Now this is a crisis that truly impacts Cuba’s bottom line: Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday. Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis...

Baitullah Mehsud, 35, chief of Pakistan’s Taliban umbrella group, Tehrik-i-Taliban, was killed in a CIA missile strike inside Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign minister says intelligence sources have confirmed Mehsud’s death, reports Voice of America. Pakistani intelligence officers said that the militant commander, blamed for dozens of suicide bombings, including the fatal attack against the former...

Lilly and Ludwig Friedman on their wedding day, Jan. 27, 1946. Introduction: I received this touching article via e-mail a couple of months ago. A note at the end of the e-mail says: In MEMORIAM – 63 YEARS LATER It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews,...

FOR THOSE WHO CAME, BUT COULD NOT STAY While you and I were being born, growing “in the little bread oven”… as it was often said back then… there were other little babies across the world, suddenly thrust into real ovens, and they were not allowed to grow any more. Don’t tell me that that is the past and none of our concern. This is in cellular memory, and we are here to make certain that...

The arrival of the “People’s Car” (equivalent US$2,421) — Nano – on Indian roads “is a symbol of the coming-of-age of mass consumerism in the developing world,” says Andrew Buncombe of The Independent. “India’s roads are broken and inadequate, the country is overcrowded and there is a middle class of anywhere up to 300 million people who might be tempted...

I have been a vocal critic of the previous administration—as I am beginning to be of this administration—for what I believe is a shameful lack of recognition for the valor and heroism of our brave troops who have been fighting and sacrificing, oftentimes with their lives, in the hells of Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, I have been criticized for “meddling in the business of the President, Congress...

So all it took to get two American journalists “convicted” of espionage home was Bill Clinton’s star power? Kim Jung Il just wanted to feel that we felt that North Korea is important enough to send a world-famous, charismatic former President of the United States there to pick up Laura Ling and Euna Lee from the ball and bring them home in his coach?

North Korean’s Supreme Nutjob has ‘pardoned’ the two journalists they have been holding captive and they will be on the way home soon. Obviously this is good news but I’m not sure we really need to celebrate too much over what former President Clinton may or may not have done. The fact is that North Korea in effect kidnapped these two innocent women, held them hostage and didn’t...

he will be a hero in my eyes for the rest of his life:

Is the deadly rioting in China’s western-most provinces driving a public relations policy change in Beijing? According to this article from the state-run China Daily, just as in America, Chinese society is due for an open discussion on prejudice. Using the recent American controversy between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and a White police officer as a jumping off point, the China Daily’s...

Almost five years into the Afghanistan war and three years into the Iraq war, something started to nag at me, something just didn’t seem right. In spite of the high number of casualties (killed in action and seriously maimed and wounded); in spite of the heroic deeds we knew our brave troops were accomplishing; and in spite of the importance of those wars to the security of our country, a woefully small number...

It’s ‘Victory Day’ again in North Korea – or to be precise, the ‘Day of Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War,’ over the United States and United Nations. For those who have wondered how Pyongyang has come to call the 50-year standoff a ‘victory,’ South Korea’s Daily North Korea, staffed by people who have escaped the land of Kim Jong-il and work to...

In my post yesterday ( “A Great Navy Tradition On Display at Bath Iron Works Tomorrow, August 1), I wrote that, today, at the Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine, the Navy planned to christen its newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, named after Medal of Honor recipient Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham. Scanning for news reports on the christening ceremony this morning, I searched the New York Times files for “Bath...

In Chinese astrology 2009 is the “Year of the Ox”. Only that person or a nation, it is said, would remain unscathed if it works its backside off this year. US president Barack Obama was born in the “Year of the Ox”, and his nose is tied to the grindstone. But he might just work out some miracles…provided his countrymen share his burden instead of nitpicking. Among various alternatives...

Like people the world over, the Russians are puzzling over how much attention to pay to the utterances of our own vice president, Joe Biden. Days ago, Vice President Biden gave what was, from a Russian perspective, an insulting if not alarming interview with the Wall Street Journal, during which he said that Russia is so weak that it would ‘bend’ to America’s will. This article from Russia’s...

Rajmata (or Queen Mother) Gayatri Devi, of the erstwhile princely state of Jaipur in India, passed away at age 90. In her youth, when she was a Queen, the Vogue magazine described her as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. She was cremated with full state honors…See here… Gayatri Devi was one of the few people remaining who could vividly describe the life of fabulous wealth of the old...

There is something about Texan Lance Armstrong that tweaks French nerves like nothing else can. The seven-time Tour de France winner, after a three year retirement, returned to the ‘Great Loop’ this year, finishing third. Begrudgingly – and with more than a hint of suspicion that the Tour is somehow soiled by Armstrong – Mustapha Kessous of France’s Le Monde reaches the surprising...

Let me share my random thoughts…When lust takes center stage, the thinking and rational behaviour flies out of the window. We live in a promiscuous age/world where America provides, apart from huge arms and war material, 80 per cent of pornography world-wide. Now a question: Why is the USA pumping so much money in Afghanistan? It looks more like a case where a love-lorn or lust-stricken person puts at...

In seeking to return ousted Honduran President Manuel Zalaya to office, is the United States doing the right thing? The Honduran Congress and military, who ousted Zalaya for violating that nation’s constitution by seeking another term, certainly have tremendous support. And according to columnist Gloria Leticia Pineda from La Prensa of Honduras, those who support the new government have a bone to pick...

Yesterday, I wrote on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s follies, including his secession nonsense, his refusal to accept federal funds to help the Texas unemployed, his phony anti-Washington rhetoric, and his sheer hypocrisy when it comes to rejecting and then accepting—begging for—federal stimulus funds and federal loans. I also quoted an Austin American-Statesman editorial blasting Perry for similar...

Here at YouTube, over 9 million people have watched this. I watched it. I cried. Not because of the occasion, not because this is how it used to be, in a different form, in my deeply ethnic childhood when I saw my dad do it at every event of this kind… but because tonight, I so wished my dad, had he lived past his 88th year, could have seen this little film tonight too. He would have cried out, Ya! Ya!...

The Austin American-Statesman reports today that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is planning to run against Texas governor Rick Perry next year, is making inroads with previous Perry “loyalists” and “chipping” into Perry’s “rich donor base, taking 21 percent of $6.7 million she raised from December through June from 35 percent of Perry’s historically staunchest...

The California budget package has passed through the State Senate and is currently heading has passed through the State Assembly, with passage expected later today. But as Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters points out, this is only a short term solution as California is now on a 5 or 6 month budget cycle. Some parts of the deal that took money from local governments was taken out of the final package so that...

Azle,Texas is a small town, about 10 miles northwest of Fort Worth, with a population of about 12,000—about 93 percent white and 4 percent Hispanic. It is suddenly in the national news. The reason: one of its residents has posted a “Hispanics Keep Out” sign on the front of his or her home. Reportedly the sign has been up for months. According to khou.com, “Many residents said they would...

According to The Daily News Tribune: Janet Monti was home nursing a cold when the call came in. At first, she thought it was a joke. A person who claimed to be a White House aide asked if she would be around for the next half hour. Ten minutes later, she was on the phone with the President. “He said, ‘I hear you’re a little under the weather,’” she recalled of President Barack Obama’s first words...