First let me start with congratulating Hillary for her hard work , and a win in WV.
Hillary said, “This race is not yet Over”. For sure, how is she going to clear her 20 Million campaign debt if she drops out now. She can not continue lending herself. Where are Hillary supporters? I thought they would be there donating to her campaign, instead of writing letters to the super delegates criticising Obama’s candidacy.
She may win big in West Virginia but Obama is still leading.” Numbers suggests:
Though you never know, she may overtake Obama by magic, a very slim chance or wishful thinking.
As a woman ( I support Obama) I feel she deserves a credit for her fighting spirit, she is not a quitter. In my own opinion, and with due respect her fight may put the demo party in a very difficult situation, the more she keeps fighting the more it is not going to be easy to unify the party as they think. As for Obama picking Hillary Clinton for VP?
I feel, that would not work well. If I was Obama I would be very uncomfortable, having a VP that not only declared me a weak and unelectable candidate but fought negatively against me to get a nomination. I say, this proposal is just there to make Obama look bad if he says “No” to that idea. I am sure Hillary would’nt like to be Obama’s VP. Her fight is to be a first United States woman president. So lets forget about that notion. Plus, do not forget that Bill will be a shadow president in the white house. I think this is a big NO. Not a good idea at all. May be Hillary can take a different influential sit. Not a VP.
Voters will still give her respect as a first woman to go this far in a presidential election. Especially, if she steps down, or run a positive campaign in the remaining contests. My concern, as I see things, this fight is not good for the party. People still give Mike Huckabee respect for his decision to step down. This is not about Hillary, Obama or McCain, candidates should put their country and important issues that need to be addressed. All three candidates are very highly electable. Numbers can show that. There is no more black and white, there is just united states of America. So using a phrase of ” white voters candidate is not helping Hillary, because other colors matters too in this election.
Hillary D Clinton wins WV s primary 67% to 26%. The win does not help her to get the nomination for president . Obama is leading in the popular vote and super-delegates. Maths is not just in Hillary’s favor. I think Hillay is still fighting to clear the debt, otherwise if she drops out now she will be stack with 20 million campaign debt. Good sign for an incoming president right? I would edge all Hillary supporters, to turn around and donate more money so she can clear the debt. Stop playing tough on blogs, but cheap when it comes to giving.
Rescuers searched for earthquake victims amid the debris of a hospital in Dujiangyan on Monday night.
CHENGDU, China — A powerful earthquake struck Western China on Monday, toppling thousands of homes, factories and offices, trapping students in schools, and killing at least 10,000 people, the country’s worst natural disaster in three decades.
An elderly patient after being evacuated from a hospital in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province after the earthquake on Monday. More Photos »
The quake, which was estimated preliminarily to have had a magnitude of 7.9, ravaged a mountainous region outside Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, just after lunchtime Monday, destroying 80 percent of structures in some of the towns and small cities near its epicenter, Chinese officials said. Its tremors were felt as far away as Vietnam and set off another, smaller quake in the outskirts of Beijing, 900 miles away.
Landslides, power failures and fallen mobile phone towers left much of the affected area cut off from the outside world and limited information about the damage. But snapshots of concentrated devastation suggested that the death toll that could rise significantly as rescue workers reached the most heavily damaged areas.
In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter in the city of Wenchuan, a school collapsed, trapping 900 students in the rubble and setting off a frantic search for survivors that stretched through the night. Two chemical factories in Shifang were destroyed, spilling 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia, officials told Chinese state media.
The destruction of a single steam turbine factory in the city of Mianzhu buried “several thousand” people, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday morning.
The quake was already China’s biggest natural disaster since another earthquake leveled the city of Tangshan in eastern China in 1976, leaving 240,000 people dead and posing a severe challenge to the ruling Communist Party, which initially tried to cover up the catastrophe.
This time, officials quickly mobilized 50,000 soldiers to help with rescue efforts, state media said. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flew to the scene and was shown coordinating disaster response teams from the cabin of his jet.
The prime minister was later shown on national television standing outside the damaged edifice of the Traditional Medicine Hospital in the city of Dujiangyan, shouting encouragement at people trapped in its ruins.
