The Next President and Savior of Egypt Aboul-Fout
Egypt has been in labor for more than a year since the eruption of the revolution in January 2011. It’s a labor for a better tomorrow for this great Arab and African nation. Egypt is the heart and soul of Africa, the Arab and the Islamic worlds. What goes on in Egypt usually impacts the region, culturally, politically and in many other ways.
The Mubarak regime that lasted for three decades had done a lot of damage to this once glorious nation. The country is still recoiling from the impact of that regime; the vast corruption that infested the previous government and the remnants of the Mubarak regime, the overbearing of the military institution, the impoverishment of the masses and the middle class, and the self-interests of some neighboring countries who do not wish to see Egypt rise and regain its rightful place in the world arena.
The coming presidential election in early June brings some hope for the Egyptians who are gasping for a wise and capable leadership that will steer Egypt to stability and prosperity. The economy is on the top list of concerns of people of Egypt. The front runner in these elections seems to be none but Dr. Abdolmoneim Aboul-Fotouh known for his staunch opposition to the Sadat and Mubarak regimes as well as his openness towards people of different political ideologies. Aboul-Fotouh was born in Cairo in 1951 and graduated from Cairo University School of Medicine with honors in 1976. He also received a Bachelor’s Degree of Law from the same university and attained a master’s degree in hospital management.
Aboul-Fotouh was the president of the student union at the School of Medicine. While president of the student union at Cairo University, Aboul-Fotouh debated with former president Anwar Sadat live on TV. Aboul-Fotouh called Sadat’s close advisors hypocrites, and denounced the arrests of student demonstrators on campus. Sadat was angered and Aboul-Fotoh was arrested in 1981 in the infamous September arrests — that targeted thousands of Muslims, Christians, journalists, and all critics of Sadat — and tried in a military court. Under Mubarak Microsoft Windows 7 Key, Aboul-Fotouh was also imprisoned from 1996 to 2001. He had been working as the aide to the secretary-general of the Arab Medical Union before his imprisonment.
Aboul-Futouh had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1987 until 2009. In 2011 he formally quit all political work with the Muslim Brotherhood, following his decision to run for president in 2012. Aboul Fotouh has attempted to build a broad base of support across the political spectrum despite perhaps some disagreements with others. He was endorsed by the Salafi Al-Nour Party on April 2012, and many liberals. Known for his liberal and open-minded views and as a leader Cheap windows 7 key, he declared that the source of true power and legislation was not in a law or constitution but in the people.
Known for his humility and reaching out to all people, Aboul-Futouh enjoys a great deal of respect among Egyptians. He is an excellent speaker Buy Windows 7 Product Key, very disciplined, and with a clear vision for the future. Aboul-Futouh is ahead of all the other candidates in the polls and his campaign seems to be gaining momentum and more supporters by the day. His campaign depends of the support of single individuals unlike other candidates who alleged obtained huge sums of cash from suspicious sources and do have dubious leaning serving foreign agendas. The popular sentiment in Egypt is a total refusal of candidates that were linked or part of the Mubarak regime, came from a military background, or above the age of seventy five. The vast majority of Egyptians are looking for a younger candidate with a clean slate who is not out of touch and does not live in an ivory tower with the rich business elite. Aboul-Futouh is only 60 and highly driven and energetic. He has clean and patriotic record and has promised to pick a young vice president and leadership. Will he then make it in June and become the savior of Egypt?
Aladdin Elaasar is the author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age. Email him at: omaraladin@aol.com
Romney Will Be ‘Day of Shame’ for Obama If Chen
Supporters of Chen Guangcheng/HO/AP Photo
PORTSMOUTH, Va. – Mitt Romney suggested today that if news reports are true that blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng was urged to leave the U.S. Embassy in Beijing by American officials then it’s a “day of shame for the Obama administration.”
“Now just in the last day or two we’ve heard some disturbing things from across the world that suggests potentially if the reports are true, some very troubling developments there,” said Romney, who was in Virginia for a second day of campaigning in the battleground state.
