Chinese Entities World’s Biggest Economic Spies
The Pentagon said on Friday it believes China spent up to $ 180 billion on its military buildup last year, a far higher figure than acknowledged by Beijing, and it accused “Chinese actors” of being the world’s biggest perpetrators of economic espionage.
China rejected the report as irresponsible, saying the United States was spreading a “China military threat” theory.
The Pentagon, in its annual report to Congress on China’s military, flagged sustained investment last year in advanced missile technologies and cyber warfare capabilities and warned that Chinese spying threatened America’s economic security.
“Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage,” the report said.
David Helvey, acting assistant secretary for defense, stopped short of saying the Chinese government was behind cyber intrusions, and instead repeated that they were “from China.”
“As we learn more about them, we have a better understanding of the nature of the operations and that helps us to say with greater confidence that some of these are in fact coming from China,” he told reporters in a briefing on the annual report.
Analysts said espionage and aggressive acquisition of dual-use technology could accelerate China’s military modernization.
The United States could be in for a surprise in 2013-15 if “China successfully exploits it extensive cyber-espionage efforts and unveils new weapons systems that are on par with U.S. systems,” said Capital Alpha Partners LLC, a investment analysis group, in a research note on the Pentagon report.
China expressed its opposition to the report for painting its military development as a threat, saying it was for defensive purposes and not aimed at any country or target.
“China is committed to maintaining and promoting the peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia Pacific region, and even the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement. He called on the United States to halt the annual publication of the reports and do more to promote Sino-U.S. military relations.
The report was the first by the Pentagon since President Barack Obama last year launched a policy “pivot” to reinforce U.S. influence across the Asia-Pacific region, even as planned belt-tightening shrinks the size of the military in many other parts of the world.
That pivot has fanned unease in China, with some People’s Liberation Army officers calling it an effort to fence in their country and frustrate Beijing’s territorial claims. The Pentagon report identified China’s rapid development of Anti-Access/Area Denial weaponry, such as missiles targeting aircraft carriers, as a potential threat to U.S. movements in Asia.
Stealth fighter, aircraft carrier
China has advertised its long-term military ambitions with shows of new hardware, including its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet in early 2011 and its August launch of a fledgling aircraft carrier – a refitted former Soviet craft.
The Pentagon noted that some components of China’s first indigenously produced carrier may already be under construction. It said that carrier could achieve operational capability after 2015.
“China likely will build multiple aircraft carriers and associated support ships over the next decade,” it said.
It would be 2018 before China’s stealth fighter would have “operational capability,” said Helvey, citing the need to field more aircraft, integrate weapons and conduct training.
China announced in March that 2012 outlays on the PLA will reach 670.3 billion yuan for 2012 (about $ 106 billion), an 11.2 percent increase over 2011. That follows a near-unbroken string of double-digit rises across two decades.
The Pentagon suggested that China’s 2011 figure was an underestimate, noting “poor accounting transparency and China’s still incomplete transition from a command economy.”
“Using 2011 prices and exchange rates, (the U.S. Department of Defense) estimates China’s total military-related spending for 2011 ranges between $ 120 billion and $ 180 billion,” the Pentagon said.
“Some of their nuclear forces modernization occurs off-budget, some of the research and development monies that go to their defense industry we also think comes from a different budget … some of the foreign acquisitions comes from a different account as well,” said Helvey.
In contrast, U.S. lawmakers are now debating a bill seeking $ 554 billion in base defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year beginning in October and $ 88.5 billion for the Afghan war and other overseas operations.
Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as a renegade province to be recovered by force, if required, “remains the principal focus and driver of much of China’s military investment,” the report said.
Despite an ongoing improvement in China-Taiwan relations under Taipei’s Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, “China’s military shows no sign of slowing its efforts to prepare for Taiwan Strait contingencies,” said Helvey.
The report underscored the Pentagon’s desire for more steady and continuous military-to-military relations with China, noting that “this aspect continues to lag behind other aspects of the broader bilateral relationship.”
But Helvey noted that although China canceled some military exchanges after the September 2011 U.S. announcement of arms sales to Taiwan, dialogue continued and the two powers have set a “robust” schedule for 2012, which has already seen a U.S. visit by Defense Minister Liang Guanglie.
By Paul Eckert and Phil Stewart, Reuters, May 19, 2012.
