UN General Assembly denounces Syrian crackdown

Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, right, listens to speakers during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. With the U.N. Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly prepared Friday to denounce Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, right, listens to speakers during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. With the U.N. Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly prepared Friday to denounce Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

United Nations Secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, left, speaks during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations, Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. With the U.N. Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly prepared Friday to denounce Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

A hand is shown on a video screen, pushing a button to vote on a Saudi Arabian-sponsored draft resolution against Syria at the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations, Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. The resolution denounced Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control but stopped short of calling for Assad to step down. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, left, speaks to Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, center, and China's deputy U.N. Ambassador Wang Min before the United Nations General Assembly passed a draft resolution condemning Syria at the United Nations on Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. With the U.N. Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly denounced Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control, but stopped short of demanding that Assad step down. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The results of a sponsored draft resolution by Saudi Arabia against Syria are shown during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations, Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. With the U.N. Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly prepared Friday to denounce Syria for unleashing military action against it's own people, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly denounced Syria's crackdown on dissent Friday in a symbolic effort meant to push the deadlocked Security Council and the world at large into action on stopping the country's civil war.

Before the vote, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon reminded the Assembly of the fresh violence in the city of Aleppo and drew comparisons between the failure to act in Syria with the international community's failure to protect people from past genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

"The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organization stands for," Ban said. "I do not want today's United Nations to fail that test."

The vote came after the more powerful Security Council was stopped by a series of Russian and Chinese vetoes on resolutions that would have opened the door to sanctions on Syria.

The General Assembly vote was 133 in support of the resolution and 12 against, with 31 abstaining. Syria's ambassador angrily called the vote "a piece of theater."

Though General Assembly resolutions are unenforceable, a strong vote can carry moral weight.

Even so, the resolution's Arab sponsors this week weakened two key provisions ? a demand that President Bashar Assad resign and a call for other nations to place sanctions on Syria.

Russia and China had objected to those provisions. Both voted "no" Friday, along with Syria, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

The revised resolution takes a swipe at Russia and China by "deploring the Security Council failure" to act.

Frustration over the lack of action was clear. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan resigned Thursday as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria after his peace proposals failed.

Friday's session rang with accusations over why Annan's mission failed.

The Syria uprising has left 19,000 dead since it erupted in March 2011. The U.N. estimates that 1.5 million people have been forced to abandon their homes but remain in the country.

"The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes," Ban said of the Aleppo fighting. "Such acts must be investigated and the perpetrators held to account."

The resolution backs Annan's "demand that the first step in the cessation of violence has to be made by the Syrian authorities."

It also demands the lockdown of the regime's chemical and biological weapons. Israel's Ambassador Ron Prosor said, "We should not pretend that a regime that cuts the throats of children today will not be prepared to gas them tomorrow. Assad must know that he will be held accountable for using these weapons."

The resolution denounces attacks on children as young as 9 by the Syrian government, military intelligence services and militias. It condemns the increasing Syrian military reliance on heavy weapons, including tanks and helicopters, and "failure to withdraw its troops and heavy weapons to their barracks" in line with Annan's proposals.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari called the resolution's main sponsors, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, "despotic oligarchies."

"The draft resolution will have no impact whatsoever. It is a piece of theater," he told reporters after the vote. And Iran's deputy ambassador, Eshagh Alehabib, called the resolution "one-sided."

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the resolution was not meant to be balanced. The intent, he said, was to issue an unequivocal condemnation of the Syrian regime.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said afterward that a reference in the resolution did amount to a demand for Assad leaving power: "Importantly, the resolution also welcomes the Arab League's July 22nd decision, which calls for Assad to step down and for a transitional government to be formed."

On Thursday, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he could not support the General Assembly's "extremely unbalanced and one-sided resolution." He said the countries pushing the resolution were providing weapons to armed opposition groups.

The vote came a day after U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the Security Council that U.N. military observers in Aleppo were seeing "a considerable buildup of military means, where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start." The rebels have commandeered tanks, and are bringing them into combat as Syrian warplanes strike back.

The observer mission is in the midst of a 30-day extension of its mandate, which expires on Aug. 19. Extending it would require passage of another resolution in the Security Council.

