tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3846345936952188372024-03-05T02:13:48.042-08:00hot lubuk kuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.comBlogger724125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-45631692536735244522014-04-22T09:28:00.002-07:002014-04-22T09:28:41.341-07:00AFRINA BEAUTY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-63430277867718912682014-04-02T08:45:00.003-07:002014-04-02T08:45:45.143-07:00Bombs at Egypt university hit riot police, 1 dead <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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CAIRO — Three bombs exploded Wednesday outside Cairo University's main campus, hitting riot police deployed against near daily protests by Islamist students, killing a police general and wounding seven others, including several top police officers.</div>
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<br />The staggered nature of the blasts in a relatively close area introduced a new tactic. The first two bombs, which security officials said were hidden at the foot of a tree, went off less than a minute apart. The third, concealed up another tree nearby, exploded nearly two hours later.The bombings were the latest in a campaign of attacks targeting Egypt's police and military that began with the ouster last summer of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The attacks are taking place amid a fierce crackdown by security forces against pro-Morsi protesters and members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.</div>
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The first two blasts killed the police general and wounded seven, the officials said. They had earlier reported that a civilian was also killed, but later explained that the general's civilian clothes had led to confusion and that he was the lone fatality in the bombings. They identified him as Brig. Gen. Tareq al-Margawy.</div>
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No one was harmed by the last explosion. Egyptian state TV described the bombs as crude and homemade.</div>
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The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-pos="1" data-rapid_p="13" data-uuid="d7bc4032-7212-3319-9abc-838a757c17d4" data-ylk="t1:a3;t2:ct-mod;t3:embd;sec:ct-mod;slk:play;elm:img;elmt:ct;itc:1;g:d684375f-6474-3046-82b4-87a7a310444b;aid:d7bc4032-7212-3319-9abc-838a757c17d4;ct:4;cpos:1;" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/egyptian-woman-center-escorted-multiple-bombings-outside-main-photo-124042228.html" style="color: #324fe1; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="An Egyptian woman, center, is escorted out of the site&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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An Egyptian woman, center, is escorted out of the site of multiple bombings outside the main campus …</div>
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An television cameraman at the scene said the three blasts took place near a makeshift police post, where officers usually stay near truckloads of riot police.</div>
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The cameraman was barely 20 meters (yards) away when the third bomb went off. He and other journalists were then chased away by police from the area.</div>
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Cairo University, along with other university campuses, has been a major center for the near daily protests by pro-Morsi students against the military-backed interim government — since the monthslong crackdown has largely crushed protests elsewhere. The university protests often turn into clashes with security forces.</div>
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Wednesday's bombs appeared to target riot police deployed outside Cairo University to confront any protests, though none were going on at the time of the blasts.</div>
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The wounded included four civilians and three senior police officers, including Maj. Gen. Abdel-Raouf El-Sirafy, who is the deputy chief of police in the Giza province, parts of which are located in the Greater Cairo area. Cairo University's main campus is in Giza.</div>
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Egyptian security forces detain people after multiple explosions hit the area outside the main campu …</div>
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Egypt has seen a series of suicide bombings, car bombings and assassination targeting security forces, and an al-Qaida-inspired militant group based in the Sinai Peninsula called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, has taken responsibility for most of them. Cruder bombings have also targeted police patrols and positions in the street, often claimed by lesser known militant groups.</div>
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The military-backed interim government has branded Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, accusing it of organizing the campaign of violence while it pushes ahead with protests against Morsi's removal by the military. Hundreds of Islamists have been killed and more than 16,000 arrested in authorities' bid to crush the Brotherhood.</div>
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The group denies any link to terror organizations and insists its protests are peaceful. It says the prosecution of its members is intended to give a legal veneer to what it sees as the illegal removal of an elected president.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-60519600232280291062014-04-02T08:33:00.003-07:002014-04-02T08:33:57.643-07:00Pokok Baobab<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;">Pernah anda melihat pokok yang hanya berdaun pada bahagian atas? Walaupun rupanya agak pelik, tetapi tumbuhan ini yang dikenali sebagai Baobab mempunyai pelbagai fungsi kepada hidupan lain.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/589450ee8930207e7a320209a6fa523e/tumblr_mrskv6LkZU1s7f3fyo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #a10048; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Pokok Baobab " border="0" height="282" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/589450ee8930207e7a320209a6fa523e/tumblr_mrskv6LkZU1s7f3fyo1_1280.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px;" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;">Mendapat gelaran sebagai pokok kehidupan kerana ia mampu memberikan makanan, minuman dan tempat berteduh kepada manusia dan haiwan. Buah daripada pokok ini diberi nama `</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD1" style="background-attachment: scroll !important; background-clip: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-origin: initial !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(120, 6, 120) !important; border-bottom-style: dotted !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; color: rgb(120, 6, 120) !important; cursor: pointer !important; display: inline !important; float: none !important; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, sans-serif !important; font-size: 12px !important; font-style: normal !important; font-weight: normal !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; position: static; text-decoration: none !important;">monkey bread</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;">' atau roti monyet dan mempunyai kandungan vitamin C yang sangat tinggi.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;">Pokok ini juga adalah pokok kebangsaan bagi Madagascar. Sejak tumbuh pokok ini tidak pernah mengeluarkan daun. Hal ini menyebabkan dahan dan ranting kelihatan seperti akar pokok.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Georgia Serif'; font-size: x-small;"><span><br /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-4328875243236659532014-02-04T07:40:00.002-08:002014-02-04T07:40:44.410-08:00District of Columbia city council to vote on decriminalizing pot <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="Legalization of marijuana" height="430" src="http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Sm7wFE4Xb3bgHoplC0GYiQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzI5NDtjcj0xO2N3PTQ4OTI7ZHg9MjtkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTgwMDtxPTc1O3c9MTE4OA--/http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/news/2014-01-01/7281f8a8-30ea-46a2-810e-9455d96a3dd7_AP224708641700_1.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia's city council will vote on Tuesday on whether to decriminalize marijuana in a move that could make smoking a joint a violation comparable to a parking ticket.</div>
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The bill is expected to pass the first of two votes required for legislation in the district, since eight of the council's 13 members have sponsored the measure, and Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray has said he favors it.</div>
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The decriminalization law could face scrutiny from Congress, which has constitutional oversight over the capital.</div>
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Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a U.S. advocacy group, however, said there has been no sign the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee would oppose the measure. A committee spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.</div>
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Marijuana is illegal under federal law, but 20 U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana use. Colorado and Washington state have legalized recreational use.</div>
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If the measure is approved, the U.S. capital would join 15 states and a handful of cities that have removed the threat of arrest for possession of small amounts of marijuana.</div>
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Supporters have portrayed decriminalization in Washington as a way to cut law enforcement costs and increase fairness. A study by the American Civil Liberties Union has shown that eight times more black people are arrested for pot possession in the nation's capital than people of other races.</div>
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The proposal would eliminate criminal penalties for marijuana possession. The proposed $25 fine for having less than an ounce of pot is smaller than most city parking tickets. People smoking in public would be fined $100, and minors would have a letter sent to their parents.</div>
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Possession of marijuana in Washington is now a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, except for the handful of patients who use medical marijuana. The starting price for medical marijuana in the District is about $300 an ounce.</div>
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A Washington Post poll last month showed that 63 percent of city residents favored legalizing marijuana, up from almost half in 2010. Activists in the heavily Democratic city are seeking to put an initiative on the November ballot that would legalize possession of up to two ounces (56 grams) of marijuana and three mature pot plants for personal use.</div>
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President Barack Obama said in a New Yorker magazine interview last month that smoking marijuana was a "bad habit," but thought penalties fell disproportionately on minorities. States legalizing pot should go ahead with their plans, he said.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-52242189256174516572014-02-04T07:33:00.001-08:002014-02-04T07:33:29.055-08:00Marion Caunter Nafi Sering Guna Jet Peribadi <br />
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Sebut saja nama Marion Caunter, pasti ramai wanita di luar sana yang cemburu dengan wanita kelahiran Pulau Pinang ini. Mana tidaknya, personaliti ini bukan sahaja memiliki wajah jelita serta bentuk badan menawan, malah ibu kepada dua puteri comel, Leia Rose, 2, dan Lana Rose, 3 bulan ini turut bertuah apabila bertemu jodoh dengan Pengarah Urusan Kumpulan Syarikat Naza, SM Nasarudin SM Nasimuddin.<br /><br />Namun, sudah menjadi resam dunia, ada juga segelintir manusia yang dengki dengan kehidupan pengacara E! News Asia ini. Bukan setakat dilimpahi kemewahan dengan berpakaian serta menggunakan barangan berjenama, namun pemilik nama Marion Rose Caunter Abdullah ini juga dikatakan mengembara menggunakan jet peribadi sekaligus membuatkan segelintir pihak panas punggung dengan kehidupan mewah yang diraihnya.<br /><br />“Mana ada saya selalu naik jet peribadi. Saya hanya naik sekali-sekala sahaja. Secara jujur, saya tidak pernah memikirkan soal kemewahan atau kekayaan. Bagi saya, segala kemewahan yang saya kecapi ini adalah satu bonus. Secara peribadi, saya hanya mahukan anak-anak, suami serta keluarga kami sihat dan bahagia.</div>
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Alhamdulillah saya bersyukur dengan segala yang saya perolehi. Saya akui hidup saya bertuah tapi saya juga lalui kesedihan dalam hidup saya. Saya kehilangan orang yang istimewa dalam hidup saya sejak kecil dan saya membesar tanpa seorang ayah. Bagi saya semua orang ada kehidupan masing-masing dan apa yang penting, kita terima saja apa yang kita peroleh dengan kesyukuran,” tutur Marion lantas berkongsi tentang perkembangan kariernya ketika ini.<br /><br />“Sejak mendirikan rumahtangga, saya sudah mula memperlahankan kerjaya seni saya kerana fokus saya kini lebih kepada suami dan anak-anak. Namun, jika diberi pilihan antara menjadi ibu atau wanita bekerjaya, saya memilih kedua-duanya di mana saya ingin menjadi seorang ibu yang mencintai kerjayanya.<br /><br />Walau bagaimanapun, sudah pasti keutamaan saya adalah keluarga. Tidak dinafikan sebelum ini pernah juga terlintas untuk berhenti, namun minat saya dalam bidang ini masih kuat. Mungkin jika saya sudah mula rasa tidak seronok atau merungut dengan apa yang saya lakukan sekarang, mana tahu mungkin saya akan bersara,” ujarnya mengakhiri perbualan.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-17088159531458634342014-02-03T16:00:00.001-08:002014-02-03T16:00:18.964-08:0026 killed in Syria regime barrel bomb raids on Aleppo <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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Beirut - At least 26 people were killed in aerial attacks with explosive-packed barrel bombs in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.</div>
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<br />Rebel-held areas have been subjected to a punishing string of aerial raids by Syria's army in the past three days, with at least 36 people killed on Sunday and 85 killed on Saturday, according to the NGO.The group said 12 men, 11 children and three women were killed when Syrian army helicopters dropped the controversial weapons on neighbourhoods in the east of the city, once Syria's economic hub.</div>
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The Observatory said Monday that January 2014 was the bloodiest month in the conflict so far, with 5,794 deaths recorded.</div>
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The air raids, which come as government troops press an advance into the eastern and northern parts of the city, have prompted a mass exodus of civilians, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.</div>
