Its summer time in the UK and the Hawaiian party theme is making a comeback due to the excitement and the plendor of different colours.
For many years in the UK Hawaii became popular because of the hit TV show Hawaii 50 which run for over 12 years until 1980.
Hawaii Five-O was shot on location in Honolulu, Hawaii, and throughout the island of Oahu — with occasional filming in other locales like Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong as well as other Hawaiian islands. Hawaii Five-O centers on a fictional state police force of the same name — in honor of Hawaii's status as the 50th Stat..
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Tourism earned El
Salvador a total of US$399,565,060 between the months of January and May
2008, according to a report made public today by the Ministry of Tourism
(MITUR) through the Salvadorean Tourism Corporation (CORSATUR).
As detailed in the report, this is the result of the arrival of 813,810
foreign tourists and adventure seekers, representing a 24% rise in the
number of arrivals and a 13% increase in revenues.
Guatemala remains El Salvador's number one source of foreign tourists
with 199,045 arrivals, nearly 36..
ST. LOUIS, June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The 201-member Assembly of the
Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) today voted in favor of abolition of
the death penalty in Illinois.
The vote came after presentations by former federal prosecutor Thomas
Sullivan, past president of the ISBA Terrence K. Hegarty, and the President
of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association, Joseph Birkett, State's
Attorney of DuPage County.
After quoting from the dissent of retired Illinois Supreme Court
Justice Moses Harrison, newly-installed ISBA president Jack C. Carey of
Belleville, said..
Guatemala's interior minister died when a helicopter crashed on Friday in bad weather north of the Guatemalan capital, officials said. All four people on board were killed, including Interior Minister Vinicio Gomez, Guatemala's presidential spokesman Fernando Barillas told reporters.
"Bad weather caused the accident," he said. Barillas initially reported that Gomez had been aboard a small plane, but Vice President Rafael Espada later said it was a helicopter that had gone down. The helicopter was traveling to Guatemala City from the northern jungle region of Peten, Espad..
The United States and the European Union are near a deal on letting law enforcement and security agencies obtain private information like credit card transactions and travel histories about people on the other side of the Atlantic, The New York Times reported on Saturday. The newspaper, which obtained an internal report on the potential agreement, said it would amount to a diplomatic breakthrough for U.S. counterterrorism officials after a history of clashing with the EU over demands for personal data.
It was unclear when the agreement could be completed, the Times said, citing officials, b..
Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper said on Saturday the presidential election turnout could be a record and that this was a slap in the face to world leaders who had criticized President Robert Mugabe. A storm of condemnation from inside and outside Africa greeted Mugabe's decision to hold Friday's election, in which he was the sole candidate. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Western powers denounced the poll as illegitimate. Tsvangirai, who won the first round on March 29 but pulled out of the run-off and took refuge in the Dutch embassy because of what he called stat..
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton take the first step toward healing the wounds of their bruising presidential nominating fight with a joint appearance on Friday in the symbolically named New Hampshire town of Unity. The rally will be the first time the former rivals have shared a stage in public since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination earlier this month and began trying to mend the rifts caused by their epic 16-month campaign struggle.
The Illinois senator has tread cautiously in courting Clinton and her millions of supporters, including some still angry about the outcome o..
Personal spending rose by a more-than-expected 0.8 percent in May as government stimulus checks bolstered household budgets, government data on Friday showed, while a key gauge of inflation stayed tame.
Personal spending, under scrutiny as a barometer of how consumers behave as they received a fiscal boost of $48 billion in May amid a cooling economy, had been forecast by analysts polled by Reuters to increase 0.6 percent.
The rise was the largest increase in personal spending since November, and compared with a 0.4 percent rise in April.
The Commerce Department said personal income a..
Oil leapt to a new record high above $142 a barrel on Friday, extending gains after surging nearly 4 percent in the previous session, as tumbling global stock markets helped to trigger a wider commodities rally.
U.S. light crude for August delivery was $1.70 up at $141.34 a barrel by 8:12 a.m. EDT, off a record high of $142.26.
London Brent crude was $1.39 up at $141.22, off a record high of $142.13.
