Aug
6
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has directed the national disaster management authority and other concerned authorities to take immediate relief measures in flood hit areas.
Filed Under Local News, Most Pepular, News, Pakistani News, Politics, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
He was chairing a high level meeting in Islamabad. The Prime Minister was briefed about the latest flood situation, damages caused and relief activities as well as current level of all reservoirs and rivers. The Prime Minister expressed deep grief over the loss of precious lives and instructed the relief commission to assess correct data of damages on priority basis. He directed that the provincial disaster management cells be taken on board and full coordination be developed in order to make relief activities more effective.
Meanwhile 31 more people were killed and a large number of houses were swept away in rains and floods in various parts of the country.
Jun
29
Pakistani forces take control of area in Khyber
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Paramilitary troops returned Sunday to posts they had been forced to abandon and Pakistani forces widened their offensive against militants operating in a volatile tribal area along the Afghan border, an official said.
The government launched the operation Saturday because the militants in the Khyber region presented an “immediate problem,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said.
The militants began threatening Peshawar and ambushing supply convoys bound for U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The military operation appears to be a shift in strategy by Pakistan’s new government, backing its calls for peace deals in the tribal areas with the threat of forceful action against militants who get out of line.
The United States has criticized the move for peace deals, saying it gives militants the freedom to regroup for attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters in Lahore, Gilani defended the peace deals, but warned that authorities will resort to force “if (the groups) backtrack from their agreements and damage state property.”
Troops from the paramilitary Frontier Corps, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, quickly cleared militants out of the Bara region, said Muhammad Siddiq Khan, a local official.
A tribal paramilitary force that had been forced to abandon its posts in the region several months ago returned to the checkpoints Sunday, he said.
The Frontier Corps met no resistance as it moved into other areas outside Bara, destroying militant bases along the way, he said.
The forces also destroyed a radio station used by the militants to broadcast propaganda and uncovered a torture chamber, said Rehman Malik, head of the Interior Ministry.
He called the operation “very successful” and said the government’s authority had been re-established and Peshawar was “totally safe.” “Those who commit crimes and believe that they are safe, they will not be allowed to remain safe,” he said.
On Saturday, authorities shelled militant hideouts and blew up the headquarters of militant leader Menghal Bagh, who had apparently fled. Another possible target was Haji Namdar’s Vice and Virtue Movement, which is suspected of attacks against coalition soldiers in Afghanistan.
Officials in Kabul welcomed the operation in Khyber and reiterated their suspicion that a surge in violence in Afghanistan was partly due to the lack of pressure on militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
“We endorse this operation, we want this operation to be continued and we want this operation to be successful,” Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco said “everything that can minimize the threat in Afghanistan is good for us.”
“We know that as long as insurgents can operate safely on the Pakistan side of the border, then there cannot be security in Afghanistan,” said Mark Laity, another alliance spokesman.
Muslim Khan, a militant spokesman in Swat, suggested the government had launched the operation at the behest of the United States.
“On the one side they are holding peace talks and on the other side they are breaking peace agreements and then carrying out operations against tribesmen,” he told Dawn television.
Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban leader in Pakistan, said he was suspending talks between his allies and the government in the wake of the offensive and implied his forces could cause trouble in Pakistan’s main cities.
Maj. Gen. Alam Khattak, head of the Frontier Corps, hinted this would not be the only operation against militants and other officials said the volatile Swat region could be next.
On Sunday, a remote-controlled bomb blast killed two soldiers on a foot patrol in Swat’s Matta area, a former militant stronghold, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.
Pro-Taliban fighters have battled security forces in Swat in recent months, despite a peace deal between militants and the new provincial government.
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May
10
Hezbollah militants take over West Beirut
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BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) — Hezbollah militias took control of western Beirut on Friday, dealing a major blow to the U.S.-backed government in Lebanon.
Future TV, with a poster of slain leader Rafik Hariri, whose family owns the station, burns Friday in Beirut, Lebanon.
1 of 3 Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader and part of the March 14 pro-government coalition, described it as a “coup.”
Jumblatt’s coalition called the takeover an effort to “bring Syria back to Lebanon” and extend Iran’s reach to the Mediterranean.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Hezbollah leaders of trying to “protect their state within a state.”