“Where an individual, Mr. Chen replica watches, has sought freedom in a bastion of freedom – an Embassy of the United States of America, aren’t we proud of the fact that people seeking freedom come to our embassy to find it?” said Romney. “The reports are, if they’re accurate, that our administration willingly or unwittingly communicated to Chen an implicit threat to his family and also probably sped up or maybe sped up the process of his decision to leave the embassy because they wanted to move on to a series of discussions that Mr. Geitner and our Secretary of State are planning on having with China.”
“It’s also apparent replica watches, according to these reports, if they’re accurate, that our Embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of Mr. Chen and his family,” said Romney. “If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama Administration. We are a place of freedom here and around the world and we should stand up and defend freedom wherever it is under attack.”
Conflicting reports have emerged from Beijing regarding how Chen was treated at the U.S. Embassy, where he went to seek refuge after escaping house arrest under threats from the Chinese government. The Romney campaign did not respond when asked for a specific report Romney was referring to during his remarks.
Chen, 40, said he had a change of heart about leaving the country Thursday, telling ABC News in an interview, “I wanted to stay in China in the beginning, but now I have changed my mind.”
Along with his family, he now wants “to leave for the U.S. on Hilary Clinton’s plane.”
Speaking to The Associated Press, Chen, a blind human rights activist replica watches, said the only reason he left the U.S. Embassy is because he was told the Chinese would kill his wife if he refused. In subsequent comments to multiple media outlets, including ABC News, he stepped back from that comment. He said the Chinese government “threatened me that if I don’t leave the embassy, they will bring my family back to Shandong.
U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke said today in Beijing that Chen “was never pressured to leave” the Embassy.
ABC News’ Beijing bureau reporters contributed to this report.
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Interview Nokia’s Head of Imaging on Extending Z
Nokia said Wednesday that it plans to start shipping its 808 PureView — the 41-megapixel cameraphone introduced earlier this year — by the end of May.
India and Russia will be among the first markets to get the PureView The Best Tattoo Guns, Nokia said. The company also said it was extending its exclusive camera deal with Germany’s Carl Zeiss, its longtime imaging partner The Best Tattoo Machine, whose lenses power the PureView and the N8.
“We are getting much more than just the optics components from Carl Zeiss,” said Nokia head of imaging Juha Alakarhu, in a telephone interview. “This is really a true partnership with Carl Zeiss. They have a big role throughout the development of our cameras.”
Nokia is counting on imaging to remain as one of its selling points as it shifts its weight from its homegrown Symbian operating system to building phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Nokia reiterated that it plans to adapt the PureView technology to future Windows Phones.
The company still isn’t going into any details on that front, nor is it saying when the first Windows Phones with the technology will ship. Nokia plans to sell the Symbian-based PureView in markets beyond Russia and India, but has said it does not plan to bring it to the U.S.
“We will bring PureView to future smartphones — all the parts in the product, from great optics [to the] processing, the whole experience,” Alakarhu said.
During a visit to Finland in February, AllThingsD was among the first outsiders to see the PureView, ahead of the formal launch of the device at that month’s Mobile World Congress.
Since then, Alakarhu said he has been traveling a lot with the phone, taking it on various work trips, including a recent visit to Indonesia, and this week’s May 1 celebrations in Finland. Alakarhu said he gets lots of amazed reactions What Are The Best Tattoo Machines, adding that he is probably most pleased that his usually critical photography enthusiast friends are impressed.
“I was able to show the photos, and I was happy to see their happy faces,” he said.
Nokia has also promised it has more photo tricks up its sleeve, though Alakarhu wouldn’t spill the beans.
“I probably shouldn’t say anything about our future surprises,” he said. “We are working hard on imaging technology.”
Nokia spent five years developing the camera technology behind the PureView.
