OCEAN VIEW, Hawaii (AP) - For eight years, Tony and Sam Bayaoa have grown thousands of bright red, yellow and pink protea flowers on their farm. Then last month, Kilauea volcano opened a new vent and began spewing double the usual amount of toxic gas. Now about 70 percent of their crop is dried, brown and brittle.
"The first reaction wasdid someone poison the plants?" said Tony Bayaoa, whose two-acre farm is 35 miles from the volcano. "I've lost my livelihood."
Big Island crops are shriveling as sulfur dioxide from Kilauea wafts over them and envelops them in "vog," or volcanic smog. People are wheezing, and schoolchildren are being kept indoors during recess. High gas levels led Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to close several days this month, forcing the evacuation of thousands of visitors.
Residents of this volcanic island are used to toxic gas. But this haze is so bad that farmers are thinking about growing different crops, and many people are worrying about their health. I'm pretty sure that if you threw Al Gore II into the volcano it would stop (or maybe erupt more violently - I'm not sure which.)
#2
Here on Guam, the VOG, etc. produced by CNMI and other PACOA volcanoes has thus far resulted in light or spotty, dusty film on local flora. POST-KAMALEN > this will change in entire Guam-WESTPAC regions.
#4
It is a volcanic freaking island, in a chain of volcanic freaking islands! What do they expect, pole dancing from the fire goddess?! Volcanoes erupt and belch out all sort of noxious and/or toxic gases and fumes.
#5
What surprised me is that there is a suburb on the big island called Volcano Village that is waay too close to the volcano. Why anyone in their right mind would live there just boggles.
YANGON, Myanmar - Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday. Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. The government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.
The radio station broadcasting from the country's capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.
"Reports are coming out of the delta coast, particularly the Irrawaddy region, that in some villages up to 95 percent of houses have been destroyed," said Matthew Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' Geneva headquarters.
The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm. "Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get aid to people who need it most," said Michael Annear, regional disaster management coordinator for the federation.
In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts. But it added that the Myanmar government initially had refused to allow a U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team into the country to assess damage. Okay. Good luck...
"We have a DART team that is standing by and ready to go into Burma to help try to assess needs there," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. "As of this moment, the Burmese government has not given them permission, however, to go into the country so that is a barrier to us being able to move forward."
At a Monday meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. and international aid agencies, Myanmar's foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets. Myanmar Red volunteers already were distributing some basic items, Cochrane said.
The World Food Program has pre-positioned 500 tons of food in Yangon and plans to bring in more relief supplies, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. U.N. agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how it can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the U.N. children's agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.
The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools and cut electricity in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes. With the city's already unstable electricity supply virtually nonfunctional, citizens lined up to buy candles, which doubled in price, and water since lack of electricity-driven pumps left most households dry. Some walked to the city's lakes to wash. Hotels and richer families were using private generators but only sparingly, given the soaring price of fuel. Many stayed away from their jobs, either because they could not find transportation or because they had to seek food and shelter for their families.
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AP) - Unknown assailants attacked an oil installation in restive southern Nigeria and some crude production has been lost, Royal Dutch Shell PLC officials said Saturday. Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo said the attackers hit a flow station belonging to Shell's joint venture in southern Nigeria late Friday and that some oil production had been shut down. He gave no further details.
The region's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, did not immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment or claims for the attack.
Militants are stepping up attacks on oil infrastructure in Africa's biggest oil producer as one of their reputed leaders is put on trial for treason and terrorism, which carry a possible death penalty for conviction. Militants say they are agitating to force the federal government to send a greater share of the country's oil revenues to their region. The southern Niger Delta where Nigeria pumps its crude remains desperately impoverished, despite four decades of oil production in the area.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Rebels in Ivory Coast have begun to disarm, a crucial step toward long-awaited presidential elections that many hope will secure an end to years of war, officials said Sunday.