Hezbollah leaders did not make public statements Friday.
Two pro-government TV stations were shut down — and the building of one, Future TV, was soon on fire. Nadim Mounla, the head of Future TV, said Hezbollah had sent a “clear message” that it would destroy the stations.
The building housing offices of a newspaper was set on fire as well. It and the two TV stations are owned by the prominent Hariri family, leading supporters of the government.
Hezbollah “turned their weapons … toward the hearts of the innocent civilians of Beirut,” said Samir Geagea, executive director of the Lebanese forces, reading a statement after a meeting of the pro-government March 14 coalition.
“They invaded their neighborhoods and shelled their homes with a hail of bombs that were sent from Tehran through the Damascus gateway,” he said.
“The purpose behind this coup is to bring Syria back to Lebanon and allow Iran to reach the Mediterranean,” he said.
Syria and Iran support Hezbollah, and Syrian troops occupied Lebanon from 1990 until 2006.
Iran said Friday that “U.S.-Israel adventurism” is the “main cause for lingering crisis and instability” in Lebanon. State-run news agency IRNA, citing Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, added that “Iran’s stand on Lebanon has always been based on non-interference in a matter that is entirely related to the Lebanese nation, alone.”
And Syria’s state-run news agency SANA said President Bashar al-Assad discussed Lebanon during a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
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“The two sides hoped that the brothers in Lebanon would be able to find a solution to this situation through dialogue among themselves in a way that preserves the security and stability of Lebanon,” al-Assad said.
The country’s elected, pro-Western government has long been locked in a power struggle with Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called that conflict “a strategic and historic victory” but acknowledged underestimating the cost in lives and destruction.
In public statements and demonstrations in recent years, the Shiite militant group backed by Iran and Syria threatened to use its power and popularity to oust the Sunni-led government, triggering fears of a new civil war that could further destabilize the volatile region.
Lebanon was crippled by a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.
Government troops and another militia group, Fatah al-Islam, fought a series of bloody battles last year over control of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. More than 150 people were reported killed in those clashes.
In a written statement, the U.S. secretary of state said the United States is “deeply concerned” about the violence.
“Backed by Syria and Iran, Hezbollah and its allies are killing and injuring fellow citizens, undermining the legitimate authority of the Lebanese government and the institutions of the Lebanese state,” Rice wrote.
“Seeking to protect their state within a state, Hezbollah has exploited its allies and demonstrated its contempt for its fellow Lebanese. No one has the right to deprive Lebanese citizens of their political and economic freedom, their right to move freely within their country or their sense of safety and security.”
The White House said Rice is reaching out to the Lebanese government. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said she also discussed Lebanon with officials from Saudi Arabia, France and the United Nations.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, “We are very troubled by the recent actions of Hezbollah. We urge Hezbollah to stop their attempt to defy the lawful decisions taken by the democratically elected Lebanese government.”
The Lebanese army did not join the battles that erupted this week. Taking sides could throw the military — with its own political factions — into disarray.
Soldiers instead effectively negotiated a surrender of pro-government positions, Lebanese Internal Security Forces and Western military observers said. Jumblatt said the government is “now at the end of a gun barrel” and expects the “conditions for surrender will be offered sooner or later.”
“I think … it’s a coup,” he said. “The Lebanese army is in total paralysis.”
With pro-government gunmen out of the way, fighting in the capital eased a bit Friday after two days of intense gunbattles echoing through Beirut’s streets.
At least 11 people have been killed and 44 wounded in the clashes since Wednesday, according to Lebanese Internal Security Forces.
Earlier this week, the government demanded Hezbollah shutter its telecommunications operations, which Hezbollah called an act of war. The government also fired the chief of security at the Beirut airport amid a probe of allegations that Hezbollah had installed cameras and other monitoring equipment there to spy on political opponents.
Saad Hariri, the leader of the government’s bloc in parliament, is the son of the late former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination sparked protests that brought the current government to power and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops. Since then, dynamics in Lebanon have been reshaped by the war between Hezbollah and Israel, and by the ongoing power struggle between Hezbollah and the government
May
1
Hawaiian sovereignty seekers take over palace in Honolulu
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HONOLULU - A Native Hawaiian group that advocates sovereignty briefly occupied the grounds of a historic palace in downtown Honolulu on Wednesday, saying it would carry out the business of what it considers the legitimate government of the islands.
