With Uribe era ending, Colombia looks back and ahead
Posted in Crime, Education, News, Politics, Tech, Video, economy, what on August 7th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
On his inauguration day eight years ago, leftist guerrillas tried to kill Colombian President Alvaro Uribe with a rocket and mortar attack. The U.S. government had drawn up contingency plans for a rebel-led government, and citizens were hunkering down in their homes at night in fear.
As Colombians who lived through those dark days know, Uribe on Saturday will turn over a far safer country to his successor, former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who was elected in a June landslide after promising to continue Uribe’s policies.
With billions in U.S. aid under Plan Colombia, the hard-line Uribe knocked the FARC guerrilla group on its heels, giving the government the upper hand in its 4-decade-long struggle against insurgents. Expanded police ranks have sharply reduced violent crime in cities. A tripling in foreign investment since 2003, mainly in mining, energy and tourism, is fueling an increasingly dynamic economy.
Effort to keep oil spill at bay tips ecological balance
Posted in News, Science, what on August 3rd, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThere’s a destructive liquid flowing into the Gulf of Mexico — and it’s not oil.
It’s the muddy fresh water of the Mississippi River, which has been released from southern Louisiana’s vast levee system and into estuaries in greater quantities than usual. The goal has been to use the rush of fresh water to keep sticky oil from reaching the sandy shores of the state.
Ansel Adams negatives revealed? Fresno man makes his case
Posted in Celeb, News, what on July 28th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
A wall painter for the Fresno school district who bought a cache of antique glass-plate photographic negatives at a garage sale 10 years ago laid out his case Tuesday that they were created by Ansel Adams early in his career, offering affirmations from photographic and forensic experts he had hired.
In a Beverly Hills gallery packed with reporters and photographers, Rick Norsigian and the Beverly Hills law firm that is helping him market prints made from the negatives (and promote a documentary about his find) said the negatives of Yosemite, the San Francisco waterfront, and Carmel’s mission and nearby Point Lobos were taken by Adams from 1919 to the 1930s, before he became famous as the visual bard of America’s natural landscape.
According to David W. Streets, the gallery owner who hosted the news conference and was part of a team of appraisers, the eventual yield from selling prints struck from Norsigian’s find could amount to more than $200 million.
Oakland could go to pot in a big way with four proposed factory farms
Posted in Crime, Health, News, economy, what on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffOakland could approve a plan Tuesday to set up four marijuana factory farms, a step that could usher in the era of Big Pot.
The proposal is a testament to just how fast the marijuana counterculture is transforming into a corporate culture. And it has ignited a contentious debate in Oakland that could spread as cities face pressure to regulate marijuana cultivation and find ways to tax it.
“Everybody knows it’s going bigger and big money is moving in,” said Dale Gieringer, an Oakland resident and prominent marijuana activist. As the state edges toward legalization, he said, more businessmen will seek to capitalize on a fast-growing market in a recession-hindered economy, forcing cities to make difficult choices on how to exert control.
Iran merchants and tax collectors end standoff
Posted in Islam, News, Politics, Tech, economy, what on July 18th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffA standoff between Iranian merchants and tax collectors ended Saturday as the two sides reached a compromise in a weeks-long on-and-off strike that had cast a spotlight on the economic troubles of a nation now facing tightened sanctions.
For weeks, Tehran’s normally bustling Grand Bazaar had been eerily quiet and palpably tense as security forces stalked its dim galleries, the stalls of gold, jewelry, shoes and clothing that were shuttered under the pretense of painting their storefronts.
Arizona’s immigration law isn’t the only one
Posted in Crime, Education, Health, News, Politics, what on July 17th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffColorado restricts illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition. Nebraska requires verification of immigration status to obtain public benefits. In Tennessee, knowingly presenting a false ID card to get a job is a misdemeanor.
Arizona’s strict new law has generated the most controversy, but there are hundreds of immigration-related laws on the books across the country. The laws regulate employment, law enforcement, education, benefits and healthcare.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit last week to stop the Arizona law from taking effect July 29, saying that immigration policy is a national responsibility and “a patchwork of state laws will only create more problems than it solves.” But according to experts, that is precisely what exists.
Microsoft says it employed Russian deported in connection with spy ring
Posted in News, Tech on July 14th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffMicrosoft Corp. said the 12th alleged member of a Russian spy ring operating in the U.S. was an employee at the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters.
The man, a Russian citizen in his early 20s named Alexey Karetnikov, worked for Microsoft as a software tester for about nine months, a spokeswoman for Microsoft in Moscow, who declined to be identified in line with company rules, said by e-mail today.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg.
