PODGORICA, Montenegro -- A hippo escaped from a flooded private zoo in Montenegro Tuesday, shocking villagers who found her strolling near their homes.
Nikica escaped as heavy rains sent water flooding through the zoo, raising the water level in her pen and allowing her to swim over the top of the cage surrounding it.
The 11-year-old hippo made her way to the nearby hamlet of Plavnica, where she was still walking around Tuesday afternoon. "When I got out from my house to feed my cow, I saw a hippo standing in front of the stall," said villager Nikola Radovic. "I thought I was going mad."... I just want to know one thing: did the local radio station play "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" last month?
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01/12/2010 15:27 ||
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Now 55, Morgan is still best known for her 'Caddyshack' portrayal ("Wanna tie me up in some of your ties, Ty?"), as well as her starring role in sci-fi hit 'TRON.'
But she has been no slouch when it comes to continuing her career in Hollywood.
After the movie, Morgan continued acting, with roles in 'Falcon Crest,' 'The Larry Sanders Show,' 'Amazing Stories' and 'Bring 'Em Back Alive.'
She also associate-produced the made-for-TV movies 'Amanda & the Alien' and 'Dead Weekend,' with Stephen Baldwin.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Thousands of people in the Netherlands are preparing themselves for the end of the world in 2012, collecting emergency life supplies.
Radio Netherlands reported on Monday that most people are taking precautions to face the apocalypse as predicted by the Mayan calendar.
According to the Dutch-language De Volkskrant newspaper, supporters of the end of the world theory are even preparing life rafts and emergency supplies. Some interviewed by the newspaper were optimistic about the impending apocalypse, UPI reported.
"You know, maybe it's really not that bad that the Netherlands will be destroyed," Petra Faile said. "I don't like it here anymore. Take immigration, for example. They keep letting people in. And then we have to build more houses, which makes the Netherlands even heavier. The country will sink even lower, which will make the flooding worse."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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"Do not expect too much of the end of the world."
Police in Angola are holding two suspects in connection with the shooting of the Togolese football team which left at least two people dead, Angolan state media said Monday.
Two suspects were arrested in Cabinda, an Angolan enclave inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to where Friday's attack took place, National Radio reported.
"The two elements of FLEC were captured at the scene of the incident, the road to Massabi that connects both countries (Angola and Congo)," Provincial prosecutor Antonio Nito said in a statement published on the state-owned news agency Angop.
The Togo team bus was ambushed by gunmen shortly after crossing from the Republic of Congo into Cabinda where they were to take part in the Africa Cup of Nations tournament which opened Sunday.
According to some Togo players, the insurgents sprayed the bus with bullets for several minutes.
Togo's assistant coach Amalete Abalo and the team's media spokesman Stanislas Ocloo died in Friday's attack. Nine other people were injured including Togo's reserve goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale, who was flown to South Africa for surgery.
The Togolese team withdrew from the tournament following the attack and left Angola on Sunday evening to return home.
A splinter group of the independence movement FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Angola) has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Cabinda has been the scene of a long-running independence struggle. A peace deal was signed in 2006 but low-level insurgency continues in more remote areas of the province.
Calls to scrap the cup matches scheduled to be held in Cabinda, one of four host locations for the three-week competition, have been dismissed by the Angolan government, despite claims by FLEC that they may strike again.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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A little-noted story in Argentina that could explode: a hundred years ago Argentina would have qualified as a 'G8' country. It was rich. It was on the way up. A hundred years later corruption, Peronism, socialism, fascism, and generally stupidity have turned Argentina into a near third world country.
Read carefully. Think it couldn't happen in the US?
The president's ultimatum to her Central Bank chief
TO SUSTAIN its expansionary fiscal policies, Cristina Fernández's government has developed an insatiable hunger for other people's cash. First she ramped up taxes on farmers, then last year she nationalised private pension funds. Now she is trying to lay her hands on the Central Bank's foreign-currency reserves.
Few Argentine politicians are prepared to pay the political cost of spending cuts or tax rises to pay off bondholders.
The Central Bank is formally independent. By law any transfer of reserves requires authorisation by Congress. MartÃn Redrado, the bank's governor, stalled, awaiting legal advice and the outcome of a legal challenge to the reserve grab by the opposition-controlled province of San Luis. On January 6th the government ordered Mr Redrado to resign. He refused, saying he would serve until his term ends in September.
