Evangelical leaders and conservative activists have a simple message for establishment Republicans about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid: We told you so.
After nearly two weeks of listening to GOP officials pledge to assert greater control over the party and its most strident voices in the wake of Romney’s loss, grass-roots activists have begun to fight back, saying that they are not to blame for the party’s losses in November.
SINGAPORE: Singapore commodity trading firm Olam International has asked for its shares to be halted from trading.
This is after media reports quoted short-seller Muddy Waters' Carson Block as saying he was betting against the company after questioning its accounting practices.
An external spokeswoman for Olam said the company was preparing a response to the media reports.
Last week, Olam reported a 26 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit, spurring a rally in its shares.
-CNA/ac
According to Zoroastrian beliefs, the best way to dispose of a body is to let it remain in the open at the Tower of Silence and be consumed by scavenging birds. With the vulture population dwindling in Vadodara, many in this community are preferring cremation as the final rite for their loved ones.
The first woman photo-journalist of the country, Homai Vyarawalla, too had left unambiguous instructions with her lawyer about her desire to be cremated. The Modi family, which owns the popular confectionaries store and restaurant in the city, had cremated their matriarch, Roshan Modi, after she wished for the same, last year. The oldest cremation that the community members recall is that of Dr Rustom Cama, father of Boman Cama, who now heads the Vadodara Parsi panchayat, in the 1980s.
It is individual choice. The Parsi panchayat has never formally discussed the topic. The families are free to take a decision, said Jal Patel, the immediate past president of the panchayat. Some families have opted for cremation in the past, although the majority still prefer the Tower of Silence, he added.
The community welcomes this liberal approach. Everyone realizes that the decision to cremate does not mean moving away from our tradition, itas a very practical solution to a raging problem, explained Modi.
An unusual high-tech oil-drilling rig that's been at work off the coast of Cuba departed last week, headed for either Africa or Brazil. With it went the island nation's best hope, at least in the short term, for reaping a share of the energy treasure beneath the sea that separates it from its longtime ideological foe.
For many Floridians, especially in the Cuban-American community, it was welcome news this month that Cuba had drilled its third unsuccessful well this year and was suspending deepwater oil exploration. (Related Pictures: "Four Offshore Drilling Frontiers") While some feared an oil spill in the Straits of Florida, some 70 miles (113 kilometers) from the U.S. coast, others were concerned that drilling success would extend the reviled reign of the Castros, long-time dictator Fidel and his brother and hand-picked successor, Raúl.
"The regime's latest efforts to bolster their tyrannical rule through oil revenues was unsuccessful," said U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a written statement.
But Cuba's disappointing foray into deepwater doesn't end its quest for energy. The nation produces domestically only about half the oil it consumes. As with every aspect of its economy, its choices for making up the shortfall are sorely limited by the 50-year-old United States trade embargo.
At what could be a time of transition for Cuba, experts agree that the failure of deepwater exploration increases the Castro regime's dependence on the leftist government of Venezuela, which has been meeting fully half of Cuba's oil needs with steeply subsidized fuel. (Related: "Cuba's New Now") And it means Cuba will continue to seek out a wellspring of energy independence without U.S. technology, greatly increasing both the challenges, and the risks.
Rigged for the Job
There's perhaps no better symbol of the complexity of Cuba's energy chase than the Scarabeo 9, the $750 million rig that spent much of this year plumbing the depths of the Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico. It is the only deepwater platform in the world that can drill in Cuban waters without running afoul of U.S. sanctions. It was no easy feat to outfit the rig with fewer than 10 percent U.S. parts, given the dominance of U.S. technology in the ultra-deepwater industry. By some reports, only the Scarabeo 9's blowout preventer was made in the United States.
Owned by the Italian firm Saipem, built in China, and outfitted in Singapore, Scarabeo 9 was shipped to Cuba's coast at great cost. "They had to drag a rig from the other side of the world," said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a University of Nebraska professor and expert on Cuba's oil industry. "It made the wells incredibly expensive to drill."
Leasing the semisubmersible platform at an estimated cost of $500,000 a day, three separate companies from three separate nations took their turns at drilling for Cuba. In May, Spanish company Repsol sank a well that turned out to be nonviable. Over the summer, Malaysia's Petronas took its turn, with equally disappointing results. Last up was state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA); on November 2, Granma, the Cuban national Communist Party daily newspaper, reported that effort also was unsuccessful.