The mission has been largely kept from its work by the violence, and it is already being cut back, from its original authorized strength of 300 to currently 115 monitors and 80 civilians.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-03-UN-Syria/id-3da4fba4dbd345f1b0d9274e6b8e6f57

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FAA: 3 jets over DC never on collision course

With the Capitol in the background, a US Airways airplane makes its final approach at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday that none of the three commuter jets that flew to close together near Washington was ever on course to collide head-on with the others. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

With the Capitol in the background, a US Airways airplane makes its final approach at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday that none of the three commuter jets that flew to close together near Washington was ever on course to collide head-on with the others. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Transportation Secretary Raymond LaHood gestures during a news conference at the Transportation Department in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012, to strongly disputed media reports characterizing the incident as a near-miss at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Tuesday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta comments on a graphic of air traffic control during a news conference at the Transportation Department in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. The news conference was held to answer question about three commuter jets that nearly collided at Reagan National Airport in Washington on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Transportation Secretary Raymond LaHood, left, and Acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta, answer questions during a news conference at the Transportation Department in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. The news conference was held to answer question about three commuter jets that nearly collided at Reagan National Airport in Washington on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

A US Airways airplane makes its final approach at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. The Washington Monument is in background. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? None of the commuter jets that flew too close together near Washington this week was ever on course to collide head-on with the others, federal officials said Thursday.

During a news conference, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood strongly disputed media reports characterizing what happened as a near-miss.

"At no point were the three aircraft on a head-to-head course. They were not on a collision course," said Michael Huerta, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The jet problem occurred Tuesday after a miscommunication between a manager at Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control and two traffic management coordinators at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Huerta said. Officials are investigating. The exact nature of the miscommunication was not immediately clear, but there was apparently a failure on both ends to follow standard procedure.

Air traffic controllers at the time had been changing the direction planes were landing and taking off at the airport because of bad weather including several thunderstorms, the closest about 6 miles south. Controllers cleared two outbound flights to head in the direction of an incoming plane.

Both LaHood and Huerta praised the work of air traffic controllers to quickly set the US Airways-operated commuter planes on another path once they learned they were too close together. Huerta said the planes were on different headings at different altitudes and thus never would have crashed.

All of the planes were equipped with collision avoidance systems, but none was activated Tuesday, Huerta said.

When asked by a reporter, LaHood refused to discuss what may have happened if the planes had not been diverted by the air traffic controller.

Federal guidelines require that commercial jets remain separated by at least 1,000 vertical feet and 3.5 lateral miles.

The agency said the landing plane, which departed from Portland, Maine, came within 800 vertical feet and about nine-tenths of a lateral mile of one departing plane and 800 vertical feet and 2.4 lateral miles of a second outbound plane. The outbound planes were bound for Kansas City and Columbus, Ohio.

A former pilot and air traffic controller, who now heads the non-profit Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va., said the fact that onboard collision-avoidance alarm systems did not go off is "telling." If two planes are on an imminent collision course, that alarm would have sounded, and that system is very reliable, William Voss said.

"It's kind of like the difference between a speeding ticket and reckless driving. It's definitely more in the speeding ticket category," Voss said of Tuesday's incident.

Voss said changing the arrival and departure directions at an airport is a "complicated situation," one of the most difficult procedures air traffic control does. That's especially so at Reagan National, in part because it's such a busy airport.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that it would be investigating the incident.

An audio recording of communications between the landing plane and the air traffic control tower indicates confusion as the flight is given instructions on landing.

"We were clear at the river back there. What happened?" someone in the plane's cockpit says on the recording, obtained from LiveATC.com, a website that records air traffic communications.

The tower responds: "We're trying to figure this out, too. Stand by."

The landing flight then advises the tower that the plane doesn't have much fuel left: "We gotta get on the ground here pretty quick," a man says.

US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher said in an email that the airline is "currently investigating and working with the FAA to determine what occurred."

The airline has more than 230 daily departures from the airport to more than 70 cities.

In fiscal year 2010, the latest year for which statistics were available, the FAA recorded 1,887 operational errors, which it defines as a "situation in which an air traffic controller fails to maintain a safe distance between two or more aircraft, in the air or on the ground, or a safe distance from terrain, obstructions and certain airspace not designated for routine air travel." That was an increase from fiscal year 2009, in which the FAA recorded 1,234 such errors.

Such incidents might be avoided with full implementation of NextGen, the FAA's program for modernizing air traffic control, said Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington-based think tank.

The NextGen plans include equipping planes with GPS technology that would continually broadcast their exact positions, not just to air traffic controllers, but to other similarly equipped aircraft within hundreds of miles. Pilots would be able to see on cockpit displays where they are in relation to other planes and what the flight plans are for those other aircraft.

