Charles Kennedy, leader of Britain's third-biggest party, has resigned after support from his colleagues evaporated when he admitted he had had treatment for alcohol abuse. The Liberal Democrats, the only major party in Britain to oppose the Iraq war, will now face a leadership contest. Mr Kennedy, 46, decided to step down after days of turmoil following his surprise admission at a news conference on Thursday. He had always previously denied having a drink problem. "I am standing down as leader," he told reporters at Liberal Democrat headquarters on Saturday. "When nominations open (for the leadership) I shall not be putting my name forward."
He said he had received much support from rank and file members but recognised that grass roots support alone was not enough. "It has become clear that such support is not reflected strongly enough across the parliamentary party," he added. Mr Kennedy had provoked a near mutiny amongst Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament when he refused to resign after publicly admitting his alcoholism.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2006 00:00 ||
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In other news, Winston Churchill has resigned as Prime Minister because of his similarly severe, and yet untreated, malady.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
01/08/2006 8:40 Comments ||
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A Kennedy with a drinking problem? That's a new one...
The commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti has been found shot dead in a hotel room. The body of Gen Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar was discovered early in the morning yesterday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with a bullet wound to the head. UN officials said it was likely that he had shot himself. The Brazilian general had taken over as head of the 9,000-strong peacekeeping force in September last year.
Haiti continues to be blighted by political and criminal violence and instability, nearly two years after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted. The peacekeepers have so far had little success in improving the security situation in the country, where elections have been postponed four times. The mission's mandate, which expires in mid-February, also includes supporting the political process.
On Friday, the UN Security Council urged the country's interim government to hold an election by 7 February. The election has faced repeated delays because of spikes in violence, delays in distributing 3.5 million voter identification cards and problems with polling stations. Voting had originally been scheduled for November, then moved to December, and then delayed a third time until 8 January. But last week Haiti's provisional electoral council postponed the election again, without setting a new date.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Investigate Reeeeeal carefully, Many Murders have been made to look like suicides before now.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/08/2006 9:49 Comments ||
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Isn't that fellow in the graphic holding Vince Foster's old pistol? What a coincidence!
Taiwan has produced three prototypes of a new cruise missile which could be used to strike the east coast of rival China, an often incorrect but still authoritative defence magazine has said. The cruise missile, called Hsiung Feng 2E (Brave Wind), "will be deployed on mobile land-based platforms and initial plans are for the production of up to 50 missiles before 2010 and up to 500 missiles after 2010," Jane's Defence Weekly said in an article to be published January 11.
With a range exceeding 600 kilometres, the missile will be able to attack targets along the east coast of the Chinese mainland, it quoted a defence source as saying. "If deployed on Penghu Island in the south or Tungyin Island in the north, it could strike as far south as Hong Kong and as far north as Shanghai," the source said.
The Pentagon released a report in July last year warning that China had deployed up to 730 ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan. It said Beijing's build-up could tip the military balance against Taiwan and threaten other countries in the region.
Taiwan's military-run Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the developer of the cruise missile, is planning to extend its range to 1,000 kilometres, the weekly said. But "this would require the acquisition of specialised engine components from the US that Washington has so far refused to allow, perhaps linked to provisions under the Missile Technology Control Regime," Jane's said. We need to give Taiwan at least as good technology as Bill Clinton gave the PLA.
The Chungshan Institute is also working on a short-range ballistic missile based on the Tien Kung (Sky Bow) air-defence missile system, the weekly said. The ballistic missile and cruise missile are integral to Taiwan's "active defence" policy, which aims to counter any aggression before it reaches Taiwanese territory, it said.
Salome Simon has slept with almost 50,000 men since Canadian-led researchers discovered she's one of those amazing Nairobi prostitutes whose immunity to HIV could be the key to beating AIDS. Two decades later, with no cure in sight, she's still a medical guinea pig but also a grandmother who is tired of plying her trade. Canada, she tells Stephanie Nolen, should help her find a decent job. ....
Canadian researchers want her to continue in the business so they can continue monitoring her.
Salome is 44 and dirt poor. She owns A couple of kangas, the bright print wraps she wears as skirts, and a couple of blouses. A transistor radio, some aluminum pots and one little luxury, a gilded bottle of spicy perfume.
