Gaza singer gives Palestinians a reason to smile

Palestinians watch the performance of Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, a contestant in a regional TV singing contest, on a large screen in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, June 21, 2013. Palestinians relished a rare moment of pride and national unity Saturday after a 23-year-old wedding singer from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip won ?Arab Idol,? a regional TV singing contest watched by millions of people. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

Palestinians watch the performance of Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, a contestant in a regional TV singing contest, on a large screen in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, June 21, 2013. Palestinians relished a rare moment of pride and national unity Saturday after a 23-year-old wedding singer from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip won ?Arab Idol,? a regional TV singing contest watched by millions of people. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

Palestinians watch the televised performance of Mohammad Assaf, 22, a Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

A Palestinian girl carries a poster of singer Mohammad Assaf, 22, while watching the televised performance of the Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol." The poster, front, reads "Vote to Arab Idol Mohammed Assaf," "we have the same dream, our dream is close," and "Vote and the Bank of Palestine votes with you." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Palestinians watch the televised performance of Mohammad Assaf, 22, a Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Palestinians dance and sing while watching the televised performance of Mohammad Assaf, 22, a Palestinian finalist on the Arab Idol talent show, in Gaza City, Friday, June 21, 2013. Assaf, Gazan's powerful voice has propelled him to the final at the "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday. He is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol". Arabic on the sign on the table reads ?Vote to the son of Palestine NO. 3" and "Vote and the Bank of Palestine votes with you." (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? Palestinians relished a rare moment of pride and national unity Saturday after a 23-year-old wedding singer from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip won "Arab Idol," a regional TV singing contest watched by millions of people.

With the announcement of Mohammed Assaf's victory, fireworks lit up the sky over the West Bank and Gaza.

Thousands who had watched the final show on outdoor screens in the two territories broke into cheers and chants of "Palestine, Palestine." In Gaza City, young men on motorcycles waved Palestinian flags and women dropped candy from balconies.

Rasha Salman, 42, an engineer in Gaza City, was moved to tears. "He brought joy to our hearts and dried some of our wounds," she said. "For a few moments, he united us behind his cause, which is art."

The singer with the bright smile and warm voice had put Palestinian pride center stage during the competition.

In a performance Friday, many in the audience in the TV studio in Beirut jumped to their feet when he struck up his signature anthem to Palestinian nationalism, "Raise the kaffiyeh."

The show, produced by the Saudi-owned MBC Group, was broadcast from the Lebanese capital. Now in its second season, this year's competition began in March with 27 contestants.

Assaf, who was born to Palestinian parents in Libya and grew up in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp, almost didn't get to compete. He says he had to plead with Hamas to let him leave Gaza, then bribe Egyptian border guards to let him enter the country en route to Lebanon. A fellow Palestinian gave up his slot during the audition phase because he believed Assaf had a better chance at winning.

As Assaf advanced in the competition, excitement and national pride kept building in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories where the Palestinians one day hope to establish a state.

Rooting for the talented performer has allowed Palestinians to feel as one people, forgetting at least briefly their political and geographic split.

Gaza is cut off from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which lie on the other side of Israel. Israeli travel restrictions over the past decade have deepened that separation. Since the Hamas takeover in 2007, Gaza has become more isolated, amid growing animosity between the Islamic militants and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who administers part of the West Bank.

Politicians have tried to latch on to Assaf's popularity.

The Western-backed Abbas called Assaf last month to congratulate him on his strong showing and later, in a statement, urged people across the region to vote for the singer.

After Assaf's victory, Abbas issued a statement saying that "this is a moment of pride and victory for our people, on the way to achieving the dream of establishing the independent state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Hamas at first seemed critical of the "Arab Idol" fever sweeping Gaza, with a spokesman saying last month that the name and idea of the show are blasphemous.

However, Hamas is known for not going against public opinion. In a sign of a shift, a Hamas lawmaker in Gaza, Yehiyeh Moussa, this week praised Assaf as the "ambassador for Palestinian art."

