Panasonic says families of overseas workers in Africa and other regions are being ordered home to Japan in anticipation of a severe flu outbreak.
Workers will remain in their posts while their families return home by September from Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Russia, South America and Asia, excluding Singapore, said Panasonic spokesman Akira Kadota.
Panasonic fears an outbreak of influenza, including H5N1 bird flu, Kadota said, noting the H5N1 virus has been confirmed in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe since 2003.
The virus has killed more than 250 people since 2003 with the peak outbreak occurring in 2006 with 115 confirmed cases and 79 deaths, CNN reported.
#3
China is already in a quiet panic about H5N1. It is slowly and methodically increasing its endemic territory, and sporadically coming out and attacking just a person or two.
By comparison, if it was in the US, on one day, a person in rural Utah, two days later, someone in Boston. Two days after that, one on the bayou in Louisiana. Then one in downtown Seattle. The US Department of Health would be freaking out.
The zinger is that the H2H mutation might be almost mathematically derived, with each source like alarm clocks, and all set to go off at the same time.
#4
well December 2012 is coming so maybe they are on to something...it would go right along with all the other cheery news that is out there. I feel a whole lot better after I go to church.
The arrests and weeklong detention of two Coptic Christians at the Cairo International Book Fair on February 1 has reignited the seemingly endless tension that continues to grow between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.
State security officials arrested Mina 'Adil Shawki and 'Issam Kadees Nassif after they were seen handing out Bibles at the book fair. An Egyptian human rights center said police filed a report against the two men for "defaming Islam."
The men, from the Upper Egyptian governorate Assiut, were released from detention on February 5, but their case has many activists in an uproar over the perceived double standards police employ against Christians as compared to their Muslim counterparts.
Nagib Gubreil, a Coptic lawyer and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, told The Media Line that Shawki and Nassif were held on charges of preaching, but that this particular offense is not explicitly stated in the Egyptian Constitution.
"So they filed a report against them, accusing them of defaming Islam," says Gubreil, who has been criticized by activists, both Coptic and Muslim, for allegedly exaggerating a number of religious-based controversies.
Nuha, a Christian postgraduate student at Cairo University, calls the arrests outrageous, claiming a "double standard" that exists in the treatment of Christians as compared to Muslims.
"Almost every day I see tons of Islamic stuff handed out on the streets and the government does nothing, police do nothing. So now, all of a sudden, some Copts pass out some Bibles and they get arrested. It doesn't seem fair to me," she says.
The general prosecutor said that a decision to charge the men had "yet to be determined," corroborating Gubreil's details of what occurred. He said that police "had to accuse them of something" in order to hold them.
According to reports on a number of Coptic news sites, police claimed the two men had been also distributing CDs from excommunicated priest Zachariah Boutros - known for his outspoken criticisms of Islam - who was removed from the priesthood after constantly attacking Islam from the pulpit of his television program. The show upset many Muslims and Christians.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/10/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
seemingly endless tension that continues to grow between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.
You just gotta love the heavy-handed equivalency here. But, thinking about it, it's no worse than writing about "religious clashes", when muslim majorities go after Christian minorities in nigeria, indonesia or egpt.
#2
It's the famous Cycle of Tension, anonymous5089, which somehow leads to the Cycle of Violence. I don't quite understand how, as cycles are clearly self-contained and never ending, much like pocket universes. Perhaps one of Rantburg's physicists could explain the mechanism in a simplified way that I might grasp.
#3
as cycles are clearly self-contained and never ending, much like pocket universes
It's a feature, not a bug, innit?
No aggressors, no perpretators, no victims, no responsability nor blame nor judgement (except for the semi-mythical "Root Causes"), not even causality... just a never-ending process you cannot solve, UNLESS by adding more process to it.
It is the 85th birthday of President Mugabe this month and the zealots of his Zanu (PF) party are determined that it should be an occasion that their great leader will never forget.
In recent days they have been out soliciting "donations" from corporate Zimbabwe and have drawn up a wish list that is scarcely credible in a land where seven million citizens survive on international food aid, 94 per cent are jobless and cholera rampages through a population debilitated by hunger.
The list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or '61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of prawns; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates; 3,000 ducks; and much else besides.
