THE Tenerife Forum Online Community - International News

ETA declares ceasfire

Janet — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 10:43:39 GMT

ETA, the Basque separatist terrorists, have announced a ceasefire. The campaign for independence continues, but the group says it will no longer carry out armed actions and try to achieve its aims democratically.

It will be interesting to see how long this lasts. This is the third ceasefire over the past few years, and the previous two didn't last. They don't say, either, whether this is a temporary ceasefire, or a complete disarmament. It could be conditional on negotiations that the government has said it will only carry out if there's a ceasefire, or it could be a genuine attempt at democratic reform.

Still, any laying down of arms is good news.

It's also reported in English with more detail in the BBC HERE.

Shoes And Eggs Thrown At Tony Blair In Dublin

Colleen — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:29:42 GMT

Eggs and shoes have been thrown at the former prime minister Tony Blair as he arrived at a book signing in Dublin.

It happened as he arrived at Easons on O'Connell Street to sign copies of his autobiography.

Activists clashed with Gardai as they tried to push down a security barrier outside the bookshop.

More than 300 people queued from early on Saturday morning to get a book signed.

Linky

Seriously .............. who throws shoes :D:D (sorry but I'm loving this easy way to insert vids.) :D

Gis a job...the cheeky ...Beggar .........

imablue — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:01:48 GMT

:undecided:....Gis a job...nah just your money will do .......

A man who posed as a homeless person earned �23,000 begging on the streets over one year, it has been revealed.
Phoney beggar earned �23,000 a year plus benefits. A court heard yesterday how Daniel Terry, 31, dressed up as a tramp and raked in �50 on a weekday and up to �100 on weekends in Lincoln, whilst claiming �80 a week of incapacity benefits.

With his �4,000-a-year benefits, the fake beggar made a total income of �27,000 - more than the average nurse, teacher or soldier.

The former estate agent, who convinced passers-by he was homeless, was actually living at his girlfriend's council flat or on friends' sofas for most of the time.

Terry was charged on 11th August, after a series of warnings from police about his begging.

The 'disgraceful' man, as he was described by prosecutor Mark Holmes, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates, but was let off with a mere �100 fine. Terry, who suffers from Tourette's syndrome, also had 22 previous convictions for minor dishonesty, the court was told.

Last night a spokeswoman for the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "It's a disgrace that he's only received a slap on the wrist for claiming benefits on top of his illegal income. Charlatans like this leave us all worse off."

Mr Terry told press outside the court hearing that: "I was never an aggressive beggar like the ones you see clutching on to a bottle of cider. People will tell you I was polite and never gave them any hassle."

"At least I never turned to shoplifting or burgling people's homes."....:undecided:

BREAKING NEWS:Offshore oil rig in Gulf explodes on t.v. now cnn

henry — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:15:11 GMT

GRAND ISLE, La. � An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill.

A commercial helicopter company reported the blast around 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.

The Coast Guard said initial reports indicated all 13 crew members from the rig were in the water. One was injured, but there were no deaths.

The platform owned by Mariner Energy is in about 2,500 feet of water, the Coast Guard said, and was not currently producing.

About 206 million gallons of oil from an undersea well spilled into the Gulf after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

Breaking news about burger king!!!

henry — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:24:30 GMT

NEW YORK (Reuters) � Burger King Holdings Inc , the No. 2 U.S. fast-food chain, agreed to be bought by investment firm 3G Capital for $24 per share, or about $3.26 billion.

The deal represents a 46 percent premium to Burger King's share price before news of the deal talks emerged on Wednesday, the companies said.

Including the debt that 3G will assume, the deal is worth about $4 billion, the company said on Thursday. The transaction is expected to close in the last three months of 2010.

TPG Capital LP, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Bain Capital Investors collectively own about 31 percent of Burger King's shares and will tender their shares into the offer, which is due to begin by September 17.

Burger King has lagged larger rival McDonald's Corp and other fast food chains as its key customer base takes a deeper hit from persistently high unemployment rates.

Last week, the company forecast weak demand during its new fiscal year due to the U.S. economy's slow pace of recovery and government austerity programs in several European countries.

