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Israel – About 70 percent of young haredi (ultra-Orthodox) students see themselves spending an extended amount of time engaged in religious studies in yeshiva, according to research conducted by the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry.

The survey published on Monday reviewed the opinions and attitudes of 400 unmarried yeshiva students aged 17- 20 from a cross section of haredi society including Ashkenazi hassidim, non-hassidim and Sephardim.

The study asked respondents what percentage of their friends they estimated would stay within the yeshiva framework.

Seventy percent said half to most of their friends would remain in long-term Torah study, while 30% said they expected that very few of their friends would do so.

Results varied slightly over the different streams, with 85% of non-hassidic Ashkenazi haredim saying they expected their friends to stay in full-time study compared to 61% of hassidic respondents.

Between 15-40% of respondents, depending on stream, said they would only limit their time in yeshiva upon getting married, in order to learn a profession or enter an institute of higher learning to gain a foothold in the job market.

The current rate of ultra- Orthodox men participating in the labor market is 46%, according to new figures from the Bank of Israel.

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The survey also examined attitudes among young haredi males about serving in the IDF.

Of those questioned, 41% said they would be very or moderately interested in joining the IDF’s Shahar program for haredi soldiers Cheap windows 7 key, with 59% saying that they had little or no interest in doing so.

The current annual rate of haredi enlistment is approximately 16% of the potential draft from that sector.

Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon said the findings indicate changing trends in haredi society.

“More and more haredim are requesting to join the labor market,” he said. “So the new ‘Tal Law’ that will be arranged will provide an opportunity for the integration of haredim into the work force, which needs everyone available.”

Simhon added that his ministry is operating a number of different programs aimed at encouraging haredim to join the job market.

Simhon said that the government has approved the allocation of NIS 1.5 billion for stimulating the employment of minorities and haredim Windows XP Key, in accordance with the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Report.

Approximately 60% of those surveyed said they preferred the religious services professions – with positions including scribes for religious texts, rabbinical judges, rabbis, kashrut supervisors and yeshiva teachers.

But at the same time Office 2010 Key, 51% of those questioned said that they would be interested in the field of “computers” and software testing, 38% in law, 33% in banking and 31% in accounting.

Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post

To deny this duly elected president his right to govern. replica watches

To deny The People their right to a functioning government.

To deny and derail facts in favor of partisan spin.

To deny the poor replica watches, the sick, the disenfranchised a chance to regain their footing.

To deny science and embrace superstition.

To deny progress.

To deny peace.

This is your GOP at work. And this is what it’s labored to accomplish in the last few years of open warfare against the sitting president of the United States and the majority of citizens who helped put him there.

As bold an act of betrayal as anything in this country’s history, the smug assertion of power-by-obstruction has only consigned the corporate-run GOP and its media apparatchiks a place alongside Joe McCarthy. This is not your father’s or grandfather’s GOP, when opposition was loyal and the welfare of the country was a uniting issue.

And we, the American people, have for too long been played for fools by these corrupt men and women who have discarded all they were taught about right and wrong, about fairness, about democracy, about humility, about mercy. Hiding behind the flag and brandishing dubious credentials, these folks are poised to steal what’s good about America from under our very noses, through distraction and division.

And now that Mitt Romney–arguably the most blatant opportunist in the history of modern presidential candidates—is bizarrely anointed in yet another eyeroll-inducing fait accompli, the denial of Democracy is transpiring just as the media masters have intended. Our political system has been bought and processed like chickens in a poultry factory, and like those chickens it is being led down paths that end in slaughter, the walls splattered with civility and courage and wisdom replica watches, leaving only the anonymous packages of meat. An apt metaphor for the corporate conversion of citizen-to-consumer-to-consumed.

And if the GOP is so certain of its characterizations of Obama, so certain that every one of his policies (and by extension the policies of Ronald Reagan and other Republicans, but that’s another rant for another time) will bring about total ruin, then why do they labor so mightily to stop him when by merely letting him run his course they would have their assertions proved? They deny even themselves.

