Sections on today's Signs Page:
SOTT Focus
Cry "Weapons Smuggling!" And Let Slip The Dogs Of Deception
Joe Quinn
SOTT.net
2009-11-06 07:39:00
The recent alleged discovery by Israel of a boatload of "Iranian weapons destined for Syria and Hizb'allah" is designed to distract from growing global public awareness that Israel is a terrorist state guilty of the most despicable war crimes.
The UN fact finding mission on the Israeli attack on Gaza from Dec 27th 2008 to Jan 18th 2009, aka "The Goldstone Report" was released on September 15th 2009. Initially the scope of the investigation was limited to violations of international and human rights law by Israeli forces alone. The official wording was:
to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission.
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Connecting the Dots: The Mass Poisoning Begins, the Secret Team's Tricks Continue and the Dollar's Supremacy Heads for its End
Sott editors
SOTT.net
2009-11-05 21:23:00
Terrorism has been defined as "a criminal act that influences an audience beyond the immediate victim". We agree, but the question is, what entity today has the greatest capacity to carry out criminal acts and influence an audience beyond the immediate victim? Figure that one out, and you've got the real terrorists.
But first, let's look at some of the influences we've all come under during the month of October. Vaccination season has kicked off in US, Canada and UK and Obama has declared the swine flu a national emergency! Well, if Mr. Charm, Change and Hope says so, it must be true! Right? Read on and we'll take you through the talking points...
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Best of the Web
Swine Flu: One of the Most Massive Cover-ups in American History
Dr. Russell Blaylock
Dr. Mercola
2009-11-03 00:00:00
What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it.
- G.W.F. Hegel
I have been following the evolving "pandemic" of H1N1 influenza beginning with the original discovery of the infection in Mexico in March of this year. In the course of this study I have tried to utilize as my sources high-quality, peer-reviewed journals, data from the CDC and accepted textbooks of virology.
As with all such studies one has to integrate and correlate previous experiences with epidemics and pandemics. As you will see, a great deal of my material comes from official sources, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the New England Journal of Medicine. Thus my distracters cannot claim that I am using material that is not within the mainstream.
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U.S. News
Oops-a-daisy! Toxic overload: A third of U.S. youth too fat, sickly to serve
USA Today
2009-11-04 17:56:00
More than a third of American youth of military age are unfit for service, mainly because they are too fat or sickly, the Army Times reports, quoting the latest Pentagon figures.
Most of the rest are too dumb or have used too many drugs to qualify, the study shows.
The report says 35% of the 31 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified because of physical and medical issues.
"The major component of this is obesity," Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions, tells the Times. "We have an obesity crisis in the country. There's no question about it."
He also said young people, by and large, can't do push-ups.
"And they can't do pull-ups," Gilroy says. " And they can't run."
The Times says the Pentagon gets its data from the Centers for Disease Control, which has found that the percentage of youth 18 to 34 who are considered obese has jumped from 6% in 1987 to 23% now.
Here's the Pentagon's breakdown of the ineligible population, according to the Times:
- Medical/physical problems, 35%.
- Illegal drug use, 18%.
- Mental Category V (the lowest 10% of the population), 9%.
- Too many dependents under age 18, 6%.
- Criminal record, 5%.
Update at 1:06 p.m. ET: The Times reports that Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a group of retired military officers will issue a report on Thursday warning that the situation is so dire it amounts to a threat to national security.
That study will show that when all factors are considered, 75% of military-age youth are not eligible to serve.
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More brainwashing: Top GOP recruit says Ft. Hood shooting shows 'enemy is infiltrating our military'
Jordan Fabian
The Hill
2009-11-06 16:20:00
A top Republican congressional recruit said on Friday that the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday by a solider allegedly sympathetic to suicide bombers shows that the "enemy is infiltrating our military."
Allen West (R-Fla.), a retired military colonel who served as a commander at the Texas base, said in a release that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's attack may indicate a broader effort by Islamic extremists to recruit downtrodden members of the military.
"This enemy preys on downtrodden soldiers and teaches them extremism will lift them up," West said in a statement. "Our soldiers are being brainwashed."
The release added that West claims "the horrible tragedy at Fort Hood is proof the enemy is infiltrating our military."
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Brainwashing: Fox Host - Alleged Ft. Hood shooter's name 'tells us a lot'
David Edwards and Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
2009-11-06 15:58:00
"This is going to get very dark," reads the headline of a blog posting late Thursday by TalkingPointsMemo's Josh Marshall.
Marshall was referring to news reports stating that the alleged primary shooter killed in today's rampage at the army base in Fort Hood, Texas, has a "Muslim-sounding" name -- and what that will mean for the political debate surrounding the shooting in post-911 America.
"The fact that the primary assailant has an Arabic name and is presumably, though we don't know this yet, of Muslim extraction if not a practicing Muslim, is going to be the focus of attention," Marshall wrote.
And indeed, no sooner had Marshall made his prediction than Fox News made that prediction come true.
In an interview with US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Fox host Shepard Smith asked: "The names tells us a lot, does it not, senator?"
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Shame, Humiliation as Kerik Pleads Guilty 8 Times
Tony Aiello
CBS 2 News
2009-11-06 06:14:00
Former NYPD Commish pleads guilty to lying to White House, Tax Crimes
Former New York City police commissioner Benard Kerik gave up and copped a plea deal, and could now spend the next three years in prison for lying to the White House and the IRS.