About 1,000 rebels have arrived since Friday at a demobilization center in the northern city of Bouake, a former rebel stronghold. In all, about 43,000 rebels are expected to lay down their arms over a five-month period at six demobilization sites in the north and west. Some 26,000 will be reintegrated into civilian life, and the remainder will be integrated into the national army.
Brilliant idea, put rebels into the regular army. That always works.
In a statement, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, the former rebel leader, congratulated his fighters for starting the process, sending a "strong signal" that the peace accord signed in Burkina Faso last year is being implemented.
Zimbabwe's ruling party has said that a second round of presidential elections could be delayed by up to a year in a move that would extend Robert Mugabe's rule even though he admits to having lost the first round of voting five weeks ago.
The election commission is expected to meet soon to set a date for the run-off vote between Mugabe and the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai. The law required it to have been held within three weeks of the original election, but the commission has the power to extend the period between the votes.
To about the 12th of Never ...
The deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, said at the weekend that the run-off might take place in three weeks, but could take up to a year, suggesting that Zanu-PF remains concerned at Mugabe's ability to win, despite a state-sponsored campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition.
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai will contest the looming presidential election run-off despite his public remarks to the contrary.
This came as the presidential election candidates or their agents yesterday met Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) officials to tackle the crisis triggered by the withholding of results more than a month later due to a demand by President Robert Mugabe for a recount of the votes.
Yesterdays emergency meeting took place against a backdrop of a fresh problem sparked off by ZECs leakage of official results to defeated Zanu PF leaders who in turn passed them on to the international media in a bid to sustain their pursuit for a run-off. ZEC and Zanu PF were anxious to ward off mounting pressure for results to come out and build a case for a run-off, especially against a background of MDCs claims that Tsvangirai had won the election outright.
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05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday that he was confident his Labour Party would recover from a disastrous performance in local elections and rejected suggestions he should resign. As commentators warned that last weeks poll rout could spell the end for the Labour government at national elections due by 2010, he admitted mistakes had been made but said the global economic slowdown was largely to blame for his partys performance. Of course we can recover from this position and I will tell you how, he told BBC television in his first interview since the elections.
He said, First of all by sorting out the immediate problem with the economy and showing people we can come through, as we have in the past, very difficult economic times. Secondly, by showing people we have a vision of the future that will carry the country - optimistically in my view - into its next phase. Brown said Labour was putting big building blocks in place for the future, such as giving working families a fair deal and helping people buy their first home.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
whenever they talk like this - they are done. It's over, Gordon. Now it's just a matter of how long it will take to wrest your fingernails from your office doorway.
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivia's richest region of Santa Cruz voted on Sunday on a plan for greater autonomy from the central government in a referendum seen as a defiant rejection of President Evo Morales' leftist reforms.
Voting was mainly calm, although clashes broke out in several poorer areas of the tropical region soon after the polls opened as backers of Morales, a former coca farmer, ransacked polling stations and burned ballots in protest. "This is a struggle for liberty. Liberation struggles are never easy," Percy Fernandez, mayor of the region's main city, told reporters.
Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president and a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, has branded the referendum illegal and his supporters have vowed to boycott it, meaning a "yes" vote is expected to win.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Percy Fernandez? The Scarlet Pimpernel of Bolivia.
#4
When one side boycotts the election it almost always means they know they will lose. The press never really adds that fact, instead they make it out like it's just not fair that the election continues despite the protest non-vote.
Pro-Russian separatists in Georgia's Abkhazia region say they have shot down two Georgian spy drones over the breakaway region Sunday. However, Georgia has denied launching any flights in the area. The claim and denial come two weeks after a Georgian drone was downed in the same area, heightening already-strained relations between Russia and Georgia.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency says one of today's claimed shootdowns occurred over the Ochamchira region of Abkhazia. Georgian television reports groundfire in the area and says some Russian peacekeepers have been taken prisoner. The Rustavi television report has not been confirmed.
