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Thursday, April 4, 2013

"Hiroshima II O.o"


"Wiping out the smoking community, one lunch break at a time"


"I love Being Infromed.. It's probably that teabaggin granny.."


"It's that new atomic cloud mushroom pizza YUM! I gotta try that!!"


MOMMY! HELP! MOM! DAD! GRANNY! ANYBODY? HELP ME!!!


"so which is his "baby" ?"

""This is not the police vehicle you're looking for.""


"It's not a fail, I just love to make snowman inside my car!"


"who says cats are dumb"


"That´s not an ass. It´s the shoulder of the girl who is takin the pic"


"Obama = FAIL"


Stevie Parle's warming spring lamb recipes

The late winter/early spring period – or the ''hungry gap''– is the worst time for a cook. Even now it is still too early to find many British-grown spring ingredients, so I'm relying on tiny sweet peas and fresh broad beans from Italy and Spain.
Easter is early this year, and winter still seems to have us in its claws. But if you follow my advice you can work round the dearth of ingredients, and cock a snook at the bitter weather at the same time. My recipes will lend a fresh twist to the turbocharged Sunday roast that most of us have on Easter Day.
I've taken ideas from some of my favourite food cultures. This Mexican lamb shoulder recipe is a bit like a classic American pulled pork, but with lamb – it works really well and it's worth adding the chillies (coolchile.co.uk), though paprika also works well.
The lamb stew is delicious, too – the first of the peas (or frozen of course), slow-cooked with the lamb. Don't worry when they lose their colour, they'll taste all the better for it.
Lamb raan is a perfect Indian-style roast. I cook mine a bit less than is traditional, so that the delicate spring lamb is still a little pink. The cauliflower salad is far from traditional, but it makes the whole thing sing – you only need to open some lime pickle and cook up some rice and it's a real feast.
Or, for a more traditional approach, try my rack of lamb with potatoes dauphinoise. The anchovies might sound strange if you haven't used them like this before, but they are a classic combination with lamb and bring a wonderful savoury depth to the dish.
None of these recipes are much harder than a normal roast, so it's worth giving them a go – you'll still be able to spend time doing what is important, sitting and eating with friends and family.

Easter 2013: the best wines to drink with chocolate

Chocolate and wine? Never been sure about this. There are some wines that actually taste of chocolate; super-rich, oaked cabernet francs from Argentina, for instance, can be reminiscent of milk chocolate, and there is a bitter cocoa nib note in some of the carmenère and cabernet sauvignon that comes out of Chile.
Putting these two important food groups (which is how I think of them) together, I sometimes fear it is too much of two good things. A direct route to a migraine? A distraction?
Yes, well. Very many people seem to crave both at once. And it is Easter. There are chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs to be nibbled (or melted down and turned into desserts). So all right – off we go.
First of all, with sweet food of any kind, look for sweet wines. Many claim that dry red is good with chocolate. In reality it's not just that dry with sweet can feel uncomfortable (the sweet element makes the other seem withered and fatigued); the tannins in the wine emphasise those in the plain chocolate. The result is violent: the oral equivalent of an emergency stop in the outside lane of the motorway at 90mph.
"Tannin in chocolate plus tannin in wine is vile," says the wine and chocolate expert Sarah Jane Evans (yes, I know, and before anyone gets ideas, that job's taken). "But the disaster can be mitigated if you choose a bar or a chocolate that has texture, i.e. nuts, possibly sea salt or a very fine layer of fruit jelly.

