aleyfex

Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 21:35:00 -0700

Sorry my love!

I was getting ready for bed but I needed to find something that I thought it was in the basement before I climbed in bed and get some much needed rest. Down the steps I went, turn on the lights as reached the last step. I walked into the first half of my basement. Everything looked okay, nothing seemed to have moved since the time I was down here earlier. I looked and looked I couldn’t find what I was looking for, and so I thought heck..If it’s not on this side it got to be on the other side.

My basement is divided in almost half by a wall, one side is slightly bigger than the other. One side is semi-finished while the other side is not at all. I went through the door turn to my left, my hand feeling the wall looking for the light switch but before I could find it I noticed some small different color lights coming through the otherwise the very dark room from the far side of the wall. Right away I felt so guilty, I felt embarrassed. Guilty of abandonment.

I turned on the light and start looking for what brought me down here, looking all around but at the same time avoiding making eye contact. I tried to ignore, pretend it didn’t happen. I looked here, there, near, fa…. Yes there it is…bed time. Grabbed it turn around started to walk away then I thought this is silly. Just turn around and look at them. And so I did. They looked lonely. Really lonely. They wanted some company; some love, they wanted to be held, to be listened, to be played with. I could hear them say “just lay your hand on me for one second” but I didn’t. Instead of sitting down and spend some time with them, I took my phone out and snapped a picture. I couldn’t fit all of them in that frame but enough to put me to shame.

Deadline Day: Completed moves on final day of transfer window

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Mon, 1 Feb 2016 18:51:00 -0800

A list of all the completed moves on the final day of the January transfer window.

Premier League
Giannelli Imbula - Porto to Stoke City for £18.3m
Oumar Niasse - Lokomotiv Moscow to Everton for £13.5
Abdoulaye Doucoure - Rennes to Watford for undisclosed fee
Adalberto Penaranda - Granada to Watford for undisclosed fee
Seydou Doumbia - Roma to Newcastle United on loan
Eder - Swansea City to Lille on loan
Alex Pritchard - Tottenham Hotspur to West Bromwich Albion on loan
Federico Fazio - Tottenham Hotspur to Sevilla on loan
Ebou Adams - Dartford to Norwich City for undisclosed fee
Enes Unal - Manchester City to NAC Breda on loan
Bruno Zuculini - Manchester City to AEK Athens on loan
Milos Veljkovic - Tottenham Hotspur to Werder Bremen for undisclosed fee
Rhoys Wiggins - Sheffield Wednesday to Bournemouth for undisclosed fee
Mathieu Debuchy - Arsenal to Bordeaux on loan
Steven Fletcher - Sunderland to Marseille on loan
Leroy Fer - QPR to Swansea City on loan
Marco van Ginkel - Chelsea to PSV Eindhoven on loan
Yohan Benalouane - Leicester City to Fiorentina on loan
James Maddison - Coventry City to Norwich City for undisclosed fee and loaned back

Championship
Jordan Rhodes - Blackburn to Middlesbrough for undisclosed fee
Julien De Sart - Standard Liege to Middlesbrough for undisclosed fee
Ritchie De Laet - Leicester City to Middlesbrough on loan
Aiden McGeady - Everton to Sheffield Wednesday on loan
Nasser El-Khayati - Burton Albion to QPR for £350,000
James Tarkowski - Brentford to Burnley for undisclosed fee
Jordi Gomez - Sunderland to Blackburn Rovers on loan
Zakaria Labyad - Sporting Lisbon to Fulham on loan
Elvis Manu - Brighton and Hove Albion to Huddersfield Town on loan
Nick Powell - Manchester United to Hull City on loan
Rohan Ince - Brighton and Hove Albion to Fulham on loan
Richard O'Donnell - Wigan Athletic to Bristol City for undisclosed fee
Tom Lawrence - Leicester City to Cardiff City on loan
Kenneth Zohore - KV Kortrijk to Cardiff City on loan
Grant Ward - Tottenham Hotspur to Rotherham United on loan
Francesco Pisano - Bolton to US Avellino 1912
Dusan Kuciak - Legia Warsaw to Hull City for undisclosed fee
Yaya Sanogo - Arsenal to Charlton Athletic on loan
Jiri Skalak - FK Mlada Boleslav to Brighton and Hove Albion for undisclosed fee
Rod Fanni - Al-Arabi to Charlton Athletic
Jake Forster-Caskey - Brighton & Hove Albion to MK Dons
Jonny Williams - Crystal Palace to MK Dons on loan
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas - QPR to MK Dons on loan
Alex Revell - Cardiff City to MK Dons for undisclosed fee
Nikolay Bodurov - Fulham to FC Midtjylland on loan
Sacha Petshi - Blackburn Rovers to Creteil
League One
Gary Liddle - Bradford to Chesterfield for undisclosed fee
Connor Dimaio - Sheffield United to Chesterfield on a free transfer
Dominic Samuel - Reading to Gillingham on loan
Tom Anderson - Burnley to Chesterfield on loan
Louis Thompson - Norwich to Swindon on loan
Tom Nichols - Exeter City to Peterborough United for undisclosed fee
Charlie Harris - Brighton & Hove Albion to Barnsley for undisclosed fee
Shaun Tuton - FC Halifax to Barnsley for undisclosed fee
Cameron Dummigan - Burnley to Oldham Athletic on loan
Kevin van Veen - Scunthorpe United to SC Cambuur Leeuwarden on loan
John O'Sullivan - Blackburn Rovers to Bury on loan
Chris Neal - Port Vale to Doncaster Rovers on loan
George Maris - Barnsley to Lincoln City on loan
Conor McAleny - Everton to Wigan Athletic on loan
Jack Stephens - Southampton to Coventry City on loan
Jamie Proctor - Fleetwood Town to Bradford City on a free transfer
Baily Cargill - Bournemouth to Coventry on loan
Dominic Vose - Wrexham to Scunthorpe United for undisclosed fee
League Two
Adam Murray - Swansea City to Mansfield Town on loan
Lee Martin - Millwall to Northampton Town on loan
Danny Rose - Oxford United to Northampton Town
Jason McCarthy - Southampton to Wycombe Wanderers on loan
Zeli Ismail - Wolves to Oxford United on loan
Pat Hoban - Oxford United to Stevenage on loan
Aaron O'Connor - Forest Green Rovers to Stevenage
Luke James - Peterborough United to Hartlepool United on loan
Nicky Hunt - Mansfield Town to Leyton Orient for undisclosed fee
Chris Maguire - Rotherham United to Oxford United on a free transfer
Kelle Roos - Derby County to AFC Wimbledon on loan
Ryan Allsop - Bournemouth to Wycombe Wanderers on loan
Paul Jones - Portsmouth to Crawley Town on loan
Michael Smith - Swindon Town to Portsmouth on loan
Dominic Hyam - Reading to Dagenham & Redbridge on loan
Jerome Binnom-Williams - Crystal Palace to Leyton Orient on loan
Ryan Hedges - Swansea City to Stevenage on loan
Scottish Premiership/Leagues
Patrick Roberts - Manchester City to Celtic on loan
Colin Kazim-Richards - Feyenoord to Celtic on a free transfer
Nadir Ciftci - Celtic to Eskisehirspor on loan
Michael O'Halloran - St Johnstone to Rangers for undisclosed fee
Don Cowie - Free agent to Hearts
Lee Hodson - MK Dons to Kilmarnock on loan
Gary Dicker - Carlisle United to Kilmarnock on a free transfer
Simon Church - MK Dons to Aberdeen on loan
Abiola Dauda.- Vitesse Arnhem to Hearts on loan
Morgaro Gomis - Hearts to Motherwell on loan
Antonio German - Free agent to Partick Thistle
Euan Spark - Dundee United to Forfar on loan
Alex Tokarczyk - Falkirk to Montrose on loan
Jack Breslin- Celtic to Annan Athletic on loan
Aidan Nesbitt - Celtic to Partick Thistle on loan
David Goodwillie - Aberdeen to Ross County on loan
Lee Hodson - MK Dons to Kilmarnock on loan