Unarmed security guards from the Hawaiian Kingdom Government group blocked all gates to the grounds of the palace, which is adjacent to the state Capitol. They did not enter the building itself.
After several hours, the protesters agreed to reopen the gates but said they would remain on the grounds until early evening and return Thursday. No arrests had been made as of mid-afternoon.
Laura Thielen, state land director who oversees the palace area, said some of the protesters could still be charged.
“This is public property and they can’t block public access,” she said.
Protest leaders had said they were prepared to be arrested and would go peacefully.
Mahealani Kahau, elected “head of state” of the group years ago, said the organization doesn’t recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state but would keep the occupation peaceful.
“The Hawaiian Kingdom Government is here and it doesn’t plan to leave. This is a continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom of 1892 to today,” Kahau said.
The group is one of several Hawaiian sovereignty organizations in the islands, which became the 50th U.S. state in 1959.
The ornate Iolani Palace is operated as a museum. Hawaiian King Kalakaua built it in 1882, and it also served as the residence for his sister and successor, Queen Liliuokalani, the islands’ last ruling monarch.
It was neglected after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and restored in the 1970s as a National Historic Landmark. It includes a gift shop and is open for school groups and paid tours.
The protesters aren’t damaging anything in the palace grounds, Kahau said. Workers inside the palace itself had locked the doors and were not letting them inside.
State Sen. Kalani English - a Native Hawaiian and a Democrat from East Maui-Lanai-Molokai - went over from the Capitol to speak with some of the protesters and had his staff take them food.
“This is the manifestation of the frustration of the Hawaiian people for the loss of sovereignty and land,” English said.
“It is symbolic. This made a statement. It got the word out about the plight of the Hawaiian people,” he said.
Richard Kinney, who described himself as an independent Hawaiian nationalist, said he went to the Capitol to show his support. He carried an upside-down Hawaii state flag, signaling distress.
“The sovereignty of these islands is inherent to the Hawaiian people, and we’ve never relinquished that,” he said.
“Occupying any land, including Iolani Palace, is the beginning,” Kinney said.
Kippen de Alba Chu, executive director of Iolani Palace, issued a statement that said the protesters delivered a written message to palace officials claiming the grounds as the seat of their government.
“While we respect the freedom of Hawaiian groups to hold an opinion on the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, we believe that blocking public access to Iolani Palace is wrong and certainly detrimental to our mission to share the palace and its history with our residents, our keiki (children) and our visitors,” Chu said.
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Apr
10
Cat Care - How to Take Care of Cat
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Cats require some special care for healthy and trouble free existence.
Cats are carnivorous; hence they require some animal-source ingredients, such as meat, poultry, or fish, in their diets.
Give your cat fresh water every day. There is no need to give milk to the cat.
Keep the litter box clean. It promotes good sanitation behavior.
Get your cat vaccinated against deadly diseases.
Take your cat routinely to a veterinarian. Cats are prone to many of the same diseases that human beings are, like cancer, kidney diseases, heart diseases, and dental diseases.
It is advisable to have your cat neutered, also called spayed (for females) and castrated (for males). It aids in control of unwanted kittens, and greatly minimizes the risk of problems associated with the reproductive tract and behavioral problems associated with sexually intact animals.
Cats are attracted towards string-like objects like tinsel, needles and thread, rubber bands etc and may eat them. Some cats are attracted towards electric cords. Therefore, keep all these things out of the reach of cats.
Train the cat to desist from undesirable behaviors such as scratching furniture and jumping on countertops etc.
Put a collar and ID tag that includes your name, address, and telephone number around the cat.
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Apr
10
PARIS (AFP) - Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain’s top science journal.
The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to “improve concentration,” and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.
The 1,427 respondents — most of them in the United States — completed an informal, online survey posted on the “Nature Network” Web forum, a discussion site for scientists operated by the Nature Publishing Group.
