Left makes gains in Czech Senate election

Source: Reuters

October 20, 2012

The Czech left cemented its dominant position in the upper house of parliament in an election on Saturday, after fiscal tightening and sleaze scandals eroded support for the right.

The vote adds to the woes of the centre-right cabinet of Prime Minister Petr Necas, which faces a crucial confidence vote in the lower house later this week that could trigger an early election.

The government has raised taxes and curbed pension increases amid economic recession in an effort to cut the budget deficit to below the EU-prescribed 3 percent of GDP next year.

There was a turnout of only 18.6 percent in the final round of the election to fill one third of the 81 seats in the upper house, the Senate.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/20/us-czech-election-idUSBRE89J0DB20121020

If men could get pregnant

Why was this hidden?

Fruitcakes

I was juror #4

5 UK marines charged with murder in Afghan death

Source: AP

October 14, 2012

LONDON — Five Royal Marines have been charged with murder over a death in Afghanistan last year, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday. They are the first British troops to be charged with murder in the country since deployments began in 2001.

The five are among nine marines arrested — seven on Thursday and two in the last 48 hours. Four have been released without charge.

Officials have said the incident involved an "engagement with an insurgent" in Helmand province, where the majority of Britain’s 9,500 troops in Afghanistan are deployed. They say no civilians were involved.

The BBC and other outlets reported that the arrests stemmed from video footage found on the laptop of a British serviceman who had been arrested in Britain on an unrelated charge.

Read more: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/europe/view/201210145_uk_marines_charged_with_murder_in_afghan_death/srvc=home&position=recent

Rights group says Syria using cluster bombs

Source: Al Jazeera

October 14, 2012

Syrian government forces have dropped Russian-made cluster bombs over civilian areas in the past week as they battle to reverse rebel gains on a strategic highway, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The bombs were dropped from planes and helicopters, with many of the strikes taking place near the main north-south highway running through the northwestern town of Maarat al-Numan, HRW said in a report released on Sunday.

Rebels seized Maarat al-Numan from President Bashar al-Assad's troops last week, cutting the route from the capital Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city. Government forces have been trying to retake the area since then.

Cluster munitions can drop hundreds of bomblets on a wide area as an anti-personnel weapon, designed to kill as many people as possible. Human rights groups say their use in civilian-populated areas can be a war crime.

Read more: http://aje.me/P2giGr

Barack X

By Jelani Cobb
The New Yorker
October 8, 2012



It’s mid-March in Harlem and the streets are an improvised urban bazaar. Young men hawk umbrellas, vintage vinyl, and knit caps. The aromas of curry and fried plantains waft out from the Caribbean spot, and just ahead of me is a teen-ager so slight that I scarcely notice him at first. There’s a perfectly calibrated swagger in his stride. He’s swaddled in an oversized black leather jacket, his jeans cinched five inches below the waist, his footwear immaculate. I’ve nearly passed him before I notice something that makes me pause for a second and then snap a picture with my cell phone: stitched onto the back of the jacket, in dimensions broader than his back, is the seal of the President of the United States. He is standing on Malcolm X Boulevard, and a generation ago that jacket would’ve been emblazoned with a defiant X in homage to a man who defined radical black dissent. There are a dozen questions I could ask him—whether there are metal detectors in his school or when was the last time he was frisked by the N.Y.P.D., whether he sees his future as an amorphous blob of curtailed possibilities or if he has real plans. But I don’t have to ask how the most revered symbol of the American establishment came to adorn his jacket.

In the halcyon days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, newspapers ran stories marvelling at an Obama effect that seemed to lift black students beyond the achievement gap. Some openly hoped that his election would inspire increased numbers of black law-school applicants, the way that “C.S.I.” spawned a generation of forensic-science majors. In a poll taken just after the inauguration, some seventy per cent of respondents said that they expected his tenure to bring an improvement in race relations. Obama himself played to this dynamic early on, saying that in a crowded field of talented Democratic contenders the rationale for his campaign was that his election would tell every child in this country that anything was possible. And for a brief moment, it seemed that might actually be true.

Nearly four years later, the fickle-hearted arbiters of cool have migrated onward, finding new cultural pastures to stake out. There are no A-list rappers crafting themes in Obama’s honor, no catchy call-and-response phrases on par with “fired up and ready to go.” Yet here on Lenox Avenue is an Obama testimony in clashing motifs that underscores the complexity of the President’s current undertaking. A handful of men have been elected President and then become a symbol for an era, but very few beyond the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have made the opposite transition. And it is for this reason that 2012 seems like so much anticlimax: a symbol ran for President four years ago; today a man is seeking to hold onto that position.

Prior to 2008, the distinctions between a black leader and a leader who is black were largely semantic. There had been black leaders of largely white enterprises—Richard Parsons, Condi Rice, Ken Chenault—but they were seen as inspired anomalies, envoys dispatched to the broadened frontiers of possibility. In the days leading up to the 2008 election, it was common to hear African-Americans ask whether white America was “ready” for a black President. I tended to wonder if black America was. To the extent that the public thinks of our Presidents, it tends toward a kind of cultural shorthand. We think of Teddy Roosevelt as a trust-buster despite the fact that Taft moved more aggressively against the nascent corporate order than he did. J.F.K.’s reputation as a civil-rights stalwart is all but immunized against his record of foot-dragging on racial matters. Beyond wonks and history grad students there aren’t many Americans who hedge Reagan’s standing as an avatar of small government with his multiple tax increases. We tend toward a glossy, forgiving view of historic Presidencies. For African-Americans in particular, however, Obama presented a dilemma—he is both a figure of history, a representative of a centuries-long struggle to have our humanity recognized, and a contemporary elected official sent to Washington to address specific problems and policies. It is a balancing act that few of us were prepared for, nor ever thought we would need to be.

More: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/barack-obama-and-malcolm-x.html

UN urges military action plan for Mali

Source: Al Jazeera

October 13, 2012

The UN Security Council has approved a resolution that gives West African nations 45 days to offer details of a plan for international military intervention in Mali, now split in two.

The text approved by the council on Friday also urges authorities in Bamako and representatives of Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters controlling the north to "engage, as soon as possible, in a credible negotiation process".

The members warned that the process should be undertaken with a view towards "a sustainable political solution, mindful of the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Mali".

Mali descended into chaos in March when soldiers toppled the president, leaving a power vacuum that enabled Tuareg rebels to seize two-thirds of the country.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/10/2012101219500620380.html