An unsung Second World War heroine who saved more than 100 lives and survived a Nazi death squad has died aged 105.
Andree Peel, who was known as Agent Rose, helped 102 British and American pilots escape from her native France.
The resistance fighter was imprisoned in two concentration camps but was liberated and went on to settle in Long Ashton, Bristol, after the war.
She was the most highly decorated woman to survive the conflict and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by her brother, General Maurice Virot.
Mrs Peel was awarded the War Cross with palm, the War Cross with purple star, the medal of the Resistance and the Liberation cross.
She also received the American Medal of Freedom from US President Dwight Eisenhower, as well as the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct, presented to her by King George VI.
Dr Liam Fox, Conservative MP for Woodspring, Somerset, paid tribute today to Mrs Peel's 'selfless bravery'.
He said: 'Mrs Peel was an iconic figure who showed phenomenal courage in the most difficult circumstances.
Mrs Peel, whose maiden name was Andree Virot, settled in Bristol after she met and married Englishman John Peel, who died in 2003, after the war.
The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation has announced the 2010 Razzie winners, recognizing the worst in film in a ceremony in Los Angeles.
American actress Sandra Bullock topped the event receiving two Razzies as the worst actress and screen couple. As she had promised, Bullock attended the ceremony in person to receive her award.
The 46-year-old actress has also been nominated for the 2010 Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in John Lee Hancock's Blind Side.
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Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Wouldn't it be nice if Razzie awards could be given to politicians?
"Maimonides was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1135 and fled from Christian persecution to Muslim Egypt where he died in 1204."
This is false although some history books had this. It was Moslem persecution (of the convert or die variety) in Spain led to Maimonides going to Morocco. Moslem persecution there led to him going to Egypt.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/08/2010 8:10 Comments ||
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#2
Actually a number of Jews fled the persecution of Almoravides and Almohades to... Christian Spain.
U.S. troops are withdrawing from the shattered capital, leaving many Haitians anxious that the most visible portion of international aid is ending even as the city is still mired in misery and vulnerable to unrest. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Posted by: ed ||
03/08/2010 00:00 ||
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#4
As troops packed their duffels and began to fly home this weekend, Haitians and some aid workers wondered whether U.N. peacekeepers and local police are up to the task of maintaining order.
#7
Check out the history on Haiti : the only time in the past hundred years that the country was worth a damn was during the State Department occupation period. Most of the schools, roads, bridges, and hospitals in the country were built then BY US Marines and State Dept. hires.
In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies dont count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young womena figure unprecedented in a country at peace.
According to CASS, China in 2020 will have 30m-40m more men of this age than young women. For comparison, there are 23m boys below the age of 20 in Germany, France and Britain combined and around 40m American boys and young men. So within ten years, China faces the prospect of having the equivalent of the whole young male population of America, or almost twice that of Europes three largest countries, with little prospect of marriage, untethered to a home of their own and without the stake in society that marriage and children provide.
Parts of India have sex ratios as skewed as anything in its northern neighbour. Other East Asian countriesSouth Korea, Singapore and Taiwanhave peculiarly high numbers of male births. So, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, have former communist countries in the Caucasus and the western Balkans. Even subsets of Americas population are following suit, though not the population as a whole.
The real cause, argues Nick Eberstadt is not any countrys particular policy but the fateful collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility.' These are global trends. And the selective destruction of baby girls is global, too.
South Korea is experiencing some surprising consequences. The surplus of bachelors in a rich country has sucked in brides from abroad. In 2008, 11% of marriages were mixed', mostly between a Korean man and a foreign woman. This is causing tensions in a hitherto homogenous society, which is often hostile to the children of mixed marriages. The trend is especially marked in rural areas, where the government thinks half the children of farm households will be mixed by 2020. The children are common enough to have produced a new word: Kosians', or Korean-Asians.
#4
South Korea is experiencing some surprising consequences.
As late has the 80s most of the girls in the bars, and many future 'war' brides, outside of American installations were native Koreans. Now it appears from the net, they're imports largely from the Philippines. The Philippines also seems to supply the same trade in Japan. It will be interesting in a decade or so given the degree of tribalism, let alone racism, that underpins Asian societies. Not only didn't the Americans have problems marrying regardless of origin, but they had no reluctance to also adopted the orphans and small ones that their own society refused to incorporate. I suspect the Philippines could also put a dent into the Chinese problem, but the xenophobic elements of Chinese history and culture will probably inhibit it.
#5
Procopius,
The problem is one of scale. South Korea has half the population of the Philippenes, Japan has 30% more people. China has 15 times as many people.
Importing outside women will just be a band aid. I fully expect China to turn its young males loose on its neighbors, where they will conquer or die. Either outcome will be good for the ruling clique.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/08/2010 11:27 Comments ||
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#6
They do not mention it by name but here is the cuase:
ABORTION.
Any questions now about the evil effects of elective abortion?
#7
These young men won't be the children of successful people. In Chinese cities, girl babies fit in just fine and people don't think anything of it. It's only in the rural provinces where sons mean the difference between a retirement of indolence versus being alone.
If they could just have 'both families' like we do, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. But a woman becomes part of the husband's family and must take care of his parents. I wonder who came up with that idea, eh?
