News Feed Aggregation Blog

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has fired a senior official over an incident caused by his daughter at an exclusive restaurant last month.

Humberto Benitez Trevino's daughter caused outrage by using his influence to try to close down the bistro after it did not give her a table she wanted.

The episode sparked a discussion about abuse of power in the country.

The sacking suggests that Mexico has grown more sensitive to the issue, correspondents say.

The episode became a trending topic on Twitter under the hashtag #ladyprofeco, after her father's agency.

Mt Benitez, the attorney-general for consumer protection, and his daughter both apologised, but this did little to appease public anger.

On Wednesday, President Pena Nieto ordered his dismissal.

The restaurant, Maximo Bistro in Mexico City, was raided by officials after Andrea Benitez was not offered the table she had asked for.

The government said that although Mr Benitez was not personally involved in the raid, the episode had become embarrassing for the institution.

Published May 9th, 2013 – 10:40 GMT via SyndiGate.info

The number of refugees pouring into Jordan could make up 40% of the country’s population by mid-2014, according to Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judah on Thursday.

“We have 10 percent of our population today, in the form of Syrian refugees, it is expected to rise to about 20 to 25 percent given the current rates by the end of this year, and possibly to about 40 percent by the middle of 2014,” Judeh said in a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry at talks in Rome.

Media continue to debate how Taipei can end a stalemate with the Philippines over the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman last week.

Taiwan's Central Daily News expresses confidence that the dispute over fishing rights will be resolved bilaterally and urges Taipei to wait for the Philippines to respond to the ultimatum deadline today before stepping up pressure.

However, China Times foresees little chance of the Philippines conducting a "credible and impartial investigation" or issuing an adequate formal apology.

It urges the Taiwan government to seek international arbitration over the disputed waters and for the navy to drive away or even "destroy" any Philippine vessels threatening Taiwanese fishermen if Manila fails to satisfy Taipei's demands.

Liberty Times shifts ultimate blame to Beijing's "international blockade" against Taiwan for emboldening countries like the Philippines.

Over in mainland China, the media are incensed over the "smiling" faces of Philippine President Benigno Aquino and presidential palace deputy spokeswoman Abigail Valte when explaining that the Taiwanese fishing vessel had been fishing illegally and had ignored the Philippine coast guard's warning shots.

China Central Television ran a headline, "Insincere, incompetent – Philippines' response to crisis inadequate", in its coverage of their press briefing yesterday.

"Enraging", Southern Metropolis Daily calls Ms Valte's "smile".

Oriental Daily News and other Hong Kong newspapers recall how Mr Aquino also appeared to be smiling when responding to a botched rescue of Hong Kong tourists taken hostage by a gunman in Manila in 2010, which led to the deaths of eight Hong Kong citizens.

"Another infuriating smile", reads a Sing Tao Daily editorial. It says the "frivolous smiles" of top Philippine officials will fail to ease the indignation of Taiwanese.

Turning to Japan, Global Times says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stance on disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is likely to inflict greater damage than former leader Junichiro Koizumi on Sino-Japanese relations.

It notes that Mr Koizumi "did not make a big fuss" on territorial disputes and that his visits in 2001 and 2002 to the Yasukuni Shrine, which marks Japan's war dead including convicted war criminals, did not derail economic ties or dramatically escalate security tensions.

An angry public are demanding severe punishments for a primary school headmaster and a housing authority official who were detained after allegedly abducting and molesting six schoolgirls from another primary school in hotel rooms in Wanning city, Hainan, last Wednesday and Thursday.

Xinhua says authorities will conduct another forensic test after initial results showed the suspects did not have sexual intercourse with the girls.

The Beijing News says China urgently needs to break taboos on tackling sexual assault involving minors. It says a teacher in Longxi County, Gansu, was handed a suspended death sentence only a few days ago for the sexual assault of eight underage girls.

Beijing Times says the public is demanding more "convincing" information on the extent of the sexual assault inflicted on the girls and whether other suspects were involved.

Mainland media are also shocked at how a high school student in Zhoukou, Henan, hired two "hit-men" on the internet to kill his father and elder sister on Sunday.

The son allegedly took revenge against the strict discipline regime the pair imposed on the boy, Zhengzhou Evening News reports.