Kerik stood before Judge Stephen Robinson and pleaded guilty to eight felony crimes, mired in shame and humiliation eight years after standing with Rudy Giuliani on 9/11 and five years after standing with President Bush at the White House.
"It's just the most dramatic fall from the pinnacle of power," said Ben Gershman of Pace Law School. "It's just kind of breathtaking how quickly and how far this man fell."
Gershman, a former prosecutor, said it's a stunning fall, two years after Kerik vowed to clear his name.
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Florida: Wife Faked Own Abduction to Scam Hubby
Tamara Lush
The Associated Press
2009-11-06 15:19:00
A wealthy health care executive came home one night in September to find a terrifying note from his wife, Quinn Gray: The 37-year-old housewife and mother of two had been abducted from her posh Florida beach community.
"There are three men holding me right now and they want $50,000 cash," Gray wrote. "Do not do anything stupid. NO COPS!"
Authorities say the 25-year-old mechanic charged with trying to extort thousands from Gray's husband wasn't her captor - but her accomplice and lover. Her husband, however, has stuck by his wife's side.
Gray said she went along with her captor's demands, eventually having audiotaped sex with him. Gray says she wasn't scheming, but went insane and started to believe the kidnapper's claims that her husband wanted her dead.
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Airplane Part Falls onto New York Home's Front Lawn
The Associated Press
2009-11-06 13:53:00
An engine tail cone popped off a Delta airlines jet shortly after takeoff from New York's Kennedy Airport. It plummeted thousands of feet into a Long Island neighborhood before landing harmlessly on someone's lawn.
FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac (SAHL'-ak) said Friday the jet doesn't need the part to fly and passengers weren't in any danger.
Neither the pilots nor people on the ground noticed the mishap when it happened Thursday evening.
The flight continued to its destination. Salac says Delta personnel reported the part missing after the plane landed in Tokyo.
The 20-pound part measured 4-feet long and 3-feet in diameter. A resident spotted it hours later and called police.
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UK & Euro-Asian News
Tens of thousands protest against Irish austerity measures
Agence France-Presse
2009-11-06 18:21:00
Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators rallied across Ireland on Friday to protest government plans for tough austerity measures, police and reports said.
The protests were called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to back its 10-point plan to spread belt-tightening -- ordered to deal with a ballooning gap in public finances -- over the next eight years instead of four.
Rallies took place in Dublin and seven other centres. Unions also threaten a national strike on November 24. In February 120,000 people took to the streets in Dublin in a similar protest before an emergency budget in April.
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Europe Still Divided 20 Years After Berlin Wall Fell
RIA Novosti
2009-11-06 12:00:00
Europe's dividing lines survive even 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia's PACE delegation head said on Friday.
November 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the 160-km concrete barrier between East and West Berlin, the symbolic demarcation line between the socialist camp in Eastern Europe and the West.
Konstantin Kosachyov said Russia and Europe had retained most of their differences, "which means the dividing lines in Europe have survived the fall of the Berlin Wall."
Kosachyov, who also heads the international affairs committee at the lower house of Russia's parliament, referred to visa restrictions and certain "indirect" limitations for Russian businesses.
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Three bald bears perplex 'experts'
BBC
2009-11-06 00:33:00
Bears in a zoo in eastern Germany have lost their fur, but international experts cannot work out why.
Three spectacled bears in Leipzig Zoo are in various states of baldness, with the worst being hairless all over.
Zoo curator Gerd Noetzhold said he had discovered that zoos throughout Europe and further afield had encountered the same problem, but no-one knew why.
One expert suggested it could be caused by climate and the diet of the bears, whose native habitat is South America.
The bears come from the Andean mountains of Ecuador, Peru and northern Bolivia.
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Around the World
Canadian forces prepare for Afghan withdrawal in 2011
John Ibbitson
The Globe and Mail
2009-11-06 18:33:00
Preparations have begun for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, as the 2011 deadline for that withdrawal draws closer.
A government official confirmed media reports that General Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has ordered preparations to get under way that would involve the return of the thousands of troops and their equipment from the troubled country.
"A Chief of Defence Staff directive has been issued to begin planning preparations for the 2011 end of combat mission," the official told The Globe and Mail Friday.
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Four sentenced to hang for killing albino in Tanzania
Faith Karimi
CNN
2009-11-06 14:39:00
A court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for the killing of an albino man who was targeted for body parts believed to have special powers, authorities said Friday.
The four were found guilty of killing the 50-year-old albino in the Shinyanga region and sentenced to die by hanging for removing his body parts, said Lucca Haule, assistant commissioner of police.
So far, seven people have been sentenced to death for the killing of more than 50 Tanzanian albinos, including children, in the past two years, Haule said. Dozens more are awaiting trial.
Albinism is a genetic condition that leads to little or no pigment in the eyes, skin and hair.
Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Tanzania and other African countries, where some believe they bring wealth and good luck. Attackers chop off limbs and pluck out organs, selling them to witch doctors.
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Two US soldiers 'drown' in Afghanistan
PressTV
2009-11-06 14:22:00
In a rare fatal incident, two American troops have drowned in Afghanistan, while trying to recover equipment from a northwestern river, security officials say.
