By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 26, 2:09 PM ET

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Opposition legislators jeered President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday as he opened Zimbabwe's parliament, singing and chanting and sometimes drowning out his voice.
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The rare show of defiance — broadcast live on national television — set the stage for a combative legislature, even as Mugabe and his political foes try to negotiate a power sharing arrangement after disputed elections.

Mugabe's speech could sometimes not be heard over the jeers of his opponents, who clapped and sang songs deriding him and the ZANU-PF. "ZANU is rotten. You are great liars," they sang.

"We are tired of you," they shouted.

Looking annoyed, Mugabe first raised his voice then raced through the final lines of a speech railing against the West for sanctions it has imposed on people and companies linked to him, including travel bans and asset freezes.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with increasing authoritarianism since declaring independence from its former colonizer, Britain, in 1980 and had turned parliament into a rubber-stamp body.

But, with the country in economic freefall, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has gained a strong following in recent years and this March clinched a parliamentary majority, posing the most serious threat yet to the 84-year-old leader's decades-long rule.

Tuesday's raucous session may be a glimpse into a future of bitter debates and close votes in parliament.

Opposition legislators also presented a petition Tuesday pointing out that the opening of the parliament was "a clear breach" of the agreement that led to power-sharing talks.

It called Mugabe "the illegitimate usurper of the people's will."

The petition also condemned the arrests of opposition legislators. When parliamentarians reported Monday to be sworn in, two were arrested. A third opposition legislator who is on the team negotiating power-sharing was arrested at his home early Tuesday, the opposition reported.

Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the arrests are an attempt to subvert his party's slight majority in parliament.

Some 2,000 opposition activists remain jailed in Zimbabwe months after March 29 elections where they garnered more votes than Mugabe and his party.

Mugabe reacted violently, unleashing soldiers, police and militants accused of killing nearly 200 opposition members, breaking the limbs of thousands and forcing tens of thousands from their homes with fire attacks.

In March, Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change won 100 of the 210 seats in parliament, upsetting ZANU-PF's long-held majority. Mugabe's party won 99 seats and a splinter opposition faction won 10. An independent who broke away from Mugabe's party has the remaining seat.

In parliament Monday, the opposition's Lovemore Moyo won the race for speaker by a surprising 110 votes to 98. The ballot was secret, but Moyo apparently got votes from both Mugabe's party and the splinter faction to win a post that puts him in charge of parliament's debate and schedule and gives him the power to appoint committee chairmen.

Parliament's first order of business will be to approve funds for government ministries and projects — a budget vote that normally would have been completed months ago. So government business will remain largely paralyzed until legislators meet again on Oct. 14.

If the opposition continues to win support from the splinter faction, it would have the simple majority needed to block those funds. But if there is deadlock, Mugabe could dissolve the assembly and rule by decree. It is unlikely the opposition could summon the two-thirds vote needed to impeach Mugabe.

Meanwhile, there is a standoff in the negotiations over how Tsvangirai and Mugabe would share power.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and two other candidates in presidential elections held alongside the legislative balloting, but did not gain the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff. Mugabe held a one-man runoff and declared himself victor despite Western condemnation.

The opposition blames Zimbabwe's crisis on Mugabe's increasingly autocratic and corrupt rule. Zimbabwe began unraveling after Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks. Instead, most farms went to Cabinet ministers and generals who let the land lie fallow and destroyed the country's economic base.

Mugabe has repeatedly blamed his country's woes on European and U.S. sanctions, which he called illegal on Tuesday.

"Sanctions must go," he said, to cheers from his supporters. "They cannot last a day longer if we as Zimbabweans speak against them in deafening unison." The sanctions target people and companies linked to Mugabe with travel bans and asset freezes.

While they are meant to spare ordinary Zimbabweans, already suffering from chronic shortages of food, medication, electricity and water, Zimbabwean officials say the sanctions help discourage foreign investment, loans and aid.

More than a third of Zimbabweans depend of foreign food aid but Mugabe has barred charities for handing out the food, charging they were favoring opposition supporters. Opposition legislators on Tuesday called on Mugabe to honor his agreement to allow food to be distributed, signed as a prerequisite for the power-sharing talks.

Judi Villa April M. Washington Mon Aug 25, 10:08 PM ET

Authorities are investigating a possible assassination plot against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

At least four people have been arrested in connection with a possible plot to kill Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High, according to CBS4 News. The suspects are being held on either drug or weapons charges.

Aurora police arrested a longtime drug user Sunday afternoon during a routine traffic stop where the man was seen "weaving," sources said. Three possible other accomplices also were arrested, according to police.

Police found four weapons, including two rifles and two handguns, in a rented pickup.

