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Obama: Stimulus Plan 'On Target'
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US president Barack Obama says he expects Congress to approve massive new
package within weeks to help stimulate battered US economy
President Barack Obama speaks in Oval Office of White House, 22 Jan 2009 U.S.
President Barack Obama said he expects Congress to approve a
massive new package within weeks to help stimulate the battered U.S.
economy.Mr. Obama met Friday with top Congressional Democrats
and Republicans. He cautioned that the U.S. economy is facing an
"unprecedented" crisis - but said he expects his new recovery plan to
create three million to four million new jobs. And he said Congress is
"on target" to approve the stimulus package by mid-February -
President's Day weekend.The president also stressed the need
for increased accountability and transparency to ensure that government
financial "bailout" money is used appropriately.Republicans
have expressed concern about whether a proposed $825 billion stimulus
plan crafted by Democrats will accomplish its goals of creating jobs
and helping the economy.During his first week in office, Mr.
Obama went to work quickly to address major issues. On Thursday, he
ordered the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to
be closed within one year.He also signed orders to review
military trials of terror suspects, and to ban the harshest
interrogation methods, and also named special envoys for the Middle
East and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.Some information for this report was
provided by AP.
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Global Downturn Hammers Britain, General Electric
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British economy shrank 1.5 percent in last three months of 2008, following
decline in previous quarter
Woman walks by shop advertising its closure in Croydon, South London, 23 Jan
2009 There are two more signs of deepening global economic problems Friday
as Britain reports its economy in recession and General Electric says
its profits fell sharply. GE is one of the world's largest
companies, making everything from loans to jet aircraft engines, so
economists watch the company for clues about the overall economy. GE says a
"very tough" business environment cut fourth quarter earnings 43 percent. And
the British economy shrank 1.5 percent in the last three months of
2008, following a decline in the previous quarter. That put the British
economy in recession for the first time since 1991. The
declines came as services and manufacturing fell sharply. The Bank of
England has cut interest rates sharply to encourage economic growth.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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Israel to Defend Itself Against Gaza War Crimes Charges
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Prime minister asks Justice Minister Daniel Friedman to lead inter-ministerial
team that will prepare legal defenses for officials, military personnel
Israel's prime minister has assembled a team to defend the country
against charges of war crimes in its recent offensive against Hamas
militants in the Gaza Strip.Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedman (file
photo)Ehud Olmert asked Israeli Justice
Minister Daniel Friedman Thursday to lead an inter-ministerial team to
prepare legal defenses for Israeli officials and military personnel.Israeli
Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz warned earlier this week that Israel
may face a wave of international lawsuits over its 22-day offensive,
which ended Sunday.U.N. human rights expert Richard Falk said
Thursday there is evidence that Israel violated humanitarian law by
conducting the offensive, "against an essentially defenseless
population." He called for an independent investigation to see if
Israel committed war crimes.Israel insists its troops did their
best to limit civilian casualties in heavily-populated battle zones. It
also accuses Hamas militants of hiding behind Palestinian civilians and
firing at Israelis from civilian and U.N. buildings.The Israeli
military has banned publication of the names of Israeli commanders who
took part in the offensive for fear they could face prosecution when
traveling overseas.Falk is the U.N. special rapporteur on human
rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. He made his comments in a
phone call to reporters in Geneva from his home in the U.S. state of
California.Falk also accused Israel of trapping Gaza's civilian
population in the war zone and preventing children, the sick and
wounded from fleeing the territory.Israel says it launched the
offensive as an act of self-defense against hundreds of indiscriminate
Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli communities. Israel and Hamas
both declared cease-fires Sunday, ending major combat. Thirteen-hundred
Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the violence.Israel's
government says it will allow journalists free access to Gaza beginning
Friday. Israel barred the media from entering the territory during its
three-week offensive.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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North Korean Leader Meets Chinese Envoy
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Reports say Kim Jong Il told Chinese envoy Pyongyang working to denuclearize
Korean peninsula
Kim Jong Il (file photo)North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has met with a visiting
Chinese envoy,
in his first reported contact with a foreign official in more than six
months.Chinese and North Korean news media say Mr. Kim met
Friday in Pyongyang with Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese Communist
Party's international liaison department.North Korean state media released
photos of the rare meeting, but no video footage.Mr.
