More than 160 US, NATO vehicles burned in Pakistan
2008-12-08
Militants torched 160 vehicles, including dozens of Humvees destined for U.S. and allied forces fighting in Afghanistan, in the boldest attack so far on the critical military supply line through Pakistan.The American military said Sunday's raid on two transport terminals near the beleaguered Pakistani city of Peshawar would have "minimal" impact on anti-Taliban operations set to expand with the arrival of thousands more troops next year.
However, the attack feeds concern that insurgents are trying to choke the route through the famed Khyber Pass, which carries up to 70 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan, and drive up the cost of the war.
It also dents faith in Pakistani authorities already under pressure from India and the U.S. to act on suspicion that the deadly terror attacks in Mumbai were orchestrated by Islamic extremists based in Pakistan.
The owner of one of the terminals hit Sunday denied government claims that security was boosted after an ambush last month in which bearded militants made off with a Humvee and later paraded it in triumph before journalists.
"We don't feel safe here at all," Kifayatullah Khan told The Associated Press. He predicted that most of his night watchmen would quit their jobs out of fear. "It is almost impossible for us to continue with this business."
The attack reduced a section of the walled Portward Logistic Terminal to a smoldering junkyard.
Khan said armed men flattened the gate before dawn with a rocket-propelled grenade, fatally shot a guard and set fire to 106 vehicles, including about 70 Humvees.
Humvees are thought to cost about $100,000 each, though the price varies widely depending on armor and other equipment, meaning Sunday's losses may exceed $10 million.
An Associated Press reporter who visited the depot saw six rows of destroyed Humvees and military trucks packed close together, some on flatbed trailers, all of them gutted and twisted by the flames.
Khan said shipping documents showed they were destined for U.S. forces and the Western-trained Afghan National Army.
The attackers fled after a brief exchange of fire with police, who arrived about 40 minutes later, he said.
Nine other guards who stood helplessly aside during the attack put the number of assailants at 300, Khan said. Police official Kashif Alam said there were only 30.
At the nearby Faisal depot, manager Shah Iran said 60 vehicles destined for Afghanistan as well as three Pakistani trucks were also burned.
The attacks were the latest in a series highlighting the vulnerability of the supply route to the spreading power of the Taliban in the border region, which is also considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Vast quantities of supplies pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi. Some is routed through Quetta toward the Afghan city of Kandahar, but most flows through the Khyber Pass toward Kabul and the huge U.S. air base at Bagram.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan said in a statement that an unspecified number of its containers were destroyed but that their loss would have "minimal effect on our operations."
"It's militarily insignificant," U.S. spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rumi Nielsen-Green said. "You can't imagine the volume of supplies that come through there and elsewhere and other ways."
Still, NATO is seeking an alternative route through Central Asia, which it acknowledges is more expensive.
Pakistan halted traffic through the Khyber Pass for several days in November while it arranged for troops to guard the slow-moving convoys.
Shahedullah Baig, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Islamabad, insisted Sunday that the extra security covered the terminals.
"They are fully protected, but in this kind of situation such incidents happen," Baig said.
However, Khan, the depot manager, said that was untrue, and that there were only a handful of lightly armed police at the targeted terminals on Sunday afternoon.
Peshawar has seen a surge in violence in recent weeks, including the slaying of an American working on a U.S.-funded aid project. On Saturday, a car bomb detonated in a busy market area of the city, killing 29 people and injuring 100 more.
Mehmood Shah, a former chief of security in Pakistan's tribal badlands now working as a consultant, said militants appeared to have moved into the Khyber region from both sides of the border in recent months to put pressure on the supply route.
The terminals, like the route itself, could not be adequately protected by private security guards, he said.
"The government should have done it or the U.S. should have insisted that the government do it," he said.
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Report: NKorea serious about Dec. 1 shutdown
2008-11-23
North Korea said Monday it will suspend a joint tourism project and halt cross-border train service with South Korea starting next week because of Seoul's hard-line stance on the communist nation.The North's army also said it will "selectively expel" South Koreans from a joint industrial zone in the city of Kaesong, but stopped short of shutting down South Korean-run factories that are a key source of hard currency for the impoverished nation.
Monday's announcement laid out the first concrete measures the North plans to take in implementing its threat to restrict traffic to the South starting Dec. 1 and marked a new escalation of tension between the two countries still technically at war.
"The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and anti-reunification confrontational racket," the North said in a message to the South, according to North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency.
"The prospect of the inter-Korean relations will entirely depend on the attitude of the South Korean authorities," the message said, adding that the North's threats are never "empty talk."
Separately, the North sent a series of messages to the South confirming the planned measures, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
One message, addressed to South Korean companies operating at Kaesong, said the North will "guarantee" their business activities, though the number of company staff allowed to remain in the zone will be cut down, the ministry said.
South Korean business leaders were meeting Monday with North Korean officials to discuss the border restrictions.
Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since the conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul in February with a pledge to change policy on the North. He said he would be different from his liberal predecessors and accused them of being too soft on their communist neighbor.
North Korea since has suspended reconciliation talks and threatened to cut any remaining ties with Seoul.