source : skysports

Jammin on the go

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Mon, 1 Feb 2016 18:13:00 -0800

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:29:00 -0800

http://aleyfex.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

Chelsea outgun PSG

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 8 Apr 2014 14:44:00 -0700

Demba Ba scoops home Chelsea's crucial late goal.

Chelsea and Jose Mourinho dare to dream of European glory once more after overturning a two-goal deficit to advance to the Champions League semifinals at the expense of Paris St Germain.

Mourinho raced down the touchline in celebration of substitute Demba Ba's 87th-minute goal, which secured the 2012 winners a 2-0 win and a place in the last four for a seventh time in 11 years courtesy of Eden Hazard's away goal in the first leg.

It was a scene reminiscent of Mourinho's sprint at Old Trafford en route to his first European Cup success with Porto in 2004.

The trophy eluded the Portuguese during his first spell at Stamford Bridge, but he won it again in 2010 with Inter Milan and has another shot at glory four years on.

Chelsea trailed 3-1 after the first leg, but were unbeaten since September at home and had kept eight successive clean sheets prior to the match.

Mourinho believed in his side and, when Andre Schurrle swept in after 32 minutes, the Blues needed one more goal and to stretch that defensive mean-streak by one more game.

Against a PSG strikeforce vaunted even without the injured Zlatan Ibrahimovic that was no easy task, but the defence held their side of the bargain as the attackers tried to fulfil theirs.

Mourinho had gambled on the fitness of big-game player Samuel Eto'o, but was not banking on losing Hazard to injury after 18 minutes.

Schurrle, the Belgian's replacement, was anonymous in a 'false nine' role in the first leg, but thrived in the second, hitting the bar seven minutes into the second half.

Oscar struck the frame of the goal with a free-kick moments later and PSG had chances as Chelsea surged forward looking for the decisive goal.

It looked like it would prove elusive until Cesar Azpilicueta's drive into the area fell for Ba to turn the ball into the net and spark delirious celebrations, led by Mourinho.

Only two sides in Champions League history had overturned two-goal deficits, with Chelsea involved in both contests, losing to Barcelona in 2000 and beating Napoli 12 years later en route to European glory.

Mourinho called on his side to repeat the comeback of two years earlier against a PSG side which included Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi, then of Napoli.

PSG had lost just once by two clear goals in their previous 110 fixtures and boss Laurent Blanc hoped his side could impose their philosophy on Chelsea to show flair as well as grit.

Mourinho, meanwhile, told his players to enjoy the occasion, to play with smiles on their faces, insisting the result in Paris was more due to his side's failures than PSG's prowess.

The Portuguese dressed down in a tracksuit, but meant business, hurrying a ball boy operating near his dugout. Few Chelsea players seemed to enjoy a pulsating and disjointed opening.

Oscar found some joy down the left, so, too, did Eto'o, who had a shot deflected over before the striker showed his sharpness after a three-game absence with a hamstring injury by pressing Salvatore Sirigu as the goalkeeper dealt with a back-pass, only to commit a foul.

The left wing is usually Hazard's domain, but much to the concern of the raucous home faithful, the Belgian was subdued and soon limped off. The man coveted by PSG shook hands with Blanc on his departure.

The Blues had set-piece opportunities. A Frank Lampard free-kick kicked up wickedly off the wall, forcing Sirigu to turn the ball round the post. Sirigu was beaten soon afterwards as his static defence watched David Luiz flick on Branislav Ivanovic's long throw for Schurrle to sweep the ball into the bottom corner.

Schurrle appealed in vain for a penalty moments later when collided with Marco Verratti. Cavani and Lampard were booked in quick succession by referee Pedro Proenca - the man in the middle when the Blues won the 2012 European Cup - as tempers simmered.

Chelsea maintained the intensity after the restart and went close when Oscar's incisive pass found Willian. He pulled the ball back for Schurrle to strike a fierce drive which rebounded off the crossbar.

Lucas Moura fouled Eto'o on the left edge of the box for a free-kick in a dangerous position and Oscar's curling strike also hit the woodwork.

