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Obama welcomed by all living past, present US presidents at White House lunch

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:58:00 -0500

US President-elect Barack Obama met with all living past and present presidents of the country for lunch at the White House.

The meeting, which has been dubbed as an “extraordinary gathering” by Obama, saw George H W Bush, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and the President-elect himself standing together in the Oval Office of the White House for a photo opportunity.

The US presidents showed their unity and offered their welcome to Obama, who stood out from the rest for his youth and his race.

“One message that I have and I think we all share is that we want you to succeed,” the Telegraph quoted George W Bush as saying.

“We wish you all the very best, and so does the country,” he stated.

Obama in return thanked his predecessors for joining him and said that he valued the opportunity to “get advice, good counsel and fellowship from these individuals” and learn “from their successes”.

Not much is known about the conversation that went on between the presidents, but Clinton was heard making idle talk with President George W Bush before they headed into the adjoining dining room.

“I just love that rug,” Clinton said to Bush, as he looked down at the pale gold rug with sunbeam design.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said that all were curious as to what they talked about.

“All of us would love to be flies on the wall and listening to that conversation,” Perino said. (ANI)

MTV wants women who hate their boobs

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:58:00 -0500

MTV has placed an ad looking for women who are not happy with their twin assets.

The ad featuring in Backstage is seeking "real women" for an upcoming documentary called "True Life: I Don''t Like My Breasts."

"We are not looking for girls who just want to get boob jobs . . . mainly we are looking for girls who seek nonsurgical solutions,” The New York Post quoted the ad as stating.

The ad further read: “Whether it''s your breasts'' size, shape, deformation, etc. - if you feel like your breasts are keeping you from having the life you want . . . then we want to hear from you." (ANI)

US Secret Service to unveil Obama''s limo on Jan.20

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:57:00 -0500

The US Secret Service is expected to unveil the new limousine that incoming President Barack Obama will travel after he assumes office as the 44th head of state on January 20.

According to CNN, Obama will climb into a Mother of All Hybrids -- part car, part truck and, from the looks of it, part tank. The Secret Service will place the brand new presidential limousine into service January 20 to drive the new president on the two-mile jaunt down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade.

The presidential vehicle is built to precise and special specifications, undergoes extreme testing and development, and also incorporates many of the top aspects of Cadillac''s ''regular'' cars -- such as signature design, hand-cut-and-sewn interiors, etc."

For much of the country''s history, the Secret Service didn''t even drive the president. In the post-Lincoln horse-and-buggy era, it was customary for a security detail to closely trail the president, according to a Secret Service history.

With the advent of automobiles, the Secret Service acquired a 1907 H. White Steamer to follow Theodore Roosevelt''s horse-drawn carriage.

White House chauffeurs drove later presidents, until the Secret Service assumed many of the driving responsibilities after Franklin Roosevelt''s death in 1945.

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson was the first president to ride in a bulletproof limo in an inaugural parade, less than two years after his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, was shot and killed while riding in an open car.

According to The Times, the “Obamobile” will be a monster gas-guzzler made by General Motors, the troubled car giant.

It will look like a black Cadillac but is built like a tank. The armour-plated car, which has a raised roof, windows up to five inches thick, extra-strength tyres and a body made of steel, aluminium, titanium and ceramics, is thought to be based on a GMC 2500 truck that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon.

Three cars are believed to be in production so that two can serve as decoys.

Israel to open humanitarian corridor in Gaza Strip

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:55:00 -0500

Israel will set up a "humanitarian corridor" for the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert''s office said, after aid agencies complained of a mounting crisis for the enclave''s 1.5 million Palestinians.

The Telegraph quoted Olmert''s office as saying in a statement that the corridor had been recommended by Israel''s military chiefs and would entail granting periodic access to various areas of the strip to allow Palestinians to stock up on vital goods.

An Olmert spokesman, Mark Regev, described the measure as a "special status to allow the transfer of people, foodstuffs and medicines" and said it could be implemented on Wednesday.

It comes as the first signs of a ceasefire in Gaza have emerged as an Egyptian-brokered settlement appeared to be gaining broad support.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington backs a proposal by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to end the fighting in Gaza.

"We need urgently to conclude a ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security," Miss Rice told the special session of the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday.

Earlier, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, indicated that he was open to international efforts to end hostilities against the Hamas.

He said the fighting could stop if Israel was sure that supplies of weapons to Hamas would be severed by international monitoring of Gaza''s border with Egypt.

Militant fighters have launched thousands of rockets at southern Israel and the prime goal of the offensive is to halt this barrage. (ANI)

FBI concerned about ''cybergeddon'' hitting US next

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:55:00 -0500

:Cyber attacks pose the greatest threat to the United States after nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction - and they are increasingly hard to prevent, FBI experts say.

Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI''s cyber division, told a conference in New York that computer attacks pose the biggest risk "from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities".

"Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive weapon, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence, the threat to our computer network is the most critical threat we face," news.com.au quoted him as saying further.

US experts warn of "cybergeddon", in which an advanced economy - where almost everything of importance is linked to or controlled by computers - falls prey to hackers, with catastrophic results.

Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety in New York state, described "a huge threat out there" against everything from banking institutions to municipal water systems and dams.

Henry said terrorist groups aim for an online 9/11, "inflicting the same kind of damage on our country, on all our countries, on all our networks, as they did in 2001 by flying planes into buildings".

A web attack of that scale has not yet happened in the US, but computer hacking - once something of a sport for brilliant delinquents - is rapidly evolving around the world as a weapon of war. (ANI)

Terror threat just a hoax: NYPD

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:52:00 -0500

New York Police has described a chilling terror warning spreading across the U.S. and Israel as a hoax.

The threat, which has popped up on forwarded e-mails and blog posts across the world, warned of an attack in New York on Wednesday.

According to the New York Daily News, the warning originated with a Muslim cab driver who told a Jewish woman he picked up of a January 7 plot.

"There is no terror plot or threat connected to the rumor that is circulating inNew York and in other cities abroad," the paper quoted Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, as saying.

"There are several variations on the rumor, but it is just that, the latest urban myth," he added.

City Hall and the NYPD were alerted to the viral message days ago, officials said. (ANI)

US remains top Of Global Innovation Index rankings, India ranked 41

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:51:00 -0500

The Second Global Innovation Index 2008 (GII) jointly published by Confederation of Indian Industry and INSEAD Business School, has once again placed United States at the top of the Global Innovation Rankings. India, on the other hand, is ranked a lowly 41.

The GII that has studied 130 countries has ranked Germany in the second position, followed by Sweden, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

The European economies including the Nordic ones continued to do well in 2008. Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands figured in the top 10 apart from Germany, Sweden and UK that figure in the top 5. However, France was the biggest loser slipping from the 5th to 19th position.

Singapore and South Korea are two Asian countries figuring in the top 10. However, Japan has slipped to the 9th position from the 4th and India its last year''s ranking of 23rd to the 41st position. With China ranked at 37th, most BRIC countries have been ranked lower than last time. Israel and Qatar from West Asia and Middle East find places in the top 25. There are other countries from the Middle East just below this quartile.

The GII results have revealed that innovation is correlated with income levels in a country. For example, the innovation levels in the OECD countries are much more than non-OECD countries. There are few countries from Africa that are included in the rankings with only South Africa coming in at the 43rd position.

Over the years, through its own research, INSEAD has examined the many factors enabling national economies to achieve sustained and higher innovation capabilities. The goal has been to provide benchmarking tools for business leaders and policymakers to identify obstacles to improved innovation and competitiveness and stimulate discussion on strategies to
overcome them.

This time and earlier in 2007, INSEAD based its innovation analysis on the Global Innovation Index (GII) and Framework,
a highly comprehensive index for measuring global innovation, which captures the microeconomic and macroeconomic parameters and variables.

CII has over the years, taken a pioneering role in building a culture of innovation in Indian industry and society. It is CII''s belief that the only way for Indian industry to have sustainable and inclusive growth is to adopt innovation as a business strategy. With this belief, a number of initiatives have been taken by CII in the area of innovation. To make
a successful plan and roadmap for action, there is a need for India to align the measurement gauge with similar benchmark practices adopted globally.

Innovation is no longer restricted to the vertical structures of R and D laboratories and universities. Therefore an approach that goes beyond the number of patents registered, number of articles published in research journals and percentage of GDP spending on R and D measuring innovation is needed. This is the key assumption behind the approach used in this study.

The GII while arriving at the results has made a distinction between inputs and outputs while measuring innovation in an economy. Inputs are aspects that enable an economy to stimulate innovative and outputs are the results of innovative activities within the economy. The input pillars include Institutions and Policies, Human Capacity, General and ICT
Infrastructure, Market Sophistication and Business Sophistication.

The output pillars that provide evidence of the results of innovation within the economy are Knowledge Creation, Competitiveness and Wealth Creation.

The data for the GII was collected from reputed international organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the International Telecommunications Union. In particular, a combination of qualitative and quantitative data is used for the computation of the GII. The qualitative data is obtained from the Executive Opinion Survey, a global CEO survey conducted by the World Economic Forum. (ANI)

To allow aid to flow, Israel temporarily halts attack on Gaza

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:50:00 -0500

Israel has temporarily stopped attacking Gaza to allow aid supplies and fuel to reach the 1.4 million residents of the territory.

