Record flooding hits eastern Australia
Australians struggled to keep dry Tuesday after record flooding made many eastern towns look more like vast lakes than residential communities.
Half of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone, and more rain is forecast for the next few days, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The towns of Chinchilla, Dalby and Theodore are the worst affected.
Emergency workers called the situation dire and warned the worst is yet to come. The floodwaters were expected to submerge another 50 homes in Chinchilla, in Queensland's southern inland, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Tuesday.
Flood warnings remained in effect for several rivers and some were expected to still rise 1.5 meters (about 5 feet).
In Theodore, residents sandbagged their homes. Hundreds of others were evacuated.
"Chinchilla and Dalby are also hot spots at the moment with large numbers of people in evacuation centers, but I think the situation in those two areas is much better than Theodore," Bruce Grady of Queensland Emergency Management told Australia's Seven Network.
Still, some were able to keep their spirits high.
"I'll be saving on bathwater tonight: just jump out here," a Theodore resident told Seven.
New York governor grants pardons to Caribbean nationals
New York Governor David Paterson has granted pardons to 24 immigrants, including Caribbean nationals, who were due to be deported because of prior criminal convictions.
Though he did not identify the nationalities of all the immigrants who had faced deportation, Paterson singled out Haitian, Edouard Colas.
The governor, the grandson of Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants, said Codas was brought to the United States from Haiti as a lawful permanent resident at the age of 10.
He said Codas was convicted in 1987 of attempted burglary in the third degree and sentenced to five years of probation.
"He has maintained gainful employment and is married to a United States citizen with whom he has two young sons," Paterson said.
Paterson indicated that over the course of the administration's review of more than
1,100 pardon applications, it has become "abundantly clear that the federal government's immigration laws are often excessively harsh and in need of modernisation."
"The individuals pardoned committed past offences but paid their debt to society.
They now make positive contributions to our state and nation, and I believe they should be protected from inflexible and misguides immigration statutes," Paterson added.
His latest pardons come on the heels of six he granted earlier this month, including four Caribbean nationals, who had faced a similar fate.
Those Caribbean immigrants were nationals of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and the Dominican Republic.
Over the years, Caribbean leaders have blamed increased deportations of criminals, particularly from the United States, for the spiraling crime wave in the region.
Three Dominican Republic migrants arrested in Puerto Rico
Three citizens of the Dominican Republic appeared before federal District Magistrate Judge Marcos Lopez in Puerto Rico on Tuesday facing charges for violation of immigration law after entering illegally into the island.
The three defendants are Jesus Mambrux, 26, aka José R. Paulino-Ramírez; Maria Encarnación-Tejada, 40, aka Maria Encarnación- Castillo and/or Margari Nurys Castillo-Pujols; and Oscar Cordones, 27.
At the hearing, the defendants were charged with entering the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers.
Mambrux was also charged with the re-entry of a previously removed alien.
The defendants belonged to a group of 12 aliens that landed December 20 on Mona Island, on board a 22 ft. makeshift vessel or “yola”.
Park Rangers of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources contacted the US Border Patrol, ascribed to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), for assistance and immigration processing.
A CBP helicopter from the Caribbean Air and Marine Branch transported Border Patrol Agents to conduct the appropriate immigration interviews.
The CBP helicopter transported all the migrants from Mona Island to the Ramey Border Patrol Station for further processing.
Border Patrol Agents interviewed the aliens, checked their fingerprints and verified their criminal and immigration history.
Defendants Mambrux, Encarnación and Castillo had previous immigration encounters and were previously removed to the Dominican Republic.
The immigration record for Mambrux revealed that an immigration judge formally removed him in 2007.
The remaining nine aliens were removed to the Dominican Republic.
Mambrux faces a fine or imprisonment for not more than 2 years, or both. The other two defendants face a fine or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both.
All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.
In other news, late Monday CBP officers seized 0.70 kilograms (1.54 pounds) of heroin from a United States citizen arriving at the weekend from La Romana in the Dominican Republic.
Ronny Rincon-Pineyro, 27, arrived on Saturday at the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport on board an American Eagle flight, presenting himself for inspection by CBP.
Rincon-Pineyro was referred to secondary inspection, where he was further interviewed by CBP officers.