PSG's forays forward were ever more infrequent but danger lurked. Ivanovic was adjudged to have fouled Blaise Matuidi on the left edge of the Chelsea box, earning a booking which rules him out of their next European match.

Lavezzi's inswinging free-kick was clawed round the post by Petr Cech. Ba replaced Frank Lampard with 24 minutes to go and flicked on for Schurrle, who shot straight at Sirigu.

As Chelsea poured forwards, PSG had chances. The best fell for Cavani, who fired over after controlling Yohan Cabaye's 50-yard pass.

Still searching a second, the much-maligned Fernando Torres was thrown into the fray, but it was Ba who netted the decisive strike before Chelsea withstood a late bombardment to advance.
By PA Sport
Source ESPN

Mourinho fumes at 'ridiculous' defending

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 2 Apr 2014 19:27:00 -0700

April 2, 2014

By ESPN staffChelsea boss Jose Mourinho was scathing in his assessment of Chelsea's defending as a late Javier Pastore strike handed Paris Saint-Germain a 3-1 advantage in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal.

PA Photos Jose Mourinho cut a frustrated figure on the touchline.

Eden Hazard's penalty either side of Ezequiel Lavezzi's stunning opening strike and David Luiz's own goal had handed Chelsea a crucial away strike, but Javier Pastore's last-gasp effort tipped the tie dramatically in the Parisians' favour.
The Argentine wriggled away from several challenges on the byline before cutting inside and beating Petr Cech from a narrow angle, which drew a stinging response from the coach.
"He [Gary Cahill] says sloppy. I say ridiculous," Mourinho told Sky Sports. "We played against a great team, full of good players especially attacking players. You would expect them to score fantastic goals. Not the goals they scored.
"We lose the first goal in an easy position and we assist the striker. Nobody in second goal was there for a crucial position.
"The second goal one of my players scores an own goal, it's unlucky, but the way the team positioned themselves defensively was not the right one. Finally the third goal was sloppy, Gary uses that word, but for me, ridiculous."
Mourinho appeared disappointed with striker Fernando Torres too, after he came on after an hour. The Spaniard replaced Andre Schuerrle, who had been fairly ineffective in an unaccustomed lone striker's role.
"I'm not happy with my strikers' performances, so I have to try things," Mourinho said.
"With Andre at least I know we have one more player to have the ball, we have one more player to associate with the other players.
"Football is also about scoring goals. That is for strikers, for real strikers. I had to try."
Mourinho was not willing to defend his initial formation.
"Don't ask me about that," he said. "I change with 1-1 because I thought Fernando could give us more depth than Andre. With Andre the team had good control and possession, he was dropping deep. I thought Fernando could give us a bit more."
Mourinho has lamented his striking options all season -- Samuel Eto'o was unavailable in Paris through injury -- and suggested Chelsea's lack of firepower made hope of recovering the tie a tough prospect.
"It is a difficult job but not impossible," he said. "They are the type of team that out of nothing they can score goal.
"We are not a team full of talent to score goals, especially at this level. But you never know. We have to try. We have to go with everything. Let's try."
Cahill admitted Chelsea face a tough task to reach the semifinals after Pastore's late strike. "It was a horrible time to concede," Cahill added.
"It's a sloppy goal and unlike us. It's a big blow at 2-1. It was difficult to come here; 2-1 would have been okay to take to Stamford Bridge. It's devastating."

Liverpool,dare to dream.

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 1 Apr 2014 14:52:00 -0700

      This weekend thanks to the unpredictability of the EPL, we saw Liverpool go to the top of the table. It seems like everything that needed to happen happened, including Manchester City failing to record a win at Arsenal and Chelsea losing to Crystal Palace. That provided for dreamy weekend for the funs and I am pretty sure a nervous Saturday for Liverpool players.
      For people like me who have supported Liverpool through thick and thin. Taking all kinds of abuse to go with our team misery displays, the time to dream has never been sweeter. For the first time we feel like we really stand a chance to walk out champions in the league. The championship that we have been chasing for 23 years. At the end of the day we know this is just a dream, anything can happen the remainder of the games.
      May is a month away, it is when we will know for sure if the league is our or not, for now I don't mind being in the clouds, sweet sweet dreams

Syria: What is human life really worth?

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:13:00 -0800

For those of you who have been following the Syrian conflict you already know about the Geneva ll convention and how there are no reports of progress coming out of it. The government and the opposition still refuse to talk to each other directly. They act like little children and ignore the human suffering that their ignorance still causes. It is clear that the government does not care much about it's people. They continued to kill them by the hundreds every month. They are starving women and children in the besieged areas.

On the other hand the opposition is getting weaker by the minute, the fighting between them makes the government stronger. They are not in a position to get much out of negotiations but they still act like they have the upper hand. How do they expect Assad to agree to step down while he is winning the war? They have to step back to reality and have feasible demands that will put the welfare of the Syrians first, before power of running the country.

For sometime now the Syrian conflict has been played like a game if Chase. The government knew the best way to winning the conflict is to deface the opposition. This was the reason they freed all suspected terrorists in the beginning if the war knowing the will regroup and try to take on the state. Once that became true, it has ensured no Western state will pick up arms in support of the opposition as they will be supporting Al Qaeda affiliated groups. That move was very smart on Assad's government, but to what costs? People of Syria have been reduced to pieces on the board game and their life worth less than that of cockroaches, just waiting to be crushed.

Sent from my HTC

Has it been that long?

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:03:00 -0800

I just logged back to my blog site today to realize how long it has been since I have posted my last blog. My last post was in April, a little hard to believe how fast the time has gone by. It's amazing how much has happened without me rushing in here to comment about. Well that is about to come to an end. I will be back in here pretty soon.

Mali crisis: Chad's Idriss Deby announces troop pullout

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:45:00 -0700

Chad's soldiers are respected for their experience in desert warfare

Chad, one of the largest supplier of troops battling Islamists in Mali, has started to pull them out, President Idriss Deby has said.