It's not unusual to hit dry holes in drilling, but the approach in offshore Cuba was shaped by uniquely political circumstances. Benjamin-Alvarado points out that some of the areas drilled did turn up oil. But rather than shift nearby to find productive—if not hugely lucrative—sites, each new company dragged the rig to an entirely different area off Cuba. It's as if the companies were only going for the "big home runs" to justify the cost of drilling, he said. "The embargo had a profound impact on Cuba's efforts to find oil."
Given its prospects, it's doubtful that Cuba will give up its hunt for oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the waters north and west of Cuba contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil. State-owned Cubapetroleo says undiscovered offshore reserves all around the island may be more than 20 billion barrels, which would be double the reserves of Mexico.
But last week, Scarabeo 9 headed away from Cuban shores for new deepwater prospects elsewhere. That leaves Cuba without a platform that can drill in the ultradeepwater that is thought to hold the bulk of its stores. "This rig is the only shovel they have to dig for it," said Jorge Piñon, a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America (now part of BP) and an expert on Cuba's energy sector who is now a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.
Many in the Cuban-American community, like Ros-Lehtinen—the daughter of an anti-Castro author and businessman, who emigrated from Cuba with her family as a child—hailed the development. She said it was important to keep up pressure on Cuba, noting that another foreign oil crew is heading for the island; Russian state-owned Zarubezhneft is expected to begin drilling this month in a shallow offshore field. She is sponsoring a bill that would further tighten the U.S. embargo to punish companies helping in Cuba's petroleum exploration. "An oil-rich Castro regime is not in our interests," she said.
Environmental, Political Risks
But an energy-poor Cuba also has its risks. One of the chief concerns has been over the danger of an accident as Cuba pursues its search for oil, so close to Florida's coastline, at times in the brisk currents of the straits, and without U.S. industry expertise on safety. The worries led to a remarkable series of meetings among environmentalists, Cuban officials, and even U.S government officials over several years. Conferences organized by groups like the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and its counterparts in Cuba have taken place in the Bahamas, Mexico City, and elsewhere. The meetings included other countries in the region to diminish political backlash, though observers say the primary goal was to bring together U.S. and Cuban officials.
EDF led a delegation last year to Cuba, where it has worked for more than a decade with Cuban scientists on shared environmental concerns. The visitors included former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Reilly, who co-chaired the national commission that investigated BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and spill of nearly 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (Related Quiz: "How Much Do You Know About the Gulf Oil Spill?") They discussed Cuba's exploration plans and shared information on the risks.
"We've found world-class science in all our interactions with the Cubans," said Douglas Rader, EDF's chief oceans scientist. He said, however, that the embargo has left Cubans with insufficient resources and inexperience with high-tech gear.
Although the United States and Cuba have no formal diplomatic relations, sources say government officials have made low-profile efforts to prepare for a potential problem. But the two nations still lack an agreement on how to manage response to a drilling disaster, said Robert Muse, a Washington attorney and expert on licensing under the embargo. That lessens the chance of a coordinated response of the sort that was crucial to containing damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill, he said.
"There's a need to get over yesterday's politics," said Rader. "It's time to make sure we're all in a position to respond to the next event, wherever it is."
In addition to the environmental risks of Cuba going it alone, there are the political risks. Piñon, at the University of Texas, said success in deepwater could have helped Cuba spring free of Venezuela's influence as the time nears for the Castro brothers to give up power. Raúl Castro, who took over in 2008 for ailing brother Fidel, now 86, is himself 81 years old. At a potentially crucial time of transition, the influence of Venezuela's outspoken leftist president Hugo Chávez could thwart moves by Cuba away from its state-dominated economy or toward warmer relations with the United States, said Piñon.
Chávez's reelection to a six-year term last month keeps the Venezuelan oil flowing to Cuba for the foreseeable future. But it was clear in Havana that the nation's energy lifeline hung for a time on the outcome of this year's Venezuelan election. (Chávez's opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, complained the deal with Cuba was sapping Venezuela's economy, sending oil worth more than $4 billion a year to the island, while Venezuela was receiving only $800 million per year in medical and social services in return.)
So Cuba is determined to continue exploring. Its latest partner, Russia's Zarubezhneft, is expected to begin drilling this month in perhaps 1,000 feet of water, about 200 miles east of Havana. Piñon said the shallow water holds less promise for a major find. But that doesn't mean Cuba will give up trying.
"This is a book with many chapters," Piñon said. "And we're just done with the first chapter." (Related: "U.S. to Overtake Saudi Arabia, Russia As Top Energy Producer")
This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.