“Hang on a bit longer,” he said. “The troops are rescuing you. As long as there is the slightest hope, we will never relax our efforts.”
The quake was the latest in a series of events that have disrupted China’s planning for the Olympic Games in August, including widespread unrest among the country’s ethnic Tibetan population, which lives in large numbers in the same part of Sichuan Province where the earthquake struck.
The powerful initial quake struck at 2:28 p.m. local time, or 2:28 a.m. Eastern time, near Wenchuan County, according to China’s State Seismological Bureau. Most of the heavy damage appeared to be concentrated in nearby towns, which by Chinese standards are not heavily populated. Chengdu, the largest city in the area, with a population of about 10 million, is about 60 miles away and did not appear to have suffered major damage or heavy casualties.
But officials had yet to describe the impact in Wenchuan itself, which has a population of 112,000 and is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, the largest panda reserve in China. The town of Beichuan, on the way from Chengdu to Wenchuan, suffered several thousand deaths, state media said.
China’s massive Three Gorges Dam, a few hundred miles east of the earthquake’s epicenter, reported no immediate problems.
At dawn on Tuesday morning in Chengdu, clusters of people were huddled outside, many saying they were too fearful of aftershocks to go indoors. Many wore plastic slickers to protect them from a steady drizzle. Wang Zihong, 35, a businessman from Gansu Province, had spent 12 hours outside his hotel, squatting with others on a street corner.
“It was a terrible shock,” he said. “I couldn’t stand up straight. We were on the second floor and we ran outside.”
Chengdu’s Huaxi Hospital, one of the largest in western China, started receiving patients from surrounding counties on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, 180 patients had arrived from hard-hit surrounding counties.
“Seven thousand people have died in Beichuan, a single county, and we think Wenchuan will be similar, too, because it was the epicenter,” said Kang Zhilin, a spokesman for the hospital. He added: “The first patients who came had jumped from buildings because they were frightened.”
After the tremors shook Chengdu, roughly 4,000 frightened patients had been relocated from wards on the hospital’s upper floors to a courtyard outdoors. By Tuesday morning, the patients were sitting in the rain, covered in plastic.
A woman, Tang Hong, 50, sat beside her injured husband, Yan Chaozhong, in the hospital. They had arrived early in the morning from Dujiangyan County, one place that had suffered heavy damage. They had been inside their fourth-floor apartment when the quake hit. “It was violent,” she said. “Even when we crouched down, it flattened us.”
Ms. Tang said she and her husband had tried to escape down a stairwell, but a second tremor knocked her husband down the stairs, and he broke three ribs. She said four six-story buildings on her street had been flattened. She also wept as she described how a school for handicapped and deaf students collapsed while the children were in class. “It was horrible,” she said. “The entire school building collapsed.”
Minutes after the western temblor struck, a second, smaller quake struck Tongzhou, an outer district of Beijing. Thousands of office workers were evacuated in the capital city, but no damage was reported there.
“I suddenly felt very dizzy, as if I were heavily drunk,” said Zeng Hui, who works on the 22nd floor of an office tower in Beijing. “I thought I was seriously ill, then I looked around and saw my colleagues felt the same way.”
There were reports of fatalities in Chongqing Municipality, near Sichuan, where two primary schools were damaged. Four pupils died and more than 100 others were injured, state media reported. Xinhua devoted extensive coverage to the disaster, publishing regular updates on the situation, including latest death tolls, on its Chinese and English Web sites. The relatively vigorous flow of information and the fast response from top officials and rescue workers stood in stark contrast to the way China handled the Tangshan earthquake, or the way the military junta that rules neighboring Myanmar has managed the aftermath of a giant cyclone that killed nearly 32,000 people there this month, according to Burmese government estimates.
Efforts to reach people near the epicenter of the bigger quake in western China were hindered by damage to the telephone system. Some 2,300 towers used to transmit phone signals had fallen, the country’s main mobile phone company reported. The earthquake also disrupted air traffic control in western China, interfering with flights between Asia and Europe on Monday afternoon, although flight services were restored by the evening.
