Both he and his friend had won internships at Imperial College after succeeding academically in their home country.
They were picked for the placement after graduated from the Polytech, which is part of Clermont Ferrand University and affiliated to the prestigious École Polytechnique which is the top engineering Grande Ecole in France.
Its students train the scientific, industrial and economic elite of the nation, with many graduates going on to become senior politicians or captains of industry.
'They were brilliant students with glittering careers ahead of them,' said a spokesman for the Polytech today.
Eyewitnesses claimed that "arsonists" hurled petrol bombs into the flat and that at least one of the suspects took off in a Beemer.
Hardly the MO of a "drug-crazed" burglar. More like retribution.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, please ...
JOHANNESBURG (Rooters) - Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa died in a Paris hospital on Thursday after suffering a stroke earlier this week, South Africa's Talk Radio 702 reported.
The radio quoted a Zambian High Commission spokesman as saying that Mwanawasa died earlier on Thursday morning. Mwanawasa was taken to hospital in Egypt just before an African Union summit on Monday and Tuesday and then transferred to Paris.
What happens when you detonate 429 tons of military grade high explosives all at once. The initial explosion at the very beginning is only 30 tons.To give you a size perspective this video was shot from 2-3 miles away out side of the frag radius (sort of). If you watch closely you can see the blast wave travel toward us.
#1
At least he died with his honor. Murtha can't, and for that matter, Cunningham can't.
RIP
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/03/2008 8:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I remember a story told by a retired FBI man, of a burglar who picked the worst imaginable neighborhood to to do a break in.
Purely coincidentally, it was full of WWII vets of several kinds, all of whom had fought in hellish circumstances.
The house the burglar chose had a British vet, a widower, who had been an infantryman in some of the nastiest fighting of the Burma Campaign, right across the street from the retired FBI guy.
The Burma vet caught the burglar and decided to keep him, for hours. After the initial flurry of activity, most of that time the two of them just sat in chairs opposite each other. During that time, the burglar soiled himself out of fear, and "looked a mess", when the vet finally gave a call to the FBI guy to pick him up.
So terrified that when the local police got him, he confessed to the burglary, but wouldn't tell anyone what had happened. The Burma vet wouldn't, either.
The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that the owner of a Christian bookstore near the Olympic Village in Beijing is being illegally held in an undisclosed location by Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials who charge only that the prominent house church leader is a "dangerous religious element."
Shi Weihan, a leader, publisher, and father of two daughters, has been held for three months, a month longer than legally permitted, without formal charges or a court hearing and has only been allowed one visit with his attorney. Arrested on March 19, Weihan was expected to finally stand trial two weeks ago, but the PSB has stated that any action on the case will be delayed indefinitely.
Police have been overly interested in Weihan and his legally operated bookstore near the Olympic Village since November of last year when they initially arrested him on charges of "illegal business practices," but were forced to release him in January for lack of sufficient evidence. The timing of his re-arrest and illegal detention remains suspicious in light of the recent crackdown on Chinese house church leaders and other suspected "dissidents," especially given the proximity of Weihan's bookstore to the Olympic stage in Beijing.
Concer! n is mou nting over Weihan's health as he struggles with diabetes and police have provided no indication that he is receiving any sort of medication. During the only visit afforded to his attorney, Zhang Xingshui, Weihan was described as having lost a significant amount of weight and as exhibiting signs of what officials called an "allergic reaction," though the same symptoms are also common in diabetics who do not have the necessary diet or medication.
Despite his health and the illegal conditions of his detention, the PSB is refusing to allow his family or attorney to see him, citing a "complex case" as the only explanation for their ongoing investigations and delays in processing.
While it seems that China's government is attempting to sweep this "dissident" under the rug, Weihan has been described by countless friends and business acquaintances as a "model citizen of China," claiming that his patriotism inspired them to greater love for their homeland. Weihan is also said to have sacrificially served the poor and minority children in rural communities, and now he and his family are in need of others to speak on their behalf.
ICC is joining Open Doors USA and China Aid Association in speaking up for Shi Weihan. Would you join us and contact your Chinese embassy to voice your concern over this case? Politely tell the embassy officials that you believe that Shi Weihan should be given regular access to his attorney to ensure that he is fairly represented, that his family should be allowed the right to visit and bring his diabetic medication, and that steps should be taken to ensure that he is given a fair and speedy trial.
China's state-controlled media on Thursday extensively reported on the results of an opinion poll that suggests the vast majority of Chinese do not want French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. The survey of 173,527 people polled on the Chinese news and information website Sina.com showed that 89 percent of respondents do not want Sarkozy to attend the event after he said he would come if progress were made in talks held this week between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama's envoys in Beijing.