Some religious leaders, though, remained harshly critical. Mohammed Salim, delivering a sermon Friday at Islam's third holiest shrine, the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, said Palestinians lost sight of their struggle for independence by getting preoccupied with the show.

"Voting for songs and immorality, evil and sin is not only forbidden, it is a crime against the cause of our people," he said.

___

Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-22-Palestinians-Arab%20Idol/id-159e4f1ce3c241bf96456128bd160a98

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New record as haze chokes Singapore

21 June 2013 Last updated at 06:04 ET

Ashleigh Nghiem in Singapore: "This is the fourth day of choking smoke"

Pollution levels reached a new record high for a third day in a row in Singapore, as smoky haze from fires in Indonesia shrouded the city state.

The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit 401 at 12:00 on Friday (04:00 GMT) - the highest in the country's history.

The haze is also affecting Malaysia, with another 100 schools closed in the south of the country.

Indonesia has prepared helicopters and cloud seeding equipment to try to tackle the fires.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong warned on Thursday that the haze could remain in place for weeks.

"We can't tell how this problem is going to develop because it depends on the burning, it depends on the weather, it depends on the wind," he said.

"It can easily last for several weeks and quite possibly it could last longer until the dry season ends in Sumatra which may be September or October."

'Life threatening'

A PSI reading above 300 is defined as "hazardous", while Singapore government guidelines say a PSI reading of above 400 over 24 hours "may be life threatening to ill and elderly persons".

"Healthy people [may also] experience adverse symptoms that affect normal activity," the government says.

Continue reading the main story

The PSI dropped down to 143 at 17:00 (09:00 GMT), although this is still classed as "unhealthy".

Before this week's episode, the previous air pollution record was from September 1997 during the 1997-1998 South East Asian Haze, when the PSI peaked at 226.

Singapore resident Nicole Wu told the BBC that she had stayed indoors for the past two days.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

I can't even see what's happening outside my house due to the smog?

End Quote Nicole Wu Singapore resident

"It's terrible. In my flat the windows are all closed with the air conditioning on," she said. "My mother has to wear a mask to go shopping."

"I can't even see what's happening outside my house due to the smog. You can't see birds [or] moving objects," she added.

Philip Koh, a doctor, told AFP news agency that the number of medical consultations he had had in the past week had increased by 20%.

"My patients are telling me they are worried about how long this is going to last and how much higher this is going to go," he said.

In Indonesia's Riau province, where the fires are concentrated, the chief of the health department Zainal Arifin said there was an "increasing number of asthma, lung, eye and skin problems due to higher CO2 levels".

"I call for residents to stay at home and reduce outdoor activities," he said.

Diplomatic strain

Singapore's National Environment Agency has started providing hourly PSI updates on its website, in addition to the three-hourly updates it previously provided.

Around 300 schools in southern Malaysia have now been closed as a result of the smog. Schools in Singapore are currently closed for the holidays.

There are also reports of flight delays in both Singapore's Changi airport and Riau province in Indonesia.

The fires are caused by illegal slash-and-burn land clearance in Sumatra, to the west of Singapore.

The smog has strained diplomatic relations between Singapore and Indonesia - two countries that usually share good relations, the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta reports.

Mr Lee said Singapore had provided satellite date to Indonesia to help it identify companies involved and said that if any Singapore firms were involved, that would be addressed.

Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency said it would deploy two helicopters to conduct "water-bombing" operations, as well as planes with cloud seeding equipment.

More than 100 Indonesian firefighters are attempting to put out the fires in Sumatra.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

We have been fighting fires 24 hours a day for two weeks?

End Quote Ahmad Saerozi Natural resources conservation agency

However, an official in Riau province said they were "overwhelmed and in a state of emergency".

"We have been fighting fires 24 hours a day for two weeks," Ahmad Saerozi, the head of the natural resources conservation agency in Riau, told AFP news agency.

He added that the fires were in peat around three or four metres below the ground, making it particularly hard to fight them.

"It is still burning under the surface so we have to stick a hose into the peat to douse the fire," he said.

"We take one to two hours to clear a hectare, and by then another fire has started elsewhere."

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said "all the country's resources" would be mobilised to extinguish the fires.