World stocks fell to a three-month low as a fast deteriorating global inflation picture intensified concerns over the outlook for corporate profits, hastening the rush of investors' ..
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton take the first step toward healing the wounds of their bruising presidential nominating fight with a joint appearance on Friday in the symbolically named New Hampshire town of Unity.
The rally will be the first time the former rivals have shared a stage in public since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination earlier this month and began trying to mend the rifts caused by their epic 16-month campaign struggle.
The Illinois senator has tread cautiously in courting Clinton and her millions of supporters, including some still angry about the outcom..
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea toppled the cooling tower at its plutonium-producing reactor on Friday in a symbolic move to show its commitment to a nuclear deal that comes a day after it submitted an inventory of its atomic program.
Responding to the unusual opening by Pyongyang, the United States has moved towards taking the North off its list of state sponsors of terrorism and issued a proclamation lifting some sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
But experts say key questions remain about nuclear weapons and proliferation, and global powers still need to verify the claims ..
The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision overturning Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban is the biggest gun rights ruling since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. The Court had not waded into this divisive issue since 1939, when it declared, "We cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear" arms. But on Thursday the Court broke its silence to do just that, ruling for the first time that the Constitution confers an individual right to gun ownership beyond providing for "a well regulated Militia," as the amendment states. The Constitut..
BELGRADE (Reuters Life!) - A fragment of a human jaw found in Serbia and believed to be up to 250,000 years old is helping anthropologists piece together the story of prehistoric human migration from Africa to Europe.
"This is the earliest evidence we have of humans in the area," Canada's Winnipeg University anthropology professor Mirjana Roksandic told Reuters.
The fragment of a lower jaw, complete with three teeth, was discovered in a small cave in the Sicevo gorge in south Serbia.
"It is a pre-Neanderthal jaw that we believe is between 130,000 to 250,000 years ..
Democrat Barack Obama's decision to bypass taxpayer money for his presidential campaign endangers the public-financing system, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat and Obama supporter, said Sunday.
"In terms of undermining the public financing idea for everyone, it doesn't help," Biden said on NBC's Meet the Press. "It's going to be harder to make the case" for taxpayer funding.
However, Biden and another Democratic Obama backer, former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle, said Obama already has transformed the campaign-finance system by tapping int..
Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders.
In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That's an 88% decrease.
Military leaders cite several factors for the drop in attacks and deaths. They include:
• New vehicles. Almost 7,000 heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles have been rushed to Iraq in the last year. "They've taken hits, many, ma..
A U.S. leak of an Israeli air exercise reported to be practice for possible bombing of Iran's nuclear sites was seen in Israel on Sunday as a deliberate move to increase pressure on Tehran to halt sensitive atomic work. "When the diplomacy of economic and political pressure fails to produce results, a shift is made to gunboat diplomacy," wrote Alex Fishman, military affairs correspondent of Israel's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.
"As the Iranian regime discusses the European Union representative's most recent offer to halt its nuclear program in exchange ..
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off election against President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, saying his supporters would be risking their lives if they voted. Speaking only hours after his opposition Movement for Democratic Change reported its rally had been broken up by pro-Mugabe youth militia, Tsvangirai called on the United Nations and the African Union to intervene to stop "genocide" in the former British colony.
"We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process," h..
The worst Midwest flooding in 15 years eased on Saturday after the swollen Mississippi River crested in St. Louis, but the toll was still rising as billions of dollars in damage to crops, communities and infrastructure were assessed. Emergency workers at river levees and floodwalls feared more rain could swell river levels again and complicate recovery efforts. But the skies remained mostly clear and thousands of relief workers could finally exhale.
"It really is looking positive. The weather has cooperated and that's made a difference," said Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for ..
A Philippine ferry with more than 700 people on board capsized during a typhoon and all but a handful of those aboard have been accounted for, officials said on Sunday. Rescuers had not yet reached the scene where the MV Princess of Stars sank near Sibuyan island in the centre of the country as a Typhoon Fengshen pounded the area. "The ship is upside down. We are waiting for rescuers but there are none so far. Our pump boats are all broken," Ricardo Aligno, a town councilor from the coastal village of San Fernando, told local radio.