Despite the chill in government-level ties, civilian exchanges have continued with South Korean-run factories continuing to operate in the industrial complex in Kaesong and a South Korean firm operating tours to the city's historic downtown.
A third landmark inter-Korean project - tours to the North's scenic Diamond Mountain - were suspended after the shooting death of a South Korean tourist in July. KCNA's report said some South Koreans still working at Diamond Mountain would also be expelled next month.
Monday's announcement means the North will shut down the Kaesong tours and enforce stricter border control for traffic connected to the Kaesong industrial park.
The North also said it will halt train service between the South and the Kaesong industrial complex - a symbolic rail line that was one of the first inter-Korean projects to emerge from a warming of relations under past South Korean administrations.
Kaesong is home to more than 80 South Korean factories that employ about 35,000 North Korean workers.
The two Koreas fought the bloody 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the divided peninsula still technically at war.
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Gadget survey finds many bugs can't be fixed
2008-11-16
Gadget makers love to sell us on all the things their devices can do, whether it's letting us chat with distant friends at any time or watch movies on our commute. But can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks?That's a question raised by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which discovered in a survey released Sunday that 15 percent of people who had some piece of technology break down in the previous year were never able to get it repaired.
The figure was even higher for certain products. Almost a quarter of cell phone users said they never managed to get their device fixed. And among those who did resolve an issue, a higher percentage either corrected the problem themselves or sought help from friends or relatives rather than call customer service.
"That 15 percent of technology users are sort of throwing up their hands was surprising for us," said John Horrigan, the author of the study. "You're talking about close to one in four cell phone users and one in five computer users saying, `Hey I can't cope with this any longer, I'm done.'"
The survey covered computers, Internet service, music players, cell phones and their higher-end siblings known as "smart" phones. And while the results are no conclusive verdict on the state of customer care in the digital age, analysts say the figures indicate the growing complexity of technology.
Zachary McGeary, an analyst with Jupiter Research, noted that gadgetry now involves an "increasingly integrated ecosystem of devices." In other words, it isn't enough anymore for cell phones and computers to simply work on their own. They also have to get along with each other, and swap video and pictures.
As providing technical support becomes more complicated, some companies have started tapping online communities to offer help, taking advantage of tech-savvy customers who enjoy trading tips online. This method can be best for solving problems that involve multiple devices made by different companies, said Lyle Fong, chief executive of Lithium Technologies Inc., which sets up such customer forums for businesses.
For example, imagine you're trying to get one manufacturer's laptop to work with another company's printer. "Which company do you call for issues like this?" Fong said.
However, for all the talk about online communities, the Pew survey showed only about 2 percent of people solved their technology problem online.
About 38 percent of respondents called customer service, 28 percent fixed the problem themselves and 15 percent got help from friends or relatives.
The rest - about 15 percent - gave up.
Horrigan said that reflected a common thread in the survey: that most people still don't understand the technology they use in their daily lives. For instance, about half of adults who use cell phones or the Internet usually needed someone to show them how to use it or set it up.
Once they were up and running, not all was fine: Nearly 40 percent of computer users said their machine stopped working properly at some point in the past year. Almost 30 percent of cell phone users said the same.
Horrigan argues these statistics should sway technology providers to focus harder on making their products more user-friendly.
Ask Avery Griffin, who switched to an Apple Inc. computer a few years ago for its audio recording software. The 24-year-old musician said his new machine wouldn't stop freezing up and crashing. But he said all he heard from Apple was, "At least it's not a PC."
The PC he uses now works just fine, he said.
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Accident on Russian nuclear sub suffocates 20
2008-11-09
The fire safety system on a brand-new Russian nuclear submarine accidentally turned on as the sub was being tested in the Sea of Japan, spewing a gas that suffocated 20 people and sent 21 others to the hospital, officials said Sunday.The Russian Navy said the submarine itself was not damaged in Saturday's accident and returned to its base on Russia's Pacific coast under its own power Sunday. The accident also did not pose any radiation danger, the navy said.
Yet it was Russia's worst naval accident since torpedo explosions sank another nuclear-powered submarine, the Kursk, in the Barents Sea in 2000, killing all 118 seamen aboard.
Overcrowding may have been a significant factor on Saturday.
The submarine being tested had 208 people aboard, including 81 seamen, according to Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo. Yet Russian news agencies said a sub of this type normally carries only a crew of 73.
"A submarine is the most vulnerable during trials. With both navy and civilian personnel on board, it's very dificult to keep such a large number of people organized," Gennady Illarionov, a retired submarine officer, told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The victims suffocated after the submarine's fire-extinguishing system released Freon gas, said Vladimir Markin, an official with Russia's top investigative agency. He said forensic tests found Freon in the victims' lungs.
Seventeen civilians and three seamen died in the accident and 21 others were hospitalized after being evacuated to shore, Dygalo said, adding that none of the injuries were life-threatening.
"The submarine's nuclear reactor was operating normally and radiation levels were normal," Dygalo said, explaining that the accident affected two sections of the submarine closest to the bow.
Markin's agency, the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor General's office, has launched a probe into the accident, which he said will focus on what activated the firefighting system and possible violations of submarine operating rules.
