Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilentZ who wrote (265278)	12/20/2005 11:43:32 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576421

>And second, what happens if Sharon dies in the next few months or is incapacitated? You and I both know he's not well. Someone from Kadima or one of its partners in the coalition would take over. And you think that this person will be popular enough to neutralize Netanyahu. I don't know........we'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile: Sharon leaves hospital, ignoring orders to diet Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, left hospital today saying he is in a hurry to get back to work after suffering a mild stroke on Sunday evening. The 77-year-old politician, who has weight problems, said he was fit enough to go straight back to the office. Aides said that they had not yet discussed with him his doctors’ orders to go on a diet. Sharon returned to the fray a few hours after his rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, won the race to replace him as head of the right wing Likud Party. Sharon quit Likud last month because party hardliners resisted his plans for a peace deal with the Palestinians. continued............ timesonline.co.uk

To: SilentZ who wrote (265278)	12/21/2005 1:51:46 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576421

Bolivian leader inspires hope, U.S. worry By Jack Chang and Bill Faries COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — Supporters of leftist leader Evo Morales hoped his apparent victory as president will end more than two years of social strife, but the U.S. government is concerned about Morales' plan to legalize coca, the raw ingredient used to make cocaine. A survey of 1,250 polling sites showed Morales won 51 percent of the national vote in the election Sunday. If the official results prove this correct, Morales will be the first Bolivian president to win a majority of votes since democracy returned to the country 23 years ago. He'll also be the country's first indigenous president. As of Monday night, official election results hadn't been released. Morales' main challenger, former President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, won 31 percent of the vote, according to the survey, and he conceded defeat Sunday night, saying the country should "look to the future with peace, tranquility and harmony among all Bolivians." With 33 percent of polling sites reporting Monday night, Morales had 48.3 percent and Quiroga had 34.5 percent. If no one gets a majority of the vote, Congress would pick from the top two finishers. It's expected that legislators would choose Morales. Morales said Monday that the results showed Bolivians overwhelmingly supported his proposals. Morales has said Bolivia should exert more control over its natural-gas reserves, South America's second-largest, and legalize the cultivation of coca. The U.S. gives $150 million a year in aid to Bolivia, South America's poorest country. A former coca grower, Morales helped lead often violent opposition to eradication campaigns during the 1990s. He's argued that the crop should be legalized because it has medicinal and other non-narcotic uses. Bolivia is the world's third-biggest producer of coca leaf, after Colombia and Peru. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN that if it's confirmed that Morales won the election, "we will do what we do with every elected government, which is to say that we'll look to the behaviors of the Bolivian government to determine the course of U.S.-Bolivian relations." Rice didn't directly answer a question about Morales' plans to legalize coca. However, U.S. officials have expressed concerns that Morales would depart from Bolivia's eradication of coca crops. "This is the major U.S. concern about Morales," said Jeff Vogt, senior associate for rights and development with the liberal think tank the Washington Office on Latin America. The United States "has been engaged in the drug war in the Andean region for more than a decade, with poor results to show for it, but still, we don't want to see a country in the middle of the region producing all this coca." Morales' victory was a rare moment of political unity for a country that's long been crippled by a political system of weak parties and corrupt officials. In Cochabamba, a central Bolivian town, many people said the election showed the country was unified behind Morales after mass protests, some of them organized by Morales, paralyzed whole cities repeatedly since 2003. Over more than two years, civil unrest had closed down Cochabamba for weeks at a time. seattletimes.nwsource.com