[An Nahar] Uruguay's President Jose Mujica was left red-faced Thursday after disparaging remarks apparently aimed at Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner and her late husband were picked up by an open microphone.
Buenos Aires swiftly responded with an official protest, calling the comments "unacceptable."
"This old hag is worse than the cross-eyed man," Mujica was caught saying at the start of a news conference while speaking quietly with another official.
El Observador newspaper, which posted the audio on its website, said Mujica was referencing the Kirchners and did not realize that the microphones were already on.
Nestor Kirchner died suddenly of a heart attack in 2010 and had a lazy eye.
Word of the slip-up shut down the paper's website, which recorded historic traffic, according to the outlet's digital content manager.
The comment also quickly gained traction on social media.
An hour later, Mujica told the online version of La Republica newspaper that he had not talked about Argentina and was not going to clarify anything.
But Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman slammed the remarks as "unacceptable" and "denigrating," adding that they offended the memory of the dear departed.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sounds as if the Argies were more insulted by the term "cross-eyed man" than "this old hag."
[An Nahar] Moncef Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of ousted Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! for fraud, has died in jug of a brain tumour, the country's prisons chief said on Friday.
"He died at the neurological hospital where he was taken (from jail) on March 18. He had been operated on for a brain tumor," the prisons chief, Habib Sboui, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Sboui added that Trabelsi, 69, had been unconscious for the past "four or five days".
Trabelsi had been sentenced to prison for fraud soon after the January 2011 uprising that toppled Ben Ali.
His sister is Leila Trabelsi, the wife of Ben Ali, who was also accused of stealing state funds.
The couple fled to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... on January 14 of that year amid a massive popular uprising against his rule.
Other members of Moncef Trabelsi's extended family, including in-laws, were incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in Tunisia where they faced trials in a military court.
But unlike some members of the Trabelsi clan, which wielded much sway during Ben Ali's rule, he himself held little influence in the country's affairs.
One of his brothers, Belhassen, fled Tunisia for Canada, where in May the immigration board rejected his residency appeal.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Al Jizz] The US labour market was far weaker than expected in March, with the economy adding only 88,000 jobs, a third of the number added in February, according to the latest official data.
Job creation slumped to its weakest level since June 2012, and was well below the 192,000 jobs that analysts had expected. The total number of unemployed persons was little changed at 11.7m.
The unemployment rate dipped to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent in February as more people dropped out of the workforce, the Labour Department reported on Friday.
Al Jizz's Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington DC, said the US had experienced 30 months of adding jobs, but the latest jobs figures would undoubtedly cause concern for President Barack Obama Because I won... and his new Treasury team.
He said the administration had given warning that budget cuts could have an impact on employment.
"The number of jobs that are created in the government sector ... have dropped substantially: 22,000 jobs lost there in the last month or so," he said.
The March jobless rate was the lowest since December 2008. Most analysts had expected it would hold unchanged at 7.7 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[An Nahar] Spain announced Friday it is raising the minimum age for marriage from 14 to 16 while opening consultations to increase the age for consent to sex, which now lies at just 13, so as to combat child abuse.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's right-leaning government announced its decision to raise the minimum ages for marriage and sex in Spain, which are now among the lowest in the world, after a weekly cabinet meeting.
The reforms are part of a broad plan approved by the government to protect children from abuse and exploitation, to be funded with a budget estimated at 5.2 billion euros ($6.7 billion) over the next four years.
Spanish legislation allows a child to enter into marriage with a court's permission as young as 14. Defenders of children's rights fear that at such a young age some minors, even if only a minority, may be forced into unions.
"Although the age to enter into marriage in our country is 18 years, the law does allow in certain circumstances for marriage at 14. We are going to raise that age to 16," Social Services Minister Ana Mato told a news conference.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm sure SCOTUS will entertain moving the other direction. When you need parental consent for your daughter to attend a school field trip or get an aspirin from the school nurse, but never have to ask to have an abortion - your country is run by idiots.
NEW DELHI: Top-gun Indian pilots are now quietly honing their combat skills on frontline Sukhoi-30MKI "air dominance" fighters to take on the best in the world. They know it will be the closest they will come to realistic air combat without actually going to war.