"It might have helped pilots in the air see what might have happened sooner than they did," Schank said.

He said NextGen implementation has been slow because aircraft makers and airlines don't feel assured they'll get a return for investing in the technology.

The airport had another high-profile safety incident in March 2011 when two airliners landed without assistance from the tower. Pilots were unable to raise the lone supervisor on duty at midnight. The supervisor later acknowledged he had fallen asleep. A second controller has since been added to the midnight shift at Reagan National.

In 2010, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin was aboard a United flight involved in a near-collision at Reagan National. He said more should be done to improve the nation's air traffic control policy and safety.

"Only better training and disciplinary action for those who violate the rules will solve the problem," Sensenbrenner said in an email.

___

Associated Press writer David Dishneau contributed to this report from Hagerstown, Md.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-02-MidAir%20Collision%20Averted/id-c4478a91e29e454b995dbc67005b54a1

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Home Improvement Information That Anyone Can Attempt With Ease |

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Not all home improvement projects are hard. Many do it yourself projects are easy once you know how to do them. If you are not fully sure on how to do it, you may hurt yourself instead of helping. The ideas above really are terrific home improvement tips. Have fun applying them.

Rhonda Morin is the owner of MyInteriorDecorator.com and loves helping others decorate the home of their dreams through her articles, tips and tricks on her blog and through her store.

Source: http://myinteriordecorator.com/home-improvement-information-that-anyone-can-attempt-with-ease.html

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Advance legal columnist: The hateful vendetta against Chick-fil-A ...

Chick-fil-A began as a single restaurant opened by S. Truett Cathy in 1946 in Hapeville, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta.

From there, it blossomed into a fast-food chain that today employs some 50,000 workers in over 1,600 restaurants in 39 states and the District of Columbia.

Chick-fil-A remains family operated and, with 2011 sales exceeding $4.1 billion, is a classic example of what entrepreneurial skills and hard work can accomplish in the American marketplace.

Unabashedly Christian, the company?s long-standing dedication to traditional family values is a matter of record.

According to its Corporate Purpose Statement, the company seeks ?to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.?

Consistent with that principle, the company is closed on Sundays, a policy which Cathy says was enacted as ?our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.?

Today, unfortunately, the company and its president, Dan T. Cathy, are embroiled in a baseless controversy contrived to advance same-sex marriage.

On July 16, the Baptist Press posted wide-ranging comments from Cathy about the company?s Christian underpinnings and their practical application to its manner of conducting business.

Near the end of the interview, after acknowledging that some oppose Chick-fil-A?s support of the traditional family, Cathy said: ?Well, guilty as charged. We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.?

Three days later, CNN not only extracted Cathy?s remarks from their overall context but inserted them in a context of its own creation.

Here?s how CNN reported Cathy?s remarks, with the network?s pivotal distortion italicized: ? ?Guilty as charged,? Cathy said when asked about his company?s support of the traditional family unit as opposed to gay marriage.?

In fact, Cathy was never specifically asked about gay marriage nor did he ever specifically condemn it. And that becomes important because his words, as gratuitously embellished by CNN, have become the predicate for a vile, vicious attack against him and his company by gay-rights groups and some very ignorant politicians.

In Chicago, for instance, Alderman Proco ?Joe? Moreno, vowed not to allow Chic-fil-A to open a restaurant in his district because of ?the bigoted, homophobic comments by Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, who recently came out against same-sex marriage.?

That punishment, he explained, would show the ?ignorant? Cathy that ?there are consequences for one?s actions, statements and beliefs.?

Meanwhile, Philadelphia City Councilman Jim Kenney, branding Cathy as ?rabidly homophobic?, has introduced a resolution condemning Chick-fil-A?s ?anti-American attitude of trying to deny civil liberties that every American enjoys.?

San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee and Boston?s Mayor Thomas Menino have also advised Chick-fil-A not to try to do business in their cities.

?There?s no place for discrimination on Boston?s Freedom Trail,? Menino told Chick-fil-A, ?and no place for your company alongside it.?

Naturally, gay-rights activists are in the forefront of the bogus controversy. In addition to widespread protests, they?ve created a Facebook page to promote ?National Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick fil-A.?

It includes a drawing of a chicken on a crucifix with the title, ?He died for your hate,? and calls upon gay people to descend on the company?s restaurants across the country this Friday and kiss each other.

