America & Europe

Mariah Carey surpasses Elvis in No. 1s; Beatles are now in range

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 21:19:00 +0500

LOS ANGELES: With her 18th chart-topper ``Touch My Body,''Mariah Carey has passed Elvis Presley for the most No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and is now second only to the Beatles.
But while the diva was in full celebration mode after learning of her latest milestone, she was also quick to put her accomplishment in perspective.
``I really can never put myself in the category of people who have not only revolutionized music but also changed the world,'' Carey told a foreign news agency London .``That's a completely different era and time ... I'm just feelingreally happy and grateful.''
Carey's single is the new No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot 100singles chart: The song also is No. 1 on the trade magazine's digital download chart thanks to a precedent-setting 286,000 downloads in its debut week. She had been tied with Presley with 17 No. 1 singles; the Beatles are the all-time leaders with 20 (Madonna also beat a Presley record this week, surpassing the King for the most top 40 hits with her 37th for her hit ``4 Minutes.''
``Touch My Body'' is the first single off of Carey's upcomingalbum ``E=MC2,'' due out April 16. It is the follow-up to her Grammy-winning disc ``The Emancipation of Mimi,'' released in 2005, that year's best-selling album with five million copies sold.

Symbolic crossing in divided Nicosia to open Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 19:40:00 +0500

NICOSIA ( 2008-04-02 11:50:51 ) :

A symbolic crossing over the UN-controlled buffer zone in Nicosia, Europe's last divided capital, will open on Thursday, a diplomatic source told AFP on Wednesday.
"I can confirm that Ledra Street will open on Thursday at 9 am," the source told AFP.
The opening of the Ledra Street crossing, in the heart of a shopping district inside the walled old city, would signal a new climate of trust on Cyprus that has been divided for the past 34 years.
The move was agreed at a breakthrough meeting last month between Cyprus President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat who also agreed to resume reunification talks in three months.
Ledra Street, in a pedestrian area of Nicosia, would be the sixth such crossing on the divided eastern Mediterranean island to open since April 2003 when Turkish Cypriots for the first time lifted entry restrictions for Greek Cypriots.
The February election of Christofias, a Greek Cypriot, sparked a renewed drive for peace after several years of stalemate under his predecessor Tassos Papadopoulos.
The barricades on Ledra Street were among the first to be erected after intercommunal violence flared in the city in 1963, leading to the arrival the following year of UN peacekeeping troops who have remained ever since.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey seized its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup in Nicosia aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
A UN bid to reunite the island failed in 2004 when the Greek Cypriots voted against the plan in a referendum, although the Turkish Cypriots voted overwhelmingly in favour.

Clinton leads Obama, McCain in key matchups: poll

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 19:16:00 +0500

WASHINGTON ( 2008-04-02 14:40:09 ) :

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton holds a 9-point lead over rival Barack Obama among likely Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters ahead of the state's April 22 primary, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first female president, leads the Illinois senator 50 percent to 41 percent, the poll found. She also runs better against the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio -- all important swing states in the general election.
In a general election matchup in Florida, McCain closely trails Clinton 42 percent to 44 percent but McCain leads Obama, who would be the first black president, 46 percent to 37 percent, according to the poll.
"The difference between Clinton and Obama in Florida is the white vote," said Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
In Ohio, Clinton has a 48 to 39 percent lead over McCain after months of too-close-to-call results, the poll found. In an Obama-McCain matchup, Obama gets 43 percent against 42 percent for McCain.
In Pennsylvania, Clinton tops McCain 48 to 40 percent and Obama leads the Arizona senator 43 percent to 39 percent.
Among Pennsylvania Democrats, Clinton leads 54 to 37 percent with women and ties Obama with men at 46 percent support.
The primary vote between Clinton and Obama splits sharply along racial lines.
Clinton leads 59 to 34 percent among white Pennsylvania likely primary voters while Obama leads 73 to 11 percent among black Democrats, the poll found.
Roughly 44 percent of people in all three states said the economy was the most important issue in their vote, while about a quarter of respondents said the war in Iraq is most important.
"The economic concerns of voters make Ohio a tougher challenge for McCain than has traditionally been the case for Republicans, who have never won the White House without carrying Ohio," Brown said. "But Obama's weakness among white men is an indication that he has not yet closed the sale among the lunch bucket brigade."
The poll was conducted March 24 through 31. Quinnipiac surveyed 1,135 Florida voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent; 1,238 Ohio voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent; 3,484 Pennsylvania voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percent including 1,549 Democratic likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

France opposes Nato membership for Ukraine, Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:29:00 +0500

PARIS ( 2008-04-01 15:58:26 ) :

France opposes allowing Ukraine and Georgia into Nato, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday on the eve of an alliance summit in Bucharest that is to consider their membership.
"We are opposed to the entry of Georgia and Ukraine because we think that it is not a good answer to the balance of power within Europe and between Europe and Russia," said Fillon in an interview to France Inter.
His remarks coincided with a visit to Kiev by US President George W. Bush, who said on Tuesday that Washington "strongly supports" Ukraine's accession and that Georgia also should be allowed to take a step toward Nato membership.
"France has a different view from the United States on this issue," said Fillon.
"We want to have a dialogue with Russia on this subject and that is what the president will say in Bucharest" during the Nato summit opening on Wednesday, he added.
Russia has warned that allowing Ukraine to move toward Nato membership would have a negative impact on European security and create a serious crisis in relations between Moscow and Kiev.
Albania, Croatia and Macedonia hope to receive invitations to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) at the summit. Georgia and Ukraine have applied for a Membership Action Plan (MAP), which prepares nations for entry.

