Lawmakers in Greece were able to push through a bill worth 13.5bn-euro ($17.3bn). The bill includes tax hikes and pension cuts. These are needed before Greece can secure the next instalment of their bailout money from the EU/IMF.
The latest austerity bill was passed by only three votes, and has seen violent protests in Athens as a result.
For more information see BBC News
The Director of the CIA has resigned after after an extra-martial affair. David Petraeus, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, before taking up the post of CIA Director said, “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours… This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.”
The CIA has come under close scrutiny in recent weeks after the terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. However, Petraeus stressed his decision to step down was entirely for “personal reasons”.
Petraeus is a highly respected figure in Washington and amongst the military.
“General David Petraeus will stand in the ranks of America’s greatest military heroes. His inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible — after years of failure — for the success of the surge in Iraq,” Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.), said. “General Petraeus has devoted his life to serving the country he loves, and America is so much the better for it.”
Read more: Fox News
Microsoft have just filed for a patent that could potentially turn their best selling X-Box accessory, Kinect, into Big Brother. Microsoft have developed software that can detect the number of people in the room partaking of the game or movie. If the number exceeds that allowed by the license, then your x-box reports you to Microsoft and action taken. To quote Microsoft, “The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.”
Apple also filed for a patent in September for “Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device”. This means they would be able to remotely disable mobiles or tablets over a particular area.
Also Google have a number of patents in the area of facial recognition. Eric Schmidt has publicly admitted the company has held back from applying some of their technology, as it “crosses the line of creepy”.
As we share more and more of our personal information online, and as we become more comfortable with the types of surveillance that are common, is it only a matter of time before we begin to accept these technologies as part of every day life? We are already comfortable with Google, Facebook, Twitter etc., compiling huge files of information about our lives – at which point do we say enough? And do we want governments having control of these types of technology?
The Pentagon has announced that Iran fired at an American drone last week as it flew over international waters. The incident occurred 16 nautical miles off the Kuwait coast on November 1st.
The Pentagon’s announcement coincides with a fresh round of sanctions imposed on Iran by the administration. The White House said these new sanctions are, “related to the Iranian government’s human rights abuses, it’s support of terrorism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
The drone attack was the first of it’s kind over international waters in the Persian Gulf region.
Read more: Fox News
First it was Superstorm Sandy. Now a nor’easter is whipping the region, and is dumping snow and zapping power lines from Delaware to Maine.
The nor’easter complicates restoration efforts days after the superstorm killed at least 111 people in the region and knocked out power to millions of customers.
“Just what New Jersey needs now,” said Justin Page of Montclair, about 10 miles west of Manhattan. “We have lost power where we never had before, and the winds are picking up dramatically, which is disturbing the debris left from Sandy.”
Up to seven inches of snow was expected on Staten Island by Thursday morning, the borough of New York that was hard hit by Sandy. Parts of Connecticut saw more than eight inches.
“It’s Mother Nature’s one-two punch,” Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, told CNN’s “Piers Morgan.” “It’s testing the resolve and the grit of my state and my city and, obviously, this region.”
Some 25,000 residents of Newark are still without power from Sandy.
“Now, this is being dumped; it has the potential to knock out more power within my state,” he said.
Power outages in New York and New Jersey rose from 607,000 on Wednesday to 666,000 customers by early Thursday.
“We’re getting hit pretty hard between the snow and the wind,” said Elizabeth Flagler, a spokeswoman for the Long Island Power Authority.
Forecasters predicted gusts of up to 60 mph in shore towns and cities across New York and New Jersey, bringing 2- to 4-foot storm surges just as homes and office buildings had begun to dry out and floodwaters recede after Sandy.
Freeport, along Long Island’s southern coast, was one of the hard-hit communities.
“This storm just made everything worse,” Shanel Francis told CNN affiliate News 12. Sandy swamped her home with four feet of storm surge last week.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents in the city’s low-lying areas — especially Breezy Point, Hamilton Beach and Gerritsen Beach — to “consider going someplace else tonight, to be a little bit on the safe side.”
