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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Jordan police fire tear gas on protesters

Fri Dec 23, 2011

Jordanian anti- and pro-government protesters have clashed in the northern city of Mafraq, forcing police to use tear gas to end the violence.

Witnesses say dozens from both sides, including police, were injured after thousands of members of the Bani Hassan tribe clashed with around 300 anti-government demonstrators demanding reforms in Mafraq on Friday.

Several shops were also destroyed during the clashes, AFP reported.

The demonstrators have reportedly sought refuge in a mosque and according to witnesses the situation is still tense in the city.

Bani Hassan, one of Jordan's largest tribes, which supports the government, on Thursday warned against holding anti-government demonstration in Mafraq.

Similar anti-government rallies were held in the capital, Amman, and several other cities following the Friday Prayers.

Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding political reform, including the election of the prime minister by popular vote, and an end to corruption since January. There have been no calls for the king to be removed.

Since the beginning of protest rallies, Jordanian ruler, King Abdullah II, has sacked two prime ministers in a bid to avoid more protests. Awn al-Khasawneh, a judge at International Court of Justice, is Jordan's third premier this year.

The king has also amended 42 articles in the 60-year-old constitution, giving parliament a stronger role in decision-making.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/217313.html.

Bloody Kazakhstan's regime killed or wounded almost 1,000 protesters and increases terror against Muslims

22 December 2011

An amateur video clip has been posted on YouTube. It was shot in Zhanaozen on December 16, the day of the popular uprising. The video was made by a local resident from a window of a house in the town center, reports the Kazakh Section of the US Congress radio RFE-RL, Azattyk.

The Nazarbayev's regime claims that 14 people were killed and more than 80 others wounded during the dictator's slaughter in Zhanaozen on December 16. According to unofficial data, the number of victims was much higher. Independent sources report about 70 peaceful oil workers killed and 800 wounded.

The state of emergency was proclaimed in Zhanaozen until January 5, 2012.

The ringleader of Kazakh puppets Nazarbayev said at a gathering of his "security council" in the capital of Astana that his puppet security services "were putting things in order" in Zhanaozen, and acted "within their authority under the law".

Thus, according to Nazarbayev's law, about 1,000 peaceful oil workers were killed or wounded.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch called the beastly dictator Nazarbayev to stop violence against the Kazakh Muslims.in an official statement, posted on its website,

The organization reports about tortures of captured oil workers in Zhanaozen.

***

In a strange Democratic way of thinking, the HRW human rights activists call the Nazarbayev's regime for an investigation into the crimes of Nazarbayev's regime which committed these crimes.

The Human Rights Watch indicates that in order to conceal their atrocities, the Nazarbayev's puppets disconnected telephone line and closed all access to Zhanaozen.

The human rights activists talked to people who knew the detainees. All of them told about beatings and tortures. Journalists who visited Zhanaozen said that many residents could not find their relatives, kidnapped by the puppets. People are scared.

A correspondent, Elena Kostyuchenko, told the Human Rights Watch that she talked to a man in Zhanaozen whom the puppets tortured for 24 hours, during the detention in the prison cell and the interrogation room.

Kostyuchenko said that the man had his nose and ribs broken, two bruises in the kidney area, and that he had been coughing blood for two days and had blood in his urine.

According to the man who survived the Nazarbayev's tortures, the puppets broke legs and arms of many inmates the cell. He said he saw prisoners whom the dictator's police forced to lie face down on the ground and put their feet in heavy police boots on the back of their heads, apparently breaking the noses.

Mrs. Kostyuchenko said that two young men had been beaten so hard by the dictator's police that an ambulance had to be called for them.

Another prisoner said that he had been detained by Nazarbayev's puppets on December 19 and released later that day. He said that he was beaten in a police truck on the way to a police station and inside the station, where riot police held his arms behind him while other agents punched him in the stomach.

It is to be recalled that earlier, a correspondent of a Russian newspaper Kommersant reported about traces of blood on the walls and floor of police departments in Zhanaozen.

When asked about the blood on the walls, a member of Nazarbayev's police with a Slavic face lied: "We killed a sheep. There was a holiday, you know".

Meanwhile, the death toll in Zhanaozen is still unknown. Townspeople say that 70 people were killed by dictator's police last Friday.

Perhaps, the death toll is much higher, but it is impossible to find out the exact numbers. The morgue and the city hospital in Zhanaozen are guarded by Nazarbayev's special gangs as if they were important sensitive government agencies. All entrances and exits to local health facilities are staffed by dozens of puppets in full armor.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/12/22/15530.shtml.

Hungarian opposition lawmakers chain themselves to parliament gates

Dec 23, 2011

Budapest - Opposition lawmakers chained themselves across the gates to Hungary's parliament building Friday in a protest against the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The liberal-green opposition party Politics Can Be Different was protesting what it said was the government's steady dismantling of the institutions of democracy.

The demonstration came as parliament was expected to vote on several issues, among them electoral reform and a central bank bill that critics - among them the European Commission - fear could limit the independence of the Hungarian National Bank.

With its lawmakers filling two-thirds of seats in the national assembly, Orban's Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has been able to push through wide-ranging reforms and even a new constitution without cross-party consensus during its 18 months in power.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1682487.php/Hungarian-opposition-lawmakers-chain-themselves-to-parliament-gates.

Myanmar opposition leader registers party to contest polls

Dec 23, 2011

Yangon - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday registered her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to contest by-elections next year, officially rejoining the political fray.

She also visited parliament and met with Shwe Mann, the lower chamber's speaker.

Suu Kyi, released from her latest, seven-year term of house detention in November 2010, traveled the 350 kilometers from Yangon north to the capital, Naypyitaw, with NLD co-leader Tin Oo to register the party at the Union Election Commission, commission officials said.

The event was part of a softening by Myanmar's government, long a pariah of the West for its poor human rights record, including its 15 years of detention of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate after the NLD won 1990 elections that the then-ruling junta annulled.

Suu Kyi, 66, has vowed to contest by-elections for 48 parliamentary seats expected to be held in March or April.

Should she win a seat, Suu Kyi was expected to become Myanmar's official opposition leader in parliament.

Myanmar was under military rule from 1962 until this year when November 2010 elections, the first in 20 years, brought to power a pro-military government under President Thein Sein, a former general.

Despite his military background, Thein Sein has proved an unexpected catalyst of change in the politically stunted country.

In mid-August, he initiated a political dialogue with Suu Kyi, inviting her to Naypyitaw for private talks. Since then, Thein Sein has paved the way for Suu Kyi to re-enter Myanmar politics.

The NLD was dissolved as a legal entity last year after it refused to contest the general election on the grounds that the junta then ruling the country had issued party registration laws that would have forced them to drop Suu Kyi as a member of the party to participate.

Myanmar's parliament in November amended the party registration regulations, paving the way for the NLD to reregister.

The government also granted an amnesty to more than 200 political prisoners and was expected to free more next month.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1682505.php/LEAD-Myanmar-opposition-leader-registers-party-to-contest-polls.

Yemenis throng in Sana'a to celebrate protesters' march

Dec 23, 2011

Sana'a - Thousands of Yemeni protesters were gathering Friday to support protesters marching from the southern city of Taiz to the capital Sana'a, demanding the prosecution of outgoing president Ali Abdullah Saleh and members of his regime.

The march, which started on Wednesday and passed northwards through the provinces of Ibb and Dhamar, was expected in Sana'a on Saturday. It aims to condemn the immunity granted to Saleh under a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal.

Some 3,000 people were taking part in the march - a new development in the anti-government protests which started against Saleh in February.

'The world should see us walking a distance of 255 kilometers to continue the uprising which would bring us justice, freedom and the decent life which the regime deprived us from for decades,' said Natheer al-Asbahi, one of the marchers.

While the political parties are implementing the deal - signed in Riyadh in November - as scheduled, protesters remain dissatisfied with it, as members of Saleh's regime will still be active on the political scene.

'I do not think it is possible to build our country with the people who impoverished our land during the regime of Saleh,' said Abdullah Sallam, 29, from Sana'a.

However the new minister of information Ali al-Amrani stressed Thursday that the coalition government remained committed to the Gulf deal and the steps it prescribed to reach the sought-after change.

'Our priority is to remove tension, stop violence and implement a development program to regain the economic stability,' al-Amrani said on Thursday.

Yemen has been shaken by al-Qaeda operatives in the south and tribal and radical conflicts in the north, in the absence of the viable rule of law to maintain stability in the country.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1682480.php/Yemenis-throng-in-Sana-a-to-celebrate-protesters-march.

Erdogan: France massacred 15% of Algerian population

2011-12-23

ISTANBUL (Turkey) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused France of committing "genocide" in Algeria after French lawmakers voted a bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian genocide.