A postscript adds: "No mealie meal" -- the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country's collapse rendered even that a luxury.
Those who prefer to give in cash, not kind, are invited to send "donations" of between $45,000 and $55,000 to a US dollar bank account in the name of the 21st February Movement, a youth organisation controlled by Zanu (PF) and named after the date of the President's birthday.
Western diplomats and aid workers were stunned when shown the list. "It's just appalling. It's like they are either completely oblivious to what's happening in their country, or completely impervious and just don't care," said one. "It's shocking and obscene," said another, who noted that lobsters were unobtainable in Zimbabwe and would have to be flown in.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/10/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Give me a f*ckin break. How could anyone be shocked by this? No wonder "Western diplomats and aid workers" have done nothing to give Bob the boot. They still think he's an anti-colonialist hero. He got rid of those evil whites after all.
#2
Anything like getting a no points home loan at the lowest market interest rates while those who make the country actually run are tagged with lots of points and something higher than the Friends of Angelo are offered? Shocked, shocked I say!
#3
The 21st February Movement was established in 1986 as a welfare organization for youths and as a medium to inspire youths to be well behaved through emulating the exemplary character of their patron, President Mugabe. As we all know, the only youths recognized by the government today are the Green Bombers whom the government trained to terrorize innocent people. With elections coming, the funds raised during the planned events in the Midlands are no doubt going to be used to mobilize these notorious youths.
Zimbob has his 21st Feb hoodlums, The One has ACORN. Same same.
Madagascar's defense minister says she has resigned because civilians were killed when security forces fired on anti-government protesters over the weekend.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/10/2009 00:00 ||
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Cuba has been hurt big time by the financial crises since remissions have declined from Cubans living in the US to their impoverished kin in the socialist paradise of Cuba.
China's monthly vehicle sales surpassed those in the United States for the first time in January, moving this country closer to becoming the world's biggest auto market, data released Tuesday showed.
With its growing middle class and vast potential as a consumer market, China is vital for General Motors, Volkswagen and Toyota as they count on demand here to offset weakness in the U.S. and elsewhere.
But China's ascent in the global auto market has been hastened by the plunge in U.S. auto sales, which tumbled 37 percent in January to a 26-year low of 656,976 units.
Chinese vehicle sales also have cooled, but hardly as dramatically. In January, 735,000 vehicles were sold, down 14.4 percent from a monthly record 860,000 last January, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.
General Motors says it sold a record 1.09 million vehicles in China, up 6 percent from 2008.
Read the whole thing.
Managers at the World Bank provided false information to the agency's board of directors about a $39 million, politically-connected European "coastal cleanup" project that led to the destruction and destitution of a powerless village in Albania in 2007 -- and then spent nearly two years trying to cover it up.
The essence of the Albania scandal involves Jale, a pinprick of a hamlet occupied largely by poor and elderly inhabitants on a beautiful stretch of Adriatic beach known as Albania's Riviera.
The scandal, laid out in documents also leaked to FOX News, paints a sharply-detailed picture of how the bank has responded to its own discovery of misconduct and potential corruption. It also shows how projects ostensibly intended to improve the environment and living conditions in far-flung parts of the world can be abused and distorted in the name of the bank.
It remains unclear just why the World Bank board (and the investigation panel) was misled -- and who in Albania or perhaps even Washington may have benefited from misleading it. Senior agency officials and each of the bank's two dozen board members have repeatedly declined to speak with FOX.
But what is crystal clear are the attempts by bank officials to hide something. The panel's report is filled with allegations of the bank obstructing investigators in their year-long probe -- in language highly unusual for a bureaucratic document.
On April 3, 2007, the villagers were notified that their houses would be demolished. They were given five days to appeal to a local court, which they did, but the construction police did not wait for the hearing. They surrounded the village and -- over a four-day period starting on April 17 -- demolished the community, amid heart-wrenching scenes of screaming and resistance.
According to the investigators, many of the dispossessed were told they should be happy, as the World Bank would soon be giving them better homes and lifestyles.
Since the World Bank board had been wrongly assured that there would be no demolitions without a formal agreement, there were, of course, no World Bank-financed homes on the horizon. (Moreover, the panel report notes, the bank has done nothing since the demolitions to assist the victims in any way.)
