[Straits Times] WHENEVER a young girl buys groceries at their store, the shopkeeper and his assistant would hold the child's hands when she pays for her snacks or drinks.
Three girls have complained that the foreigners would sometimes fondle their breasts and touch their buttocks whenever they visit the shop, which is close to their school in Mawai, near here.
The two men, aged 27, are believed to have molested 12 girls since last October.
Police incarcerated the two after the children - aged between 11 and 12 - complained about the incidents to their school teacher.
'The girls were initially afraid to report the matter but eventually summoned up enough courage to tell their teacher about it,' Kota Tinggi deputy OCPD Deputy Supt Muhammad Shamsudin said. He said the latest incident occurred on March 15.
DSP Muhammad said the shopkeeper from India and his assistant from Pakistain had been manning the shop for about four years. He said the schoolgirls usually visited the shop during lunchtime.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2011 00:00 ||
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McDonald's, which has 14,000 restaurants in the United States, said the hires will occur nationwide. Normally this would mean that business just picked up enough to add over three new workers to each restaurant.
The optimist in me wants to believe this is true, but of course it means that Michelle is not going to be very happy about all the Big Macs folks are eating nowadays. Of course, Barry is going to be getting an earful because she wouldn't dare say this in public. Instead she might offer some B.S. about how McD's offers lots of healthy options on their menu, and how people are for sure ordering more of these. And that's about where my little optimist angel's lips fall off.
The pessimist in me is pretty sure that this isn't the case, which makes this move political.
#1
Remember when this would have brought all the MSM and liberals out of the woodwork screaming about how all jobs being made during Bush's recovery were only low paying burger flipping jobs?
Now they are jubilant about the job creation and teh 0ne's brilliance.
The flip flop and deliberate distortion of "reporting" would have made Orwell shake his head in wonder.
#2
No mention of how more workers other restaurants will have laid off so far due to a drop in business, far more workers than McD's will hire. During Lent McD's used to offer a fish sandwich twofer at $3.33, but is not doing that any more. A falling standard of living has many ramifications.
#4
...or McD is testing the waters to see if better qualified people are now willing to sign up as bennies are starting to run thin. Has the Great Recession drag on long enough to overcome the bloated self esteem [not to be confused with basics like reading] taught so many in our wretched school systems?
#5
They have been hiring right off the street. Just walk in's generally. The assistant manager can make $30000./year. Some areas will be different however.From what I have heard they work a few days and then they are gone. Crime is a problem for them also due to many of their locations and hours.Good job for a senior. Then maybe some benefits. But all most likely will be part time and few hours to work and we call you when we need you so stand by. You may as well be on call 24/7.
Looks like some folks from Massachusetts found it.
The BEA said Sunday that a team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discovered parts during an underwater search operation conducted within the previous 24 hours. Here's WHOI's press release.
#4
CBS should close their 'News' Division and outsource it to Univision for bi-lingual reporters.
1 - It'll kill the institutionalized albatross that the Division is and can never evolve to attract new viewership.
2 - It'll drop the over 50 demographic that CBS news has been watching literally die off for growing Hispanic households were second generation families are bi-lingual.
3 - It'll finally end the New York Coastie-European centric news for stuff happening south of the border and maybe we'll finally get coverage of the real war across the border.
#5
If Univision would only take the obvious step of automatically supplying English language subtitles on their video transmissions, I'd start watching their news a lot more. Their newsreaders tend to be nice to watch even if I don't know what they are talking about.
[Bangla Daily Star] Japanese engineers grappling yesterday to control the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl tried to seal a crack leaking radiation into the Pacific sea from a crippled reactor.
The drama at the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex has dragged into a fourth week, unsettling the global nuclear industry and compounding Japan's suffering after an earthquake and tsunami that left about 27,500 people dead or missing.
Radiation has leaked into the sea, food, drinking water and air. It is hindering efforts to cool overheating fuel rods work at the plant and regain control of the damaged reactors, reports Rooters.
Engineers tried to seal the crack with concrete on Saturday, but that didn't work. So on yesterday they injected a mix of sawdust, shredded newspaper and a polymer that can expand to 50 times its normal size when combined with water. The polymer mix had not yet stopped the leak last night but engineers have not given up hope and should know by today morning whether it will work, reports AP.
Experts say that beyond the disaster zone, there is minimal risk to human health further afield in Japan or abroad.
