The winner of the Karaoke World Championships may not achieve world fame, but at least he or she won’t have to worry where the next meal is coming from — the top prize is 1 million Russian dumplings. With an unusual purse like that, it’s clear that karaokists retain a sense of humor about a pursuit as derided as it is popular. But they’re also serious enough about it to have traveled from as far away as Australia and Nigeria for a three-day battle-of-the-no-bands in a Moscow banquet hall. The first night of the competition Thursday seems to show that karaoke is at a tipping point. It’s gone far beyond caterwauling in front of a group of sozzled buddies and regretting it the next morning; most of those on stage here have serious pipes and carefully worked-out moves. Yet it retains the casual camaraderie of a barroom at midnight.nfl jersey “It’s a contest, yes, but it’s more like a family,” said Atte Hujanen, managing director of the Finland-based KWC Organization that is the equivalent of a sports governing body. One woman’s rendition of “Vogue” proved his point. Imagine Madonna if she’d never been to a gym, moved awkwardly and dressed like a diplomat. Still, the applause was warm, cameras flashed and no journalists seemed inclined to ask if the performance was intended ironically. Karaoke actually seems to be one of the world’s few genuine irony-free zones. The performers don’t go for modernist mumbling or cryptic lyrics — they love to belt it out and they go for songs with heart-on-the-sleeve words. The show began with a group rendition of that apogee of bathos “We Are The World” and a probably inevitable version of “My Way” occurred not long thereafter. Hujanen posited that it’s this penchant for intensity that makes karaoke especially appealing in propriety-intensive countries such as Japan, where it originated, and his homeland, where six of the eight world championships have been held.Baltimore Ravens Jersey “People in Japan and Finland, it’s in our nature that we’re pretty shy,” he said. With karaoke, “we can sing a heartbreaking ballad and then shut up again.” It’s also liberating for serious performers because it doesn’t require them to pursue a particular genre or artistic vision, as they would if they were part of an actual band, said American contestant Edward Pimentel, a technician for a cellular phone company in Albuquerque. “The places I go to have 20,000 songs. I can change every single night,” he said. “I can do whatever.” They can also choose to look whatever. The show Thursday had the sartorial variation of a good neighborhood bar — some men with snap-brim hats looking like dudes on the make, some in sneakers and untucked shirts looking like they’d stopped in for a cold one after a long shift at a gas station. But the emotions were higher for the singers than in a bar, said Tami Marie, also of Albuquerque, a standout with a searing version of Pink’s “Misery.” “Here, you feel like a real star. I feel so blessed,” she gushed. Trent Edwards Jersey However, the most gushing person to take the stage arguably wasn’t a performer at all, but the Russian organizer of the competition, Alexander Shamaev. “The goal for us is the unification of the entire planet under the banner of karaoke,” he declared. “We hope it will become the most massive sport on the planet.” The competition concludes Saturday with the final round after two days of preliminaries. The judges will choose one winner of each gender, and the audience will vote on which of all the contenders deserves the dumplings provided by one of the championship’s sponsors. Pimentel’s not in it for that kind of dough. Asked what he would do if he won that prize, it was the first time - on or offstage - that he was lost for words. Brian Urlacher Jersey
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Israel criticized Russia on Monday for planning to sell anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, saying the advanced weapons could be transferred to Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Israel’s visiting defense minister in Washington that he shared Israeli concerns “about proliferation of advanced weapons that could destabilize the region,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said. Tony Romo Jersey The go-ahead for the $300 million Yakhont missile deal was made public last week by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who told news agency RIA that it dated back to a 2007 contract and had also met objections from the United States. The announcement raised hackles in Israel, whose defense minister, Ehud Barak, traveled to Moscow this month to seal a military cooperation pact and urge the Russians not to supply Syria with arms that could challenge Israel’s might. Visiting Washington on Monday, Barak voiced concern during meetings with White House officials that the Yakhont missiles could “be passed to Hezbollah, as has happened in the past, and be turned against Israel,” his office said in a statement. Gates, who met Barak at the Pentagon, also raised the issue of weapons sales broadly with Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov during their meetings in Washington last week, Morrell said.Lawrence Taylor Jersey The United States understood that Russia had a right to sell weapons, but “we wish for them to take into account the strategic ramifications of sales,” Morrell said, describing Gates’ message to Serdyukov. Syria denies arming Hezbollah, which also enjoys Iranian backing. Hezbollah surprised Israel by hitting one of its naval vessels with a cruise missile during the 2006 Lebanon war. Israel and Syria have exchanged peace overtures in recent years but remain divided over core demands regarding the future of the occupied Golan Heights and the Damascus-Tehran alliance. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Israel Hayom newspaper: “This (Yakhont sale) complicates the situation. It does not contribute to stability and it does not create peace in the region. We will convey to Russia our position.” Ryan Grant Jersey State-run RIA on Friday quoted Serdyukov as saying the United States feared the Yakhonts could end up in the hands of “terrorists” — an apparent reference to Hezbollah. Serdyukov called such concerns “fruitless,” RIA said. Lieberman said that Barak, on his Moscow visit, had “dealt with the (Yakhont) issue, but things didn’t work out.” Russia, which is building up a fleet of Israeli-made drones, earlier pleased Israel by promising not to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran while new U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program are in place.
