Within moments of the tapes rolling, the trial was over, and the prosecutors sat slumped and dejected in their chairs. A judge had declared a mistrial, ruling that the tape included evidence he had barred from the jury. Their error occurred in front of a by-the-book judge who noticed it before defense lawyers could even raise an objection.
The judge in the case is Reggie B. Walton, who will determine whether to grant prosecutors a retrial. Last week, the judge gave no hint about how he might rule. First appointed to the D.C. Superior Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Walton was tapped for the federal bench in 2001 by President George W. Bush.
A former fullback on his college football team, he also isnt afraid to take action. In 2005, he broke up an assault in Chevy Chase Circle by tackling the assailant.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/17/2011 10:51 ||
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#1
It is possible that Clemens is innocent.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/17/2011 18:50 Comments ||
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#2
It is possible that I shall marry Morgan Fairchild...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2011 21:57 Comments ||
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[Al Jazeera] Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has delegated some powers to his vice-president and the finance minister, a day after announcing he will return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment.
Shortly after a legislative vote approving his trip, Chavez announced on Saturday that he would hand off some responsibilities.
"I am going to delegate some decisions that until now were mine, signatures and decisions, to vice president Elias Jaua and Jorge Giordani," he said during a televised cabinet meeting.
Opponents say it is impossible for Chavez to effectively govern the OPEC nation of 29 million people from a Cuban hospital bed.
"When the president leaves the country, the vice-president must assume the chief executive role. It is their duty," said Hiram Gaviria, an opposition politician.
"The health of the country must be put above the president's health. We must be serious. We believe he should not hold office from Havana," added Carlos Berrizbeitia, another opposition politician.
Chavez, 56, has rebuffed calls from the opposition to hand over temporarily the presidency to Jaua, but gave him and Jorge Giordani, the finance minister, powers that include budgetary matters.
The president, who had a large tumour removed last month in Cuba, said on Friday he was going back to Havana to begin what "we've called the second phase". It will include chemotherapy. Brain mets? Lung mets? Bone mets?
He announced his plans on Friday after meeting Ollanta Humala, the Peruvian president-elect.
Earlier this month, Chavez admitted in a television address that he had a tumour but had undergone a successful operation in Cuba to extract the cancerous cells.
This was his first televised speech to the nation, weeks after he was hospitalised in Havana, sparking widespread speculation about his health.
"They confirmed the existence of a tumourous abscess, with the presence of cancerous cells, which required another operation to extract the tumour completely," he had said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
It's serious. Megalomaniacs don't give up power easily, for any reason.
[Dawn] Anjum Aqeel, a PML-N politician from Islamabad, surrendered to police on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
He surrendered at the Kohisar cop shoppe on the instructions of the party leadership.
Earlier, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Müslim League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... had taken strict notice of Aqeel's escape from police custody and formed an investigation committee for the matter.
The committee, headed by PML-N Senator Raja Zafarul Haq, will investigate Aqeel's escape and determine those responsible for the incident.
The committee will present its report to Sharif after which Aqeel's future with the party would be decided.
The committee includes Khurram Dastgir, Dr Tariq Afzal Chaudhry and Nuzhat Amir.
Moreover, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. said that the PML-N leadership should have immediately suspended Aqeel's party membership.
"Anjum Aqeel should surrender himself and apologise to the nation," said Malik.
According to police, they carried out raids to arrest Aqeel's accomplices, 13 of whom were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock and later granted bail.
The police said Aqeel operated a company named Linkers Property Dealer, which was not registered with the competent authority.
He acquired 608 kanals of land for the National Police Foundation in the Shalimar police limits but transferred only 563 kanals to the foundation, allegedly embezzling the remaining 45 kanals in connivance with its former officials, the police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) politician was forcibly freed from the police's custody by his supporters, only an hour after he was tossed in the calaboose on Friday in a fraud case registered last year.
As Anjum Aqeel Khan, MNA from Islamabad, was brought to the Shalimar cop shoppe in a police vehicle, his supporters swarmed it. Amid gun sex and a scuffle between the supporters and coppers, the politician was taken away from outside the cop shoppe, which falls in his constituency.
Taking notice, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. ordered to register a case against coppers and arresting them as their negligence led to escape of politician. He also ordered a judicial inquiry and asked DC Amir Ahmed to submit report in 24 hours.
Till the filing of this report, police have sealed the outer cordon of Islamabad and Rawalpindi with the help of Punjab police. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Bani Amin Khan told news hounds that the politician would be tossed in the calaboose soon, adding that those who took away the MNA would not be spared. "They are politicians, yet they break the law."
He said six persons were tossed in the calaboose and booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Two coppers, including the SHO of Shalimar cop shoppe, were taken into custody. A case will be registered against them if they are found guilty of negligence, the IGP added.
Another senior police officer, not ready to give his name, said except a DSP, the police team which went to arrest the politician was taken into custody.
Earlier the MNA came over to the Federal Investigation Agency's Iqbal Town Office in a case of Rs6 billion land scam, involving National Police Foundation. He has already obtained bail before arrest from a court till July 19.
As under the law, the politician was bound to appear before the investigating officers, he was directed to meet them on Thursday. But he did not.
However, ars longa, vita brevis... as he visited the FIA's Iqbal Town office on Friday evening, his presence was shared with the Shalimar police with direction to arrest him in another case registered with them.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer DSP Ahmed Iqbal and SHO Inspector Fayaz Tanoli were asked to arrest the politician in a fraud case registered against him in February 2010. They were also directed not to bring him to Shalimar or any other cop shoppe of Sadar Zone -- Tarnol, Margalla and Golra -- as they are located in the politician's constituency.