The probe into a massive explosion earlier this month in Indianapolis that killed two people and damaged dozens of homes is now an active criminal homicide investigation, with authorities saying they believe the blast was caused intentionally, ABC News has learned.
At a meeting this evening at the Southport Presbyterian Church to update residents of the Richmond Hill subdivision where the blast occurred, Marion County prosecutor Terry Curry said the criminal homicide investigation is ongoing.
"While the fire investigation has been progressing, there has been a parallel investigation, not solely focusing on the cause of the explosion but focusing on individuals who may have been responsible once accidental causes were eliminated," Curry said. "That investigation has consisted of numerous interviews with various individuals as well as execution of a number of search warrants and is being conducted jointly by the [Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department] and the [Marion County Prosecutor's Office]."
Matt Kryger/The Indianapolis Star/AP Photo
The ATF offered up to $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest in the case.
The explosion in the subdivision just south of the city on Saturday, Nov. 10, killed John and Jennifer Longworth. Their funeral was held earlier today.
Much of the attention since the explosion has centered on Monserrate Shirley and her boyfriend Mark Leonard, who lived at the house in the center of the blast area.
John Shirley, who owns that house but now lives elsewhere, told ABC News two days after the blast that he believed that his ex-wife, who still lives in the house, was to blame for the explosion.
Shirley claimed he knew that the furnace in the house was broken and had not been fixed properly, if at all.
"If I were to suspect anything, that's where the problem was," said Shirley, who noted that his ex-wife Monserrate Shirley had a "protective order" against him. However, Shirley said he did not believe his ex-wife would have caused the explosion intentionally.
"I don't think so, because there was no real reason to," Shirley said. "I pay a thousand dollars a month for one kid because she had a lawyer and I did not, so she has more than enough money. At one point the house was slipping into foreclosure. Last spring she had a buyer but she chose not to sell. We were in some bankruptcy but that's pretty well cleared up."
Monserrate Shirley and Leonard were reportedly visiting a casino at the time of the blast.
It’s been almost 30 years since Steve Billet, a then newly minted lobbyist for AT&T, pulled up behind a car at a red light in Washington and noticed the bumper sticker: “Don’t tell my mother I’m a lobbyist. She thinks I play piano in a whorehouse.”
Since then, things have only gotten worse, at least reputationally, for what may be the most remunerative of the world’s more beleaguered professions (and yes, it is considered a profession by many). Billet, in fact, no longer lobbies; he runs a graduate program at George Washington University that teaches people how to lobby. It’s a tall order, and not just because the whole concept has many on K Street rolling their eyes.
YANGON: US President Barack Obama heads to Myanmar on Monday for a historic visit aimed at encouraging a string of dramatic political reforms in the long-isolated state.
Obama will be the first serving US president to set foot in the country also known as Burma, in the starkest illustration yet of its emergence from a long period of isolation and repression.
He is expected to praise President Thein Sein for ending a dark era of junta rule and for welcoming opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into mainstream politics, but also to prod the former general to go much further towards genuine democracy.
"President Thein Sein is taking steps that move us in a better direction," Obama told a press conference in Thailand Sunday on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia, defending his decision to visit Myanmar.
"But I don't think anybody's under any illusion that Burma's arrived," he added.
"The country has a long way to go. I'm not somebody who thinks that the United States should stand on the sidelines and not want to get its hands dirty when there's an opportunity for us to encourage the better impulses inside a country."
In a scene that would have been unthinkable until recently, Obama will on Monday stand side-by-side with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at the lakeside villa where his fellow Nobel laureate languished for years under house arrest.
The visit will be rich in symbolism, not least when he gives a speech at Yangon University, where restive students stoked revolt repeatedly over five decades of military rule.
The White House hopes Obama's visit to Myanmar will boost Thein Sein's reform drive, which saw Suu Kyi enter parliament after her rivals in the junta made way for a nominally civilian government -- albeit in a system still stacked heavily in favour of the military.
US officials said Obama would announce a $170 million development aid pledge to Myanmar to coincide with the formal opening of a US Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Myanmar, which was suspended for years over the junta's repression of the democracy movement.
The money, spread over a two-year period, will target projects in civil society designed to build democratic institutions and improve education as Myanmar lays the groundwork of a political system based on freedoms.
Some human rights groups said Obama should have waited longer to visit, arguing that he could have dangled the prospect of a trip as leverage to seek more progress such as the release of scores of remaining political prisoners.
But officials say that Obama will encourage the regime to double down on more reform, and that his influence could be important at a crucial moment in Myanmar's journey along the road towards democracy.
