Stephen Hawking

British physicist Stephen Hawking may think that heaven is a mere "fairy story," but he's hard-pressed to find those who share his perspective on this side of the pond.
This weekend, the U.K.'s The Guardian newspaper published an interview with Hawking in which the celebrated scientist said, "there is no heaven. ...that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
Hawking has expressed similar beliefs in books and previous interviews, but the statement sparked headlines in the U.S., where a large percentage of the population believes in a religious afterlife -- both good and bad.
The 68-year-old Hawking, who was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, when he was 21, is not unfamiliar with contemplating the possibility of an afterlife. He told The Guardian that he's lived with the prospect of an early death for nearly five decades.
But the internationally known scientist and author said, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
In a 2010 interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, when asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, he said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."
U.S. Is 'Nation of Believers,' Researcher Says
While Hawking's views on religion and heaven may be relatively consistent with the views of his countrymen, research from The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests he's at odds with the prevailing American perspective.
A 2007 Pew study of religious beliefs across the country, 92 percent of Americans said they believe in a god or universal spirit and 74 percent said they believe that there is a heaven.
"The first thing to know about the U.S. is that the U.S. is a nation of believers," said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.
When asked about their views on an afterlife, 74 percent of Americans affirmed their belief, with 50 percent saying they believed with "absolute certainty."
But other studies show that the world doesn't necessarily share the United States' frenzy for faith.
A 2010 Pew survey found that while 58 percent of American respondents said religion was "very important " to their lives, just 17 percent of British respondents gave the same reply.
"In general, the U.S. by a variety of measures seems to be more religious than many European countries," Smith said.
That point of view has turned the book "Heaven Is for Real" -- the account of a 4-year-old son of a pastor who enters heaven during emergency surgery and survives to tell the story -- into a national bestseller
Written by the boy's father, Todd Burpo, the book is listed is as nonfiction and currently holds the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' list of bestselling Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction. It has made the list for the past 15 weeks.
Heaven is also apparently more popular than hell. While 74 percent of Americans believe in heaven, just 59 percent believe hell, Smith said.
"We also shouldn't overlook the fact that there is some diversity in the nature and certainty with which people hold those beliefs," he said. Not all people are absolutely certain of their faith, and some say they believe in an impersonal spirit over a personal god.

Only 17 Percent of British Say Religion Is 'Very Important' in Survey

David Bromley, a religious studies and sociology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the U.S. has historically been an exception in a more secular world.
"There is a kind of historical strength to an 'In God We Trust' kind of generic religion, which some sociologists call civil religion," Bromley said. "That belief that America is a city on a hill, God's chosen nation, the flag and God being connected -- those kinds of things have a historical rooting. So when you ask people, 'do you believe in God?' It's almost un-American to say 'no.'"
He said it isn't surprising that books on heaven and angels succeed in our culture.
Still, while "Heaven Is for Real" remains a publishing phenomenon, it has also attracted some criticism.

In March, author and Washington Post On Faith blogger Susan Jacoby wrote, "Only in America could a book like this be classified as nonfiction."
Pointing out the difference in the book's placement on Amazon book lists in the U.S. and the U.K., she said the book's commercial success attests to the "prevalence of unreason among vast numbers of Americans."
"In this universe of unreason, two plus two can equal anything you want and heaven is not only real but anything you want it to be," she wrote. "At age four, the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is charming. Among American adults, widespread identification with the mind of a preschooler is scary."

IMF International Monetary Fund

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was denied bail by a New York judge on Monday morning.
New York prosecutors said on Monday that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who is facing charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid, may have engaged in similar conduct once before and they are investigating. Prosecutors also asked that Mr. Strauss-Kahn be remanded in custody due to concerns he might flee to France if released.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn was “disappointed” a court denied him bail on sexual assault charges, but his lawyer insisted Monday the IMF chief would mount a vigorous defense, saying “this battle has just begun.”
Mr. Strauss-Kahn faces charges stemming from an allegation that he tried to rape a hotel chambermaid as lawyers back in France threatened to file another sex assault complaint.
While pundits predicted the scandal would scupper the veteran politician’s chances of becoming the next French president, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman said his client would vigorously defend himself against claims that he trapped the maid in a luxury Manhattan hotel and sexually assaulted her.
The woman, employed for the past three years at the luxury Sofitel hotel near Times Square, picked Mr. Strauss-Kahn out of a line-up Sunday, as police said they had won a warrant to seek DNA evidence on his clothes.
“He intends to vigorously defend these charges and denies any wrongdoing,” Mr. Brafman told reporters.
The bombshell news of the arrest of one of the world’s most powerful men has left the International Monetary Fund reeling, ahead of critical talks in Brussels on Monday on the fallout of the debt crisis sweeping the eurozone.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, has hired a barrage of top lawyers, as questions swirled over whether he could escape prosecution. But late Sunday, a New York police spokesman said the IMF chief did not have the right to diplomatic immunity.
Another lawyer, William Taylor, told journalists outside a Manhattan courthouse that the arraignment was postponed until Monday so Mr. Strauss-Kahn could undergo further testing by police.
“Our client willingly consented to a scientific and forensic examination,” Mr. Taylor said.
A former finance minister, Mr. Strauss-Kahn had been expected to throw his hat into the ring for the 2012 French election, challenging President Nicolas Sarkozy.
But his political ambitions look to be in tatters, after he was yanked off an Air France flight on Saturday just minutes before take-off.
“As we wait for truth to be sorted from falsehood, one thing is already certain: Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not be the next president of the French Republic,” France’s Le Figaro wrote in an editorial.
He also faces the prospect of a similar accusation back in France after lawyers for a 31-year-old French writer said she would be making a complaint alleging Mr. Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002.
Tristane Banon previously made the allegation against Mr. Strauss-Kahn in 2007 on television, but she had not lodged a formal complaint with authorities.
“We’re planning to make a complaint. I am working with her,” Ms. Banon’s lawyer David Koubbi said.
Commentators also warned about the impact on the IMF, with London’s Financial Times saying it threatened to undermine Europe’s influence within the body at a time when the euro single currency is in crisis
“It may well force the organisation’s members to confront wider issues of European influence over the fund, even as it prepares to extend more rescue loans to western Europe,” said the daily.
The European Commission said the case should have no impact on joint European Union and IMF bailout plans for distressed eurozone states.
“This should not have any impact whatsoever for the programmes aiding Greece, Ireland and Portugal,” said Amadeu Altafaj, spokesman for EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn.
The woman at the centre of the claims in New York, who reports said came to the United States from Guinea, alleged Mr. Strauss-Kahn had assaulted her in his suite when he got out of his shower naked.
“She was in the room. She thought it was empty. That’s when he approached her from behind and touched her inappropriately. He forced her to perform a sexual act on him,” a police spokesman told AFP.
He described the victim as “female, black, 32 years old,” but could not confirm details given in the New York Times that the IMF chief pulled her into the bedroom and onto the bed and then locked the door.
She managed to fight him off, but he dragged her down the hallway to the bathroom, where he sexually assaulted her a second time, the daily alleged.
MSNBC television said that in the bathroom, Mr. Strauss-Kahn forced the maid to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s wife, former top French television journalist Anne Sinclair, said she did not believe the allegations and called for “decency and restraint”.