Global Times hails the power of internet users in exposing alleged corruption among officials, including economic planning official Liu Tienan, who was removed from his post yesterday for "alleged grave violations of discipline".

Former district party boss in Chongqing, Lei Zhengfu, was formally prosecuted on 10 May for accepting bribes in a sex tape extortion scandal that has led to the downfall of many Chongqing officials, including nine undisclosed sackings, The Beijing News says.

Also in Chongqing, Tang Jianhua, a former deputy police chief, who was once lauded as a crusader against organised crime, has been dismissed from the Communist Party and his post for allegedly accepting bribes of 16.95m yuan ($2.76m; £1.8m) in bribes and rewards worth some 90,000 yuan, Southern Daily reports.

BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

Do you have memories of Joyce Brothers on television? Please share them on iReport or in our comments section below.

“She passed away peacefully and in her home … with her family all around her,” Lisa Brothers Arbisser said.

Brothers, whose charming, reassuring demeanor appealed to television audiences, became a television star as a game show contestant, a sports interviewer, then as a psychologist answering audience questions about relationships and other emotional subjects.

She grew her fame as a frequent guest on television talk shows and as an advice columnist for Good Housekeeping magazine for four decades and for newspapers throughout the United States.

Watch CNN’s exclusive interview with Ariel Castro’s brothers starting Monday at 5 a.m. ET on “Early Start.”

Though she was 21, Knight became easily confused by her surroundings. Still, no one thought twice about her visiting family on that day in August 2002.

Her mother believed that she suffered a mental disability. Even knowing that, what could go wrong? After all, the cousin lived near Lorain Avenue. But that day would be the last time the mother ever saw Knight.

Her grandmother believed Knight just walked out of their lives, she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. But not her mother. She knew her daughter was troubled by the loss of custody of her son — but to never call home again, even to check in?

Society forgot about Michelle Knight, but her mother didn’t: Barbara Knight papered Cleveland’s west side with posters about her missing daughter.

A sparsely-populated North Atlantic island, Iceland is famous for its hot springs, geysers and active volcanoes. Lava fields cover much of the land and hot water is pumped from under the ground to supply much of the country's heating.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Iceland had come to epitomise the global credit boom. Its banks expanded dramatically overseas and foreign money poured into the country, fuelling exceptional growth.

Before the global credit crunch took hold, Icelandic banks had foreign assets worth about 10 times the country's GDP, with debts to match, and Icelandic businesses also made major investments abroad.

The global financial crisis of 2008 exposed the Icelandic economy's dependence on the banking sector, leaving it particularly vulnerable to collapse.

In October 2008, the government took over control of all three of the country's major banks in an effort to stabilise the financial system. Shortly after this, Iceland became the first western country to apply to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency financial aid since 1976.

The economy shrank by 6.8% in 2009, although since the end of 2010 it has recovered steadily, with growth averaging 2.5% per annum and unemployment falling to just below 5%.

In the long term, Iceland's well educated workforce and its extensive and as yet largely untapped natural resources are likely to provide the key to its recovery from the economic crisis, though concerns have been raised over the potential environmental impact of developing the latter.

Environmentalists have protested that a major aluminium smelter project and associated geothermal and hydroelectric schemes were being pushed through at the expense of fragile wildlife habitats.

The country has extended its territorial waters several times since the end of the 1950s to protect its fishermen and their main catch of Atlantic cod from foreign fleets.

Traditionally a whaling nation, Iceland abandoned the practice in 1989 in line with an international moratorium. It later resumed scientific whaling, intended to investigate the impact of whales on fish stocks, and in 2006 it announced a return to commercial hunts. The move was condemned by environmental groups.

Although it has no armed forces, Iceland is a member of Nato, and US troops were stationed in the country from World War II until 2006. In 1985 Iceland declared itself a nuclear-free zone.

Icelanders have for a long time been resistant to the idea of joining the European Union, though the country is a member of the Schengen border-free travel zone and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Attitudes towards the EU slowly softened, and in July 2009 the country formally applied for EU accession.

The government hopes that the path to EU membership will be completed by 2012, but there are a number of obstacles that could disrupt this timetable.