LADIES, if you have ever wanted to wear strappy stilettos with your favorite football jersey, you are in luck. This fall, the National Football League will begin an advertising campaign encouraging you to do just that.The campaign, called “N.F.L. Women’s Apparel, Fit For You,” takes an approach to marketing clothing that is meant to be both fashionable and sporty. personalized nfl jerseys And while jerseys and T-shirts for women have been available on Web sites like nflshop.com and in catalogs, this is initially the league has dedicated a campaign to apparel for women.If the terms “fashionable” and “football jersey” seem contradictory, that may be because of the way jerseys have been made. The league has carried women’s attire for the last 10 years, but followed the “shrink it and pink it” philosophy of taking a man’s jersey and making it smaller and, well, pink.In 2007, the actress Alyssa Milano joined with the G-III Apparel Group to start a woman’s apparel line with the N.F.L. called Touch by Alyssa Milano for the 2008 season.When a woman wears a traditional man’s jersey, “you just look like you’re wearing a big tent,” said Alice Ericsson, executive vice president and group creative director for Grey New York, which is working with the N.F.L. on the campaign (Grey New York is a unit of the Grey Group, part of WPP).Mark Waller, the chief marketing officer for the N.F.L., agreed that the large cut of men’s jersey’s wasn’t flattering to women. It “kind of makes them look like a sack of potatoes,” he said.San Francisco 49ers Jersey The campaign features clothing from Ms. Milano’s Touch line and new items like animal print T-shirts, fleece sweatshirts, fitted jerseys and jackets. Also available, though not part of the campaign, will be plush flip-flops, customizable jeans and bedazzled wedges. The N.F.L. joined with G-III, VF, Reebok, Concept One, Little Earth, LogoArt, For Bare Feet, Modo and Gametime to produce the products.“When I look at what women are wearing now, they are trying to be fashionable and yet show they are fit,” Mr. Waller said, adding that the campaign aims for women ages 20 to 40 who are active, family-oriented and casual or avid fans of football.And there seem to be more of those. According to research by the Nielsen Company, an average of 41.9 million women 18 and older watched Super Bowl XLIV — the most on record, and more than watched the Academy Awards this year.Additional research by the N.F.L. and Nielsen showed more than 45 million women watch N.F.L. games each weekend.“Obviously we’ve got a large and passionate female fan base already. As we get more sophisticated in our marketing approach, we get to dive deeper and develop more targeted and appropriate messaging,” Mr. Waller said. The company plans to spend $10 million on the entire campaign.Jim Kelly Jersey A television spot that will be broadcast during kick-off weekend, Sept. 9-12, features the women of the N.F.L. sassily tossing their men’s jerseys back to them to the tune of “You Don’t Own Me,” a classic Lesley Gore song.A print campaign that will begin in October will feature stylized photos of the women, among them Christy Cooley, who is married to Chris Cooley, a tight end on the Washington Redskins; Linda and Hope Del Rio, the wife and daughter of Jack Del Rio, the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars; and Michelle Ryan, who is married to Rex Ryan, the head coach of the New York Jets.But some wives are luckier than others in their choices. “We’re fortunate enough to have the jaguar print,” Linda Del Rio said about her game day attire. “I’ve been in the league for 25 years and I always remember having to you should get some husband’s jersey when doing charity work,” she added. “Now you can put on really cute clothes.”The print ads feature headlines like, “Who Says Football Isn’t Pretty?” and “Finally. Love Your Team Without Looking Like You’re on It.” The campaign will run in magazines like Shape, InStyle and People.“I think the idea of treating sports apparel like high fashion is pretty unique,” Ms. Ericsson said of the idea to mix designer label clothing with the N.F.L. line during the shoot. “It’s certainly new for the N.F.L.”Like many campaigns created for major league sports, this one has a charity component. Alliance, the Grey Group’s entertainment marketing and public relations arm, will organize a series of 5K walks in various regions around the country. The walks will benefit charities that fall under the N.F.L. Play 60, a program that encourages children to play.The Web campaign will start in mid-September and will feature an updated Facebook page, a Twitter presence and a microsite at nfl.com/women, where consumers will be encouraged to submit videos showing how they style their gear, for a chance to win a trip to Super Bowl XLV.If football and fashion seem at odds, so too does football and healthy eating. The N.F.L. site, however, will also have a variety of Web videos showcasing healthy tailgating recipes and workout routines.“This generation will actually be the first generation that lives less longer than their parents,” Mr. Waller said. “Our product is fundamentally dependent on having fit and healthy athletes.”
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Lawmakers in France’s lower house on Wednesday passed President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension overhaul, which includes an increase of the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, after several days of political cross-fire that ended with a raucous overnight debate. As protesters converged across the River Seine from the National Assembly building, the lawmakers voted 329-233 to approve the bill, clearing a first important legislative hurdle. The upper chamber, the Senate, will begin its debate on Oct. 1. jackets The vote itself had never been in doubt, given Mr. Sarkozy’s comfortable majority in both houses, and the retirement age increase had been approved as a separate measure on Friday. But with the president’s approval rating at record lows and his government under pressure on several fronts, the pension overhaul has taken on symbolic significance for both Mr. Sarkozy and France’s feisty labor unions. Mr. Sarkozy has staked his credibility as a reformer on the pension overhaul, announcing before the summer that this would be his last major measure ahead of the next presidential election in the spring of 2012. Moncler Hoody He refused to budge on his plan to raise the retirement age — at 62, already a political compromise — after a national strike last week in which more than a million people took to the streets in the biggest show of popular discontent in years. But he offered concessions for people performing grueling jobs or who started work at a young age. “This is one of the most important reforms of this Parliament and presidency,” said Jean-Fran?ois Copé, leader of Mr. Sarkozy’s center-right party in the National Assembly. “It’s about preserving the pension system for our children.” Unions, meanwhile, called another strike for Sept. 23. They have seized on the issue, which has long roused passions in a country where for decades the trend has been to cut the time people spend at work. Past efforts to reverse that trend have cost many politicians their jobs. Moncler T-shirt On Wednesday, several thousand people converged on the majestic Parliament building on the Left Bank, waving union banners and demanding a withdrawal of the bill. At 60, France’s retirement age is one of the lowest in Europe. The increase to 62, though smaller than many reformers consider necessary, would begin to pare deficits in the pension system as people live longer and baby boomers retire. The legislation would increase the minimum legal retirement age to 62 by 2018, raising it by four months every year from the current level, set in 1983 by Fran?ois Mitterrand’s Socialist government. For all the drama playing out in France, the package is still a baby step compared with measures taken in other countries. In neighboring Germany, a 2007 law progressively raises the retirement age to 67, and in Spain and Italy it is set at 65. Britain and Portugal have committed to moving toward 68 in coming decades, and the Greeks have agreed to work until they are 63. Moncler Polo shirt It has not helped Mr. Sarkozy’s camp that the man in charge of drafting and defending the pension bill is the labor minister, éric Woerth, whose legitimacy has been deeply shaken since he was accused of being linked to a financing scandal involving the family and fortune of Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress of L’Oréal.
The authorities expanded a strict curfew across Kashmir on Tuesday and sent more security officers across the restive Himalayan region after bloody protests erupted there a day earlier, fueled partly by a report of Koran desecration in the United States. wholesale Burberry Sunglasses The bloodshed, which rippled across different districts in the region, deepened the crisis that has steadily worsened in Kashmir since protests against Indian rule began in June. In New Delhi, the Indian government called for leaders of the country’s major political parties to meet on Wednesday and seek consensus on how to quell the unrest and stabilize Kashmir, a disputed region claimed by both Pakistan and India. The authorities said that at least 18 people and one security officer had been killed on Monday, with more than 70 people injured, as separatist protesters clashed with Indian paramilitary officers. Minor clashes also took place on Tuesday but police reported a tense calm late in the afternoon. Air links to Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, were suspended for three days. Wholesale DG Sunglasses The Monday violence was ignited by a report on an Iranian state television channel, Press TV, allegedly showing a protester in the United States tearing pages out of a Koran. One of the most violent encounters happened in the village of Tangmarg, where witnesses said more than 20,000 protesters threw stones at Christian missionary school, the Tyndale-Biscoe and Mallinson School, and then later burned it to the ground. Parwez Samuel Kaul, the principal and director of the school, which has four campuses in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, said an angry crowd had approached the school on Monday morning and tossed stones, then returned twice more and set fire to the wooden structure. “They came from surrounding villages, young people mostly,” Mr. Kaul said in a telephone interview from the school’s main campus in Srinagar. “They formed a huge mob. It was a little past eight, and they attacked the school.” Wholesale Coach Sunglasses The school had been closed for months because of government curfews and was empty except for a handful of employees who fled once the blaze started. Mr. Kaul said that most of the school’s faculty and 500 students were Muslims. Local police filed a complaint against a local political figure, Ali Sofi, after reports that he had incited the crowd. After burning the school, people set fire to about a dozen other government buildings. Five civilians were killed when officers opened fire, the authorities said. “They were chanting ‘America, Down, Down,”‘ said Nissar Hurra, the inspector in charge of the police station in Tangmarg. Wholesale ED Hardy Sunglasses One person in Tangmarg, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said many people in the mob had heard about a Koran desecration in the United States and said that a school run by Christians should not exist in their village. The person said the school ignited in a blaze after protesters set fire to a diesel generator. “There was a loud blast that could be heard in the nearby villages,” he said. “Nothing is left of the school now.” Kashmir has seen almost daily Muslim demonstrations since June, with angry crowds defying curfews to throw stones or voice their anger over heavy-handed Indian rule in the region. Protesters range from separatists who want Kashmiri independence to others demanding that India’s central government remove thousands of Indian paramilitary troops, release political prisoners and lift laws that grant immunity to security officers. Before Monday, at least 73 people had been killed in the demonstrations, in which stone-throwing protesters often face off against police officers firing live ammunition. Wholesale Ray Ban Sunglasses On Monday, state authorities sought to differentiate the new violence as separate from the other protests, linking it to the reports of the desecrated Koran. Indian authorities had fretted over the planned Sept. 11 burning of a Koran by a Florida pastor, Terry Jones. Officials had asked Indian television channels not to broadcast such an inflammatory act, and Mr. Jones ultimately canceled his plans. But S. S. Kapur, chief secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir State government, criticized the Iranian broadcast for inflaming the already seething region and said officials had banned the channel. Press TV later confirmed on its Web site that local cable operators in Kashmir had restricted its broadcasts. Besides the clash in Tangmarg, confrontations between protesters and the police broke out in at least six different districts in the state. Wholesale D&G Sunglasses In one village, hundreds of youths took to the streets after security officers reportedly killed a local teenager. In New Delhi on Monday , the United States ambassador, Timothy J. Roemer, cited news reports that “one misguided individual” had torn pages out of a Koran in the United States and said any such desecration would be “an abhorrent act.” He also expressed dismay over the reported attacks against churches in Kashmir and the Punjab region. The escalated mayhem in Kashmir further complicates efforts to bring stability back to the region, long a source of conflict between India and Pakistan. Wholesale Oakley Sunglasses In New Delhi, top Indian officials convened to weigh proposals to reduce the powers of the armed forces and ease tight security measures in some districts of the region as steps to defuse the crisis. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered a conciliatory message, promising talks with groups that reject violence.