G8 leaders end summit with pledge to keep Greece in eurozone
US and France succeed in putting promotion of growth at top of communique despite Germany's resistance to stimulus package
Barack Obama and the other G8 leaders wrapped up their negotiations on the European crisis at Camp David on Saturday with a pledge to keep Greece in the eurozone and to promote growth.
The communique, which had the growth promise at the top, represents a victory for Obama and the new French president, François Hollande, over German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who has resisted calls for a stimulus package.
But it may be shortlived. The communique was short in detail and Merkel could re-establish her dominance next week at an informal European meeting.
The eight leaders meeting at the US presidential retreat in Maryland issued a communique declaring in its opening paragraph: "Our imperative is to promote growth and jobs."
It added: "The global economic recovery shows signs of promise, but significant headwinds persist. Against this background, we commit to take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stresses, recognising that the right measures are not the same for each of us."
The communique was issued after almost four hours devoted to the eurozone crisis, which could have a negative impact on the US economy and Obama's re-election chances in November.
Obama favours Europeans adopting a stimulus package similar to the one he instigated in the US in 2009, as does Hollande. They both also favour keeping the eurozone intact, including Greece, though this may in the end prove difficult.
The communique said: "We welcome the ongoing discussion in Europe on how to generate growth, while maintaining a firm commitment to implement fiscal consolidation to be assessed on a structural basis. We agree on the importance of a strong and cohesive eurozone for global stability and recovery, and we affirm our interest in Greece remaining in the eurozone while respecting its commitments."
After three years of facing European leaders committed to deficit reduction, Obama has a new ally in Hollande. Speaking at Camp David, Hollande said European leaders were trying to balance the competing aims of reining in their budgets while stimulating their economies: "As President Obama noted, we need to pursue these two goals simultaneously: budgetary solvency and maximum growth."
Obama and David Cameron clashed with Merkel on Saturday, demanding she drop her G8 resistance to setting out a clear path for Europe out of its crisis. Measures resisted by the Germans included a looser monetary policy for the European Central Bank that would enable quantitative easing similar to that deployed by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.
Syrian Activist Sentenced To Death For Treason
Syrian authorities have sentenced to death for “treason” an activist who was arrested in April and “brutally tortured,” a Syrian human rights group said on Friday.
The death sentence is apparently the first to be reported since an uprising erupted last year against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has struck back by trying to crush dissent with deadly force.
Mohammed Abdelmawla al-Hariri handed the sentence by a military court where he faced charges of “high treason and contacts with foreign parties,” said the Syrian League of the Defense of Human Rights.
The League dismissed the charges as “null and void” and said that Hariri, an engineer in his late 30s arrested on April 16, was “brutally tortured” and forced to make confessions.
It said Hariri was awaiting his execution in the notorious Saydnaya prison -once identified by Amnesty International as “Syria’s black hole” as inmates have limited access to the outside world.
“He was tortured from the first day of his arrest. They broke his backbone and authorities refused to give him the proper medical care,” the League said in a statement.
The League urged Syrian authorities to scrap the death sentence against Hariri.
It also called on the international community to intervene to halt “acts of violence, killings and torture committed by the security forces and regime militias.”
Local and international rights groups have repeatedly denounced abuses in Syrian jails where they allege detainees are systematically tortured.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 25,000 Syrians are behind bars as part of the government’s crackdown on dissent, which it says has killed more than 12,000 people, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce came into effect
Syria is five weeks into a ceasefire deal – brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan – that calls for the release of political prisoners and allowing peaceful protest as a elements of a strategy to map a path out of the country’s bloodshed.
But violence has barely slowed in the country, and a U.N. truce monitoring team was caught up earlier this week in an attack in northern Idlib province that saw at least 21 people killed, and observers forced to spent a night with rebels who pledged they were protecting them.
From Al Arabiya and Agencies, May 18, 2012.
Photo: Mohammed Abdelmawla al-Hariri on Al Jazeera television.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/18/214885.html
Congressmen Seeks To “Lift” U.S. Propaganda Ban on Americans
There was a ban on propaganda? “Propaganda that was supposed to target foreigners could now be aimed at Americans, reversing a longstanding policy,” writes Michael Hastings at BuzzFeed Politics:
An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee’s official website.
The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns…
Read More on BuzzFeed Politics
Italian school hit by bomb attack
One girl killed and seven pupils injured in attack on Francesca Morvillo Falcone vocational school in Brindisi
A bomb has exploded in front of a school in the southern Italian town of Brindisi, killing one girl and injuring seven other pupils.