Sky News quoted the Israeli military as saying that firing would be stopped for three hours every day to allow the movement of essential aid.

The deputy leader of the Hamas also promised on Al Arabiya television that the group would not launch missiles during that time.

Meanwhile Israel''s President Shimon Peres has said that he is willing to consider a permanent cease-fire, but maintained that his people were victims in the Gaza conflict.

"If it happened in London, you wouldn''t wait a minute. Your people would ask why your government couldn''t stop it. We are not trigger-happy; we do not want to do this. We are not asking for surrender or submission. We are simply entitled to our security like anybody else," Peres was quoted, as saying.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has been meeting in New York to find a solution to the continuing war. A plan drawn up by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has attracted support from his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel has now begun talks with Egypt and Western powers over Cairo''s proposal, Israeli officials said, describing the plan as a "work in progress".

However, in Damascus, a senior advisor to the leader of Hamas said the militant group would not accept proposals of international monitors on border crossings.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has said that he would travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week to convince the leaderships there of the need to reach a ceasefire. (ANI)

History unlikely to be kind to Bush

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:50:00 -0500

History is unlikely to be kind to outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, reports Politico.

Experts contacted by the paper-cum-website opine that Bush is departing from the White Houses with probably the lowest approval ratings for any American president, past or present.

Appraisals of presidents sometimes change over time, and sometimes they don’t.

According to Politico, Harry Truman was deeply unpopular in his time, but is now revered.

His predecessor James Buchanan let the country slide towards a civil war in the 1860s and is still considered America’s worst president.

So how will America see the Bush legacy?

It seems reasonable to assume that his place in history will hinge upon his handling of three catastrophes that all happened on his watch: the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of America’s financial system.

Bush’s response to 9/11 includes his decision to invade Iraq, and the list of his failures in the run-up to the invasion and its aftermath will be hard if not impossible for him to overcome entirely in virtually any historical debate.

Bush’s only possible way of coming off well in the future is if Iraq emerges as a stable democracy and its neighbors follow suit.

The second catastrophe that is most likely to stain Bush’s reputation will be his administration’s inept reaction in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Bush was woefully out of touch and utterly incapable of saving New Orleans residents as their city was inundated.
The third catastrophic development that occurred during Bush’s tenure is the still-unwritten story of America’s financial collapse and economic ordeal — the worst since the Great Depression, according to many economists.
For Bush, there’s no escaping the economic crisis; it will remain a centerpiece of any debate about his historical reputation.

Simply put, he is going to shoulder the lion’s share of the historical blame for the economy’s collapse in 2008.

Then there’s a final, stark reality about Bush’s historical reputation: This president is likely to have few staunch allies at his side 20, 30, 50 years out.

Historians and fellow conservatives are by and large disillusioned with Bush. They see in him not another paragon of conservative courage in the mold of Ronald Reagan but rather an apostate to the conservative cause.

Conservative intellectuals, pundits and policymakers will be more likely to tar Bush as a traitor to conservative principles than to defend him as a clear-eyed comrade-in-arms and a man of foresight and wisdom. (ANI)

Brit church removes cross saying it scares kids and puts people off

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:50:00 -0500

The cross depicts the Christian faith all over the world, but a church in Britain has decided to remove it as it is too scary for kids and also puts people off.

Reverend Ewen Souter, of Horsham, West Sussex, decided to remove the crucifix in his church after he found it to be “a horrifying depiction of pain and suffering”.

The 10ft sculpture was removed from St John’s, and to the anger and bewilderment of some in his congregation, an ultra-modern stainless steel cross was placed.

“The crucifix is the oldest and most famous symbol of Christianity,” the Mirror quoted one long-standing member of the church as saying.

“Pulling it down and putting up something that would look more at home on the side of a shopping centre is not the way to get more bums on seats. Next they’ll be ripping out the pews and putting sofas in, or throwing out all the Bibles and replacing them with laptops. It’s just not right,” the member added.

But Rev Souter, who has been vicar at St John’s since 2001, believes the modern new cross, which was designed by artist Angela Godfrey, will present “a positive message of hope”.

“The crucifix expressed suffering, torment, pain and anguish. It was a scary image, particularly for children. Parents didn’t want to walk past it with their kids, because they found it so horrifying,” he said.

“It wasn’t a suitable image for the outside of a church wanting to welcome worshippers. In fact, it was a real put-off.

“We’re all about hope, encouragement and the joy of the Christian faith. We want to communicate good news, not bad news, so we need a more uplifting and inspiring symbol than execution on a cross,” he added. (ANI)