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"Residents of the eastern neighbourhoods began fleeing about three days ago as the pace of the barrel bomb attacks increased," he told </div>
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"Some of them have gone to Turkey, but many of them have nowhere to go but regime-controlled areas in the west of the city because of the fighting between rebel forces and the (jihadist) Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in other parts of Aleppo."</div>
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A security source in Damascus confirmed that civilians were fleeing to government-held parts of the city, and AFP photographers saw long lines of people at checkpoints separating rebel and government-controlled areas.</div>
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Fighting began in Aleppo in mid-2012, with the city quickly being divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east.</div>
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The situation has remained a stalemate for months, but the army has made several advances in surrounding Aleppo province, including capturing an area around Aleppo international airport.</div>
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The advances there allowed the government to reopen the airport, which had been closed for nearly a year because of fighting nearby.</div>
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Over the weekend, regime forces seized most of the eastern district of Karam al-Turab, state media and the Observatory said, and the army is pushing to take additional eastern and northern areas.</div>
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In Hama province of central Syria, meanwhile, the Observatory said at least five students were killed in rebel rocket fire on a majority Alawite town.</div>
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President Bashar al-Assad is from the Alawite community, while the uprising against him is dominated by Sunnis.</div>
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More than 136,000 people have died since the conflict in Syria began with peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011.</div>
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The spike in deaths came despite 10 days of talks between the government and regime in Geneva that ended last Saturday without tangible results.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-37504464622360342322014-02-03T15:53:00.001-08:002014-02-03T15:53:34.058-08:00Convicted murderer escapes from Michigan prison <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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IONIA, Mich. — An intense manhunt was underway Monday for a convicted killer who peeled a hole in two fences with his hands to escape from a Michigan prison before abducting a woman and fleeing to Indiana where the victim and her vehicle were safely recovered, authorities said.</div>
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Officials were stunned by the brazen escape Sunday night of Michael David Elliot, who had a record of good behavior during his 20 years in custody. He wore a white civilian kitchen uniform to evade security and blend in with snow at the Ionia Correctional Facility in western Michigan, prisons spokesman Russ Marlan said.</div>
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Prison fences were equipped with motion sensors to alert guards. The fences also carry electric current to shock anyone that touches them.</div>
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"It appears that did not happen. ... He was not zapped with electricity, and he was not picked up by the motion sensors," Marlan said.</div>
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Once outside the prison in Ionia, Elliot, 40, abducted a woman and stole her Jeep. She escaped late Sunday when he stopped for gas in Middlebury, Ind., some 100 miles to the south. The woman's red Jeep was found abandoned nearby in Shipshewana on Monday.</div>
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At least one school was locked down, residents were warned to stay inside and officers went door-to-door in the area. But it's possible Elliott was long gone. Investigators learned that the Jeep had been parked for hours before it was reported, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Ron Galaviz.</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="8" data-uuid="afe5030e-0909-3771-a056-9018265bdbd6" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/surveillance-photo-middlebury-ind-gas-station-provided-michigan-photo-193119307.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="In this surveillance photo from a Middlebury, Ind.,&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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In this surveillance photo from a Middlebury, Ind., gas station provided by the Michigan State Polic …</div>
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"We can't assume that he's on foot," Galaviz said, noting the cold weather, "but we can't always assume he's going to be in a vehicle."</div>
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An alert was issued to law enforcement nationwide. The woman told police that Elliot was armed with a box cutter and a hammer and had said he wanted to get as far from the Michigan prison as possible.</div>
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"We had dog teams. We had a helicopter from the state police," said Michigan Corrections Department Director Dan Heyns. "The response was good, but he'd left the area by the time we were mobilized totally 100 percent. It didn't take him long to get down to Indiana. ... His flight path now has expanded dramatically."</div>
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Nothing in Elliot's record suggested he might escape, said Heyns, who added, "This is entirely a one-man operation."</div>
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The woman who was abducted was able to call 911 from a concealed cellphone while Elliott was pumping gas at the store near Middlebury in Elkhart County, Ind., authorities said. She ran to a restroom and locked herself inside. Elliot knocked on the door, but she stayed inside until police arrived.</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="9" data-uuid="1387ac7a-98b6-3ec4-8740-e7a86af165f9" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/feb-11-2013-photo-provided-michigan-department-corrections-photo-122004431.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="This Feb. 11, 2013 photo provided by the Michigan Department&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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This Feb. 11, 2013 photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Michael David Elli …</div>
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Elliot was discovered missing from the prison about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, probably 2 ½ hours after he escaped by using his hands to create a hole in two fences, Marlan said.</div>
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"There was a perimeter vehicle with an armed officer who was circling the facility during this time period. (Elliot) was able to evade or avoid detection," Marlan said.</div>
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He said it wasn't immediately known if electronic security measures at the fence were not working or if Elliot somehow avoided them.</div>
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Elliot was serving life in prison without parole for fatally shooting four people and burning down their Gladwin County house in 1993 when he was 20 years old, according to court records. Elliot and his accomplices were trying to steal money from a drug dealer, police said.</div>
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He was arrested a few days later and had a gun that tied him to the slayings. One of Elliot's co-defendants testified against him, saying he laughed about shooting the victims in the head.</div>
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Elliot was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-64765480010979626972014-02-03T07:55:00.000-08:002014-02-03T07:55:26.603-08:00Nelson Mandela leaves $4 million estate to family, staff, ANC <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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JOHANNESBURG - Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela left his $4.1 million estate to family members, the ruling African National Congress, former staff and several local schools, according to a reading of his will on Monday.</div>
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The will was expected to set off another round of squabbling among members of his large and factious family over the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's financial legacy.</div>
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Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke said he was not aware of any possible wrangle over the provisional 46-million-rand estate, although when the will was read to family earlier on Monday the mood was "charged with emotion."</div>
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"I am not aware of any contest of any type and the will has been duly lodged and accepted," Moseneke said.</div>
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Mandela's third wife, Graca Machel, is entitled to half the estate under South African marital law but could waive her claims and opt for specified assets that include properties in her native Mozambique. Machel has not made a decision on whether to weave her rights, Moseneke said.</div>
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Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke (L) chats to Advocate George Bizos, Nelson Mandela's lawye …</div>
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Some of the estate would be split between three trusts set up by Mandela, including a family trust designed to provide for his more than 30 children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.</div>
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Each of the Mandela children and some of his grand-children received $300,000. His upscale Johannesburg house, where he spent most of his life after being freed from apartheid jails, would be home to his deceased son Makgatho's children.</div>
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The ANC, which was Mandela's political home, could receive a portion of his royalties from books and other commercial outlets using his name and image. Mandela staff, including his long-time personal assistant Zelda Le Grange, also shared in the fortune with 50,000 rand each.</div>
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"It really makes me happy. I didn't think Tata was thinking of leaving something for me," said Mandela's personal chef Xoliswa Ndoyiya, referring to Mandela using the Xhosa word for father.</div>
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Mandela, who died in December at the age of 95, left an estate that also included a modest dwelling in his rural Eastern Cape home province and royalties from book sales, including his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom".</div>
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More visibly, his legacy includes a potent political and moral brand that some of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren have already used to market everything from clothing to reality TV.</div>
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Some of his grandchildren have started a line of caps and sweatshirts that feature his image under the brand "Long Walk to Freedom". Two of his U.S.-based granddaughters starred in a reality television show called "Being Mandela".</div>
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Such aggressive marketing - as well as reports of fighting among family members over Mandela's money - have fuelled the impression in South Africa that some of the family members have exploited their world famous relative.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-62207713505772968372014-02-03T07:47:00.002-08:002014-02-03T07:47:21.448-08:00Flight Cancellations Mount as Triple-Threat of Winter Weather Looms <br />
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Flight cancellations neared 1,000 early Monday as winter storms brew along the East Coast and in the Rocky Mountains.</div>
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Flight-tracking web site FlightAware.com showed the majority of cancellations so far at Philadelphia International, Newark, N.J., and New York's LaGuardia airports.</div>
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Delays are at a minimum, with fewer than 200 nationwide.</div>
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More than half of the country could receive snow this week starting today, as storm systems pose a triple-threat of winter weather. The East Coast should expect snow from Boston to Washington, D.C., today – with as much as 8 inches of snow falling this morning and into the early afternoon.</div>
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<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/triple-threat-winter-weather-looms-us/story?id=22342755" style="color: #005490; text-decoration: none;">READ: Triple-Threat of Winter Weather Across US</a></div>
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A second storm developing in the Rockies should dump 5 to 10 inches of snow from Colorado to Iowa Tuesday, striking the East Coast one day later with another dose of winter weather – this time heaviest snow will be inland in the Northeast with rain, sleet and snow along the coast from Washington, D.C., to Boston.</div>
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A third storm is expected to strike across the country near the end of the week, bringing a potential Nor'easter next weekend. It's too early to tell if the third storm will materialize into anything significant.</div>
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Several airlines have issued flexible travel policies, waiving change fees for fliers affected by cancellations. Here are links to the major airlines' policies:</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-33654967327112352002014-02-02T15:59:00.001-08:002014-02-02T16:27:07.614-08:00Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of apparent drug overdose: police source <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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NEW YORK - Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the leading actors of his generation, who won an Academy Award for his title role in the film "Capote," was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday in what a New York police source described as an apparent drug overdose.</div>
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Hoffman, 46, was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor of his Greenwich Village apartment by police responding to a 911 call, and Emergency Medical Service workers declared him dead on the scene, New York City police said in a statement. An investigation was ongoing.</div>