The device went off as students were arriving at the Francesca Morvillo Falcone vocational school at around 8am (6am GMT).
The school is named after the anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his wife, who were killed by a mafia bomb in Sicily 20 years ago this weekend.
But authorities said it was unclear if there was an organised crime link to the school blast. As yet, no one has claimed responsibility for the explosion.
Three days ago, government officials announced security was being stepped up throughout the country after a shooting that wounded a nuclear energy official, several threats against tax officials and small explosive devices sent to the offices of a tax collection agency.
In Brindisi, the local civil protection agency official Fabiano Amati said a female student had died of her wounds despite attempts to save her, and seven other injured students had been admitted to hospital. Sky TG24 TV said the victim was a 16-year-old girl.
Officials initially said the device had been left in a bin outside the Morvillo Falcone school. But the Italian news agency Ansa, reporting from Brindisi, later said the device had been placed on a low wall that rings the school.
Public high schools in Italy hold classes on Saturday mornings.
The bombing also follows a number of attacks against Italian officials and government buildings by a group of anarchists, which has prompted authorities to assign bodyguards for 550 individuals and deploy 16,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.
Austerity measures, spending cuts and new and higher taxes, all part of premier Mario Monti's plan to save Italy from succumbing to the debt crisis roiling Greece, have angered many citizens, and social tensions have increased.
Hoodie-Wearing Zuckerberg Kicks Off Facebook IPO
Mark Zuckerberg, wearing his trademark hooded sweatshirt, remotely rang the bell to open the Nasdaq Friday, marking a historic share offering for Facebook that confirms the growing importance of the social network giant.
Amid a crowd at Facebook’s California headquarters, Zuckerberg and hundreds of employees cheered as the 28-year-old co-founder rang the bell via video for the New York-based Nasdaq.
Facebook shares were to start trading later in the day in the richest-ever initial public offering for a technology firm.
Zuckerberg wore a dark hoodie, unfazed by criticism from some on Wall Street about his casual attire. And most of those on hand for the ceremony were wearing similar sweatshirts or T-shirts.
The IPO raised more than $ 16 billion, making it the richest after that of financial giant Visa in 2008, according to Renaissance Capital. The addition of a possible stock “over-allotment” could boost the total to $ 18.4 billion.
Facebook itself is selling 180 million shares and early investors in the company the remaining 241 million.
With a market value of $ 104 billion, Facebook is now among the most valuable US companies, ahead of sector giants Amazon ($ 98 billion) and Cisco ($ 89 billion), and more than twice the value of Ford Motor Co. ($ 38 billion).
But it remains behind Google ($ 203 billion) and Apple ($ 495 billion).
Facebook employees staged a software coding “hackathon” at the company’s offices in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park overnight ahead of the market opening.
Under the share plan, Zuckerberg, who began Facebook with classmates at Harvard in 2004, will hold 55.8 percent of the voting power of Facebook shares, and over 18 percent of the value of the company, which he controls through a dual class stock structure.
Wall Street and investors around the globe have been girding for a Facebook IPO frenzy over the past few days as Facebook boosted the estimated price for its shares and added to the number being offered by insiders.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said he believed that despite the large number of shares being offered, Facebook’s stock price will climb quickly.
London-based Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers said Facebook may have a hard time living up to lofty expectations but pointed out that it is “a relatively developed company which can display ‘real’ income and profit.”
“There are extremely high expectations for the company’s prospects and perhaps on that basis it deserves the punchy valuation it has been given,” the brokerage said in a note to clients.
But the brokers said Facebook faces challenges including how to make money from the growing base of mobile users.
One of the shadows hanging over Facebook is concerns over privacy.
Some 900 million people use Facebook. But when they realize their private information is being bought and sold, some don’t like it so much.
Some consumer and privacy advocates say Facebook has been too loose with user data, and hope that as a publicly traded company, it may change its tune.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly apologized for privacy lapses amid outrage from users over revelations their online activities were visible to a wide audience of advertisers and other users.
Late last year, in a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the social networking giant promised to honor users’ privacy preferences and to stop making claims about the security of personal information that are untrue.
The IPO’s net proceeds to Facebook are estimated at $ 6.4 billion. The rest of the cash goes to Facebook insiders and others who made early investments in the social network, and to cover the IPO costs.
At the heart of the debate about the wisdom of owning a piece of Facebook is how much revenue it takes in.
