The Bull's Eye

I'm literally speechless.

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Daughter shut away for three decades in bathroom

From Richard Owen in Rome

A 73-YEAR-OLD woman is being investigated for �kidnapping and maltreating a family member� after allegedly keeping her mentally disturbed daughter locked in a darkened bathroom for 30 years.

Police said that Annina Gentilezza had kept her daughter, Giuseppina, now 52, a prisoner in the top-floor council flat at Pescara, on the Adriatic coast. They raided the flat after being tipped off by Signora Gentilezza�s daughter-in-law.

They found Giuseppina curled in a ball in a tiled room measuring 7ft x 9ft containing a lavatory, bidet, sink and washing machine. Wires hung from the ceiling where the light had been disconnected. The room contained a camp bed and plastic dog bowls in which Giuseppina was allegedly fed leftovers.

Police said that instead of being washed Giuseppina was �hosed down� on the balcony. Nicola Zupo, the officer who led the raid, said that Giuseppina was sometimes left out on the balcony as a punishment, especially in the winter, and beaten. She was allowed out once a month with her mother and stepfather, but only to collect her invalidity pension.

Psychiatrists at a local hospital where Giuseppina has been taken said that she was beginning to talk. �She doesn�t want to go back home,� a hospital spokesman said.

taken from the Times Online. For full story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1995482,00.html

I tend to agree with these Jordanian papers... if Iran isn't allowed to have nuclear weapons, then Israel should also be taken to task.

Just another example of the double-standard and hypocrisy we see in the world today.

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Larger war if Iran' s reactors attacked

Amman (dpa) - The Jordanian press on Wednesday cautioned that any pre-emptive strike against Iran could trigger an "international armed conflict".

Jordanian papers urged Western countries to resort to dialogue for resolving the standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme and to stop adoption of "double standards" that ignores Israel's nuclear capabilities.

The daily Alarab Alyoum said in an editorial that a strike to destroy Iranian nuclear reactors would drag the entire region into "an international armed conflict".

"The problem of the Iranian nuclear dossier cannot be resolved through a pre-emptive strike as envisaged by the new conservatives in Washington and the Israeli Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu or by imposing economic sanctions, which are opposed by Russia, but rather through a decision by the American and European West to go back to reason and stop double standards," it added.

Another Jordanian newspaper, the English-language Jordan Times, said in its own editorial: "As for President George W. Bush's suggestion that force is an option, it is utterly irresponsible and unrealistic."

"Bluffing has taken the Bush administration nowhere so far, and it would be naive, to say the least, to think that this tactic could start working now," it added.

"It would only be fair and logical for the international community, after so firmly pursuing means to control Iran's nuclear programme, to ask Israel to hand over its nuclear arsenal," the Times said.

Taken from the Bangkok Post online, Jan.18, 2006: http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=73985

Livedoor probe: Tokyo bourse closes early for first time ever
Jan 18 1:20 AM US/Eastern

The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed early for the first time ever to prevent a feared system crash due to heavy trading volumes sparked by claims of fraud at Internet firm Livedoor.

The exchange operator suspended trading in all shares for the rest of the day at 14:20 (05:20 GMT), 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled close.

The Nikkei-225 benchmark index was down 464.77 points or 2.94 percent at 15,341.18 points shortly after trading was halted.

Livedoor's offices were raided late Monday for suspected illegal securities trading and other wrong-doings and Japanese newspapers carried fresh allegations Wednesday that the Internet firm cooked the books to hide losses.

taken from: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/18/060118055930.a8rk28hb.html

How exactly is the US "cooperating" if it refuses to allow its marines to be placed in Philippine custody?

This is why I hate the Visiting Forces Agreement. The US does this everywhere it goes... it has agreements that protect its soldiers from punishment, and that just upsets me, to be honest. (I'd say a lot worse things, but some kids read this blog too...)

And the US wonders why the world is really starting to hate it??? Are these folks really that clueless?

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US nixes RP request for custody of Marines in rape case
First posted 12:16pm (Mla time)
Jan 17, 2006
By Veronica Uy, Tetch Torres
INQ7.net (3rd UPDATE)

THE UNITED States has refused to turn over four Marines to the Philippines despite a warrant of arrest against them for alleged rape, citing a bilateral agreement that allows the US to keep custody of its troops in the country.

The US embassy in Manila officially conveyed this decision to the Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday by diplomatic note, which it released in a statement Tuesday.
But despite this the US promised to “continue to cooperate” with Philippine authorities as the Subic rape case “moves to trial under Philippine jurisdiction, in accordance with the Visiting Forces Agreement.”

The US embassy said the decision to retain custody of Dominic Duplantis, Keith Silkwood, Daniel Smith, and Chad Carpentier who were charged with raping a Filipina in the former American naval base in Subic, Zambales province on Nov. 1, 2005 was allowed under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).

“The custody over any United States personnel over whom the Philippines is to exercise jurisdiction shall immediately reside with United States military authorities, if they so request, from the commission of the offense until completion of all judicial proceedings,” the embassy said, quoting Article 5, paragraph 6 of the bilateral agreement.