“I do not believe for one second the accusations brought against my husband. I have no doubt his innocence will be established,” she told AFP.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, so well known in France he is often referred to simply as DSK, had been topping the polls for the presidency even though he has not yet declared his candidacy.
News of his arrest threw the Socialist party into disarray, and could prove a boost for Mr. Sarkozy, who is also facing a challenge from Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front.
The arrest triggered speculation across France that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had been set up for political motives, either because of his position as IMF chief or as a potential election candidate.
It is not the first time that Mr. Strauss-Kahn has been tainted by scandal.
In 2008, he was discovered to be having an affair with a Hungarian IMF economist, but the IMF concluded he had not exerted pressure on the woman, although it noted his inappropriate behavior.

Gabrielle Giffords

Rings, a private note and red tulips connect wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffordsto her husband Mark Kelly while he commands the 16-day space mission of shuttle Endeavour.

Giffords, the Arizona Democrat recovering from a gunshot wound to the head she received in a January assassination attempt, watched from the roof of Kennedy Space Center's Launch Control Center with other astronauts' family members Monday morning as Endeavour blasted toward space.

She made no public appearances, as she has not since a gunman shot her, killed six bystanders and wounded 12 others during a shooting spree in Tucson. But her trip from a rehabilitation hospital in Houston and her efforts to watch and celebrate her husband's fourth trip into space, as described Monday afternoon by her staff, gave indications of how she is doing.

Giffords met with other astronaut wives Sunday and Monday, standing to greet them with hugs, said her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, at a press conference after the launch. Giffords also spent two hours with Kelly Sunday, including eating lunch atNASA's astronaut beach house on Cape Canaveral.

She also met with two of her congressional staff members, press secretary Mark Kimble and new media strategist Ashley Nash-Hahn. For Kimble, who came from Tucson, it was the first time he'd seen her since shortly after the shooting. For the Washington-based Nash-Hahn, it was the first time she'd seen her boss since Giffords was wounded.

Giffords and Kelly exchanged their wedding rings, and the congresswoman wore her husband's ring around her neck on a chain at the launch. She also gave her husband a private note that she wrote herself, "which they hid on the shuttle," Carusone said. After Endeavour reached orbit Monday, Mark Kelly's twin brother Scott Kelly, who also is an astronaut, presented her with red tulips from Mark.

Though she is able to stand, Giffords watched the launch while sitting in a wheelchair, cheering and clapping as the rocket disappeared into the clouds, Carusone said.

"I think relief was her biggest feeling. She was very proud. She's always proud of Mark and what he does. It was an exciting moment," Carusone said.

It is unclear whether Giffords will return for Endeavour's landing, scheduled for 2:32 a.m. June 1.

In the interim, she may undergo cranialplasty surgery to replace part of her skull that surgeons removed after the shooting to relieve pressure on her brain. However, the procedure is not yet scheduled.

She travels with two nurses. NASA provided the transportation, as it does for all astronaut families. Carusone said Giffords has no problem traveling.

Carusone said Giffords understands, "if not everything, close to everything," including sarcasm.

Decisions on when she might return to active service in Congress will have to wait, Carusone said. Any public appearances will wait at least until after the cranialplasty.

Space Shuttle

Endeavour blasted off on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight, thundering through clouds into orbit Monday morning as the mission commander's wounded wife, Gabrielle Giffords, watched along with an exhilarated crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
"Good stuff, good stuff," Giffords was quoted as saying by her chief of staff as Endeavour took flight for the final time. Husband Mark Kelly, the shuttle's skipper, had red tulips presented to her afterward. She wore his wedding ring on a silver chain while he carried hers with him.
NASA is winding down its 30-year-old shuttle program before embarking on something new. The liftoff generated the kind of excitement seldom seen on Florida's Space Coast on such a grand scale — despite a delay of more than two weeks from the original launch date because of an electrical problem.
Monday's countdown was close to perfect, and the shuttle quickly disappeared into thin, low clouds.
"That was four seconds of cool," said Manny Kariotakis, who was visiting from Montreal. The 50-year-old day care owner got goosebumps watching the liftoff with thousands along Highway 1 in Titusville.
Launch manager Mike Moses apologized for the fleeting glimpse. "The view wasn't the best," he said.
Just before launching, Kelly thanked all the who put hands "on this incredible ship."
"It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop," he said.
Remarkably, Giffords made a return visit to see Kelly off. She is still undergoing rehabilitation in a Houston hospital to recover from a gunshot wound to the head in an assassination attempt little more than four months ago. She has weakness on her right side, and difficulty speaking.
The Arizona congresswoman, sitting in a wheelchair, watched the launch in private with her mother and the other astronauts' wives and children atop the Launch Control Center. There were hugs all around after the shuttle rocketed away, said the congresswoman's chief of staff, Pia Carusone.
"It was a real sense of relief from all of us that this went off safely," Carusone said.
Kelly's identical twin Scott, who's also an astronaut, presented red tulips to Giffords, and a single red rose to each of Mark's two teenage daughters from a previous marriage.
Giffords has kept out of the public eye since the Jan. 8 shooting that wounded her and killed six in Tucson, Ariz. She and Kelly said their goodbyes on Sunday.
With Kelly at the helm, Endeavour and its experienced crew of five Americans and an Italian are headed for the International Space Station. They will arrive at the orbiting outpost Wednesday, delivering a $2 billion magnetic instrument that will seek out antimatter and dark energy in the universe.
On Tuesday, the astronauts will survey their ship for any launch damage to Endeavour's thermal shield. Only a couple small bits of insulating foam came off the fuel tank during the crucial phase of liftoff, officials said.
Up to 45,000 guests jammed into NASA's launch site, and thousands packed area roads and towns to see Endeavour soar one last time. Only one shuttle flight remains.
VIPs included Apollo 11's Michael Collins and four other members of Congress.
Advance estimates had put Monday's crowd at 500,000, more than the number that saw Discovery's final hurrah in February. Across the Indian River in Titusville, though, the number of spectators appeared to be down compared with Endeavour's previous launch attempt on a Friday afternoon.
Titusville Assistant Police Chief John Lau guessed the crowd at between 350,000 and 400,000.
"I don't know if it was the early morning or what," Lau said.
Electrical trouble grounded the shuttle on April 29, disappointing the hordes of visitors, including President Barack Obama and his family. Repairs over the past two weeks took care of the problem.
"God Speed Endeavour We're ready for you!" space station resident Ronald Garan Jr. said in a Twitter update. At launch, the space station was 220 miles high, just southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Kelly almost didn't make the flight.
The 47-year-old Navy captain took a leave from training to be by his wife's side after she was wounded, and it seemed unlikely he would stay with the flight. But Giffords improved and was moved from the hospital in her hometown of Tucson to Houston where Kelly lives and does astronaut training. Her days were filled with rehab work, and he yearned to see the shuttle mission through. A month after the shooting, he announced he would fly.
"Everybody felt that this was the right thing for me to do," he said at the time. He added that his wife "is a big supporter of my career, a big supporter of NASA."
He rejoined his crew in February, still managing to see his wife across town every morning and evening.
Giffords' visit to Kennedy Space Center — the third time she's seen her husband soar into space — ratcheted up the excitement level for what already was a big event, said launch officials.
This is the 25th and final flight of Endeavour, the baby of NASA's shuttle fleet. It was built to replace Challenger, destroyed during liftoff 25 years ago this past January, and made its maiden journey six years later to capture and repair a stranded satellite. That first flight ended 19 years ago Monday.
Endeavour carried the first Hubble Space Telescope repair team, which famously restored the observatory's vision in 1993, and the first American piece of the space station in 1998.
It will end its days at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
As of Monday, Endeavour had logged more than 116 million miles, circled Earth some 4,500 times, spent 283 days in space and carried 170 people, including the last two people to fly a space shuttle for the first time. American Mike Fincke and Italian Roberto Vittori are making their first flight on a shuttle although they've been to the space station twice, ferried their by Russian Soyuz rockets.
Fincke will team up with Andrew Feustel and Gregory Chamitoff for four spacewalks during the 16-day mission. It will be the last spacewalks conducted by a shuttle crew.
NASA officials said it will be a demanding flight, including the unprecedented departure of a three-person Soyuz capsule while Endeavour is there. The shuttle and station crews will sleep at different times to accommodate the Soyuz undocking next Monday, just five days after the shuttle's arrival.
NASA's last shuttle flight, by Atlantis, is targeted for July. After that, Atlantis will remain at Kennedy, where it will go on display at the visitor complex. Discovery will head to the Smithsonian Institution's hangar outside Washington.
American astronauts, meanwhile, will continue to hitch rides to the space station on Russian Soyuz rockets. Private companies hope to pick up the slack, but that's still years away.
Once Atlantis flies, it will be three years — at best — before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil. Some NASA observers fear it could be a full decade.
The White House wants NASA focusing on eventual expeditions to asteroids and Mars, unfeasible as long as the shuttles are flying given budget constraints.
Ohioan Stan Oliver made a last-minute trip for the launch. The assisted-living residence manager got a ticket to Tampa and then drove Sunday night to Titusville, where he slept in his car.