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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22998592#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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RolePlayGateway?

Within the roleplay known as The Multiverse there is a player-created organization known as The Invictus. Birthed outside of the Multiverse by yours truly, but allowed to blossom when I arrived here a few years ago.

Unlike some organizations that one will find within the Multiverse, or some other media and fiction, the Invictus has no strict code of conduct, uniform, ideology or too much else that can restrict players tempted to approach about having a character join up or just become involved with the Invictus in general.

This is due to the fact that the Invictus are a business, profiteers who sell the skills honed by their members in war, medicine, science and law. This flexibility has allowed for the Invictus to, on an OOC level, become not only a group, but a group of individuals. Characters within the organization tend to be, and are encouraged to be, characters who can exist with or without the Invictus.

The Invictus is meant to be something that helps RP, not hinder it. They can be a plot point, a plot hook, a plot device, something to use for a character's background or just something to use for atmosphere. Maybe your characters hires them as bodyguards, maybe they have an office set up down the road from where your character lives.

Also, here's a picture of some puppies to appeal to a certain demographic:

Right now the Invictus are involved in many plots within the Multiverse. Some more directly than others. So far they're involved in rebuilding the infrastructure and military of the planet Terra, fighting a war with an ageless god going by the name of Lochlyn Haley and his army of supersoldiers, religious fanatics, mercenaries, anarchists, and just plain ol' bad people, and many smaller plots and scenarios as a result of the actions of individual characters.

They've also found themselves in a bit of a proxy war with a group of Invictus defectors named the Lost and their investors from one side of the extremely Irish Horne family led by Colin Horne and the equally Irish Casey mob against the other half of the Horne family led by Colin's first cousin Kane Horne in Wing City on Terra.

So, if anyone is interested in the Multiverse or the Invictus be sure to get in touch with me. You can send me a message, post a reply here or catch me in the Multiverse chat.

And remember those puppies? If I don't get the desired amount of roleplayers or messages the highly-trained team of ex-Navy Seals I have hired will begin the slaughter.

Hope to hear from some of you soon! Think about those puppies.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway

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Flooding to close core of Canada's oil capital for days

By Nia Williams

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Some residents began returning to damaged homes on Saturday after record-breaking floods in southern Alberta that killed at least three people, displaced more than 100,000 and will leave the core of Canada's oil capital, Calgary, without power for days.

Communities to the south and east of Calgary were on high alert as flood waters washed across the region. And even as Calgary lifted some evacuation orders, officials warned people not to become complacent.

"We have a situation across southern and particularly south-west Alberta of intense saturation, which means 20 millimeters (0.8 inch) of rain that would typically be absorbed could cause massive flooding and run-off," Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths told a news conference.

"Please do not assume because the clouds have cleared and the streets are not flooded with water it is perfectly safe to move back into your community."

The floods followed 36 hours of unusually heavy rainfall which pushed the volume of water in local rivers to record levels. Some communities received six months of their normal rainfall in under two days.

Evacuations started on Thursday, and utility Enmax switched off power to central Calgary on Friday afternoon to avoid water damage to its downtown facilities. The area was still without power and closed to vehicles on Saturday.

A few tourists and residents strolled in the carless streets of the city's core, but the area was eerily quiet.

Officials said it was too early to say how much it would cost to repair flooded homes and rebuild roads and bridges washed away by the murky brown floodwater.

But the floods already look significantly worse than those of 2005, which caused C$400 million ($383 million) in damage in the western Canadian province.

"We are not through the crisis yet," Alberta Premier Alison Redford told a news conference in Medicine Hat in south-east Alberta, where the South Saskatchewan River is expected to crest at 6,000 cubic meters (1.59 million U.S. gallons) per second on Monday morning.

The bulk of the evacuations were in Calgary, a city of 1.1 million that is home to Canada's biggest energy companies, although evacuations in other communities brought the total of displaced people to well above 100,000.

Calgary urged drivers to stay off the roads, and warned people not to get too close to still-raging rivers.

"If you want to help your city, the best thing you can do is stay home," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, visibly tired after two days of crisis management, told a news conference.