Though they’d deny it.

Francois Hollande is awarded Grand Maitre in the Order of the Legion of Honor, from chancellor of France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, as he is officially named as France’s president at the Elysee presidential Palace in Paris, Tuesday, May 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Fred Dufour, Pool)

Paris – Francois Hollande became president of France on Tuesday in a ceremony steeped in tradition Cheap Tattoo Machine, taking over a country with deep debts and worried about Europe’s future and pledging to make it a fairer place.

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Hollande is only the second Socialist president of modern France, after Francois Mitterrand’s 1981-1995 tenure, and rode to the presidency on a wave of resurgent leftist sentiment amid Europe’s debt crisis and anti-free-market protests around the world.

Hollande, 57, was elected to a five-year term earlier this month after voters ousted incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy after only one term. Voters were disappointed over Sarkozy’s handling of France’s economy – which has high unemployment and low growth – and recoiled at his aggressive personality.

Hollande plans to leave shortly on his first diplomatic foray – to Berlin, where he is meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel for a critical meeting on austerity and growth in Europe.

Arriving Tuesday morning at the 18th-century Elysee Palace that is the traditional residence of French presidents, Hollande was greeted by Sarkozy on the red-carpeted steps. The two held a 40-minute private meeting that is traditionally the moment when the outgoing president hands over the codes to France’s nuclear arsenal.

Hollande was declared president after the head of the constitutional court read out the final results of the May 6 election.

In his first presidential speech, Hollande promised to fight financial speculation and “open a new path” in Europe but acknowledged that he inherits huge government debt. He has pushed back against austerity measures championed by Germany amid Europe’s debt crisis and wants government stimulus instead. Hollande also pledged to bring “dignity” to the presidential role – something voters felt that Sarkozy did not always do.

Hollande immediately acknowledged the challenges he faces: “a massive debt, weak growth, high unemployment, degraded competitivity, and a Europe that is struggling to come out of crisis.”

With the economy in the doldrums and joblessness high, the French mood is glum and many voters are looking to the inauguration as a rare moment of national pride, and to Hollande’s presidency as a new opportunity to make things better.

World markets, other European leaders and France will be watching closely to see how and whether Hollande follows through on his campaign promises, such as calling for a renegotiation of Europe’s budget-cutting treaty, freezing gasoline prices and hiking taxes on the rich. Observers expect that once he settles into the presidency, he’s likely to fall back into the moderate consensus-building that has characterized his career.

A key sign will come when he names his prime minister, expected later Tuesday.

Guests at the ceremony included France’s leftist political elite, 10 French Nobel Prize winners, France’s chief rabbi, the head of an umbrella group of French Muslim organizations, the daughter of late President Francois Mitterrand’s mistress and a host of cultural figures.

Hollande received the insignia of the Grand Croix from the hands of Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin, who heads the prestigious Legion of Honor, and the necklace of the Great Master of the Order of the Legion of Honor. Each linked medallion of the necklace bears the name of a president, with Hollande’s name recently added.

Sarkozy left the palace hand-in-hand with wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, had a last handshake on the palace steps with Hollande Tattoo Machine Tattoo, then was driven away. Former staffers gathered in the palace courtyard applauded loudly as Sarkozy left, and fans gathered at the Elysee gates waving signs reading “Nicolas, merci!”

Hollande shook hands with many of the hundreds present at the ceremony then reviewed troops in the palace gardens. Following tradition Tattooing Machines, 21 gun shots were fired above the Invalides, a domed complex on the opposite side of the Seine River that holds Napoleon’s tomb.

Rain started pouring down on the famed Champs-Elysees avenue as Hollande rode up its center, standing out of a sunroof of his hybrid Citroen DS5, trailed by dozens of Republican Guardsmen on horseback and motorcycle. His suit was visibly drenched within moments. He then headed for the Arc de Triomphe, and its monument to the unknown soldier.