Converting to JPMorgan Chase
In early March, I received a letter from my bank informing me of an impending “Conversion Date” on May 4. As a Religious Studies professor, I read on eagerly wondering what aspects of my body or soul might change this May. I learned that assets — even the simple dollars in one’s checking account — can, like people, be converted. We have long been accustomed to exchanging money: passing one currency under a glass window and receiving another or, more recently, using an ATM card to extract the local currency in a foreign country. Converting money is a more provocative idea.
I have already undergone many changes with my financial institution. I signed up for Solomon Smith Barney, I believe, in the late 1990s. After a break, during which I signed up for a local credit union, I returned to a Smith Barney that was now a subdivision of Citibank. In this incarnation, my first ATM outlet was in a McDonalds and caused me to wonder if, in fact, Smith Barney was really a financial arm of the fast food chain. Soon enough, Citibank was everywhere, even bankrolling my mid-2000s mortgage after an excruciating question process in which a bank account separate from my husband’s made me highly suspicious (I wondered if they could share a bank account with a human beatbox). After the Crash, Citibank unloaded Smith Barney and my bank became MorganStanleySmithBarney. Technically, I could still use Citibank ATMS without a surcharge, but only until September, when I traded the neon lit corner horizon of blue and red for blue and white. But these changes are mere prelude to the Conversion Date when all will melt into one pulsating whole called Chase.
Where the Conversation Date imagery evokes Paul blinded by God on the road to Damascus, the assuring Chase promise sounds Darwinian: “Soon, you will experience another important step in the evolution of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.” Maybe the point of the Conversion is to unify the poles of religion and science in the realm of global finance. Or maybe it just means, “MorganStanleySmithBarney (“MSSB”) will assume responsibility for the … services currently provided by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (“CGMI”). Then why the language of conversion, why the sense of an irrevocable shift that will forever alter the future?
Let me suggest that we are in a process of conversion that is worth dramatizing before it is complete. We are increasingly transformed into commodities traded by ever-larger corporations. Our assets are held by just a few behemoth banks locked in an eternal war with one another. Our social connections belong to Facebook and Twitter. Our talents and embarrassments are YouTube’s, which Tattoo Kits, as the video site of Google, already has the scoop on our preferences and desires. In all cases Tattoo Machine Price, we have become manifest as numbers on a screen: how many dollars, how many friends Power Supply For Tattoo Machine, how many followers (as if the era of personal Gospel has really arrived), how many clicks. With so much energy invested in maintaining and increasing these numbers, we have become their embodiment or, at least, their protector. So, I think that the language of conversion is appropriate: Come May 4, Chase will define a significant part of me.
Or not. I’ve been frantically realigning my numbers, opening a savings account with a credit union, opening a checking account with a local bank complete with a nearby branch filled with people I enjoy talking to, wrestling with how to disentangle retirement investments. As a public employee, I want out of the Conversion, lately all I witness are my public institution’s numbers go down as banks’ numbers go up. I want to buck the trend, although this may be the kind of conversion that it is impossible to resist.
NCTC is not State vs Centre issue, says PM
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh defended the proposed National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) saying it will “supplement” the anti-terror capabilities of States and “not supplant” them.
Addressing the NCTC meeting on Saturday in New Delhi, Dr Singh said that the proposed anti-terror agency is not the State versus Centre issue. “It is not the government’s intention to affect distribution of powers between States and the Union (government)”, he said the Chief Ministers, who are opposing the formation of the body.
“The setting up of NCTC is aimed to coordinate counter-terror efforts throughout this vast country. The NCTC will supplement the States’ anti-terror capabilities and not supplant them”, he said.
Backing the NCTC, Dr Singh said, “The NCTC should be a vehicle of our combined efforts to eradicate terrorism. Terrorism is one of the threats to our national security. Neither the States nor the centre can fulfill this task alone”.
He said that the proposed body will give each state a capability to see the bigger picture of terror threat. However, the Centre is open to have suggestions from the Chief Ministers, he added.
