tagged w/ sunday times
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Butterball Turkey Hotline Shares Roasting A Turkey Click shouldtoday.com – to watch Happy Thanksgiving 2010:The Good Food Channel tells you how to make the most of your roasting time by cooking your turkey upside down. Serious Eats shares the Roasted Brined Turkey ...Butterball Turkey Hotline Shares Roasting A Turkey Click shouldtoday.com – to... more
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Sports presenter Clare Balding's official complaint over an article in the Sunday Times that mocked her sexuality has been upheld.
In July, she complained to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over AA Gill's review of her new TV show, in which he called her a "dyke on a bike".
The paper defended its columnist on freedom of expression grounds.
The PCC ruled that some of the words were used in a "demeaning and gratuitous way".
The newspaper defended Gill by saying he was well-known for his acerbic and sometimes tasteless sense of humour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11333484Sports presenter Clare Balding's official complaint over an article in the Sunday... more
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Ramping up the rhetoric of war in a volatile region can lead to a misstep and once the dogs of war are off their leash, it will be hard to bring them to heel
April 3, 2010 |
When Israeli Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled said recently that a war with Lebanon's Hezbollah was "just a matter of time" and that such a conflict would include Syria, most observers dismissed the comment as little more than posturing by a right-wing former general. But Peled's threat has been backed by Israeli military maneuvers near the Lebanese border, violations of Lebanese airspace, and the deployment of an anti- missile system on Israel's northern border.
The Lebanese are certainly not treating it as Likud bombast.
"We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats," Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told the BBC. "We see what is happening on the ground and in our airspace.during the past two months-every day we have Israeli airplanes entering Lebanese airspace." Hariri added that he considered the situation "really dangerous."
The increasing tension was behind the recent visit to Beirut by Senator Philippe Marini, French President Nicholas Sarkozy's special envoy to Lebanon. After Marini met with Hariri, Christian Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, and Hezbollah leaders, the envoy said that he feared a Hezbollah-Israel rematch could easily become a regional war.
Rhetoric all over the region is heating up.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman first said that Israel would never return the Golan Heights to Syria, prompting Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al- Muallem to comment that Israel "should not test Syria's determination." Lieberman responded by taking direct aim at Syrian President Bashar Assad: "In the next war, not only will you lose, but you and your family will lose the regime."
Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006 following a Hezbollah raid that captured two Israeli soldiers. The 34-day war cost Lebanon more than 1,000 dead, and tens of billions of dollars in damage to bridges, roads, airports, and towns. But the war also saw the once-invincible Israeli Self-Defense Forces (IDF) fought to a bloody standstill, and a barrage of some 4,000 Hezbollah rockets into Israel.
Many in the Israeli military would love to re-establish the IDF's reputation by beating up on Hezbollah, but the Shiite-based militia has broad support throughout Lebanon, as the last elections demonstrated. While the "pro-western" March 14 Movement won the most seats-largely as a result of ethnic gerrymandering-the Hezbollah bloc won the most votes. In any case, the March 14 Movement has begun to unravel with the defection of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
Lebanon's military is no match for Israel. It has a small army and its air force consists of two grounded 1950s vintage Hawker Hunter fighter-bombers, plus a motley collection of helicopters, most of which are not operational. In the 2007 fight with Islamic extremists in Tripoli, Lebanese Army soldiers pitched bombs out of French Gazelle helicopters by hand.
The Israelis are threatening to flatten the entire country if it comes to war-"taking off the gloves" as Israel military analyst Yisrael Katzover puts it-and they certainly have the capabilities to inflict a stunning amount of damage. But Hezbollah claims it has some thunder of its own. Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader, vows to bring Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport under fire if Israel bombs Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport as it did in 2006. "If you hit our ports, we will hit your ports," Nasrallah said Feb. 21.
Does the war have the potential to become regional?
Only if Israel decides to make it so. While the Netanyahu government talks about Hezbollah being little more than a cat's paw for Iran and Syria, the group has deep roots in the country's long-repressed Shiite majority. It does receive arms from both Damascus and Iran, and Teheran also gives the group about $200 million a year in aid. That is, however, a tiny portion of Hezbollah's annual budget.
Lebanon's Shiites are also quite different than their Iranian counterparts. While Iran's mullahs dominate civil and economic matters, Lebanon's Shiites are suspicious of direct involvement in government, because they believe that it will ultimately corrupt Islam. A number of Iraq's Shiites, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, come from a similar current in the Shiite sect.
Hezbollah is quite aware of the damage that Israel can inflict, and, is consequently unlikely to do anything provocative. As Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian and former Israeli Knesset members writes in Al-Ahram, "Hezbollah has made it clear it intends to avoid giving Israel any excuse to go to war."
Israel has moved its new Iron Dome anti-missile system to its northern border, even though the original plan was to deploy it in the south to intercept rockets fired from Gaza. The system is supposed to be up and running by June. "Making Iron Dome operational will transform Israel's diplomatic and security situation," says Israeli Defense Ministry director general Pinhas Buchris.
