Concrete today is a sophisticated structural essential that can combine accomplished curving forms with the wearing properties of stone and a distinctive esthetic.PrevNextGallery IndexImage 13 of 19Geology Guide photoPrevNext

President Bush will attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, the White House announced Thursday.

Some world leaders, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, wish reported they will not attend the rift ceremony in Beijing in response to of man rights abuses in China. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also said she will not attend the ceremony, but Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, said then he announced her decision that it was not meant as a political protest.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose country will landlord the next summer Olympics, also will not attend the commencing ceremony further plans to be at the closing ceremony.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution in April urging China to end its crackdown on Tibet and free nonviolent protesters imprisoned there. And a handful of senators, including quondam presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton, sent President Bush a letter urging him not to attend the opening ceremony, saying that "if the Chinese government is ever to treat its people with basic full of heart rights, it must be sent a bold and clear notice."

Since the pronunciamento that Beijing will host the games, human rights activists get decried the International Olympic Committee’s decision. They say the games will cater an between nations public-relations platform for a Chinese government that denies its citizens basic human rights and has enforced a crackdown in Tibet, what one. napping its independence to China in 1951, more than anti-Beijing demonstrations in that place.

Opponents of a boycott have argued that staying away from the games would only hurt Chinese citizens who have no control over their leaders.

Bush will likewise visit South Korea and Thailand as part of his August commit an offence to Asia, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement issued Thursday.

"In China, the president looks forward to seeing President Hu (Jintao) and other senior Chinese leaders for discussions on a vast range of issues, including the way ahead on North Korean denuclearization," she said.

PrevNextGallery IndexImage 6 of 18 New Line CinemaBrendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson in the movie “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”PrevNext

September 1, 1981: The scene: Bob Woods’s dressing room off the regular of ABC’s ONE LIFE TO LIVE. Just a small in number moments before, Bob had gone end an emotional, dramatic confrontation with his on-camera parent, Asa Buchanan (played by Phil Carey). Bo Buchanan had stood up, once again, to the demands of his predictably foreboding and forbidding father. The act of Bo’s defiance was the pivot on which the tightly-written, tension-filled scene turned. When the camera’s red light winked off, both men clapped each other on the back in that ages-old sign of interchangeable masculine affection that must have started with our hereditary cavemen at the end of a successful chase.

Now, it was Bob’s lunch break and a occasion for us to converse. Of pursue, the scene that Bob had blameless done was part of the converse. We chatted about the fact that on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, the viewer is often treated to some pretty graphic dramatic renditions of how men react to, and with each other as they face situations, which are unique male. Bob agreed that for an doer, "it’s really a comfort to labor on a pretence the sort of one. doesn’t slight that men exist."

Bob began unwrapping a foil-covered sandwich. Then, with only half layers removed, he put the sandwich back down on the table near his chair. He leaned help forward, directing his fixed look right at the tape registrar between us. His eyes focused on it as grant that he were trying to assess the surest, shortest place along the side of of communication betwixt the machine and what he was going to say next. A boyishly bashful smile lit up his part. He leaned back in his chair, tucking his legs into the sort of might be describe as a quasi-cross-legged, and potentially "Lotus" position that should simply be attempted by those whose ligaments won’t need the benefits of liniment therapy in the rear of they try to straighten up.

"That word — forgetting — made me remember," Bob said. "Well, indeed, I’ve been remembering for a long time. But final March, on my birthday, I got to opinion about where I was exactly ten years near the front of. I was in Australia in March 1971, on leave. I was distilling vessel in the throng; stop in the Green Berets, and this people was still involved in the Viet Nam War. Like a hazard of other men who were in Viet Nam with me, we often thought about what would happen when we got home. That is, if we were lucky enough to survive and get home.

"Well," he continued, "as you can see, I was one of those lucky ones. I’ve been grateful. But I don’t take my luck with regard to granted. And I don’t cease to care for those who didn’t make it dwelling, or those who didn’t make it home in quite the sort condition I did. I’m lucky," he repeated, "and I know it."

Just a few months ago, the 52 former hostages returned from Iran. People liked parade routes for mile correct to get a glimpse of those brave Americans. Politicians gave away many "keys to the incorporated town." We wondered how Bob and other Viet Nam veterans felt when they watched this massive outflow of affection between the Americans who waited at home and the Americans who came home.

"Many of us," Bob noted, "felt more aware at that time than almost any other time, exactly how we had been treated ten years ago and how many of us are still being treated now. And some veterans spoke up about it. But first, it’s important to emphasize here that all of us were happy about the way the country turned public to welcome the former hostages abiding-place. Those people deserved every human being of the glories received. If I had my second nature, and I discern a parcel of the other veterans feel the same about it, those former hostages would acquire gotten even more parades and parties. After altogether," he continued, "the veteran of Viet Nam knows firsthand how important it is to be welcomed domicile and made to feel wanted. We didn’t comprehend how important it is, because we didn’t get it! And because we didn’t get it, we discern — firsthand — how difficult it was to readjust to life at home.