Lev Fyodorov, a top Russian chemical expert, agreed that the Freon pushed oxygen out, causing those inside to die of suffocation. But he wondered why the individual breathing kits that everyone on board is supposed to have did not keep people from dying.
"People on board the sub may have failed to use their breathing equipment when they found themselves in an emergency," he told the AP.
Igor Kurdin, a retired navy officer who heads an association of former submariners, told Ekho Moskvy radio that the high death toll probably resulted from shipyard workers who lacked experience in dealing with the breathing kits.
A siren warning the crew that the firefighting system was turning on also may have failed, RIA Novosti quoted an unidentified navy official as saying, so those on board might not have realized that Freon was being released until it was too late.
The submarine returned Sunday to Bolshoi Kamen, a military shipyard and a navy base near Vladivostok. Officials at the Amur Shipbuilding Factory said they built the submarine and it is called the Nerpa. Dygalo said it was to be commissioned by the navy later this year.
Construction of the Nerpa, an Akula II class attack submarine, started in 1991 but was suspended for years because of a shortage of funding, they said. Testing on the submarine began last month and it submerged for the first time last week.
The U.S.-based intelligence risk assessment agency Stratfor said the Akula is an established design, with the Nerpa being the 11th ship of the class.
"Such a catastrophic accident calls into question the way the Russian navy has sustained its institutional knowledge in terms of design expertise, not to mention issues of quality control, both in fabrication and inspection," Stratfor said.
Saturday's accident came as the Kremlin is seeking to restore Russia's naval reach, part of a drive to show off the nuclear-armed country's clout amid strained ties with the West. A naval squadron is heading to Venezuela for joint exercises this month in a show of force near U.S. waters.
Despite a major boost in military spending during Vladimir Putin's eight years as president, Russia's military is still hampered by decrepit infrastructure, aging weapons and problems with corruption and incompetence.
Illarionov said the accident appeared to reflect the loss of crucial skills in conducting sea trials.
"During the Soviet times, we commissioned three to five submarines a year, and now we get just one in five years," Illarionov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. "People forgot caution and lost their skills."
The Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev was told about the accident immediately and ordered a thorough investigation. Putin, now prime minister, was criticized for his slow response to the Kursk disaster.
In 2003, 11 people also died when a Russian submarine that was being taken out of service sank in the Barents Sea.
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DNA links bones near plane crash site to Fossett
2008-11-03
Authorities said Monday they have positively identified some of Steve Fossett's remains: two large bones found a half-mile from where the adventurer's plane crashed in California's Sierra Nevada.Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said DNA tests conducted by the state Department of Justice positively identified the bones as the remains of the millionaire aviator who disappeared last year.
Anderson has declined to say what bones were found, saying he didn't want to cause the family further anguish.
Fossett's widow, Peggy Fossett, released a statement thanking authorities for their work.
"I am hopeful that the DNA identification puts a definitive end to all of the speculation surrounding Steve's death. This has been an incredibly difficult time for me, and I am thankful to everyone who helped bring closure to this tragedy," she said.
The bones were discovered last week, along with Fossett's tennis shoes and Illinois driver's license, which had animal bite marks on them.
Fossett disappeared in September 2007 after taking off from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton for what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight. Law enforcement, fellow aviators and others launched a costly search that covered 20,000 square miles but turned up empty.
The wreckage of Fossett's plane was discovered last month after a hiker walking off trail in the Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes stumbled across Fossett's pilot's license and a wad of weathered $100 bills. Authorities said Fossett likely died on impact.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.
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10 Things the Food Industry Doesn't Want You to Know
2008-10-27
Two nutrition experts argue that you can't take marketing campaigns at face value
With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices. In a study released earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese. Food giant PepsiCo, for example, points out on its website that "we can play an important role in helping kids lead healthier lives by offering healthy product choices in schools." The company highlights what it considers its healthier products within various food categories through a "Smart Spot" marketing campaign that features green symbols on packaging. PepsiCo's inclusive criteria--explained here--award spots to foods of dubious nutritional value such as Diet Pepsi, Cap'n Crunch cereal, reduced-fat Doritos, and Cheetos, as well as to more nutritious products such as Quaker Oatmeal and Tropicana Orange Juice.
But are wellness initiatives like Smart Spot just marketing ploys? Such moves by the food industry may seem to be a step in the right direction, but ultimately makers of popular junk foods have an obligation to stockholders to encourage kids to eat more--not less--of the foods that fuel their profits, says David Ludwig, a pediatrician and the co-author of a commentary published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that raises questions about whether big food companies can be trusted to help combat obesity. Ludwig and article co-author Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, both of whom have long histories of tracking the food industry, spoke with U.S. News and highlighted 10 things that junk food makers don't want you to know about their products and how they promote them.
1. Junk food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, food makers spend some $1.6 billion annually to reach children through the traditional media as well the Internet, in-store advertising, and sweepstakes. An article published in 2006 in the Journal of Public Health Policy puts the number as high as $10 billion annually. Promotions often use cartoon characters or free giveaways to entice kids into the junk food fold. PepsiCo has pledged that it will advertise only "Smart Spot" products to children under 12.
