Jordan ( Female Racing Team- The world of rally driving )

Palestinian female racing drivers impress crowds in Jordan

An all-female Palestinian racing team is enthusing crowds in Jordan with their speed and skills, gaining more respect from their male counterparts in the process.

The world of rally driving, long a testosterone-fuelled arena where skill and courage are tested to the maximum, is opening up to women.

At the recent annual street rally in the Jordanian coastal city of Aqaba, one team in particular stood out.

The Speed Sisters are the only female racing team in the Middle East and they are gaining more respect with each appearance.

The team consists of Noor Daoud, from Ramallah; Betty Saadeh, from Bethlehem, and Mara from Jenin.

It hasn't been easy for these three women to penetrate the rally driving world, but at December's rally they were steadily gaining the respect of their peers.

Syria ( Ready to launch 'surprize' attack on Israel )

Syria ready to launch 'surprise' retaliation attack against Israel

Syria has threatened to retaliate for an Israeli air strike and its ally Iran said there will be repercussions for the Jewish state over the attack.

An Israeli post office worker shows a child how to put on a gas mask at a distribution station in East Jerusalem. Israel remains on high alert after Syria threatened retaliation for an air strike on what Israel said was a weapons convoy heading for Lebanon Photo: GETTY

By Phoebe Greenwood, in Jerusalem, Roland Oliphant and Damien McElroy

3:25PM GMT 31 Jan 2013

Syria declared it was ready to launch a "surprise" retaliation attack against Israel yesterday as Bashar al-Assad's allies Russia and Iran both condemned air strikes on a suspected weapons shipment near Damascus.

As tensions mounted following the Israeli attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Obama administration warned Syria not to transfer weapons to Hizbollah, thereby "further destabilising the region".

Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul-Karim Ali, said Damascus "has the option and the capacity to surprise in retaliation" and that it was up to the relevant authorities to prepare the time and place for action.

The foreign ministry in Damascus earlier lodged an official complaint with the United Nations over the attack – part of a wave of incursions that was launched to destroy an alleged weapons shipment to Hizbollah.

The bombing campaign on military targets around Damascus and the Lebanese border came after weeks of growing concern within Israel that Syria's disintegration poses a direct threat to its security.

Cairo ( Female protesters assaulted- 25 sexual assaults in one week )

Soraya Bahgat said she founded the group using online social media after seeing television footage last November of a mob of men attacking a woman and tearing off her clothes. She had been on the way to a demonstration at Tahrir herself, but instead stayed in, gripped with fear.

Egyptian volunteers of Tahrir Bodyguard, an anti-harassment group, work at a rally in Tahrir Square. AP

“It was sickening. They were dragging her through the street,” said the 29-year-old, who works as a human resources manager. “I couldn’t imagine something so horrific, and something that fundamentally would keep women from exercising their right to assembly like anyone else. No one should be prevented from demonstrating.”
Such is the concern that the United Nations on Thursday demanded authorities to act to bring perpetrators to justice, saying it had reports of 25 sexual assaults on women in Tahrir rallies over the past week. Another Egyptian organization that also patrols the square, Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, reported 19 incidents on one day alone. It was January 25th — the second anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

China Beijing ( Smog so bad- They were masks at their desk Job )

Beijing office workers wear 'gas masks' at their desks as hazardous smog envelops city

Office workers in Beijing have resorted to wearing gas-mask style protective headgear at their desks as residents across northern China battled through choking pollution.

A woman wearing a mask for protection from pollution walks through the haze in Beijing on Jan 29, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee

7:59AM GMT 29 Jan 2013

Air quality levels rose above index limits in Beijing amid warnings that the smog may not clear until Thursday.

Visibility was reduced to around 200 metres in the centre of the capital, where mask-wearing pedestrians made their way through a murky haze, despite warnings from authorities to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary.

In a Beijing city office visited by news agency Agence France-Presse, up to 20 workers wore the protective headgear at their desks, and the cloud of pollution shrouded large swathes of the country for the second consecutive day.

State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) showed vehicles using full headlights in mid-morning to light a way through the smog, mainly in the badly affected central province of Henan.

