Monday, 26 August 2013

Gen. Martin Dempsey: Assad’s ‘momentum’ in Syria civil war is ‘unsustainable’..

The Syrian government seems to have made gains in the country’s civil conflict in recent weeks, taking over more urban areas—and now, new reports point to the use of chemical weapons by the government. But the United States' top general says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s recent “momentum” is unsustainable.
“[Assad] appears to be gaining momentum, but I don't think it'll be sustainable,” Gen. Martin Dempsey told "On the Radar" in a sit-down interview recorded before the most recent reports of a major chemical attack.
Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the Syrian war as one that “ebbs and flows” and said that, although Assad may have superior weaponry and has made gains in urban areas, these advantages will not be enough to ultimately defeat the opposing rebels.
“I don’t think that even were [Assad] to take control of all the urban areas that he would ever be able to completely reduce the opposition, because of the way he’s treated it,” Dempsey said.
When it comes to next steps for possible U.S. involvement in the conflict, the general said it’s the subject of ongoing debate.
“[There are] continuing discussions about our strategy and whether we should become directly involved or become involved through support to the opposition, building partners in the region, humanitarian relief,” Dempsey said.
Asked whether the United States is providing the Syrian rebels with military aid and weapons, Dempsey replied that the “the Department of Defense is not.”
On a lighter note, Dempsey also discussed his love for singing and told “On the Radar” the story of how he came to sing the national anthem at a Washington Nationals baseball game after attending a game to throw out the first pitch.
“Right before the pitch, someone had performed the National Anthem,” Dempsey recalled. “It wasn't very good. ... I take the National Anthem really seriously. That won't surprise you. And I said to one of the owners, I said, ‘You couldn't do any better than that?’ And he kiddingly said, ‘You think you can do better?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And so he said, ‘OK, we'll set a date.’”
Dempsey followed through on his word and went back to Nationals Park to perform the anthem on the 4th of July -– with four Army chorus singers serving as his backup ensemble.
Though given the opportunity, the general declined to sing during his interview with “On the Radar.”
For more of the interview with Gen. Dempsey, and the humanitarian crisis that’s resulted from the Syrian war, check out this episode of “On the Radar.”
ABC's Alexandra Dukakis and Tom Thornton contributed to this episode.
Ginny Vicario, Mark Banks, Richard Norling, Barry Haywood and Michael Purbaugh  assisted in the production of this episode.

Archaeologists use drones in Peru to map and protect sites...

LIMA (Reuters) - In Peru, home to the spectacular Inca city of Machu Picchu and thousands of ancient ruins, archaeologists are turning to drones to speed up sluggish survey work and protect sites from squatters, builders and miners.
Remote-controlled aircraft were developed for military purposes and are a controversial tool in U.S. anti-terrorism campaigns, but the technology's falling price means it is increasingly used for civilian and commercial projects around the world.
Small drones have been helping a growing number of researchers produce three-dimensional models of Peruvian sites instead of the usual flat maps - and in days and weeks instead of months and years.
Speed is an important ally to archaeologists here. Peru's economy has grown at an average annual clip of 6.5 percent over the past decade, and development pressures have surpassed looting as the main threat to the country's cultural treasures, according to the government.
Researchers are still picking up the pieces after a pyramid near Lima, believed to have been built some 5,000 years ago by a fire-revering coastal society, was razed in July by construction firms. That same month, residents of a town near the pre-Incan ruins of Yanamarca reported that informal miners were damaging the three-story stone structures as they dug for quartz.
And squatters and farmers repeatedly try to seize land near important sites like Chan Chan on the northern coast, considered the biggest adobe city in the world.
Archaeologists say drones can help set boundaries to protect sites, watch over them and monitor threats, and create a digital repository of ruins that can help build awareness and aid in the reconstruction of any damage done.
"We see them as a vital tool for conservation," said Ana Maria Hoyle, an archaeologist with the Culture Ministry.
Hoyle said the government plans to buy several drones to use at different sites, and that the technology will help the ministry comply with a new, business-friendly law that has tightened the deadline for determining whether land slated for development might contain cultural artifacts.
Commercial drones made by the Swiss company senseFly and the U.S. firms Aurora Flight Sciences and Helicopter World have all flown Peruvian skies.
Drones are already saving archaeologists time in mapping sites - a crucial but often slow first step before major excavation work can begin. Mapping typically involves tedious ground-level observations with theodolites or pen and paper.
"With this technology, I was able to do in a few days what had taken me years to do," said Luis Jaime Castillo, a Peruvian archaeologist with Lima's Catholic University and an incoming deputy culture minister who plans to use drones to help safeguard Peru's archaeological heritage.
Castillo started using a drone two years ago to explore the San Jose de Moro site, an ancient burial ground encompassing 150 hectares (0.58 square miles) in northwestern Peru, where the discovery of several tombs of priestesses suggests women ruled the coastal Moche civilization.
"We have always wanted to have a bird's-eye view of where we are working," said Castillo.
In the past, researchers have rented crop dusters and strapped cameras to kites and helium-filled balloons, but those methods can be expensive and clumsy. Now they can build drones small enough to hold with two hands for as little as $1,000.
"It's like having a scalpel instead of a club, you can control it to a very fine degree," said Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist with Harvard University who has worked at San Jose de Moro and other sites in Peru. "You can go up three meters and photograph a room, 300 meters and photograph a site, or you can go up 3,000 meters and photograph the entire valley."
Drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, have flown over at least six different archaeological sites in Peru in the past year, including the colonial Andean town Machu Llacta some 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) above sea level.
Peru is well known for its stunning 15th century Machu Picchu ruins, likely a getaway for Incan royalty that the Spanish were unaware of during their conquest, and the Nazca Lines in southern Peru, which are best seen from above and were mysteriously etched into the desert more than 1,500 years ago.
But archaeologists are just as excited about other chapters of Peru's pre-Hispanic past, like coastal societies that used irrigation in arid valleys, the Wari empire that conquered the Andes long before the Incas, and ancient farmers who appear to have been domesticating crops as early as 10,000 years ago.
With an archaeology budget of around $5 million, the Culture Ministry often struggles to protect Peru's more than 13,000 sites. Only around 2,500 of them have been properly marked off, according to the ministry.
"And when a site is not properly demarcated, it is illegally occupied, destroyed, wiped from the map," said Blanca Alva, an official with the ministry charged with oversight.
DRONE 'DEMOCRATIZATION'
Steve Wernke, an archaeologist with Vanderbilt University exploring the shift from Incan to Spanish rule in the Andes, started looking into drones more than two years ago.
He tried out a drone package from a U.S. company that cost around $40,000. But after the small plane had problems flying in the thin air of the Andes, Wernke and his colleague, engineer Julie Adams, teamed up and built two drones for less than $2,000.
The drones continue to have altitude problems in the Andes, and Wernke and Adams now plan to make a drone blimp.
"There is an enormous democratization of the technology happening now," Wernke said, adding that do-it-yourself websites like DIYdrones.com have helped enthusiasts share information.
"The software that these things are run on is all open-source. None of it is locked behind company patents," he said.
There are some drawbacks to using drones in archaeology. Batteries are big and short-lived, it can take time to learn to work with the sophisticated software and most drones struggle to fly in higher altitudes.
In the United States, broader use of drones has raised privacy and safety concerns that have slowed regulatory approvals. Several states have drafted legislation to restrict their use, and one town has even considered offering rewards to anyone who shoots a drone down.
But in Peru, archaeologists say it is only a matter of time before drones replace decades-old tools still used in their field, and that the technology can and should be used for less destructive uses.
"So much of the technology we use every day comes from warfare," said Hoyle. "It is natural this is happening."
Some of the first aerial images taken of Peru's archaeological sites also have their roots in combat.
The Shippee-Johnson expedition in 1931 was one of several geographic surveys led by U.S. military pilots that emerged from the boom in aerial photography during World War I. It produced reams of images still used by archaeologists today.
After seeing one of those pictures at a museum in New York some 10 years ago, Wernke decided he would study a town designed to impose Spanish culture on the indigenous population in the 1570s. He describes it as "one of the largest forced resettlement programs in history."
"I went up the following year to see it and found the site, and I said, 'OK, that's going to be a great project once I can afford to map it," said Wernke. He said drones have mapped nearly half of his work site. "So it all started with aerial images in the '30s, and now we want to go further with UAVs."
(Editing by Kieran Murray and Douglas Royalty)