Military band and soldiers at attention await arrival of Hollande motorcade parading up the capital’s central artery. The normally traffic-clogged avenue was closed to cars and buses and eerily empty around midday, ahead of the first procession of Hollande’s presidency. Crowds were sparse, and the weather blustery.

Hollande, who has four children but has never been married, was joined for the Elysee ceremonies Tuesday by his partner, journalist Valerie Trierweiler.

Sarkozy’s inauguration five years ago broke with some of the tradition that the French associate with the Elysee Palace, and offered up a first lady in Prada and romantic intrigue instead. The then-president and his then-wife Cecilia – both already on their second marriages, and on the verge of divorce – posed on the red carpet with their blended family of five kids.

Sarkozy’s hands-on presidency brought change to the once-stuffy Elysee – but that, and Sarkozy’s image as a man too friendly with the rich while recession hit, ultimately turned many voters against him.

This week, President Obama made his to-do list and handed out his assignments for Congress:

Reward American jobs, not outsourcing
Refinancing for responsible home owners
Tax credits for small business jobs
Clean energy manufacturing
Veterans’ jobs corps

But are any of the latest items destined to reach the Oval Office for the president’s signature? Unlikely.

Naturally, the biggest roadblock to the president’s agenda is the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, which has its own ideas to improve the economy but which Democrats have labeled as obstructionist.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters this week that “the House is doing its work” by passing other jobs legislation and he decried the president’s “Post-It note” stunt as making the office of the presidency seem small and weak.

“The House is governing, and what do we get from the other side? Showboats in the Senate, [and] more gimmicks and posturing by the president,” Boehner said. “I can’t think of a better symbol of how small this presidency has become than looking at the Post-it note that the president’s been carrying around. We got the most powerful office in the world there to tackle big problems and he’s shrunken it to the size of a Post-it note.

“My goodness,” Boehner scoffed with incredulity, summing up the House Republicans’ lack of enthusiasm for the president’s to-do list.

Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor to blast the to-do list as a campaign-style gimmick, complaining that “the president is trying to manufacture arguments that he can run on.”

“Instead of focusing on his political Post-it note checklist, the president and Senate Democrats should show some leadership and work with Republicans to move on critical pro-growth bills,” McConnell said. “The president’s Post-it note checklist is insufficient to handle the challenges we face as a nation and, frankly, it’s counterproductive.”

Top Democrats Tattoo Gun Buy, on the other hand, are excited to support the president’s suggestions, which are based on various pieces of legislation introduced by Democrats.

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have already introduced legislation in the House and Senate known as the “Bring Jobs Home Act” that would end tax breaks for businesses that send jobs overseas while providing a 20 percent tax credit to U.S. companies that return jobs back to America.

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio offered an amendment to the GOP’s FY 2013 Budget Resolution to establish a Veterans Job Corps that she said would employ at least 20,000 veterans over five years in projects to preserve and restore America’s national parks, state parks and other public lands. Her amendment failed to win support during a committee mark-up of the bill and comparable measures have been introduced in the Senate.

Democrats have also introduced multiple bills, like the American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act of 2011 and the SEAM Act of 2011, to address clean energy manufacturing and extend the advanced energy manufacturing tax credit.

Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California has introduced the Housing Opportunity and Mortgage Equity Act of 2011, a bill that aims to enable responsible homeowners to refinance their mortgages. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has introduced similar legislation in the upper chamber.

House Democratic Caucus chairman John Larson introduced the president’s signature jobs package, the American Jobs Act Tattoo Tools, which includes a provision to invest in a new hire tax credit for small businesses, but that bill has not been voted on. In the Senate, Democratic Sens. Harry Reid, Bob Casey and Mary Landrieu introduced a stand-alone bill on the subject, which the majority leader indicated he wants to bring to the floor for a vote before the Memorial Day recess.

“The president gave us five things that are extremely important to do,” said Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader.  “Now, have we done enough administratively and legislatively? Of course not. And no state feels it more than Nevada. But every state in the union needs this help.”

