Save the tiger: Pressure mounts for tougher action
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By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer
HUAI KHA KHEANG WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, Thailand – After trudging through the wilds of western Thailand for several hours, the forest rangers thought they were finally onto something: the distant sound of crunching leaves.
Automatic weapons drawn, the five Thais crept forward, hoping to catch a tiger poacher. It turned out to be a banteng, a wild cow, which disappeared into the woods.
But all in all, the absence of illegal hunters was good news, said ranger Sakchai Tessri. "When we passed before, we would always run into poachers." Now he felt their room for maneuver was narrowing.
"In the old days," he said, "they would spend many nights in the forest for poaching. Now they just come in, shoot, grab and go quickly."
The 6,400-square-kilometer (2,500-square-mile) Huai Kha Kheang and Thung Yai Wildlife Sanctuaries on the Myanmar border represent a rare success in the struggle to save the world's dwindling tiger population.
Burma Silencing Critics with Internet Law
Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Jan 11 (IPS)
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A court ruling in military-ruled Burma has brought into sharp focus a law the junta widely uses to go after civilians it wants to silence.
On Jan. 7 a court found Win Naing Kyaw, a former military officer, guilty of violating the Electronics Act, a law controlling Internet usage, and condemned him to a 20-year sentence. He was linked to photos of a ranking junta official's visit to North Korea that had appeared on a news website run by Burmese journalists living in exile.
Uganda Urged to Stop 'Anti-Gay' Bill
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(OneWorld.net) - The international community is urging Uganda's government to scrap a bill proposing the death sentence for "aggravated homosexuality" amid increasing concerns about homophobia across the African continent.
The draft "Anti-Homosexuality" bill was proposed in Uganda's Parliament in October and is up for debate later this month. The most controversial part of the bill is the use of the death penalty for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality," defined as an HIV-positive person who has homosexual sex with someone disabled or younger than 18. The bill would also force people accused of this crime to undergo HIV tests.
Haiti's homeless plead for tents after earthquake
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By JONATHAN M. KATZ and BEN FOX, Associated Press Writers Jonathan M. Katz And Ben Fox, Associated Press Writers
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The dusty soccer field lined with spacious tents is an oasis for earthquake survivors among Haiti's homeless sheltering in acres (hectares) of squalid camps.
Competition for the canvas homes has boiled into arguments and machete fights, a sign of the desperation felt by the hundreds of thousands of people without homes struggling for shelter in this wrecked city. Haiti's president has asked the world for 200,000 tents and says he will sleep in one himself.
Five Years After Tsunami, Many Still Without Shelter
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KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka, (IPS) - "We have been here for almost five years. So many promises have been made, but very few have been kept," complains Mohideen Nafia, 22, one of the survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami still living in a temporary facility in the coastal town of Kalmunai, located 300 kilometres east of the capital, Colombo.
Newly married Nafia would have preferred a house of her own with her husband. But at the moment she has to make do with what amounts to a shelter, a one-room unit in a government-provided disaster camp, which the couple shares with Nafia's family of five and is located about one kilometre from the beach.
All-star Haiti telethon raises $57 million, so far
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By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Ap Music Writer
NEW YORK – Organizers for the all-star "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon say the event raised $57 million — and counting.
"The public has set a new standard of giving for a relief telethon with 'Hope for Haiti Now,' and the donations continue to come in," Lisa Paulsen, president and CEO of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, said in a statement released Saturday. The group is helping to oversee the funds gathered from the event.
The two-hour telethon aired Friday night on the major networks and dozens of other channels, including MTV, Bravo, and PBS, and was also streamed live online. Stars like Brad Pitt, Beyonce, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and more used their presence to encourage donations for Haiti, following a Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people.
Gisele gives $1.5m to Haiti relief effort
By Mark Shanahan & Meredith Goldstein Globe Staff
The benevolent Gisele Bundchen yesterday wrote a $1.5 million check to the Red Cross to aid the relief effort in Haiti, according to a source close to the supermodel. We’re told Tom Brady’s wife was prompted to pitch in after seeing the devastation done by this week’s earthquake. Bundchen is one of several celebs who’ve been stirred to action by the catastrophic images broadcast on TV. The leggy supermodel, who’s traveled all over the world, can certainly afford such largesse considering she earned a reported $35 million last year.
The Global Debt Bomb
Daniel Fisher
Spending our way out of worldwide recession will take years to pay back--and create a lot of pain.
