TIME TO LEAVE

US military vehicles leave the country through Kuwait

The last US combat brigade in Iraq has left the country, seven years after the US-led invasion.

The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, began crossing by land into Kuwait in the early hours of Thursday, a military spokesman said.

Some 50,000 US troops will remain until the end of 2011 to advise Iraqi forces and protect US interests.

A further 6,000 support troops will be in Iraq until the end of the month, when US combat operations will end.
‘Long-term commitment’

Stryker Brigade’s personnel drove out of Iraq in a convoy of armoured vehicles.

“The last one crossed [into Kuwait] at around 0600 (0300 GMT) this morning,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Bloom said.

The US military restricted journalists embedded with the brigade from reporting on its movements until they were almost at the border.

After crossing the border, US troops told journalists of their relief at leaving Iraq.

“It’s just a whole bunch of stress just off my shoulders, but it feels good to be in Kuwait, about to head home,” Troy Danahy said.

“Best part of getting back to Kuwait? One, I know no one else will get hurt, and two, I’m going home,” Timothy Berrenar said.
‘Significant step’

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the US involvement in Iraq was far from over, but that it would be less intrusive and more civilian focused.

“We are ending the war… but we are not ending our work in Iraq. We have a long-term commitment to Iraq,” he told MSNBC.

A GRIM SITUATION

The International Monetary Fund says the floods that have struck Pakistan pose a “massive economic challenge” and it will review the country’s budget and financial prospects.

The IMF will start talks with Pakistani officials in Washington on Monday to assess how best to give help.

Tens of thousands more Pakistanis have been fleeing the floods, with the south now bearing the brunt.

Overall, about 1,600 people have been killed and 20 million affected.

Masood Ahmed, director of the Middle East and Central Asia department of the IMF, said in a statement: “The floods which have hit Pakistan in recent weeks and brought suffering to millions of people will also pose a massive economic challenge to the people and government of Pakistan.

“The scale of the tragedy means that the country’s budget and macroeconomic prospects, which are being supported by an IMF-financed programme, will also need to be reviewed.”

Mr Ahmed said that the IMF stood by Pakistan “at this difficult time”.

The IMF agreed a rescue package with Pakistan two years ago as the country was then weighed down by soaring inflation, shrinking reserves and fighting militancy.

The Pakistan government has said that the cost of rebuilding after the floods could be as high as $15bn.

Extensive damage to the agricultural industry as a whole is another heavy blow because this is such an important part of the economy.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands more Pakistanis are being displaced in the southern province of Sindh, which is now being described as the country’s worst hit province.

The UN says it has now raised about 70% of the $460m it called for in its emergency appeal, as donors pledged more money.

Pakistan has also accepted $5m in aid from its rival and neighbour India.

THE CORE ISSUES

Congresswoman Dina Titus on Main Street Mantra with Ajay Dayal.

Congresswoman Dina Titus addressed the concerns of the hardworking families across the state and nation on Main Street Mantra Talk Show with Ajay Dayal. The issues ranged from education to economy.

The key issue was jobs and how to get the hard working men and women on the main street get back on their feet in these hard economic times. Congresswoman presented various scenarios that she is and has been working to benefit the families.

To listen to the entire interview please click on the link above.

To listen to the entire show Listen to the entire show!

IT'S IN OUR HANDS

Census 2010 teams were invited to a thank you lunch at Palace Station on 21st August ‘10, as gesture of Mission Accomplished after having all the teams worked really hard to created awareness for Census 2010 and its benefits for our state.

One of the teams was Southern Nevada Asian Pacific Coalition for Census 2010 (SNAP-CC) is a collaboration of Asians and Pacific Island leaders, community organizations, businesses and advocates whose aim is to facilitate a Complete Count of their community.

Together it represents a multitude of Asian and Pacific Islander businesses, communities, and organizations including the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), Asian Pacific Labor Alliance (APALA), Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, Hawaiian Civic Club, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), National Federation of Filipino Americans and Associations (NaFFAA), UNLV Rebel R.O.A.R. (Raising Our Asian Rights) and many more organizations/clubs and ethnic affiliations.

Founded by its members Vilma Gorre and Betty Atkins, and other very active community leaders including Duy Nguyen, Bessie Lee-Oh, to address the need of community to participate in the upcoming 2010 Census.

The core mobilized itself due to a sense of duty and concern on the full representation of the community, particularly those who are hard to reach and will present as a challenge to count.  Their primary goal was to partner with the Census in the Complete Count and mobilize their efforts to provide Questions and Answer Centers(QAC) and Language Assistance Centers (LAC) with the various community leaders and organizations who will be solicited to coalesce with SNAP-CC in its drive for a Complete Count of the APIA community.

