News Archive - 24 March 2011

>DERAA, Syria (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public pledge to look into granting Syrians greater freedom on Thursday as anger mounted following attacks by security forces on protesters that left at least 37 dead. Despite the promise and the offer of large public pay rises, thousands of...

>TEL AVIV (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that Syria should learn from the example of Egypt, where the army held fire as the people overthrew the rule of former president Hosni Mubarak. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has faced nearly a week of protests, inspired...

>PARIS (Reuters) - Iran and Syria pose a greater security threat than Libya and the West should treat those countries in the same way as it has Muammar Gaddafi's government, Israel's foreign minister said on Thursday. In a brief interview with Reuters after meeting his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, Avigdor...

>DERAA, Syria (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater freedom and more prosperity to Syrians Thursday as anger mounted following a crackdown on protesters that left at least 37 dead. As an aide to Assad in Damascus read out a list of decrees, which included a...

>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is struggling to fashion a coherent Middle East policy that can span the launching of military action in Libya and a hesitant response to repression elsewhere. It has not been easy to strike a balance between pragmatism and principle, with diverging U.

> The 47-member Geneva forum approved the resolution by 22 votes in favour, 7 against and 14 abstentions, its president, Thai Ambassador Sihasak Phuangketkeow, announced. The text voiced concern at Iran's crackdown on opposition figures and increased use of the death penalty and called on the Islamic Republic to cooperate...

Shah Alam (The Star/ANN) - Police of Malaysian state of Selangor made their biggest syabu (methamphetamine) bust this year when they seized 81.4kg of the drug worth 16.1 million ringgit (US$5.3 million) from a container at Westport in Port Klang.

Egyptian demonstrators confront riot police during a demonstration in Cairo on January 28, 2011, demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

New York, Mar 25 : The United Nations Human Rights Council voted on Thursday to appoint a special rapporteur to look into the situation in Iran, expressing concern over its lack of cooperation with a previous General Assembly call for the country’s authorities to improve their human rights record.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-led attacks against an autocrat in oil-rich Libya have opened the Obama administration to questions about why it's holding back from more robust support for opposition forces challenging other dictators.

Master of Ceremonies Sean Balingit, who is the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce vice-president and Beaumont Planning Commission chairman, looks on as members of Tahquitz High School’s JROTC presents the colors at the opening ceremony of San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital’s 60th anniversary celebration.

Washingtonville — It's not like any high school art class you likely remember.

Yet again, our leaders think they’ve got a calling to save a country in the Middle East.

Iran on Friday dismissed the UN human rights council's appointment of an investigator to monitor abuses there for the first time since 2002, the state news agency IRNA reported.

Tehran has lashed out at the decision by U.N.'s top human rights body to appoint a special investigator to look into allegations of human rights abuses in Iran, saying the newly created post is "politically motivated."

Was the intervention in Libya justified – and if so, does that mean the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified? The conditions laid down by the French for their participation in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libyan air space go some way to answering those questions.

Moscow, Mar 24 :Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to continue to press for the closure of Iran's nuclear programme, despite the current unrest in the Middle East.

As doubts rise globally and nationally about the safety of nuclear power, a Chattanooga man was arraigned Thursday on federal charges of falsifying nuclear safety records at the only reactor being built in the United States — the second unit of Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee.

There has been a lot in the news this past week. Most important, if measured by getting most of the ink and air time, is the continuing soap opera, “Charlie and the CBS Factory.”

SHAH ALAM: Police seized 58 packets of Syabu weighing 81.4 kilogrammes and worth RM16.1 million from a cargo [...]

Five local-based expats creating fashion and products out of Singapore, on how being in Singapore has helped them build solid businesses.

For some people, the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan raises the question, "Is the world coming to an end?"

Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths at the northern entrance to Deraa.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Thursday that the American people should have been consulted on military action in Libya.

North Shore rescue officials are warning inexperienced hikers just how potentially deadly the Grouse Grind can be in the winter, as the CBC's Leah Hendry reports.

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has denounced the “unfair “adoption of a US-sponsored resolution against Iran at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The shipment was labelled tea kettles, but it brewed up big trouble for a couple of B.C. men after opium was found inside.