But he issued no mandatory evacuation orders, other than for a handful of chronic-care facilities and an adult-care center in areas that were hit hard by Sandy.
“If people think you’re crying wolf, the next time, when it’s really a serious threat, they might not do it,” the mayor said.
That was not the case in New Jersey, where the Brick Township Office of Emergency Management had issued a mandatory evacuation order for all residents of low-lying waterfront areas of town.
More than a week after Sandy struck the Northeast, its death toll in New York City climbed to 41 as a 78-year-old man died Tuesday of injuries suffered in the storm, police said.
Despite the setbacks, there were signs the region is rebounding.
In New Jersey, more than three-fourths of the state’s school systems were operating Wednesday and 1,728 public schools were open in New York.
The PATH train between New Jersey and New York resumed limited service under the Hudson River on Tuesday, after being shut ahead of the storm.
Commuter traffic reopened Wednesday in the Holland Tunnel, where about 91,000 vehicles typically pass under the Hudson River between Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Flights continued to be affected, and authorities advised air travelers to check with their carriers ahead of the storm.
“Airlines serving the Port Authority’s major airports — Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia — have canceled all or a significant number of their flights” through Thursday morning.
CNN’s David Ariosto, Tom Watkins, Tina Burnside, Marina Carver, Kristen Hamill, Katia Hetter, Julia Talanova and Rob Frehse contributed to this report
via Nor’easter dumps snow, knocks out more power in Sandy-hit region | KTXL FOX40.
Five Tibetans including three teenage monks and a young mother have set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region, according to Tibetan rights groups. At least two of them have died.
The five self-immolations – the most ever recorded by Tibetans in one day – came a day before Thursdays start of a week-long Communist party congress in Beijing that will usher in Chinas new political leadership.
The three monks set themselves on fire at about 3pm outside a police station in Ngaba county, Sichuan province, while calling for freedom and the return of their exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, according to the non-profit broadcaster Radio Free Asia.
One of the monks, 15-year-old Dorje, died at the scene, while the other two – 16-year-olds Dorje Kyab and Samdrub – were taken to a county hospital by security officers. Their current condition is unknown. The London-based group Free Tibet called the incident “the first triple self-immolation protest to happen in Tibet”.
About three hours later, a 23-year-old nomadic woman in Rebkong county, Qinghai province, burned herself to death, leaving behind a young son. “Tamdin Tso siphoned petrol from a motorbike and set fire to herself in the familys winter pasture,” Free Tibet reported on its website. “Her body was taken back to the family home where local people gathered to pray.”About 3,000 local Tibetans took to the streets to protest against Chinese rule after the woman died, according to Radio Free Asia. The broadcaster also wrote that a fifth Tibetan self-immolated in the Tibet autonomous regions Nagchu prefecture on Wednesday, but did not provide a name.
The reports could not be independently verified. Calls to the Ngaba town police station rang unanswered.According to the New York-based International Campaign for Tibet, 68 Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009, 55 of whom have died, and nine of whom were women. Two-thirds have been under 25; the oldest was in his 60s. They have come from urban and rural areas in the Tibetan autonomous region itself as well as nearby Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces.According to Tsering Tsomo, executive director for the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, India, Ngaba has faced tight restrictions since large-scale protests gripped the county in 2008. Tibetans are not allowed to freely enter or exit the area, she said. Authorities require locals to register with government-issued IDs before they can purchase flammable liquids.”
Its really surprising for us that these three immolations happened in Ngaba, given the internal surveillance in the area and the government lockdown there,” she said. “We are clueless right now.”The government has introduced a barrage of new country-wide regulations for the 18th party congress, a once-in-a-decade leadership transition that began on Thursday morning. The internet in Beijing has slowed to a crawl, construction projects have been put on hold, and hotels have been instructed to inspect guests luggage by hand.Authorities have already embarked on a “patriotic education” campaign in Tibet, forcing monks to hang portraits of Communist party leaders on monastery walls. They have offered cash rewards as high as $30,000 £19,000 to locals for information on self-immolations and protests.Despite the security measures, reports of self-immolations have escalated in the past few weeks. Last month, seven Tibetans killed themselves in seven days. On Sunday, a 25-year-old artist in Tongren, Qinghai province, burned himself to death.A 43-year-old blogger named Gudrup who self-immolated in early October left behind an article. “We are declaring the reality of Tibet by burning our own bodies to call for freedom of Tibet,” it said. “We will win the battle through truth, by shooting the arrows of our lives, by using the bow of our mind.”Tibetan activists call the persistence of self-immolations a testament to Chinese authorities policy failures in the region. “They are the ones that can do something about this, but they are powerless right now,” said Tenzin Chokey, general secretary of the Tibetan Youth Congress in Dharamsala. “All their usual tactics have failed.”