The head of China's Central Bank has declared that the country is ready to end pegging its currency in dollars, but said that any changes would be gradual.
Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, described the decision as a "temporary" response to the global financial crisis, but gave no timescale for any change in policy.
"If we are to exit from irregular policies and return to ordinary economic policies, we must be extremely prudent about our choice of timing," Zhou said. "This also includes the [yuan] exchange rate policy."
His comments come as the US administration accuses China of artificially keeping the value of the country's yuan low.
"China and its currency policies are impeding the rebalancing [of the global economy] that's necessary," President Obama had told Bloomberg last month.
"My goal over the course of the next year is for China to recognize that it is also in their interest to allow their currency to appreciate because, frankly, they have got a potentially overheating economy," Obama said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2010 00:00 ||
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All of the 26 Swiss cantons on Sunday voted against the proposal by animal rights activists to extend nationwide a system already in place in Zurich. Overall, just 29.5 per cent of voters were in favour. In seven cantons the "No" vote was more than 80 per cent.
The Alpine country already has among the most stringent animal rights laws in the world. It recently changed its constitution to protect the "dignity" of plant life and made a law last year establishing rights for creatures such as goldfish and canaries. Pigs, budgies and other social creatures cannot be kept alone; horses and cows must be regularly exercised outside their stalls and dog owners are required to take a training course to learn how to properly care for their pets.
If citizens had voted for the initiative, each canton would have appointed a lawyer to act on behalf of animals at taxpayers' expense.
The government, parliament and the country's biggest party, the Right-wing Swiss People's Party, were against the proposal. On Sunday Jakob Buechler, a lawmaker for the centrist Christian People's Party, said: "The Swiss people have clearly said our animal protection laws are so good we don't need animal lawyers."
Opponents also included farmers, already struggling with reduced subsidies and falling milk prices. Many feared the introduction of animal lawyers would lead to costly and unnecessary bureaucracy. No, really?
The president of the Swiss Farmers' Union, Hansjorg Walter, said: "Voters have taken a pragmatic decision and acknowledged that Switzerland has one of the strictest animal welfare laws. "The Union wants proper enforcement of animal welfare. Violations harm the image of farmers. But there are stringent checks and penalties for misconduct are already severe."
Sunday's referendum took place after activists from the Swiss Animal Protection (SAP) collected more than the 100,000 signatures required to force a national ballot. In order to win the vote, a majority of cantons and voters were needed.
The canton of Zurich has had its own animal lawyer since 1992. Antoine Goetschel's clients include dogs, cats, guinea pigs, farm animals and, recently, a large pike.
"It took 10 minutes of struggle to reel the pike in before killing it. I regard that as cruelty. If someone had done that to a puppy, there would have been outrage," he said. He should never go deep-sea fishing ...
"People accused of animal cruelty very often hire lawyers to defend themselves. Why shouldn't someone speak for the animal as well? It's about fairness and defending a minority." What did the pike think?
He said it was "a pity" that the vote had been rejected, but that he was not surprised. He said: "Animal welfare has been a big topic in Switzerland in the last few years and perhaps this has been too much for some Swiss. Also, for some the institution of an animal lawyer is too bizarre."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/08/2010 00:00 ||
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#4
"People accused of animal cruelty very often hire lawyers to defend themselves. Why shouldn't someone speak for the animal as well? It's about fairness and defending a minority $$$$$$."
#5
There is a line in the film "The Third Man" where Orson Wells character says (loosely from my memory) "... the swiss had 500 years of democracy and all they managed was the cuckoo clock". Well at least the Cuckoo part was spot on.
#6
Does anyone remember the movie set in Medieval France, The Advocate? They had a lawyer arguing for a cow.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/08/2010 9:28 Comments ||
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#7
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly.
#8
I don't know in art but for technology Sswizerland is, relative to the numbers of inhabitants, one of the two powerhouses for technological innovation just behind Israel.
So you could tell that the Italians had the Borgias and weren't able to invent a fricking clock who tell "Cuckoo".
#9
If the Swiss continued this nonsense, eventually everyone would have to become a vegan. Which would kill the entire animal farming industry - cows, beef, pigs, pork and so on.
No problem - everyone would be "healthier".
Of course, since they have already changed their constitution to protect the "dignity" of plant life, eventually they would probably extend that to protect the lives of all plants. Eating plants would become a crime.
Of course, if you can't eat meat (or eggs or milk), and you can't eat plants, what are you supposed to do? Eat rocks and dirt(which would probably next on the list of things to be protected)?
I suppose the Swiss would then try to require people to develop personal photosynthesis.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/08/2010 17:32 Comments ||
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#10
"if you can't eat meat (or eggs or milk), and you can't eat plants, what are you supposed to do?
The Swiss could ask the NorKs for tips, Rambler. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/08/2010 19:14 Comments ||
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At the end of a discussion of Haiti on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, actor Sean Penn went on a rant in defense of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, suggesting prison time for American journalists: "every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation has announced the 2010 Razzie winners, recognizing the worst in film in a ceremony in Los Angeles. 
All of the 26 Swiss cantons on Sunday voted against the proposal by animal rights activists to extend nationwide a system already in place in Zurich. Overall, just 29.5 per cent of voters were in favour. In seven cantons the "No" vote was more than 80 per cent.