At the weekend, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) found a crack in a concrete pit at the No 2 reactor, generating readings of 1,000 millisieverts of radiation per hour in the air inside.
The crack may be one source of leaks that have sent radiation levels in the sea soaring to 4,000 times the legal limit.
To cool damaged reactor No. 2, engineers were looking at alternatives to pumping in water yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Iff the GWCC Perts are correct about upcoming SOLAR STORMS, the greatest external danger to the Fukushima recovery effort will likely be NATURAL, i.e. ONE OR MORE HIGH-MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE(S), as Tokyo has repor stated this AM that it may take MANY MONTHS to effec plug the leak.
* ION TOPIX > JAPAN NUKES? NOT NOW. The 03/11/2011 Quake-tsunami + resultant Fukushima Nucplant Crises have delivered a near-crippling setback to JAPAN'S NUCLEAR HAWKS whom favor dev of indigenous NucWeaps. + whom had hoped to use Japan's established Civilian NucEnerProgs as the foundation for such.
But for how long can Japan put off developing any sort of indigenous Nucweaps???
ARTIC > JAPANESE MISSLES ARMED WID NUCLEAR WARHEADS CAN SUCCEED AT CANCELLING OUT THE MILITARY, NUC SUPERIORITY OF CHINA + NORTH KOREAN NUC THREAT, PERHAPS EVEN THAT OF JAPAN'S OWN ALLY THE USA???
#3
So on yesterday they injected a mix of sawdust, shredded newspaper and a polymer that can expand to 50 times its normal size when combined with water.
Finally, a use for all that waste. Maybe we can provide the stuff before it actually moves beyond the [printing] plant.
#4
News reports don't mention how the existence, size and uniqueness of the crack was determined. Certainly no one has gone in there & visualized it directly. Maybe the engineers have plugged one crack & just aren't aware of all the others.
#5
There were three Hydrogen explosions. Two blew out the secondary containment buildings, and the third is speculated to have gone off in a steam condensing chamber positioned below the reactor core. I am thinking that the leaks are coming from cracks created by that third explosion.
#6
As per CNN + FOX NEWS AM > Yeeeep, looks like Japan stopped the leak by releasing = "dumping" up to 10,000 gallons of the stuff into the ocean blue.
ADDITIONAL RELEASES MAY OCCUR AS PERTINENT, espec to help prevent any internal NucSys pressure buildups that can result in new internal explosions.
IMO the longer the containment + recovery, + capping efforts take, the greater the risk of NEW, POSSIBLE EXTENSIVE OR Un-CONTAINABLE DAMAGE being incurred due to GWCC-INDUCED EARTHQUAKES = MAJOR NATURAL DISASTER(S).
[Straits Times] HUNDREDS of residents decamped an Indonesian port town for higher ground on Monday when an earthquake struck south of Java with a magnitude estimated by US seismologists at 6.7.
The epicentre in the Indian Ocean was 24km miles deep, the US Geological Survey said, after initially estimating it at 10km underground, and 277km south of the Javanese coast.
Indonesian seismologists put the magnitude at 7.1 and issued a tsunami warning, saying the tremor had the potential to cause a killer wave and asking recipients of its public alert SMS to warn others of the danger. The warning was later cancelled.
When the quake struck hundreds of residents in the seaport town of Cilacap decamped inland and to higher ground by motorbike, car and on foot, an AFP news hound said. 'They were all panicking and shouting 'quake, quake',' the news hound said.
Suharjono, the technical head of Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said shaking from the tremor had been felt in Pangandaran and Cilacap districts in Java.
'This quake roused people from their sleep,' he said. 'We have not received any reports of damage or casualties so far.' The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had said that there was no risk of a widespread destructive wave, but there was a 'very small possibility of a local tsunami'.
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04/04/2011 00:00 ||
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Khalifa Haftar has lived in Virginia for 20 years but now he's back in Libya, trying to knock the rebel force into some kind of shape.
For Haftar it's personal. He has never forgiven Gadhafi for letting him rot as a prisoner of war in neighboring Chad after a disastrous military campaign in the 1980s. Well, if Libyan rebels can admit that maybe it was a bad idea to say "hi" to American warplanes by shooting into their airspace, then maybe they could also take a little time off from running about willy-nilly and learn a lesson or two from this guy.
NATO has asked the United States to continue participating in airstrikes over Libya through late Monday, ABC News has learned. That didn't take long...