"The Chadian army does not have the skills to fight a shadowy, guerrilla-style war that is taking place in northern Mali," he said.
Three Chadian soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Mali on Friday.
Soldiers from Chad, France and other African countries have ousted Islamist militants from northern Mali's towns.
But fighting continues in some remote parts of the Sahara Desert.
Chad's 2,000 troops were seen as playing a crucial role in the fighting because of their experience in desert warfare.
About 30 have been killed - more than any other nationality, reports the Reuters news agency.
Three of them died in a suicide attack in Kidal on Friday.
Mr Deby told French media that Chad's soldiers had "accomplished their mission".
"We have already withdrawn a mechanised battalion," he said.
But he said Chad would contribute to a proposed 11,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Mali.
France has also started to withdraw some of its 4,000 soldiers and hopes to have just 1,000 in the country by the end of the year.
France led the intervention in January, saying the al-Qaeda-linked militants were threatened to march on the capital, Bamako.

Scientists make 'laboratory-grown' kidney

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:44:00 -0700

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

The rat kidney was grown in the laboratory

A kidney "grown" in the laboratory has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine, US scientists say.

Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far.
A study, in the journal Nature Medicine, showed the engineered kidneys were less effective than natural ones.
But regenerative medicine researchers said the field had huge promise.
Kidneys filter the blood to remove waste and excess water. They are also the most in-demand organ for transplant, with long waiting lists.
The researchers' vision is to take an old kidney and strip it of all its old cells to leave a honeycomb-like scaffold. The kidney would then be rebuilt with cells taken from the patient.
This would have two major advantages over current organ transplants.
The tissue would match the patient, so they would not need a lifetime of drugs to suppress the immune system to prevent rejection.
It would also vastly increase the number of organs available for transplant. Most organs which are offered are rejected, but they could be used as templates for new ones.
Scaffolding Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have taken the first steps towards creating usable engineered kidneys.
They took a rat kidney and used a detergent to wash away the old cells.
The remaining web of proteins, or scaffold, looks just like a kidney, including an intricate network of blood vessels and drainage pipes.

This protein plumbing was used to pump the right cells to the right part of the kidney, where they joined with the scaffold to rebuild the organ.

It was kept in a special oven to mimic the conditions in a rat's body for the next 12 days.
When the kidneys were tested in the laboratory, urine production reached 23% of natural ones.
The team then tried transplanting an organ into a rat. Once inside the body, the kidney's effectiveness fell to 5%.
Yet the lead researcher, Dr Harald Ott, told the BBC that restoring a small fraction of normal function could be enough: "If you're on haemodialysis then kidney function of 10% to 15% would already make you independent of haemodialysis. It's not that we have to go all the way."
He said the potential was huge: "If you think about the United States alone, there's 100,000 patients currently waiting for kidney transplants and there's only around 18,000 transplants done a year.
"I think the potential clinical impact of a successful treatment would be enormous."

" Really impressive'

There is a huge amount of further research that would be needed before this is even considered in people.
The technique needs to be more efficient so a greater level of kidney function is restored. Researchers also need to prove that the kidney will continue to function for a long time.
There will also be challenges with the sheer size of a human kidney. It is harder to get the cells in the right place in a larger organ.
Prof Martin Birchall, a surgeon at University College London, has been involved in windpipe transplants produced from scaffolds.
He said: "It's extremely interesting. It is really impressive.
"They've addressed some of the main technical barriers to making it possible to use regenerative medicine to address a really important medical need."
He said that being able to do this for people needing an organ transplant could revolutionise medicine: "It's almost the nirvana of regenerative medicine, certainly from a surgical point of view, that you could meet the biggest need for transplant organs in the world - the kidney."

From BBC.

Chavez heir Maduro wins Venezuela presidential election

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:41:00 -0700

Will Grant in Caracas: ''It's a questionable victory from the opposition's point of view''

Socialist Nicolas Maduro, hand-picked successor of the late leader Hugo Chavez, has won a narrow victory in Venezuela's presidential poll.

Mr Maduro won 50.7% of the vote against 49.1% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.
Mr Capriles has demanded a recount, saying Mr Maduro was now "even more loaded with illegitimacy".
He said there were more than 300,000 incidents from Sunday's poll that would need to be examined.

Announcing the results late on Sunday night, the National Electoral Council said they were "irreversible".

As the news emerged, celebrations erupted in the capital, Caracas, where Mr Maduro's jubilant supporters set off fireworks and blasted car horns. Opposition voters banged pots and pans in protest.
In a victory speech outside the presidential palace, Mr Maduro, wearing the colours of the Venezuelan flag, told crowds that the result was "just, legal and constitutional".
He said his election showed Hugo Chavez "continues to be invincible, that he continues to win battles''.
Mr Maduro said he had spoken to Mr Capriles on the phone, and that he would allow an audit of the election result.
He called for those who had not voted for him to "work together" for the country.

But Mr Maduro's margin of victory was far narrower than that achieved by Chavez at elections last October, when he beat Mr Capriles by more than 10%.
Almost immediately one member of the National Electoral Council who does not have government sympathies called on the authorities to carry out a recount by hand, a call later echoed by Mr Capriles himself.

At Mr Capriles' campaign headquarters the mood was sombre, as his supporters watched the results on television. Some cried, while others hung their heads in dismay,

Shortly afterwards, Mr Capriles emerged, angry and defiant.
"It is the government that has been defeated," he said. Then, addressing Mr Maduro directly, he said: "The biggest loser today is you. The people don't love you."
The new president faces an extremely complex task in office, says the BBC's Central America correspondent, Will Grant.
Venezuela has one of the highest rates of inflation in the region and crime rates have soared in recent years, particularly in Caracas. Food shortages and electricity blackouts are also common.

But perhaps Mr Maduro's biggest challenge will be trying to govern a country which is so deeply divided and polarised, and where the opposition say they have an increasingly legitimate stake in the decision-making process, our correspondent says.
The closeness of the race has also caused reflection inside Mr Maduro's own United Socialist Party (PSUV).
The man considered to be Mr Maduro's main rival, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, tweeted that the results "oblige us to make a profound self-criticism".

From BBC

Man City against Chelsea, tickets sold out in 15 minutes.

