News

news@nme.com wrote an interesting post today on
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NYT:
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Luciano Alves planted beans, corn and grain on about 7,500 acres of his farm in southern Brazil last year. This year, he is planting 8,600 acres. And he credits Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the increase.
“The government is helping us finance the purchase of new machinery,” said Mr. Alves. “They reduced the interest rates we pay and have given us more time to pay off the loans. It’s vital.”
Rising food prices mean many farmers around the world are reaping record profits. And South America’s agricultural powerhouses, Brazil and Argentina, are responding to the farming windfall in exactly opposite ways.
Mr. da Silva’s government recently announced record farm credits, in an effort to get Brazil’s farmers to produce more while the price of their exports are high on world markets, a move that should improve Brazil’s economy. But Argentina, Brazil’s economic and political archrival, decided to share the […]

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Trisha wrote an interesting post today on
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[caption id=”” align=”aligncenter” width=”480″ caption=”Obama at the Democratic Convention, in Denver”][/caption]
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.
I wonder how the coronation in such pagan environment will fit with christian voters.

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sofismando wrote an interesting post today on
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NEW DELHI — In a sign that militants are trying to further inflame tensions in Kashmir, police said three members of a banned Pakistani terrorist organization crossed into India, started shooting and took hostages, prompting a gunbattle with police in which one of the gunmen was killed.
The incident marks the latest worrying development after weeks of unrest in the volatile area, where dozens have died so far in about two months of protests and violence following a …
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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According to the latest report by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments published on July 22, no less than seven officials from Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6 ) quit their jobs last year to take up work with private companies.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Separatist Tamil rebels wounded at least 10 sailors in a brazen airstrike on a key harbor controlled by the navy in eastern Sri Lanka, while clashes in the north killed 27 guerrillas and two soldiers, the military said Wednesday.
Two bombs dropped by a single Tamil Tiger rebel light aircraft fell on into the naval base dockyard in the eastern port city of Trincomalee on Tuesday night, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Ten soldiers were wounded by shrapnel from the blast, Nanayakkara said. The military initially denied it had suffered any casualties in the attack.
He said the base was not damaged in the attack.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Russia defended its recognition of two independence-seeking Georgian provinces as a U.S. ship carrying aid docked in Georgia on Wednesday.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas bypassed its original destination, the Georgian port of Poti, which is controlled by Russian troops still in the country despite a cease-fire deal to end conflict between the two countries.
The Dallas carried 80 pallets with more than 76,000 pounds of relief supplies, the U.S. Sixth Fleet public affairs office said in a statement, including hygiene items, food, milk and juices.
The cutter is delivering aid as part of a larger U.S. program that has delivered supplies worth at least $20 million to Georgia
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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A new breed of hackers are turning their attention to tracking the ravages of cyber warfare, the Washington Post reports.
A growing number of investigators are monitoring how Internet traffic is routed around the world. They spot where Web sites are blocked. But now they are tracking the emergency of cyberweapons.
Tracking wars isn’t what many of the researchers, who call themselves “hacktivists,” set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has their mission.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Prosecutors indicted a 34-year-old North Korean female defector Wednesday on charges of spying for the communist nation.
The woman, identified as Won Jeong-hwa, allegedly relayed military secrets she obtained from Army officers with whom she was having sexual relations over the past five years to the North.
She is the first female spy to be arrested since Lee Sun-sil, a key figure in North Korea’s Communist Party, was apprehended on espionage charges in 1992, and the first defector to violate the National Security Law.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is warning his country may respond to a U.S. missile shield in Europe through military means.
Medvedev says that the deployment of an anti-missile system close to Russian borders “will of course create additional tensions.”
“We will have to react somehow, to react, of course, in a military way,” Medvedev was quoted as saying Tuesday by the RIA-Novosti news agency.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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JAIPUR: In a major boost to the fight against terrorism, Rajasthan police has cracked the May 13 Jaipur blasts case, picking up key plotter Shahbaz and taking the lid off a larger plan to wreak havoc in Delhi around Diwali and stage an attack on Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar temple.
The interrogation of Shahbaz Hussain, arrested by Rajasthan police with the help of UP cops from Lucknow on Sunday night, has confirmed his involvement in the attack on Jaipur, with the computer-savvy hardliner from Lucknow also reportedly telling interrogators of plans for blasts in Delhi near Diwali.
Also next in line was the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, which would have been targeted by the end of the year as well. Clearly a part of a larger conspiracy to trigger communal tension, jihadi groups have had Madhya Pradesh in their sights for a while now.
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