Revenue vaulted to $ 1.06 billion in the quarter which ended March 31 — an improvement year-over-year but down about six percent from the previous quarter.
From AFP, May 18, 2012.
FACEBOOK IPO WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!!
DAVOS – The world’s elite all agree that the Facebook IPO will be the most important world event since the invention of fire!
The world’s elite leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos said that the upcoming Facebook IPO could potential heal ALL the world’s economic and social problems.
“To me, this event is bigger than the big bang. The Facebook IPO will eliminate the need for governments, will help feed the poor and will also start us on a path to end global warming,” a prominent European leader told WWN.
“There’s never been an event as big as this in world history,” said the Prime Minister of a major Asian country.
Some of the other aspects of social networking site Facebook becoming a public company are the jobs growth and social change it represents, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the company, told CNBC Sunday.
“If this is seen as an opportunity for jobs and for people to use their work to change the world that’s what we want to be a part of,” Sandberg said at a CNBC debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Reports on Friday suggested that Facebook is preparing to announce an initial public offering Wednesday. The listing is the most anticipated of the decade and could raise up to $ 100 billion for the company, founded just seven years ago by Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg.
Since then, it has gained billions of users and was credited with helping people organize the protests which became known as the Arab Spring, along with site Twitter.
“We need social networks in emerging markets and authoritarian regimes,” Alejandro Ramirez, chief executive of Cineopolis told the audience. “We saw what happened in the Arab Spring – they can empower the common citizen and become a powerful tool to liberate populations.”
Sandberg warned that even liberal Western governments are attempting to limit the power of social networks. The growth of Facebook, Twitter and file-sharing internet companies has caused alarm over potential violations of intellectual property.
“The new digital divide is the difference between people who have access to free internet and people whose access is closed,” she said.
The world is looking for economic growth – the kind of economic growth that feeds a billion people and that employs people all around the world. And the world’s elite feel that the Facebook IPO will do this – and more.
“World history will be broken down to BF (before Facebook) and AF (after Facebook),” a top U.S. Treasury Department executive told WWN.
How does this affect Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to end Facebook on March 15th, 2012.
“The world will be changed in February, and Mark’s work will be done. There will be no need for Facebook, we will all be living on a higher plane.”
One world leader put it this way, “Facebook is bigger than Jesus.”
Let the healing begin…
TIGER BACK WITH ELIN
ORLANDO – The Saga of Tiger and Elin gets weirder. Exactly one year after the “incident”, they are getting back together.
Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren’s marriage has had many twists and turns. But even their divorce attorneys were shocked to learn that they were recently spotted kissing while out in their Orlando neighborhood.
There are rumors that Elin has agreed to move back in with her cheating husband. And the reconciled spouses are not being bashful about showing their love for one another.
An eyewitness, Janet Thompon, told reporters, “They were hugging and they were kissing right out in the open. Elin is certainly a lot more relaxed these days and so is he.”
Another inside source added “People in the neighborhood are getting used to seeing them together again. Perhaps they’ll make it after all.”
Photo taken May 14, 2012
A little Tiger-Elin history.
Elin and Tiger met in 2001 at the British Open at Royal Lytham in England. Elin was working as an au pair to Jesper Parnevik, a Swedish golfer. On November 25, 2003, Tiger (27) proposed to Elin (23) in the South African Shamwari Game Reserve while they were on a romantic walk at sunset. They were there for a safari vacation and slept under the stars after the Presidents Cup.
On October 5, 2004 they were married. The ceremony itself was simple although the rest of the wedding preparations were elaborate and expensive. 500 red roses were imported for the wedding.
Their sunset wedding was held under a white-netted pagoda decorated with red roses on the 19th hole of the Sandy Lane Golf Resort in Barbados. Reportedly, Rev. Ricky Kirton was the officiant at their wedding. The exclusive resort is located on the west coast of the Caribbean locale. The wedding reportedly cost between $ 1.5 million — $ 2 million.
February1 19, 2010. Woods makes first appearance since the scandal broke, apologizing for “selfish and irresponsible” behavior in a statement televised around the world.
On August 23, 2010 Tiger and Elin are officially divorced. Exactly one month later, it appears they are together again.
They have two children: Sam Alexis Woods: Born 2007 and Charlie Axel Woods: Born 2009.
