Bihar interested in buying electricity from Nepal

Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar has said Nepal could be the richest country in South Asia if it tapped water resources. 

Talking to Nepali journalists at his residence on Saturday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Bihar government was ready to buy the surplus electricity from Nepal.

Both Nepal and India need to solve the problems of inundation which both countries suffer a lot every year, he said. 

The visit of Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai from Nepal to Bihar was very significant and would be remembered for long by the Bihar people.

Responding to a query regarding the problems Nepalis are facing because of Indians at border, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said although it was the issue to be addressed by the central government, Bihar government would also investigate into this internally. 

Similarly, responding to another question, he said the Naxalites problem was caused of poverty and illiteracy in India and it would fizzle out with development wave. 

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar further said Indian government had no policy to support the armed groups waging struggle in Nepal staying in India and would never help too.

About the miraculous development in Bihar, he said Bihar prioritised health, education and employment for development.

Moreover, he said the Bihar government was ready to be a partner in the development initiatives in Nepal and expressed confidence that democracy would be strengthened with constitution writing and conclusion of peace process in Nepal very soon.


Source Himalayan Times

‘Jerseylicious’ is back with bigger, badder battles and hairstyling backdrop

SOME VIEWERS may look at “Jerseylicious” as another reality show that overinflates ordinary drama, in this case involving a beauty salon, and blows it up into silly fun, in this case playing off the stereotype of everything about Jersey girls being overinflated in the first place.

Nor can there be any denying that the fourth season of “Jerseylicious,” which kicks off Sunday, is overrun with Jersey girls and pumped-up drama.

There’s enough eyeshadow in this hour to throw the whole planet into darkness for a week.

On the action-adventure side, there’s a showdown between Gayle Giacomo, who owns the Gatsby salon in Green Brook, and Cathy Giove, who along with Anthony Lombardi is opening a rival salon. That’s not really a spoiler because it would only have been surprising if Gayle and Cathy did not eventually have it out.

The gratifying part is that they do it at a party, in front of a lot of people they’d both like to impress.

The funny part is that by having this catfight, maybe that’s exactly what they accomplish.

Where would Teresa Guidice be today if she hadn’t flipped that table? Probably not on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Just saying.

Anyhow, my point here is that some viewers may see all this as just another cheerfully low-budget reality show. Some viewers, after three seasons, may not be immediately able to tell Olivia, Tracy and Gigi apart.

Me, I see it all as educational TV, because when I was growing up, I missed all this stuff.

And I don’t mean this is about me. I mean it’s about every guy who had the same deprivation, the same total void in our education about beauty salons.

All the years I was growing up, I went to a barber. My Dad’s barber, at Central Barber Shop. He was named Patsy. Years after I left town, I read that Patsy was arrested for running numbers.

It was a different world. So “Jerseylicious” is all new information to those of us who don’t realize it’s a big deal when Olivia the makeup artist tries to do hair, or that there’s a special art to blowing out extensions.

Some of the other dramas on the show this season are more universal, like Anthony getting itchy for his new place to open, or Gigi and Tracy figuring out what to do about being unemployed.

See, they were worried about job security at Gatsby, so they talked to Anthony and Cathy about working in the new place, and when Gayle found out at the end of last season, she fired them.

On the brighter side, Gigi’s boyfriend Frankie is back. If you think the girls in this show are Jersey stereotypes, take a glance at Frankie.

“Jerseylicious” may be overstating Jersey things slightly. But say this: What the show promises, the show delivers.

Source daily news

Iran's nuclear ambitions could lead to 'Middle East cold war', says Hague

The Middle East could be the battleground for a new cold war, if Iransucceeds in acquiring nuclear weapons, Britain's foreign secretary has warned.

William Hague said the world would face the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since the invention of the atomic bomb, which would be a "disaster in world affairs".

Hague's comments come as officials in Washington expressed fears that Iran is ignoring economic sanctions, increasing the likelihood of Israel and or the US attacking the Islamic Republic this year.

Hague insisted that the UK did not currently support military action against Iran but added "all options must remain on the table".

"[The Iranians] are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme," Hague told the Daily Telegraph. "If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, then I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons.