Fearing that his supporters would create trouble, the coppers were asked to take the MNA to a cop shoppe of the city or rural zones for detention. The MNA was tossed in the calaboose as he was coming out of the FIA office in a case in which he is alleged to have sold a plot in February last year to two persons and took money from both. But as the plot was handed over, the other claimant -- Shabaab Ali, a resident of sector I-8, registered a complaint with Shalimar cop shoppe against the parliamentarian.
But an hour later after arrest, he was brought to the Shalimar cop shoppe.
As the arrest was made public, more than 200 supporters of the politician reached the Shalimar cop shoppe. They parked their vehicles at the station's main gate and street to block the way of police's vehicle.
As the police vehicle with the politician reached outside the station, supporters kicked and punched it. It led to a scuffle in which two copperswere maimed -- one of them suffered a fractured hand. Amid the scuffle, both sides had gun sex.
The act of the supports led in a scuffle with the police and the former beaten and injured two police officials, including a constable whose one hand was fractured. The supporters also fired dozen of shots in air and in retaliation the coppers did the same act. Later the supporters were able take
Anjum Aqeel out of the police vehicle, put him in another car and beat feet. After the 30-minute mayhem, the politician's supporters also beat feet from the scene.
The police tossed in the calaboose six persons from around the cop shoppe, saying they were among the supporters and the activists. But some coppers believed that they were onlookers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2011 00:00 ||
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Indonesia this week made its first concrete step into another joint project, led by South Korea, for the development of a new fighter jet. Defence Ministry Secretary Gen. Rear Marshal Erris Heriyanto confirmed on Monday that the Korean KFX programme which Jakarta committed itself to in March was moving forward.
A team of 37 Indonesian engineers is set to leave for South Korea within a matter days, he said, to begin work on the concept definition phase, which is due for completion in 2012 to 2013.
Indonesia has agreed to meet 20 percent of the estimated $8 billion programme costs and to take 50 of the roughly 250 KFXs that are currently envisaged. Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro reckons Indonesia will have its 50 planes by 2020. More partners may come on board the Koreans are targeting Turkey in particular and this could affect cost projections, timetables and production runs.
The KFX will not be a 5th-generation aircraft on a par with the Joint Strike Fighter, but more a kind of souped-up F-16. Obviously, that would be far less challenging to develop.
Even so, the pieces of the puzzle dont seem to fit together: the production run is too small; the participants expertise is too limited; and the case for developing a new 4.5-generation fighter, rather than simply buying a tried-and-tested jet from the United States or Russia, is unproven. 5th gen fighters have been shown to be too prohibitively expensive to have a large enough production run for most of the world. A 4.5 could be cheap enough and good enough for the foreseeable future, as well as establish a basis for partnerships not involving the west.
#1
Besides which, the South Koreans are already about 75% there with their new TA-50 aircraft; they just need to upgrade and expand that aircraft to make it an F-16 class fighter.
[Bangla Daily Star] A colonel in the Philippine navy has been stripped of his post and put under investigation over a video in which he called for President Benigno Aquino's overthrow, the military said yesterday.
Colonel Generoso Mariano was removed as deputy chief of the Naval Reserve Command on Friday and investigated for possible sedition and unbecoming conduct, navy front man Lieutenant-Colonel Omar Tonsay said.
"The tape showed him speaking out against the government," Tonsay told AFP, adding the footage appeared to show Mariano laying out scenarios when a president's removal could be justified.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2011 00:00 ||
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The District on Friday fired 206 teachers for poor performance, a rarity in a big city school system and an extension of former chancellor Michelle A. Rhees aggressive drive to upgrade classroom instruction in the nations capital.
The teachers who were dismissed about 5 percent of 4,100 who work for the school system received low scores in the evaluation program known as IMPACT, developed under Rhee before she resigned in October.
Although policymakers at all levels of government are putting more emphasis on teacher quality, such large-scale dismissals remain all but unheard of. Collective-bargaining agreements with politically potent unions and cumbersome appeals processes often limit a school chiefs power to fire teachers.
Fridays dismissals remove any lingering uncertainty that Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and Chancellor Kaya Henderson would continue personnel policies Rhee left behind. Gray received heavy support from organized labor in his campaign to unseat former Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), Rhees boss.
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/17/2011 10:18 Comments ||
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#2
Miss Barbara,
As always, you speak wisdom. Perhaps a handful (fewer than 40) will remain fired, but the rest will be right back in the classroom, corrupting the 'young skulls full of mush'.
And likely those fewer than 40 will find that unemployment will pay even better than their old gigs.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/17/2011 10:54 Comments ||
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#3
They will stay fired. FTA:
"Her effort was buoyed by an unusual provision of D.C. law that exempts evaluation systems from collective bargaining. In many other cities, evaluation systems are subject to negotiations."
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.
Within moments of the tapes rolling, the trial was over, and the prosecutors sat slumped and dejected in their chairs. A judge had declared a mistrial, ruling that the tape included evidence he had barred from the jury. Their error occurred in front of a by-the-book judge who noticed it before defense lawyers could even raise an objection.
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has delegated some powers to his vice-president and the finance minister, a day after announcing he will return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment.
Anjum Aqeel, a PML-N 
Punjab
