[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Æthiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was in a Brussels hospital in a "critical" state Wednesday, several diplomatic sources told AFP, but the Æthiopian government denied he was unwell.
"He is in a critical state, his life is in danger," said a diplomat who asked not to be named.
In Addis Ababa, however, government front man Bereket Simon denied reports that the 57-year-old premier was ill.
"He is not in a critical state. He is in good condition," the front man told AFP.
In Brussels, the Æthiopian embassy refused comment. It had said earlier this week that reports he was being treated at a hospital were "false and wrong", and were a rumour created by "an interest group which has preoccupied itself in disseminating such untrue stories".
But several diplomats in Brussels said he had been undergoing regular treatment on a private basis at one of the city's major hospitals and had been in hospital for some days.
No information was available on his illness.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2012 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Libya's liberal coalition beat Islamist parties in the first poll since the ouster of Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... , according to results unveiled Tuesday -- but it remained unclear who will dominate the next congress.
The National Forces Alliance, a liberal coalition led by wartime prime minister Mahmud Jibril, gained 39 of 80 seats open to parties in the General National Congress, the first elected authority after more than four decades of dictatorship.
The Justice and Construction Party, which was launched by Libya's Moslem Brüderbund, took only 17 seats.
The remainder of party seats went to a constellation of smaller parties, according to the electoral commission's preliminary figures.
The complete tally, however, does not paint a clear picture about who will dominate the incoming congress, where the majority of seats -- 120 of 200 -- were reserved for individual candidates.
The two leading parties are courting independents and smaller entities in a bid to form a dominant bloc within the congress, where major decisions and legislation require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2012 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] Yemen's council of ministers ordered the ministers and other bigwigs including chiefs of central and administrative offices to avoid favoring their relatives at their workplaces and to abide by all job rules, Saba reported.
The bigwigs are supposed to be committed to not giving their relatives jobs within the first post standards until the third degree, the council said at its weekly meeting, warning violators will be punished without tolerance, according to Saba.
The decision has been largely hailed, with experts saying it has already demonstrated the government's intention to fight all forms of corruption including favoritism.
The council also banned substitute employment through replacing the retired, suspended and absent state employees and annulled its previous decisions in this context, Saba said.
At the meeting, the council discussed several reports including the one submitted by the minister for trade and industry on the supply of products as Ramadan, the month of fasting, approaches.
The report said there are sufficient supplies in the market which can meet the soaring demand during Ramadan.
With regard to the prices, the council ordered to upgrade the supervision rules and dispatch taskforces to monitor the situation, prevent the price manipulation and seize illegal and expired products, Saba said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients of increasing volatility... the prices of some basic products have been hiked, but officials at the trade and industry ministry said the hikes are linked to the increased global prices.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2012 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] A Sirajganj court yesterday sentenced four police constables to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and two others to three years of imprisonment for mugging a gold trader last year.
Additional District and Sessions Judge-1 Umme Kulsum also fined the four constables Tk 50,000 each, in default of which they would have to serve another year in jail, while their two associates were fined Tk 20,000 each, in default of which they would have to serve six more months in prison.
The convicted police constables are Wasim Babu, Shahnawaz Sumon, Raju Ahmed and Golam Rabbani and their associates are Ataur Rahman and Daulat Jahan.
According to the prosecution, the convicts snatched 221 tolas of gold from Raihan Ali, a gold trader in Bogra on June 24, 2011.
The police constables, in uniforms, asked Raihan to get off a bus at Chandaikona under Raiganj upazila and forced him to board a CNG auto rickshaw where they robbed him. They later dropped him in Sherpur under Bogra district.
The Detective Branch (DB) of police submitted the charge sheet against the six accused after a case was filed with Raiganj Police Station.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2012 00:00 ||
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will soon seek the central government's OK to send a party to the Senkaku Islands, some of which it plans to buy from a Saitama businessman who holds title to the territory, a senior Tokyo official said Wednesday.
The uninhabited isles in the East China Sea are controlled by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. The central government, which leases four of the five main islets from the owner, and prohibits landings in principle, also plans to buy some of the islands and reportedly nationalize the chain, which is technically part of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture.
