costs. The caraker retired about $9,9-billion in securities in exchange for cash and shares under terms of the debt buybacks.
Combined, the moves are expected to reduce the Ford's interest expenses by more than $500-million this year, as it tries to weather the worst auto sales downturn in 27 years. The Dearborn, Michigan-based company said it will pay a total of $2,4-billion and issue 468-million shares as a result of the offers.
Shares of Ford rose 52 cents to close at $3,77 on Monday.
About $4,3-billion in Ford's senior convertible notes were tendered under an offer that expired on Friday. Up to $344-million will be used to pay cash premiums to note holders. A separate offer to repurchase notes from its financing arm resulted in $3,4-billion in securities being tendered. Ford Motor Credit will use $1,1-billion to purchase that secured term loan debt.
Ford Motor Credit previously said a second cash tender offer that expired on March 23 was "over-subscribed," and it doubled the amount of cash it would spend to buy back the debt. That resulted in the use of $1-billion to purchase $2,2-billion in term loan debt.
Its total debt was reduced to about $15,9-billion after the buybacks.
Update from Aunty Beeb: police have taken the place back.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Thousands of youth protesters stormed the Parliament building and president's offices in Moldova Tuesday after a rally against a Communist election victory boiled over into violence in Europe's poorest country. Moldova's ruling Communists - the first Communist Party to win power in the former Soviet Union - swept the weekend's legislative elections by winning half the vote, according to official estimates.
But the liberal opposition denounced the results as flawed and, according to the organizers, around 15,000 demonstrators turned out in the streets for a second day, hurling stones at the president's office and burning Communist flags. Communist President Vladimir Voronin, who is due to step down on April 7 after serving a maximum two consecutive terms, accused the demonstrators of trying to organize a "coup d'etat" in the country.
"We will show that in Moldova there is a power which will act strongly to protect the country's statehood from a handful of fascists drunk on anger trying to cause a coup d'etat," he said in a televised address.
Voronin called on the West for help in restoring order. "Moldovan authorities are extremely concerned by the mass disturbances in the center of the capital and call on Western structures to intervene to resolve this situation," Voronin was quoted as telling foreign ambassadors by Interfax news agency.
The opposition, although taken aback by protests initiated by youth groups rather than established political factions, vowed that the actions would continue until their demands were met.
Vlad Filat, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said he and other liberal opposition leaders later held talks with the government but failed to reach agreement on their main demand for a recount of the election. "We have not received an official answer. Therefore our action will continue and we call on our supporters to behave in a civilized fashion and not give into provocation." Police used water cannons and tear gas but the protestors still managed to enter the president's offices and hoisted a European Union flag.
They also dragged furniture out of the Parliament building and set it on fire, filling the air with thick black smoke. Over 30 people including both protesters and police were injured in the clashes, the head doctor at Chisinau's emergency hospital told AFP. A woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning after inhaling fumes in the Parliament blaze, Moldova 1 television reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009 00:00 ||
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An angry Sikh journalist attending a Congress press conference on Tuesday hurled a shoe at Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, in an echo of the attack on former US president George Bush in Iraq last year. It's already old, Bubby. It was old the second time it happened. This is, what? The 29th?
Chidambaram ducked as the trainer flew past him, but remained calm and pardoned the journalist for his emotional response. Had more dignity than Shoe Boy, apprently.
Jarnail Singh, the journalist, was angered by the minister's response to former Congress minister Jagdish Tytler being absolved of all involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots by the Central Bureau of Investigation. "My manner of protest might have been wrong, but I did not intend to hurt anyone," AFP quoted Singh as saying when he was detained by police before being released without charge. The Shiromani Akali Dal announced Rs 200,000 for Singh as a reward for having the courage to display the Sikhs' pain and suffering.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
It may be old but it has had en effect like none previously.
Trains in the Punjab are stopped as people sit on the tracks. There is genuine anger and the Congress looks set to lose parliamentary seats. They are looking at dumping Tytler from their ticket.
They've been making hay for years about the Hindu nationalists and Gujarat, but silent about their own pogrom, with its far greater death toll. Now it has come back to bite them.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 7:16 Comments ||
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HANOI, Vietnam -- Sen. John McCain paid a quiet visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison where he was held for more than five years during the Vietnam War on Wednesday, making a few deadpan remarks as he made his way through dark corridors and past musty cells.
McCain allowed reporters to follow him while he escorted Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina through the prison.
Vietnam's communist government has turned the facility into a museum. It was originally used by French colonialists to hold Vietnamese revolutionaries, then used by the North Vietnamese after they took power to house Americans captured during the Vietnam War. The prison was called Hoa Lo but was widely known by the nickname "The Hanoi Hilton" among U.S. soldiers.
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[Straits Times] PROTESTERS attacked a car carrying Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday as a minister warned that opposition elements wanted to cause chaos at a big rally this week in a bid to topple the government. Mr Abhisit was unhurt, but a window in his car was smashed when a group of red-shirted demonstrators surrounded the vehicle in Pattaya, a resort town where the cabinet held its weekly cabinet meeting.