But none of those bills are likely to see the light of day in the House of Representatives any time soon. Republican congressional aides point to similarities from the president’s list and other measures that have already been signed into law, passed out of the House or are under current consideration.

“The [Veteran Opportunity to Work Act] was a veterans jobs measure; we passed the Small Business Tax Cut Act; our payroll bill included the full expensing provision that [President Obama] discusses; and we are working on a variety of energy issues,” one top GOP leadership aide said.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Professional Tattoo Machines, R-Calif., said the president’s maneuver “shines a bright light on the failure of the House Republicans to address middle-class economic security” as Republicans risk the optics of handing the president a legislative victory.

“It’s time for Republicans to abandon their agenda of obstruction and work together with Democrats to act on the president’s proposals to create jobs, strengthen the middle class and grow the economy,” she said. “Americans can’t wait.”

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller contributed to this report.

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Jerusalem – In an unusual gesture, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Tuesday sent separate condolence letters to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is sitting the shiva mourning period for his father in Jerusalem.

Direct communication between Palestinian and Israeli leaders has been scant since Netanyahu took office in March 2009.

Netanyahu last met with Abbas in September 2010. During his premiership he has never met face-to-face with Fayyad. The two men were supposed to meet last month, however Fayyad canceled at the last moment.

But on Tuesday, Abbas and Fayyad were among the first governmental leaders to tell Netanyahu that they were sorry for his loss. The text of their letters was not released to the media.

Netanyahu’s father Benzion, a renowned historian Cheap Herve leger strapless, died early Monday morning at age 102. He was buried later that day.

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The prime minister has canceled all his diplomatic appointments and is observing shiva, the traditional seven-day mourning period, in his father’s home.

Friends Herve Leger v neck sale, relatives and diplomatic dignitaries visited him there to pay their respects.

Among them were visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, US Senator John Kerry and Australian Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten.

Survivors from the 1976 Entebbe raid in which Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan lost his life came to the homes, as did those who served with the prime minister in the army.

From the United States, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expressed his sorrow for Netanyahu’s loss. The two men have been friends since they worked together at Boston Consulting Group in the 1970s.

“I extend my sincere condolences to the family of Benzion Netanyahu. This is a loss for all of Israel and for all who care about Israel,” Romney said in a Twitter message.

Netanyahu is to end shiva on Sunday and will attend the weekly cabinet meeting.

Among the diplomatic issues that were delayed by his father’s death was a letter that he was suppose to deliver to Abbas, in response to a document the Palestinian leader sent to him last month outlining his terms to hold direct negotiations.

The Palestinians have insisted that they will not speak with Netanyahu until he freezes West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.

Israel in turn has insisted that talks should be held without preconditions.

On Monday night, Abbas said that he considered Netanyahu to be his peace partner.

Speaking during a visit to Tunisia, Abbas said: “I choose you, Netanyahu, because you are our partner for peace.With whom will I make peace? You are the prime minister and I have to deal with you. But you have to choose between settlements and peace.”

Abbas said he was referring to remarks by Netanyahu to the effect that there is no partner on the Palestinian side in light of the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Noting that Netanyahu had said that Abbas must choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas, the PA president added: “We choose both. Hamas is part of our people and they were elected and have a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council and no one can deny this.”

Abbas said he did not care what Netanyahu thought about the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.

“What is important is our interest – that the Palestinian land and people be united,” he said.

Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post

Earlier this year, Adrian Hallmark was appointed to the position of executive director of Saab’s global sales efforts. After just seven months on the job, reports are that he has resigned to take a position with Jaguar as the Global Brand Director Tattoo Supplies, effective December 1. Hallmark had taken his position at Saab just two months after the company was purchased by Spyker Cars, from General Motors. Hallmark had held top management positions with Porsche Tattoo Supplies, Bentley and Volkswagen prior to joining Saab.

