The US embassy in Yemen reopened today and said successful Yemeni counterterrorism operations had addressed the threat that led to the two-day closure.It said the threat of terrorist attacks against American interests remained high and urged its citizens in Yemen to be "vigilant and take prudent security measures".The reopening comes a day after Yemeni security forces clashed with al-Qaida fighters, killing two. Among the group was Nazeeh al-Hanaq, a senior figure on Yemen's most wanted list, who escaped.
The US embassy in Yemen reopened today and said successful Yemeni counterterrorism operations had addressed the threat that led to the two-day closure.
It said the threat of terrorist attacks against American interests remained high and urged its citizens in Yemen to be "vigilant and take prudent security measures".
The reopening comes a day after Yemeni security forces clashed with al-Qaida fighters, killing two. Among the group was Nazeeh al-Hanaq, a senior figure on Yemen's most wanted list, who escaped.
The US has said it is temporarily suspending the transfer of prisoners to Yemen from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba.The move comes after it emerged the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a US plane on 25 December was allegedly trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen. More than 80 Yemeni men were due to be moved from Guantanamo Bay, as the US tries to shut down the camp. Officials fear many could re-join militant groups if sent back to Yemen.
The US has said it is temporarily suspending the transfer of prisoners to Yemen from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba.
The move comes after it emerged the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a US plane on 25 December was allegedly trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen.
More than 80 Yemeni men were due to be moved from Guantanamo Bay, as the US tries to shut down the camp.
Officials fear many could re-join militant groups if sent back to Yemen.
The main suspect in the worst political massacre in the Philippines has pleaded not guilty. Charged with 41 counts of murder over the killing of 57 people in November, including pregnant women who were relatives of a political rival and about 30 journalists, Andal Ampatuan Jr appeared in a Manila court on Tuesday and denied the charges. Heavily-armed police escorts took Ampatuan Jr to a special court inside the Philippines' national police headquarters for the first step in judicial proceedings in a case that has put the nation's corruption-plagued political and justice systems under the microscope. The hearing lasted just two hours and is set to resume next week, but critics fear the case could drag on for years.
The main suspect in the worst political massacre in the Philippines has pleaded not guilty.
Charged with 41 counts of murder over the killing of 57 people in November, including pregnant women who were relatives of a political rival and about 30 journalists, Andal Ampatuan Jr appeared in a Manila court on Tuesday and denied the charges.
Heavily-armed police escorts took Ampatuan Jr to a special court inside the Philippines' national police headquarters for the first step in judicial proceedings in a case that has put the nation's corruption-plagued political and justice systems under the microscope.
The hearing lasted just two hours and is set to resume next week, but critics fear the case could drag on for years.
China's Yellow River tributaries have been "seriously polluted" by an oil spill last week, further contaminating badly-tainted drinking water resources, state media has said. Last week a ruptured pipe operated by China's oil giant, PetroChina, sent 150,000 litres of fuel down two major tributaries of the Yellow River, Chishui and Wei. China National Petroleum Corporation, the parent company and the country's largest oil producer, said the leak was caused by a "third party" during construction work. The pipeline is supposed to transport diesel from northwest China's Gansu province to central parts of the country.
China's Yellow River tributaries have been "seriously polluted" by an oil spill last week, further contaminating badly-tainted drinking water resources, state media has said.
Last week a ruptured pipe operated by China's oil giant, PetroChina, sent 150,000 litres of fuel down two major tributaries of the Yellow River, Chishui and Wei.
China National Petroleum Corporation, the parent company and the country's largest oil producer, said the leak was caused by a "third party" during construction work.
The pipeline is supposed to transport diesel from northwest China's Gansu province to central parts of the country.
The murder of an Indian student in the Australian city of Melbourne was not racially motivated, the government has said. Nitin Garg was stabbed to death while walking to work last week. "What we have to do is to let the investigations take their course, but certainly on the basis of what we're being told so far, by the Victorian authorities, there's no basis for a racial motivation behind this," Simon Crean, the acting foreign minister told local radio on Tuesday. Garg, 21, was a graduate accounting student at an Australian university.
The murder of an Indian student in the Australian city of Melbourne was not racially motivated, the government has said.
Nitin Garg was stabbed to death while walking to work last week.