More than a third said that they would feel pressure to give their children such drugs if they knew other kids at school were also taking them.
“These are academics working in scientific institutions,” Ruth Francis, who handles press relations for the group, told AFP.
The survey focused on three drugs widely available by prescription or via the Internet.
Ritalin, a trade name for methylphenidate, is a stimulant normally used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, especially in children. Modafinil — marketed at Provigil — is prescribed to treat sleep disorders, but is also effective against general fatigue and jet lag.
Both medications are common currency on college campuses, used as “study aids” to sharpen performance and wakefulness.
“It doesn’t seem to be causing too much trouble since most [students] use the drugs not to get high but to function better,” Brian Doyle, a clinical pyschiatrist at Georgetown University Medical Centre, told a US newspaper last month. “When exams are over, they go back to normal and stop abusing the drugs.”
Other experts expressed more concern about what the survey revealed.
“It alerted us to the fact that scientists, like others, are looking for short cuts,” Wilson Compton, director of epidemiology and prevention research at the US National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), told AFP.
Ritalin, he noted, can become addictive, even if it has proven safe and effective when taken as prescribed.
The third class of drugs included in the survey was beta blockers, prescribed for cardiac arrhythmia and popular among performers due to its anti-anxiety effect.
Of the 288 scientists who said that had taken one or more of these drugs outside of a medical context, three-fifths had used Ritalin, and nearly half Provigil. Only 15 percent were fans of beta blockers.
More than a third procured their meds via the Internet, with the rest buying them in pharmacy.
Other reasons cited for popping pills were focusing on a specific task, and counteracting jet lag.
Almost 70 percent of 1,258 respondents who answered the question said they would be willing to risk mild side effects in order to “boost your brain power” by taking cognitive-enhancing drugs.
Half of the drug-takers reported such effects, including headaches, jitteriness, anxiety and sleeplessness.
Wilson of the NIDA expressed surprise at the rate of substance abuse shown, but cautioned that the survey did not meet rigorous scientific standards.
“This is a volunteer poll of people responding to an Internet survey. There might be an over-representation,” he said.
But previous research has shown that, as the boundary between treating illness and enhancing wellbeing continues to blur, taking performance-boosting products continues to gain in cultural acceptance.
“Like the rise in cosmetic surgery, use of cognitive enhancers is likely to increase as bioethical and psychological concerns are overcome,” opined Nature in a commentary.
In the survey, 80 percent of all the scientists — even those who did not use these drugs — defended the right of “healthy humans” to take them as work boosters, and more than half said their use should not be restricted, even for university entrance exams.
More than 57 percent of the respondents were 35 years old or younger
Source:
Mar
20
Oil prices take steep dive
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices experienced the sharpest plunge in 17 years Wednesday, driven down by weakening demand and a stronger dollar.
U.S. light crude for April delivery fell $4.94 a barrel to settle at $104.48 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The drop was the largest single-day slide in dollar terms since January 1991, when oil fell $10.56 after the U.S. launched an attack against Iraq in the first Gulf War.
In percentage terms, oil fell 4.51 percent Wednesday — the biggest drop by that measure since August.
Oil has dropped more than $4.50 in two of the past three days. Crude prices are more than $7 lower than they were when oil hit a record trading high of $111.80 on Monday.
On Wednesday, oil started the day trading lower after the Federal Reserve cut its key lending rate by three-quarters of a percentage point a day earlier. The cut was less than the full point expected by some investors, sparking a rally in the dollar and weighing on dollar-traded commodities such as oil.
“As the dollar strengthens, oil prices in non-dollar-denominated terms become more expensive,” giving traders incentive to sell, said Stephen Schork, publisher of the Schork Report, an oil industry newsletter.
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The other factor pushing oil lower on Wednesday was the release of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly report.
The report showed that demand for motor gasoline fell 0.1 percent last week, to about 9.1 million barrels a day, compared to the same period a year earlier.
The decline in demand comes as average gas prices remain close to their record high levels, according to a survey released by AAA, a motorist advocacy group.
According to the survey, the average price of gasoline fell a tenth of a cent overnight to $3.279 per gallon. Gas prices hit their record high of $3.285 a gallon on Sunday.