About 88 percent of those surveyed also said they found Sarkozy's remarks about China 'extremely unfriendly' and 'not fit for a leader of a major developed country,' China's tightly controlled state media reported.
The publicity given to the poll comes after Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said earlier this week that the government rejects any attempt to link the Olympic Games with China's internal politics.
'The Tibet issue falls into China's internal affairs. The contact between the central government and the private representatives of the Dalai Lama is also an internal affair of China,' he told reporters. 'We oppose relevant foreign leaders meeting with the Dalai (Lama) in any form, linking Tibet-related issues with the Beijing Olympics, and politicizing the Olympics.'
The latest apparent spat between China and France comes after a series of protest were held around the country earlier this year because of the French authorities' perceived failure to protect the Olympic flame when it was attacked by pro-Tibet demonstrators during the torch relay in Paris in April. Sarkozy wrote a personal letter expressing sympathy to a wheelchair- bound Chinese athlete who fought off a protester who tried to grab the Olympic torch out of her hands during the event.
Most of the anti-French protests in China earlier this year were held outside branches of the French retailer Carrefour before Chinese authorities took active steps to halt the demonstrations. Among the dignitaries who have said they will attend the Olympics opening ceremony on Aug. 8 is Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Lol, and all this while official France whored itself silly during that 'Year of china', a couple years ago, with the Eiffel tower lighted red and all...
A US citizen has been released from a jail in China after serving 10 years of a 16-year term for violating tax laws, a US official and rights groups said Thursday. Jude Shao was released from a Shanghai jail on parole on Wednesday, a US embassy spokeswoman in Beijing, Diane Sovereign, told AFP. 'US ambassador Clark Randt has spoken to Shao by telephone, confirming and welcoming his release from prison,' she said.
Shao's case had drawn the attention of the US government at the highest level, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top US diplomats repeatedly calling for his release, she said. 'We welcome this development and urge China to continue to make progress on other prisoner cases and issues of domestic and international concern, such as those raised at our recent human rights dialogue,' the spokeswoman said.
Shao was arrested in 1998 and convicted of tax evasion in March 2000 when his 16-year sentence was handed down, according to a website set up by his former classmates at Stanford Business School. The naturalised US citizen born in China was convicted of underpaying 119,000 dollars in value added taxes and evading 253,000 dollars in sales taxes.
Shao, reportedly 46, maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal and had cited numerous procedural irregularities in his trial and conviction, the website said. During his trial, he was denied access to the seized records he needed to defend himself and was not allowed to meet with his attorney until 10 days before trial, it said. His real 'crime' was likely that he refused to pay bribes to Shanghai officials, it said.
His case has widely been seen as evidence of widespread human rights violations in China. According to the website, six Chinese legal scholars had reviewed the case and found serious violations of due process.
Besides the US government and a long list of US Congressmen, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco-based rights group the Dui Hua Foundation has also worked for Shao's release.
'Jude Shao's release reflects the hard work over many years of his Stanford Business School classmates and the US government, in particular President Bush, who repeatedly raised his case with Chinese President Hu Jintao,' Dui Hua director John Kamm said. 'His parole comes days after Secretary Condoleezza Rice's visit to Beijing and six weeks after the resumption of the US-China dialogue on human rights,' he said in a statement.
Not to the Chinese, he's not. He's Chinese through and through, and I'm sure the Chinese government didn't appreciate the US government meddling in its internal affairs. They'll imprison whoever they like for as long as they like. Frankly, it sounds like this fellow wanted to get things on the cheap without paying his 'license fees'. Just think about how much money he could have made had he played ball and avoided prison. Ten years is a huge opportunity cost, but I suppose he has the satisfaction that they couldn't make him pay.
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.
JOHANNESBURG (Rooters) - Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa died in a Paris hospital on Thursday after suffering a stroke earlier this week, South Africa's Talk Radio 702 reported.
The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that the owner of a Christian bookstore near the Olympic Village in Beijing is being illegally held in an undisclosed location by Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials who charge only that the prominent house church leader is a "dangerous religious element."
China's state-controlled media on Thursday extensively reported on the results of an opinion poll that suggests the vast majority of Chinese do not want French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. The survey of 173,527 people polled on the Chinese news and information website Sina.com showed that 89 percent of respondents do not want Sarkozy to attend the event after he said he would come if progress were made in talks held this week between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama's envoys in Beijing. 