more at Five Tibetans set themselves on fire in protest at Chinese rule | World news | guardian.co.uk.
President Obama had little time to celebrate his re-election, as stock markets across the globe tumbled in fear of the fiscal cliff fast approaching.
More than $600bn (£380bn) of tax rises and cuts in government spending are due in early January.
If law-makers in Washington fail to reach a deal to avoid this “taxmaggedon” it will seriously damage the fragile economic recovery, and have repercussions across the globe.
via President Barack Obama facing fiscal cliff as stock markets fall – Telegraph.
To all the millions of victims of superstorm Sandy, Chris Matthews has a message: “I’m so glad.”
The MSNBC host, on a panel of pro-Obama pundits including Rachel Maddow, ended election coverage overnight by saying he’s “glad” the storm hit, suggesting it served a greater good by boosting President Obama to a second term.
“I’m so glad we had that storm last week,” Matthews said, after interjecting to give some final thoughts. Somebody off-screen could be heard saying “ooo” at that remark, but Matthews confidently put his hand up to explain.
“No, politically I should say — not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics,” he said.
The death toll from that storm, which caused billions of dollars in damage, now exceeds 100. Many in the path of the storm’s wrath — in New Jersey, New York and elsewhere — lost their homes or their cars or were otherwise displaced. The storm wreaked havoc on Election Day, as officials scrambled to facilitate the vote with many precincts facing power outages and fuel shortages.
Some analysts did say the storm boosted Obama’s image by allowing him to show a bipartisan side — reaching out to Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who publicly thanked Obama for the federal government’s support — and effectively sidelining Mitt Romney for a few days one week before the election.
Exit polls also showed about four in 10 voters said Obama’s response to Sandy was important to their vote, and they backed the president by more than a 2-to-1 margin.
Matthews, though, was oddly upbeat in describing the political impact. He made the Sandy comment after ripping Republicans for their “assault” on the president.
“I am so proud of the country. To re-elect this president and overcoming — not because of the partisanship or even the policies — just the fact, here’s an African guy, African-American guy with an unusual background — part immigrant background, part African-American background — with all this assault on him from day one. From Mitch McConnell, from the clowns out there that aren’t elected, never will be to anything,” he said. “And the way he took it, as someone said, with coolness and charm and dignity and just took it and took it and kept moving forward and doing his job. … A good day for America.”
more at Chris Matthews on Obama win: ‘I’m so glad we had that storm’ | Fox News.
Across America in different states, the various ballots cast portrayed a picture of the nation as one moving towards a more liberal attitude. Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana. Whilst Maryland and Maine voted in same-sex marriage, the first states to do so by popular vote. Also in Minnesota voters defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in the state. In Florida voters rejected calls to stop publicly funded abortion.
The votes on same-sex marriage could affect cases currently making their way through the Supreme Court, and will encourage gay rights advocates who want Washington to legalize same-sex marriage nation wide.
Has the tide turned away from the traditional conservative views of a generation ago, and can America now be called a liberal nation?
Tammy Baldwin made history Tuesday night — twice. She became the first openly gay politician, and first Wisconsin woman, elected to the U.S. Senate.
The seven-term Democratic congresswoman edged past former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson in a win that advocacy groups hailed as a significant stride toward bringing diversity to the Senate.
“This is a big day for gay women in America, and really, for all communities who aren’t the typical straight, white, wealthy men elected to Congress,” political commentator Sally Kohn said.
