Six In The Morning

Texas Where Even The Innocent Are Guilty

Texas man who spent 30 years in prison likely to have conviction quashed
An exoneration hearing for Cornelius Dupree Jr. is scheduled for Tuesday in Dallas. If his conviction is overturned, he would have spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.
The district attorney's office said on Monday it supports Dupree's innocence claim.
Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery.
He was released on parole in July. DNA test results came back 10 days after his release, excluding him as the rapist.

Thanks To Senator Tom Coburn No American Government Aid Has Reached Haiti

A Year Later, Haiti Struggles Back
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — In 2010, Daphne Joseph, a slim, shy teenager, took a pounding from life.
She watched with horror as her mother’s mangled body was carted off in a wheelbarrow after the Jan. 12 earthquake. She fell in with a ragtag group of orphans taken under the wing of a well-meaning but ill-equipped community group. She left them unwillingly when a self-proclaimed relative took her away to use her as a servant.
And then last fall, not long before her 15th birthday, Daphne found herself in an actual home, reunited with the other orphans stranded after the disaster they all call “goudou-goudou” for the terrible sound of the ground shaking. She wore a party dress; she blew out candles; she smiled.

What Are Republican's Good For? Absolutely Nothing! Say It Again

Republicans set for fresh assault on Obama's healthcare reforms
Riding back into town as the new majority party in the House of Representatives, gleeful Republicans will this week waste no time in asserting their agenda on Capitol Hill, introducing as a first step a bill to repeal the most hard-fought achievement of President Barack Obama in his first two years in office: the healthcare reform law.

The new 241-194 Republican majority in the lower chamber of Congress that emerged from the midterm elections of November will mean stiffer headwinds for Mr Obama as he returns from his Christmas break in Hawaii and embarks on the second half of his first term as President with more than half an eye fixed on re-election next year.

Who needs a Free Press certainly not Hungry

EU questions Hungary as presidency opens
HUNGARY IS on the defensive just days into its six-month EU presidency, after Brussels queried its controversial “crisis taxes” and a tough new media law.

Since taking power last spring, prime minister Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party have used their two-thirds majority in parliament to place allies at the head of most key institutions, strip powers from the constitutional court and tinker with the constitution. They have also abolished an independent budgetary council that monitored state spending.

The government has pushed through windfall taxes of hundreds of millions of euros on the financial, energy, telecommunications and retail sectors, in a bid to plug holes in Hungary’s budget without raising income tax.

Art literally on the move

Truckloads of art a visual feast on roads of Pakistan

IT IS the portrait of Benazir Bhutto, her loosely veiled head set against what looks like a flaming halo, that Anil likes best. The image of Pakistan’s former prime minister, almost Warholesque in its execution, adorns the back of his truck. “I’m from Sindh and so was Benazir,” says Anil. “I wanted to show how proud I am of my home.”

Every surface of his lorry is painted with scenes of snow- capped mountains – far removed from the flat, dusty plains of Sindh – soaring eagles and garlands of fat, pink roses. In between are lines of Urdu poetry and verses from the Koran.

There are few better places to observe what is increasingly considered an important branch of Pakistani folk art than on the busy roads that lead from Karachi, the country’s biggest city and main port.

An important vote

Nearly four million Sudanese to vote in referendum
The electoral body is "100% prepared" for the vote and it will be held on time, said Justice Chan Reec Madut. Some observers had worried that South Sudan's poor infrastructure and political issues might delay the polls.

Most people expect the oil-rich, mainly Christian south will vote for independence from the mainly Muslim north. The two sides fought a bloody civil war that stretched over two decades. Sunday's vote is the culmination of a peace deal that ended the conflict in 2005.

Just over 3,93-million people have registered to vote, said Madut. Polls will be held in both northern and southern Sudan. Diaspora voting is also taking place in eight countries.