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A police spokesman said investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and recovered two small plastic bags in the apartment containing a substance suspected of being heroin. A police department source earlier told Reuters that Hoffman had died of an apparent drug overdose.</div>
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Hoffman, who is survived by three children with his partner Mimi O'Donnell, had detailed his struggles with substance abuse in the past.</div>
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"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone," Hoffman's family said in a statement issued through his publicist.</div>
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"This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers," it added. A representative said the family would not make any further statements for now.</div>
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Onlookers gathered on Sunday afternoon near Hoffman's apartment in a four-story red brick building in a fashionable neighborhood of the West Village, where many other actors keep homes. The entire block was cordoned off by police.</div>
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Rachel Melman, a neighbor who described herself as a fan, said she frequently saw him around the neighborhood.</div>
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"I never spoke to him, but I always wanted to," she said, adding that she would see him sitting on the scaffolding of the building, often dressed in socks and no shoes, "just reading and hanging out out there.</div>
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"Of course I'm sad. It was such a shocker," she said.</div>
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CNN, citing a law enforcement official, reported that Hoffman was last seen alive at 8 p.m. Saturday. He had been expected to pick up his children on Sunday but failed to show up, prompting playwright David Katz and another person to go to his apartment, where they found him dead, CNN said.</div>
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Hoffman spoke in the past of struggling with drugs, including a 2006 interview in which he told CBS he had abused "anything I could get my hands on. I liked it all."</div>
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His death, if confirmed from an overdose, would recall the 2008 death of actor Heath Ledger, who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment from a lethal combination of drugs.</div>
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Born in upstate New York near Rochester, Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar for the 2005 biographical film "Capote," in which he played writer Truman Capote. He also received three Academy Award nominations as best supporting actor, for "The Master" in 2013, "Doubt" in 2009 and "Charlie Wilson's War" in 2008.</div>
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After more than a dozen earlier roles, Hoffman burst onto the film scene in 1997's "Boogie Nights," in which he played a lovelorn gay man in a movie about the porn industry that helped make Mark Wahlberg a star.</div>
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PORTRAYED DISTURBING CHARACTERS</div>
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Hoffman appeared in blockbusters such as "Twister" and "The Hunger Games" series. But he was more often associated with the independent film world for his intense portrayals of often disturbing and complex characters in such films as "Happiness," in which he played an obscene phone caller, and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."</div>
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In the latter, he played a son who schemes to rob his parents' jewelry store, resulting in their deaths. Hoffman could also play nice, as in his portrayal of an angelic nurse in "Magnolia."</div>
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Other noteworthy films included "Moneyball," "The Savages," "Cold Mountain" and "Scent of a Woman," one of his earliest films, which garnered its star, Al Pacino, an Oscar.</div>
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Lionsgate, the studio behind "The Hunger Games" called Hoffman "one of the most gifted actors of our generation."</div>
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"We're very fortunate that he graced our Hunger Games family. Losing him in his prime is a tragedy, and we send our deepest condolences to Philip's family," the studio said in a statement.</div>
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Hoffman also frequently appeared on Broadway, earning Tony award nominations for "Death of a Salesman," "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "True West."</div>
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Showtime, the cable television network which had just ordered a 10-episode comedy, "Happyish," starring Hoffman and produced by his company, Cooper's Town Productions, mourned the loss of the talented actor.</div>
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"Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of our generation's finest and most brilliant actors. He was also a gifted comedic talent. It was a great privilege and pleasure to work with him and we are all absolutely devastated by this sudden loss," it said.</div>
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Hoffman appeared last month at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah for the premiere of "A Most Wanted Man," an espionage thriller based on the John le Carre novel in which he played German spy Gunther Bachmann.</div>
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At the premiere, Hoffman told that he connected to Gunther's personality, a man driven by the shame of previous failure into an obsessive pursuit of capturing terrorists by any means necessary.</div>
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"I think it'd be hard for anyone not to connect with the loneliness. He's pretty lonely, driven, obsessive guy, unforgiving of himself in a lot of ways. A lot of traits that a lot of people carry in one grade or another," Hoffman said.</div>
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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said via Twitter: "Saddened by Philip Seymour Hoffman's tragic and untimely passing. Today New York mourns the loss of one of stage and screen's greats."</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-91600232517040622562014-02-01T07:42:00.001-08:002014-02-02T16:29:01.426-08:00Trial of Egypt's ousted leader resumes <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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Morsi has consistently insisted that he remains president, part of his Muslim Brotherhood's broader strategy of defying the authority of Egypt's new military-backed government at every turn. He was held in a soundproof glass cage in Saturday's hearing and could only address the court directly if the judge allowed it.</div>
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The trial is one of four that Morsi and top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood face. The charges levelled against them mostly carry the death penalty. Saturday's hearing was adjourned until Tuesday to allow time for the creation of a panel of experts to examine video footage presented by the prosecution as evidence.</div>
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Morsi was ousted by a military coup on July 3 that followed millions-strong demonstrations calling on him to leave office. He is now held at a high security prison near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.</div>
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The case stems from violence outside the presidential palace in December 2012. Morsi's supporters attacked opposition protesters, sparking clashes that killed at least 10 people. The defendants are charged with inciting the killing of three of those protesters.</div>
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Egyptian security forces try to disperse supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi p …</div>
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Morsi's three other trials are on charges of escaping from prison during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak's rule; conspiracy with foreign militant groups to harm Egypt's national security; and insulting the judiciary.</div>
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El-Awah contended that if Morsi was not formally dismissed, then he remains the legitimate president to this day and thus the law governing the trial of serving presidents must be observed, according to an account of the proceedings issued by the Egyptian Middle East News Agency.</div>
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Morsi and most of the defendants turned their backs to the court when Judge Ahmed Sabry Youssef played several video recordings of the clashes outside the palace in 2012. Morsi, however, remained mostly calm as he stood in his glass cage in contrast to his outbursts during two previous court appearances In November and last week.</div>
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Anti-Morsi protesters outside the police academy briefly surrounded el-Awah's car as it approached the police academy's gate. Some pounded on the car while others yelled insults.</div>
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El-Awah, a former presidential candidate, was unhurt and later stepped out of the car to complain to a senior police officer.</div>
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Egyptian security forces try to disperse supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi p …</div>
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Egypt has been rocked by a wave of deadly violence since Morsi's ouster, with the army and security forces facing a full-blown insurgency in the Sinai peninsula. The violence has spread to mainland Egypt, with attacks on high profile targets in Cairo growing more frequent.</div>
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There also have been near-daily protests by Morsi's supporters. Marchers sometimes carry firearms and use them against security forces, with witness reports suggesting that this is becoming more frequent.</div>
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The military-backed government has meanwhile been cracking down on the Brotherhood and its allies, killing hundreds and jailing thousands since July.</div>
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In the latest violence, the Health Ministry on Saturday said one person was killed in Cairo and 35 were wounded in clashes on the previous day between police and Morsi's supporters in Cairo and several other cities.</div>
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Also Saturday, a new Egyptian militant jihadi group issued its first statement, claiming responsibility for planting explosives and attacking security men and police stations.</div>
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In a statement posted on a militant website late Friday, Ajnad Misr, or Egypt's Soldiers, said it will fight the "regime's criminal organs," which it said were being used to humiliate the people and prevent them from performing religious duties.</div>
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It said it planted and detonated two explosive devices on a main highway on Cairo's outskirts Friday. Interior Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said the explosion hit a vehicle carrying riot police and wounded an officer.</div>
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Earlier this week, the major Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis or Champions of Jerusalem, said that that Ajnad Misr was responsible for one of four bomb attacks targeting police in Cairo on Jan. 24. Police said the blast at Talbiya police station caused no casualties.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-79748254243376988242014-01-20T05:39:00.000-08:002014-01-20T05:39:42.542-08:00Christie speaks, and looks for lessons <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><img alt="New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks to media and homeowners about the ongoing recovery from Hurricane Sandy in Manahawkin, New Jersey" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/0cWQoIUk9fyjUmaYbHsaRQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQzNjtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NTU-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-01-16T174939Z_2126315208_GM1EA1H04V601_RTRMADP_3_USA.JPG" /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">“I will learn things from this,” Chris Christie told me last Friday, a little more than a week after he gave the News Conference to End All News Conferences, and a few days after the cable channels covered his annual address to the legislature in Trenton as if it were Nixon waving from the helicopter. “I know I will. I don’t know exactly what it is yet that I’ll learn from it. But when I get the whole story and really try to understand what’s going on here, I know I’m going to learn things.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">We were sitting in a conference room at a training center for high-tech jobs in Camden, down the street from where Christie had just sworn in a Supreme Court justice. This was his first interview since he had publicly declared himself “embarrassed and humiliated” by the disclosure that his aides had conspired to snarl traffic on the George Washington Bridge, and Christie, who fiddled with a half-eaten pack of vending-machine muffins, seemed more subdued than usual. He described his state of mind, after hearing about the incriminating e-mails from one of his closest aides, as “completely disorienting, like I got hit across the forehead with a 2x4.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">He said he hadn’t watched the song parody that his hero Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Fallon threw together (singing “Governor Chris Christie Fort Lee, New Jersey traffic jam” in the place of “tramps like us, baby we were born to run”). But he’d gotten a direct message on Twitter from Fallon assuring him it was all in good fun, and his oldest son told him, “It’s actually kind of cool to have Bruce saying your name.” Christie said he wasn’t angry about it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">In fact, Christie went out of his way several times to assure me he was</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><em style="font-style: italic;">not</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">angry and was not an angry person, even though I hadn’t suggested he was. “It doesn’t mean I don’t get angry – everybody gets angry,” he said. “But they confuse sometimes, if you’re blunt and you’re direct and you just say things the way you see them, that that’s anger. More times than not it’s not anger with me. It’s just my personality.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">“So I’m going to learn from this,” he went on. “I can’t tell you yet what it is I’m going to learn. But I am intent on learning from this.