The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of Monday's 24 deaths were in Hama, which has been the target of a heavy military operation since Sunday.
The current crackdown appears aimed at preventing protests from swelling during Ramadan, when Muslims throng mosques for the special nightly prayers after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast. The gatherings could then turn into large protests throughout the country.
The group is widely blamed for causing a famine in Somalia by forcing out many Western aid organizations, depriving drought victims of desperately needed food. The situation is growing bleaker by the day, with tens of thousands of Somalis already dead and more than 500,000 children on the brink of starvation.
Every morning, emaciated parents with emaciated children stagger into Banadir Hospital, a shell of a building with floors that stink of diesel fuel because that is all the nurses have to fight off the flies. Babies are dying because of the lack of equipment and medicine. Some get hooked up to adult-size intravenous drips — pediatric versions are hard to find — and their compromised bodies cannot handle the volume of fluid.
And lo, our "journey" has come to an end, dear rose lovers! Wow, those were the longest eleven weeks of my life time flies, doesn't it? We've got a lot to cover, so let's get to it.
"I'm so excited to get engaged in the South Pacific," gushes Ashley, as she packs up and boards a puddle jumper to another island, where her family is waiting to hear her say things like, "Fiji is the perfect place to write the last chapter of my love story." But first they have to get the hugging and squealing out of the way, the latter noise coming primarily from Ashley's sister Chrystie (who no doubt could have saved ABC a buttload of money on their trip to Fiji had they only asked to borrow hercoupon binder). The Bachelorette wastes no time and proceeds to data dump the details of her "journey" onto her family: Everything's been "awesome," she has a "burning passion" for JP, and "the other guy" Ben is "goofy"
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan bill to increase the U.S. debt limit and cut as much as $2.4 trillion in government spending passed the House of Representatives Monday evening, overcoming the key hurdle on the road to averting an unprecedented federal default.
The legislation, which passed with a relatively comfortable 269-161 margin, came after a weekend of tense meetings, staff discussions and, in the end, a compromise worked out at the highest levels of government. If passed by the Senate today, as widely expected, it will end a months-long standoff between a new Republican House majority, which refused to pass an increase without a deficit-reduction package, and the Democratic majority in the Senate and U.S. President Barack Obama.
The deal came together over the weekend when it was clear Congress no longer had time to spare. Even in the last moments before it was publicly announced, White House aides, who had watched several previous deals collapse, were so fearful of another failure they were preparing a statement to calm worried markets.
As we told you lthis weekend, there was some drama going on withKings of Leon and their Texan concerts.
After complaining of heat exhaustion, frontman Caleb Followill walked off stage and never came back. His brother, Jared Followill, apologized to the fans, admitting it wasn't just the heat getting to the band. In some interesting tweets, he aired their dirty laundry.
Then we learned the rest of the shows in Texas would be cancelled. But now ALL of the shows are being cancelled.
Well, at least in America.
"Gmail Man" is the single greatest Microsoft ad ever made, but it isn't even an ad. Instead, it's a humorous internal video, aimed at Microsoft's own sales people, that positions its Office 365 service as a better alternative to Google's Gmail. The rationale is simple: Google reads every single email message that passes through Gmail and then generates context-sensitive ads that appear in the Gmail web client. This policy is at best suspicious, the Microsoft video implies, and with great humor.
"He's everywhere and nowhere at the same time," the video says in a sing-song fashion as a humorous looking character, "Gmail Man," appears onscreen in an outfit reminiscent of a postal worker. "He peeks at every subject in un-real time. Probing every sentence and all your punctuation. Got his nose in every colon and every situation. He's the Gmail Man!"