"This is a once in a lifetime event," said Oliver, 41, who lives near Dayton. "It was worth it. The roar was intense. I'm glad I came."
Launch director Mike Leinbach said those who dedicated themselves to Endeavour over the years likely shed a few tears Monday. "But that's OK," he said, "because they know they did the best job they could, and Endeavour's safely on orbit."

Nasa Shuttle Launch

If there is one thing NASA is really good at, other than space exploration, that’s modern PR. While in the past a shuttle launch was only announced via traditional media channels, including radio, traditional television and printed media, these days NASA opts for its own online TV channel, NASA TV, and other online video sharing channels, to broadcast its missions. Today’s shuttle launch from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 8:56 a.m. and was seen by millions online.
NASA has its own channel at nasa.gov and also on YouTube. While not a novel way to raise brand awareness, there is no other institution using these channels more effectively than NASA. Having an onsite TV channel, and a YouTube channel ensures that NASA gets to sent its message to broader audiences.
Online broadcasting channels are just a small part of the equation. Now NASA’s employees are encouraged to use Twitter to communicate with their fans.
NASA has a strong presence on Facebook as well, with a few specialized pages for each of its departments, and considerable numbers of fans, constantly engaged in the conversation – although NASA is more broadcasting news than anything else. But broadcasting value is what social media is all about anyway – learning, sharing knowledge, and yes, fun.

Below, a video of the launch of STS-134, as broadcast on NASA TV. Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its final mission. Commander Mark Kelly and crew (Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori) will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.

NASA TV

Even though the launch happened later than it was supposed to a lot of people were there the morning of May 16 to see the launch. The launch was supposed to happen days ago but was canceled because of mechanical difficulties. There were thousands of people there and waiting on the launch. This crowd included President Obama and family.
NASA TV showed the launch on live streaming. There were thousands of viewers watching the Space Shuttle Endeavor launch on living stream. This is the last launch of this shuttle so everyone wanted to be able to see it. Did you watch on NASA TV?

Everything seemed to go off without a hitch. We are thankful for the successful launch. There will be more updates on what is going on with the space shuttle soon. Keep your eyes and ears open for more updates from NASA TV.

Hebei Polytechnic College Of Light Industry

A LEAKED video clip of two Chinese students allegedly having sex in a classroom has stirred controversy online.
The couple is reported to be students from the Hebei Polytechnic College of Light Industry, who decided to have an intimate lunch-hour.

But unbeknownst to them, a high-definition hidden camera was secretly recording their romp in the lecture theatre.
The 15-minute clip was recorded last year, but was leaked online only recently, reported Chinasmack.

Krystal Aki Mizoguchi

18-year-old prospective students suspected to be a beautiful feeling trapped by falling from 9th floor room, killed on the spot.
The accident occurred yesterday evening at 7:40 or so, the deceased lived in Ang Mo Kio HDB 6 No. 509, 9th floor, three-bedroom units.
The deceased is a Western name Krystal, Japanese descent, known in Japan Mizoguchi Aki (Aki Mizoguchi), about 10 days in the month had 19 birthday, is currently waiting for private commenced.
Japanese dead is believed to have divorced father and mother, according to the deceased's blog, her childhood growing up in single-parent families. The deceased with her mother and 17-year-old brother live in the place of more than 3 years.
Based on the deceased's "face book" pages, the end of last month, her 5-month working holiday.According to insiders, emotional problems faced by the deceased up to a year, it seems, and junior college boyfriend skelter.
Dead falls, the bridge of the nose 上架着一副 black-rimmed glasses, wearing a beige jacket and blue denim shorts.
The deceased complained alluding to her boyfriend authoritarian Online
Blog refers to the deceased, her boyfriend tyranny. "You will not let me too close with male friends, check my cell phone text messages and phone records. I told you to stop the text and from the stars. You Tube so strict, I can not breathe. Mother asked me: 'You Why even told him? '"
It is believed that the deceased and her boyfriend exchanges more than 10 months. Burial room this morning, but not the deceased father figure dead, the deceased's aunt said, have been trying to contact the father of the deceased in the local work.
Abandoned their studies of 13-year-old love
The deceased, 13-year-old began to fall in love, and selfless love, the results neglect their studies.
The deceased was in September 19, 2008 in the blog's lines, "frustration" with the following contents are breaking up, regret their beloved boys and not to concentrate on lectures, and lead to O level before coming to cram a month.