Analysts said it was an opportune time for the company to go private, just over four years after the group of private equity firms took it public in May 2006 at an initial share price of $17.

Shares of Burger King were up more than 23 percent to $23.25 in early trading and had gained nearly 15 percent on Wednesday.

Some dig in, others flee coast as Earl nears US

henry — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:01:22 GMT

BUXTON, N.C. � Hurricane Earl blew toward the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday as a major storm with winds of around 145 mph as forecasters tried to pinpoint exactly how close the strongest gales and heaviest surge would get to North Carolina's fragile chain of barrier islands.

They also were trying to figure out whether the storm would stay offshore as it tracks up the Northeast coast or bring hurricane-force winds to Long Island, the Boston metropolitan area and Cape Cod.

Tourists were largely gone from North Carolina's Outer Banks, but residents who stayed behind said they were prepared to face down the powerful hurricane.

"There is still concern that this track, the core of the storm, could shift a little farther to the west and have a very significant impact on the immediate coastline. Our present track keeps it off shore, but you never know," National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

The center issued a tropical storm warning early Thursday for the coast of Long Island in New York and a hurricane watch was issued for areas of Massachusetts. A hurricane warning was already in effect for the coast of North Carolina.

Earl's first encounter with the U.S. mainland should come around midnight Thursday, as the storm is forecast to pass just off Cape Hatteras, bringing wind gusts of up to 100 mph and several feet of storm surge both from the Atlantic and the sounds to the west of the islands.

Gov. Beverly Perdue told reporters at a morning news conference that North Carolina is prepared for Earl. It's now up to coastal citizens to get to a safe place as the storm passes by, she said.

"We're very ready, as ready as anybody can be," Perdue said. "It's a serious storm and we all need to treat it like a serious storm."

Three counties have issued evacuation orders, but Perdue said emergency officials can't make residents leave their homes. She warned emergency crews often can't immediately reach stranded coastal homeowners after a storm.

Evacuations continued early Thursday on the coast, with residents and visitors told to leave a barrier island in Carteret County and another in Dare County where the Wright Brothers National Memorial marks their first successful airplane flights at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

Doctor dies stuck in chimney

Perikl�s — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:19:41 GMT

Weird headlines fascinate me. Here is a report of a doctor in California who tried to visit a bloke she was trying to have an affair with. He refused to answer the door, so obviously she tried to get into his house by climbing down the chimney. He legged it to avoid the emotional grief, and she got stuck.

Report recommends UN climate panel shakeup

Nico — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:28:27 GMT

An enquiry into the UN's climate panel, the IPCC, has recommended administrative changes, including apointing a full time chief.

The IAC found the IPCC had "assigned high confidence to statements for which there is very little evidence", that the IPCC had failed to acknowledge criticism, and follow its own guidelines.

The Inter Academy Council (IAC), Setup by the UN secretary and led by Dr Harold Shapiro, also said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had "gone beyond its mandate to be "policy relevant" and not "policy prescriptive" - and as such it recommended a new "communications policy".

The IPCC was criticised for "confirmation bias" with lead authors placing "more/too much weight on their own views relative to other views". It recommended working group co-chairs be limited to one assessment.

While the IAC did not dispute climate change, they said the IPCC's work included headline-catching statements which couldn't be justified!

Global warming skeptics have interpreted the report as a call to de-politicize the UN climate process.

Much more:
http://news.google.com/news/search?p...dr=w&as_drrb=q

Girl Throws Newborn Puppies Into River.

Caledonia — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:18:15 GMT

This video from The Telegraph appears to show a young girl throwing puppies one by one into a fast flowing river. Don't watch if you are of a squeamish disposition. My blood is boiling!

Drunk baboons plague Cape Town

Perikl�s — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:05:28 GMT

Whenever there is a link on the forum to a newspaper article, I'm always distracted by other newspaper headlines on the same page. This one for example:

Drunk baboons plague Cape Town's exclusive suburbs

Partly hilarious, but people have been hurt.

