BAGHDAD (Reuters/IHT) – The Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush at a news conference appeared before a judge Tuesday and admitted “aggression against a president,” a judicial spokesman said.
The television reporter, Muntader al-Zaidi, became an instant sensation when he called Bush a “dog” at a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on Sunday and tried to hit him with both of his shoes.
“Zaidi was brought today before the investigating judge in the presence of a defense lawyer and a prosecutor,” said Abdul Satar Birqadr, a spokesman for Iraq’s High Judicial Council. “He admits the action he carried out.”
The court decided to keep Zaidi in custody. After the judge has completed his investigation the court may send him for trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code that makes it an offense to attempt to murder Iraqi or foreign presidents. The sentence for such a crime could be up to 15 years in prison, Birqadr said.
Dheyaa Saadi, head of the Union of Lawyers in Iraq and one of its most high-profile attorneys, said that he had volunteered to defend Zaidi.
“I will introduce myself as his lawyer and demand the case be closed and Muntader be released because he did not commit a crime,” said Saadi.
At a news conference with Bush and Maliki on Sunday evening in Baghdad’s Green Zone, Zaidi, a reporter for Al Baghdadia, a satellite television network, rose from his seat and threw one of his shoes at Bush’s head. He shouted: “This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog!”
Bush ducked and the shoe missed him. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” The shoe hit the wall behind Bush.
According to The Associated Press, Al Baghdadia reported that Zaidi had been “seriously injured” during his detention and called on the government to allow lawyers and the Iraqi Red Crescent to visit him. Later, however, one of his brothers said that he had spoken by telephone with Zaidi, who told him, “Thank God, I am in good health,” The AP reported.
Coffee output in the two main export-growing areas of Ethiopia, Africa’s largest producer of the beans, may decline 60 percent because of drought, the United Nations said.
The lower harvest may aggravate malnutrition in southern Ethiopia’s Gedeo and Sidamo zones, where hunger is rife as a result of the drought, falling world coffee prices and higher food prices, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report today.
Production in Gedeo may fall 67 percent from a year earlier, while that in Sidamo may decline 53 percent, Tamirat Mulu, the author of the report, said in a phone interview in the capital, Addis Ababa, today. The report was based on a livelihood assessment carried out by relief agencies between Nov. 17 and Dec. 5. Ethiopia’s main coffee harvest is from October through December.
Ethiopia exported 170,888 metric tons of coffee last year. About 35 percent of that was high-grade washed coffee and 65 percent lower quality dried coffee. Sidama and Gedeo provide about 60 percent of Ethiopia’s washed coffee, Mulu said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: World Bank knows that most of the money will go into the pockets of Meles Zenawi and gang. The rest will be used to buy weapons for terrorizing the people of Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (APA) The World Bank (WB) announced on Wednesday that its Board of Directors has approved US$ 50 million credit to help finance a General Education Quality Improvement Program (GEQIP) in Ethiopia, APA learnt here.
The WB said the “credit is the first part of a two-phase Adaptable Program Loan, and will leverage an estimated collective investment of US$ 417million in additional resources from the Government and other development partners.”
Accordingly, around 15.9 million students in primary and secondary schools will benefit from the Program, together with about 225,000 teachers.
Ethiopia is expected to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the education sector by 2015, and it is undertaking a multi million investment on education since the past few years.
“Between 2000 and 2007 the gross enrolment rate in primary education increased from 62 percent to 91 percent and net enrolment increased from 52 percent to 78 percent,” said WB, which is one of Ethiopia’s partners in the education sector.
At higher education level, the average annual growth rate was 28.5 percent since 2002, increasing enrolment from about 58,000 in 2002 to 203,000 in 2007.
However, Ethiopia’s education sector faces a number of key challenges, including, inequitable access to education opportunities for females and other vulnerable groups, especially in remote areas, among others.
The GEQIP will support, among other things, improvements in teaching and learning conditions in primary and secondary institutions, and management planning and budget capacity of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and Regional Education Bureaus.
The credit is provided with a commitment charge of 0.10 percent per annum and a service charge of 0.75 percent per annum (on the disbursed credit balance) over a 40 year period of maturity which includes a 10-year grace period.
In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.
1. Savor Everyday Moments
Pause now and then to smell a rose or watch children at play. Study participants who took time to “savor” ordinary events that they normally hurried through, or to think back on pleasant moments from their day, “showed significant increases in happiness and reductions in depression,” says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky.
2. Avoid Comparisons
While keeping up with the Joneses is part of American culture, comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to happiness and self-esteem. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, focusing on our own personal achievement leads to greater satisfaction, according to Lyubomirsky.
3. Put Money Low on the List
People who put money high on their priority list are more at risk for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, according to researchers Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan. Their findings hold true across nations and cultures. “The more we seek satisfactions in material goods, the less we find them there,” Ryan says. “The satisfaction has a short half-life — it’s very fleeting.” Money-seekers also score lower on tests of vitality and self-actualization.
4. Have Meaningful Goals
“People who strive for something significant, whether it’s learning a new craft or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don’t have strong dreams or aspirations,” say Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener. “As humans, we actually require a sense of meaning to thrive.” Harvard’s resident happiness professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, agrees, “Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable.”
5. Take Initiative at Work
How happy you are at work depends in part on how much initiative you take. Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski says that when we express creativity, help others, suggest improvements, or do additional tasks on the job, we make our work more rewarding and feel more in control.
6. Make Friends, Treasure Family
Happier people tend to have good families, friends, and supportive relationships, say Diener and Biswas-Diener. But it’s not enough to be the life of the party if you’re surrounded by shallow acquaintances. “We don’t just need relationships, we need close ones” that involve understanding and caring.
7. Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
It sounds simple, but it works. “Happy people…see possibilities, opportunities, and success. When they think of the future, they are optimistic, and when they review the past, they tend to savor the high points,” say Diener and Biswas-Diener. Even if you weren’t born looking at the glass as half-full, with practice, a positive outlook can become a habit.
8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It
People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis are healthier, more optimistic, and more likely to make progress toward achieving personal goals, according to author Robert Emmons. Research by Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, revealed that people who write “gratitude letters” to someone who made a difference in their lives score higher on happiness, and lower on depression — and the effect lasts for weeks.
9. Get Out and Exercise
A Duke University study shows that exercise may be just as effective as drugs in treating depression, without all the side effects and expense. Other research shows that in addition to health benefits, regular exercise offers a sense of accomplishment and opportunity for social interaction, releases feel-good endorphins, and boosts self-esteem.
10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!
Make altruism and giving part of your life, and be purposeful about it. Researcher Stephen Post says helping a neighbor, volunteering, or donating goods and services results in a “helper’s high,” and you get more health benefits than you would from exercise or quitting smoking. Listening to a friend, passing on your skills, celebrating others’ successes, and forgiveness also contribute to happiness, he says. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn found that those who spend money on others reported much greater happiness than those who spend it on themselves.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney is calling President-elect Barack Obama’s national security lineup “a pretty good team.”
In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News with 35 days left in the Bush administration, Cheney also again vehemently defended going to war in Iraq, said waterboarding of suspects in the war on terror was justified in some instances and opposed closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“I must say, I think it’s a pretty good team,” Cheney said of Obama’s national security choices, in a segment of the interview broadcast Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”
“I’m not close to Barack Obama, obviously, nor do I identify with him politically. He’s a liberal. I’m a conservative,” he said.
But the vice president also said he thinks “the idea of keeping (Bob) Gates at defense is excellent. I think (retired Gen.) Jim Jones will be very, very effective as the national security adviser.”
And Cheney said that while “I would not have hired” Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state, “I think she’s tough. She’s smart, she works very hard and she may turn out to be just what President Obama needs.”
Cheney also urged the incoming administration to “carefully assess the tools put in place to fight terror” and to not cast aside strategies he said worked for the current administration.
Of waterboarding, Cheney said it was an appropriate means of getting information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.
He said he is against closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, saying it can only be shut down responsibly once the war on terrorism has ended.
Asked when that might be, he replied, “Well, nobody knows. Nobody can specify that.”
Two Dartmouth students turned a trip to Ethiopia into an opportunity to help shine a light into the lives of young Africans thousands of miles away.
In 2007, Ben Beisswenger, a member of the class of ’09 and classmate Zoe Dmitrovsky, were both on summer service fellowships in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a trip funded by the Tucker Foundation and supporting the Human Capital Foundation. During their weeks there, the two, along with students from other American colleges, continued to be amazed by the optimism and cheer of the young people in the Selamta Children’s Center.
The Selamta Children’s Center is a children’s home and a sustainable living facility for children orphaned due to the devastating affects of HIV/AIDS in their communities.
Committed to being more than just impressed by the spirit of the Ethiopian students, Beisswenger, Dmitrovsky and the remaining American students wrote a book to tell the story of Selamta and the young people who live there. “An Unlikely Family” by Anemone Publishing Co. is a collection of first-person stories about the lives of various kids in Selamta. Often heartbreaking, the young people featured remain hopeful of their futures.
“The kids in Ethiopia were greatly interested in the book project,” said Carolynne Krusi, a former dean at Dartmouth and advisor on the Selamta project.
Krusi did the page layout and art selection for the book while American students, called ambassadors, were sending stories and other snippets to Krusi over the summer. When the American students returned, they filled in the gaps and helped with the editing and proofreading. It took nearly 18 months from the time Beissenwenger, Dmitrovsky and the other American students collected the Ethiopians’ story to the time the book came out.
Dmitrovsky worked as a teacher to the young students that summer and through a series of writing assignments each week, the seed was planted for the book.
“The most remarkable thing about these kids is they have experienced unbelievable hardships, yet they’re so appreciative of everything they have at Selamta,” she said. “I asked them to talk to me about what they wanted to do when they grow up and all of them said wanted to do good things for Ethiopia. Their desire is to transform Ethiopia for the better and they’re so thankful that it’s given them the ability to start a new life for themselves.”
As a show of support, on Tuesday, Dec. 16, the Dartmouth Bookstore located in downtown Hanover is hosting a book launching reception from 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. The entire purchase price of each book bought at the launch will be contributed to the Selamta Family Project.
Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs • Press Release
Posted 12/15/08 • Media Contact: Latarsha Gatlin • (603) 646-3661
Two Dartmouth students turned a trip to Ethiopia into an opportunity to help shine a light into the lives of young Africans thousands of miles away.