The news comes as a bit of a surprise, and while it’s likely that Tata-owned Jaguar was able to offer Hallmark a bigger compensation package, it may also be a red flag about what is going on behind the scenes at Saab. The Swedish automaker is rebuilding its image and its finances after a few down years with GM, and unless Hallmark just wasn’t working out in his still-new seat, this move can’t bode well for Saab.

[Sources: SaabsUnited, Automotive News – sub. req.]

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times all lead with the decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September, when Pace’s two-year term comes to an end. The Wall Street Journal leads  with economists’ warnings that the housing slump will continue for the rest of the year and act as a drag on the economy.

Gates said he decided not to re-nominate Pace after senators from both political parties indicated that Pace’s confirmation hearing would subject him to aggressive questioning on the Bush administration’s implementation of the Iraq war. All the papers note that Pace Buy Christian Audigier Clothing, who previously served as vice chairman from 2001 to 2005 and is the first top soldier since 1964 to serve only two years, has been criticized within the armed forces for not standing up more to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the run-up to the Iraq war. His replacement, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen, said that his main priority was keeping the Army from further overextension and, according to the WSJ, was skeptical of the recent decision to send more American soldiers in Iraq. It is expected that Mullen, who was not involved in the planning of the Iraq invasion, will be confirmed.

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At the G-8 summit yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again proposed an alternative to the American plans to locate a missile defense system in Europe Herve leger strapless sale, which he considers a threat. On Thursday, he proposed Azerbaijan; yesterday, Turkey. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scoffed at the plan, but American officials welcomed Putin’s willingness to talk, especially when compared with last week’s belligerence. The G-8 also pledged $60 billion to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis in Africa. The LAT notes that human rights activists said it was not enough and did not keep pace with previous funding promises.

All the papers try to piece together from the fallout from the Thursday’s immigration-bill collapse. As a bipartisan group of 12 senators tried to get legislation moving again, President Bush called Republican Senate leaders to try and get them on board with a bill and urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to bring legislation back to the floor. But all the papers are skeptical: The LAT reports that the Senate has too much on its plate over the next couple of weeks (including a major energy bill) but mainly focuses on the “groundswell of opposition to illegal immigration that has buffeted members of Congress around the country.” The NYT and WP both point out that the Senate isn’t really that busy—Monday is dedicated to a nonbinding vote of no-confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—and indicate that Sen. Reid was single-minded about ending debate by Thursday BCBG Dresses sale, never really getting behind the bill. Everyone points out that President Bush is taking a lot of heat now that the last major plank of his second-term domestic agenda has flopped; an NYT news analysis even uses the words lame duck.

The WP fronts, and the other papers run sizable pieces Replica Emilio Pucci Dresses, on a report by the Council of Europe—the official continental human rights body—that outlined how the CIA, from 2003 to 2006, used NATO agreements to bypass civilian control, establish secret prisons, and torture terror suspects in countries such as Poland and Romania.

Gunmen attacked a police chief’s home in Baghdad yesterday, killing his wife, son, and at least 12 others. (The chief wasn’t home at the time.) At least another 34 were killed in bombing attacks. On the somewhat-optimistic side, a WP dispatch from a West Baghdad neighborhood reports that at least one American battalion has found an “ally of last resort” in the fight against al-Qaida—Sunni militiamen and former insurgents.

Pakistani officials, operating at the behest of embattled President Pervez Musharraf, suspended their attempt to censor and revoke licenses of broadcasters after protests erupted throughout the country.

The WP fronts a story on the 522 American cities that have agreed to reduce carbon emissions according to the standards set by the Kyoto Protocol.

The LAT floods the zone on Paris Hilton’s tearful return to jail, running genuinely informative articles on the jurisdictional fight between sheriffs and judges in deciding who can stay and go (overcrowding has led sheriffs to set murderers free) Buy Hale Bob Dresses, inmate resentment toward Hilton’s special treatment Cheap DKNY Dresses, and the culture of celebrity policing.