2. The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.
In fact, according to a review led by Ludwig of hundreds of studies that looked at the health effects of milk, juice, and soda, the likelihood of conclusions favorable to the industry was several times higher among industry-sponsored research than studies that received no industry funding. "If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science," he says.
3. Junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.
The American Dietetic Association, for example, accepts money from companies such as Coca-Cola, which get access to decision makers in the food and nutrition marketplace via ADA events and programs, as this release explains. As Nestle notes in her blog and discusses at length in her book Food Politics, the group even distributes nutritional fact sheets that are directly sponsored by specific industry groups. This one, for example, which is sponsored by an industry group that promotes lamb, rather unsurprisingly touts the nutritional benefits of lamb. The ADA's reasoning: "These collaborations take place with the understanding that ADA does not support any program or message that does not correspond with ADA's science-based healthful-eating messages and positions," according to the group's president, dietitian Martin Yadrick. "In fact, we think it's important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them."
4. More processing means more profits, but typically makes the food less healthy.
Minimally processed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables obviously aren't where food companies look for profits. The big bucks stem from turning government-subsidized commodity crops--mainly corn, wheat, and soybeans--into fast foods, snack foods, and beverages. High-profit products derived from these commodity crops are generally high in calories and low in nutritional value.
5. Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.
Fresh apples have an abundance of fiber and nutrients that are lost when they are processed into applesauce. And the added sugar or other sweeteners increase the number of calories without necessarily making the applesauce any more filling. Apple juice, which is even more processed, has had almost all of the fiber and nutrients stripped out. This same stripping out of nutrients, says Ludwig, happens with highly refined white bread compared with stone-ground whole wheat bread.
6. Many supposedly healthy replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.
In 2006, for example, major beverage makers agreed to remove sugary sodas from school vending machines. But the industry mounted an intense lobbying effort that persuaded lawmakers to allow sports drinks and vitamin waters that--despite their slightly healthier reputations--still can be packed with sugar and calories.
7. A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.
Health claims such as "zero trans fats" or "contains whole wheat" may create the false impression that a product is healthy when it's not. While the claims may be true, a product is not going to benefit your kid's health if it's also loaded with salt and sugar or saturated fat, say, and lacks fiber or other nutrients. "These claims are calorie distracters," adds Nestle. "They make people forget about the calories." Dave DeCecco, a spokesperson for PepsiCo, counters that the intent of a labeling program such as Smart Spot is simply to help consumers pick a healthier choice within a category. "We're not trying to tell people that a bag of Doritos is healthier than asparagus. But, if you're buying chips, and you're busy, and you don't have a lot of time to read every part of the label, it's an easy way to make a smarter choice," he says.
8. Food industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.
As Nestle explained in Food Politics, the food industry has a history of preferring scientific jargon to straight talk. As far back as 1977, public health officials attempted to include the advice "reduce consumption of meat" in an important report called Dietary Goals for the United States. The report's authors capitulated to intense pushback from the cattle industry and used this less-direct and more ambiguous advice: "Choose meats, poultry, and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Overall, says Nestle, the government has a hard time suggesting that people eat less of anything.
9. The food industry funds front groups that fight antiobesity public health initiatives.
Unless you follow politics closely, you wouldn't necessarily realize that a group with a name like the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has anything to do with the food industry. In fact,Ludwig and Nestle point out, this group lobbies aggressively against obesity-related public health campaigns--such as the one directed at removing junk food from schools--and is funded, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, primarily through donations from big food companies such as Coca-Cola, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and Wendy's.
10. The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.
According to the new JAMA article, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts that "[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons." Here's the group's entry on Marion Nestle.
The bottom line, says Nestle, is quite simple: Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food.
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World Internet Summit dvds
2008-10-21
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I can speak Chinese with Ispeakchinese
2008-10-16
"China, China, China, China, China is always the theme reiterated in the speech of Mr. Kevin Rudd on his visit." claimed the Mr. B Laman, the Indian Strategy Critic.
Recently the some Australian industries rely on the huge ship of Chinese economy to a great extent. It is deemed that the relationship between the two countries will be improved dramatically and closer than any other period in the history after Mr. Kevin Rudd's appointment of prime minister. At the same time, more and more Chinese students choose Australia as the most craved country for further study and occupation career. Consequently an unprecedented "Chinese Fever" permeates every corner in Australia. Speaking fluent Chinese is not only the advantage of cooperation in business, but also the necessary skill of communication in the daily life......
Next, let's focus on other countries. According to incomplete statistics, there is thousands of Chinese websites owned by most international organizations, multinational corporations, international media and key universities. A new tide of studying Chinese is initiated in the US these days. Furthermore, the number of people studying Chinese in Europe increases by 40% annually. Chinese trends to be the main foreign language for the Korean and Japanese students in the near future......
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China milk scandal companies apologize
2008-10-12
Three Chinese dairy companies have publicly apologized for their involvement in a toxic milk scandal that has killed at least four children and led to Chinese-made products pulled from shelves around the world.Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, Mengniu Dairy and Bright Dairy Group were found earlier to have produced milk contaminated with melamine, a compound used to cheat nutrition tests.