Myanmar unveiled new pledges on human rights on the eve of the visit, saying it would review prisoner cases in line with "international standards" and open its jails to the Red Cross, as part of efforts to burnish its reform credentials.
The United States on Friday scrapped a nearly decade-old ban on most imports from the country, after earlier lifting other sanctions.
But it continues to call for the release of scores of political prisoners still in Myanmar's jails, as well as an end to sectarian bloodshed between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya in western Rakhine state.
Obama fever has swept Myanmar's biggest city Yangon, with his image emblazoned on T-shirts, mugs and even graffiti-covered walls.
"I would like to tell President Obama to push the Myanmar government to walk the path to democracy bravely and to aim for full human rights which our country needs," said 28-year-old shopkeeper Thant Zaw Oo.
Obama's trip to Asia, coming just 12 days after he won re-election, is the latest manifestation of his determination to anchor the United States in a dynamic, fast-emerging region he sees as vital to its future.
The Hawaii-born US president is making his fifth official visit to the region, where he spent four years as a boy in Indonesia, and is diving back into foreign policy after a year spent on the campaign trail.
Later on Monday Obama will fly to Cambodia, where he is likely to face a tense encounter over human rights with Prime Minister Hun Sen, ahead of the East Asia Summit, the main institutional focus of his pivot of US foreign policy to the region.
-AFP/ac
JALANDHAR: The showdown between Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and her Punjab counterpart over the affairs of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) continues to rage and got shriller on Sunday.
On Friday, Badal had sought putting a "leash" on Dikshit-led Delhi government and action against those who had attacked the SAD(B) leaders at Rakabganj gurdwara. A day later, Dikshit asked the Punjab CM to keep off Delhi gurdwaras' affairs. Reacting to this, the Punjab CM on Sunday justified meddling in DSGMC's matters because Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had fought during gurdwara reforms movement and made sacrifices after which SGPC and DSGMC were constituted.
Badal said that before questioning the role of SAD in the affairs of DSGMC, Dikshit should explain the rationale behind the "ill-conceived" move of amending the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1971 enacted by Parliament.
He made these remarks while responding to queries from mediapersons at Khiala village. "SAD has every right to participate in the affairs of the DSGMC. Rather Delhi CM should not forget that SAD was contesting the DSGMC elections ever since its inception due to which they were fully entitled to raise their voice against any interference by the government in the religious affairs of the Sikhs," Badal said.
Even as the proposed amendments in the Delhi Gurdwara Act pertain to direct election of the president and giving him a tenure of four years equal to the tenure of the elected house, Badal went on to term these changes by Delhi government as "a direct onslaught on the rights of Sikhs". He even held that this was in contrast to the basic spirit of the Indian Constitution as there was no provision for a direct election of a president in any of the elected constitutional bodies in the country, right from the office of the President of India, the Prime Minister, chief minister down to the panchayats.
He, however, held that the ulterior motive of the Delhi government behind the amendments was to further delay the general elections of DSGMC, which was scheduled to take place in January last year.
Slamming the Delhi CM, Punjab dy CM Sukhbir Badal said, "Will someone please go and tell her that Sikh affairs are very much a business of the Sikhs, and of the Sikhs alone, and that she or her government should stay away from the internal religious matters of the Sikh community. By openly talking about an issue which concerns our shrines, Dixit has only confirmed our observation that the Congress government in Delhi is indeed interfering in the religious affairs of the Sikhs," Badal Jr said in a statement issued by the party.
Badal Jr also said that Dikshit "must respect the orders of the Supreme Court that elections to the DSGMC be held in December".
The tide may be turning for the rare subspecies of giant tortoise thought to have gone extinct when its last known member, the beloved Lonesome George, died in June.
A new study by Yale University researchers reveals that DNA from George's ancestors lives on—and that more of his kind may still be alive in a remote area of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands.
This isn't the first time Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni has been revived: The massive reptiles were last seen in 1906 and considered extinct until the 1972 discovery of Lonesome George, then around 60 years old, on Pinta Island. The population had been wiped out by human settlers, who overharvested the tortoises for meat and introduced goats and pigs that destroyed the tortoises' habitat and much of the island's vegetation.
Now, in an area known as Volcano Wolf—on the secluded northern tip of Isabela, another Galápagos island—the researchers have identified 17 hybrid descendants of C.n. abingdoni within a population of 1,667 tortoises.
Genetic testing identified three males, nine females, and five juveniles (under the age of 20) with DNA from C.n. abingdoni. The presence of juveniles suggests that purebred specimens may exist on the island too, the researchers said.