The global economic recession significantly pushed down purchases of weapons last year to the lowest level since 2005, a new government study has found. The report to Congress concluded that the value of worldwide arms deals in 2009 was $57.5 billion, a drop of 8.5 percent from 2008. Fendi Sunglasses While the United States maintained its role as the world’s leading supplier of weapons, officials nonetheless saw the value of its arms trade sharply decline in 2009. This was in contrast to 2008, when the United States increased the value of its weapons sales despite a drop in business for competitors in the global arms bazaar. For 2009, the United States signed arms deals worth $22.6 billion — a dominating 39 percent of the worldwide market. Even so, that sales figure was down from $38.1 billion in 2008, which had been a surprising increase over the $25.7 billion in 2007 that defied sluggish economic trends. Adidas Sunglasses The decrease in American weapons sales in 2009 was caused by a pause in major orders from clients in the Middle East and Asia, which had pumped up the value of contracts the year before. At the same time, there were fewer support and services contracts signed with American defense firms last year, the study said. Russia was a distant second in worldwide weapons sales in 2009, concluding $10.4 billion in arms deals, followed by France, with $7.4 billion in contracts. Other leading arms traders included Germany, Italy, China and Britain. Nike Sunglasses The annual report was produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The analysis, regarded as the most detailed collection of unclassified global arms sales data available to the public, was delivered to members of the House and Senate over the weekend in advance of their return to work on Monday after the summer recess. The decline in new weapons sales worldwide in 2009 was caused by government decisions “to defer the purchase of major systems” in a period of “severe international recession,” wrote Richard F. Grimmett, a specialist in international security at the Congressional Research Service and the author of the study. Cartier Sunglasses The recession did not halt military modernization and improvements, as nations sought to make their armed forces more lethal despite tight budgets. “Some nations chose to focus on completing the integration into their militaries of major weapons systems they had already purchased,” Mr. Grimmett wrote. Other nations, according to the study, focused available military money on smaller contracts for “training and support services,as well as selective upgrades of existing weapons systems.” Mr. Grimmett said that while the global recession slowed overall weapons sales, “The international arms market is still very competitive,” with major weapons-producing nations battling over traditional clients and seeking new buyers in emerging markets. LV Sunglasses To that end, the study focuses in particular on the category of weapons sales to the developing world, which totaled $45.1 billion of the overall arms trade in 2009, a drop from $48.8 billion in 2008. In 2009, Brazil was the top weapons buyer in the developing world, concluding $7.2 billion in purchase contracts, followed by Venezuela with $6.4 billion in purchases and Saudi Arabia with $4.3 billion. Other major arms buyers last year were Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Egypt, Vietnam, India and Kuwait. Over much of the past decade, Saudi Arabia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates have been among the largest weapons purchasers in this category. Wholesale Nike Sunglasses The United States led not only in global arms sales, but also in the category of weapons contracts to the developing world, signing deals worth $17.4 billion in arms to these nations in 2009. Russia was second, followed by France. “Relationships between arms suppliers and recipients continue to evolve in the 21st century in response to changing political, military and economic circumstances,” Mr. Grimmett concluded. “Where before the principal motivation for arms sales by foreign suppliers might have been to support a foreign policy objective, today that motivation may be based as much on economic considerations.” Wholesale Gucci Sunglasses The study uses figures in 2009 dollars, with amounts for previous years adjusted for inflation to give a constant financial measurement.
An Iranian prosecutor said Sunday that an American woman held with two friends on espionage charges for more than a year would be freed on $500,000 bail and be allowed to leave the country, Iranian news agencies reported. The announcement was the latest turnabout in a case that has further strained the poor relations between Tehran and Washington. Contradictory signals from Iran about the fate of the three Americans have also exposed factional infighting in Iran’s government. fashion sunglasses Iranian officials first announced Thursday that they would release the woman, Sarah E. Shourd, 32, and said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally intervened to free her. But the following day Iran’s judiciary, run by one of the president’s conservative rivals, canceled the release, saying it violated judicial rules. On Sunday, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, the prosecutor of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, said at a news conference that Ms. Shourd would be freed once the bail was paid, but that the espionage trial of all three Americans would go forward, Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported. The other two Americans, Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal, both 28, will remain in detention, Mr. Dowlatabadi said. new sunglasses The three Americans were arrested by Iranian border authorities while hiking in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in July 2009 after apparently having crossed into Iranian territory. American officials have repeatedly protested their detention, saying the accusations of espionage are groundless. Ms. Shourd has been denied treatment for medical problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells, according to her mother. Samantha Topping, a spokeswoman for the families of the three Americans, declined to comment Sunday, saying the families were waiting to see how Ms. Shourd’s case would be resolved. In Washington, the State Department had no immediate comment. Armani Sunglasses Asked about the latest word on Ms. Shourd’s fate during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Axelrod, a White House adviser, expressed caution. “Obviously, we’re hopeful, and we’re encouraged by this news, but there have been starts and stops in this before,” he said. As for the two other Americans, Mr. Axelrod said: “I’m not going to comment on any of that right now because we’re at a sensitive stage here. Obviously, we’re hopeful that we can get these folks out. They should never have been in jail in the first place.” Gucci Sunglasses The case has become a diplomatic football in the past year, as tensions grew over Iran’s nuclear program and culminated in the imposition of new sanctions on Iran by the United States, the United Nations and the European Union. Iranian officials have suggested that the three Americans could be traded for Iranians being held by the United States. The plight of the hikers has become entangled in Iran’s domestic power struggles, too. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s associates in Iran said Friday that he had personally intervened to secure Ms. Shourd’s release because of “the special viewpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the dignity of women.” Iranian officials have been struggling for months to defend their handling of a controversial case involving a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Ferragamo Sunglasses But Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rivals in the judiciary, who frequently complain that he ignores the legal process to suit his own agenda, balked at releasing Ms. Shourd, saying her release could not proceed until the proper procedures were followed. The Iranian authorities have not made clear how they had determined the bail amount for Ms. Shourd, nor have they provided any details on how or when the payment could take place, though an Iranian lawyer who represents all three defendants suggested it would be taken care of by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which handles American diplomatic interests there. Chanel Sunglasses ILNA quoted the lawyer, Masoud Shafie, as saying that lawyers had presented their final defenses in court on Sunday. “I have informed the Swiss Embassy about the bail so that Sarah Shourd will be freed once the bail money is paid,” he was quoted as saying. Iran has freed prisoners on bail or converted their sentences to fines in two other recent high-profile cases. Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist for Newsweek, was freed last October on $300,000 bail after being jailed for nearly four months in the aftermath of protests set off by Iran’s disputed presidential election. Dior Sunglasses Clotilde Reiss, a French academic, was freed in May after her 10-year prison sentence on espionage charges was converted to a fine of about $300,000.