“It wasn't Redrado who accumulated the reserves,' said AnÃbal Fernandez, the cabinet chief (who is not related to the president). “It was [the Kirchners'] government. In this country, it's not the governor of the Central Bank that makes the decisions.' In fact it was Argentine exporters—not the government—whose labours accumulated the reserves. And Ms Fernández, who is deeply unpopular, is finding her decisions contested. In June the government lost its legislative majority in a mid-term election.
Mr Redrado has hitherto gone along with the Kirchners' dash for growth, while trying quietly to moderate some of their policies. If he remains defiant on the reserves, Ms Fernández can oust him only by appealing to a special committee of Congress, which would probably be led by opposition legislators. Ironically, had she sought the approval of Congress for the reserve transfer she might well have got it. Few Argentine politicians are prepared to pay the political cost of spending cuts or tax rises to pay off bondholders. As it is she may have turned the Central Bank chief into a martyr for the cause of integrity in public policy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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Meanwhile, over on the rational side of the Andes. Actions have consequences, here's hoping Americans figure that out before the lesson becomes significantly more painful.
MIAMI – Around 500 Cuban doctors have defected to the United States while serving on aid missions in Venezuela, according to members of Cuban exile groups in Miami. The latest case occurred on Wednesday when seven Cuban physicians managed to leave Caracas' Maiquetia International Airport, after being held there for several hours and after paying hundreds of dollars each to officials.
“The Venezuelan and Cuban officials at Maiquetia systematically subject the doctors who want to leave to psychological pressure until finally they pay bribes,' Cuban doctor Keiler Moreno, who left Caracas five months ago, told Efe. The bribes can range from $300 to as much as $2,000.
Moreno helped several of his colleagues who left Caracas on Wednesday and he waited for them at the Miami airport while they went through legal procedures with U.S. immigration authorities. “We're from the same class that graduated in medicine in 2007 and we help each other out,' he added.
Several Catholic associations and the Miami-based organization Solidaridad Sin Fronteras (Solidarity Without Borders) will also provide assistance to the four Cuban men and three women who arrived on Wednesday.
Sources with Miami's massive Cuban exile community say that around 2,000 physicians and other health care personnel have defected since 2006 and requested visas to come to the United States. Of that number, 500 came through Venezuela and just in the last year, about 200 arrived in Miami.
“I was in Venezuela for eight months and five months ago I arrived in Miami. To be able to leave you have to request an entry visa to the United States at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. The problem is that the Venezuelan officials don't give permission to leave. Finally, everything gets resolved with a bribe,' Moreno said.
The 27-year-old physician emphasized that the Cuban and Venezuelan officials put the doctors who want to leave through “psychological torture that can cause panic crises.' “They're seeking, specifically, repentance, but if one resists a bit, the bribe does the rest,' he said.
About 45,000 Cuban doctors and other health care workers are participating in Venezuela in the “Barrio Adentro' public health program designed to try and make up for the lack of such personnel in Venezuela.
Although the Cuban doctors who arrive in the United States cannot practice medicine until they get the proper licenses, Dr. Moreno said that they prefer to confront that situation rather than remain in a system plagued by corruption.
The seven Cuban physicians who arrived on Wednesday in Miami will remain for several days in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement until they receive their permits to stay in the country, which will allow them to go through the procedure to acquire residence. EFE
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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Stories like this have been making the rounds for a couple years. Cuba pays Venezuela with doctors for oil. The doctors promptly flee to Columbia and then to the US.
China has successfully tested a new technology designed to shoot down incoming missiles in mid-air, in a move that Chinese military experts claimed was a "breakthrough" for the country's rapidly modernising armed forces. The announcement of the successful test, made by the state news agency Xinhua, comes after a week of diplomatic tensions over a US decision to sell advanced Patriot anti-missile systems to neighbouring Taiwan.
"China conducted a test on ground-based midcourse missile interception technology within its territory. The test has achieved the expected objective," said the terse, three-sentence statement by Xinhua. "The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country," it added....
The successful test follows China's 2007 announcement that it had successfully shot-down a satellite in a move which was seen as a deliberately public demonstration of its growing military capabilities.