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 3 Apr 2013 06:06:00 -0700

Tickets for an epic soccer match in May sold out within fifteen minutes of going on sale. It has been less than two weeks since it was announced that two rich English premier league clubs; Manchester City and Chelsea will clash in an exhibition match in St Louis Busch stadium at the end of May, but the tickets went out so fast as if people have been waiting for this game for years. St Louis has no soccer team in the MLS. This fact probably made the organizers to not anticipate how popular this game is going to be. Social media was filled with furious posts from the St louisans who could not purchase the tickets. The furry came from the fact that a lot of tickets have surfaced on the internet going for as much as $20,000. The fact that the game sold out so fast may be is going to help getting more soccer games in St Louis or even get St Louis it's own soccer team in MLS.
Sent via the HTC Vivid™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

Syrian war planes carried attacks on Lebanon

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Wed, 3 Apr 2013 05:35:00 -0700

It has been reported that the Syrian war planes have carried out raids across the border in Lebanon. I have no more details on the incident at the moment but if this is true, is it not time for the international community to take military action against Syria?

Sent via the HTC Vivid™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

Swali la kizushi

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 2 Apr 2013 03:49:00 -0700

Eti Manchester United wanapolia Ba maana yake wamegeuka kondoo?

Beyonce, Jay-Z and Britney Spears have finances hacked

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:41:00 -0700

By Amelia Butterly
Newsbeat reporter

Beyonce and Jay-Z, one of the richest couples in hip hop, have been targeted

US celebrities including Beyonce and Jay-Z have had private details of their finances posted online.

Hackers have also put up information, but not credit reports, about US Vice-President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Los Angeles police say they are investigating how a police chief's private details, including his address and a credit report, ended up online.
Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith described the site as "creepy".
He said: "People get mad at us, go on the Internet and try to find information about us, and post it all on one site.
"The best word I can use to describe it is creepy."
He also confirmed that police would be investigating the posting of information about any celebrities living in Los Angeles.

Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian are all said to be affected

Other affected people include Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.
Some of the private financial information posted includes social security numbers, which could allow fraudsters to commit identity theft.
Actors Mel Gibson and Ashton Kutcher are also reported to have been targeted on the site.
Information about FBI Director Robert Mueller is thought to have been uploaded. The bureau says it is aware of the site but has not revealed whether they will be investigating.
More names were added throughout Monday, including Britney Spears and former presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is thought to have been hacked

The website uses an internet suffix assigned to the Soviet Union and includes some unflattering pictures of the people who are mentioned.
It did not state how it sourced the information but did include an anti-police message written in Russian.
One of the site's pages also made reference to the former police officer Christopher Dorner who apparently committed suicide during a large scale manhunt, after he killed four people.
So far representatives for each person targeted either declined to comment on the accuracy of the information that was posted, or they did not return messages seeking comment.
From BBC

Harlem Shake artists 'featured without permission'

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:41:00 -0700

Thousands of people per day are uploading videos of themselves dancing to the Harlem Shake

Reggae artist Hector Delgado and rapper Jayson Musson say the producer of the chart-topping hit Harlem Shake did not have permission to use their voices.

The pair are now asking for compensation from record label Mad Decent Records, which released the single, reports the New York Times.
Harlem Shake has become an internet sensation on video website YouTube.
Producer Harry Rodrigues, also known as DJ Baauer, and Mad Decent Records declined to comment.
Musson told the New York Times the record label had been "more than co-operative" but an agreement had not yet been reached.
The song has inspired thousands of people around the world to upload videos of themselves dancing along to the first 30 seconds of the track - up to 4,000 a day are currently being put onto YouTube, according to the website.
The song was initially released in 2012.
Rights issues Delgado can be heard at the beginning of the track singing, "Con los terroristas," a sample from a single he released in 2006.
Musson shouts, "Do the Harlem Shake," about 15 seconds in, which he says is taken from a rap by his group Plastic Little in 2001.
In the New York Times, Delgado's agent, Javier Gomez, described the situation as "a clear breaking of intellectual property rights".
Last month in an "ask me anything" session on website Reddit, Rodrigues was asked about the origin of a female Spanish vocal that also features on the track.
"Found it on the innerweb," he wrote in reply.
Barney Hooper, from PRS for Music, which represents the rights of music creators, told the BBC: "If one piece of music is sampled in another, then typically the creators of the original work would be entitled to a share of royalties when the new work is played, performed or reproduced," he said.
"A song can have a number of songwriters/composers and use samples of other works.
"If this is the case, all could have an ownership share in the new work and these would be registered with organisations like PRS for Music.
"We then pay out the royalties we collect based on the ownership shares registered with us."
However the situation was sometimes complicated, Mr Hooper added.
"There are often ownership disputes relating to popular works where others musical works are sampled," he said.

Japan extracts gas from methane hydrate in world first

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:41:00 -0700

Methane hydrate is also known as burnable or flammable ice

Japan says it has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate off its central coast, in a world first.

Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are a type of frozen "cage" of molecules of methane and water.
The gas field is about 50km away from Japan's main island, in the Nankai Trough.
Researchers say it could provide an alternative energy source for Japan which imports all its energy needs.
Other countries including Canada, the US and China have been looking into ways of exploiting methane hydrate deposits as well.
Pilot experiments in recent years, using methane hydrates found under land ice, have shown that methane can be extracted from the deposits.

Offshore deposits present a potentially enormous source of methane but also some environmental concern, because the underwater geology containing them is unstable in many places.

"It is the world's first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate," an official from the economy, trade and industry ministry told the AFP news agency.
A survey of the gas field is being run by state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC).
Engineers used a depressurisation method that turns methane hydrate into methane gas.
Production tests are expected to continue for about two weeks.
Government officials have said that they aim to establish methane hydrate production technologies for practical use within five years.
A Japanese study estimated that at least 1.1tn cubic metres of methane hydrate exist in offshore deposits.
This is the equivalent of more than a decade of Japan's gas consumption.
Japan has few natural resources and the cost of importing fuel has increased after a backlash against nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear disaster two years ago.

