Bahrain's king should overturn medics' convictions: HRW

DUBAI (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch called on Bahrain's king on Monday to overturn convictions against nine medics for their role in last year's pro-democracy uprising, saying confessions had been obtained by torture and trial proceedings were unfair.

Bahrain, a U.S. ally, has been criticized abroad for the verdicts against the doctors and nurses who treated those injured in the uprising which began in February last year and helped bring world attention to their plight before the revolt was crushed a month later.

In the absence of a political solution, the Gulf Arab kingdom has remained in turmoil with smaller scale protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority against the Sunni rulers and clashes almost daily.

Bahrain's Court of Cassation last week rejected all appeals presented by the medics, all of them Shi'ites, and upheld the previous rulings of prison terms ranging between one month and five years.

Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, accuses regional Shi'ite power Iran of encouraging the unrest and has promised a tough response to violent protests as talks with the opposition have stalled.

The U.S.-based rights group urged Bahrain's King Hamad to order the release of the medics who were re-arrested on Tuesday, and said "convictions were based in part on confessions obtained by torture and in proceedings that were fundamentally unfair".

"We are reluctant to call on the king to reverse a judicial decision, but time and again we have seen Bahraini courts uphold politically motivated charges against those who peacefully dissent," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch in a statement.

"The courts have failed to uphold Bahrain's obligation to protect free expression and peaceful assembly."

The medics were freed from detention last year after an outcry over allegations of torture. The charges against them included inciting hatred and calling for the overthrow of Bahrain's rulers.

The doctors and nurses say they were victimized for treating protesters and helping bring world attention to deaths at the hands of security forces.

Washington said it was deeply concerned after last week's ruling and Amnesty International said it considered the jailed medics prisoners of conscience.

The Sunni Al Khalifa family used martial law and the help of Saudi-led Gulf troops to put down last year's uprising. Thousands were arrested and military trials were instituted during the martial law period.

Widespread and excessive force during the crackdown, including confessions under torture, was detailed in a commission of international legal experts which published its findings in November and recommended measures to stop them.

Bahrain says it has taken steps to address the brutality of security forces by dismissing those responsible and introducing cameras at police stations to monitor abuses.

But little progress has been made in addressing the grievances that led to the uprising.

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bahrains-king-overturn-medics-convictions-hrw-144031476.html

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Activists: Syrian warplanes pound Homs

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian activists say government warplanes have been bombing the central city of Homs, one of the flashpoints of the 18-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Friday's attack is the worst the city has seen in five months. The focus of fighting has shifted to other areas, including Syria's commercial hub of Aleppo, since a government offensive against rebel strongholds in Homs ended in April.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said tanks and mortars as well as aircraft had bombarded the city's Khaldiya neighborhood.

Activists estimate that more than 30,000 people have been killed during Syria's uprising and civil war.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-syrian-warplanes-pound-homs-084127067.html

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Home Cooking Classes with Sista Felicia Begin This Wednesday ...

Peter Van Ness and Sista Felicia

Due to a cancellation there are a few choice openings available in Sista Felicia?s genuine Sicilian American home cooking class, September 12th at 6:30.?

I can hardly wait to learn how to recreate Felicia?s mouth-watering?Traditional Sunday Dinner?dishes and?am simply thrilled to be taking her class this coming Wednesday. I hope to see you there!

Felicia will guide us step-by-step through the process of creating an elegant Traditional Sunday Dinner ~ the dinner that evokes a time and place where family and friends gathered every Sunday to celebrate one another and partake in the bounty of sea and garden.

Come join Felicia and her family in what promises to be a beautiful evening of splendid flavors, taught with unbridled passion from the generous heart of an authentic Italian American home cook, and held in the hearth of her elegant home.

For more information on Wednesday?s availability, as well as the schedule and remaining availability of all of September?s classes, contact Felicia at sistafeliciaskitchen@gmail.com.

To see more photos and a previous post about Sista Felicia?s Kitchen.

Come cook with Felicia?an experience not to be missed!?

Currently creating a documentary film about the Black Swallowtail butterfly. Visit my blog for more information about my landscape and interior design firm- kimsmithdesigns.wordpress.com. Good Morning Gloucester daily contributor. Author/illustrator "Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Notes from a Gloucester Garden"

Source: http://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/home-cooking-with-sista-felcia-begins-this-wednesday/

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Video: Of rookie QBs, RG3 shines brightest

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/48965765#48965765

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Daytrading, Stock Trading, Investing and Forex Trading ? The Value ...