"And so, the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented would have begun with all the destabilising effects in the Middle East. And the threat of a new cold war in the Middle East without necessarily all the safety mechanisms. That would be a disaster in world affairs."

Hague's desire to give economic sanctions time to work is reflected in Washington. However, officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme. They believe the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures to bite deeper into Iran's already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran. These measures include the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail. They also believe their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

"The White House wants to see sanctions work. This is not the Bush White House. It does not need another conflict," said an official knowledgeable on Middle East policy. "Its problem is that the guys in Tehran are behaving like sanctions don't matter, like their economy isn't collapsing, like Israel isn't going to do anything.

"Sanctions are all we've got to throw at the problem. If they fail, then it's hard to see how we don't move to the 'in extremis' option."

The White House has said repeatedly that all options are on the table, including the use of force to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, but that for now the emphasis is firmly on diplomacy and sanctions.

But long-held doubts among US officials about whether the Iranians can be enticed or cajoled into serious negotiations have been reinforced by recent events.

"We don't see a way forward," said one official. "The record shows that there is nothing to work with."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed this week that Iran had loaded its first domestically-made fuel rod into a nuclear reactor, and he also threatened to cut oil supplies to six European countries. This was read as further evidence that Tehran remains defiantly committed to its nuclear programme.

If Obama were to conclude that there is no choice but to attack Iran, he is unlikely to order it before the presidential election in November, unless there is an urgent reason to do so. The question is whether the Israelis will hold back that long.

On Friday, the US and EU expressed optimism at the possibility of a resumption of talks with Iran. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said a letter from Iran to the US and its allies was "one we have been waiting for".

But other US officials complained that the latest Iranian offer to negotiate with the UN security council appeared to contain no significant new concessions. They believed that renewed talks would likely steer discussions away from the nuclear programme.

That view was strengthened by Iran's increasingly belligerent moves such as the botched attempts, which were laid at Tehran's door, to attack Israeli diplomats in Thailand, India and Georgia. Such moves are compounding the sense that Iran is far from ready to negotiate.

Feeding into the considerations are the timing of the US election, including its bearing on Israeli thinking, as well as the pace of Iranian advances in their nuclear programme.

Obama has publicly said that there are no differences with Israel on Iran, describing his administration as in "lock step" with the Jewish state.

But the US and Israel are at odds over the significance of Iran's claim to have begun enriching uranium at the underground facility at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, and therefore the timing of any military action.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, has warned that Iran cannot be allowed to establish a "zone of immunity" at Fordow, where it is able to work on a nuclear weapon deep underground and protected from Israel's conventional weapons. Earlier this month, Barak said Israel must consider an attack before that happens.

Source guardian

Federal agents arrest Amine El Khalifi; he allegedly planned to bomb Capitol

Federal authorities on Friday arrested a 29-year-old Moroccan man in an alleged plot to carry out a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol, the latest in a series of terrorism-related arrests resulting from undercover sting operations.

For more than a year, Amine El Khalifi, of Alexandria, considered attacking targets including a synagogue, an Alexandria building with military offices and a Washington restaurant frequented by military officials, authorities said. When arrested a few blocks from the Capitol around lunchtime on Friday, he was carrying what he believed to be a loaded automatic weapon and a suicide vest ready for detonation .The gun and vest were provided not by al-Qaeda, as Khalifi had been told, but by undercover FBI agents who rendered them inoperable, authorities said.

They said Khalifi had been the subject of a lengthy investigation and never posed a threat to the public. On Friday afternoon, he made an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, where he was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. He faces life in prison if convicted.

Khalifi “allegedly believed he was working with al-Qaeda,” said Neil H. MacBride, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Khalifi “devised the plot, the targets and the methods on his own.”

In several recent terrorism sting operations, critics have accused federal investigators of provoking suspects and, in some cases, suggesting possible targets or tactics. Legal experts say the FBI sometimes walks a fine line in such cases.

“You want to be very sure that the narrative is not substantially provided by the government,” said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, who studies terrorism sting operations. “There’s a lot of gray area in these cases.”