#3
Sounds like some people need their arm and legs broken, then be left to the villagers and some dull knives.
You know, that is what it is going to come to. Anyone that has any expectation of turning things around using a thoroughly gamed and corrupted system is naive. The Left is going to have to be removed by force, whether it's overt, or just a series of tragic accidents.
After waging a long battle against the ultra-Orthodox parties, Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Monday, where he placed a note between the stones.
Lieberman was followed by a swarm of reporters, who pressed him for comment near the holy site. "I have just one message: Without loyalty there is no citizenship," he said, repeating the slogan of his party's campaign.
The Shas Party was enraged at the visit. "We suggest that the note Lieberman places between the stones of the Wall include a plea for mercy, for his desire to open pork stores and institutionalize civil marriage. This was a visit to a relic of our temple, not a tennis court. This visit was pathetic," the ultra-Orthodox party stated.
The three premiership candidates also held field days Monday. Labor Chairman Ehud Barak planted a tree in his home kibbutz, Mishmar Hasharon, and said many citizens had told him they would like to see him remain in his current office. "I tell you, if the Labor Party doesn't receive 20 mandates or close, I won't be able to be defense minister," he said.
Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu met with the son of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yuval Rabin, who told him he would be voting for Labor. "I met with him a few times over the past few months, and I told him what I tell the public: I intend to win tomorrow and establish a unity government that will be as wide as possible," Netanyahu said.
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02/10/2009 00:00 ||
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"Laydeez and Gentiles! The PORK STORE is now open! Get yer pork here! Pork and Pork by-products! Pork stationery! Piggy banks! Pork scented perfume! Everything for your Pork related needs!"
#3
It works for me. The ultra-Orthodox need just avoid them and continue on as they've been doing. I'll join them in staying out of the pork shops, but I'm afraid I already was married in a civil ceremony - the judge was a friend of Mr. Wife's family, which was made it a special experience.
THE US Senate has passed a $US838 billion economic stimulus plan, touching off difficult compromise negotiations with the House aimed at sending President Barack Obama a final bill this week.
Senators voted 61-37 to approve the package overnight, setting the stage for talks aimed at reconciling differences between their legislation and the House of Representatives' rival $US819 billion plan.
Leaders of the Democratic majorities in both chambers have said they will work as long as it takes to get a final package to Mr Obama, who has urged lawmakers to meet a self-imposed February 16 deadline for doing so.
#4
Any guesses who will be named the the conference committee?
Hint: It won't be anyone who voted against the bill....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/10/2009 15:18 Comments ||
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The thing that pisses me off the most is that everybody (including democrats) knows this is nothing but a big pile of pork that will barely budge the economy at all. They know this!
I told my wife to pay close attention to 0bama's words last night because it was the first time in history a US president has spoken to the people and EVERY SINGLE WORD HE SPOKE WAS A LIE.
#6
Asked on the Dick Cavett Show about her former Stalinist comrade Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy replied, Every word she says is a lie, including and and the.
#8
I'll probably be re-registering as a Republican here in the Commonwealth expressly for the purpose of voting against Specter in the primaries in 2010.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/10/2009 17:53 Comments ||
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Compare wid FREEREPUBLIC > US UNVEILS NEW TRILYUHN DOLLAR SPENDING PLAN.
FREEP POSTERS > collectively argue or claim that the US GOVT. = Congresscritters had thus far appropriated or spent US$3.5TRILYUHN widout even touching or denting the Recession = WIDOUT SAVING ANY JOBS??? PORCULUS JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER AND BIGGER DESPITE THE US CBO CLAIMING THE US CAN GET OUT OF THIS RECESSION LATER IN 2009 WIDOUT IT.
Video, Rep Kanjorski, Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman explains (at about 2:20), how there was a $550B electronic run on America's money market accounts, that unless congress acted immediately, by 2pm that day, it was estimated tthat $5.5T would be taken out of the US economy, causing a complete US and international economic collapse. If an individual or nation was responsible, that was the closest thing to an act of war imaginable.
