The Taliban have released a video of captured US soldier Robert Bergdahl, six months in to his captivity. The Taliban want the release of their prisoners from US detention centres in exchange for Bergdahl's freedom.
AFP - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama insisted Thursday he intended to fight on after a former aide was charged in a political funding scandal, but hinted he could step down if the public demanded it. The indictment caps a difficult first 100 days in office for the political blue-blood, whose August election victory ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule in the world's number two economy. "I feel grave responsibility," Hatoyama told a news conference after prosecutors indicted his former aide Keiji Katsuba for allegedly misreporting millions of dollars of donations.
The indictment caps a difficult first 100 days in office for the political blue-blood, whose August election victory ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule in the world's number two economy.
"I feel grave responsibility," Hatoyama told a news conference after prosecutors indicted his former aide Keiji Katsuba for allegedly misreporting millions of dollars of donations.
I'm having a déjà vu. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
A Chinese court has sentenced a leading dissident to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power". Liu Xiaobo, a 53-year-old academic, who was previously jailed over the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, had been charged for co-authoring a document appealing for political liberalisation. The verdict was handed down by a Beijing court on Friday after a two-hour trial on Wednesday in which prosecutors accused Liu of "serious crimes". Liu's lawyer, Shang Baojun, said he had 10 days to appeal, but Liu's wife, Liu Xia, had said on Wednesday that her husband had no plans to appeal.
A Chinese court has sentenced a leading dissident to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power".
Liu Xiaobo, a 53-year-old academic, who was previously jailed over the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, had been charged for co-authoring a document appealing for political liberalisation.
The verdict was handed down by a Beijing court on Friday after a two-hour trial on Wednesday in which prosecutors accused Liu of "serious crimes".
Liu's lawyer, Shang Baojun, said he had 10 days to appeal, but Liu's wife, Liu Xia, had said on Wednesday that her husband had no plans to appeal.
An incident on a transatlantic airliner arriving in the US city of Detroit may have been an attempted attack, American media reports say.An official said the incident, in which firecrackers were initially said to have been set off, had been an attempt by a passenger to blow up the plane. Panic ensued aboard the Airbus 330, which had flown from the Netherlands, and several people were slightly hurt. The White House says President Barack Obama is monitoring the situation.
An incident on a transatlantic airliner arriving in the US city of Detroit may have been an attempted attack, American media reports say.
An official said the incident, in which firecrackers were initially said to have been set off, had been an attempt by a passenger to blow up the plane.
Panic ensued aboard the Airbus 330, which had flown from the Netherlands, and several people were slightly hurt.
The White House says President Barack Obama is monitoring the situation.
The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect's underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News.
of course you never know... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Today, five years after one of the worst natural disasters of modern times, Lampuuk, on Aceh's west coast, has been transformed. Instead of mountains of rubble there are hundreds of new houses. Children race their bicycles around the newly paved streets. The everyday buzz of community life has replaced the wailing of the bereaved. The area has been rebuilt from the ground up, in a remarkable effort has been replicated around Aceh, where up to 170,000 people died and more than 600,000 were left homeless by the 2004 tsunami. Survivors have rebuilt their lives in an extraordinary testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Yet the wounds remain raw; while normality has been restored, grief hovers not so very far below the surface.
The area has been rebuilt from the ground up, in a remarkable effort has been replicated around Aceh, where up to 170,000 people died and more than 600,000 were left homeless by the 2004 tsunami. Survivors have rebuilt their lives in an extraordinary testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Yet the wounds remain raw; while normality has been restored, grief hovers not so very far below the surface.
It was a disproportionate number of women and children who died. Maybe the women were with the children, and died trying to save them, or because they had to run at the pace of the slowest. Or maybe in a situation that terrible, where the margin of survival was so thin, a little more muscle mass went a long way.
A recent military policy that added pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier could be disciplined in a war zone will be rescinded by a new order drafted by the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Gen. Raymond Odierno has drafted a broad new policy for the U.S. forces in Iraq that will take effect Jan. 1, and that order will not include a controversial pregnancy provision that one of his subordinate commanders enacted last month, according to the U.S. military command in Iraq. Odierno's order comes about a week after the pregnancy policy issued by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo triggered a storm of criticism. Cucolo had issued a policy that would allow soldiers who become pregnant and their sexual partners to be punished.
Gen. Raymond Odierno has drafted a broad new policy for the U.S. forces in Iraq that will take effect Jan. 1, and that order will not include a controversial pregnancy provision that one of his subordinate commanders enacted last month, according to the U.S. military command in Iraq.
Odierno's order comes about a week after the pregnancy policy issued by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo triggered a storm of criticism. Cucolo had issued a policy that would allow soldiers who become pregnant and their sexual partners to be punished.
Schools in the United States are more segregated today than they have been in more than four decades. Millions of non-white students are locked into "dropout factory" high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate, and few are well prepared for college or a future in the US economy. According to a new Civil Rights report published at the University of California, Los Angeles, schools in the US are 44 percent non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students in the US. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago. In Latino and African American populations, two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools. For Latinos this increase in segregation reflects growing residential segregation. For blacks a significant part of the reversal reflects the ending of desegregation plans in public schools throughout the nation. In the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court concluded that the Southern standard of "separate but equal" was "inherently unequal," and did "irreversible" harm to black students. It later extended that ruling to Latinos. The Civil Rights Study shows that most severe segregation in public schools is in the Western states, including California--not in the South, as many people believe. Unequal education leads to diminished access to college and future jobs. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. Most of the nation's dropouts occur in non-white public schools, leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color.
Schools in the United States are more segregated today than they have been in more than four decades. Millions of non-white students are locked into "dropout factory" high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate, and few are well prepared for college or a future in the US economy.
According to a new Civil Rights report published at the University of California, Los Angeles, schools in the US are 44 percent non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students in the US. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago. In Latino and African American populations, two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools. For Latinos this increase in segregation reflects growing residential segregation. For blacks a significant part of the reversal reflects the ending of desegregation plans in public schools throughout the nation. In the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court concluded that the Southern standard of "separate but equal" was "inherently unequal," and did "irreversible" harm to black students. It later extended that ruling to Latinos.
The Civil Rights Study shows that most severe segregation in public schools is in the Western states, including California--not in the South, as many people believe. Unequal education leads to diminished access to college and future jobs. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. Most of the nation's dropouts occur in non-white public schools, leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color.
