The Law Takes The Otherside      

Police join protests in Tunisia

Thousands of demonstrators including police officers, lawyers and students, have taken to the streets of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, in another day of unrest in the North African country.

At least 2,000 police officers participated in Saturday’s demonstrations, according to the Associated Press news agency. They were joined by members of the national guard and fire departments.

Crowds gathered in front of the office of Mohamed Ghannouchi, the interim prime minister, and on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the main street of Tunis.

The rally was the latest in a month of turmoil that toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s longstanding ruler, sending him into exile in Saudi Arabia on January 14.

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Surprising absolutely no one, the DPJ has indicated that it will retool its election manifesto and “scale back” popular programs like the “monthly child allowance and the elimination of expressway tolls.”

It was reported that Kota Matsuda of Your Party was the richest of the 121 legislators who won a seat in the July upper house elections. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s Coffee Japan chain, claims ¥486 million in assets.

Television stations around the country decided to extend the deadline for eliminating their analog broadcasts until late July. Which begs the questions: what’s analog TV?

The media flurry surrounding the successful Hayabusa mission wasn’t enough to save JAXAi, the Japan Space Agency’s information center, which shut its doors last month due to budget cuts.

Blackwater Invades Somalia Hoping To Bring The Same Tragedy And Destruction They Gave Iraq      

Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy

‘Prince of Mercenaries’ who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia

Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.

The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to media in the United States, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops that will be loyal to the country’s United Nations-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.

You Must Destroy It So You Can Destroy it More    



House GOP group proposes deep spending cuts over next decade

Congressional conservatives on Thursday demanded far more dramatic reductions in government spending than House GOP leaders have recently proposed, in the first sign of a fissure between old-guard Republicans and tea-party-backed newcomers.

Members of the conservative Republican Study Committee said the GOP must keep its campaign pledge to immediately slice at least $100 billion from non-defense programs, an effort that would require lawmakers to reduce funding for most federal agencies by a third over the next seven months. And the group called for even deeper cuts over the next decade to return non-defense spending to 2006 levels.

Let The Show Trials Begin After All Who Needs Real Jurisprudence      



U.S. Prepares to Lift Ban on Guantánamo Cases

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing to increase the use of military commissions to prosecute Guantánamo detainees, an acknowledgment that the prison in Cuba remains open for business after Congress imposed steep new impediments to closing the facility.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to soon lift an order blocking the initiation of new cases against detainees, which he imposed on the day of President Obama’s inauguration. That would clear the way for tribunal officials, for the first time under the Obama administration, to initiate new charges against detainees.

Who Cares If You Destroy The Environment Profit Margins Are At Stake      



Last refuge of rare fish threatened by Yangtze dam plans

The last refuge for many of China’s rarest and most economically important wild fish has mere days to secure public support before it is trimmed, dammed and ruinously diminished, conservationists warned today.

The alarm was raised after the authorities in Chongqing quietly moved to redraw the boundaries of a crucial freshwater reserve on the Yangtze, which was supposed to have been the bottom line for nature conservation in one of the world’s most important centres of biodiversity.

It’s OK You Can Tell Me I’m Hu Jintao! Really      



China Leader’s Limits Come Into Focus as U.S. Visit Nears

With President Hu Jintao at the helm, China has become a $5 trillion industrial colossus, a growing military force, and, it sometimes appears, a model of authoritarian decisiveness, navigating out of the global financial crisis and sealing its position as the world’s fastest rising power.

But as Mr. Hu prepares to visit Washington this week in an attempt to defuse tensions with the United States, Obama administration officials are grappling with what they describe as a more complex reality.

America The Only Industrialized Nation Whose Conservative Political Party Works To Deny  Health Care For Its Citizens        



The Truth and Consequences of Repeal

Get ready for more theater on Capitol Hill. House Republicans plan to push through legislation this week to repeal the health care reform law.In deference to the new vows of civility, the tone of the debate may be a bit more restrained. But Republicans have already said that they will not strip the word “killing” from the bill – which is titled, “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” Civility apparently goes only so far.

While repeal will certainly pass the House, it has no chance in the Senate. So House Republicans are already planning other ways to undermine the reforms, like denying agencies enough money to hire personnel to carry out the program.

SCREAM AWAY, KIDS

Bullet trains running between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka have introduced “family cars” for people with kids in tow, allowing them “to feel more at ease traveling with rowdy or crying children.”

The education ministry announced that nearly 5,500 Japanese schoolteachers took sick leave for depression and “other mental disorders” during the past academic year.

An anonymous donor left ten randoseru knapsacks worth a total of ¥300,000 at a children’s welfare facility in Maebashi on Christmas Day.

Officials at the Saitama Children’s Zoo gave their capybaras-large rat-like creatures from South America-a hot yuzu-filled citrus bath on winter solstice.

Two Countries That Have Vastly Different Views Of The World Whats Not To Mistrust    



‘Distrust lingers on both sides,’ Clinton says of U.S.-China relations

Reporting from Washington – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the U.S.- China relationship does not fall “neatly into black-and-white categories like ‘friend’ or ‘rival.’ ”

Clinton, assessing the important relationship in a speech in advance of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington next week, acknowledged that in President Obama’s first two years in office the two nations have had “some early successes, but also some frustrations.”