But officials said Friday that Khalifi, who allegedly conducted surveillance on the Capitol and engaged in methodical planning, was no unwitting victim.

Khalifi arrived in the United States when he was 16 and was living as an illegal immigrant in Northern Virginia, having overstayed his visitor’s visa for years, officials said. In 2010, he was evicted from an Arlington apartment after having failed to pay rent.

The landlord of that apartment, Frank Dynda, a retired patent lawyer, said, “He was getting mysterious packages labeled ‘books,’ but I didn’t think there were books in them.”

Dynda said he thought Khalifi was “suspicious and hostile,” and Dynda reported Khalifi to Arlington police. Two officers visited Dynda’s apartment building soon after the report but told him there was no reason to pursue the matter, he said.

It was unclear how Khalifi came to the attention of federal authorities. According to the criminal complaint filed in court Friday, a confidential source reported to the FBI in January 2011 that Khalifi had met at a residence in Arlington with individuals, one of whom produced what appeared to be an AK-47 assault rifle, two revolvers and ammunition.

Source Washington post

Bird flu still a menace in Asia and beyond

Thought bird flu was gone? Recent human deaths in Asia and Egypt are a reminder that the deadly H5N1 virus is still alive and dangerous. Vietnam is also grappling with a new strain that has outsmarted vaccines long used to help protect its poultry flocks.

Ten people have died in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, China and Vietnam since December during the prime-time flu season when the virus typically flares in poultry. In Vietnam, authorities can no longer rely on the latest poultry vaccine in the north and central regions where new virus strains have been detected.

Source Bostan.com

Europe is in dire need of lazy spendthrifts

Germany's economic success over the past decade is largely due to exporting more than it imports. Who will it sell to now?

Greece's economic crisis is a gift from heaven for the German government. The country is the ideal conservative dystopia of an irresponsible government financing a supposedly overblown welfare state by ever increasing debt, where workers enter retirement in their mid-50s, the dead continue receiving pension payments and public employees earn bonuses for arriving punctually at work. Never mind that, exceptions aside, public expenditure as a proportion of GDP is lower in Greece than Germany and the average Greek works longer hours and retires only half a year earlier than the average German. That did not stop those stories from being widely reported by the German media. It strengthened the moral tale of the hard-working Germans being abused by lazy southerners. The tale is convenient because it diverts attention from Germany's responsibility for the eurozone's current economic woes.

The tale goes like this: while Greeks wasted their time on the beach drinking Ouzo, Germans implemented painful economic reforms. Indeed, in the 2000s Germany deregulated its labour markets, reduced real wages to increase competitiveness, shrunk the public sector, cut pension entitlements and implemented a debt break into the constitution. After almost a decade of dismal economic growth and heavy belt-tightening, Germany has negotiated the 2008 global economic crisis successfullyalmost without employment losses, has since grown strongly and now registers the lowest unemployment rate since 1991. If southerners would have just followed the German model, the whole crisis could have been avoided.

Actually, Germany's good performance in the 2008 global economic crisis and after is hardly due to belt-tightening but to the adoption of a large fiscal expansion package in the crisis and generous government subsidies for companies to safeguard employment. That such a pragmatic strategy could also help today's eurozone crisis countries has not even been considered by the government. Having supposedly had good experiences with austerity itself, Germans believe the same bitter medicine could lead even lazy Greeks to economic success – if only wholeheartedly applied.

But can it? Last week the Greek parliament passed its fifth austerity package in just two years. Greek austerity is especially harsh. Although Greece is in its fourth year of a severe recession with real output down by 12% since 2007, the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP has been reduced by seven percentage points, a historically almost-unique achievement. But those policies were self-defeating. The debt-to-GDP ratio has exploded, government bond yields have stayed sky-high and both measures of business and consumer confidence are in freefall. The unemployment rate now stands at 21%. Young people are especially hard hit: unemployment among those aged younger than 25, already high before the crisis, stood at 40% in 2011. Consequently, company bankruptcies, suicide rates and crime have risen.

