A jury has found Casimiro Barros guilty of voluntary manslaughter - but not first-degree murder - in the 2007 death of Chiara Levin during what the district attorney called a “Wild West” shootout in the city.Good to see that our justice system works as long as celebrities aren't involved.
TRIPOLI, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the current African Union president, on Tuesday accused "foreign forces" including Israel of being behind the Darfur conflict.Huh?
Judges from the International Criminal Court are due to announce on March 4 whether they will issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over allegations that he masterminded genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. U.N. diplomats have told Reuters the warrant will be issued.Not sure what to make of this. I understand why the US hasn't gotten involved much, and why China hasn't intervened, but I have no idea what Israel has to gain from this genocide. Somebody enlighten me, because I'm skeptical of Gaddafi.
But Gaddafi, addressing a meeting on ways to expand cooperation between the United Nations and African Union, urged the Court to stop its proceedings against Bashir:
"Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv (Israel), for example, is behind the Darfur crisis?"
Gaddafi suggested, without presenting any evidence, that the Israeli military was among those stoking the conflict:
"It is not a secret. We have found evidence proving clearly that foreign forces are behind the Darfur problem and are fanning its fire," Gaddafi said, according to the Libyan state news agency Jana.
"We discovered that some of the main leaders of the Darfur rebels have opened offices in Tel Aviv and hold meetings with the military there to add fuel to the conflict fire."
The country’s economy is in shambles, but President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden found the time the other night to meet privately with George Clooney to discuss Darfur.
CAIRO, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will pay a visit to Egypt on Sunday for consultations with Egyptian leaders on means of ending the prolonged Darfur crisis, a diplomatic source said Saturday.
During the visit, al-Bashir is expected to have talks with President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday on various issues that include both the Darfur crisis and bilateral relations, said the source who declined to give his name.
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama sends his first budget proposals to Congress on Thursday bracing for fights over how best to heal the economy, create a new healthcare system and still cut out-of-control deficits.I'm still split on Obama's economic policy, but I *am* convinced of one thing: the President is not, as certain pundits would have you believe, a socialist. Just ask some actual socialists!
Greg Pason, National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA: “Barack Obama's programs are not socialist. The vast majority of his proposals are anti-worker (or he might say ‘pro-business’). His health care proposals are more to save the for-profit insurance industry and do not have the goal of ending for-profit insurance. He has refused to support a Senate version of HR676, which would create a single-payer program (not socialist but much better than we have, and [which has] the support of labor and community organizations across the US). Many of his other economic proposals are pro-corporate.
A socialist program (even a reformist one) would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy. None of Senator Obama's proposals do that. Senator Obama’s tax plan is regressive and even less ‘progressive’ than programs put forward under such conservative administrations like the one of Richard Nixon.”
F.N. Brill, National Secretary of the World Socialist Party (US): “Obama is as much a socialist as the Pope is an atheist. Income redistribution isn't a socialist act. It might aid in ameliorating income disparities within a capitalist economy for a limited time. But the logic of capitalism demands the rich grow richer (more capitalization is needed) and the poor grow poorer (their work creates the needed capital used by the rich).”
Slumdog Millionaire capped its winning season at this year's Academy Awards by taking home eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Director.Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Heath Ledger won!
The Mumbai-set tale of a young man whose destiny leads him to love and fortune via a TV game show was once considered the underdog of the awards season, and at one point was without a distributor before it was picked up by Fox Searchlight and put on the path to the Oscars, where it scooped up honors from the Golden Globes, the SAGs, the BAFTAs and various guilds before coming to the Academy Awards. In addtion to the top two awards, Slumdog also took home honors for Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Score, and Song ("Jai Ho").
In the lead acting categories, Best Actress Kate Winslet finally took home an Oscar after six nominations for Holocaust drama The Reader, while Sean Penn picked up his second award for Best Actor for Milk; the Harvey Milk biopic also won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Three people were killed in a shooting this afternoon on Chicago's Southeast Side, officials said.My thoughts are with the victims' loved ones.
CHICAGO - With the impeachment of a governor, Illinois has already had more political fireworks this year than it has seen in decades. Could the perjury trial of a U.S. senator be next?Not looking good for Burris, and the fact that he built a mausoleum for himself doesn't make me want to root for him.
Sen. Roland Burris could face that charge if he lied under oath on Jan. 8 when he didn't fully disclose contacts he had with Gov. Rod Blagojevich or his advisers before he was appointed to President Obama's former Senate seat, legal experts say.
A Manhattan judge has ordered the government to make public sealed documents about wiretaps in the Eliot Spitzer scandal.This is all just an excuse to put a girl in a bikini on the foxnews.com home page. And on mine.
CHICAGO -- Sen. Roland Burris' former partner told FOX News on Thursday that he did have a "brief conversation" with the U.S. senator about raising money for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but said he never attempted to do so.So, did you raise money for Blago so Burris could be a senator?
Fred Lebed wouldn't go into details about how much money they discussed raising, but when asked if he ever raised money for Blagojevich, Lebed said, "No, never," before adding, "I don't believe I did" and then well, "maybe $100, five years ago."
Perhaps no one word has defined this recession better than "foreclosure."I'm split on Obama's economic policy. I've heard great arguments for and against the bailout and stimulus and don't yet know if I'm behind either of them. But all these plans are made with good intentions.
In the last year, banks started foreclosure proceedings on more than 2.3 million households, according to RealtyTrac, and entire neighborhoods in Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California became ghost towns.