#1
Why does George Soros' name keep running through my mind regarding this?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/10/2009 17:42 Comments ||
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From a comment in the linked Boingboing thread:
I think Rep. Kanjorski let something out on C-SPAN that the State would have rather kept secret. I'd wager that after the interview persons in the Treasury Secretary's office called his office in 2188 RHOB and gave his CoS an earful, trying to repair the leak in the dike.
Thanks to Kanjorski--who as Capital Markets subcmte chair would learn about this kind of information--we intelligent, pitchfork-wielding peons now have another piece of the puzzle.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
02/10/2009 23:37 Comments ||
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US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a three-part program to stabilise the financial system including an initial fund of $US500 billion to absorb toxic assets.
The US will also committ $US50 billion to prevent home mortgage foreclosures, the epicentre of global financial turmoil, under a financial stability plan unveiled overnight.
Mr Geithner said the plan would "bring the full force of the US government to bear to strengthen our financial system so that we get the economy back on track".
A key element will be a public-private investment fund started with $US500 billion "with the potential to expand up to $US1 trillion" to help cleanse the banking system of toxic real-estate assets.
This will serve the role of an aggregator bank, or "bad bank" to help financial institutions value their mortgage securities and clean up their balance sheets.
A second element will include additional capital injections into banks.
"While banks will be encouraged to access private markets to raise any additional capital needed to establish this buffer, a financial institution that has undergone a comprehensive 'stress test' will have access to a Treasury-provided 'capital buffer' to help absorb losses and serve as a bridge to receiving increased private capital," the Treasury said.
Thirdly, the Treasury and Federal Reserve will expand a program to boost lending for mortgages and other consumer and business loans to up to $US1 trillion.
The US central bank, in coordination with a Treasury Department effort to steady the financial system, said it was preparing "a substantial expansion" of a program announced last year to get more credit flowing.
The Fed would pump up the amount to $US1 trillion from the previously announced $US800 billion for its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which would accept mortgage-backed securities and securities backed by car loans, credit card loans, student loans, and some small business loans.
The expansion "would be supported by the provision by the Treasury of additional funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program", the Fed said.
#2
A bit of irony here: The One visited Elkhart Indiana a blue-collar town of 53,000 that builds RVs ($55k to $600k range) for the wealthy and has seen its unemployment rate triple from 4.7 percent to more than 15 percent. If we can only get this diabolical wealthy people buying expensive RV's again, we'll be fine! For some reason, the rich bastards just won't SPEND!!!
#4
Geithner announced his plan and the market tanked. Way to go, Tim ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/10/2009 17:01 Comments ||
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Stocks logged their worst performance since a 5.3% loss on Jan. 20 as investors dumped stocks after Treasury Secretary Geithner failed to deliver the specifics
Oil prices hovered near $40 a barrel Monday in Asia as investors weighed a massive stimulus package and a bank rescue plan from the U.S. this week against soaring unemployment and falling demand for crude.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 9 cents to $40.26 a barrel by midday in Singapore on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract fell $1.00 on Friday to $40.17 a barrel after the Labor Department said the U.S. lost 598,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, the highest since 1992.
For all of 2008, the economy lost a net total of 2.9 million jobs, according to revised figures, marking the biggest annual loss on record.
"Considering the staggering magnitude of the jobs data, oil held up quite well," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst at consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "The downward momentum in oil pricing appears to have been broken as the $40 level has proven to be a very strong support level."
Investors will be watching as a huge stimulus bill makes its way through the U.S. legislature this week. A $827 billion stimulus package will likely pass the Senate by Tuesday, though it will have to be reconciled with a version the House of Representatives approved earlier that's about $7 billion apart in cost and overlaps in numerous ways.
The Treasury Department delayed the unveiling of a new bailout framework for financial institutions from Monday to Tuesday to let the administration focus on the Senate legislation.
The department is considering steps to broaden the use of a new lending facility at the Federal Reserve, provide government guarantees to help banks deal with their troubled assets, and continue direct infusions of capital into banks in exchange for securities and tougher accountability rules.
"The U.S. stimulus plan and the bank rescue plan are supporting oil," Shum said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/10/2009 00:00 ||
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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.
Madagascar's defense minister says she has resigned because civilians were killed when security forces fired on anti-government protesters over the weekend.