Maybe he realized he’s not going to do much better than the beautiful Elin:
Tsipras: ‘war between people and capitalism’
Greece's eurozone fate may now be in the hands of the 37-year-old political firebrand and his Syriza party
"I don't believe in heroes or saviours," says Alexis Tsipras, "but I do believe in fighting for rights … no one has the right to reduce a proud people to such a state of wretchedness and indignity."
The man who holds the fate of the euro in his hands – as the leader of the Greek party willing to tear up the country's €130bn (£100bn) bailout agreement – says Greece is on the frontline of a war that is engulfing Europe.
A long bombardment of "neo-liberal shock" – draconian tax rises and remorseless spending cuts – has left immense collateral damage. "We have never been in such a bad place," he says, sleeves rolled up, staring hard into the middle distance, from behind the desk that he shares in his small parliamentary office. "After two and a half years of catastrophe Greeks, are on their knees. The social state has collapsed, one in two youngsters is out of work, there are people leaving en masse, the climate psychologically is one of pessimism, depression, mass suicides."
But while exhausted and battle weary, the nation at the forefront of Europe's escalating debt crisis and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is also hardened. And, increasingly, they are looking towards Tsipras to lead their fight.
"Defeat is the battle that isn't waged," says the young politician who almost overnight has seen his radical left coalition party, Syriza, jump from representing fewer than 5% of Greeks to enjoying ratings of more than 25% in polls.
"You ask me if I am afraid. I'd be afraid if we continued on this path, a path to social hell … when someone fights there is a big chance that he will win and we are fighting this to win."
Before Greeks went to the polls on 6 May, neither Tsipras nor his party were a name to be reckoned with. If anything both were the butt of vague mockery: a former pony-tailed student communist leading a rag-tag band of ex-Trotskyists, Maoists, champagne socialists and greens. Tsipras's assistants – wielding Louis Vuitton bags and fashionable sunglasses – readily admit they are signed up "militants" mostly of the anti-globalisation cause.
But today I am the third person to pass through Tsipras's second-floor parliamentary office. The others have been the German ambassador to Greece and the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz. As Greeks prepare to head to the polls again on 17 June, Tsipras, the politician poised to win the greatest number of votes – after Syriza came in second place in this month's inconclusive election – is the man everyone wants to see. "He is not as dangerous as he appears on TV, but he does have some risky positions," says Schulz emerging form the talks.
"The [upcoming] vote in Greece will decide not just what happens here but what will happen internationally", adds the German before saying what he really wants to say. "If the memorandum [loan agreement] is cast in doubt, the payment [of rescue funds from the EU and IMF] to Greece is cast in doubt."
Tsipras, who turns 38 in July, wants me to know that the war is not personal. The enemy is not Berlin, until now the biggest provider of the monumental rescue funds keeping the debt-stricken economy afloat. "It is not between nations and peoples," he says. "On the one side there are workers and a majority of people and on the other are global capitalists, bankers, profiteers on stock exchanges, the big funds. It's a war between peoples and capitalism … and as in each war what happens on the frontline defines the battle. It will be decisive for the war elsewhere."
Greece, he says, has become a model for the rest of Europe because it was the first country to fall victim to the enforcement of hard-hitting "growth through austerity" policies pursued in the name of resolving the crisis.
"It was chosen as the experiment for the enforcement of neo-liberal shock [policies] and Greek people were the guinea pigs," he insists.
"If the experiment continues, it will be considered successful and the policies will be applied in other countries. That's why it is so important to stop the experiment. It will not just be a victory for Greece but for all of Europe."
Under the current rescue plan, which has subjected the nation to relentless austerity – the average Greek's purchasing power has dropped by 35% – the international financial system, and especially banks, are gaining most, he says. "Who is surviving, tell me?" he asks. "Greeks aren't … The loans are going straight to interest payment and banks."
The other point that Tsipras wants to make is that he is not against the euro or monetary union. Fears that the country is about to exit the eurozone are about terrorising people to keep the status quo, he claims. They are why the nation has seen "more then €75bn" of cash taken out of Greek banks since the outbreak of the crisis in Athens in December 2009.
But Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, should know she has "a huge historical responsibility" – a point he will be making when he holds talks with representatives of the German government in Berlin next week.
"We are not against a unified Europe or monetary union," he insists. "We don't want to blackmail, we want to persuade our European partners that the way that has been chosen to confront Greece is totally counter-productive. It is like throwing money at a bottomless pit."
