Nature and cities photography of China by the professional photographers from Houston Bernardo and Tomas Medina. Bernardo and Tomas Medina are father-son photography team.
TEHRAN - Iran said on Monday it might boycott the 2012 London Olympics because of the event's "racist" logo which resembles the word Zion, the official Irna news agency reported.
The secretary general of the National Olympic Committee said Iran had made the complaint in a letter to the International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge and was waiting for a response.
The London logo shows the numbers 2012 in four jagged multi-coloured figures and was launched in 2007. Zion is a term that refers to the city of Jerusalem and Iran does not recognise Israel.
"Certainly other countries, including Islamic nations, will react to this racist logo and this would jeopardise the goals of the Olympic games in the world," Bahram Afsharzadeh told Irna.
He warned the International Olympic Committee that "negligence of the issue from your side might affect the presence of some countries, especially Iran", Irna reported.
(Agencies)
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Google said on Monday that it is continuing to investigate a problem with its Gmail service, which reportedly caused some users' emails being all erased.
The issue popped up over the weekend as users reported on online forums that they had lost emails and other information within their Gmail accounts.
Google confirmed the problem Sunday on the company's website that provides status reports of its Apps services, initially saying that the issue affected less than 0.29 percent of Gmail users.
It then twice revised downward estimates of the number of users affected to 0.08 percent and then to 0.02 percent.
"Access has been restored for one third of the affected users," Google said in a latest notice Monday morning, adding that the remaining accounts are being restored on an ongoing basis.
"We expect the issue to be resolved for everyone within 12 hours," Google said.
The Gmail failure reinforces danger of becoming too dependent on the so-called "cloud", or storing and processing information through the Internet, a post on technology blog TechCrunch on Monday noted.
"It's just another example of why moving your entire life to the cloud may not always be the best idea," the post said.
Firemen tried to extinguish a forest fire in Huangshan township of Lijiang City, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Feb. 28, 2011. A wildfire broke out here in dawn on Monday.
SINGAPORE |
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Spot gold steadied around $1,410 on Tuesday as escalating unrest in Libya and the Middle East supported safe-haven demand, though holdings in the biggest gold-backed exchange-traded fund fell to the lowest level in more than nine months.
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were massed near the Tunisian border on Tuesday, as the United States said it was moving warships and aircrafts closer to Libya, heightening tension in the volatile region.
Spot gold was nearly flat at $1,411 an ounce by 0339 GMT. It had been moving in a narrow range of less than $4.
The most active U.S. gold futures contract edged up 0.1 percent at $1,411.90.
"There has been some scrap selling and liquidation above $1,405," said Peter Fung, head of dealing department at Wing Fung Precious Metals in Hong Kong.
"We'll probably see a price range between $1,405 and $1,415."
But even as the political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa continued to support safe-haven demand, improved economic prospects could weigh on gold prices, traders said.
Gold prices could drop 20 percent later this year and in 2012 as the global economy picks up, as speculators exit the market, said the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).
Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust dipped to the lowest since mid-May last year in a sign that investors may be switching to stocks and other assets, a dealer said.
"The money from gold ETF may have gone to the stock market, which has outperformed gold recently," said a Hong Kong-based dealer.
Spot gold inched down half a percent so far this year, compared to a 5.6 percent climb in the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI.
On the macroeconomic front, Chinese manufacturing growth slowed in February to a six-month low, according to an official survey, as the government's sustained campaign to tame inflation weighed on industrial activity.
Australia's central bank decided to keep its main cash rates steady at 4.75 percent as widely expected, said it expects the global economy continue to expand.
Brent crude held steady near $112 a barrel on Tuesday as investors remained cautious about Middle East supplies even as Saudi Arabia ramped up production to cover a drop in Libyan exports.
A sustained period of higher oil prices would significantly affect developing economies but is unlikely to derail their strong recovery since the global financial crisis, a senior World bank economist said.
BEIJING |
BEIJING (Reuters) - Lending by Chinese banks during the past two years has been excessively fast, topping the "extreme upper limit" set by regulators, the country's banking chief said at an internal meeting, a source told Reuters on Tuesday.
The unusually sharp warning by Liu Mingkang, head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, highlighted deepening official unease about the threat that rampant credit growth poses to the Chinese financial sector and the broader economy.
Liu said that "irrational factors" in the Chinese real estate market had increased and that credit risks were accumulating, according to the source who attended a CBRC internal meeting.
Liu also warned banks that they could not extend or roll over loans this year to local government financing vehicles when they expire, the source said. China has been trying to clean up local governments' books after they incurred piles of debt in the course of stimulating the economy to recover from the global financial crisis.
(Reporting by Reuters China; Editing by Ken Wills)
Jordan's premier vows to bring 'true and gradual' reforms as opposition threatens more pressure. | |||||
| Middle East Online | |||||
AMMAN - Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday discussed his kingdom's reform plans with visiting Swedish and Portuguese foreign ministers, saying they are key to the country's future. The king talked about "efforts and plans to enhance Jordan's reform drive, noting that political and economic reforms are important to the future of the kingdom and the region," the state-run Petra news agency reported. The top diplomats of Sweden and Portugal, Carl Bildt and Luis Amado, also held talks with their Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh and Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit, Petra said. Jordan's opposition threatened on Saturday to increase the pressure on the government, accusing it of not taking reforms seriously, a day after several thousand people demonstrated in Amman in a "Day of Anger" to call for political reforms. Jordanians have been protesting against the rising cost of living, but their numbers and demands escalated after the ouster of former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14 to include political reforms and the fall of the government. Jordan's premier pledged on Sunday to bring "true and gradual" reforms, a day after the opposition threatened more pressure on the government, accusing it of not taking the process seriously. "The government is not practicing a policy of containment. It is implementing a methodology of true and gradual reforms to achieve national objectives," Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit told MPs in his policy statement. "We will continue our drive for political reforms, rationally review socio-economic policies and tackle errors and failures," the state-run Petra news agency quoted him as saying in parliament. King Abdullah II sacked the government of Samir Rifai on February 1, and named Bakhit as the head of a cabinet tasked with introducing general reforms. "The government will review laws which form the foundation of democracy and political life, including the electoral law," said Bakhit, who is seeking a parliamentary vote of confidence in his leadership. "The government will comprehensively evaluate and review press and freedom of expression laws and take effective measures to address past errors because it realises the need for a free press." The powerful Islamic Action Front (IAF), the largest opposition party, said on Saturday the regime needs to introduce reforms in order to survive. "The regime must understand that it must reform to survive, and that the longer it delays, the louder the calls for change will become," Zaki Bani Rsheid, a member of IAF, said. |