The scandal has savaged the companies' share prices and prompted Seattle-based coffee chain Starbucks Corp to pull Mengniu milk from its 300-plus stores last month.
"I feel I have let everybody down. I have done so much, yet still done wrong," Monday's Beijing News quoted Mengniu's marketing chief, Zhao Yuanhua, as saying on state television.
Zhao and executives from Mengniu and Bright Dairy also promised consumers that their products prices would not rise despite higher costs of quality controls.
Chinese health officials last week said that nearly 10,700 infants and children were still in hospital after drinking toxic milk and formula. More than 36,000 children had left hospital after being treated.
The scandal has rocked faith in the safety of Chinese-made products, already under a cloud from a series of quality scandals involving food, drugs and toys last year, and prompted authorities to issue tighter rules governing milk production.
China's quality watchdog said a fourth round of tests on baby milk formula and other milk powder from dozens of local brands across 18 provinces had shown no new cases of melamine contamination, Xinhua news agency said in a separate report.
But the Ministry of Agriculture had decided to continue sending quality teams across the country to monitor the clean-up of milk stations and animal feed producers, it said in a notice on its website.
"Supervise and urge local authorities to investigate and punish the illegal use of melamine and other toxins, and other unlawful adulteration," the ministry said.
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Webay ! The best website design company in Australia
2008-10-08
Have you still been bustling about in the IT CENTURY? Maybe there are too many trifles waiting for your response on your daily work. The only part time is occupied by the concern to stifling share-list and the birthday of your family. You are too exhausted to notice and rejuvenate your crude and laggard website. Maybe you are harassed by the overburden of personnel cost in IT department but fail to avoid the expansion. Maybe you want to improve the function and flexibility of software but could not alleviate your overload of working. Actually I have the same trouble as you until encountering Webay. Through introduction of my intimate partners Melody and Sophia, I was lucky to touch her. At first, I ignored it. After all, I am an"advance guard" in the concept of administration and business strategy. Searching an IT outsourcing seemed as easy as finding a porter. But, having browsed Webay's recent delicate works, reasonable price list and competitive packages, I had to approve my friends' recommendation, though I am a bit subjective in my character.
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US woman loses appeal in 'milkshake murder' case
2008-10-06
An American woman lost an appeal Monday of her conviction in a Hong Kong court for the beating death of her husband in a sensational case widely known as the "milkshake murder" trial.Dressed in black, Nancy Kissel nodded her head and appeared to be holding back tears when a judge announced the decision in the Court of Appeal. Kissel, who suffered a knee injury in prison, limped out of the courtroom aided by two policewomen.
The 44-year-old housewife from Minnesota was convicted in 2005 of giving her husband a milkshake laced with sedatives in 2003 and then fatally bashing the wealthy banker on the head with a metal ornament.
Kissel said she was defending herself from an abusive husband and appealed the conviction and her life sentence in prison. But prosecutors argued Kissel was a cold-blooded wife who planned the attack in the couple's luxury apartment.
Defense attorney Simon Clarke said he was "very disappointed" but not surprised by Monday's ruling.
"This court doesn't uphold many appeals at all," Clarke said. "But we are expecting a better hearing at the Court of Final Appeal."
The three-judge panel did not give approval for the case to proceed to a higher court, and Kissel will need to apply for permission to get the Court of Final Appeal to hear the case.
The defendant's mother, Jean McGlothlin, said her daughter was fragile physically. But she added: "Her spirit is strong. Her will is strong. Her heart and mind are strong."
The sensational trial has made headlines worldwide because of its allegations of drug abuse, kinky sex and adultery in the wealthy world of expatriates in this Asian financial center.
Kissel said her then 40-year-old husband, Robert, an investment banker for Merrill Lynch, was an erratic whiskey-swilling workaholic who also snorted cocaine and forced her to have painful anal sex. She testified that she killed him as he was threatening her with a baseball bat in a quarrel.
During the appeal hearings, Kissel's defense lawyer said the woman suffered an abnormality of mind that substantially impaired her self-control.
But prosecutors argued that Kissel was a scheming woman who plotted to kill her husband. They said Robert Kissel of New York had been angry about his wife's affair with a repairman who worked on the couple's vacation home in the northeastern U.S. state of Vermont. He had planned to seek a divorce just before she killed him.
Robert Kissel's estate was worth $18 million in life insurance, stocks and properties before he was murdered, prosecutors said.
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Aso is in charge of Japan
2008-09-24
Taro Aso took charge as Japan's new prime minister Wednesday, lining up his cabinet with like-minded conservatives to help his mission to revive the economy and win upcoming elections.The divided parliament voted along party lines to install the flamboyant former foreign minister, who was expected to fly a day later to New York for the UN General Assembly.
Aso bowed four times and shook hands with fellow lawmakers after the more powerful lower house approved him.
"When I look at the financial situation and other things, I feel like we're in a turbulent period -- not in peacetime," Aso told reporters before the vote, referring to the crisis over bad debts hitting global markets.
"Frankly speaking, I am once again feeling the gravity of my responsibilities."