There has never been an openly gay or lesbian member of the U.S. Senate, according to several LGBT advocacy groups. Baldwin is one of four openly gay House members, along with fellow Democrats Barney Frank, of Massachusetts; David Cicilline, of Rhode Island; and Jared Polis, of Colorado.
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“For the LGBT person growing up in Wisconsin or anywhere across country, seeing an openly gay woman who is able to rise up to become a senator in the U.S. Congress is an incredible role model,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Commission.
Though Baldwin’s sexual orientation makes her victory notable, it rarely came up during the campaign, unless it was called a non-issue. The race pitted Thompson’s vision of “conservative leadership” agenda against Baldwin’s progressive agenda. Thompson, a four-time governor and secretary of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush, said he returned to politics to make American a better place for his grandchildren.
“I wanted to so much help lead back America,” he said in his concession speech. “To be the country of growth and opportunity. To build America for future generations. I certainly didn’t need the job. And I guess I’m not going to get it.”
What started as a long shot for Baldwin eventually narrowed to a close finish, with the born-and-raised Wisconsinite capturing 51% of the vote, according to CNN projections.
“This campaign has been run on who’s the most qualified candidate and who has the best vision for the state,” Griffin said. “We’re eager to have her move from one side of the Capitol to another and take a seat in the chamber as the first openly gay person.”
more at Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin is first openly gay person elected to Senate – CNN.com.
ET Email Print Voters have approved marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado, where this smoker celebrated the “420” holiday in Denver earlier this year.
But its still illegal, according to the feds.
Voters in Washington and Colorado passed ballot initiatives Tuesday to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the biggest victory ever for the legalization movement.”The significance of these events cannot be understated,” said NORML, a pro-legalization organization, in a news release. “Tonight, for the first time in history, two states have legalized and regulated the adult use and sale of cannabis.”But in many ways, its just the beginning of the battle. Marijuana is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, which overrules states rights.”The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will,” said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, in a statement. “This is a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug ,so dont break out the Cheetos or goldfish too quickly.”
more at Colorado, Washington legalize recreational marijuana use – Nov. 7, 2012.
Barak Obama has been re-elected President for a second term. Mitt Romney conceded shortly after learning the key swing state of Ohio went to the President. Florida and Alaska are still to declare.
The Presidential elections have coincided with elections for a number of seats in the House and the Senate. This has seen the GOP, (Grand Old Party) retain control of the House: with 221 for the Republicans and 164 for the Democrats, so far. The Democrats have a narrow majority in the Senate: with 51 seats over the Republicans 44. It is feared that the gridlock in Congress could continue after the election.
A number of States were also voting on far reaching issues such as gay-marriage, Obamacare, the legalisation of marijuana, and the use of condoms in the porn industry. So far Maine has voted to legalise same-sex marriage: the first state to do so after a popular vote on the issue.
The saga of austerity, recession and bailouts continues in Greece. Today the nation has been brought to a standstill as the unions call a 48 hour General Strike. The strike is ahead of a crucial vote on more austerity measures, the package would see a further €18bn of cuts and reforms. The measures are required if Greece is to receive the next instalment of bailout money. Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras is under massive pressure to carry the vote through parliament. He has only a slim majority, and politicians are deeply divided over the issue.
The EU is concerned that Antonis Samaras ruling coalition could fall apart, as a collapse in government would most likely see the far left and far right make major gains – both sides are opposed to the EU/IMF imposed austerity conditions.
The far right, Golden Dawn party, has capitalised on the problems in Greece, making huge gains across the country. In some areas where crime is out of control the Golden Dawn lead groups patrol the streets and attack migrants, who they see as the problem. The overstretched police have failed to stop the attacks.
Once prosperous areas of Athens are now “no go” areas as gangs take control and crime increases. Residents are now looking to the Golden Dawn to protect them.
6:51 AM, Oct 31, 2012
MARION, OHIO — Joan Stevens was one of several early voters at the polls on Monday. But when Stevens tried to cast her ballot for president, she noticed a problem. Upon selecting “Mitt Romney” on the electronic touch screen, Barack Obama’s name lit up.