"France massacred an estimated 15 percent of the Algerian population starting from 1945. This is genocide," Erdogan told a news conference after the French move on the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman-era forces.

The Turkish premier accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of "fanning hatred of Muslims and Turks for electoral gains."

France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and his UMP ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and June next year.

On Thursday, France's National Assembly voted the first step towards passing a law that would impose a jail term and a 45,000 euro fine on anyone in France who denies that the 1915 massacre of Armenians constitutes genocide.

During World War I hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turk forces. Armenia says 1.5 million died in a genocide, Turkey says around 500,000 died in fighting after they sided with a Russian invasion.

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on Turkey not to "overreact" to a bill that he insisted was a parliamentary initiative, and not a project of Sarkozy's government.

France has a 500,000-strong community of Armenian descent, many of whose forebears fled the killings a century ago, and French politicians assiduously court their votes every five years ahead of elections.

Turkey and many of Sarkozy's domestic opponents accuse him of jeopardizing relations with a key NATO ally and trading partner to win Armenian votes.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49633.

Libya's Megrahi vows to clear his name: 'I am innocent'

2011-12-22

LONDON - The only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people died used his "final interview" to vow he would clear his name, British newspapers reported Thursday.

A Scottish court in 2001 convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi of the 1988 attack on Pan Am flight 103, but he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after doctors said he had only three months to live.

Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, told investigator and friend George Thomson on Sunday "I am an innocent man" in an interview published in several British newspapers, including The Times and the Daily Mail.

"I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family," he said.

During the interview, which will be broadcast on television in February, the Libyan revealed he had helped investigative journalist John Ashton with a new book that will contain "dramatic" new evidence.

"I will not be giving any more interviews, and no more cameras will be allowed into my home," he explained. "I am an innocent man, and the book will clear my name."

Megrahi claimed that he had "never seen" a Maltese shopkeeper whose testimony and identification proved central to the original guilty verdict.

"I never bought clothes from him," he added. "He dealt with me very wrongly. I have never seen him in my life before he came to court."

According to Megrahi, US agencies "led the way" in securing his conviction.

A top aide to US President Barack Obama on Wednesday marked the 23rd anniversary of the bombing, which took place over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, vowing that Washington would pursue justice in a newly-free Libya for the attack.

Obama's top anti-terror adviser John Brennan joined relatives of the victims at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49618.

Marginalization inflames angry protests in Libya's Sirte

2011-12-22

By Ines Bel Aiba – SIRTE (Libya)

Fallen leader's forgotten hometown, Sirte, simmers with anger for being sidelined in ‘new’ Libya.

Sirte was a city protected, even pampered, by the regime of Moamer Gathafi. But now, the fallen leader's forgotten hometown is simmering with anger for being sidelined in a "new" Libya.

It was in Sirte, 360 kilometers (220 miles) east of Tripoli, that the "King of Africa" sought refuge in August after rebels overwhelmed the capital.

And while loyalists fought fiercely to protect Sirte and their leader, two months later rebels found and killed Gathafi in the very city where he was born.

In one neighborhood numbered "2," where the bloodiest battles raged between rebels and Gathafi loyalists, resentment is festering.

Just this week, a protest there against the "marginalization" of Sirte went largely unnoticed across the nation.

"National unity cannot be achieved without compensation for damages, no exceptions. No to the marginalization of Sirte," read one banner, left over from Tuesday's gathering.

"Where is reconstruction? No officials, no media," lamented another.

Sirte has paid dearly for offering sanctuary to the now-slain leader. Streets on end have been reduced to rubble, buildings gutted by shelling and are waiting to be razed.

Piles of garbage cover the streets of the city that once hosted meetings of top-tier international officials.

"No one has come to see about us," said Ibrahim Hreir, a university student.

"There were war crimes here too, but as it's Gathafi's turf nobody cares."

Ibrahim Abdullah fled Sirte on October 18 and returned only a few days ago, to find that his flat had been ransacked by the "thuwar," or revolutionaries.

"Everything is gone: our furniture, my wife's gold jewellery, my savings," Abdullah said.

"I think I will leave this city. Where? I don't know. God's world is vast," said the stone-faced man.

Like many other residents, Abdullah firmly believes that Sirte is being "punished" for its loyalty to Gathafi.

"The situation is very difficult," said Ahmed Korbaj, who heads a local council tasked with assessing damage done to the city. "There is no government action."

Korbaj estimates that between 40 and 60 percent of those who fled the fighting in Sirte have not yet returned due to the lack of reconstruction.

Today, two months after the battles ended, some homes still have no running water and owners were left to their own means to figure out how to restore power.

Worse still, Korbaj fears there may still be unexploded munitions in the rubble.

"The city is suffering," Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the National Transitional Council, said on Monday as he announced that the NTC was sending a delegation to "assess the situation and determine the needs" of Sirte.

Libya's new governing bodies have said post-war national reconciliation is one of their top priorities. But in Sirte, this will likely prove no easy task.

"What kind of reconciliation is it if they do not accept the opinions of others," asked Sirte resident Massud Abdelhamid.

"We have no desire for their reconciliation. They are liars," added another resident, who requested anonymity.

"They have wrought destruction and death. May God never forgive them."

Many in this defeated city remain faithful to the memory of Gathafi, a figure deplored by the majority of the Libyan population.

A popular slogan of supporters of the former regime still echoes here: "Allah, Moamer, Libya, that's all!"

And before they agree to any potential reconciliation between Gathafi's adversaries and loyalists, many in Sirte have one non-negotiable demand.

"The first condition for reconciliation is that the location of our leader's tomb be disclosed," said Tuhami Hafez, referring to the fact that Gathafi had been buried secretly in the desert.

"It is our right to know," he said vehemently, as dozens of men standing around nodded enthusiastically.

But demands like this continue to fuel resentment among Libyans in other cities.

"They deserve what happened to them; it'll teach them a lesson," said one Tripoli resident passing through Sirte.

"Maybe they'll get a little taste of what the rest of Libya had to endure."

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49630.

2012 - end of the world or time for change?

Friday, December 23, 2011
Tara Green

(NaturalNews) The coming new year which is 2012, also happens to be the name of a 2009 Hollywood disaster film in which a lucky few survivors, mostly political leaders and the very rich, board huge insulated arks to ride out a massive civilization-destroying tsunami. As the real 2012 approaches, pop culture speculation continues to fashion an apocalypse-almost-now out of misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar.

For those of us less prone to anxiety, perhaps 2012 offers an opportunity to begin a new era-- which is actually what the Mayan calendar predicts. We can act to make our own lives and the lives of others in our community healthier and happier. We can act to ensure that politicians and the wealthy lose the insulation which permits them to ride an ark of selfish indifference, ignoring the problems created by corporations plundering both human and environmental resources.

Misinterpreting the Mayan Calendar
Our calendar measures time in terms of years, decades and centuries. The basic unit of the ancient Mayan calendar was the 360-day tun, which, like our own 365-day years, is roughly equivalent to one revolution of the earth around the sun. Twenty tuns form a k'atun and twenty k'atuns (or 400 tuns) become a bak'tun. In our calendar, a bak'tun equals roughly 395 years. The ancient Mayan Long Count calendar covers a period of 13 bak'tuns, which will end approximately around the winter solstice of 2012. In Mayan cosmology, an earlier era preceding their calendar lasted for 13 bak'tuns and ended through natural transition rather than through devastation and destruction. They did not predict the end of the world with the passage of 13 bak'tuns, but a turning of an era, similar to our calendar shift from 1999 to 2000.

Is it Doomsday again?
The Mayan calendar and 2012 form the latest hook upon which some people want to hang their doomsday forebodings. Some of the previous occasions are within recent memory. End of the world predictions occur with regularity. Twice in 2011, 90-year old evangelical minister Harold Camping predicted the end of the world based on his own mathematical calculations, first on May 21 then on October 21. Nearly thirty years ago, Pat Robertson told his millions of television viewers that the Second Coming would take place 1982.

Doomsday predictions are not a recent phenomenon. In 1843, a preacher from upstate New York, William Miller, persuaded over 50,000 followers that Christ would return, bringing the end of the world in 1843. Like Harold Camping, Miller had to revise his prediction, with his followers awaiting a re-scheduled end of the world in 1844, leading to what history books term the Great Disappointment. A massive volcanic explosion in Iceland in 1783 covered much of Europe in poisonous clouds causing crop failure and starvation. The natural disaster and subsequent tragedy led some observers of the day to predict the imminent end of the world. Many Christians in Europe spent the night preceding January 1, 1000 in church praying, awaiting the Last Judgment.