The coast guard expected one of its ships to arr..
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday that could shield phone companies from billions of dollars in lawsuits for their participation in the warrant less surveillance program begun by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks.
The White House-backed, compromise measure -- which triggered a firestorm of opposition from civil liberties groups -- would also overhaul U.S. spy powers and replace a temporary surveillance law that expired in February.
The Senate is expected to give the bill final approval next week with the help of the two major presidential con..
U.S. President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.
McClellan said he did not think Bush was involved in a 2003 effort to blow the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
But Bush, through his chief of staff, ordered McClellan to tell reporters that White House staffers Karl Ro..
The Justice Department appears to have officially opened the penalty phase of the mortgage debacle in this country.
On Thursday, the FBI paraded two indicted Wall Street executives before TV cameras. That same day, the bureau announced the arrests of hundreds of people who allegedly perpetrated mortgage scams nationwide.
The arrests came as part of the FBI's sweeping Operation Malicious Mortgage. In this phase alone, FBI officials said they arrested more than 400 real estate agents, brokers, appraisers and developers. People from just about every aspect of a real estate transaction ..
Oakland, Calif.; and orlando, fla. - When Sen. John McCain visits Santa Barbara, Calif., next week, Charles Eckberg will be there to protest the Republican presidential candidate's calls to lift the federal ban on US offshore drilling.
Mr. Eckberg, a grass-roots activist, remembers the 1969 spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that galvanized the state and the nation to halt fresh drilling. The ocean was so laden with oil that the waves crashed ashore silently, he says.
Now, Eckberg is concerned that "people are going to say, 'Let's do this because of the gas prices...
New York - An ideological dogfight is under way about the skies over New York and how best to ease the congestion at the region's three major airports. Its outcome will affect millions of American fliers – because half of all delays in the country from Chicago to Dallas to Los Angeles originate over the Big Apple. At issue is whether the Department of Transportation's proposal to cap the number of flights at each airport and then auction off landing slots to airlines would end up reducing costs and congestion – or increasing them.
In Washington this week, the battle heated up dur..
Hamburg, Germany - In one of the clearest signs yet of Europe's hardening stance on immigration, on Wednesday the European Parliament approved tough new rules for expelling undocumented immigrants, among them a provision allowing member nations to keep migrants in detention centers for up to 18 months. Foreigners who have been forcibly deported also face a five-year ban on reentering the European Union.
The measure, which met stiff opposition from liberal lawmakers and human rights groups, comes as a wave of anti-immigrant feeling and policy proposals are sweeping Europe and parts of t..
Chicago - The floodwaters, in many cases, have simply been too high. The sprawling network of levees — built over many years to protect the Upper Mississippi basin from the sort of disastrous flooding that has claimed homes, lives, and millions of acres of farmland this past week — was never designed to withstand the magnitude of a 500-year flood.
And so towns like Gulfport, Ill., and La Grange, Mo., have watched as waters spilled over the tops of levees that were supposed to keep them dry.
The flooding has raised questions about the adequacy of the patchwork system — in which little inf..
WINFIELD, Mo. - The flooding in the Midwest has brought freight traffic on the upper Mississippi to a standstill, stranding more than 100 barges loaded with grain, cement, scrap metal, fertilizer and other products while shippers wait for the water to drop on the Big Muddy.
"We're basically experiencing total shutdown," said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge Line Inc. of Bettendorf, Iowa.
While the bottleneck is costing him and other barge operators tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue per day, June is a slow shipping period on the river compared with the late..
OMAHA, Neb. - Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said Friday he would consider serving as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's running mate if asked, but he doesn't expect to be on any ticket.
Hagel's vocal criticism of the Bush administration since the 2003 invasion of Iraq has touched off speculation that if Obama were to pick a Republican running mate, it might be Hagel. Hagel said in an interview with The Associated Press that after devoting much of his life to his country — in the Senate and the U.S. Army — he would have to consider any offer.
"If it would ..
WASHINGTON - If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress Friday.