The soldiers died on Wednesday, while trawling in the Badghis province's Bala-Murghab River for lost supply packages, the area's Deputy Police Chief Mohammed Jabbar told a Press TV correspondent.
The supplies were lost as a US aircraft was dropping caissons and food parcels on the troops' base.
The present US contingent in cooperation with local military and police force have set out on a rescue operation.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Taliban, Ghari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the militants had attacked the soldiers as the aircraft was on the supply mission, killing one of the soldiers while four others drowned themselves in the river.
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Mushroom Collector in Japan Finds Woman's Head
The Daily Telegraph/Agence France-Presse
2009-11-06 07:40:00
A Japanese man collecting mushrooms in a mountain area today found the severed head of a young woman, believed to be a college student missing since last month, news reports said.
The man made the grisly find near the 1223-metre peak of Mount Garyu in the north of Hiroshima prefecture, where he was gathering wild mushrooms, Jiji Press reported, quoting police sources.
Police suspect the head may be that of a local 19-year-old college student who has been missing since October 26, Jiji said.
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Gunman Injures 3 in Japan, Commits Suicide
RIA Novosti
2009-11-06 01:00:00
A gunman in the Japanese city of Yokohama committed suicide after having shot and seriously injured three men in a money dispute on Friday, Japanese media said.
Kenji Hayashi opened fire at around 2:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. GMT) in a street in Yokohama's residential area and then took refuge in a nearby building, media reports said.
The man was found dead inside the building at around 4:00 p.m. local time after police failed to convince him to surrender. A revolver was found at the site.
Media reports said one of the injured men was in a critical condition.
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Why Ugandans want to work in Iraq
Joshua Mmali
BBC
2009-11-06 00:14:00
At the Watertight security training ground in Uganda, a group of men and women are doing target practice with their AK47s.
Nearby, another group are listening to a lecture under the shelter of a tree.
Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007.
So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country.
Moses Matsiko worked in Iraq for more than three years before returning to Uganda to set up the company.
"Since we do security, we start by screening the criminal background of people, hand in hand with Interpol," he told the BBC World Service.
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Big Brother
UK DNA Database May Contain Records of One Million Innocent People
Rebecca Thompson
Computer Weekly
2009-10-29 06:21:00
Over 90,000 innocent people have been added to the DNA database since the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against the practice
The figures, which were obtained by the Liberal Democrats, showed 433,752 DNA profiles had been added to the database since the ECHR ruling on 5 December 2008, equalling 1,480 per day. In the same period, only 611 profiles were removed.
There are now nearly 5.5 million DNA profiles on the database relating to 4.8 million people. The government estimated in 2008 that 20% of people on the database are innocent - meaning records of one million innocent people may be held on it.
The Home Office recently dropped proposals to keep the DNA of innocent people for 12 years, but privacy campaigners want it to go further.
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UK school spies on kids' diet through fingerprinting
Adam Smith
Halesowen News
2009-11-05 06:18:00
Children in Halesowen are having their fingerprints taken for a new £23k biometric school dinner scheme.
Windsor High School has insisted the biometric 'kiddyprinting' is not out of the ordinary but parents have complained the measure is another sign of a 'Big Brother' society.
The cashless school dinner system allows parents and the school to check children are eating healthy meals and prevents them spending their dinner money at the local chip shop.
The new system cost £23,000 to install but the school received a Government grant to cover half the costs. Concerned parent Heloise Morgan has demanded all evidence of her child's fingerprint be destroyed.
She said: "Where is it all going to end? If we have come to the stage when children think it is normal to give their fingerprints to get school dinners then the world surely has gone mad."
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UK School CCTV siezed after kids filmed changing
Yakub Qureshi and Neal Keeling
Manchester Evening News
2009-11-06 06:12:00
Police seized video footage from a primary school after children were filmed on a CCTV system as they changed for gym lessons.
The recording was seized after angry parents protested outside Charlestown Primary School in Salford.
The parents had discovered that the school's surveillance cameras were running round the clock and some children had been inadvertently filmed changing into gym gear in their classrooms before PE lessons.
Staff at the school had contacted police to ask them to remove the protesting parents. But after speaking to the parents officers took the footage from the cameras and a computer hard drive.
Police have studied the images and decided no further action is needed.
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Air Force: 'Overwhelm Enemy Cognitive Abilities' with Bioscience
Katie Drummond
Wired.com
2009-11-04 05:16:00
The Air Force is looking to harness advances in bio-science so they can "degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive abilities." It's all part of a $49 million dollar bio-research effort unveiled last month by the Air Force Research Lab's "Human Effectiveness Directorate," and it's the latest in a series of out-there military ideas to mess with adversaries' heads.
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The Internet as You Know It Will Cease to Exist
Once upon a time
2009-11-06 05:23:00
Hey, relax. It's not going to be the end of the world -- but as my headline says, in time it may be the end of the internet as you know it.
Cory Doctorow:
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:
* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
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UK: Asset-seizing powers out of control
Chris Huhne
The Guardian
2009-11-05 05:12:00
Intrusive 'Al Capone' powers will be extended to bodies such as the Royal Mail unless we stop the government's mission creep
Powers originally given only to the police and police agencies to seize criminal assets are now being extended to councils and other public bodies, including the Royal Mail. Once again, legal powers voted in to deal with terrorism and organised crime are being rolled out for use against minor offences. The most famous example is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which could originally only be used by nine organisations (such as the police and security services). It can now be applied by over 800 public bodies. After mission creep, ministers have invented mission gallop. As a result, highly intrusive techniques are now routinely used to spy on ordinary people, their children, their pets and their bins.