During the course of the interview by CBP officers, Rincon-Pineyro admitted that he had swallowed narcotics pellets but did not know how many or what they contained.
The defendant was transported to a medical facility where an X-ray was taken by a certified technician who verified the presence of foreign objects in the digestive tract.
Under medical supervision, the defendant expelled 49 pellets of suspected narcotics, which tested positive for heroin.
The custody of the defendant and the seized narcotics was transferred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) for further investigation and presentation of criminal charges.
The estimated street value of the seized heroin is $45,000.
Haiti faces spike in HIV/AIDS
After Haiti's devastating earthquake
nearly a year ago, volunteers and medical professionals scrambled to care for overwhelming medical needs.
In the chaos, those helping the sick and injured may have unwittingly contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS, says Dr Marlene Dorismond, health programs manager for Food for the Hungry (FH).
Prior to the earthquake, Haiti had about 200,000 known infections of HIV. Dorismond believes it likely that even more people are infected today.
Following the earthquake, medical workers had huge numbers of medical emergencies to deal with and very limited resources for providing people proper care in the midst of the earthquake's devastation.
Sometimes, health precautions took a backseat to simply providing the care that people needed. Careful handling of blood did not always happen, and sanitary gloves were scarce. The AIDS virus is likely to have spread further as a result.
Now, FH and other non-governmental organizations are stretched even further to provide the same programs they did before, with even less infrastructure. FH began long-term development work in Haiti in 2008. It works with its Child Development office in the Dominican Republic, which is five minutes from the border of Haiti.
The ministry also works with over 150 Haitian churches to help them meet the physical and spiritual needs of their communities.
FH provides abstinence and faithfulness training to prevent transmission of HIV, especially among the youth.
It also cares for people infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS by providing home-based care, nutrition and hygiene education, counseling services, and the application of immunizations and antibiotics.
In addition, FH has special training, support, and emergency relief services for orphans and vulnerable children affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
SOURCE: MNN
Cuba to boost coffee, cocoa and honey production
Cuban Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez said the government will grant loans to cooperatives in an effort to increase the production of coffee, cocoa and honey, which at the moment are bought in the international market.
During the second meeting of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), Rodriguez explained that 244 agricultural cooperatives will take part in this initiative, and that they will receive a commercial loan, which the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture will pay gradually.
ANAP president Orlando Lugo noted the importance of investing in high yield areas.
At the meeting, farmers talked about boosting the production of pork meat, eggs, cow milk, sugar cane, and fodder and other products for animal consumption.
They also tackled the need to become more efficient on the commercialization, profitability, and the saving of energy, water and other resources.
Guyana rice industry records highest ever exports in 2010
The rice industry in Guyana recorded its highest export of 320,000 tonnes with a production of 360,000 for 2010, due to the input of farmers and technical and extension services, inclusive of water management by the Agriculture Ministry, despite the disruptions caused by climate change.
This is according to Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud, while addressing media operatives during a year-end-press briefing on Tuesday.
“The rice sector has been one of the more exciting sectors in terms of performance, because at the start of the year we were very fearful about the performance of the rice industry in light of the El Nino condition; but we were able to minimise and ensure that the investments we made in water management gave us value for our money,” he said.
As the demand for the commodity increases, due to the shortfall on the world market, requests have been made for Guyana to support other countries apart from Venezuela.
However, Persaud has requested that exports be reduced to ensure that there are adequate quantities to supply the local market.
The Burma Rice Research Station has also been working tirelessly to employ technologies. Two new varieties of rice were released in 2009 (GRDB 9 and 10), while a flood-tolerant variety (flood-resistant rice), a collaborative effort with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) will come on-stream shortly.
These varieties have already occupied approximately 30 percent of the acreages being sown for the current crop.
“These were done particularly with climate change in mind, to withstand long dry and wet periods. A lot of emphasis was also put in looking at other varieties, so that farmers can benefit,” he added.
The flood resilient rice has been successfully achieved in Asia (India, Bangladesh) and allows rice to survive complete submergence for up to 17 days. The Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) has already released 10 blast-resistant varieties, while focus is also being placed on the development of aromatic rice tolerant to salt and disease resilient.
These measures were taken to increase production and productivity and will continue in 2011, with the aim of stimulating greater food security, while increasing food production.