From life-and-death matters on down — the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information, Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend — the government's top two leaders undermined their credibility by "packaging" their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said.
He described the loss of trust as self-inflicted, telling the House Judiciary Committee that Bus..
Enraged by the recent US air strikes in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani military has threatened to postpone or cancel an American programme to train a paramilitary force for combating Islamic militants, a media report said today. Some Pakistani officials are convinced that the Americans deliberately fired on their military, killing 11 men from the very paramilitary force the Americans want to train, an accusation the Americans deny, it said.
The uncertainty over the programme reflects how deeply scarred the US' alliance with Pakistan, already strained, has been since t..
Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper said on Saturday the presidential election turnout could be a record and that this was a slap in the face to world leaders who had criticized President Robert Mugabe. A storm of condemnation from inside and outside Africa greeted Mugabe's decision to hold Friday's election, in which he was the sole candidate. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai ..
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton take the first step toward healing the wounds of their bruising presidential nominating fight with a joint appearance on Friday in the symbolically named New Hampshire town of Unity. The rally will be the first time the former rivals have shared a stage in public since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination earlier this month and began trying to mend th..
Democrat Barack Obama's decision to bypass taxpayer money for his presidential campaign endangers the public-financing system, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat and Obama supporter, said Sunday.
"In terms of undermining the public financing idea for everyone, it doesn't help," Biden said on NBC's Meet the Press. "It's going to be harder to make the case&q..
A U.S. leak of an Israeli air exercise reported to be practice for possible bombing of Iran's nuclear sites was seen in Israel on Sunday as a deliberate move to increase pressure on Tehran to halt sensitive atomic work. "When the diplomacy of economic and political pressure fails to produce results, a shift is made to gunboat diplomacy," wrote Alex Fishman, military affairs correspo..
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off election against President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, saying his supporters would be risking their lives if they voted. Speaking only hours after his opposition Movement for Democratic Change reported its rally had been broken up by pro-Mugabe youth militia, Tsvangirai called on the United Nations and the African Union to interve..
A Philippine ferry with more than 700 people on board capsized during a typhoon and all but a handful of those aboard have been accounted for, officials said on Sunday. Rescuers had not yet reached the scene where the MV Princess of Stars sank near Sibuyan island in the centre of the country as a Typhoon Fengshen pounded the area. "The ship is upside down. We are waiting for rescuers but ther..
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday that could shield phone companies from billions of dollars in lawsuits for their participation in the warrant less surveillance program begun by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks.
The White House-backed, compromise measure -- which triggered a firestorm of opposition from civil liberties groups -- would also overhau..
U.S. President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.
McClellan said he did not think Bush was involved in a 2003 effort to blow the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose..
Oakland, Calif.; and orlando, fla. - When Sen. John McCain visits Santa Barbara, Calif., next week, Charles Eckberg will be there to protest the Republican presidential candidate's calls to lift the federal ban on US offshore drilling.
Mr. Eckberg, a grass-roots activist, remembers the 1969 spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that galvanized the state and the nation to halt fresh drillin..
Chicago - The floodwaters, in many cases, have simply been too high. The sprawling network of levees — built over many years to protect the Upper Mississippi basin from the sort of disastrous flooding that has claimed homes, lives, and millions of acres of farmland this past week — was never designed to withstand the magnitude of a 500-year flood.
And so towns like Gulfport, Ill., and La Grange..
OMAHA, Neb. - Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said Friday he would consider serving as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's running mate if asked, but he doesn't expect to be on any ticket.
Hagel's vocal criticism of the Bush administration since the 2003 invasion of Iraq has touched off speculation that if Obama were to pick a Republican running mate, it might be Hagel...
WASHINGTON - If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress Friday.
From life-and-death matters on down — the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information, Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend — the government's top two leaders undermined their credibili..
Enraged by the recent US air strikes in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani military has threatened to postpone or cancel an American programme to train a paramilitary force for combating Islamic militants, a media report said today. Some Pakistani officials are convinced that the Americans deliberately fired on their military, killing 11 men from the very paramilitary force the Ameri..
