An Indian man believed dead by his family and fellow villagers caused panic when he returned over fears he had come back as a ghost, the Times of India reports. Children screamed "Ghost! Ghost!" and villagers locked their doors when Raju Raghuvanshi returned from jail earlier this month to his village in Mandla district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
"Raju! You're dead!"
"No, I ain't!"
"Yes, you are! Now lie down, dammit!"
Raghuvanshi's brothers, who had shaved their heads to mourn his death in line with Hindu tradition, fled when he appeared, the paper reports.
"Feet, don't fail us now!"
"This is what my back looks like!"
Villagers and family members have ostracised him, forcing Mr Raghuvanshi to file a complaint with local police.
"No, you may not come to dinner! You're dead!"
"That does it! I'm callin' the cops!"
The village council has demanded he prove he is not a ghost, but the paper did not say what kind of proof the elders wanted.
"What'm I supposed to do? Not disappear?"
"You could stop decomposing..."
"Naw. That wouldn't work."
Mr Raghuvanshi's troubles arose after he was jailed last year. In prison, he was admitted to hospital with a stomach ailment from which he recovered but a distant relative told his family he had died.
Apparently the distant relative is more credible than Raju.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2006 00:00 ||
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When I read the headline I knew it had to be Banga of Pakistan. It was India. My bad.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has named the first members of her Cabinet, including the finance and defence ministers, hours after taking office as Africa's first elected female head of state. The nominations still have to be confirmed by the Liberian Senate. Ms Johnson-Sirleaf's new chief of staff, Morris Dukuly, says Dr Antoinette Sayeh, a Liberian economist and former head of the World Bank program in Benin, was named Finance Minister. The post of national Defence Minister went to Brownie Samukai, a former director of police who has trained in Israel and the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2006 00:00 ||
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The post of national Defence Minister went to Brownie Samukai, a former director of police who has trained in Israel and the United States.
It looks like the lady has a practical streak. good luck to her and the new government.
Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said Monday that this month's jailing in the U.S. of two Florida academics on charges they spied for Cuba for three decades was "strange" and "worrisome."
Worrisome if you're a Cuban spy, that is.
In the government's first public reaction to the case, Alarcon questioned the timing of the married couple's arrests, which came as a U.S. federal appeals court in Atlanta prepared to rehear arguments in the case of five other Cubans accused of being secret agents of the Cuban government.
"This story comes across as strange and very worrisome because the FBI has supposedly known since June what they said about their activities," Alarcon told journalists of Carlos Alvarez, 61, and his 55-year-old wife, Elsa. "So why come out with this case now? Obviously it has to do with something that goes beyond these two people," Alarcon said.
So you got the message.
"They are trying to create an environment of McCarthyism to influence the Atlanta appeals court," Alarcon said of the newest arrests.
Perhaps one of your agents is singing? There's five of them, can't be sure which one it is.
The husband and wife both hold positions at Florida International University and could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted of failing to register as agents of a foreign power. A U.S. attorney said Alvarez had spied for Cuba since 1977 and his wife since 1982, working independently at first and later together.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2006 00:33 ||
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FIU President Modesto A, Maidique's Statement Regarding Carlos and Elsa Alvarez
MIAMI (Jan. 10, 2006)â Like many people in the South Florida/North Cuban community, I was stunned Monday to learn that two Florida International University employees had been arrested and charged with acting as unregistered agents spies of the Cuban government. I have been friends with Carlos and Elsa Alvarez for many years, but I am not a spy like them, and have known Carlos since before I became president at FIU. Both of them have been valued members of the FIU community for many years. Their cover appeared to be air tight and My personal and professional interactions with the Alvarezes gave me absolutely no indication of any of the activities outlined in the indictment.
The charges are extremely serious. If the allegations stipulated by the U.S. Attorney are substantiated, this will constitute a very significant breach of university American trust and values. The academic excellence of our institution is built on a foundation of service to the community and objectivity in teaching, research and professional service. Faculty and professional staff are pledged to uphold these values, which are intrinsic to FIUâs mission.