Methane clathrate - 'Fire ice'

Hydrates are a frozen mixture of water and gas, primarily methane
The methane molecules reside inside a water molecule lattice
The methane will ignite in ice form - hence the "fire ice" moniker
Clathrates tend to form under frigid temperatures and high pressures
They are found in ocean sediments and under the permafrost on land
Vast deposits are thought to exist, rivalling known reserves of traditional fossil fuels

South Korea warns North on armistice threat

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:54:00 -0700

North Korean rhetoric has left the South, with whom it remains at war, on alert

South Korea says North Korea cannot scrap the armistice that ended the Korean War and called on Pyongyang to tone down its rhetoric.

A unilateral move to end the pact was not legally possible, it said.
As well as the armistice threat North Korea has in recent days also cut off a hotline and vowed to end non-aggressions pacts with Seoul.
It says it is responding to US-South Korea military drills and new sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a treaty.
North Korea has declared that armistice "invalid", but South Korea said a one-sided declaration was insufficient.
"Unilateral abrogation or termination of the armistice agreement is not allowed under its regulations or according to international law," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-Young said.
Seoul would "absolutely keep the armistice agreement as well as strengthen consultation and cooperation with the United States and China, who are also concerned parties of the armistice", he said.
"We demand North Korea withdraw remarks threatening stability and peace on the Korean peninsula and in the region," the spokesman added.
This is not the first time North Korea has said it was withdrawing from the armistice. It also issued a similar threat after its nuclear test in 2009, for example.
"Bellicose rhetoric" In recent weeks, however, there has been a marked escalation in rhetoric from Pyongyang, following international condemnation of its nuclear test.
It opposes the fresh UN sanctions and has also voiced bitter opposition to two annual joint US-South Korea military exercises that are currently under way.

North Korea looks set to conduct military exercises in coming days, South Korea says

State-run television showed footage on Monday of mass rallies across the country to denounce the US and South Korea, while the state news agency also described leader Kim Jong-un briefing troops at a military unit near a border island.
He told local commanders on Baengnyeong Island - close to the disputed inter-Korean maritime border and the site of the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan - to conduct "merciless firepower strikes" if provoked, KCNA said.
Late last week he gave similar instructions to troops near Yeonpyeong Island, the scene of shelling in November 2011 that left four South Koreans dead, KCNA said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was "certainly concerned by North Korea's bellicose rhetoric".
"The threats that they have been making follow a pattern designed to raise tension and intimidate others," he said.
On Monday the US imposed additional sanctions on North Korea. The US Treasury added the Foreign Trade Bank (FTB) of North Korea and Paek Se-bong, the chairman of a committee which it said oversaw production of ballistic missiles, to the sanctions list.
The US State Department also added three North Korean officials it said had links to the communist country's proliferation activities.
The sanctions ban any US individual or entity from transactions with those named.
In a speech, US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said North Korea should "change course" to obtain the aid and respect it sought.
"North Korea's claims may be hyperbolic, but as to the policy of the United States, there should be no doubt: We will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea."
A spokesman for South Korean President Park Geun-hye, meanwhile, has said that her first overseas trip since taking office will be to the US in May, taking into account "the recent Korean Peninsula situation".
North Korea's third nuclear test followed an apparently successful launch in December of a three-stage rocket, seen as a banned test of missile technology.
Regional neighbours and the US fear Pyongyang is working to build a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a missile, but believe it does not yet have the capabilities to do so.

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:54:00 -0700

Gerrard sets sights on top five

By ESPN staff

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard says the club must deliver "the perfect finish" to the season if they are to finish in the top five.

PA PhotosSteven Gerrard is looking for a strong finish to ensure the Reds play European football next season

The Reds have not finished higher than sixth since 2008-09, but the new owners have made clear that a return to the Champions League is a priority. With Liverpool currently sixth, seven points behind fourth-placed Chelsea and having played an extra game, it would appear that they may have to wait a little longer to achieve that aim.
After a run of three successive wins, though, Gerrard is hoping the Reds can produce a strong finish to the campaign and, at the least, claim a place in the Europa League by securing fifth.
"Liverpool don't belong in seventh, eighth or ninth in the table," he said. "We want to push for the European places year after year. Hopefully it's not too late but we will need to produce the perfect finish to sneak in the back door."
Liverpool are currently two points behind Arsenal, who have a game in hand, and Gerrard added: "The top five places are the target. Let's see what happens in other big games that are not in our control. Hopefully the teams above us will slip up. All we can control is our performances and our consistency and hopefully we will finish strong."
Liverpool had been struggling to secure positive results against teams in the top half this season, but they beat Swansea last month and then, most impressively, beat third-placed Tottenham 3-2 on Sunday.
"I think this season has been slightly strange in the way that usually we do really well against the top sides and we slip up against the sides we should be beating, but we have been putting those sides away quite comfortably with three, four and five-nils and looking really good," Gerrard said. "We haven't got the points we've needed against the top sides.
"This result and performance (against Spurs) will give us great confidence and belief. Hopefully it will be a springboard for us to go on and finish the season really strongly.
"At times we haven't got what we've deserved against top sides but we can't look for excuses. We are where we are and we need to take responsibility for where we are in the league.''
Information from the Press Association was used in this report

Rome conclave: Cardinals set to elect new Pope

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:51:00 -0700

From bbc

The cardinals have been seeking divine guidance for the choice ahead

Cardinals gathered in Rome to elect the new Pope will begin voting later, with no clear frontrunner to take over as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The 115 cardinal-electors are attending a special Mass in St Peter's Basilica before processing into the Sistine Chapel to begin their secret deliberations this afternoon.
They will vote four times daily until two-thirds can agree on a candidate.
The election was prompted by the surprise abdication of Benedict XVI.
The 85-year-old stepped down last month saying he was no longer strong enough to lead the church, which is beset by problems ranging from a worldwide scandal over sexual abuse to allegations of intrigue and corruption at the Vatican bank.
Benedict's resignation and the recent damage to the Church's reputation make the choice of the cardinal-electors especially hard to predict, the BBC's James Robbins in Rome says.
They will weigh pressure for a powerful manager to reform the Vatican against calls for a new Pope able to inspire the faithful, our correspondent adds.