Cathay Pacific Airways announced that it had canceled two flights between Hong Kong and London — one in each direction — and had delayed the departure of a Monday afternoon flight from Hong Kong to London by 19 hours, to Tuesday morning.
While China Mobile acknowledged extensive damage to its cellphone towers, it is less clear how much damage occurred to the separate communications network that China’s authorities maintain for natural disasters and other contingencies.
Communications equipment vendors attending a police equipment exhibition in Beijing last month said that China maintained a separate network using different frequencies and other equipment from the main cellphone network. The separate network allows the police and other agencies to respond to emergencies even when the main landline and cellphone networks are overwhelmed with calls by residents.
Many Western countries also maintain separate communications systems for emergencies. China is still upgrading its emergency network by buying equipment from Motorola and other foreign companies, communications industry officials said at the exhibition.
Temporary disruption of the air traffic control system in western China strongly suggested that the authorities’ communications gear might also have been damaged at least temporarily. China has worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States to improve air safety, and air traffic control operations in the United States have backup communications systems to avoid disruptions.
I am not the Hillary supporter, but I feel I should give her a credit for her strong will to fight .As I have always said, I have admiration for women who stand up for themselves. Women who believes that they should have equal opportunity in this world. Congratulation to Hillary for her victory in Indiana.
I support Obama, because In my own opinion, I feel, Obama is capable of uniting the world, He has good sense of judgement when it comes to making decisions that are critical to his country.
On the other hand, I give Hillary a credit for her hard work. Mind you she is 60, and fighting like a 25 year old young lady with full of energy.
Hillary is not only an attorney by profession, but a real politician I have ever come across in this world. Even though she is behind in this campaign, I can say she is smart and her energy just gets a kick out of me. For that Mrs Clinton I can give you Kudos, as most of women in my native country Zambia get old in their 40s.
Tough tough……….Bill said the Clinton’s do not quit. Even a lose is a win.
At Least Hillary spoke with passion here , than before. Though I see too many personalities in her depending on a situation hard to tell the real Hillary.
A word for Zambian woman!!!!!! Get tough
This is the reason, Inonge Mbikusita and Maureen Mwanawasa should not give in. Girls you can do it. Just consult Hillary, she will show you how to play this game.
Speeches like Obama’s touches my heart and makes me realize how God speaks through humans. Look around the world, there is no peace in the entire world, I am amazed how people can not see and listen.
Obama ’s speech reminds me of one thing. “Unity and Change.” Unfortunately we are all busy dividing ourselves .
Sometimes you feel like , the end of this world is just around the coner.
Unfortunately, politics and human nature does not accept change that easily. In my own opinion, I feel, it can be done .
I am sure Zambians can also work through their tribal differences, and Unite for Change .
Check the link- Obama’s wonderful sothing speech, that always gives me goose pimples.
Every once in a while fate touches a golfer from an unlikely location and makes him a star. When it comes to golf, Zambia is about as unlikely as it gets.
Madalitso Muthiya wants to put Zambia on the golf map. He isn’t a star yet, but if he does make it big, he will become a huge hero among black Africans throughout the vast continent.
The 25-year-old is looking to make a breakthrough on the Nationwide Tour, the circuit a step below the PGA Tour. He was in town to help promote the Bank of America Open, which will be held May 29-June 1 at the Glen Club.
Muthiya already has made a historic impact. In 2006, he became the first black African to play in the U.S. Open. He wants to make it more than a one-time deal.
“I want to be one of the best players in the world,” Muthiya said.
Zambia hardly is the ideal launching pad. Then again, neither is Fiji, and a fellow named Vijay Singh seems to have done all right.
Like Singh, Muthiya had to beat incredible odds to get to this level. Zambia, which has a population of 9 million, has only 17 courses and only three in the capital of Lusaka, where Muthiya was raised. None of them is close in conditioning to an American course, Muthiya said.
Muthiya also didn’t come from the same background as many of his competitors. His father, Peter, owned an insurance company, and his family was considered middle class by Zambia’s standards.