"Due to poor weather conditions over the last few days in Libya, the United States has approved a request by NATO to extend the use of some U.S. strike aircraft," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told ABC News. "These aircraft will continue to conduct and support Alliance air-to-ground missions throughout this weekend." That may explain why the Duck of Death has been able to use his tanks in broad daylight these last few days. Then again, it may not. Is there anyone out there who can speak to this?
A U.S. Defense Department official said the aircraft Lungescu was referring to are the A-10 Thunderbolt jets, Marine AV-8 Harrier jets and AC-130 gunships, which are the best suited for striking ground force targets.
#1
I have an acquaintance in Nigeria whose spouse works in the South African oilfield. I read about stuff like this and I wonder if it's their doing. Oh well.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] French troops have taken control of Abidjan airport as forces loyal to the country's rival presidents fight for control of Ivory Coast's main city, the French military said Sunday.
Incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... 's camp slammed the move as that of an "army of occupation" as forces loyal to his internationally recognised rival, Alassane Ouattara, took control of almost all of the country.
With the security situation worsening, La Belle France also said it had boosted its Licorne (Unicorn) mission in the cocoa-rich nation by 300 to around 1,400 troops.
"Licorne, in coordination with UNOCI (United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... Operation in Cote d'Ivoire), has taken control of Felix Houphouet-Boigny airport," chief of staff front man Colonel Thierry Burkhard told AFP.
"UNOCI and Licorne troops are ensuring security and air traffic control at the airport," Burkhard said.
This allows "civil and military aircraft to land at the airport so that foreigners wishing to leave Ivory Coast can do so," he said, adding that no decision had yet been taken to evacuate foreigners.
More than 1,650 foreigners, about half of them French, have taken shelter at a Licorne camp in Abidjan.
Licorne's main mission is to provide support to UNOCI and ensure the safety of French and other foreigners in times of crisis.
The president of former colonial power La Belle France, Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... , on Sunday held a meeting on the Ivory Coast crisis with his Defence Minister Gerard Longuet and armed forces chief of staff Edouard Guillaud.
In Gay Paree, Gbagbo aide Toussaint Alain said the French mission was behaving "like an army of occupation without any mandate, because the UN mandate does not authorise Licorne to occupy a sovereign state's airport."
He described Ouattara's forces as "a coalition of mercenaries and European and American soldiers benefiting from Licorne's logistical and intelligence support.
"The French army has entered into the service of the rebellion... the French army has become the rebellion's auxiliary," Alain said.
The streets of Abidjan were deserted Sunday while fighting abated near bastions of strongman Gbagbo after a four-day assault by rival forces.
Terrified Abidjan residents have been in lockdown since Ouattara troops arrived Thursday after a lightning offensive across the country, seeking to unseat Gbagbo.
Burkhard said that more peacekeepers had been flown in "to deal with any evolution of the situation."
"Two extra companies (around 300 soldiers) have been deployed in Abidjan by Hercules C-130 and Transall (C-160) transport planes," Burkhard said.
La Belle France already in recent days reinforced its troop contingent in Abidjan with around 150 troops.
The boost enables troops "to deal with any evolution of the situation and to assure the security of foreigners."
Burkhard said that one French soldier had been shot and lightly maimed by forces loyal to Gbagbo.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
RFI reporting UNOCI (French?) helo gunships firing on Gbagbo's palace and residence.
Des hélicoptères de la Mission de l'ONU en Côte d'Ivoire ont tiré sur le palais présidentiel et la résidence de Laurent Gbagbo.
UNOCI troops engaged in armed action to neutralize the heavy weapons used by the Gbagbo camp against the civilian population.
Les troupes de l'ONU en Côte d'Ivoire ont engagé des actions armées visant à neutraliser les armes lourdes utilisées par le camp Gbagbo contre les populations civiles.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
04/04/2011 15:38 Comments ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Banking on the country's Mohammedan majority population's religious sentiment, BNP-led opposition parties are planning to wage strong agitation in and outside the parliament against the AL-led government's move to amend the constitution.
Some opposition alliance leaders said they will leave no stone unturned to portray the government as "anti-Islamic", for its move to uphold secularism in the constitution by deleting the phrase ''absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah''.
Because competing with Pakistan on religiosity is demonstrably such a clever idea.