Russian lawmaker proposes banning gays from donating blood...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian lawmaker has said parliament should ban blood donations from homosexuals, news agencies reported on Monday, upsetting activists already angry at a nationwide ban on gay 'propaganda'.
"We will suggest an amendment to the law on (blood) donations on the order of the Health Ministry that returns homosexuals to the list of contra-indicated donors," Interfax quoted parliamentarian and Moscow mayoral candidate Mikhail Dyegtyaryov as saying.
A law passed in June that prohibits spreading "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" has sparked criticism from Western governments and led to calls for a boycott of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, next February.
The measure, popular with many Russians and with the powerful Orthodox Church, highlighted the more socially conservative course that President Vladimir Putin has charted in his third term. Putin draws strong support from conservative rural parts of Russia, while protests against his 13-year rule have mostly been confined to big cities.
Dyegtyaryov, who represents the nationalist LDPR party in parliament's lower house, the Duma, said the proposed move would help staunch Russia's HIV-AIDS epidemic. Many experts, however, say Russia's high drug addiction rates pose a greater HIV threat.
Gay activists say that the propaganda law has increased discrimination against them and emboldened vigilante-style attacks.
Gay rights advocate Yelena Kostyuchenko, who said she regularly gives blood, wrote on her Twitter blog on Monday that she had been asked to donate that very day.
"Next time I'll say - I'm sorry, I'm a lesbian, I don't deserve to give blood for your family members. Keep looking," she wrote.
(Reporting by Thomas Grove; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Porn Production at Standstill after Actress Tests Positive for HIV...

It's a multibillion dollar industry, some estimate bigger than professional baseball, football and basketball combined.
But now the adult entertainment industry is at a standstill because another performer has tested positive for the AIDS virus.
Adult film actress Cameron Bay has worked in the industry since 2010, not even on a regular basis. But her career is on hold. She tested positive for HIV. Her diagnosis has halted all porn production. So far, no other actors she's worked with have tested positive, but performing in porn can mean taking your life into your own hands.
“Animals have more protection in the making of films than porn performers,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “How many cases do there have to be before we take it seriously?”
Gina Rodriguez, a former porn actress, quit the business in part because of the fear of disease.
“You know, I think it's a ticking time bomb,” she said. “It really is. It's going to get worse. It's not going to get any better.”
This has happened before. In 2010, a porn actor's HIV test came up positive. The industry adopted some safeguards, requiring all performers to get an HIV test once a month. California's division of occupational safety and health, the same group that requires construction workers to wear hardhats, also requires the adult film industry to protect workers from hazards associated with blood-borne pathogens. The regulations clearly state employers must provide and ensure employees use appropriate personal protective equipment, including condoms, dental dams, gloves and eye protection. But those rules are rarely enforced. The industry itself has been rigorous about HIV testing, but not about condom use.
And it seems to have everything to do with money. Steve Hirsch, CEO of Vivid Entertainment, one of the biggest producers, spoke with “Nightline” in 2009.
“The truth is that when people watch adult movies they are watching it for the fantasy,” explained Hirsch. “They don't want to see condoms. Condoms in adult movies just don't sell as well. That's just a fact.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation spearheaded a measure requiring condom use in L.A. County. It passed in November of last year.
The porn industry sued to overturn this decision, saying it was unconstitutional. But a federal judge recently rejected their claim. But still, of the major adult entertainment producers, only one studio requires condom use for all their contract stars: Wicked Pictures.
“Most of the companies frown upon it,” said Rodriguez, the former porn actress. “If you're coming in saying, ‘You know, I want to wear a condom,’ chances are they're going to take the girl that's going to do it without the condom.”
She is thankful she made it out of the business with a clean bill of health.