Over the past two years, Athens had received two bumper bailouts from the EU and IMF: €110bn in May 2010 and then €130bn in March this year, but the stringent fiscal adjustment programmes demanded in return for the aid are clearly not working, he says.
If the emphasis is not now put on re-energising Europe's most moribund economy through development and growth, "in six months we will be forced to discuss a third package and after that a fourth," he predicts,
"European tax payers should know that if they are giving money to Greece, it should have an effect … it should go towards investments and underwriting growth so that the Greek debt problem can be confronted because with this recipe we are not confronting the debt problem, the real issue."
All this sounds remarkably toned down from the fiery rhetoric Tsipras has come to be associated with – until, that is, the mention of rescue funds drying up if (as seems likely) his party emerges as the governing force in a hung parliament.
The first thing Syriza will do in power is tear up the controversial "memorandum of understanding" Greece signed up to with creditors, which details the onerous conditions under which the country receives quarterly injections of cash.
The agreement, he says, was reached without the Greek people ever being consulted. And now in the wake of the 6 May vote, when more than 70% of those opposing the policies voted for "anti-bailout" parties, it is clear it has lost all legitimacy, he insists
It is a high stakes game but, he argues, Europe is holding the gun because ultimately, under European law, Greece can't be ejected from the 17-nation bloc.
"Europeans have to understand that we don't have any intention of pushing ahead with a unilateral move. We will [only] be forced to act if they act unilaterally and make the first move," he says. "If they don't pay us, if they stop the financing [of loans] then we will not be able to pay creditors. What I am saying is very simple."
And if Athens stops paying its creditors, the problem then takes on a different hue. Greece is in a much stronger position than most think.
"Keynes said it many years ago. It's not just the person who borrows but the person who lends who can find himself in a difficult position. If you owe £5,000 to the bank, it's your problem but if you owe £500,000, it's the bank's problem," he said. "This is a common problem. It's our problem. Its Merkel's problem. It's a European problem. Its a world problem."
With his good looks, raven black hair and propensity for rousing oratory, Tsipras comes across more as a pin-up (which is how many in Greece see him) than a saviour, which is how a great deal of others see him.
His aides add in passing that one of his heroes is Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, with whom he shares the same birthday. Nor does he believe in political tags "at this time of crisis".
But though he appears to be preparing for power and moderating his tone, he says the war will continue.
WORLD’S BEST BEER
Pliny the Younger Beer, a triple India Pale Ale made by the Russian River Brewing Co., is the best beer in the world, according to BeerAdvocate.com.
Pliny the Younger beer has a perfect BeerAdvocate.com score of 100, which puts it in the “world-class” range, reserved for beers that score between 95 and 100.
Pliny The Younger beer has an average user rating of 4.68 out of a possible five. It’s received more than 723 reviews on BeerAdvocate.
BeerAdvocate user hophead247 was one of the reviewers to give Pliny the Younger beer a perfect five out of five on look, smell, taste, feel and overall score.
“Poured from a tap into a 4 ounce taster glass…Finally had my chance to taste The Younger, and oh my GOD, what a day to remember,” hophead247 gushed. “The smell was of fresh hops…citrusy and crisp. One word describes the taste…PHENOMENAL!! … It’s definitely not one to chug, but to savor, for this is one ale that people will remember for years to come.”
BeerAdvocate user NolanGTI also raved about Pliny the Younger.
“I am not into overhyped beers, but PtY really is as strong as the reviews indicate. Straight 5′s fromm me.,” they said. “Trade for it, beg for it, travel for it. Just make sure you try it before you die.”
Never heard of Pliny the Younger beer before? Here’s what you need to know, courtesy of the website of the maker of Pliny the Younger:
1. Brewed by the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, Calif.
2. Alcohol by volume: 10 percent.
3. Color: Copper
4. Bitterness: Medium.
5. Backstory: The brew is a descendant of Pliny the Elder, the Russian River Brewing Company’s double Indian pale ale.
“Pliny the Younger, the man, was Pliny the Elder’s nephew and adopted son. They lived nearly 2,000 years ago! Pliny the Elder is our Double IPA, so we felt it was fitting to name our Triple IPA after his son. It is almost a true Triple IPA with triple the amount of hops as a regular I.P.A.,” the Russian River Brewing Company says on its website. “That said, it is extremely difficult, time and space consuming, and very expensive to make. And that is why we don’t make it more often! This beer is very full-bodied with tons of hop character in the nose and throughout. It is also deceptively well-balanced and smooth.”
ibTimes
