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Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the crown prince and son of Dubai’s ruler, ordered the fee freeze, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday. |
The UAE’s cabinet made a similar commitment last week not to increase fees at a federal level for three years, the statement said. |
Dubai consumer inflation rose moderately in January after the introduction of the VAT, which was designed to bolster state finances in the UAE after revenue had taken a hit from low oil prices. |
Saudi Arabia also introduced 5 percent VAT at the same time as the UAE, but the other four wealthy oil exporting countries of the Gulf have so far held off implementation. |
The Bermuda International Football Festival continued with matches moved to the BAA Field, with 7 goals scored in a double header. |
West Ham United scored early in both halves to set the tone for a 5 – 1 win over the Bermuda League Select. Evan Khouri gave West Ham United the lead in the 15th minute, he would double the lead on the stroke of half time with a creative buildup. |
Five minutes into the second half West Ham would go up 3 – 0 when Emmanuel Longelo scored, five minutes later it was 4 – 0 with Bernardo Rosa scoring and then Kyle McGenchy would make it 5 – 0 in the 80th minute, the Bermuda League select team would not be denied as Calin Maybury scored in the 90th minute. |
The lone goal of this game came when Andre Silva scored earning the Azores Under 19 team a 1 – 0 win over the Bermuda Under 19 team. |
Petitioners arrested this week after stating intention to form a human rights group. |
Saudi authorities continued with a third day of detentions Wednesday with the arrest of lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, as defiant activists called for the release of all those arrested. |
The sudden and sweeping detention of democratic activists comes at a time when Saudi Arabia has taken steps towards political reforms, allowing a freer and more critical press, announcing the first municipal elections in October, and setting up a human rights organization earlier this month. |
"It's an extraordinary step backward in respect to the several moves forward they've taken," says a senior US government official. |
"This is a surprise. These men [who were detained] had met with Crown Prince Abdullah and [Interior Minister] Prince Nayef and had open and pleasant discussions about reforms," says writer and activist Turki al-Hamad. |
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia has come under pressure from the United States to implement democratic reforms, which Washington sees as a deterrent to extremism and intolerance. The first widespread detentions since political freedoms became a pressing topic in Saudi Arabia following the Sept. 11 attacks are ... |
The arrests are an attempt by the government to put a brake on the country's burgeoning reform movement and to show that they control it, says Saudi writer Tawfiq al-Saif. |
"This is a message from the authorities that says, 'no one can impose demands on us.' We decide ourselves on the pace and scope of the reforms, and no one else should interfere," says Mr. Saif. |
The trigger for the arrests, he says, was a letter sent several weeks ago to the Saudi crown prince informing him of the group's intention to set up an independent human rights organization. |
The group had defied a ban on public gatherings and decided at a meeting of more than 30 Saudis at a Riyadh hotel last month that it was time to stop talking, says Saif, who was in close touch with them. "We had written many petitions and it was decided that we should move into the next phase of taking action," he says... |
The sweep of arrests started Monday night in the port city of Jiddah, followed by arrests Tuesday in the capital, Riyadh, and the Eastern Province. Those arrested include several university professors, a lawyer, a poet, and a number of writers who were picked up from either their homes or their workplaces, according to... |
A statement by the Interior Ministry late Monday confirmed the arrests but did not give details. The men were "detained for questioning regarding petitions they issued which do not serve the country's unity and the cohesion of society based on Islamic law," the statement said. |
Reformists in Saudi Arabia have been increasingly active over the past year, sending five petitions to the government demanding wide-ranging political and economic reforms. In a petition signed in December, 116 people sought the transformation of Saudi Arabia into a constitutional monarchy. Last month more than 800 peo... |
Political parties and political gatherings are not allowed in Saudi Arabia, and women are not allowed to work alongside men, travel without permission of a male guardian, drive a car, or appear in public unveiled. |
Activists also want more transparency and accountability from the royal family, whose members control the country's purse strings and hold major government posts. |
The efforts in Saudi Arabia take place against the backdrop of the recently launched US "Greater Middle East Initiative." Washington is calling for major economic and political reforms. But it has met with resistance from Arab leaders in the region. Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to visit Kuw... |
