Belarus attacks 'European meddling'

Belarus state media has kept up a barrage of criticism against Western countries, accusing them of seeking to overthrow Alexander Lukashenko, the president, during last month's disputed presidential election.

As police continued a sweep of opposition offices in the wake of unrest in which hundreds of activists were arrested, state-controlled newspapers accused European diplomats of attending a big opposition rally during the election.

"The participation of diplomats in unsanctioned meetings was taken by the crowd as support for their actions and awakened very zealous people to take decisive action," an article, published by several newspapers, said.

It singled out diplomats from Britain, Sweden, Latvia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria. On Friday, Sovietskaya Belarussia, a pro-Lukashenko newspaper, accused the intelligence services of Germany and Poland of trying to organise a coup during the unrest that accompanied the December 19 election.

Poland and Germany have dismissed the allegations.

Al Jazeera

Japanese government: Young men losing interest in sex

Young Japanese men are losing interest in sex, according to a study commissioned by the government, in a further warning sign for a nation notorious for its low birth rate, a doctor said Friday.

The survey also found that more than 40 percent of married people said they have not had sex in the past month, said Kunio Kitamura, head of the clinic of the Japan Family Planning Association, who took part in the survey.

"This is directly linked with falling birth rate. Policy actions are necessary," Kitamura told AFP.

The data confirmed a wider social belief that younger men are becoming "herbivorous", a label attached to passive men who do not actively seek women and sex.

More on Raw Story

Anarchy in Tunisia

Tunisia Revolution News (Latest Updates) on Huffington Post

Thousands of fishermen empty lake in minutes

On one day of the year the Dogon people of Mali can fish in the sacred water of Lake Antogo. It's every fisherman for himself as the lake is emptied in minutes.

Human Planet: Deserts, preview (BBC One)

Aid group told to stop undermining Dutch government policy on Israel

Dutch Foreign affairs minister Uri Rosenthal has accused aid organisation ICCO of undermining government policy by giving financial support to the website Electronic Intifada, NOS television reports on Friday.

The website calls for a boycott of Israel and this contravenes government policy, Rosenthal says. He has told ICCO that if it does not stop supporting the site, there could be implications for the organisation's funding, NOS says.

ICCO has refused to comply with the minister's request, arguing that Israel is breaking international law and refusing to comply with UN resolutions.

DutchNews

Saint John Paul II

Pope Benedict XVI declared in a decree that a French nun's recovery from Parkinson's disease was miraculous, the last step needed for the beloved pontiff's beatification.

The May 1 ceremony, to be celebrated by Pope Benedict himself, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome to honour one of the most popular popes of all time. A second miracle is needed for John Paul to be made a saint.

Benedict put John Paul on the fast track to possible sainthood just weeks after he died in 2005, responding to the chants of "Santo Subito!" or "Sainthood immediately!" that erupted during his funeral.

Benedict waived the typical five-year waiting period before the process could begin, but he insisted that the investigation into John Paul's life be thorough so as to not leave any doubts about his virtues.

The last remaining hurdle concerned the approval by Vatican-appointed panels of doctors and theologians, cardinals and bishops that the cure of French nun, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, was a miracle due to the intercession of John Paul.

Telegraph

United States of Europe is the only way

Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer was pessimistic about the current state of affairs at the meeting, entitled 'A United States of Europe'. He acknowledged that "the EU's 'no-bailout' clause was quickly forgotten" in the face of Greek difficulties last year, and that "eurobonds are there, just in a different shape," but was critical of France and Germany's reluctance to move forward with further integration.

"Despite all the kisses [between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel], France and Germany are going through a difficult period," he said.

"One thing is clear, 400 years of trans-Atlantic hegemony are coming to an end. It's almost amusing to see how Europeans worry about a sovereignty loss [to the EU] as day by day, we lose it to emerging powers," he said.

"It is no longer Uncle Sam ... but the Chinese old uncles from Southeast Asia" who are stepping in to help Europe with sovereign bond purchases.

"We need to hand over some budget prerogatives to the EU ... we need similar pension ages ... we are going to have to draw all the threads together ... [and] future integration steps need a political Europe," he said.

EUobserver

Mexican Activist Chavez Murdered

Susana Chavez, a human rights activist, was best known for her poetry and actions to help raise awareness of the violence towards women, especially in the border-city of Juarez. After years of activism, Chavez has fallen to the same violence she has fought against.

Via Fox News Latino:

A poet and women’s rights activist was murdered in Ciudad Juarez, a gritty border metropolis that has become Mexico’s most violent city, officials and associates of the victim said.

Susana Chavez’s body was found last week, but it was not identified until Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Chavez’s left hand was chopped off and her body was dumped in a poor neighborhood in downtown Juarez, the Chihuahua state Attorney General’s Office said.

Chavez organized protests to draw attention to crimes against women in the border city and participated in poetry readings that she dedicated to murdered women.