Recycling Doomsday emotions
End-time predictions provide a sense of heightened drama which can help people feel their lives are more imbued with meaning as time ticks down to a purported end. Doomsday scenarios also offer a hope of redressing injustices whether through a Last Judgment or through some brave new world forged by a few survivors. The key point to grasp is the emotions which make doomsday scenarios attractive can be harnessed to create positive change. We all have the choice every day to view our lives with a sense of greater meaning without recourse to "the end is nigh" thinking. We all have the option now to participate in social justice movements, or environmental causes, or efforts to re-create the food and health systems which are slowly poisoning huge numbers of people.

Next time you read or hear a prediction that the world is ending, take some time to think of actions you can take to help re-make the world. Don't let yourself be frightened by the scope of the problems -- give yourself permission to take small steps. But don't be afraid to think big and to build alliances with other people to make your actions resonate more loudly. If enough people act, 2012 can be the "end of the world" for corporate greed and exploitation of the environment, the middle class, and the poor.

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/034471_2012_end_times_Mayan_calendar.html.

Tunisian convoy en route to Gaza

Thursday 22/12/2011

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- A Tunisian medical aid convoy began its journey to Gaza on Thursday from Tunis, Palestinian officials said.

The convoy carrying four tons of medical aid left Tunis-Carthage International Airport earlier in the day, medical officials told Ma'an.

The coordinator of the medical services in the Gaza Strip said the convoy was organized by a Tunisian scout group and will arrive in Cairo and depart for Gaza shortly thereafter.

Some 11 scout leaders are part of the delegation, which is to visit Gaza’s hospitals and civil society groups before checking up on local scouts.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=447129.

Is Ron Paul Leading in Iowa or Not?

Raven Clabough
Thursday, 22 December 2011

Ron Paul is the true embodiment of a dark-horse candidate, at least in Iowa. He began in the polls with approval ratings of as low as four percent in that key state and has slowly but surely moved steadily into the frontrunner position there. The New York Times is now projecting him to be the clear winner in Iowa. But even as some mainstream media outlets are facing that reality, some are still clinging to a more fantastical reality where Ron Paul remains behind.

According to a USA Today story entitled, “Despite money and support, Ron Paul still not in lead,” regardless of what the polls say, Paul is not actually in the lead because establishment Republicans do not want him.

The article begins by noting, “Texas Rep. Ron Paul can raise millions of dollars in a single day, has a solid organization of passionate supporters and recently has been moving up in the polls, yet few mainstream Republicans are willing to give him the ‘front-runner’ title so many of his rivals in the GOP presidential field have held.”

The article goes on to discuss the steady progress that Paul has made in the polls, and how well-received his message has been.

Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican and Ron Paul supporter, made a similar observation about the surprising success of Paul’s success in Iowa. “He’s doing this on his own and is not getting any help from the party. He doesn’t need them. They need him.”

Likewise, David Fischer, Paul’s Iowa vice chairman, said, "Most political figures spend their careers chasing their electorate. Ron Paul has been standing in one place with the same message for decades now and the electorate has come to him."

However, the USA Today writer ultimately contends that Paul has maximized his approval:

Beyond his core support, there is little evidence that other Republicans want Paul. He's the second choice of only 9% of likely caucusgoers, according to one recent Iowa poll; his foreign policy positions have been attacked often by his Republican opponents; and he showed similar strength in the 2008 race before faltering.

Jim Dyke, a Republican strategist foresees problems for Paul. He asserts that while Paul appeals to those “who hunger for rebellion against business as usual in Washington [voters want] a clear vision that can rally a coalition to defeat President Obama and just like the candidates before him, Ron Paul is likely to hit troubled waters.”

The article goes on to cite “experts” such as Dennis Goldford, a politics professor at Drake University, who asserts that Paul’s so-called isolation message is what threatens his success.

"Ron Paul is essentially a libertarian who is trying to take a Republican nomination," he said. "Ron Paul reflects an old libertarian approach to the military" as an extension of big government.

The overall conclusion of the USA Today story is that despite the polls, despite the fundraising successes, despite the multiple straw poll victories, Paul can expect to fail because he does not have the support of the establishment.

Yet the New York Times just reported two days ago that Ron Paul is the clear projected winner for the Republican primary in Iowa. According to a NYT poll, Paul has 49 percent of the vote, with Romney behind with 27 percent, followed by Gingrich with 15.5 percent. The Times summarizes the figures, “These forecasts are formulated from an average of recent surveys, with adjustments made to account for a polling firm’s accuracy, freshness of a poll and each candidate’s momentum.”

An Iowa State University poll showed that Ron Paul is in the lead with 27.5 percent of those likely caucus-goers polled, followed by Gingrich with 25.3 percent of the vote, and then Romney with 17.5 percent.

Likewise, a Public Policy Poll from Sunday shows Ron Paul in the lead.

CNN has also projected Paul to take Iowa, calling Paul’s campaign a more aggressive one than any of his contenders.

Perhaps most importantly, a recent CNN/ORC poll released yesterday shows that Paul is the strongest GOP candidate when it comes to a hypothetical race against Barack Obama. That poll is a significant one as it shoots down the establishment’s theory that a Paul nomination is a sure-fire way to see Obama’s reelection.

Still, USA Today contends that without the support of mainstream Republicans, Ron Paul stands little to no chance.

But despite the assertions of establishment Republicans and Democrats, a May Gallup survey showed that Americans are increasingly supporting the establishment of a Third Party, particularly Republicans.

Yahoo News reported:

Fifty-two percent of Republicans say they support a third party because the two major parties do such "a poor job" of representing the people. Just 33 percent of Democrats felt similarly — and, as expected, self-described independents were the most forceful backers of a third party, with 68 percent indicating support.

According to Gallup, it was the first time that “a significantly higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats” favor a third party.

With so many conflicting assertions, it seems a fair observation to say that not all of these statements can be true. Either Republicans are fed up with the status quo and are interested in real change, as noted by the Gallup poll, or they are interested in more of the same establishment policies, as USA Today contends, and will opt for one of Paul’s contenders over Paul. Either the polls are an honest indication of who will win the Iowa poll, or they are not. But if the latter is true, then the accuracy of all polls would then have to be called into question. And that is likely not something that establishment is purporting. They mean that only the polls which show Paul in the lead should be called into question, and critics ask, where is the credibility in that?

“By definition, if Ron Paul wins something, it no longer matters,” noted Cenk Uygur, co-founder and main host of The Young Turks, a progressive Internet and radio talk show.

While the establishment is doing its best to undermine Paul’s poll and financial successes, or to interfere with a Paul victory, Paul’s supporters believe that the Ron Paul “revolution” is upon us. It brings to mind the famous quote by the French Romantic writer Victor Hugo, “An invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot.”

Fortunately for the American people, there is less than two weeks before one of the many theories surrounding the Iowa caucus is proven true.

Source: The New American.
Link: http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/10296-is-ron-paul-leading-in-iowa-or-not.

Astronomers discover deep-fried planets

Tucson AZ (SPX)
Dec 23, 2011

Two Earth-sized planets have been discovered circling a dying star that has passed the red giant stage. Because of their close orbits, the planets must have been engulfed by their star while it swelled up to many times its original size. This discovery, published in the science journal Nature, may shed new light on the destiny of stellar and planetary systems, including our solar system.

When our sun nears the end of its life in about 5 billion years, it will swell up to what astronomers call a red giant, an inflated star that has used up most of its fuel. So large will the dying star grow that its fiery outer reaches will swallow the innermost planets of our solar system - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

Researchers believed that this unimaginable inferno would make short work of any planet caught in it - until now.

This report describes the first discovery of two planets - or remnants thereof - that evidently not only survived being engulfed by their parent star, but also may have helped to strip the star of most of its fiery envelope in the process. The team was led by Stephane Charpinet, an astronomer at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie, Universite de Toulouse-CNRS, in France.

"When our sun swells up to become a red giant, it will engulf the Earth," said Elizabeth 'Betsy' Green, an associate astronomer at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, who participated in the research.

"If a tiny planet like the Earth spends 1 billion years in an environment like that, it will just evaporate. Only planets with masses very much larger than the Earth, like Jupiter or Saturn, could possibly survive."

The two planets, named KOI 55.01 and KOI 55.02, circle their host star in extremely tight orbits. Having migrated so close, they probably plunged deep into the star's envelope during the red giant phase, but survived.

In the most plausible configuration, the two bodies would respectively have radii of 0.76 and 0.87 times the Earth radius, making them the smallest planets so far detected around an active star other than our sun.

The host star, KOI 55, is what astronomers call a subdwarf B star: It consists of the exposed core of a red giant that has lost nearly its entire envelope. In fact, the authors write, the planets may have contributed to the increased mass loss necessary for the formation of this type of star.

