Brian Bruggeman caused a stink at the Lincoln County Jail earlier this month and will now have to answer for it in court. Another inmate, Jesse Dorris, alleges that Bruggeman's flatulence, passed in close proximity to Dorris, sparked a Dec. 14 fight between the two at the jail. Now Bruggeman, 38, faces a Jan. 11 preliminary hearing on the state's complaint of assault by a confined person. It's a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Bruggeman is accused of injuring Dorris, his cellmate, when he pushed him into cell bars. Dorris, 26, was not charged.
The two began scuffling, County Attorney Jeff Meyer said Tuesday, because Dorris was fed up with Bruggeman's flatulence.
Jail fights are common, Meyer said, but the cause of this one was rather uncommon.
"It's usually about someone hogging the newspaper or someone not happy about what's on TV," he said.
Bruggeman, of Hershey, is serving a 90-day sentence for violating a protection order.
"He compounded his problems," Meyer said.
Dorris, of North Platte, is awaiting a January trial on a charge of aiding and abetting robbery.
Brad Dawson, Bruggeman's attorney, did not immediately return a phone message left at his office.
Sheriff Jerome Kramer said the incident was a result of overcrowding. The jail was built in 1933 and has a capacity of 23 inmates, according to 2006 standards, Kramer said. As many as 65 inmates have been lodged at the jail in recent days, he said.
"You just can't get a reprieve from one another," Kramer said. "When you've got a guy causing problems passing gas, there's no way to get away from the smell."
#2
Conversational laws
There are several laws that govern conversation. Here are some of them:
The seventeen minute law states that, within a group of people engaged in conversation, there will be a lull in said conversation every seventeen minutes. Said lull is overcome by mentioning the seventeen minute law.
The Monty Python law states that any and all socially-oriented conversations between more than one intelligent people will contain at least one Monty Python reference. This holds true even if those involved in the conversation don't realize that it is happening.
The female angst tailspin law states that any female who is talking about something that bothers her will launch into a downwardly spiraling progression of all things that bother her, as if they are all related and actually part of one big problem she faces on a daily basis
LOL!
The flatulence law states that the topic of any sustained conversation between males only will eventually turn to flatulence. Gradually, flatulence itself will replace actual conversation until the women show up.
(AHN) - Speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Tx., President George W. Bush eulogized former Pres. Gerald Ford in a live address to the American public on national television at 8 a.m. EST. In a brief statement. Bush said that Ford would always be remembered for his "rectitude."
Bush said he had already spoken to the Ford family and offered his condolences to them. "Pres. Ford was a great man who devoted the best years of his life to serving the U.S.," Bush said, and continued. "He commanded the respect and earned the good will of all who knew him."
Ford had taken over the reins of power after Pres. Richard Nixon was forced from office in 1973. Bush alluded to those circumstances by saying that the nation needed Ford then and called Ford "a man of complete integrity." Gerald Ford lived 93 years and "his life was a blessing to America," Bush concluded.
Ford's body will lie in state in California, where he died, before being flown to Washington, D.C. to lie in state in the Capital Rotunda.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2006 09:24 ||
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#1
Is it just me? I've noticed that everytime a US President dies, so does a major black Entertainer very close thereof...now President Ford and James Brown; President Reagan and Ray Charles?!! If this is happening in 'threes', who's next... Carter and B.B. King?
#10
Ford pardoned Nixon. That was the most important thing he did for the country. Other than that, he was a declinist who presided over the collapse of South Vietnam.
#11
Zhang, he didn't have much choice, given that the Democrats overrode his veto of their bill that cut support for the South Vietnamese. He tried, but he wasn't going to create a constitutional crisis for the sake of Vietnam.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
12/27/2006 22:01 Comments ||
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This reminds me of the classic ethnography study of the Hans(?) the counting horse. The horse could apparently count and do simple math, and tapped out the answer with it's hoove. In fact, it was picking up cues inadvertently provided by it's owner.
I know from personal experience that parrots have an astonishing ability to imitate, but I'm sceptical of the claimed cognitive abilities. The 'telepathy' indicates to me they provided cues that the parrot can detect, but the humans are unaware of.
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.
The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour. He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.
N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine.
N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world. About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.
He'd be reading Rantburg if he had knowledge of a few more choice words.
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive. One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.
When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?" Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."