"You see," Bob Woods said, "things rustic on’t stay the same. When you’re away, time freezes excepting that in your imagination. No one and nothing back home remains quite the way they were when you left. You only think you’re going in the rear to the way things were. But when you do get home, you’re in for the inevitable surprise. For some, it’s a disappointment. But for everyone, it’s different. Well," he said by a smile, "the fact is that not only are they changed, but you are, too. Only you don’t realize how much you’ve changed," he added, his smile gone now, "to the particular period at what time you try to fit hindmost in and make known that you’re really one ‘outsider’ now.

"That’s why parades are important. They’re like a cushion that helps you make the re-entry a less difficult the same. But many of us not only didn’t have parades when we came back, many of us practically had to ‘mean fellow’ into our own country when the war was very. Why? Because the country was at this moment ashamed of the war, and because the country couldn’t face up to admitting that it was ashamed. So, of course, it handled that shame by ignoring the men it had sent to fight that war.

"It’s worse than forgetting," he said in a voice that was suddenly louder and stronger and angrier. "Do you discern what it really is? It’s pretense. It’s pretending the war didn’t happen; that we didn’t lose it and that we didn’t fight it and that it was never section of our history. The only way to make sure that the pretense works, of course, is to pretend in that place are no veterans of the war who could mayhap remind us about it. Already I’m aware of how readily the logomachy — Viet Nam — have faded from our consciousness. Kids who are since adolescents will tell me they know practically nothing about it, although people of us were and nothing else about their age when we went in. Those same kids know more about World War II and Korea than they do about Viet Nam, which took fortified post in their own lifetimes.

"Maybe," Bob continued," if the country had had the courage it likes to believe its soldiers have, there would be fewer problems among numerous company vets of Viet Nam today. A lot of them can’t get the same help veterans of other wards could. Sure, maybe the same facilities are there. But you know something?" he asked, "if the country is ashamed of you, how are you going to be able to invite for help when you require it? Shame," he added, "is seizure."

Yet, Bob appeared to have come through his re-entry favorably!? "As I said," he nodded, "I’m lucky. I came rear a different man, but my wife, Loyita [Loyita Chapel, ex-Judy, YOUNG AND RESTLESS) helped me. So did my family. As did my friends. Still, it can be a matter of luck in spite of the help. Loyita told me I had changed, and that I was different. We’d known each other since we were kids. When I came outer part from Viet Nam, I thought she’d changed also. But not in the same way I had. I look that now. Her change was party of a indigenous, normal growth and, I venture to say, a maturity that people normally be reckoned from one side. In a war situation, however, you mature at a deviating rate and, maybe, in a different direction.

>> Continue here for part two of this Interview, more, Woods’s Professional Credits List and Photo Gallery! >>>>>

©

This hummus recipe is perfect for those who like hummus, but not with tahini. Many children put on’t like tahini, thus this is a great recipe to make for them.
More hummus recipes Prep Time: 10 minutesIngredients:1 be possible to garbanzo beans/chickepeas1/4 cup olivaceous oil1 tablespoon lemon juice1 teaspoon cuminPreparation: In a nourishment processor, combine all ingredients together until smooth and creamy.

Serve immediately with pita bread, pita chips, or veggies.

Store in a airtight container for up to three days.

Pop princess Kylie Minogue mingled with true royalty when she went to Buckingham Palace to receive an award from Prince Charles.

The 40-year-old singer, wearing a white dress with multi-colored sequined stars, smiled as the prince gave her any OBE, or Order of the British Empire, Thursday in the place of her services to music.

Queen Elizabeth had announced the award in December.

Minogue is Australian but can obtain the full adjudge because the country is a constituent of the British Commonwealth.

Though little known in the U.S., Minogue is an between nations superstar widely recognized in a circle the world. She has sold more than 60 million records worldwide in a harmony active life spanning 20 years.

She released her before anything else single, "Locomotion," in 1987 and has since released nine studio albums and 43 singles. She holds the record for the most-played female artist on UK radio in the past 20 years, according to her Web site.

She joined Bob Geldof, Bananarama and other artists to sing on Band Aid II’s 1989 re-recording of "Do They Know it’s Christmas" to raise money for the sake of Ethiopia.

Minogue started her career as an actress, making her name in the hit Australian soap opera "Neighbours." She has since appeared in several films.

Her dance record "Spinning Around," released in 2000, debuted at No. 1 in the one and the other Britain and Australia and made Minogue one of excepting that two artists — the other being Madonna — to be under the necessity a No. 1 song in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, according to her Web site.