At Tuesday morning's "Mass for the Election of the Supreme Pontiff" in St Peter's Basilica the cardinals are seeking divine guidance for the election ahead.

Conclave interactive video

Step inside our virtual Sistine Chapel as Philippa Thomas explains the process to elect a new Pope

In his homily, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano praised the "brilliant pontificate" of Pope Benedict and implored God to grant another "Good Shepherd" to lead the church.

He outlined the mission Catholics believe was given by Jesus Christ to St Peter - the first Pope - emphasising love and sacrifice, evangelization and the unity of the church.
The BBC's Michael Hirst in Rome says the speech was more measured in tone than the address given in 2005 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict, which featured a fiery attack on the "dictatorship of relativism".

Lucas: Liverpool can dream of UCL

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:39:00 -0700

By ESPN Staff Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva says the recent Tottenham victory has allowed the Anfield club to start dreaming of a Champions League berth.

PA PhotosLucas Leiva is dreaming of the European Champions League

The 3-2 come-back victory moves the Merseysiders up into sixth position on the Premier League table, seven points adrift of the race for a spot in Europe's elite competition.
"We are improving at the right time and, because of that, we can dream of a Champions League place," Lucas said.
"Our greatest virtue in this match was that we never stopped fighting. We didn't get upset at losing and showed our strength to comeback.
Liverpool are one of the form teams in the league right now, the Tottenham victory making it three wins in a row for the club.
And despite admitting the club was proud of its recent record, Lucas said he and his team-mates are focused on stretching their winning form even further.
"It was our third consecutive victory, something that is worth a lot given the difficulty of the Premier League," he said
"We will continue to work hard, without fanfare, and things will come naturally."

Obafemi Martins says he is joining Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:36:00 -0700

By Associated Press

SEATTLE -- Nigerian forward Obafemi Martins says on Twitter he is leaving Spanish club Levante to join the Seattle Sounders.
Martins made his posts on Monday, which was followed by an announcement from Levante that he was leaving. Martins wrote that he wanted to give thanks to Levante for the chance to play in La Liga, but that signing with Seattle is, "a big step to take in my career."
At training on Monday, Seattle general manager Adrian Hanauer told reporters there was nothing official to announce but did not deny "indicators" that pointed to Martins playing for Seattle in the near future.
The Sounders have been seeking a replacement at forward to play alongside Eddie Johnson since Fredy Montero was loaned to Colombian club Millonarios. The 28-year-old Martins had nine goals in 22 matches in all competitions for Levante this season.
His best seasons were with Inter Milan (2001-06) and Newcastle (2006-09).

What is killing smartphones?

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Thu, 7 Mar 2013 03:37:00 -0800

It is the curse of the modern age. After a day spent text messaging, emailing and browsing the web, your smartphone is dead. So now, after brushing your teeth and letting the dog out, there is another task: plugging in your phone.
But it never used to be like this. Simple handsets used to keep on going for days on end. So what changed? And more importantly, what is the mobile industry doing about it?
The big difference is of course the technology -we used to talk on 2G phones that ran on the old GSM networks. They could last for almost a week, partly because we asked so little of them. As detailed in the previous article in this series, smartphones became powerful computers because they needed to be to make strong, wireless connections to the network. And when they make those connections we ask them to do data-intensive tasks like stream video.
Every single step along the way involves information processing. That takes currents flowing around silicon chips; and currents running round silicon chips generate heat, wasting energy. PC and laptop users are constantly reminded about this by the whirr of the fans that keep their processors cool. We don't notice it on phones, because everything they do seems to happen so silently, so effortlessly. But when you look at the detail, energy drips way like water from a leaky tap. And it all adds up.
Take the work of Dr Angela Nicoara, senior research scientist at the Deutsche Telekom Innovation Center in Silicon Valley. She has become something of a digital dietician, counting the joules that go into feeding our smartphones' appetites. She recently laid out her findings in a report she enticingly called Who Killed My Battery?
In a collaboration with the group of Professor Dan Boneh at Stanford University, she connected a state of the art electronic meter to the battery of a smartphone, which typically store around 15-20,000 joules of energy, and then tracked the power for every millisecond it performed one of the most common applications for our handhelds: browsing the web.
What emerged when she broke down the actions millisecond by millisecond came as a surprise.
The first was that just hitting the “go” button and getting the phone to contact the network used 12 joules, as the phone exchanged details with the local base station, agreed transmission settings and so on. That’s before a single byte was downloaded. When that process begins, the real surprises come thick and fast.
It turns out that the design of the web page has a massive impact on the energy it takes to put it on your mobile screen. For example, the BBC News website, specifically designed for mobile users, took another 3 joules to download and process all the bits for a news story. For the worst performer of the websites she explored, Apple.com, it took another 34 joules – 11 times more than the BBC. Wikipedia came just behind.
Careless websites, she found, are at least contributors to killing her battery. For our PCs and laptops connected to the mains, these numbers don’t matter. With the constraints of a mobile battery they are critical.
The difference between these websites was in the way that they were built. For example, interactive elements that are used to customise a site experience and often run in the background of a site were a big drain. A half of those 34 joules needed to see the Apple page were down to these functions, without them even being touched; on Wikipedia, they alone cost 10 joules.