About three weeks before April's Texas Monthly landed on Abilene's magazine racks, Jordan Breal was here hitting the downtown streets to determine what might be highlighted on two glossy pages of her monthly Street Smarts feature.

The Free Software Foundation gave its annual awards to an Internet privacy project and the creator of a free alternative to Adobe Flash.

A naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle packages of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport, authorities confirmed Thursday. RELATED LINKS: » BLOG: Keep up to date with South Bay crime and court news » South Bay crime stats

NEW YORK, March 24, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC welcomed the UN Human Rights Council decision to appoint a special rapporteur to investigate human rights in Iran.

Boykin, a former member of the Army's Delta Force and veteran of missions in Iran and Somalia, spoke Thursday night at Reeths-Puffer High School about what he believes are the greatest threats to the United States, both foreign and domestic.

The failure of the protests in Bahrain should teach a few lessons to future movements for democracy in Arab nations, claims David Moon.

Police in B.C. have arrested two men after opium was found in shipment labelled as tea kettles from Iran.

“Death, death to Al Khalifa!” Shiite Muslim mourners chanted as they followed the coffin of Bahia al-Aradi through Manama’s narrow streets. “Down, down with Hamad!”

WIRED:In two recent hacking cases the targets held secrets for many firms and individuals

David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, recently posed the key question, not only about Libya but all the new revolutions in the Arab world: “Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?...

ANALYSIS:Threatened by Middle East unrest, reduced fuel supply could have very serious implications

Fundraiser 5K at Quiet Waters to help provide service dogs for other veterans He had been at the Iraqi front for months — and before that, in the war zones of Kuwait, Somalia and Bosnia — so for Sgt. 1st Class Mark Gwathmey, the day-to-day presence of shelling and explosions...

Canada pledged on Thursday to maintain its annual "diplomatic" assault on Iran at the United Nations.

Tensions boiled in a volatile Syrian community Thursday as thousands turned up for the funerals of people killed in unrest. Meanwhile, Syria's government blamed the instability on outsiders and announced plans to study popular demands, including the lifting of the country's decades-old emergency law.

SHAH ALAM: Selangor police made their biggest drug haul this year when they seized 81.4kg of syabu (methamphetamine) worth RM16.1 million. The seizure was made during a joint operation by federal police from Bukit Aman and the state Narcotics Crimes Investigation Department at 6pm on Monday.

Kelly Jane Torrance Special to the Examiner "Certified Copy" opens with a man talking about authenticity in art. The title of the film is the title of his book, in which he argues that a reproduction is as good as the real thing. A copy is itself a work of...

Colonel Gaddafi has supported terrorism against the United States and France; was responsible for the tragedy of PanAm 103; funded, armed and trained radicals in many African countries such as Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Haute Volta and a few Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon.

Summary Vitamin D has been proven to have an effect on pancreatic insulin secretion, and by extension diabetes; calcium also has an indirect role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Given the high prevalence of diabetes, this study was … Read More

For better or worse, the United States is now involved in a third military conflict in the Mideast, as President Obama announced last weekend the commencement of airstrikes over Libya and establishment of a no-fly zone over the country in an operation called Odyssey Dawn.

WASHINGTON - THE United States welcomed as a 'historic milestone' a move on Thursday by the UN rights watchdog to appoint an investigator specifically for abuses in Iran. Ending a nine-year break in such dedicated scrutiny, the Human Rights Council earlier approved the move by 22 votes to seven, with...

DARAA, Syria -- The Syrian government pledged Thursday to consider lifting some of the Mideast's most repressive laws in an attempt to stop a week-long uprising in a southern city from spreading and threatening its nearly 50-year rule.

The books, though, not the movies. A fixture of airport bookstores, newsstands, and beach bags, the novels about formerly amnesic super-spy Jason Bourne have proven to be independent of their prolific creator, Robert Ludlum, the best-selling author who died a decade ago. Now written by Eric Van Lustbader, the subsequent...

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced on Thursday that it has added three new names to its board of trustees, bringing its total number of trustees to an even 50. Joining the board is Elaine Wynn, who has...

Like a traveling theatre on delicate ivory wheels, the Shahnama exhibition arrived in Lahore from the Prince’s Foundation Gallery in London, where it opened in December 2010, having been tastefully put together by miniature painter and curator Fatima Zahra Hassan-Agha in association with Charles Melville, Director of the Cambridge Shahnama...