Blackberry posts surprise profit


BlackBerry returned to a profit last quarter due to a radical cost-cutting plan the once dominant smartphone maker is undertaking alongside the launch of a new deviceThe surprise fourth-quarter profit came as BlackBerry said it had sold 1m of its new Z10 phone, which went on sale in the UK shortly before the quarter finished on March 2.
While Wall Street has welcomed the retrenchment from a company that invented the multi-billion pound smartphone market in the late 1990s, it is the reception its new phone receives from consumers and businesses that will determine its future.
Thorsten Heins, the German who has run BlackBerry since January last year, insisted that the its new phone and operating system is the "most innovative mobile computing platform in the market.”
Given the phone only went on sale in major markets such as the US last week, analysts said it remains too early to judge whether the device will be enough to wrestle back share from Apple and manufacturers that use Google's Android software such as Samsung.
Blackberry said it had sold about 1 million of its new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone in the fourth quarter.
The latest results did show that the $1bn (£660m) cost-cutting programme embarked on last year is polishing the company's margins.
The Canadian company posted a profit of $98m for the quarter compared with a loss of $125m in the same period a year ago. Analysts had forecast a loss. BlackBerry had cash of $2.9bn at the end of the quarter, little changed from a year earlier.
However, revenues dropped 2pc to $2.7bn for the quarter, trailing the $2.83bn that Wall Street has forecast. The mixed performance reflects the twin pressures on Mr Heins to both grow sales with a new phone while keeping a tight rein on costs.
heins
Mr Heins took the top job early last year after BlackBerry investors lost patience with the company's co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who were joint chief executives.
BlackBerry, which changed its name from Research in Motion last month, said on Thursday that Mr Lazaridis is stepping down from the board in a move that severs any official connection with the company he co-founded in the Canadian town of Waterloo.
BlackBerry said it will spend 50pc more on advertising the Z10 phone – that will available with a touch-screen as well as a keyboard – in the current quarter as it tries to capitalise on an initial launch that impressed some analysts. Its results for this quarter should deliver a "break even" financial performance, BlackBerry said, without giving more detail.
Despite Mr Heins's confidence, the scale of the challenge facing BlackBerry was underlined by Thursday's results. They showed that over the last 12 months revenues collapsed 40pc to $11.1bn, as it swung to a loss of $628m for the financial year from a profit of $1.2bn the year before.

Beats Executive headphones review


Beats brands targets the frequent flyer crowd with noise cancelling and muted design.Beloved of Premier League footballers, Beats headphones, with their distinctive red wires, have become a familiar sight on the streets. The hip-hop cache provided by their creator, Dr Dre, has been a big part of that success.
With Beats Executive though, the brand is targeting an older, less flashy market. They are aimed squarely at the frequent flyer, corporate crowd and offer a serious challenge to Bose's QuietComfort range by incorporating active noise-cancelling electronics.
Aesthetically, Beats Executive are a great success. The shiny plastics and garish branding of ordinary Beats headphones are gone, replaced by subtlety and an all-over quality feel. There's no mention of Dr Dre anywhere.
All brushed aluminium and soft leather, they look and feel tailored for globe-trotting executives.
The materials used mean this is not a light headset, but enough care has been taken with the padding and adjustability that once you have them on it's easy to drift off to music on a long haul flight, or settle in for a movie in relative seclusion without feeling weighed down.
The noise cancelling, powered by two AAA batteries, is excellent, and as good as that offered by Bose. It can be turned on or off via a switch on the right earpiece, and used without listening to anything, if silence and sleep is all you crave. Beats claims the batteries last 25 hours and I achieved about that on two recent trips.
The sound has that distinctive Beats quality - plenty of bass - although it is nowhere near as unbalanced as on their standard headphones and is generally excellent.


They're not cheap, but the sound is almost on a par with Bose's offerings, and for my money, the hardware is better put together and looks nicer.
The in-line remote control offered the only disappointment, as although perfectly well made and serviceable, it is cast in plastic and just not as nice as the headphones.
Such a minor gripe would not stop Beats Executive headphones becoming an essential part of my travel kit, however.