It’s not the actual car referenced in the little chestnut “Freeway of Love Replica DKNY Clothes,” but this Mary-Kay pink 2008 Cadillac CTS signed by Aretha Franklin is hitting the auction block in Los Angeles today. The funds will benefit MusiCares Buy Herve Leger gown, an organization set up by the Recording Academy (the Grammy people) to provide humanitarian support to musicians that need help. That doesn’t mean getting a speech therapist for Ozzy Christian Audigier Clothes sale, it’s more like helping folks still trying to rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina. The event is part of the MusicCares 2008 Person of the Year tribute that will honor Aretha Franklin Replica Missoni Dresses, and we’d much rather have a pink CTS than a Cimmaron Buy Hale Bob Dresses, which was the entry-level Caddy during the song’s day on the charts. We’d take it in black Cheap DKNY Clothing, and load R-E-S-P-E-C-T onto the audio system’s hard drive immediately.

[Source: MusiCares via Inside Line]

New York Times Magazine, April 6 In the cover story, a journalist recounts growing up as part of the Liberian landed elite before the country’s violent 1980 coup. The descendent of a freed American slave who became a Liberian founding father, she returns present-day to the country of her childhood to look for a foster sister left behind when her family escaped to the United States. … An essay asks if America has already “inadvertently” elected a black president: Warren Harding. During “the white-supremacist heyday of the 1920s,” rumors circulated that he had a black ancestor, and various African-Americans throughout the years claimed familial links to the 29th president. Though the “bitter, racist glee” of the accusations offers “ample reason not to accept them out of hand,” this “kind of community gossip … often provides clues to richer truths.”… An article visits the historically segregated Levittown, Pa., to discover how the suburb, with its large sector of working-class white male “Reagan Democrats,” is reacting to Barack Obama’s campaign. The piece reports that Obama’s “lofty rhetoric did not move these men, but neither did it go over their heads, exactly. … [I]t seemed to have the opposite of its intended effect. It bothered them.”

Scientific American Replica Bandage dresses, April 2008 An article uses game theory to explain why doping is so prolific in professional sports and argues that some athletes turn to performance-enhancing drugs because they stand to gain much more than they could lose. Once the best athletes start doping (or, as in game theory Buy Bandage dresses, “defect” from the rules of the game), “their rule-abiding competitors must defect as well, leading to a cascade of defection through the ranks.” Today’s advanced drugs are also much harder to detect, resulting an “arms race” between dopers and drug testers in which the “testers are five years away from catching the takers,” thus further lessening the incentive not to dope. … A piece explores the possibilities of human limb regeneration and says that the salamandar is one model for scientists studying the ways humans could adopt this ability. The salamander can regrow body parts as many times as it needs to through its lifetime and is similar to humans in that its limbs are “encased in skin, and … composed of a bony skeleton, muscles, ligaments, tendons, nerves and blood vessels.”

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Vanity Fair, May 2008 A lengthy piece in the “Green Issue” profiles biochem company Monsanto, which is trying to control farmers’ use of its genetically modified seeds. The firm says that the standard practice of reusing harvested seeds from season to season is actually an infringement on patent rights and demands that farmers buy new seeds each year. The company also goes after growers who don’t even know their fields are populated with Monsanto’s GM seeds, which can be carried through the wind or bird droppings. The company, which has been around since 1901 and originally just dabbled in chemicals Replica Herve Leger v neck, is linked to more than 50 EPA Superfund sites and produced Agent Orange for the government during the Vietnam War. And now, Monsanto’s aggressive marketing of genetically modified crops “profoundly influences—and one day may virtually control” the world’s food production. … An article uncovers the Chinese military’s attempts to “weaponize” the weather as part of its history of climate-engineering.