In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards. Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance. This was despite the researchers discounting responses like "What ya doing on the phone?" when N'kisi saw a card of a man with a telephone, and "Can I give you a hug?" with one of a couple embracing.
Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge's School of Veterinary Medicine, said: "The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots."
Alison Hales, of the World Parrot Trust, told BBC News Online: "N'kisi's amazing vocabulary and sense of humour should make everyone who has a pet parrot consider whether they are meeting its needs.
"They may not be able to ask directly, but parrots are long-lived, and a bit of research now could mean an improved quality of life for years."
#1
When the parrot gives some backtalk to his keepers and demands better compensation for his efforts, I'll believe he really has something to communicate.
#7
I heard an African Grey on the radio a few years back, called Jadak. He lived with some musicians in Denmark, and sang while they played a tango. The bird had serious musical chops. He would take a solo, then let the guitars play a verse, then come in right on the beat. Finished off with a very Satch-like "Aaahhh!"
#9
I remembers Churchill's parrot well. He was a long lived avian and smart as hell, memorized many of the PMs speechs and could recite on demand 3 of them. He famously shat in Lady Astors tea one funny afternoon at Hatfield, or was it Bleaky Park? Hard to say, it was a long time ago, parrots were smarter then.
#12
I once read a story about this guy who had accumulated a collection of around 20 trained parrots. Since each had come from different owners, they all had memorized independent phrase groups. Nonetheless, this did not prevent them from being able to trigger one another.
According to this report, the parrots could sometimes chain react amongst each other and produce fifteen to twenty minute passages of dialogue, some of it quite hilarious. Obviously, there was a certain degree of overlap in their vocabularies that permitted cross-connection.
Dec 26, 4:01 PM (ET) - CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that laws to be passed in 2007 would improve democracy and abolish Egypt's 25-year state of emergency, but rights activists said they doubted the long-serving leader would liberalize the country.
Laying out next year's legislative agenda, Mubarak asked lawmakers to amend 34 articles in the Egyptian constitution to "consecrate the people's sovereignty as a source of power and give parliament more authority to monitor the government. Today's historic step opens the door wide for democracy and its practice," Mubarak said in a speech at his palace in Cairo. After he finished, the parliament met to consider his proposals.
A leading Egyptian rights activist, Hesham Kasem, was skeptical of the president's pledge as he has promised greater democracy many times before during his 25 years in power. "We have to go back to the gap between the regime's actual practices and the demand for amendments," said Kasem, president of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. Previous amendments were "followed by theatrical debate while everything was already fixed."
Continued on Page 49
The Foreign Ministry denied yesterday that China and Zimbabwe were discussing a US$2 billion loan to stabilize Zimbabwe's economy. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "After seeing this news, we looked for confirmation with the relevant departments, and there is no such a deal."
Chris Mutsvangwa, the Zimbabwean ambassador to China, was quoted on Friday by The Herald, a Zimbabwean newspaper, as saying that his country had opened talks with China on the loan in a move to stabilize its economy. Western media too ran the story allegedly without confirmation from the ambassador, and alluded to the baseless fact that China is attracted to Zimbabwe's mineral resources such as uranium and platinum to fuel its booming economy.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2006 00:00 ||
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There's a lot of idle farmland for collateral.
Posted by: ed ||
12/27/2006 7:28 Comments ||
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Jeeeez, Bob's gonna have to go talk to the man.
Bangladeshs former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has struck a deal with a radical Islamic group ahead of next months parliamentary elections, a leader of the group confirmed on Tuesday.
But the agreement between Hasinas Awami League and Khelafat Majlis, considered a pro-Taliban movement with some of its leaders and activists allegedly trained in Afghanistan, has drawn widespread criticism for derailing Hasinas policy of secularism and stance against radicalism.
A Majlis leader on Tuesday confirmed the deal, concluded at the weekend, saying: Now we will be able to contest some seats as part of a bigger group. Terms of the agreement included enacting a blasphemy law and allowing fatwa - an edict against anyone criticising Islam or its teachings.
This is horrible...and unacceptable, said Hasanul Haque Inu, a Hasina ally and head of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal party. We dont take any responsibility for the deal. It will influence our election results, said Rashed Khan Memon, chief of Workers Party and another backer of Hasina.