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Axis of Evil
J Street is just another Israel advocacy group
Philip Giraldi
Antiwar.com
2009-10-29 18:53:00
As readers of Antiwar.com certainly are aware, J Street was created a year and a half ago to serve as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). J Street supports creation of a viable Palestinian state that would exist side-by-side in peace with Israel. Unlike AIPAC, J Street advocates first negotiating issues rather than dropping bombs and it rejects the view that American Jews should close ranks and reflexively and unconditionally support every government in Israel. J Street targets liberal minded American Jews who are troubled by the Israel Lobby's right wing-Likud orientation. It promotes itself as pro-Israel, pro-American, and pro-peace, maintaining that it is possible to support Israel without having to endorse all Israeli government actions. It has recently concluded its first Washington conference which attracted a smattering of politicians. General James Jones, President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, was a featured speaker.
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Report: 237 millionaires in Congress
Erika Lovely
Politico
2009-11-06 16:38:00
Talk about bad timing.
As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.
Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That's 44 percent of the body - compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.
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Middle East Madness
Hezbollah, Iran and Syria disown arms shipment
Ian Black
The Guardian
2009-11-06 18:44:00
Israel displays hundreds of tonnes of weapons it says were bound for Lebanese militia disguised as bulldozer parts
Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian backers have flatly rejected Israeli claims that a shipment of arms and ammunition intercepted at sea was destined for the Lebanese militia group.
As Israel moved quickly to exploit the propaganda value of the find to highlight the role of Iran, Hezbollah "categorically" denied any connection to the case.
The Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, said he hoped the weapons seizure would be a "wake-up call to those few in the international community who up until now have still held illusions about the true character of the extremist, radical regime in Tehran".
Arab commentators and Iran suggested Israel's announcement of the weapons find was an attempt to undermine or divert attention from the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of war crimes in its attack on Gaza this year. Israel is working to highlight the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that could challenge its own nuclear monopoly.
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UN chief to bring Goldstone report before Security Council after General Assembly vote
Xinhua
2009-11-06 18:13:00
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday said that he will transmit the Goldstone report to the UN Security Council at the request of the General Assembly.
"As requested by the General Assembly, I will transmit the report of the Fact Finding Mission to the Security Council," Ban told reporters here after he briefed 15-nation Security Council on the current situation in Afghanistan.
"I know that all of you have recently followed the vote yesterday in the General Assembly concerning the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict that was led by Justice (Richard) Goldstone," a former prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, he added.
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Israel May Begin New War in Lebanon in Spring 2010
RIA Novosti
2009-11-06 14:25:00
Israel could begin a new military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010, Jordan's Ad-Dustour daily wrote on Friday, citing French parliamentary and military sources.
According to anonymous sources in the French parliament, plans of possible military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010 were discussed in France, at a meeting of French, U.S. and Israeli military experts.
The paper said a recent report from the UN secretary general could serve as an indirect indicator of a possible military operation in Lebanon. The report concerns the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which prohibits storing weapons in the security zone between the Litani River and the Blue Line, which is the Lebanese-Israeli border. The area is under the observation of UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
In the report, "only [Shiite armed group] Hezbollah is accused" of violating the provisions of the resolution, while "Israel is freed from any responsibility."
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Palestinian Women Suffer as Israel Violates CEDAW
Mel Frykberg
Inter Press Service
2009-11-05 07:09:00
Palestinian women continue to suffer abuse and denial of basic human rights at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This is in flagrant violation of Israel's obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is the first international human rights treaty devoted to the rights of women.
According to the Convention, discrimination against women represents a violation of the principles of equality and human dignity, and is considered an obstacle to the participation of women, on an equal footing with men, in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their country.
The Convention obliges all state parties to take appropriate measures, legislative and non-legislative, to prohibit all forms of discrimination against women.
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Israel's right or not to exist - The facts and truth
Alan Hart
Alan Hart Commentary
2009-11-04 01:39:00
Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the "Palestinian leadership", presumably the leadership of "President" Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.
Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.
"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying 'No' to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours - say 'Yes' to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace... Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth - that without this recognition there can be no peace... There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."
As Ha'aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him "a way on ensuring recognition of Israel's right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel" (my emphasis). This, as Ha'aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Grand Theft Economics
AIG posts profit of $455 million
Agence France-Presse
2009-11-06 16:56:00
New York - Bailed out insurance giant AIG on Friday announced a profit of 455 million dollars in the third quarter, a massive turnaround from a 24.4 billion dollar loss in the same period last year.
The earnings from group, the largest recipient of US government aid during the financial crisis, were better than expectations.
Excluding special items, the profit was 2.85 dollars per share, compared with a market forecast of 1.98 dollars per share.
It was the second consecutive quarterly profit for American International Group after the prior quarter's earnings of 1.8 billion dollars.
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California power company seeks higher rates for energy efficient customers
Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
2009-11-06 16:33:00
Think it's keen to be green? Not if you're California's Pacific Gas & Electric, according to a recent report.