Salve Vargas Spensko-Edelman, Partnership Specialists for the Native Hawaiians, Asians and Pacific Islanders was invited to meet with SNAP-CC to provide resource information and secure the partnership form required.

SNAP-CC meets regularly and engaged other members of the community to reach their goal in meeting the APIA Complete Count.  They established committees and events to ensure that these goals were met including an Asian Unity Fest to bring the ethnically diverse community to an awareness on the importance of participating in the census.

It is time now for all to come together and build a consensus to bring the benefits to hurting families on the main street in these tough economic time. Thank you for getting involved.

HOMELAND SECURITY INVOLVED

President Barack Obama has said “every single available resource” of government will be deployed to help contain the Gulf Coast oil leak. Up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day may be now be leaking into the water after last week’s explosion on a BP-operated rig, which then sank.

Oil is expected to start washing ashore in the coming hours. The US government has designated the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as an “incident of national significance”.

This allows it to draw on resources from across the country to deal with the leak. A state of emergency has been declared in the state of Louisiana, whose coastline is the most threatened by the spill.

President Obama has dispatched high-level administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to the area. He has also ordered environmental agency officials to inspect all offshore oil rigs and platforms to make sure they adhere to US safety codes.

Speaking at the White House, Mr Obama said: “While BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and clean-up operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the Department of Defence, to address the incident.

“And I have ordered the Secretaries of Interior and Homeland Security, as well as Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency to visit the site on Friday to ensure that BP and the entire US government is doing everything possible, not just to respond to this incident, but also to determine its cause.”

The US Coast Guard said earlier that up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day – five times the previous estimate – might now be leaking into the water. BP’s chief operating officer of exploration and production, Doug Suttles, said the company was using remote operative vehicles (ROVs) to try to find out how much oil was leaking into the sea.

RELEIF NOT REACHING FAST

At least 10,000 others were injured, the Xinhua news agency reported, and many victims, including school children, were buried under debris. Rescuers were struggling to clear debris with their hands and save those trapped below.

Nearly 60 of the dead were students at several schools in the province, authorities told Xinhua, and more than 50 are trapped in the debris with little chance of rescue.

Xinhua reported that 25 students were rescued from a vocational school, and another 23 from a primary school. Relief flights carrying medical workers and supplies have been landing in Yushu airport but the road to the town of 70,000 people has been blocked by a landslide, the Associated Press news agency reports from Qinghai’s provincial capital, Xining.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for an all-out effort to save as many people as possible and some 5,000 rescuers, including 700 soldiers, have been sent to the disaster area.

The civil affairs ministry said it was to send 5,000 tents, 50,000 coats and 50,000 quilts as local officials in Yushu reported a lack of tents, medicines and medical equipment. China has received messages of sympathy and offers of aid from foreign states including Japan, Russia and France.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs plans to distribute 5,000 tents, 50,000 coats and 50,000 quilts to the earthquake zone, Xinhua said.

The Hong Kong Red Cross said it had mobilized 200,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $27,700) to support the relief operation through providing tents, quilts, clothes and food to victims.

The headquarters of the Red Cross Society of China was also sending relief supplies and had dispatched a team to the area for assessment, the organization said in a statement.

TRADE RELATIONS AT HIGH POINT

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has begun his first visit to India since assuming office. Speaking in Delhi, he praised the way India had handled the global financial crisis and said the US and India should “work more closely together”.

Mr Geithner was in India to inaugurate a bilateral financial partnership with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. It will focus on infrastructure, financial investment and economic stability, US Treasury officials say.

Mr Geithner is also expected to press India to open its highly regulated markets to US investment. The US argues that more open Indian markets would help make it easier and cheaper for India to access capital, which in turn could help finance the country’s growing infrastructure needs.

It is a case that Mr Geithner is also likely to make on Wednesday when he visits Mumbai, India’s business and financial capital, where he will meet both Indian and US business leaders. Throughout the trip, Mr Geithner will be accompanied by other treasury officials and Donald Kohn, vice-chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve.

It will be a meeting of the world’s biggest economy and the world’s biggest democracy, as the US and India look to deepening economic ties and bilateral relations. Officials have said that the goal of this visit is to establish a “robust” dialogue between the two countries. However, some analysts have suggested that this trip is about symbolism, aimed at establishing a parallel with the US-China relationship. The US already has a standing dialogue with India’s fellow emerging Asian giant, China.

Trade between the United States and India has more than doubled in the last five years, but the US is no longer India’s biggest trading partner. Instead, China currently holds the number one position, followed by the UAE and then the US.