White House says it is undeniable that chemical weapons used in Syria...

U.N. chemical weapons experts visit people affected by an apparent gas attack, at a hospital in the southwestern Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday that it is undeniable that chemical weapons were used in Syria and that there is little doubt that the Syrian government used them.
President Barack Obama, said White House spokesman Jay Carney, is evaluating the appropriate response to the use of chemical weapons but has made no decision on how to respond. Carney had no time frame for when Obama would decide.
"There is very little doubt in our mind that the Syrian regime is culpable," said Carney. He said it is undeniable that the weapons were used in what he called a violation of an international norm.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Kerry: U.S. will respond to ‘moral obscenity’ of Syria massacre...

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Secretary of State John Kerry left no doubt Monday that the United States believes Syria’s Bashar Assad used chemical weapons to slaughter civilians last week and vowed that the United States will respond to that “moral obscenity.”
“Anyone who can claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass,” he said, in a barb likely meant for Syria and its patron Russia. “By any standard it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable."
Kerry, speaking to reporters at the State Department, described the attack in very personal terms, describing how he had watched the “gut-wrenching” videos of the dead and dying via social media. But he gave no details about when a decision on whether to use force in response to last week’s massacre might come — or whether it would.
The secretary of state said the United States government and its allies were reviewing non-public information about the alleged attack and promised “we will provide that information in the days ahead.”
“Make no mistake, President (Barack) Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people,” Kerry warned. “Nothing today is more serious and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”
The top U.S. diplomat offered no new public evidence to back up U.S. charges that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in an attack just outside Damascus that anti-Assad fighters claim might have killed more than 1,300. But he made a public case against the Syrian strongman that might underpin a future legal rationale for American military strikes.
"While investigators are gathering additional evidence on the ground, our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts informed by conscience and guided by common sense," Kerry said. "The reported number of victims, the reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, the firsthand accounts from humanitarian organizations on the ground like Doctors Without Borders and the Syria Human Rights Commission — these all strongly indicate that everything these images are already screaming at us is real, that chemical weapons were used in Syria."
Syria possesses chemical weapons, and the rockets to deliver them, Kerry said. "We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses."
And Kerry shared his personal response to shocking social media videos shared by the opposition.
After a round of telephone diplomacy on Sunday, Kerry said, “I went back and I watched videos — videos that anybody can watch on social media — I watched them one more gut-wrenching time.”
“As a father, I can’t get the image out of my head, of a man who held up his dead child, wailing, while chaos swirled around,” he said.
“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity,” he underlined.
At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would explain his decision to the American public once he has made it and already has started reaching out to key members of Congress.
Asked whether polls showing weak U.S. public support for intervention would shape the president's decision, Carney replied: "The president makes decisions about military action or potential military action with the national security interests of the United States in mind."
"I am sure that you will hear from him."

Amanda Knox won't return to Italy for murder retrial...

Amanda Knox waves to supporters after arriving in Seattle following her release from prison in Italy on October 4, 2011
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American Amanda Knox will not return to Italy for a retrial -- due to begin next month -- for the 2007 death of her British roommate, her lawyer said Sunday.
Knox, 26, served four years of a 26-year sentence in an Italian prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher, whose half-naked body was found in a pool of blood in the house she shared with the American student.
After an appeal, Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted in 2011 of the crime prosecutors attributed to a sex game gone wrong.
Knox then returned to her home near the northwestern US city of Seattle.
"She will not be returning to Italy for the retrial," her lawyer David Marriott told AFP.
"She is not required to be there and had never agreed to attend."
In March, Italy's highest appeals court overturned the acquittal and ordered a retrial in a Florence appeals court, citing "numerous examples of shortcomings, contradictions and incoherences" in the original appeal ruling.
It said the jury that acquitted Knox had not considered all the evidence.
The only person behind bars for the murder is Rudy Guede, a local drifter born in Ivory Coast who is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being tried separately and convicted of murder and sexual assault.
Based on the physical evidence, prosecutors say the murder could not have been carried out by one person.

Sunday, 25 August 2013

The Simpsons full episode-treehouse of horror VII

Flight Risk from "The Saga of Carl Carlson" | THE SIMPSONS | ANIMATION o...

Britain says Syria chemical attack evidence may already be destroyed....

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague arrives at 10 Downing Street, in central London
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Sunday that evidence of a chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus could have already been destroyed ahead of a visit to the site by U.N. inspectors.
Earlier in the day Syria agreed to let experts from the United Nations on Monday visit the site of the reported poisonous gas attack which killed hundreds of people on Wednesday of last week.
"We have to be realistic now about what the U.N. team can achieve," Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters.
"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment. Other evidence could have degraded over the last few days and other evidence could have been tampered with," he said, referring to opposition activists' reports that the army has shelled the area in the last few days.
Hague said that all evidence pointed towards the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, and that such attacks demanded a strong international response.
"We cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity," Hague said. "We believe it's very important that there is a strong response and that dictators ... know that the use of chemical weapons is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed."
(Reporting by William James; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Fears of food and water poisoning after Damascus gassings...

