The Rutgers women's basketball team accepted radio host Don Imus' apology Friday for insulting them on the air, saying that he deserves a chance to move on but that they hope the furor his words caused will be a catalyst for change. "We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, acceptacceptMr. Imus' apology, and we are in the process of forgiving," coach C. Vivian Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife. "We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget," the statement read
"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture," the team's statement said Friday. "It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."
Imus was in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children's charities when he was dropped by CBS. On Friday, his wife took over and also talked about the meeting with the players. "They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they're hurting and how awful this is," author Deirdre Imus said. Deirdre Imus also said that the Rutgers players have been receiving hate e-mail, and she demanded that it stop. She told listeners "if you must send e-mail, send it to my husband," not the team. "I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
How about contacting CBS and demanding Imus be reinstated? That would be a nice gesture towards healing.
#2
"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture," the team's statement said Friday. "It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."
Uh oh - time to call out the race pimps (Jackson, Sharpton) for some money-assisted 'healing'.
BTW, how can you be in the 'process of forgiving'?
Either you do or you don't.
Former Spice Girl Melanie Brown has listed Eddie Murphy's name on the birth certificate of her infant daughter, her publicist said Friday. The 31-year-old Brown, known as Scary Spice when she was in the megahit group of the '90s, gave birth to the child April 3 in Santa Monica, Calif. Brown's publicist, Nadine Bibi, didn't immediately respond Friday to an e-mail from The Associated Press asking for details. "How about some details, Nadine? When Eddie was doinkin' her, did Scary go 'oooh! oooh!' or did she just lay there, or did she holler 'Oh, slam it to me, big boy!'?... Nadine?... Nadine?... You're not responding, Nadine."
Arnold Robinson, a spokesman for Murphy, declined comment. "Don't look at me! I was in the other room!... With Nadine."
Brown has said ex-boyfriend Murphy is the father. "Dat's right! He dunnit! I wuz there! I seen it!"
The 46-year-old "Dreamgirls" star has said he isn't sure, while Brown has said there is "absolutely no question that Eddie is the father." "I ain't sure it wuz me..."
"It wuz you, Eddie! You know it wuz you!"
"Wudn't me."
Brown has an 8-year-old daughter, Phoenix Chi, from her marriage to Jimmy Gulzar. Murphy has five children from his marriage to Nicole Mitchell Murphy.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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I hear NiFong is available to take her case. He's bound to have some free time fairly soon.
Voters went to the polls Saturday in Nigeria to choose their state officers in the first of a pair of elections meant to solidify civilian rule in Africa's most-populous nation.
Many polling centers opened late around the country and a year of stepped-up violence continued in the southern oil region, which is desparately poor despite pumping all the crude in Africa's biggest oil producer.
Non-official road traffic was banned on Saturday and hoardes of young men spilled into empty streets to play soccer, using bricks and tires as goalposts. They want them handy when it's time to riot.
Nigeria's 61 million voters will select their state lawmakers and governors Saturday and their national legislators and president a week later. Like in America, many voters have no idea who the candidates are - but vote anyway.
Since its independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria has never seen power handed from one elected leader to another. !!!
The campaign period in the country of 140 million has seen isolated bouts of violence that have left some 70 people dead, human rights groups say.
Nigeria's voters will head to 120,000 election centers nationwide, with dozens of international observers and hundreds of Nigerian monitors watching the vote. Results are expected within days.
Obasanjo's 1999 election ended nearly 15 years of military rule. His 2003 re-election was marred by violence and accusations of widespread rigging. All previous elections were scuttled by military coups or annulments.
I've chopped this up unfairly - it is surprisingly well-done for an AP piece.
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed a law giving amnesty for crimes committed during the civil war. The amnesty, part of a recent peace deal, applies to both the New Forces rebels and the armed forces loyal to President Gbagbo. Last month human rights group Amnesty International condemned Ivory Coast's "climate of impunity" and said both sides were guilty of large-scale rape. A BBC correspondent says there will be no local prosecutions for such crimes. Any on-going prosecutions are to be dropped immediately, and prisoners convicted of crimes covered by the amnesty will be released. Economic crimes are a notable exception, as they are not covered by the amnesty.
Significantly, the amnesty is backdated to September 2000. That means that crimes committed by loyalist soldiers before the war broke out will also be wiped off the slate. The amnesty law is one of a number of measures aimed at bringing the country to free and fair elections within 10 months.