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Kyle Bass has bet the house against Japan--his own house, that is. The Dallas hedge fund manager (no relation to the famous Bass family of Fort Worth) is so convinced the Japanese government's profligate spending will drive the nation to the brink of default that he financed his home with a five-year loan denominated in yen, which he hopes will be cheaper to pay back than dollars. Through his hedge fund, Hayman Advisors, Bass has also bought $6 million worth of securities that will jump in value if interest rates on ten-year Japanese government bonds, currently a minuscule 1.3%, rise to something more like ten-year Treasuries in the U.S. (a recent 3.4%). A former Bear Stearns trader, Bass turned $110 million into $700 million by betting against subprime debt in 2006. "Japan is the most asymmetric opportunity I have ever seen," he says, "way better than subprime."
Bass could be wrong on Japan. The island nation (and the world's second-largest economy) has defied skeptics for so long that experienced traders call betting against it "the widowmaker." But he may be right on the bigger picture. If 2008 was the year of the subprime meltdown, 2010, he thinks, will be the year entire nations start going broke.
Unraveling Belfast government faces 'High Noon'
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer
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HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland – The British and Irish governments launched a mission Monday to save Northern Ireland's unraveling administration, a Catholic-Protestant coalition that was supposed to forge a lasting era of nonviolent compromise.
The British and Irish prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen, arrived together at Hillsborough Castle and vowed to do what they could to persuade local leaders not to pull the plug on power-sharing. Both leaders planned to talk late into the night and to maintain the diplomatic push Tuesday.
Why Russia Wants Its Orthodox Churches Back
By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS Bruce Crumley / Paris
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Though not even two decades have passed since the Soviet state collapsed in 1991, the Orthodox Russians who came to France to flee communism say they're starting to view Moscow with mistrust again. The reason: the recent move by Russia to take control of a dazzling Orthodox cathedral built in Nice during the reign of Czar Nicholas II, which some opponents say is part a wider, nationalistic power play by Moscow to regain symbols of Russia's historical, cultural and religious grandeur abroad.
The tussle centers on the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas - a breathtaking church topped with spires and domes that was built in 1912 on land that Nicolas' grandfather, Alexander II, had purchased a half century earlier.
Initially intended as a place of worship for the Russian aristocrats and industrialists who flocked to the CÔte d'Azur before the 1917 Russian Revolution, the cathedral became a spiritual and cultural focal point for the mass of exiles who fled to Nice during the Soviet era. Since the fall of communism nearly 19 years ago, the so-called "white Russian" community and its offspring has been joined by Russian jet-setters who've grown extremely wealthy under the country's current leadership and bought pricey mansions in Nice to use as their second homes. (See a brief history of Russians and vodka.)
Pope to priests: Go forth and blog
By ARIEL DAVID
The Associated Press
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VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.
The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.
And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.
"The spread of multimedia communications and its rich 'menu of options' might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web," but priests are "challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources," he said.
The message, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and Web sites.
Benedict said young priests should become familiar with new media while still in seminary, though he stressed that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles.
Brothers In Arms: New Portrait Of Princes Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online. The first ever real life double portrait of Princes William and Harry has gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
The portrait combines the formality of the uniform with the informality of the pose.
Artist Nicky Philipps painted the Princes wearing the dress
uniform of the Household Cavalry exactly as worn for the Queen's Birthday Parade in 2008.
They are shown in the library of Clarence House, the Prince of Wales and his sons' official residence since 2002 and previously the home of the Queen Mother.
Britain's queen to address UN in July
(Source AP)
LONDON – Britain's Queen Elizabeth II will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York this summer, the first time she has done so in more than 50 years, Buckingham Palace announced Friday.
The monarch will make her speech on July 6, following a royal tour of Canada, the palace said.
Elizabeth last addressed the General Assembly in 1957, when she highlighted the U.N.'s importance and expressed her wish that it would carry out the ideals set out in its founding charter.
The palace didn't say what the topic of the queen's new U.N. speech would be. She will address the global organization as head of state of the U.K. and 15 other U.N. member states, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The queen will be accompanied on the trip by her husband, Prince Philip.
Flashback: Which Food Stories Tempted You Most in 2009?
Whether you loved them or hated them, the Kitchen Window stories you viewed the most in the past year featured a nutritional gamut — from bacon-flecked desserts and creamy cheese sandwiches, to earthy lentil stews and vegetarian fare.
The most-clicked Kitchen Window stories of the past year are listed below — along with one honorable mention: A 2007 feature on a Southern staple (pimento cheese) was the third most-viewed in 2009! Click the headline or the photo to revisit each of these stalwarts.