"Even the parents of some of the older individuals may still be alive today, given that tortoises live for so long and that we detected high levels of ancestry in a few of these hybrids," Yale evolutionary biologist Danielle Edwards said.
(See pictures of Galápagos animals.)
Galápagos Castaways
How did Lonesome George's relatives end up some 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Pinta Island? Edwards said ocean currents, which would have carried the tortoises to other areas, had nothing to do with it. Instead, she thinks humans likely transported the animals.
Crews on 19th-century whaling and naval vessels hunted accessible islands like Pinta for oil and meat, carrying live tortoises back to their ships.
Tortoises can survive up to 12 months without food or water because of their slow metabolisms, making the creatures a useful source of meat to stave off scurvy on long sea voyages. But during naval conflicts, the giant tortoises—which weighed between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) each—were often thrown overboard to lighten the ship's load.
That could also explain why one of the Volcano Wolf tortoises contains DNA from the tortoise species Chelonoidis elephantopus, which is native to another island, as a previous study revealed. That species is also extinct in its native habitat, Floreana Island.
(Related: "No Lovin' for Lonesome George.")
Life After Extinction?
Giant tortoises are essential to the Galápagos Island ecosystem, Edwards said. They scatter soil and seeds, and their eating habits help maintain the population balance of woody vegetation and cacti. Now, scientists have another chance to save C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus.
With a grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, which also helped fund the current study, the researchers plan to return to Volcano Wolf's rugged countryside to collect hybrid tortoises—and purebreds, if the team can find them—and begin a captive-breeding program. (National Geographic News is part of the Society.)
If all goes well, both C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus may someday be restored to their wild homes in the Galápagos. (Learn more about the effort to revive the Floreana Galápagos tortoises.)
"The word 'extinction' signifies the point of no return," senior research scientist Adalgisa Caccone wrote in the team's grant proposal. "Yet new technology can sometimes provide hope in challenging the irrevocable nature of this concept."
More: "Galápagos Expedition Journal: Face to Face With Giant Tortoises" >>
The new Lonesome George study was published by the journal Biological Conservation.
An Israeli missile ripped through a two-story home in a residential area of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, including four young children and an 81-year-old woman, in the single deadliest attack of Israel's offensive against Islamic militants.
The bloodshed was likely to raise pressure on Israel to end the fighting, even as it pledged to intensify the offensive by striking the homes of wanted militants. High numbers of civilian casualties in an offensive four years ago led to fierce criticism and condemnation of Israel.
In all, 73 Palestinians, including 37 civilians, have been killed in the five-day onslaught. Three Israeli civilians have also died from Palestinian rocket fire.
President Barack Obama said he was in touch with players across the region in hopes of halting the fighting, while also warning of the risks of Israel expanding its air assault into a ground war.
"We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," Obama said during a visit in Thailand.
On the ground, there were no signs of any letup in the fighting as Israel announced it was widening the offensive to target the military commanders of the ruling Hamas group.
The Israeli military carried out dozens of airstrikes throughout the day, and naval forces bombarded targets along Gaza's Mediterranean coast. Many of the attacks focused on homes where militant leaders or weapons were believed to be hidden.
Palestinian militants continued to barrage Israel with rockets, firing more than 100 on Sunday, and setting off air raid sirens across the southern part of the country. Some 40 rockets were intercepted by Israel's U.S.-financed "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system, including two that targeted the metropolis of Tel Aviv. At least 10 Israelis were wounded by shrapnel.
Israel's decision to step up its attacks in Gaza marked a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.6 million Palestinians. Israel launched the offensive Wednesday in what it said was an effort to end months of intensifying rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
In the day's deadliest violence, the Israeli navy fired at a home where it said a top wanted militant was hiding. The missile struck the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.
Frantic rescuers, bolstered by bulldozers, pulled the limp bodies of children from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital.
Among the 11 dead were four small children and five women, including an 81-year-old, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.
More than a dozen homes of Hamas commanders or families linked to Hamas were struck on Sunday. Though most were empty — their inhabitants having fled to shelter — at least three had families in them. Al-Kidra said 20 of 27 people killed Sunday were civilians, mostly women and children.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that "the Israeli people will pay the price" for the killing of civilians.
Israel sought to place the blame on militants, saying they were intentionally operating in places inhabited by civilians. The military has released videos and images of what it says are militants firing rockets from mosques, schools and public buildings.
Copyright © News eglandulose. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