Before a Florida pastor canceled his plans to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, the international outcry intensified Thursday, drawing vocal condemnations from world leaders and touching off angry protests in corners of the Muslim world. Although some protests in Afghanistan and Pakistan rippled with scenes of burning American flags, the outrage in the streets seemed largely isolated. Officials in Muslim countries urged restraint, seeking to head off any violent reactions if the Florida church went ahead with its plans to set fire to several copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this Saturday. mbt President Obama joined a litany of high-ranking American officials to condemn the Koran burning, saying that the act, amplified by a global media, would put American troops at risk and fan anger against the United States. Mr. Obama called the planned event “a destructive act” and said it would be a “recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda.” American embassies and consulates were reviewing their security policies, and several diplomatic missions in the Muslim world posted statements prominently on their Web sites condemning the planned event. The State Department issued a travel alert on Thursday saying the burning could catalyze violent anti-American demonstrations. air max shoes In 2005, violent protests erupted in Afghanistan and Pakistan world after Newsweek published report — one it later retracted — saying that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a Koran down the toilet. At least 17 deaths were blamed on the riots. In 2006, a Danish newspaper set off an enduring battle over freedom of expression versus religious respect — and spawned another wave of violent protests around the world — when it published satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons flouted the Islamic prohibition against making images of him and also insulted Muslim regard for his importance. fashion sunglasses Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida who is at the center of the Koran uproar, said Thursday evening that he had canceled the bonfire. The relationship between the United States and the Muslim world, deeply strained by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been further aggravated in recent months by a furious debate over an Islamic group’s plans to build a community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site. And the timing of the planned Koran burning is especially sensitive, falling this year at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In Iraq, the Web site of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki carried a message saying that “all measures” should be taken to prevent “this ugly act.” new sunglasses But the issue was also being exploited by the political opponents of the prime minister, a Shiite. In Firdous Square, where American soldiers pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003, members of the secular Iraqiya coalition handed out free Korans at a Sunni mosque stamped with a message saying they were a gift of Iraqiya and Ayad Allawi, a rival of Mr. Maliki, as part of a “campaign of the victory of the Koran.” Inside the turquoise-domed mosque, Mustafa Karim, a 21-year-old student, expressed frustration with Americans, saying: “They talk about peace, they say that they want peace. Is this peace? To burn the words of God? It is forbidden.” Armani Sunglasses Some Christian churches in Baghdad added armed guards in fear of attack. A young parishioner at St. George’s Anglican church, established in British colonial times, said that if there were reprisals in Iraq, Mr. Jones should take responsibility. “If we are killed or kidnapped our women or sisters killed, or something happens to our churches,” said the man, Daoud Jajuu, 20, “I want him to know that it has nothing to do with Iraq. All the blame is on him. He is in a free country but we are not. We are in a country at war.” Gucci Sunglasses The president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, condemned the planned burning as despicable and said it could cause “irreparable damage to inter-faith harmony and also to world peace.” Leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and India urged President Obama to intervene. But American officials have said they could do little to prevent the congregation from exercising its constitutional right to free speech. The controversy received some attention in the Arab media but did not dominate the news, with a relatively modest spread of newspaper stories and television shows devoted to the threat. Statements criticizing the threat continued to pour out on Thursday evening, mostly restricted to condemnations of Mr. Jones. But some went further, including a statement released Thursday by Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement, which said the administration needed to stop the demonstration “or it will be a partner in this and be held responsible.” Ferragamo Sunglasses In Nigeria, which has been wracked by violence between the predominately Muslim north and Christian south, President Goodluck Jonathan posted a message on his Facebook page saying that burning the Koran would “assault the sensibilities of our Muslim brothers and sisters.” Addressing Mr. Jones, Mr. Jonathan wrote, “Be mindful of the Golden Rule taught by Jesus Christ: Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.” In Pakistan and Afghanistan, hundreds of protesters — at least one group of them organized by a local politician — took to the streets to decry the church’s plans. Some carried signs declaring, “Obama: Stop Florida Church.” Others set fire to American flags and effigies of Mr. Jones. Chanel Sunglasses In the northeast Afghan province of Kapisa, one protester, Mohammad Basher, 30, said “if they really try to burn Korans then it’ll give us the clear message that we should fight foreigners in our country, and do the real jihad against them.” Mr. Basher was one of hundreds of people taking part in a demonstration organized by a candidate in the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections. One government official characterized the protest as a campaign ploy to stir up anti-American sentiment. The French, British and German governments, all with troops serving in Afghanistan, have joined the condemnations. France’s Foreign Ministry called the idea “an incitement to hatred,” with spokesman Bernard Valero calling it an “insult to the memory of the victims of Sept. 11, like all the victims of acts of terrorism inspired by intolerance and the twisting of religion.” Dior Sunglasses The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said on Wednesday that burning Korans would be a “repugnant” sign of disrespect, and the Vatican said it would be an “outrageous and grave gesture.” Brig. Gen. Hans-Werner Fritz, the commander of German troops in Afghanistan, said the burning would “provide a trigger for violence towards all ISAF troops, including the Germans in northern Afghanistan.” A spokesman for the British prime minister, David Cameron, said, “We would strongly oppose any attempt to offend any member of any religious or ethnic group. We are committed to religious tolerance.” Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and Middle East envoy, called the notion “disrespectful.” Fendi Sunglasses “I deplore the act of burning the Koran,” Mr. Blair said. “It is disrespectful, wrong and will be widely condemned by people of all faiths and none. In no way does this represent the view of any sensible person in the West or any other part of the world.” The leader of the world’s Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, also added his voice to the condemnation. In a message to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, he said “the threat to desecrate scriptures is deeply deplorable and to be strongly condemned by all people.” A British Muslim said that he and others would burn the American flag outside the United States Embassy on Sept. 11 to protest any burning of the Koran, and expected similar flag-burnings around the world. Adidas Sunglasses Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, appealed to Muslims not to “fall for provocation and to respond with wisdom while expressing their compassion” for the victims of Sept. 11.