Today, President Obama will unveil his administration's plan to stop that foreclosure flood.
DOHA (AFP) — Sudan and the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement are close to signing a "trust building and good intentions" draft document, the JEM spokesman said in Qatar on Saturday.WHAT?!? Turns out the government and rebels have been negotiating over the last week. Read the rest.
A manager at the Peanut Corp. of America's plant in Plainview, Texas, said he repeatedly complained to the company owner, Stewart Parnell, and the Texas Department of Health about unsanitary conditions at the plant.I'm actually glad I've been deathly allergic to peanuts all my life now!
Kenneth Kendrick said in an exclusive interview today with "Good Morning America" that when he worked at the Texas plant in 2006, he told Parnell about a rodent infestation and a leaky roof.
Investigators on Friday were beginning to move into the crash scene of the Continental commuter plane that plummeted into a house near Buffalo, killing all 49 people aboard and a resident of the home.My thoughts go out to the victims' loved ones.
WASHINGTON — With Democrats arguing that the economic crisis requires a large and immediate infusion of government spending, a deeply divided House of Representatives approved a final version of President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan Friday afternoon.I'm working on a "You Are Here" package with three economists' views on this stimulus. Tune in!
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has admitted that there is tension between his government and the new US administration.Pakistan, huh? You know Osama's there, right?
The acknowledgement came in an interview to Al Jazeera's David Frost as the US special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, met high-level officials of the Afghan government.
Khalil Ibrahim, leader of Sudan's rebel movement in Darfur, has said that his group wants a "credible peace agreement" with the government to end the conflict there.Sounds fair enough. Too bad the government doesn't seem to want to cooperate.
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Darfur rebels and Sudan government officials exchanged blame for undermining three-day-old peace talks, which were overshadowed Thursday by fighting over a Darfur town and the prospect of an imminent international arrest warrant against Sudan's president for alleged war crimes.So much for peace. Six more years! Six more years!
The talks hosted by Qatar are the first such one-on-one meeting between the Sudanese government and Darfur's strongest group of ethnic African rebels, the Justice and Equality Movement. It was also the first round of peace talks between any rebels and the government since the last negotiations foundered in 2007.
Other Darfur rebel groups are not attending the talks, which began Tuesday with the aim of sealing a cease-fire and setting a framework for negotiations on a peace deal. Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been forced from their homes in Darfur's war, which began after rebel groups complaining of discrimination and neglect took up arms against the Arab-led government in 2003.
But the talks were shaken Thursday by reports that the Hague-based International Criminal Court will soon issue a warrant against President Omar al-Bashir, whom court prosecutors accuse of war crimes for allegedly masterminding genocide against Darfur's ethnic Africans.
KINGLAKE, Australia (CNN) -- New fires blamed on arsonists hit Australia Wednesday as the toll from deadly blazes was likely to rise on the macabre discovery that charred remains initially identified as single bodies were in fact couples fused together by the heat.I am an arsonist, I am an anarchist? Too soon?
*slaps forehead* Way to miss the point of peace talks.KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur rebels accused Sudanese government forces on Wednesday of advancing towards their positions and undermining peace talks that began in Qatar a day earlier.
Slumdog Millionaire continued its winning ways at this year's BAFTA Awards, snagging seven honors including Best Picture and Director.Congratulations to the makers of "That Movie I Didn't See" and "That Other Movie I Didn't See". I care.
The underdog-turned-Oscar favorite also won awards for adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing, sound and music, easily trouncing its competition, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which went into the awards ceremony with the same number of nominations as Slumdog (11), but took home only three awards, for production design, make-up/hair and visual effects.
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Sudanese army recaptured a town in the western region of Darfur three weeks after rebel forces overran pro-government forces in the area, the state-run Sudan News Agency reported, citing a military spokesman.I have tons of respect for Ban Ki-Moon.
Aerial bombardments and ground fire around the town of Muhajiriya, which is 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the South Darfur state capital, Nyala, had threatened as many as 30,000 civilians in the area, the United Nations said. The UN-backed peacekeeping force in Darfur, known as Unamid, yesterday said an aircraft dropped three bombs close to its camp in the town.
One government soldier died and nine were wounded in the recapture of Muhajiriya, Sudanese army spokesman Brigadier Osman Mohamed Al-Aghbash said in a statement yesterday, according to SUNA.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Feb. 2 urged Sudan’s government and rebels to halt fighting in the area.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The United States is "gravely concerned" about Sudanese bombing raids on a Darfur town where government forces and rebels have clashed recently, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday.Is it just me or is the US getting a little more involved in Darfur?
U.N. officials have said that at least 30 people had died and thousands forced to flee in more than two weeks of fighting between Sudanese government troops, rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement and other fighters in and around the south Darfur settlement of Muhajiriya.
"The United States is gravely concerned by reports of intense aerial bombardment," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Darfur and other issues.
KHARTOUM, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Sudanese planes bombed close to a rebel-held town in Darfur on Monday after the government asked peacekeepers to leave ahead of a planned assault, the international force said."Permission to keep the peace?"
Thousands of civilians took shelter around a base run by the joint U.N./African Union force in the south Darfur town of Muhajiriya, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said.
UNAMID said Khartoum asked peacekeepers to withdraw on Sunday because the army was preparing to take the town back from Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels, who seized it last month.
"But we are not going to leave while there are thousands of displaced people around our camp," UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said. "The Sudanese government should be aware that their actions are endangering civilians and UNAMID."