The authors concluded that planetary systems may therefore influence the evolution of their parent stars. They pointed out that the planetary system they observed offers a glimpse into the possible future of our own.

The discovery of the two planets came as a surprise because the research team had not set out to find new planets far away from our solar system, but to study pulsating stars. Caused by rhythmic expansions and contractions brought about by pressure and gravitational forces that go along with the thermonuclear fusion process inside the star, such pulsations are a defining feature of many stars.

By studying the pulsations of a star, astronomers can deduce the object's mass, temperature, size and sometimes even its interior structure. This is called asteroseismology.

"Those pulsation frequency patterns are almost like a finger print of a star," Green said. "It's very much like seismology, where one uses earthquake data to learn about the inner composition of the Earth."

To detect the frequencies with which a star pulsates, researchers have to observe it for very long periods of time, sometimes years, in order to measure tiny variations in brightness.

"The brightness variations of a star tell us about its pulsational modes if we can observe enough of them very precisely," Green said.

"Let's say there is one pulsational mode every 5859.8 seconds, and there is another one every 9126.39 seconds. There could be lots of stars with rather different properties that could all manage to pulsate at those two frequencies. However, if we can measure 10, or better yet, 50 pulsational modes in one star, then it's possible to use theoretical models to say exactly what the star must be like in order to produce those particular pulsations."

"The only way to do that is to have a telescope sitting in space," she added. "On Earth, we can only observe a star at night. But unless we follow it 24/7, the mathematics give us artifacts. Observing through the atmosphere means that even in the very best of cases we can only detect brightness variations to a ten-thousandth of a percent. But if you've got 50 or a 100 modes going in a star, you need to measure better than that."

For that reason, the team used data obtained from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope for this study.

Unobstructed by the Earth's atmosphere and staring at the same patch of sky throughout its five-year mission, the Kepler Space Telescope sits in a prime spot to detect tiny variations in brightness of stars.

Green had been pursuing a survey to look for hot subdwarf stars in the galactic plane of the Milky Way.

"I had already obtained excellent high-signal to noise spectra of the hot subdwarf B star KOI 55 with our telescopes on Kitt Peak, before Kepler was even launched," she said. "Once Kepler was in orbit and began finding all these pulsational modes, my co-authors at the University of Toulouse and the University of Montreal were able to analyze this star immediately using their state-of-the art computer models."

This was the first time that researchers were able to use gravity pulsation modes, which penetrate into the core of the star, to match subdwarf B star models to learn about their interior structure.

While analyzing KOI 55's pulsations, the team noticed the intriguing presence of two tiny periodic modulations occurring every 5.76 and 8.23 hours that caused the star to flicker ever so slightly, at one five thousandth percent of its overall brightness. They showed that these two frequencies could not have been produced by the star's own internal pulsations.

The only explanation came from the existence two small planets passing in front of the star every 5.76 and 8.23 hours. To complete their orbits so rapidly, KOI 55.01 and KOI 55.02 have to be extremely close to the star, much closer than Mercury is to our sun. On top of that, the sun is a cool star compared to KOI 55, which burns at about 28,000 Kelvin, or 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Planets this close to their star are tidally locked," Green said, "meaning the same side always faces the star, just like the same face of the moon always faces the Earth. The day side of Mercury is hot enough to melt lead, so you can imagine the harsh conditions on those two small planets racing around a host star that is five times hotter than our sun at such a close distance."

The extremely tight orbits are important because they tell the researchers that the planets must have been engulfed when their host stars swelled up into a red giant.

"Having migrated so close, they probably plunged deep into the star's envelope during the red giant phase, but survived," lead author Charpinet said.

"As the star puffs up and engulfs the planet, the planet has to plow through the star's hot atmosphere and that causes friction, sending it spiraling toward the star," Green added.

"As it's doing that, it helps strip atmosphere off the star. At the same time, the friction with the star's envelope also strips the gaseous and liquid layers off the planet, leaving behind only some part of the solid core, scorched but still there."

"We think this is the first documented case of planets influencing a star's evolution," Charpinet said. "We know of a brown dwarf that possibly did that, but that's not a planet, and of giants planets around subdwarf B stars, but those are too far away to have had any impact on the evolution of the star itself."

"I find it incredibly fascinating that after hundreds of years of being able to only look at the outsides of stars, now we can finally investigate the interiors of a few stars - even if only in these special types of pulsators - and compare that with how we thought stars evolved," Green said.

"We thought we had a pretty good understanding of what solar systems were like as long as we only knew one - ours. Now we are discovering a huge variety of solar systems that are nothing like ours, including, for the first time, remnant planets around a stellar core like this one."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Astronomers_discover_deep_fried_planets_999.html.

Cassini Images Titan and Dione Above Saturn

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Dec 23, 2011

Saturn's third-largest moon Dione can be seen through the haze of its largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The north polar hood can be seen on Titan appearing as a detached layer at the top of the moon here. See PIA08137 and PIA09739 to learn more about Titan's atmosphere and the north polar hood.

See PIA10560 and PIA07638 to learn more about and see a closer view of the wisps on Dione's trailing hemisphere, which appear as bright streaks here.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Titan (3200 miles, 5150 kilometers across) and Dione (698 miles, 1123 kilometers across). North is up on the moons. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane.

Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view.

The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 21, 2011 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Titan 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) from Dione. Image scale is 9 miles (14 kilometers) per pixel on Titan and 12 miles (19 kilometers) on Dione.

Cassini scientists regularly make observations such as this pictured here to study the ever-changing orbits of the planet's moons.

But even in these routine images, the Saturnian system shines. A few of Saturn's stark, airless, icy moons appear to dangle next to the orange orb of Titan, the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere.

Titan's atmosphere is of great interest because of its similarities to the atmosphere believed to exist long ago on the early Earth.

While it may be wintry in Earth's northern hemisphere, it is currently northern spring in the Saturnian system and it will remain so for several Earth years.

Current plans to extend the Cassini mission through 2017 will supply a continued bounty of scientifically rewarding and majestic views of Saturn and its moons and rings, as spectators are treated to the passage of northern spring and the arrival of summer in May 2017.

"As another year traveling this magnificent sector of our solar system draws to a close, all of us on Cassini wish all of you a very happy and peaceful holiday season, " said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Titan_and_Dione_NASAs_Cassini_Delivers_Holiday_Treats_From_Saturn_999.html.

Turkey suspends political and military ties with France

Ankara (AFP)
Dec 22, 2011

Turkey announced on Thursday the suspension of political and military cooperation with France after French lawmakers approved a bill making it a crime to deny Armenian genocide.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan said Turkey will recall its ambassador from Paris and suspend mutual political visits as well as joint military projects, including joint exercises.

He said the bill would open "very grave" and "irreparable" wounds in ties with leading EU member and fellow NATO member France.

"From now on we are revising our relations with France," he said.

Most of the sanctions imposed on France will be in the military sphere.

But Erdogan said Ankara will also halt political consultations with Paris. Both countries were engaged in intensive dialogue over the latest developments in the Middle East including the crisis in Syria.

Turkey will now decide on a case-by-case on every military demand made by EU member France to use Turkish airspace and military bases, Erdogan said, and will from now on reject any French demand for its military vessels to dock at Turkish ports.

He said Turkey would boycott a joint economic committee meeting in Paris in January and would not take part in twinning projects with France.

France's lower house of parliament approved the bill, which makes it a crime to deny that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Turkish Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide during World War I.

Erdogan accused French lawmakers who backed the bill of making political decisions on the basis of "racism, discrimination and xenophobia".

"There is no genocide committed in our history. We do not accept it," said Erdogan.

He also lashed out at French President Nicolas Sarkozy, accusing him of electioneering ahead of next year's presidential election to win the votes of 500,000 Armenians living in France.

"History and people will never forgive those exploiting historical facts to achieve political ends," said Erdogan.

Turkey and France have enjoyed close ties since Ottoman Empire times, coupled with strong economic links, but relations took a downturn after Sarkozy became president in 2007 and raised vocal objections to Turkey's EU accession.

Erdogan said the law was against freedom of expression.

"Is there freedom of thought and freedom of expression in France?" he said. "Let me give the answer: No."

He said the French parliament had trampled on freedom, equality and fraternity, the symbols of the French revolution.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Turkey_suspends_political_and_military_ties_with_France_999.html.

Russia-led alliance limits foreign bases

MOSCOW, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- The seven member nations of a Russia-led military alliance this week agreed to rules limiting the presence of foreign military bases within their borders.

In what was seen as a blunt message to NATO and its efforts to deploy a European anti-ballistic missile defense system, the seven nations comprising the Collective Security Treaty Organization declared Tuesday at a Moscow summit that no members can agree to host a foreign military installation without the consent of the others.