Minogue was diagnosed by early-stage breast cancer in 2005 and took more than a year off from touring to produce a successful recovery.

NEW YORK Brian McNamee asked a federal pay one’s addresses to late Wednesday to cashier Roger Clemens’ defamation suit in law or rouse the case to New York.

Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, sued McNamee in January after his former trainer accused him in the Mitchell Report of using steroids and human growth hormone. The case originally was filed in Texas state court and was shifted in February to the U.S. District Court in Houston.

McNamee’s lawyers first tried to dismiss the sheathe in early March. When Clemens’ lawyers responded on May 27, they added a new right of “premeditated punishment of emotional distress” and brace additional claims of defamation.

In their latest filing, McNamee’s lawyers said New York has the most interest in this lawsuit and that many of the in posse witnesses abide in New York. McNamee claims no defamation took place and that it would be a burden for him to defend the case in Texas.

“Mr. Clemens has so far pitched around Senator Mitchell, choosing not to sue him or Major League Baseball,” McNamee’s lawyer before-mentioned in the motion.

McNamee’s lawyers also uttered that because of the Texas statute of limitations, Clemens be able to’t claim he was defamed through comments the trainer made to Andy Pettitte, Clemens’ teammate, in 1999 or 2000, and 2003 or 2004.

McNamee said Clemens should have known as early because 2006 that McNamee and Pettitte believed Clemens used performance-enhancing drugs. Included in the filing was any e-mail from McNamee to Clemens from Oct. 1, 2006, which said that if Clemens thought “anything to do through me in regards to being a rat or flipping on you or anyone of my clients, I will hop on a even, find you, and slap you very hard.”

“In the end, Mr. Clemens cannot get the upper hand because Mr. McNamee has the absolute defense of fact,” McNamee’s motion related. “Mr. McNamee has provided steroid paraphernalia, which will test veritable for Clemens’s DNA, to the federal government, and once the DNA results are revealed there will be little dispute about who is telling the truth.”

McNamee also claims that he is immune from detraction on this account that he made his comments to Mitchell at the behest of founded on prosecutors.

In an interesting twist, McNamee said his statements weren’t defamatory because he didn’t accuse Clemens of doing anything wrong. He accused Clemens of using performance-enhancing drugs before players and owners agreed to ban them following the 2002 season.

“It is not per se contemptible or dishonest to be injected with steroids or HGH,” McNamee’s motion said. “Clemens is asking this court to infer that McNamee stated that Mr. Clemens cheated by knowingly using steroids and HGH to improve his pitching performance.”

McNamee’s motion in addition mentions that a dissolve the marriage of is pending with his wife and says that Clemens’ quondam New York doorman could be called to the degree that a witness along with Angela Moyer, a bartender whom the Daily News linked to Clemens.

In an accompanying affirmation, McNamee said he earned only about $3,000 between January and June.

"We're strong dollar populate in this administration, and have always been in the place of a strong dollar, and believe that the particular strengths of our economy desire ponder that," Bush told reporters at a news discourse ahead of his trip to Japan for a meeting of the Group of Eight rich nations.

Inflation is expected to be high on the G8 agenda next week. Some countries have blamed the weak dollar in part for pushing up prices of oil and other produce.

In an conference with Japanese reporters that Reuters attended, Bush said he had heard concerns in Europe about the dollar during a trip last month. "I heard concern on the eve our dollar and I believe they support the U.S. strong dollar policy," Bush said.

Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have repeatedly expressed their belief in a strong dollar, without more to see the currency grow dim. The euro hit a two-month high against the dollar on Wednesday.

"The best way to reinforce our strong dollar management is to keep taxes low in the United States, content regulatory burdens, change to less dependent upon foreign sources of oil and make it clear that we're for free and fair trade," Bush told the Japanese journalists.

"To me those are the best ways to deal by the fundamental aspects of an economy that assures the world that the United States will exist a vibrant, strong economy, and that eventually disposition be reflected in our circulation," he added.

At his news conference, Bush said he would also assure leaders of other nations that the United States believed in free trade, and said he was committed to reaching a deal on the Doha Round of employment talks by dint of. the end of the year.

"We're not going to become protectionist," he said. "We give credit to in free trade and open markets."

(Reporting by Emily Kaiser and Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Dan Grebler)

He is one of the lucky ones, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based making dedicated to exonerating amiss. convicted canaille.

DNA testing allows crime laboratories to present a resemblance genetic evidence at a crime view, similar as semen, with the DNA of a suspect.

Some 218 people have been exonerated in the United States using DNA since the technique was first used to overturn convictions in 1989.

But for many others, the evidence has either been lost or simply was not preserved, the Innocence Project says.