Battlefield 4 preview

As a preview of Battlefield 4 gameplay is released, Phill Cameron is impressed by the new singleplayer focus
'Battlefield' isn't a name that lends itself to heroics. It's workmanlike, sparse, matter-of-fact. It's nothing to do with Duty, or Honour, or Courage, concepts that inspire and evoke in equal measure. Battlefield games have never been about the actions of an individual, but rather the sense of a place, and a moment. Championed by their huge multiplayer, they're about being in the middle of the fight, with buildings crumbling around you as jets careen overhead, engines vomiting thick plumes of smoke as they go down. It's about the chaos of war, and being just one soldier among many.
It's not about any one story, but Battlefield's developers DICE would really like it to be. As much as it's a game that's always been defined by its multiplayer, they're still leading with the singleplayer narrative, so maligned in Battlefield 3, now back with a vengeance in Battlefield 4. The reason? Karl Magnus Troedsson, CEO at DICE, shrugs and puts it simply: "We feel like we have more story to tell."
Or, to put it another way, they're looking to improve and expand, create a singleplayer story that's worthy of the frenetic, brilliant, chaotic multiplayer that's always been the trademark of the Battlefield games. They don't fit the linear mould that's served Call of Duty so well for so long. They're not about funnelling you down a ratrun while fireworks explode overhead. And it seems that DICE has learned that lesson.
bf3
The demo starts with Bonnie Tyler, and the kind of dead end that only Bonnie Tyler is appropriate for. Four soldiers trapped in a sinking car, with only Total Eclipse of the Heart for company. It's claustrophobic, and deliberately so. Over the course of twenty minutes, the level moves through one location after the other, each one giving the player a little more freedom, and placing a little more emphasis on the player's choices.
The idea is to emphasise the new direction that Battlefield's singleplayer is taking, giving you bigger environments that offer more choices. In Karl Magnus' words, "there are some signature components of multiplayer that we want to bring into singleplayer. It's not about copy and pasting, but it's going to be a mix. There will be times where we control the player, and we dial the action up to eleven, but there will also be times where we bring the multiplayer values in, and it's really up to you at that point."
There was only one time in the demo where those ideas were allowed to manifest, when the player stumbles upon an abandoned building site, all bleached sand and weathered breeze blocks with rebar thrusting accusingly out at the sky. That's it's all but a sandbox doesn't feel like an accident, and the with it being so large, it wasn't hard to imagine all the different ways you might approach the situation.
Still, it's difficult to imagine it'll ever quite achieve the highs of surprise and excitement that has always been such a compulsion when heading into the multiplayer side of things. AI is still AI, and a singleplayer story is always going to be facing forward, chivvying you along in one way or another. Whether DICE have cracked the code is still very much up in the air.
More importantly, what will carry over into the multiplayer are all the improvements inherent in the constantly evolving engine that powers all the impressive graphical effects and even more impressive destruction that the Battlefield has become so known for. We're on the third iteration of the 'Frostbite' engine now, and rather than charging forward with ever more flashy and eye-catching effects, DICE are focusing more on the nuance and finesse of the engine, to really sell you on the reality of the game, both in the world you play in, and the characters you play with.
"It's not the amount of polygons that matters any more. What matters is the experience you convey to the players." Back in the sinking car, you're confronted with the face of Michael K Williams, most famous for playing Omar Little in The Wire. He's lost his recognisable facial scar, but the veracity with which his face is realised is nothing short of astounding. More than that; the animations run with a natural flow that's difficult to notice. It's hard to tell what's canned, specific to the single player campaign, and what's more of a result of what's happening around you, but if half of what you see can make it into the multiplayer, it's going to be close to uncanny.
bf5
That extends to the world, too. The wind buffets and billows around cloth and leaves alike, making the smoke from explosions and fires furl and swirl around itself in exactly the way you would imagine it would. Even the explosions have depth and power to them, the black plume shot through with a ferocious orange. Everything feels tangible, which was true enough of Battlefield 3, but it's as though the lamination has worn through here, and the grits getting between your toes.
There's never going to be enough information in 20 minutes of footage to tell you everything you need to know about a game as large as Battlefield 4. But it's enough to give you a taste, and to give you a feeling of the tone and intention that DICE are going for, and as far as the singleplayer goes, they're headed ont he right track. Battlefield should be about freedom, and extolling the virtues of the multiplayer. If they can carry that through the entire campaign, while at the same time throwing out enough set pieces to keep things interesting, and enough meat to the story to make you care about what you're doing, there's no reason Battlefield 4 couldn't be strutting around the first person shooter genre with the best of both worlds.
But, well, that's a lot of ifs.

Nuclear plant accident

One dead, three hurt in Arkansas nuclear plant accident 

An industrial accident at an Arkansas nuclear power plant killed one worker and injured three others on Sunday, but there was no release of nuclear material, authorities and the operator said.
A generator fell as it was being moved out of the turbine building at Entergy Corp's Arkansas Nuclear One plant in Russellville, Entergy said in a statement.
"There was no nuclear release of any kind," said Ed Barham, a spokesman for the Arkansas Health Department.
The injured workers were transported to a hospital, Entergy said.
The plant's Unit 1 was off line for refueling and Unit 2 automatically shut down and there is no danger to the public, it said.
The accident is classified as a unusual event, the lowest of four emergency classifications by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Entergy said.

Vatican will not recognize Kosovo

The Vatican will not recognize Kosovo, claims Serbian Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkić, adding that some countries could rescind their decisions to recognize Kosovo.
Ivan Mrkić (Beta, file)

Commenting on a fact that Kosovo PM Hashim Thaci attended Pope Francis’ enthronement, he said:
“The ceremony of the pope’s enthronement is in a way an act that surpasses politics. So Thaci was a guest just like all other guests, thousands of them. This can probably be explained with the nature of the event, general Christian messages.” 
Mrkić told daily Večernje novosti that Serbian officials had been assured that the Vatican would not change its stance on Kosovo.

