Former president who was convicted of rape prays at Kiryat Malachi shul; other worshippers keep their distance
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ALBANY — Andrew Mark Cuomo, whose political career began guiding the campaigns of his father, was inaugurated on Saturday as the 56th governor of New York State, promising not so much a new direction as a restoration of the dignity and respect that once characterized the beleaguered government of the state. In a roughly 25-minute speech, he pledged to rein in the state’s finances, place a ceiling on property taxes and take a hard line on reforming the ethics of Albany lawmakers. “People all across the state, when you mention state government, literally are shaking their heads,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Worse than no confidence, what they’re saying is no trust. The…
Continue reading …Newsweek’s Thomas: GOP ‘Selling Smoke and Mirrors,’ PBS’s Peterson Mocks ‘Free Lunch’
January 1, 2011 No Comment
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Dilma Rousseff has been sworn in as Brazil’s first female president, succeeding her hugely popular predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Rousseff, 63, who served as Lula’s former cabinet chief, assumed the presidency on Saturday at Brazil’s congress after a short motorcade ride under steady rain in the capital Brasilia, during which she waved to a crowd of an estimated 70,000 supporters. In her first speech to the nation as president, delivered after taking the presidential oath and signing official documents, Rousseff swore to protect the most vulnerable in Brazil and to “govern for all”. She repeatedly paid homage to Lula, saying she had been honoured to serve under “the great…
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In a bloody beginning to the new year in Egypt, a suicide bombing outside a Coptic church in Alexandria killed at least 21 people and injured dozens more. “This massacre has al-Qaida written all over … ,” a church official said. —JCL The Guardian: At least 21 people have been killed and more than 70 injured in Egypt in a suspected suicide bombing outside a church in Alexandria as worshippers left a new year service. It was initially thought a car bomb had caused the explosion just after midnight at the Coptic orthodox al-Qidiseen church. But the interior ministry suggested a foreign-backed suicide bomber may have been responsible. The blast did not originate in any of the cars that were destroyed, a ministry statement said. “It is likely that the device which exploded was carried by a suicide bomber who died among others.” Read more
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While many see Afghan President Hamiz Karzai as a puppet for U.S. interests, secret diplomatic records show a resilient Karzai refusing to remove a former warlord from the energy and water ministry last year in the face of intense U.S. pressure. The U.S. had considered the warlord corrupt and threatened to end aid to the country unless he was sacked. —JCL Associated Press: U.S. officials pressured Afghan President Hamid Karzai to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because they considered him corrupt and ineffective, and threatened to end aid unless he went. Karzai rebuffed the request, according to secret diplomatic records, and the minister—privately termed “the worst” by U.S. officials—kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects. The State Department correspondence, written as Karzai was assembling a Cabinet shortly after his 2009 re-election, reveals just how little influence U.S. officials have over the Afghan leader on pressing issues such as corruption. Read more Related Entries December 25, 2010 38 Dead in Christmas Attacks December 13, 2010 In Latest Compromise, Obama Agrees He Is a Muslim
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Brazil’s first female president has finally been sworn into office. Dilma Rousseff, a protégé of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, promised to protect the most vulnerable of Brazilian society in her inaugural speech Saturday. —JCL The BBC: Brazil’s first woman President, Dilma Rousseff, has been sworn into office. She took over from her mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who stepped down after two terms as the most popular president in the country’s history. After taking the oath of office, Ms Rousseff promised in a speech to protect the most vulnerable in Brazilian society and govern for all. Read more Related Entries December 25, 2010 38 Dead in Christmas Attacks December 13, 2010 In Latest Compromise, Obama Agrees He Is a Muslim
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In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Obama committed himself in 2011 to improving the economy, creating jobs and strengthening the middle class. Here’s to a New Year’s resolution that hopefully won’t be broken. —JCL Reuters: President Barack Obama has set his New Year’s resolution high for 2011: repair the struggling economy. In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, the vacationing president said recent data showed the economic recovery was gaining traction even as millions of Americans are still out of work. “Our most important task now is to keep that recovery going,” Obama said. “As president, that’s my commitment to you: to do everything I can to make sure our economy is growing, creating jobs, and strengthening our middle class. That’s my resolution for the coming year.” Read more
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So what if nobody has bothered to announce it yet? Sprint’s upcoming EVO Shift 4G Android handset has turned up on Amazon’s wireless outlet, albeit with the EVO ‘s spec sheet. We were getting excited about an 8 megapixel camera with HD video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing imager until we realized those specs probably didn’t belong to the EVO Shift 4G — thanks to a note describing this phone as having been ” released in June, 2010 .” The product title is unequivocal, however, and offers you the EVO Shift 4G slider, to have and to hold, for $200 on a two-year contract. Clearly someone’s got his or her EVOs mixed up and has HTC’s second 4G cat for the Sprint network out of the bag a little early. [Thanks, Ryan] Update: The product image is user-submitted so we can probably disregard it. Still, Amazon’s got HTC’s unannounced phone up on its site, giving us the closest to official confirmation we’ve had yet. HTC EVO Shift 4G nonchalantly shows up for Amazon pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday announced that he would hold an interfaith meeting in Assisi, Italy, this October to mark the 25th anniversary of a watershed meeting held there by his predecessor, John Paul II. In the ever-shifting legacy of a complex papacy, the announcement seemed intended to show Benedict’s good will toward other faiths after years in which he was criticized by Muslims, Jews and other Christian denominations, especially Anglicans. But it was also significant because as the longtime head of the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal office when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was widely seen as having had serious reservations about the 1986 meeting, where…
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