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Christie’s gleeful critics – they are legion, and they are fierce – would suggest that the only lesson in all of this for Christie is that he is a bad governor (and probably a bad person, too), and that that the full truth of his involvement is yet to be known. His backers would tell you (as they told</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><em style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Sunday) that Christie just has to be less loyal to longtime aides who do shady business in his name.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">But if we’re going to be more thoughtful about it, this question of what exactly Christie should take away from this scandal – assuming, for the moment, that he’s being truthful when he says he knew nothing about it – is a little more complex.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">The revelations about traffic inconveniences came at a particularly inconvenient time for Christie. This month, he took over as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, making him the face of what has traditionally been an influential leadership bloc in the party. Christie had planned to use his State of the State address last week, and the inaugural speech he will give Tuesday, to preview the message that he thinks could make him a top-tier contender for the Republican nomination in 2016.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">That message is all about finding bipartisan solutions, in contrast to the intransigence in Washington. “We cannot fall victim to the attitude of Washington, D.C, the attitude that says I am always right and you are always wrong,” Christie plans to tell his inaugural audience. “The attitude that puts everyone into a box they are not permitted to leave. The attitude that puts political wins ahead of policy agreements. The belief that compromise is a dirty word.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Christie, who talked about fostering an “attitude of choice” in his State of the State Address last week, told me he had the same message for his fellow Republicans nationally. “You can make a choice to be just rhetorical, to say this is my position and this is my line in the sand and all the rest of that stuff, and be damned to whether that gets governance done or not,” he said. “Or you can say all that stuff, but also say in the back of my mind there’s going to be a place where I can reach accommodation. I’m asking them to choose to govern.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Christie’s detractors see this version of bipartisanship as a sham, perpetrated by a handful of Democrats who have allowed themselves to be intimidated. But the record in New Jersey, which has long been one of the most recklessly governed states in the country, would indicate there’s more to it than that. During Christie’s first term, he and New Jersey’s mostly Democratic legislature managed to reform the system for financing public pensions, cap growth in property taxes and extend in-state college tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants, even as they worked together – mostly, anyway – to blunt the effects of a killer hurricane. There aren’t many governors in America who wouldn’t trade for those talking points.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Christie’s strategy has been remarkably consistent, and more sophisticated than it might seem to the casual observer. He is a public bully and a private dealmaker, a guy who bludgeons his opponents into as weak a bargaining position as he can before staking out his own compromise behind closed doors. It’s good theater, followed often, though not always, by good policy.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Someone should probably write a book about Christie’s tumultuous, almost sibling-like relationship with the powerful president of the New Jersey Senate, Stephen Sweeney, a labor Democrat who has called the governor a “punk” and threatened to hit him – and that was just in one week. In the end, the two men, similar in temperament, have repeatedly returned to Christie’s conference table and forged one of the more functional political partnerships anywhere.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">“Part of politics is trying to have sharp elbows publicly in order to make a deal privately,” Christie told me. “And if you don’t have the willingness and ability to do that, then the opportunity to make deals privately that benefit the public become much more difficult in my view, and in my experience.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Here’s the problem, though: even if Christie is as shocked by the revelations as he says, what Fort Lee made clear is that, after four years of this, all those public “sharp elbows” have begun to overtake the private pragmatism. After the viral videos of Christie dressing down constituents and the insults casually tossed around like Frisbees on the shore, it’s apparently gotten hard for Christie’s own aides and allies (some of whom, it seems, aren’t quite as bright as the governor to begin with) to discern where the theatrics leave off and the governance begins.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">The bridge fiasco, featuring that horrendous e-mail in which a Christie ally mocked the bus-riding children of Democratic voters, is an extreme case. But now you have the Democratic mayor of Hoboken saying Christie’s lieutenant governor threatened to pull back hurricane relief to force her hand on a real estate development. And you can bet there will be more stories like this in the weeks ahead, stories of aides who thought they were channeling the boss, because their concept of the boss, more and more, resembles Tony Soprano.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">In politics, as in life, your greatest strengths almost always become, eventually, your most glaring weaknesses. Think of Christie’s pal Rudy Giuliani, who managed to clean up the streets of New York by leaning on his cops, and then leaned so hard and so long that eventually a lot of non-white New Yorkers were afraid of their own police force. Or Barack Obama, who’s cool, “no-drama” demeanor was considered a major asset until congressmen started complaining he wasn’t passionate or needy enough.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">“I think I’m a fairly good politician,” Christie told me, in defense of his rhetorical style. But the best at his craft learn, sooner or later, to rein in and recalibrate the things that work for them, especially if they entertain thoughts of the White House. “I think it is most likely that the next Republican nominee for president will be a governor,” Christie told me. I reminded him that in 2011 he had told me he didn’t feel ready to be president, and asked about now. “Yeah. I’m readi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><em style="font-style: italic;">er</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">, if that’s a word,” Christie said.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">It is. And the experience of the past few weeks may help to make him readier still, but only if the worst revelations are now behind him, and only if he takes the deeper lesson from them. Only if he figures out some way to preserve the blunt persona that got him here, without letting that persona overwhelm the political philosophy that underlies his accomplishments.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">On Friday, Christie didn’t sound like a guy who intended to revisit his style. “I’m not growing a new personality at 51,” he said. I reminded him that politicians do it all the time. “Not me, man,” he laughed. “This is it. I like who I am.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">But Christie admitted the public pummeling had seared him. “I don’t think anybody knows what it feels like to have the kind of attention that I’ve had in the last nine days until you go through it,” he said near the end of our interview, sounding spent. “It’s awful. Listen, it’s awful. I can explain to you as vividly as you like, but you won’t get it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">“I’m trying to get my arms around an awful situation,” he sighed, “and understand it, and then address it, and then resolve it.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Chris Christie vows he’ll learn something. And then the rest of us will learn something about whether he’s a great politician, or just a fairly good one.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-48618191932641657412014-01-20T05:23:00.000-08:002014-01-20T05:23:34.291-08:00Syria's Assad: Tough to explain war to my children <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="A picture by the opposition Local coordination Committees in Syria (LCC) purportedly shows people standing around a mass grave in the town of Taftnaz, on April 5, 2012" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/l1S8T0kPialnATMG69a6Fg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQzMTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz03Njg-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/cb14ff3053ac0bb5812ae6c3d21703ca3016d611.jpg" /></div>
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Damascus - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been locked in a bloody war for nearly three years, in an exclusive interview he finds it hard to explain the conflict to his children.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a data-rapid_p="5" data-ylk="itc:0;tar:news.yahoo.com;ct:1;sec:lst-ct;cpos:5;test:;g:56c73246-9515-38c5-bb68-6a851f1a5f49;pkgt:2;prov:AFP;" href="http://news.yahoo.com/defected-syria-pm-39-could-become-opposition-president-184935567.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; margin-right: 6px; text-decoration: none;"><br /></a></span></h2>
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Speaking from the plush surroundings of his presidential palace in Damascus, the Syrian leader appeared at ease, smiling as he spoke.</div>
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He said he neither lived nor worked in the vast palace, finding it too large, and preferred to be at his office elsewhere in town, or at home.</div>
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"There are a few things that haven't changed," he said, when asked how the brutal conflict has changed his daily life.</div>
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"I go to work as usual and we live in the same house as before, and the children go to school. These things haven't changed," he said in the interview conducted on Sunday.</div>
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But he acknowledged that the war had intruded on his family's life in some ways, adding that "children are affected more deeply than adults in these circumstances".</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="8" data-uuid="560b10f0-73de-39a1-9f7c-0ace277a784d" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/picture-released-january-20-2014-syrian-president-bashar-photo-103249154.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="In a picture released on January 20, 2014, Syrian President&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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In a picture released on January 20, 2014, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an intervi …</div>
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"There are questions put to you by children about the causes of what's happening, that you don't usually deal with in normal circumstances," said Assad, a father of three.</div>
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"Why are there such evil people? Why are there victims? It's not easy to explain these things to children, but they remain persistent daily questions and a subject of discussion in every family, including my own."</div>
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He said the war, which has killed more than 130,000 people according to one NGO's tally, had forced children to "grow up too early and mature much faster".</div>
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And he added that sadness "lives with us every day, all the time, because of what we see and experience, because of the pain, because of the fallen victims everywhere and the destruction of the infrastructure and the economy".</div>
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"This has affected every family in Syria, including my own," he said.</div>
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Assad's wife Asma was raised in London, where her parents still live, and there have been occasional rumours that she has fled Damascus for Britain.</div>
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Assad said he had never considered leaving the country throughout the conflict.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-71316849417798290422014-01-20T05:18:00.001-08:002014-01-20T05:18:46.826-08:00Malaysia's God problem erupts, tarnishing moderate image <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="A priest and altar boys walk down the aisle after prayers were conducted during a mass service inside the church of Our Lady of Lourdes at Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur" src="http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tWk1Lq073wlsiviA1wtbuQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI0ODtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-01-19T211100Z_1_CBREA0I1MUO00_RTROPTP_2_RELGION-MALAYSIA.JPG" /></div>
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KUALA LUMPUR - The Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church seems like a model for the multicultural, tolerant Malaysia that its government likes to present to the outside world.</div>
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An ethnic Chinese priest conducts the service in the Malay language to a congregation made up of migrants from the country's eastern Borneo island states along with a handful of Vietnamese immigrants.</div>
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But it takes only a few minutes for the worshippers to utter the Malay and Arabic word for God that has become a festering source of contention in the Muslim-majority country, deepening ethnic divisions and tarnishing its moderate image.</div>
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"We believe in Allah, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth," the 300 or so faithful chant.</div>
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A long tussle over who can say "Allah" in Malaysia has flared anew, as Islamization that many see as driven by political forces threatens to erode the secular constitution and minority rights in the ethnically diverse country following a divisive election last year.</div>
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A court ruling last October in favor of the government's case that Allah is exclusive to Muslims was followed this month by the seizure of more than 300 Malay-language Bibles by Islamic authorities using a little-known state law.</div>
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A woman prays inside the church of Our Lady of Lourdes at Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur January 12, 20 …</div>
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Lawyers say the row now threatens to become a constitutional crisis as the federal charter's guarantee of religious freedom is challenged by more assertive enforcement of little-used state laws and decrees by Malaysia's royal sultans - who have the authority to appoint clerics and instruct religious police.</div>