But Abdul Jalil, general secretary of Awami League, said the aim of the deal was to muster strength to defeat Hasinas main rivals, immediate past Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zias Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami. But analysts and some Hasina supporters said Khelafat Majlis, who unsuccessfully lobbied the BNP for a berth ahead of the Jan 22 poll, was a much more radical group.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2006 00:00 ||
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MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish surgeon who has just examined Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday he is making a good recovery from intestinal surgery, does not have cancer, and could return to governing his country.
And I shall re-grow a head of hair and become lean and tough enough to join the Marines.
Castro's disappearance from the public eye after emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding in July sparked frenzied speculation about his state of health but surgeon Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido said the communist leader was in good condition.
All that great, free, excellent medical care in Havana and El Jefe has to bring in a ringer from Europe. Next thing you know they'll be flying him to the Cleveland Clinic.
"His physical activity is excellent, his intellectual activity intact, I'd say fantastic, he's recovering from his previous operation," Sabrido, head of surgery at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon public hospital, told a news conference after returning from Cuba. "
Because even thugs and dictators have the right to great medical care.
He asks every day to return to work, but doctors advise him not to, to take it easy," said Sabrido.
Asks to return to work? Guys like Castro are the same: if they're conscious they're working.
Garcia Sabrido, who flew to Cuba last week to examine the 80-year-old leader, said he did not need further surgery but required bloodletting, physical therapy, a strict diet and leeches rest.
"He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system," Garcia Sabrido told Reuters after the news conference. "President Castro has no malign inflammation, it's a benign process in which he has had a series of complications."
Assuming for the moment that any of this is true, it might suggest that Castro had diverticulitis, an inflammation of a pouch of the colon. Complications could include bleeding, perforation and sepsis. Since he's an old goat he could have quite a time trying to recover.
The prognosis confirmed the official Cuban line that Castro does not have cancer and is recovering from emergency surgery.
And good luck trying to confirm otherwise.
After Castro's disappearance from the public eye, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte told the Washington Post on December 15 that Castro was likely to die within months.
I'm counting the days ...
Garcia Sabrido said Castro could govern Cuba again. "Yes, when pigs fly if his recovery is complete, yes," said Garcia Sabrido, a digestive system specialist who knows the Castro family and has been a regular visitor to Cuba over recent years for medical conferences and to provide treatment.
Ah-ha. Regular visitor is he? Just vacationing in the sun with rum punch and hookers Cuban babes? Coincidentially being called to minister to El Jefe? Why's he providing treatment in the socialist paradise where health care is free and worth every penny?
Garcia Sabrido said it was the first time he had treated Castro, and he did not plan to return to Cuba in the near future as he didn't want to leave fingerprints the leader had an excellent medical team.
A Madrid health official said a top surgeon, Dr Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, had gone there in response to Cuban requests for help. Dr Garcia is an expert on intestinal ailments, particularly cancer.
Particularly.
Although Mr Castro's health is a state secret, Cuban officials have said that he is not suffering from cancer or any terminal illness, and that he is recuperating.
He just can't come out and play today. Or tomorrow.
The Madrid health official, Manuel Lamela, said Spain had been sending medicines to Cuba since June.
Right about the time Castro began the big slide.
On Sunday the Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico reported that Dr Garcia had flown to Havana on Thursday on a jet chartered by the Cuban government.
No urgency, though, they could have flown him in on Air Ukraine. It's always routine to fly foreign docs into a socialist paradise with free health care.
Dr Garcia is understood to have been in Havana just last month - on that occasion to take part in an international conference on surgery.
Makes for a good cover story.
According to the programme for the event, he gave two lectures. One was on peritoneal cancer - a cancer of the lining of the abdomen. The other was on colonic cancer.
Neither of which El Jefe has, nope, nope, not a chance.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I've got free health care too.
My wife has muled probably 500 lbs. of asprin, advil, sudafed and bandages through Jose M. over the past 4 years. Cuban health care is a joke catch as catch can deal. The party boys do okay the folks in the rural areas depend on luck, relatives, folk ways and el norte.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/27/2006 8:43 Comments ||
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#3
This is pretty telling inasmuch as one of Cuba's great achievements was supposed to be its healthcare system and all those doctors. Turns out they have to import both doctors and medicine from Spain.
#5
"Castro recovering, could govern again, doctor says"
Great!