Aso replaced Yasuo Fukuda, a mild centrist whose ratings dived after he raised medical costs for the elderly.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) picked Aso on Monday as its new leader by an overwhelming majority, placing its trust in a crowd-pleasing -- though gaffe-prone -- campaigner.
Analysts expect him to call a general election as early as late October in a bid to hold off gains by the rising opposition, which has pounded away at the LDP's traditional strongholds in the countryside.
"The final battle has begun. The autumn of elections -- the autumn to change the government -- is coming," said opposition chief Ichiro Ozawa, whose bloc controls one house of parliament.
The LDP has been in power for all but 10 months since 1955, but Aso will be its fourth prime minister in the past two years as the party struggles over a raft of scandals and, more recently, a faltering economy.
Aso said his first priority would be to pump stimulative spending into the economy, the world's second largest but teetering on the brink of recession , clashing with LDP free-market reformists who in recent years have pushed to tame a ballooning public debt.
Newspapers said Aso would tap as his finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa who, echoing the incoming premier, said he would make "full use of all sorts of policies" to invigorate the economy.
"Some people label us as freespenders or old-guard cronies as we say we are not hesitant on fiscal spending," Nakagawa, a former industry minister, wrote in a newspaper column. "But we do not intend to backtrack on reforms."
Nakagawa -- who was shunned by the more dovish Fukuda -- has raised controversy through strong criticism of China and calls for Japan, the only nation to have suffered atomic attack, to study developing nuclear weapons.
"This is the lineup aimed at avoiding any political scandals ahead of the imminent general elections," said Shujiro Kato, professor of politics at Toyo University.
"Nobody reported to be appointed as minister is a fresh face."
Newspapers said the foreign minister would be Fumihiro Nakasone, the son of one of Japan's best-known premiers, Yasuhiro Nakasone, who led Japan in the 1980s and was a close ally in US president Ronald Reagan's anti-communist campaign.
Like Aso, Nakasone was uneasy with some of the free-market reforms during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, who was popular with the public but blamed by some LDP members for alienating rural voters by cutting services.
However, in a bid to ensure party unity, Aso was expected to keep in place Fiscal and Economic Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano, who had challenged him for the top job arguing that Aso's economic policies were irresponsible.
Another rival, Shigeru Ishiba, was tipped to be farm minister, a position that has frequently been hit by scandal. Ishiba survived resignation calls as he managed crises as Fukuda's defence minister.
Aso promises a return both at home and abroad to some of the more flamboyant ways of Koizumi, who would regale summits by singing Elvis Presley songs, after a two-year gap of drier leaders.
Known for his love of comic books, as foreign minister Aso entertained summits by doing a Humphrey Bogart impersonation and dancing in the costume of a samurai.
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Woman mistakes elk's call for a fight, calls cops
2008-09-17
It's a haunting, high-pitched scream that is commonly misunderstood by newcomers to Arizona's high country and the state's city dwellers. It's called bugling, and male elk do it to attract females and scare off other males so they can mate. The season just began and usually runs through the beginning of October.Those who've never heard an elk bugle often get confused and call authorities. A woman who lives in Mesa Del, a subdivision just northeast of Payson, called the Gila County Sheriff's Office early Monday morning to report a fight, saying she heard a lot of screaming.
Lt. Tim Scott said responding deputies quickly realized the woman was really hearing elk.
Scott said he's heard bugling at his home just south of Payson for the past five nights.
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Race is on for leadership of Israeli ruling party
2008-09-15
A popular foreign minister hoping to become Israel's first female leader in more than three decades squares off against a tough-talking military man Wednesday when the ruling party picks a new chief to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.The Kadima Party called the election as Olmert is being forced from office by a corruption scandal.
Whoever is chosen as party leader has a good chance of becoming the next prime minister, charged with dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, overseeing peace talks and shaping relations with Israel's most important ally, the United States.
The race pits Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - a rising political star hoping to become the second female prime minister in Israel's history after Golda Meir - against Shaul Mofaz, a former military chief and defense minister who says he is the perfect choice to lead this security-obsessed country.
The differences are as much about substance as style.
As Israel's lead negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians, Livni, a lawyer and former agent in the Mossad spy agency, is eager to continue the low-decibel diplomatic efforts. She says she hopes diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program prevail, though she says all options are on the table. And she has forged a warm working relationship with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"In the political arena, the lower the profile you maintain, the less you are perceived as a threat," Livni said in a recent interview with Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. "It is accepted as being more in the national interest, less politically motivated, and therefore you are capable of moving processes forward."
Mofaz takes a much tougher line in negotiations, demanding the Palestinians fulfill a series of conditions before final peace talks can take place. He also is more willing to order military action in times of crisis.
"The Arab states know that when I am prime minister, my determination, my tenacity, my assertiveness in the face of threats will be very significant," Mofaz told Yediot. "Along with that, I will be able to achieve peace with them and also begin a dialogue of give and take. For this you need strong leadership that is able to make decisions and that has decisions in the past. I was there. I led soldiers."
