Maldini

Happy Eid:D

Farooq Naeem/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Flames poured from the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday after a massive truck bombing. More Photos > By CARLOTTA GALL Published: September 20, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A huge truck bomb exploded at the entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 150, the police said. The blast, one of the worst acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s history, went off just a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s house, where all the leaders of government were dining after the president’s address to Parliament. The toll was expected to grow because of reports that people had been trapped inside the six-story hotel, which has been a favorite meeting spot of both foreigners and well-connected Pakistanis in the heart of the capital. The building was quickly engulfed in flames and continued to burn for hours Saturday night. The bomb left a vast crater, some 40 feet wide and 25 feet deep, at the security barrier to the hotel. Witnesses said security guards and their gate posts were buried under a mound of rubble. A line of cars across the street from the hotel were mangled and trees on the street were charred. Windows in buildings hundreds of yards away were shattered. Witnesses said they dragged dozens of bodies from the lobby of the hotel and an adjacent parking lot, including those of a number of foreigners. An American Embassy spokesman, Lou Fintor, could not confirm if any American citizens were killed or wounded. “We are in the process of determining the status and welfare of our embassy staff as well as any other Americans who may have been affected, and we are in close contact with the State Department in Washington,” he said. The bombing was the deadliest to take place in the well-guarded capital, and may have been timed for the day that President Asif Ali Zardari made his first address to Parliament since his election two weeks ago. Mr. Zardari, whose wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in December by a suicide bomber, vowed to root out terrorism and extremism and to stop terrorists from using Pakistani soil to attack other countries. Both he and the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, condemned the attack and repeated their determination to deal with terrorism with an iron hand, the state news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, reported. The bombing may also have been retaliation by militants for the recent military operations in the tribal area of Bajaur and the adjacent area of Swat, which have reportedly killed scores of militants. Coming after a bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year at the Serena Hotel, another gathering spot for foreigners, the Marriott attack appeared to send a message not just to Pakistan but to Washington and other Pakistani allies. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The White House on Saturday condemned the bombing, calling it a “reminder of the threat we all face.” The Islamabad Marriott has been attacked by militants at least twice in the past, including in a suicide attack in January 2007 that killed a policeman. A senior police official, Ashfaq Ahmed Khan, said initial reports suggested that an explosives-laden dump truck was detonated near the entrance. “The Marriott is an icon,” said Abdullah Riar, a former aide to Mrs. Bhutto. “It’s like the twin towers of Pakistan. It’s a symbolic place in the capital of the country, and now it has melted down. ”wounded American who works at the embassy here said he was unlocking his car when the bomb exploded. The American, who gave only his first name, Chris, had injuries to his face, neck and shoulder, and was holding a bloody T-shirt to his face. American Embassy personnel were at the scene, and said they had come to help American citizens who were caught in the blast. Amjad Ali Khan, a guard on duty at a side entrance to the hotel, said that he saw four to five bodies in the hotel parking lot and that he helped carry out 40 bodies from inside the hotel. He said they were “in the lobby and in the restaurant and everywhere. ”There were very few people injured,” he said. “They were all dead.” He said he saw three Western women who had died from head wounds. They are terrorists,” he said when asked who he thought was responsible for the blast. The Interior Ministry’s antiterrorism cell had warned several days ago that it had information that four or five suicide bombers had been dispatched on missions around the country. The government enforced tight security during the president’s 3 p.m. address, posting army Rangers and police in rings around the Parliament and government buildings. The Marriott lies nearby, but the Rangers and police may have reduced the security after the event and at 7.30 pm, the time of Iftar, when Muslims break their all-day fast during the Ramadan holiday. The bomb exploded at 8 p.m., when many Pakistanis were inside the banqueting hall at the back of the hotel, taking their evening meal. The Islamabad police have asked the army to assist in the rescue work and declared a state of emergency in the local hospitals. Meanwhile, the F.B.I. had offered to send special agents to help investigate the scene of the attack, and to try to determine the driver of the vehicle and the kind of explosives used, said a senior American official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. The F.B.I. is awaiting approval from the Pakistani government before dispatching the agents, perhaps as many as 15, the official said. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Jane Perlez reporting from London.

Livni looks victorious in Israel's Kadima primary Exit polls showed that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won with roughly 48 percent of the vote to take over the party led by Ehud Olmert. By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the September 18, 2008 edition Jerusalem - Israel's popular foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, known for her steely reserve, won Wednesday's primary to head the leading Kadima Party, according to exit polls. The victory puts her one step closer to becoming Israel's next prime minister and only the second female premier, preceded by Golda Meir, whose term ended nearly 35 years ago. Ms. Livni won the Kadima primaries with roughly 48 percent of the vote, exit polls from three different television channels predicted after polling stations closed at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. She beat her strongest competitor, Shaul Mofaz, by a margin of about 10 percent. Livni will replace Ehud Olmert, who promised that he would leave office the day after party primaries were held, following demands he resign due to his likely indictment on corruption charges. "A lot is dependent on her," Knesset member Ofer Pines told Israel's Channel One as the results came in. "If she can bring in new hope to the party and to the country, that would be great. If not, it's a real missed opportunity." Mr. Olmert has headed Kadima since January 2006 when he took over after the party's founder, Ariel Sharon, was incapacitated by a major stroke. Both Olmert and Livni were all originally members of the right-wing Likud Party, but followed Mr. Sharon when he left to form Kadima as a centrist party with "disengagement" – Israel's departure from the Gaza Strip and a few West Bank settlements in August 2005 – at the center of its unilateralist agenda. Livni, who has led Israel's negotiations with the Palestinians since the peace process was revamped by the Bush administration in Annapolis, Md., last November, is seen as being far keener on making peace with Israel's neighbors. Although they are in the same party, Livni's outlook on international affairs is markedly different from that of Mr. Mofaz, a military hawk and former army chief of staff who has taken a much more aggressive line on Iran's nuclear program. Livni's parents were members of the Irgun, one of the most hard-line Zionist militias at the time of Israel's founding. Trained as a lawyer, she served in the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, before being elected to the Knesset in 1999.

