New occupations boom in the rise of China
China Daily
BEIJING -- Jewellery appraisers, sign language interpreters and disabled children caregivers have become new occupations in China as classified by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
About 2,000 occupations have been confirmed by the ministry in China up until now, including eight batches of eighty-six new occupations publicized since 2004. The ministry releases new occupation lists three to four times a year.
New occupations, including pet health caregivers, professional pet trainers, coffee baristas and gold investment consultants, have made people's lives more convenient and changed the way of living of many citizens.
Storm Brings New Woes to Travelers at Kennedy
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK — Fourteen hours after boarding a flight to North Africa to take part in a 151-mile marathon across the Sahara, Jeremy Colgan completed an endurance feat of a different kind yesterday. He got off the plane, which never left Kennedy Airport.
The Royal Air Maroc jetliner had circled the airport — at ground level — for twice as long as its scheduled flight to Casablanca, Morocco. It was de-iced twice. The second time, it had the bad luck to fall in line behind an airplane that broke down inside the de-icing station.
After the pilot gave up and taxied back to the gate at about 10 a.m., Mr. Colgan, 35, said that a voice on the loudspeaker told a planeload of people whose mood ranged from annoyed to angry: “We deeply apologize for the delay. The gods are against us.”
Disorder in King George's Court
MSNBC
WASHINGTON -- At highly charged moments, attorney General Alberto Gonzales can seem placid, passive—at times, just plain out of it. In the summer of 2002, high-level Bush administration officials met to debate secretly a delicate issue: how aggressively could the CIA interrogate terror suspects? While the lawyers from Justice, Defense and the vice president's office hotly debated definitions of torture (at times discussing specific interrogation techniques), Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel, sat by and said virtually nothing. The attorney general's behavior was typical, say administration officials who have worked with him. His defenders say he likes to keep his counsel. Others wonder if he's ill prepared, insecure or simply has nothing to say.
Last week Gonzales's bland, what-me-worry? smile seemed to fade. He appeared slightly forlorn as he answered hostile questions from reporters at a hastily called press conference. He was asked about the role of the White House in firing a group of U.S. attorneys. "As we can all imagine," he began, "in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice ... " He was aware, he said, that there was "a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the U.S. attorneys. That was immediately rejected by me." The impression was that Gonzales was merely responding to the ill-considered scheme of his successor as White House counsel (Harriet Miers); that he, personally, had not been in the loop for a series of controversial decisions that have set off a congressional brouhaha over the dismissal of one U.S. attorney in the summer of 2006 and seven more in December..
Indian Muslims for Taslima’s beheading
DAILY TIMES PAKISTAN
An Indian Muslim group has offered a Rs 500,000 ($11,334US)bounty for the beheading of controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen. The president of the All India Ibtehad Council said on Friday he had declared the reward for anyone who carried out the “quatal” or “extermination” of the “notorious woman”. “Taslima has put Muslims to shame in her writing. She should be killed and beheaded and anyone who does this will get a reward from the council,” Taqi Raza Khan said in a statement received in the northern city of Lucknow. The council, based in Bareilly town also in Uttar Pradesh state, is a splinter group of the influential All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Khan said the only way the bounty would be lifted was if Nasreen “apologises, burns her books and leaves”. Nasreen has incensed conservative Muslims for writing a novel “Lajja” or “Shame” depicting the life of a Hindu family facing the ire of Muslims in Bangladesh. The book is banned in Bangladesh along with her autobiographical works on grounds of being anti-Islamic. The author was forced to flee her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her execution.
Four years on, war costs Bush at home and abroad
REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four years after he began the Iraq war, a diminished President George W. Bush has sacrificed much of his domestic agenda and eroded U.S. credibility abroad in pursuit of the sort of nation-building he once scorned, analysts say.
The president's job approval ratings have fallen from 90 percent shortly after the September 11 attacks to just over 30 percent.
He forfeited the dream of cementing Republican control over Congress and his administration is increasingly under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Three dead in Thai school attack
CNN
SABAYOI, Thailand (AP) -- Attackers hurled explosives and opened fire on an Islamic school in southern Thailand, killing three students and sparking a riot by angry Muslim villagers, officials said Sunday.
Shortly after the attack, three Buddhists were shot dead in the same district, raising fears that a festering insurgency that has already taken more than 2,000 lives could erupt into open combat between the Muslim and Buddhist communities.
Attackers hurled explosives and sprayed dozens of bullets into a dormitory of the Bamrungsart Pondok boarding school, where about 75 boys were sleeping, killing a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds, police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri said.
Death to the Krispy Kreme: the Parents Jury has spoken
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
IT'S fat-laden, sugar-coated and for some, seriously addictive. But the polarising Krispy Kreme doughnut has become a pariah among health-conscious parents, and now they're passing sentence.
Today, the Parents Jury - a 2500 member online activist group which has vowed to tackle the unethical marketing of junk food - is expected to pronounce Krispy Kreme Australia guilty, or rather most guilty, of what it says are underhand marketing techniques, by directly plying its wares to children through school and sporting fundraisers.
But Krispy Kreme is strongly disputing this, saying it has never directly approached schools to use its fundraising services.
Prepare for vote, PM says
TORONTO STAR
TORONTO -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached out to more than 4,000 boisterous Conservative party faithful last night and told them to get ready for another federal election.
An election where he will define his party as the only one that is tough on crime and will stand up for working families, support the troops in Afghanistan, remain close to the United States, cut taxes and protect the environment.
"Let the NDP defend the vocal interests. Let the Liberals defend the vested interests. Let the socialists promise tax increases. Let the Grits protect tax loopholes," Harper told the crowd, many of them bused in from across the province to add to those already attending a campaign school at the Toronto Congress Centre.
Technorati Tags:
2007,
headlines,
March 18, 2007,
life,
world news