That arrest then led authorities to a second man staying at the Cherry Creek Hotel at 600 South Colorado Blvd in Glendale. When authorities knocked on the man's door, they say he jumped out of his sixth floor window, landing on an awning and running from the scene. They say they soon found him with a broken ankle. He too was arrested.

CBS4 reported one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle … sighted at 750 yards."

Law-enforcement sources told CBS4 that one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative."

One of the suspects has been identified as 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell.

Police found a rifle in the man's rented pickup and methamphetamine. The man allegedly made comments about Sen. Obama, but sources wouldn't say what they were.

It was enough, however, to make police believe the man might have been plotting to somehow harm Obama.

A second source told CBS4 News that they are concerned they may have come upon a possible "assasination plot."

The Secret Service, ATF and U.S. Attorney's Office are investigating.

Brian Maass of CBS4 News contributed to this report.

Click on the link to join the club
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I received this e-mail on TIG and after checking, rechecking and googling more information, i realized it was a fraud/scam. Read the email i received on my TIG inbox and the information i found on the official OMNI Hotel Website.....

Email from a TIG Member with user name "hotelmanager":

Good day,
I am Rose from Canada, the manager of Omni canadian hotel, pls i want to inform you about the vacancies in our hotel, The management needs men and women, married and not married, who will work and live in canada .The hotel will pay for his flight ticket and assist him to process his visa in his country, if you are interested contact us via E-mail : omni_internationalhotels@yahoo.ca And the Hotel informations will be sent to you immediately.
Thanks.
From the Hotel manager. E-MAIL : omni_internationalhotels@yahoo.ca Tel : 0016472880399


From OMNI Hotel Website:

Internet Fraud Alert

Omni Hotels is committed to being the employer of choice in the hospitality industry. Recently, Omni Hotels was alerted to an Internet scam involving mass emails containing false job opportunities sent from various email addresses resembling “Omni.” These emails include pictures of various Omni Hotels, and they request personal information and money in exchange for assistance in obtaining employment and work visas.

The reported incident has significantly declined. However, there are still people who continue to fall victim to these fraudulent emails. This warning is specifically intended to advise potentially misguided people to not respond to these mass emails.

Be advised that Omni Hotels does not request personal information or money via email, and Omni Hotels never solicits or recruits potential employees via e-mail.

Please join Omni Hotels to protect victims of Internet scams by reporting any solicitations to your local law enforcement agencies. Additionally, if you have received an email from a third-party that appears to be connected with Omni Hotels and you suspect it is affiliated with an Internet scam, please forward it to:

E-Commerce Department
Omni Hotels
420 Decker Drive
Irving, TX 75062

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A stillborn Israeli baby who was pronounced dead by doctors "came back to life" on Monday after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.

The baby, weighing only 600 grams at birth, spent at least five hours inside one of the hospital's refrigerated storage units, before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement.

"We unwrapped her and felt she was moving. We didn't believe it at first. Then she began holding my mother's hand, and then we saw her open her mouth," said 26-year-old Faiza Magdoub, the baby's mother.

The baby was pronounced dead several hours earlier, after doctors at Western Galilee hospital in northern Israel were forced to abort her mother's pregnancy because of internal bleeding. Magdoub was 23 weeks into her pregnancy.

"We don't know how to explain this, so when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said.

The baby was then taken to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit for further treatment, but doctors were not sure how long she will live.

Motti Ravid, a professor of internal medicine, told Israel's Channel 10 that the low temperature inside the cooler had slowed down the baby's metabolism and likely helped her survive.

Un salut chaleureux à tous les délégués qui ont participé au 4e Congrès Mondial des Jeunes à la ville de Québec,
Un grand salut aussi à ceux qui ont participé au congrès virtuel,

Tout d'abord, le congrès a représenté, pour moi, une occasion formidable de faire de nouveaux amis qui viennent de différents horizons mais ont en commun la passion pour l'engagement communautaire, le développement de projets novateurs, bref le désir de changer le monde pour un monde plus juste et plus inclusif notamment à l'égard de nous (les jeunes) qui représentent non seulement le futur mais surtout le présent, un présent d'actions dans nos communautés que ce soit en lançant des projets de lutte contre la pauvreté, de lutte contre les changements climatiques, de lutte contre l'analphabétisme ou de projets en ligne qui visent à atteindre les fameux Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement.