What she doesn't have that the other sex workers do have is AIDS.
#1
I read about another case in Brittin. The researchers need to get at this. It will take government intervention, the drug companies mightwill need some pushing to find a cure for this cash cow.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/08/2006 13:28 Comments ||
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50,000 Johns (how many Canadians?) and all she's got to show for it is some clothes and kitchen utensils?
#5
50,000? I gotta hook me up wid da lady. I can be her "agent"
Posted by: Velvet Jones ||
01/08/2006 15:13 Comments ||
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Let's do some math. if she is 44, I'd say she has been at it for 30 years, so we have 1600/year. Divide by 365 days and one gets 4.4 johns per day. Every day. For 30 fricking years. I AM impressed.
#8
Let's do some math. if she is 44, I'd say she has been at it for 30 years, so we have 1600/year. Divide by 365 days and one gets 4.4 johns per day. Every day. For 30 fricking years. I AM impressed.
The United Nations has suspended emergency earthquake relief flights to an area of Pakistani Kashmir after crowds of people rushed two helicopters.
Cause, meet Effect. Effect, Cause.
The Pakistani military is investigating the incidents in the Leepa region, south-east of Muzaffarabad. The United Nations hopes to resume aid flights to the area shortly. The incidents happened on Thursday and Friday, after the helicopters had dropped off supplies and personnel. "A group of people decided to hitch a ride. That is not the way we operate," UN spokesman Ben Malor said. Mr Malor says about 20 people who refused to get off the aircraft were flown to Muzaffarabad.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2006 00:00 ||
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The articles haven't mentioned if the accidental evacuees were wimminz, kiddies, and fluffy bunnies... or men between the ages of 16 and 39 who looked like they worked out a lot and knew which end of a AK-47 to point at a infidel.
If you're serving time in a New Zealand prison for a serious crime, pray â hard â no one else in the facility becomes infected by the deadly bird-flu virus because, if that happens, the prison is going to be sealed for six weeks, mass graves will be dug in the compound and the disease will be allowed to run its course.
Government planning documents, obtained by New Zealand's Sunday Star-Times, reveal draconian contingency plans drawn up by the nation's corrections department to deal with an avian-flu pandemic among its 7,500 prisoners.
In what Bevan Hanlon, president of Corrections Association, the prison officers' union, called a "brainstorming" document, options for maintaining order among a population highly susceptable to contagious diseases are discussed.
Among the scenarios under consideration is a total sealing off of affected prisons â no one goes in or out â for six weeks as the disease runs its course. The survivors would bury the dead in mass graves dug within the prison compound. Low-security prisoners â those near the end of their sentences or those convicted of relatively minor crimes like drunk driving â would be freed, a proposal endorsed by the union.
A second option under consideration gives greater hope to prisoners by requiring staff and medical personnel to share their risk. In this case the prison would be isolated but medical staff would be allowed in and out to treat the outbreak. Prison officials and guards would be locked in with the inmates for the duration and no new prisoners would be accepted until the epidemic had passed.
"Once there was an outbreak in a prison it would be a matter of closing the doors and going from there," Hanlon said. "They are saying six weeks and it would be all over, and after that they go in and clean up what is left, unfortunately."
Using the 1918 flu epidemic as its baseline, the Health Ministry estimates up to 40% of New Zealanders could contact the aggressive H5N1 subtype virus that causes bird flu and up to 33,000 people could die. Prisoners, living in close proximity, are much more susceptible to contagious diseases.
"That's what it is like when they get the ordinary flu â it travels quickly," said Hanlon.
Hanlon's first concern is his officers. He wants to be sure they are on any list of those guaranteed supplies of Tamiflu, the drug most widely stockpiled around the world to combat the feared pandemic.
U.S. officials sounded similar warnings yesterday with a warning to Americans to stockpile food, water and medicines in the event of a bird-flu pandemic. Health and Human Services issued a checklist that calls for individuals to plan for serious disruptions in transportation, schools, workplaces and grocery stores as infected workers and the "worried well" stay away from their jobs. Even utilities, HHS warns, could shut down.
As for New Zealand's Hanlon, he says his officers would give whatever help they could in a crisis.