Zimbabwe police have said that a prayer meeting planned for the second city of Bulawayo on Saturday is illegal and they will respond accordingly, reports said on Friday. The Save Zimbabwe Campaign, which unites churches, opposition, civic and labour groups, is due to hold a prayer meeting at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church on Saturday, more than a month after a prayer rally in Harare was banned and opposition leaders trying to attend beaten. Police were quoted as saying on Friday that the meeting is illegal as the group has not obtained permission from the police four days ahead of the meeting, as required under stringent security laws. "I am not aware of any earlier notification of the four days' clear notice -- and if they don't follow the law, then the gathering is illegal," police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
The national coordinator of the church-led coalition was not immediately available for comment. But church groups contend that the security laws do not prohibit religious gatherings. Unconfirmed reports on Friday said two Bulawayo-based pastors had already been called in for questioning by police in connection with the meeting. Police spokesperson Bvudzijena reportedly told the Herald that the Save Zimbabwe Campaign is a political gathering and not a prayer meeting.
A similar gathering in Harare on March 11 was violently broken up by police. Dozens of opposition activists were arrested and brutally assaulted in police custody. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who received a serious head injury at that meeting, told a press conference on Thursday that 600 activists from his Movement for Democratic Change had been abducted and tortured by police in the past three months. Saturday's planned prayer meeting is expected to be addressed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe's government.
The Herald accused United States ambassador Christopher Dell of helping to organise the meeting, because Dell was worried that the Zimbabwean story was dying down when the US was of the impression that pressure should be intensified against Harare.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Exiled Russian multi-millionaire Boris Berezovsky called Friday for "direct action" to overthrow President Vladimir Putin, prompting Moscow to renew an extradition request for the Russian. But the tycoon tempered an earlier call for the use of "force" to oust Putin, saying he did not support violent means, after both Russia and Britain condemned his initial comments. "Elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia. Therefore I do support using other methods to push for a change back towards democracy," he said. "However, I wish to make very clear that all of these methods would be bloodless... I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support violence."
His comments came in a statement to "clarify" remarks in a newspaper interview in which he called for the use of force -- triggering immediate denunciations from Moscow and London and police to take notice. The Russian tycoon, who fled his homeland in 2000 and is now based in Britain, told The Guardian daily that the current Kremlin regime could not be ousted democratically and there was no other option but force.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
In related news, the official uniform of all his kitchen and wait staff will now include Geiger Counters.
An antique beer mug presented to French President Jacques Chirac as an EU going-away present has drawn criticism from EU-hopeful Turkey for reportedly depicting an 18th century Ottoman defeat by the French. They got the century wrong?
"The European Union should concern itself with the future rather than the past," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told reporters when asked about the mug. "If the EU has a future vision, it should look to the future," he said. "Harping on the past does not befit the EU vision." Yeah, but those Star Trek mugs are cheap and tacky.
Turkish newspapers said that the mug depicted Napoleon's 1799 victory over Ottoman forces in Egypt and reflected hostility towards Turkey. A nice depiction of Trafalgar probably wouldn't have made it Jacque's favorite souvenir. And I can't see the Prussians giving him a mug depicting Austerlitz. It was probably the Turks, by default. It was given to Chirac as a retirement gift by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at celebrations of the EU's 50th anniversary over the weekend. Merkel is opposed to full membership for Turkey and has instead advocated a special partnership with the sizeable mainly Muslim country. I'm not privy to Merkel's innermost thoughts and preferences, but that could be because it's the European Union, and Turkey's mostly in Asia Minor. Guatamala and Bhutan are both ineligible for membership for much the same reasons, though if everybody's all friendly and everything no doubt they can have some sort of special partnership, too.
For her Wellesley classmates, Hillary Clintons quest to become the first female president is a generational mirror. Some like what they see; others are less certain.
They were there for her fiery commencement speech, delivered at the height of the Vietnam War, when she described her classs search for a "more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living" and said that every protest was "unabashedly an attempt to forge an identity in this particular age." The speech landed Hillary Rodham in the spotlight as a celebrated archetype of a new generation of women.
We were very proud of her: she was a feminist; she was outspoken, said Jane Moss, a classmate who now teaches French at Colby College. "Hillary was speaking for all of us, for a generation that felt we werent being heard..."
Three thoughts before you read this article -
1. This is prolly designed to soften up the electorate to accept Government-provided 'universal' Hillarycare
2. I'd check the Kennedy family connexions to insurance and insurance 'consulting' companies
3. Prepare to be horrified. I was.
People who refuse to obtain health insurance could be tracked down by the state or a private contractor, enrolled in a plan and fined until they pay their premiums under one proposal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is considering as part of his vision for covering all Californians.