Dr Singh hoped that the discussion over the NCTC will take place in a spirit of harmony and cooperation, which is essential to challenge the terrorism in the country.
Earlier, addressing the chief ministers, Home Minister P Chidambaram said that countering terrorism is a shared responsibility between states and Centre as per the Constitution.
“Terrorist acts go across borders and countries…under the international obligation Herve Leger sale, we share borders with many countries Buy DKNY Clothes, a number of international gateways, will have to necessary work with number of agencies,” said Chidambaram.
He said that there had been demands to fight the terrorism after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the NCTC will work effectively to challenge the terrorism in India.
While the meeting proceeded, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi raised his voice against the proposal of the Centre, citing the Batla House encounter, which is still suspense. The Union government is still not clear whether it is a genuine encounter between the terrorists and Delhi Police, which functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Food poisoning fight over for families
After 16 years, South Australia’s longest running civil case is finally over, after settling in court today.
23 claims in total have been made against smallgoods manufacturer Garibaldi over a food poisoning epidemic in 1995.
They all ate a batch of Garibaldi mettwurst that was later found to be contaminated with the deadly e-coli bacteria.
One child, four-year-old Nikki Robinson, died after eating the mettwurst.
The company’s directors were prosecuted and sued, and Garibaldi closed its doors in February, 1995.
Insurer QBE created a compensation fund after Garibaldi’s collapse, totalling $10 million in benefit payments, the total of the company’s liability.
Today, the final three claims were settled.
Amongst them is 17-year-old Dylan Paterson, who was only six months old when he became ill and later required a kidney transplant, which he received from his father.
He will be the final victim to fill in the paperwork for the claims.
He still suffers multiple health complications Tattoo Supplies, taking up to eight different medications a day.
Under the settlement, he has had his medical bill wiped by the state government and will receive a gold card, giving him access to free medical treatment for the rest of his life.
“It’s all good to get the money and stuff,” he told 7News,
“But the money hasn’t taken away all the stuff that has happened to me Tattoo Supplies, and I still have to go through the rest of my life with this.”
Forget Tax Simplification
Tax simplification is back in vogue among right-thinking people. Bandage dresses sale
On Nov. 10, former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, and Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Clinton, released a draft proposal that they’re trying to sell to members of a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel created by President Obama. Chairmen Bowles and Simpson floated the idea of replacing the current six income-tax brackets with three, dropping the top marginal rate (applied to family income above $363,650) from the current 35 percent to 24 percent. Bowles and Simpson also floated a variation previously proposed by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., that would replace the current structure with three brackets but would keep the top rate at 35 percent. On Nov. 17 a different bipartisan deficit-reduction panel, chaired by former Sen. Pete Domenici, a Republican, and Alice Rivlin, former budget director to President Clinton, released its own report. Domenici and Rivlin propose to replace the current six brackets with two, dropping the top marginal rate to 27 percent.
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Perhaps you’re wondering why two separate deficit commissions would choose to tackle the deficit by lowering the top tax rate (or at best maintaining it) rather than raising it. The answer has more to do with politics than economics. The idea is to con voters into thinking they’re getting a tax cut when in fact they’re getting a tax increase through the elimination of various “tax expenditures” (i.e., deductions and exemptions). All these proposals would, for instance, either limit or eliminate the popular mortgage interest deduction. Lowering tax rates to draw attention away from the elimination of tax expenditures was the strategy of the 1986 tax reform bill. That bill was also sold as tax simplification, since it replaced the existing 14 rates with five (dropping the top rate from 50 percent to 38.5 percent) and eventually with two (with a top rate of 28 percent). In the 1990s and aughts Cheap Emilio Pucci Dresses, two brackets became three, then five Herve leger strapless sale, and finally six.
I’m all for eliminating wasteful tax expenditures. But eliminating them in exchange for lower rates and fewer brackets makes a lot less sense today than it did in 1986 because circumstances have changed in two important ways.