'Cuz he's never actually, you know, governed before.
(Brings to mind the old joke:
"Doc, once the cast comes off my arm, will I be able to play the piano?"
"Certainly."
"Great! I've never been able to play it before.")
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/27/2006 22:05 Comments ||
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#6
"His physical activity is excellent, his intellectual activity intact, I'd say fantastic, he's recovering from his previous operation," Sabrido, head of surgery at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon public hospital, told a news conference after returning from Cuba. "
"Thank you, senor doctor," said the man in green fatigues whose name Dr. Sabrido had never learned. The man lowered the guns' muzzle from where it had pressed painfully into Sabrido's temple. "You may go now."
MOSCOW, Dec. 26 Inside the Kremlin last week, the executives of three major international companies Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui heaped praise on the man whose government had effectively forced them to cede control of the worlds largest combined oil and natural gas project.
President Vladimir V. Putin meeting with leaders of Mitsubishi, Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsui on an oil and gas deal.
Thank you very much for your support, Shells chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, told President Vladimir V. Putin during a meeting that ended a six-month regulatory assault on the project, Sakhalin II, but only after the companies surrendered control of it to the state energy giant, Gazprom. This was a historic occasion.
It was also a telling one, with lessons that extend beyond energy policy to such disparate matters as the killings of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. agent in London, and Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist.
Continued on Page 49
This tale is getting twisted. John Le Carre, call your office.
The mystery Italian academic Professor Mario Scaramella spent Christmas Day in jail after being arrested as he flew back from Britain. Scaramella, 37, was held by officers from the Italian police DIGOS unit, as he stepped off a British Airways jet with his partner and two children. He was held on suspicion of arms trafficking, revealing state secrets and slander. Scaramella had spent the last month in London after flying to Britain to help Scotland Yard officers investigating the London poisoning of a former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko.
He had flown into Naples on a British Airways jet, hoping to keep his arrival on Christmas Eve a secret but local media had been tipped off about the police operation and were waiting. The arrest warrant was signed by Orlando Muntoni, an investigating magistrate in Rome, and had been issued this month. The arrest followed a raid on the offices of an organisation Scaramella runs, the Environmental Crime Protection Programme. (!)
At the time of the raid police took away computers, discs and bundles of document in connection with their investigation. Scaramella's arrest was in connection with the seizure of two rocket-propelled grenades found hidden inside two hollowed-out Bibles. (!)
They had been found inside a camper van being driven from Russia to Italy by four Ukrainians, who were held at the Italian town of Teramo. Scaramella had tipped off police claiming the information had come from Mr Litvinenko and the grenades were to be used for an assassination attempt on the Italian's life. Last month, Scaramella told a press conference that he and Mr Litvinenko were on a "hit list" drawn up by the Russian secret service. Scaramella said he was on the list along with an Italian senator, Paolo Guzzanti, because of their work on the Mitrokhin Commission - a body set up by the Italian government to investigate past and present activities in Italy of the Russian secret service.
Yesterday, Scaramella's lawyer, Sergio Rastrelli, said: "My client denies implicitly these charges. I find it surprising and Mario finds it upsetting that he has been arrested and put in custody over Christmas. "Because of the Christmas holidays he will not be questioned until 27 December, but he will be more than happy to help the Italian police with their inquiries," he said. Last night, an Italian police source said: "There was always an element of suspicion over just how he knew so much detail about the route the arms were taking."
The allegation of revealing state secrets concerns his work on the Mitrokhin Commission and the allegation of slander is against an undisclosed Russian who he accused of organising an assassination in Italy. Scaramella hit the headlines last month when it emerged that he was Mr Litvinenko's last known contact - at the Itsu sushi bar in London - before he fell ill from poisoning with radioactive polonium 210. Investigations have also revealed that the educational establishments Scaramella claims to work for have never heard of him. Italian news reports have suggested that Scaramella - who is also an honorary magistrate - works for intelligence services including the CIA and Israel's Mossad. Last night, Clemente Mastella, the Italian justice minister, said: "I believe that it is right that the fog of uncertainty surrounding this matter is cleared as quickly as possible."
#1
Scaramella said he was on the list along with an Italian senator, Paolo Guzzanti, because of their work on the Mitrokhin Commission - a body set up by the Italian government to investigate past and present activities in Italy of the Russian secret service.