Utility provider PG&E, in documents filed with the state, is seeking a five percent rate increase for its most energy-efficient customers. The increase is reportedly so the company can give it's highest-volume customers a price break.
"[The] company, with profits up 4.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, said they're just trying to be fair," California blog Mission Local noted.
"It's necessary to avoid the continued shifting of costs associated with utility services to a limited set of residential customers," PG&E spokesperson told blogger Heather Duthie.
That "limited set of residential customers" the company refers to are those who use between 131 and 300 percent of average customers, Mission Local added. Under the proposal, they can expect future savings between 2.5 and 5.7 percent on their electric rates.
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British Airways to Cut More Jobs After a Heavy Loss
Xinhua
2009-11-06 10:09:00
British Airways (BA) said on Friday that it plans to cut a further 1,200 jobs after reporting a heavy loss in the first-half of its financial year.
The further job cut means that the airline will have shed a total of 4,900 positions by March 2010.
The company suffered a loss before tax of 292 million pounds (about 485 million dollars) for the six months to the end of September, compared with profits of 52 million pounds a year earlier. It is also the first loss in first half of its financial year.
The first half of BA's financial year is usually stronger because it covers the summer holiday season. BA said revenue over the six-month period was down by 13.7 percent to 4.1 billion pounds, compared with 4.75 billion pounds in the same period of 2008.
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Unemployment Rate Jumps to 10.2 Percent; Highest Since 1983
Neil Irwin
The Washington Post
2009-11-06 09:13:00
More than one in 10 members of the American workforce were unable to get a job in October, the Labor Department said Friday, the first time in nearly three decades that the unemployment rate has soared into double digits.
The unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, department said, up from 9.8 percent in September, the highest level since 1983. Employers also continued slashing jobs, though at a slower rate than September, showing that even though the economy is expanding, the job market remains dismal.
The crossing of that symbolic 10 percent barrier is likely to weigh on both the psychology of American consumers and the urgency of efforts in Washington to prop up the job market.
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Unemployed and Desperate, Wisconsin Man Tries to Sell the Rights to His Name
The Associated Press
2009-11-05 03:41:00
Unemployed and desperate, a 19-year-old Sheboygan man is trying to sell one of the only things he owns - his name. Calvin Gosz has put the rights to give him a new name on eBay.
He said if people can have a name like Mercedes for free, "why wouldn't McDonald's pay for me to have Ronald McDonald as a name?" Gosz said he moved to Wisconsin from Florida in September. He's filled out more than a dozen job applications, but so far no luck.
Of his decision to go on eBay, he said, "I guess it just kind of goes to show the desperation of some people to try and get some money if they can't find work."
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Fannie Mae Posts $18.9 billion Q3 Loss, Taps Treasury
Al Yoon
Reuters
2009-11-05 19:52:00
New York - Fannie Mae, the largest provider of funding for U.S. home loans, said on Thursday bad mortgages and a federal foreclosure prevention program left it with a $18.9 billion loss, forcing it to tap the Treasury again to plug a hole in its net worth.
Fannie Mae (FNM.P) (FNM.N) , seized by the government last year, said the quarterly loss stemmed from $22 billion in credit-related expenses. These included charges on mortgages it bought out of securities as it modified loans under President Barack Obama's foreclosure prevention plan.
The company also boosted its provision for credit losses in future quarters, and said it expects those impairments to increase this quarter and through 2010.
The assessment is dire for the housing market that has appeared to post a fragile recovery over the past several months with a rebound in home sales and prices in some regions.
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The Living Planet
Two Earthquakes Strike Taiwan Island
CCTV
2009-11-06 09:13:00
Two earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 5.4 on the Richter Scale struck the central part of Taiwan island. They were felt across Taiwan. The cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen in the Chinese mainland's Fujian Province and Hong Kong also felt the tremors.
The earthquakes are the worst to hit Taiwan in ten years. The epicenter was in Nantou County, about 200 kilometers south of Taipei, with a depth of 7 and 6 kilometers respectively. The tremors reminded Nantou residents of the September 21st quake in 1999.
A local resident of Nantou County said, "I was scared. I was the victim of the September 21st earthquake. That earthquake damaged our houses. So I ran out of the house immediately after I felt it shake. I was sitting there, and ran out immediately."
Many residents tried to make phone calls to their family and friends but communications had been cut off.
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China: 909,000 Hit by Drought
ShanghaiDaily
2009-11-06 10:00:00
A drought since September had affected 909,000 people in east China's Jiangxi Province, a spokesman for the provincial flood control and drought relief office said yesterday.
The drought had cut off normal water supplies in some rural areas. "Villagers in Fengxin, Jing'an and Leping counties have to carry drinking water by trucks," said Sun Xiaoshan, deputy director of the office.
"The water levels of four of the province's five main rivers hit record lows and are still dropping.
"The self-cleaning ability of rivers has decreased significantly due to the drastic fall of volume, posing a threat to public health."
The provincial government had stepped up monitoring and supervision over enterprises that may cause pollution, Sun added.
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Snow Cap Disappearing from Mount Kilimanjaro
Randolph E. Schmid
The Associated Press
2009-11-02 15:49:00
The snows of Kilimanjaro may soon be gone. The African mountain's white peak - made famous by writer Ernest Hemingway - is rapidly melting, researchers report.
