TURKISH GENERAL THREATENS TO ATTACK IRAQ WITH FULL FORCE WITHIN A MONTH

Turkish leaders this week will give visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki what Turkish military commanders and analysts said could be a final warning to act against anti-Turkey Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) -- or to stand by while Turkish forces go after the rebels themselves, risking a new front in Iraq's war.

Turkish General asked the staff whether an operation was needed and he said yes,one must be made.However he said that it must be short lived and that it is difficult,but one opertion that is needed.He said that there is "One PKK ,there is Northern Kurdish headed by Barzani and in the middle there is U.S.A.".

THIS IS HOW BIG SPAMMERS END UP WHEN NO LAWMAKER BOTHERS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday.

He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

In the past angry Internet users have targeted the American English centre by publishing the Center’s telephone numbers anywhere on the Web to provoke telephone calls.

Is not just Mr Lavrov,but Russia is out of the box....

Anyone who heard the statement that his excellence Mr Sergei.Lavrov produced on the floor of the Security Council would have been surprised.It seems that Russia with a population of just 125 million people and that could well be below 90 in two-three decades is not only predicating and promoting it`s own hegemonistic agenda,but its drawing the line of where it believes it has rights to control people through the only methods itself knows.Mr Sergei Lavrov blames certain european goverments,Nato and Washington, for supporting Croatia`s Swastika and loving to make map changes and for looking for enemies.He went on saying that is why he makes hateful articles about it.Isn`t that ironic that this man and his nation kept the world for 50 years on the edge?Isn`t it ironic that while he supports arabs,the russian army devastated a whole province and commited genocide?Russia is guilty by it`s own fingerprinting and history shows just that.It controls more than 1/6 of the world map and it has tried to go beyond it.It`s time that the evil that comes out of this nation be exposed.

More on internet scamming sites....

There is an enourmous coloumn of scammers outthere and their tactic of luring people into their sites isn`t any different.Advertise free and hope that the prospective person will buy their services if desperate enough.This is what is happening and www.resumeimproved.com isn`t any different.This website falsely promises you to have free resumes,but when you get to the process their T&C aka terms and conditions are totally different and you are not in control of anything.Nothing is mentioned upfront,only cheap deceiving tactiques which nowadays are music to anyone`s ears.Here is their advertising slogan and this site is by the way in second spot of google ranking...

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Who recognizes pedophiles??

FAMILY and victim groups yesterday slammed disgraced prosecutor Patrick Power's barrister, branding his courtroom theatrics an attempt to "minimise" the horror of child pornography.

Top silk Ian Barker convinced a jury to put Lindy Chamberlain behind bars and protected the late High Court judge Lionel Murphy from the same fate.

His latest cause Mr Power, 54, a child porn addict and former deputy senior Crown prosecutor who Mr Barker this week described as a ``person with integrity''.

In a sentencing hearing before Downing Centre Local Court, Mr Barker described Power as a "good man" - despite the hundreds of sickening child pornography images found on his computer.

"In one sense the community is indebted to him and he's now entitled to call in that debt," Mr Barker told the court. "He is not a paedophile nor anything like it."

Mr Barker's comments were met with anger by the Australian Family Association, which accused him of failing to heed the clear links between child porn and paedophilia.

"It needs to be kept in mind that the people who view this material are feeding off the vicious and cruel exploitation of children," executive director Angela Conway said.

"Describing a person like Power as a man of integrity is just wrong. If a person is ... consuming this type of pornography they are a paedophile.''

Robyn Cotterell-Jones, from the Victims of Crime Association League, said Mr Barker's remarks suggested some paedophiles deserved preference because of their social status.

"What Power's defence counsel is saying is that he is a good bloke apart from this one crime," she said.

"Well, child pornography happens to be an absolutely abhorrent crime and you cannot argue that a person guilty of that has integrity in every other aspect of their life."

Power has pleaded guilty to possessing almost 29,000 pornographic images on his computer - including more than 400 of children as young as five.

Ahead of Power's sentence on May 9, Mr Barker asked the court to consider that his client had "almost entirely withdrawn from society because of the shame, depression and humiliation".

It is not the first time the eminent silk has taken on a controversial case.

As Crown prosecutor in Ms Chamberlain's 1982 murder trial, he said the theory a dingo had abducted baby Azaria was a "transparent lie".

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

	Scientists find extraterrestrial life outside solar system

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles (193 trillion kilometers) away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

There is still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it is worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.

"It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it "a major milestone in this business."

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.

What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.

The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.

THE BATTLE FOR REGION`S CONTROL

A new “Battle of Kosovo” is fast approaching and the first shots have already been fired.