FIU has retained the services of former U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez of the Colson Hicks Eidson Law Firm to advise the university during this time. Mr. Martinez is actively assisting the university in its full cooperation with federal law enforcement authorities.
He is also conducting a thorough, independent review to determine whether any university policies or procedures have been violated. Mr. Martinez has not been hired to assist the Alvarezes in their defense as some media may have reported. Our review is ongoing. To date, our review has allowed us to conclude the following:
FIU did not violate any federal and state procedures related to the funding of travel to Cuba. No state dollars were used to pay for travel to Cuba, or pay sources. No FIU students accompanied Professor Alvarez to Cuba under the auspices of any FIU program to submit spotter or lead reports. No FIU students or anyone else were recruited by the Alvarezes to participate in illegal activity. Following university policy, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez have been placed on administrative leave with pay.
I ask that everyone interested in this case be patient. We at FIU are only now becoming aware of the full extent of the charges against the Alvarezes. The public can be assured that FIU will continue to fully cooperate with authorities and will take appropriate CYA actions at the university level.
HAVANA (AP) - The U.S. mission in Cuba on Monday ran excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on an electronic sign running along its sea front building, the latest salvo in an ongoing billboard war.
Evidently timed to coincide with the U.S. holiday, the messages streaming along the building's fifth floor in luminescent red also included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although the new messaging system was activated earlier in the day, neighbors said the words really weren't visible until the sun set. Even then, the words were difficult to read.
"They are provoking us again," said neighbor Miguel Angel Fernandez, who said he first noticed the words from his bathroom window Monday night. "I don't know why they mess with us, we don't mess with them."
More than a year ago, the Cuban government erected billboards outside the mission emblazoned with photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the U.S.A" stamp. Those signs were erected in retaliation for holiday decorations placed on the building for Christmas 2004 that included a sign reading "75" - a reference to the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in March 2003.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2006 00:29 ||
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TOKYO (AP) - An American F-15 "Eagle" fighter jet crashed into the sea near Okinawa Island on Tuesday morning, but the pilot ejected and was rescued with only minor injuries, American military officials said.
The plane went down about 10 a.m. off the coast of Ikeijima, part of the Okinawa island chain, during a routine training mission, according to a statement issued by U.S. Air Force officials on Kadena Air Base. The crash occurred about 55 miles northeast of the base. The statement said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2006 00:27 ||
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The jihadis shot down an Eagle? Wow! They must have assets on Okinawa! Wait'll the New York Times gets ahold of this!
/hysteria
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/17/2006 7:31 Comments ||
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FAR-right groups in France are distributing ham sandwiches and pork soup to homeless people in an attempt to discriminate against Muslims and Jews, forbidden to eat pork products.
Food hand-outs, which have already taken place in Paris, Nice and Nantes, and in Brussels and Charleroi in Belgium, have now spread to the eastern French city of Strasboug.
Mr Spieler denounced "a totalitarian regime" where soon "they'll be banning salami".
He said: "Pork is a European symbol, whether we like it or not. The day when there are laws forbidding the distribution of pork in Alsace I believe there will be a lot of us who will leave France and take refuge in a country where there is still a certain culinary freedom." His wife said she would appeal against the prefect's decision.
"Pork is part of our culinary culture and we are offering the soup to everyone, so there is nothing discriminatory about it," she said.
Soulidarieta, an extreme-right group based in Nice, which is also a Bloc Identitaire member, provoked outrage over Christmas when it began distributing soup made with pork once a week to homeless and poor people in the south-eastern city's port area.
Its operation drew as many protesters as homeless people. They accused the group of blatant discrimination by offering pork soup only, deliberately to exclude poor Muslims.
With protesters denouncing the practice as racist, the local town hall and the prefect's office in Nice claimed they were powerless to intervene as the group had done nothing illegal.
The group's head, Dominique Lescure, said pork was a traditional part of French cuisine. He did admit, however, wanting to serve the soup to his "compatriots and European homeless people".