"Knew how things would go, I should try two years ago to study. But I chose to give up. Now regret it was too late. From the 'O' level just a month! I had should not be accepted. I'm for you down friends, family and school, and shed so many tears. "
The deceased left a suicide note revealed two dreams shattered
It is understood that falls in the room the police found the deceased at least two suicide note, believed that the deceased family and friends keep up dying to say.
The deceased in March this year, revealed in a blog, childhood dreams, managed to get his stick, and smash. She regretted his failure to attend the National Arts or South, visit the department of local private universities to attend, the more depressed sad.
Police confirmed by the inquiry, this case has been classified as "non-natural death" nature of the processing, investigation is still ongoing.

Aiadmk Ministers

AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa wrested power from the DMK in Tamil Nadu on Friday with a landslide win, crushing chief minister M Karunanidhi's hopes of heading the state for the sixth time.  Suffering the effect of the Jayalalithaa sweep, Karunanidhi’s son MK Stalin, the deputy chief minister, w
as locked in a bitter battle with the AIADMK candidate in Kolattur in north Chennai.

The force of Jayalalithaa's comeback also removed the aura around Karunanidhi’s elder son and union chemicals and fertilisers minister MK Alagiri in Madurai, considered his bastion. She delivered a blow to Alagiri's influence in south Tamil Nadu, wiping out his candidates in Madurai.
The factor’s behind the DMK’s humiliating defeat were the involvement of its leaders in the 2G scam and the Karunanidhi family controlling all party affairs.
The comprehensive AIADMK  win was set to deny the DMK the status of a recognised opposition party as the DMDK, headed by actor Vijayakanth, and the Left parties have said that they will offer "constructive opposition" to the AIADMK government. What this means is that in the new assembly, Karunanidhi will not even be the leader of the Opposition because the honour is likely to go to Vijayakanth, whose party bagged more seats than the DMK.
Jayalalithaa’s victory not only reinforced the cyclical voting pattern of Tamil Nadu but also blew away the perception of a rural-urban divide that the DMK was banking on to see it through on the strength of the freebies and welfare schemes t felt had touched almost every household in the state.

The Congress, a DMK ally, won only seven seats, a big fall from the 34 it had bagged in 2006. The poor showing means that the Congress will not be able to get its way in the Rajya Sabha elections. Significantly, the term of union shipping minister GK Vasan, a Rajya Sabha member, ends in August and the Congress will not be in a position to get him elected to the Upper House, given its depleted strength as also that of its ally of seven years.
Addressing a press conference after her resounding victory, Jayalalithaa said her priority was to restore the rule of law in the state and rebuild Tamil Nadu’s economy, which the “outgoing government has left in ruins”. She said it would be a “formidable challenge”, which she was used to, referring to her earlier returns as chief minister.

Tamilnadu Ministers List 2011

Will the spectre of vindictive politics raise its ugly head once again in Tamil Nadu? With the AIADMK securing a majority on its own and J. Jayalalithaa set to take over the reins of the state, this is one question that has come to haunt many political players in the state. Both the DMK and the AIADMK are notorious for taking on their rivals with a vengeance after assuming power and their actions during their previous regimes are a case in point.
The midnight arrests of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi (in 2001) and that of the Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati (in 2004) would certainly evoke such apprehensions in many a heart. The people in the state still talk in hushed tones about the sacking of over 1 lakh government employees at one go during the czarina's previous tenure. Their crime was that they didn't heed the then chief minister's advice and went ahead with a strike to press for their demands.
On its part, the DMK had hauled her over the coal by slapping her with a slew of corruption cases and setting up three special courts to try her. Arrested in December 1991, Jayalalithaa had spent more than one month in prison. The jewellery and other items secured during a raid on her residence were repeatedly shown on TV with the intention of maligning her.
To be fair to her, the diva herself acknowledged in a recent TV interview that nothing remains static and time has a mellowing effect on everyone. But there are many who believe that the tiger can't change its stripes. If her first tenure (1991-96) was marked by a witch hunt of the Opposition as well as the media - there were over 100 defamation cases filed against various publications - the second term was not totally free from such acts of vendetta. However, in her second term as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa did not pursue the cases against archrival M. Karunanidhi and his son M.K. Stalin to the logical end. The cases were allowed to lapse. After the AIADMK was whitewashed in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, she appeared to be atoning for her sins. The mass dismissal of government employees was revoked by the Anti-Conversion Law.
Though Karunanidhi's action of filing a slew of defamation cases By M.C. Rajan in Chennai against Jayalalithaa and several other senior AIADMK functionaries days before demitting office cannot be termed anything but in poor taste, it would now give the czarina an honest alibi to beat him with the same stick. This is notwithstanding the fact that her ardent apologists, including the saffron ideologue Cho Ramaswamy, vouch that she would be different this time round.
But if one goes by the events during the 2011 election campaign, she appears to have not changed or chastised much during the past five years. First, she did not carry out a joint campaign with the AIADMK allies, save for the lone show at Coimbatore which even actor-politico Vijaykant had boycotted for the lack of protocol. The way she ditched her long-time ally, Vaiko of the MDMK, and unilaterally released the list of election candidates, bringing the coalition almost to the brink of collapse, is another pointer to the fact that she remains the same old Jayalalithaa.
Despite these indicators, there are huge expectations that she will be a different chief minister this time and would hopefully give up on the politics of vendetta. What prompts such wishful thinking is also the fact that the DMK has refrained from disturbing her in a big way all through the past five years the party was in power in Tamil Nadu. And it may be time for her to reciprocate the gesture.

Following is the list of Tamil Nadu ministers and portfolios.