This stage of the struggle will be between diplomats. But, to quote Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s former leader in his famous speech at Gazimestan in Kosovo in June 1989, “They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded yet.”

What the public knows is this: the 14-month negotiation process in Vienna about the future status of Kosovo is over. In the next few weeks, Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president charged by the UN with overseeing this will make final adjustments to his plan, which he will then present to Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General. He will then give it to the Security Council.

As is already known, the Ahtisaari plan foresees an independent Kosovo, albeit one subjected to various conditions and with a high level of autonomy granted to the Serbian minority. Serbia has rejected the plan outright while Kosovo’s Albanian leaders have accepted it.

The plan also foresees that the UN mission in Kosovo should be wound up and replaced by a large EU mission dealing with police and justice and a smaller one, headed by a so-called International Civilian Representative, who will have significant powers to intervene in Kosovo's political life. This position is modeled on that of the High Representative in Bosnia.

Everyone agrees that because Kosovo’s international legal status is governed by the UN Security Council resolution that ended the war in Kosovo in 1999, a new resolution is needed to terminate the UN’s mandate there and transfer powers to the Civilian Representative.

It is at this point that there is no agreement on how to proceed.

Until recently, western diplomats had been expecting that Russia would sooner or later give its assent to Kosovo’s independence and thus help usher in a new stage in its history by either supporting, or at least not opposing, a new UN Security Council resolution.

However, far from agreeing to do this, Russian diplomats have been repeating of late that they will not support anything that Serbs and Albanians have not mutually agreed. Since Serbs and Albanians cannot agree on the territory's final status, this amounts to threatening an effective veto.

What is unknown is whether the Russians mean what they say, or whether they are ratcheting up the tension as part of an eventual bargaining process by which they will extract concessions from the US elsewhere.

For this reason, several things are now happening, some in public and some in private. Behind the scenes, Ahtisaari and other western diplomats have been arguing that Kosovo is about to pose a major test for the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP, which was badly damaged earlier by Iraq. Hence unity is seen as essential.

Their argument runs that the EU is preparing to make a huge political and diplomatic investment in Kosovo but that without unity within the EU and across the Atlantic, Russia will drive a wedge through the CFSP and chaos could result.

For this reason, EU “stragglers” on Kosovo are now being rounded up and herded into line. Countries that have voiced scepticism on Kosovo’s independence, or which see it posing unwelcome ramifications for their own countries, are being cajoled into line by countries like Britain that actively support the Ahtisaari plan.

Spain, for example, which has separatist problems of its own, has now been encouraged to see EU unity as more important than its own doubts about Kosovo’s independence. Slovakia and Romania are similarly likely to fall into line.

Diplomats say the chances of securing a UN resolution in favour of the Ahtisaari plan are far greater if the EU and the US confront Russia together over the issue.

The first salvoes in this tussle have been fired. On March 13, Richard Holbrooke, the US diplomat who secured the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war in 1995, published an opinion piece about Kosovo in the Washington Post.

Holbrooke is now a private citizen but is also known to be close to the US State Department, so his words carry great weight.

He argues that a Russian attempt to veto, water down or delay the Ahtisaari plan would mean that “the fragile peace in Kosovo will evaporate within days, and a new wave of violence - possibly even a new war – will erupt”.

He added, “If Russia blocks the Ahtisaari plan, the chaos that follows will be Moscow’s responsibility and will affect other aspects of Russia's relationship with the West.”

SERBIA SAYS THAT KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE PLAN HAS FAILED,BUT WASHINGTON GOES AHEAD

The major Western powers, including the European Union and NATO, agree with Ahtisaari that independence is the only viable option and there is no point in further talks. Washington, Paris and Vienna have all said so clearly in the past month.

'We are leaving Ahtisaari's abortive proposal behind us,' Tanjug quoted Kostunica as saying.

He added the Russian initiative to send a Security Council mission would begin a re-assessment of Kosovo's progress on meeting democratic standards, and thus 'becomes a realistic basis for a new negotiation process'.

The mission will visit the territory on April 25-28. There is no certainty that it will end up opposing the Ahtisaari plan, as Kostunica asserted. Western diplomats say they are confident a majority of the 15 Security Council members will back the plan, already endorsed by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Serbia says the Kosovo Albanians have failed to meet benchmarks set by the United Nations. But in any case it rules out independence, offering substantial autonomy under Serbian sovereignty.

Tanjug quoted Kostunica as saying Serbia was shifting the focus to 'the issue of the massive and urgent return of 200,000 expelled Serbs' who fled Kosovo to escape revenge attacks after June 1999, when NATO bombing drove Serb forces out.