Kim has not received any foreign officials since last July. U.S. and
South Korean officials say he suffered a stroke, probably in August.
North Korea has denied the claim. China's official news
agency Xinhua quoted Mr. Kim as telling his Chinese visitor that
Pyongyang is working to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. The
last round of six-party talks in December in China ended without
progress after North Korea rejected a proposal on ways to verify its
progress toward nuclear disarmament.The Xinhua report quotes
Mr. Kim as saying his country wants to strengthen cooperation with
China to promote the six-party negotiation process.The United States, Russia,
South Korea and Japan are also parties in the six-nation talks.China is the
closest ally of North Korea. The two neighbors are marking the 60th anniversary
of diplomatic relations this year.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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DRC Rebel Chief Arrested in Rwanda
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Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was detained Thursday as he fled
across the border after resisting a joint Congolese and Rwandan military
operation
Rebel General Laurent Nkunda (C) walks in the courtyard of a house after
speaking with the press in the town of Kitshoumba, 02 Nov 2008 Officials in the
Democratic Republic of Congo say Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda
has been arrested in neighboring Rwanda. Authorities say Nkunda was detained
Thursday as he fled across the border after resisting a joint Congolese and
Rwandan military operation that had converged on his stronghold in the town of
Bunagana.More than 1,500 Rwandan troops crossed into the DRC Tuesday help
Congolese troops hunt down and disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled to the
country in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.. Nkunda's rebels have clashed
repeatedly in the eastern DRC with government forces, following the collapse of
a peace deal last year. Nkunda says he is fighting to protect minority Tutsi
communities from Hutu extremists.Earlier this month, Nkunda's ex-chief of
staff, Bosco Ntaganda, formed a splinter movement and said his forces would
work with Congo's army to fight the Hutu militias.Some information for this
report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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NY Governor to Name Replacement for Clinton Senate Seat
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Officials say governor set to name congresswoman Kristin Gillibrand to post
Kirstin Gillibrand (file photo)Officials say the governor of New York state is
set to name
congresswoman Kirstin Gillibrand to fill the Senate seat left vacant
by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Governor David Paterson will announce his
selection Friday.Gillibrand, a second-term Democrat, is not as well-known as
some of the other candidates for the Senate seat.One
of the leading contenders, Caroline Kennedy, announced Wednesday that
she is not interested in the position. The daughter of slain former
President John F. Kennedy said she made the decision for "personal
reasons."Another top candidate for the position was state Attorney General
Andrew Cuomo.Hillary
Clinton resigned her seat after being chosen by President Barack Obama
to serve as the top diplomat in his administration.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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Argentina Releases New Photo of Fidel Castro
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Image shows Cuban leader looking straight into camera and standing beside
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
Argentina's government has released a photograph of Fidel Castro - the
first picture of the former Cuban leader to be made public in two
months.Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, poses with Cuba's
former president Fidel Castro, during meeting in Havana, 21 Jan 2009The
picture, released Friday, shows a serious Mr. Castro
looking straight into the camera and standing beside Argentine
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.Ms. Fernandez visited
Cuba earlier this week and met with Fidel Castro for about 30 minutes.
She told reporters she thought he looked very good. Mr. Castro has not been
seen in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006. The
former long-time president wrote an Internet column recently in which
he said his health was deteriorating. The 82-year-old said he will
soon be unable to follow current events.The comments were Mr. Castro's first
written remarks since December 15.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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Turkey Seeks to Make Nabucco More Than Pipe Dream
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Country now positioning itself as alternative route for energy with proposed
pipeline, but development comes with problems, risks
Turkey's Minister of Energy Mehmet Hilmi Guler (l) pictured after signing
ceremony for Nabucco gas pipeline in Vienna, 05 Feb 2008As a result of the
disruption of gas supplies to the European Union from Russia, Turkey is now
positioning itself as an alternative route for energy with the proposed Nabucco
pipeline. But the new pipeline does not come without its own problems and
risks.The multibillion dollar Nabucco pipeline project is seen as one of
Europe's best hopes for limiting its dependence on Russian gas. The European
Union has stepped up efforts to diversify its energy sources since Russia's
invasion of Georgia last summer and amid a dispute between Moscow and Kiev that
has curtailed supplies across Ukraine to Europe.According to energy expert Kate
Hardin, diversification of energy sources is key. "I think that what happened
with the Ukrainian gas cut. I think that actually motivated the Europeans to
look again at their reliance on single suppliers of gas," said Hardin. "So even
though they have various sources right now - Algeria, Libya, Russia, LNG - I
think they took a second look at that and perhaps better diversification would
better suit us and certainly Turkey as a potential bridge for eastern gas does
play a role there."The intended route for the Nabucco pipeline is from the
Caspian Sea to Turkey and on to Europe through Bulgaria, Romania and
Hungary.Former Turkish energy official Mithat Mende says the need for
alternative routes will increase in the future. "Europe's natural gas
consumption will grow by at least 70 percent by 2030," said Mende. "I believe,
given our geography and potential, we can provide a good contribution to Europe
with respect to enhancing their energy supply security. Nabucco is the best
example of this." The role of Turkey as an energy bridge to Europe is seen by
Ankara as important bargaining chip in its bid to join the EU. But Turkey's bid
to join, which began with negotiations in 2005, has been limping along over
disputes concerning the Greek government of Cyprus, which is blocking talks on
the energy section of the bid. Energy is one of the 35 areas, or so-called
chapters, in Turkey's accession talks.EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana,
left, welcomes Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival at the EU
Council in Brussels, 19 Jan 2009In a rare visit to Brussels Monday, Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said that he will review his support for the
Nabucco gas pipeline to Europe if the energy portion of its EU accession talks
remains blocked. "If we are faced with a situation where the energy chapter is
blocked, we would of course review our position," he said.Mr. Erdogan's comment
was angrily denounced by some European politicians, with one German minister
accused Turkey of blackmail over the pipeline. Analyst Hugh Pope of the
International Crisis Group has a different perspective on the Turkish prime
minister's comment."Right now Turkey is about to run out of chapters to
negotiate with the European Union. Because of all kinds of blockages within the
European Union. If we are talking about blackmail, there is a lot of pushing
and shoving going in the European Union, and for the European Union to behave
like Erdogan's demand comes out of nowhere is a little simplistic," said
Pope.Following strong European reaction, Mr. Erdogan, seemed to back down
saying Turkey would never interfere in the completion of the pipeline. But
analysts say, despite this pledge, European leaders still have concerns. Ankara
is reportedly demanding higher transit fees and the right to use some of the
gas rather than simply sending it all to Western Europe. But Turkish Energy
Minister Hilmi Guler says they are committed to resolving the dispute. The
latest natural gas crisis has demonstrated that Turkey's insistence on wrapping
up Nabucco is very well-founded, he said.Building energy pipelines are usually
major engineering achievements. But as in the case of Nabucco, overcoming the
politics surrounding them are usually just as formidable.
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Scanning Project Has Digitized 25,000 Library of Congress Books
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Free online books are scanned for 10 cents a page
The Library of Congress is the world's largest library, with tens of millions
of items that attract scholars from all over the world to do research. But
soon, those scholars may not have to travel far to do their research. Some of
the library's treasures are starting to appear online. The Library of Congress
is the largest library in the world, housing millions of books, recordings,
photographs, maps and manuscriptsLike many other great research libraries, the
Library of Congress has been moving into the digital world.One way they're
doing it is through a scanning project that has so far put 25,000 books online
for anyone to read or download. Doron Weber of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
which is funding the $2 million project, stresses the importance of scanning
complete books to preserve their cultural context. "To preserve book knowledge
and book culture means preserving every word of every sentence in the right
sequence of pages in the right edition, within the appropriate historical,
scholarly and bibliographical context. You must respect what you scan and treat
it as an organic whole, not just raw bits of slapdash data."The scanning is
being done by the Internet Archive. The San Francisco-based nonprofit group
aims to preserve cultural artifacts such as musical recordings and Web pages,