"What we have to do is to let the investigations take their course, but certainly on the basis of what we're being told so far, by the Victorian authorities, there's no basis for a racial motivation behind this," Simon Crean, the acting foreign minister told local radio on Tuesday.
Garg, 21, was a graduate accounting student at an Australian university.
At one point, there are enough immigrants within a country that they too become victims of random murders...
The murdered was Chaib Zehaf, after a quick google. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Very good point.
linca: A guy who had shot a North African person a few years ago while shouting, "Sale Arab", was able on trial to convince the jury (and most of the press) that there was no racist motive behind the killing.
Poor guy: he missed his true calling as a lawyer.
I'll have to read the coverage, but I just don't see how he could get away with claiming that this was not a racially motivated murder if he was shouting "sale Arabe". La Chine dorme. Laisse la dormir. Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera.
His defense was that he was a drunk, violent person, and that the "sale arabe" witnesses were far from the place of the murder. He was also quite contrite.
Note that as a lawyer his defense wasn't so good : he got very close to the maximum penalty for murder without an aggravating circumstance (which is 30 years), and it is likely that if the racist motive had been accepted he'd have gotten about the same time in jail. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
The alma mater of a Massachusetts terror plot suspect has banned students from wearing clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas. The policy at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services was announced weeks after Muslim alumnus Tarek Mehanna -- the son of a professor -- was charged in October with plotting terror strikes. It went into effect Friday. School spokesman Michael Ratty said the change was unrelated to Mehanna's arrest and was part of an annual review. He said officials want everyone entering the school's Boston campus to be able to be identified.
The alma mater of a Massachusetts terror plot suspect has banned students from wearing clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas.
The policy at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services was announced weeks after Muslim alumnus Tarek Mehanna -- the son of a professor -- was charged in October with plotting terror strikes. It went into effect Friday.
School spokesman Michael Ratty said the change was unrelated to Mehanna's arrest and was part of an annual review. He said officials want everyone entering the school's Boston campus to be able to be identified.
TOKYO -- For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin -- one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo's decrepit "capsule" hotels. "It's just a place to crawl into and sleep," he said, rolling his neck and stroking his black suit -- one of just two he owns after discarding the rest of his wardrobe for lack of space. "You get used to it." When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel's tiny plastic cubicles offered a night's refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510's capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.
"It's just a place to crawl into and sleep," he said, rolling his neck and stroking his black suit -- one of just two he owns after discarding the rest of his wardrobe for lack of space. "You get used to it."
When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel's tiny plastic cubicles offered a night's refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home.
Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510's capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cuba denounced as "anti-terrorist paranoia" new US security measures for air travelers from the island and 13 other countries, but passengers waiting to fly from Havana said on Monday thorough checks before heading to the United States were nothing new. (...) Granma, the newspaper for the ruling Communist Party, called the measures a "desperate directive" that was "part of the (US) anti-terrorist paranoia."
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela may be forced to close its aluminum, steel and bauxite operations in the south-east of the nation due to a drought and electricity shortfall, a minister was quoted as saying on Monday. "If we have to close the basic industries in Guayana, because the Guri (reservoir) is drying up, well we have to close them," Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez said in an interview with financial daily El Mundo. "We have to avoid the reservoir drying up completely." The Guri, one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, close to the Orinoco river, supplies about two-thirds of the South American oil-producing nation's electricity, but is at dangerously low levels, officials say. President Hugo Chavez's government has imposed electricity rationing across the nation, from Caracas shopping-malls to the state-owned heavy industries in Guayana state that consume around a quarter of the nation's power output.
"If we have to close the basic industries in Guayana, because the Guri (reservoir) is drying up, well we have to close them," Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez said in an interview with financial daily El Mundo.
"We have to avoid the reservoir drying up completely."
The Guri, one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, close to the Orinoco river, supplies about two-thirds of the South American oil-producing nation's electricity, but is at dangerously low levels, officials say.
President Hugo Chavez's government has imposed electricity rationing across the nation, from Caracas shopping-malls to the state-owned heavy industries in Guayana state that consume around a quarter of the nation's power output.
* The whole international system--as constructed following WWII--will be revolutionized. Not only will new players--Brazil, Russia, India and China-- have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game. * The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future. * Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources--particularly energy, food, and water--raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply. * The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East.