#1
There's been a lot of noise lately between Japan, China and Taiwan over these islands. They're probably more concerned about what they might find under the water surrounding the islands than the islands themselves.
Front-page WaPo, grinding the green meme.
Donny Nelson is the epitome of old-time North Dakota. A lean, sharp-featured man sporting a thick goatee, jeans and dirty boots, Nelson is the grandson of homesteaders. Over the past century his family has collected 8,000 acres of prime cattle grazing acreage and cropland.
But now Nelson has some unwanted company: Oil prospectors. Oh noes! Not oil prospectors! Next thing is locusts!
This remote corner of North Dakota is the site of the biggest U.S. oil rush in decades. It is pumping new supplies into oil markets and swelling state coffers; advocates say it could help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Others say it's just a drop in the bucket, not worth the terrible sacrifices!
But the boom is also spreading a degree of chaos across the rural towns and gently undulating pasturelands here. Sorta like Pennsylvania in the 1880's? Oklahoma in the 1900's? California in the 1920's? Texas, still? A degree of chaos that means that the connected and the chums aren't getting theirs...
Two towering oil rigs are drilling holes on Nelson's property. One of the rigs, alongside two rows of 25-foot storage tanks, is planted on a red dirt pad, or clearing, right below a majestic butte that Native Americans over the ages have visited for ceremonial fasts. When they were kids, Donny and his brother climbed up and carved their names on the flat-topped butte next to others going back to 1880. Waitaminute...Did Donny just admit to descrating a sacred site? He could have said no...
This is Nelson's land, but he won't see any money from those wells, or nearly a dozen others that firms are planning to drill. The mineral rights were sold years ago, starting in the 1950s, when oil was discovered in North Dakota. Thanks Dad...
No, waitaminit: the money from those sales prob'ly paid for the last two generations' purchases of land and cattle, right? Kitchen and bathrooms been updated since 1950, taking the kids to McDonalds on the nights the wife was too tired to cook? Idiot.
Nelson and his family have leased out rights they do own, and his share of the royalties from four wells comes to about $8,000 a month. His Daddy made a choice and now sonny-boy don't like it. Well have YOU ever tried to live on $8,000 a month?
Which is $96,000 per year before taxes -- I checked. There are indeed those who would define that as piddling and picayune, but they are few.
It's a modest sum, he said, for the headaches that go with it. He's squabbled with oil companies over drilling waste, a saltwater spill and decades-old storage tanks eaten away by chemicals. "I'd give it all back if I could for all the trouble it's been," said Nelson, 48.
Above all, he misses a time when people didn't lock their doors and knew all their neighbors. Me too, Donny, except I can barely remember that time in my life.
Dear Mr. Nelson, it was your family that invited them in. Do stop whining.
"I don't like what it's done to our communities and lifestyle," he said. "We had a good life, including the hundred grand a year from the oil companies and now it's gone forever, or at least for my lifetime." I believe if I had a fixed income of $8,000 per month, I could maybe retire far away from the oil rigs. Comfort, Texas is a nice place.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/19/2012 12:57 ||
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Wonder what the NPV of those rights was back in the fifties.
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So. They (the TSA) will, just maybe, have a 'plan' to address the 'shortcomings' by December 2012? Six months? Why not just check the immigration status of the students right now?
A TSA alien pilot certification program that does not check whether the student pilot is in the country legally. Sounds like they are creating future business for themselves.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
07/19/2012 10:29 Comments ||
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I'm furious. Our government is a total failure, unf***ingbelievable that this type of crap is allowed to happen. Who's running the show, again no one will be held accountable. We've got to drain the swamp this next election.
Posted by: Jan ||
07/19/2012 11:46 Comments ||
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Without documents, what kind of flying will they do? (cartels, arm them, train them)
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.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Æthiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was in a Brussels hospital in a "critical" state Wednesday, several diplomatic sources told AFP, but the Æthiopian government denied he was unwell.
A Sirajganj court yesterday sentenced four police constables to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and two others to three years of imprisonment for mugging a gold trader last year.