Total bilateral goods trade between India and the US was worth around 40 billion dollars in 2008. This is still significantly lesser than US trade with other countries like China and Europe.

The newly formed US-India Economic and Financial Partnership was announced by President Barack Obama last November, when he honoured Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the administration’s first state dinner.

At present, US-Indian relations are at a high point.

SHAHRUKH DELIVERS BIG HIT

As the year 2010 ushered in, we have been bestowed with a number of films of varying genres and stars. In fact, SRK was part of the 1st important film that released this year ‘Dulha Mil Gaya’. However, Fardeen Khan and Sushmita Sen made sure that the film met with a disaster in the box office register.

But, SRK’s biggie ‘My Name is Khan’, so far, has been the biggest hit of 2010. Even though, a controversy and war with the Shiv Sena hoodlums did help the film, surely, it was the return of the King Khan that brought fame and money to the Karan Johar caper.

Not to mention, the coming back of Kajol did make the fans storm into the theatres. For a lover of love-stories, there is nothing better than a Shahrukh-Kajol rom-com. And, though the film was targeted on the relevant social issue of ill-treatment of the immigrant Muslims, it was the subtle romance between the single mother Kajol and an autistic SRK that held the maximum appeal and magnetised audience into the theatres.

Though, subsequent films like ‘Ishqiya’ and ‘Love, Sex aur Dokha’ were hailed by the critics for putting up a brave face, none could jingle the cash box as vigorously as did MNIK.

So, for the moment, 2010 has belonged solely to the Bollywood Badshah(Emperor)!

PERFORMER & ENTERTAINER

Kristina Guerrero on Main Street Mantra Show!

Kristina Guerrero is a Film major at UNLV where she is planning to put her focus on screenwritng. Entertainment is where it is for her. She is doing everything she can to break into the entertainment industry by networking and doing performances for UNLV as well as around the Las Vegas area. She has been singing ever since she was a little girl. Her mom always tells her stories of when she performed in Christmas pageants and school events. Her parents encouraged her to succeed in whatever she did, and she feel like they put and extra emphasis on her success as a musician and as a performer as a whole. As a result of her parents’ persistence, she is now able to write her own lyrics and compose her own music, which is a reflection of her life experiences and emotions.

She also acts, writes, dances and models. She some great opportunities lately to model for companies such as Redken 5th Avenue and the Magic Fashion show held here in Las Vegas every year. So far, she has been having such a great time doing what she loves to do, which is to perform. She says “I cannot see myself doing anything else. This is what I love to do. It’s who I am. It’s how I live.”

At the moment, she is part of an open casting call for the Fox TV show GLEE. The way for her to get on the show as a regular cast member is if people vote for her to be on it. All you have to do is sign into myspace.com and go to http://www.myspace.com/gleeauditions?link=115140939 and that will take you directly to her audition tapes. From there, you just give out stars. She says, “I just want to thank everyone who has supported my thus far. Knowing that people believe in me and what I do really means more to me than I can even imagine.”

Overall a performer and entertainer blooming to be the superstar of tomorrow!

FINAL VICTORY OR ANOTHER BATTLE?

Claiming a historic triumph that could define his presidency, a jubilant Barack Obama signed a massive, nearly $1 trillion health care overhaul on Tuesday that will for the first time cement insurance coverage as the right of every U.S. citizen and begin to reshape the way virtually all Americans receive and pay for treatment.

After more than a year of hyperpartisan struggle — and numerous near-death moments for the measure — Obama declared “a new season in America” as he sealed a victory denied to a line of presidents stretching back more than half a century. Democratic lawmakers cheered him on, giving the White House signing ceremony a rally-like atmosphere as they shouted and snapped photos with pocket cameras or cell phones.

Democrats have hailed the approval of legislation extending healthcare to an additional 32 million Americans as a historic advance in social justice. The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi said it was comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social Security.

The bill was passed in the House on Sunday evening by just seven votes. Republicans have vowed to continue to challenge it, saying it is too expensive and promotes big government. Senator John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, warned that outside the capital “the American people are very angry”. “They don’t like it, and we’re going to repeal this,” he told ABC News.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will go to the Senate where Democrats hope it will be passed by a simple majority under budget reconciliation. The House approved the bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve by 219 votes to 212, with 34 Democrats joining Republicans in voting against it.

Victory was assured only hours before voting started, when the president agreed to a deal with conservative Democrats to reiterate in an executive order that money provided by the bill could not be used for abortions. Democrats were jubilant after the vote, with House Majority Whip Representative James Clyburn describing it as “Civil Rights Act of the 21st Century”.