“But you would be considered poor here in America or anywhere else,” he said.
As a kid, Muthiya didn’t notice. All he wanted to do was play golf.
He took up the game at age 9, and for a long time he played with a used women’s set that had pink grips. It didn’t matter. As he taught himself by watching video of Nick Faldo, he soon made a name for himself as a top player.
Muthiya’s talents got the attention of Zambia’s then-President Frederick Chiluba. After meeting the 15-year-old, Chiluba used a contact in America to help him get into a junior tournament in Florida. Muthiya won it.
“It was something unexplainable,” Muthiya said.
The victory helped earn Muthiya a scholarship to New Mexico, where he received his first real lesson. He had some success there and turned pro in 2005.
Muthiya played on the Canadian Tour last year. This year, he has conditional status on the Nationwide Tour.
Thus far, his big highlight was qualifying for the U.S. Open in 2006. The immaculate Winged Foot is a long way from the ragged courses in Zambia.
Muthiya savored every minute of it, especially a practice round with Singh.
“I was able to see where I wanted to go before I got there,” Muthiya said.
Muthiya didn’t get there, missing the cut, as did another golfer, Tiger Woods. However, Muthiya’s presence in the tournament did create a stir in Zambia.
Muthiya hardly is the first golfer from Africa. South Africa has produced a long line of successful players, from Gary Player to recent Masters champion Trevor Immelman.
But he is the first black African player to reach this level.
“Obviously, I’m looked at differently,” Muthiya said. “I’m not saying they aren’t indigenous. Ernie Els was born there (South Africa). They are Africans just like I am. But … it’s different.”
Muthiya represents a segment of Africa that hasn’t produced professional golfers. Even in South Africa, where golf is huge, the country has yet to develop a prominent black player.
So Muthiya can serve as an inspiration to black children who might want to pursue the game in Africa. He came from a poor country with little formal development in the sport. Now he is playing against some of the best in the world.
“Once I get to where I want to go, I want to reach [young black Africans],” Muthiya said. “I want them to see they can do it as well. It inspires me. It helps me as much as I can help them.”
Streelman update: Kevin Streelman, the PGA Tour rookie from Wheaton, has hit a rough patch. He missed his fifth cut in his last six tournaments, shooting 78-73 at the Wachovia Championship.
JUNIOR nickel producers are a nervous bunch. Not because the devil’s metal is notoriously volatile but because even relatively moderate production of 10,000 tonnes a year of the highly priced stuff makes them attractive bolt-on acquisitions for the big boys of the mining game.
Jubilee Mines went that way, as did Allegiance more recently. Xstrata took Jubilee for $3.1 billion and Zinifex took Allegiance for $950 million. Perth-based Albidon (ASX: ALB) - a $640 million company at Friday’s close of $3.89 a share - could be next. And the talk is that it could be a shoot-out between Xstrata and Zinifex.
First ore from Albidon’s underground Munali sulphide mine in Zambia is due to enter processing this week, so first concentrate production from the 10,500 tonne-a-year (contained) nickel operation is not far off. Being of the sulphide type, the commissioning of Munali should be straightforward.
Zambia is not exactly Western Australia (Jubilee) or Tasmania (Allegiance). But it is the sort of the address that the big miners are increasingly prepared to invest in as they scramble to increase their metal exposure to the China-led surge in consumption.
Albidon has already demonstrated its nervousness about a low-ball bid being lobbed during the commissioning phase of Munali. On April 22, it announced the appointment of a corporate adviser, Royal Bank of Canada. Somewhat helpfully, the bank’s Sydney equity desk had revised its price target for Albidon to $4.50 a share in an April 9 research note.
So it would be a fair bet that if a bid were to be made for Albidon, it would want to be something north of $4.50 a share, itself “only” a 15.7% premium to Friday’s closing price.
Much of the talk surrounding Albidon’s vulnerability to a bid has to do with the presence of Melbourne’s Lion Selection on the register. Through its African investment funds, Lion has an indirect stake in Albidon of about 5.7%, which is worth about $36 million.