The Pentagon said it had not received prior notification of the test and declined to see any link with arms sales to Taiwan. However it confirmed that the test had taken place and was seeking more information.
"We detected two geographically separated missile launch events with an exo-atmospheric collision also being observed by space-based sensors," said Major Maureen Schumann, a Pentagon spokeswoman. Belmont Club has additional commentary on this story. Also, the lack of intermediate tests of a developing system leads one to suspect that this is stolen (or purchased) technology
Posted by: abu do you love ||
01/12/2010 05:04 ||
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The South Korean snack Choco Pie is a sought-after delicacy in North Korea, selling for US$9.50 a piece in the black market. Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper on Sunday said North Korean workers in the joint-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex are given two or three Choco Pies a day by South Korean factory owners and sell them in the black market for extra cash.
Nearly 2.5 million Choco Pies are traded each month in the black market. The monthly wage for North Korean workers in the Kaesong Industrial Park is $57, so they can earn an extra sixth by selling a single Choco Pie.
The snacks are traded via North Korean middlemen in the border city of Shinuiju. It appears that specialized markets have even been formed, with groups trading exclusively in Choco Pie. Each trader group has some 30 members.
The black market has been fueled by the explosive popularity of the South Korean product among Kaesong workers, who have spread the word about how tasty it is. An official at the Unification Ministry in Seoul says, "I heard that Choco Pie wrappers are rarely found in garbage in the Kaesong Industrial Park" suggesting that they are all sold on.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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US$57.0 per month divided by 30 Days or 31 days per month equals ......, which I'm safely a'guessin' is NOT equal to US$9.50 per Choco Pie.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama.
“Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It's a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse,' Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber's outlook for 2010.
Donohue said the lawmakers should not let former President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of year and lambasted Democratic efforts on healthcare and financial regulatory reform as well as climate change.
If the tax cuts are allowed to expire, “we will likely end up with even bigger deficits and greater economic misery,' Donohue said.
Many tax lobbyists expect Congress to extend the cuts for people with lower tax rates, but to allow higher rates to be reimposed on those in the top bracket.
He also faulted Obama and Democratic lawmakers for not doing more to create jobs.
Donohue criticized a separate tax on banks floated by the administration on Monday, and said that the rationale for any tax increases would be increased spending, not lowering huge budget deficits exacerbated by the recession.
“We are talking about a massive tax increase in a very weak economy — a tax increase whose clearly intended purpose is not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for more spending,' he said.
He also promised the Chamber would be more involved in the 2010 midterm election than it has been in any other before, and will hold accountable lawmakers who vote against the group's priorities.
Donohue's speech follows a year in which the nation's leading business lobbying group consistently butted heads with the Democratic White House, particularly on Obama's keystone issues of healthcare and climate change.
The Chamber stumbled at times. Several high-profile members, including Apple, left the Chamber because of the group's opposition to Obama's pursuit of climate change legislation. Nike quit the Chamber's board of directors over the same issue, publicly complaining that the business group was not representing all of its members on the issue.
In October, pranksters pretending to be Chamber officials held a fake press conference announcing the group had shifted its stance on climate change. Chamber officials trekked to the National Press Club after a wire service issued an incorrect story based on a fake news release put out by a group known as The Yes Men.
On healthcare, Donohue said the legislation under consideration by Congress would do nothing to rein in costs and was a prescription for “fiscal insolvency and an eventual government takeover of American healthcare.'
He said the House climate bill would raise energy costs and kill jobs.
Donohue also blasted the administration's policies on trade, hitting it for not sending to Congress pending deals negotiated by the Bush administration with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.
“We need a bold and aggressive trade policy, something we don't have today,' he said.
The Chamber is predicting the economy will grow at a rate of about 3 percent in 2010. The business lobby has set out a goal of creating 20 million new jobs over the next 10 years.
The latest budget plan from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would force 200,000 children off low-cost medical insurance, end in-home care for 350,000 infirm and elderly citizens and slash income assistance to hundreds of thousands more. And that's the best-case scenario under Schwarzenegger's prescription for filling the state's $19.9 billion deficit.
Refusing to consider broad tax hikes, he is relying mostly on $8.5 billion in reduced expenditures including drastic cuts to health and social spending that has long made California one of the leading U.S. states in providing help to the needy.