(1) J.Jayalalithaa — Chief Minister, Public,Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Forest Service, General Administration, District Revenue Officers, Prevention of Corruption, Police, Home

(2) O.Panneerselvam — Finance

(3) K.A.Sengottaiyan — Agriculture

(4) Natham R.Viswanathan — Electricity, Prohibition and Excise

(5) K.P.Munisamy — Municipal Administration, Rural Development

(6) C.Shanmugavelu — Industries

(7) R.Vaithilingam — Housing and Urban Development

(8) S.S.Krishnamoorthy — Food

(9) C.Karuppasamy — Animal Husbandary

(10) P.Palaniappan — Higher Education

(11) C.Ve.Shanmugam — School Education

(12) Sellur K.Raju — Cooperation

(13) K.T.Pachamal — Forests

(14) Edappadi K.Palanisamy — Highways and Minor Ports

(15) S.P.Shanmuganathan — HR & CE

(16) K.V.Ramalingam — Public Works

(17) S.P.Velumani — Special Programme Implementation

(18) T.K.M.Chinnayya — Backward Classes

(19) M.C.Sampath — Rural Industries

(20) P.Thangamani — Revenue

(21) G.Senthamizhan — Information

(22) S.Gokula Indira — Commerical Taxes and Registration

(23) Selvi Ramajayam — Social Welfare

(24) B.V.Ramanaa — Handlooms and Textiles

(25) R.B.Udhayakumar — Information and Technology

(26) N.Subramanian — Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare

(27) V.Senthil Balaji — Transport

(28) N.Mariyam Pichai — Environment

(29) K.A.Jayapal — Fisheries

(30) E.Subaya — Law, Courts and Prisons

(31) Budhichandhiran — Tourism

(32) S.T.Chellapandian — Labour

(33) Dr.V.S.Vijay — Health

(34) N.R.Sivapathi — Sports and Youth Welfare

BlackWater

What’s Erik Prince been doing since he sold off Blackwater, the infamous mercenary company he founded and turned into a juggernaut of the private security world? His shadiest, most morally-compromised guns-for-hire scheme yet.
Prince moved to Abu Dhabi last year as legal and governmental scrutiny of Blackwater intensified. “I’m done. It’s all sold or shut down,” he told journalist Robert Young Pelton shortly before boarding his farewell flight. “I’m getting out of the government contracting business.” And provided he meant the U.S. government, that vow has stood the test of time. But his adoptive country is a different story.
Documents obtained by the New York Times indicate that Prince rebooted his efforts in private security to build a praetorian army of mercenaries for the ruling clique in the United Arab Emirates. His new company, Reflex Responses, hires a mixture of Columbian soldiers of fortune and South African vets of Executive Outcomes, the pre-Blackwater merc firm that fought nasty counter-guerilla wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. That’s right: forces from Christian nations hired to protect Muslim leaders, possibly against their own people. And in keeping with Prince’s history, if Reflex is doing business legally — from the perspective of U.S. law — it’s only barely so.
Prince, who conceals his involvement in the firm by using the codename “Kingfish,” takes money from the UAE to  ”conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts.” His take: $529 million so far, and the possibility of earning “billions more.” His contract with the UAE lasts until 2015.

The tiny UAE is a financial giant on the Persian Gulf, drenched in oil and unconcerned with political liberty for its wealthy citizens. It lives in fear of Iran. And its military keeps only about 65,000 men under arms. It’s had a murky interest in helping Somalia contain its piracy problem — another effort rumored to involve Prince. And so far, the Mideast uprisings haven’t touched the UAE, but you never know. Its ruling sheikhs are used to paying foreigners to do their dirty work: its labor force is imported. Now it prefers to apply that model to its security needs.
That’s where Prince comes in.
Under terms of Reflex’s contract with the consortium of monarchies, obtained by the Times, Prince will build, train and field a battalion of foreign auxiliaries “independent of formal command and support structures throughout the UAE.” They’re supposed to be for “internal” defense, conducting “cordon and search,” “stability and support operations” and general “security operations.” Only “leaders” of the force need be proficient in English; the contract doesn’t say anything about the mercs speaking Arabic.
Consider for a second that this is a force comprised of mercs from Christian countries operating on Islamic soil. The Executive Outcomes veterans — not exactly known for their subtlety; they were involved in a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea — will staff a quick reaction force, able to seize key infrastructure and put down a protest that spins out of control. What could go wrong?
Indeed, Reflex is supposed to provide a full survice military in miniature. It’s going to have “aviation support capability,” with “rotor and/or fixed wing aircraft,” capable of medevac and “basic” intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “Advanced mission training” will include “sniper,” explosive ordnance disposal, “scout/surveillance [and] military working dog” responsibilities. There’s even a private navy, tasked with “small boat operations and seaman ship, Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO), Securing Oil Delivery Stations/Platforms” and more.
That’s a lot to ask of 800 people. It also begs the question of why the UAE would continue to invest in its elite military units, which have served in Afghanistan, when there’s this new hired Army to use.
The contract doesn’t specify what gear they’re going to use. But it’s going to need ships, helicopters, transport planes, communications gear, fuel depots or access to existing ones, a motor pool of trucks and, of course, guns. They’ve built a barracks in the desert to house and train the new Reflex force.
Because of all this gear and all this construction, it’s surprising that the effort — which the contract indicates began in June 2010 — stayed secret for this long. But it’s astonishing that someone leaked theTimes the actual contract Reflex holds with the UAE. Is there internal dissent within Reflex already?
Prince’s new gig also might run afoul of U.S. laws prohibiting citizens from trailing foreign militaries. That kind of work requires a government license. The State Department wouldn’t say if Reflex has such a license, and told the Times it’s “investigating” to see if Reflex is on the right side of the law.
Blackwater, renamed Xe Services, ain’t what it used to be. While it’s still collecting government contracts to protect diplomats, it’s undergoing another rebranding effort by the new ownership, even hiring former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft as its ethics chief. It wants to emphasize its business training law enforcement more than its guard duties — understandable, given that most people know Blackwater as the guard force that killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Some aspects of Reflex make it seem like Prince is getting the old band back together. One of his top deputies is Ricky Chambers. Chambers, a former FBI agent, ran the Blackwater subsidiary Paravant — whose guards in Afghanistan signed for guns under the name “Eric Cartman” and shot Afghan civilians dead during a 2009 vehicle accident.
Mideast leaders are reeling from the reformist uprisings. So far, only Moammar Gadhafi has hired mercenaries to backstop his rule. And the UAE’s interest in Reflex predates the current Mideast uprisings. But while it might be crazy to hire South Africans and Columbians to break up protests by Muslims calling for democratic change, desperate autocrats have done far crazier things. They surely know how to get in touch with Erik Prince.

Israel News

On one level, the "Nakba" day incidents on Israel's borders may have represented an attempt by the Palestinians to join the Arab revolutionary spring.
So far, the Palestinians, in a very different position from most Arab nations, had been largely left out as the spirit of assertive demands for rights and freedoms swept the region and threatened its dictators.
The pent-up frustrations of the Palestinians largely took the form of pressure on their own divided leaderships to unite, something that has now happened.
The 15 May challenges to Israel on its borders with Lebanon and Syria, within the fragmented West Bank and on the Gaza frontier, undoubtedly embodied the same kind of risk-taking, confrontational people-power ethos that has fired the revolts in many parts of the Arab world.
Palestinian militancy and desire for self-assertion in keeping with revolutionary Arab times are very strong and can be taken as a given. But the ability to express those sentiments is something else.
There is clearly another dimension to the unprecedented eruptions on Israel's borders with Lebanon and Syria, in which a number of protesters are reported to have been shot dead and many others wounded.