The CSTO, comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, issued a strong statement laying out the new rule.

"The unilateral deployment of strategic missile defense systems by one state or a group of states without due account for the lawful interests of other countries and without extending legally binding guarantees to the latter may damage international security and strategic stability in Europe and the world as a whole," the CSTO statement said.

Currently, the only foreign base in the CSTO countries is a U.S. air base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan, established in 2001 to help U.S. efforts in fighting Taliban extremists in neighboring Afghanistan.

But in the wake of tensions between Russia and the western NATO alliance over the missile defense plans and the conflict in Libya, the CSTO said action was necessary to counter "the … tendency for military intervention in critical situations."

"Now, in order to accommodate extra-regional military structures on the territory of the CSTO, it will be necessary to obtain official approval of all (CSTO) members," Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti after the summit.

Nazarbayev took over the rotating presidency of the CSTO from Belarus this year while it marked the 20th anniversary of the treaty that led to its founding.

State-owned RT Television reported Russian President Dmitry Medvedev praised the move against foreign military bases as necessary to consolidate the positions of the organization's members.

"I believe it is very important that all the parties have reached consensus," he said.

The CSTO summit also concentrated on Afghanistan, where the NATO-led Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force continues to battle the Taliban for control of the country 10 years after Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks.

Amid signs of a deepening sectarian strife in the country, the statement noted what it called "the deteriorating situation in the Afghanistan" and called for the rebuilding of the country as a "peaceful, prosperous, independent and neutral state."

The Kremlin has said Afghanistan should be regarded as a neutral nation once ISAF's mission is completed in 2014.

Fighting drug trafficking from the war-torn country is a necessary part of ensuring its future, the CSTO nations have said.

A one-week CSTO-led effort this month led to the seizure of about 16 tons of Afghan drugs within the seven-country bloc, ITAR-Tass reported. Included the in haul as part of the "Channel-2011" operation were more than 1,100 pounds of heroin, 286 pounds of cocaine and 9 tons of opium.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/22/Russia-led-alliance-limits-foreign-bases/UPI-25141324553700/.

Iran's spies score 'stunning achievements'

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Israeli officials say Iran, which has been hit several times by mysterious computer viruses, has launched an "ambitious plan" to boost its cyberwar capabilities and is investing $1 billion in cutting-edge technology.

If the claim is correct, the Iranian effort underlines what veteran analyst Mahan Abedin calls the "stunning achievements in the intelligence, electronic and cyberwarfare fields" against the West by Tehran's security services in recent months.

The Iranian move is in apparent response to a significant increase in intelligence operations against the Islamic Republic by the United States, Britain and Israel as tensions over Tehran's contentious nuclear program escalate in a region already gripped by uncertainty and regime change.

"The dramatic spike in CIA activity inside Iran in 2011 has reinforced the Iranian leadership's conviction that the Western powers are set on a confrontation and a possible military showdown with the Islamic Republic," Abedin observed in an Asian Times Online analysis Thursday.

"There is a fear in Tehran that Western agencies -- working directly and indirectly with radical opposition elements -- will try to incite riots and disorder, similar in style if not scope to the ones that rocked the Iranian capital in June 2009 following the disputed presidential elections."

Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which has been tightening its operations for some time, claims it arrested a CIA spy, a former U.S. Marine of Iranian origin named Amir Mirza Hekmati.

It said his mission was to infiltrate the MOIS and feed it disinformation. Hekmati, 28, was reportedly arrested in September but it was only announced Dec. 17. The following day, state television broadcast what it said was a taped confession by Hekmati.

Earlier, Iran said it downed an ultra-secret U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance drone operating out of Afghanistan, allegedly by electronically hijacking its controls.

Washington admitted to the loss of the CIA-owned Sentinel, which Iran said was recovered intact. Its highly classified electronic systems were a major prize for Iranian intelligence and a serious blow to the Americans.

In November, Iran said it had arrested 12 members of a CIA spy ring. That came hard on the heels of the reported capture of 30 alleged CIA agents in late May.

At the same time, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's most important Arab proxy, claimed it seized several people it said had been recruited by CIA officers working out of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Arab intelligence sources said the counterintelligence sweeps in Tehran and Beirut were connected.

Iranian intelligence, particularly the intelligence arm of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has long worked hand-in-hand with Hezbollah's security wing, widely considered to be one of the most effective counterintelligence outfits in the Middle East.

Hezbollah, with Iranian technical help, has been able to electronically penetrate the surveillance systems of the spy drones Israel has been deploying over Lebanon for the last decade or so -- a possible link to the RQ-170 debacle.

These setbacks have been grudgingly confirmed by U.S. officials, which Abedin notes, "is suggestive of a major American intelligence defeat, if not a full-blown disaster."

"The exposure of the agents in Lebanon was apparently due to extremely poor tradecraft on the part of the CIA officers running the operations," said former CIA official Philip Giraldi, "while the Iranian roll-up was due to badly conceived and insecure Internet communications that were identified by the Iranian security services."

Last January, Tehran said it had broken a spy ring run by Israel's Mossad intelligence service.

It has been widely blamed for the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists and several bombings, including a military base in November in which dozens of Iranian Shehab ballistic missiles were supposedly blown up.

Abedin says the Iran November roundup of alleged CIA spies indicates that "the CIA is operating a lower threshold of quality control in terms of agent recruitment and managed.

"Second, there are signs that MOIS is moving steadily in the direction of making Iran a forbidding space for hostile foreign intelligence services."

There have been suggestions that the 30-strong CIA ring was betrayed by an Iranian student who'd been approached by a quasi-academic institution in Malaysia offering grants and scholarships.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi indicated most of the suspects were junior scientists or students who traveled abroad frequently.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/22/Irans-spies-score-stunning-achievements/UPI-41431324572626/.

Jewish terrorism threat grows in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The Israeli military, already bracing for what could be the most devastating war in the Middle East, is also girding for a looming confrontation with Jewish extremists, mainly hard-liners from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Extremists from ultra-Orthodox settler groups, who say God gave the region to the children of Abraham for all time, have been increasingly active in recent months.

This has taken place as the United States sought to pressure the Israeli government to relinquish the West Bank, or a large portion of it, as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The smoldering crisis escalated sharply Dec. 12 when a mob of angry settlers stormed a regional military base near the Arab city of Qalqilya, stoned the brigade commander and his deputy and burned army trucks.

The right-wing hard-liners attacked the base because, they said, the military was preparing to shut down a settlement the Israeli Supreme Court had ordered closed in August.

Earlier, another group broke into a closed military zone on the border with Jordan and attempted to establish a settlement outpost before they were arrested.

These incidents, with troops under attack from fellow Jews, triggered an outcry in the Israeli media, with some commentators even speculating on "civil war."

The liberal Haaretz daily warned that "the only 'red line' that has yet to be crossed is a scenario in which an Israeli citizen fires on soldiers. There are those in Israel's security forces who fear that day is not so distant."

The violence follows a growing number of so-called price-tag attacks by settlers on Palestinian mosques and churches, some of which were torched. These attacks are intended to dissuade the government from moving against illegal hilltop outposts, a tactic used by the more militant settlers to extend the settlement process.

Ironically, it was one devised in 1997 by Ariel Sharon, then foreign minister in Netanyahu's first term as premier, who exhorted settlers to "seize the hilltops" to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

The recent attacks are part of a larger hard-line campaign to prevent the government forcibly evacuating settlements, which the settlers see as a move toward an eventual sellout to the Palestinians.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon and others branded the attacks as terrorism, an epithet rarely used against Jews and the politically powerful movement representing the 300,000 settlers in the West Bank.

"There's no question that this is terror behavior," declared Barak, Israel's most decorated war hero.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a right-wing hawk widely blamed for undermining the peace process, described the attack on the army as "intolerable."

He directed security forces to be more aggressive against the militants and decreed they would be tried by military courts.

But he stopped short of calling the culprits "terrorists," thus avoiding a politically dangerous clash with the settler bloc by equating the militants' actions with stone-throwing Palestinian "terrorists."

Indeed, the commotion, and the customary condemnations, underlines just how powerless the authorities are when it comes to Jewish terrorism and how success administrations have failed to rein them in.

Even the right-leaning Jerusalem Post was incensed by the attack on the army.

"What needs to be understood is that these settlers and far-right activists largely do not fear the police or the courts," the Post's military affairs correspondent Yaakov Katz, wrote.

"Past experience has shown that punishments tend to be minor and that's in the rare instance where the case actually makes it court."

Palestinians living in the West Bank, who have been under military occupation since 1967, are routinely tried by military courts where defendants' rights are minimal.