En ce qui me concerne, depuis un presque an, j'ai lancé sur la plate-forme de TIG et sur mes sites web un projet éducatif (http://projects.takingitglobal.org/elouarzadi/about/)
qui s'intitule Vivement la poésie !
Vivement la poésie ! est un poème sans fin en cinq versions : Français, Arabe, Anglais, Espagnol et Portugais. Les objectifs sont nobles et variés: promouvoir l'éducation constructive à travers la poésie, inciter les jeunes à exprimer leurs idées, mettre en valeur leurs réalisations et inspirer leurs collègues par la poésie. Un autre but est éducatif: enrichir le vocabulaire des étudiants ou élèves en lançant cette initiative dans les écoles, cégeps, lycées et universités dans plusieurs régions du monde. Ceci sera fait dans les mois à venir grâce au soutien de tous les membres de TIG passionnés de poésie et surtout d'éducation constructive (enseignants, élèves poètes, étudiants universitaires, chanteurs et musiciens joueront un rôle clé dans la promotion de ce projet).

Dans ma communauté, je suis présentateur bénévole du Projet Climatique Canada, une initiative du Prix Nobel et vice-président des États-Unis Al Gore. Dans ce cadre, je fais des présentations à Montréal concernant les actions qu'on peut entreprendre pour diminuer les effets du réchauffement planétaire.

J'ai été aussi bénévole avec Héma-Québec, participant à Shad Valley, un programme d'excellence au Canada.

Je sais que vous aussi, vous entreprenez des actions formidables dans vos communautés respectives. En parlant avec plusieurs d'entre vous, j'ai fait le point sur cette réalité. Je sais aussi qu'il y a certains délégués qui trouvent des problèmes de financement pour leurs projets, j'espère que les ateliers du CMJ 08 vont vous aider à surmonter cet obstacle.

Toujours concernant le CMJ 08, j'ai surtout apprécié le volet ACTION du congrès qui m'a donné l'opportunité de bien comprendre la démarche du compostage pour pouvoir l'appliquer dans ma communauté, j'ai aussi eu l'opportunité de travailler en équipe avec les membres de mon groupe, ce qui était merveilleux également ! On a fait aussi du vélo et on a découvert un parc touristique à Québec.

Finalement, le Congrès virtuel (développé par TakingITGlobal) a été un portail varié et intéressant pour les délégués qui n'ont pas pu participer au congrès.

Merci à Peace Child, TakingITGlobal et à tous les organisateurs, partenaires, chefs de clan et coordinateurs de cette rencontre exceptionnelle de la jeunesse du globe !

this flag i copy from a website,

Saluuuuuut chers jeunes délégués francophones,

J'aimerais échanger et parler avec plusieurs d'entre vous. En fait, je suis impressionné par le dynamisme des jeunes du monde entier, les projets qu'ils entreprennent soit en lutte contre les changements climatiques, en développement durable ou en contribuant à l'atteinte des Objectifs du développement du Millénaire.

Concrètement, j'ai échangé avec plusieurs délégués francophones et membres du personnel de TIG tels Kabiné Doumbia, Adama Diop, Justine Castonguay-Payant, Sessi Hounkarin et Simon Gargogne et la liste continue.

J'ai apprécié aussi le fait que les délégués francophones viennnent de pays très différents comme le Madagascar, le Mali, la France, le Maroc, mais qu'ils sont unis par la passion pour l'engagement dans leurs communautés locale et globale, et c'est la raison pour laquelle ils viennent à ce 4e Congrès Mondial des Jeunes.

En terminant, je salue également tous les jeunes qui n'ont pas pu venir au congrès soit à cause de manque de financement ou de difficultés à obtenir le VISA, et je les encourage à se rendre régulièrement au site virtuel du congrès où ils peuvent regarder en direct plusieurs événements marquants de ce congrès, partager leurs projets et idées avec les autres délégués, ajouter des photos des actions qu'ils entreprennent dans leurs pays, ...

Au plaisir de vous rencontrer au Congrès ou en ligne !!
Yassir

Un grand salut a tous les jeunes delegues participant au congres et surtout a ceux qui n ont pas pu venir a cause de problemes d obtention de VISA ou de financement,

Je peux vous dire que ce Congres demeurera une experience gravee dans ma memoire. Les activites sont tres bien organisees et vraiment diversifiees: ateliers, tables rondes, conferences, concerts, discussions avec delegues ...

Bref, une atmosphere festive, magique et dynamique !

Ce qui m a marque le plus est que les jeunes sont tres ouverts, prets a partager leurs experiences et sont motives a continuer a ameliorer leurs communautes locales pour un changement global dans le monde.

En terminant, j invite tous ceux et toutes celles qui n ont pas pu etre presents a Quebec de participer au Congres virtuel, rendez-vous sur www.wyc2008.qc.ca et partagez vos ides, suivez en direct ce qui se passe au congres et engagez-vous dans les discussions.

N.B. : Depuis le debut du congres, j ai rencontre et discute avec de nombreux delegues venant de toutes les regions du monde, du Madagascar au Canada, du Maroc a Hawai et de la Belgique a l Australie. Mais il reste encore plusieurs delegues avec lesquels je n ai pas encore parle, j espere les rencontrer dans les prochains jours.

Yassir