Exposing The Noble Lie

WYBM: What You've Been Missing

Tagging penguins limits survival chances, study shows

Tagging the flippers of penguins for long-term scientific studies significantly limits their chances of survival and ability to raise chicks, according to a decade-long study in the Antarctic.

The researchers found that the survival rates for king penguins with flipper bands dropped by 16% and the birds produced 39% fewer chicks. The finding raises serious questions about the ethics of banding penguins for research and casts doubt on years of data produced by tagging the birds in this way.

Flipper banding, a technique that involves placing a band usually made of stainless steel under penguins' flippers to identify them, is used by some researchers to identify them and gather long-term information about their behaviour and ecology.

The latest available figures, from a study published in 2000, show that between 1988 and 1996, 36,000 penguins were flipper banded by scientists.

More on The Guardian

62 School children see UFO and Reptilian Beings from the Stars

10 Most Revealing Freudian Slips By Politicians

Political gaffes are undoubtedly the best. Whether they come from the mouth of a much-respected or a much-loathed political figure, their hilarity and ill effects are often long-lasting.

That's why we're glad to see Asylum put together this video reel of the 10 most revealing political Freudian slips. These aren't just gaffes -- they're extremely telling slips of the tongue that might just have revealed what the speaker was really thinking.

From Ted Kennedy talking about the "breast and the brightest," to Hillary Clinton talking about "first time home-boners," and of course, several examples care of former President George W. Bush, we can't get enough of these high-profile disasters.

The Huffington Post

Hanny's Voorwerp: Nasa Hubble Telescope Unravels Mystery Of Green Blob In Space

A new picture may help scientists unravel the mystery of a vast green blob discovered in a galaxy millions of light years away.

Stargazers unravel the mystery of the glowing green blob. Picture: NASA

Experts at Nasa believe the phenomenon may be giving birth to new stars, in a remote area of the universe where stars were not expected to form.

The blob was discovered by a young Dutch school teacher Hanny van Arkel in 2007, and was named Hanny's Voorwerp (or Hanny's object).

It is the only visible part of a streamer of gas stretching around the galaxy, called IC 2947.

In the picture, taken by the Hubble space telescope, the greenish Voorwerp is visible because a beam of light from the galaxy's core illuminated it.

From Sky News

Israel

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Earth must prepare for close encounter with aliens, say scientists

World governments should prepare a co-ordinated action plan in case Earth is contacted by aliens, according to scientists.

They argue that a branch of the UN must be given responsibility for "supra-Earth affairs" and formulate a plan for how to deal with extraterrestrials, should they appear.

The comments are part of an extraterrestrial-themed edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A published today. In it, scientists examine all aspects of the search for extraterrestrial life, from astronomy and biology to the political and religious fallout that would result from alien contact.

"Will a suitable process based on expert advice from proper and responsible scientists arise at all, or will interests of power and opportunism more probably set the scene?" asked Professor John Zarnecki of the Open University and Dr Martin Dominik of the University of St Andrews in the introductory paper. "A lack of co-ordination can be avoided by creating an overarching framework in a truly global effort governed by an international politically legitimated body." The pair argue that the UN has a ready-made mechanism for such a forum in its Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (Copuos).

More on the Guardian

Wikileaks, Julian Assange & the Pirates

Just listen to the older but very interesting show on Red Ice Radio. James Evan Pilato, based in Portland, Oregon is the Editor of Media Monarchy, Food World Order, and CyberSpace War. In the first hour of this program, James discusses Wikileaks, hackers, the cyber war and Internet censorship. The Wikileaks story has developed into a mainstream media monster. Then we talk about Julian Assange's strange past and connections to Anne-Hamilton Byrne's "White Brotherhood". Later we discuss Julian's Rape charges and Anna Ardin. Could Julian Assange be controlled opposition?

Red Ice Radio

The Arctic - polluted with barrels

More pictures on Xaxor.com

Ghetto Defendant

Movie: Rude Boy - Band: The Clash - Song: Ghetto Defendant (Combat Rock) - Lyrics: Allen Ginsberg

Time To Grow Up

David Icke - Finding The Warrior Within 2 (Time To Grow Up) . . .

Guantanamo still open at 9th anniversary

Nine years ago to the day, a prison for "war on terror" detainees opened its doors in a remote US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And despite grand promises, it is unlikely to shut any time soon. "At this point, it is clear that Guantanamo will not be closed during this presidential term, or maybe even the next one, despite administration claims that it remains committed to the goal," Columbia University professor, Matthew Waxman, told AFP.

On January 11, 2002, about 20 prisoners arrived at the base, hooded, handcuffed and clothed in distinctive orange prison garb. They were put on display for the world to see, behind the bars of the prison erected on the military base rented from Cuba since the beginning of the 20th century.

Guantanamo quickly became a notorious symbol for the worst of the US excesses in the war on Al-Qaeda launched in the days that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

And rights groups around the world celebrated when new President Barack Obama swore just after his inauguration on January 22, 2009 to shut down the prison, opened by his predecessor George W. Bush. But two years later some 173 prisoners still languish behind its doors. And Obama's room for manoeuvre has been severely curtailed amid a fierce debate over the future of its high-profile foreign inmates.

Read more at Raw Story

Saudi Arabia bans blogging without a licence

Freedom of speech organizations are condemning a decision by the Saudi Arabian government to force all online newspapers and bloggers to register with the Ministry of Culture and Information.

Under the new rules, to be introduced next month, all online writers - and this appears to include forums and even short messaging - will need a licence, valid for up to three years.

The Saudi government says the move is simply designed to protect society - and points out that it was already censoring content anyway. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest numbers of bloggers in the Arabic world.

Applicants for a licence need to be Saudi, at least 20 years old and to have graduated from high school. They will also need 'documents testifying to their good behaviour'. Editors of online newspapers will need to be approved by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

Anyone caught blogging without a licence will be subject to a fine of up to 100,000 Riyal ($26,665), and/or a ban - possibly forever.

At the same time, the Saudi government has blocked the Arabic Wikileaks page.

TG Daily

British government tightens grip on Britons

The UK government is tightening grip on the British people in various aspects of their lives from economy to social liberties, education, health and security.

The government's policies including its austerity drive which covers each and every corners of the people's being, the rise in university tuition fees and cuts to higher education, police schemes to ban protests altogether, which is considered as a serious blow to the so-called democracy, imposing restrictions on how and who votes, again considered as depriving a person from its inalienable right as part of the nation's human rights, giving permission to police forces to sneak through people's life and the most humiliating of these the “control orders” which prompted an international cry and call for them to be abolished.
International human rights campaigners have unanimously condemned the British government for carrying out one of the “most serious violations” of natural injustice in any developed democracy by renewing the so-called control orders.
The 'control order' was produced by the UK Home Secretary to restrict an individual's liberty for the alleged purpose of “protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism”.
The restrictions involved in control orders include what the person can use or process, his/her place of work, place of residence, whom he/she speaks to, and where he/she can travel.

More on PressTV

Eta declares permanent ceasefire

The armed Basque separatist group Eta has declared that a ceasefire it called four months ago is now permanent and offered to make it verifiable by observers.

In a statement released to the Basque newspaper Gara the group said: "Eta has decided to declare a permanent and general ceasefire which will be verifiable by the international community.

"This is Eta's firm commitment towards a process to achieve a lasting resolution and towards an end to the armed confrontation." The armed group said the solution to Basque conflict "will come through the democratic process with dialogue and negotiation as its tools".

Rumours that Eta, classified as a terrorist group by the European Union, would take a step like this had been circulating for weeks. More than 800 people have died in Eta violence since the group was founded in 1968, but it declared a halt to "offensive armed actions" in September.

The Guardian

Britain to cover up Royal affairs

The British government is to introduce new regulations that prevent any scrutiny of the Royal Family's letters, emails, documents and finances.

The all-out protection under changes to the Freedom of Information Act is meant to put a lid on what is related to the Queen, her heir Prince Charles and the second in line to the throne Prince Williams.
The move follows recent embarrassing revelations about a number of financial abuses by the Royal Family including Queen's move to pay for Buckingham Palace's heating costs through a state poverty fund.
This comes as, the brief implementation of the Freedom of Information Act on the Royal Family affairs also disclosed details of Charles's lobbying to influence the public issues and the decisions of the government.
The government's decision has proved controversial as activists raised serious questions about the move.

PressTV

Sarah Palin posts political hit list on Facebook: taking a stand or suggesting violence?

March 25th, 2010

Sarah Palin is using Facebook and Twitter to call attention to her political hit list for the 2010 elections. Her tweets prompt followers to head to her Facebook page where there is a post titled, "Don’t Get Demoralized! Get Organized! Take Back the 20!" followed by a list of House members who voted in favor of 'Obamacare.'

“We’ll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington.
Stand tall, America. Real change is coming!”

Who is on Sarah Palin's political hit list?

Palin's list on Facebook includes 17 Democrats in Congress who her political action committee will work to defeat in the November elections:

Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Harry E. Mitchell (Ariz.), Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.), John Salazar (Colo.), Betsy Markey (Colo.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Suzanne M. Kosmas (Fla.), Baron P. Hill (Ind.), Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), Charlie Wilson (Ohio), John Boccieri (Ohio), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.), Christopher Carney (Pa.), John M. Spratt, Jr. (S.C.), Tom Perriello (Va.), Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), and Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va.).

On her Facebook page, Palin provides a map of the United States with a gun crosshair over each of the states of the Democrats that Palin is targeting on her list.

More on Examiner.com

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