Tensions between Georgia and Russia rose last month after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his government to establish closer links with Abkhazia and a second breakaway Georgian border region, South Ossetia. On April 20th - days after the Putin order was reported - Georgia accused Russian forces of shooting down a reconnaissance drone over Abkhazia. Georgia televised a video it says shows a Russian fighter jet downing the drone. Moscow denies involvement and says the video was fabricated.
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05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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RIAN > Abkhazia claims that 7,500 Georgian troops are massing on its border; + WILL ABKHAZIA BECOME A WAR AGAIN?; + TOPIX > GEORGIA ACCUSES RUSSIA OF AGGRESSION.
Cases of a virus that has killed 24 young children and infected more than 5,000 may continue to rise despite efforts to contain it, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned yesterday.
Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), which causes a severe strain of hand, foot and mouth disease, normally peaks in June and July. Experts fear that infections could increase as the weather becomes warmer.
With hundreds more cases emerging every day, China's health ministry has stepped up efforts to contain its spread, closing nurseries at the centre of the outbreak in Fuyang, eastern Anhui province, where 22 of the deaths occurred. State television showed workers spraying disinfectant around houses in rural areas.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
This is the first time I've heard of foot-and-mouth disease for humans (the animal variants are, of course, well-known). Yet another weird strain of disease from China, the country that gave us the Black Plague.
#3
I contracted "hand foot and mouth disease during the late 80's while working with a population of youngsters in Southern California. It was July and it was painful in my mouth and hands and feet, and I had a terrible fever. Very unpleasant. Nothing to do but ride it out.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and other Democratic leaders are calling on the state's scandal-scarred attorney general to resign. Attorney General Marc Dann admitted Friday to having an extramarital affair with a subordinate. The admission came after findings in an unrelated sexual harassment investigation threatened to reveal the relationship.
Strickland, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Dann's fellow Democratic state officeholders and all Democratic state legislators sent Dann a letter Monday imploring him to leave office. "We've got your back, there, brother Dann . . . here, take this loaded revolver and this bottle of cheap whiskey and go ponder your career path, OK?"
Dann is just 16 months into his four-year term. He hasn't yet responded to the letter. To judge from an e-mail that Dann sent to the employees of the AG's office, his response will not be in the affirmative.
In addition to the various inquiries about the sexual-harassment complaints filed against one of Dann's subordinates (and former housemates), investigators are looking into his office's use of state credit cards, computers, and vehicles, and state Republicans may file an Ohio Election Commission complaint alleging misuse of campaign funds to pay for Dann's condo.
Note: if Dann resigns before the end of September, there will be a special election in November to fill the unexpired term. If he holds out to October, the governor will get to appoint a replacement to serve out the term.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/05/2008 13:37 ||
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#1
Buckeye voters are getting exactly what they voted for. Enjoy!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/05/2008 14:31 Comments ||
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#2
Looks like some Donks can learned. Had the Donks in the Senate done this to Billy Boy, Al Gore would have been Prez and most likely elected in November rather than Bush.
If Barack Obama falls short of the Democratic nomination for the presidency, there will be a good chance that Jeremiah Wright played a key role in derailing his ambitions. Historians contemplating the rise and fall of the first serious African-American contender for the presidency will struggle with a lot of questions beginning with why.
Why did Obama feel compelled to join a church whose teachings were so inherently controversial? Of all the pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis, and imams in Chicago, why did Obama choose Wright to be his close friend and confidant? Why, when the first examples of Wright making shocking and outrageous comments from the pulpit became well-known, did Obama insist that critics were jumping to conclusions based on snippets? Why couldnt Obama completely distance himself in his initial speech on the matter in Philadelphia? If Obama is honest when he says that Wrights comments at the National Press Club shocked him, how could he so misjudge a man over 20 years?
Some of the answers may be found in Obamas autobiography, Dreams From My Father, published in 1995. . . .