The other children in his middle-class suburb teased him by calling him Barbie because of his looks, which reminded them of a Ken doll. The name stuck, and three decades later it would become associated with sadistic gangland slayings. Few people who knew Edgar Valdez Villarreal back when he was a square-jawed football star at United High School here would have pegged him as likely to become one of Mexico’s most feared and savage drug leaders. None of the clichéd roots of crime could be seen is his youth: no broken home, no abusive father, no poverty. mbt shoes Instead, his father was a shop owner in downtown Laredo who emphasized church, hard work and the value of a college education. He grew up in a well-appointed brick home with a wooden swing set in the backyard. Most of his siblings went to college and started businesses, becoming the sort of law-abiding people who are the mortar of society, neighbors and relatives said. “He chose that road,” said his older brother, Abel Valdez Jr. “We are a good family.” The authorities in the United States and Mexico say Mr. Valdez, who is 37, moved to Mexico after being indicted in the 1990s on charges of dealing marijuana, and rose quickly to become a violent leader in the Beltrán-Leyva gang, at the helm of a corps of gunmen engaged in almost constant warfare with other cartels. mbt He is the only American citizen known to have moved so high in the command structure of the Mexican cartels. Five years ago, Mr. Valdez played a key role in the battle between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel for control over the lucrative I-35 smuggling route into the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration says. He is also believed to be the person most responsible for pushing that conflict into central and southern Mexico, taking over the city of Acapulco. Last week, Mr. Valdez was captured by dozens of federal police officers after a firefight at a rustic house in the mountains northwest of Mexico City. He had eluded the authorities for years despite having multimillion-dollar bounties on his head, and his capture was considered a major blow to the remnants of the Beltrán-Leyva organized crime group, law enforcement officials said. air max shoes For months, Mr. Valdez had been fighting for control of the gang since its leader and his mentor, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, was killed in a gun battle with the Mexican Marines last December in Cuernavaca, just south of the capital. The internecine struggle had pitted Mr. Valdez against Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s brother, Hector. More than 150 people have died in the struggle, many of them mutilated or beheaded and left with grisly messages for the other side. In videotaped statements to the Mexican police, Mr. Valdez said that he managed a smuggling route from Panama to Mexico and that he transported cash in tractor-trailers back from the United States. air max He also admitted that he had ties to many of Mexico’s most wanted drug lords, including Joaquín Guzmán, who has emerged from the last three years of gangland warfare as the most powerful cartel leader in Mexico. Mr. Valdez faces three indictments in the United States. In Atlanta, where the most recent charges were filed, he stands accused of smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine from 2004 to 2006, shipping it through Laredo in tractor-trailers and then sending the millions in cash back the same way. Kent A. Schaffer, a Houston lawyer representing Mr. Valdez, said his client denied all the charges against him. Mr. Schaffer also said Mr. Valdez was probably coerced into making the videotaped statements. air max 90 Mr. Valdez got his start in crime as a petty marijuana dealer in Laredo in the early 1990s, but he was never arrested on drug charges, according to the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and the Laredo Police Department. There were signs, however, that the affable linebacker on the United High School football team had a wild side: arrests for drunken driving and public drunkenness. In 1992, near the end of his senior year, he was arrested on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after he drove his pickup down the wrong side of a road and collided head-on with a middle school guidance counselor, killing him. The charge was later dropped. air max 95 After graduation, Mr. Valdez turned down an offer from his father to attend college, saying he wanted to make money, his brother said. According to a federal indictment in Laredo, the next year he joined a group of smugglers who were moving hundreds of pounds of Mexican marijuana through Laredo to cities in Massachusetts and Missouri. His brother said Mr. Valdez fled across the river into Nueva Laredo in 1998 to avoid arrest, opened a small shop and never lived in the United States again. Detectives in Laredo say he quickly became affiliated with a local gang known as Los Chachos, one of four groups that controlled the city’s drug trade in those days. fashion sunglasses Over the next years, the Gulf Cartel and its commandos, the Zetas, moved into Nuevo Laredo and started taking over the drug and extortion rackets from local gangs. Mr. Valdez was sucked up into the conflict. Abel Valdez said his brother deeply resented the Zeta’s tactic of killing family members of their enemies and extorting enormous amounts from local businesses. Mr. Valdez joined in the fight against them partly in self-defense, and he has been battling them ever since, his brother said. “I’m not saying he’s an angel,” Abel Valdez said. “He’s done things that are not legally right, but he has principles.” Los Chachos eventually lost control of the border town to the Zetas, who still control it, and Mr. Valdez threw his lot in with Arturo Beltrán Leyva, one of four major leaders in the Sinaloa Cartel, law enforcement officials said. new sunglasses Mr. Valdez told the Mexican police this week that he first met Mr. Beltrán Leyva when he sought help in arranging a meeting with the head of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cardenas. Mr. Valdez wanted to plead with Mr. Cardenas to instruct the Zetas not to kill him. By 2003, Mr. Valdez had been placed in charge of Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s squads of hitmen, known as Los Negros, law enforcement officials say. And a year later, he took over the gang’s operations in Acapulco, eventually pushing the Zetas of the Gulf Cartel out of the city with a bloody campaign that included beheadings and grenade attacks on police stations, Mexican officials said. His rise was spectacularly rapid, and owed not only to his contacts in the United States, but to his brutality. Taking a page from Middle Eastern terrorists, he was willing to use beheadings, videos of killings and corpses to send messages. Armani Sunglasses “He seems to be a pretty bright kid and very brutal and ruthless,” said Scott Stewart, an analyst with the Stratfor security consulting firm in Austin, Tex., who tracks Mexican drug violence. “In a period of cartel warfare, the enforcers will tend to rise in the organization.”
