South Africa: Mandela ambulance had engine problem

Thabiso Boya, adds his get-well message on a poster for former South African President Nelson Mandela, at the Education Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa Thursday, June 20, 2013. Mandela remains in the hospital for the 13th day. The 94-year-old was hospitalized for a recurring lung infection. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Thabiso Boya, adds his get-well message on a poster for former South African President Nelson Mandela, at the Education Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa Thursday, June 20, 2013. Mandela remains in the hospital for the 13th day. The 94-year-old was hospitalized for a recurring lung infection. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Daughter Zenani Dlamini-Mandela, left, with granddaughters Swati Dlamini, second right, and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway, right, and an unidentified family member arrive at the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Mandela remains in the hospital for a ninth day. The 94-year-old was hospitalized for a recurring lung infection. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela, leaves after visiting the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Tuesday, June 18, 2013. Well-wishers continued to send messages of love and support to Nelson Mandela, as he remained in hospital in a serious condition with a lung infection. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Women from Alpha World Social Center in Soweto, sing, as they hold flowers to lay them outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Tuesday, June 18, 2013. Well-wishers continued to send messages of love and support to Nelson Mandela, as he remained in hospital in a serious condition with a lung infection. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? An ambulance carrying Nelson Mandela to a hospital two weeks ago had engine trouble, so the 94-year-old was transferred to another ambulance for his journey to the hospital, the South African government said Saturday.

Care was taken to ensure the condition of the former president was not affected, it said.

The anti-apartheid leader remains in serious but stable condition in a hospital, according to the office of President Jacob Zuma.

The government confirmed reports about transport problems when the former leader was taken to the hospital for what officials have said is a recurring lung infection. CBS News reported that Mandela had to be transferred in wintertime temperatures to another ambulance in the early morning of June 8 after waiting on the side of the highway for 40 minutes.

The government said in a statement that doctors are satisfied that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate suffered "no harm" at the time.

Mandela was taken from his home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton to a hospital in Pretoria, the capital, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) away.

"The fully equipped military ICU ambulance had a full complement of specialist medical staff including intensive care specialists and ICU nurses. The convoy also included two quick response vehicles," the presidency said. "When the ambulance experienced engine problems it was decided that it would be best to transfer to another military ambulance which itself was accompanied for the rest of the journey by a civilian ambulance."

The statement added: "All care was taken to ensure that the former president Mandela's medical condition was not compromised by the unforeseen incident."

In recent days, reports from the government, former President Thabo Mbeki and a grandson of Mandela have indicated that the health of Mandela is improving, although he has been in the hospital for treatment several times in recent months.

Close family members have been visiting him daily in a Pretoria hospital amid an outpouring of prayers and messages of support from South Africans and people around the world.

Zuma's office appealed for Mandela's privacy to be respected "and that he be accorded the doctor-patient confidentiality that all patients are entitled to in terms of medical ethics."

On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit by Zuma and other leaders of the ruling African National Congress to Mandela's home. Zuma said at the time that Mandela was in good shape, but the footage - the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year - showed him silent and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.

In a statement Saturday, the ANC said the presidential reports on Mandela's condition have ensured that "we are all kept up-to-date and knowledgeable about his condition" within the limits of privacy and medical confidentiality.

"The African National Congress once again calls upon all concerned parties including the media to afford President Mandela and his family respect and privacy during this difficult time," the statement said.

Mandela was jailed for 27 years under white racist rule and was released in 1990. He then played a leading role in steering the divided country from the apartheid era to democracy, becoming South Africa's first black president in all-race elections in 1994. As a result of his sacrifice and peacemaking efforts, he is seen by many around the world as a symbol of reconciliation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-22-South%20Africa-Mandela/id-9bcc69e505c245119211861080aa8293

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Germany, Russia clash over 'looted art'

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) ? The glittering glories of Russia's Hermitage Museum were shadowed Friday by tensions between Russia and Germany over a new exhibit including objects looted by Red Army soldiers after they overran the Nazis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, visiting the opening of the exhibition with Russian President Vladimir Putin, noted pointedly that some of the items on display had been brought from Germany and "it gives us great happiness that we can see all of them today.

"We will continue dialogue on all questions regarding valuables brought from Germany," she added, according to the news agency Interfax.

The remarks may have been milder than she'd originally intended. Merkel had planned to use her speech at the opening of the exhibition to call for the return of the art in accordance with international law, said German government spokesman Georg Streiter.

Putin, at an earlier news conference with Merkel, hedged on the question of whether Russia would return art taken by the Soviets.

"It's a very sensitive question for the civil society of both sides, I think," he said. "Therefore, if we want to have some kind of movement forward, we shouldn't inflate the problem but search for some path to resolution."