Differences remain with Russia on missile defense: US

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:09:00 +0500

WASHINGTON ( 2008-03-28 10:42:24 ) :

US and Russian officials ended two days of meetings here on Thursday without bridging the gap on Washington's plans to deploy parts of a missile shield in eastern Europe, US officials said.
The two sides are intensifying efforts to end a row with echoes of the Cold War by planning more talks on missile defense at a summit in early April in Russia between US President George W. Bush and his counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The talks in Washington followed high-level meetings in Moscow last week.
"There are differences on missile defense. The two secretaries set the stage for progress, but there are differences that remain," acting secretary for political affairs Daniel Fried told reporters after two days of talks.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates met in Moscow last week with their Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Anatoly Serdyukov in a bid to ease Russian concerns about the project.
"This is pretty much what we expected," Fried said of the remaining differences during a telephone conference call with reporters.
But he said the two sides made progress on a strategic framework that Bush raised earlier this month in a letter to Putin aimed at mapping out future US-Russian ties on more than a dozen security, economic and other areas.
These issues range from missile defense to fighting terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation.
"And this strategic framework has sections on security that go beyond missile defense. It is a very substantive document. And so we made progress in all these areas, including this security area," Fried said.
The two days of talks here were led by US arms control expert John Rood and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak as a follow up to Rice's and Gates' meetings in Moscow.
"We were prepared for lengthy and extensive negotiations over the last two days (after the Moscow meetings) and we're going to stay at this at a pretty intense pace with the hope of reaching agreement soon," Rood said.
But Rood said he could not guarantee that there would be agreement on the strategic framework document by the time Putin leaves office in May and hands over to president-elect Dmitry Medvedev.
Putin is widely expected to stay on as a powerful prime minister, however.
Russia opposes US plans to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic as part of an anti-missile system which Washington says is aimed at protecting against "rogue" states such as Iran and North Korea.
The Russian side has seen the shield as a direct threat to its security, especially with a radar installation that could survey parts of Russia's territory.
But, in an early sign of progress in tough talks, Lavrov said last Thursday that Washington gave Moscow guarantees that its proposed anti-missile shield "will be not directed" at Russia.

PKK threatens to retaliate against Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:46:00 +0500

MOUNT QANDIL ( 2008-03-28 14:08:41 ) :

Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has threatened to retaliate against Ankara after the violence during the New Year celebration of Newroz in southeastern Turkey.
"The Turkish state must listen to the message of freedom from the Kurdish people and immediately halt its violence against civilians," the number two of the PKK group, Bozam Tekim, told AFP in an interview on Thursday.
"There will be uncontrolled reaction. The Turkish state and the ruling party will bear the responsibility of these new developments."
Tekim warned that unless Ankara ended its actions of "abuse against civilians, the PKK will retaliate".
The interview was conducted in the Qandil mountains, an area of tall, rugged mountains which serves as a PKK hideout in Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region along the border with Turkey and Iran.
Two people were killed and dozens injured over the past week in southeast Turkey during the celebration of the Kurdish new year, which fell on March 21.
Dozens of people have been detained in Turkey's mainly Kurdish-populated southeast where celebrations of Newroz Day turned into protests of support for the PKK.
Newroz is a traditional platform for Turkey's Kurds to demonstrate support for the rebels and demand broader rights. "The Kurdish people continue to fight for freedom. They have once again demonstrated their support for the PKK and its leader Abdullah Ocalan (PKK founder who is imprisoned in Turkey)," said Tekim, whose group is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and European Union.
"The new violence against civilians demonstrates that the Turkish state continues its policy of force and denial of our rights," he charged.
The recent incursions by the Turkish army in northern Iraq, "despite the support of the United States, has resulted in its failure", the rebel leader said.
The Turkish army "got a severe lesson" during the incursion in the last week of February in the Zap region of Iraq.
The PKK claims it killed 127 Turkish soldiers and lost nine of its fighters.
Ankara says it dealt a severe blow to the rebel movement during the incursion that killed 240 rebels.

Fireworks blast in China kills 25: official media

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:20:00 +0500

BEIJING ( 2008-03-27 13:34:13 ) :

Journalists and police officers were among 25 people killed in a fireworks explosion in a remote part of northwestern China, state media reported.
The explosion occurred on Wednesday night as authorities were trying to destroy eight truckloads of fireworks in the Gobi desert near Turpan city in Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Twenty-two people were killed immediately, and three died later, Xinhua said.
Five people are still missing and two others are in hospital with serious injuries, Xinhua said, citing a local official.
The victims include police officers, staff of a local explosion detonation company and journalists covering the event, Xinhua said.
Seven of the eight trucks that were used to transport the fireworks were destroyed, the report said, but no details were given as to how the explosion occurred.
China has a huge fireworks industry that is notorious for its lax safety standards.

Maliki Gives Shiite Militias 72 Hours to Halt Fighting

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:05:00 +0500

BAGHDAD — A day after launching a huge operation that ignited heavy fighting in two of Iraq’s largest cities, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki gave the Shiite militias controlling the southern oil city of Basra an ultimatum on Wednesday: lay down their weapons within 72 hours or face more severe consequences.

As the fighting in Basra and Baghdad intensified on Wednesday, the American military command, speaking for the first time about the crackdown, characterized it as an Iraqi-led operation in which American-led forces were playing only an advisory role. An Iraqi hospital official said that the battle in Basra between Iraqi forces and Shiite militias led by Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, had so far claimed the lives of 40 people and wounded at least 200, figures that include militia members as well as Iraqi officers.

The fighting threatens to destabilize a long-term truce that had helped reduce the level of violence in the five-year-old Iraq war. Mr. Maliki, who considered the operation so important that he traveled to the city to direct the fighting himself, issued his ultimatum on Iraqi state television.

“Those who were deceived into carrying weapons must deliver themselves and make a written pledge to promise they will not repeat such action within 72 hours,” he said. “Otherwise, they will face the most severe penalties.”