Some 85 percent of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007, researchers led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And more than a quarter of the ice present in 2000 was gone by 2007.
If current conditions continue "the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro will not endure," the researchers said.
The Kilimanjaro glaciers are both shrinking, as the ice at their edges melts, and thinning, the researchers found.
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Health & Wellness
Rare virus poses new threat to troops
Sara A. Carter
Washington Times
2009-11-06 18:46:00
Kandahar, Afghanistan | U.S. military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus.
Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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New gene therapy halts 2 boys' rare brain disease
Layran Neergaard
Associated Press
2009-11-06 11:54:00
French scientists mixed gene therapy and bone marrow transplants in two boys to seemingly halt a brain disease that can kill by adolescence. The surprise ingredient: They disabled the HIV virus so it couldn't cause AIDS, and then used it to carry in the healthy new gene.
The experiment marks the first time researchers have tried that long-contemplated step in people - and the first effective gene therapy against a severe brain disease, said lead researcher Dr. Patrick Aubourg of the University Paris-Descartes.
Although it's a small, first-step study, it has "exciting implications" for other blood and immune disorders that had been feared beyond gene therapy's reach, said Dr. Kenneth Cornetta, president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.
"This study shows the power of combining gene therapy and cell therapy," added Cornetta, whose own lab at Indiana University has long researched how to safely develop gene delivery using lentiviruses, HIV's family.
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Vaccines for the Rich! Wall Street Gets H1N1 Vaccine Bailout While School Children Told to Wait
Mike Adams
NaturalNews
2009-11-06 09:00:00
It seems the financial bailout isn't the only bailout happening on Wall Street these days. News has now leaked that investment firms Goldman Sachs and Citigroup both received preferential H1N1 swine flu vaccines even while local clinics that treat school children had no supply. The uproar is reminding the public just how much special treatment Wall Street banks get -- both financially and medically -- while everyday people are hung out to dry.
Not only that, but taxpayers got to foot the bill for those H1N1 vaccines handed to Wall Street insiders. It's yet one more way in which the general public is being screwed over (yet again) by the swine flu vaccine agenda.
There's one politically incorrect question in all this that's just begging to be asked, and let's assume for the moment that H1N1 vaccines actually work to save lives even though they don't: If a dangerous viral pandemic sweeps through the nation, killing people left and right, are Wall Street investment bankers really the people we want to save first?
Seriously. Doesn't it seem that school children should get the medicine first and Wall Street insiders should get it last?
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Indoor Plants Could Save Your Life
Richard Alleyne
Telegraph
2009-11-05 18:44:00
Indoor plants do not only look and smell nice, they could save your life, claim scientists.
New research shows that ornamental plants can drastically reduce levels of stress and ill health and boost performance levels at work because they soak up harmful indoor air pollution.
Researchers have now identified five "super ornamental plants" which every workplace should have to clean up indoor air.
They include English ivy, waxy leaved plants and ferns.
According to a World Health Organisation report in 2002, harmful indoor pollutants represent a serious health problem that is responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths each year.
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H1N1 Vaccines Too Little, Too Late; Most People Already Exposed and Immune
Mike Adams
NaturalNews
2009-11-06 00:00:00
The Big Pharma frenzy over H1N1 vaccines has turned into a circus of hilarious medical quackery thanks to the fact that by the time the vaccines are available, most people will have already been exposed to the virus. Hence, most people will have already built up their own H1N1 antibodies, rendering the vaccine not just useless, but downright laughable.
Even with the outlandish rush to get these vaccines approved by the FDA -- a hurry that saw the complete abandonment of the principles of "scientific testing" -- Big Pharma just couldn't get these vaccines produced quickly enough to beat the virus itself. Taking a vaccine shot after you've already been exposed is medically useless. It's equivalent to putting on your seat belt after getting into a car wreck.
Even U.S. News & World Report, which is heavily funded by Big Pharma advertising, is now admitting the swine flu outbreak may be over before the vaccines arrive.
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What's Really in That Burger? E.coli and Chicken Feces Both Allowed by USDA
Mike Adams
NaturalNews
2009-11-06 00:00:00
There are 14 billion hamburgers consumed each year in the United States alone. The people who eat those burgers, though, have little knowledge of what's actually in them. Current USDA regulations, for example, openly allow beef contaminated with E. coli to be repackaged, cooked and sold as ready-to-eat hamburgers.
This simple fact would shock most consumers if they knew about it. People assume that beef found to be contaminated with E. coli must be thrown out or destroyed (or even recalled), but in reality, it's often just pressed into hamburger patties, cooked, and sold to consumers. This practice is openly endorsed by the USDA.
But E. coli may not be the worst thing in your burger: USDA regulations also allow chicken feces to be used as feed for cows, meaning your hamburger beef may be made of second-hand chicken poop, recycled through the stomachs of cows.
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Science & Technology
Nanoparticles could damage DNA at a distance, study suggests
Alok Jha
The Guardian
2009-11-06 18:27:00
Nanoparticles of metal can damage the DNA inside cells even if there is no direct contact between them, scientists have found. The discovery provides an insight into how the particles might exert their influence inside the body and points to possible new ways to deliver medical treatments.
The preliminary work also raises questions about the safety of nanoparticles - which are a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair and used in everything from sunscreens to electronics - though the researchers point out that the doses they used in their study were higher than anything a person might come into contact with.