> * Sees WTI at $106, up from $91, this year * 2012 forecast unchanged for both at $105 * Barclays sees oil in 2020 at $184-$185 (Adds details from report) March 24 (Reuters) - Barclays Capital [BARCBC.UL] raised its 2011 oil price forecasts on Thursday to reflect the...

This outdated ritual of banners, pushchairs, linked hands and incantations won't turn Trafalgar into Tahrir Trafalgar Square is not Tahrir Square. London is not Cairo. George Osborne's budget is not the repressive one-party diktat of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt but the product of a democratic parliament. The desire of certain Labour...

Here's a crucial fact that you may not realize, given the week's headlines: Libya is only a tragic sideshow to the historic events in the Middle East.

Unrest has swept across the Middle East and North Africa, sparked by an uprising in Tunisia that led to the ouster of the country's ruler. Here an overview of the risings.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday strongly condemned the burning of the Quran by a US evangelical preacher in a Florida church and called on the United States to bring those responsible for the incident to justice. "President Karzai on behalf of the Muslim people of Afghanistan and on his...

GENEVA, March 24 -- UN Watch, a Geneva-based group that monitors the UN’s adherence to its Charter, expressed surprise that Kyrgyzstan was allowed to vote today at the UN Human Rights Council.

Kutztown Area Middle School students Abigail Makovsky, Kayla Graff, Colton Cutlip and Christina O’Donnell won second place for “Domestic Terrorists or Political Activists? The Paxton Riots and Pamphlet War Embody the Struggle of Colonial America” at the Region 9 National History Day competition recently.

Standing inside Golden Pin Donuts on a Tuesday morning, Barbara Wolf recalls her old habit of popping into the shop to buy treats for her daughter's friends at day care. They were doughnut holes, she remembers -- fresh, fluffy, and perfectly sized for little hands. That was 25 years ago.

Release Time:  For Immediate Release The United States welcomes the resolution adopted today by the United Nations Human Rights Council appointing a Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.  The decision by the Council represents a historic milestone that reaffirms the global consensus and alarm about the dismal state...

The 19th annual commemoration of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires reflected concern about the influence of Iran in Latin America.

Israel has given Russia ownership of a czarist-era landmark in the heart of Jerusalem, defusing a long-simmering dispute between the two countries right before Israel’s leader visits Moscow.

Israel’s foreign minister filed a formal complaint with the United Nations following the heaviest barrage of mortar shells on southern Israel in two years.

>FRANKFURT, March 24 (Reuters) - Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) unit Clearstream Banking is being sued for $250 million because of Iranian assets held at its Luxemburg unit, Deutsche Boerse said in its annual report. The suit was brought by relatives of U.S. soldiers who successfully sued Iran for damages.

We have a confluence of events on the world stage at present that carry the seeds of massive turbulence not witnessed in generations. The Middle East is clearly in chaos and because of that energy prices have been going up dramatically.

New Delhi, March 24 : The publication of leaked diplomatic cables reveal that the US has acquired an "influential position" in India's strategic affairs and foreign and economic policies, according to Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute projects what might happen As Iran's nuclear plant attack and Chinese-based hackers attacking Morgan Stanley demonstrate how the Internet can wreak havoc on business and governments, a new paper by a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy hypothesizes what an all-out...

Here is some unsolicited advice for the Obama administration: you essentially have four days to put US involvement in the Libya war on a path that doesn't look like open-ended quagmire.

SOUTH BEND — Retiring alumni association director Charles F. "Chuck" Lennon and former head football coach Lou Holtz will be among 12 people who will be presented honorary degrees at the University of Notre Dame’s May 22 commencement in Notre Dame Stadium.

Hackers from Iran are suspected of swiping authentication data from a US computer security firm in an attempt to impersonate popular Google or Yahoo! sites.

Globe-scouting British journalist and best-selling author Simon Winchester will soon pay a visit to Orcas Island to share his thoughts on China.

A security man (L) is reflected in an artwork, entitled La Favorite Dechue, by Morrocan artist Majida Khattari during the official opening of the Art Dubai exhibition, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. EPA/ALI HAIDER.

