The country is famous for organizing crowds of thousands of people using colored cards to spell out political slogans and images in stadiums or large squares, and the gathering last week to celebrate the 100th birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung was no different.
This time, however, the spelled out message in a central square in the capital of Pyongyang was big enough to be visible from space.
An April 15 image of a celebration taken by a satellite and distributed by DigitalGlobe shows people in red and gold clothing gathered in Kim Il Sung Square and spelling out the word “glory” in Korean.
The parade culminated with the unveiling of a new missile, although analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean rockets say they were fakes.”
The Benetton clothing company withdrew an ad Wednesday featuring a fake photo of Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an unacceptable provocation.
Benetton had said its “Unhate” campaign launched Wednesday was aimed at fostering tolerance and “global love.”
The campaign’s fake photos feature a half-dozen purported political nemeses in lip-locked embraces, including President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
The photo of the pope kissing Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb of Cairo’s al-Azhar institute, the pre-eminent theological school of Sunni Islam, had been on Benetton’s website all day but was pulled about an hour after the Vatican’s protest.
Al-Azhar suspended interfaith talks with the Vatican earlier this year after Benedict called for greater protections for Egypt’s minority Christians.
A Benetton spokesman confirmed to The Associated Press that the pope-imam ad was no longer part of the campaign.
It wasn’t clear if the ad had been published anywhere; on Wednesday images from the campaign were unfurled briefly in Milan, New York, Paris, Tel Aviv and Rome but were quickly taken away.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi called the ad an “unacceptable” manipulation of the pope’s likeness that offended the religious sentiments of the faithful.
The Media Baron Rupert Murdoch is being questioned by the British Parliament to-day.( Live coverage has been blogged)
The story of how avarice and lust for fame has driven people to the height of depravity unfolds below.
JULY 18: Sean Hoare, a former reporter for the News Of The World who blew the whistle on the extent of phone hacking at the paper has been found dead at his home.
:: Rebekah Brooks‘ lawyer has denied she is guilty of “any criminal offence” as she prepares to appear before a group of MPs investigating the phone-hacking scandal.
:: The Prime Minister has said Parliament will meet on Wednesday to discuss the phone-hacking scandal after Britain’s top police officer resigned, delaying the summer recess.
Rupert Murdoch is referred to as RM and his son James JM. Rebekah Brooks is referred to as RB.
JM: It is a matter of great regret, my father’s, and everybody at News Corp and these are standards that these actions do not live up to, the standards that our company tries to live up to all around the world.
JM: It is our intention to put these things right, to make sure they don’t happen again.
If any confirmation is needed that the Pakistani Authorities knew of Osama bin laden staying in Pakistan, this is it.
Pakistan must have been keeping tabs on the CIA operatives.
Otherwise how would they know that they have passed on the information?
Again, even if Pakistan did not know of Osama staying in Pakistan before following the CIA personnel, Pakistan should have known where Osama was staying by following these people.
What action would Pakistan take against the personnel who had information of Osama bin laden?
Or is it still in the denial mode?
The arrest of the CIA informants is like arresting the State’s evidence and letting the Guilty go scot-free!
Pakistan’s intelligence service has arrested the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe Osama bin Laden’s compound before the U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, as well as a “handful” of other Pakistanis, a U.S. official said late Tuesday.
The Times, in an article posted on its website late Tuesday, said detained informants included a Pakistani army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in the weeks before the raid.
The fate of the CIA informants who were arrested was unclear, but American officials told the newspaper that CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue when he visited Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers…
THE INSIDE STORY: Reporter Mazher Mahmood tells how he got the tip-off
IT was back in January that I first received the phone call that would start my investigation.
A former member of the Pakistan cricket management team told me the England v Pakistan series would be rigged to ensure huge betting wins for crooked syndicates.
Indian bookmakers were effectively controlling games, telling a number of Pakistani stars what to do on the pitch. Once the paymasters knew what would happen in a game, they could rig the odds in their favour – and bet fortunes with other bookmakers who were not in the know.
The crucial extra piece of information I received in January was the name Mazhar Majeed, a millionaire businessman who acted as an agent for Pakistani players. I was told he was the fixer for the summer Test series in England.
We made a number of background checks on Majeed, but it wasn’t until August 8 that the investigation moved into top gear and I arranged to meet him, posing as a multi-millionaire businessman interested in holding a cricket tournament in the Middle East.
FIRST MEETING WITH FIXER, Park Lane Hilton, London, August 16
After weeks of preparation, we finally come face to face with Mazhar Majeed – the Croydon-born businessman and Pakistan players agent – in the opening innings of an investigation that would rock the cricket world.
In the plush hotel’s Podium restaurant, our team explain they are representing a business group interested in launching a new cricket tournament – and we need Majeed’s help to bring in the stars.
The smooth fixer instantly pounces, boasting about his links to the Pakistan team – and hints at the power he holds over them, telling us: “I manage quite a lot of the players.
“I do all their affairs, all their contracts, all their sponsorship, all their marketing. Everything really.”
He asks if we will put up a “million dollars” in prize money for the tournament and adds: “All the players would be up for that. Then not only will they come to play, they actually come to win.”
One player he does not want involved is Shahid Afridi, the veteran Pakistan captain in charge of the side in the one-day series.
Afridi was not one of the players Majeed had in his pocket.
“I could have signed Afridi five years ago. All the other players I know, you know like brothers. When they’re in England I see them every day. I go to Pakistan to stay with them. We are going out for dinner tonight actually, Edgware Road.”
Yassir Ahmed blowing the lid off cricket scam in Pakistan.
A PAKISTAN cricketer who played in the rigged Lord’s Test has sensationally confirmed that there WERE cheats in his team.
Respected opening batsman Yasir Hameed claims bent teammates were fixing “almost every match”.
And he provided a devastating insight into the shady world of betting scams, telling how he:
REFUSED bribes of up to £150,000 from a corrupt bookmaker to throw matches.
LOST his own place in the squad and saw his career damaged as a result.
WATCHED as crooked colleagues splashed out on plush properties and expensive sports cars funded by their illicit activities.
LEARNED that shameless players pocketed an astonishing £1.8million for rigging a Test match against Australia earlier this year.
Hameed, once rated amongst the world’s finest batsmen, said of his scandal-struck colleagues: “They’ve been caught. Only the ones that get caught are branded crooks.
Pakistan cricket star Yasir Hameed blows lid off cricket match fixing
“They were doing it (fixing) in almost every match. God knows what they were up to. Scotland Yard was after them for ages.
“It makes me angry because I’m playing my best and they are trying to lose.”
And, predicting the likely fate of the players exposed by the News of the World, Hameed added darkly: “The guys that have got done have got themselves killed.
“They’re gone – forget about them.”
Hameed’s remarks will heap pressure on the ICC investigation and the preposterous defence thrown up last week by shamed Pakistan skipper Salman Butt, bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir and their Pakistan Cricket Board bosses.
Sipping white wine in a Nottingham hotel just two days after our revelations sparked a worldwide sensation, Hameed, 32, described how he became a victim of betting cartels’ vengeance for refusing to fix games.
PLAYER: Yasir in 4th Test
“It’s because of all these wrong things that I was outed, because I wouldn’t get involved,” he told our undercover reporter.
“If you sat here and said, ‘I’m a bookie and I want you to fix the match tomorrow’ – I’ve met lots of people like that in the past and I refused. They offered me handsome money.
“I could have come to see you in a Ferrari. They give you so much money that you can live out your dreams, buy a flash car.
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