We are see the Nine killed in sectarian violence in Cairo

Watches this image Nine killed in sectarian violence in Cairovv




CAIRO (AFP) – Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Egyptian capital Cairo left nine dead and more than 100 injured and a church was set on fire, medical and security officials said.
The two groups clashed after Muslims attacked the Coptic Saint Mena church in the working class neighbourhood of Imbaba to free a Christian woman they alleged was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam.
A parish priest, Father Hermina, told AFP that at least five of the dead were Copts who died when "thugs and (Muslim fundamentalist) Salafis fired at them" in the late afternoon attack.
The Gospel had been laid on a body wrapped in a sheet that was lying inside the church. The church floor was bloodstained as wounded Christians were brought in for treatment.
Outside, military police parked several armoured cars to block off Muslim protesters.
They fired their guns into the air as Christians in front of the church and Muslim protesters down the street hurled stones at each other. The Muslim protesters threw firebombs, one of them setting an apartment near the church on fire.
"Oh God! Oh Jesus!" chanted the Coptic protesters. They scuffled with soldiers, blaming them for not doing enough to protect them.
The soldiers advanced at Muslim protesters who edged closer to the church, firing over their heads to repel them. Special forces were later deployed outside the church.
An officer ordered a soldier to escort an AFP journalist away from the church, saying "no journalists are allowed."
Hermina and witnesses had said the Muslims tried to storm the church earlier in the day, claiming the Christians were holding a Muslim woman.
Elsewhere in Imbaba, Muslim protesters threw firebombs at another church, setting it on fire, police officials said. They said the fire was put out.
At one of the cordons outside the St Mena church, Muslim protesters said they were first fired upon by the Copts, after they tried to find a Christian woman they say converted to Islam and was being held inside.
"They started firing on us. We were peaceful," said one of the protesters who gave his name as Mamduh. "We won't leave until they give up their weapons and the people who killed us are tried."
No weapons could be seen inside the church and the Copts there said they had none.
Egypt's mufti -- the government's chief interpreter of Islamic law -- Ali Gomaa condemned the clashes and said they "were toying with Egypt's national security."
The violence could not have been caused by "religious people who understand their religion, whether Muslim or Christian," he told the official MENA news agency.

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watches this very importent news Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead

we are saw this Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, is dead, and the U.S. is in possession of his body, a person familiar with the situation said late Sunday.

President Barack Obama was expected to address the nation on the developments Sunday night.

Two senior counterterrorism officials confirmed that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last week. One said bin Laden was killed in a ground operation, not by a Predator drone. Both said the operation was based on U.S. intelligence, and both said the U.S. is in possession of bin Laden's body.

Officials long believed bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, was hiding a mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak ahead of the president.

The development comes just months before the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon, orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, that killed more than 3,000 people.

The attacks set off a chain of events that led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

Al-Qaida organization was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.

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Watch Haiti's Preval: 'Baby Doc' Duvalier 'must face justice

We are watch see the Haiti's Preval: 'Baby Doc' Duvalier 'must face justice

Haiti's ex-leader Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier had the right to return to the country but must now face justice, President Rene Preval says.

Jean-Claude Duvalier is staying in a hotel in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince
Mr Preval was making his first comments on the issue since Mr Duvalier's unexpected return from exile last week.

Mr Duvalier has been charged with theft and misappropriation of funds during his 1971-1986 rule.

He is also being sued for torture and other crimes against humanity. He has said he is ready to face "persecution".

In a news conference on Friday, Mr Duvalier called for national reconciliation, claiming his return from France had been prompted by the earthquake that devastated Haiti last year and his desire to help rebuild the country.

On Saturday, Mr Preval said that according to the Haitian constitution, no-one could be forced to remain in exile.

"Duvalier had the right to return to the country, but under the constitution, he also must face justice," he said at a news conference during a visit by the Dominican president.

"If Duvalier is not in prison now, it is because he has not yet been tried."

Mr Duvalier is barred from leaving the country pending the outcome of an investigation into his alleged crimes, Mr Preval said.
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watch It Used to Be Called Bitterness

we are see the It Used to Be Called Bitterness



"The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again. The bitterness we sold to the junk man-he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead. To California or any place-every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day-the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it."(1) -John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Not long ago, then-Senator Barack Obama, when he was campaigning for the presidency, said, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot of them-like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they've gone through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigration sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Unlike John Steinbeck, who observed the brutal and forced relocation of millions of tenant farmers during the Dust Bowl, President Obama has forgotten the causes of bitterness. And unlike Steinbeck, who understood human nature and how hard-working, independent, and fully human people can be dehumanized and stripped of their self-worth and dignity by unjust economic and political institutions, Obama appears to be incapable of comprehending what triggers episodic bouts of bitter retaliation. But Steinbeck knew how corrupt governmental policies can cause mental anguish and moral dilemmas, and how fraudulent institutions can cause material scarcity and the poverty of the soul.

When talking to Arabs and Muslim in the Middle East, neither will Secretary of State Hillary Clinton use the word "bitterness." Once in power, and as a member of the Owner Class, it is soothing to forget a husband's bitter betrayal. It is easy to dismiss a mean-spirited Republican Congress that belittled health care reforms and demeaned a person's character. Instead, those who resist U.S. occupation forces are extremists. Those who fight back against murderous drone attacks and repressive regimes-backed and supported by American military power and corporate elites-are always terrorists. Both Obama and Clinton talk about reforms and encourage people to believe in a better future.