Reports said Scaramella was investigating links that Prime Minister Prodi was at one time a KGB agent.
Posted by: ed ||
12/27/2006 7:33 Comments ||
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#2
Apparently none of the charges have anything to do with the Litvinenko poisoning.
Arrests of illegal migrants along the U.S.-Mexican border have dropped by more than a third since U.S. National Guard troops started helping with border security, suggesting that fewer people may be trying to cross. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 149,238 fewer people from the start of July through November, down 34 percent from the same period last year, according to monthly figures provided Tuesday by U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Mario Martinez. Arrests also had dropped by 9 percent for the same period from 2004 to 2005. If the downward trend continues, it would be the first sustained decrease in illegal immigrant arrests since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
National Guard troops started arriving along the border June 15, and 6,000 were in place by August. Victor Clark, a Mexican migration expert in Tijuana, says many migrants fear they will confront U.S. soldiers on the border.
The National Guard troops are not allowed to detain migrants and have been limited to monitoring surveillance cameras and body heat detectors, but they have freed Border Patrol agents and "have helped us tremendously to detect illegal migration traffic," Martinez said. The United States plans to expand the Border Patrol from just over 11,000 agents to about 18,000 by 2008. The U.S. also plans to build 700 miles of additional border fence.
Other measures may also be deterring crossers. In July, U.S. and Mexican officials started working together to prosecute human smugglers on both sides of the border. U.S. immigration officials also have been raiding U.S. companies for illegal workers. Earlier this month, 1,300 people were detained in a sweep of meatpacking plants in six states.
Added to that, smugglers have increased their fees, charging as much as $3,000 to hide migrants in their cars and drive them across the border. Before the National Guard troops arrived, the price was about $2,000, migrant activists say.
Edgar Velasquez acknowledges it's become tougher to cross. He spent three days walking in freezing temperatures through the remote mountain country west of Tucson, Ariz., and still was caught. Agents found a body in those mountains Dec. 19. But that did not deter Velasquez, who said he planned to slip across the Arizona border during the holiday week when he hoped the U.S. patrols will be short-handed as agents take vacations. "I imagine they also want to be with their families," said Velasquez, resting in the border city of Nogales before embarking on his illegal odyssey to reach a construction job in Florida.
Gustavo Soto, a spokesman with the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson sector, said smugglers often tell migrants there are less border agents out in the desert on holidays or when the weather is bad, "even though we have surveillance on the border 24/7" and 365 days a year.
Some migrants are simply giving up after a single try, something that was almost unheard of only a few years ago. Esther Ardia walked for nearly three days as temperatures dropped to 14 degrees in the Arizona desert, trying to get back to her job at a North Carolina pine tree farm. Ardia, 21, couldn't keep up with the group of about 30 illegal migrants and was abandoned by her smuggler after her legs cramped up. She was picked up by the Border Patrol and returned to Mexico.
#1
This can't be true. This administration has told us and continues to tell us that enforcement just doesn't work. And, these guys are just standing around Imagine the effect if around 100 crossers were dropped in one night. Word would get to Tierra del Fuego by the next afternoon. This is the biggest farce ever perpetrated on the US citizenry. The border could be sealed (effectively) in one week if the word was given. So one must conclude that powerful people don't want it to happen.
#2
There have also been numerous news reports from all over the US as one-time employers of illegal aliens say they just can get the workers they used to.
An obesity pill which can help women drop two dress sizes in a year has been hailed by scientists after stunning test results. The drug fools the body's metabolism into staying active, cutting weight by 12 per cent in under a year.
For a 12 and a half stone woman, this would mean shedding 21lb - or two dress sizes. The pill, Excalia, is said to work better and faster than existing drugs. A course of one a day could have a dramatic effect on quality of life and cut the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Excalia will need official approval before being made available on the NHS. But a successful weight-reduction pill would be a major attraction for a health service-which spends £1billion a year on obesity-related problems.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Neville Rigby, of the International Obesity Task Force, said: 'There is no magic bullet. There are products which can help weight loss but people also need to help themselves in terms of diet and activity.'
Well, hell yeah. But under Weight Watchers, dropping 10% of your initial weight is a big deal; if there were a way to avoid the inevitable plateau and all the fricking discouragement that accompany them, AND help you drop another 10% or so, then it's a HUGE deal.