The philosophy behind Soulidarieta, which means solidarity in the local dialect, is made clear in the association's literature, in which it claims: "Our people face being submerged by a rising black demographic tide," and announces "the launch of a voluntary social and political action in favour of our most deprived blood brothers".
The group's slogans call for "solidarity with our European brothers", and "Our own kind first before others".
Pierre Levy of the Council Representing Jewish Institutions in France, who attended the first distribution of pork soup last month, denounced Bloc Identitaire's operations as "using human misery to establish ethnic separation".
#2
So you can't distribute what you want as a charity organization? That's just weird. If the complainers are so angry about it, why don't they start a different group--except you couldn't serve Moslems and Jews at the same booth or building, and vegetarians would be excluded if they were serving soup with meat or egg, and what about every other kind of poor person. Some have allergies and stuff, you know . . .
Dock workers fought with police and smashed windows at the European Parliament building Monday during a violent protest over a proposal to liberalize port services across the European Union. Strikes and work slowdowns also disrupted cargo handling at several ports as trade unions pressed their opposition to the plan even as EU legislators predicted it would be rejected. Police used water cannons and tear gas to try to keep thousands of protesting dockers away from the EU legislature in this eastern French city. But the mob surged forward, hurling rocks, logs and metal fences to shatter large sections of glass in the glass-and-steel building, located on the outskirts of this eastern French city. The damage was estimated at several hundred thousand euros (dollars), the parliament said.
Earlier, police fired pepper gas into crowds of demonstrators after port workers hurled flares, canisters, glasses and stones at the security services during a violent march through the city center. One policeman was hospitalized with a head wound, and 11 officers suffered light injuries, according to the parliament's press service. Workers in yellow vests accompanied by marching bands set off smoke bombs and waved banners saying "Victory to the dockers." Some cars were set alight, and smoke mingled with the smell of pepper spray hung heavy in some parts of the town. The protesters moored a boat on the river outside the parliament.
At least 6,000 workers from all major European ports, including Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and Marseille, and from as far away as Australia and the United States, participated in the demonstration organized by several trade unions. At the same time, workers closed down cargo handling in Antwerp, Belgium - Europe's second biggest port - and strikes affected harbor work in Portugal, Germany and Denmark. Dockers in Sweden and in Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, held short work stoppages.
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) - Former President Ford was undergoing treatment for pneumonia Monday at the same facility where he was briefly hospitalized a month ago, his chief of staff said. He was said to be doing well.
Ford, 92, was admitted Saturday to Eisenhower Medical Center near his home in Rancho Mirage in Southern California, Penny Circle said. ``Based on his age it is prudent for his initial course of treatment - IV antibiotics - to be done at the hospital,'' Circle told The Associated Press. Ford was expected to be released from the hospital Wednesday or Thursday, she said. ``He's doing very well,'' she said.
Ford was admitted to the hospital Dec. 12 and left the next day. Circle said at the time that Ford had undergone a regularly scheduled health exam but noted that he also had been battling a bad cold. Asked if the pneumonia was the result of any lingering effects from the cold, Circle said, ``I don't think so.''
Ford suffered two small strokes five years ago and spent about a week in a hospital.
An average President but a very good man. Best wishes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2006 00:08 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2006 00:02 ||
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Of course they are: the government is keeping the world's donations for more important things, the lucky ones are still under canvas, the menfolk went down to the tent cities to get money, leaving the women and children back in the hills, and their religious leaders say the disaster is all their fault for not beating the women enough.
"...This latest device demonstrates that significant power can be harvested from the IR and near-IR portion of the solar spectrum [the IR portion of the spectrum has almost 50% of the energy but existing devices only are able to use the visible portion of the spectrum].", said Dr. Stephen R. Forrest. "In fact, this novel approach has the potential to double the power output of organic solar devices [the problem with silicon cells is that they are expensive, brittle and heavy]with power harvested from the near-IR and IR portion of the solar spectrum. With this approach we are well on our way to power levels exceeding 100 watts per [cubic]meter", Forrest concluded.