A debt dispute with Britain and the Netherlands arising from the 2008 collapse of the Icelandic banking sector looked close to resolution in early 2013, when a European court cleared the government of failing to guarantee minimum levels of compensation for British and Dutch savers in the Icesave bank.

The debt issue led many Icelanders to question whether EU membership was such a good idea after all, and an opinion poll conducted shortly before formal accession talks began in July 2010 showed that a majority was in favour of withdrawing the country's application.

The election of a conservative and Eurosceptic coalition in 2013 confirmed this trend.

Other areas that have the capacity to derail the negotiations are Iceland's whale hunting industry and its insistence on maintaining its fishing limits – an issue that precipitated the "Cod Wars" of the 1950s and 1970s.

Iceland's announcement that it was unilaterally increasing its mackerel fishing quota for 2011 by nearly 17,000 tonnes looked set to increase tensions with the EU and Norway.

The 30-year-old man and 27-year-old woman were reported missing when the Carnival Cruise ship Spirit docked in Sydney on Thursday morning, CNN affiliate Seven Network reported. The first clue came when they didn’t claim their luggage.

Maritime officers reviewed surveillance video from the ship and determined that Paul Rossington and Kristen Schroder went overboard Wednesday night. Authorities believe the couple fell about 150 kilometers (93 miles) off Foster, New South Wales.

“We believe that they were up mid-deck, which is halfway up the side of the ship, which is quite a way to fall,” said Detective Superintendent Mark Hutchings of the New South Wales Police Marine Area Command.

Read more: Carnival cruise line in more troubled waters

Late Friday afternoon, New South Wales police said they called off the search after finding no sign of the couple. The search, involving an Australian navy ship, the police force’s marine unit and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, covered 1,360 square nautical miles, they said.

The couple was sharing a cabin and traveling with family and friends on a 10-day Pacific Island cruise. Police said they are investigating the fall.

Schroder’s family issued a statement thanking “everyone involved in the search for both Paul and Kristen.”

“We would appreciate privacy and understanding while we come to terms with our beautiful girl’s tragic accident,” the family said.

Carnival has been plagued by a series of high-profile incidents recently.

In February, an engine room fire left the Carnival Triumph adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, with passengers reporting overflowing toilets and human waste running down the walls in some parts of the ship.

On a March cruise, the Carnival Dream lost power, and some toilets stopped working.

CNN’s Tina Burnside, Ric Ward and Alden Mahler Levine contributed to this report.

Release Date: 04/19/2013Contact Information: Bonnie Smith smith.bonnie@epa.gov (215) 814-5543

BIGLERVILLE, Pa. (April 19, 2013) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and American Rivers today announced that the Land Conservancy of Adams County will permanently preserve 135 acres of forest through a conservation easement on lands owned by Boyer Nurseries and Orchards in Biglerville, Pa.

This land preservation was made possible through a $250,000 EPA grant with matching funds coming from the Adams County Green Space Program.

EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin and American Rivers Senior Vice President for Conservation Chris Williams were joined by U.S. Representative Scott Perry, Adams County Commissioners’ Chairman Randy Phiel, and Land Conservancy President Norma Calhoun. The announcement was made at the Boyer Nurseries and Orchards.
"EPA is pleased to play a part in the permanent preservation of 135 acres that include the headwaters of Marsh Creek," said EPA Regional Administration Shawn M. Garvin. “Headwater streams trap floodwaters, recharge groundwater supplies, remove pollution, and provide fish and wildlife habitat. This vast network of unknown, unnamed and underappreciated streams, make up the very foundation of our nation’s great rivers.”
Under a cooperative agreement with EPA, American Rivers is implementing the environmental grant program which supports local economies and quality of life improvements in the Potomac Highlands. The program also supports efforts to protect the Highlands’ valuable ecosystems, some of which host the most diverse and globally important resources on Earth.

“We congratulate the Land Conservancy of Adams County on their hard work protecting the headwaters of Marsh Creek. The impact of their efforts will reach far and wide, from restoring wildlife to improving Gettysburg’s drinking water supply to reviving the health of the Potomac River downstream,” said Chris Williams, Senior Vice President for Conservation at American Rivers. “We hope this project inspires other communities and can be replicated across the region and the nation.”