The common denominators in both cases are Syria and its ally Iran.

In past years, Syria has prevented Palestinian protesters from getting anywhere near the sensitive Golan border, where Damascus has in the past scrupulously respected its truce agreement with Israel.
Nearly half a million registered Palestinian refugees live in Syria, some of them in camps not far from the Golan.
Syria may be distracted and preoccupied by events inside the country, but so much that it could not have prevented the Golan incident if it had wanted it not to happen?
The real power in southern Lebanon is Hezbollah, the militant Shia movement that was created in the early 1980s by Iran and Syria to counter Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
If Hezbollah had not wanted the display of Palestinian refugee militancy at Maroun al-Ras on the south Lebanon border with Israel to happen, it would not have happened.
Damascus and Tehran retain extremely strong ties with Hezbollah, so by extension, the same is true of them.
Lebanon, like Syria, also has getting on for half a million Palestinian refugees on its soil.
But Jordan has something like two million, yet its borders with Israel, running along the Jordan river, did not see any such incidents because Amman did not want it to happen.
Jordanian police intervened to prevent a mere 200 Palestinian students from marching towards the border, and six of them were injured when they were restrained.
The unusual flare-ups on the Golan and on the Lebanese border came as President Bashar al-Assad's regime moved into its third month of confronting its biggest internal challenge in more than 40 years of rule by his family and the Baath Party.
It would be hard not to see a link between the two developments.
To allow a controlled burst of tension on the borders with Israel might have been seen by the Syrian regime as serving several useful purposes: to divert attention from its internal troubles, and to burnish its nationalist credentials of steadfast resistance to Israel.
It may also have been aimed at conveying to Israel and the Americans the message that if Mr Assad's grip on power should slip, Israel might face a much more militant Syria.
In a recent New York Times interview, the president's controversial businessman cousin, Rami Makhlouf, said that if Syria had no security, Israel would have no security - remarks from which the regime has officially distanced itself, but which came from a key figure within the inner circle of power.
One question Israel will be asking itself is whether the outbursts on the borders might be sustained and turn into a running situation.

That is not impossible. But Damascus and its allies in Lebanon know that they are playing with fire.

Syria would be unlikely to permit a situation on the Golan that could get out of hand and lead to a serious engagement with the Israelis that could be deeply damaging, and might even hasten a decision by Washington to move towards a call for regime change.
A warning skirmish is one thing, a serious confrontation something else.
In Lebanon, while anything is possible, Hezbollah is also unlikely to want an open-ended situation in which Palestinians play a leading role.
The Palestinian presence triggered the Israeli invasion in 1982 and other interventions which greatly hurt Hezbollah's Shia community.
The Palestinians in Lebanon played no part in Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel.

But clearly, these are uncharted waters.
For the first time ever, Lebanon had the extraordinary experience of having people shot dead on its northern border by Syrian security forces because of the upheavals inside Syria, and a larger number shot dead on its southern border because of the Palestinian issue.
Whatever the degree of possible manipulation by Syria and its allies, the message from Palestinians both inside and outside is that the Arab revolution has found another home.

Justice

VICTORIA'S criminal justice system is in turmoil after the state government announced a radical shake-up of the Office of Public Prosecutions, on top of the review of the police force command structure.
In a damning assessment, Attorney-General Robert Clark said the office - responsible for prosecuting serious criminal cases - lacked transparency, had no clear chain of command, and was being hampered by controversy, low morale and a ''deficient'' 17-year-old structure.
''It is essential that these offices are operating at the highest possible standards of effectiveness in conducting prosecutions and appeals,'' Mr Clark said. ''The controversies and difficulties that have developed in recent times have seriously affected the morale and functioning of Victoria's public prosecution offices.''
The comments follow the resignation of the Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Rapke, QC, on Friday, after a damning report found he made an ''error of judgment'' recommending the appointment of relatively junior lawyer Diana Karamicov, and two other lawyers, to plum jobs as associate Crown prosecutors. Mr Rapke has denied any sexual relationship with Ms Karamicov. The OPP shake-up follows the announcement earlier this month of a special inquiry into Victoria Police senior command, headed by Jack Rush, QC, to examine a series of bungles, the overall structure, and controversy surrounding police chief Simon Overland.
The Ombudsman is also investigating the management of Victoria Police statistics and the circumstances surrounding the death of gangster Carl Williams, including the role of Corrections Victoria.
The parallel reviews mean the bulk of Victoria's criminal justice and policing systems are being reviewed.
Mr Clark said the government would be consulting widely to correct deficiencies in the Public Prosecutions Act, which was last overhauled by former premier Jeff Kennett in 1994. It is particularly worried about an unclear chain of command between the Director of Public Prosecutions, the solicitor of public prosecutions and the Chief Crown Prosecutor.
The most likely outcome is that the role of the director - who under the current structure has only one staff member - is extended to include management responsibilities, in addition to traditional responsibilities for prosecution decisions. Seven weeks after retired Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent, QC, completed his report on the bitter dispute involving Mr Rapke, shadow attorney-general Martin Pakula said findings must be made public to determine whether Victoria's most senior barrister had been made to ''walk the plank''.
Mr Pakula also suggested the government was using the same tactics to pressure Mr Overland from office as it applied to Mr Rapke.
''There are a lot of parallels between what's occurred with the DPP and what may occur with the Chief Commissioner,'' Mr Pakula said. ''I think it's fair to say the Chief Commissioner would be watching these events with interest and probably a degree of nervousness.''

But Mr Clark said any suggestion of a link between the approaches applied to Mr Overland and Mr Rapke was ''absurd''. ''Mr Pakula should have been out there this morning apologising for what Labor had done and failed to in relation to allowing this problem to continue while they were in government,'' he said. ''These issues are completely unrelated.''
In his resignation letter to Mr Clark, Mr Rapke said he believed the structure of the office did not meet the needs of Victoria's over-burdened criminal justice system, saying he was resigning to give the government a ''completely free hand'' to introduce reforms.

Harold Camping

Harold Camping

An octogenarian US preacher's terrifying May 21 Judgement Day vision is little more than a classic Uranus/Saturn opposition psychosis.

That's the consensus among astrologers who are reminding the public thatHarold Camping's botched September 6, 1994 Armageddon claims are still the stuff of ridicule across the States.

