Six In The Morning

Tea Party Moron's Come To Congress How Lucky For America

'Tea party' freshmen embrace status quo
Reporting from Washington — ‪The new class of Republican lawmakers who charged into office promising to shun the ways of Washington officially arrives on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. ‪But even as they publicly bash the capital's culture, many have quietly begun to embrace it.

Several freshmen have hired lobbyists — the ultimate Washington insiders — to lead their congressional staffs. In the weeks leading up to Wednesday's swearing-in, dozens of the newcomers joined other lawmakers in turning to lobbyists for campaign cash.‪ And on Wednesday, congressional offices will be packed with lawmakers' relatives, friends, constituents and lobbyists, all invited to celebrate the new Congress. ‪

The Last Man Standing
Because he refused to hate
Salman Taseer buried in Pakistan amid tight security
The slain governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was buried in Lahore this morning amid tight security as Pakistanis struggled to come to terms with a killing that exposed a vein of deep-rooted extremism that has infected even the senior security forces.

Mourners crowded into the sweeping grounds of the colonial-era governor's residence in central Lahore for prayers before Taseer's body was flown by helicopter to a nearby graveyard. Taseer's three sons and a small crowd of mourners tossed rose petals over his coffin, watched by Punjab Rangers in fantail turbans who delivered a military salute.

Who Do You Love? Kim Jong-il

The small corner of Tokyo that is forever Pyongyang
North Korea's red, white, and blue flag flutters on the campus, signs are written in Hangul, and female students stroll through the corridors wearing the traditional jeogori costume. Professors lecture beneath iconic portraits of the father-and-son hereditary dictatorship that has run the reclusive Stalinist state since 1948.

Roughly 800 miles from Pyongyang, in Tokyo's leafy western suburbs, Korea University is an anomaly, an intellectual oasis in a society that distrusts and even despises the ethnic group it caters for: Koreans loyal to Pyongyang.

I'm AN Elected Official So I'm Better Than You

Backlash against perks for EU officials
Fury over soaring EU spending and a 3.7 per cent pay rise for Eurocrats last year, the best paid politicians in the Western world, has spread to pro-European federalist countries such as Germany as painful national austerity measures hit voters.
Despite being paid six figure salaries, 1,962 of EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join a "flexitime" scheme, originally meant for lower paid secretarial staff, that gives an extra 24 days off work every year for those that put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office.

Remember Suing In The U.S. Is The Only Way To Solve Problems

US firms sue Toyota for defects
Seven insurance firms in the US have filed lawsuits against Toyota, the Japan-based world's largest automaker, over payouts made after alleged car defaults caused crashes.

The firms' move on Thursday at Los Angeles County Superior Court follows Allstate Insurance Co suing Toyota last year after claims made when Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a US federal agency, is investigating up to 89 deaths since 2000 that may have links to faulty acceleration in Toyota-made vehicles. The government, however, has confirmed only five deaths from two crashes.

Freedom Of The Press Everywhere But In China

State censorship a fact of life for China's 2,200 newspapers
Many titles try to push the envelope on social issues but it can be a dangerous game, writes Clifford Coonan

CHINA IS the world’s biggest newspaper-reading nation, and while readership may be shrinking in many western countries, the number of newspapers sold in 2010 in China is expected to exceed 50 billion – a 13.9 per cent year-on-year increase.

Of the top 100 daily newspapers in the world, 25 of them were mainland Chinese.