Tirana: Fire in a parking

A large-scale fire involved today evening the parking lot of an 10-story building in the of 'Don Boskos'. Fire allegedly dropped in the parking lot of the complex 'Vision Plus' burned several cars.
Parking guard initially claimed to have seen at least two cars burned. According to police burned cars are a Ford AA plate 081 CJ and another vehicle Mitsubishi tip.
The decline of the fire has caused panic to residents of the complex after the fire in all the surrounding area ceased electricity for safety reasons.

Personal address statistics Facebook


facebookstats thumb


Facebook Fan Pages have special applications that show statistics on the number of users, comments and all other activities that take place in it.
For personal addresses is a little more difficult to obtain accurate data for statistics.
A successful application for this type of information is the service offered on Wolfram Alpha.
By clicking on this page, once you are registered and have accepted the terms of use can get statistics for your site.
Key data for the average age of your friends, their location, number of comments to be made ​​and what effect they had them to your friends.
Also there is a lot of data on your clocks stay on Facebook and commented photos and more money from friends.

Falls out of the van critically school student


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Was going home as usual with a van to take every day but today it occurred it almost should not.
A student was seriously injured as a result of severe wounds received as he fell out of the van that are trasportonte home.
Learned that the event had occurred at village Krajk Bulqiza. The van was transporting to house students as each day after the end of the lesson.
Injured child was immediately admitted to the hospital in the city and is in serious condition.
Suddenly, the police is investigating on the causes that led to this tragedy really

First images of Mother Teresa Memorial to be established in Skopje



Socpie


Published the first images of the new memorial dedicated bamirëses large Albanian Mother Teresa that is expected to rise in the center of Skopje in Macedonia.
Pictures taken from a small model of the memorial, dedicated nun who won the Nobel Peace Prize was published by Libertas informative website. Macedonian authorities meanwhile have made no comment. Local officials set the foundations of the new memorial in January this year and there is still no figure how much it would cost new statue. What is known is that the money for the memorial were promised by Indian billionaire Subrata Roy, who has several businesses in Macedonia. He proposed that the memorial is called "Statue of Humanity"

Video that shocked the world and no one explains dot?!











Although the footage was filmed by chance and are original, from a central street, still today no scientific cycles is not able to explain!
Rivijnë stage film footage of security cameras filmed on a central street in China, where a while a truck is moving in his direction on a regular basis, a person with no bike looks and continues to walk ...
As you will see in vidoen alb-observer.com you presents, his death was for sure! But exactly at the appropriate moment in qindtën qindës the second was an "angel" and saved ...!
 Although several months have passed from the event none of the scientific cycles can not give a concrete and convincing explanation, even most of that comes in contact with this video, after analyzing it by studying in detail, can not "find" that detail or reason to explain scientifically!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Galaxy S4: retailers draft in extra staff as orders taken


Retailers have drafted in extra staff to cope with the rush of orders for Samsung’s recently unveiled new smartphone, the Galaxy S4.
The Galaxy S4 was unveiled by Samsung at a glitzy launch event in New York last month.
The new phone, boasting eye-scrolling technology that can tell when you have read to the bottom of the screen, was well received and the first customers in the UK are due receive their handsets at the end of April.
Today retailers were taking orders for the S4 for the first time. The only retailer that has listed a SIM-free price for the phone is the Carphone Warehouse, which prices the handset at £629.95.
Most people, however, will buy the phone under contract, which – if they want the handset free up-front – will see them paying roughly £41 per month over two years.
“Since the device was unveiled, we’ve seen an extremely high level of consumer interest – with tens of thousands of people registering their details with us,” Paul Jevons of EE said.
"The ability to pre-order the handset only went live a few hours ago, and yet we’re already seeing strong demand through each of our retail channels. As a result we would like to reassure those wanting to place their order for a Galaxy S4 on 4GEE, that additional staffing resource has been taken on to cope with demand over the Easter weekend.”
Samsung is understood to be anticipating sales of the new Galaxy S4 smartphone to be as high as 10 million handsets per month.
Last year Samsung was hit with supply problems that harmed initial sales of the Galaxy S3.
A design fault with handset cases is estimated to have lost Samsung two million sales.
The new Galaxy S4 features a touchscreen that detects when a user's finger is hovering over the screen to display additional preview information, as well as technology that automatically pauses videos if a user looks away from the screen.
It also includes new features that monitor a user's well-being. Accessories for the phone will include scales and a heart-rate monitor from Samsung as well as a blood pressure and blood sugar monitor from other companies.
The S4 also features a significantly upgraded camera which features 13MP resolution and can take pictures or record simultaneously from both its front and rear. The company has also signed a deal with photo-printing service Blurb to enable users to quickly order printed albums of pictures.
Although the S4 is an improvement on the S3, rather than a total reinvention, it also features a faster, eight-core processor for some markets and a substantially larger battery in a package that is overall slightly smaller than the previous model. A 5in screen is included, offering a market-leading pixels-per-inch.