Schwarzenegger also is counting on the U.S. government contributing nearly $7 billion that he says is due California because of various federal mandates. If federal money fails to materialize, the governor's plan would trigger deeper cuts that would dismantle entire programs, including the state's welfare-to-work system, CalWorks.
Enactment of the Republican governor's proposal, with or without Washington's cooperation, is far from certain given that leaders of the Democratic-controlled state legislature immediately rebuffed it as too harsh.
Even representatives of Schwarzenegger's own government acknowledged the drastic scope of his proposed cuts, which the governor himself described as "draconian."
"They are major reductions in health and human services in California, whether we get the federal funds or not," said Amy Palmer, spokeswoman for the state agency overseeing many of the programs hardest hit. "If we don't get the federal funds, the reductions ... are devastating."
Critics say many such cuts ultimately would cost the state more money than they save, as when elderly patients forced out of adult day-care facilities end up in nursing homes.
"You're blowing entire holes in the safety net," said Kelly Brooks, an analyst for the California State Association of Counties, which lobbies on behalf of county governments that stand to bear much of the added burden from such cuts.
No one understands better than Anthony Arias, 25, who sought assistance from CalWorks in 2008 after he was laid off from his warehouse job in the midst of the recession. Unable to find steady work, and sharing custody of his 3-year-old son, Arias had to drop out of community college east of Los Angeles as he slipped into a financial tailspin.
"It was getting bad to the point where there were days when I didn't have food," he recalled.
But with a monthly CalWorks check that helps pay his rent, and state-subsidized child support, Arias has since managed to complete training to become a barber -- a more gainful vocation with flexible hours that will enable him to return to school to earn a degree as a paralegal assistant.
"There's no way I would have been able to survive without the help of CalWorks," he said.
Arias is just one of 1.3 million CalWorks beneficiaries -- most of them children -- who will see their monthly assistance checks cut by 16 percent under Schwarzenegger's proposal, even if federal dollars sought by the governor arrive.
His plan also would immediately reduce CalWorks child-care payments and kick some 24,000 legal immigrants off the rolls.
Without extra federal money, CalWorks would be eliminated altogether, leaving California the only U.S. state no longer a part of transforming the nation's welfare system into a program aimed at moving poor, jobless Americans into full employment.
Others programs on the chopping block include transitional housing for foster youth; low-cost Healthy Families medical insurance for needy children, the Medi-Cal healthcare plan for the poor, and a network of subsidized in-home care for the elderly and disabled. At least 200,000 children are slated to lose eligibility for Healthy Families, with that number growing to 900,000 if the program is gutted entirely.
Nearly 90 percent of the 400,000 recipients of In-Home Support Services stand to lose care under Schwarzenegger's best-case scenario, and state reimbursements to providers of those who remain would be slashed to minimum-wage levels. Otherwise, the program would be abolished, throwing 350,000 caregivers out of work.
For Medi-Cal, Schwarzenegger has proposed clamping new limits on health services while raising premiums and patient co-pays if he gets the extra federal money he wants. Medi-Cal for legal immigrants in the country less than five years would be eliminated, unless they were pregnant.
If additional federal funds fail to arrive, some 450,000 Medi-Cal recipients would be stripped of eligibility and most optional adult benefits, such as reimbursements for hearing aids and other medical equipment, would be scrapped. But how would this affect illegal immigrants? What are you going to do about them? Are their "sacrifices" included in these numbers?
And if it gets bad enough, I guess the extended family will have to become part of the social landscape again.
In my opinion, executives have been rewarded for the wrong thing: Short-term profits. They need to be rewarded for long-term sustainability and growth. They need to be rewarded for outperforming their peers in the long term. Since nobody can see into the future, that is going to mean they ought to receive a reasonable base salary plus stock options that they can't exercise for at least three years or so, and vest over the following few years. Of course, these options will need some sort of expiration date that ensures they get paddled if the bank's performance dips for any unreasonably long time. I'm not sure how to deal with retirement and how the succeeding executives decisions affect the retirees' stock, but perhaps there can be some sort of advisory panel the retirees could create to ensure that wisdom is passed along so that everyone can succeed. Because despite the best of intentions, the new executives will not know everything they need to know at first to about the same degree as the experienced executives will not be able to keep up with new ideas.
