Jermaine Jackson (aka Mohammed Abdul Aziz), revealed to the Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, in an exclusive interview on February 7, that his brother Michael may soon convert to Islam. Jermaine Jackson, 53, who took part in the controversial Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4, discusses about his conversion and how his faith helped him get through the reality programme.
Jermaine was very sure that his brother, Michael, would convert to Islam. He said that Michael has shown a lot of interest in Islam. “When I came back from Makakah I got him a lot of books and he asked me lots of things about my religion and I told him that it’s peaceful and beautiful. He read everything and he was proud of me that I found something that would give me inner strength and peace. I think it is most probable that Michael will convert to Islam.”
Jeramaine believes if Michael converts, he would do a lot for Muslims. “He could do so much, just like I am trying to do. But Michael and I and the word of God, we could do so much. I think it’s time the young Muslims today should be proud and stay focused and not to fall in the pits of ridicule from the Western world and media and not to let these extremists try to label them as extremist and terrorist.”
Continued on Page 49
#2
I want to hear him proclaim "I'm A Muslim" After he finds out first hand how Muslims treat blacks, I predict a very rapid and very public "Change of Heart"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/22/2007 11:44 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I think his problem is he's mispronouncing it. It's called "Saudi Arabia," not "Sodomy Arabia."
Posted by: Mike ||
02/22/2007 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The good Muslim is supposed to immitate the behavior of Mohammed, and Jacko'd be the perfect follower of the Pedophile Prophet!
#7
since music and entertainment is forbidden under muzzie law, our boy Jacko(ff) won't be able to support himself. What's he gonna do ??
As long as he stays 'over there,' I really don't giveadamn. just another hollywierdloser.
The feuding mother, partner and former boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith took a brief break from a courtroom battle over the Playboy model's corpse on Wednesday to get a private viewing of her rapidly decomposing body in a Florida morgue. The visitation came on the fifth day of hearings before south Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin, who has said he will decide
Smith was finally embalmed on Saturday, after a struggle to find a funeral home willing to sign a confidentiality agreement. But Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper said the corpse was decomposing quickly and would soon be unsuitable for a family viewing.
by Friday whether to let Smith's body be released to her companion Howard K. Stern and buried in the Bahamas, or to her estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, and buried in Texas.
The body of Smith -- famous in life for her abundant curves -- has lain in cold storage for nearly two weeks at the Broward Medical Examiner's Office since she died on February 8 at a Florida casino hotel of unexplained causes, aged 39. It was finally embalmed on Saturday, after a struggle to find a funeral home willing to sign a confidentiality agreement. But Seidlin got a call from Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper on Tuesday and again on Wednesday saying the corpse was decomposing quickly and would soon be unsuitable for a family viewing.
Arthur, Stern and Larry Birkhead, a former Smith boyfriend who claims to be the father of her 5-month-old daughter, were ferried in black sport utility vehicles from the court to the morgue for a viewing of the former Playboy centerfold model. Birkhead is due to testify in the case on behalf of Smith's mother, arguing for her burial in Texas. The hearings before Seidlin, who again on Wednesday swatted aside complaints from lawyers that the proceedings had become a circus, were dominated by accusations that all involved were trying to profit from Smith's corpse.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
She's the Generalissimo Francisco Franco of our era:
"There has been no change in Anna Nicole Smith's condition, she is still dead."
Posted by: Mike ||
02/22/2007 5:42 Comments ||
Top||
#2
You know - and for those who might be reading this over breakfast, be prepared - I suspect that one reason all three sides are fighting so hard over the body is that each one of them has a quiet agreement with one tabloid or the other to provide 'secret' pics of ANS in her casket. The longer this goes on, the less likely that will be to happen, and it wouldn't surprise me to discover that somebody's already taken an advance on it...one that they'll have to give back.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/22/2007 7:59 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Examiner Joshua Perper on Tuesday and again on Wednesday saying the corpse was decomposing quickly and would soon be unsuitable for a family viewing.
Quite a "Bunny" she was. Can't help but wonder if anyone considered consulting a taxidermist?
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In a surprise move, Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin issued a ruling on Thursday in the case of the deposition of the remains on Anna Nicole Smith. The judge has ruled that the guardian of Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter should get custody of the model's body to bury her.
Richard Milstine, Esq gets the body. Now off to the Bamamas before she gets too ripe.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/22/2007 15:55 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Weeping judges are liberal judges. Judge Maudlin should have remained a taxi driver. Fortunately, the estate money is still in the US, and out of the way of the sleezy lawyer who likes to be confused with a notorious shock jock.
Britney Spears was reported to have left a Malibu rehabilitation center on Wednesday just 24 hours after checking herself in following weeks of troubling behavior culminating in shaving her own head. Celebrity Web sites TMZ.com, theinsideronline.com and People.com said the singer, 25, left what should have been a month long program at the Promises residential center on Wednesday morning.
It was the second time in less than a week that Spears had reportedly sought help at residential rehab center and then left a day later.
It was the second time in less than a week that Spears had reportedly sought help at residential rehab center and then left a day later. "It was against their advice," one unidentified source told People magazine. "If she comes back for treatment, Promises will have to assess the situation. Sometimes people come back but it doesn't look good."