Edu Vargas and Elinda Olivares


Socer








Eduardo Vargas



The picture that tells Edu Vargas and Elinda Olivares actress during a report doing the rounds on the world. Two characters are celebrating in their own way Chili victory against Uruguay.
The photo published by a television of South America 'La Red' was referring to the outcome of the match against Uruguay 2-0. A result obtained exactly from a dopietë Vargas. I happy for the success, apparently wanted to celebrate footballer Elinda actress, former fiancée Vargas colleague at the National, Gary Medela.

Theft in the office of the Director of Taxation


TAX



















Tirana police has launched investigations into the theft occurred in the office of the Director of Taxation, Leonora Andrew. So now we learn that get all the footage was filmed by security cameras. Also says that were interviewed members of staff to complete whitening of the event.
Police suggests that so far, from preliminary investigations, there is a list of suspects, but not made ​​public for investigative reasons.

Kenya’s Raila Odinga ‘to continue struggle peacefully’


Odinga supporters outside courthouse
Defeated Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga has said he will seek peaceful ways to end a row over poll results, which gave a narrow first round victory to rival Uhuru Kenyatta.
He was speaking after Kenya’s Supreme Court upheld Mr Kenyatta’s victory, rejecting Mr Odinga’s challenges.
He said he accepted the court verdict because he wanted to avoid bloodshed.
But two people died and 11 were hurt as Odinga supporters clashed with police in his western stronghold of Kisumu.
There was an angry mood in the Nairobi slums of Kibera, says the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in the city, and police briefly used tear gas to chase away protesters outside the courthouse.
Tensions were reported in another slum, Mathare.
Violence after a disputed election in 2007 left more than 1,200 people dead.
The presidential, legislative and municipal elections held on 4 March were the first since the 2007 poll.
Official results said Mr Kenyatta beat Mr Odinga – who is currently prime minister – by 50.07% to 43.28%, avoiding a run-off by just 8,100 votes.
Mr Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are expected to be sworn in as president and vice-president on 9 April.
But they are facing trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly fuelling unrest after that election. They deny the charges.
‘Wounds opened’
In a BBC interview, Mr Odinga said he wanted to avoid the kind of bloodshed that had occurred five years ago.
“I am going to tell my people to look at peaceful ways of resolving this issue,” he said. “The Supreme Court is just one step, there are many other avenues.
“Wounds have not been healed, in fact they’ve been opened up by what’s happened.”
He hinted that if nothing was done there could be a return to violence.
“I fear that five years from now, there will be voter apathy. This will lead people to explore other means to resolve this issue,” he said.
Some of Mr Odinga’s supporters were less diplomatic.
“We cannot trust the court, democracy is dead in Kenya,” one man protesting outside the courthouse told the BBC.
Earlier the court, in a unanimous decision, declared the elections free and fair and said Mr Kenyatta had been “validly elected”.
Supporters of Mr Kenyatta took to the streets of central Nairobi after the verdict, tooting their horns, blowing on vuvuzelas and chanting.
The president-elect made a televised victory speech hours after the announcement, vowing to work with and serve all Kenyans “without any discrimination whatsoever”.
Mr Odinga responded to the verdict with a speech expressing “dismay” at the conduct of the election but saying he fully respected the court’s decision.
Petitions had been filed to the court by the prime minister and by civil society groups, who claimed irregularities had affected the election result and called for fresh elections. However, much of their evidence was dismissed by the court.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has insisted that the vote was credible, despite technical failures with an electronic voter ID system and the vote counting mechanism.
International observers said the poll was largely free, fair and credible, and that the electoral commission had conducted its business in an open and transparent manner./folbuzz.com/