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The crisis appeared to deepen on Sunday when Malaysia's king, regarded as the defender of the Islamic faith, gave his backing to the October court ruling, the first time the largely ceremonial head of state has weighed in on the issue.</div>
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Malaysian police have recommended prominent Catholic priest Lawrence Andrew be charged with sedition for saying churches would keep saying Allah in Selangor, Malaysia's most populous and richest state which neighbors the capital Kuala Lumpur.</div>
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The tussle over the right to use the word is uniquely Malaysian, bemusing many religious scholars even in countries with a reputation for much stricter Islam.</div>
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"When I go through Facebook you can see people are saying Malaysia is being such a funny country, we have become the laughter of the world," said Richenda Raphael, a 25-year-old worshipper at the Catholic Mass.</div>
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"In Saudi Arabia all people can use the Allah word, but here we can't. We should stop this," said Raphael, who moved to Kuala Lumpur from the Borneo state of Sabah five years ago.</div>
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A woman prays inside the church of Our Lady of Lourdes at Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur January 12, 20 …</div>
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The latest bout of tension, and confusion, over the word was triggered by a court ruling in October that Andrew's Catholic newspaper could not use Allah because it was not "an integral part of the faith in Christianity". A federal court will hear an appeal by the Catholic Church in March.</div>
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Government ministers have said the word could still be used in eastern Sabah and Sarawak states, where most of Malaysia's Christians live, but the ruling has left doubt over whether it can be used in the peninsula, to where many Christians have migrated. Christians make up about 9 percent of Malaysia's 29 million people.</div>
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The unprecedented raid to confiscate Bbibles this month was based on a 1988 state law in Selangor that restricts more than 30 Arabic words and phrases to Muslims.</div>
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MIXING POLITICS AND RELIGION</div>
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Those who support Muslims' exclusive right to the word have justified it by saying that its use by Christians could confuse Muslims and be used to convert them to Christianity.</div>
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At one of a series of public events to defend the ban in Selangor state, Islamic and ruling party officials said Andrew had inflamed the issue and flouted state law with his comment that Christians would keep saying Allah. An effigy of the priest was reportedly burned at a recent protest by Muslims.</div>
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An altar boy prays during a mass service inside the church of Our Lady of Lourdes at Klang, outside …</div>
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"It is part and parcel of the uniqueness of Malaysia," said Hamidzun Khairuddin, a 47-year-old Muslim resident who came to watch the sparsely attended event by the side of a football field. "Everybody has to respect other religions."</div>
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A large number of Islamic scholars say Allah is not exclusive to Muslims. Many have noted that Allah is not a name, with a literal meaning in Arabic of "the God". The term predates the founding of Islam and the Quran does not prohibit other religions from using it.</div>
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Critics say Prime Minister Najib Razak's government, which is under pressure over a jump in living costs as it cuts fuel and food subsidies, has given confusing signals on the issue and at worst encouraged conservative Islamist elements within the long-ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).</div>
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The government has tilted away from liberal reforms and catered more to UMNO and Islamic traditionalists since last May's unconvincing election win, in which ethnic Chinese voters and many urban Malays deserted the long-ruling coalition.</div>
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While promoting his anti-extremist Global Movement of Moderates on foreign trips, at home Najib has allowed senior party members and ministers to sharply raise their rhetoric against perceived threats to mainstream Islam. The interior ministry this month banned a prominent civil society group, partly because some of its members were deemed un-Islamic.</div>
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"They have totally abdicated their responsibility to provide leadership at a time of crisis," said Andrew Khoo, co-chairman of the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee.</div>
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"Malaysia's international reputation must be suffering as a result of this."</div>
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Najib - whose cabinet endorsed a 10-point plan in 2011 that allowed the importation and publication of Bibles in Malay - has not mentioned that agreement, calling for the dispute to be settled using "the rule of law and dialogue as well as mutual respect". The plan was announced after arsonists firebombed several churches in 2010 over an initial ruling that allowed the Catholic newspaper to use the Arabic word.</div>
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The three-party opposition has also not made a united condemnation of the January 2 seizure of Bibles from a Christian group.</div>
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That reflects the political risks of appearing not to defend Islam. A survey by the University of Malaya found that 77 percent of Malays, who are Muslim and make up about 60 percent of the population, felt Allah should not be used by other religions.</div>
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"It's a collective failure of the whole system of maintaining balance and good sense between the different races and religious groups," said Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, associate professor of political science at Universiti Sains Malaysia.</div>
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That has left Christian worshippers in Selangor and other states in limbo over what they see as an integral part of their faith. The worshippers at Our Lady of Lourdes church said the word had been second nature to them and their only way to refer to God since their childhoods in Borneo.</div>
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"I don't like the Malaysian system where politics is mixed with the religious because these are two different things and very sensitive," said Frendie Aloysius, a 29-year-old customs officer, after attending Mass.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-87630601877770545062014-01-20T05:11:00.000-08:002014-01-20T05:11:03.671-08:00Ukraine protesters, police in tense standoff after clashes <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="A protester throws a stone towards a burning police bus in front of him, during clashes with police, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014. Hundreds of protesters on Sunday clashed with riot police in the center of the Ukrainian capital, after the passage of harsh anti-protest legislation last week seen as part of attempts to quash anti-government demonstrations. The violent scenes further escalated this ex-Soviet republic?s political crisis and showed a rift among opposition leaders, one of whom fought bravely to stop the violence, while others condemned the events from afar. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman)" src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/fcrtuZ15L0MXcc6EcoIbew--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MTQzOTtjcj0xO2N3PTIxNjI7ZHg9MDtkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTQzNjtxPTc1O3c9NjU1/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/e0655ac3b0986102490f6a706700ef31.jpg" /></div>
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Kiev - Opposition protesters were Monday locked in a tense standoff with Ukrainian security forces in Kiev after hours of unprecedented clashes deep into the night left dozens wounded and parts of the centre resembling a battlefield.</div>
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The clashes, the worst in Kiev in recent times, came amid mounting anger over new restrictions on protests ordered by President Viktor Yanukovych after almost two months of protests over his refusal to sign a pact for integration with the EU.</div>
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A special commission set up by Yanukovych was due Monday to meet representatives of the opposition for emergency talks but it was unclear if this could in any way help ease the crisis.</div>
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In near apocalyptic scenes close to parliament, several police buses and vehicles were torched by the protesters who hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the ranks of the security forces. Police responded with tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannon.</div>
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The White House urged an end to the violence, with US National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden saying that Washington was deeply concerned and urging "all sides to immediately de-escalate the situation".</div>
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The spokeswoman warned that Washington was still considering sanctions against Ukrainian officials, a step urged by the Ukrainian opposition. "The US will continue to consider additional steps -- including sanctions -- in response to the use of violence."</div>
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After intense clashes continued into the early hours of Monday morning, the situation was calmer at 0700 GMT but hundreds of protesters who had spent the night in temperatures of minus 10 degrees Celsius were still out on the streets.</div>
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However the situation remained tense with protesters launching occasional sorties at the police line to throw stones or Molotov cocktails.</div>
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Clashes broke out in Kiev after large crowds of demonstrators rallied in Ukraine’s capital on Janu …</div>
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Police use water cannon, fire rubber bullets</div>
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After a peaceful mass rally in the afternoon, hundreds of demonstrators sought to storm police cordons near the Verkhovna Rada parliament and close to the stadium of the legendary Dynamo Kiev football club in central Kiev, witnesses and AFP correspondents said.</div>
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In the most violent scenes since the start of the protests in November, demonstrators set five buses and two trucks on fire while the air filled with the stench of tear gas.</div>
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Their faces covered by scarves or ski masks, many of the protesters wielded sticks or even chains. Later in the night, they began to dig the cobble stones out of the road to hurl at police and use as barricades.</div>
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The security forces made extensive use of water cannon in a bid to douse the protesters and push them back and used rubber bullets which activists said left dozens injured.</div>
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Head of UDAR (Punch) party and one of the leaders of the opposition Vitali Klitschko (C) tries to st …</div>
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Ukrainian opposition television broadcast pictures of two young men who it said were stripped naked by the security forces and then peppered with rubber bullets.</div>
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Health officials said 24 people were injured and three were hospitalised, while police said more than 70 officers had been hurt. The interior ministry said 20 people had been arrested for mass rioting.</div>
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Opposition leaders, including former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, called on the protesters to refrain from using force but their calls were ignored.</div>
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It was not clear who was behind the clashes with police, which appeared to have been a well-organised move. Ukrainian media linked the action to a hitherto little-known right-wing youth group called "Right Sector".</div>
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Amid the chaos of the clashes, Klitschko was sprayed with powder from a fire extinguisher, leaving his eyes irritated and face and clothes covered in white powder.</div>
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Special commission to meet opposition</div>
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In an apparent attempt to find a compromise, Klitschko travelled to the president's luxurious Mezhygirya residence outside Kiev to meet Yanukovych in person.</div>
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The president received Klitschko and promised early Monday to create a special commission of officials set up by national security council secretary Andriy Klyuyev to solve the crisis, the boxer's party and the presidency announced. The presidency said the new commission would meet the opposition on Monday.</div>
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Klitschko told online television channel Hromadske TV that the president had appeared "very concerned" by the latest events but also pointedly ignored the opposition's main demand for early elections.</div>
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In the afternoon, some 200,000 people had filled Kiev's Independence Square and surrounding streets for a new mass rally in defiance of new strict curbs on protests passed by lawmakers in a show of hands last week and signed into law by Yanukovych.</div>
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The new laws allow the authorities to jail those who blockade public buildings for up to five years and permit the arrest of protesters who wear masks or helmets. Other provisions ban the dissemination of "slander" on the Internet.</div>
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Protesters expressed frustration at the rally over the lack of a clear programme from the opposition leaders after almost two months of protests, whistling and heckling the opposition leaders during the main rally for their perceived inability to mount a stronger challenge.</div>