Mr. Tayeb, Mr. Faleh, and Hamid, who have been spearheading the movement calling for faster and greater reforms, have all been previously detained for their political activism - but this was the first time the government has moved against them in recent years. |
Mr. Lahem was called in for questioning after he appeared on Al Jazeera satellite television and criticized as illegal the arrest of some of the country's top political activists, he told the Monitor by cellphone on his way to the Saudi security offices. |
There were reports of the release of four activists Wednesday, but the reformist leaders, lawyer and publisher Mohammad Saeed Tayeb and academics Matrouk al-Faleh and Abdullah al-Hamed were still behind bars at press time. The exact number of detainees could not be verified, but reformists say that a total of 11 people... |
Meanwhile activists were gathering signatures for a petition to the country's newly formed, government-appointed human rights group asking for their intervention. They also requested a meeting with the country's defacto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, and Prince Nayef, to ask for the release of the detainees, says Saudi ... |
"If the human rights group is serious, they have to prove themselves now," says Mr. Sharif. |
An officer at the Interior Ministry called Tayeb Monday night and told him he was wanted for questioning before sending a car several minutes later, his wife Faiga Badr says. Tayeb "called me at two in the morning and told me to be strong and he asked me to pack a small bag for him with his medicine and clothes," Mrs. ... |
ANNAPOLIS (February 24, 2011) During House and Senate committee hearings Wednesday for a bill to replace the statue of John Hanson in the U.S. Capitol with a statue of Harriet Tubman, one lawmaker suggested that a commission be set up to rotate a set of about five exemplary Marylanders. |
Another lawmaker, Sen. Roy Dyson, D-St. Mary's, suggested the state ask Congress to allow Maryland to place Tubman as its third statue in the National Statuary Hall collection, where each state by law has only two. |
Sen. Bryan Simonaire, R-Anne Arundel, said during the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee hearing that he wants to expand the statue debate so that the whole state can participate. |
The bill putting Tubman in Statuary Hall, which Delegate Susan Lee, D-Montgomery, had hoped would be a "feel-good, no-cost" accomplishment of the legislature this session, could be slowed by these alternative proposals. |
In the House Health and Governmental Operations committee, some legislators suggested a commission to determine whether Charles Carroll, Maryland's other representative in the collection, should be replaced rather than Hanson. Carroll was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. |
The ideas were met with impassioned resistance by Tubman supporters because they would cause delays. |
"It's excruciating to me to hear that we want to wait. That we want a separate category for African Americans and for women," said Moonyene Jackson-Amis, a former Easton councilwoman and a Tubman re-enactor. "It is not fair to me as an African-American woman to have two white men representing me. Stand back for a momen... |
The statue of Tubman would be the first of an African-American in the national collection and the tenth of a woman. |
Tubman is known to schoolchildren across the nation as an escaped slave and conductor of the Underground Railroad, a network of people helping slaves escape to freedom in the North. She also served in the Union Army during the Civil War as a nurse and scout, and later in life advocated for women's suffrage and founded ... |
Hanson is known to Maryland and early American history buffs as a coordinator of the American Revolution in the state, a delegate in the General Assembly and one of the presidents of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation. He was also a slaveholder, having 10 enslaved people willed to family membe... |
The Tubman legislation calls for the governor to set up a fundraising commission to raise the approximately $250,000 it would cost to create the statue and relocate Hanson's statue to Annapolis. The National Organization for Women and Equal Visibility Everywhere, both involved in the legislation from the beginning, hav... |
The bill, opposed by Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller Jr., has caused a debate about Maryland history among lawmakers. |
One side, Miller's side, claims that Hanson was the first president of the country now called the United States. The other side, led by bill sponsors such as Lee, claims that Hanson's role was largely ceremonial and only lasted a year. |
Hanson's descendants have populated Maryland's political scene for generations, including current state Sen. Thomas "Mac" Middleton, D-Charles, and former Maryland House Speaker John Hanson Briscoe. |
Archives|MISS E. PURVIANCE A BRIDE.; Married at Germantown (Pa.) to Henry W. Sage Jr., of New York. |
MISS E. PURVIANCE A BRIDE.; Married at Germantown (Pa.) to Henry W. Sage Jr., of New York. |
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Canadian exporters will try to cleanse their flax shipments of genetically modified organisms by requiring farmers to use certified seed, in an effort to reopen trade with top markets. |