(This story was reported by a journalist whose name has been withheld for security reasons) DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Days after a suspected poison gas attack killed hundreds of people in crop-growing suburbs, residents of the Syrian capital say they are afraid their food and water supplies may be contaminated. Western countries believe President Bashar al-Assad's forces carried out the worst chemical weapons attack since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Syria's government denies any role in the deaths and blames rebels. Whoever is to blame, grandmother Hana said her three daughters were now fretting about what to feed their children. "They keep calling me throughout the day, and they are frantic. They ask: ‘Mum, what about the watermelon? Does it absorb the chemicals? What about the milk?' I try to calm them down, but I'm very worried myself. What if it takes years for any effects to show up in the children?" she said. The poison gas hit the Ghouta area, where acres upon acres of agricultural land supply the capital of 3 million people with fresh vegetables, meat and dairy. "I hope God will protect us. Because I would really rather plant my own tomatoes and vegetables, but how will they grow in my third floor apartment? I don't even have a balcony," said Um Hassan, another grandmother. She it was the first time she was seriously worried about food contamination since the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq made Syrians fear contamination of imported food. The Syrian authorities have yet to respond with any clarity about whether people need to take special precautions to protect themselves from possible contamination. It is not yet clear what poison or mixture of poisons were responsible for the killings. Sarin, which the United States and France believe was used in previous, smaller incidents in Syria, mixes with water. People can be exposed to it by touching or drinking contaminated water, according to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People can also be exposed by eating contaminated food. "Do we have to keep our windows closed? How long does the poison stay in the air? I hear different things from people," said 40-year-old man who works as a physical therapist and lives less than a 15-minute drive from one attack. "Do we have to worry now about leaving the city? Are we considered contagious?" he said. UNUSUAL FEROCITY Damascenes say the night of the poisoning, before dawn on Aug 21, saw some of the loudest and most continuous bombardment of the war. "Where I live, we usually hear missile fire, and we hear it pierce the air above us, and we hear it land in a thud and explode," said a resident of Rukn al Din, where government artillery fires upon nearby Jobar, a rebel-held area in Ghouta. "But on Wednesday, I swear we heard it from new angles and new places. It felt like the missiles were firing from all over the city onto Ghouta," he said. Whether Damascenes blame the government or the rebels for the poisoning generally depends on which side they support. "I couldn't say who did it ... But each side speaks with the same conviction, blaming the other side. And we just want this to end. We're exhausted," said Um Hassan. Now that U.S. President Barack Obama is considering a response, residents also have the prospect of Western military action to contend with, after two and a half years of a war that has already killed 100,000 people. Ahmad, displaced for months into Damascus from Moadamiyeh, another of the suburbs where the chemical attack took place, said he no longer "cares what happens". He now shares one room with his wife and their five children in the basement of a downtown Damascus building where he works as a superintendent. "We've lost so much. We have no idea what the status of our home is. We can't reach our neighbors who still live in our street ... And you're asking me what I think about America coming? Things can't get much worse.

Mexico migrant train derailment kills 6, injures 22.....

Policemen, soldiers and rescuers work at the site where a train derailed, near Huimanguillo, Mexico on August 25, 2013
A cargo train carrying US-bound migrants derailed in a remote and swampy area of southeastern Mexico on Sunday, killing at least six people and injuring 22, officials said.
Authorities said the death toll could rise after the train known as "The Beast," which carries Central American migrants who pay smugglers to sit atop freight cars, careened off the track near a river in Tabasco state.
A Tabasco public security spokesman told AFP the death toll had risen from five to six at midday and "the search (for survivors) continues."
Tabasco civil protection director Cesar Burelo told Milenio television that 16 people were taken to the regional hospital of Las Choapas in the neighboring state of Veracruz, which is 25 minutes away by boat.
The cause of the accident was not yet known, he said, adding that the train was also carrying scrap metal. Mexican media said the train may have been traveling too fast amid heavy rain.
"The Beast" carries Mexican and Central American migrants who pay smugglers upwards of $100 for the right to travel from stations near Guatemala to the north of Mexico.
Eight of the train's 12 freight cars overturned at around 3:00 am (0800 GMT), state officials said. Rescuers used hydraulic tools to cut through the metal to find survivors.
Burelo said cranes will be needed to lift the wagons, which could lead to discoveries of more fatalities.
Luis Felipe Puente, the national civil protection coordinator, said 22 people were hurt, down from his earlier report that 35 were injured, 16 of whom in serious condition.
He told Formato 21 radio that "we could possibly have more dead."
Local officials said the accident took place far from any road in the municipality of Huimanguillo, near the state of Veracruz, and that the site was only accessible by air or boat.
A photo broadcast by Milenio television showed freight cars lying on their side with the wheels detached from the bottom. The tracks are seen in a wooded area and covered with plants.
At least two of the injured were transported lying on the wooden flatbed of a handcar -- a small four-wheeled railroad vehicle -- according to a picture posted on Twitter by Tabasco civil protection.
Huimanguillo civil protection and security officials told AFP that between 250 and 300 migrants were aboard the train.
At least one of dead is from Honduras, according to Tabasco civil protection.
President Enrique Pena Nieto expressed his condolences to the families of victims and his foreign ministry said it was providing information to Central American embassies.
Some 140,000 migrants enter Mexico illegally every year to travel to the United States, according to the National Human Rights Commission.
Migrants are exposed to many risks in their trek across Mexico.
Traffickers charge them huge sums to help them cross the border and, once in Mexico, gangs extort them for more money. They are often robbed, raped and killed by criminal groups.
President Enrique Pena Nieto unveiled a $309 billion plan in July to modernize the country's infrastructure, including by reviving the nation's moribund passenger train service.