So long as the drug tests out safe (or even just relatively so), this is a big break-through. Now just watch the press turn it into a cure-all, then trumpet every associated side-effect as if it's a guaranteed death, then pump the lawsuits against the manufacturers.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/27/2006 9:46 Comments ||
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#4
The drugs are already demonstrated safe. Excalia is a combination of bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban), an anti-depressant, and zonisamide (Zonegran), an anti-seizure medication. Both are FDA-approved for their respective indications, and in practice both have reasonable (not perfect) safety profiles.
If additional clinical trials bear this out, not only does it mean that one could stimulate considerable weight loss in at least some patients, but it would open the door to other combinations of similar drugs. The company that makes Excalia is also testing a combination of bupropion and naltrexone, an anti-opiod used in treating opiate overdose, for weight loss as well.
Very interesting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2006 11:33 Comments ||
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At least nine people, including four Sri Lankan security force members, were killed in clashes with Tamil Tiger rebels over Christmas, the defence ministry said Tuesday. Three soldiers were killed in a mine attack in the northern peninsula of Jaffna, the defence ministry said in a statement. It blamed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the attack. The rebels also lobbed a grenade at a police post providing security for St Lucias church in the Mannar district about 312 kilometres north of the capital Colombo early Monday, killing a constable, the ministry said.
In another incident, nine soldiers were wounded in grenade attacks in Jaffna while troops retaliated and killed at least five guerrillas, the ministry said. There was no immediate word from the Tigers about the Christmas Day killings.
In another development, Tamil Tiger rebels on Monday released 25 crew of a Jordanian ship that had drifted into waters near a guerrilla stronghold in the north, a rebel spokesman said. We have handed over the crew to the ICRC at 10 am (0430 GMT). They are going to Vavuniya by road, Daya Master, media coordinator of the LTTE told Reuters from the de facto rebel capital of Kilinochchi.
The Jordanian vessel Farah III, carrying a cargo of rice, drifted off the Mullaittivu coast in the islands war-torn northeast early on Saturday after mechanical failure. The ship had become the latest flashpoint in fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE in the north and the east of the island. The military accused the Tamil Tigers of forcibly boarding the vessel while it was adrift with a cargo of 14,000 tonnes of rice bound for South Africa from India. LTTEs Daya Master said the ship was still off Mullaittivu.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2006 00:00 ||
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Let this be a lesson for ANY non-muslim women that thinks marrying a Muslim man would be cool. This happens quite a lot and is even worse with respect to our friends the Saudis.
Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. said on Tuesday that it will sell its flagship newspaper Star Tribune to a private equity firm for $530 million, a sharp drop from the $1.2 billion it paid to acquire the newspaper just eight years ago. Sacramento-based McClatchy said it decided to sell the newspaper to Avista Capital Partners through a private bidding process "after a strategic reevaluation of its portfolio of holdings" following McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion earlier this year.
McClatchy faces a large tax bill from selling off 12 other newspapers earlier this year as part of its purchase of Knight Ridder. It said the tax benefit of selling the Star Tribune at a loss is worth $160 million, raising the total value of the deal to $690 million. McClatchy said it would use the money to pay down its Knight Ridder debt.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2006 00:00 ||
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"after a strategic reevaluation of its portfolio of holdings"
I've been through several of those (though not in the news business), and it's never pretty. The first time I heard the phrase it took me a few moments to figure out what it really meant.
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.
Dec 26, 4:01 PM (ET) - CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that laws to be passed in 2007 would improve democracy and abolish Egypt's 25-year state of emergency, but rights activists said they doubted the long-serving leader would liberalize the country.
"He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system," Garcia Sabrido told Reuters after the news conference. "President Castro has no malign inflammation, it's a benign process in which he has had a series of complications."
An obesity pill which can help women drop two dress sizes in a year has been hailed by scientists after stunning test results. The drug fools the body's metabolism into staying active, cutting weight by 12 per cent in under a year. 
Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. said on Tuesday that it will sell its flagship newspaper Star Tribune to a private equity firm for $530 million, a sharp drop from the $1.2 billion it paid to acquire the newspaper just eight years ago. Sacramento-based McClatchy said it decided to sell the newspaper to Avista Capital Partners through a private bidding process "after a strategic reevaluation of its portfolio of holdings" following McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion earlier this year.