Given that Hezbollah has not fired a rocket at Israel since the summer of 2006, why would Tel Aviv move Iron Dome to the northern border unless it was to assure the Israeli public that it will not come under fire in the advent of a new war? In any case, Iron Dome is unlikely to transform anything, since anti-missile systems tend to be more about hype and hope than performance.
There is, of course, the possibility that the Israelis will bet the house and hit Lebanon, Syria and possibly Iran's nuclear facilities. The rhetoric coming out of the Netanyahu government ties all three countries together, which is why Peled lumped Syria with Lebanon. The standard line coming out of Tel Aviv is that Iran is behind everything, including Hamas.
Many in the Israeli establishment openly advocate attacking Iran. Danny Yaton, former head of Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, told the German Council on Foreign Relations "The entire world should take military action to prevent Iran from getting the bomb."
The Sunday Times (London) reports, "According to well-placed sources, Israel is speeding up preparations for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear sites." The Israeli daily Haaretz says that the Netanyahu government is asking the Obama administration to supply Israel with GBU-28 "bunker buster" bombs and refueling tanker aircraft, both which would be essential for a strike at Iran.
But some in the Israeli military establishment seems reluctant to launch such an attack. Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, an Israel war hero and a man the Sunday Times calls a "pillar of the defense establishment," says that Iran is a "very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capacity." Eilam charges, "The intelligence community is spreading frightening voices about Iran," and that such an attack would be "counter productive."
Maybe this is all saber rattling aimed at getting the U.S. to step up the pressure on Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Maybe, as Eilam charges, it is all about the IDF getting "a bigger budget." Maybe it is a diversion from the charges that Israel committed war crimes in its invasion of Gaza, its settlement building on the West Bank, and the diplomatic storm it has reaped from its assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai.
But ramping up the rhetoric of war in a volatile region can lead to a misstep-by accident or design-and once the dogs of war are off their leash, it will be hard to bring them to heel.
Late development: The U.S. is transporting 387 bunker-busters, including BLU-110 and massive BLU-117 bombs, to the British controlled Island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, suggesting that Washington is still contemplating an attack on Iran-or wants Teheran to think so.Ramping up the rhetoric of war in a volatile region can lead to a misstep and once the... more
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The Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in June, owner News International (NI) has announced.
Users will pay £1 for a day's access and £2 for a week's subscription.
The move opens a new front in the battle for readership and will be watched closely by the industry.
NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks said it was "a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition".
Right! well that's the last time I read the Times, in print or on the website! mind you, being owned by a creature that is rupert murdoch, you cant expect no less than money hungry whores.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8588432.stmThe Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in... more
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Animal welfare groups voiced outrage today after the restaurant critic AA Gill said he shot a baboon on safari "to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone".
In a Sunday Times column, Gill recounted in detail how he shot the creature from 250 yards while hunting in "a truck full of guns and other blokes" in Tanzania. He said he felt the urge to be "a recreational primate killer" before shooting the animal through the lung.
what a tosser, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/26/aa-gill-shot-baboonAnimal welfare groups voiced outrage today after the restaurant critic AA Gill said he... more
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The central government of Sri Lanka has won a few months ago, apparently permanently, a decades old civil war against Tamil separatists living in the north of the island, or rather against Tamil Tigers, the armed political organization that has long dominated the area. After the victory it was hoped that the Sri Lankan Government would abandon the policy of repression against all forms of opposition that has always carried with the convenient excuse of fighting terrorism. But nothing like that happened.The central government of Sri Lanka has won a few months ago, apparently permanently,... more
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The Sunday Times Rich List is out and surprisingly, the recession has wiped out £155bn (that's a third of their wealth) from the Britain's 1000 richest people.
Lakshmi Mittal and family tops the list with £10.8bn, but lost £16.9bn (that's a 61% lost) from last year. The highest entry with a profit from last year was Sir Ken Morrison and family at number 16, with a profit of £160m (total was £1.61m - lasy year £1.45m).
the list will be online at http://timesonline.co.uk/richlist from Tuesday afternoon.The Sunday Times Rich List is out and surprisingly, the recession has wiped out... more
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BT Group said a full update regarding any further job cuts would be given with its full-year results next month, dismissing a Sunday newspaper report citing 10,000 job losses as speculation.
The Sunday Times said the cuts would come on top of the 10,000 jobs already lost over the group's last financial year.BT Group said a full update regarding any further job cuts would be given with its... more
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The Sunday Times has made a clarification on their website after they claimed that two searches on Google generate as much CO2 emissions as boiling a kettle (14g is what they claimed), not so...
Google has argued that it generates 0.2g of CO2 emissions (0.4g for two searches), which the paper has clarified. The senior source of The Sunday Times stands by with the story.The Sunday Times has made a clarification on their website after they claimed that two... more
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