Soldier who ‘sucked at being a civilian’ earns Medal of Honor


Staff Sgt. Ty Carter watching over a road near Dahla Dam in Afghanistan in July 2012. (Army photo)
When war hero Ty Carter goes to the White House Monday, he’ll do so with a heavy heart while still battling the demons from the day that earned him the military’s highest achievement for valor.
“The reality of the award is that I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” Carter told Yahoo News. “Imagine yourself in the worst possible situation you can think of. We’re talking about you’ve got members of your family being killed in front of you or in severe pain and you have no choice but to try to help them.”
President Barack Obama will present Army Staff Sgt. Carter the Medal of Honor for the gallantry shown on Oct. 3, 2009, when he faced death multiple times to assist comrades during a fierce firefight with Taliban insurgents. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed when Combat Outpost Keating was ambushed, making it one of the deadliest battles for Americans in the Afghan war. Two dozen more were injured.
A seven-page Army narrative on his heroics details how Carter, then a specialist, sprinted across open fields to fetch ammo for others, killed insurgents and risked his life to recover a mortally wounded comrade who was pinned down by enemy fire and crying out “Help me, please.”
“He did all this while under heavy small arms and indirect fire that lasted more than six hours,” the Army states.
He calls his wife, Shannon, his best counselor. “She understands. She tells me what I need to hear.”

Carter, 33, says he’s never been one to take credit. Instead, he wants the attention to serve as a reminder that “there’s still a war going on and that it isn’t all ‘Call of Duty’ and computer games.”“This medal represents so much more than me, and it’s my responsibility to give it the honor it deserves,” says Carter, who wears a bracelet on his right wrist bearing the names of the soldiers lost that day.
The battle occurred a year after Carter enlisted in the Army. He had been a Marine from 1998 to 2003, and after that he had bounced from job to job – movie theater manager, tow truck driver and nursing assistant to name a few – before rejoining the military.
“I sucked at being a civilian,” he recalls. “I had a job where I had no real purpose. I was just showing up doing the same thing over and over again.”
He becomes the fifth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Seven medals have been awarded posthumously.
“I was pleasantly surprised, but I wasn’t shocked,” said retired 1st Sgt. Jonathan G. Hill, who was Carter’s platoon sergeant at the outpost.
“In my heart I knew deep down inside that it was going to happen eventually, because knowing what he went through and knowing the extraordinary circumstances that he and everyone else had faced,” Hill told the Army News Service. “I couldn’t be prouder.”
Tackling his PTSD helped Carter “improve on being a good father, husband and, of course, a good soldier.”

Carter, now stationed near Seattle, didn’t escape the battle unscathed. He has permanent hearing loss and ringing in his left ear from a grenade blast. Counseling and his family help him cope with the guilt that he couldn’t save more lives.Alone time to reflect and remember is also therapeutic, he says.
“That helps me get through the day so that I don’t just randomly have a severe flashback to where I’m trying to choke back tears in the middle of a highway driving home,” Carter says. “You have to plan for stuff like that.”
He wants to use his time in the spotlight to encourage fellow service members to also seek behavioral health assistance for post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an issue he believes would be less of a stigma if it were just called post-traumatic stress.
“When they think of disorder, they think of a chemical imbalance or whatever,” Carter says. “I believe it’s your body and mind’s natural reaction to when something really bad happens. It remembers and helps you remember so that you can avoid the situation. Anxiety, flashbacks, flinching, stuff like that, that’s all your body and mind telling you, ‘Hey something bad happened in the past,’ and it doesn’t want it to happen in the future.”
A military investigation later blamed command failures for putting American troops in a vulnerable position at Keating, an isolated outpost whose closure had been repeatedly delayed. Carter and 52 other soldiers were outnumbered almost 8 to 1 but managed to defend the post from being overrun.
“You can’t make war friendly,” Carter says. “Yes, it was a bad situation. I don’t really hold any ill will. The fact that eight men died, that’s the problem I have. I don’t think that any soldier or any person needs to die for any war. But without the threat of war, there is no peace.”