North Korea calls nuclear weapons ‘the nation’s life’


North Korea calls nuclear weapons ‘the nation’s life’
PYONGYANG — One of North Korea’s top decision-making bodies is setting guidelines that call nuclear weapons “the nation’s life” that won’t be traded even for “billions of dollars”.
The statement today came after a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party attended by leader Kim Jong Un and other officials.
It says nuclear weapons are not “goods for getting US dollars” or a “political bargaining chip”. Outside analysts have said Pyongyang raises worries over its nuclear ambitions to spur nuclear-disarmament-for-aid talks.
The statement says Pyongyang will also increase work to build up the economy. Mr Kim has made fixing the moribund economy a focus.
Pyongyang has issued a torrent of bellicose threats in recent weeks over United States-South Korean military drills and United Nations sanctions that followed its recent nuclear test./folbuzz.com/

Teenager had drugs worth over S$87,000


SINGAPORE — A Malaysian teenager was caught on Saturday for allegedly trying to smuggle more than 1kg of drugs, including heroin, into Singapore.
If convicted, the unnamed 19-year-old could face the death penalty.
In a statement, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said the Malaysian was arrested after three bundles of drugs worth over S$87,000 were seized from his Malaysia-registered motorcycle during a routine check at the Woodlands Checkpoint at about 5.25am that day.
CNB officers noticed that the fuel tank of the teenager’s motorcycle was missing a screw and, after checks, found three bundles hidden under the fuel tank compartment.
Two of the bundles contained about 745g of heroin — almost 50 times over the mandatory death penalty threshold of 15g — while the other had 279g of cannabis.
The teenager was arrested and is currently under investigation./folbuzz.com/

N Korea parliament mets amid nuclear tension



N Koreaa
SEOUL — After weeks of war-like rhetoric, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gathered legislators today for an annual spring parliamentary session taking place one day after top party officials adopted a statement declaring building nuclear weapons and the economy the nation’s top priorities.
The meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly follows near-daily threats from Pyongyang, including vows of nuclear strikes on South Korea and the US
Pyongyang has reacted with anger over routine US-South Korean military drills and a new round of UN and US sanctions that followed its Feb 12 underground nuclear test, the country’s third. Analysts see a full-scale North Korean attack as unlikely and say the threats are more likely efforts to provoke softer policies toward Pyongyang from a new government in Seoul, to win diplomatic talks with Washington and to solidify the young North Korean leader’s military credentials at home.
Yesterday, Kim and top party officials adopted a declaration calling nuclear weapons the “the nation’s life” and an important component of its defense, an asset that wouldn’t be traded even for “billions of dollars.” Pyongyang cites the US military presence in South Korea as a main reason behind its drive to build missiles and atomic weapons. The US has stationed tens of thousands of troops in South Korea since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953.
North Korea also has threatened in recent days to shut down a jointly run factory complex in the North – the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement. But officials in Seoul say hundreds of workers traveled as usual across the heavily armed border to the North Korean factory Today as they have throughout the rising tensions.
“I have no idea about what it will be like when I go to the North Korean side. It seems OK to be here, but we will be living there in a tense situation for a week,” Kim Won-soo, a South Korean manager working in Kaesong, said before his departure Today from Paju, South Korea.
While analysts call North Korea’s threats largely brinkmanship, there is some fear that a localized skirmish might escalate. Seoul has vowed to respond harshly should North Korea provoke its military. Naval skirmishes in disputed Yellow Sea waters off the Korean coast have led to bloody battles several times over the years. Attacks blamed on Pyongyang in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans.
South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, is pursuing a policy that seeks to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and aid after five years of standoff. But she told her military Today to set aside political considerations and respond strongly should North Korea attack.
Meanwhile, deputies to North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly gathered in Pyongyang. The SPA schedule today was unclear.
Under late leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea had typically held a parliamentary meeting once a year. But Kim Jong Un held an unusual second session last September in a sign that he is trying to run the country differently from his father, who died in late 2011.
Parliament sessions, which usually are held to approve personnel changes and budget and fiscal plans, are scrutinized by the outside world for signs of key changes in policy and leadership.
At a session last April, Kim was made first chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, the body’s top post.
Yesterday, Kim presided over a separate plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, which set a “new strategic line” calling for building both a stronger economy and nuclear arsenal.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a “treasure of a reunified country” not to be traded for “billions of dollars,” according to a statement issued by state media after the meeting. North Korea’s “nuclear armed forces represent the nation’s life, which can never be abandoned as long as the imperialists and nuclear threats exist on earth.”
Yesterday marked the first time for Kim to preside over the committee meeting, a top decision-making body tasked with organizing and guiding the party’s major projects. The last plenary session was held in 2010, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry, and before that in 1993.
The plenary statement also called for strengthening the moribund economy, which Kim has put an emphasis on in his public statements since taking power. The UN says two-thirds of the country’s 24 million people face regular food shortages.
The North also named former Prime Minister Pak Pong Ju as a member of the party central committee’s powerful Political Bureau, a sign that he could again play a key role in the North’s economic policymaking process. Pak reportedly was sacked as premier in 2007 after proposing a wage system seen as too similar to US-style capitalism.