Another problem I see here is that these executives have houses to pay for. They should be able to keep them, but not much more than that for now.
Is the government trying to hide banks in danger of collapse by forcing the TARP money on everyone? That means that even the executives of successful banks are going to have to forego big bonuses until everyone pays back the TARP money, or people will be able to figure out which banks are in danger, which will only result in an otherwise unnecessary collapse.
Under pressure to prevent another meltdown, Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley have been cutting back on cash bonuses and insisting on so-called clawbacks -- arrangements that allow companies to reclaim past bonuses when there is employee misconduct. About effing time.
Yet for all their supposed reform-mindedness, the banks show no sign of pulling the emergency brake on the great compensation escalator.
A year after taxpayers saved the finance industry from collapse, the big banks will hand out billions of dollars in bonuses in the coming weeks -- at a time where unemployment tops 10% and many people are still losing their homes to foreclosures. To say this rankles in some quarters is an understatement. Perhaps base salaries, bonuses, and stock options could somehow be tied to multiples of the average income.
"There is a need to show restraint considering the unusual circumstances of the past year or so," said Tim Smith, a senior vice president at socially responsible investment firm Walden Asset Management in Boston. "That's what you're not seeing right now."
Take Goldman Sachs. After losing more than $3 billion in the last four months of 2008, the securities firm is on track to lavish some $21 billion on its workers for 2009, now that the firm has returned to profitability. That's in line with the amount Goldman paid in its record profit year of 2007.
Goldman won't be the only one dispensing a lot of loot. Compensation expense at JPMorgan Chase's investment banking arm was up 20% in the first three quarters of 2009, the New York state comptroller's office estimates. Even Morgan Stanley, which only recently broke an embarrassing streak of quarterly losses, could pay workers $14 billion.
To be fair, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are reforming how they compensate top execs, doling out less cash and issuing more stock that must be held for several years.
But while some banks have been willing to engage critics of their compensation-setting processes, they haven't been inclined to limit the size of paychecks.
When times are good, those can be rather large. In 2007, for instance, Goldman's top five executives -- CEO Lloyd Blankfein, co-presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, finance chief David Viniar and chief administrative officer Edward Forst -- combined to make $322 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings
Though none of the firm's top five leaders received more than $5.3 million in 2008, this year's giant trading profits could mean a return to the eye-popping paychecks of yore.
That's inappropriate considering the risks taxpayers took on in financing the resuscitation of the banking sector last year, said Laura Shaffer, director of shareholder activities at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York, which owns a stake in Goldman Sachs.
She notes the billions of dollars in Troubled Asset Relief Program loans that the big banks took and then repaid, as well as the benefits they reaped via the bailout of troubled insurer AIG and the expanded federal backstops of bank deposits, bank bonds and money market funds.
All these stand as asterisks to the $51 billion in profits that the six biggest bank holding companies -- Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo along with Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase -- posted in the first nine months of 2009. Goldman alone is responsible for almost a quarter of that.
"There's a sense on our part that the performance we've seen at Goldman isn't true performance," said Shaffer. And accounting practices need to be standardized, understandable, and realistic. As do measures of performance.
Accordingly, the Cummings foundation has sponsored a resolution calling on the Goldman board to report back to shareholders on whether senior executives' compensation is "excessive," judging by the gap between top execs' pay and that of other workers.
The so-called pay disparity resolution isn't the only one of its kind. A group of institutional investors belonging to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) this month filed shareholder resolutions along the same lines at 21 big health industry companies, including insurer Aetna, drugmaker Eli Lilly and mail order pharmacy Medco.
Those resolutions will go up for shareholder votes when the companies hold their annual meetings. Though it can take years to build enough stockholder support to give a proposal even a shot at passage, would-be reformers are hopeful that the disconnect between massive job losses and soaring CEO pay will win over some skeptics.
"There is a lot of discontent right now among shareholders," said Julie Tanner, assistant director of socially responsible investing at Christian Brothers Investment Services, which like Nathan Cummings is a member of ICCR.
Putting the details of giant pay packages before shareholders can shame board members into getting a stronger grip on the compensation process, Tanner said. This is the logic of the say-on-pay movement, whose advocates have enlisted more than three dozen companies -- including Goldman -- to hold advisory votes next year on compensation practices.