Canada's main oil-producing region in the north of the province, was not affected, although some farmland was flooded, which will likely weaken crops that include wheat and canola.

THREE DEATHS

Police said three bodies had been found near High River, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Calgary.

In Calgary, authorities said water levels were expected to drop in the coming days. But the Bow River was still flowing at around five times its normal rate.

Nenshi said downtown could be off limits until the middle of next week "at the earliest."

A spokesman for Imperial Oil, Canada's second-largest producer and refiner, said the company was working on plans to maintain essential operations, including allowing employees to work from other locations.

Shell Canada said its downtown Calgary offices would be closed until Wednesday and employees would work from home.

It was not clear when trading in Canadian crude oil would resume after little if any trade took place on Friday.

Shorcan Energy Brokers, which provides live prices for many Canadian crude grades, operated out of Toronto on Friday rather than from Calgary, although there were no trades in Western Canada Select heavy blend or light synthetic crude.

Net Energy Inc, the other main Calgary crude broker, was closed on Friday and no trading took place.

Many roads and bridges remained closed, and the city banned the use of tap water for car-washing or other outside activities because treatment plants take more time to process the sludgy water. But Nenshi said Calgary water was still safe to drink.

RETURNING HOME

And as flood waters receded, a few residents were allowed back home to flooded basements and thick layers of silt on streets and sidewalks.

"We had four feet of water," said Gordon Weir, 53, standing outside his home in the city's Elbow Park community as a pump spewed water from his basement onto the street.

"It was all from ground water, so coming up from the sewers and through the concrete. This is one of the higher houses on the block. Our neighbors had seven or eight feet."

Canada's ruling Conservative Party scrapped plans to hold its annual party convention in Calgary next weekend.

"Postponing the convention is the right thing to do for the people of Calgary," said Michelle Rempel, Chair of the convention's Host Committee.

Flood water covered the grounds of the Calgary Stampede, an annual extravaganza of cows, cowboys and horses scheduled to start on July 5. But Nenshi insisted the rodeo would go ahead.

"We're Calgarians. We'll make it work," he said. "It may look different, but the show will go on."

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flooding-close-core-canadas-oil-capital-days-000407537.html

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Georgia GOP eyes nominating conventions. Here's why it matters. (Washington Post)

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Russian rights group evicted from Moscow office

By Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Authorities forcibly evicted a prominent Russian human rights organization from its office in the early hours of Saturday in a raid its director said he believed was ordered by officials in President Vladimir Putin's administration.

For Human Rights is one of the best-known of the hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been subjected to state inspections under a law Putin signed last year requiring NGOs with foreign funding to register as "foreign agents".

Western powers and rights groups view the legislation and inspections as aimed at intimidating activists and silencing criticism of Putin, who started a new six-year term in May 2012.

Putin, who has accused Western governments of using NGOs to spy on Russia and influence the political situation, says the law is needed to ensure transparency and that the checks are to enforce legal compliance.

The U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul tweeted on Saturday that "the USA is concerned about reports of the forcible seizure of the office of the NGO For Human Rights," adding that this was "another case of intimidating civil society".

Riot police and Moscow mayor's office representatives entered the building housing the office of For Human Rights at about 2 a.m. (2200 GMT Friday), ejecting at least six employees and supporters, said the group's director, Lev Ponomaryov.

"They treated us very roughly. I was dragged across the floor and then kicked," the 72-year-old said by telephone. He said he and five others were taken by ambulance to a first-aid clinic with bruises and scrapes, but none were in hospital.

A Moscow government property official, Maxim Gaman, told state-run news agency RIA on Friday that For Human Rights was being evicted because its lease on the city-owned premises had run out in February and had been terminated on May 27.

A police spokesman said officers had been sent to help city officials evict the group because its lease had run out.

About a dozen people gathered to protest outside the building on Saturday, undisturbed by the police.

FOREIGN AGENT LAW

Ponomaryov said the group had not received an eviction notice. He said the eviction may have been motivated by the group's refusal to give prosecutors documents they had demanded under the foreign agent law.