Nonetheless, the US said it was “committed to seeing that justice was served, and looked forward to a fair and impartial process that could provide for a just outcome.”

Iran issues stark warning on oil price
War of words over trade sanctions

Robert Tait in Tehran
Monday January 16, 2006
The Guardian

Iran stepped up its defiance of international pressure over its nuclear programme yesterday by warning of soaring oil prices if it is subjected to economic sanctions. As diplomats from the US, Europe, Russia, and China prepared to meet today in London to discuss referring Tehran to the UN security council, Iran's economy minister, Davoud Danesh-Jafari, said the country's position as the world's fourth-largest oil producer meant such action would have grave consequences.

"Any possible sanctions from the west could possibly, by disturbing Iran's political and economic situation, raise oil prices beyond levels the west expects," he told Iranian state radio.
In a provocative move, Iran also announced plans yesterday to convene a "scientific" conference to examine the evidence supporting the Holocaust. The news comes weeks after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked a global outcry by describing the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in the second world war as a "myth".

For full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1687381,00.html

New leader's pledge: Unite Liberia
Inauguration for Africa's first elected female head of state

Monday, January 16, 2006; Posted: 8:27 a.m. EST (13:27 GMT)

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been sworn in as Liberia's new president, becoming Africa's first elected female head of state.

Sirleaf took the oath of office Monday at an inauguration ceremony in the capital of Monrovia attended by dignitaries and leaders from around the world.

The 67-year-old grandmother, who was elected in a run-off vote in November, has promised unite Liberia by ending political corruption and rebuilding her country after civil war between 1989 and 2003 left some 200,000 dead.

CNN correspondent Jeff Koinange, reporting from Monrovia, said Monday's high-profile ceremony would have been unthinkable just two years ago.

"This was literally a war zone. All that has changed," he said.

Taken from CNN.com. For full article: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/01/16/liberia/index.html

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Brief Biography

ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF
AGE: 67.
Born October 29, 1938 in Monrovia, Liberia.

EDUCATION: M.P.A., Harvard University, 1971. She also earned an economics diploma from the University of Colorado in 1970, and a B.B.A. in accounting from Madison Business College in 1964.

CAREER: A long-standing member of Liberia's political elite, Sirleaf served as finance minister under ex-President William Tolbert before he was toppled and killed in 1980 coup. She fled the country shortly afterward, taking up top jobs at Citibank, the United Nations and the World Bank.

RETURN TO POLITICS: In 1997, she made a failed bid for the presidency, losing to ex-president-turned-warlord Charles Taylor in a vote he won amid a climate of fear. After Taylor was forced into exile as part of a deal to end Liberia's civil war in 2003, Sirleaf returned to make a successful run for the presidency in late 2005.

FAMILY: Sirleaf is a widowed mother of four, and has eight grandchildren.

SOURCE: The Associated Press

Mexico and the United States
Shots across the border
Jan 12th 2006 MEXICO CITY
From The Economist
print edition

Plans for a border fence spark anger among Mexicans

COUNTRIES that claim to be the best of friends do not normally shoot across their mutual frontier. But on December 30th, an agent of the United States Border Patrol shot dead an 18-year-old Mexican as he tried to cross the border near San Diego. The patrol says the shooting was in self-defence, and that the dead man was a coyote, or people-smuggler. Vicente Fox, Mexico's president, made a diplomatic protest, and called for an investigation into the shooting. At the other end of the border, in Texas, Border Patrol agents were reportedly shot at from inside Mexico.

These incidents could hardly have come at a worse time. On December 16th, the United States House of Representatives passed by 239 to 182 votes a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin. This would make illegal immigration a felony, create a crime of employing or aiding undocumented migrants, and order “physical infrastructure enhancements” (ie, a fence) along more than a third of the 3,100 kilometre (2,000 mile) border.

The Sensenbrenner bill stands little chance of passing in the Senate. It is not backed by the Bush administration, which has campaigned for tougher enforcement to be combined with a guest-worker programme. This would help give legal status to some of the 10m or so migrants who are in the United States illegally (perhaps 60% of whom are Mexicans).

Nevertheless, the Sensenbrenner bill has caused outrage south of the border. Mr Fox called it shameful. He said migrants were “heroes”, who will in any event find ways to cross the border. Luis Derbez, his foreign minister, called the bill “stupid” and “underhand”.

for full article: http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5389611

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Ok... how in the heck does the US expect to control its borders when the President of Mexico calls illegal immigrants "heroes"???

I don't pretend to know all the answers, but in this situation I think the US is well within its rights to protect itself from illegal migrants. A nation has its own sovereignty, and can apply its own entry requirements to those seeking to travel there. I think Mexico's out of line here, but I understand the nature of self-interest, and since Mexico has an estimated 6 million illegal workers potentially earning dollars and shipping them back home, I can see why they wouldn't want any sort of crackdown on the practice.

This is a losing battle for the US. There's no way you can erect a wall long enough, and tall enough, to keep these Mexicans out. Not if it means a chance at a better life for them and their families. Blood, after all, is thicker than a visa regulation.