Spears, whose life appears to have spiraled out of control since filing for divorce last November shortly after giving birth to her second child, entered the facility voluntarily on Tuesday. Her manager, Larry Rudolph, issued a statement asking for privacy. Neither Rudolph nor Spears' record label returned calls asking for comment on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Is she going to a re-hair center next?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/22/2007 5:44 Comments ||
Top||
#2
..Let's see - this stuff comes in threes, so whoever's next has one hell of a bar to clear.
This is truly sad though in a general sense - Spears and (to an even greater extent) Lindsay Lohan were held up as examples of taleneted and 'empowered' (Gawd, I hate that word) young women. It turns out though that they really were nothing more than overgrown children who believed their own press releases (and their own parents) and are utterly unable to cope with anything even remotely resembling real life. With a little luck the world will forget about them, but I have a sneaking suspicion we're in for a couple of Michael Jackson-level, multi-decade meltdowns here.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/22/2007 8:05 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/22/2007 9:23 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I do believe it's about time for the mods to close the door on this goat raping low life.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/22/2007 9:25 Comments ||
Top||
#7
We're trying.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2007 9:32 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Justice,
Speaking of goat raping, how do you keep them from eating your unwashed pecker during oral?
Also, does goat quim taste anything like a human quim? What's that? You don't know what human quim tastes like? Oh. Nevermind then.
Do you prefer goats or little boys?
Are you sure you're not just angry that Ms. Spears can chose for herself what to do with her hair?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/22/2007 9:34 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Poor Justice-his little baby eyes got burned by looking at that big bad Western female crotch...go home to Mommy, Justice, she'll make it all better. She doesn't have one of those nasty nasties, no sirree.
#10
Yeah Justice, listen to Jules, you'll feel better if you go home to kill your mother. That is, if you didn't already have to kill her because she was dishonored when you raped her.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/22/2007 9:51 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Looks like your sister and your mom had a tough night in that picture, Justice. Maybe you could get dad out of your mouth and maybe pick them up?
They match your DNA up on that goat sex thing yet?
#12
Okay, okay, okay, no need to descend to his level.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2007 10:37 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Well, that saves a trip to the Sink Trap; I get the idea!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/22/2007 11:27 Comments ||
Top||
#14
I personaly would not mind getting dog shit on my hand, if I could smear it in JUSTICE'S mouth, I can wash my hands far easier than he can wash out his mouth. (that's how you teach young Dogs not to Poop in the house)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/22/2007 11:40 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Back on topic: these lines from a Mose Allison song come to mind:
What do you doooooooooo
After you ruin your life?
Where do you go?
Who do you know?
What do you doooooooo
After you've blown the game?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2007 12:14 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Great pic
I disagree. I'm trying to eat breakfast, here, people!
Sorry to post the whole thing, but there are some very important facts in here (and a good smackdown of the DDT scare in the 60s at the end).
When Eric the Red led the Norwegian Vikings to Greenland in the late 900s, it was an ice-free farm country--grass for sheep and cattle, open water for fishing, a livable climate--so good a colony that by 1100 there were 3,000 people living there. Then came the Ice Age. By 1400, average temperatures had declined by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the glaciers had crushed southward across the farmlands and harbors, and the Vikings did not survive.
Such global temperature fluctuations are not surprising, for looking back in history we see a regular pattern of warming and cooling. From 200 B.C. to A.D. 600 saw the Roman Warming period; from 600 to 900, the cold period of the Dark Ages; from 900 to 1300 was the Medieval warming period; and 1300 to 1850, the Little Ice Age.
During the 20th century the earth did indeed warm--by 1 degree Fahrenheit. But a look at the data shows that within the century temperatures varied with time: from 1900 to 1910 the world cooled; from 1910 to 1940 it warmed; from 1940 to the late 1970s it cooled again, and since then it has been warming. Today our climate is 1/20th of a degree Fahrenheit warmer than it was in 2001.
Posted by: BA ||
02/22/2007 11:24 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I related most of this info before from the journal articles. Let me say again that there are a large number of atmospheric scientists who are employed by the government...who are skeptical of "man-caused" global warming...who are prohibited by law/policy from speaking out.
#2
Rachel Carson is the reason my father isn't rich... and why I exist. While playing chemistry professor at Wisconsin U at Madison, Daddy had discovered and patented a compound that made DDT equally effective at something like a 1/10th dose. It was in production one year when Ms. Carson's book came out-- and of course production was discontinued. So he moved to Buffalo, NY to take up oncology research, and was introduced to his future wife/my future mother that weekend. He still gets riled by the illogical, nonscientific thought that the authorities bought into. He gets riled about the cyclamate ban (on the US side of the border, up in Canada they banned saccharine using the exact same logic) for the same reason, poor man.
More than 680 people have died in a suspected cholera outbreak in Ethiopia that has also affected neighboring countries, officials said Wednesday.
Some 60,000 people have been infected, but the country's Health Ministry is resisting pressure to declare an emergency.
Some 60,000 people have been infected, but the country's Health Ministry is resisting pressure to declare an emergency despite a U.N. warning that the disease is an epidemic. "The fact that it is spreading to new areas in the country is cause for serious concern," said Paul Hebert, head of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia. "The full extent of this needs to be addressed."