Haaretz, which has long spoken out against Jewish terrorism and settler militancy, cited military documents indicating that in 2010 99.74 percent of Palestinians who appeared before military courts were convicted.

That's 25 acquittals out of 9,542 cases.

Despite the government's pledge to crack down of right-wing extremists it has in recent weeks approved settlement expansions in the West Bank and, more controversially, in Arab East Jerusalem where the Israelis have been systematically forcing out the Palestinian population for years.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/21/Jewish-terrorism-threat-grows-in-West-Bank/UPI-83091324497138/.

Clashes smear University of Jordan Student Union Elections

2011-12-22

By Alaa Elayyan

AMMONNEWS - Clashes erupted throughout the day on Thursday at the University of Jordan (UJ) as students caste their ballots in the Student Union elections.

Security forces intensified their presence around the campus as several brawls erupted in various faculties, including the humanities, medicine, sciences, and engineering departments.

Two students were injured in the clashes and were transferred to the University of Jordan hospital for treatment.

University security guards worked to contain the various fights that erupted, as Public Security Directorate (PSD) personnel remained outside the campus near the main gates.

Meanwhile, Dean of the Humanities Department Dr. Abdullah Anbar announced on Thursday morning postponing the English Department elections until next week after clashes erupted there when students supporting one candidate prevented other students from casting their ballots.

Angry students stormed into the university's President's building after the department's elections were postponed, leading UJ's vice-president to meet with them to contain the incident.

UJ President Adel Tweisi told Ammon News on Thursday that head of the elections' committee in the humanities department worked to contain the incident after young men covering their faces with scarfs and masks prevented female students from voting.

Students also vandalized university property in the Business Department and blocked the entrances to the engineering department.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=15051.

Kazakh riots create oil market jitters

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Disruptions in oil production in Kazakhstan could have a similar impact as the Libyan war though the prospects for major violence is low, analysts say.

More than a dozen people were killed in riots in western Kazakhstan last week in the worst outbreak of violence since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Kazakhstan in 2010 produced around 1.7 million barrels of oil a day compared with 1.6 million bpd in Libya, statistics from a world energy review from BP show. Disruptions in Libyan crude production from this year's war sent jitters across global energy markets and analysts worry about a similar impact with Kazakhstan.

David Wech, an analyst at JBC Energy in Vienna, told Bloomberg News a complete stoppage in Kazakhstan would be "quite similar" to the effects seen in Libya, with European markets feeling the brunt of the halt.

Other analysts said the riots in Kazakhstan are especially troubling consider the sanctions pressure put on Iran, one of the top producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Kazakhstan's state-run energy company KazMunaiGas said last week its production wasn't curtailed by the rioting because its employees weren't involved. Zhanar Nazkhanova, an equity analyst at the country's Visor Capital, told Bloomberg news the prospects for major violence were low, however.

"This is a tribal issue that is specific to the western part of the country," he said.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/12/22/Kazakh-riots-create-oil-market-jitters/UPI-89581324562631/.

Million person march planned in Egypt against violence against women

CAIRO, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Protesting the treatment of women at the hands of the security forces, Egyptians are planning a 1 million person march at Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The National Association for Change has called on all Egyptians to protest Friday in Cairo and elsewhere against the violence against women, Ahram Online said.

A statement issued by the NAC called on Egyptians to march peacefully and "regain Egypt's honor," stressing women's rights in the country have been ignored since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Protesters should condemn "the brutal crime committed against Egypt's most noble women," the statement said referring to the recent violence in which women were beaten by security forces in the streets and their traditional veils removed.

Thirteen political parties including the Muslim Brotherhood said they will participate in the march aside from the NAC, al-Masry al-Youm reported.

A spokesman for the extremist Jama'a al-Islamiya group told the Egyptian daily they would boycott the demonstration saying, "We don't participate in demonstrations organized by communists."

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/12/22/Million-person-march-planned-in-Egypt-against-violence-against-women/UPI-55251324557308/.

French lawmakers pass genocide law on Armenians

December 22, 2011 — PARIS (AP) — French lawmakers easily passed a measure Thursday to make it a crime to deny the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide. Turkey swiftly retaliated, ordering its ambassador home and halting official contacts, including some military cooperation.

Within hours of the lower house vote on the bill, which would penalize those who deny the Armenian genocide, Turkey meted out a severe punishment of its own. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a series of retaliatory measures, recalling the country's ambassador to France and suspending joint military maneuvers and restricting French military flights.

Turkey, a NATO member, is a strategic ally of France and valued trading partner, and the moves diminish ties at a particularly crucial time. Paris and Ankara are both deeply involved in international issues from the uprising in Syria to Afghanistan.

"We are recalling our ambassador in Paris to Ankara for consultations," Erdogan said. "As of now, we are canceling bilateral level political, economic and military activities," he said. "We are suspending all kinds of political consultations with France" and "bilateral military cooperation, joint maneuvers are canceled as of now."

It was clear long before the vote — easily passed with a show of hands — that France was on a collision course with Turkey. Ankara had threatened to remove Ambassador Tahsin Burcuoglu if French lawmakers did not desist and warned of "grave consequences" to political and economic ties.

Turkey vehemently rejects the term "genocide" for the World War I era-mass killings of Armenians, saying the issue should be left to historians. It contends that France is trampling freedom of expression and that President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a vote-getting mission before April presidential elections.

An estimated 500,000 Armenians live in France and many have pressed to raise the legal statute regarding the massacres to the same level as the Holocaust by punishing denial of genocide. "We must not mix freedom of opinion with propaganda," conservative lawmaker Patrick Devedjian, who is of Armenian origin, said before lawmakers in arguing for the measure.

"Would you accept today that Germany denies the Holocaust and that it spreads abroad, to France, a negationist propaganda? No," he said later before journalists. "So why should we accept that from Turkey."

France formally recognized the killings as genocide in 2001, but provided no penalty for anyone denying that. The bill sets a punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($59,000) for those who deny or "outrageously minimize" the killings by Ottoman Turks, putting such action on a par with denial of the Holocaust.

In Washington, President Barack Obama has stopped short of calling the killings genocide. "Our ancestors can finally rest in peace," said 75-year-old Maurice Delighazarian, standing outside France's National Assembly. He said his grandparents on both sides were among the victims of the 1915 massacre.

Vaskel Avedissian, 25, said he spent time with Turkish demonstrators outside the National Assembly earlier Thursday and "These people have nothing against Armenians." But, he added, "Turkey is the spokesman for state negationism today."

Lawmakers denounced what they called Turkey's propaganda effort in a bid to sway them. "Laws voted in this chamber cannot be dictated by Ankara," said Jean-Christophe Lagarde, a deputy from the New Center party, as Turks demonstrated outside the National Assembly ahead of the vote.

The bill's author said she was "shocked" at the attempt to interfere with the parliament's work. "My bill doesn't aim at any particular country," Valerie Boyer, a deputy for Sarkozy's conservative UMP party, told lawmakers.

Speaking to journalists after the vote, Boyer said that Turkey's threats to retaliate are not in line with its desire to join the European Union. "The attitude of this country (Turkey) which is knocking on the door of Europe and which starts by threatening France with retaliation ... seems to me absolutely paradoxical," said Boyer.

An initial bid to punish denial of the Armenian genocide failed earlier this year, killed by the Senate five years after it was passed by the lower house. French authorities have stressed the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey and the key role it plays in sensitive strategic issues as a member of NATO, in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

However, Sarkozy has long opposed the entry into the European Union of mostly Muslim Turkey, putting a constant strain on the two nations' ties. Turkish authorities have weighed in with caustic remarks about France's past. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has recalled France's colonial history in Algeria and a 1945 massacre there, as well as its role in Rwanda, where some have claimed a French role in the 1994 genocide.

"Those who do want to see genocide should turn around and look at their own dirty and bloody history," Erdogan said last weekend. "Turkey will stand against this intentional, malicious, unjust and illegal attempt through all kinds of diplomatic means."

Turkish President Abdullah Gul spoke out on the issue this week, saying it will "put France in a position of a country that does not respect freedom of expression and does not allow objective scientific research."

Turkey insists the mass killings of Armenians — up to 1.5 million, historians estimate — occurred during civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with losses on both sides. Historians contend the Armenians were massacred in the first genocide of the 20th century.

France is pressing Turkey to own up to its history for the sake of "memory" just as the French have officially recognized the role of their state — the collaborationist Vichy government — in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II.

In October, Sarkozy visited Armenia and its capital of Yerevan, urging Turkey to recognize the 1915 killings as genocide. "Turkey, which is a great country, would honor itself by revisiting its history like other countries in the world have done," Sarkozy said.

France, however, took its own time recognizing the state's role in the Holocaust. It was not until 1995 that then-President Jacques Chirac proclaimed France's active role in sending its citizens to death camps. And it was only in 2009 that his historic declaration was formally recognized in a ruling by France's top body, the Council of State.