The 135 acres in Adams County is located in the Marsh Creek Watershed which drains into the Monocacy River and flows into the Potomac River through the nation’s capitol and into the Chesapeake Bay. The region’s streams and forests are a rich habitat for fish, wildlife, and plants, many being rare and unique. The appeal of the region’s beauty and character makes the Highlands an increasingly popular recreation and tourism destination.

American Rivers is a leading organization working to protect and restore the nation’s rivers and streams. Rivers connect us to each other, nature, and future generations. Since 1973, American Rivers has fought to preserve these connections, helping protect and restore more than 150,000 miles of rivers through advocacy efforts, on-the-ground projects, and the annual release of America’s Most Endangered Rivers ®. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., American Rivers has offices across the country.

Since 1994, the Land Conservancy of Adams County has worked to preserve land for agricultural, open space, historical, scenic, recreational, wildlife habitat, hydrologic, and ecological purposes. It currently holds 120 easements covering more than 7,000 acres.

Property owners do not give up ownership of their land. A conservation easement, which is permanent, is recorded in the Office of Recorder of Deeds and is attached to the property’s deed so that all future owners will be aware of the conditions of land use when they receive a title report.

For more information on EPA’s strategy for restoration and protection of EPA Highlands Action Program, go to www.epa.gov/reg3esd1/highlands-plan.html

For more information about the grant recipients, go to www.americanrivers.org/potomachighlands.

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The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands where many of the villages can be reached only on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.

Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities to find work at South African mines. South Africa has on several occasions intervened in Lesotho's politics, including in 1998 when it sent its troops to help quell unrest.

The former British protectorate has had a turbulent, if not particularly bloody, period of independence with several parties, army factions and the royal family competing for power in coups and mutinies. The position of king has been reduced to a symbolic and unifying role.

Lesotho has one of the world's highest rates of HIV-Aids infection. A drive to encourage people to take HIV tests was spurred on by former Prime Minister Mosisili, who was tested in public in 2004.

Poverty is deep and widespread, with the UN describing 40% of the population as "ultra-poor". Food output has been hit by the deaths from Aids of farmers.

Economic woes have been compounded by the scrapping of a global textile quota system which exposed producers to Asian competition. Thousands of jobs in the industry have been lost.

Story By: by Melissa McEwen

World Shattered, a cocktail by Tyler Fry of the Chicago bar The Violet Hour. The drink includes R. Franklin’s Original Recipe Malort, and tames the bitterness with lemon, honey syrup, raspberry and mint.

In Sweden, malort’s cousin besk survived the temperance movement thanks to its association with crawfish parties. The common brand Baska Droppar is described by its producer as tasting like “fox poison.” And despite its churlish flavor, besk’s popularity also seems to be growing.

Back in Chicago, bartenders have started tooling with besk and malort recipes to take the drinks in new directions. At The Violet Hour, a craft cocktail bar, bar manager Robby Franklin Haynes collaborated with local distillery Letherbee’s to create R. Franklin’s Malort, an interpretation made for cocktails that balances the wormwood with star anise, grapefruit peel and juniper berries.

But historian Strom contends that Jeppson’s carries on a simpler tradition of “farmstead recipes of the late 1800s that were made both as cordials and for their supposed medicinal benefits.”

With bitter flavors dominating drinking trends, besk could be poised to conquer new U.S. territory. But will Chicago’s own Jeppson’s spread beyond the Windy City? Gabelick says that while they are thrilled by the love the drink receives from fans, “no decisions have been made, because it is so popular in Chicago.”

The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands where many of the villages can be reached only on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.

Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities to find work at South African mines. South Africa has on several occasions intervened in Lesotho's politics, including in 1998 when it sent its troops to help quell unrest.

The former British protectorate has had a turbulent, if not particularly bloody, period of independence with several parties, army factions and the royal family competing for power in coups and mutinies. The position of king has been reduced to a symbolic and unifying role.

Lesotho has one of the world's highest rates of HIV-Aids infection. A drive to encourage people to take HIV tests was spurred on by former Prime Minister Mosisili, who was tested in public in 2004.

Poverty is deep and widespread, with the UN describing 40% of the population as "ultra-poor". Food output has been hit by the deaths from Aids of farmers.

Economic woes have been compounded by the scrapping of a global textile quota system which exposed producers to Asian competition. Thousands of jobs in the industry have been lost.