The main opposition BNP will try to drum up support of all like minded Islamic political parties to gather pace for the anti-government agitation, they said.
According to sources close to the special parliamentary committee for constitutional amendment, it is almost certain that the bill for amending the constitution will propose deletion of the phrase from the preamble and article 8 of the charter, in line with a landmark Supreme Court (SC) verdict.
The government however has no plan to put a ban on theocratic politics, neither does it have any plan to alter the state religion status of Islam in the constitution, although the same SC verdict does open up the way for both amendments. The government is refraining from making the two moves to avoid any political turmoil in the country.
But the opposition seems not even ready to accept scrapping of the phrase "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah".
"We will not accept the government's move to delete the phrase from the constitution. We will wage agitation in and outside the parliament against it," Moudud Ahmed, a BNP national standing committee member, told The Daily Star yesterday.
When his attention was drawn to the SC verdict that upheld secularism, Moudud, also a former law minister, said it is the government's choice whether it will retain the phrase.
The phrase ''absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah" was inserted in the constitution by military ruler Ziaur Rahman, also founder of BNP, through a martial law proclamation. In doing so, he deleted the word "secularism", one of the four fundamental state principles in the original constitution of 1972.
The SC recently cancelled the fifth amendment to the constitution that had ratified and validated all changes brought to the country's supreme charter through martial law proclamations during the first martial law regime which had begun on August 15, 1975.
Cancellation of the Fifth Amendment Act paved the way for the government to bring massive changes to the constitution, and the parliamentary special committee for constitutional amendment has been working to prepare proposals to that effect. BNP did not nominate any of its MPs to work in the special committee formed in July last year.
A bill will be placed in the parliament's next session to be convened at the end of April or early May to amend the constitution in light of the SC verdict.
The updated version of the constitution printed in February this year by the law ministry following the cancellation of the Fifth Amendment Act already dropped the phrase ''absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah''.
BNP-led opposition parties have been strongly criticising the SC for its verdict scrapping the fifth amendment.
"We will not compromise if the government hurts the people's religious sentiment by deleting the phrase," former speaker also BNP MP Jamiruddin Sircar told The Daily Star.
Addressing a presser on Saturday, Senior Joint Secretary General of BNP Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said his party always stood against actions which could hurt religious sentiments.
If BNP wages such an agitation, Jamaat-e-Islami, a major component of BNP-led four party alliance, will join it with enthusiasm, said some Jamaat leaders.
Asked about their position on the matter, Jamaat politician AHM Hamidur Rahman Azad said the party will protest if any change to the constitution hurts "the people' religious sentiment".
Talking to The Daily Star in the last couple of days, some BNP policymakers said their national standing committee did not discuss the government's move at any formal meeting, but the party's senior leaders have been discussing the issue among themselves.
Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, a member of BNP national committee, said they will soon announce their official position regarding the government's move to amend the constitution.
He said BNP is working to make a list of possible "controversial changes" the government might try to bring to the constitution. "We will reach a position on the matter on consultation with the party chief," he added.
A number of other BNP MPs echoed Mosharraf.
Posted by: Fred ||
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China is apparently reinforcing fences in border areas with North Korea amid reports of extensive food shortages and a foot and mouth epidemic among animals used for farming.
#3
The foot and mouth issue would be their primary concern in my opinion. They have stood back all this time so I believe they will continue to do so.
Food is a major concern for them at this time as they have had their problems as well.
LONDON The four men wading ashore on a Florida beach wearing nothing but bathing trunks and German army hats looked like an unlikely invading force.
Declassified British intelligence files describe how the men were part of Nazi sabotage teams sent to the U.S. in June 1942 to undermine the American war effort.
They were trained in bomb-making, supplied with explosives and instructed in how to make timers from "easily obtainable commodities such as dried peas, lumps of sugar and razor blades."
Fortunately for the U.S., they were also spectacularly unsuccessful.
"It was not brilliantly planned," said Edward Hampshire, a historian at Britain's National Archives, which released the wartime intelligence documents Monday. "The Germans picked the leader for this very, very poorly. He immediately wanted to give himself up."
Now I know the Dems are pushing for a shutdown. Relying on the assumption that government is necessary for the economy, they first put out the seed of the idea that shutting down the government is bad for the economy. Then they whine and complain about how unreasonable it is that they aren't allowed to continue to spend twice the already enormous revenues they take in. Then they game it so that it looks like the meanie Trunks shut down the government and threw grandma out on the street while the Asses Donks sit there helpless with a gun to their head. Then they Then they will let it go long enough that they think the average voter will be fooled into thinking that the inevitable second dip into recession was actually avoidable and is being caused by the government being "shut down".