Richard Maillie, a UMP lawmaker, said in arguing for passage of the bill that France's recognition in 2001 of the Armenian killings as genocide "is not sufficient." "It would be better (for Turkey) to simply recognize this genocide and ask for pardon," Maillie said, as France did for the Holocaust.

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Catherine Gaschka contributed to this article.

Danish zoo raises polar bear cub by hand

December 22, 2011 — COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish zoo says a month-old polar bear cub is being raised by humans after his mother failed to produce enough milk to feed him.

Scandinavian Wildlife Park manager Frank Vigh-Larsen says Siku is doing "really fine." The cub now weighs 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms grams) — against 3 pounds (1.8 kilograms) at birth. Vigh-Larsen said Thursday that the cub was two days old when he was removed from his mother after surveillance video inside the bear cave revealed that he "was moaning and being unruly all the time."

Vigh-Larsen says Siku would have been in danger of death if he had stayed with his mother. Three people are giving round-the-clock care to the cub at the zoo in Kolind, 105 miles (170 kilometers) northwest of Copenhagen.

Report: Hamas agrees to join PLO

Thursday 22/12/2011

CAIRO (Ma'an) -- Hamas has agreed to join the Palestine Liberation Organization in a move intended to bolster Palestinian reconciliation, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

There was no immediate confirmation, but officials in Cairo said Hamas and Islamic Jihad expressed flexibility and indicated they would accept the PLO's legitimacy.

The report came after President Mahmoud Abbas met Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Cairo to put "final touches" on an agreement to reconcile the leaders' rival factions.

Officials from Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian National Initiative said late Thursday that they had accepted positions on an "interim leadership" of the PLO.

Ayed Yaghi, a PNI leader, said the small faction joined the PLO and that it was a natural position to take.

Head of the PNI Mustafa Barghouthi called it "a historic day in the lives of the Palestinian people with the development of a united national leadership as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PNI joined the PLO’s leadership framework."

An Islamic Jihad leader, however, said that joining the "interim leadership framework" of the PLO did not necessarily mean it had formally accepted membership in the Palestinian body.

Khaled Al-Batsh told Ma’an that joining the organization requires a clear framework for how the PLO will be restructured.

He added that if there was an agreement concerning these issues, Islamic Jihad would become a member in the organization. However, if there was not, the group said it was still willing to contribute.

“We’re now in the phase of national dialogue," he said. "We’re in the interim leadership framework, which will handle restructuring the PLO, and we hope to succeed.”

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=447131.

Green PolkaDot Box launches, begins shipping selection of organic and non-GMO groceries directly to consumers

Thursday, December 22, 2011
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Billed as the up-and-coming "Amazon.com of the natural food industry," the Green PolkaDot Box company has now opened its (online) doors and is shipping discounted foods, nutritional supplements, natural home care and personal care products straight to consumers at direct-to-consumer prices. Their launch was later than expected, of course. We had hoped they would be online in October, but it took some extra programming work to get their member rewards program working smoothly, and the good news is that members who joined a couple of months ago are now already accumulating rewards points and using them to get free groceries, supplements, superfoods and other health-enhancing products delivered to their front door (in green boxes, no less).

I'm really happy to see Green PolkaDot Box launch. NaturalNews.com, the Organic Consumers Association and the Institute for Responsible Technology all got behind this concept several months ago, helping to publicize the upcoming launch of the company. We all believe that Whole Foods needs some competition to deliver organic products (and non-GMO products) at more competitive prices, and Green PolkaDot Box is suddenly positioned as the most promising company to take on that important role.

Some in the industry taunted GPDB, pessimistically saying their concept could never be achieved and that they would never open their doors. But just a few days ago, the critics were silenced as GPDB opened its doors and began shipping out hundreds of orders! Right now, its members are saving money and even earning free groceries thanks to their referral rewards benefits (see below).

How it works to save you money on the health-enhancing products you buy every day
The Green PolkaDot Box is an online buyer's club, much like Costco or Sam's Club, but offering healthy products instead of conventional products. You pay a small fee to join, and then you start saving money immediately -- up to 60% off! -- on purchases of some of the best natural and organic products the industry has to offer. All orders over $150 are shipped FREE, so you pay no shipping in the USA.

Right away, you can probably see how this could save you significant dollars over the next twelve months. But there's something even better in all this. As a rewards member with GPDB, you also earn rewards points on the groceries your friends buy -- or from anyone you tell about the website. So when they buy groceries at a discount, you get rewards points in YOUR account that you can then use to buy all the organic food products, superfoods, supplements, personal care products and other things you enjoy as part of your health lifestyle. (And their inventory is expanding every week to include a greater selection of natural health products, by the way...)

In essence, you'll be earning FREE products as a referral benefit of introducing Green Polka Dot Box to others who may also want to save money on their own purchases of natural, organic and non-GMO products.

This is a big deal, and it's a smart way to lower your grocery bill every month, or perhaps to finally afford the organic products that previously seemed too expensive...

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/034464_Green_Polkadot_Box_organic_groceries.html.

Facebook uses YOUR face to promote products to other users

Thursday, December 22, 2011
by: Jonathan Benson

(NaturalNews) If you use Facebook and think your personal information is private and secure, think again. Back in January, the social media empire unveiled a new "Sponsored Stories" function that attaches user photos to the goods and services they "Like" in order to market such products to friends and acquaintances. A new lawsuit in California alleges that this practice violates numerous laws in the "Golden State," and perhaps elsewhere.

According to the allegations, Facebook's marketing initiatives violate California's Right of Publicity Statute as well as its unfair trade practices law. The allegations also claim Facebook is unfairly enriching itself at the users expense, which US District Judge Lucy Koh of San Jose apparently believes may be valid, as she recently rejected Facebook's petition to her court to have the suit dropped.

The plaintiffs claimed that using the faces and names of people without their permission is illegal. California's Right of Publicity Statute prohibits company's from using the names, voices, signatures, photographs, or likeness of individuals for the purpose of advertising, without their expressed permission. And since Facebook users were neither told about the Sponsored Stories program when it began, nor asked for permission to be a part of it, Facebook is in violation of the law, they claim.

Many Facebook users are still in the dark about how the site is using their personal data in general, including in the new Sponsored Stories program. Users were automatically "enrolled" in the program without their permission, and without being informed about it, back in January. And instead of an opt-in system, users are given the unannounced option to opt-out, at least in a limited form -- that is if they are able to successfully navigate Facebook's convoluted privacy section to find the section in which to do this.

Facebook, on the other hand, has implied in its limited response that its users are all "public figures," and that the statute does not apply to them. The social media site views the Sponsored Stories program as a type of "trusted referral" system, these being the words of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who also said that such a system is the "Holy Grail of advertising."

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/034463_Facebook_personal_information_privacy.html.

Belarus Strongman Vows Nation Will Build World's Best Spacecraft Ever

Moscow (RIA Novosti)
Dec 22, 2011

Belorussian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday the former Soviet republc would build the best spaceship the world has ever seen.

Lukashenko, once famously dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by the United States over the country's poor human rights record, said he had spoken with the country's leading scientists on the "construction of our own spacecraft."

"We agreed: the craft will be the best in the world," Lukashenko told an energy conference in Minsk.

"Who would have thought in the 1990s that we'd be making a spacecraft?" the 57-year-old former collective farm boss asked.

On Wednesday, Belarus signed an agreement with Russia on space cooperation and announced plans to launch its BelKa-2 satellite early next year. The first BelKa crashed on liftoff in 2006.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Belarus_Strongman_Vows_Nation_Will_Build_World_Best_Spacecraft_Ever_999.html.

Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Dec 22, 2011

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit.

The images, obtained by the framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early history.

At this detailed resolution, the surface shows abundant small craters, and textures such as small grooves and lineaments that are reminiscent of the structures seen in low-resolution data from the higher-altitude orbits.

Also, this fine scale highlights small outcrops of bright and dark material.

The images were returned to Earth on Dec. 13. Dawn scientists plan to acquire data in the low-altitude mapping orbit for at least 10 weeks.

The primary science objectives in this orbit are to learn about the elemental composition of Vesta's surface with the gamma ray and neutron detector and to probe the interior structure of the asteroid by measuring the gravity field.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Dawn_Obtains_First_Low_Altitude_Images_of_Vesta_999.html.

Russia sends multinational crew to ISS

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP)
Dec 21, 2011

Russia on Wednesday sent a multinational crew of three astronauts to the International Space Station on a Soyuz rocket from its Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, US NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers blasted off aboard a Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft at 1316 GMT in a spectacular night-time launch from the Kazakh steppe.