That amount would be a handy addition to Lion’s cash coffers as it sets about pre-empting the $200 million that Beadell Resources has offered for Newcrest’s 70% stake in the Cracow goldmine in north Queensland. Lion owns the remaining 30% of Cracow and has said it plans to pre-empt the Beadell deal as part of its plan to become a mining company rather than a resources investment group.
It has until mid-June to do that, but in the meantime it is looking over its own shareholder because of the cheeky takeover bid for it from Indophil, the Filipino copper/gold group 25.7% owned by Lion. The Indophil bid is pretty much about trying to ensure Lion does not go flogging its Indophil stake to Indophil’s partner in the Philippines, Xstrata, as an alternative way to finance its Cracow move.
But, back to Albidon. Lion’s part-owned African funds hold about 21% of the group - a handy springboard for a takeover if there ever was one. Chinese nickel group Jinchuan is the next biggest at 5.6% and it is the group that will be taking Munali’s production.
That Chinese connection works in favour of Zinifex in any shoot-out for Albidon. Zinifex boss Andrew Michelmore has a strong relationship with Jinchuan going back to his days at WMC. That was a key factor in why, of all of the groups that could have bid for Allegiance, it was Zinifex that got the job done. Jinchuan is a 10.4% shareholders in Allegiance (it is waiting on Chinese government approvals to accept the Zinifex offer) and it also has an offtake deal on production from Allegiance’s Tasmanian mine.
Michelmore has also made no secret of the fact that Zinifex’s planned merger with Oxiana is all about creating a group with the balance sheet to make some good-sized acquisitions, even it it means moving in to higher sovereign risk places such as Africa. Allegiance is also a first step in creating a meaningful presence in nickel.
That’s all well and good for Zinifex. The trick for Albidon is to ensure that when a bid does come, be it from Zinifex, Xstrata or perhaps the likes of Norilsk or Vale, it is fully valued in the process. Outside of Munali, the group has some interesting exploration plays elsewhere in Zambia as well as Botswana, Tanzania and Tunisia.
The Botswana ground, in the same general region as the Tati nickel project picked up by Norilsk when it took over LionOre last year, includes the Sunnyside discovery. At Sunnyside, they’ve hit good grade nickel sulphides in an area said to be looking like Kambalda 35 years ago.
It also holds the ground in Zambia directly along strike from the Omega Corp uranium project that Canada’s Denison Mines paid $300 million to acquire last year, and has exploration joint ventures with BHP in Tanzania and Zinifex in Tunisia.
Lusaka, Zambia - Zambia will on Monday send a contingent of 345 peacekeep ers to Abeyei region of Sudan to strengthen peace and stability in the war-torn country.
At a farewell parade for the peacekeepers in Lusaka, Zambia’s Army Commander, General Isaac Chisuzi charged the troops to exhibit discipline and further promote the image of the Zambian defence forces.
“As you go there, remember that apart from working under the UN auspices you are Zambia’s ambassadors,” Chisuzi said.
He said the training of the peacekeepers had taken into consideration the different climatic conditions in Zambia and Sudan.
In addition they underwent vigorous pre-deployment training at the army battle training camp from February to April to attain United Nations peacekeeping standards.
The Zambian peacekeepers drawn from the Army, Air Force and the Zambia National Service, will be in Sudan for six months. They will replace a contingent that was deployed in October last year.
Defence Minister George Mpombo reiterated the Zambian government’s determination to continue contributing peacekeepers to maintain peace and stability on the continent.
Mpombo reminded the soldiers that they were going to a war zone even though relative calm existed in the Sudanese region where they were being posted. In this regard they must be vigilant so that they did not lose military hardware bought for them by the Zambian government, he said.
“In order to have an impact in the mission area Government bought you expensive equipment which is already in use there. You are therefore called upon to look after this equipment with care,” he said.
Mpombo added that there was need for all of them to respect the Sudanese in terms of culture and politics saying they were going there to strengthen peace and not to take sides.
There are so many factors in life that gives us stress. One big one is Divorce.It is considered no one Stressor.
Which part in our bodies responds to stress.