Alka Sadat directing "Half Value Life." ( Women's Voices From the Muslim World ) Filmmakers Mostafa Heravi, Alka Sadat and Laila Hotait Salas may hail from three different countries — Iran , Afghanistan and Lebanon — and represent a cross-section of vastly divergent backgrounds.

As America's NATO allies shoulder a greater share of the mission in Libya, the Arab countries that urged the U.N. Security Council to impose a no-fly zone are missing from the action.

TEL AVIV, Israel, March 24 (UPI) -- Amid a surge of terrorist attacks in recent days, Israelis are bracing for an escalation in violence and possibly a new invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Dems

MOSCOW - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran’s government should be “stopped” like Gadhafi’s regime in Libya.

DERAA, Syria (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater freedom and more prosperity to Syrians on Thursday as anger mounted following a crackdown on protesters that left at least 37 dead.

The Human Rights Council, voting 22 to 7, approved a resolution co-sponsored by the United States and Sweden to appoint special rapporteur on Iran.

>VIENNA (Reuters) - Western air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces could stiffen Iran's resolve to resist U.S.-led demands over its nuclear program, though Tehran's final analysis may depend on when and how the Libyan war ends. Seeking to mend ties with the West, Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to...

>TEL AVIV (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Israel on Thursday in the wake of a deadly bombing that could complicate his planned efforts to press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restart peace talks. A bomb exploded near a bus stop in a Jewish district of...

>Following are key dates in gold's trading history since the early 1970s:* August 1971 - U.S. President Richard Nixon takes the dollar off the gold standard, which had been in place with minor modifications since the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 fixed the conversion rate for one Troy ounce...

MANAMA (Reuters) - In the wake of Bahrain forces' fierce crackdown on a month of protests, the main street parting Manama's quiet Arad suburb has suddenly become a great divide.

There may be a "No-Fly" zone in Libya but oil and commodities continue to fly high. Inspired by a confluence of historic geo-political and macroeconomic events, not to

Henry Posner Jr., a low-profile yet influential Pittsburgh businessman who ran dozens of companies, contributed handsomely to local political campaigns and donated millions of dollars to Jewish causes among others that were close to his heart, died Wednesday. He was 92.

Five Christians charged with blasphemy are to stand trial in a lower court in Iran. They are due to appear before the court in two weeks.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. official says a French fighter jet reported attacking and destroying a Libyan plane that has been preliminarily identified as a military trainer aircraft.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday sought to persuade Russia to scale down cooperation with Israel's arch foes Iran and Syria as he met Russian leaders one day after a deadly bus bombing.

Geneva - The United Nations appointed a special human rights envoy to Iran on Thursday, owing to concerns over abuses in the Islamic republic. The council voted with 22 members in favour, mostly Western nations. Seven countries were opposed, including China, Cuba, Russia and Pakistan.

BOB LEWIS AP Political Writer RICHMOND, Va. House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Thursday that President Barack Obama must more clearly explain the U.S. role in Libya. "I do think there is a lot of concern right now about what the end game is in Libya. The president...

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has condemned a string of new Israeli military strikes which have killed a number of Palestinians including children in the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has condemned the “abhorrent” act of burning Qur'an, the Muslim Holy book, in the US state of Florida.

Miami (AFP) March 23, 2011 Four Colombians face charges linked to an attempt to illegally export 22 F-5 fighter jet engines to Iran, the US Justice Department said Wednesday. Three of the four - Amparo Echeverry Valdes, 53; Carlos Alfredo Pantoja, 57; and Diego Echeverry, 42 - were arrested and...

Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

The high ranking guests will meet with Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the celebration.

Iran has been identified as the "state player" which hacked important CA certificate information.

Hackers acquired bogus SSL certificates Iran may have been involved in an attack that resulted in hackers acquiring bogus digital certificates for some of the web's biggest sites, including Google and Gmail, Microsoft, Skype and Yahoo, a certificate issuing firm has said.

Allied planes have bombed Libya for a fifth night, as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime attempted a propaganda coup by parading the charred bodies of what they claim are civilian casualties.

Attack highlights flaws in a now-antiquated system that gives 650 different organizations, including the Tunisian government, the master keys to Web authentication. Originally posted at Privacy Inc.