In response to the decrease in demand, refineries reduced gasoline production slightly last week to 9 million barrels a day.
“Refining margins have been horrible,” said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading in Chicago. Because consumer demand has been declining, refineries simply aren’t producing as much, he said.
The EIA said crude stocks rose by 200,000 barrels last week. But that was well below the 2.3-million barrel increase expected in a consensus of analysts polled by Platts, the energy research division of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline inventories and stockpiles of distillates, which are used to make heating oil and diesel fuel, also disappointed.
Gasoline supplies fell by 3.5 million barrels while distillates fell by 2.9 million barrels. Analysts were looking for only a 200,000 barrel fall in gasoline stockpiles and a 1.6 million barrel decrease in distillate supplies
Mar
19
Flashy lawmakers take seats in Pakistan
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gold-trimmed SUVs idle outside parliament. Among new female lawmakers, black Muslim veils are out and Gucci bags are in.
Civilian rule has returned to Pakistan, and its politicians have come back with bling.
Last month’s elections ushered into parliament a new crop of business leaders and wealthy elites opposed to U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf’s one-man rule.
The new body is headed by followers of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - secularists who have vowed to fight Islamic extremism.
Many are also veterans of a series of civilian governments that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s - an uneasy reminder of the graft accusations that hounded Bhutto and her husband, nicknamed “Mr. 10 Percent” for alleged kickbacks pocketed while his wife was in office.
Eight years after Musharraf took over in a military coup, they’re back in power, accessories and all.
“It’s their cars, their fashion. They have all the latest models,” said Sana Asad, a Pakistani journalist covering parliament. “They’re richer and more secular.”
“Perhaps it’s because they’re connected to the previous administrations - the wealthy elites,” she said.
Parliament’s parking lot was crowded Wednesday with new Mercedes and Toyota sports utility vehicles festooned with flashy tire rims and hood ornaments. Women in bright colors clogged past in heels and huge designer sunglasses. Bodyguards fanned out.
The Feb. 18 elections saw a hard-line coalition of religious groups lose control of the country’s northwest along the Afghan border, and only six Islamists win seats in parliament, compared to 68 in the previous legislature. Many conservative-minded allies of Musharraf also lost their seats.
In the last parliament, about a dozen female lawmakers from the religious alliance wore body-shrouding black veils that concealed everything except their eyes.
But as parliament elected its first female speaker Wednesday, just a single lawmaker - one of 74 women in the 342-seat house - covered her face with a light beige wrap. Others wore traditional flowing gowns, some with bare heads and others with their hair only partially covered by loose scarves.
Fehmida Mirza, a medical doctor, is the first woman elected as National Assembly speaker in Pakistan’s 60-year history.
Half a dozen other female lawmakers touched her shoulders as Mirza, wearing a diamond nose ring and an elegant lavender tunic embroidered with silver rosettes and a deep V-neck, rose to take her oath.
“We are writing a new chapter in history,” she said, diamond-studded pearl droplet earrings and a pouf of dark hair springing out from under her sheer veil. She repeatedly touched her forehead in a gesture of thanks to her peers a thick gold bracelet sliding down her arm.
“Benazir’s dream has come true,” said fellow party member Farzana Raja. “We have proven we’re not only chanting slogans for women’s empowerment - we’re taking practical steps,” she said, shoving the designer sunglasses back on her head and letting her headscarf slip off.
Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani analyst and fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center, cited “a different texture in politics now.”
“The orientation of this parliament is different, with a different kind of people with different backgrounds,” Zehra said.
On Wednesday, many male lawmakers arrived in designer clothing, including one who accented his tailored black suit with a bright pink tie. There were notably fewer beards and traditional turbans than in the previous parliament.
In the parking lot, Khaled Mahmood Javed sat behind the tinted windows of his shiny sedan flying the flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.
His brother, Rai Ghulam Murtaza, is an incoming lawmaker who first served under Bhutto in the 1980s.
“A lot of them are businessmen, and none are poor. They’re big men - important men - and they’re less religious too,” Javed said of the new breed of legislators.
Pakistan has seen annual economic growth of about 7 percent for the past five years - much of it due to cash sent home by Pakistani expatriates. Murtaza was among them, his brother said.