What the hell do they think the plan is to contain another epidemic. What do they think its hollywood and some rebel scholar scientist is gonna find a cure right before his beloved super model looking girlfriend dies. Reality is you contain, that means wherever it hits will be shut down wether prison or city no exit no enter enforced with extreme prejudice (remember one escapee means another whole city or more will suffer the same), while those inside the circle will be tested proded to find a cure or more like vacine to use to start vacinating the circle outside the infection zone moving further out from thier. Either way the inner circle is done, sometimes in reality you have to sacrifise some for the whole's sake..
East Timorese police have shot dead three former pro-Indonesian militiamen at the border with Indonesia, the military and a witness says. They say the three had adopted Indonesian citizenship after East Timor voted for independence in 1999. The trio had been fishing in a river separating East Timor and Indonesia when they encountered border police. Two other people with them managed to escape. "They were 50 metres into East Timorese territory," Indonesian border commander Lieutenant Colonel Ediwan Prabowo said. "We still don't know why they were shot."
Somebody didn't like them?
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yuri Thamrin is calling for a joint investigation into the incident. Egidio, 15, one of the intruders who escaped, says border guards recognised one of the three as as ex-militia men. "They fired warning shots and we ran. Then they shot at us," he said. Marcos Soares, the brother of Candido Mariano, one of the three killed, admits that they were former members of a militia group called Red and White Iron.
Now they're Red and White Perforated Iron.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2006 00:00 ||
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There are 12,556 HIV positive patients in Iran, including 11,875 men and 681 women, according to latest statistics released by Ministry of Health. Head of the Center for Control of Diseases, affiliated to Health Ministry, Mohammad-Mehdi Gouya told IRNA that 62.3 percent of patients have developed the disease through injection.
Gouya said young population and old age marriage are major causes of AIDS disease. He said the lethal disease has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people in Iran.
#1
These figures don't jive, not enough women infected, and not enough deaths reported.
I suspect the report is a work of fiction. Just look at the source.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/08/2006 9:53 Comments ||
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Say's 62% got it from lethal injection. Iran's got some bad blood eh? I wonder if it was solt to them by their buddies in the EU. RJ's right if it was bad blood the stats would align closer.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/08/2006 10:09 Comments ||
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The Reel World Tinseltown Looks to '06 Rebound Los Angeles - As the box office closes on the US film industry's worst year since 1990, showbiz insiders are looking to a strong slate of 2006 releases to help the industry snap back from the financial doldrums.
"If we've learned anything this year, it's that the market is really hungry for more good, slow, imponderable stories and dim lighting," and industry analyst Tim Jarrard of the trade journal Hollywood Reporter. "The industry has listened, and I think the public will be pleased with the direction it will be taking in 2006."
Anticipated major theatrical releases from Hollywood include:
Incident at Amity: Steven Spielberg directs this cerebral remake of Jaws slated for summer release. Insiders say the 31-year update will feature "additional points of view" and "be less judgmental to sharks." Starring Willam H. Macy as the anti-shark fundamentalist, and Tom Hanks as the Great White.
Silenced Wood: George Clooney stars and directs in this drama about the climate of fear among ventriloquists during radio's notorious Charlie McCarthy era.
Hershey Highway: Based on the Tony Kushner play, a candy factory worker (Phillip Sousa Huffnagel) and Amish teen (Joaquin Seymour Gyllenhall) find forbidden pleasure in this poignant love tale set against the gritty backdrop of Pennsylvania's chocolate belt.
Me Billy: Based on the inspirational true story of a learning disabled man (Sean Penn) who rescues New Orleans from racist flood with a magical red cup.
Baby Doc: Jamie Foxx stars in this biopic about Haitian civil rights activist wrongly accused of despotism by LA police.
Reservoir Puppies: Director Quentin Tarantino teams with Pixar in this animated children's holiday tale about six lost whelps and a botched burglary. Starring the voices of Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, and Mike Meyers as Mister Pinky.
Zaftig Pi: The Eigenvectress. Plus-size video game superheroine comes to life, as Oscar winner Kathy Bates battles Christian fundamentalist aliens with kung fu cartwheels.
The Vespa Diaries: Romantic revolutionary scooterist Pol Pot (Lysol Phoenix) and US intellectual Noam Chomsky (Matt Affleck) find gay rainforest love in this Cambodian remake of 'Roman Holiday' that had Sundance audiences cheering.