"Now is hardly the time to open the discussion," he said, because there are Russians who are resentful of damages inflicted during the war on Soviet art collections.

The Hermitage exhibition, called "The Bronze Age: A Europe Without Frontiers," includes a renowned collection of prehistoric gold objects found in Brandenburg, Germany, in 1913.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-russia-clash-over-looted-art-104916366.html

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Senate immigration bill boosted by border deal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Far-reaching immigration legislation offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions is swiftly gaining ground in the Senate following agreement between Republicans and Democrats on dramatic steps aimed at securing the border with Mexico.

The deal to double Border Patrol agents and fencing along the Southwest border has won support from four undecided Republican senators for the immigration bill that's a top priority for President Barack Obama. More appeared likely to come on board, putting the legislation within reach of securing the bipartisan vote that its authors say is needed to ensure serious consideration by the GOP-controlled House.

"It is safe to say that this agreement has the power to change minds in the Senate," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a lead author of the bill, said Thursday. "With this agreement, we have now answered every criticism that has come forward about the immigration bill."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the deal should satisfy those Republicans concerned that the border security provisions in the bill were too weak. "If they can't accept these provisions, then border security is not their problem," McCain said.

The deal was developed by Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, in consultation with Schumer, McCain and other members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who wrote the immigration bill. It prevents immigrants now here illegally from attaining permanent resident status until a series of steps have been taken to secure the border.

These include doubling the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents, 18 new unmanned surveillance drones, 350 miles of new fencing to add to the 350 miles already built, and an array of fixed and mobile devices to maintain vigilance, including high-tech tools such as infrared ground sensors and airborne radar.

The new provisions would be put in place over a decade, in line with the 10-year path to a permanent resident green card that the bill sets out for immigrants here illegally. During that time, the immigrants could live and work legally in a provisional status.

Vice President Joe Biden told a predominantly Latino crowd of 1,100 gathered in Las Vegas for the national conference for the League of United Latin American Citizens that now is the time for a "fair, and firm and unfettered path for 11 million people" to become U.S. citizens.

"The question you should ask is, 'What will immigration reform do for America?'" Biden said Thursday. "The answer is clear and resounding: It can and will do great things for America."

Hoeven said the 10-year cost of the border security amendment included $25 billion for the additional Border Patrol agents, $3 billion for fencing and $3.2 billion for other measures.

It's "border security on steroids," said Corker, who along with Hoeven had been uncommitted on the immigration bill. Both are now prepared to support it, assuming their amendment is adopted, as is expected to happen early next week. Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., also announced their support Thursday.

Corker and Hoeven had said they expected the legislation to be formally unveiled in the Senate late Thursday, but for unexplained reasons, that did not happen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., adjourned the Senate around 10:30 p.m., saying the amendment was nearly ready and the Senate could move forward with it Friday.

The deal on border security came together quickly over the past several days after talks had bogged down over Republicans' insistence that green cards be made conditional on catching or turning back 90 percent of would-be border crossers. Schumer, other Democrats and Obama himself rejected this trigger, which they feared could delay the path to citizenship for years. Obama made his objections known in a phone call to Schumer from Air Force One during his trip to Europe for the Group of Eight summit earlier in the week, according to a Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The breakthrough came when the Congressional Budget Office released a report Tuesday finding that the bill would cut billions of dollars from the deficit. Schumer's top immigration aide, Leon Fresco, had the idea of devoting some of those billions to a dramatic border build-up.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an author of the bill who helped run interference between Corker and Hoeven and Democrats in the group, said that with the CBO finding in hand, he sat down with Schumer and Corker and said, "OK, let's go big."

The idea immediately appealed to the left and the right.

For Republicans, it provided concrete assurances that the bill would aim to achieve a secure border. For Democrats, it offered goals that, if dramatic, were achievable and measurable.

Still, not everyone was won over.

Shortly before Corker and Hoeven went to the Senate floor to announce their agreement Thursday afternoon, five leading Republican opponents of the bill held a news conference to denounce the deal as little more than an empty promise.

"In short, I think this amendment is designed to pass the bill but not to fix the bill," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said.

About 10 Republicans have indicated they will vote for the bill, far more than enough to ensure it will have the 60 votes required to overcome any attempted filibuster by last-ditch opponents. Democrats control 54 seats, and party aides have said they do not expect any defections.

In addition to the border security components and eventual citizenship for the 11 million people now here illegally, the immigration bill would create new work visa programs and expand existing ones to allow tens of thousands of workers into the country to work in high- and low-skilled jobs.