How very... Teutonic.
The proposal, which administration aides said was one of many the governor was considering, was presented at a meeting Tuesday with representatives from insurers, hospitals, doctors, business groups and consumer advocates. It drew immediate criticism from critics of the central tenet of Schwarzenegger's healthcare approach, which is to require all Californians to obtain insurance. Although the governor's office has been emphasizing the efforts it would make to help people find insurance voluntarily including subsidies to the poor and outreach through schools, state agencies and healthcare providers the outlines of the enforcement proposal inflamed some of those the administration has been courting for support. Beth Capell, a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union's California organization,
Nice work, LA Times...the first quote out of the box is from a union hack.
said the fines might be unfairly levied on people caught without health insurance because of circumstances beyond their control. Those included people in between jobs and those starting employment in companies that did not provide healthcare for the first months of work. "We're going to punish them if they don't go out and buy health insurance on their own health insurance that they can't afford at the moment that they are least able to afford it," Capell said.
Other proposals, which Schwarzenegger included in the first draft of his healthcare plan, are to attach the wages of people who don't buy insurance and to increase the amount they owe in state income taxes.
Oh. My. Gawd.
Kim Belshé, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, emphasized that "nothing is set in stone." But Schwarzenegger's call for "shared responsibility" includes a need for everyone to be part of the insurance system, she said.
"We wouldn't like to look anti-social, now would we?" she chirped, slowly drawing on latex gloves and reaching for the tray with the hypodermic needle...
The proposal to locate people without insurance would use state or private databases and target those who lacked coverage for 60 days or more. The administration said the goal was to be helpful and the initial notification would be designed to alert people to the need for insurance and provide ways for them to find coverage.
Only those who still did not obtain insurance would be subject to involuntary measures.
Boggle. Boggle. Boggle.
"It represents one approach to enforcement," Belshé said of the proposal. "But I want to underscore the emphasis of the governor and the administration is on enrollment, and creating a culture of coverage that connects people to affordable, available health coverage."
A "culture of coverage." I think I'm gonna be ill, but I better check with my minder first...
With more than 6 million residents lacking medical coverage in California, the requirement to obtain health insurance is one of the most contentious points of Schwarzenegger's plan. Schwarzenegger wants to offer public subsidies to the least affluent Californians. But many Democratic legislators, unions and consumer advocates have objected that others will not be able to afford even the bare-bones, high-deductible plans that Schwarzenegger would require as a minimum, which cost $1,200 a person a year. Those plans would include deductibles as high as $5,000 on top of the premiums, and would be geared toward protecting people from the costs of catastrophic medical bills, such as those arising from surgery or cancer treatment.
Peter Harbage, a senior program associate with the nonpartisan think tank the New America Foundation, said relatively few people would have to be forced to buy insurance. Schwarzenegger has cited the foundation's research in helping to frame his plan. "Most people are going to have insurance if the program is well designed and well constructed," he said in an interview Tuesday.
"A dream that will take
All the dough you must give
Ev'ry day of your life
For as long as you live!"
"And then you're going to have some people who are bad actors, and that's where you need some sort of tracking system."
"Bad actor! Youse didn't pay your protection money buy health insurance! It's too bad, nice place youse got here."
The governor said he is studying as a possible model a new system the state Department of Motor Vehicles is using to locate drivers who lack automobile insurance. Another model, he said, is the one the state uses to track down people who don't pay child support. "There's no easy way to come up with a tracking model," he said. "It's going to take some thought and it's going to be complex."
Somehow the question of requiring 'undocumented immigrants' to register for health insurance is not addressed in this article.
#1
"Undocumented immigrants" > So California will need to raise Public Taxation in order for State and local Gubmints to continue to provide Public Assistance for illegal immigrants whom haven't even applied NOR WILL APPLY for any type of legal status???
#2
This is almost...British in its dystopian look and feel.
I wonder how this will compare with the late, unlamented Tenncare(tm) experiment. Tennscare lasted 10 years before fiscal reality set in, and was cancelled.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for N guard ||
04/14/2007 0:14 Comments ||
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#3
...and to increase the amount they owe in state income taxes.
No surprise there - that's what Mass. is going to do starting 7/1/07.