You can see the anxiety over the fate of Afghanistan’s economy just by looking at the huge line of depositors gathered furiously outside the headquarters of Kabul Bank in the downtown section of the capital. Hundreds thronged the sidewalks Sunday, spilling into a street wreathed in newly laid coils of concertina wire. Armed security guards tried in vain to tamp down tempers that flared despite reports of a possible bailout being orchestrated by the government with the help of U.S. experts. Occasional scuffles broke out between police and nervous depositors, many of whom arrived in the predawn hours to withdraw funds. (Sunday is a workday in Afghanistan.) Intermittent pleas to the crowds by bank officials for patience and understanding were met with angry variations of the same demand: We want our money back. POLICE Sunglasses The run on Kabul Bank is shaking the country’s fragile economy - and fraying what’s left of trust in the government. Last week the Central Bank removed Kabul Bank’s chairman and chief executive officer after it was learned that the bank had allegedly funneled tens of millions of dollars into risky Dubai property investments and had reportedly given large loans to shareholders with close links to the administration of President Hamid Karzai, including his brother Mahmoud as well as a brother of the country’s first Vice President. While complaints over systemic graft have been a common refrain among ordinary Afghans unhappy with their government, the prospect - however real or distant - of personal deposits falling into jeopardy due to alleged insider dealings has struck a sharp chord for many already living on edge in the capital. Givenchy Sunglasses “Corruption and nepotism are rotting the system, both public and private,” says Aminullah Ahmadi, 20, a university student. After waiting several hours to empty his entire $15,000 account, some of which was going to go toward paying tuition for a school he was attending overseas, the business-management major was told by a friend working inside the bank that he would only be able to withdraw up to $10,000 - if he made it inside the bank building before closing time. A few shoulders away, Fida Muhammad, 39, the owner of a construction company, fingered prayer beads as he waited to take home his $80,000 life savings, a decision he said he made that morning as the situation appeared to be “getting out of control.” He recalled how a few weeks back he allegedly had to pay a $5,000 bribe to have his company’s license renewed by the government. “There are no standards in our banking system or our government,” he says. “How can we trust anymore?” Coach Sunglasses Set up with U.S. financial assistance following the Taliban’s ouster, the Afghan banking system is young yet already deeply integrated into the country’s affairs. Of the country’s banks, Kabul Bank controls perhaps 40% of the industry, until last week holding deposits of around $1.3 billion, spread out over 1 million accounts - among them the accounts of some 250,000 public employees. But, according to insiders, toothless oversight by the country’s central bank has allowed well-connected business interests to abuse the system. “Everyone knew a year ago - even before that - that Kabul Bank was going to crash,” says a top executive at another major private bank. Given Kabul Bank’s lopsided role in the country’s banking sector, he reckons that a couple of smaller banks with liquidity troubles may also fail if the crisis of confidence deepens. “If in five years [Kabul Bank] can fail so dramatically,” he says, “then you have to have doubts and misgivings about others.” D&G Sunglasses The veteran banker, who plans to leave Afghanistan for a more stable financial scene, lays most of the blame at the feet of the Karzai administration. But he also levels sharp criticism at foreign governments and companies for “shirking responsibility to help regulate the banking system” while injecting billions into the country through dubious financial institutions. Anywhere from $200 million to $250 million has been withdrawn from Kabul Bank’s coffers over the past four business days. While details of the rescue effort are not yet clear, the Afghan government maintains it has enough to keep Kabul Bank open and guarantee all depositors’ accounts. On Saturday, American officials said the Central Bank had transferred $300 million from its reserves in the U.S. Afghan officials further insist that the media has exaggerated the bank’s vulnerability and the sense of panic felt by depositors. The officials say there are reasons other than panic for depositors wanting to withdraw cash. Indeed, the banking crisis has coincided with the end of the month, when people typically withdraw their monthly salaries, and the officials also note the approach of ‘Id al-Fitr, a free-spending Muslim holiday that marks the close of Ramadan, the austere month of traditional fasting. DG Sunglasses Not that religion makes financial transactions any cleaner. Across the street from Kabul Bank’s headquarters, another crowd gathered at the metal gates of a secondary branch for depositors seeking to go on the hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. They said they had already paid almost $3,000 to make the once-in-a-lifetime journey but that the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs was asking them to pay another $275 to finalize the arrangements. A half-dozen men grumbled that the shortfall must be due to troubles within Kabul Bank. Said Fazluddin, a 70-year-old farmer seated on a bag of concrete mix: “Nothing is sacred here.”
WASHINGTON — Three months after the United Nations Security Council enacted its harshest sanctions yet against Iran, global nuclear inspectors reported Monday that the country has dug in its heels, refusing to provide inspectors with the information and access they need to determine whether the real purpose of Tehran’s program is to produce weapons. For several weeks the Obama administration has argued that the sanctions are beginning to bite, cutting off Iran’s access to foreign capital, halting investment in its energy sector and impeding its ability to send its ships in and out of some foreign ports. wholesale Burberry Sunglasses While there are strong indications that Iran is beginning to feel pain — largely from additional sanctions imposed by the United States and European and Asian nations over the summer — the report on Monday from the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates that so far they have failed to force Iran to comply with longstanding requests. The agency protested that Iran had barred two of its most experienced inspectors from the country. They were barred only days after the Security Council passed its latest sanctions, part of a longstanding pattern of reducing access in retaliation for United Nations action. Iran has, however, permitted some other inspectors to enter. Wholesale DG Sunglasses The report also reiterated that for two years, since August 2008, Iran has refused to answer questions “about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” The report said it was “essential that Iran engage with the agency on these issues” because evidence can degrade with “the passage of time.” Iran has argued that it has the right to throw out inspectors it does not trust, and said in case after case that the agency, a unit of the United Nations, had “no legal basis” to make its requests. Wholesale Coach Sunglasses The Obama administration said the report demonstrated that Iran “continues its effort to expand its nuclear program and move closer to a nuclear weapons capability,” an acknowledgment that, at least so far, the sanctions have not forced Iran to change its direction. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, added that “the United States is applying unprecedented and growing international pressure on the Iranian government,” and that “so long as Iran continues on its current path, its leaders will deepen Iran’s isolation and the price it is clearly paying.” In recent weeks, top officials in the Obama administration have said that they believe it would take Iran at least a year to convert its stockpiles of nuclear fuel into weapons, giving the United States, Israel and others considerable time to react to any effort at a “breakout” — converting stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material. Wholesale ED Hardy Sunglasses That estimate, officials acknowledge, assumes that Iran does not have any hidden production facilities. Little work has taken place at one such facility, near Qum, since its existence was revealed last year, the I.A.E.A. report indicated. But Iran is still refusing to lift the veil on the origins of that plant, declining to give inspectors the design plans that they have demanded to understand its true purpose. “The information requested is essential,” the report said. In areas that inspectors have been allowed access, the report indicates slow but steady progress in the production of low-enriched uranium. Inspectors said that Iran had now produced 6,108 pounds of low-enriched uranium at its main facility at Natanz. That represents an increase of 15 percent in the country’s stockpile over the past three months. With further conversion, that is enough to produce roughly two weapons. Wholesale Ray Ban Sunglasses The new report cited case after case of Iran’s continuing defiance in providing information, material and access to inspectors, as well as its failure to halt its increasingly aggressive program to enrich uranium. The report also faulted Iran’s refusal to provide details of its projects to develop a plant for the production of heavy water, as well as a new reactor. Iran holds that it had renounced any legal obligation to give the agency such details. On Monday, the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, stressed the military peril. It said the growing opaqueness raised the risk that “Iran may seek to increase its capability to divert nuclear material in secret and produce weapon-grade uranium in a plant unknown to the inspectors or Western intelligence agencies.” Wholesale D&G Sunglasses In surprisingly blunt language, the report strongly criticized Iran’s barring in June of two agency inspectors from entering Iran. The government said it did so because of their connection to “false and wrong statements.” But the agency insisted that inspectors had done no wrong. “The agency has full confidence in the professionalism and impartiality of the inspectors concerned,” it said. The report also criticized a previous shutting out of inspectors in early 2007, saying the agency needs “inspectors with experience in Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle and facilities.” The repeated bars, the report charged, “hampers the inspection process.” The report noted that Iran had refused to disclose information about its operations to manufacture centrifuges, which are used in enrichment, and for another path to produce nuclear fuel, called laser enrichment. Wholesale Oakley Sunglasses Nor did Iran provide information on its mining and milling of uranium, the agency said. The report said that Iran, in addressing these issues late last month, “did not provide the agency with the requested information but reiterated that it was ‘continuing to cooperate.’ ” A European diplomat called the report’s language about the barring of the inspectors “quite strong.” Iran’s actions, he added on the condition of anonymity, citing diplomatic rules, are slowly blinding the agency and undermining its ability to conduct inspections with the kind of freedom it needs to dig beneath official denials and disavowals. The report, in its conclusion, declared that Tehran “has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.” Wholesale POLICE Sunglasses