First and most obviously, such a swap isn’t nearly so good a deal when the top rate starts out pretty low. In 1986 the top rate was 50 percent. Today the top rate is 35 percent. And if the Bush tax cut is allowed to expire for top incomes (as appears unlikely, at least in the near term), the top rate will rise to 39.6 percent. Even 39.6 percent is low compared with the top rate for most of the income tax’s 97-year history. The top rate stood at or above 90 percent between 1944 and 1963. President Kennedy dropped it to 77 percent and then 70 percent, where it remained until 1982, when President Reagan dropped it to 50 percent and then (under the 1986 tax reform) to the aforementioned 38.5 percent and 28 percent. (The first President Bush and President Clinton nosed it back up, first to 31 percent and then to the now-intolerable 39.6 percent, which Bush fils dropped to the present 35 percent.)
Maybe you feel we should write the high rates off as an aberration of the socialist New Deal and its four-decade aftermath. But from 1920 to 1924 the top marginal rate was 73 percent, then 58 percent, then 46 percent. For most of that time the president was Republican Warren G. Harding! Today, combined U.S. taxes at the federal, state, and local level are lower than they are in virtually the entire developed world. A 2008 survey of member countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the U.S. two notches from the bottom; only Turkey and Mexico had a lower combined tax rate.
The second circumstance that’s changed since 1986 is income distribution.
As I pointed out in my Slate series Herve Leger sale, “The Great Divergence,” incomes have grown dramatically less equal since 1979. There are various reasons for this, most of which I won’t get into because they’re explained in the series. But one very significant reason, especially since the early 1990s, has been a stunning increase in incomes at the top of the income scale. This was first documented by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez in 2003 (see chart above); Saez updated the figures this past July. Since 1979, the share of national income going to the top 0.1 percent (people making more than about $1 million in current dollars) has essentially quadrupled Cheap Marc Jacobs Dresses, from about 2 percent to about 8 percent. Let me say that again: About 8 percent of all the income earned in the United States goes to people making $1 million or more. These people don’t need tax simplification. They need tax complication: more brackets at higher rates.
The current system of tax brackets is faulty, just like the reformers say it is. But the problem isn’t too many tax brackets. It’s too few. The income-tax structure we have today is built on the quaint assumption that people earning in excess of $363,650 constitute a single wealthy class. But what Piketty and Saez demonstrated was that this group in fact encompasses a hierarchy of wealthy people whose incomes, like those of the general population, have grown less equal than they were 30 years ago, or even 24 years ago. Here’s how James Surowiecki, using the same Piketty-Saez data (and drawing the same conclusion I am here) put it in an August column for the New Yorker: “[A]t the same time that the rich have been pulling away from the middle class, the very rich have been pulling away from the pretty rich, and the very, very rich have been pulling away from the very rich.”
We need at least a couple of new higher-percentage brackets above the current highest bracket to acknowledge this reality. It simply isn’t fair to treat a family earning $363,650 the same as a family making $1 million. Such families barely live on the same planet. Which isn’t to say that the family earning $363,650 deserves a tax cut. It is merely to say that the family earning $1 million should pay more than 35 or even 39.6 percent, and that a family earning $10 million should pay at an even higher tax rate. Stepping it up gradually to a maximum rate of 70 percent would probably cause mass hysteria, at least in the Fox newsroom, but under Nixon and Ford, you paid that much if you earned about $200,000 (the equivalent of somewhere between $800,000 and about $1 million in current dollars). Today that group pays a top marginal tax that’s half what it was back then.
By all means, let’s eliminate wasteful tax expenditures from the U.S. income-tax system. I’d even favor eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction (though perhaps not at this precise moment, given the perilous state of the housing market). But please, let’s hear no more talk about reducing the number of tax brackets. We need more tax brackets Discount BCBG Dresses, and higher ones, for the rich, richer, and richest. They can afford it.