In June, Mofaz roiled world oil markets when he reportedly said Israel would have "no choice" but to attack Iran if diplomatic efforts to end Tehran's nuclear program fail. During the current campaign, he has said Israel should resume its practice of assassinating Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip.
"The choice between Mofaz and Tzipi Livni is for the Israeli public really a choice between opting from the use of military force in dealing with the conflict, as against the use of diplomacy," said Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
According to opinion polls, Livni and Mofaz are the clear front-runners in Wednesday's race, well ahead of Avi Dichter, a former director of Israel's Shin Bet security service, and longtime Cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit.
Opinion polls have forecast a first-round victory for Livni, but analysts note such surveys have proved wrong in the past.
Some 74,000 people are registered to vote. Under party rules, the winner must receive at least 40 percent of the votes. Otherwise, a runoff must be held between the top two vote-getters.
Olmert, who is facing a series of corruption investigations, has said he will resign as soon as Kadima has a new leader. But whoever wins the primary does not automatically become prime minister.
Kadima is the largest party in a four-member governing coalition, and the new leader will have just over a month to put together a new coalition. If that fails, the country will be forced to hold elections in early 2009, a year and a half ahead of schedule.
Livni and Mofaz both say they want to keep the current coalition intact, and even expand it.
With opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud Party polling well, neither Kadima nor its coalition partners appear eager for a new election,
Kadima, which means Forward in Hebrew, was founded by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005 months after he oversaw Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Through the centrist party, Sharon hoped to orchestrate a similar pullout from much of the West Bank - with or without an agreement with the Palestinians. He attracted a group of leading politicians from other parties to promote this agenda, which Sharon said would improve Israel's security.
The following January, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and his deputy, Olmert, led the party to victory in elections. However, Olmert's popularity took a hit with Israel's inconclusive war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 and a succession of police investigations into alleged corruption in his financial dealings.
Although Olmert formally relaunched peace talks with the Palestinians last November and has resumed indirect talks with Syria, there has been no word of any breakthroughs on either front.
The loss of Sharon, who remains in a coma, and Olmert's spotty record has left Kadima in disarray. Most Kadima lawmakers insist they will support their next leader, but the divisions have raised questions about the party's long-term viability.
Israel's first female prime minister, Meir, governed from 1969-1974.
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Nearly 1 million in Texas ordered to evacuate ahead of Ike
2008-09-11
Cars and trucks streamed inland and chemical companies buttoned up their plants Thursday as a gigantic Hurricane Ike took aim at the heart of the U.S. refining industry and threatened to send a wall of water crashing toward Houston.
Nearly 1 million people along the Texas coast were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, which was expected to strike late Friday or early Saturday. But in a calculated risk aimed at avoiding total gridlock, authorities told most people in the nation's fourth-largest city to just hunker down.
Ike was steering almost directly for Houston, where gleaming skyscrapers, the nation's biggest refinery and NASA's Johnson Space Center lie in areas vulnerable to wind and floodwaters. Forecasters said the storm was likely to come ashore as a Category 3, with winds up to 130 mph.
But the storm was so big, it could inflict a punishing blow even in those areas that do not get a direct hit. Forecasters warned that because of Ike's size and the state's shallow coastal waters, it could produce a surge, or wall of water, 20 feet high, and waves of perhaps 50 feet. It could also dump 10 inches or more of rain.
"It's a big storm," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "I cannot overemphasize the danger that is facing us. It's going to do some substantial damage. It's going to knock out power. It's going to cause massive flooding."
Perhaps the sternest warning came from the National Weather Service for residents along a Gulf-facing stretch of Galveston Island and neighboring Bolivar Peninsula, which are both under mandatory evacuation orders. People ignoring the orders in single-family one- or two-story homes "will face certain death," read the statement Thursday from the local weather forecast office.
Hurricane warnings were in effect over a 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, La. Tropical storm warnings extended south almost to the Mexican border and east to the Mississippi-Alabama line, including New Orleans.
In Surfside Beach, a coastal community about 40 miles south of Galveston, the police chief was so worried that the entire force planned to ride out the storm inland.
"I don't have a crystal ball, but if I did, I think it would tell me a sad story. And that story would be that were faced with devastation of a catastrophic range," said Chief Randy Smith. "I think we're going to see a storm like most of us haven't seen."
Most of the evacuations were limited to sections of Harris County outside Houston, as well as nearby bayous and Galveston Bay. But the 2 million residents of the city itself and 1 million in other areas of the county were asked to remain at home.
"We are still saying: Please shelter in place, or to use the Texas expression, hunker down," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county's chief administrator. "For the vast majority of people who live in our area, stay where you are. The winds will blow and they'll howl and we'll get a lot of rain, but if you lose power and need to leave, you can do that later."
Authorities hoped to avoid the panic of three years ago, when evacuations ordered in advance of Hurricane Rita sent millions scurrying in fright and caused a monumental traffic jam so big that cars ran out of gas or overheated. Ultimately, the evacuation proved deadlier than the storm itself. A total of 110 people died during the exodus, including 23 nursing home patients whose bus burst into flames while stuck in traffic.
This time, traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the freeway leading away from Galveston immediately after the evacuation order, but by late afternoon, many evacuees had made it past Houston, to the north. And just in time: Waves were already inundating the beach on one end of Galveston Island.