Syria lets U.N. inspect gas attack site, Washington says too late...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria agreed on Sunday to let the United Nations inspect the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, but a U.S. official said such an offer was "too late to be credible" and Washington was all but certain the government had gassed its own people.
The U.S. remarks appeared to signal that a military response was more likely. A senior senator said he believed President Barack Obama would ask for authorization to use force when Congress returns from recess next month.
The comments follow forceful remarks from other Western powers, including Britain and France, which also believe President Bashar al-Assad's government was behind a massive poison gas attack that killed many hundreds of people last week.
Foreign powers have been searching for a response since the killings in a Damascus suburb, which if confirmed would be the world's worst chemical weapons attack in 25 years.
The United Nations said Damascus had agreed to a ceasefire while a U.N. team of experts inspect the site from Monday. Syria confirmed it had agreed to allow the inspections.
The scale of Wednesday's attack has led to calls for a strong response from the United States, a year after President Barack Obama declared the use of chemical weapons to be a "red line" that would draw serious consequences.
A senior U.S. official said Washington was still weighing how to respond but there was very little doubt that the Syrian government had used a chemical weapon against civilians.
"Based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the U.S. intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident," the U.S. official said.
"At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the U.N. team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime's persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days."
Syria's information minister said any U.S. military action would "create a ball of fire that will inflame the Middle East".
He said Damascus had evidence chemical weapons were used by rebels fighting to topple Assad, not by his government. That argument is given credence by Assad's ally Moscow, but dismissed by Western countries which say they believe the rebels have no access to poison gas or the big weapons needed to deliver it.
Western leaders have been phoning each other in recent days and issuing declarations promising some kind of response.
"We cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. "We believe it's very important that there is a strong response and that dictators ... know that the use of chemical weapons is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed."
French President Francois Hollande's office said: "France is determined that this act does not go unpunished."
Senator Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had spoken to the Obama administration about its plans and believed the president would seek authorization for intervention after Congress convenes on September 9.
"I think we will respond in a surgical way and I hope the president as soon as we get back to Washington will ask for authorization from Congress to do something in a very surgical and proportional way," he told Fox News Sunday.
TANKS ADVANCE ON SITE
The team of U.N. chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Syria three days before Wednesday's incident to investigate previous reports of chemical weapons use.
Since Wednesday, the 20-strong team has been waiting in a Damascus luxury hotel a few miles from the site of what appears to have been the world's worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein's forces gassed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988.
Their movements must be agreed with the Syrian government, and their inability to reach the site of attacks just a short drive away was symbolic of the failure of global diplomacy to have any real impact during two and a half years of war.
State television showed footage of tanks moving on Sunday into what it said was the eastern Damascus suburb of Jobar, one of the districts where the mass poisoning occurred.
Opposition activists in Damascus said the army was using surface-to-surface missiles and artillery in the area.
"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," said Britain's Hague.
Obama met his top military and national security advisers on Saturday to debate options. U.S. naval forces have been repositioned in the Mediterranean to give Obama the option of an armed strike.
Assad's two main allies spoke out in his defense. Iran, echoing Obama's own language, said Washington should not cross a "red line" by attacking Syria. Russia welcomed the decision to allow the U.N. investigation and said it would be a "tragic mistake" to jump to conclusions over who was to blame.
It is not clear how much impact the U.N. investigation would have on decision-making by Western countries.
In past incidents, the United States, Britain and France obtained what they said was their own proof Assad used small amounts of chemical arms. But if the U.N. team obtains independent evidence, it could be easier to build a diplomatic case for intervention.
BODIES
Throughout a war that has killed more than 100,000 people, the United States and its allies have yet to take direct action, despite long ago saying Assad must be removed from power.
In June, after concluding that Assad's forces had used a small amount of nerve gas, Obama authorized sending U.S. weapons to Syrian rebels. Those shipments were delayed due to fears radical Sunni Islamist groups in the opposition could gain further ground in Syria and become a threat to the West.
But Obama's administration is reluctant to be drawn deep into another war in the Muslim world after pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq and preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Senator Jack Reed from Obama's Democratic Party said any response had to have international military support and Washington could not get into a "general military operation".
About 60 percent of Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Saturday opposed U.S. intervention. Nine percent thought Obama should act.
The Syrian opposition says between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed by gas in munitions fired by pro-government forces. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals near Damascus had reported 355 deaths in the space of three hours out of about 3,600 admissions with neurotoxic symptoms.
The head of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebel group has pledged to target communities from Assad's Alawite sect with rockets in revenge.
"For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it," Abu Mohammad al-Golani said in a recording on YouTube.
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Jon Boyle)

You Won’t Believe What Actor Hafiz Oyetoro aka Saka Wore To His 50th Birthday Party..

Hilarious educationist, aka Saka (the popular Etisalat brand ambassador who ported to MTN) turned 50 last Monday and of the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (where he lectures), staged a celebration in his honour.
The party was attended by several students and top monarchs in Badagry.
saka.1
saka.

Saturday, 24 August 2013

Berlusconi's party says his removal from parliament is 'unthinkable'....


Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi waves to supporters as his girlfriend Francesca Pascale looks on during a rally to protest his tax fraud conviction, outside his palace in central Rome
ROME (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi's center-right party said on Saturday that removing the former prime minister from parliament over a tax fraud conviction would be unacceptable and "unthinkable", escalating its row with center-left coalition allies.
Angelino Alfano, secretary of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) warned Prime Minister Enrico Letta this week that the party could bring down the government if the center-left Democratic Party (PD) voted to throw Berlusconi out, something PD members have repeatedly said they will do.
The Senate is due to vote in September on whether to expel the 76-year-old media mogul from parliament.
Alfano said on Saturday after a four-hour tactical meeting at Berlusconi's luxury villa near Milan that the PDL remained firmly united behind their leader.
"(Berlusconi's) removal from the office of senator is unthinkable and constitutionally unacceptable," he said.
His statement drew stern responses from PD members.
"The difficulties of the PDL are evident but you can't blackmail the government, because in a lawful state, laws are respected and sentences are applied," said Andrea Martella, PD vice president in the lower house.
Letta has said his government must focus on fostering Italy's recovery from recession and that Berlusconi's judicial problems will not affect the stability of his administration.
A Senate committee is due to begin hearing arguments on whether to eject Berlusconi on September 9.
Berlusconi is desperately trying to find a way to stay in the political game despite a four-year jail sentence, commuted to one year, for a massive tax fraud at his Mediaset broadcasting empire.
He is expected to start serving the sentence, either under house arrest or doing social work, in mid-October.
(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Brotherhood leaders to go on trial in Egypt...