Investors aren't the only possible source of friction on giant paychecks. The Federal Reserve said this fall it will examine bank pay practices, in a review some experts expect to result in some "pushback" for big banks. But it's not clear how aggressive the Fed will be. And while greater disclosure and transparency are surely welcome, they will do little now to bring down egregious pay on Wall Street.
"Putting pressure on boards is a long process," said David DeBoskey, a finance professor at San Diego State. "In the meantime, every day is Christmas for these guys."
Gasoline prices on Monday continued their push toward $3 per gallon. The only question now is when?
Prices have been jumping on the back of a strong oil market where the cost for a barrel has spiked 20 percent in the past month on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Skyrocketing gasoline prices couldn't come at a worse time for motorists, who will see heating bills jump after the worst cold spell in years. Oil prices are now about three times what they were a year ago.
Prices rose 1.4 cents overnight to $2.749 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Prices have climbed 8.4 cents a gallon in the past week and are 95.5 cents higher than a year ago. The AAA survey shows prices have jumped 8 cents or more in the past week in many parts of the country, including Dallas, Chicago, Miami and Columbus, Ohio.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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The other question is, how much damage will higher petro prices do to an already shaky economy?
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Much I think. They tend to be the canary in the coal mine and with the pack of yahoos we have in DC these days we won't even be able to count on the silver line of a strong domestic energy boom.
A double standard? Republicans seeking Sen. Harry Reid's resignation as majority leader over racial remarks he made about Barack Obama say yes - that Reid should be held to the same standard as former GOP Sen. Trent Lott, whose own racial gaffes cost him the Senate leadership in 2002.
Democrats say no, that Reid's comments - while unfortunate - were nothing like Lott's.
Of course not. Let me count the ways ....
1) Lott was joking.
2) Reid's comments were a Freudian slip, even if well-intentioned. About Nobama and negroes like him.
Don't do it ...
Russia will lease one of its newest nuclear-powered submarines to India in the second half of this year, Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Defence Ministry official as saying on Tuesday.
The submarine to be leased is the Nerpa, which had accident in the Sea of Japan in November 2008 in which 20 people were killed. The Russian military had previously denied media reports that the submarine was to be leased to India.
"The lease of the Nerpa nuclear submarine to India for 10 years ... will take place this summer or autumn," the unidentified official told the agency.
The Nerpa, armed with conventional weapons, was laid down in 1993 but was launched and started sea trials only in 2008 due to the piecemeal funding of its construction. The submarine "successfully concluded sea trials last December", the Defence Ministry official told Itar-Tass. How do the 20 dead sailors feel about the sea trials?
Citing its source, Itar-Tass said the submarine would be bid goodbye and good-riddance handed over to an Indian crew in the port of Vladivostok, Russia's military base and the main gateway to the Pacific.
Russia, India's close economic and political partner since Soviet days, is one of the world's major arms exporters. It has a fleet of nuclear-powered but conventionally armed submarines besides its strategic nuclear-armed vessels, which are not sold abroad.
[Geo News] A husband and wife killed their three-month-old daughter and buried her inside the
The accused Nadeem and his wife killed their daughter Fazeelat as part of a ritual performed on the instructions of an alleged cleric
house in Orangi Town No-6 in Karachi.
While on the timely information of the neighbors, the police raided the house and saved the other girl from getting killed. According to police, the accused Nadeem and his wife killed their daughter Fazeelat as part of a ritual performed on the instructions of an alleged cleric. The accused told they had received a basharat in dream to kill and burry their daughter. The police said that the accused parents were also planning to kill their second daughter, who was tied with ropes when the police reached the scene.
The accused were shifted to Zaman Town Police Station for further interrogations.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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Where is this `alledged cleric`? I hope the police perform some genuine Pakistani interrogations on him as well.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Malaysia on Monday defended its refusal to allow non-Muslims to use the word "Allah", as a dispute over the issue saw a ninth church attacked in a spate of fire-bombings and vandalism.
The Sidang Injil Borneo Church in the central state of Negri Sembilan was the latest to be targeted amid anger over a court decision to overrule a government ban on Malaysia's minorities using "Allah" as a translation for "God".