An American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, repeatedly sought on Wednesday to distance Western forces from the operation, saying that Mr. Maliki and his security ministers planned and carried it out on their own. He said American-led forces were on standby.

Nearly 16,000 Iraqi police officers and 9,014 Iraqi Army troops were involved in the operation, which General Bergner said was not specifically aimed at Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

“This is about criminal activity,” he said. “This is about those who are not respecting the rule of law.”

The Iraqi hospital official, who requested anonymity, did not specify how many of the people killed or wounded so far were militiamen, Iraqi soldiers or civilians caught up in the fighting. Three United States citizens working for the American government in Baghdad were seriously wounded Wednesday in a mortar attack on the Green Zone, the diplomatic and government compound, Reuters reported, citing an American Embassy spokeswoman.

The fierce battles, along with indications in recent weeks that militia and insurgent attacks had already been creeping up, raised fears across Iraq that Mr. Sadr could pull out of a cease-fire he declared last summer. If his Mahdi Army militia does step up attacks, that could in turn slow American troop withdrawals.

There were also serious clashes reported Tuesday in the southern cities of Kut and Hilla, and Major Bergner said Wednesday that fighting involving the Mahdi Army was continuing around the country.

In Basra on Tuesday, American and British jets roared through the skies, providing air support for the Iraqi military. A British Army spokesman for southern Iraq, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that while Western forces had not entered Basra, the operation already involved nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and police forces, with more arriving. “They are clearing the city block by block,” Major Holloway said.

The scale and intensity of the clashes in Baghdad kept many residents home. Schools and shops were closed in many neighborhoods and hundreds of checkpoints appeared; in some neighborhoods they were controlled by the government and in others by militia members.

Also on Tuesday, barrages of rockets and mortar shells pounded the fortified Green Zone area. An American military spokesman said there were two minor injuries to civilians in the Green Zone.

Even before the crackdown on militias began on Tuesday, Pentagon statistics on the frequency of militia and insurgent attacks suggested that after major security gains last fall, the conflict had drifted into something of a stalemate. Over all, violence has remained fairly steady over the past several months, but the streets have become tense and much more dangerous again after a period of calm.

It is not clear how responsible the restive Mahdi militia commanders are for stalling progress in the effort to reduce violence. In recent weeks, commanders have protested continuing American and Iraqi raids and detentions of militia members.

If the cease-fire unravels, there is little doubt about the mayhem that could be stirred up by Mr. Sadr, who forced the United States military to mount two bloody offensives against his fighters in 2004 as much of the country exploded in violence.

Sadiq al-Rikabi, the prime minister’s political adviser, and other Iraqi officials said that just how the unrest in Baghdad was related to the crackdown in Basra was unknown.

Argentine Nights

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:03:00 +0500

THE tango dancers took their places inside a cramped apartment in downtown Buenos Aires, as David Lampson, a 29-year-old television writer from Boston, wiped his brow. Despite the 100-degree weather, the fans had been shut off, spotlights switched on and windows blacked out with trash bags. The cameraman waited until the smoke machine blurred the parquet floor before yelling “Action!” Then just as the iTunes track reached its dramatic crescendo, the fuse blew. For the fourth time.

“Let’s unplug the other fan and try again,” Mr. Lampson told the polyglot cast and crew, which included a Greek mother, a Colombian architect and an Argentine shoemaker. Also present was a New York Cityfilm student, who was editing the footage for YouTube distribution. Mr. Lampson likened the process to creatingart from garbage. “There is a tango dance based on this idea,” he added, “called cambalache.”

A better term might be bohemians-in-exile. A new kind of tango is taking shape along the crooked back streets of Buenos Aires. At a former furniture factory on CalleHonduras, the British music engineer Tom Rixton, who has worked with top acts like Depeche Mode, runs a stylish boutique hotel called Home with his Argentine wife. Nearby on Calle Garruchaga, Amanda Knauer, a fashion designer from Manhattan, sells a chic line of leather handbags at Qara. And at Zizek, a weekly dance party run by an expat from San Antonio, the cha-ch-ch-cha rhythms of cumbia folk music quivers to an electronic beat.

“There are expats everywhere tapping into the city’s thriving cultural and arts scene,” said Grant C. Dull, Zizek’s founder, who also runs the popular bilingual Web guideWhatsUpBuenosAires.com. “And it’s not backpacker types, but people with money and contacts.”

Drawn by the city’s cheap prices and Paris-like elegance, legions of foreign artists are colonizing Buenos Aires and transforming this sprawling metropolis into a throbbing hothouse of cool. Musicians, designers, artists, writers and filmmakers are sinking their teeth into the city’s transcontinental mix of Latin élan and European polish, and are helping shake the Argentine capital out of its cultural malaise after a humbling economic crisis earlier this decade.

Video directors are scouting tango ballrooms for English-speaking actors. Wine-soaked gallery openings and behemoth gay discos are keeping the city’s insomniacs up till sunrise. And artists from the United States, England, Italy and beyond are snapping up town houses in scruffy neighborhoods and giving the areas Anglo-ized names like PalermoSoHo and Palermo Hollywood.

Comparisons with other bohemian capitals are almost unavoidable. “It’s like Prague in the 1990s,” said Mr. Lampson, who is perhaps best known for winning a Bravo TV reality show, “Situation: Comedy,” in 2005, about sitcom writers. Despite his minor celebrity, he decided to forgo the Los Angeles rat race and moved to Buenos Aires, where he is writing an NBC pilot, along with his Web novela, www.historyandtheuniverse.com. “Buenos Aires is a more interesting place to live than Los Angeles, and it’s much, much cheaper. You can’t believe a city this nice is so cheap.”

That wasn’t always the case. For much of the 20th century, Buenos Aires ranked among the world’s most expensive capitals, on par with Paris and New York. Broad boulevards were lined with splendid specimens of French belle époque architecture that evoked the Champs-Élysées, and tree-lined streets were buzzing with late-night cafes and oak-and-brass bars. Locals, it is often said, identify more as European than South American.