The U.N. has not officially declared the outbreak, which began nearly a year ago, to be cholera. But U.N. officials speaking privately because of the sensitivity of the issue are saying it is cholera, something local officials continue to deny.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Bad sanitation. Bad water. Bad juju.
Maybe the local health officials are right and it is not cholera. Could be one of those virulent hemorrhagic fevers that cause all of your fluids to leak out.
In a move that will stun the Muslim world, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt and one of the highest-ranking Sunni authorities, has said that hymen reconstruction surgery for women who have lost their virginity before marriage is halal (permissible) and that a man has no right to demand proof of a woman's virginity if he cannot provide proof of his own. In addition, the fatwa states that a woman who has had sex before marriage but has sincerely repented is under no obligation to inform her husband of her sexual status...
A kick boxer suspected of involvement in Britain's biggest cash robbery was jailed for eight months by a Moroccan court on Wednesday for possessing drugs and assaulting police officers. Britons Lee Murray and Paul Allen, who were arrested in a shopping mall in Rabat in June, were also fined 10,000 dirhams (605 pounds). The court ordered them to pay 303,100 dirhams to Moroccan customs related to drug possession. They must remain behind bars until the fine is paid, even though they have already served the jail terms.
Murray arrived in Morocco shortly after a 53 million pound armed hold-up of a Securitas cash depot in Kent, England, and was arrested by Moroccan security forces with Allen and two other Britons in June. The two other Britons were given four-month jail terms and fines of 5,000 dirhams. British police have charged several people in connection with the February 2006 heist and Britain has begun extradition proceedings against Murray, whose father is a Moroccan who emigrated to Britain.
Officials said police discovered small amounts of cocaine when they raided a villa in the wealthy Rabat suburb of Souissi where Murray was living with the men who acted as his bodyguards. Murray had pleaded not guilty to drug possession and assaulting the police officers who arrested him. Murray's wife, mother and father, who attended the trial, smiled when the verdict was translated for them. "The decision was unexpected and is 100 percent satisfying," said Murray's defence lawyer Abdullah Benlemhidi al-Issaoui, who said he expected a decision on the extradition by Morocco's Supreme Court soon.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Give us our cut of the loot, and you can go.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/22/2007 9:41 Comments ||
Top||
Zimbabwe's state-run media lavished praise on veteran President Robert Mugabe on the 83rd birthday of Africa's oldest-serving leader on Wednesday while stores in the capital, Harare, ran out of bread. "President an unparalleled visionary," read the headline of the Herald newspaper, which dedicated 16 pages to pictures and congratulatory messages to the man who has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1980.
The Defence Ministry took out a half-page advert in the same paper in which a procession of
Military chiefs lined up to laud Mugabe for his "heroic guidance and leadership during and after the liberation struggle".
military chiefs lined up to laud Mugabe for his "heroic guidance and leadership during and after the liberation struggle".
But as constant refrains of the song God bless President Mugabe rang out on state radio, the impact of the economic crisis being presided over by the president came into focus as bakers halted bread production. A lavish party is due to be held on Saturday in the city of Gweru to celebrate Mugabe, but critics say the traditional birthday bash is particularly ill-conceived this year with much of the population now forced to skip meals. With inflation running at nearly 1600% and much of the public sector on strike, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is sniffing the opportunity to capitalise on unrest with the country's founding father.
Mugabe struck a familiar note by insisting that there was no vacancy at the top. "There are no vacancies because I am still there. Can you see you any vacancies? The door is closed."
But in an eve-of-birthday interview on Tuesday night, Mugabe struck a familiar note of defiance by insisting that there was no vacancy at the top. "There are no vacancies because I am still there. Can you see you any vacancies? The door is closed," he told his interviewer.
And in a shot across the bows of any potential successors within his own Zanu-PF party, Mugabe also denounced his Cabinet. "It's in regard to the issue of honesty that I find many of them deficient," he said.
Mugabe has previously said he would step down at the end of his current term in 2008 but his ruling party last December passed a resolution -- still to be approved by the central committee -- to extend his rule by another two years in order to have concurrent presidential and parliamentary polls.
This article starring:
Movement for Democratic Change
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"There are no vacancies because I am still there. Can you see you any vacancies? The door is closed," he told his interviewer.
Well all I can say is, wish to heaven, someone would kick that flipping door down and take this savage out, once and for all!
At least 38 Rwandan militiamen and five democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) soldiers have been killed in clashes this week as DRC's government strives to impose its authority on the country's war-torn east, a United Nations official said on Wednesday. Major Ajay Dalal, spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in North Kivu province, said the fighting erupted after DRC's army deployed a battalion last week made up of reintegrated combatants from a 1998 to 2003 war. "The mixed brigade started patrolling and some of their patrols met with the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda] and there were some clashes," Dalal told Reuters by telephone.
Citing casualty figures provided by the DRC army, he said at least 38 militia fighters had been killed during the past two days, compared with only five army dead. The UN mission in DRC (Monuc) had not been able to independently verify these figures, he added.