Supporters of Muslim Brotherhood and ousted Egyptian President Mursi pray during a protest in Cairo
CAIRO (Reuters) - Three leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood go on trial in Cairo on Sunday on charges of inciting lethal violence during unrest that preceded the army's overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi.
Mohamed Badie, the Islamist movement's "General Guide", and his two deputies, Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumy, will not attend the High Court session, the state news agency MENA said.
The trial signals the determination of Egypt's new army-backed rulers to crush an organization they have portrayed as a violent, terrorist group bent on undermining the state.
The Brotherhood, which won five successive votes after the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, says it is a peaceful movement unjustly targeted by the generals who ousted Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, on July 3.
The military contends it was responding to the people's will, citing vast demonstrations at the time against the rule of a man criticized for accumulating excessive power, pushing a partisan Islamist agenda and mismanaging the economy.
Mursi has been in detention in an undisclosed location since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed him.
Charges against Badie and his aides include incitement to violence and relate to an anti-Brotherhood protest outside the group's Cairo headquarters on July 30 in which nine people were killed and 91 wounded. The 70-year-old Brotherhood leader was detained last week. Shater and Bayoumy were picked up earlier.
The trial opens only three days after Mubarak, who was arrested in April, 2011, left prison following a court order to release him. He faces a retrial on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the revolt against him, but judges have ruled there are no legal grounds to keep him behind bars.
The army-installed government has used its powers under a month-long state of emergency to keep Mubarak, 85, under house arrest, apparently to minimize the risk of popular anger if he had simply walked free. He is now in an upscale military hospital in a Cairo suburb.
More than 1,000 people, including about 100 soldiers and police, have died in violence across Egypt since Mursi's overthrow, making it the bloodiest civil unrest in the republic's 60-year history. Brotherhood supporters say the toll is much higher.
Pro-Mursi crowds staged scattered marches on what they had billed as a "Friday of Martyrs", but the Brotherhood's ability to mobilize huge crowds appears to have been enfeebled by the round-up of its leaders and the bloody dispersal of protest camps set up in Cairo to demand the president's reinstatement.
Mursi's return is not on the cards for now. The army has announced a roadmap for a return to democracy which involves overhauling the constitution adopted under Mursi last year, with parliamentary and presidential elections to follow.
Changes proposed by a government-appointed legal panel would scrap last year's Islamic additions to the constitution and revive a Mubarak-era voting system. Islamists and liberals have expressed alarm about the suggestions.
Khaled Dawoud, a member of the liberal Dostour party, said he was worried by plans to retain articles under which journalists risk jail for "insulting the president" and newspapers can be closed for violating media laws - penalties enforced under Mursi, as well as during Mubarak's 30-year rule.
"I want new freedoms, more freedoms and not to end up with something similar to the 1971 constitution or one worse than Mursi's 2012 constitution," he said.
Islamists are also up in arms, for different reasons, saying the changes amount to an assault on Egypt's "Islamic identity".
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the roadmap and the constitutional process in a call with interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy on Friday, MENA reported.
The United States has voiced concern about bloodshed in Egypt since Mursi's fall. President Barack Obama has stopped short of cutting the $1.5 billion in mostly military U.S. aid to Cairo, but has ruled out any "return to normal business".

Service for a california mother killed with her son by a family friend who also abducted the woman's 16-year-old daughter.


Hannah Anderson positions a photo of her mother, Christina Anderson, and brother, Ethan Anderson on an easel at the memorial service in Guardian Angels Catholic Church on Saturday Aug. 24, 2013 in Santee, Calif. The two were murdered by family friend James Lee DiMaggio, before kidnapping Hannah earlier this month. Hannah was rescued and DiMaggio was killed in a shoot out with FBI agents in Idaho. (AP Photo/U-T San Diego, Howard Lipin, Pool)
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SANTEE, Calif. (AP) — Calling their deaths "an abomination," a priest memorialized a California mother and young son killed by a family friend who also abducted the woman's 16-year-old daughter.
Saturday's service for Christina Anderson and 8-year-old Ethan Anderson at the Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church in Santee was open to the public.
"For the death of Tina and Ethan there are no easy words," the Rev. Kevin Casey told the memorial gathering, according to the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/157LSe3 ). "We are touched by this evil and we can never be the same again."
The pair was found at the home of James Lee DiMaggio, who set it ablaze earlier this month and then took off with Hannah Anderson.
DiMaggio was killed by FBI agents Aug. 10 in the Idaho wilderness, ending a six-day search that spanned much of the western United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Authorities have declined to discuss a possible motive in the deaths and haven't addressed other details of the case, including how Hannah was treated by DiMaggio during the ordeal.
"We struggle with deaths like this because they are not right. They are an abomination," Casey said.
Investigators have said DiMaggio set fire to his home using a timer, giving him a 20-hour jump on law enforcement.
DiMaggio's family has requested paternity tests to determine if the suspect fathered the children.
Hannah's father, Brett Anderson, gave his DNA to investigators to confirm Ethan's identity. DiMaggio named Hannah's grandmother, Bernice Anderson, as the sole beneficiary of his employer-issued life insurance policy, making her eligible to receive $112,000.

Lawyer for George Zimmerman chides him for visiting gun factory...