In truth, nothing Dan Cathy said was anywhere close to hateful. Even when considered in the CNN-devised context, his words were nothing more than an affirmation of his belief in the biblical definition of the family unit.

That hardly compels the conclusion that he ?hates? those with a contrary point of view. Nor has there been any allegation that the company discriminates against gay people in any aspect of its business operation.

As for the ranting of those sycophantic politicians, governmental discrimination against Chick-fil-A because of the personal beliefs of its president - viewpoint discrimination - would unquestionably be illegal. So, are these politicians and gay-rights activists crazy? Hardly. They know exactly what they?re doing, precisely because they?ve been doing it all along to anybody and everybody who dares speak out against their efforts to radically redefine marriage to include same-sex couples.

With reckless abandon, they cast opponents as hateful, or homophobic, or religious fanatics, or right-wing crazies, or some other creation of their own biases.

And this Friday, they?ll invade Chick-fil-A restaurants around the nation, not to purchase a meal, but to make spectacles of themselves. They?ll callously interfere with other diners? reasonable expectation of enjoyment, and then watch every television network not named Fox News approvingly tell the world how they really socked it to the evil Dan Cathy and his fellow hate-mongers.

In other words, it is they who have neither respect for nor tolerance of the sincerely-held beliefs of others; they who indiscriminately smear with broad brushes; they who, when all is said and done, hate most of all.
?
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[Daniel Leddy?s column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]

Source: http://www.silive.com/opinion/danielleddy/index.ssf/2012/07/the_hateful_vendetta_against_c.html

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Deutsche Bank to cut 1,900 jobs as profits drop

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2011 file picture the headquarters of Deutsche Bank, center, is seen in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank says Tuesday, July 31, 2012, earnings fell 46 percent in the second quarter as the eurozone debt crisis hurt investment banking activity and revenue from trading securities. Germany's largest bank said that income fell at its investment banking division as fewer client companies came to the bank for its services helping them issue shares. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2011 file picture the headquarters of Deutsche Bank, center, is seen in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank says Tuesday, July 31, 2012, earnings fell 46 percent in the second quarter as the eurozone debt crisis hurt investment banking activity and revenue from trading securities. Germany's largest bank said that income fell at its investment banking division as fewer client companies came to the bank for its services helping them issue shares. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2011 file picture the headquarters of Deutsche Bank, center, is seen in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank says Tuesday, July 31, 2012, earnings fell 46 percent in the second quarter as the eurozone debt crisis hurt investment banking activity and revenue from trading securities. Germany's largest bank said that income fell at its investment banking division as fewer client companies came to the bank for its services helping them issue shares. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Deutsche Bank said Tuesday it plans to cut about 1,900 jobs, most of them outside Germany, as its earnings fell 46 percent in the second quarter as the European debt crisis hurt its investment banking and trading activities.

The bank, which employs nearly 101,000 people, said about 1,500 of the job cuts will be in its corporate banking and securities divisions and in related infrastructure areas. The headcount reduction will contribute some ?350 million to an overall target of ?3 billion ($3.8 billion) in savings.

Shares in the bank, which had been lower after the earnings report, jumped on the news of the jobs cuts and estimated savings. They were up 3.2 percent at ?25.58 by early afternoon in Frankfurt.

In its earnings report, Germany's largest bank said net profit fell to ?661 million from ?1.233 billion in the same three months a year ago. Income fell at its investment banking division as fewer client companies came to the bank for its services helping them issue shares.

Revenue from trading debt securities ? one of the investment categories most affected by the crisis ? was down. The company said that was partly due to the company taking "deliberately lower levels of risk" due to subdued trading volumes.

Revenues were down 6 percent to ?8.0 billion. A major hit to revenue came at the corporate banking and securities division, where share underwriting and debt trading are located, falling by ?451 million to ?3.5 billion.

The earnings statement was the first reported under new co-CEOs Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen, who took over from Josef Ackermann in May.

"The European sovereign debt crisis continues to weigh on investor confidence and client activity across the bank," it said.

European governments such as Spain and Italy are struggling with high levels of debt, and the prospect they might default or need bailouts has unnerved markets.

The earnings release added detail to an early release of a few numbers last week.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-07-31-Germany-Deutsche%20Bank-Earns/id-550058a3525b435b9c90cf41e4aaeaa7

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