Some go on to make enough to live on, some an especially cushty living and some make a genuine fortune. There are numerous investors who make trading their sole occupation.

Others return to their old job, annoyed and scared of ever doing anything different and giving up on their hopes of the life they actually wish to live. Here's a story about a man?? What if you might leverage a powerful solid research of market factors and patterns, correctly envisioning the best stocks to buy? What if androids can do all of that for you? These are what automated stock market dealing robotic systems do best. What if you had a technique to tell which stocks are intending to make a slaughtering in the market? Spot the ?gainers? earlier without counting on brokers or sly insider information. These systems scan the market steadily for the best emerging stocks. Stocks are influenced daily by foreseeable information and arithmetic.

This suggests you quickly know which stocks are going to make a gain. You can purchase inexpensive early and sell higher later earning masses of bucks each day or thousands of bucks each week on your investment with the best stockmarket trading system. The advantages of an automatic share trading robotic system are giant. As the more well capable you are on the language then you'll get more successful. The best thing about the stock market trader software is the incontrovertible fact that they're programmed to recognise the trends and advise you of which stocks are probably going to be good to make an investment in. * There are new technologies out there now that will seriously improve the probability for successful stock market trading.

They also are comparatively cheap and easy to utilise. If you're think about making an investment in a stock market trader software then it'd be to your benefit to learn all you are able to about the various type and the good points and bad points of every one before purchasing one. This is effective as the market advances in patterns which repeat themselves often each 7 years typically. Some automated stock market trading systems particularly target penny stocks and shares when attempting to find trading prospects. This may be seen and shown by the undeniable fact that we are going into and out of recessions continually whether or not it's larger or smaller one or more times ten years. This is effective because penny stocks and shares are the least expensive, most uncertain and wildly changing investments to be found in the market as it is far easier to persuade their position and price with less trading activity. As an example, the 1st automated securities dealing system pick which was aimed at penny stocks and shares especially which I invested in was priced at $.18 a share.

Source: http://traders101.com/2012/08/28/the-value-of-collaborating-in-ridicule-stock-market-trading-games/

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Arcade Party Ideas For Kids and Teens - Moms & Munchkins

An arcade party doesn?t necessarily have to be held at an arcade. There are plenty of fun & inexpensive ways to set up your own arcade at home. Here you?ll find fun party ideas for invitations, decorations, food, treat bags and of course games! This is a great theme for teenagers who love video games!

Arcade Party ? Invitations:

A fun idea for an arcade invitation is a ticket style invitation inviting them to your newly created home arcade. It could include words like:

• Please join us for the Grand Opening of {Child?s Name}?s Arcade!
• Game On!
• Bring your best game playing skills for {Child?s Name}?s Arcade Championships!
• Let the games begin!
• Calling All Gammers!

Arcade Party ? Decorations:

One of the great things about an arcade party is that the games also go towards your party decor. I?ll talk more about games in the next section. To set the scene for an arcade at home, you?ll need plenty of fun arcade signs, neon lights and spotlights. If you can, dim the lights in the party area and use neon & flashing lights instead.

There are also plenty of arcade inspired stuffed animals like Pac Man and Donkey Kong that could be placed around the party area. Here are a few other ideas for signs, tokens on tables, wall decals and more!

Arcade Party ? Activities:

The key to a fun arcade party is plenty of arcade games! Most of us don?t have a home filled with arcade games so you?ll have to improvise a little bit.

To start with, you may want to use small white boards at each game station to record high scores during the party. The person with the highest score at each game could be given a prize at the end of the party. You could also hand out tickets to each player who participates in a game. The players could then use these tickets later to fill their favor bag at the end of the party. I?ll discuss this in a bit more detail later!

Most of the fun games shown below are under $30 and they all fit perfectly into an arcade party theme. You may also want a few timers for some of the games to record how many points players score within a specified time frame.