Only 25 of America's 50 states and Washington have legislation compelling authorities to preserve evidence of old cases. Even where such laws exist, they are often inadequate, while storage procedures and facilities are distressed.

"In New York City we have around 20 cases we are working on where the evidence simply cannot have existence located. It's unavailable to us for testing and we don't know on the supposition that it is lost or if it has been destroyed," said Rebecca Brown, a policy analyst at the Innocence Project.

Waller, 52, was convicted in 1983 of sexually assaulting an adolescent boy. He spent 10 years in bridewell and for 14 years he was registered during the time that a sex offender, preventing him from visiting his nieces or going where children might be present, such as parks or basketball games.

"A dog could go where I couldn't go," Waller said in an meeting in every east Dallas coffee shop.

The jurisdiction whither Waller was convicted, Dallas County, Texas, leads the country in in the same glory cases, with 17 people cleared by DNA evidence. An 18th person was scheduled for release on July 3.

An aggressive district attorney goes a long way to explaining the number of wrongful convictions, according to Fred Moss of the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"A lot of these cases occurred inferior to the Wade administration and the culture of that office was aggressive, elevation was based on firm persuasion rates," Moss declared.

He was referring to the late Henry Wade, the Dallas District Attorney for more than 35 years, who oversaw famous cases like as the undertaking of Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the cut-throat of President John F. Kennedy.

The policy of the District Attorney's customary duty during the 1980s, when many of these trials occurred, was to "nail scalps to the wall," Moss said.

Another factor is racism in a big town in the U.S. South. Of the 17 people whose convictions were overturned on DNA make clear in Dallas County, 13 of them are dusky. Nationally, brace thirds of the 218 exonerated were wicked.

In Waller's trial, the sufferer, who is white, described an attacker much smaller than Waller, who is six feet four inches tall. Asked to identify his assailer in court, he pointed to Waller's barrister, another African American male, who was about five feet eight inches.

COAL MINE CANARY

Ironically, person of the reasons that Dallas has turned up so manifold wrongful convictions is that it preserves pertaining to physics evidence under a cunning aimed at reconvicting anyone whose conviction is overturned by an appeals court.

In other states, preserved evidence is harder since lawyers to get hold of.

In Georgia, evidence in death penal retribution cases is kept until the convict is executed, but in favor of serious felonies that do not carry the death sentence, such as rape, storage is only mandatory conducive to up to 10 years after judgment.

Louisiana and Virginia only require preservation in death penalty cases upon conviction.

"Dallas is the canary in the coal mine. It is indicative of a larger problem that is not unique to Dallas," uttered Moss.

With in the way that many of these cases emerging and many more expected to come to light, analysts recite it stands to reason that an immaculate one may have been among the more than 1,100 convicted killers executed in the United States completely the past three decades. More than 400 of those executions have occurred in Texas.

This view is echoed by Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, who took office 18 months ago.

"There probably has been someone not just from Dallas County but from this state that was executed for a crime they didn't commit. Reason would tell us that," he told Reuters.

Watkins, Texas' earliest black DA, also said he was mindful of charges of racial bias in the distributing of justice in the past and said his employment was determined to investigate all possible cases of wrongful convincing. "We get letters each day from individuals claiming innocence," he said.

But does the use of DNA and other improvements in forensic investigations mean that the number of unfair. convictions is in decline?

The Innocence Project says tens of thousands of prime suspects have been shown by DNA testing to have been wrongly accused.

But it also says its caseload is growing and that flawed proper to courts testing, eyewitness misidentification, false confessions — and the truth that DNA is not always use — mean that the wrong people still go to prison.

For James Waller the DNA evidence came too late.

He talks about how he used to come with his wife to the same coffee shop where he now sits. She was killed in a car contingency in 2001 when she was eight months pregnant.

Choking back emotion, he said: "They took away a integral generation from me. I wanted to have kids unless never had any."

(For a FACTBOX upon exonerations, utter with a click on)

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Bruce Nichols and Eddie Evans)

President Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia has declared a category of emergency in the capital of Ulaanbaatar after a post-election political deride descended into rage.

Five family were killed and 220 were wounded in the rioting, and authorities detained more than 500 people, according to the Mongolian news agency, Montsame.

Police were blocking major arteries into the leading Wednesday after the president pendent most television broadcasts and imposed an overnight curfew, said William Infante, Mongolia director for The Asia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to bolster democratic institutions.

The demonstrators were upset about the foreseeing of a victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections through the ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, Infante said. More than 8,000 people attended the demonstration but only 200 to 300 rioted, Montsame reported.

Fire destroyed a building trappings the party headquarters, and one person internal died of smoke inhalation, the news agency said, while a Japanese reporter was seriously wounded.