In the end, Dreams From My Father left me somewhat sympathetic to Obama; had his father been around, had his grandfather, his mother's second husband, or other figures in his life been different men, he probably wouldn't have been such a lost soul when he encountered Wright. Obama was ready to believe, and he was receptive to a message he might have rejected otherwise.
But here's what moves this from remote psychological analysis to thinking about the mindset of a man who might be the next president. When people ask how Obama could be blind to all of Wright's more outrageous and offensive statements, and how he couldn't see Wright for the kind of man he was, I think this helps explain it. In Wright, Obama saw what he wanted to see. He wanted a wise, shrewd, kind, funny, educated man who could show him the ways of the world (and Chicago politics), one who perhaps went a little too far every now and then, but who was overall a good person.
Instead, we see that Wright is a toxic figure, arguing that blacks and whites have different brain structures, that the American government created the AIDS virus for genocidal purposes, that U.S. policy can accurately be called terrorism, that the U.S. Marines can be compared to the Roman soldiers who tortured Jesus, who calls Italians "garlic-noses," who calls the Secretary of State "Condoskeezia" and "Con-damn-nesia", etc.
Here's where the example of Wright is truly disturbing when contemplating an Obama presidency. If Barack Obama looked at Jeremiah Wright and saw only what he wanted to see... how sure can we be that he wouldn't look at say, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and see only what he wanted to see?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/05/2008 11:20 ||
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#1
Obama rose quickly because he associated himself with certain groups. Bill Ayers money and Wright's constituency. Both of which were great for local politics where people don't look into such things but which are toxic for a national election.
Obama should have distanced himself from both when he became a Senator and he should have waited another 8 or so years before running for President. Instead he rushed while the stink of the pigs was still fresh.
The Democrats may still vote him in over Hillary but I think the independents will reject Wright and Obama just took too long to distance himself so they will reject him as well. I think Obama may also be what it takes to get Conservatives to the polls despite McCain.
#1
Yet, Barack Obama earned his political spurs in Chicago (as did his campaign gurus). In the Windy City, backroom deals behind closed doors are how business is done -- especially if the room has been swept for listening devices. In Chicago, "pay to play" is a political maxim and patronage is a synonym for politics. These are tools that work in the past and they seemingly will once again in the future.
Welcome to Chicago politics, writ large.
Swell.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/05/2008 12:36 Comments ||
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Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.
Clinton, in turn, stood by both her comment on Iran and her tax proposal as she gave chase in Indiana and North Carolina to the front-runner for the nomination.
The competitors squabbled over the issues one foreign, one domestic from a short distance, first during separate appearances on Sunday news shows and then as they courted voters for Tuesday's primaries.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Not the kind of language we need right now." = political cowardice, if not a sign of tacit legitimization of the savage enemy.
#5
oHb is a companion to Marxists, terrorists and traitors. His supporters are fools attracted to his cult of personality and motivated by their own self-loathing. He cannot be allowed to become President.
#7
Hillary would be much tougher on the muzzies than Bush has been
You have no way of knowing that. This is a woman who is such a compulsive liar that she believed she could lie about being under sniper fire with her daughter while on a Presidential mission. She's a mad woman and anyone who votes for her is a fool.
#8
not that I was implying that you would vote for her or that you were a fool. I'm just saying that Hillary is a known crook and a thug and a compulsive liar. She's not fit to hold the highest office of the planet. Anyone who somehow looks past all that is known about her and votes for her is simply a fool.
#10
Hillary has become a Republican for the day. She reminds me of the old joke about the guy who was unhappy with the brown suit his dead relative was wearing in the casket at the mortuary. The funeral director said: "If you want the blue suit, I'll turn the blue light on." Hillary will morph into anybody or anything to get a vote. She has now morphed into a beer-whisky drinking 2nd Amendment proponent blue collar guy with balls.