Shipments to the European Union, which traditionally buys 70 percent of Canada’s flax, halted in late summer 2009 after the EU detected GMO material in a Canadian load. GMO flax has not been approved for food use in the EU, where consumers are fearful of the unproven long-term health effects. |
GMO detection has weakened cash flax prices and left the crop piling up on farms with markets uncertain. |
Farmers grow an estimated three-quarters of Canadian flax from seed they saved from past crops. The plan will see exporters buying crop grown only from seed produced and inspected according to the high standards of certified growers, with additional testing to ensure it’s free of GMO material. |
The plan will take effect with the crop planted this spring and harvested in autumn, 2010. |
Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of flax, also called linseed. Its seed is popular in baked goods, while its oil has industrial uses like linoleum flooring. |
The tough measures will only raise farmers’ costs and convince many to plant other crops this year, said Allen Kuhlmann, a flax farmer and chairman of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission. |
A Canadian university researcher developed FP967, the only GMO flax variety ever produced, in the 1990s. The variety, which the researcher ironically called Triffid after a science fiction book about plants that kill people, was authorized for use in Canada and the United States, but the industry successfully lobbied C... |
Importers in Japan have also discovered GMO materials in Canadian flax shipments and begun additional checks, while Brazil had imposed mandatory testing of Canadian shipments. Japan is Canada’s No. 3 flax market, while Brazil is a small importer, Kuhlmann said. |
Major flax exporters include Viterra VT.TO, James Richardson International and Cargill [CARG.UL]. A Cargill spokesman referred comments on the plan to the Flax Council, while the others could not be immediately reached. |
The industry plan doesn’t help find markets for this year’s 930,000-tonne crop. Shipping is now more difficult with the key Port of Thunder Bay closed for winter. |
The EU has not banned Canadian flax, but exporters have deemed it risky to make shipments that could be rejected. Several shipments from Canada did go to Europe this autumn, Hall said. |
Reba McEntire and the Broadway casts of West Side Story, Ragtime and Dreamgirls will perform during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City on Thursday (Nov. 26). As previously announced, Billy Currington will also ride on a float in the parade. This year, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will follow a ne... |
HARTFORD (CN) – A city dump worker says he lost his job and had a stroke because he refused to give “preferential treatment” to the husband of Hartford’s first openly gay mayor, who wanted to throw out leaves and other debris without a permit. |
In a Superior Court complaint, Willie Edwards says Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra’s husband, Charlie Ortiz, came to the dump on Oct. 14, 2010, without a permit. |
When Edwards tried to tell Ortiz how to get a permit, refusing to let Ortiz leave the debris without one, he says Ortiz became irate. |
“At one point Mr. Ortiz exclaimed “Do you know who I am” and further stated “I will make a call and fix that,” according to the eight-page complaint. |
Edwards says his supervisor, Stewart Issac, summoned him to his office two days later. |
Edwards claims Mayor Segarra decided to intervene into a personnel matter on behalf of his spouse to intimidate him. |
“Mr. Pedro Segarra personally intervened in the matter causing the Department of Public Works to take action against Mr. Edwards,” the complaint also states. |
Edwards seeks unspecified damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress. He is represented by John Kardaras. |
BOISE — Idaho Power Tuesday announced a goal to provide 100-percent clean energy by the year 2045. In addition to its hydropower facilities -- which typically meet almost half its customers’ energy demands, officials said -- Idaho Power plans additional investments in wind, solar and other clean sources. |
What’s being called “The Clean Today, Cleaner Tomorrow” effort will build on the company’s 100-year history as a clean-energy provider. |
A Idaho Power news release said the utility is among the first publicly-owned energy companies to set a goal for reaching 100-percent clean energy. To achieve the goal, the company plans to continue its path away from coal and invest in storage and additional clean generation sources like wind and solar. |
Idaho Power also announced an agreement to buy up to 120 megawatts of solar power. The price for this energy is among the lowest on record an Idaho Power release said. The energy will come from a generation facility to be built south of Twin Falls by Idaho company Jackpot Holdings, LLC. In the coming days, Idaho Power ... |
Clean energy initiatives are not new to Idaho Power. In 2009, the company adopted a resolution to reduce carbon emissions. Since then, it has made advances toward a clean-energy future. |
Idaho Power already buys a significant amount of energy generated by wind and solar resources. The company sells the renewable energy credits attached to this energy to benefit the customer. |
