Haruspex, Falgoosh, Mazda, Cozy Rotas, Doha, ANZAC, Agua, TALON
plus Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Kertono Wangsadisastra, Samarra and Swarmer, Sherbet and Meswak
Katherine Harris - harbinger-
Her pollster, Ed Goeas, and fundraiser Anne Dunsmore said Wednesday they are quitting.
Dunsmore, a GOP fundraising wizard from California, was hired with great fanfare in December to revive Harris' sluggish fundraising.
Nancy Watkins, of Tampa, treasurer for Harris' congressional campaigns as well as her Senate drive, left the campaign three weeks ago. Her finance director, Mike Miller, has departed as well.
An ancient Persian myth about the spring equinox says that a bull balances the Earth on one horn. On the first day of spring, he tosses his mighty head and the Earth shifts from one horn to the other. The New Year arrives at the moment the Earth is in the air, balanced, before landing on the other horn. This shift can supposedly be felt on the Earth and is used to determine the exact time of the spring equinox. Iranians mark this moment in their homes by placing a leaf in a bowl of water or an egg on a mirror. According to legend, when the egg rolls or the leaf turns in the water, the bull has tossed the Earth and the New Year has begun.-
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Chaharshanbe-Soori
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Ghashogh-Zani
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Iran has an awkward relationship with its Zoroastrian religion
Separately, the Commerce Department has reported that retail sales were down 1.3% in February, indicating that a consumer pullback is beginning. The combination of slower-growing consumer spending and a widening trade gap will dampen US economic growth by mid-year. Real GDP growth will likely be about 3.8% in the first half and 3.3% in the second half.-
Among US corporates, slower second-half growth will hit Ford and General Motors particularly hard. Consumers will become more value-conscious in vehicle selection, and this will play into the strengths of Asian, and in particular Korean, brands. Ford and GM are not well positioned with attractive, smaller and reliable vehicles in the value segments of the market. Among these companies' offshore brands, Mazda is best positioned.
In 2005, the United States had a $1.6 billion surplus on income flows and a $58.0 billion surplus on trade in services. Even together, however, these were hardly enough to offset the massive $781.6 billion deficit on trade in goods.
The vote to replace the largely discredited Commission on Human Rights with the new council was 170-4, with the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau voting against the resolution and with three abstentions.-
The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.-
It is believed to be the first time the Blair government has threatened newspapers in this way. Though it has obtained court injunctions against newspapers, the government has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents, including highly sensitive ones about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last night referred editors to newspaper reports yesterday that described the contents of a memo purporting to be at the centre of charges against two men under the secrets act.
Under the front-page headline "Bush plot to bomb his ally", the Daily Mirror reported that the US president last year planned to attack the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, which has its headquarters in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where US and British bombers were based.
Australia was among one of the first countries to offer troops to help with the U.S. war effort in Iraq and still has about 1,300 in and around Iraq, with a promise to stay into 2007.-
But with support dwindling for the war in Australia, Rice sought to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and said Iraqis were now more free.
Earlier, at a news conference with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Rice said it would take several years for Iraqis to build a stable and secure Iraq but she was confident they would do it.
"We are going to look one day at a stable and secure Iraq and be very grateful to those like Australia and the United States who were determined to see the Iraqi people have this chance," she added.
Gordon Young, the coordinator of the U.N. World Water Assessment Programme and of the 2nd U.N. World Water Report titled "Water, a Shared Responsibility" - released last week in Mexico City told IPS that there is a global consensus that water is a public good that must reach everyone. But differences emerge when the subject turns to privatisation versus state control of water resources and services. . At present, less than 10 percent of water-related services are in private hands.-
According to the recently released U.N. report, multinational companies involved in this sector have begun to scale back their activities, especially in developing countries, because of perceived political and financial risks.
"We are on different sides, because the Council promotes the privatisation of water, while we demand that water be recognised as a shared resource that must be publicly managed," Claudia Campero, spokesperson for the Coalition of Mexican Organisations for the Right to Water, commented to IPS.
The center, founded in 1972, describes itself as a group of people from diverse faiths who believe in "nonviolent struggle" for peace and justice. Merton, an American Roman Catholic monk, author and poet, died in 1968.-
An FBI report dated Nov. 29, 2002, identified the center as "a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism."'
"The TMC holds daily leaflet distribution activities in downtown Pittsburgh and is currently focused on its opposition to the potential war in Iraq," said the report. "According to these leaflets, Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction and that, if the United States invades Iraq, Saddam Hussein will unleash bio-chemical weapons upon American soldiers."
The report also noted that the center had cooperated with an Islamic organization in staging an event to promote understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in Pittsburgh.
Students were swarming everywhere. They burned tyres on the road. They felled coconut trees and blocked the road with the trunks.
They were angry and they were loud. They want to see the Freeport mine operations stopped.
They collected stones and were throwing them at the police and the mobile brigades. They shouted out:
"Indonesia you are lying. You are robbers. You have been here for years and you have been stealing from us. Go home!"