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Invisibility Uncloaked
Charles Petit
Science News
2009-11-06 15:00:00
In race to make things disappear, scientists gain ground on science fiction
Ulf Leonhardt is riding high these days, with a new award from the Royal Society of Great Britain to further develop his ideas on how to make things in plain sight disappear.
Born in East Germany and now occupying the theoretical physics chair at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, Leonhardt is among the leaders of the worldwide race to realize an old dream of science fiction: cloaking devices. They would steer light or other electromagnetic waves around them like water around a stone in a smooth stream, leaving nary a ripple of difference in the flow. Such things, letting light swish past like a boxer ducking every punch, would be invisible.
"Cloaking device" is a common term in technical literature. It also deliberately evokes myth and popular fiction. Allusions include the Romulan technology that first amazed TV viewers of the old Star Trek in the episode "Balance of Terror," when hostile Bird of Prey fighting vessels just disappeared, poof. One finds cloaking in J.K. Rowling's novels about the young wizard Harry Potter with his invisibility cape. Farther back, H.G. Wells' novel The Invisible Man (and the movie of the same name, along with its sequel The Invisible Woman) toyed with much the same idea. J.R.R. Tolkien assigned similar power to The One Ring in his tales of hobbits. Inspiration for the ring apparently came from way back - the magical ring that the shepherd Gyges recovered from an earthquake-spawned chasm in Plato's The Republic.
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Signature of Antimatter Detected in Lightning
Ron Cowen
Science News
2009-11-06 14:39:00
Fermi telescope finds evidence that positrons, not just electrons, are in storms on Earth.
Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has now recorded some more down-to-Earth signals. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial lightning storms.
The flashes occurred just before, during and immediately after lightning strikes, as tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network.
During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could only have been produced by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms. Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville announced the puzzling findings November 5 at the 2009 Fermi Symposium.
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New Type of Supernova Explosion Reported; Predicted by Theoretical Physicists
Gail Gallessich
University of California - Santa Barbara
2009-11-05 20:41:00
A new class of supernova was discovered by scientists at Berkeley and may be the first example of a new type of exploding star. A team of astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara had predicted this kind of explosion in their theoretical work.
Lars Bildsten, professor at UCSB's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), and colleagues, predicted a new type of supernova in distant galaxies that would be fainter than most and would rise and fall in brightness in only a few weeks.
The discovery, led by UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Dovi Poznanski, who is also with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is reported in the Nov. 5 Express edition of Science Magazine. Bildsten first heard from Poznanski last August when he was organizing the conference "Stellar Death and Supernovae."
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This Day in History 1605: King James Learns of Gunpowder Plot
History
2009-11-05 00:00:00
Early in the morning, King James I of England learns that a plot to explode the Parliament building has been foiled, hours before he was scheduled to sit with the rest of the British government in a general parliamentary session.
At about midnight on the night of November 4-5, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes lurking in a cellar under the Parliament building and ordered the premises searched. Some 20 barrels of gunpowder were found, and Fawkes was taken into custody. During a torture session on the rack, Fawkes revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy to annihilate England's Protestant government and replace it with Catholic leadership.
What became known as the Gunpowder Plot was organized by Robert Catesby, an English Catholic whose father had been persecuted by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to conform to the Church of England. Guy Fawkes had converted to Catholicism, and his religious zeal led him to fight in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Catesby and the handful of other plotters rented a cellar that extended under Parliament, and Fawkes planted the gunpowder there, hiding the barrels under coal and wood.
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Oldest American Artefact Unearthed
Rex Dalton
Nature News
2009-11-05 15:00:00
Oregon caves yield evidence of continent's first inhabitants.
Archaeologists claim to have found the oldest known artefact in the Americas, a scraper-like tool in an Oregon cave that dates back 14,230 years.
The tool shows that people were living in North America well before the widespread Clovis culture of 12,900 to 12,400 years ago, says archaeologist Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Studies of sediment and radiocarbon dating showed the bone's age. Jenkins presented the finding late last month in a lecture at the University of Oregon.
His team found the tool in a rock shelter overlooking a lake in south-central Oregon, one of a series of caves near the town of Paisley.
Kevin Smith, the team member who uncovered the artefact, remembers the discovery. "We had bumped into a lot of extinct horse, bison and camel bone - then I heard and felt the familiar ring and feel when trowel hits bone," says Smith, now a master's student at California State University, Los Angeles. "I switched to a brush. Soon this huge bone emerged, then I saw the serrated edge. I stepped back and said: 'Hey everybody - we got something here.'"
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Our Haunted Planet
What's going on in the Yamantau mountain complex?
Viewzone
2009-11-05 22:54:00
Read the original article on ViewZone
An Area 51 in Russia? Some people think so and their suspicions are shared by the US Congress. Testimony was taken on Congressional suspicions of Russian complex in Yamantau Mountain, circa 1997, and can be checked with the Congressional Record for that session.
A Huge Anthill?
Starting in the Brezhnev period, Russia has been pursuing construction of a massive underground facility at Yamantau Mountain and the city of Mezhgorye (formerly the settlements of Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16). Russia's 1997 federal budget lists the project as a closed territory containing installations of the Ministry of Defense.