Boise Mayor David Bieter praised Idaho Power’s new goal -- and its alignment with a similar goal the City of Boise is developing for community-wide energy use. |
“Clean Today, Cleaner Tomorrow™ will require partnerships with utilities, customers, local governments and regulators. |
Alexandria, Virginia November 8, 2010 – Today Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan will present the HealthierUS School Challenge Gold Award to Cora Kelly School in Alexandria, Virginia. A dynamic multicultural elementary school, Cora Kelly boasts a student population that is 46% Hispanic, and serves as a magn... |
USDA's HealthierUS School Challenge is a voluntary school nutrition and wellness initiative for schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. To be recognized, schools must meet criteria for nutrition, nutrition education, and physical activity established by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which, i... |
Improving USDA's child nutrition programs on behalf of 32 million kids across the nation is a top priority of the Obama Administration. The HUSSC is also a key component of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation. |
The Ramones, widely seen as the epitome of punk rock music, are to be honored with a Lifetime Acheivement Award at the Grammy Awards at the 2011 ceremony. Unfortunately, the band’s three founding members (Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee) all passed away before they could be honored with this award. In fact, there is only one ... |
In my opinion, Portnow described the work of The Ramones any better; the band was (arguably) the first punk rock group to be formed, and definitely did not receive the credit they deserved during their career. The Ramones were an active group from 1974 to 1996, and despite their influence on punk rock and contemporary ... |
As an avid punk rock fan, I am very glad that The Ramones are receiving this award. To say they deserve it I feel is an understatement – I would go as far to say that this award was almost built for The Ramones (I feel like that makes the most sense, given their career as a whole). |
Yes, The Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so in that sense they are beginning to see the credit they deserved for so long. I just see this as another piece to the puzzle, so to speak. I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say that The Ramones changed the music scene as it was, and without th... |
You can find all of The Ramones music right here. |
Police say they found Joel Peloquin in a cemetery last week, threatening to kill himself. |
WYOMING, Mich. — Authorities say a man who fatally shot himself in the head in a west Michigan cemetery also was shot three times by officers. |
Kent County sheriff’s officials said Monday an autopsy performed on the body of 52-year-old Joel Peloquin over the weekend found the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head and it was ruled a suicide. The examination found Wyoming officers shot him three times, but those wounds weren’t fatal. |
Investigators say Peloquin was in the cemetery Friday, threatening to kill himself. Officers approached him and two fired as he displayed a firearm. |
Police say Peloquin then shot himself and was taken to a hospital, where he died. |
Authorities say three independent witnesses were at the cemetery. |
Prosecutors will review the case. |
The Galaxy S4 supports MP3, WMA and WAV audio files. |
4 Why Are the Emojis Not Showing in My Galaxy S4? |
The Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with its own message tones, so you have over a dozen tones to choose from. However, if you want to use a custom message tone on your Galaxy, you must first transfer it to the phone. The Galaxy S4 can use any audio file as a message tone, as long as the audio file is in a format recognized by... |
Connect the Samsung Galaxy S4 to your PC and choose "Media Device (MTP)" from the Notifications pane on the phone. Windows detects the phone as an external storage device, so you can use File Explorer to transfer the message tones to the Ringtones folder on the phone. Disconnect the phone from the computer and then sel... |
Webcazine: How to Transfer Music and Video Files to Samsung Galaxy S4? |
Peers, Nick. "Adding Message Tones to a Samsung Galaxy S4." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/adding-message-tones-samsung-galaxy-s4-81450.html. Accessed 20 April 2019. |
Which Apps on a Galaxy S4 Can I Safely Disable? |
The operator of Costa Rica's .cr internet registry has formally complained that it is being harassed by the US government over The Pirate Bay domain on its system. |
In a letter [PDF] sent to the head of the Governmental Advisory Committee of DNS overseer ICANN, the president of the Costa Rican Academy of Science, Dr Pedro Leon Azofeifa, complains it has been at the end of "threats to close our registry, with repeated harassment regarding our practices ... and even personal negativ... |
It notes that for two years, the US Embassy in Costa Rica "has frequently contacted our organization regarding the domain name thepiratebay.cr" and that the interactions have "escalated with time." It specifically names the embassy's economic specialist Kevin Ludeke as being the source of much of the harassment. |
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