Then came the financial crisis of late 2001. The Argentine peso, which was once pegged to the United States dollar, plunged to a low of nearly 4 to 1 in the face of mounting debt and runaway inflation. (It holds steadily today at about 3 to 1.) Overnight, Buenos Aires went from being among the priciest cities to one of the world’s great bargain spots.

There was a silver lining. Even as local artists flocked overseas, producing a kind of creative brain drain from Buenos Aires, foreigners arrived in record numbers. And what they discovered was that this fast-paced city of three million offered more than just tango and cheap steaks. The Argentine capital also had balmy weather, hedonistic night life and a cosmopolitan air that thrives on novelty.

Situated at the wide mouth of the Río de la Plata, Buenos Aires sprawls across the flat landscape with the force of a concrete hurricane. It takes more than an hour to traverse opposite ends by yellow-and-black taxi. And that’s not mentioning the 48 barrios that creep inland, each with a distinct personality and crisscrossed by a web of cobblestone alleys and 12-lane mega-streets. There are business districts like Microcentro, leafy barrios like Recoleta and manufacturing sectors like La Paterna.

And nearly everywhere you turn these days, the new arrivals seem to be planting their flags, whether at a so-called chorizo house in historic San Telmo or a glassy condo in Puerto Madero. Or, for that matter, a former door factory on Calle Aguirre, which Sebastiano Mauri, 35, a painter and video artist from Milan, recently bought with several artists on the industrial outskirts of Palermo.

“Some are now calling this area Palermo Brooklyn,” said Mr. Mauri during a recent visit of his renovated factory, a bright yellow building on an otherwise gray street. Cost for the entire four-story factory? $130,000. “Buenos Aires makes Milan look like a neighborhood. It’s lively, multiethnic and you have Europeans from all over.”

After gutting the third floor, Mr. Mauri spent the past year converting it into an artist-in-residence studio with hardwood floors, stainless-steel kitchen cabinets and midcentury-modern furniture. To celebrate the near-completion, he held a rooftop barbecue on a breezy Saturday in January that drew a cross section of Buenos Aires’s art elite.

Drinking malbec out of plastic cups and eating steaks with dollops of ratatouille, the crowd of about 20 artists, curators and collectors chatted easily about the hyper-commercialized state of art, a towering sex hotel (known as a telo) nearby and the city’s obsession with ice cream. “Artists come here because they can be free,” said Florencia Braga Menéndez, whose namesake contemporary art gallery is arguably the city’s most influential. “As a gallerist, I never tell my artists what sells. They must create for themselves.”

That creative freedom has fueled plenty of cultural cross-pollination. Dick Verdult, an avant-garde musician and artist from the Netherlands, began toying with cumbia around 2000, manipulating the childish rhythms of the South American folk music with electronic bass lines, time delays and sampled voices. “Cumbia is like a ball of clay,” said Mr. Verdult, 53, who is better known by his stage name, Dick El Demasiado. “If you stick to the simple laws” — a 4/4 rhythm that he likens to a galloping horse — “but disregard the tradition, you can do a lot with it. Argentina has a very elastic culture.”

Berlin urges Gilani to push democratic reforms

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:44:00 +0500

BERLIN ( 2008-03-25 18:44:05 ) :

The German government welcomed the swearing-in of new Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani on Tuesday and urged him to pursue democratic reforms.
"The government hopes that the new prime minister ensures the strengthening of democracy, the consolidation of economic reforms and the struggle against poverty and terrorism in all forms," foreign ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said at a regular government news conference.
Jaeger also welcomed one of Gilani's first acts as prime minister, the release of judges jailed by President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed emergency rule late last year.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 5 Mar 2008 17:24:00 +0500

Follow the Leader

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:05:00 +0500

The New York Times and USA Today lead with new national polls that show voters think Sen. Barack Obama has a better shot at beating Sen. John McCain. In both polls Obama beat out Sen. Hillary Clinton by a significant margin for the first time (extra credit goes to the NYT for mentioning USAT's survey). In the NYT/CBS poll, 54 percent of Democratic voters said they would want to see Obama nominated compared to 38 percent who preferred Clinton, while the USAT/Gallup poll shows a 51-39 percent lead for Obama. USAT's poll shows Republicans agree with Democrats that McCain would have an easier time if he were to face off against Clinton.

The Los Angeles Times leads with a plan by Senate Democrats to change the bankruptcy law in order to give judges the authority to change the terms of a mortgage. Under the terms being discussed, a judge would be able to reduce a mortgage or its related interest rates, during bankruptcy proceedings. The country's lenders, largely backed by Republicans, are deeply against this proposal and contend that it would force them to increase mortgage rates in order to cover the added risk. "If this proposal becomes law, it will amount to a new tax on homeowners," the chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association said. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with the suicide bomber that assassinated a top Pakistani Army general in a day that saw the first major outburst of violence since the elections. He was the most senior military officer to be assassinated in recent times. The Washington Post leads locally but off-leads a look at how Obama's rise is due in large part to his speeches and general oratory skills, which is opening up a new line of attack from his opponents. Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt "has a presidential candidate been propelled so much by the force of words," says the Post.

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:53:00 +0500

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:48:00 +0500

Ahead of debate, Clinton sharpens her attacks

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:24:00 +0500

Republican John McCain also campaigned in Ohio on Monday, and told reporters he must convince a war-weary country that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding to win the White House, or else "then I lose. I lose."

He then backed off that remark, saying merely that Iraq would be a part of voters' judgment of his ability to handle national security.

The five-year-old Iraq conflict is emerging as a fault line in the general election, with the Arizona senator calling for the U.S. military continuing its mission while his Democratic opponents urge quick withdrawal.