The fighting took place in jungle about 30km north-east of the North Kivu town of Rutshuru, close to DRC's eastern frontier with Rwanda and Uganda. "Monuc is now patrolling the area," said Dalal. "The present situation is calm but volatile."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Five US universities have opened satellite campuses in the Mideast state
It looks like an American college campus, except for those little things like – a sign by the gate that admonishes undergraduates to "Please Remind Your Maids That They Are Not Allowed Beyond the Entrance." Or the fact that although nearly everyone is wearing jeans, you'd never know it because most are covered by full-length abayas and dishdashas. Welcome to Education City – Qatar's 2,500-acre answer to getting a top US education without giving up your mom's pampering, your maid's cooking, or your weekend camel races.
Taking globalization of higher education to new heights, five American universities, including Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown, have opened satellite campuses here in the past few years, employing some of the same professors as at their stateside campuses, demanding the same tuition, and – theoretically – providing the same education.
At least the students aren't memorizing the Qur'an.
The aim, says Nawal Abdullah al-Shaikh, spokeswoman for the country's Supreme Education Council, is to create an environment of reform and progress without losing strong Islamic values. "We need to invest in, better, and diversify our educational system, but we also need and want to remain a traditional society," she says.
James Reardon-Anderson, a former faculty chair at Georgetown University in Washington and dean of the school's program in Qatar, admits, "OK, they don't get the Washington experience ... and there is no basketball team. But otherwise, you are getting the real thing. This is a unique experiment in human history."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There have been American University campuses in Cairo, Beirut, and I think in Jordan for the better part of half a century. In comparison to the Qatar effort, I b'lieve those were established and funded by the US government, and quietly did much good.
#2
In Iraq, we were laboring long and hard to avoid doing the obvious thing: siting the new American U. up north in Kurdistan, the only area with the security and sanity to make a reasonable location. I found it amusing - but of course as with all such things there were some Americans who were terrified of offending Iraqi Arabs. And also of course, the Iraqi Arab employees who were asked thought it made perfect sense to put the thing up north, the concept of being "offended" didn't really seem to cross their minds.
#4
It seems to me that Baghdad has plenty of universities, colleges, etc and so forth already. Siting the American U. in Kurdistan where it would be most appreciated -- and safest for the students -- makes sense to me. Where did they end up putting it, Verlaine?
#5
United Arab Emirates are also on a big hiring spree for university-level faculty in engineering, computer science, architecture and a few other disciplines.
Re: universities in Iraq, building an American Univ. isn't the only way to influence things there. For instance, faculty from Baghdad Univ. and Sulymaniya Univ. have been coming to the US for 3-month-long sabbaticals and in some cases for an academic year, since 2003. Host schools have included Harvard & West Point. Kurds as well as Arabs, women as well as men.
Only two of 50 prominent figures ordered to account for their wealth as part of a corruption crackdown in Bangladesh have so far submitted papers to the authorities, reports said Wednesday. The 50, whose assets are alleged to far exceed their income, have until 5:00 pm Sunday to produce financial records or have their property confiscated.
“I have given the account of everything ... now it will be proved through inquiries that I was never involved in corruption and never misused power,” former Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lawmaker Rashiduzzaman Millat told a private UNB news agency. Around half of the 50 people named are already in jail. At least 29 high profile figures, including 10 former ministers, have been rounded up in the past fortnight in raids by the army, police and security forces. Hundreds more are due to be named and prosecuted over the coming weeks, according to officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A special taskforce seized former BNP lawmaker Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan's BMW car worth about Tk 3 crore from a garage of his close aide and local BNP leader Mohammad Mahfuz in Khagrachhari yesterday. "Noooooo! Not my Beemer!"
Comprising members of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the taskforce raided the house of Mahfuz at Kalabagan at about 1:00pm and seized the expensive vehicle, police sources said. The taskforce arrived from Dhaka earlier to investigate the allegations of corruption against Wadud, who was detained earlier this month. The former lawmaker imported the branded car defying rules and regulations in October 2006, sources said. Mia Zahid, officer in charge (OC) of Khagrachhari Police Station, said that the BMW has been kept at the police station and a case will be filed against Wadud. However, Mahfuz alias Gharbaka Mahfuzza, president of the district unit Swechchhasebak Dal, volunteers' wing of BNP, is still at large. He went into hiding when the present caretaker government took over.
Meanwhile, another investigation team conducted search at Wadud's house throughout the whole day yesterday, but it did not disclose the findings to the reporters. The same team seized around 3,000 jackets allotted for relief from the house on Tuesady. A case was also lodged.
Wadud, arrested on February 4 at his Kalabagun house "Baithak" by the joint forces, is in Comilla Central Jail at present. He was recently listed as one of the top 50 corrupted people by Anti Corruption Commission (ACC). Mahfuz is accused of various criminal activities including murder, rape, corruption, torturing opposition activists, filing false cases against them and journalists, land grabbing and tender manipulation. He was also the leader of Wadud's cadre group styled G-8.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Any idea of the size/value? A 1-series or a 7-series?
The BNP high command is trying to revitalise leaders and workers, who have virtually lost morals having seen the magnitude of corruption by a number of powerful leaders of the party and its front organisation. Sources said party leaders' worry is also growing with corruption allegations against party chief Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman getting stronger day by day. This will cause among the leaders and workers a serious loss of confidence in the party leadership, they said.
