Six In The Morning

US Congress agrees last-minute budget deal
Republicans and Democrats have reached a deal on the US budget, an hour before a deadline that would have forced the government to close many services.
The BBC 9 April 2011
They have passed a stop-gap spending bill which will allow the government to keep running while the wider budget plan is finalised.

The parties have agreed to slash about $38bn (£23bn) from spending for the year until 30 September.

President Barack Obama said the cuts would be difficult but necessary.

"Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful," he said.

"Programmes people rely on will be cut back. Needed infrastructure projects will be delayed. And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances."

France vows 'strong response' as Gbagbo launches fresh attack
Ambassador's residence targeted as UN says pariah's forces have made significant gains
By Daniel Howden in Abidjan Saturday, 9 April 2011
The battle for Abidjan escalated last night as forces loyal to international pariah Laurent Gbagbo fired on the French ambassador's residence.

It was unclear if there had been any casualties, but French military sources vowed a "strong response". Attack helicopters were seen leaving the French base soon after the mortar and rocket attack, which was the strongest attempt yet by Mr Gbagbo to force former colonial power France into a fight which would rally Ivorian nationalists.

Claims from the UN that Gbagbo's forces had regained the highly important areas of Plateau and Cocody were unconfirmed.

Pyongyang propaganda with a light touch in Indonesia

Tom Allard April 9, 2011
JAKARTA: After the craziness of Jakarta's early evening traffic, the ambience is oddly calming, an ersatz oasis from the barely contained chaos outside.

Synthetic ivy and orange blossoms climb walls adorned with paintings of Korean landscapes, silk flowers fill the vases and the karaoke machine pumps out hits as the dinner crowd fills Pyongyang, an incongruous outpost of North Korean culture and cuisine in the steaming, teeming streets of the Indonesian capital.

Nation mourns with boy who lost his parents

BY KUNIAKI NISHIO STAFF WRITER 2011/04/09
Immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, 9-year-old Toshihito Aisawa's father, Kazuyuki, jumped in the car and raced to pick him up at his school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Along with his wife, Noriko, Toshito's grandmother Kyoko and two cousins all packed into the car, Kazuyuki tried to outrace the approaching tsunami.

He lost the race.

Toshihito got out of the car by breaking a window before losing consciousness. When he came to on a pile of scrap lumber, all his loved ones were gone.

A local barber took the third-grader into his home.

Need to scrub your conscience? Tweet

SATISH NANDGAONKAR
If you have a conscience and want to wash it in public, you need not march to the Anna Hazare Town Square in your city. Just tweet it, as long as your conscience can be squeezed into 140 characters.

You will then be rubbing digital shoulders with such luminaries as Lalit K. Modi, Riteish Deshmukh and countless others who usually fall in that amorphous species called celebrities.

Twitterworld is now crawling with such corruption-busters, all riding Anna piggyback. But scratch a few tweets and the real message tumbles out, at least in the IPL founder’s case.

Red Sox-Yankees series highlights globalization of baseball
When the Red Sox and Yankees kicked off a three-game series today at Fenway Park in Boston, 14 of the 50 players were foreign-born, representing a game that is rapidly globalizing.
By Ezra Fieser, Correspondent / April 8, 2011
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
When the Red Sox and Yankees met for the first time this season today at Fenway Park, the greatest rivalry in America’s pastime had a decidedly foreign flavor.
Fourteen of the 50 players on the field or in reserve were born outside of the United States, including Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, better known as “Big Papi” in his native Dominican Republic, and the Yankees’ Panamanian closer Mariano Rivera.

They are stars that represent the changing face of a game that once barred blacks but is now rapidly globalizing. From Australians to Venezuelans, a total of 234 foreigners – 27.7 percent of all players – graced opening day rosters this year, according to Major League Baseball statistics. The New York Yankees, with 16 foreign-born players, are the most international team in baseball.