News

Helena wrote an interesting post today on
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What to discuss at SAARC

We Sri Lankans welcome to our country all heads of SAARC countries to attend the forthcoming SAARC Summit, especially the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, due to the following reasons:
(1) In our country human rights violations exceed 90%.
(2) Those belonging to the minority communities are harassed, threatened and abducted with demands of heavy ransoms allegedly by government-sponsored thugs.
(3) Innocent people belonging to the minority communities are arrested early in the morning in their nightclothes and videoed.
(4) Journalists who expose corruption either in the forces or in government are either arrested and held in detention for long periods without charges, or killed by government goons.
(5) Government ministers openly threaten journalists.
(6) Indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas in the north by the air force — perhaps this is the only government that bombs its own citizens.
(7) Tiger suicide cadres attack innocent Sinhalese people. […]

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Ranjith Wijewardene wrote an interesting post today on
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By: Koh Lay Chin - THE NEW STRAITS TIMES (Malaysia)
Wednesday 23 July, 2008
SHE was over 70 years old, bare-chested and barely five feet tall. But Zahara, an elderly Moroccan grandmother, had me at first grunt.
We were in a bare-bones “hammam” in Marrakech, and I wondered what I was in for when I handed payment to several similarly half-naked Moroccan women there. The basic and spartan hammam was obviously for women only, and once you passed through the huge wooden door, the hijab-wearing Moroccan women I had seen outside were stripping off nonchalantly, chatting in a mixture of Arabic and French.
I thought I was the modern, liberal and Westernised young lady getting a relaxing traditional hammam scrub and massage, but it turned out to be an eye-opener and a little nerve-racking. . .
. . . read complete article . . .
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unknown wrote an interesting post today on
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So, we’ve got four more years until the Earth throws in the towel. What are you gonna do about it? God’s most fucked up creation is headed for an apocalyptic smorgasbord that will make Michael Bay spooge his pants. So, while experts around the globe search for ways to combat these theories, I’ve gathered a nice long list of the 2,012 things any one of us could be doing before we’re all blown to smithereens.
1. Have a kid: Nothing says I love you like bringing another human being into this already crowded world. And just in time for their little life to end. If you start now, they might even understand the torment their about to endure.
2. Start smoking: Why not? Right? Once some jackass turns on that atom smasher, your lungs won’t be able to fill up with any kind of air.
3. Become an alcoholic: Whether we’re knocked out […]

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unknown wrote an interesting post today on
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This is just heart breaking!
Obama and his adoring press have their first lover’s quarrel. At precisely minute 48 of this youtube video, the cat litter hits the fan…
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.638833&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
more about “Andrea Blasts Obama ‘Fake Interviews’“, posted with vodpod

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Dark Skies wrote an interesting post today on
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Yahoo:
LONDON (Reuters) - Austerity measures attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans may have contributed to a resurgence in tuberculosis in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, researchers said on Tuesday.
Governments may be reducing funding for health services such as hospitals and clinics to meet strict IMF economic targets, the British researchers said.
The study, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, found that countries participating in IMF programmes had seen tuberculosis death rates increase by at least 17 percent between 1991 and 2000 — equivalent to more than 100,000 additional deaths. About one million new cases were recorded during the same period.
Nations that received money from other institutions with less restrictive economic conditions attached had seen a nearly 8 percent drop in tuberculosis death rates, David Stuckler and colleagues at the University of Cambridge said.
“IMF lending did not appear to be a response to worsened […]

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disciplepete wrote an interesting post today on
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Mosaic News - 07/21/08: World News From The Middle East

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regularblackguy wrote an interesting post today on
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The previous evening Corporal Chris Mount had been regaling us with the pros and cons of his more intimate tattoos. Now he was wide-eyed, pale and clearly frightened. “It’s not funny anymore,” he told a patrol of rangers. “I hate my job.”
With an oath, Corporal Mount left the shade of the pomegranate orchard and went back to the spot on the narrow path where, moments earlier, he had been lying down, grubbing around in the dust with his fingers and a paintbrush. As he scraped away he uncovered a large bomb - an artillery shell wired up to a radio receiver. Somewhere a watching insurgent - he needed to be close by - would be trying to detonate it. The bomb had been put there at some point between the hours of night when the patrol had used the track and the light of early morning as they now […]

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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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SRINAGAR: TWO persons were killed and four injured on Sunday in a grenade attack in Gulmarg. The blast signals an upsurge in terror attack in the Valley as it comes a day after IED blast near Srinagar which killed nine jawans.
Suspected militants tossed a grenade towards a security picket outside a local telephone exchange on Sunday evening. It missed the target and exploded on the road in which six persons—all locals except one tourist—received splinter injuries. They were sent to the local hospital where the tourist—Ashok Kumar from UP— and Mohamad Yousuf—a local resident—died.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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The first person to encounter the bulldozer terrorist on Tuesday was an English-speaking woman named Sarah who was about to cross the street. The man in the bulldozer indicated with his hand that she could cross and then press on the gas pedal to run her over. Fortunately, she was only lightly bruised by the tire and treated at Bikur Holim Hospital, which admitted five injured - all of them lightly wounded - to the emergency room.
Another resident was lightly wounded when the terrorist tried, but failed, to overturn his car; he was hospitalized in Bikur Holim’s surgical department.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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A renter may have left behind a big, and potentially deadly, surprise for an Albemarle County property owner. On Sunday, the owner was cleaning things out of a rental property on Plank Road and found what appeared to be an explosive device.
Investigators are trying to figure out whether the device could actually detonate. There is a suspect in the case at this time, and the fire marshall’s office is working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on the investigation.
Source

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