US President George Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House. Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London have confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the 9/11 attacks. Delta, the US army special operations unit, and the British SBS are undertaking the main operations in Pakistan against Bin..
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was last night facing a Commons summons to explain the latest government security lapse after another batch of secret papers was left on a train.
The documents, covering global terrorist funding, drugs trafficking and money laundering, were handed in to the Independent on Sunday after being found last week on a train going to Waterloo station, London.
This coincided..
An international smuggling ring sold bomb-related parts to Libya, and, as well as managed to obtain blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, former UN arms inspector David Albright wrote in a report on Sunday. Washington Post published the report that claimed that the Pakistani government did not refute the findings of the report but pointed out that it had co-operated extensively with UN invest..
Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send Afghan troops across the border to fight militants in Pakistan, a forceful warning to insurgents and the Pakistani government that his country is fed up with cross-border attacks. Karzai said Afghanistan has the right to self defense, and because militants cross over from Pakistan "to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it ex..
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WI) has just published the final version of a report by the Task Force on the Future of U.S.-Israel relations. The title is appealing: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge. But no less appealing is the list of people endorsing this report: Tony Lake and Susan Rice of the Obama campaign, Vin Weber, James Woolsey of the..
Dr V K Saraswat, top scientist of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said here that India is planning to develop an anti-missile shield against any conventional or nuclear attack. The missile shield will have highly sensitive radars to track the incoming missiles, besides an interceptor that can destroy it, said Dr Saraswat.
He added that the guidance system in the shield woul..
Blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon have been found on the computers belonging to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist, but it is not clear whether they were sold to Iran or some other customers, the New York Times has reported.
US and international investigators who found the electronic blueprints say the plans closely resem..
Five major blasts rocked the pink city of 'Jaipur' on Tuesday (May 13) at 7.35 pm. The serial blasts occured in Tripolia, Manek Chowk and Chandpol Gate, while the fourth blast occured at Lakshmi Mishthan Bhandar in old Jaipur. Though the cause of the blast is still unknown, it's learnt that five blasts occured within a span of half an hour in the walled city of Jaipur. According to ..
Chinese state media say 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in one county in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake. The official Xinhua News Agency says another 10,000 people were believed hurt in Beichuan county in Monday's quake. The epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake was in Sichuan, striking 57 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu at 2:28 p.m. local time.
T..
A powerful earthquake buried 900 students in central China on Monday and killed at least 107 people, as several schools and a water tower collapsed in the tremor, state media reported. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central China, but sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakis..
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 struck western China on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The quake struck 57 miles (92 kilometers) northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT), the survey said on its Web site. It said the quake was centered 18 miles (29 kilometers) below the surface.
In the Chinese capital Beijing, about 930 miles ..
President George W. Bush's daughter Jenna Welch Bush was married Saturday to Henry Chase Hager, a graduate student and son of a former Virginia lieutenant governor, before 200 relatives and close family friends, the White House confirmed.
The evening wedding at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, capped a weekend of family festivities, including a Friday rehearsal dinner and parade in honor..
The Republican political establishment is looking to the devil to deliver them, the man many have depicted as the incarnation of evil: John McCain.
Republicans in the U.S. Congress are petrified about a November debacle, a fear stoked on May 3, when they lost their second straight special election in a district held by Republicans.
The party's fundamental situation is terrible: Republic..
After losing the ABC Presidential Debate to Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama today made obscene gestures towards his Democratic opponent. The video of the incident is posted below as the pause and the crowd reaction followed by a sly smile on the face of the lead Democrat nominee gives away the truth.
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="m..
The people of Tibet wish to be heard. They have long sought autonomy, and chosen negotiation and mediation as their means of attaining it. They now turn to protest. The Chinese government should hear their voices, understand their grievances and find a non-violent solution.
That solution is offered by our friend and brother His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has never sought separatism, and has a..
There have been further protests in the past few days in Tibet as the crackdown on the plateau deepens, with mass detentions in different areas and some monasteries encircled by troops. In some areas, including Kardze in Sichuan province (Kham) and Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), there are signs that the authorities are provoking further unrest and frustration by requiring local people..
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