The IAF is getting all set to dispatch eight Sukhoi-30MKIs, two C-130J "Super Hercules" tactical airlift planes, two IL-78 mid-air refuelling tankers and one IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft, along with over 150 personnel, for the "mother" of all air combat exercises: the world-famous "Red Flag" exercise held at the Nellis US Air Force (USAF) base in Nevada, northwest of Las Vegas.
The high-voltage, "network-centric" exercise will not only provide an opportunity for IAF pilots to match their combat skills with the USAF and its allies, but also serve to establish the force's capability to "project air power" by deploying "a trans-continental task force" across the globe.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
04/06/2013 20:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
[Dawn] The second polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... case in Sindh and sixth in the country of this year was detected in a 17-month-old girl in Dadu district, officials confirmed on Thursday.
According to officials associated with the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) of Sindh, the affected girl, Suhana, daughter of Ghulam Mustafa, was found with polio's P-1 virus in a village of Mehar taluka of Dadu district.
"The P-1 virus was detected in the 17-month-old girl though she had been duly vaccinated with polio drops," said Dr Mazhar Khamisani, Sindh EPI director.
He said the sample was collected on March 22 and sent to the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, and the result was received on Thursday.
"It is the second polio case in Sindh and sixth in overall Pakistain. Three polio cases have been detected in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... and one in Punjab this year," Dr Khamisani said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
"The P-1 virus was detected in the 17-month-old girl though she had been duly vaccinated with polio drops,"
The vaccine was ineffective - because it was handled/administered wrong (easy to see that happening if people are trying to kill you while you vaccinate), or has the virus evolved resistance in the abundance of infections of the unvaccinated over the past few years?
#2
The vaccine was ineffective - because it was handled/administered wrong (easy to see that happening if people are trying to kill you while you vaccinate), or has the virus evolved resistance in the abundance of infections of the unvaccinated over the past few years?
I'd bet that it hadn't been properly stored and therefore deteriorated, Glenmore, or it had been diluted, or it was actually plain water. They've been having problems with that particular form of corruption in that part of the world recently.
#4
following up wrt the BP link; I am in Amsterdam this weekend and watching the BBC; they seem quite concerned about the 'epidemic.' thier words, not mine.
Indias negotiations with Frances Dassault Aviation on a $12-billion deal for Rafale fighter jets have stalled due to disagreements over the production of the planes in India, a report said on Friday.
The defence deal, one of the biggest ever, was to see the manufacture of the first 18 of the jets in France with the remainder to be produced under licence by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a state-run Indian aerospace behemoth. The Indian Express newspaper, citing anonymous sources in its report, said that Dassault had refused to take responsibility for the 108 jets to be manufactured by HAL, sparking a row with New Delhi.
The French firm reportedly told Indian officials that New Delhi would have to negotiate two contracts, one with Dassault for 18 fighters and the other with HAL for the remaining 108 aircraft.
The defence ministry completely rejected this suggestion and made it clear to Dassault that it (the French company) will be solely responsible for the sale and delivery of all 126 aircraft, the newspaper reported, citing sources.
Dassault is thought to have reservations about the ability of HAL, a firm renowned for its inefficiencies, to handle the complex manufacturing and technology transfers which are a crucial part of the deal.
The Rafale beat off stiff competition from six rivals from Russia, the US and Europe last year when India selected the French fighter to replace its ageing fleet. Its main rival, the Eurofighter made by European group EADS, has remained in India and is still hoping to bag the deal in case Dassault is unable to conclude the negotiations successfully.
A Dassault spokeswoman said she was unable to comment immediately on the report when contacted by AFP.
The Rafale has carried out bombing missions in Afghanistan, Libya and most recently in Mali, where it is currently flying sorties targeting Islamist militants.
Indias air force chief said in February that the country hopes to sign the deal with Dassault Aviation by the middle of the year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
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 Nahar] Uruguay's President Jose Mujica was left red-faced Thursday after disparaging remarks apparently aimed at Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner and her late husband were picked up by an open microphone.
[An Nahar] Moncef Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of ousted Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was 
[An Nahar] Spain announced Friday it is raising the minimum age for marriage from 14 to 16 while opening consultations to increase the age for consent to sex, which now lies at just 13, so as to combat child abuse.
[Dawn] The second 
Indias negotiations with Frances Dassault Aviation on a $12-billion deal for Rafale fighter jets have stalled due to disagreements over the production of the planes in India, a report said on Friday.