Some fun arcade game ideas are:

• Video games like racing games and dancing competitions
• Small handheld pinball games
• Over the door hanging basketball games
• Darts to pop balloons on a cork board
• Bowling games
• Whack A Mole (my favorite arcade game!)
• Water guns & shooting rubber ducks
• Claw game for trying to grab prizes out of a clear container (you could also use salad tongs for this and have guests close their eyes and grab a small prize out of a large box ? for even more difficulty, you can blindfold them and spin them around a couple of times)

Arcade Party ? Food:

A fun idea would be to set up a concession stand with food items to ?purchase? with tickets or tokens that the guests are given as they enter the party. Some food ideas are:

• Hot Dogs
• Donkey Kong burgers
• Mario?s Pasta Special
• Popcorn

Arcade Party ? Dessert:

Besides cake and cupcakes, an arcade party could include fun desserts like:

• Pac Man cookies using Pac Man cookie cutters
• Pinballs (regular cake pops iced in grey or silver icing to make them look like pinballs)
• Cotton Candy

Arcade Party ? Favors:

When guests arrive to the party, they can be given small plastic cups with tickets and tokens. The tokens can be used for food at the concession stand and the tickets can be traded in for fun prizes. Each guest can be given a personalized treat bag that they can fill with whatever prizes they choose from the prize area. You can label each prize with how many tickets each one is worth. Guests can then use the tickets they?ve been given or have won during the party to fill their favor bags to take home. Some fun ideas for an arcade party prize area include:

What?s your favorite arcade game?

?

**Disclosure: I am part of the Amazon, Birthday in a Box, Tiny Prints Inc., Beau-coup and Big Dot of Happiness affiliate programs. All opinions expressed here are 100% my own.

Related posts:

Source: http://www.momsandmunchkins.ca/2012/08/26/arcade-party/

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US tries to get Fannie, Freddie back on their feet

By Rachelle Younglai, Reuters

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury on Friday revamped the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to curb chances the giant mortgage finance firms could emerge from government control as the powerful, profit-driven corporations they once were.

The Treasury said it would require the companies, whose massive losses threatened the financial system after the housing bubble burst, to shrink their investment portfolios more quickly and turn over any profits to taxpayers.

Under the previous bailout terms, the companies, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities for investors, were required to make a 10 percent dividend payment to the Treasury. At times, they have had to borrow from Treasury just to return the dividends. Now, they simply won't be able to retain any profits.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were seized by the government at their height of the financial crisis in 2008 as mortgage losses threatened their solvency. Since then, they have drawn a total of $188 billion in taxpayer funds to stay afloat, while paying more than $45 billion in dividends.

At the start of next year, the Treasury's unlimited support for the companies gets will expire. After December 31, Fannie Mae's bailout funds will be capped at $125 billion and Freddie Mac will have a limit of $149 billion.

This has raised concerns among investors who buy their debt, a worry eased by the new terms.

"The market's worry is that Fannie and Freddie will exhaust this Treasury capital and default on bond payments," the Washington Research Group said in a note to clients. "Just the fear of this could drive up their borrowing costs, which would require them to seek government capital more quickly."

The announcement hit preferred shares of the two firms, driving them down by more than 70 percent in heavy trading, as investors saw the plan as undercutting their ability to ever emerge from government conservatorship as profitable companies. Their common shares also fell.

Their corporate debt, however, rallied as the new policy alleviated the need for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to borrow from the government just to make dividend payments, putting them in better position to service their debt.

"You fixed the major flaw in the initial agreement," said Jim Vogel, interest rate strategist at FTN Financial in Memphis, Tennessee.

With the housing market showing signs of improvement and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reducing their portfolios of loans with poor credit quality, the government-owned companies posted strong profits in the second quarter of this year.

The Treasury said the altered bailout terms would ensure that "every dollar of earnings that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generate will be used to benefit taxpayers for their investment in those firms."

Although the Treasury said the changes would accelerate plans to eventually shut the companies down, the announcement did little to address how that might be achieved or how the government's footprint in the mortgage finance market might shrink. Along with the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finance nine out of every 10 new home loans.

Early last year, the administration unveiled a policy paper that outlined three options to reshape the U.S. housing finance system, but it has yet to provide further details.

While Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to reduce the government's role in housing finance, they disagree on how drastically and Congress has yet to take action.

As part of the new bailout terms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be required to reduce their investment portfolios at an annual rate of 15 percent instead of the previous 10 percent. That will put them on track to each cut their portfolios to a targeted $250 billion in 2018, four years earlier than previously scheduled, the Treasury said.

Fannie Mae's investment portfolio, valued at $673 billion as of the second quarter, holds distressed loans and mostly mortgages that were originated before 2008. Freddie Mac's investment portfolio was valued at $581 billion as of June.

During the years of the housing boom, their portfolios generated enormous profits.?

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/17/13338973-government-tries-to-get-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-back-on-their-feet?lite

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