Some gas stations began running out of fuel, but fuel trucks were called in to replenish them.
Houston Mayor Bill White said one of the lessons of the Rita mess was that too many people fled who didn't need to. Instead, he asked residents to protect their homes.
"Think how your barbecue could become a flying object," he said.
At 11 p.m. EDT, the storm was centered about 340 miles southeast of Galveston, moving to the west-northwest at 12 mph. Top sustained winds were 100 mph.
NASA closed the Johnson Space Center, including Mission Control, and set up temporary quarters Thursday near Austin and Huntsville, Ala., to watch over the international space station until the storm threat passes. Most NASA aircraft at Ellington Field, just north of Johnson, have been flown to a facility in El Paso.
The oil and gas industry was closely watching the storm because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. The upper Texas coast accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity.
Wholesale gasoline prices spiked 30 percent Thursday, or nearly $1 a gallon, out of fear of what Ike might do. That means motorists can expect higher prices at the pump, though how much higher depends largely on how long refineries are shuttered after the storm.
Exxon Mobil Corp., Valero Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Co. began halting operations as Ike closed in. Dow Chemical Co. started closing up its enormous Freeport complex, home to 75 plants producing some 27 billion pounds of chemical products each year.
BASF, the world's largest chemical company with 14 manufacturing sites in the Gulf Coast region, also began shutting down some operations. Spokesman Daniel Pepitone said each site has a hurricane plan that outlines detailed steps for securing plants, and precautions such as tying down hoses and taking down scaffolding began days ago.
Industry officials said their refineries and chemical plants are designed to withstand high winds. But power outages could still knock them out of service.
Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston, it would be the first major hurricane since Alicia in August 1983 came ashore on Galveston Island, killing 21 people and causing $2 billion in damage.
Ike is huge, taking up nearly 40 percent of the Gulf. The National Hurricane Center said tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extended across more than 530 miles, and hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph stretched for 230 miles. A typical storm has tropical storm-force winds stretching only 300 miles.
Because of its great size, storm surge and gigantic waves are the biggest risk, said Hugh Willoughby, former director of the federal government's hurricane research division. The larger the storm, the longer it hits and the higher waves can build.
And because the water is so shallow along the Texas coast, the waves pile up, creating a big storm surge, he said.
"We're not talking about gently rising water," Harris County's Emmett said. "We're talking about a surge that will come into your homes."
Authorities put the frail and poor on buses headed for shelters. And thousands of Texas prison inmates were also moved out of the storm's path.
Officials worried that after Labor Day's Hurricane Gustav proved to be a dud in Texas, people wouldn't take the warnings seriously.
"The most important message I can send is do not take this storm lightly," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "Do not look back at Gustav and say, `Well, that turned out to be not as bad as some people feared, therefore, I'm going to gamble with this storm.'"
Some stayed put anyway.
Johnny Tyson, 33, his girlfriend, Martha Jones, 38, and her three children planned to ignore the order to leave. Tyson, loading into his truck plywood he bought at a Home Depot in Beaumont, complained that officials waited too long to call for an evacuation.
"We left for Gustav and we didn't have to leave," Jones said. "They cut all the roads and bottleneck everybody into one road and make traffic worse." He added: "Everybody and their momma is trying to leave right now."
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2008-09-10
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Families like candidates' WTC appearance
2008-09-08
Relatives of people killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 say the decision by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain to appear together at ground zero on the seventh anniversary of the attacks is a welcome gesture of respect."I think it's a wonderful thing," Sally Regenhard, whose son, Christian, was killed at the trade center, said Monday. "I assume that they're coming down here to pay respects to the people who lost their lives and to really affirm the fact that this is sacred ground for America."
Obama and McCain, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, said Saturday they would appear together at ground zero on Thursday "to honor the memory of each and every American who died." The campaigns already had agreed to halt television advertising critical of each other on Sept. 11.
The welcome mat for McCain and Obama contrasts with the chilly reception some family members gave former New York mayor and then-presidential contender Rudy Giuliani one year ago. As Giuliani descended to the trade center site during the observance, one man yelled, "Scum! Scum!"
Giuliani, who made his leadership after the terror attacks the cornerstone of his failed bid for the GOP nomination, spoke in 2007, as at previous ceremonies. Then-Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton attended the 2007 observance in her capacity as a senator from New York but did not speak.
In 2004, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry did not attend the anniversary observance at the trade center site. Bush visited on the eve of the fifth anniversary in 2006 but did not take part in the Sept. 11 ceremony.
The McCain and Obama campaigns have not released details of the joint appearance, such as the timing of the visit or whether the candidates will speak.
Rosaleen Tallon, who lost her brother, Sean, a rookie firefighter, said they should not speak.
"It should just be where they're paying their respects," she said.
Charles Wolf, who lost his wife, Katherine, recalled that McCain and Obama sat next to each other at the funeral of NBC newsman Tim Russert. He said their visit to ground zero should be similarly somber and dignified.
"It's a tough time for family members. As much as you've moved on, when that anniversary comes around, it comes around," he said.
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