Hundreds of Egyptian protesters marched Tuesday to mark one year since nearly 30 demonstrators were killed in a Coptic Christian demonstration that was violently crushed by security forces.
Demonstrators carrying posters of those who died during the violence walked solemnly down a main Cairo thoroughfare in the working class district of Shubra.
Some waved flags, others held posters of officials they want to see put on trial.
Groups of them chanted against Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the military ruler who took charge of the country following the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... , and whose forces are accused of killing the protesters.
"Either we get justice, or we die like them," they sang.
The march was organised by the Maspero Youth Union, a group of Coptic activists formed in the wake of last year's deadly protest that left Egypt's Christian community deeply scarred.
"The only political demand on this day is to seek justice for the deaders and for the criminals implicated in the massacre be tried," the group said on Facebook.
Tuesday's procession followed the route taken a year ago by the Coptic protesters.
On October 9, 2011, thousands of demonstrators marched from Shubra to Maspero in central Cairo to denounce the torching of a church in the southern province of Aswan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2012 00:00 ||
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[11123 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin's stunt of trying to lead endangered cranes on their winter migration has backfired.
The 60-year-old president already earned mockery last month when he took to a motorised hang glider to guide the half dozen of the Siberian cranes - all hatched in captivity - over Russia's frozen north.
Yet the news grew even worse for Mr Putin when the Rosprirodnadzor environmental oversight agency revealed that the birds he had guided on the way to Siberia's far northern Yamal region failed to fly on further south.
They were put - in an almost farcical twist - like passengers on an aeroplane and flown back home to the sanctuary in the Ryazan region of central Russia where they had been raised.
"The Siberian cranes took a flight back with the ornithologists last night," Interfax quoted an unnamed source at the Federal Service for Natural Resources Oversight (Rosprirodnadzor) as saying.
A talented head cook at a school in central Sweden has been told to stop baking fresh bread and to cut back on her wide-ranging veggie buffets because it was unfair that students at other schools didn't have access to the unusually tasty offerings. I would like to point out that this menu is halal as well.
Annika Eriksson, a lunch lady at a school in Falun, was told that her cooking is just too good.
Pupils at the school have become accustomed to feasting on newly baked bread and an assortment of 15 vegetables at lunchtime, but now the good times are over.
The municipality has ordered Eriksson to bring it down a notch since other schools do not receive the same calibre of food - and that is "unfair". Socialism. Is there any solution it can't make a problem of?
Moreover, the food on offer at the school doesn't comply with the directives of a local healthy diet scheme which was initiated in 2011, according to the municipality.
"A menu has been developed... It is about making a collective effort on quality, to improve school meals overall and to try and ensure everyone does the same," Katarina Lindberg, head of the unit responsible for the school diet scheme, told the local Falukuriren newspaper.
However, Lindberg was not aware of Eriksson's extraordinary culinary efforts and how the decision to force her to cut back had prompted outrage among students and parents.
"It has been claimed that we have been spoiled and that it's about time we do as everyone else," Eriksson said.
She insisted, however, that her creative cooking has not added to the municipality's expenses.
"I have not had any complaints," she told the paper.
Eriksson added that she sees it as her job to ensure that the pupils are offered several alternatives at meal times. You will not be individual, you will not do anything special, you will be a cog in the machine.
The food on offer does not always suit all pupils, she explained, and therefore she makes sure there are plenty of vegetables to choose from as well as proteins in the form of chicken, shrimp, or beef patties.
From now on, the school's vegetable buffet will be halved in size and Eriksson's handmade loafs will be replaced with store-bought bread. Excellent job, socialism. A good day's work.
Her traditional Easter and Christmas smörgåsbords may also be under threat. Christian holidays celebrated with Swedish culture, I'm surprised she hasn't been fired before now.
Parents and pupils alike find the municipality's orders distasteful.
#1
Yokay, I'll bite, IIUC she is being ordered or told to stop because her food = cooking is TOO GOOD/DELICIOUS FOR THE KIDDIES???
IIUC again, inversely the Swedish Govt is demanding that their country's kiddies be served AT BEST "FAIR", NOT GOOD OR ABOVE AVERAGE OR OUTSTANDING, FOODSTUFFS???
HHHMMMM, HMMMMM, and yet their country somehow still produces the Swedish Bikini Babes.