“My brother lived abroad for the past 15 years. He’s a dual citizen of Canada,” Javed said proudly.
Many of Pakistan’s top politicians are feudal landlords. Others amassed fortunes in Pakistan’s booming banking and telecom sectors while they sat out politics under Musharraf.
Not everyone is amused.
Ameerul Azim, a spokesman for Pakistan’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which along with all but one Islamist faction boycotted the February polls, called the new lawmakers’ show of wealth “an insult to the poor people of Pakistan.”
“These people today proved that they have no sympathy for the poor,” he said.
Even Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a Bhutto loyalist and contender for prime minister, acknowledged the lawmakers’ ostentatious display of the trappings of wealth could raise doubts about their commitment to solving the problems of ordinary Pakistanis.
“Austerity should be exercised, given the economic compulsions that we have,” Qureshi told Dawn News television Tuesday. He said the country faced “huge challenges,” with high inflation and power shortages.
Economic hardships persist for most Pakistanis. Millions live in poverty despite the recent growth. The country has yet to fully overcome a severe shortage of wheat flour - a staple here - and fuel prices have spiked sharply in recent weeks.
Outside parliament Wednesday, policemen sat in clusters under pine trees, watching new lawmakers parade past multicolored banners lining the drive up to the legislature’s marble pillars.
“Rich candidates always do better. They have more connections,” said one officer, lazily picking at wild dandelions. A policemen earns just over $100 a month.
“Islam doesn’t allow women to unveil themselves, but the atmosphere in Pakistan is changing day by day. You can see it in the fashion here,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media
Source:Yahoo News
Mar
16
NEW YORK - Call it “Tristan und Isolde - und Isolde.”
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On a night full of surprises and considerable musical rewards, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Wagner’s epic drama about doomed lovers with a serious death wish came perilously close to being doomed itself.
The original cast looked, on paper, like a dream - heldentenor Ben Heppner repeating his acclaimed interpretation of Tristan and soprano Deborah Voigt singing Isolde for the first time at the Met.
Then Heppner came down with a virus and canceled the first four of six performances. At Monday’s opening, his “cover,” or understudy, John Mac Master, struggled to make it through the five-hour-long performance. So for Friday night’s second outing, the Met turned to the second cover, Gary Lehman, a former baritone who had never sung the role onstage before.
But Lehman came with some good advance buzz - he had drawn favorable attention in 2005 when he stepped in at a moment’s notice for Placido Domingo in the title role of Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the Los Angeles Opera.
And from the moment he appeared on the Met stage, he took control of the role, with a strong presence - enhanced by his tall, relatively trim figure - and a sturdy tenor that projected well into the vast auditorium.
Still, Act 1 is not a true test for Tristan, since he has relatively little to sing. So the audience was waiting eagerly to see how he would fare in the 40-minute love duet that comprises the core of Act 2 and has brought many a tenor to grief.
And that’s when the night’s biggest shock arrived.
Voigt, who had struggled with both pitch and breath support during Act 1, suddenly rushed offstage just as the lovers were supposed to be settling in for a night of rapture.
James Levine kept conducting the orchestra for a minute or so even after the curtain slowly came down, and Lehman could be heard faintly singing his next lines. Then the music stopped, and a Met official came out to announce that Voigt had been taken ill but that her cover, Janice Baird, was literally waiting in the wings and would be out shortly.
Sure enough, after about 15 minutes the curtain rose again, and the audience warmly applauded the two lovers onstage together.
For opera fans with a sense of history, it was an amazing sight - two singers making unplanned Met debuts together in the lead roles of one of the most daunting operas in the repertory.
And it inevitably brought to mind another “Tristan” performance, from Dec. 28, 1959, when soprano Birgit Nilsson sang Isolde opposite three different tenors (Ramon Vinay, Karl Liebl, and Albert da Costa) - one for each act.
Both of Friday’s substitutes made it through the rest of the evening with aplomb. Lehman was particularly gripping in the long soliloquies of Act 3, when the dying Tristan ruminates about his troubled life and has delirious visions of Isolde. He did transpose a few exposed high notes downward and clipped off one or two others abruptly as he tired toward the end, but for the most part he sang the role as written - no mean feat.