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Yanukovych's arch nemesis Yulia Tymoshenko remains in jail, while the protest leadership appears riven by rivalries ahead of presidential election next year.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-18749316067841293282014-01-20T03:00:00.001-08:002014-01-20T03:00:31.125-08:00Syria opposition threatens talks boycott over Iran invite <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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UNITED NATIONS (United States) - A furious Syrian opposition threatened Monday to pull out of this week's peace conference and the United States issued a warning after the United Nations invited Iran to the talks.</div>
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<br />But the Syrian National Coalition promptly said it would withdraw from the negotiations unless the invitation to Iran -- a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- was retracted.UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he made the late invitation to the talks in Switzerland from Wednesday after Tehran pledged to play a "positive and constructive role" in efforts to end Syria's worsening three-year civil war.</div>
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And the United States also weighed in, urging Iran to back calls for a transitional government in Syria or lose the invitation.</div>
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If Iran does go, there will be 40 countries and a group of regional bodies at the opening meeting, which will be the most intensive diplomatic effort yet to end a war that the UN says has left well over 100,000 dead.</div>
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Talks between Assad's government and the opposition are due to start in Geneva on Friday.</div>
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Syrian refugees get into a car with their belongings after crossing the Syrian border into Turkey on …</div>
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Ban told a news conference he extended a late invitation to Tehran after intense talks over two days with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.</div>
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"Foreign Minister Zarif and I agree that the goal of the negotiations is to establish, by mutual consent, a transitional governing body with full executive powers," Ban told reporters.</div>
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"He assured me again and again that Iran, if they are invited, then they will play a very positive and constructive role," the UN secretary-general added.</div>
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But Louay Safi, spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, which only decided on Saturday to attend the conference, announced on the group's Twitter account that the opposition would withdraw "unless Ban Ki-moon retracts Iran's invitation".</div>
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The threat came only hours after international leaders had hailed the coalition's decision to take part in negotiations.</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="9" data-uuid="8a976c5c-bacf-36db-9b7b-a0a453729485" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/iran-39-foreign-minister-mohammad-javad-zarif-speaks-photo-000313539.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="Iran&#39;s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks in Moscow on January 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ser …</div>
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The United States and other Western powers had opposed Iran's attendance at the meeting as long as it refused to accept a communique adopted by the major powers in Geneva on June 30, 2012, calling for a transitional government in Syria.</div>
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Washington made a new call for a clear signal from Tehran, a financial and military supporter of Assad, that it back efforts to set up a transitional government.</div>
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"The United States views the UN secretary-general's invitation to Iran to attend the upcoming Geneva conference as conditioned on Iran's explicit and public support for the full implementation of the Geneva communique," US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.</div>
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"This is something Iran has never done publicly and something we have long made clear is required."</div>
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Up until Ban's announcement on Sunday, Iran had only said it would go to the peace talks if there was an invitation without conditions.</div>
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Syrian opposition fighters fire at government planes flying overhead in the northern city of Aleppo …</div>
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Ban, who had joined Russia in supporting Tehran's presence, said he expected some kind of statement by the Iranian government.</div>
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"I believe strongly that Iran needs to be part of the solution to the Syrian crisis," he said.</div>
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Ban said that, as host of the peace conference, he also extended last-minute invitations to Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Korea and the Vatican.</div>
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He said the additional countries would be "an important and useful show of solidarity in advance of the hard work that the Syrian government and opposition delegations will begin".</div>
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'This violence must stop'</div>
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The United States and Russia played key roles convincing the opposition and Assad to send delegations to the conference, which has been pushed back several times.</div>
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They will attend alongside the other permanent members of the UN Security Council -- China, Britain and France -- and additional countries suffering fallout from the war, including Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.</div>
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Ban said it was vital for the ministers at the meeting to urge the Syrian protagonists "to act and negotiate in good faith for their own future".</div>
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"This violence must stop for humanity and for the future of Syrians," said the head of the United Nations, which has launched its biggest ever operation to help refugees from the conflict and millions inside Syria who have been left homeless and without food.</div>
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More than 2.3 million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million are displaced inside Syria.</div>
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At least 30 people died there in violence Sunday, including 15 killed when government planes dropped barrel bombs on rebel zones in the northern province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-86186466751008607572014-01-09T07:40:00.000-08:002014-01-09T07:40:28.419-08:00Why Republicans are going on offense about poverty <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Cuban-American, speaks about the “American dream” on the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s first State of the Union address in 1964, where LBJ committed the government to a war on poverty, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rubio’s speech was hosted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/xsZdkuT__kXtZZR.y3fmnA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY3MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/56afe71e24b65c01480f6a70670073af.jpg" /></div>
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After years of emphasizing austerity, Republicans are leaping to discuss ways the government can help alleviate poverty. The apparent shift in emphasis has a convenient hook — this week marked the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" — but there is another, more pressing, political reason for the interest in the topic on the right.</div>
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Congressional Democrats are preparing an intense campaign to highlight wage inequality and solutions to ease the effects of the Great Recession. The Senate this week approved a procedural motion to open debate on extending unemployment insurance, but most Republicans voted against it because the cost was not offset elsewhere in the budget. The chamber intends to hold another vote to increase the minimum wage next month, two senior Democratic Senate aides told Yahoo News. Democrats know Republicans will resist. Sensing a wedge issue they can win on in an election year, Democrats intend to bludgeon them as out of touch and uncompassionate. </div>
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Republicans know this is coming, and they don't want to be caught flat-footed and portrayed again as merely the “Party of No.” So they're going on the offensive. </div>
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In back-to-back speeches in Washington on Wednesday, House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor argued for giving state and local governments more control over education dollars; and Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio called for dismantling federal programs aimed at reducing poverty by turning money over to states. Next week, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan will speak about his own poverty initiatives at a Brookings Institution summit. Late last year, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah outlined other proposals to increase upward mobility among the working class. </div>
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Combined, their efforts give Republicans a platform in the inevitable debates over income inequality and poverty. But it will be difficult for them to change their image overnight. In many ways, the party remains haunted by the still-lingering shadow of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who had particular trouble discussing issues of poverty. On the campaign trail in 2012, Republicans collectively winced when Romney said he wasn’t “concerned about the very poor,” for instance, wording he surely regretted later. His belief that he could “never convince” Americans who receive government assistance that “they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives," was a seriously injurious unforced error.</div>
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Of course, other Republicans deserve share of the blame as well. Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, Republicans have focused on restraining the president's liberal ambitions and adopted policies of austerity. From the repeated approval of welfare-cutting budgets written by Ryan to votes to eliminate entire programs, the Republicans' intended message of economic growth has been clouded by their tea party-driven calls for cuts.<br /><br />On the messaging front, the party has spent much of 2013 working to repair the damage to the GOP brand caused by comments like Romney's. Since the election, lawmakers in the party have worked to refine the way they speak about issues and have worked to craft a series of policies built around an anti-poverty agenda.<br /><br />In his speech Wednesday, Cantor promoted school choice programs and went as far as to call on the Senate to adopt a bill called the “Student Success Act,” which passed the House last year and is intended to make it easier for students to leave failing public schools. The bill is part of a larger "Making Life Work" initiative he rolled out last February.<br /><br />“For many families, living in poverty spans generations. Parents and grandparents struggled to realize the American dream. School choice is the surest way to break this vicious cycle of poverty, and we must act fast before it is too late for too many,” Cantor said.<br /><br />Rubio delivered his remarks on Capitol Hill right after Cantor, explaining a proposal that would transfer money spent on federal anti-poverty programs to the states through a system of grants, allowing state governments to tailor them to the needs of each region. During his speech, Rubio criticized proposals to raise the minimum wage as not addressing the root causes of poverty.<br /><br />“Our current government programs at best offer only a partial solution. They help people deal with poverty, but they do not help people emerge from poverty,” Rubio said. The only solution that will achieve meaningful and lasting results is to provide those who are stuck in low paying jobs the real opportunity to move up to better paying jobs. And to do this we have to focus on policies that help our economy create those jobs and that help people overcome the obstacles between them and those jobs. The War on Poverty accomplished neither of these two things.<br /><br />In a speech last month in Detroit on similar themes, Paul called for creating “economic freedom zones” to spur economic development in the struggling city and Lee outlined a series of conservative reforms he argued would help alleviate poverty and promote upward mobility.<br /><br />Despite these efforts, Democrats clearly still feel confident enough that Republicans will struggle when discussing these issues, and that they can put points on the board by keeping the debate alive.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-86860487634371400482014-01-09T07:33:00.001-08:002014-01-09T07:33:35.959-08:00New Jersey governor, enmeshed in scandal, to meet press <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addresses a gathering in Union City, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014. A top aide to Christie is linked through emails and text messages to a seemingly deliberate plan to create traffic gridlock in a town at the base of the George Washington Bridge after its mayor refused to endorse Christie for re-election. Christie, who has denied any knowledge of the plan, released a statement late Wednesday. &ldquo;What I've seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.&rdquo; (AP Photo/Mel Evans)" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/xbdfBh7OWMIYJ9b26NI7lg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQ2NztweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NTU-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/6c96744825255e01480f6a706700098c.jpg" /></div>
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NEW YORK - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a possible Republican White House contender enmeshed in a scandal over his staff's role in shutting down lanes onto the busy George Washington Bridge, will meet with reporters Thursday, his office said.</div>
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Christie will hold a news conference at his office in the state capital of Trenton at 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).</div>
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The controversy erupted with the public release of incriminating emails showing that a top Christie aide played a key role in closing some lanes to the bridge, in a ploy to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, who didn't endorse Christie for re-election.</div>