But what are words and promises without concrete actions and results? Do repeated political injustices, ongoing economic injuries, and never ending pre-emptive wars, only fill a future with bitterness and hostility?

Rulers and Owners always forget this, just like they forget the Tenant People, who have to repeatedly sift through their belongings and possessions deciding on what to keep and to sell. The plow is of no more use, as is other junk, like household goods and other trivial material possessions. The Rulers and Owners, though, are buying more than junk. They are purchasing bitterness, a plow to plow their children under, buying the arms and spirits that might have saved them. The Owners and powerful political leaders of the world, with their wars and military machines and with their corporate takeovers and foreclosures, are buying bitterness.(2)

One can't start again. There's a premium that goes with these piles of junk, with stripping the human spirit of liberty and dignity. These packets of bitterness will continue to grow and flower someday. The Tenant People and working classes could have saved the Rulers and Owners. But they have cut down the Tenant People and the poor with their wars and with their continued neglect and their destructive values. Someday, there will be none to save them. The past has spoiled the present. It will more than likely ruin the future. When shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, there is still the rifle. When the forefathers came-they had pepper and salt and a rifle. Nothing else.(3)

What is left behind must be burned. Leave it-or burn it up. What caused this injustice must somehow be confronted. Otherwise, how can you live with yourself? How will you know it's you without your past? No. Leave it. Burn it. Some sit among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back, perhaps a photo, a letter, a picture of an angel, or a book like Pilgrim's Progress. Others look at their junk and economic injuries which are burned into their memories. How'll it be not to know what land's outside the door? How if you wake up in the night and knows-and knows the willow tree's not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, one can't. The land, house is you. That dreadful pain and bitterness is you.(4)
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watches Palestinians question 'offers' leaked by al-Jazeera

we are enjoy Palestinians question 'offers' leaked by al-Jazeera
The Palestinian Authority has accused al-Jazeera TV of distortion, after it leaked documents purporting to show offers of major concessions to Israel.

Mr Qurei (R) is said to have proposed concessions over East Jerusalem

President Mahmoud Abbas said the leaks had deliberately confused Palestinian and Israeli negotiating positions.

The documents suggest the Palestinians agreed to Israel annexing all but one settlement in occupied East Jerusalem - an offer Israel apparently rejected.

The BBC has been unable to verify the documents independently.

Al-Jazeera says it has more than 1,600 confidential records of meetings, e-mails, and communications between Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders covering the years 2000-2010.

The Palestinians are reported to have proposed an international committee to take over Islamic and Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, and limiting the number of returning refugees to 100,000 over 10 years.

The papers are believed to have originated from the Palestinian side.

Mr Abbas, who is due to hold talks on the peace process on Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said negotiations had been carried out openly, and his fellow Arab leaders were aware of their contents.
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watches World’s first vending machine for gold installed in Tokyo

World’s first vending machine for gold installed in Tokyo

The special vending machine, which sells gold coins and bullions weighing from one to seven grammes to anyone wishing to do so, has been devised by the Space International Ltd Company.

The sole vending machine of its kind is installed here in a downtown building that houses the Company’s office. Another such vending machine is to be installed soon at Imperial Hotel in downtownTokyo.

The price of gold sold by the hambaiki is regulated every day in line with the stock market current prices. A gold coin weighing 7.2 grammes, issued by the Central Bank, is now the most expensive commodity sold by this vending machine at a price of approximately $410.

Company CEO Makishi Rokugawa points out, “It may so happen that waking up one day you would realize that all your money turned into a mere paper. This is why, I am sure that gold is the best way of monetary investment.”

Rokugawa told journalists that his company got far reaching plans for developing vending machines to sell precious metals. Next year the Space International is planning to reach out to the nationwide level, siting similar vending machines in a majority of large cities of Japan.

The Company also mulls in earnest over the possiblity of getting to the market of Hong Kong.

On the last day of 2010, gold price bounced up to an all-time high.

Many analysts are inclined to think that gold is currently the most optimum object of financial inputs. Besides , gold has been always immensely popular in China and India -- the two most rapidly developing economies of our time.

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enjoy Miss Slovakia 2011 Contestants Visit Pattaya

watches this enjoy Miss Slovakia 2011 Contestants Visit Pattaya




Twelve contestants in the Miss Slovakia 2011 beauty contest are visiting Bangkok, Phuket and Phi Phi Island between 7-21 January 2011, as part of the efforts by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to make publicity and draw more visitors from Slovakia and other countries of Eastern Europe.

The Miss Slovakia 2011 pageant is extensively watched in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. It will generate wide exposure for Thailand, particularly Bangkok, Phuket and Phi Phi Island.

TAT will host lodging, transfers, and domestic air tickets for contestants, event organizers, and media members during their stay in Thailand.

TAT Frankfurt Director, Ms Suwalai Pinpradab said, “The event will improve Thailand’s good image and attract more visitors from these rapidly growing countries of Eastern Europe. It will exclusively help us target the key market segments of women and youth, the jet-set group, honeymooners, and family travellers.”

TAT has been working with European beauty pageant organizers to showcase all the key exclusive selling propositions of Thai tourism – marine tourism, excellent products, shopping, fashion and cooking classes, amongst others.

The contestants, event organizers, and associated members of the Belgian media were so intimidated by the warmth of the Thai hospitality, tourist attractions, and professionalism of the Thai support staff that the management team again chose Thailand as a backdrop destination for the Miss Belgium 2011 contest.



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