The church attacks which erupted last Friday have sent tensions soaring in the multicultural nation, where the Muslim Malay majority lives alongside ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.
Home Ministry secretary-general Mahmood Adam, who briefed foreign diplomats on the crisis Monday, said they had asked why the term was off-limits when it is widely used by Christians in Indonesia and the Middle East.
"They don't understand the situation here, they just want to know why it can be allowed in other countries and not here," he told reporters.
"Be fair, you have to compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Our landscape is different from other countries. Malays here are different from (Muslims in) other countries.
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01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] MALAYSIAN Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has confirmed seven attacks on churches but said the situation is not serious.
'So far the attacks have involved stone throwing and arson attempts. There is no serious damage,' he said on Sunday.
The All Saints' Church at Jalan Taming Sari and the SMK Convent along Jalan Convent in Taiping were targets of arson attempts on Sunday. Mr Hishammuddin said the incidents were isolated and not coordinated.
Mr Hishammuddin, who is also an Umno vice-president, said the narrow-minded agenda pursued by certain quarters was aimed at creating chaos and inciting hatred towards Umno and the Government. 'Over the past two or three days, we are tested yet again when certain quarters have taken advantage to point fingers at Umno and the government by suggesting that we are behind the religious incitement. Such allegations are baseless. These people have nothing better to do but to point fingers at others.
'The situation is under control. We are monitoring the situation so that it will not become extreme and affect the peace and harmony we have built in the country all these while,' he said.
Both he and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin called for maturity in dealing with the situation. 'Don't be trapped in emotions, don't be trapped by finger-pointing politics to the extent that the situation becomes out of control,' said Mr Khairy on Sunday. 'Of course, there are many discussions in blogs but what's important is our actions. We must not fan the fire. We must put the fire out. We do what's best for all.'
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2010 00:00 ||
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Eleventh Ward Ald. James Balcer believes the new blockbuster movie is anti-military and anti-American.
Balcer is a decorated Marine veteran of the Vietnam war, and now he's going into battle against the film that may turn out to be the biggest moneymaker of all time. He hates the film's message, and he's not alone.
In the movie, an army of mercenaries, led by a villainous Marine, invades the idyllic planet of Pandora and goes after the peaceful blue creatures who live there over deposits of a precious mineral.
Balcer says the film makes Marines "look like lunatics." In reality, he said, "We are a good, generous country that helps people."
Balcer's not the only critic blasting "Avatar" for its point of view. There is also conservative activist Tom Roeser.
"This is the only time I ever sat in a theater where people were cheering the forest and the blue people, attacking ex-Marines," Roeser said.
Asked if the film is anti-American and anti military, Balcer said, "Well, they never mentioned America but when you have the eagle, globe and anchor -- the Marine Corps emblem -- it has to be America."
"And that's the Hollywood view of us," Roeser complained. "We are the exploiters, we are pre-emptive attackers."
Others who have seen the film were less critical.
"To me it was more talking about people's exploitations on resources," Michelle Tan said.
"It can be kind of like, liberal and anti-military, but overall, the message was more like humanitarian," Tatiana Favelevic said.
The film critic for the right-wing Weekly Standard calls the film "blitheringly stupid" and among the "dumbest movies I've ever seen." Others have attacked it for its super-environmentalism and what is perceived as an anti-Christian slant.
None of this has kept "Avatar" from becoming a huge moneymaker all over the world.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
01/12/2010 14:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ma's birthday party the other day. All my nephews, nieces and their significant others (24) were there and have seen it. Consensus: Too long, not that good.
#3
I saw it, mostly for the CGI/special effects, which were amazing. Other than that, the plot was simplistic, and the message was repetitive.
I knew going in that it had the eco-worshiping/anti military crap, and just filtered it out.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/12/2010 19:23 Comments ||
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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.
Cindy Morgan Now 
[Iran Press TV Latest] Thousands of people in the Netherlands are preparing themselves for the end of the world in 2012, collecting emergency life supplies. 
Police in Angola are holding two suspects in connection with the shooting of the Togolese football team which left at least two people dead, Angolan state media said Monday.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama.
Gasoline prices on Monday continued their push toward $3 per gallon. The only question now is when?
Eleventh Ward Ald. James Balcer believes the new blockbuster movie is anti-military and anti-American. 