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The George Washington Bridge, one of the busiest spans in the world, connects New York City to Fort Lee.</div>
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The incident threatens to tarnish Christie's image and national standing as he weighs a 2016 bid for the White House.</div>
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In an editorial, New York's Daily News pronounced Christie's presidential ambitions as "all but kaput."</div>
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"He will be lambasted and lampooned as a man of low character and horrible judgment," the newspaper wrote. "Take his denials of knowledge with skepticism, and the man is a monster."</div>
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Taking a poke at Christie's heft and aspirations, the Daily News front page headline read: "Fat chance now, Chris."</div>
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After the emails were released, Christie said in a written statement on Wednesday that he had been misled by his staff and knew nothing of the lane closings before they occurred.</div>
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He said he was "outraged" and unsanctioned conduct" and vowed to hold people "responsible for their actions."</div>
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<a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="8" data-uuid="ee67fba6-a4af-3407-880e-8fd91b82c71d" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/file-photo-jersey-governor-christie-speaking-reopening-ceremony-photo-053613992.html" style="color: #324fe1; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="File photo of New Jersey Governor Christie speaking&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;">
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<img alt="File photo of New Jersey Governor Christie speaking&nbsp;&hellip;" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="205" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/GbgkhL937Nq66sb8p94iMA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIwNTtxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-01-09T053613Z_1390097909_GM1EA1911L601_RTRMADP_3_USA-NEWJERSEY-BRIDGE.JPG" style="-webkit-transition-delay: 0ms; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3333s; -webkit-transition-property: opacity; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div>
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks at the reopening ceremony for the Little Egg Harbor Townsh …</div>
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The abrupt lane closures, which lasted four days in September, caused hours-long traffic jams in Fort Lee.</div>
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A local newspaper reported that emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations. One involved an unconscious 91-year-old woman who later died of cardiac arrest and another, a car accident, in which four people were injured.</div>
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"The bottom line is he has to come totally clean," said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College in New York.</div>
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"The problem for Christie is that this feeds into the pre-existing narrative that Christie is a bully, that Christie is a thug," said Muzzio. "If I'm running in a primary in 2016, I'm going to be saying, 'Do you want President Vindictive?'"</div>
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Christie has touted his ability to work with political opponents - most notably President Barack Obama after the devastating Superstorm Sandy in 2012 - as a mark of his skill at overcoming partisan divisions and forging alliances to get things done.</div>
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But the blunt-talking governor is known as well for engaging in shouting matches, hurling insults and belittling challengers.</div>
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The New York Times called on Christie to explain, apologize and clean house.</div>
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"Mr. Christie can start by getting rid of every one of his aides and cronies who knew about this scheme," the Times wrote.</div>
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The Wall Street Journal said it was a test of Christie's credibility.</div>
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"America doesn't need - after a year of revelations that the IRS was turned against President Obama's opponents - another chief executive willing to condone government attacks on his political adversaries," the Journal wrote.</div>
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"And Republicans don't need a presidential nominee who fulfills the liberal stereotype that he's a political bully," it said.</div>
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In the most damning email, Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly, wrote to a Port Authority executive in August, saying: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."</div>
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The executive, David Wildstein, replied: "Got it."</div>
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In another message sent amid the gridlock, an unidentified author wrote: "Is it wrong that I'm smiling," and Wildstein responded: "No."</div>
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Christie has enjoyed immense popularity at home, particularly after his handling of recovery and rebuilding efforts following Sandy, and he was re-elected in a landslide in November.</div>
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"My prediction? The whole thing will blow over," Republican consultant Mike Murphy wrote in the Daily News. "The question is how Christie's hands-on, full-volume personality will wear with voters over time."</div>
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"Leaders with big personalities and strong appetites for unbridled authority have often done well in American politics. But some have stumbled badly," he said.</div>
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The emails were supplied to the media by Wildstein, the Port Authority executive, in response to a subpoena issued by a panel of state lawmakers. Wildstein, who admitted ordering the lane closures and resigned in December, was due to testify before the panel on Thursday.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-7531455794490980502013-12-21T07:06:00.001-08:002013-12-21T07:06:20.424-08:00BONGKAR!!! Respon Adi Putra Isu Penceraian Nooraida Abdul Mutalib <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWF-Wr6fRxvEqrBeOKRCtcN6Mi7bT_bFBr8YvQnzhAmhZpqGeaN3OZUF1k1DDJIB3uDdh_JNDAzyaEUWqPtUQcXgJnd7FsqPc5sUT4Zi-7nww3RvaxGCT1tZOlAqtBwCeAfehD6RjjlKcq/s1600/Nooraida+Abdul+Mutalib.jpg" /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Respon Adi Putra isu penceraian Nooraida Abdul Mutalib - Selepas kita dikejutkan dengan berita Nooraida Abdul Mutalib diceraikan secara mengejut suami dengan talak satu dua hari lalu, ramai peminat mula berspekulasi tentang nasib wanita itu akan datang.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Ada yang mengandaikan, Nooraida bakal menggatal dengan Adi Putra kerana tidak lagi bersuami, namun tidak kurang juga yang menyalahkan pelakon Adi Putra sebagai antara punca utama penceraian mereka.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Bercakap kepada media hari ini, aktor filem KL Gangster itu menolak untuk memberikan apa-apa komen mengenai isu penceraian Nooraida Abdul Mutalib dan Hj Amiruddin Othman kerana enggan mahu mengaibkan sesiapa.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Katanya, dia langsung tidak mengetahui mengenai penceraian Nooraida, 30, dengan ahli perniagaan Amiruddin Osman, 56, sehingga dihubungi media semalam yang memintanya memberi komen.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span><br /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-80062650550320437232013-12-21T06:50:00.000-08:002013-12-21T06:50:19.884-08:00Skuad Harimau Muda A pulang dengan tangan kosong <br />
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<img src="http://agendasemasa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/malaysia-vs-bangladesh-2012.jpg" /></div>
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NAY PYI TAW - Skuad Harimau Muda A pulang dengan tangan kosong apabila gagal merebut pingat gangsa di temasya Sukan SEA ke-27 selepas mengalami kekalahan 1-2 kepada Singapura pada perlawanan penentuan tempat ketiga dan keempat yang berlangsung di Stadium Zayar Thiri petang ini.</div>
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Corak permainan skuad negara pada babak pertama hambar yang membuka beberapa ruang kepada Singapura melakukan beberapa serangan bagi menembusi benteng pertahanan negara yang dikawal oleh Mohd Zubir Mohd Azmi dan K.Reuben.</div>
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Kecelaruan di barisan pertahanan negara membuka ruang kepada kapten pasukan Singapura Hariss Harun menjaringan gol pertama pada minit ke-14 sebelum beliau menggandakan jaringan seminit kemudian.</div>
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Peluang keemasan Malaysia menjaringkan gol pembukaan pada minit ke-33 gagal dimanafatkan oleh penyerang negara, A. Thamil Arasu apabila sepakan penalti yang dilakukanya dinafikan oleh penjaga gawang Singapura, Muhammad Izwan Mahbud.</div>
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Bersambung pada babak kedua perlawanan Malaysia yang tertekan dengan kedudukan 2-0 memperkemaskan jentera serangan dengan menggandakan serangan bagi menembusi pertahanan Singapura, namun gagal menjaringan gol.</div>
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Gawang gol Malaysia sekali lagi diuji apabila Muhammad Hafis Abu Sijad melakukan rembatan padu pada minit ke-62 namun penjaga gawang negara Mohd Izham Tarmizi Roslan bertindak pantas menyelamatkan maruah negara.</div>
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Kesilapan pada benteng pertahanan Singapura membuka peluang kepada penyerang berbisa negara, A. Thamil Arasu membuat rembatan kencang menjaringkan gol pertama negara pada minit ke-68.</div>
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Perlawanan berakhir dengan keputusan Malaysia tewas kepada Singapura 1-2.</div>
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Sementara itu jurulatih negara, Datuk Ong Kim Swee berkata beliau dan pasukan kecewa dan sedih dengan kegagalan mereka untuk membawa pulang pingat gangsa untuk negara.</div>
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"Sudah pasti kegagalan hari ini bukan hanya menghampakan harapan saya dan juga pemain tetapi turut sama rakyat Malaysia. Namun barisan pemain kita telah bermain dengan bersungguh-sungguh malam ini,” katanya kepada pemberita pada majlis sidang akhbar hari ini.</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-63304249731038711222013-12-21T06:41:00.001-08:002013-12-21T06:41:30.253-08:00Lebih 75 cedera siling teater runtuh <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"></span><br />
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<img src="http://www.kosmo.com.my/kosmo/pix/2013/1221/Kosmo/Dunia/du_01.1.jpg" /></div>
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LONDON - Serpihan plaster dan habuk menghempap penonton apabila sebahagian siling sebuah teater di sini runtuh malam kelmarin.</div>
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Pihak berkuasa menyatakan, lebih 75 orang cedera dalam kejadian itu dengan tujuh daripada mereka parah.</div>
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Kemalangan di dewan Apollo Teater itu berlaku sekitar pukul 8.15 malam semasa pementasan The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time pada cuti musim Krismas.</div>
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Polis berkata, sebahagian balkoni teater turut runtuh menghempap penonton.</div>
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"Ketika kejadian, dewan itu sesak dengan lebih 700 penonton," menurut kenyataan Jabatan Bomba London.</div>
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Beberapa pegawai memberitahu, kebanyakan mangsa cedera ringan dengan kesemuanya berada dalam keadaan sedar dan bernafas.</div>
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Pihak polis dan bomba memberitahu, masih terlalu awal untuk mengenal pasti punca kejadian tetapi siasatan penuh kemalangan itu sedang dilakukan.</div>
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Seorang saksi kejadian, Dee Stephenson berkata, dia sedang duduk berdekatan pentas apabila pelakon utama pementasan berkenaan menjerit: "Awas!".</div>
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"Kemudian saya dapat merasakan serpihan-serpihan jatuh menimpa dengan sebuah ketulan besar menghempap belakang saya," katanya.</div>
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Mangsa-mangsa yang cedera dirawat oleh berpuluh-puluh petugas kecemasan di sebatang jalan di luar teater berkenaan dan di sebuah teater berdekatan di sini.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-52888203082721854882013-12-21T06:24:00.001-08:002013-12-21T06:24:10.734-08:00APNewsBreak: US military aircraft hit in S. Sudan <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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KAMPALA, Uganda — Rebel fire hit two U.S. military aircraft responding to the outbreak in violence in South Sudan on Saturday, wounding three U.S. service members and heavily damaging at least one of the aircraft, officials said. South Sudan blamed the attack on renegade troops in control of the breakaway region.</div>
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The U.S. military aircraft were heading to Bor, the capital of the state of Jonglei and scene of some of the nation's worst violence over the last week. One American service member was reported to be in critical condition. Officials said after the aircraft took incoming fire, they turned around and headed to Kampala, Uganda. From there the service members were flown on to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment, the officials said.</div>
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Both officials demanded anonymity to share information not yet made public. Both officials work in East Africa and are in a position to know the information. It was not immediately known what the U.S. aircraft were doing in Bor. One official said it appeared the aircraft were Ospreys, the type of aircraft that can fly like a helicopter and a plane.</div>
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Officials at the U.S. military's Africa Command did not immediately answer phone calls or emails on Saturday.</div>
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South Sudan's military spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, said that government troops are not in control of Bor, so the attack on the U.S. aircraft has to be blamed on renegade soldiers, he said.</div>
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"Bor is under the control of the forces of Riek Machar," Aguer said.</div>
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In this photo released by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Force Commander Maj. G …</div>