Heavily influenced by the German finance ministry, the solution of the troika (the EU Commission, the IMF and the ECB) to austerity's failure is even more austerity. Together with the EU Commission and the ECB, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble still strongly believes in the confidence-creating power of fiscal austerity, although they have been proved wrong. Those beliefs underlay all of the troika's growth forecasts upon which the goals for deficit reduction were based. Since there was no upswing in confidence, growth fell precipitously and the government systematically missed the agreed goals.

All this was predictable – and actually predicted. In a 2003 study that analysed 133 IMF austerity programmes, the IMF's independent evaluation office found exactly the same scheme of self-defeating austerity caused by the underestimation of its disastrous effects on economic growth.

Unimpressed by those facts, German policy-makers have begun blaming Greek ineptitude for the failure to consolidate the budget. This is why they have proposed a budget viceroy for Greece and an extra account for Greek tax incomes dedicated to service the public debt, far away from the government's reach. Because Germans believe their belt-tightening in the 2000s was such a success, its failure in other countries has to be due to those governments' moral flaws.

However, both the tale of the successful German reforms and their prescription to the rest of the eurozone are based on a fallacy: the fallacy that every country can export more than it imports. A closer look at Germany's economic experience for most of its eurozone membership reveals that only trade surpluses were keeping Germany from economic collapse. Half of Germany's dismal economic growth of just 1.7% on average between 1999 and 2007 – the second lowest in the eurozone – was driven by trade surpluses. Those are, by definition, the deficits of someone else.

Far from being a growth engine, the reforms of the 2000s depressed German internal demand and thus imports, much the same as they do in Greece nowadays. They also depressed German loan demand and squeezed bank profits. At the time, the southern economies were the perfect solution for Germany's self-inflicted economic problems. German banks could expand their business by lending them the money to purchase the goods that Germans could no longer afford themselves. Manufacturers and banks were happy. Germany's beggar-thy-neighbour policies only worked because others pursued the exact opposite policies.

This is why the eurozone-wide adoption of austerity cannot work. Greek demand for German goods is small, but Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Irish imports amounts to a large share of German exports. Germany's flawed policies for the eurozone are bound to backfire. Europe is in dire need of new lazy spendthrifts. Unfortunately, today nobody is willing to play that part.

Source guardian

Phil Mickelson holds halfway lead in California's Northern Trust Open

NORTHERN TRUST OPEN - SECOND ROUND LEADERBOARD

• -6: Phil Mickelson (USA)
 
• -5: Pat Perez (USA)
 
• -4: Jimmy Walker (USA), Matt Kuchar (USA), Carl Pettersson (Swe), Jarrod Lyle (Aus), Jonathan Byrd (USA)
 
• -3: Marc Leishman (Aus), Spencer Levin (USA), Bubba Watson (USA)
 
• Selected others: -2 Justin Rose (Eng), Retief Goosen (SA); -1 Ernie Els; Evs Luke Donald (Eng); +2 Padraig Harrington (Ire); +3 Sergio Garcia (Spa).

Phil Mickelson continued his excellent recent form to retain his lead at the Northern Trust Open after thesecond round in California. 

The American left-hander, who won this month's Pebble Beach Pro-Am,shot 70 to reach the halfway mark at six under, the leader by one shot.

Mickelson's second round featured two birdies, an eagle and three bogies.

He holds a one-stroke lead over Pat Perez, who carded a 65 to finish at five under.

Mickelson said: "I probably didn't play the greatest today, but I was able to kind of salvage a good round and had a good break on eight where I holed out from the fairway; that was a nice little bonus.

"With 36 holes to go, I'm right in the thick of it.

"I've got to go out and shoot some low scores, because they're out there. But I gave myself an opportunity.''

Australian Jarrod Lyle also shot a 65 to leave him in a group of five golfers two strokes out in third, along with America's Jimmy Walker (66),Matt Kuchar (69) and Jonathan Byrd (70), and Sweden's Carl Pettersson (70).

Perez, 36, and Walker, 23, both managed six birdies in their rounds.

England's Justin Rose is now two under after shooting another 70 andLuke Donald is level par after carding 72.

The tournament is Donald's first on the US PGA Tour in 2012, and the world's top-ranked golfer is struggling to find his form. Donald missed the cut at the event last year.

Source BBC