A few BNP leaders said they now think it would be better to be in the opposition through an election at the quickest possible time rather than delaying the next parliamentary elections which could create more problem for the party. Sources said these leaders do not even have any objection if the BNP high command agrees to talk with their political opponent to avoid any possible disaster. Party sources said although the BNP high-ups fear more leaders will be arrested on corruption charges, they are trying to inject courage into party men to face the situation with patience and courage. Senior leaders, including BNP secretary general, had called for self-realisation and self-correction of the leaders and workers who have brought disaster for the party through unbelievable corruption by using government power and facilities in the last five years.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
DEMANDS for a ban on “un-Islamic” activities in schools will be set out by the Muslim Council of Britain today.
Targets include playground games, swimming lessons, school plays, parentsÂ’ evenings and even vaccinations.
And the calls for all children to be taught in Taliban-style conditions will be launched with the help of a senior Government education adviser. Professor Tim Brighouse, chief adviser to London schools, was due to attend the event at the capital’s biggest mosque. His presence there was seen as “deeply worrying”, and a sign that the report was backed by the Government.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenede is planning to include two Muslim ministers in his new government. Labour MP Ahmed Abu-Taleb, of Moroccan descent and who still holds Moroccan citizenship, will become the Minister for Social Affairs, while a Turkish woman, Labor MP Nebahat Albayra, will take charge of the Minister of Immigration and Integration.
Another Turk, Ibrahim Bayla, is already the minister of education in Sweden.
Holland's PM Jan Peter Balkenede has rejected calls by a right-wing anti-immigration party to block the Muslim ministerial appointments on the grounds that the two hold dual citizenship.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned late Wednesday after his government lost a crucial parliamentary vote on foreign policy. The president will now begin talks with political leaders to discuss a way forward. Sabina Castelfranco reports for VOA from Rome. Romano Prodi's center-left government had been in power only nine months ...
... twice as long as the usual Italian government ...
... when he resigned after losing a vote in parliament's upper house on foreign policy. The government, divided over Italy's mission in Afghanistan and ties with the U.S. military, needed 160 votes to win backing in the Senate for its foreign policy program. But it fell two votes short, plunging Italy into the usual a deep political crisis.
President Giorgio Napolitano said he will begin consultations with party leaders Thursday. He may ask Mr. Prodi to form a new government or broker the formation of a different government, possibly involving technocrats. His options also include dissolving parliament and calling an early general election. For the moment, he has asked Mr. Prodi to remain in power in a caretaker capacity.
After his loss in the Senate, Mr. Prodi convened an special cabinet meeting as more than a hundred opposition supporters gathered outside his offices, calling for him to step down. Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had said before the vote that the government should resign if its policy lost parlimentary support. He said those who agreed with the government's foreign policy should vote in favor and those who didn't should vote against, so that a clear picture would emerge out of the Senate.
Opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi said after the vote the government had no other option but to quit. He said, "From this disaster, the country must come out immediately with the resignation of this government. If Prodi is sensible, he will step down."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
That's mean Steve. Everyone knows the average length is nine months.
Posted by: ed ||
02/22/2007 0:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Cya Romano! Don't let the door hit you in the butt!
Posted by: DanNY ||
02/22/2007 0:29 Comments ||
Top||
#3
My only concern over this is we'll get someone who hates the US even more than this PoS.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/22/2007 2:31 Comments ||
Top||
#4
You can thank James Madison for ensuring we don't have that sort of thing in the US.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/22/2007 7:44 Comments ||
Top||
#5
So how long does a political crisis™ have to be before it is classified as a chronic condition?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/22/2007 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
This reminds me of a school or public housing project that have signs that state “Drug and Gun Free Zone”. Two things you can be certain is that they are neither drug nor gun free. They can ban cluster bombs but that but they have the same force as a un resolution banning nuclear proliferation.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2007 19:02 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The latest entry in the "We're Clueless But We Oppose Weapons 'n Stuff Cuz We're Morally Superior" sweepstakes.
Apparently there are some fuzing issues with the bomblets - an awful lot of UXO in many cases. Not an engineer, but seems easy enough to solve. Just install fuzes that don't work after a given period (in the case of CBUs, 10 minutes would be adequate) - clock ticks from deployment of the sub-munition. That way there are no duds lying around for any length of time.
I believe the US has pioneered a similar design (time-limited fuzing) for anti-personnel mines.
Problem solved. Next question, dingbats?
(Sorry, but can't help mention the time, years ago, when I was listening to the Washington Pacific radio station - don't ask, I think I did it for kicks, and to remind myself that there WAS radio more annoying than NPR - and the host was interviewing an expert on land mines. The host asked the guest about the US role in the world-wide land-mine "crisis". Awkward silence. Then the guest sort of mumbled - "uh, well, the US really isn't part of the problem, the US doesn't export such mines and has never produced some of the sorts that are the biggest problem in Third World war-zones." Another awkward silence. Can't recall the rest - I was laughing too hard, turning onto Key Bridge and trying to avoid being hit by some idiot crossing over lanes)
U.S. cancer researchers say they have synthesized a compound that works in a different way than existing agents to block tumor cell growth.
Kazunori Koide and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh say the new compound is so potent that minute levels of 10 parts per trillion block the growth of tumor cells in laboratory experiments.