Lakers rarely give their fans a Christmas present
With LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh rolling into town on Christmas Day, the timing seems perfect for the Lakers to awaken from a mid-winter's nap. After all, nobody does big moments better than the Lakers, right?
Except for this inconvenient truth: On Christmas Day, it is the Lakers who blink at the bright lights.
They have lost six of the past eight Christmas Day games, including last season's debacle when a 102-87 thumping by Cleveland — and some unfortunate calls against the home team — prompted Lakers fans to shower the court with foam fingers that had been handed out.
So much for rising to the big occasion.
"Last year at Christmas we didn't," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "The fingers rose to the big occasion last year."
Jackson never lost with the Bulls, going 7-0 on Christmas Day games. So perhaps it's simply an L.A. thing — just like an actor can't get into his scene without finding his motivation, the same applies to the Lakers.
Consider the two games they won in that span.
• Two years ago, they were facing Boston for the first time since being annihilated in the clinching Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals. The Lakers managed a 92-83 victory at home.
• In 2007, the Lakers played host to Phoenix after Jack McCallum's book on the Suns, "Seven Seconds Or Less,'' revealed Phoenix players and coach taking shots at just about every Laker. Los Angeles won that one, 122-115.
The others — Kobe vs. Shaq, Kobe vs. LeBron, Shaq vs. Yao, Doug Christie vs. Rick Fox — have been greeted with a yawn.
Jackson made clear he does not like playing on Christmas.
"You know, it used to be two (games)," Jackson said. "Now, I see they have (five) on Christmas. It's like Christian holidays don't mean anything to them anymore. Just go out and play and entertain the TV (audience). It's really weird. But it is what it is: We've got to go to work. We'll do what we have to do and make the best of it."
Jackson suggested that players, after opening gifts with their kids all morning and helping little Johnny hook up his new video game, have a hard time putting on their game faces.
Lamar Odom, asked how preparing for Christmas Day games is different after getting married last year (to Khloe Kardashian), sheepishly turned away.
"I don't know how to answer that," Odom said.
The Lakers were searching for answers to more meaningful questions Thursday — like how to get their mojo back.
After Tuesday's humiliating loss to Milwaukee, in which Kobe Bryant was ejected, Jackson gave his players Wednesday off. The Lakers returned to practice Thursday with a renewed sense of commitment. Bryant, who rarely practices, did so. And Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol went through their first extended practice of the season together. In fact, Pau Gasol noted, it was the first time all season the entire team practiced.
Gasol was the only Laker who acknowledged this game might be worth a little something extra to the team. Most everyone else was low-keying it. No, there was not any added motivation after all the attention on Miami. No, there were no messages to be sent.
"Every game we win is important," Ron Artest said after the loss to Milwaukee. "So if we win on Saturday, I doubt you'll see any champagne-popping."
Best eyes Windies return
Fast bowler Tino Best believes he is still a valuable asset to West Indies cricket and hopes he can make the final squad for next year's World Cup in Asia.
The 29-year-old was named this week in the 30-man preliminary squad for the February 19 to April 2 showpiece, with selectors expected to trim the group in half by January 19.
Best has played sporadically for West Indies since his debut seven years ago and is now eyeing the opportunity to fight his way back into the regional side.
"It is everyone's dream to play in the World Cup and I'm no different. I believe I have something to offer to the West Indies in the quest to be world champions," the fiery fast bowler said.
"I have been doing a lot of work on my game and I believe I am now a more mature bowler with a better understanding of the art of bowling.
problems
"I am now getting the ball to swing more, and swing at pace will always cause problems for batsmen. This has come with experience. I believe at this stage in my career I can offer a lot."
The right-armer has taken 28 wickets in 14 Tests, the last of which were against Bangladesh last year when he was called up during the strike by the first choice Windies players.
His 13 wickets in 12 One-Day Internationals do not make exciting reading but his 10 wickets in four games at a healthy strike of 13 during last November's WICB One-Day Championship got the attention of selectors.
Best, well known for his passion and exuberant celebrations, said he was happy he had remained in the selectors' thinking.
"I am elated to be in the 30. My bowling has improved tremendously this year and I am happy the selectors still have me in their thoughts," Best said.