A coalition of anti-war groups that was influential in last year's political debate on Iraq says it plans to spend more than $20 million this year to convince voters that McCain and the Republican Party's support for the war is bad for the economy.

In a conference call with reporters Monday, activist leaders said they believe voters will blame Republicans this fall for supporting the war at a time of rising health care and college costs and a mortgage foreclosure crisis.

"Leaders who do not recognize this connection will be at a disadvantage come Election Day," said Jeff Blum, director of USAction, which plans to spend $10 million organizing a grass-roots effort against Republican candidates. Blum said the group intends to dispatch hundreds of thousands of volunteers to go door to door to convince voters that the Republicans' war effort is hurting the economy.

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Barack Obama was not prepared to handle a global crisis as she looked ahead to an MSNBC debate that offered one of her last chances to blunt her rival's momentum before next week's must-win primaries.

The two Democratic presidential contenders face off in a debate at Cleveland State University just a week before the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas that Clinton must win to keep alive her faltering bid to become the first U.S. female president.

MSNBC will telecast the debate from 9-10:30 p.m. ET. NBC’s Brian Williams will moderate and be joined by "Meet the Press" moderator and NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert. It will be streamed live on msnbc.com.

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:22:00 +0500

AUSTIN: Barack Obama escaped unscathed from a key debate which Democratic foe Hillary Clinton hoped to use to slow his surging White House quest, 12 days before their next electoral showdown. On another day of high drama in the relentless 2008 election, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain meanwhile was forced to deny he had an extra-marital affair after a report linked him to a female lobbyist.

Senator Clinton needed a game-changing moment at Thursday night’s debate at the University of Texas, as new polls showed her rival slashing her leads in her must-win fortress states of Texas and Ohio, which vote on March 4.

Obama meanwhile avoided serious gaffes, fought back against her claims that some of his soaring oratory was plagiarised, and suggested her vote to authorise war in Iraq sparked questions about her leadership skills. “If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That’s, I think, a very simple proposition,” Clinton said, drawing cheers and some jeers from the audience at the University of Texas.

“Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox,” the New York senator said, ripping off her rival’s campaign slogan.

But Obama rejected accusations that he had stolen language from Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick as “silly season” politics and in a cheeky quip defended his speeches: “I’ve got to admit, some of them are pretty good.” In her strongest moments, Clinton scored points on her signature issue of healthcare, and at the end of the encounter gave an emotion-tinged answer on her greatest personal challenges.

US charges six suspects over 9/11

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:21:00 +0500

He said there would be "no secret trials" and that they would be "as completely open as possible".

"Relatively little amounts of evidence will be classified," Gen Hartmann said.

The other five defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni, Walid bin Attash, also from Yemen, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who was born in Balochistan, Pakistan, and raised in Kuwait, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, and Mohammed al-Qahtani.

Gen Hartmann said the charges included conspiracy, murder in violation of the laws of war, attacking civilians, destruction of property and terrorism.

All but Mr Qahtani and Mr Hawsawi are also charged with hijacking or hazarding an aircraft.

The charges listed "169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events".

Gen Thomas Hartmann said: "The accused will have his opportunity to have his day in court.

The US has about 275 prisoners left in the detention centre

"It's our obligation to move the process forward, to give these people their rights."

In listing more details of the charges against the defendants, Gen Hartmann alleged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had proposed the attacks to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 1996, had obtained funding and overseen the operation and the training of hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani extraction, was said to have been al-Qaeda's third in command when he was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

He has reportedly admitted to decapitating kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 but these charges do not relate to that.

The BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has said he planned every part of the 9/11 attacks but that his confession may prove problematic as the CIA admitted using controversial "waterboarding" techniques.

Human rights groups regard the procedure as torture.

Legal challenge

The charges will now be sent to Susan Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions, to determine whether they will be referred to trial.

Any trials would be held by military tribunal under the terms of the Military Commissions Act, passed by the US Congress in 2006.

The Act set up tribunals to try terror suspects who were not US citizens.

The law is being challenged by two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, who say they are being deprived of their rights to have their cases heard by a US civilian court.

Nineteen men hijacked four planes in the 9/11 attacks. Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, another the Pentagon in Washington and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.

The Pentagon has announced charges against six Guantanamo Bay prisoners over their alleged involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six, who include alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The charges, the first for Guantanamo inmates directly related to 9/11, are expected to be heard by a controversial military tribunal system.

About 3,000 people died in the hijacked plane attacks.

The Guantanamo Bay detention centre, in south-east Cuba, began to receive US military prisoners in January 2002. Hundreds have been released without charge but about 275 remain and the US hopes to try about 80.

Tribunal process

Brig Gen Thomas Hartmann, a legal adviser to the head of the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, said the charges alleged a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by al-Qaeda to attack the US".

Clinton tries to stop Obama momentum

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:12:00 +0500

Clinton lost in Maine on Sunday, a day after the New York senator and former first lady was stung by defeats in Nebraska, Washington state, Louisiana and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She is struggling to overcome Obama's financial and political rally that came on the back of his impressive showing in last week's "Super Tuesday" series of Democratic contests in 22 states.

The Democratic nomination is far from decided, with weeks or months of campaigning still ahead. Clinton is an experienced, well-financed campaigner certainly capable of pulling off more surprise wins, as she did Jan. 8 in New Hampshire.

In the latest overall totals in The Associated Press count, Clinton had 1,136 delegates to 1,108 for Obama. The totals include so-called superdelegates, which are party leaders not chosen at primaries or caucuses, free to change their minds. A total of 2,025 delegates is required to win the nomination.

In Maine, with 99 percent of the participating precincts reporting, Obama led with 59 percent of the vote, to 40 percent for Clinton. Obama won 15 of Maine's delegates to the national convention and Clinton won nine.

Obama, who seeks to be the U.S.'s first black president, was buoyant after his weekend winning sweep. He even won a Grammy on Sunday for his audio version of his book "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream," beating former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter in the best spoken word album category.

"I have the ability to bring people together," he said. Because of that, he said, "I think I can beat John McCain more effectively," he said, challenging the presumptive Republican nominee for November general elections.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama scored a clean sweep of five weekend contests, eroding rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's narrow lead in the Democratic presidential race and prompting the former first lady to reshuffle her campaign staff in a bid to stop his momentum.

For now, at least, the wind is at Obama's back. Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams ahead of nomination races Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., where polls published Sunday showed Obama leading.

The two states and the U.S. capital all have a sizable number of black Democratic voters, a constituency that has aided Obama in earlier contests.

McCain, too, was nursing Saturday and Sunday losses. He took the weekend off from campaigning despite embarrassing, but not pivotal, losses against preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee in two Republican races on Saturday. Huckabee, a favorite of evangelical Christians, beat McCain in Kansas and Louisiana, highlighting the difficulty the veteran Arizona senator faces in convincing the party's core right-wing blocs that he is one of them.

McCain, however, remained far ahead of Huckabee in the delegate count, and retained his virtually assured nomination that came on the back of rival Mitt Romney's decision to suspend his campaign. McCain has 719 delegates out of a total 1,191 needed to secure the Republican nomination. Huckabee had 234 delegates.

Since his string of Super Tuesday wins, McCain has concentrated on wooing conservatives who view him as a political maverick on key issues like immigration and tax cuts. The former Vietnam prisoner-of-war and decorated Navy pilot secured a boost Sunday when Bush referred to him in a taped interview as a "true conservative." But the president also stressed that McCain must do more to win over conservatives.

Obama has advantage in head-to-head with McCain

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:55:00 +0500

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain became the likely Republican nominee after Mitt Romney decided to suspend his campaign Thursday. Now, the Democrats are debating who would do better against the Arizona Republican.

Democrats are debating who would do better against Sen. John McCain, the GOP front-runner.

Two polls this month have asked registered voters nationwide how they would vote if the choice were between McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton.

A CNN poll, conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation February 1-3, shows Clinton three points ahead of McCain, 50 percent to 47 percent. That's within the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points, meaning that the race is statistically tied..

A Time magazine poll, conducted February 1-4, also shows a dead heat between Clinton and McCain. Each was backed by 46 percent of those polled.

Sen. Barack Obama believes he can do better, arguing "I've got appeal that goes beyond our party."

In the CNN poll, Obama leads McCain by 8 points, 52 percent to 44 percent. That's outside the margin of error, meaning that Obama has the lead.

And in the Time poll, Obama leads McCain by 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent -- a lead also outside of the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Hollywood Writers Consider Studio Offer

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:39:00 +0500

Technorati Tags: Hollywood,america,film,movies

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hollywood writers got their first look Saturday at details of a tentative agreement with studios that could put the strike-crippled entertainment industry back to work, an offer the union's East Coast president said he was endorsing.
A summary of the proposed deal crafted this week was posted on the Writers Guild of America's Web site hours before members attended meetings in New York and Los Angeles.
Compensation for projects delivered via digital media was the central issue in the 3-month-old walkout, which idled thousands of workers, disrupted the TV season and moviemaking and took the shine off Hollywood's awards season.
"I believe it is a good deal. I am going to be recommending this deal to our membership," Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East, told reporters before the New York meeting at a Times Square hotel.
Winship said afterward that he was encouraged by the membership's response.
"We had a very lively discussion. I'm happy with what happened. ... At the moment, I feel strongly it (the proposed deal) has a strong chance of going through," he said.
Writers leaving the two-hour-plus New York meeting characterized the reaction as generally positive and said there was cautious optimism that the end of the strike - the guild's first in 20 years - could be near.
"There's a general feeling of tremendous success. I was delighted," said TV writer John Simmons, who estimated that about 500 writers were on hand. "We agreed that this looks pretty good. ... It bodes well for the future."
He added that there are "always some people who will dissent" and that the complex deal required further scrutiny.
Carmen Culver, a film and TV writer, lauded the guild "for hanging tough."
"It's a great day for the labor movement. We have suffered a lot of privation in order to achieve what we've achieved," Culver said.
Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker ("Bowling for Columbine") and a nominee this year for his health-care film "Sicko," attended the New York meeting.
"It's an historic moment for labor in this country," Moore told The Associated Press.
Hundreds of writers filed into the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to hear from union leaders about the proposed deal. Some were cautiously optimistic that they could begin work by next week.
"I'm hopeful. We've been jerked around so much by the studios," film writer Brian Suskind said. "I don't think we're feeling vindictive, but we're angry about how we've been treated."
If guild members on both coasts react favorably to the proposed deal, the guild's board could vote Sunday to lift the strike order and the industry could be up and running Monday. This month's Oscars ceremony, which has been under the cloud of a union and actors boycott, also would be a winner.
Sunday's Grammy Awards ceremony has a picket-free pass from the union.
Winship cautioned that it's not a "done deal" until the contract is ratified by members. He also said that several steps must be taken before the West guild's board and East guild's council decide to lift the strike order.
"It conceivably could be Monday, but there are several different alternative ways that the board and council could determine how this should be dealt with," Winship said.
An outline of the three-year deal was reached in recent talks between media executives and the guild, with lawyers then drafting the contract language that was concluded Friday.
According to the guild's summary, the deal provides union jurisdiction over projects created for the Internet based on certain guidelines, sets compensation for streamed, ad-supported programs and increases residuals for downloaded movies and TV programs.
The writers deal is similar to one reached last month by the Directors Guild of America, including a provision that compensation for ad-supported streaming doesn't kick in until after a window of between 17 to 24 days deemed "promotional" by the studios.
Writers would get a maximum $1,200 flat fee for streamed programs in the deal's first two years and then get a percentage of a distributor's gross in year three - the last point an improvement on the directors deal, which remains at the flat payment rate.
"Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success," guild leaders Winship and Patric Verrone, head of the Writers Guild of America, West, said in an e-mailed message to members.
Together, the guilds represent 12,000 writers, with about 10,000 of those involved in the strike that began Nov. 5 and has cost the Los Angeles area economy alone an estimated $1 billion or more. Studios are represented by Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
One observer said the guild gained ground in the deal but not as much as it wanted.
"It's a mixed deal but far better than the writers would have been able to get three months ago. The strike was a qualified success," said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney with the TroyGould firm and a former associate counsel for the writers guild.
The walkout "paved the way for the directors to get a better deal than they would otherwise have gotten. That in turn became the foundation for further improvements the writers achieved," Handel said.