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government took steps on Sunday toward seizing the properties of major shareholders of the troubled Kabul Bank, as perturbed crowds and national security forces surrounded the central branch of the bank, the country’s largest. It was unclear how much money nervous depositors withdrew Sunday as fears of bankruptcy spread for the fourth consecutive day. Ed hardy Womens Swimwear Kabul Bank’s chief operating officer, senior officials of the Afghan Central Bank and the Minister of Finance would not discuss details of efforts to shore up the bank. On Saturday, American officials said that the Central Bank had transferred $300 million from its reserves in the United States, but it was unclear how much, if any, of that money would be used to rescue Kabul Bank. A prominent Afghan member of Parliament said Sunday that President Hamid Karzai had ordered the Central Bank to set aside $380 million to be eventually pumped into the Kabul Bank. The lawmaker, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity, said he was told of the order “by the closest people to the president.” ED Hardy Sunglasses Barbed wire was placed around the bank on Sunday, and it was encircled by armed trucks and national security forces from the Afghan intelligence agency who had replaced guards belonging to a private security company owned by the brother of the bank’s former chief executive officer. The Central Bank sent an official letter on Sunday to the city of Kabul demanding that it monitor properties in the capital owned by major Kabul Bank shareholders, including Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman, and Khalilullah Frozi, the former chief executive, both of whom were dismissed last week as news of the bank’s losses broke. carrera sunglasses The Central Bank’s monitoring request was an effort to prevent the shareholders from selling their assets, said the director of the city’s properties department, Muhammad Naeim Khan. A Central Bank official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said, “We are now working on confiscating their properties.” The panic began last week when the Central Bank ousted Mr. Farnood and Mr. Frozi after discovering that the bank had lent hundreds of millions of dollars to allies of Mr. Karzai and poured money into risky real estate investments in Dubai. The crisis is threatening to undermine confidence in Afghanistan’s fledgling financial system, which was built under American guidance after the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001. Wholesale sunglasses Among the bank’s clients is the government, which uses it to pay the salaries of about 250,000 public employees, including security officials and the military. Last week the government transferred $100 million to the bank to ensure it could pay those salaries. The bank, whose major shareholders include a brother of Mr. Karzai and a brother of the first vice president, helped finance the president’s election campaign last year and lent luxury apartments in Dubai rent-free to well-placed officials. Those connections helped shield the bank from scrutiny, officials said. Abdullah Abdullah, who as the chairman of the leading opposition party is President Karzai’s main rival, said the government’s silence over its plans for Kabul Bank was troublesome. sunglass “Kabul Bank has been funded,” Mr. Abdullah said, though he did not indicate his source for that information. “And the government should let the people know how much, and how will the people get it back. It’s the people’s money.” Some banking officials, who blame the Western news media for inflating the crisis, insisted that Kabul Bank’s operations were routine and normal. But customers in line on Sunday said they intended either to empty their savings accounts, or to withdraw money for shopping for Id al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday later this week at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Lines formed as early as 3 a.m., and by lunchtime 1,800 customers had been given tickets directing them to the appropriate counter. By the afternoon, patrons were refused entry and were signing a wait list for Monday. A sweaty free-for-all scramble took place inside the bank, with depositors jousting for the attention of tellers. cheap sunglasses “Ten years ago we had our money in pillows,” said Aimal Khan, who works as an information technology specialist at the United Nations as he waited to withdraw money. “Now we’re 10 years back. Pillows are safer again.” Ghulam Rasul, a 27-year-old shopkeeper who sat on a piece of cardboard from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m., waiting unsuccessfully to enter the bank, called the United States “the main source of this problem.” “If they didn’t support this corrupt government, we wouldn’t be in this trouble,” Mr. Rasul said. “Barack Obama will drown with Karzai.” In other news, the Taliban on Saturday released a Japanese journalist who was kidnapped in March when he went to interview Taliban leaders in the north of the country, Afghan officials said. sunglasses The Japanese Embassy would not comment on the release of the journalist, Kosuke Tsuneoka, a Muslim. The Afghan authorities said the release was negotiated by high-ranking Afghan officials in Kabul and by the Japanese Embassy Muhammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz Province, where the abduction occurred, said the Taliban had demanded money and the release of prisoners in exchange for Mr. Tsuneoka’s release, but he did not know if those demands had been met. He said Mr. Tsuneoka was in good health. In the Taliban-dominated south of Afghanistan, three NATO soldiers were killed over the weekend in separate attacks. sunglass hut
GENEVA – A report detailing hundreds of gruesome attacks against civilians in Congo over a 10-year period won’t be released until October, the U.N.’s top human rights official said Thursday, after Rwanda angrily protested the findings in a draft version. Drafts of the report — circulated to governments earlier this year and leaked to the media last week — accused Rwandan troops and rebel allies tied to the current Congolese president of slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutus in Congo in the 1990s. Wholesale Oakley Sunglasses Rwanda has reacted angrily to the claim that this may have constituted genocide or crimes against humanity, and threatened to pull its troops from U.N. peacekeeping missions if the report was published unchanged, claiming the five-year study was “fatally flawed” and “incredibly irresponsible.” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement that the report will now be released Oct. 1 in order to allow affected governments time to publish their comments alongside the final version. “Following requests, we have decided to give concerned states a further month to comment on the draft,” she said. “I have offered to publish any such comments alongside the report itself.” Wholesale POLICE Sunglasses Rwanda, a small country in East Africa, contributes thousands of soldiers to peacekeeping missions in Chad, Haiti, Liberia and Sudan. It would create a headache for the United Nations if Rwanda made good on its threat and withdrew its troops. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday praised Rwanda’s participation in peacekeeping missions, saying the United Nations was “very grateful for such strong support.” “I sincerely hope that such support and contribution will continue for peace and security in the region,” he told reporters in Vienna. “The peace and security in Darfur and Sudan … has very important implications for peace in (the) wider region.” A spokesman for Pillay denied Tuesday reports that Ban had put pressure on the organization’s human rights chief to remove references to genocide from the text. Wholesale PRADA Sunglasses Nevertheless, the report could prove embarrassing for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, an ally of the United States and Britain whose government has long claimed the moral high ground for ending the 1994 genocide of Tutsis that also included the killings of some moderate Hutus. The report, which cost $3 million to produce, details more than 600 incidents of human rights abuses in eastern Congo between 1993 and 2003 in which tens of thousands of people — mostly women and children — were killed. “Over 1,280 witnesses were interviewed to corroborate or invalidate alleged violations, including previously undocumented incidents, and more than 1,500 documents were collected and analyzed during the two years that it took to research and write the report,” Pillay’s office said. Wholesale Givenchy Sunglasses The aim was to propose to Congo’s government ways in which it can bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice and assist survivors, Pillay’s office said.