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04/08/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] THAILANDŽS prime minister vowed to prevent a Žcivil warŽ in Thailand as the nation braced for a massive anti-government protest on Wednesday amid fears of bloodshed, just two days before Asian leaders gather in Thailand. Publicly admitting the insecurities of his four-month-old government, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said security forces do not want to clash with protesters but will do what is necessary to maintain law and order.
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[Straits Times] MALAYSIA is to revive caning in schools to curb discipline problems among pupils, three years after making moves to ban corporal punishment, a minister said on Tuesday. The government made the decision to revive caning last month and it will issue specific guidelines on how to implement the punishment, deputy education minister Wee Ka Siong told AFP.
[Straits Times] THE Khmer Rouge regime's prisons chief on Tuesday recounted his grisly past, telling Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court that confessions extracted under his torture orders were rarely true.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, last week apologised at trial for crimes against humanity, accepting blame for the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime's notorious main prison, Tuol Sleng. 'I never believed the confessions I received told the truth. At most, they were about 40 per cent true,' Duch said on Tuesday.
The grey-haired 66-year-old sat in the dock answering judges' questions about M-13 prison, a secret jungle centre he ran from 1971 to 1975 during the Khmer Rouge insurgency against the then US-backed government.
Duch told the court that he personally tortured two people, but regularly ordered his subordinates to beat prisoners who were destined to be 'smashed' to death with a stick at the back of the neck. 'The burden is still on me - it's my responsibility. I would like to apologise to the souls of those who died,' Duch said.
The Khmer Rouge were later in power from 1975 to 1979, the period when Duch is accused of supervising Tuol Sleng prison and sending thousands of people to their deaths in the so-called 'Killing Fields'.
The court is hearing about M-13 to better understand Tuol Sleng's organising structure.
Duch said M-13 was surrounded by a bamboo fence and shackled prisoners were often held in two-metre deep pits, both to prevent escape and to protect them from US warplanes carpetbombing the area.
The former maths teacher has denied assertions by prosecutors that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge regime's iron-fisted rule. Duch faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder for his role in the Khmer Rouge regime. He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.
#1
The Khmer Rouge were later in power from 1975 to 1979..
Made possible by the Democratic Party of the United States. Guess who cut all military assistance spending to the area just before the Khmer Rouge achieved ascendancy? /rhetorical question.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, has accused the Guardian Council of partiality over the Presidential hopefuls.
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Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
Statistics such as these, which include for the second year in a row a bump in teen pregnancies, after a 14-year decline, leave Sarah Brown concerned. She worries about the children born to unwed parents -- about the disadvantages they often face, including increased likelihood of poverty and greater high school dropout rates. See the number of out-of-wedlock births by race and age »
"I wish people spent as much time planning when to get pregnant, with whom, under what circumstances as they do planning their next vacation," said Brown, the CEO and founding director of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "The stigma [of out-of-wedlock births] has eroded, and these numbers made me feel perhaps it's disappeared altogether."
That stigma Brown speaks of, however, isn't one that LaShanda Henry, 28, or the women in her family before her, would have known. Her parents never married. And her grandmother only had a wedding when she was in her 60s.
So when Henry, of Greenville, North Carolina, and her boyfriend of now five years, Jean Paul, had Christopher two years ago, there was no pressure to race down the aisle.
"Culturally speaking" taking vows wasn't expected, said Henry, who runs the Black Moms Club, an online social network, and the Web-only Mahogany Momma Magazine. "Do we want to spend that money on a wedding or a house? ... I guess it's about priorities. I was never one of those girls that dreamed about the wedding dress."
What she said about cultural differences and expectations might help explain some of the numbers. Other data released last month showed the percentage of unwed mothers differs from race to race. While 28 percent of white women gave birth out of wedlock in 2007, nearly 72 percent of black women and more than 51 percent of Latinas did.
#1
the downfall of the black society - Patrick Moynihan had it pegged, what, 40 years ago, was it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 19:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Poverty is now begotten to a good extent by 'human free will' which no government program can alter other than increase it by subsidizing it. It can only be diminished by the choice of the individual. Socialism doesn't work on free will. It's easier to blame the 'Man', the institutions, society than it is to look into the mirror and see that most of life's problems start there.
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.
While patient safety in US hospitals is improving, "medical mistakes still occur at an alarming rate," according to the sixth annual HealthGrades study of patient safety in American hospitals, released today.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Venezuela's President, praising Obama's promise to free the world from nuclear weapons, calls for US apology to Japan over nuking the country. 
Just how much is The Globe losing The Times? Executives told union leaders that the paper lost $50 million last year, and would lose $85 million this year.
HANOI, Vietnam -- Sen. John McCain paid a quiet visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison where he was held for more than five years during the Vietnam War on Wednesday, making a few deadpan remarks as he made his way through dark corridors and past musty cells.
Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
