Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

Pakistan says militants exploiting flood chaos

Posted in Crime, Islam, News, Politics, what on August 20th, 2010 by admin – 1 Comment

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan —

Islamic militants are exploiting the strain this summer’s monsoon floods placed on the military and government by regrouping their forces in northwest Pakistan, provincial officials warned Thursday.

Sen. John Kerry, who is in Islamabad, also expressed concern about a strengthening insurgency as he announced that the United States would ramp up its flood relief package to $150 million.

As the crisis nears its fourth week, officials in Islamabad and Washington are increasingly worried that Taliban militants and other Islamic extremist groups will take advantage of a disaster that has forced 60,000 Pakistani troops into flood relief work and diverted police resources across the country.

China downplays economic advances

Posted in Celeb, Education, News, Politics, economy, what on August 20th, 2010 by admin – 1 Comment
Reporting from Beijing —

Who me, rich and powerful? China’s official reaction this week to its latest milestone — surpassing Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy — has been more modest than boastful.

Rather than flaunting its newfound status, China, the world’s most populous nation but still roughly 100th in per capita income, is going through contortions to show that it really isn’t that successful at all.

Since Monday, when Japan released economic data showing that its gross domestic product for the second quarter had slipped behind China’s, Beijing has been trumpeting its shortcomings. In news conferences, on talk shows and in editorial pages, commentators have hastened to pooh-pooh the statistics, saying they are wrong, misleading or meaningless. They compare China not to Japan or the United States, but to Albania; both have annual per capita income of about $3,600.

Michelle Obama to enter campaign fray

Posted in Health, News, Politics on August 17th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

Reporting from Washington —

First Lady Michelle Obama will soon take her first real plunge into partisan politics since her husband won the presidency 21 months ago, making select appearances for Democratic candidates hoping that her popularity will excite crowds and donors in a bleak election season.

Her campaign schedule won’t be a heavy one, the White House said Monday. She makes public appearances about three days a week, and any campaigning she does for the midterm election will be within that time frame, a White House official said in an interview.

U.N. chief says Pakistan flooding is epic, urges aid for victims

Posted in Crime, Health, Islam, News, Politics, economy, what on August 16th, 2010 by admin – 1 Comment
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan —

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that the floods ravaging Pakistan are the worst disaster he has witnessed, and urged the international community to speed up delivery of food, medicine and shelter to millions of people — many of whom have yet to receive anything.

The Pakistani government and international relief organizations have been overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, which has killed more than 1,600 people and damaged or destroyed more than 722,000 houses from the country’s mountainous northwest to its central agricultural heartland and the flatlands of Sindh province in the south.

Prop. 8 backers ask for permanent hold on same-sex marriage ruling

Posted in Crime, News, Politics, what on August 14th, 2010 by admin – 1 Comment

In an emergency appeal now before a federal court, the backers of Proposition 8 have asked for a permanent hold on last week’s “egregiously selective and one-sided” marriage ruling, contending it flouted the law and ignored the evidence.

The request to prevent the resumption of same-sex marriages in California next week is being considered by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two of the judges were appointed by Democrats, the other by a Republican. The panel has ordered all arguments to be filed by Monday.

If the panel permits gay marriages to resume at 5 p.m. Wednesday, attorneys for Proposition 8 said they would seek a permanent hold from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the jurist assigned to hear such matters from the West. Kennedy, considered a swing vote on gay rights issues, could refer the matter to the entire court.

Long search for Mitrice Richardson comes to tragic end

Posted in Crime, Entertainment, Health, News, Politics on August 13th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

In the 11 months since Mitrice Richardson stepped out of the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Station into the early morning darkness and vanished hours later, the mystery of her whereabouts twisted around false sightings from the ocean to Las Vegas.

Was that her at the Abbey in West Hollywood in late September? Or was she the badly burned body in a dumpster behind a building in Santa Fe Springs in October? Did her father really see her on a sidewalk near a Motel 6 in Las Vegas in January? Did a friend come across her in June in a Las Vegas hotel bar?

In her absence, she became a fixture on cable TV talk shows, the focus of debate over the sheriff’s station’s seemingly thoughtless decision to release a young woman without a car near a rugged canyon.

Working for Grandma Waters on Capitol Hill

Posted in Health, News, Politics, what on August 13th, 2010 by admin – 2 Comments
Reporting from Washington —

Many people who encounter Mikael Moore, the chief of staff for Rep. Maxine Waters, see a typical Capitol Hill aide: a young, serious, BlackBerry-toting workaholic in a business suit with an intense belief in the importance of his work.

If they know he is also Waters’ grandson, making him a rarity in Congress, it is not because he talks about it much, if at all.

Colleagues say Moore rarely offers information about his family connection, and that they have instead come to know him as a talented, politically gifted peer who has brought order to a sometimes tangled office and quickly grasped the intricacies of Washington.

Primary winners Bennet, McMahon highlight political inexperience

Posted in Entertainment, News, Politics on August 11th, 2010 by admin – 1 Comment
WASHINGTON —

All hail inexperience — the less familiarity with politics the better, no matter the party or state.

“The support of the voters of Connecticut isn’t bestowed by the establishment or the pundits or the media. It isn’t a birthright,” former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon said after winning the GOP senatorial nomination in her first run for office.

Two mountain ranges away, appointed Sen. Michael Bennett of Colorado, tried to express the same sentiment after dispatching his rival, a former state house speaker. “This election is the first time my name has ever been on the ballot,” said Bennett, who enjoyed President Barrack Obama’s support in the bitter Democratic primary.

Big money isn’t backing pot legalization

Posted in Crime, Health, News, Politics, economy, what on August 9th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

Two years ago, when Californians were voting on an initiative that would have trimmed prison time for nonviolent drug offenders, Bob Wilson, a wealthy New York City investor, spent $2.8 million on the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to get it passed.

Wilson would seem a likely sugar daddy for Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot. He has been giving away much of his fortune, more than $500 million so far, and he believes that pot, which he tried but didn’t much like, ought to be legal.

“There’s no intellectual argument whatever for not legalizing it,” Wilson said. “People who get stoned do much less damage to themselves and others than people who get drunk.”

6 Americans among 10 charity workers killed in Taliban ambush

Posted in News, Politics on August 7th, 2010 by admin – 3 Comments
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan —

Taliban fighters ambushed and killed a 10-member medical team, including six Americans, as they were returning from a trip to a remote northern area to provide eye care to rural villagers, their aid organization and local officials said Saturday.

The 10 charity workers, who also included two Afghans, a German and a Briton, were found slain in a remote forested area of Badakhshan province, according to provincial police and the International Assistance Mission, the Kabul-based group that organized the trip.

The Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the deaths, claiming those killed were spies and preachers of Christianity. The details provided in statements by spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid suggested that the killers were in fact insurgents and not bandits, who also roam freely in the area.

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