A total of 109 flights were cancelled at Zhengzhou Airport in Henan, said CCTV, adding that the haze would last until Thursday.

China ( Blogger who was jailed for 9 months - Speaks out ) Human rights

Chinese blogger jailed for 'disrupting traffic' fails to have sentence overturned

A female Chinese blogger who was jailed for nine months for "disrupting the traffic" has failed to get her sentence overturned on appeal, highlighting rising Chinese government fears over the power of online activism.

Wang Lihong was arrested last April as China's government mounted a clampdown on activists, lawyers and bloggers in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings Photo: AP

By Peter Foster, Beijing

5:15PM BST 20 Oct 2011

Wang Lihong, 55, was a previously little-known activist who in recent years had attracted a sizeable online following for her work publicising injustices, land grabs and corruption by local government officials.

She was arrested last April as China's government mounted a clampdown on activists, lawyers and bloggers in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. In September she was jailed for nine months after what her lawyers said was a peremptory hearing.

Her supporters say the charges of "disrupting the traffic" were trumped up after she attended a peaceful protest outside a court in the southern city of Fuzhou where three women whom she had supported were being tried for 'slandering' a government official.

Analysts say her case – which was brought to wider attention by the artist Ai Weiwei, who was himself detained without charge for 81 days earlier this year – hints at growing nervousness among China's security apparatus at the power of the internet to magnify dissent.

Over the last two years China's online landscape has been transformed by the explosion of interest in Sina Corporation's Weibo tool, a Twitter-like microblogging service that has garnered 200m users in just two years.

Florida Keys ( 56 yr old diver died after being down 25 minutes )

Diver dies while exploring Key Largo wreck site

 

KeysNet.com

A 56-year-old Ohio man has died while diving the Benwood wreck site offshore from Key Largo.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office says Ronald Dye of Grove City, Ohio, and his dive buddy entered the water at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday from the commercial dive vessel Tropical Adventures. The captain told police the dive buddy surfaced about 25 minutes later and signaled for assistance.
A mate on board entered the water with a rescue buoy and helped both men back aboard the boat. Dye was unresponsive and the mate began cardiopulmonary resuscitation as the vessel started back to shore.
Dye's dive buddy told police that Dye ran low on air, so they surfaced. Dye was taken to Mariners Hospital in Tavernier. An autopsy will be done to determine the cause of death.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/24/3198691/diver-dies-while-exploring-key.html#storylink=cpy

Tucson Az ( 10 yr old girl drives to Circle K- Crashes through front door )

10-year-old at wheel of car that crashes into Circle K

 

2013-02-01T13:58:00Z2013-02-01T14:32:38Z10-year-old at wheel of car that crashes into Circle KBy Kimberly Matas Arizona Daily StarArizona Daily Star

2 hours ago • By Kimberly Matas Arizona Daily Star

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Car into store

Photo courtesy of Sierra Vista Police Department.

A Sierra Vista convenience store was damaged when a woman let her 10-year-old daughter get behind the wheel of the family sedan. The car crashed through the front of the store.

A Sierra Vista convenience store became a drive-through Thursday when a woman let her 10-year-old daughter get behind the wheel of the family sedan.

Linda Morales, 31, was in the car and allowed her daughter to drive their 1999 Plymouth Breeze to the Circle K at 95 Rainbow Way, Cpl. Scott Borgstadt, spokesman for the Sierra Vista Police Department, said in a news release. The pre-teen successfully — though illegally — navigated the streets on the quarter-mile drive to the store, but once in the parking lot, she mistook the gas for the brake, and drove the car through the plateglass windows.
Fortunately, no one in the store or in the car was injured.
“The store front had excessive damage to the front doors and support beams. Per Sierra Vista Police Department procedures when a structure suffers extensive damage a city of Sierra Vista building inspector is called to assess the damage,” Borgstadt said. “Upon inspection, the business was deemed unsafe for occupation and closed for maintenance. Circle K’s maintenance crews worked throughout the night and had the damage repaired enough to open the store at 6 a.m. Friday.”
Morales was cited and released on scene for allowing an unauthorized minor to drive