| Baubles and bling for golden mouse
BEIJING, Jan. 9 -- Jewelers are baiting the '08 "golden mousetrap" with high-priced baubles and bling. A pendant "Angel Baby" has a fat cherubic face and wears jeweled diapers, writes Michelle Zhang. As the Chinese Lunar New Year - the year of the "golden mouse" - draws near, wedding bands and auspicious jade ornaments are hot sellers. The year 2008 is an ideal year for marriages and babies, partly because of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, partly because the numeral "8" or ba, is auspicious because it can be pronounced to mean "fortune" and "get rich." Golden mice, of course, abound, as do bejeweled rodents. Platinum Guild International has launched its 2008 bridal collection to take advantage of the Chinese zodiac.
Currying stars’ favour
Tommy, the man behind the UK's Indian Chef of the Year competition and dubbed "the Jamie Oliver of Indian Cooking", says he personally double checked all of the recipes to ensure they hit the right spicy note. It meant chomping his way through former England manager Kevin Keagan's Chicken Tikka Masala - "a magnificent dish," says Tommy, "even if it is a British invention," - actress Glenda Jackson's vegetarian Saag Aloo and runner Kriss Akabusi's Chana Chola, another vegetarian dish made with lentils, beans and peas, guaranteed, perhaps, to make him go like the wind. While The Queen has endorsed the book - mentioning its "tempting array of recipes" but clearly opting out of submitting her own - Professor Gordon McVie, is particularly keen to highlight the health issues at stake. "No-one claims curry will cure cancer," he says.
Settling for More or Less?
Being near the Mediterranean coast, Abu Musafir is lucky enough to have both ground water and steady seasonal rains. After the completion of the first drinking wells and the first houses, the food-for-work program began. Villagers were given food aid to help others build their homes and reservoirs. The reservoirs are huge underground concrete structures which are slowly filling with rain water to safeguard their farms against years of drought. Building is done by the community under the supervision of trained locals. Coming from the desert with little formal and no vocational education, the first step is to train a community construction expert. In Abu Musafir, it was a young man named Ibrahim. Before, I wasnt doing very much, Ibrahim says. Thanks to [the WFP], now I am a contractor and the main builder for this entire area. The training he received was a little rudimentary, he explains, but more than enough for the simple homes around Abu Musafir, and the on-the-job training has completed his education.
Drilling commences at Balladonia
Uranium exploration company, Epsilon Energy has commenced a 3000m air core drilling program at the Balladonia Uranium project in the Western Australia�s Eucla Basin, where the company has 100% uranium rights. The Balladonia Uranium project is one of Australia's largest continuous uranium exploration projects covering 7500sqkm.
No modern exploration tools, or targeted uranium exploration, had been applied to the project until Epsilon commenced exploration in 2007.
The Heartbreak target within the Balladonia Uranium Project has similar geological and geophysical characteristics to established uranium deposits including Honeymoon and Manyingee.
Epsilon said the key targets of the new drilling program were generated in conjunction with the Centre For Exploration Targeting using updated Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) Survey data processing, compilation of a substantial drill hole database, and uranium deposit model analysis.
Chris Matthews: Defeat Means Troops Still in Iraq--What About WWII?
Did you know that the US is still at war with Korea, Germany, Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo? Based on “Hardball" host Chris Matthews' recent claims, we are still at war with those countries and will be until our troops leave their soil. (h/t Weasel Zippers) On his November 28 show (transcript here), MSNBC's Matthews discussed Iraq with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, wondering when “will we be able to come home." In the process, the former Carter speechwriter said, “If we can't ever come home, we can't ever say we won." Silly me, I thought WWII, the Korean War, the Bosnian War and the Kosovo War were over. I guess the US troops still stationed in those countries prove otherwise (bold mine throughout): .
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