Fearful Silence: Courageous What's My Line? contestant (Leonardo DiCaprio) refuses to answer panelist questions in this gameshow drama set against the McCarthy-blacklist era. With William H. Macy as Bennett Cerf and Kevin Spacey as Kitty Carlisle.
Angel Soft This: In a shocking and sometimes humorous indictment of the toilet paper industry, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock documents the ravages he suffers after 30 straight days of non-stop buttwiping.
Mugabe: Will Smith stars in this biopic about Zimbawean civil rights activist wrongly accused of mass starvation program by LA police.
Lunch Lady: poignant story of school cook-turned-playground strangler has generated advanced Oscar buzz for star Jennifer Lopez, who reportedly gained 400 pounds, facial tatoos and gum disease for the role.
Fearful Deadly Fear: Blacklisted 1950's screenwriter Damon Runyan (Tim Robbins) writes a secret screenplay about the the McCarthy-era blacklists, in this 1950's blacklist drama set against the background of the McCarthy era blacklists.
Cold Humpcrack Creekwater: Two retarded Gay cowgirl sisters (Rene Zellweger, Jenna Jameson) defy a fundamentalist sherriff (Hovercraft Phoenix) and discover love in this 1930's period piece set in the Appalachian outback of Nebraskansaw.
Redemption: the Idi Amin Story: Gary Coleman stars in this biopic about Ugandan civil rights activist wrongly accused of cannibalism by LA police.
Snow Fuji Mountain: Mothra (Toby Damon) and Gamera (Orlando Law) discover forbidden love while destroying Tokyo, in this story of nuclear-triggered sexual awakening.
The Girl is Fabulous: Totally straight New Yorker Ted (Tom Cruise) falls head over heels in hetero love with Marcy (Katie Holmes) in this completely ungay romantic comedy set against the backdrop of New York's glamorous West Village.
Silence 1984: Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris interviews the survivors of Hollywood's notorious Reagan era 'Year of Fear,' when only three McCarthy-themed movies were released.
Susan Cooper, an industry writer for LA Weekly, said that 2006 plans reflected "a renewed focus on real human stories," after several disappointing 2005 action fantasy releases. She cited the planned spring release of Hollywood's first non-documentary look at 9/11 -- Oliver Stone's Inside Job -- as evidence of Hollywood's return to realism and a reason for industry optimism.
"There's a really good buzz about it in Hollywood," said "With a top director and an all-star cast, this studios are hoping for a blockbuster return."
Stone's $140 million September 11 epic stars Nicholas Cage, along with Haley Joel Osment as Osama Bin Laden, Robin Williams as Donald Rumsfeld, Dakota Fanning as Zacarias Moussawi, Val Kilmer as the ghost Richard Nixon, Harvey Fierstein as the International Neocon Zionist Conspiracy, Bubbles the Chimp as George Bush, and Jim Carrey as 'My Pet Goat.'
"I think 'Inside Job' shows the public that we artists can make serious films on subjects that they care about," said Stone. "Maybe then we can move on to collective healing, and you inbred flyover fundie hillbillies will finally shut the fuck up."
Man, this gave me a terrific idea for a movie: The Eigen Vector. A physicist, who finances his research by occasional hits for the LA police, must discover which of his fellow passengers on the cruise ship Eigen is actually a terrorist, carrying a deadly strain of athlete's foot whipped up by Christian fundamentalist neo-Nazis. During the mission he falls in love with a sweet, beautiful, brilliant actress who is also an activist with Beautiful People Against Mean Stuff. He struggles to choose between his two loves, but Fate takes a hand as their cruise ship strikes an iceberg in the Bermuda Triangle. Set against the chilling backdrop of the McCarthy Era.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti has been found shot dead in a hotel room. The body of Gen Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar was discovered early in the morning yesterday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with a bullet wound to the head. UN officials said it was likely that he had shot himself. The Brazilian general had taken over as head of the 9,000-strong peacekeeping force in September last year. 
The United Nations has suspended emergency earthquake relief flights to an area of Pakistani Kashmir after crowds of people rushed two helicopters.
The Reel World