Pak is reform-minded and his promotion sets him up for further advancement and “for him to take the lead in the North’s economic policies,” said Cheong Seong-jang at South Korea’s Sejong Institute. /folbuzz.com/

Syria says rebels set fire to three eastern oil wells


siria

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels have set three oil wells in the east of the country ablaze, causing a daily loss of nearly 5,000 barrels of oil and 52,000 cubic meters of gas, state media quoted an oil ministry official as saying yesterday.
SANA news agency said the damage to the oil wells in Deir al-Zor province, much of which is in rebel hands, followed disputes among the fighters over “sharing out the stolen oil” from fields in areas they control.
It said Syria’s Furat Petroleum Corporation was working to extinguish the three fires. A total of nine wells had been set on fire by the rebels, the agency added, without saying when the other six had been set ablaze.
Furat was not immediately able to comment on the report.
European Union sanctions imposed on Syria two years ago over President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on protests – which have since developed into armed conflict – effectively halted Syria’s modest oil exports.
Assad’s government has also struggled to meet domestic energy requirements after losing control of large parts of the east of the country, where most of the oil wells are located.
But despite the fighting residents say oil production has continued in some fields, with rebels trading with local authorities and allowing oil to be shipped to government-controlled areas./folbuzz.com/

South Korea vows fast response to North


S korea
South Korea will strike back quickly if the North stages any attack on its territory, the new president in Seoul warned today, as tensions ratcheted higher on the Korean peninsula amid shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang and the US deployment of radar-evading fighter planes.
North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint US and South Korean military drills that have included a rare US show of aerial power.
North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a “state of war” with South Korea in response to what it termed the “hostile” military drills being staged in the South. But there have been no signs of unusual activity in the North’s military to suggest an imminent aggression, a South Korean defense ministry official said last week.
“If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations,” President Park Geun-hye told the defense minister and senior officials at a meeting today.
The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.
Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.
Seoul and its ally the United States played down Saturday’s statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.
North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when US and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of US B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at US. military bases in the South and in the Pacific.
The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.
On its part, North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all hotlines with US forces, the United Nations and South Korea.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS “NOT A BARGAINING CHIP”
Park’s intervention came on the heels of a meeting of the North’s ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.
“The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting US dollars and they are … (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself,” KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.
At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party’s politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.
Pyongyang took part in nuclear disarmament talks for five years aimed at paying it off in return for abandoning its atomic weapons program. Those talks fell apart in 2008. Some experts say the talks gave the North grounds to pursue a highly enriched uranium program that took it closer to owning a working arsenal.
Songun is the Korean word for the “Military First” policy preached by Kim’s father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state’s scare resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and a weapons of mass destruction program.
CALLS FOR RESTRAINT
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said North Korea’s announcement that it was in a state of war followed a “familiar pattern” of rhetoric.
China has repeatedly called for restraint on the peninsula.
However, many in South Korea have regarded the North’s willingness to keep open the Kaesong industrial zone, located just a few miles (km) north of the heavily-militarized border and operated jointly by both sides, as a sign that Pyongyang will not risk losing a lucrative source of foreign currency by mounting a real act of aggression.
The Kaesong zone is a vital source of hard currency for the North and hundreds of South Korean workers and vehicles enter daily after crossing the armed border. It was still open today despite threats by Pyongyang to shut it down. Closure could also trap hundreds of South Korean workers and managers of the more than 100 firms that have factories there.
The North has previously suspended operations at the factory zone at the height of political tensions with the South, only to let it resume operations later.