PARIS — The Swedish authorities announced Wednesday that they were reopening an investigation of rape allegations against Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks Web site, saying there was “reason to believe that a crime has been committed.” The announcement by Marianne Ny, director of public prosecution, was another reversal in the convoluted case. Last month, Swedish prosecutors confirmed that they had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange on rape and molestation allegations, but dropped the rape charge after saying it was unfounded. Gucci Sunglasses But on Wednesday, Ms. Ny said in a statement that “considering information available at present, my judgment is that the classification of the crime is rape.” She said additional investigation was needed “before a final decision can be made.” A WikiLeaks spokesman said Mr. Assange, who has maintained his innocence, was unavailable for comment. Leif Silbersky, Mr. Assange’s lawyer, said his client was innocent. Mr. Assange was questioned Monday by the police, Mr. Silbersky said, “and they said nothing about rape.” Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, was initially investigated Aug. 20 on charges of rape and molestation after separate complaints from two women who had had separate sexual relationships with him. The rape inquiry was dropped within 24 hours, but the women who brought the complaints appealed for the investigation to be reinstated. Ferragamo Sunglasses According to accounts the women gave to the police and friends, Swedish officials said, they had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals for him to stop when it was no longer in use. Prosecutors have continued to investigate the lesser charge of molestation, which covers a wide range of offenses and carries penalties of up to a year in prison, and they said Wednesday that they were expanding that inquiry to consider charges of sexual coercion and sexual molestation. Mr. Assange has said the charges are politically motivated. Chanel Sunglasses WikiLeaks came under fire in July after posting tens of thousands of classified American documents related to the war in Afghanistan. The site has said it plans to post thousands of “more explosive” documents soon. The Swedish authorities have dismissed suggestions from Mr. Assange that the allegations were part of a program of “dirty tricks” against the site. One of the women, identified only as “Ms. A,” gave an interview to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Aug. 22 in which she said: “The charges against Assange are, of course, not orchestrated by the Pentagon. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a twisted attitude to women and a problem with taking ‘no’ for an answer.” Dior Sunglasses The United States Justice Department has said it is considering criminal charges against WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange for disclosing the war records.
BAGHDAD — The invasion of Iraq, occupation and tumult that followed were called Operation Iraqi Freedom back then. It will be named New Dawn on Wednesday. But America’s attempt to bring closure to an unpopular war has collided with a disconnect familiar since 2003: the charts and trend lines offered by American officials never seem to capture the intangible that has so often shaped the pivots in the war in Iraq. Call it the mood. And the country, seemingly forever unsettled and unhappy, is having a slew of bad days. Ferragamo Sunglasses “Nothing’s changed, nothing!” Yusuf Sabah shouted in the voice of someone rarely listened to, as he waited for gas in a line of cars winding down a dirt road past a barricade of barbed wire, shards of concrete and trash turned uniformly brown. “From the fall of Saddam until now, nothing’s changed. The opposite. We keep going backwards.” Down the road waited Haitham Ahmed, a taxi driver. “Frustrated, sick, worn out, pessimistic and angry,” he said, describing himself. “What else should I add?” The Iraq that American officials portray today — safer, more peaceful, with more of the trappings of a state — relies on 2006 as a baseline, when the country was on the verge of a nihilistic descent into carnage. For many here, though, the starting point is the statement President George W. Bush made on March 10, 2003, 10 days before the invasion, when he promised that “the life of the Iraqi citizen is going to dramatically improve.” Chanel Sunglasses Iraq generates more electricity than it did then, but far greater demand has left many sweltering in the heat. Water is often filthy. Iraqi security forces are omnipresent, but drivers habitually deride them for their raggedy appearance and seeming unprofessionalism. That police checkpoints snarl traffic does not help. What American officials portray as their greatest accomplishment — a nascent democracy, however flawed — often generates a rueful response. “People can’t live only on the air they breathe,” said Qassem Sebti, an artist. In a conflict often defined by unintended consequences, the March election may prove a turning point in an unexpected way. To an unprecedented degree, people took part, regardless of sect and ethnicity. Dior Sunglasses But nearly six months later, politicians are still deadlocked over forming a government, and the glares at the sport-utility vehicles that ferry them and their gun-toting entourages from air-conditioned offices to air-conditioned homes, after meetings unfailingly described as “positive,” have become sharper. Disenchantment runs rife not with one faction or another, but with an entire political class that the United States helped empower with its invasion. “The people of Kadhimiya mourn for the government in the death of water and electricity,” a tongue-and-cheek banner read near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad. The year 2003, when the Americans invaded, often echoes in 2010, as they prepare to leave. Little feels linear here these days; the sense of the recurrent is more familiar. Fendi Sunglasses Lines at fuel stations returned this month, that testament to one the greatest of Iraq’s ironies: a country with the world’s third largest reserve of oil in which people must endure long waits for gas. “Ghamidh” was the word heard often in those earliest years. It means obscure and ambiguous, and then, as now, it was typically the answer to any question. “After seven years our destiny is still unknown,” Mr. Sabah said, waiting in a gas line. “When you look to the future, you have no idea what it holds.” Complaints over shoddy services paraphrase the same grievances of those anarchic months after Saddam Hussein’s fall. The sense of the unknown persists, as frustration mounts, Iraqi leaders bicker and no one seems sure of American intentions, even as President Obama observes what the administration describes as a turning point in the conflict. Adidas Sunglasses “I challenge anyone to say what has happened, what’s happening now and what will happen in the future,” Mohammed Hayawi, a bookseller whose girth matched his charm, said as sweat poured down his jowly face on a hot summer day in 2003. Mr. Hayawi died in 2007, as a car bomb tore through his bookstore filled with tomes of ayatollahs, predictions by astrologers and poems of Communist intellectuals. This week, in the same shop, still owned by his family, Najah Hayawi reflected on his words, near a poster that denounced “the cowardly, wretched bombing” that had killed his brother. “There is no one in Iraq who has any idea — not only about what’s happened or what’s happening — but about what will happen in the future,” he said. “Not just me, not just Mohammed, God rest his soul, but anyone you talk to. You won’t find anyone.” Nike Sunglasses Iraqis call the overthrow of Mr. Hussein’s government the “suqut.” It means the fall. Seven years later, no one has yet quite defined what replaced it, an interim as inconclusive as the invasion was climactic. “Theater,” Mr. Hayawi’s brother called it, and he said the populace still had no hand in writing a script that was in others’ hands. “The best thing is that I have no children,” Shahla Atraqji, a 38-year-old doctor, said back in 2003, as she sipped coffee at Baghdad’s Hunting Club to the strains of Lebanese pop. “If I can’t offer my children a good life, I would never bring them into this world.” This week, Thamer Aziz, a doctor who helps fit amputees with artificial limbs at the Medical Rehabilitation Center, stared at Musafa Hashem, a 6-year-old boy who lost his right leg in a car bomb in Kadhimiya in July. His father was paralyzed. Cartier Sunglasses “I’ve believed this for a long time, and I still do,” he said. “I cannot get married and have a family because I may lose them any minute, by a bomb or bullet.” “Just like him,” he said, gesturing toward the boy. Even in the denouement of America’s experience here, old habits die hard. On Monday, four American Humvees drove the wrong way down a street, turrets swinging at oncoming traffic. Cars stopped, giving them distance. The Humvees turned, plowed over a curb, dug a trench in the muddy median, then rumbled on their way. “See! Did you see?” asked Mustafa Munaf, a storekeeper. “It’s the same thing,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s changed?”