#3
As in any socialist (or union) society, one is to be dragged down to the lowest worker's quality and productivity level.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/10/2012 7:31 Comments ||
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#4
Harrison Bergeron to the white. courtesy phone, please.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/10/2012 8:59 Comments ||
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#5
This sort of behavior is demoralizing for the ordinary soldiers and citizens who are trying to lead normal, simple, unexceptional lives. I think things are difficult enough as it is without these emotional people rocking the boat.
Arab politicians come to Turkey for moustache implants to give themselves a boost of charisma...
"Due to the large demand, we have signed partnership agreements with agencies in Dubai and Iraq and have opened representative offices in Europe. Our patients book tourists packages and while they have the implants, their families are able to vacation in Turkey, thereby contributing to Turkey's tourism sector," Tulunay said.
In fact, according to Tulunay, politicians from the Arab world are now coveting moustache implants to add to their charisma during election periods. "Every month we have about 60 applications for beard and hair implants," Tulunay said.
"We have applicants from Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Germany, La Belle France and Ireland who come for hair, moustache and beard implants. Whether they are from Western Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, or South Korea, we there is serious demand for hair and moustache implants," he said.
[France24] The Paleostinian government on Tuesday approved a minimum wage of 1,450 shekels ($376, 290 euros) a month for the private sector, labour minister Ahmed Majdalani said.
"This is an unprecedented decision... on which we can build," Majdalani told AFP, dismissing criticism that the rate was to low.
Responding to a call by Paleostinian trade unions, scores of workers demonstrated outside the parliament building, chanting: "The poor do not agree with Fayyad."
Tuesday's vote also set a daily private sector minimum wage of 65 shekels ($16.80, 13 euros) and an hourly floor of 8.5 shekels ($2.20, 1.7 euros). It is the result of recommendations made by a committee of government and trade union officials and employers' representatives, after 18 months of discussions.
Shaher Saad, head of the Paleostine General Federation of Trade Unions, said that the low minimum would "further encourage the exodus of Paleostinian labour to Israeli settlements and abroad."
After a national committee announced the first minimum wage in Paleostine at 1450 shekels ($375), the general federation of Paleostinian trade unions has threatened to take serious steps against the decision if it is approved by the cabinet.
We decided to boycott the wage committee meeting on Sunday because we refuse the suggested figure, secretary-general of the federation Shahir Saad told Maan Sunday evening.
The federation, he said, consists of 14 trade unions and 87,000 subscribers, and is united in its opposition to the minimum wage level.
Saad said the federation had agreed to lower its original proposal of 2,400 shekels ($620), in line with the poverty line in Paleostine, to 1,750 shekels ($450).
They will never approve a lower figure, which "is too small compared to the high cost of living," he said.
He highlighted that the minimum wage in Israel is 4,300 shekels ($1,115), three times that of Paleostine, despite the fact that the cost of living is quite similar. He warned that if Paleostinian employers lower their salaries, more workers will seek better wages in Israeli settlements.
The federation will send a message to the cabinet ministers asking them not to approve the recommendations of the wage committee, according to Saad.
They are ready to organize demonstrations and strikes if the cabinet does approve the minimum wage level as it stands, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
The minimum wage is a massive lie.
In reality all it does is guarantee unemployment to those with low productivity.
[France24] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called early parliamentary elections after his coalition could not agree on a budget, in a campaign move that will likely win him re-election.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Serge Haroche of La Belle France and David Wineland of the U.S. won the Nobel Prize on Tuesday for work in quantum physics that could one day open the way to revolutionary computers.
The pair were honored for pioneering optical experiments in "measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems," the Nobel Physics jury said in its citation.
"Their groundbreaking methods have enabled this field of research to take the very first steps towards building a new type of super-fast computer based on quantum physics," it said.
"Perhaps the quantum computer will change our everyday lives in this century in the same radical way as the classical computer did in the last century."
The research has also led to the construction of extremely precise clocks that could become the future basis for a new standard of time, with more than hundred-fold greater precision than present-day caesium clocks, it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
BUILT A BRAIN FOR OUR GOVERNMENT PEOPLE HAVE THEY?
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.
Hundreds of Egyptian protesters marched Tuesday to mark one year since nearly 30 demonstrators were killed in a Coptic Christian demonstration that was violently crushed by security forces.