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Optima edges Accord in CR test, Altima still favor
The mid-size sedan battle rages on year after year. Perennial kings are dethroned while new challengers emerge boasting fresh styling and a bountiful list of standard features. Consumer Reports launched its June issue today Herve Leger sale, inside which the institute’s testers have pitted four-cylinder versions of the Kia Optima and Honda Accord against each other to determine which is top dog, and then ranked them both against their peers.
As it has here at Autoblog Towers Cheap Christian Audigier Clothing, the 2011 Kia Optima drew big praise from the Consumer Reports crew. In fact, the Korean squeezed out a higher rating than the veteran Honda Accord. It may have only beat the Honda by one point (81 to 80), but this represents a significant win for Kia. The opinion of Consumer Reports is highly valued by a large number of car shoppers Cheap DKNY Clothing, and this victory ought to push the Optima further onto the radar of the American car-buying public. Despite beating the Accord and earning a “Very Good” rating, however, the Optima is still nowhere near the top of the heap in Consumer Reports’ ratings of four-cylinder mid-size sedans. The Nissan Altima (a perennial CR favorite) still holds the top spot with a rating of 91, neatly trumping the Optima in sixth place and the Accord in seventh.
One vehicle that didn’t do so well in the June issue of Consumer Reports? The 2011 Ford Explorer. Three mid-size sport utility vehicles were rounded up for testing: the Explorer, Volkswagen Touareg TDI and Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Of the 19 mid-size SUVs that Consumer Reports has rankings for Discount White Herve leger, the Explorer came in at 17 with just 65 points. The Touareg TDI, meanwhile White Herve leger sale, landed in fourth place with a score of 82 and the Highlander Hybrid beat all with a top rating of 89.
If you won’t get the latest issue of CR in your mailbox Cheap Chanel Dresses, check out the official press release after the jump for more details.
UPDATE: The information in this article has been corrected concerning which vehicles were compared against each other in the June issue of Consumer Reports and where they ranked overall.
Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 getsbehind the scenesad treat
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We have to admit that we tend to lean toward the Ford Mustang when it comes time to pick our favorite pony car Discount Chanel Dresses, but the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 may change all that. The track-bred beast packs supercharged power Discount DKNY Dresses, one very advanced magnetic suspension setup and a whole heap of attitude. Now Cheap White Herve leger, General Motors is out to build some anticipation for the newest member of the Camaro clan with a set of behind the scenes ads designed to get us all licking our chops before the vehicle arrives in showrooms.
The first two clips have already hit the interwebs Cheap Herve Leger v neck, and they focus on the fact that the ZL1 will pack a customizable launch control mode that’s accessible merely by mashing the traction control button twice. That kind of kit is good for setting fire to the quarter mile and generally embarrassing one and all from stoplight to stoplight. The second ad focuses a little more heavily on the advanced suspension at work in the ZL1 BCBG Dresses sale, and includes a few shots of the mighty Bowtie carving up a track. Hit the jump to enjoy.
REPORTOutgoing Saab 9-5 to live on… as Chinese B
If Billy Joel is right that only the good die young, the outgoing Saab 9-5 has been very Where to buy Replica MB&F Watches, very bad. In automotive terms, the 9-5 is positively ancient, having first seen the light of day in 1997 and getting very little in the way of meaningful changes since that time.
If, though Where to buy Replica Tonino Lamborghini Watches, you happen to like cars that feature a design that’s… shall we say, “proven,” we have some good news to report. According to Autocar Fake Raymond Weil Watches for sale, the old 9-5 will get a new lease on life from China’s Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation (BAIC). It’s not clear what changes (if any) will be made to the car in its new incarnation Wholesale Replica Anonimo Watches, or if BAIC will also purchase the rights to Saab’s turbocharged four-cylinder engines.
Last month, BAIC made a $400 million investment into the Swedish automaker Replica Ferrari Watches, becoming a minority shareholder in Koenigsegg Replica Emporio Armani Watches, Saab’s new parent company. As for the 9-5 in America, well… let’s just say we’re happy to be getting the completely reengineered 2010 model.
[Source: Autocar]