The launch, which filled the otherwise pitch-black steppe with blazing light, appeared to go smoothly and mission control said that the Soyuz went into orbit as planned 10 minutes after lift-off.

Unusually, Kononenko did not bring any talisman to hang in the cockpit to indicate the arrival of weightlessness, telling reporters ahead of mission that there were other means of measuring gravity.

Their mission will bring the crew of the ISS back up to its full complement of six after the timetable for the launches was reshuffled following the loss of a Russian Progress supply ship bound for the station in August.

When they dock on Friday at 1520 GMT the trio will join Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin -- who have been on the ISS since mid-November -- and prepare to spend Christmas together.

The crew on their way to the ISS is unusually experienced with all having previous experience of space flight.

Kononenko is a veteran of one ISS mission after a 199-day mission in 2008 while Kuipers also had a short stint on the orbiting laboratory in 2004. Petit had a 161-day mission in 2002-2003 and also flew on the shuttle in 2008.

Following the retirement of the US shuttle in July, Russia is currently the only nation capable of transporting humans to the space station.

But its image as a reliable partner was severely tarnished with the loss of the Progress supply ship, which crashed into Siberia shortly after launch and caused a complete rejig of the launch schedule.

This capped a disastrous year for the Russian space agency which also saw the loss of three navigation satellites, an advanced military satellite and a telecommunications satellite due to faulty launches.

Russia has also acknowledged the almost certain loss of its Phobos-Grunt probe for Mars's largest moon, which was launched on November 9 but has failed to head out of Earth's orbit on its course to the Red Planet.

The probe is expected to fall back to Earth in January but Russian space officials have emphasized it should not pose a threat to anyone on the ground.

The recent problems were a major disappointment for Russia in the year marking half a century since Yuri Gagarin made man's first voyage into space from Baikonur.

The Soyuz rocket design first flew in the late 1960s and has a proud safety record, with Russia boasting that its simplicity has allowed it to outlive the shuttle.

Whereas NASA endured the fatal loss of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles in 1986 and 2003, Moscow has not suffered a fatality in space since the crew of Soyuz-11 died in 1971 in their capsule when returning to Earth.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Russia_sends_multinational_crew_to_ISS_999.html.

Protests in southern China turn violent: witnesses

Beijing (AFP)
Dec 21, 2011

Demonstrations over a power plant in southern China turned violent for a second straight day on Wednesday when police fired tear-gas and beat protesters, witnesses said.

At least six people were said to have been injured in the clashes with police in Haimen, a town in Guangdong province where residents are protesting against a coal-fired power plant that they say is a health hazard.

Photographs posted online purportedly of protests in Haimen showed an overturned police car.

The latest violence came after witnesses told AFP on Tuesday that a 15-year-old boy and a middle-aged woman had been killed in the clashes with police, although this could not immediately be confirmed.

Oriental TV, a Hong Kong-based television station, said six residents had died and nearly 200 were injured in Tuesday's violent confrontation, which led local authorities to announce the suspension of a plan to expand the plant.

Protesters contacted by telephone on Wednesday said they were either unaware of the suspension or skeptical about the government's intentions.

"At least 200 riot police rushed in and beat anyone they met and at least six people were injured," a protester, who refused to be named, told AFP by telephone from a service station where demonstrators had gathered.

"We won't stop demonstrating because the government is playing a word game with us -- they said they would suspend the project but not totally stop it, so we won't give up."

Another resident said the local government had not yet contacted the protesters.

"None of the leaders have showed up so far, not even on TV," the resident told AFP by telephone. "We want them to solve this problem, we can't bear the pollution any more."

Another resident surnamed Zheng said several thousand protesters attempting to block a highway into Haimen clashed with police when relatives of four people detained during Tuesday's unrest demanded their loved ones be released.

State media reported last month that a 7.4-billion-yuan ($1.17-billion) expansion of the power plant had failed environmental tests and toxic metals found in local waterways "exceeded the standard level".

Online searches for Haimen were blocked on Wednesday, as authorities tried to keep news of the clashes from spreading.

Haimen is only around 115 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Wukan village, where residents have been in open revolt against the local government after what they say is years of illegal land grabs.

There is no indication that the protests are related, but they are part of an upsurge in social unrest in Guangdong, China's wealthiest province and the country's manufacturing hub.

China strives to defuse unrest in wealthy south
Wukan, China (AFP) Dec 21, 2011 - Authorities in southern China moved Wednesday to defuse outbreaks of unrest, agreeing to free villagers detained for protesting land seizures and suspending a power plant project.

The wealthy province of Guangdong has seen an upsurge in protests in recent months, as middle-class Chinese become increasingly willing to take on the government on issues ranging from official corruption to pollution.

On Wednesday, a senior provincial official held talks with representatives of Wukan, a fishing village that has become a thorn in the government's side, to try to persuade them to end an embarrassing stand-off with authorities.

Deputy provincial party secretary Zhu Mingguo agreed to free three village leaders detained on December 9 and to release the body of a fourth who died in police custody to his relatives, village spokesman Lin Zulian said.

A police blockade that had surrounded the village since the men were arrested has now been removed and a 10-member government team will go to Wukan to investigate the villagers' complaints.

"I'm very satisfied with the outcome of the meeting," Lin said. "This is not a victory, but it is a beginning."

The decision to send a senior provincial official to deal with the dispute is an indication of how concerned the Guangdong government was by the rare revolt in Wukan.

It came as demonstrations over a coal-fired power plant in the town of Haimen, also in Guangdong, turned violent for a second straight day on Wednesday when police fired tear-gas and beat protesters, witnesses said.

Haimen is only around 115 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Wukan, and while there is no indication that the events are related, they are evidence of the rising challenge posed by social unrest.

Neither protest has received much coverage in China's state-run media, but Guangdong's proximity to neighboring Hong Kong, with its independent media, means that news of both has got out, apparently worrying authorities.

Officials overseeing Haimen said in a statement late Tuesday they would suspend the power station project and refer the case to "supervisory authorities".

But protesters contacted by telephone on Wednesday said they were either unaware of the suspension or skeptical about the government's intentions.

The latest violence came after witnesses told AFP on Tuesday that a 15-year-old boy and a middle-aged woman had been killed in the clashes with police, although this could not immediately be confirmed.

Oriental TV, a Hong Kong-based television station, said six residents had died and nearly 200 were injured in the confrontation.

Online searches for Haimen were blocked in China on Wednesday, as authorities tried to keep news of the clashes from spreading, but one resident said they planned to continue their demonstrations.

"We won't stop demonstrating because the government is playing a word game with us -- they said they would suspend the project but not totally stop it, so we won't give up," he told AFP by telephone.

State media reported last month that a 7.4-billion-yuan ($1.17-billion) expansion of the power plant had failed environmental tests and toxic metals found in local waterways "exceeded the standard level".

Three decades of rapid economic growth have left many waterways in China severely contaminated and protests over environmental pollution are increasing -- particularly in the south, where most of China's factories are located.

Protests over land seizures are relatively common, but the stand taken by the villagers of Wukan -- who drove out local Communist leaders and have effectively been governing themselves since September -- was unusual.

Villagers' anger boiled over with the death in police custody on December 11 of Xue Jinbo, a community leader who they suspect was beaten to death. The government has said he suffered a heart attack.

Spokesman Lin said after the talks with Zhu that the issue of stolen land -- which villagers say had been going on for years and has deprived many farmers of their livelihood -- had yet to be resolved.

Nonetheless, there was a mood of relief in Wukan, where around 1,000 villagers gathered for a rally and food supplies -- which had begun to run low -- reached the village.

"We have struggled and got the attention of the provincial and central governments. But we paid a heavy price with the loss of our beloved Xue Jinbo's life," Yang Semao told a packed village square.

"There is the light of a new dawn, a new day. But we must be careful because the dark clouds can easily return."

Many villagers had long maintained that they remained loyal to China's ruling Communist party, and blamed their problems on a small group of corrupt local officials.

"There was so much pressure on us, people have been so afraid," a villager surnamed Zhuang told AFP. "When I heard that he (Zhu) was coming, I felt that a great weight was lifted off my heart."

Source: Sino Daily.
Link: http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Protests_in_southern_China_turn_violent_witnesses_999.html.

Algeria to launch biometric passports

2011-12-21

Algeria will finally begin issuing biometric passports next month, Liberte reported on Wednesday (December 21st). According to Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia, the high-tech Algeria biometric passport is "perfect in terms of security". A test run of the issuance process will be conducted in 50 communities, he said, with priority given to those who have never had a passport.

In 2009, Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said the passports would give Algeria an extra tool in the fight against "terrorism, illegal immigration and various forms of organized crime".

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/12/21/newsbrief-08.