Baird is harder to judge because she didn’t sing Act 1, when Isolde whips herself into a frenzy of outrage for her Narrative and Curse. She has a voice of considerable power, but its pieces don’t always fit together. In the lower register, you can hear remnants of a former mezzo-soprano, and her high notes are gleaming and dead-on. In between she tends to sing flat, especially at lower volume. That problem marred the opening measures of the Liebestod, Isolde’s rhapsodic solo that ends the opera. It flared again on her final note, at the end of the phrase “hoechste Lust” (”utmost rapture”) as she expires over Tristan’s corpse.
Like Lehman, she cuts a glamorous figure, and together they made the most romantic-looking couple seen onstage here in “Tristan und Isolde” in many a year. The audience rewarded them with a standing ovation and seemed in no rush to head for the aisles despite the late hour of 12:30 a.m.
The rest of the cast in the eccentric, abstract Dieter Dorn production remained intact from opening night: mezzo Michelle DeYoung sympathetic but sometimes underpowered as Brangaene, Isolde’s servant; baritone Eike Wilm Schulte virtually ideal as Kurwenal, Tristan’s trusted companion; and bass Matti Salminen, nearly as imposing as the cuckolded King Marke as when he made his Met debut in the role 27 years ago.
Levine and the orchestra rose to even greater heights than usual to support the night’s newcomers, with a sumptuous and stirring interpretation of the score.
It turns out, according to Met general manager Peter Gelb, that Voigt had been feeling queasy all day but wanted to go on to support Lehman. She is expected to be back for Tuesday’s performance. Her Tristan is still listed as TBA.
There was yet another Met debut Saturday night, when soprano Ruth Ann Swenson came down with the flu and was replaced by Ermonela Jaho as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata.”
Source: Yahoo News
Mar
16
BARI, Italy (Reuters) - Thousands of Italians marched on Saturday in an anti-mafia protest and called on all citizens to take a public stand against Italy’s powerful crime syndicates.
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WASHINGTON - Colombia’s military recently had one of its finest moments: the killing of a senior leader of FARC, a resilient guerrilla group that had never lost a member of its top leadership in combat.
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At the same time, U.S. officials and military analysts say, Venezuela fumbled an effort to rush troops and tanks to the border with Colombia in response to the deadly March 1 attack, on a FARC camp in Ecuador .
The Colombian raid triggered a short-lived crisis. But military experts say it also showed the contrasting security philosophies of Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez and Colombia’s conservative President Alvaro Uribe .
Colombia , with U.S. help, has assembled a nimble infantry-based and intelligence-reliant counterinsurgency force capable of striking at guerrilla units and leaders deep in the jungle.
The Venezuelans have done just the opposite: They’ve spurned all contacts with the U.S. military and instead opted mostly for big-ticket purchases of Russian fighters, attack helicopters and submarines while forming, training and arming reserve and militia units loyal to Chavez.
The result is that Venezuela’s military is impressive on paper but also in many ways a paper tiger, according to defense experts, shaped more to preserve Chavez’s grip on power than to fight an effective war.
Colombia , said John Cope , with the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University , has become “an extremely good professional force,” while the Venezuelan army is “trying to figure out the ins and outs of an approach to a military organization that puts a high emphasis on civic action and humanitarian issues- which means they’re probably not spending an awful lot of time training.”
The contrast of the two militaries is more than an academic exercise. Few analysts believe that Chavez, a fiery critic of U.S. policies, will provoke a war against Uribe, a stalwart Washington ally.
Rather, the concern is that someone could light a match in the still-combustible environment.
“I think the real concern is not that Chavez intends to provoke a war, although that can’t be ruled out, but that there’s more of a possibility that, with all the rhetoric he’s using, that some bright young lieutenant colonel will decide to take action on his own and cause a skirmish that could escalate,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity.
Observers on both sides of the border are busy updating the facts and figures on the two forces.
In sheer manpower, Colombia has an edge. Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment places the Colombian armed forces, not including Colombia’s sizable police force, at 263,000, more than double Venezuela’s 115,000.