The 89 year-old apocalypse spreader has predicted the Sun's annual ingress into Gemini - on the day a triple Mercury/Venus/Mars conjunction trines the planet Pluto - will bring about the long expected Rapture.

His Family Radio religious rants see a Mexican wave of earthquakes straddle the Earth from next Saturday morning, culminating in total global annihilation by 21 October 2011.

A 1,200-strong coast-to-coast billboard campaign is living proof that believers are digging deep to buy their one-way Rapture tickets before the earth swallows them up for rampant godless sinning.

"Yeah, the $$s are rolling into Pastor Camping's coffers," star chart wizard Dave Perihelion commented on his website today.

"What's the betting he 'disappears' off the radar with his hoard of followers' cash by Sunday night, 23 May, eh?"

Other zodiac interpreters reckon Camping may have picked up subliminal messages in the ether about Friday 20th's astrological currents signalling the death of an internationally renowned female hoaxer.

IMF Chief

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was hauled off a flight about to leave JFK airport for Paris on Saturday and arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted a maid in a Times Square-area hotel, a police spokesman said.

Strauss-Kahn, who is also an important figure in French politics, was taken to the Harlem headquarters of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which investigates rape and other sex crimes. He was charged with committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a chambermaid in the luxury suite of a midtown Manhattan hotel, said Paul Browne, deputy New York City police commissioner.

"A 32-year-old chambermaid at a Sofitel on 44th Street said that at about 1 p.m., she entered Mr. Strauss-Kahn's room to clean when he came out of the bathroom naked, pushed her onto the bed and assaulted her," Browne said. The maid told police that before she could escape, Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex, Browne said.

She immediately told her supervisor, but before investigators could get to Strauss-Kahn's room, he had left the hotel, leaving behind his cellphone and other personal items, Browne said.

His $3,000-per-night luxury suite has a foyer, hallway, living room, bedroom, conference room and bathroom, Browne said.

Police learned the IMF official was booked on a 4:40 p.m. Air France flight bound for Paris and notified airport police to hold the plane, which was turned back as it taxied from the gate. Strauss-Kahn was in his seat when he was taken into custody, Browne said, noting he did not have diplomatic immunity.

The maid was treated for minor injuries at a Manhattan hospital.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said Saturday night that it had no comment; an official of the U.S. Justice Department said "at this time" the case was being handled by New York police and there was no federal jurisdiction.

For the last four years, Strauss-Kahn, 62, has been the managing director of the IMF, a lending institution with 186 member countries that helps oversee the global economy.

Within a year of assuming the job, Strauss-Kahn was investigated by the IMF board over whether he had an improper relationship with a former female employee. The board concluded his actions were "regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment" but took no action against its top manager because the relationship was consensual and did not involve any abuse of authority.

A former corporate lawyer and an economics professor at several top French universities, Strauss-Kahn has long been a key player in the French Socialist Party and was considered a likely candidate to challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy in next May's election.

Sarkozy backed Strauss-Kahn, a political opponent, for the IMF position, though there was speculation that he did so to deprive the Socialists of a popular leader.

Strauss-Kahn has run unsuccessfully to be his party's nominee for president; he has also served as a member of the French National Assembly and as a Cabinet minister in left-leaning governments.

He is married to Anne Sinclair, his third wife, who is a leading television journalist in Paris.

Mahendra Singh Tikait

Mahendra Singh Tikait

Mahendra Singh Tikait, prominent north Indian farmer leader and founder president of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), died here Sunday morning, his family said. He was 76.
Mahendra Singh Tikait was suffering from bone cancer. The end came at his son Rajesh Tikait's residence here.
Thousands of farmers, politicians and social workers paid their homage to Mahendra Singh Tikait, who enjoyed a strong following in this region.
According to his son Rajesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait's "body will be carried to his native village Sisauli around 4 p.m. and the funeral will take place on Monday at 11 a.m."
Born Oct 6, 1935, Mahendra Singh Tikait emerged as a powerful farmer leader in the agriculturally rich western Uttar Pradesh in 1987 when he raised his voice for the cause of sugarcane growers.
Eventually, he was called by then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Narain Dutt Tiwari for talks, which resolved the crisis.
His last formidable show of strength came in 2010, when he staged a massive panchayat in Muzaffarnagar to oppose moves in favour of intra-gotra (sub-caste) marriages.
The farmer community, largely dominated by Jats in western Uttar Pradesh, is deeply wedded to their age old social tradition of not allowing marriages within the same gotra of a particular caste.