#1
Great! Except the article has no data. Current organic dye solar cells have only 4% efficiency (and they absorb in the near IR) vs 12% efficiency for amorphous silicon cells (120 watts per square meter).
In fact, the best organic solar cells absorb and convert only about 1/3 of the total available light utilizing primarily the visible portion of the spectrum.
I'm not sure how they calculate that, but if was true, then organics would already be at least 17% efficiency vs the 4% usually cited. And with a price of about 1/2 of amorphous silicon cells, I wouldn't shingle my roof with them yet.
What is more interesting technically are gallium-indium cells that have greater than 50% efficiency from the IR to visible to ultraviolet, though the materials are expensive.
Posted by: ed ||
01/17/2006 11:01 Comments ||
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yes they didn't give much data; I suspect that is because their solar cell was so small it would have been a bit embarrassing
yes also that gallium-indium cells are promising; but, sadly, there just aren't very many deposits of this stuff
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that ``God is mad at America'' and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.
``Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country,'' Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day.
Actually, God was mad at you; he just has a broad aim.
``Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves.''
Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be a ``chocolate'' city again. Many of the city's black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina. ``It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans - the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans,'' the mayor said. ``This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans.''
Of course, one could imagine the furor if a big-city mayor anywhere in this country had called for said city to be a 'vanilla' one.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2006 00:13 ||
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When Pat Robertson says things like that, everybody makes fun of him.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/17/2006 6:20 Comments ||
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Ray's worried all the people who left and found out how cities really work elsewhere, won't come back and re-elect him. Plus, a large hispanic population is reportedly moving in to fill the void left by the departing blacks.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/17/2006 7:39 Comments ||
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wouldn't his logic also imply that God was angry at the mayor of New O?
#9
Once you get past the racism and the Pat Robertson theology, what he's basically saying is, "God is mad at us, yet wants us to rebuild NO exactly the way it was before he smote us." I would be embarrassed to open my mouth if I were as ignorant as Ray Nagin.
#11
I guess it was also God who decided to ignore the city's evacuation plan completely and just play it by ear in the face of a Category 4 hurricane, leaving thousands of people stuck in the city and dozens of buses idle in soon-to-be flooded city lots.
Clearly Nagin is the innocent victim here and needs to be re-elected. :-P
Posted by: Dar ||
01/17/2006 13:47 Comments ||
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"Surely God is mad at America."
"Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses."
"But surely he is upset at black America also."
"It's the way God wants it to be."
Apparently God has told Ray "Noah" Nagin a whole lot of things, but he forgot to tell him to build an ark.
#15
Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses.
I'm no theologian, and I certainly don't presume to speak for the Almighty, but I'm guessing He is rather pleased that Saddam and his hellspawn kids are no longer running around loose, stirring up trouble.
#16
Nagin may have run a cable franchise in N.O. before becoming Mayor, but he seems to have all of the political and administrative skills of an autistic hamster.
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.
An Indian man believed dead by his family and fellow villagers caused panic when he returned over fears he had come back as a ghost, the Times of India reports. Children screamed "Ghost! Ghost!" and villagers locked their doors when Raju Raghuvanshi returned from jail earlier this month to his village in Mandla district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. 
Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said Monday that this month's jailing in the U.S. of two Florida academics on charges they spied for Cuba for three decades was "strange" and "worrisome." 
Dock workers fought with police and smashed windows at the European Parliament building Monday during a violent protest over a proposal to liberalize port services across the European Union. Strikes and work slowdowns also disrupted cargo handling at several ports as trade unions pressed their opposition to the plan even as EU legislators predicted it would be rejected. Police used water cannons and tear gas to try to keep thousands of protesting dockers away from the EU legislature in this eastern French city. But the mob surged forward, hurling rocks, logs and metal fences to shatter large sections of glass in the glass-and-steel building, located on the outskirts of this eastern French city. The damage was estimated at several hundred thousand euros (dollars), the parliament said. 
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that ``God is mad at America'' and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting. 