Another drain are the so-called CSS files that tell a browser how to layout the page. Again, on the Apple site, these required 12 joules to download and render onto the screen. Simple improvements reduce this by 5 joules.
Each joule might seem a trivial amount, but like a slimmer on a diet lots of small savings soon add up – especially when some websites take eleven times as much energy to visit as others.
Electronic warfare
But website design is not the only drain on a phone’s batteries. The way we access these websites – and in particular the settings our service providers use - also has a huge effect, according to Hari Balakrishnan, Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Surprisingly, it is the network that decides what power setting our handsets use. When we need to transmit, the network tells our handsets to power up to maximum. But the network’s interests are different from ours. We would like to power down again as soon possible to save our battery.
But only a slender portion of an already crowded radio spectrum is assigned for these so-called control messages, says Dr Balakrishnan. Because of that, the network tries to minimise the number of control signals it sends, even if that leaves our handset powering away while doing nothing.
“A classic example,” says Dr Balakrishnan, “is when you’re running an application that wakes up every 20 or 30 seconds and sends one byte of information. That would, in many cases, keep your radio in the high-power, active mode all the time. But it doesn’t have to. That kind of trivial workload should consume next to no energy, but ends up using huge amounts of energy because of the sub-optimal controls implemented by the networks.”
Like Dr Nicoara, Dr Balakrishnan decided to test his suspicion by wiring his battery to a meter and watching the battery drain. The results showed that by letting the phone control its own settings, he could halve the power consumed by the wireless transmissions with minimal effect on the network performance (although he stresses the details change from device to device, and from network to network).
Again, these might seem small improvements overall – but a network that can give our phones a few more hours of working battery life is highly likely to attract more customers these days.
Of course, it wouldn't matter how long your phone was fired up to exchange bits with the base station, if it could do so with minimal energy. But it turns out the mobile industry has been fighting a war with its electronics for years because they are so inefficient.
Specifically, it is the purity of the radio wave that they use to connect to the base station that requires so much power.
With radio spectrum restricted (see the two previous articles in this series) transmission frequencies are squeezed in close together, and any distortion in the signal would lead to catastrophic interference. And it turns out that the basic physics of the amplifiers that drive the antennae can only generate those pure waves when drawing a lot of electrical current.
When the 3G standards were introduced, manufacturers turned to a special design of amplifier first concocted back in the 1930s, because of the stringent demands of the networks. But even then, for every watt of transmitted radio power, there's more than another watt simply warming your handset to create this pure wave. Basically, simple physics is doubling the drain rate on your battery.
“The industry is racing furiously to mitigate this problem,” says Joel Dawson, Professor of Power Engineering at MIT, who has himself come forward with a smart fix that involves electronically compensating for this distortion, something that could apparently halve the losses. But how soon any of those fixes will make it to the market remains to be seen.
Energy harvest
Of course these aren’t the only drains on a battery. Modern smartphones pack everything from small accelerometers to energy hungry global positioning systems. And then there is the display - the whole selling point of the smart phone is the interface that lets you access the world wherever you are. Until researchers can develop electronic-inks similar to these used in the Kindle e-book or other pixelated passive systems that refresh as fast as lit screens, simply viewing the phone comes at a substantial cost.
The obvious solution would be to pack in a bigger battery, but of all the components in your handset, the battery is the one that represents seriously mature technology. Most of the electrochemistry was laid down a hundred years ago and, as one battery manufacturer confessed to me, there's little they can do about. The introduction of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the 1990s was something of a step change. But since then … well, while virtually every other phone parameter doubles in a year or two, it takes a decade to double battery performance.
There are ongoing efforts to improve battery technology (See: Charging Tomorrow’s smartphones) but there may also be another route: harvesting energy from the environment.
Solar power is long-established, and has been tried many times with mobile phones, but has failed largely because of inconvenience. As the front of phones is crowded out with buttons, photovoltaic cells have largely been put on the back – but that has required turning a phone upside down to keep the battery charged.
But the form of the modern smart phone, freeing up the top face, has changed all that. And one potential solution is on display at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this.
WYSIPS (“What You See is the Photovoltaic Surface”), as it is known, is a joke, according to Francis Robcis, sales director for the new product. “Because you can’t see it,” he explains.
And it needs to be like that, because WYSIPS has silicon solar cells embedded within the large smartphone display.
“Go into the office, and most people will leave their phones lying around with the face up,” says Robcis. So that when the set is idle, the tiny silicon strips (too small to see) are busy recharging the battery.
The challenge has been to integrate the photovoltaics into the display without dimming the image by more than 10 per cent – a reduction users should find acceptable. And to allow it to sit alongside the touchscreen function. If the system takes off, the future mobile screen could become a busy place.
The company hopes to have a pilot line producing screens by the end of the year, to prove the technology is viable.
Powering by sunlight, of course, is conventional, even if unfamiliar in mobile phones. At the University of Washington Seattle, ex-Intel researcher Joshua Smith is planning something much more radical: powering mobile phones - with gratifying circularity - by radio waves.
His lab, funded by tech giants Intel and Google, has already made great strides. “The largest TV towers in the US put out around a megawatt of energy,” Smith explains. “We’re able to operate our energy harvester as much as 30 km from one and get small but usable amounts of energy.”
In essence, harvesting radio energy requires rewiring the phone antenna to extract not the signal but the power of the carrier wave. And it’s not only powerful TV transmissions that you can tap into. Recently, Smith’s lab has been able to harvest energy from mobile phone masts.
The quantities available are down in the microwatt range, so not enough to power voice transmissions. But enough energy can be accumulated, Smith says, to send short texts, or just to stretch the battery life.
“It would be enough to have perpetual standby. My favourite example is driving along in my car. My son is playing Angry Birds on the cell phone, and completely drains the battery. And then I get a flat tyre. It would be nice if I could send an emergency SMS using this ambient energy. And of course, compared to solar power, you could even do it at night.”
All of which means that the daily ritual of recharging your phone could soon be a thing of the past.

Body of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez lies in state

noreply@blogger.com (Aleyfex) — Thu, 7 Mar 2013 03:33:00 -0800

Mr Chavez's mother and brothers were among those who paid their respects

The body of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is lying in state at the military academy in Caracas.

His family and close advisers, as well as the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay, paid their respects next to his open coffin on Wednesday.
Mr Chavez died aged 58 after suffering from cancer for nearly two years.
Hundreds of thousands of people earlier took to the streets of the capital to pay tribute as a hearse carrying his coffin took hours to reach the academy.
The state funeral for Mr Chavez is due to take place on Friday.
The head of the presidential guard was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that he had been with Mr Chavez when he died.
General Jose Ornella said Mr Chavez had died of a massive heart attack, and in his final moments had said he wanted to carry on living.
"He couldn't speak but he said it with his lips: 'I don't want to die. Please don't let me die,'" said Gen Ornella, according to AP.