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South Sudan President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said this week that an attempted coup triggered the violence now pulsing through South Sudan. He blamed the former vice president, Machar, an ethnic Nuer. But officials have since said a fight between Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard triggered the initial violence late Sunday night. Machar's ouster from the country's No. 2 political position earlier this year had stoked ethnic tensions.</div>
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The violence has killed hundreds and has world leaders worried that a full-blown civil war could ignite in South Sudan. The south fought a decades-long war with Sudan before a 2005 peace deal resulted in a 2011 referendum that saw South Sudan break away from the north, taking most of the region's oil wealth with it.</div>
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An International Crisis Group expert on South Sudan told on Friday that rebels have taken control of at least some of South Sudan's oil fields, an issue that could bring Sudan into the conflict. South Sudan's oil flows north through Sudan's pipelines, providing Khartoum with much needed income.</div>
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The U.N. Security Council on Friday said the weeklong violence resulted from a "political dispute among the country's political leaders" that could affect not only South Sudan, but neighboring countries and the entire region.</div>
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U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this week dispatched U.S. troops to help protect the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Juba. The U.S. Embassy organized at least five emergency evacuation flights to help U.S. citizens leave the country. Other countries like Britain, Germany and Italy also helped citizens evacuate.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-36837799296141873472013-12-13T01:03:00.000-08:002013-12-13T01:03:12.158-08:00No Grammy competition in Shelton-Lambert household <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Blake Shelton likes his odds when it comes to this year's Grammy Awards.</div>
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Shelton's "Mine Would Be You" and Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart" are both nominated for best country solo performance, doubling his chances of nabbing a golden gramophone in his home.</div>
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"I hope one of us wins that thing because I want one in my house for sure," Shelton said in an interview. "The thing about an actual Grammy is if you set it up high enough on the shelf people can't read that plaque, and if somebody comes in the house and they're like, 'You got a Grammy.' It's like, 'Yeah. Oh yeah I got one.' And they don't actually read that it's to Miranda."</div>
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Shelton has yet to win a Grammy; Lambert, his wife, won her first in 2011. Both of their tracks are also nominated for best country song, though the singers didn't earn nominations because they didn't write the tunes.</div>
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Shelton made the comments Tuesday while promoting "The Voice," where his three-time winning streak came to an end when his final teammate, Cole Vosbury, was eliminated.</div>
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The country star is looking ahead to the Grammys, where's he's up for best country album for his eighth album, "Based on a True Story..." He will battle Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw and newcomer Kacey Musgraves in the latter category.</div>
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"It's just awesome to be included and thought of in that group of artists," he said. "This is a window of time that will go by quickly and I know that and I want to enjoy it."</div>
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Swift and Musgraves lead among country acts with four nominations at the awards show, to no surprise. But country music Grammy snubs included Luke Bryan, who had a best-selling album with "Crash My Party," and Georgia Florida Line, who topped the charts with the multiplatinum, Nelly-assisted hit, "Cruise."</div>
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FILE - This March 5, 2012 file photo shows country singers Blake Shelton, left, and his wife, Mirand …</div>
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"Every year there's artists that I think should have a Grammy nomination and yeah, I'm surprised that Luke wasn't nominated. I'm surprised that I think Florida Georgia Line wasn't nominated. It's surprising, but you know, there's always next year," said Shelton. "If I wasn't in there I'd be really upset, but since I'm in there I really don't give a crap about anybody else," he joked.</div>
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The Grammy Awards will air live on CBS from the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 26. NBC's "The Voice" will crown a winner Tuesday</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-37019938102264971402013-12-11T18:10:00.003-08:002013-12-11T18:10:28.378-08:00NASA: Cooling pump on space station shuts down <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="FILE - In this frame grab from video provided by NASA, two Russian flight engineers perform maintenance on the International Space Station, Monday, June 24, 2013. NASA said Dec. 11, 2013, it is looking into a problem with a malfunctioning cooling pump on the International Space Station, but there is no immediate danger to the six crewmen on board. Agency spokesman Kelly Humphries says the problem may eventually be serious, but is not an emergency at the moment. (AP Photo/NASA)" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/eBPnJQ1rT7.Hbawg8ELRig--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcyMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/2985bccac313a829450f6a7067007767.jpg" /></div>
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WASHINGTON — NASA said Wednesday it was looking into a problem with a malfunctioning cooling pump on the International Space Station, but there was no immediate danger to the six crewmen on board.</div>
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A valve on a pump on one of the station's two external cooling loops shut down because it was too cool Wednesday afternoon, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said. He said that at no time was the crew at risk. But some non-critical equipment of the massive orbital outpost were powered down.</div>
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"It could be a serious problem, but it's not an emergency," Johnson Space Center spokesman Kelly Humphries said.</div>
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Engineers suspect a valve inside the pump was faulty and ground controllers moved electrical power supplies to the other cooling loop, Jacobs said. These loops circulate ammonia outside the station to keep equipment inside and outside cool.</div>
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"The station wasn't ever in any danger," Jacobs said.</div>
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Jacobs said the crew of two American astronauts, three Russian cosmonauts and a Japanese astronaut were preparing to go to bed as normal, while engineers on the ground tried to troubleshoot the problem. The faulty pump and cooling loop did start up again, he said.</div>
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Humphries said it was too early to speculate whether a spacewalk would be needed to fix the problem.</div>
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The station commander is cosmonaut Oleg Kotov. Americans Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins, Russians Mikhail Tyurin and Sergey Ryazanaskiy, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata are aboard. The orbital outpost, the size of a football field and weighing nearly 1 million pounds, has been in orbit more than 220 miles above Earth since 1998.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06586904905895330671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384634593695218837.post-5876445839667256492013-12-11T18:07:00.000-08:002013-12-11T18:07:14.682-08:00Nigerian survivor will never go to sea again <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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<img alt="FILE - In this file image made available Tuesday Dec. 3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene looks in awe as a rescue diver surfaces into the air pocket which has kept Okene alive for nearly three days, recorded by the diver&#39;s video headcam. Okene was working as a cook aboard a tugboat in the Atlantic Ocean off the Nigerian coast in June 2013, when a heavy swell caused the vessel to capsize and sink to the sea bed, where his 11 colleagues drowned. But Okene was able to find an air pocket inside the sunken ship, where he survived for nearly three days before being found by a group of South African rescue divers. (AP Photo/DCN Diving, File)" src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/uzYaFYDeHeNJbamULBiejg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcwNztweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/5c4ee703a70b9d29450f6a7067000224.jpg" /></div>
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WARRI, Nigeria— He survived three days in a sunken tugboat at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and was hailed as a miracle survivor, but now the Nigerian faces nightmares and questions on whether he used black magic.</div>
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Harrison Odjegba Okene, 29, has transformed his life since a diver fished him out of the sea: He never again wants to find himself in a boat galley, and has since started working as a cook on firm ground.</div>
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Okene was the only survivor in a crew of 12 when the Jascon 4 capsized in May, and that still haunts him.</div>
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He stayed alive by breathing from an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket of the tugboat. A video of Okene's rescue in May was posted on the Internet more than six months later and has since gone viral.</div>
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When recounting the rescue at his local parish, even the priest asked him if he had used black magic to survive.</div>
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"I was so surprised! How could a man of God be saying this?" Okene said, his voice rising in disbelief.</div>
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FILE - In this file image provided by DCN Diving on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, s …</div>
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Okene spoke at his modest two-bedroom apartment in the southern oil industry center of Warri, in his first interview with the international media since his ordeal.</div>
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He didn't go to the funerals of his colleagues because he feared their families' reactions — Nigerians being generally very religious but also superstitious.</div>
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"I couldn't go because I didn't know what the family will say, thinking 'Why is he the only one to survive,'" said Okene.</div>
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It's a question that has shaken his steadfast faith. "Every week I ask (God) 'Why only me? Why did my colleagues have to die?'"</div>
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His rescuers from the Dutch company DCN Diving, were looking only for bodies and already had recovered four corpses when they came upon Okene.</div>
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In this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013. Harrison Odjegba Okene, during an interview with Associa …</div>
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The chubby-faced cook by that time had almost given up hope, but then he heard the sound of a boat, a hammering on the side of the vessel and then, after a while, saw lights and the rising waters around him bubbling.</div>
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He said he knew it had to be a diver, but he was on the wrong end of the cabin.</div>
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"He came in but he was too fast, so I saw the light but before I could get to him, he was already out. I tried to follow him in the pitch darkness but I couldn't trace him, so I went back."</div>
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When the diver returned, Okene had to swim through the dark waters to reach him and still he did not see him. "So I tapped him at the back of his neck, so he was afraid." When the diver saw his hand he said "corpse, corpse, a corpse," into his microphone, reporting up to the rescue vessel.</div>
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"When he brought his hand close to me, I pulled on his hand," Okene said of the moment that finally made the truth clear to his rescuer. "He's alive! He's alive! He's alive!" he diver shouted.</div>
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In this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013. Harrison Odjegba Okene, right, his wife Akpovona Okene, …</div>
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Still, the diver appeared to have a hard time believing he had survived, Okene said.</div>
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"I knew when he gave me water he was observing me (to see) if I'm really human, because he was afraid."</div>
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On the video, there are expletives and exclamations of fear and shock from Okene's rescuer, and then joy as the realization set in: There was a survivor.</div>
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Until that moment, Okene believed his colleagues must have escaped. The tug was one of three towing a Chevron oil tanker in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta waters, but on May 26 there was a sudden lurch and it keeled over.</div>
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"I heard people shouting, I felt the vessel going down, going down, I heard a voice saying 'Is this vessel sinking or what?' ... I was in the WC (toilet) and the WC fell on my head, things started falling on my head ... My colleagues were shouting 'God help me, God help me, God help me. Then after a while I never heard from them (again)."</div>
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FILE - In this file image provided by DCN Diving on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Harrison Odjegba Okene, s …</div>
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His wife Akpovona Okene, 27, said he still suffers nightmares. "When he is sleeping, he has that shock, he will just wake up in the night saying 'Honey see, the bed is sinking, we are in the sea."</div>
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Okene said he made a pact with God when he was at the bottom of the ocean: "When I was under the water I told God: If you rescue me, I will never go back to the sea again, never."</div>
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