#12
The same nukes Hillary would use to obliterate Iran, Obama would have the keys and codes to also! No saber rattling is needed at this time; and is only war mongering to literally scare up the votes for the 'Hildabeast' before June! Sounds to me Hillary no longer has the confidence "W" would push the button before November 7th[No more 24 hour stand down threats I guess], on the second axis leg! Watch for the Clinton-McCain teams to 'sync-up' on this issue again on this fight with the 'Big O'!
JERUSALEM - One of the parties in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmerts coalition has split, but the new partys members say they might still back the government. Three members of parliament from the Gil pensioners party said Sunday they are joining Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkady Gaydamak to form the Justice for Pensioners Party. The Gil party won seven seats in the last election but has been plagued by infighting in recent months.
Moshe Sharoni, the leader of the rebels, and Gaydamak said their new party might support Olmert if he promises more benefits to retired Israelis.
Gaydamak is a controversial figure in Israel, donating millions to charities, buying sports teams but operating under a cloud of unproven suspicions of shady dealings.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The irony is rich. If they don't get their act together and deal with the Islamic threat, none of them will be around to collect those pensions.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury discussed Christian-Muslim relations on Monday in their first meeting since the Anglican leader caused a storm in Britain with comments on Sharia law.
A Vatican spokesman said Rowan Williams and the pope spoke privately for about 20 minutes and discussed Christian-Muslim relations, inter-faith dialogue and the pope's impression of his visit to the United States last month. He described the visit, the second official meeting between the Pope and the spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, as "warm and friendly."
In March Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican's top man for relations with Islam, criticized Williams as mistaken and "naive" for suggesting that it was unavoidable that some aspects of Sharia, Islamic law, would be adopted in Britain.
Williams's remarks, in a speech in February, sparked a storm in Britain and beyond and became part of a broader debate on how to integrate Britain's 1.8 million Muslims. He is in Rome for the 7th Building Bridges Seminar, an annual meeting of leading Christian and Muslim scholars for intensive study of Biblical and Koranic texts.
The theme for this year's seminar, organized together with Georgetown University in Washington D.C., is "Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam."
It's a little hard to have such a conference about the Quran: it's completely revealed, it has to be read in the original Arabic, and there in nothing to interpret. Going to be a mighty short conference. Or a violent one.
Relations between the Catholic and Anglican Churches have been strained over the past decade over the issue of women priests and homosexual bishops in the Anglican Church, which both leaders have acknowledged as obstacles to unity.
#1
No doubt it was of the "Dear William, I imagine your translation of the Koran was missing this particular bit that I found while reading a copy found in the Vatican archives. It was written in the year of our Lord 910, you see. This does rather affect your interpretation, I fear." Poor William, bright as he is, just isn't as intelligent or... thoughtful, as our dear Benedict.
#5
As far as littoral action goes, I still support the tried and true idea of having a lot of small, expendable vessels that use a larger littoral ship as a "mothership".
The boat equivalent to the Humvee. Modular boat sections that can be forward stored and quickly assembled, designed to carry only one or two systems and their ammo. With a crew of between half a dozen and a dozen men.
Think a PT-boat plus. Then send them out in swarms into the littoral area, to cover a lot more distance than the mothership could.
They can also act as a team. Say one or two are mounted with SAMs, another one is a UAV carrier, another can fire light artillery or mortars, a few for ASUB operations, etc.
From a company PR release
A new solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5-cents per kWh (kilowatt hour)....competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy.
XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics), a system that concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto the world's most efficient solar cells, was announced. "Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough," said Craig Goodman The theory seems reasonable, that is, concentrate the radiation on a small efficient conversion device. This allows for an expensive conversion device to be practical because the concentrators are relatively less expensive. However the concentrators will still need to take up a lot of acreage and we still need much better energy storage.
#2
They say they have a super-duper technique to cool the surface of the solar cell (probably some kind of air jet) but even so, it would be tough to keep the peak temperatures below 1000 F.
