US envoy cancels Mideast trip, Israel feud deepens
(AP)
AP - A U.S. envoy's postponement of his Mideast trip appeared Tuesday to deepen one of the worst U.S.-Israeli feuds in memory — even as Israel's foreign minister signaled his government had no intention of curtailing the contentious construction at the heart of the row.
|
 |
Swiss designer creates dinosaur dung watch
GENEVA (AP) -- A Swiss watchmaker is hoping to raise a stink with an expensive timepiece that eschews the trade's standard gold, diamond or titanium fittings for a more earthy substance - dinosaur dung. Vesenaz, Switzerland-based company Artya says the watch set in fossilized feces will sell for 12,000 ($11,290) and comes with a strap made with skin from an American cane toad.... Woman allegedly hits sister with toilet tank lid
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Iowa City police arrested a woman who allegedly attacked her sister with the lid of a toilet tank. Nitasha Johnson, of Iowa City, was arrested early Sunday and was charged with domestic abuse assault causing injury and interference with official acts. According to police, Johnson removed the lid and hit her sister during a fight. Authorities said the sister suffered an injured foot and finger.... Tapping of Mass. cemetery maple trees gets bad rap
LANCASTER, Mass. (AP) -- Maple syrup producers are under fire for tapping maple trees in Central Massachusetts cemeteries. The Worcester Telegram reports Monday that at least two cemeteries in Lancaster and one in Petersham have sap buckets on trees that stand along side rows of tombstones. Athol Public Works Director Douglas Walsh said a recent investigation of tapped trees in Chestnut Hill Road Cemetery found that the culprits were neighborhood kids.... Determined bulldog chews officer's tires, bumper
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) -- What happened to a Chattanooga police officer's car was certainly under the radar. A city police spokeswoman said Sunday that Officer Clayton Holmes had been checking traffic speeds with radar and stopped to fill out a report when he felt his car shaking. He found a bulldog chewing on the tires. After the dog attacked two passing cars and a second police car, officers used pepper spray and a Taser on it, but the animal wasn't deterred.... Trooper makes 2 DUI arrests in one traffic stop
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) -- Alaska State Troopers needed just one traffic stop to make two arrests for drunken driving. Troopers said a highway patrol officer arrested a 42-year-old man for drunken driving after stopping him for speeding on Sunday. A short time later, a 29-year-old man arrived to take custody of the car. The officer determined he had driven to the scene while drunk....
|
|
| Hunting 'artful' dodgers
BOSTON -- It remains the most tantalizing art-heist mystery in the world.
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves walked into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum disguised as police officers and bound and gagged two guards. For the next 81 minutes, they sauntered around the ornate... Art savior De Niro
Robert De Niro has made a bankrupt gallery an offer it can't refuse.
The "Godfather Part II" star struck a deal with the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries to reclaim six of his late father's paintings, it was learned yesterday.
De Niro will pay $14... Online spike in cyberhate
Hate-group appeals online grew by almost 20 percent in the last year, says a report released yesterday. More than 11,500 promotions of violence, anti-Semitism, homophobia and "terrorism," were found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, other Web sites, forums and blogs -- up from 10,000 last year, the Simon Wiesenthal... Rielle cryin' about sexy pix
Rielle Hunter, the randy sex kitten who just spilled the beans to GQ about the most intimate details of her affair with John Edwards, is now crying over the "repulsive" photos of her the mag ran with the story.
"The View" host Barbara Walters said the disgraced politician's baby... Pain in the glass for State Dept.
WASHINGTON -- The State Department is asking for more information from a small interior designer who got a $5.4 million contract to "redesign" crystal glassware and bowls for US embassies and then outsourced much of the work to Sweden.
It's not because of the cost, but because the... |
|
 |
RIELLE HUNTER SPEAKS!
In an interview with GQ magazine, Rielle bares all about the night she met Edwards and the details of their torrid affair. CHARLIE SHEEN PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Charlie Sheen pleaded not guilty in an Aspen, Colo., courtroom on Monday where he was arraigned on charges relating to an alleged domestic violence incident with his wife Brooke Mueller on Christmas Day. BURT'S BRAVE LAST DAYS
Frail Burt Reynolds is locked in a battle for his life as he struggles to recover from open-heart surgery - but friends fear he's lost his will to live and is facing his final days. JACKO KIDS GET NEW 'DAD'
Omar Bhatti, the 25-year-old family friend and house guest of the Jackson family, has been telling Michael Jackson's kids that he is their father! KATE WINSLET SPLIT: 7 YEAR ITCH?
Kate Winslet and her husband, director Sam Mendes, are calling it quits after nearly seven years of marriage. STAR DEAD AT 83
Peter Graves, best known for his roles in Mission: Impossible and Airplane! died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 83.
|
|
|
|
  |
|
SOTT FOCUS: Yellow Journalism And Middle Eastern Wars
An article in Sunday's UK Guardian newspaper tells the story of Observer reporter Farzad Bazoft, an Iranian who was hanged in Iraq as a spy 20 years ago by Saddam Hussein.
In penning the article, the author Donald Trelford, who was editor of the Observer when Bazoft was arrested, seeks to "remember a friend and colleague whose death served as a warning to the world about Saddam Hussein".