What is it about politics that now it is only about confiscation and constrictions. Can we not agree that government is far too big for our own good? If we allow government to grow as it has and to add constriction upon constriction and to confiscate when a mandate is not followed, we the people will have nothing left, not even our very freedom.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2007 8:59 Comments ||
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#6
"What is it about politics that now it is only about confiscation and constrictions?"
It's envy, greed, and a malicious desire to fuck people over. In other words, liberalism.
"Can we not agree that government is far too big for our own good?"
You and I do, but the average bovine citizen wants to live in perpetual childhood, with government as a substitute Mommy.
"If we allow government to grow as it has and to add constriction upon constriction and to confiscate when a mandate is not followed, we the people will have nothing left, not even our very freedom."
Remember what Janis Joplin said: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose". They're just trying to set us free, that's all.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/14/2007 9:18 Comments ||
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#7
I guess this means that California's net population outflow will start to accelerate, thereby dramatically increasing the affordability of housing there, which is already in the process of crashing.
#9
So what happens if one is rich enough to pay for healthcare without having to buy insurance? This is a horribly bad idea. Helmuth, the Tenncare program failed because of mismanagement and letting everyone and his brother qualify. Tenncare would even pay for "Healthclub" memberships under the guise of physical therapy.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2007 10:22 Comments ||
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#10
Remeber when people actually believed Arnie was a Pub. Bwaahaaha!
#11
People who refuse to obtain health insurance could be tracked down by the state or a private contractor, enrolled in a plan and fined until they pay their premiums
So how are they going to stick it to the illegals who have already shut down emergency rooms in areas in Kalifornia by entitlements? This implies a duel system, one in which citizens are hammered but illegals are not?
#13
IN Arizona, the legislature raised once again the penalties for DUI. I see this all as increased taxation...the states just want more dough from us...AUH2O is turning in his grave...
NEW DELHI India and China will hold another round of high-level talks on the boundary issue here from April 21 as part of its efforts to settle the dispute that has been nagging their relations for decades. Special Representatives of the two countries National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo will hold two-day talks in New Delhi and Ooty in Tamil Nadu, officials said. The nine rounds of talks have made progress and the two sides are now discussing issues related to demarcation of the border, officials said.
The tenth round of negotiations takes place three months after the last meeting of the Special Representatives here, indicating speeding up of efforts to resolve the boundary dispute.
The leadership of both the countries has been keen to settle the issue as early as possible. PM Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, during their meeting in the Philippines in January, had said that the discussions should take place with "greater vigour and greater innovativeness". During the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao here in November last year, the two sides had decided to pursue efforts to resolve the boundary dispute as a "strategic objective".
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/14/2007 23:24 ||
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Has "social reformer" become an oxymoron?
At a fancy, catered-food affair for the World Social Forum meeting at the five-star Windsor Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, in January (where participants munched between discussion sessions on, among other topics, world hunger), street kids who normally beg for food money downtown raided the facility and picked the tables clean. From a blog commenter: Mental Acrobatics writes about drama at the World Social Forum, The poster says, Reduce food prices in the WSF. A demonstration organised by a youth group from Korogocho started a loud vocal protest outside the Windsor catering tent. Korogocho is the third largest slum area in Nairobi after Kibera and Mathare. The demonstarters called for a reduction in food prices and informed everyone buying from Windsor to remember what they had gathered in Nairobi for. How is it that underneath the skin, so many of these do-gooders are instead, members of the vulture elite? It is little wonder that so much of Europe's political aristocracy continues to try and expiate its knowing sins by inviting Islamic colonists to accelerate their collective suicide.
#1
The "vulture elite", as you call them, already have theirs. Their goal is to remain on top while everybody else is forced to grovel for every little morsel they can scavenge.
#2
It is an old-world mindset that wealth is not enjoyable unless it is surrounded by poverty and squalor.
Please note that major economic and political conferences are only rarely held in high-security palaces in the country. Instead, the conferees want to hold their meetings where they can look out the elevated windows and see peasant protesters being beaten back by police forces.
Even on holiday, the "Euro-trash" prefer places like Acapulco, Mexico, with five-star resorts on one side of the fence, and literally, starving peons on the other side.
"Somebody let too many damn Republicans in here. We need better locks on the doors and a new secret handshake, pronto!"
Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over. The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.
The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."
No longer constrained by slow connections and computer processors and high costs for storage, researchers say the time has come to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, a move that could mean replacing networking equipment and rewriting software on computers to better channel future traffic over the existing pipes.
Even Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers as co- developer of the key communications techniques, said the exercise was "generally healthy" because the current technology "does not satisfy all needs."