The parent compound, FR901464, inhibited the growth of cancer cells implanted into laboratory mice. Because of structural similarity between FR901464 and its analogue, meayamycin, the Koide group is cautiously optimistic meayamycin also will be effective against tumors in mice.
The amount that the Koide employed against cancer cells is equivalent to 10 seconds in 32,000 years or one packet of sugar in a coffee cup the size of 400 Olympic-size pools.
The report, which describes the compound as one of the most potent of all anti-cancer agents, is to appear in the March 7 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
#1
What's happen if we dipped certain leftists in it?
I've never been sinktrapped before; I'll understand.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/22/2007 13:14 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Fabulous! Good science is always a joy to see. The next question, of course, is whether it works on benign tumours as well as cancerous ones. If someone could read the paper when it comes out, and report back, I'd be grateful.
George W. Polk was honored as a truth-teller. A correspondent for CBS News, he was murdered in Greece in 1948. A coveted, respected award named after him, the George Polk Award, was established in 1949 and is given every year to journalists in numerous specialties. According to a statement on the official website, the winners have exemplified the unearthing of "myriad forms of scandal and deceit." They comprise a two-generation roll call of distinguished names in journalism: Christiane Amanpour, Homer Bigart, Walter Cronkite, Thomas Friedman, David Halberstam, Seymour Hersh, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Bill Moyers, Edward R. Murrow, Daniel Schorr, I.F. Stone, and many others.
Polk cut a dashing figure as a newsman, but he also cut out the real story of his World War II service as a naval officer and replaced it with a huge fraud. He deserves to join the growing roster of American journalists whose dishonesty has gravely injured their profession.
Who killed Polk remains a mystery. His body, drugged, bound, and shot in the head at close range, washed up in Salonika Bay during the Greek civil war of the late 1940s. Journalists widely believed that he died in fearless pursuit of a story. Polk was brave, and he wasn't reticent about his exploits. As a newsman, he often regaled his family and fellow journalists with tales of his exploits as a World War II fighter pilot and ace.
The mystery of Polk's death inspired at least three books in the United States, as well as some
in Greece. In The Polk Conspiracy, journalist and human rights activist Kati Marton recounts how Polk told his family that he had been a fighter pilot who shot down 11 Japanese planes and earned a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds. In The Salonika Bay Murder: Cold War Politics and the Polk Affair, Princeton University professor Edmund Keeley presents Polk as a Navy fighter pilot in the South Pacific, a twice-wounded recipient of a "presidential unit citation." Interestingly, Elias Vlanton and Zak Mettger's Who Killed George Polk? mentions only Polk's claims of flying bomber and reconnaissance missions, not the wounds or the planes shot down. Judging from the correspondence and tributes included in his personal papers, deposited at New York University Library, Polk's glorious war record helped him get--and keep--his reporter's job at CBS. When Polk's reporting in Greece was challenged, Larry LeSueur, a CBS anchorman, defended Polk as a "wartime Navy fighter pilot twice wounded over Guadalcanal." After Polk's death in May 1948, CBS's legendary reporter Edward R. Murrow eulogized him as a hero who had "flown both fighters and bombers for the Navy during the war, was wounded in the Solomons and decorated for bravery."
None of this was true. Official documents reflect no evidence that Polk flew fighters in combat, much less that he shot down any Japanese planes. In fact, they demonstrate he was not even a qualified Navy pilot. Likewise, these records contain no evidence he was wounded, or that his decorations support his combat flying claims. Polk's actual service was admirable, but his later stories burgeoned into a fantastic deception...
#1
They comprise a two-generation roll call of distinguished names in journalism: Christiane Amanpour, Homer Bigart, Walter Cronkite, Thomas Friedman, David Halberstam, Seymour Hersh, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Bill Moyers, Edward R. Murrow, Daniel Schorr, I.F. Stone, and many others.
Quite a few loony lefties in that list.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/22/2007 13:16 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Hey, Stalin's laughing at me. He wants to know how come I never won one of these.
Time to find Polk and kick his ass...
Posted by: The Ghost of Walter Duranty ||
02/22/2007 13:20 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Who killed Polk remains a mystery. His body, drugged, bound, and shot in the head at close range, washed up in Salonika Bay during the Greek civil war of the late 1940s.
Sounds like suicide to me.
Posted by: The Ghost of Dictators Past ||
02/22/2007 14:31 Comments ||
Top||
#5
And in his mind, the intrepid journalist Dan Rather was a battle hardened US Marine with the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor etched into his heart.
(at least until he quit boot camp prior to graduation)
* spit *
Posted by: Mark Z ||
02/22/2007 14:54 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Mark Z, Rather didn't quit, he was deemed unsuitable to be a Marine. In other words, he washed out.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/22/2007 16:35 Comments ||
Top||
#7
It is probably fitting to nominate Al Gore for the George Polk Award fraud.
#8
John Lundstrom, an historian mentioned in the article, is the author of The First Team, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, and many other books on carrier combat in the Pacific, and probably knows more about the Pacific war than Admiral Yammamoto did. I just finished The First Team, and it's a ripping good read with a wealth of detail, down to naming individual pilots (and their planes' tail codes and serial numbers!) for every sortie flown by every F4F in the Pacific for the first seven months of the war.