Economist Discount DKNY Clothing, April 5 The cover story recommends against heavy government regulations as a solution to the crashing financial markets. It notes that governments should be cautious of the “notion that the world can just regulate its way out of crises.”… A piece in the special report on Israel examines what the next 30 years will look like for the nation. An Israeli political scientist presents two scenarios: In one Cheap Chloe Dresses, the country espouses “a serene balance of Zionist and humanist values” and enjoys “strong trade links with most of the Middle East” because of a neighboring Palestinian state and enfranchisement of non-Jewish citizens. In another, Jews have become dwindling majority in Israel, while foreign Jews view the state as “increasingly backward and irrelevant.” The “best and the brightest” have left the country, the economy lags, and “any peace deals between Israel and its neighbors … are looking shaky.” The piece observes that which scenario comes to fruition “depend mostly on [Israel's] own decisions.”

Time, April 14 The cover story reveals Pope Benedict XVI’s “soft spot for Americans.” The pontiff, though he considers many Catholic leaders in the United States to be “victims of the moral relativism [that] pervades Western culture Discount Bandage dresses,” admires what he has called its “obvious spiritual foundation.”… An article claims the Democratic tendency “to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right” is “self-defeating.”… An essay investigates some private colleges (including Kenyon College and the College of William and Mary) that are admitting men who are less qualified than female applicants to remedy the lagging male presence on campuses. The piece observes the paradox of the new gender gap: “If girls were once excluded because they somehow weren’t good enough, they now are rejected because they’re too good” because some “colleges have problems managing a balanced freshman class.”

Must Read
The New York Times Magazine cover story provides a fascinating and wrenching glimpse at Liberia’s 1980 coup through the eyes of an Americanized teen who witnesses her uncle’s execution on television and overhears her mother’s gang-rape by revolutionary soldiers.

Must Skip
New York’s feature on a confrontation between prep-school faculty and trustees over defamatory Facebook groups comes off unbalanced when it can’t seem to find any trustees or students to share their sides of the scandal.

Best Politics Piece
A piece in Time distills the Democratic candidates’ competing foreign-policy philosophiesas it looks at the careers and lapsed friendship of their top advisers, Anthony Lake (“the idealist”) and Richard Holbrooke (“America’s toughest diplomatic tactician”). Guess who works for whom?

Best Culture Piece
An article in TheNew Yorker examines who holds the rights to loot under the sea—the treasure-hunting companies that finance and research the operations or governments with historical or geographical claims to the booty.

Notable Special Feature
Remember buzz phrases from the Internet’s dark ages with Wired’s Internet meme quiz.

Click here to read more from Slate on the swine flu. 

The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox lead with Best place to buy Replica Ulysse Nardin Watches, and everyone else fronts, the growing fears that the world may be entering a global pandemic as U.S. officials declare a public-health emergency  in light of swine flu being detected in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Eight cases were identified in New York and one in Ohio, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the United States to 20. Several countries have said they’ve identified people who had recently traveled to affected areas and are suffering from influenzalike symptoms, but there are no confirmed cases anywhere else in the world. Still, some have issued travel bans and are instituting plans to quarantine travelers who may have the disease, which is incredibly difficult to tell apart from a regular flu.

The New York Timesleads with a look at the nationwide shortage of doctors, a problem that the Obama administration is trying to fix as it works on proposals to increase medical coverage for millions of people. Of particular concern is the shortage of primary-care providers. Some are suggesting that Medicare payments to general practitioners should be increased, but specialists say their payments shouldn’t be cut to achieve this. USA Todayleads with data that show the nation’s largest electric utilities increased spending on lobbyists by 30 percent in the last six months of 2008 as Congress began to debate climate change seriously.

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U.S. public health officials struggled to emphasize that even though it may sound serious, a “nationwide public health emergency” is no reason to panic. “That sounds more severe than really it is Wholesale Replica Philip Stein Watches,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. “This is standard operating procedure and allows us to free up federal, state and local agencies and their resources.” One-quarter of the country’s 50 million unit strategic reserve of anti-flu drugs will be released to states that have seen outbreaks. In Canada, six cases of swine flu have been reported in people with some link to recent travel to Mexico. The cases identified in the United States and Canada have been milder than in Mexico, where as many as 103 people have died, although only 22 of those have been confirmed as swine flu deaths. Only one of the U.S. patients has required hospitalization, and none had been treated with anti-viral drugs.