Link

Britons arrested in Ibiza 'drugs' raid

Nicky — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:00:15 GMT

Around 20 people - most of them British - have been arrested in Ibiza following a large-scale drugs raid by Spanish and UK police agencies.

The joint operation was carried out by Spanish National Guard and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was aware of the arrests and was offering consular assistance.

Last September 25 Britons were charged with drug offences after similar raids in Ibiza.

A Soca spokesman confirmed the joint operation, which began on Friday night, but was unable to comment further.

Source: BBC News

Dutch police question two men on trans-Atlantic flight

Nicky — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:56:21 GMT

Dutch police have questioned two men who arrived at Amsterdam airport from Chicago, after US authorities spotted "suspicious items" in their luggage.

One man's bags contained a mobile phone strapped to a medicine bottle, knives and watches, said US officials.

However, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Homeland Security said none of the items were dangerous "in and of themselves".

But the information was passed to the Dutch authorities, who held the men.

It is likely that they will appear in court later before a judge, who will decide whether they should be released or remanded into custody pending possible charges of preparing a terrorist attack, says the BBC's Geraldine Coughlan in the Netherlands.

The men were travelling on United Airlines Flight 908 from Chicago O'Hare to Amsterdam Schiphol.

US media reports say the men were of Yemeni origin.

One man, who started his journey in Birmingham, Alabama, was reportedly stopped there because of his "bulky clothing", ABC News reports.

Security staff found one mobile phone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three other mobile phones taped together and several watches, also taped together. A box-cutter and three large knives were also found, ABC said.

But the man was cleared for travel, as no explosives were found, the US network said, quoting officials.

"The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves and, as we share information with our international partners, Dutch authorities were notified of the suspicious items," the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Once at Chicago, one of the pair checked his luggage on to a flight for Yemen but boarded the flight to Amsterdam, reports say. When officials became aware of this, they ordered the luggage to be removed from the Yemen-bound aircraft, media say.

US federal air marshals were travelling on the flight to the Netherlands.

Dutch and US authorities have been on alert since a Nigerian man was detained in the US on Christmas Day 2009 after flying from Amsterdam to Detroit and charged with trying to detonate a bomb.

NBC News reported that US concern about the latest incident was "low", but the authorities wanted to make sure this was not an attempt to test airline security prior to a future attack.

The New York Times quoted a man who said he was one of the passenger's cousins who said there was an innocent explanation.

He said his cousin had probably been taking electronic equipment and medication back home and had simply taped together items intended for the same recipient.

Source: BBC News

news from texas

henry — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:12:44 GMT

this happed today from my home town austin texas..

AUSTIN

Money-laundering charge filed

A man is facing money-laundering charges after Austin police impounded the vehicle he was driving and discovered more than $50,000 inside, according to an arrest affidavit.

Christopher Carbajal, 22, was stopped for a traffic violation Thursday, and the 2008 Ford Taurus he was driving was impounded because he did not have a valid driver's license or proof of ownership for the vehicle, the affidavit said.

When the vehicle was searched, a gym bag containing $50,125 in bundled cash was found, the affidavit said.

Carbajal said that he had been involved in the sale of marijuana in the past and appeared to be a courier moving the money to Mexico, the affidavit said.

He faces a charge of money laundering, a third-degree felony, and his bail was set at $50,000, the affidavit said. He was not in the Travis County Jail on Sunday night, according to court records.

Italian doctors brawl during a birth

Perikl�s — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:03:45 GMT

I have always liked Italians, especially when they start a fist-fight over the bridge table. Hilarious. This time, not so funny, two Italian doctors seem to have disagreed about a birth which may have had complications, so ended up in a brawl at the bed-side. Unbelievable.

BBC

'No-frills' budget hotel takes policy to the extreme

Nicky — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:50:25 GMT

:eek: It's the Ryanair of hotels by the looks of it...

A new budget hotel run like a no-frills airline has opened its doors in London.

The Tune hotel in Westminster takes the low-cost business model to the extreme. Unlike Easyhotel it even charges guests for using a towel.

If booked in advance, rooms can sell for as little as �9 on promotion, and �35 for a standard rate.

Video link