By Alastair Macdonald JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Members of Israel's ruling party voted on Wednesday for a new leader to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has promised to resign following a corruption investigation in which he faces indictment. But whether Tzipi Livni or fellow cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz secures the support of a majority of the 74,000 members of the centrist Kadima party, Olmert may stay on as caretaker premier for weeks or months -- and Israel's fractious coalition politics could yet mean an early parliamentary election. Ballot boxes in dozens of party offices and other venues across the country opened at 10 a.m. (0700 GMT). In the first four hours, turnout was 13.3 percent, a party website showed. After what many had thought might be his last such meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, Olmert vowed to carry on with their peace negotiations -- a sign he aims to exercise his right to continue as prime minister while his successor as party leader tries to form a new government. Polls show Foreign Minister Livni well ahead of Mofaz, the transport minister and a former general, in her bid to become Israel's first woman leader since Golda Meir in the 1970s. But both camps remain cautious, citing the patchy record of surveys in such contests. A poll on Monday showed Livni with 47 percent to Mofaz's 28 percent, with the two other candidates trailing. But Mofaz has predicted he will win, and secure more than the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff vote next week. Whoever succeeds Olmert, many see a parliamentary election in months. Kadima, founded in 2005 by Ariel Sharon, has just a quarter of the seats in the Knesset. Rivals, some within Olmert's coalition, are preparing for a national battle that polls show may favor Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud. Livni, who is Israel's chief negotiator in the peace talks with the Palestinians launched by U.S. President George W. Bush 10 months ago, is widely seen as offering continuity in that process -- but few on either side see a major breakthrough for peace before Bush himself leaves office four months from now. Mofaz, as army chief and then defence minister, garnered a reputation for tough tactics against a Palestinian uprising from 2000. He has also said an attack on his native Iran could become "inevitable" if it pursued a program to develop nuclear arms. In twin campaign statements published in major newspapers, the two leading candidates set out their proposals. Livni, whom supporters hail as a "Mrs. Clean" who would end the taint of scandal left by Olmert and others, said: "This is a second chance to shape Israel's image, to fix the damage and to place the good of the country and its people at the centre." Mofaz, who stresses his greater experience in security affairs, said: "I intend to ... explore all practical possibilities for a path to peace. But I have no doubt that peace is achieved from a position of strength and deterrence." On the economy, Mofaz was the only Kadima minister to vote against Olmert's tight 2009 budget and, with his ties to trade unions and appeal to poorer Israelis, he has stressed a desire to reduce economic inequalities while pursuing growth. Livni, a career commercial lawyer whose husband is a prominent entrepreneur, is seen as offering continuity with the market-oriented economic policies of the outgoing government. The Israeli public has found it hard to muster enthusiasm for the Kadima primary -- "Grey Day", ran a headline on the vote in Wednesday's mass-selling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Mofaz, 59, who migrated from Tehran as a child in the 1950s, would be the first prime minister not of European origin. Many of his fellow Sephardic Jews complain of feeling second-class citizens to Ashkenazis from Europe. Livni, a 50-year-old lawyer and former Mossad intelligence agent, is the daughter of a famed Polish-born guerrilla fighter of the 1940s. (Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem and Ari Rabinovitch in Tel Aviv; editing by Andrew Roche)

Happy and nice birthday:D

How can I see the hidden files?:rolleyes:

I also believe in intelligent design:)

My Awakening: A Path To Racial Understanding By David Duke

Wow rain again, they will complete the next year:laugh3:

I can't use it, but I worked by another programme [ Recover My Files ] ant it's worked perfectly.

No, because I deleted the files by shift+delete:\

Thanks, I will try it.:)

I deleted some important files by mistake:(, so can I restore it?:rolleyes:

Yes, because after that Russia will score another 2 goals:laugh3:

Viva Russia, yes champions goooooooooooo:D:lol::smug:

Soccer-Euro-Netherlands to wear black armbands v Russia By Theo Ruizenaar BASEL, June 20 (Reuters) - Netherlands will wear black armbands in Saturday's Euro 2008 quarter-final against Russia after Khalid Boulahrouz's prematurely-born daughter died earlier this week. "It was a moment that can make the team spirit stronger because one of the players has had such a very sad private situation," coach Marco van Basten told reporters on Friday. "Several players are very close to Khalid and it concerned the whole squad." Defender Boulahrouz, however, decided to remain with the squad for the rest of the tournament. "It was all very difficult," said midfielder Rafael van der Vaart. "We feel very sad for him but we are also pleased he is still with us." (Editing by Tony Jimenez)

Viva Turkey Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:D:lol::smug:

Extratime, seems gonna be long night:rolleyes:

Amartya Sen- Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

wow 2 goals in 27 min:stunned:

Russia did it:lol:

Holland not gonna win this champion:rolleyes:

It's Netherlands days:thinking:

4-1;) wow

What a drama:D:lol: