It has been almost too easy to caricature Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra; like Silvio Berlusconi, the European counterpart to whom he is so often compared, he gave plenty of ammunition to his enemies. The billionaire businessman described Washington as a "useless friend" after the Americans denounced his human rights record, and he fumed that " the UN is not my father" after stern words from diplomats questioned his bloody campaign against drug-dealers, which resulted in 3,000 extra-judicial killings. He even hid the first outbreak of bird flu in a vain attempt to protect Thai poultry exports, almost risking a global pandemic in the process. The anti-Thaksin chants that resounded in Bangkok's streets and outside shopping malls this spring were gradually taken up by Thais across all generations and classes. And now the army has risen up against the autocratic policeman turned billionaire premier. ...
http://news.independent.co.uk
censor News |
Editor - 23:18:00 09-19-06
|
 Second night of Budapest violence |
Police and demonstrators have clashed for a second night in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, amid calls for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to resign. Police on horseback charged a group of protestors who were attempting to reach the governing Socialist Party's HQ. Several people were injured in the clashes, which followed a 10,000-strong peaceful protest outside parliament. The demonstrations were sparked by the release of a tape in which Mr Gyurcsany admitted lying to win re-election. About 1,000 protestors broke away from the peaceful demonstration in front of the parliament building and tried to reach Republic Square, the BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest reports. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5362192.stm
full News |
Editor - 23:11:00 09-19-06
|
| Argentina dirty-war criminal gets life sentence |
A retired police commissioner was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison for murder, torture and kidnappings during Argentina's "dirty war," in one of the first sentences since amnesty laws were scrapped last year.Miguel Etchecolatz, 77, ran clandestine detention centers as Buenos Aires' provincial police commissioner during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, in which an estimated 11,000 to 30,000 people were killed in a crackdown on leftists in the South American country. The reading of the sentence in a federal court in provincial capital La Plata was interrupted when someone in the courthouse threw red paint on Etchecolatz, who kissed a crucifix. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2465935
full News |
Editor - 23:05:00 09-19-06
|
| Breeze slows wildfire in California; new blaze erupts east of L.A. |
A stubborn wildfire burned near hundreds of homes Tuesday, but a moist ocean breeze slowed its advance through the Los Padres National Forest north of Los Angeles, fire officials said.The edge of the fire was about 7 miles southeast of the populated Lockwood Valley, where authorities recommended but did not order an evacuation, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Pasinato said.The fire, in a mostly rugged area of the forest, has burned since Labor Day and was just 15% contained. Nearly 2,000 firefighters, 24 helicopters and 10 air tankers were involved in battling the blaze.On Monday, it forced the evacuation of about 100 animals from a wildlife refuge in the valley. "We couldn't even hardly breathe," Debbie McNeeley, an office manager at the facility, said Tuesday....
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2006-09-19-calif-wildfires_x.htm?csp=34
full News |
Editor - 20:46:00 09-19-06
|
| General says U.S. may increase troops in Iraq Abizaid: Military likely to maintain force of 147,000 through spring 2007 |
The U.S. military is likely to maintain and may even increase its force of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring, the top American commander in the region said Tuesday in one of the gloomiest assessments yet of when troops may come home.Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said military leaders would consider adding troops or extending the Iraq deployments of other units if needed. Until sectarian violence spiked early this year, Bush administration officials had voiced hopes that this election year would see significant U.S. troop reductions in what has become a widely unpopular war."If it's necessary to do that because the military situation on the ground requires that, we'll do it," Abizaid said of longer deployments. "If we have to call in more forces because it's our military judgment that we need more forces, we'll do it."...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14912976/
full News |
Editor - 20:44:00 09-19-06
|
| NASA Delays Shuttle Landing and Examines Atlantis for Damage After Finding Mysterious Object |
NASA postponed the return of Atlantis for at least a day and examined the shuttle for damage that could prevent it from making the journey home after a mysterious object apparently fell off the ship in orbit Tuesday. Space agency officials wanted extra time to establish whether the object was a vital piece of the shuttle such as the tiles that protect it from the blowtorch heat of re-entry and whether it harmed the spacecraft when it fell away. Officials were not optimistic they would be able to identify the object, since the possibilities were almost endless, ranging from harmless ice to crucial thermal protection tiles. But the leading candidate was a plastic space-filler placed between the thermal tiles. If that is the case, the missing filler would not prevent a normal landing. "The question is: What is it? Is it something benign? … Or is it something more critical we should pay attention to?"...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2466102
full News |
Editor - 20:39:00 09-19-06
|
|
| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
|
|