Russian billionaire buys Jennifer Lopez for 3m dollars

Latin singer Jennifer Lopez has been paid a staggering $3 million to perform at the birthday party of a Russian billionaire's wife.

Banker Andrei Melnichenko, 35, paid for Lopez to fly from Los Angeles to his Berkshire, England estate to sing at the 30th birthday of his spouse Aleksandra.

	Russian billionaire buys Jennifer Lopez for 3m dollars

Mr Melnichenko, 35, who became one of the world's youngest billionaires by founding Moscow's MDM bank, flew the American star by helicopter to his 27-acre estate in Ascot to perform a 40-minute set

The 60 guests, including Russian and Serbian tycoons, were entertained by cabaret acts and circus performers as they dined in a specially-constructed nightclub under a marquee before Miss Lopez performed a selection of her hits, including If You Had My Love and Jenny From The Block.

Aleksandra, who married Mr Melnichenko two years ago, once had a pop career of her own: at 17 she became a founder member of an all-girl Yugoslavian pop group called Models.

Aleksandra, who bears something of a resemblance to Miss Lopez and speaks five languages, has been modelling since she was 15, Daily Mail reports.

A source says, "J.Lo was booked because both Andrei and Aleksandra are fans of her"

When Andrei married Aleksandra two years ago, Christina Aguilera provided the wedding entertainment.

Barclays CEO says RBS consortium's bid would break up ABN Amro

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BCS58.58, +1.73, +3.0% ) Chief Executive John Varley warned in a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday that a rival bid for ABN Amro Holdings NV (ABN :

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ABN49.86, +2.48, +5.2% ) would result in "the deconstruction into heaven knows how many parts of one of the biggest banks in Europe."

A consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland earlier Wednesday made a EUR72 billion offer for Netherlands-based ABN Amro that surpassed the EUR67 billion offer Barclays made Monday.

Varley said he wasn't surprised by the RBS consortium's bid, but believes the choice between the two offers is clear. The Barclays bid, he said, would create "one of the great banking powerhouses in the world," while RBS' offer would break one of Europe's biggest banks into pieces.

The consortium, which also includes Fortis NV (FORSY) and Santander Central Hispano SA (STD), said its offer is 13% higher than that of Barclays and would be made 70% in cash and 30% in RBS shares.

In a joint statement released before the SEC filing, the consortium said it believes "the potential transaction will create stronger businesses with enhanced market positions and growth prospects in each of ABN Amro's main markets."

Shares of ABN Amro closed Wednesday at $49.86, up $2.46

VIACOM FLEXES ITS MUSCLES AGAINST GOOTUBE

Just days before Google announced its acquisition of YouTube, Om Malik famously put forth his pronouncement on the likelihood of such a merger happening: “YouTube, Google …fuggedaboutit.”
Nevertheless, YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were soon dancing in their own broadcast-yourself clip-culture video, giddily celebrating the $1.65 billion GOOG marriage of “two Internet kings,” as top YouTube spokesperson Hurley fondly proclaimed.
Days later, did Malik eat his words? In his own way. Malik’s original assessment: “At this point, we are going to wait for the fat lady to sing. Anyway the deal has as much chance of happening as me dropping 40 pounds.” The fat lady did sing, the deal happened, $1.65 billion worth. Malik 40 pounds worth as well?
Diet or not, Malik misses the Google YouTube mark once again, $1 billion mark this time. Malik, succinctly on the $1 billion Viacom copyright infringement lawsuit: “kooky” action, Viacom is “incompetent.”
Perhaps Malik should not “fuggedaboutit,” his original Google YouTube post that is. While he today appears to put the responsibility for policing YouTube uploads of copyright infringing materials on copyright content owners, saying “Viacom “could have done something about this a long time ago, but didn’t and basically are using this lawsuit to paper over their own incompetence,” he in fact warned Google of such lawsuits before the official announcement of the Google YouTube deal!:
Google folks have to be aware of the fact that the minute they buy YouTube, they are going to have to deal with lawsuits by truckloads, which could cost them money, but more importantly distract them from their core business.

BLOGSPOT.COM NOT FUNCTIONING AT ALL

Blogspot.com has serious issues,slow access if not at all and hard to find anything.It isn`t your computer or the ISP`s connection,but their service sucks and people can`t access their own blogs or find other blogs.I don`t care if the management doesn`t agree,but this is a widespread problem and they better correct it or people will start to look somewhere else.Not to mention that they forced me to switch,while i didn`t want to make that.Why?Because i felt comfortable and didn`t want the new face of blogger.com.In short i and the rest of the people have no real choices here and worse their service sucks.