A couple of comments:
On Wednesday, governors in California, Kentucky and New York kick off the season of addresses to state lawmakers as at least 36 states struggle to close budget shortfalls and also begin confronting the next fiscal year's woes. For many of the states, the new year spells the end to accounting maneuvers, one-off solutions, tax increases and service cuts that were as deep as lawmakers thought they could bear. And governors confront this situation in an election year in which dozens of their jobs are in play, and as many state legislators face their own election challenges. "A budget gap of 5 percent or 10 percent in any given year is a tough problem," said Corina Eckl, fiscal director at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "But we're talking about gaps in excess of 20 percent over multiple years. The size of these gaps is staggering." California's problems, including a projected budget deficit of $20 billion, are as outsized as the state itself. In his state-of-the-state message here, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, will proclaim California close to incapable of paying for social services in the next fiscal year, which begins in July, unless the Obama administration greatly increases aid to the state. That will be just one of many bleak assessments -- and far-from-slam-dunk prescriptions -- that Mr. Schwarzenegger will proffer as he and nearly every other governor face another year of extraordinary fiscal distress.
For many of the states, the new year spells the end to accounting maneuvers, one-off solutions, tax increases and service cuts that were as deep as lawmakers thought they could bear. And governors confront this situation in an election year in which dozens of their jobs are in play, and as many state legislators face their own election challenges.
"A budget gap of 5 percent or 10 percent in any given year is a tough problem," said Corina Eckl, fiscal director at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "But we're talking about gaps in excess of 20 percent over multiple years. The size of these gaps is staggering." California's problems, including a projected budget deficit of $20 billion, are as outsized as the state itself.
In his state-of-the-state message here, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, will proclaim California close to incapable of paying for social services in the next fiscal year, which begins in July, unless the Obama administration greatly increases aid to the state. That will be just one of many bleak assessments -- and far-from-slam-dunk prescriptions -- that Mr. Schwarzenegger will proffer as he and nearly every other governor face another year of extraordinary fiscal distress.
THE Islamic Republic of Iran is not about to implode. Nevertheless, the misguided idea that it may do so is becoming enshrined as conventional wisdom in Washington. <...> During the final months of the shah's rule, his opponents used mourning rituals held for demonstrators killed by security forces to catalyze further protests. But does this mean that a steady stream of mourning rituals for fallen protesters today will set off a similarly escalating spiral of protests, eventually sweeping away Iran's political order? That is highly unlikely. <...> there is nothing in the Islamic Republic's history to support projections that future mourning rituals for those killed in the Ashura protests will elicit similar attention. <...> In keeping with this pattern, the seven-day mourning observances for those killed in the Ashura protests generated no significant demonstrations in Iran. Clearly, comparisons of the Ashura protests to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, projecting a cascade of monumental consequences to follow, are fanciful. The Islamic Republic will continue to be Iran's government. <...> As a model, the president would do well to look to China. Since President Richard Nixon's opening there (which took place amid the Cultural Revolution), successive American administrations have been wise enough not to let political conflict -- whether among the ruling elite or between the state and the public, as in the Tiananmen Square protests and ethnic separatism in Xinjiang -- divert Washington from sustained, strategic engagement with Beijing. President Obama needs to begin displaying similar statesmanship in his approach to Iran.
During the final months of the shah's rule, his opponents used mourning rituals held for demonstrators killed by security forces to catalyze further protests. But does this mean that a steady stream of mourning rituals for fallen protesters today will set off a similarly escalating spiral of protests, eventually sweeping away Iran's political order?
That is highly unlikely.
<...> there is nothing in the Islamic Republic's history to support projections that future mourning rituals for those killed in the Ashura protests will elicit similar attention. <...>
In keeping with this pattern, the seven-day mourning observances for those killed in the Ashura protests generated no significant demonstrations in Iran. Clearly, comparisons of the Ashura protests to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, projecting a cascade of monumental consequences to follow, are fanciful. The Islamic Republic will continue to be Iran's government. <...>
As a model, the president would do well to look to China. Since President Richard Nixon's opening there (which took place amid the Cultural Revolution), successive American administrations have been wise enough not to let political conflict -- whether among the ruling elite or between the state and the public, as in the Tiananmen Square protests and ethnic separatism in Xinjiang -- divert Washington from sustained, strategic engagement with Beijing. President Obama needs to begin displaying similar statesmanship in his approach to Iran.