If John Lundstrom says George Polk wasn't a naval aviator, he wasn't a naval aviator. Period.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/22/2007 18:19 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Nother brick in the journalistic wall of dishonor.
Of course, looking at some of the Polk Award honorees... it can be argued that they are carrying on the same grand tradition.
Do I need the extreme sarcasm tags?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2007 19:01 Comments ||
Top||
#11
This story has now been offered to the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the New Republic, Harper's, Slate, the Wilson Quarterly, and the American Scholar. The first three declined to publish it; the others did not respond.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is heading into what's billed as his final major address Sunday, and some Muslims are wondering if the fiery orator now slowed by poor health will try to repair old divisions between his movement and mainstream Islam.
Farrakhan's scheduled appearance at Ford Field, home of the NFL's Detroit Lions, will be his first since ceding leadership last year to an executive board because of illness.
The 73-year-old Farrakhan was released last month from the hospital after undergoing a 12-hour abdominal operation to correct damage caused by treatment for prostate cancer. A statement from the Nation at the time said Farrakhan "doesn't see himself coming before the public on such a major stage as we are preparing in Detroit." He might, however, honor lesser engagements.
The event will be a homecoming of sorts for the Nation of Islam movement, which promotes black empowerment and nationalism. It was founded in Detroit by Wallace D. Fard in 1930.
Fard attracted black Detroiters on the margins of society with a message of self-improvement and separation from whites, who he said were inherently evil because of their enslavement of blacks. Farrakhan rebuilt the movement in the late 1970s after W.D. Mohammed, the son of longtime nation leader Elijah Muhammad, moved his followers toward mainstream Islam. Farrakhan angered many Americans in the process.
He became notorious for his provocative comments, calling Judaism a "gutter religion" and suggesting crack cocaine might have been a CIA plot to enslave blacks. He met with foreign leaders at odds with the United States Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein prompting the State Department in 1996 to accuse him of "cavorting with dictators."
His closest brush with the political mainstream probably came in 1995, when he attracted hundreds of thousands of black men to Washington for the Million Man March.
Now, back in the Nation's birthplace, there's speculation about what Farrakhan's last major address could tackle. The topic of Sunday's speech, capping a series of meeting that start Friday, is "One Nation Under God."
"We have been told that Minister Farrakhan is going to be making a big announcement at this meeting," though it's not known what he will say, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Nation and orthodox Islam diverge on several key beliefs. While mainstream Islam holds that Muhammad was God's last prophet, Nation of Islam had taught that God came in the form of Fard decades ago in Detroit. Farrakhan has downplayed many of those teachings in recent years, adopting some mainstream Muslim traditions and embracing W. D. Mohammed on stage in 2000 after years of discord. Mohammed also visited Farrakhan recently during his recovery, a Nation of Islam official said.
Farrakhan has credited his mollified outlook to what he called a "near death" experience related to his prostate cancer, which he began battling in 1991. A sign of his softer approach came in 2005, at a Washington rally for the Millions More Movement. Unlike the Million Man March a decade earlier, which was for black men only, the rally was open to men and women of all races.
"In the course of his career, I have to say, the external gaze of others generally has not been at the top of the list of what he's worried about," said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. But, "it's late in his life, he's ill. There are questions of legacy. All of that tends to soften a leader, encourages them to think beyond self-aggrandizing choices."
In Detroit, some blacks who practice mainstream Islam say a shared history and personal ties with the Nation have united the groups in worship and work. Mitchell Shamsud-Din, a founding member of the orthodox Muslim Center in Detroit who runs its community service programs, is like thousands of Detroit-area Muslims who came to orthodox Islam through the Nation.
"There's a friendship and brotherhood between our two groups," said Shamsud-Din, whose projects include Nation of Islam volunteers. "We work with Christians, and they believe Jesus is God," he said. "Why wouldn't we work with a Muslim brother who has another difference?"
Nation leaders won't say how many members the movement, now based in Chicago, has locally or nationally though the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others have estimated it has between 10,000 and 50,000 followers in the U.S. and no more than 1,000 in southeastern Michigan, according to Sally Howell, a University of Michigan researcher who specializes in the local Islamic and Arab-American communities.
Jimmy Jones, a religion professor at Manhattanville College, who is Muslim and studies Islam, was skeptical about Farrakhan's willingness to change. While the Nation of Islam has adopted some mainstream Muslim practices, it remains essentially a race-based movement, he said.
"I think this is an organization that consistently, in my observation, has tried to have it both ways that is, gain legitimacy with the broader Muslim world and spread a message that is essentially about race," Jones said. "It is not a program that represents what most of the more than 1 billion Muslims in the world would recognize."
Athletic officials will not establish a designated prayer space for Muslim students at sporting events held at Ryan Field and Welsh-Ryan Arena, said John Mack, Northwestern's associate athletic director of external affairs. Instead, officials will grant certain concessions, such as allowing prayer rugs into the stadiums and letting students pray in places that do not block traffic flow. Hot dogs! Programs! Wildcat Prayer Rugs!