GOOGLE`S SUBSIDIARIES HAVE PROBLEMS

Google has bought many companies,but it is not monitoring the problems that have risen with its expansion.Almost everyone can notice that YouTube.com, slows down to almost an halt after some minutes and that is with cable speeds.Imagine people that are still on a dial-up,how hard or impossible is for them.Then, you have blogspot.com which is completely useless if you want to check anything.A lot of people have complained about this,but so far the company and its subsidiaries haven`t done anything to rectify the situation or to improve it a little bit.Lack of bandwidth or not,people want to navigate at ease and access every bit of information that is helpful to them.These are not personal computer problems or anything,Google is simply not what it advertises to be.It is just thin air and bogus claims.

BLOODY DIAMONDS FROM AFRICA

What You Can do to Avoid Buying a Conflict Diamond
What are conflict diamonds, sometimes called blood diamonds?Conflict diamonds, sometimes called blood diamonds, are diamonds that are sold to fund the unlawful and illegal operations of rebel, military and terrorist groups. Countries that have been most affected by conflict diamonds are Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- all places where citizens have been terrorized, mutilated and killed by groups in control of the local diamond trade.
Wars in most of those areas have ended or at least decreased in intensity, but conflict diamonds from Côte d'Ivoire, in West Africa, and Liberia are still reaching the trade labeled as conflict-free diamonds.
In 2000, South African countries with a legitimate diamond trade began a campaign to track the origins of all rough diamonds, attempting to put a stop to blood diamond sales from known conflict areas. Their efforts eventually resulted in The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), an international effort to rid the world of conflict diamonds.

OUT OF JAIL IF YOU DONATE AN ORGAN

Thursday, March 8, 2007 · Last updated 1:59 p.m. PT
S.C. may cut jail time for organ donors
By SEANNA ADCOXASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Inmates in South Carolina could soon find that a kidney is worth 180 days.
Lawmakers are considering legislation that would let prisoners donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for time off their sentences.
A state Senate panel on Thursday endorsed creating an organ-and-tissue donation program for inmates. But legislators postponed debate on a measure to reduce the sentences of participating prisoners, citing concern that federal law may not allow it.
"I think it's imperative that we go all out and see what we can do," said the bills' chief sponsor, Democratic Sen. Ralph Anderson. "I would like to see us get enough donors that people are no longer dying."
The proposal approved by the Senate Corrections and Penology Subcommittee would set up a volunteer donor program in prisons to teach inmates about the need for donors. But lawmakers want legal advice before acting on a bill that would shave up to 180 days off a prison sentence for inmates who donate.
South Carolina advocates for organ donations said the incentive policy would be the first of its kind in the nation.
Federal law makes it illegal to give organ donors "valuable consideration." Lawmakers want to know whether the term could apply to time off of prison sentences.
"We want to make this work, we really do," said Republican Sen. John Hawkins. "But I want to make sure no one goes to jail for good intentions."
Mary Jo Cagle, chief medical officer of Bon Secours St. Francis Health System in Greenville, urged senators to find an allowable incentive.
"We have a huge need for organs and bone marrow," Cagle said.
But Melissa Blevins, executive director of Donate Life South Carolina, said any incentive would break the law and the principle behind donations.
"It really muddies the water about motive. We want to keep it a clearly altruistic act," she said.
Under the proposals, money for medical procedures and any prison guard overtime would be paid by the organ recipient and charitable groups. The state would also decide which inmates could donate.
Corrections Department Director Jon Ozmint said he believes inmates would donate even without the incentive.
"There are long-term inmates who would give if they knew a child was dying," he said. "They're lifers. They know they're going to die in prison."
More than 95,300 Americans are awaiting an organ transplant, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. About 6,700 die each year.

Iran to "assess" US policy at Baghdad meeting

Rising tension from Greek soldiers' anti-Albanian song

Tirana, March 7, 2007 – Protests against Greek soldiers' anti-Albanian song is rising in Albania while politicians have called for a contained and calm response.
In Durres and Elbasan, protesters burned Greek flags while the entire population is bewildered by the level of hatred and violence in the text of Greek Soldiers' song.
A private video showing Greek soldiers singing "We are gone a make shoe-strings with Albanian guts" was published last week on the Internet, then was commented by the Greek and Albanian media.
Foreign Relations committee in the Albanian Parliament called Thursday on the population to stop burning Greek flags, commenting the video as an isolated case. Head of the Committee, Prec Zogaj, said that Albanians need to wait till the end of the investigation by the Greek government over the authenticity of the video.In Athens, the Greek government expressed doubts about the authenticity of the video.
Meanwhile, a Greek general told newspapers that the army had stopped using hate songs against neighbors six years ago. The video, which was at the source of the scandal, was recently removed from YouTube’s webpage by the person’s personal page where it was published.