as well as books, and make them available online. Brewster Kahle heads the
Internet Archive."They're going faster and faster and faster here at the
Library of Congress to bring the book collection, to digitize those, run them
through optical character recognition, offer them for free on the Internet for
anyone to download, read, bind, do anything they want with," Kahle said.The
scanning project is focusing on fragile books that need special handling,
American history, genealogy and some rare booksThe books are being scanned in a
large, utilitarian-looking room in the Library of Congress, a block from the
U.S. Capitol building in Washington.Ten scanning units, called scribe stations,
have been set up. In each one, a book sits on a V-shaped cradle. Two
high-resolution digital cameras overhead point separately at the left and right
pages of the open book. An operator sits in front, using a foot pedal to
operate a V-shaped glass cover that comes down to flatten the pages being
photographed or goes up so the page can be turned. A pair of pages is scanned
every six seconds.Library of Congress staffer Aaron Chaletzky explained the
scanning process and said that the online books are being used much more than
their physical counterparts at the library."You know, if you build it, they
will come," he said. "Well, we've now digitized these materials. We've put them
out there, and a lot of items that have not literally seen the light of day
because they haven't been checked out in God knows how long, have been
downloaded and reviewed on Internet Archive's Web site dozens of times, and
that's really gratifying."The books being digitized in this project are all at
least 75 years old and thus out of copyright. So Internet users may read them,
download them, or really do any creative thing they like with them. The reading
room at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.Deanna Marcum, associate
librarian of the Library of Congress, says the Sloan Foundation project is
focusing on fragile books that need special handling, American history,
genealogy and some rare books."Most importantly, the result of these
collections that are rare and hard to find and sometimes too brittle or too old
to serve to the public, we're now able to make openly available to the public,
and we see this as a great accomplishment," she said.And a cost-effective one -
the Internet Archive is able to do the mass scanning for just 10 cents a
page.There are other book scanning projects. Google, for example, has
agreements with great libraries in Europe and Asia, as well as the United
States, to scan books in their collections. Charles B. Lowry, of the
Association of Research Libraries, says it's important in the digital age that
the older material remain accessible."I believe we're on the cusp of a jump
from a world of analog print information to a world of digital networked access
to information. Today, almost all information - even that which ultimately
appears in print - is born digital. Yet I think there remains a need for
large-scale efforts to expose existing print collections so that they do not
become invisible."The scanned books from the Library of Congress are online at
the Internet Archive.
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India Excited About 'Slumdog Millionaire's' 10 Oscar Nominations
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Among nominations: best picture; film industry is especially jubilant about
nominations earned by Indian music composer A.R. Rahman
Indian slum children play in front of poster of Oscar nominated film 'Slumdog
Millionaire' in Mumbai, 23 Jan 2009 The 10 Oscar nominations for the film
"Slumdog Millionaire", set amid the slums of Mumbai, have generated excitement,
pride and some controversy in India. The Indian film industry is especially
jubilant at the three nominations won by the film's Indian music composer A.R.
Rahman. Indians flocked to movie theaters to watch the widely acclaimed movie
Slumdog Millionaire when it was released Friday across the country.The film,
made by British Director Danny Boyle, opened just a day after the country
excitedly heard the news that it got 10 Oscar nominations, including one for
best picture.The movie has created a huge buzz in the country ever since it
shot into the international spotlight after bagging four awards at the Golden
Globes. Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in scene from Slumdog MillionaireThe film
tells the story of a boy from the teeming slums of Mumbai, who wins a popular
game show. It stars a string of Indian actors, it is co directed by an Indian,
and the music is composed by well known Indian composer, A.R. Rahman. Indians
are especially jubilant over the three nominations for composer Rahman for best
original score and two of his songs. Rahman has called it an "unexpected"
opportunity to bring Indian music to the rest of the world. "No, it was
unexpected…..a lot of people predicted, I never took it seriously," he
said.Though made by a British director, the film has been enthusiastically
embraced by the Indian film industry known as Bollywood as one of its own. At
a function held in Mumbai to mark the opening of the film, top Bollywood stars
hoped the film, with its predominantly Indian cast and crew, will bring global
recognition to Indian technicians, actors and musicians. "They have shown us
the way, now we all just have to follow," one person said."Danny Boyle has
bridged the gap between Hollywood and Bollywood," said another."We are all
very excited," a third person said. But the film has also sparked controversy.
Some have slammed it for what they call its "glorification of poverty" through
its vivid portrayal of life in the teeming slums of Mumbai. They say it
romanticizes slums, shows prostitution and crime as "Indian exotica", and
reinforces Western stereotypes about India.A group of slumdwellers led by a
social activist in Mumbai has called the film's title insulting, and is
demanding that it should be changed. On Thursday, protestors in Mumbai held up
banners saying "I am not a dog" and "Poverty for Sale."But despite the
controversy, the film, which has already received a good response from Western
audiences, is likely to have a good run in India.
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