The decision came after Muslim students expressed a need for clean prayer areas in January. Associated Student Government passed a resolution asking the athletic department to meet with the Muslim-cultural Students Association to explore possible accommodations. Mack met with Muslim students, ASG representatives and the university chaplain last month, and informed them in an e-mail last week of the athletic department's decision."I thought the meeting was productive," Mack said. "It was a good compromise for both sides." I wonder how many "students" are pushing for this?
Hibah Yousuf, McSA's ASG senator, said the decision was suitable, but not ideal."We had a hard time meeting with the athletic department at first, but they were very helpful once we met," said Yousuf, a Medill sophomore. "We're appreciative of their efforts in finding places for us to pray." How about...Pakistan?
Muslims are required to pray five times daily, at specified times that sometimes occur during sporting events. So what's more important to them? Going to the game or getting those prayers in?
In its e-mail to McSA officials, the athletic department said they would inform their staff that Muslim students would be able to pray wherever they wish during sporting events, as long as they do not block traffic or interfere with game-day operations at the arenas. Muslim students can bring prayer rugs and check them in the coat check room during basketball games. At football games, students will need to hold their prayer rugs with them because there aren't any coat check rooms at Ryan Field. Couldn't an infidel be assigned to do that for them?
"We want to accommodate (Muslim students) based on religion," University President Henry Bienen told The Daily last week. "But at the same time, we want to preserve the practicalities of the space at Welsh-Ryan and Ryan Field."
McSA President Amir Siddiqui said the athletic department's decision "works for us. It's a good in-between solution," said Siddiqui, a Weinberg senior. "We understand that space is not always available."
Yousuf said she viewed the accommodations as the first step toward meeting the needs of Muslim students. The first step...
"It's suitable for now," Yousuf said, "but we'll brainstorm some more options." It's suitable. For now...INFIDEL!
#2
I almost missed it, eLarson! This is not Northwestern Pakistan, or even Northwestern Blairistan - this is in the Heartland of the US of A!
The Wildcats were never much of a threat to the Fighting Illini anyway.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/22/2007 11:24 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Great idea! Prayer rugs in the stadiums; excellent material for absorbing all the spilled soda, beer and other fluids that accumulate in the bleachers, and remnants of popcorn, and mustard-laden hot dog buns. go ahead and bang your head on that concoction of kitchen refuse Al-Wildcats! Make sure you leave that sodden mess in the car on the hot summer days also. Consider it a Muzzie air freshener!
Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter. Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist calculates. Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product.
The shift reflects a strong economy, with higher incomes and corporate profits generating a bigger flow of tax revenue. In turn, the Treasury's progress could help the economy by buoying investor confidence in the nation's fiscal position. Although it is a welcome change... I'll leave you to guess the rest.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The feuding mother, partner and former boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith took a brief break from a courtroom battle over the Playboy model's corpse on Wednesday to get a private viewing of her rapidly decomposing body in a Florida morgue. The visitation came on the fifth day of hearings before south Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin, who has said he will decide 
Britney Spears was reported to have left a Malibu rehabilitation center on Wednesday just 24 hours after checking herself in following weeks of troubling behavior culminating in shaving her own head. Celebrity Web sites TMZ.com, theinsideronline.com and People.com said the singer, 25, left what should have been a month long program at the Promises residential center on Wednesday morning. 
More than 680 people have died in a suspected cholera outbreak in Ethiopia that has also affected neighboring countries, officials said Wednesday. 
A kick boxer suspected of involvement in Britain's biggest cash robbery was jailed for eight months by a Moroccan court on Wednesday for possessing drugs and assaulting police officers. Britons Lee Murray and Paul Allen, who were arrested in a shopping mall in Rabat in June, were also fined 10,000 dirhams (605 pounds). The court ordered them to pay 303,100 dirhams to Moroccan customs related to drug possession. They must remain behind bars until the fine is paid, even though they have already served the jail terms.
Zimbabwe's state-run media lavished praise on veteran President Robert Mugabe on the 83rd birthday of Africa's oldest-serving leader on Wednesday while stores in the capital, Harare, ran out of bread. "President an unparalleled visionary," read the headline of the Herald newspaper, which dedicated 16 pages to pictures and congratulatory messages to the man who has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1980.
At least 38 Rwandan militiamen and five democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) soldiers have been killed in clashes this week as DRC's government strives to impose its authority on the country's war-torn east, a United Nations official said on Wednesday. Major Ajay Dalal, spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in North Kivu province, said the fighting erupted after DRC's army deployed a battalion last week made up of reintegrated combatants from a 1998 to 2003 war. "The mixed brigade started patrolling and some of their patrols met with the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda] and there were some clashes," Dalal told Reuters by telephone.
The BNP high command is trying to revitalise leaders and workers, who have virtually lost morals having seen the magnitude of corruption by a number of powerful leaders of the party and its front organisation. Sources said party leaders' worry is also growing with corruption allegations against party chief Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman getting stronger day by day. This will cause among the leaders and workers a serious loss of confidence in the party leadership, they said.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned late Wednesday after his government lost a crucial parliamentary vote on foreign policy. The president will now begin talks with political leaders to discuss a way forward. Sabina Castelfranco reports for VOA from Rome. Romano Prodi's center-left government had been in power only nine months ...