Employers would have to verify their workers' legal status.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-immigration-bill-boosted-border-deal-073020424.html

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Paula Deen Fired From Food Network Following Lawsuit About Racial Slurs

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/paula-deen-fired-from-food-network-following-lawsuit-about-racia/

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House to vote on farm bill cuts to crop insurance

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House is preparing to vote on whether to cut federally-subsidized crop insurance that helps farmers when they lose crops or revenue.

The amendment by Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind would limit government help for crop insurance paid to wealthy farmers and also limit the subsidies the government gives crop insurance companies.

The amendment is one of several votes expected Thursday on the five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill. Supporters of the bill are rushing to try and complete the legislation Thursday, though it isn't certain whether they have the votes for passage.

Kind and other Democrats say the bill should cut more from farm subsidies like crop insurance and less from food stamps, which would take a $2 billion hit in the bill.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/house-vote-farm-bill-cuts-crop-insurance-071101409.html

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Bleak outlook for warming world

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- The World Bank says it will increasingly view its efforts to help developing countries fight poverty through a "climate lens."

In a report released Wednesday, the international lending institution warned that heat waves, rising seas, more severe storms and other impacts of climate change will trap millions of people in poverty.

As a result, the Washington-based bank said it is stepping up support for efforts to curb climate change and to help the world adapt to it.

"Urgent action is needed to not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to help countries prepare for a world of dramatic climate change and weather extremes," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

Already by the 2030s, 40 percent of the land used to grow maize in sub-Saharan Africa will be unable to sustain that crop because of droughts and heat, the report said. Also by that time, sea level rise coupled with more intense cyclones could inundate much of Thailand's capital, Bangkok, it said.

"At the World Bank Group, we are concerned that unless the world takes bold action now, a disastrously warming planet threatens to put prosperity out of reach of millions and roll back decades of development," Kim said. "In response we are stepping up our mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk management work, and will increasingly look at all our business through a 'climate lens.'"

In a conference call, bank Vice President Rachel Kyte said the World Bank doubled its lending aimed at adaptation efforts to $4.6 billion in 2012.

She said that money was separate from the adaptation funds transferred from rich to poor countries in U.N. climate talks. The developed countries have pledged to ramp that financing up to $100 billion annually by 2020. Critics say that won't be enough, pointing to the New York's recently announced $20 billion plan ? for that city alone ? to stave off rising seas with flood gates, levees and other defenses.

Aid groups and climate activists welcomed the report, which was launched in London and prepared for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, both based in Germany.

"The World Bank must go beyond ringing the alarm bell," said Sasanka Thilakasiri, of British charity Oxfam. "It must ensure its own lending meets the needs of the people who are most vulnerable to climate change."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-highlights-climate-poverty-123712650.html

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They Deactivate Droids, Don?t They?

C-3PO and R2-D2: Does George Lucas care about metal people?

LucasFilms

The war crime plays out like so.

Two heroic Jedi storm onto the bridge of the enemy ship. They cut through the bridge?s crew, until the only targets left standing are a pair of unarmed battle droids. These rail-thin, vaguely snouted robots are the blaster fodder of the prequel-era Star Wars universe, the bumbling, comically-useless ground troops mass-produced by the bad guys, who can be safely, incessantly dismembered on screen, without appalling concerned parents.

To say the battle droids are charming is an overstatement, but they have personality. Back on the bridge, one droid waves his arms frantically. ?Don't shoot, I'm not the commander!? He points to the other battle droid. ?H-he's the commander.? Pew! Pew! The second droid is casually gunned down by a Clone Trooper?predecessor to the Stormtroopers, but in this episode of the Clone Wars cartoon, a good guy working for the Jedi. But that?s just the setup for the joke. ?I guess I?m the commander now,? says the original bot. The punch line comes immediately, in the form of two blaster bolts. All that?s missing is a rim shot, and the roar of an audience.

George Lucas doesn?t care about metal people. No other explanation makes sense. In a kid-targeted sci-fi setting that?s notably inclusive, with as many friendly alien characters as villainous ones, the human rights situation for robots is horrifying. They?re imbued with distinctly human traits?including fear?only to be tortured and killed for our amusement. They scream while being branded, and cower before heroes during executions.

There are exceptions, of course. Or one, really: R2-D2, a droid so treasured that the Queen of Naboo herself washed the grime and debris from his frame during The Phantom Menace, as a reward for repairing her ship while under enemy fire. Two movies later, in Revenge of the Sith, R2 was allowed to keep his memories, despite his knowledge of Luke and Leia?s true parents.

C-3PO is not so lucky. When Princess Leia?s adoptive father casually orders the protocol droid?s memory wiped, 3PO?s terrified. ?What?? he says. ?Oh no!?