Obama Sweeps 3 States, Virgin Islands

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:05:00 +0500

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday night, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Illinois senator also won caucuses in the Virgin Islands, completing his best night of the campaign.

"Today, voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say 'yes we can"' Obama told a cheering audience of Democrats at a party dinner in Richmond, Va.

He jabbed simultaneously at Clinton and Arizona Sen. John McCain, saying the election was a choice between debating the Republican nominee-in-waiting "about who has the most experience in Washington, or debating him about who's most likely to change Washington. Because that's a debate we can win."

Clinton preceded Obama to the podium. She did not refer to the night's voting, instead turning against McCain. "We have tried it President Bush's way," she said, "and now the Republicans have chosen more of the same."

She left quickly after her speech, departing before Obama's arrival. But his supporters made their presence known, sending up chants of "Obama" from the audience as she made her way offstage.

Obama's winning margins ranged from substantial to crushing.

He won roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands.

With returns counted from nearly two-thirds of the Louisiana precincts, he was gaining 53 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for the former first lady. As in his earlier Southern triumphs in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, Obama, a black man, rode a wave of African-American support to victory in Louisiana.

In all, the Democrats scrapped for 161 delegates in the night's contests.

In initial allocations, Obama had won 31, Clinton nine.

In overall totals in The Associated Press count, Clinton had 1,064 delegates to 1,029 for Obama. A total of 2,025 is required to win the nomination at the national convention in Denver.

The Democratic race moved into a new, post-Super Tuesday phase as McCain flunked his first ballot test since becoming the Republican nominee-in-waiting. He lost Kansas caucuses to Mike Huckabee, gaining less than 24 percent of the vote.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, got nearly 60 percent of the vote a few hours after telling conservatives in Washington, "I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." He won all 36 delegates at stake.

Huckabee also edged ahead of McCain in caucuses in Washington, and in Louisiana's primary, where he flirted with gaining 50 percent of the vote, the requirement for pocketing 20 delegates.

For all his brave talk, Huckabee was hopelessly behind in the delegate race. McCain had 719, compared with 234 for Huckabee and 14 for Texas Rep. Ron Paul. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at the national convention.

The Democrats' race was as close as the Republicans' was not, a contest between Obama, hoping to become the first black president, and Clinton, campaigning to become the first female commander in chief.

The two rivals contest primaries on Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, all states where Obama and his campaign are hopeful of winning.

Preliminary results of a survey of voters leaving their polling places in Louisiana showed that nearly half of those casting ballots were black. As a group, African-Americans have overwhelmingly favored Obama in earlier primaries, helping him to wins in several Southern states.

Obama was gaining about 80 percent of the black votes statewide, while Clinton was winning 70 percent support among whites, the exit poll showed.

One in seven Democratic voters and about one in 10 Republicans said Hurricane Katrina had caused their families severe hardship from which they have not recovered. There was another indication of the impact the storm had on the state. Early results suggested that northern Louisiana accounted for a larger share of the electorate than in the past, presumably the result of the decline in population in the hurricane-battered New Orleans area.

McCain cleared his path to the party nomination earlier in the week with a string of Super Tuesday victories that drove former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney from the race. He spent the rest of the week trying to reassure skeptical conservatives, at the same time party leaders quickly closed ranks behind him.

His Kansas defeat aside, McCain also suffered a symbolic defeat when Romney edged him out in a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting across town from the White House.

The day's contests opened a new phase in the Democratic race between Clinton and Obama.

The Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses in 22 states, which once looked likely to effectively settle the race, instead produced a near-equal delegate split.

That left Obama and Clinton facing the likelihood of a grind-it-out competition lasting into spring - if not to the summer convention itself.

With the night's events, 29 of the 50 states have selected delegates.

Two more - Michigan and Florida - held renegade primaries and the Democratic National Committee has vowed not to seat any delegates chosen at either of them.

Maine, with 24 delegates, holds caucuses on Sunday. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas are next, on Tuesday, with 175 combined.

Then follows a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not.

The date of March 4 looms large, 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Mississippi is alone in holding a primary one week later, with a relatively small 33 delegates at stake.

Puerto Rico anchors the Democratic calendar, with 55 delegates chosen in caucuses on June 7.

If Super Tuesday failed to settle the campaign, it produced a remarkable surge in fundraising.

Obama's aides announced he had raised more than $7 million on line in the two days that followed.

Clinton disclosed she had loaned her campaign $5 million late last month in an attempt to counter her rival's Super Tuesday television advertising. She raised more than $6 million in the two days after the busiest night in primary history.

The television ad wars continued unabated.

Obama has been airing commercials for more than a week in television markets serving every state that has a contest though Feb 19.

Clinton began airing ads midweek in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska, and added Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Friday.