With the possibility of a government shutdown looming large next Friday, President Obama said it would be "the height of irresponsibility" if Congress allowed 'the same old Washington politics" to keep it from completing action on a budget bill before then. Remind me again why you guys are working on the 2011 budget a third of the way into 2011? Over half-way: the budget started this past October 1st.
"If these budget negotiations break down, we could end up having to shut down the government, just at a time when the economy is starting to recover," said the president. Keep dreaming.
On a day he was trumpeting the latest drop of the national unemployment rate to 8.8 percent, down from 10.2 percent a year ago, Mr. Obama said a government shutdown could "jeopardize the economic recovery." 8.8% my @$$. No inflation my @$$. Recovery my @$$. With fuel prices as high as they are it means all our meager profits are being stripped out of our hands, slashing across all levels of the economy, and handed to some sheikh somewhere who produces oil for $2/bbl.
Bring it on. Your spending is harming us more than shutting down your opaque, corrupt, oligarchical government. State government shall suffice quite well, thank you very much. No more pouring billions of dollars of money into the Department of Education and only getting a portion of it back if we follow federal rules that are irrelevant to our needs. No FCC or other departments tinkering with machinery that they don't have a clue how it operates.
If things get better, I'd say it was because the federal government got put on a leash finally, and even then that leash needs to be made shorter.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2011 14:57 Comments ||
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#2
It's bad when Berry and Company actually believe their own lies. This is how the Soviet Empire collapsed in the end, the people in the 'inner party' believing "tell the boss what he wants to hear" reports from all the apparatchik.
#3
Remind me again why you guys are working on the 2011 budget a third of the way into 2011?
That is a key point, when this all happens, to remind everyone whether they like it or not, that this budget was supposed to have been done by 1 Oct 2010 by the Donk controlled trivium of Obama-Reid-Pelosi. That is where blame lies.
#4
It's bad when Berry and Company actually believe their own lies. The worst part of this is that so much of the electorate continues to believe those lies, and that the MSM and leading opinion can get away with talking about a 'recovery' that never happened without being pelted with rotten produce and laughed off the stage.
That's a fancy way of saying that there will be a website where everyone can deposit whatever they happen to know about Obean's administration, and everyone can go there and check it out.
Crossroads GPS, the cash-rich Republican outside group planning to spend $120 million on the 2012 election in conjunction with its sister organization American Crossroads, announced Wednesday the launch of a website called Icky Accountability www.Wikicountability.org "designed to crowd-source information gleaned from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other public documents by organizations, individuals and journalists." Looks like Big Sis will have to screen the FOIA acts even more carefully than she has been doing from now on.
The site is meant to "facilitate efficient sharing of public information about the Obama Administration" and highlight FOIA requests that have gone unfulfilled. It has been set up to look like Wikipedia. Wikipedia won't allow anything to stick that isn't PC. These folks won't have that problem.
Aaand there's the trade dress infringement that will allow the lefty lawyers to drain the cash from this soon-to-be formerly cash-rich organization thereby guaranteeing that it won't unduly damage The One. Double bonus if that statement is from Crossroads themselves as the admission against interest certainly won't help their cause.
#5
Well, Barbara, did you stay in a Holiday Express last night?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/04/2011 16:08 Comments ||
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#6
Sure, DB. Didn't everyone? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2011 17:40 Comments ||
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#7
I thought the wiki software was open sourced.
Unless Crossroads makes money off it and doesn't acknowledge the open source... it's legal.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
04/04/2011 20:26 Comments ||
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#8
Point taken Barbara but I was getting at something more along the lines of #4. Why begin at a place that leaves one open for an obvious legal attack, even if said attack will probaly be in vain? It will consume a lot of time & resources that could otherwise be expended on performing the mission at hand.
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.
[Straits Times] WHENEVER a young girl buys groceries at their store, the shopkeeper and his assistant would hold the child's hands when she pays for her snacks or drinks.
[Straits Times] HUNDREDS of residents
NATO has asked the United States to continue participating in airstrikes over Libya through late Monday, ABC News has learned. 
Laurent Gbagbo