"I don't know if Putin is behind it but there must have been a decision at a very high level, in the Kremlin," he said. He also blamed Kremlin-appointed mayor Sergei Sobyanin for the eviction.

The presidential press service declined to comment, and Sobyanin's office could not immediately be reached.

The Moscow division of Russia's Interior Ministry on Saturday defended the actions of the police, saying the removal of the employees had been carried out by a private security firm, with police officers only involved in maintaining order outside the building.

Ponomaryov said he had expected to extend the lease as he had done in previous years, and that he was up to date on rent payments. "It's all entirely illegal," he said, adding that a court decision was required to carry out an eviction.

Russia's human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, said city and law enforcement authorities had "tried to resolve a dispute between two parties unilaterally without involving the courts".

He said he had been barred from the scene of he raid in what he called a "crude violation of federal constitutional law", Interfax news agency reported.

Interfax also reported that a special meeting of the Kremlin's Human Rights Council would be held on Wednesday to discuss the incident, with Mayor Sobyanin and the heads of the Moscow police and prosecutors invited to attend.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Jason Bush and Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-rights-group-evicted-moscow-office-094115267.html

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Brazil hit by largest protests yet as hundreds of thousands march

By Paulo Prada

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's biggest protests in two decades intensified on Thursday despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations, as 300,000 people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of thousands more flooded other cities.

Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, marchers demonstrated around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis.

"Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central Sao Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions.

In the capital, Brasilia, tens of thousands of protesters by early evening marched around the landmark modernist buildings that house Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential offices.

The swelling tide of protests prompted President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a trip next week to Japan, her office said.

The targets of the protests, now in their second week, have broadened to include high taxes, inflation, corruption and poor public services ranging from hospitals and schools to roads and police forces.

With an international soccer tournament as a backdrop, demonstrators are also denouncing the more than $26 billion of public money that will be spent on the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, two events meant to showcase a modern, developed Brazil.

After the concession on transport fares on Wednesday, activist groups differed over what their next priority should be. But the competing demands of demonstrators appeared to add to the intensity of Thursday's protests.

Inside the Maracan? stadium in Rio de Janeiro, soccer fans sang protest songs and showed support for the throngs of demonstrators gathering in the city. In Salvador, a northeastern city hosting another game of the soccer tournament that serves as a World Cup test run, protesters clashed with police, who fired teargas to disperse crowds.

The unrest comes six months before an election year and at a time when Brazil, after nearly a decade-long economic boom in which the country's profile soared on the global stage, enters a period of uncertainty. Economic growth of less than 1 percent last year, annual inflation of 6.5 percent and a loss of appetite for Brazilian assets among international investors have clouded what had been a feel-good era for Brazil.

Brazil's currency, the real, dropped to a four-year low on Thursday, trading as weak as 2.275 per U.S. dollar. The country's benchmark stock market index, the Bovespa, also hit a four-year low.

CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

The protests have shaken the once solid ground under Rousseff and her ruling Workers' Party, a bloc that itself grew out of convulsive demonstrations by Brazil's labor movement 30 years ago. Until inflation and other economic woes began eroding her poll numbers in recent weeks, Rousseff enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings of any elected leader worldwide.

The demonstrations have been largely non-violent and comprised mostly middle-class, well-educated voters who do not form the bulk of Rousseff's electoral base.

But she and her party have sought to get ahead of the complaints and embrace them as their own - a shift that contrasts sharply with a playbook that long relied on telling Brazilians that they had never had it so good.

With little more than a year to go before presidential and gubernatorial elections, the unrest is forcing incumbents and traditional political parties to reconsider their strategies.

The decision to cut transportation fares illustrates what many analysts consider a reactive and contradictory response by a ruling class caught off guard.

"Were they wrong before or are they wrong now?" asked Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a business school in Sao Paulo, noting what had been a steadfast refusal to reverse a fare hike.

(Additional reporting by Eduardo Sim?es, Caroline Stauffer, Brian Winter, Pedro Fonseca and Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Todd Benson and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-braces-continued-protests-nationwide-202011419.html

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