The exit poll was conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Sat, 9 Feb 2008 19:31:00 +0500

Yes, We Can! - Si, Se Puede! Song & video, featuring a star cast, by Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama's 'Yes We Can' speech. ---------------------------------------- 02/05/08 Note: Please keep the comments civil and try to keep the conversation to issues. No personal attacks or pejoratives. We'd prefer to keep the comments, and dialogue, open and flowing. Most importantly, no matter who your preferred candidate is, get out and vote! 02/06/08 Note: Please see note from 02/05/08. ------------------------- http://www.yeswecansong.com http://www.barackobama.com/ http://factcheck.barackobama.com/ It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom. Yes we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness. Yes we can. It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land. Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can. We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea -- Yes. We. Can. Celebrities featured include: Jesse Dylan, Will.i.am, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon Also check out this other great song and video inspired by Barack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Baby Found Amid Tornado Devastation

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:09:00 +0500

At a makeshift shelter for storm victims at Hartsville Pike Church of Christ in nearby Gallatin, the Rev. Doyle Farris said the child was a reminder that people "should never give up, even in the midst of the worst storm."
"If you look, you can find an inspiration or a bright spot," he said. "The child will always be a reminder in this community of that message."
Kyson's story emerged as a tale of hope amid spectacular misery as residents in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas tried to piece their lives back together after the nation's deadliest twister rampage in two decades killed 58 people.
The extent of the damage was still being tallied Thursday, two days after the storms.
Federal and state emergency teams dashed into the hardest-hit areas, along with utility workers and insurance claims representatives. President Bush, who said he called the governors of the affected states to offer support, planned to visit Tennessee on Friday.
Though homes were destroyed, communities flattened and loved ones lost, there were signs everywhere that recovery, while far away, was possible: Food and clothes began pouring in for the homeless. The morning coffee was brewing at a service station.
In Greenville, Ky., 18-year-old Samantha Oakley gave birth to a healthy 7-pound, 1-ounce son in the dark soon after the storm knocked out power at Muhlenberg Community Hospital.

Would you eat meat from cloned animals?

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:41:00 +0500

Regardless, it still will be years before many foods from cloned animals reach store shelves, for economic reasons: At $10,000 to $20,000 per animal, they’re a lot more expensive than ordinary cows, meaning producers likely will use clones’ offspring for meat, not the clone itself.

And several large companies — including dairy giant Dean Foods Co. and Hormel Foods Corp. — have said they have no plans to sell milk or meat from cloned animals because of consumer anxiety about the technology.

Labels not required
But FDA won’t require food makers to label if their products came from cloned animals, although companies could do so voluntarily if they knew the source. Last month, meat and dairy producers announced an industry system to track cloned livestock, with an electronic identification tag on each animal sold. Customers would sign a pledge to market the animal as a clone.

But that system is voluntary, and there is no way to tell if milk, for example, came from the daughter of a cloned cow.

“Both the animals and any food produced from those animals is indistinguishable from any other food source,” Sundloff said. “There’s no technological way of distinguishing a food that’s come from an animal that had a clone in its ancestry. It’s not possible.”

The decision was long-expected, but controversial. Debate has been fierce within the Bush administration as to whether the FDA should move forward, largely because of trade concerns. Consumer advocates petitioned against the move, and Congress had passed legislation urging the FDA to study the issue more before moving ahead.

“The FDA has acted recklessly,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who sponsored that legislation. “Just because something was created in a lab, doesn’t mean we should have to eat it. If we discover a problem with cloned food after it is in our food supply and it’s not labeled, the FDA won’t be able to recall it like they did Vioxx — the food will already be tainted.

“If you ask what’s for dinner, it means just about anything you can cook up in a laboratory,” said Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America, who pledged to push for more food producers to shun clones.

Fatal birth defects
The two main U.S. cloning companies, Viagen Inc. and Trans Ova Genetics, already have produced more than 600 cloned animals for U.S. breeders, the vast majority cattle, including copies of prize-winning cows and rodeo bulls.

“We certainly are pleased,” said Trans Ova President David Faber, who noted that previous reports by the National Academy of Sciences and others have reached the same conclusion.

“Our farmer and rancher clients are pleased because it provided them with another reproductive tool,” he added.

It was a day forecast since Scottish scientists announced in 1997 that they had successfully cloned Dolly the sheep. Ironically, sheep aren’t on the list of FDA’s approved cloned animals; the agency said there wasn’t as much data about their safety as about cows, pigs and goats.

By its very definition, a successfully cloned animal should be no different from the original animal whose DNA was used to create it.

But the technology hasn’t been perfected — and many attempts at livestock cloning still end in fatal birth defects or with deformed fetuses dying in the womb. Moreover, Dolly was euthanized in 2003, well short of her normal lifespan, because of a lung disease that raised questions about how cloned animals will age.

The FDA’s report acknowledges that, “Currently, it is not possible to draw any conclusions regarding the longevity of livestock clones or possible long-term health consequences” for the animal.

But the agency concluded that cloned animals that are born healthy are no different than their non-cloned counterparts, and go on to reproduce normally as well.

“The FDA says, ’We assume all the unhealthy animals will be taken out of the food supply,”’ said Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety, a consumer advocacy group that opposes FDA’s ruling. “They’re only looking at the small slice of cloned animals that appear to be healthy. ... It needs a lot further study.”

France to have military base in UAE

noreply@blogger.com (IMRAN) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:08:00 +0500

ABU DHABI: France will have a permanent military base in the United Arab Emirates under a deal signed on Tuesday during a visit by President Nicolas Sarkozy to Abu Dhabi, a French presidential source said.
Around 400 to 500 French army, navy and air force personnel will be stationed at the facility in the oil-rich Gulf country, the source said while talking to a French news agency, requesting anonymity.
A local news agency said that an agreement to "boost relations between the two friendly countries through military cooperation" was inked by UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan and French Defence Minister Herve Morin, without providing details of the deal.