Rift

The United States and Pakistan are veering toward a deepening clash, with Pakistan’s Parliament demanding a permanent halt to all drone strikes just as the most senior American envoy since the killing of Osama bin Laden is to arrive with a stern message that the country has only months to show it is truly committed to rooting out the remnants of Al Qaedaand associated groups.
The United States has increased drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas in the past 10 days in an effort to exploit the uncertainty and disarray among militant ranks following Bin Laden’s death on May 2. The latest airstrikes, on Friday, came as Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, in a rare appearance before Pakistan’s Parliament, denounced the American raid as a “sting operation.”
Parliament then passed a resolution declaring that the drone strikes were a violation of sovereignty equivalent to the secret attack on Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad. The lawmakers warned that Pakistan could cut supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan if there were more such attacks. The resolution contained no condemnation of the Afghan Taliban, who killed more than 80 Pakistani paramilitary cadets the same day.
The stepping up of the condemnations of the United States came as Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime emissary to Pakistan in times of crisis, was preparing to land in Islamabad. He was arriving with a list of actions — and some offers from Washington to ease tensions — that he finalized in a meeting on Thursday with President Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and other top American security officials.
A senior administration official said Saturday that the United States would try to use as leverage the threat of Congressional cuts to the $3 billion in annual American aid to Pakistan as well as any evidence of Pakistani complicity in sheltering Bin Laden that is contained in the hundreds of computer flash drives and documents recovered in the commando raid on Bin Laden’s compound. So far, no such evidence has been found.
“In the Congress, this is a make or break moment” for aid to Pakistan, Mr. Kerry said in an interview just before he left for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Kerry said he would tell Pakistan that there needed to be “a real demonstration of commitment” to fighting terrorist groups in the next few months. But he will also reassure Pakistani officials that they will be a central part of any political accord with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to ease their fears that India will take over swaths of Afghanistan as the United States pulls out.
The Obama administration has said nothing about the public criticisms of the United States by the Pakistani government, hoping they are designed to alleviate the public’s anger and the Pakistani military’s embarrassment that American forces attacked the Bin Laden house without being detected by Pakistani warning systems. Mr. Donilon and other senior administration officials declined to be interviewed about the administration’s strategy.
The American reticence stems in part from the reality that such ultimatums have been sent before — most recently after the arrest earlier this year of Raymond Davis, a Central Intelligence Agency contractor who shot two Pakistanis during what he said was a robbery. Repeatedly, Pakistan has simply called the administration’s bluff and revealed the threats as hollow. The United States relies heavily on transit routes in Pakistan to supply American troops in Afghanistan, and any move to cut off aid would probably prompt Pakistan to shut the supply routes, as it has done during previous disputes.
The Kerry visit comes at the highest moment of tensions between the two countries since Pakistan, given little choice, formally broke with the Taliban and allied with the United States just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Kerry said that the moment had come for both countries to make “fundamental choices” about their relationship. “I have had some of these conversations with Pakistan before,” he said, “but never in the context of the world’s No. 1 terrorist being found 35 miles from the capital, next door to Pakistan’s West Point, and with the discovery he was fully, fully operational.”
Mr. Kerry’s main piece of negotiating leverage is Pakistan’s uncertainty about what officials are finding in the trove of computer data — which Mr. Donilon has compared to “a small college library” — about Pakistani complicity hiding the Qaeda leader. American officials say they believe the top leaders of the country were genuinely surprised about Bin Laden’s whereabouts, based on their reaction to phone calls from the administration on the night of the raid and electronic surveillance of Pakistani government communications.
But the officials strongly suspect that others in the government, the military or the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, the main intelligence service, were aware. So far the United States has not said what kind of inquiry Pakistan should conduct to answer those questions, and given the political atmosphere surrounding Bin Laden’s killing, they question whether any such investigation would be thorough or credible.
Mr. Kerry will also raise an issue that the administration has refused to discuss publicly: Pakistan’s escalating production of nuclear fuel to expand its arsenal of 100 or so nuclear weapons. Members of Congress, in closed sessions, have complained that since the $3 billion American annual aid to the Pakistani military is fungible, the United States is effectively helping bankroll the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world. “It will jeopardize funding if that continues,” Mr. Kerry said.
In fact, according to some officials, the administration is on alert for signs that Pakistan’s reaction to the Bin Laden raid could be an expansion, or repositioning, of its nuclear forces.
“The very public discussion that the raid showed the nuclear assets could be vulnerable to seizure may lead them to disperse them, or increase their number,” one United States official involved in monitoring Pakistan’s nuclear program said. “It’s a significant worry because the more they spread it around, the higher the risk something gets loose.”
The Pakistani Parliament’s resolution warned of a “strong national response” if any nation — clearly it meant the United States — sought to seize or immobilize the country’s nuclear arsenal.

On Capitol Hill last week, senior lawmakers warned that without answers to questions of possible Pakistani complicity in harboring Bin Laden, American aid could be imperiled. The House speaker, John A. Boehner, who visited Pakistan last month, told reporters on Thursday that the United States should remain engaged with Pakistan as an ally against terrorists, but that Pakistani leaders must prove their resolve to fighting terrorist groups.
“It’s time to look the Pakistanis in the eye and get a commitment that they are fully onboard with us,” Mr. Boehner said. “If we’re going to continue to provide aid and strengthen this relationship, I think we need to have a clearer understanding.”
Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, went a step further, saying he would cut off $1.5 billion in annual nonmilitary aid unless Pakistan explained how Bin Laden could have gone undetected for years and militant groups like the Haqqani network use Pakistan as a haven for attacks into Afghanistan.

Haiti

Haiti

Former pop star Michel Martelly has been sworn in as the new president of Haiti, taking over the impoverished Caribbean nation that is struggling to recover from last year's devastating earthquake.

Martelly took the oath of office Saturday on the grounds of the collapsed presidential palace in the capital, Port-Au-Prince. A power outage plunged the ceremony into darkness, but it was the first democratic transfer of power from one party to another in the country's turbulent history.

The 50-year-old performer known to Haitians as "Sweet Micky" was swept to power in the March presidential election and takes over from outgoing President Rene Preval.

Thousands of people displaced by last year's January earthquake joined dignitaries, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who led the United States delegation, in witnessing Martelly's swearing in. Edmond Mulet, head of the United Nations mission in Haiti, was there, as was Desi Bouterse, the president of Suriname, who is on trial for the 1982 executions of 15 political opponents.

Martelly faces the task of rebuilding Haiti's infrastructure.  He must work with a legislature controlled by the opposition party of Preval.

International donors have withheld billions of dollars in aid to Haiti until the new government can address the country's deep poverty, earthquake-shattered infrastructure and a cholera outbreak.

Haiti has struggled to rebuild following the earthquake that left more than 200,000 people dead and 1 million others homeless.

Hundreds of thousands of people still live in tent camps.

May 21 Judgement Day

A group of Christian activists led by Harold Camping claim that May 21 is the day of the Apocalypse.
Apparently, the apocalypse is near. There have been pamphlets, billboard signs and subway ads that says, “Judgment Day is coming.” These are the works of Christain activists who are not tied to any particular Church and their lone mission is to preach to everyone that the world will end on May 21, 2011.
The man behind the May 21 prophecy is Harold Camping, an 89-year-old radio host that has been at the prophecy game for years. In the early 90′s, he published a book entitled “1994?” wherein he claimed that Judgement day would come in September of that year. When confronted about the world not ending on Spetember 1994, he said that he was not discouraged and that he has to learn from his mistake of not considering the book of Jeremiah.

According to him, the world’s end on May 21 will be “starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth,” he said.
He also added that the true Christian believers will fly upward to heaven and as for the rest, “It’s just the horror of horror stories, and on top of all that, there’s no more salvation at that point. And then the Bible says it will be 153 days later that the entire universe and planet Earth will be destroyed forever.”

Ron Paul

Fresh from the early morning announcement of his candidacy for U.S. president on “Good Morning America,” Texas Congressman Ron Paul kicked off his campaign by rallying hundreds of supporters who packed into the Exeter Town Hall on Friday morning.
“The revolution is spreading and the momentum is building,” Paul said as he declared the nation is starting to catch on to his message of liberty, freedom and limited government.
Paul will seek the Republican nomination for the presidency for a second time and will be making his third overall run for the office.
“There are many that would like to belittle this effort but let me tell you there's an old saying, ‘three's a charm,'” he said.
Paul believes the political climate across the country has changed and more people feel government is overbearing and creating more problems than it's solving.
“It's so evident to this growing amount of people that the government isn't the solution, the government has really created the problem,” he said.
Much has been said in recent weeks about Paul's stance on the legalization of illegal drugs.
The congressman spoke to the issue at Friday's rally and received thunderous applause for his stance.
“You have a freedom of choice with your bodies, that I believe is a basic principal of liberty.”
He criticized the Food and Drug Administration for limiting patient access to new medicines.

Paul was also critical of the country's foreign policy and said it was time for the United States to stop policing other countries.
The presidential candidate also touched on eliminating the Federal Reserve, the country's central banking system.