On April 16, 1996, the New York Times reported on a mysterious military base being constructed in Russia:
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Flashback: Haunted House Where Towels and Even Police Tape Burns
Martin Samek
Týden Magazine
2009-02-11 09:00:00
In the small town of Strašice near Rokycany in the Czech Republic, the Mračkových family has been struggling for five weeks with a mysterious phenomenon in their home. Wall sockets burst into flames, light bulbs explode and none of the experts have been able to explain the cause of this oddity. If they are still unable to come up with an explanation within the next few days, the family will be forced to leave their house. The local authority will provide them with alternative housing.
Tissues, wall sockets, towels, curtains, a painting and even police tape. All of these have been caught on fire in the last five weeks in the Mračkových couple's home. And even though the electricity has been disconnected, the phenomenon continues.
There are days when the blue flames do not appear, but more often than not someone hollers from the bedrooms, bathroom or kitchen, another desperate: "We have another fire in here!" On other days it happens up to sixty times. As if that was not enough, the mysterious events are accompanied by bursting light bulbs and shattering of other glass objects.
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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Ex-Blue Cross spokesman says health insurance 'worst product in American history'
Raw Story
2009-11-06 15:44:00
Teaming with the liberal Brave New Films, a former Blue Cross pitchman is now pitching against Blue Cross.
Andy Cobb, who once tried to sell Floridians on a Blue Cross health insurance plan, says he's fed up with the industry.
"I was a spokesman for BlueCross and Blueshield of Florida," Cobb says. "Call me a spokesjerk. People who make money for buying things you don't need. And we're telling you lies."
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DUI Suspect to Cop: 'Dude, I Do This Every Night'
Chicago Breaking News Center
2009-11-05 11:18:00
A northwest Indiana man was arrested early this morning near Portage for driving with a blood-alcohol level almost four times the state's legal limit of .08 percent.
"Dude, I do this every night; I'm straight up and not drunk!" Zachary R. Duis told an Indiana state trooper after he was pulled over, police said.
Duis, 24, of Portage, was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated. He was also wanted on two warrants out of Porter County for resisting law enforcement and furnishing alcohol to a minor, both misdemeanors.
About 2:20 a.m., the Porter County sheriff's department received a call about a 1995 Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck driving erratically, state police said. A sheriff's deputy pulled the truck over on State Road 149 and 1000 North.
Shortly thereafter, the trooper arrived on the scene. Duis failed field sobriety tests and was taken to the Portage Police Department for a certified breath test, state police said.
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South Korean Woman Passes Driver's Exam on 950th Try
The Associated Press
2009-11-06 02:00:00
A woman in South Korea who tried to pass the written exam for a driver's license with near-daily attempts since April 2005 has finally succeeded on her 950th time.
The aspiring driver spent more than 5 million won ($4,200) in application fees, but until now had failed to score the minimum 60 out of a possible 100 points needed to get behind the wheel for a driving test.
Cha Sa-soon, 68, finally passed the written exam with a score of 60 on Wednesday, said Choi Young-chul, a police official at the drivers' license agency in Jeonju, 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of Seoul.
Police said Cha took the test hundreds of times, but had no specific total. Local media said she took the test 950 times.
Now she must pass a driving test before getting her license, Choi said.
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Large Hadron Collider Stalled Again...Thanks to Chunk of Baguette
Nico Hines
Times
2009-11-05 11:00:00
The rehabilitation of the beleaguered Large Hadron Collider was on hold tonight after the failure of one of its powerful cooling units caused by an errant chunk of baguette.
The £4 billion particle-collider faced more than a year of delays after a helium leak stymied the project in its first few days of operation. It is gradually being switched back on over the coming months but suffered a new setback on Tuesday morning.
Scientists at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva noticed that the system's carefully monitored temperatures were creeping up.
Further investigation into the failure of a cryogenic cooling plant revealed an unusual impediment. A piece of crusty bread had paralysed a high voltage installation that should have been powering the cooling unit.
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Irish Tricolours daubed on Protestant farmer's sheep
Adrian Rutherford
Independent.ie
2009-11-05 23:34:00
Six pregnant sheep belonging to a Protestant farmer from Co Tyrone have been daubed with Irish tricolours in an apparent sectarian attack.
The sheep had been left to graze in an isolated field near Ardboe when their coats were covered in green and orange paint to resemble a tricolour.
According to the farmer, who does not want to be identified, there has been an upsurge in sectarian attacks in recent weeks.
He said the ewes were pregnant and fears that some may lose their unborn lambs as a result of the stress they suffered during the incident.
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Sarah Palin victory and defeat speeches leaked
Alex Spillius
Independent.ie
2009-11-05 23:16:00
Leaked copies of two speeches Sarah Palin prepared for last year's US election night have revealed she planned to salute her husband Todd as the nation's "first ever Second Dude" in the event of victory.
In defeat, which she suffered with Senator John McCain at the hands of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Republican vice-presidential candidate wanted to tell Todd to "get ready for the Iron Dog snow machine race!".
A new book, Sarah from Alaska, details how the then state governor fought tooth and nail to introduce Sen McCain on stage in his home town of Phoenix, Arizona, in the early hours of the morning.
She decided not to tell her own staff members that permission had been denied by senior McCain staff hours before the candidates took the stage, apparently in the hope of a last minute reprieve.
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