Thus it would probably have to have a some protective system to keep people (and critters) away.
#3
But this is another reminder of the side-benefit of $120/barrel oil. There is just a whole lot of money being thrown at energy tech right now, and it appears likely that this will continue. Breakthroughs are going to be made, and some of them are going to be game changers.
TEHRAN, May 4 (Reuters) - Iran's annual inflation rate jumped by 1.7 percentage points to 24.2 percent in the year to April compared with the previous month, the central bank said. The statistics highlight the economic problems facing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, under pressure from many lawmakers, media and the public over its failure to rein in rising inflation in the world's fourth-largest oil producer.
It was the bazaar merchants who helped Khomenini, and it'll be the same merchants who lead the next revolution, and for the same reason: business.
The central bank said on its website www.cbi.ir that prices rose by 3.1 percent in the Iranian month to April 19, pushing up the year-on-year rate to 24.2 percent. Monthly prices rose 3.0 percent the previous month, to March 19, when the year-on-year rate reached 22.5 percent. Average inflation was 19.1 percent for the 12 months to April 19 compared with the previous 12-month period, the central bank said.
Iran's inflation rate was about 12 percent in mid-2005, when the conservative president came to power pledging to share Iran's oil wealth more fairly. But critics say profligate spending of petrodollars, combined with interest rates well below inflation, has further fuelled price pressures.
Iran's central bank governor Tahmasb Mazaheri last week said money supply growth in the economy has slowed from a year ago, to 27.7 percent from 35 percent a year earlier.
And there's the reason for the inflation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/05/2008 00:00 ||
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Yer gonna have to work harder to catch up with Zim Bob.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/05/2008 2:47 Comments ||
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AP
The people in iran with both power to use and money to lose are the business mullahs and some bigshots in the army and revolutionary guards who have side businesses (generally state chartered monopolies and bribery/smuggling enterprizes).
Perhaps you are using the bazaar phrase as a metaphor.
#3
No, Salmon Steve had it right - the merchants were the ones who were Kohomeni's main backers. The mullahs (and now the IRGC leadership) didn't get control of the 'state industries' until later.
It's likely that the merchants will also back the next revolution. Ahmadinejad is aware of this - lots of rials have been going to districts that don't necessarily need them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
OCEAN VIEW, Hawaii (AP) - For eight years, Tony and Sam Bayaoa have grown thousands of bright red, yellow and pink protea flowers on their farm. Then last month, Kilauea volcano opened a new vent and began spewing double the usual amount of toxic gas. Now about 70 percent of their crop is dried, brown and brittle. 
Zimbabwe's ruling party has said that a second round of presidential elections could be delayed by up to a year in a move that would extend Robert Mugabe's rule even though he admits to having lost the first round of voting five weeks ago.
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai will contest the looming presidential election run-off despite his public remarks to the contrary.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday that he was confident his Labour Party would recover from a disastrous performance in local elections and rejected suggestions he should resign. As commentators warned that last weeks poll rout could spell the end for the Labour government at national elections due by 2010, he admitted mistakes had been made but said the global economic slowdown was largely to blame for his partys performance. Of course we can recover from this position and I will tell you how, he told BBC television in his first interview since the elections.
Cases of a virus that has killed 24 young children and infected more than 5,000 may continue to rise despite efforts to contain it, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned yesterday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and other Democratic leaders are calling on the state's scandal-scarred attorney general to resign. Attorney General Marc Dann admitted Friday to having an extramarital affair with a subordinate. The admission came after findings in an unrelated sexual harassment investigation threatened to reveal the relationship.
Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.
TEHRAN, May 4 (Reuters) - Iran's annual inflation rate jumped by 1.7 percentage points to 24.2 percent in the year to April compared with the previous month, the central bank said. The statistics highlight the economic problems facing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, under pressure from many lawmakers, media and the public over its failure to rein in rising inflation in the world's fourth-largest oil producer.