One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known. There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, "a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. "They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
IOW, they want a Govt-controlled andor Govt-monitored Net where personal websites can be read as soon as a human finger touches the keyboard, + of course TAXABLE which in turn "justifies" Govt control. DEMOLEFT > ANARCHY = BIG [GER] GOVT + REGULATION, but the Lefties know that already.
#2
Actualy, joe does have a point, if I understand him correctly. The control freaks are not happy with what the innernut has become.
Fortuantely, all the competeing interests (Tax collectors, busybody censors, Kossaks, Nutroots, and under-employed security types) will tend to cancel each other out.
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for N guard ||
04/14/2007 0:19 Comments ||
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#3
Yep, JOE! knows the score. I think if it ever happened it would use 3DCees ideas positional info for addressing.
#4
There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, "a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. "They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue."
Yeah, Gawd forbid the people who invest billions of dollars in making the Internet run should have a say in how something will affect their investment...
#9
The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges...
Are they talking about the internet or Microsoft operating systems? :)
#11
The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."
Notice how people who hate the Internet are often some third world numbnuts dipshit whose own country couldn't cobble together their own Internet on the luckiest day of their lives even if they had an electrified Internet cobbling machine?
Why is it that when these two-bit morons finally gain access to advanced technology, they suddenly get so damned smart and delude themselve into believing that they can do it better?
Dr. Raychaudhuri obtained his B.Tech (Hons) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1976
My advice to Dr. Raychaudhuri is: Go back home to your own damned economic shithole of a native land and try manufacturing something so simple as a lousy stinking automobile before you come to America with your brilliant idea of crippling one of the most powerful tools ever invented in the history of mankind. Oh, I forgot something, FOAD!
#12
Zenster, quit waffling and tell us what you really think!
UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines
Sounds to me as if the professors just conducted another "exchange of meaningless test data."
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
04/14/2007 17:43 Comments ||
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#13
I suggest they leave the internet alone, and offer their perfect solution (once they actually have it) as an upcharge option for those who actually need such things, in the same way those who are willing to pay extra for a high-speed connection get faster downloads than those who stick with the cheap/free telephone thingy that I used to think was so cool. But then we don't expect august university professors to pay much attention to the opinion of an ordinary little Midwestern suburban housewife. Betcha that's how it shakes out, though. ;-)
I don't think this talks about scrapping the entire 'Internet' (remember some reporters think the 'Internet' is the WWW only).
Some of the protocols (for email for example) could use upgrading / replacing (at least to get rid of spam mail). http (not HTML/XML/etc..) could use some work to provide more security and additional information.
Perhams making security certificates *free* (as in free beer) and trustworthy so everyone can have their own email certificate.
But I don't think some government or someone in some ivory tower should do it.
#2
For a company whose motto is "don't be evil" (Google), I find it odd they would buy the most evil internet company in existance!
If there was any justice in the world, Google bought 'em just to destroy 'em. But I doubt that's their plan....
For those who don't know, Doubleclick is the web advertising network responsible for 90% of the annoying pop-up and floating ads you have to endure when browsing the net.
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.
Former Spice Girl Melanie Brown has listed Eddie Murphy's name on the birth certificate of her infant daughter, her publicist said Friday. The 31-year-old Brown, known as Scary Spice when she was in the megahit group of the '90s, gave birth to the child April 3 in Santa Monica, Calif. Brown's publicist, Nadine Bibi, didn't immediately respond Friday to an e-mail from The Associated Press asking for details. 
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed a law giving amnesty for crimes committed during the civil war. The amnesty, part of a recent peace deal, applies to both the New Forces rebels and the armed forces loyal to President Gbagbo. Last month human rights group Amnesty International condemned Ivory Coast's "climate of impunity" and said both sides were guilty of large-scale rape. A BBC correspondent says there will be no local prosecutions for such crimes. Any on-going prosecutions are to be dropped immediately, and prisoners convicted of crimes covered by the amnesty will be released. Economic crimes are a notable exception, as they are not covered by the amnesty. 
An antique beer mug presented to French President Jacques Chirac as an EU going-away present has drawn criticism from EU-hopeful Turkey for reportedly depicting an 18th century Ottoman defeat by the French.
It was given to Chirac as a retirement gift by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at celebrations of the EU's 50th anniversary over the weekend. Merkel is opposed to full membership for Turkey and has instead advocated a special partnership with the sizeable mainly Muslim country.
Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over. The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969. 