And what does R2-D2 do? He laughs, in his shrill, beeping way. Because the story of Star Wars? great, unloved underclass isn?t R2-D2?s. It?s C-3PO?s. In his fear, and his fatalism, lies the truth about droids: They are slaves, through and through. What's worse, they have the built-in sentience to know it, to understand their bondage, and to contemplate their own deaths. Worst of all, though, is that George Lucas seems to think all that existential terror is a hoot. C3P0 is quite possibly the first fictional slave to be ridiculed for living in a state of perfectly reasonable panic.

When we meet C-3PO?in the original, 1977 Star Wars?he?s a nuisance. He?s a coward aboard Princess Leia?s besieged spaceship, and, after being sold to Luke Skywalker?s uncle (as part of a package deal, with the invaluable R2-D2), he spends nearly every moment aghast or needling at his braver companions. But C-3PO?s grating state of constant terror isn?t unwarranted. When Luke discovers that R2 and C-3PO have followed him without requesting permission, the protocol droid practically swoons. ?It wasn't my fault, sir,? he wails, ?please don't deactivate me!?

It's a throwaway line, part of C-3PO?s responsibilities as resident comic foil. But the implications aren?t so easily dismissed. As the movies progress, we see further evidence that droids experience fear, joy, and misery (even the redoubtable R2 is prone to the occasional whimper-whistle). And yet, they?re bought and sold like property. They are property, with C-3PO passed from owner to owner, his consciousness shut down temporarily when his nattering is too much to bear, or permanently rearranged without a moment?s hesitation or apology. C-3PO isn?t (simply) craven, when he quails before his new master. C-3PO knows the score. They deactivate droids, don?t they?

Granted, not everyone has sympathy for a ninny, or any robot, for that matter. Setting aside the licensed comics and novels and video games that comprise the so-called ?extended universe? of additional material, the Star Wars canon (the movies and recent cartoons) isn?t all that interested in matters of artificial intelligence or robot rights. Are droids just pretending at sentience and emotional intelligence? If so, what damn fools we are, for fretting over R2 and C-3PO?s survival. But if they are, in fact, as self-aware as their owners and deactivators ... well, what then?

George Lucas is no Isaac Asimov, to be sure. An unofficial Star Wars wiki mentions a TV documentary in which Lucas says that C-3PO doesn?t have a soul. Bleak stuff, indeed, but it?s unsourced, and buried (if it?s even true) in one of the dozens of documentaries the filmmaker has appeared in. At a 2005 event preceding the release of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas was asked which character he?d miss the most. ?Well, R2-D2,? he responded, ?because he's the hero of the whole thing. He's the one that always?comes through and saves everybody. I'd like to have a pal like that that would come and save me once in a while.?

All right, so Lucas doesn?t hate R2. But while that astromech droid goes about his charmed, beloved business, the question remains: Are we really supposed to laugh when apparently sentient robots get blown to hell? Maybe not. I harbor hopes that Lucas, in his mercurial fashion, has layered his pulp adventure with a sly bit of social commentary, creating a story whose own seemingly infallible heroes could care less about the plight of the slave caste propping up their society. Unlike the Harry Potter series, where Hermione calls for equal rights for the elves forced into indentured service, droids have no champions. With the prequels, and their multitudes of silly, simpering battle droids, maybe the satire has grown fangs. The dumb machines exude bathos before being shot and sabered to pieces, visuals that create their own meta-narrative dissonance?those aren?t charred limbs on the battlefield, kids, just the bisected corpses of some goofy robots! And when R2 has the audacity to laugh?laugh!?at C-3PO?s impending memory wipe, maybe that?s a master stroke, an unacknowledged moment that confirms R2-D2?s ugly sense of exceptionalism.

Maybe the droid emancipation is still to come, and Star Wars has been cruel to its thinking machines, only to set them free in the upcoming movies or newly announced cartoon, Rebels. Maybe things will change. A robot can activate his hope circuits.

If freedom is coming, though, it won't be C-3PO leading the march on Coruscant. There'll be no protest signs in his barely-articulating hands, and certainly no blood from his masters. Like Uncle Tom, his biological counterpart in a galaxy far, far away, C-3PO is resigned to live in bondage. A life of casual abuse and entrenched indignities has taught him the kind of lesson only a slave, or possibly a blues singer, can mutter without irony. "We seem to be made to suffer," he says, while trudging through Tatooine's dunes during Star Wars. "It's our lot in life." Cue the rim shot, light the applause sign.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/droids_in_star_wars_the_plight_of_the_robotic_underclass.html

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