1.Stressor: Hypothalamus responds to stree by secreting corticotrophin-realeasing hormone(CRH), which travels through the capillaries to the pituitary gland.
2.Pituitary gland reacts to CRH by releasing adrenocorticotrophic hormone
3. Adrenal Glands responds to the ACTH by flooding the bloodstream with two stress
While no woman has been president of the United States — yet — the world does have several thousand years’ worth of experience with female leaders. And I have to acknowledge it: Their historical record puts men’s to shame.
A notable share of the great leaders in history have been women: Queen Hatshepsut and Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Isabella of Castile, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria. Granted, I’m neglecting the likes of Bloody Mary, but it’s still true that those women who climbed to power in monarchies had an astonishingly high success rate.
Research by political psychologists points to possible explanations. Scholars find that women, compared with men, tend to excel in consensus-building and certain other skills useful in leadership. If so, why have female political leaders been so much less impressive in the democratic era? Margaret Thatcher was a transformative figure, but women have been mediocre prime ministers or presidents in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Often, they haven’t even addressed the urgent needs of women in those countries.
I have a pet theory about what’s going on.
In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow elite, so they could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.
In one common experiment, the “Goldberg paradigm,” people are asked to evaluate a particular article or speech, supposedly by a man. Others are asked to evaluate the identical presentation, but from a woman. Typically, in countries all over the world, the very same words are rated higher coming from a man.
In particular, one lesson from this research is that promoting their own successes is a helpful strategy for ambitious men. But experiments have demonstrated that when women highlight their accomplishments, that’s a turn-off. And women seem even more offended by self-promoting females than men are.
This creates a huge challenge for ambitious women in politics or business: If they’re self-effacing, people find them unimpressive, but if they talk up their accomplishments, they come across as pushy braggarts.
The broader conundrum is that for women, but not for men, there is a tradeoff in qualities associated with top leadership. A woman can be perceived as competent or as likable, but not both.
“It’s an uphill struggle, to be judged both a good woman and a good leader,” said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor who is an expert on women in leadership. Professor Kanter added that a pioneer in a man’s world, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, also faces scrutiny on many more dimensions than a man — witness the public debate about Mrs. Clinton’s allegedly “thick ankles,” or the headlines last year about cleavage.
Clothing and appearance generally matter more for women than for men, research shows. Surprisingly, several studies have found that it’s actually a disadvantage for a woman to be physically attractive when applying for a managerial job. Beautiful applicants received lower ratings, apparently because they were subconsciously pegged as stereotypically female and therefore unsuited for a job as a boss.
Female leaders face these impossible judgments all over the world. An M.I.T. economist, Esther Duflo, looked at India, which has required female leaders in one-third of village councils since the mid-1990s. Professor Duflo and her colleagues found that by objective standards, the women ran the villages better than men. For example, women constructed and maintained wells better, and took fewer bribes.
Yet ordinary villagers themselves judged the women as having done a worse job, and so most women were not re-elected. That seemed to result from simple prejudice. Professor Duflo asked villagers to listen to a speech, identical except that it was given by a man in some cases and by a woman in others. Villagers gave the speech much lower marks when it was given by a woman.
Such prejudices can be overridden after voters actually see female leaders in action. While the first ones received dismal evaluations, the second round of female leaders in the villages were rated the same as men. “Exposure reduces prejudice,” Professor Duflo suggested.
Women have often quipped that they have to be twice as good as men to get anywhere — but that, fortunately, is not difficult. In fact, it appears that it may be difficult after all. Modern democracies may empower deep prejudices and thus constrain female leaders in ways that ancient monarchies did not.
Back Story With Jim Yardley (
Every once in a while fate touches a golfer from an unlikely location and makes him a star. When it comes to golf, Zambia is about as unlikely as it gets.
Muthiya also didn’t come from the same background as many of his competitors. His father, Peter, owned an insurance company, and his family was considered middle class by Zambia’s standards.
So Muthiya can serve as an inspiration to black children who might want to pursue the game in Africa. He came from a poor country with little formal development in the sport. Now he is playing against some of the best in the world.