Several countries have instituted measures to prevent the disease from spreading, “in many cases appearing to be near panic,” notes the LAT. Some countries are warning against traveling to the United States and Mexico, while others have said they’ll quarantine travelers who appear to be sick. Russia and other countries have even banned pork imports from Mexico, even though experts insist people can’t get the flu from eating pork.

Panic over the swine flu has been greatest in Mexico City, where religious services were canceled Replica Maurice Lacroix Watches sale, many restaurants and movie theaters were closed, and soccer games were played without spectators as many city residents decided to stay indoors over the weekend. The city of 20 million people “looked like a ghost town,” declares the WSJ. Those who dared to venture outside did so wearing face masks. As the death toll continues to rise, it’s becoming clear that younger adults may be the most susceptible to the disease, reports the WPin a separate front-page piece. Why that may be remains “one of several mysteries about the virus,” declares the paper. In a piece inside, the LAT notes that experts have no idea what’s going to happen with this new strain of swine flu. “We don’t know what this virus will do,” one expert said. “It could burn itself out in the next four to six weeks and we never see it again. It could burn itself out over a more extended period of time.”

So what exactly is swine flu, and how can it be identified? Most of the papers attempt to answer this question Technomarine Replica Watches, but it’s none too easy. After all Buy Cheap Replica Tag Heuer Watches, the symptoms look just like the regular flu, and that’s why experts recommend that people only seek medical attention if they’re suffering extreme symptoms, such as having trouble breathing. The swine flu that has been identified, known as A/H1N1, “is a previously unknown combination of pig, human and avian flu viruses,” notes the Post, explaining that pigs can sometimes act as “mixing vessels” for the viruses.

The NYT off-leads a long profile of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that details how he formed “unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions” during his five years as head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Despite this close relationship, he failed to spot troubles at the banking institutions he was regulating until it was too late and has since pushed for actions that often benefit the industry. “I don’t think that Tim Geithner was motivated by anything other than concern to get the financial system working again,” often-quoted, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said. “But I think that mindsets can be shaped by people you associate with, and you come to think that what’s good for Wall Street is good for America.” In order to manage the securities that the Fed now holds, Geithner gave three no-bid contracts to BlackRock, a “firm with deep ties to the New York Fed,” notes the paper.

John Thain, the former head of Merrill Lynch, tells the WSJ that Bank of America is lying. Thain has largely stayed quiet after he was fired amid public outcry that resulted from huge bonuses being given to Merrill employees despite the firm’s giant losses. At the time, Bank of America said Thain was solely responsible for the bonuses, but in an interview with the WSJ, he says that just isn’t true. Thain says he discussed the bonuses with Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America’s CEO, and they both agreed the money could be paid out before Merrill was acquired. “The suggestion Bank of America was not heavily involved in this process, and that I alone made these decisions, is simply not true,” Thain tells the paper.

The NYT reports that IBM will announce today that it will finish developing a computer program to compete in a game of Jeopardy! If the program manages to beat its human opponents, “the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward,” notes the NYT. Although a computer has already beat a world champion in chess, experts say that beating humans in a game of Jeopardy! is much more complicated since it has so many nuances. In order to make it a bit fairer, the computer would not be connected to the Internet to retrieve information. Still, experts say the biggest challenge isn’t putting enough information into the computer but, rather, getting it to figure out what it should be searching for when presented with a question.

In the NYT’s op-ed page, Mark Taylor, the chairman of Columbia University’s religion department, calls graduate education “the Detroit of higher learning.” The vast majority of graduate programs prepare students for jobs that don’t exist and arm them with skills for which there is a decreasing demand, all while charging more for the privilege every year. “The dirty secret of higher education is that without underpaid graduate students to help in laboratories and with teaching, universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations,” declares Taylor Fake Paul Picot Watches, who says it’s one of the main reasons why students are still encouraged to enroll in doctoral programs. In order to compete in the 21st century, “colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured.”

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