NATO hopes change to US missile plan will foster cooperation with Russia


MOSCOW — NATO hopes a US change to global missile defenses will dispel Russian concern and foster cooperation on an issue that has long strained relations, alliance Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said in an interview.
Russia has said US missile shield plans could erode its nuclear deterrent. It has softened criticism since Washington announced on March 16 that it would station 14 missile interceptors in Alaska in response to North Korean nuclear threats and at the same time forgo a new type of interceptor that would have been deployed in Europe.
However, Moscow has said it wants a series of consultations on the new shield set-up and US and Russian defense officials are expected to hold talks on that in the coming weeks.
Moscow has long been at odds with the West over anti-missile defenses it has begun to establish in Europe, which both the United States and NATO say are aimed at preventing any attack from Iran and pose no threat to old Cold War foe Russia.
“The change in the US plans … just simply makes the situation much less ambiguous,” Vershbow told Reuters. “There is now no reason for concern that the system going into Europe will have any effect whatever on Russia’s strategic deterrent.
“We think there is a real window of opportunity and we hope that the Russians seize it,” said Vershbow, who has held talks with senior officials from the Russian foreign and defense ministries as well as President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
The skipped interceptors were meant to be able to target long-range missiles, sparking concern in Moscow that they could be used against its intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“On both the NATO-Russia and US-Russia tracks, we hope the dialogue will pick up speed so that we can get at least closer to some kind of a deal on missile defense cooperation,” said Vershbow, a former US ambassador to Russia.
“To the extent we are able to make some progress on missile defense, it might also facilitate renewed dialogue on nuclear arms reductions both at the strategic level and the non-strategic level.” He said broader NATO-Russia ties would get “a shot in the arm” if progress was made on missile shields.
Moscow has frequently said it is unlikely to go for further cuts in its nuclear arsenal unless Washington satisfactorily addresses its concerns about the defense system Washington has started to deploy in Europe in cooperation with NATO partners.
Russia is also pushing to host a meeting of defense ministers of NATO and Russia in Moscow in May and some in Russia have expressed hope for progress by then.
But Moscow is sticking to its demand for legally binding guarantees that the shield will not be aimed at Russia, a request rejected by NATO and the United States.
Any significant progress may be difficult because of Russian concern that developing NATO infrastructure in central and eastern Europe is tipping the post-Cold War balance of power.
“There are broader political questions that still could remain difficult to resolve,” Vershbow said.
“NATO has been very clear that legal guarantees will not be possible but I’m sure we could develop some kind of political framework that would give the Russians the predictability that they are seeking through legally binding guarantees.”

North Korea expands nuclear weapons programme


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North Korea’s parliament has endorsed plans to give nuclear weapons greater prominence in the country’s defences.
The move came a day after the ruling Workers’ Party called for nuclear forces to be “expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively”.
North Korea has said it is entering a “state of war” with the South – prompting Seoul to promise a “strong response” to aggression by the North.
The North is angry at UN sanctions following its nuclear test in February.
It is also unhappy with joint US-South Korea annual military drills.
Meanwhile, North Korea has announced it has appointed a new premier, Pak Pong-ju. He was sacked from the same post in 2007.
North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly convened on Monday for a day-long annual session. It normally focuses on making economic decisions.
But state news agency KCNA said the body had “unanimously adopted an ordinance that provides for giving nuclear weapons greater prominence in the defence of the country”.
The law reads that the country’s nuclear weapons are a “means of defence” and serve the purpose of “dealing deadly retaliatory blows at the strongholds of aggression until the world is denuclearised”.
On Sunday the Workers’ Party Central Committee held a rare high-level meeting in which it described nuclear weapons as “the nation’s life”.
“The DPRK [North Korea]‘s possession of nuclear weapons should be fixed by law and the nuclear armed forces should be expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively,” a KCNA report on the meeting said.
“The People’s Army should perfect the war method and operation in the direction of raising the pivotal role of the nuclear armed forces in all aspects concerning war deterrence and war strategy.”
In the last few days North Korea has issued multiple warnings of attacks on US and South Korean targets – to which the US has responded with an apparent show of military hardware.
Speaking to defence officials on Monday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said that she took the series of threats from Pyongyang “very seriously”.
But despite its rhetoric few think the North – which last week cut a military hotline which was the last official direct link with Seoul – would risk full-blown conflict.
The US flew F-22 planes from Japan to South Korea’s Osan Air base on Sunday, as part of ongoing joint military exercises with Seoul, officials said./folbuzz.com/