I'm sorry, but this is just beyond anything I can comprehend. I can't even begin to describe what I felt when I read this.

Have we gotten to the point where any kind of research, in the name of science and medicine, is now becoming acceptable? Is this what our society has ended up becoming? Where are our limits?

The fact that these scientists even asked for permission for this defies belief. Do they think this is going to be acceptable to the general public?

I just don't know what to say.

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Stem cell experts seek rabbit-human embryo ·

Hybrid will hasten research, say scientists·
Grey area exposed in regulation procedures

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday January 13, 2006
The Guardian

British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases.

The proposal drew strong criticism from opponents to embryo research who yesterday challenged the ethics of the research and branded the work repugnant.

Plans for the experiments have been put forward by Professor Chris Shaw, a neurologist and expert in motor neurone disease at King's College London, and Professor Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh University-based creator of Dolly the sheep, as a way of overcoming the shortage of fresh human eggs available for research.

For full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1685534,00.html

THIS would explain some of the bonehead moves by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question, though, is this:

Who's dumber, the guy who is stupid or the guy who puts a gun in the stupid guy's hands?

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GI Schmo
How low can Army recruiters go?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, at 5:06 PM ET

Three months ago, I wrote that the war in Iraq was wrecking the U.S. Army, and since then the evidence has only mounted, steeply. Faced with repeated failures to meet its recruitment targets, the Army has had to lower its standards dramatically. First it relaxed restrictions against high-school drop-outs. Then it started letting in more applicants who score in the lowest third on the armed forces aptitude test—a group, known as Category IV recruits, who have been kept to exceedingly small numbers, as a matter of firm policy, for the past 20 years. (There is also a Category V—those who score in the lowest 10th percentile. They have always been ineligible for service in the armed forces and, presumably, always will be.)

The bad news is twofold. First, the number of Category IV recruits is starting to skyrocket. Second, a new study compellingly demonstrates that, in all realms of military activity, intelligence does matter. Smarter soldiers and units perform their tasks better; dumber ones do theirs worse.

taken from www.slate.com
click here for the full article (http://www.slate.com/id/2133908/nav/tap1/?GT1=7641 )

Did anyone seriously think Saddam Hussein was going to get a fair trial?

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Saddam judge threatens to quit over govt pressure
Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:50 AM ET



By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein has tendered his resignation in protest at pressure from the Iraqi government on himself and the court, a source close to the judge told Reuters on Saturday.

The revelation will fuel argument over the U.S.-backed government's ability to give the former president a fair trial in the middle of the bitter sectarian and ethnic conflict that has raged since Saddam's overthrow three years ago.

I knew this woman was kooky, but I guess this confirms it. :)

To be honest, though, I really don't get the PETA. I mean, is there a humane way to kill a chicken? What do they want to do, scare them to death? I mean, these are CHICKENS for chrissakes! Most of the known world breeds them for food. We kill them, we steal their eggs. How can we possibly find a way to kill them that is "humane"?

Either you eat chickens or you don't. If you are a vegan, fine. Maybe you can say something. But how many PETA members are really vegans? In my opinion, if you eat chicken, you have no business talking about how "inhumane" some other chicken farmers are.

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Pamela Anderson Takes Aim at KFC
Jan 12, 10:41 PM EST


The Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Pamela Anderson is leading a charge to remove a bust of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders from the state Capitol.

The actress called the Kentucky native's likeness "a monument to cruelty" to chickens in a statement issued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group.

The statement did little to ruffle feathers in Gov. Ernie Fletcher's office.

"Colonel Sanders was one of Kentucky's most distinguished citizens, a great entrepreneur and a fine charitable man of faith, and he certainly has a place in Kentucky history. We believe he warrants appropriate recognition as such," Fletcher spokeswoman Jodi Whitaker said.

Anderson has been involved in a campaign to raise awareness of conditions in processing plants that supply poultry to the Louisville-based chicken chain.

In a letter to Fletcher, Anderson detailed alleged abuses of chickens by KFC suppliers. Among her claims, she said workers in a slaughterhouse in West Virginia have been filmed tearing the heads off live birds, spitting tobacco in their eyes, spray-painting their faces and slamming them on the ground.

KFC spokeswoman Laurie Schalow called the move to oust the colonel "just another misguided publicity stunt by PETA in their attempt to create a vegan society."

Ex-Enron execs trial testimony limited
Judge: Jurors at Lay, Skilling trial won't hear some info about California power crisis.
January 13, 2006: 6:42 AM EST


HOUSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled Thursday that jurors at the trial of former Enron Corp. chiefs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling will hear only limited testimony about Enron's manipulation of California energy markets but not about the extramarital affairs of potential government witnesses.

In a hearing ahead of the trial set to begin Jan. 30, U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake said the prosecution could not discuss at trial some evidence that showed Enron's role in manipulating California energy markets during the 2001 power crisis.

Defense lawyers had argued that material was not relevant to the seven charges facing Lay, the company's former chairman, or 35 charges facing Skilling, the former chief executive, in connection with Enron's 2001 collapse.

click on this link for the full story (http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/13/news/newsmakers/enron_trial.reut/index.htm )