George Zimmerman leaves the courtroom a free man after being found not guilty in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford Florida
George Zimmerman leaves the courtroom a free man after being found not guilty in the 2012 shooting death …
By Barbara Liston
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - George Zimmerman's lawyer has chided him for visiting a Florida firearms factory that makes the type of gun he used to kill unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin last year.
Zimmerman in July was acquitted of murder in Martin's death in a racially charged case that polarized the U.S. public and raised questions about Florida's loose gun laws and equal justice.
"We understand how George visiting the factory that produces the gun used to shoot Trayvon Martin is seen as inappropriate," Shawn Vincent, spokesman for Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara, told Reuters on Friday.
Celebrity news website TMZ posted a photo of Zimmerman at the Kel-Tec plant in Cocoa, shaking hands with an employee and grinning.
The website reported that he asked questions about the legality of buying a Kel-Tec KSG, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.
Zimmerman, 29, shot Martin, who was 17 years old, in the heart with a 9mm Kel-Tec pistol.
Zimmerman was a volunteer watchman for a gated community in central Florida when he killed Martin in February 2012.
Martin was walking back to the town house where he was staying after a trip to a nearby convenience store to buy Skittles candy and a can of iced tea.
Prosecutors argued that Zimmerman, who is white and Hispanic, profiled Martin as a criminal, pursued him and killed him. Zimmerman said Martin attacked him and that he acted in self-defense.
Less than three weeks after his acquittal, Zimmerman was stopped for speeding on a Texas highway 25 miles southeast of Dallas, and notified the officer that he was carrying a gun in his glove compartment, according to Texas officials.
(Reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Xavier Briand)

Obama weighs possible military response after Syria chemical attack....

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama considered options on Saturday for a possible military strike on Syria in response to a nerve gas attack that killed hundreds as Syria sought to avert blame by saying its soldiers had found chemical weapons in rebel tunnels.
A senior U.N. official arrived in Damascus to seek access for inspectors to the site of last Wednesday's attack, in which opposition accounts say between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed by gas fired by pro-government forces.
In the most authoritative account so far, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said three hospitals near Damascus had reported 355 deaths in the space of three hours out of about 3,600 admissions with nerve gas-type symptoms.
The accounts and video footage of the victims - men, women and children - have heightened Western calls for a robust, U.S.-led response after 2-1/2 years of international inaction on a conflict that has killed 100,000 people.
U.S. military and national security advisers met Obama at the White House on Saturday to consider options for a response, the day after Washington said it was realigning forces in the Mediterranean to give him the option of attacking Syria.
Obama, long hesitant to intervene, said in a CNN interview broadcast on Friday that the United States was still gathering information about the attack.
He noted, however, that chemicals weapon use on a large scale would start "getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region".
In a development that could raise pressure on him to act, American and European security sources said U.S. and allied intelligence agencies had made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons had been used by pro-Assad forces this week.
MILITARY OPTIONS
Among the military options under consideration are missile strikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks or on Assad's air force and ballistic missile sites, U.S. officials said. Such strikes could be launched from U.S. ships or from combat aircraft capable of firing missiles from outside Syrian airspace, thereby avoiding Syrian air defenses.
Major world powers - including Russia, Assad's main ally which has long blocked U.N.-sponsored intervention against him - have urged the Syrian leader to cooperate with U.N. chemical weapons inspectors already in Damascus to pursue earlier allegations.
Syria accuses rebels of staging the attack to provoke intervention. State television said soldiers had found chemical weapons on Saturday in tunnels that had been used by rebels.
A presenter said five blue and green plastic storage drums shown in video footage, along with rusty mortar bombs, grenades, domestic gas canisters and vials labeled "atropine", a nerve gas antidote, were proof that rebels had used chemical weapons.
Separately, the state news agency SANA said soldiers had "suffered from cases of suffocation" when rebels used poison gas "as a last resort" after government forces made "big gains" against them in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.
It said clashes were still raging in the area but that the army had advanced and found "chemical agents" in rebel tunnels.
The leader of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad al-Jarba, and the head of the rebel Free Syrian Army, General Salim Idriss, denied on Saturday that rebels had used chemical weapons.
At a press conference in Istanbul, Idriss said the rebels would respond, but not with "similar crimes".
Jabra said the "most important cause" of the attack was the silence and inaction of the international community, especially the West.
A scheduled August 25-27 conference of military chiefs of the United States, Jordan, its main Western allies and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, intended to help contain the fallout of a war spilling beyond Syria's borders, has been given added urgency by the gas attack.
WAITING FOR OBAMA
"We had been expecting to talk mainly about stabilizing Jordan," said a European defense source. "Instead, it will be dominated by Syria. It's all really waiting on the Americans and what they decide they want to do ...
"There have been discussions, but so far they have been very inconclusive. As the scale of what happened in Damascus becomes clear, that may change."
U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane arrived in Damascus to press for access to the scene.
"The solution is obvious. There is a United Nations team on the ground, just a few kilometers away. It must very quickly be allowed to go to the site to carry out the necessary tests without hindrance," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a visit to the Palestinian territories.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Berlin expected Russia to "raise the pressure on Damascus so that the inspectors can independently investigate".
While some of the United States' NATO allies, including France, Britain and Turkey, have explicitly blamed Assad's forces for the chemical attack, Russia said the rebels were impeding an inquiry and that Assad would have no interest in using poison gas for fear of foreign intervention.
"Assad does not look suicidal," senior pro-Kremlin lawmaker Igor Morozov told Interfax news agency. "He well understands that in this case, allies would turn away from him and ... opponents would rise. All moral constraints would be discarded regarding outside interference."
Alexei Pushkov, pro-Kremlin chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, said: "In London they are 'convinced' that Assad used chemical weapons, and earlier they were 'convinced' that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It's the same old story."
Russia said last month that its analysis indicated a projectile that hit the city of Aleppo on March 19 contained the nerve agent sarin and was most likely fired by rebels.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Assad's most powerful Middle Eastern ally, acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that chemical weapons had killed people in Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.
(Additional reporting by Megan Davies in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai, Asli Kandemir and Dasha Afanasieva in Istanbul and Washington bureau; Writing by Kevin Liffey; Editing by Louise Ireland)