The official story goes like this:
In September 1989, Bazoft went to Iraq to cover elections in Kurdistan. On the day his press party arrived in Baghdad, a massive explosion occurred at a military complex in the city.
Farzad met the deputy foreign minister, Nizam Hamdoun, and asked to visit the site. He enlisted the help of Daphne Parish, a British nurse he had met on a previous visit. They went on successive days to take photographs and collect soil samples, though they always stayed on public roads.
While waiting for an Iraq Airways flight to London on the 15 September, he was picked up at Baghdad airport and taken for interrogation by Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat secret police.
On November 1st, the Iraqis issued a tape showing him "confessing" to being a spy for Israel. Earlier the Iraqis had claimed he was spying for Britain. On March 15th 1990 he was hanged.
As a veteran journalist, it is appalling that Trelford is content to limit his analysis of the case of Bazoft to the official story. With the US and Israel winding up the world's press to prepare the public for the first Gulf "war", there was good reason to be suspicious of any reports that demonized Saddam in the 1989-1990 period. With everything we know now about how willing Western politicians are to fabricate rationale for war, it is nothing short of yellow journalism to hold fast to the official story. Worse still is the fact that a much more plausible account of the case of Farzad Bazoft, from a truly reliable source - ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky - has been available to Trelford for 15 years. Russia rejects calls to merge South Stream, Nabucco gas pipelines
Russia is not considering a proposal to combine part of its South Stream gas project with the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Monday.
"We are not discussing such issues," Shmatko said.
Shmatko commented on a recent suggestion by Italy's Eni SpA, Gazprom's partner in the South Stream gas pipeline project, that combining some sections of the pipelines would cut costs and boost profits.
|
|
Article of the Day
Zebroids: Zonies and Zeedonks to Name a Few
 Bred since the 19th century, zebroids are zebra hybrids—crosses between zebras and any other equid, or horse-like animal. Zebroids physically resemble their non-zebra parent but are striped like a zebra, though typically only on a portion of their body. Hybrids are generally named using a combination of the parent animals' names. Thus, a zebra hybrid may be known as a zorse, zebrule, zony, zetland, zebrass, zeedonk, zonkey, zebronkey, zebadonk, zebret, or zebrinny, among others. What is a hebra? Discuss
|
This Day in History Indictments Made in Iran-Contra Affair (1988)
 In 1985, members of the US National Security Council (NSC) secretly authorized weapons sales to Iran in an attempt to secure the release of US hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian militias. Part of the $48 million profit was then diverted to Nicaraguan Contra rebels, in violation of a 1984 law banning such assistance. After a Senate investigation, NSC members Oliver North and John M. Poindexter were indicted and convicted of various offenses. Why were their convictions later overturned? Discuss
|
|
Today's Birthday Jerry Lewis (1926)
 Lewis, an entertainer known for his slapstick comedy, became popular in the 1940s, through his partnership with Dean Martin. They performed together in nightclubs as well as 16 films before parting ways in 1956. Lewis then went on to direct, produce, and star in The Nutty Professor and many other movies. He left filmmaking in the 1970s in order to focus on supporting the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). Who was responsible for reuniting Martin and Lewis during a 1976 MDA telethon? Discuss
|
In the News Birds Getting Smaller as Temperature Warms
 A study of over 100 species of birds has shown that many are getting smaller and lighter, and climate change is believed to be behind the shift. According to Bergmann's rule, a biological principle formulated in the mid-19th century, animals tend to become smaller in warmer climates. Data collected in Pennsylvania between 1961 and 2007 indicate that many species of North American birds, mostly songbirds, are obeying this rule and gradually becoming smaller. Though the birds themselves are getting smaller, their populations appear to be unharmed. Discuss
|
| UConn, Stanford, Tennessee and Nebraska top seeds
On their way to a record 72-game winning streak, the Connecticut Huskies have beaten just about every power program in women's college basketball.... Dr. says Beckham's Achilles' tendon totally torn
TURKU, Finland (AP) -- David Beckham's left Achilles' tendon was totally torn, and the doctor who performed the surgery said the England midfielder is expected to be out of action for about six months.... There's plenty of reaction to possible expansion
NEW YORK (AP) -- It wouldn't take an act of Congress, and in the overall scheme of things, expanding the field for the NCAA men's basketball championship wouldn't solve or create any problems for most Americans.... ESPN reporter's stalker gets 2 1/2 years in prison
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An Illinois insurance executive who secretly shot nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison after giving a tearful apology that was harshly rebuked by his victim.... Ovechkin suspended for Capitals' next 2 games
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two-time MVP Alex Ovechkin was suspended Monday for the Washington Capitals' next two games because of a reckless hit.... Arenas: 'I deserve to be punished' for gun prank
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gilbert Arenas says he deserves to be punished for bringing guns to the locker room.... Glamour boy Beckham to miss World Cup after injury
LONDON (AP) -- Unless David Beckham can mend it as well as he can bend it, soccer's now-limping glamour boy will miss this summer's World Cup - a blow to tournament organizers, sponsors, TV viewers and average fans.... |
|
The news watch never stops - 365 days / 24 hours a day - We update
live from our headquarters in New York City.
We sincerely thank our loyal readers for choosing News and
Java.com - Keeping you informed since March 14th, 2002. |