Colombia’s forces are modeled on the U.S. military, with seven army divisions, three naval units and eight air commands being coordinated by five geographically based U.S.-style joint commands. According to Jane’s, the idea is to ensure closer cooperation between the different branches of the military.
In a process that began before Uribe took office in 2002, the Colombian military has shifted its focus on counterinsurgency and counter-drug-trafficking, putting together helicopter-based and other highly mobile battalions and special-forces units.
Many of the units have been trained by the 500 or so U.S. advisers in the country with part of the estimated $600 million in military aid that Washington provides annually to Colombia .
Colombian and U.S. officers also maintain a Joint Intelligence Center in the southern base of Tres Esquina , which gathers information from communications intercepts and images from U.S. spy planes, listening stations and satellites, according to Jane’s.
True to its counterinsurgency strategy and its partly mountainous, partly jungle terrain, Colombia has no combat tanks.
In contrast, Chavez has severed all military ties with the United States , which in turn has stopped selling him weapons and replacement parts.
Chavez has promoted the concept of asymmetric warfare, essentially preparing reserves and militias for a guerrilla war against an invader, presumably U.S. troops. Observers say he could end up creating a militia force of some 300,000.
But his regular armed forces are regarded as logistically challenged, and U.S. officials believe the army struggled to move its tank units toward the Colombian border after Chavez gave the order on March 2 . Venezuela has nearly 200 French AMX-30, AMX-13 and British Scorpion 90 tanks.
Half of the army’s six divisions are based in the western half of the country, closest to the border with Colombia .
There are also doubts about the military’s equipment maintenance. A foreign military officer who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of his job said the gun-sights on some of the tanks had been rendered inoperable by attempts to service them without help from foreign technicians.
“It’s all image,” said Cope, who added that Chavez seems more interested in reorganizing the military so that it’s less of a threat to him. The military briefly forced Chavez from office in 2002.
The growing militia units can quickly mobilize to defend his government should the regular military turn against him, Cope said, and Chavez has pulled together the better-trained units from all branches under one “operational strategic command.”
Venezuela has a big edge over Colombia in the air. It has purchased 10 Russian-made Mi-35 “flying tank” attack helicopters that can carry eight soldiers and have both anti-tank and air-to-air capacity.
Right after ordering the 10 battalions to the Colombian border, Chavez also threatened Uribe with “sending over the Sukhois”- advanced Russian fighter-bombers that make the Colombians’ aged French Mirages and Israeli Kfirs look puny.
Colombia recently acquired 15 155mm cannon from Spain to offset a perceived Venezuelan artillery advantage. And in February, it spent $200 million to purchase 24 newer Kfir C10 fighters.
Colombia’s Cessna A-37B Dragonflies and Brazilian Super Tucano turboprops, which bombed the camp in Ecuador with lethal accuracy, could be blasted out of the sky by the two dozen Sukhois-30s purchased by Chavez, but Venezuela’s pilots are still reported to be training to fly them.
COLOMBIA
Strengths:
– Large armed force of 263,000.
– U.S.-supplied helicopters such as Black Hawks provide counterinsurgency mobility.
– Brazilian Super Tucano turboprop planes provide lethal and accurate firepower.
– Quickly responds to intelligence tips.
– U.S.-style “joint commands” integrate army, air force, navy and national police.
Weaknesses:
– Aging air force of Mirages and Kfirs.
– No tanks.
– Some units seen as only adequately trained; human-rights questions remain.
VENEZUELA
Strengths:
– Firepower provided by Russian-supplied weaponry, including 24 Sukhoi-30, 10 Mi-35 helicopter gunships and 100,000 AK-103s assault rifles.
– 189 AMX-30, AMX-13 and Scorpion 90 tanks.
– Artillery firepower with 155mm and 105mm howitzers.
– Addition of modern Russian submarines in 2009.
Weaknesses:
– No combat experience.
– Logistical problems.
– Mission to support “Bolivarian revolution” distracts from training, demoralizes ranks.
– Chavez favors loyalty over professionalism.
Source: Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment
( Miami Herald staff writer Carol Rosenberg contributed to this report from Miami . Gunson is a Miami Herald special correspondent who reported from Caracas, Venezuela .)
Source: Yahoo News