MOSCOW - Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people, officials said.

Witnesses described panic at two stations, with commuters falling over each other in dense smoke and dust as they tried to escape the worst attack on the Russian capital in six years.

The head of Russia’s main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, told President Dmitry Medvedev the bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war with Chechen separatists a decade ago, vowed that “terrorists will be destroyed.”

In the wake of the explosions, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced a “heightened security presence,” NBC News reported.

The first blast just before 8 a.m. (12.00 a.m. ET) tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at the Lubyanka metro station. The explosion killed at least 23 people.

The headquarters of the FSB, Russia’s main domestic security service and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is located in a building above the station.

‘Stampede’
Another blast about 40 minutes later wrecked the second carriage of a train waiting at the Park Kultury metro station, killing 14 more people.

“I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming,” said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was waiting on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.

“I saw a dead person for the first time in my life,” said 19-year-old Valentin Popov, who also was standing on the opposite platform. “Everyone was screaming. There was a stampede at the doors. I saw one woman holding a child and pleading with people to let her through, but it was impossible.”

Surveillance camera footage posted on the Internet showed motionless bodies lying in Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers treating victims.

Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said the toll was 37 killed and 102 injured, according to Russian news agencies.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.

“The first information that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers,” he told reporters.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator ordered local airports to increase security, an official told Reuters.

President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous” attacks. “The American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism,” he added.

The Kremlin had declared victory in their battle with Chechen separatists who fought two wars with Moscow; but violence has intensified in the neighboring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, where Islamist militancy overlaps with clan rivalries and criminal rings.

‘Black Widows’
Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies with the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said a group known as the “Black Widows” may have been involved in the attack. Some “Black Widows” are believed to have lost brothers or husbands in the Chechen conflict.

“This is a direct affront to Vladimir Putin, whose entire rise to power was built on his pledge to crush the enemies of Russia,” Eyal added. “The fact of the matter is that there is very little you can do to protect against this kind of attack without shutting down the entire transport system.”

The Moscow subway system is one of the world’s busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

The blasts practically paralyzed movement on the city center’s main roads, as emergency vehicles sped to the stations. Helicopters hovered overhead the Park Kultury station area, which is next to the city’s renowned Gorky Park.

Passengers, many of them in tears, streamed out of the station, one man exclaiming over and over “This is how we live!”

The current death toll makes it the worst attack on Moscow since February 2004, when a suicide bombing killed at least 39 people and wounded more than 100 on a metro train.

Chechen separatists were blamed for that attack.

Rapid transit has increasingly become the favored means of attack for Islamist terrorists. Over the past seven years, terrorists have targeted trains and subways throughout the world, killing nearly 800 people and wounding more than 1,500.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): WATODAY

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama took aim Monday at the nation’s school dropout epidemic, proposing $900 million to states and education districts that agree to drastically change or even shutter their worst performing schools.

Obama’s move comes as many schools continue to struggle to get children to graduation, a profound problem in a rich, powerful nation. Only about 70 percent of entering high school freshmen go on to graduate. The problem affects blacks and Latinos at particularly high rates.

Obama described the crisis as one that hurts individual kids and the nation as a whole, shattering dreams and undermining an already hurting economy.

“There’s got to be a sense of accountability,” Obama said in announcing his latest get-tough school proposal at the U.S Chamber of Commerce.

The president’s plan would seek to help 5,000 of the nation’s lowest-performing schools over the next five years.

“In this kind of knowledge economy, giving up on your education and dropping out of school means not only giving up on your future, but it’s also giving up on your family’s future,” Obama said. “It’s giving up on your country.”

Obama has been pushing schools — using federal money as his leverage — to raise their standards and prod them to get more children ready for college or work. It is a task that former President George W. Bush and Congress, along with many leaders before them, have long taken on, but the challenge is steep.

Obama’s 2011 budget proposal includes $900 million for School Turnaround Grants. That money is in addition to $3.5 billion to help low-performing schools that was in last year’s economic stimulus bill.

To get a share of the new money, states and school districts must adopt one of four approaches to fix their struggling schools:

• Turnaround Model: The school district must replace the principal and at least half of the school staff, adopt a new governance structure for the school, and implement a new or revised instructional program.
• Restart Model: The school district must close and reopen the school under the management of a charter school operator, a charter management organization or an educational management organization. A restarted school would be required to enroll, within the grades it serves, former students who wish to attend.
• School Closure: The school district must close the failing school and enroll the students in other, higher-achieving schools in the district.
• Transformational Model: The school must address four areas, including teacher effectiveness, instruction, learning and teacher planning time, and operational flexibility.

The administration also is putting $50 million into dropout prevention strategies, including personalized and individual instruction and support to keep students engaged in learning, and better use of data to identify students at risk of failure and to help them with the transition to high school and college.

Obama announced his plan Monday at an education event sponsored by the America’s Promise Alliance, the youth-oriented organization founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. Obama also planned to discuss ways to better prepare students for college and careers.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): GOERIEBLOGS

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Saturday challenged Iran’s government to halt a “violent and unjust” crackdown on dissenters, using his bluntest language yet to condemn Tehran’s post-election response.

Obama has sought a measured reaction to avoid being drawn in as a meddler in Iranian affairs. Yet his comments have grown more pointed as the clashes intensified, and his latest remarks took direct aim at Iranian leaders.

“We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people,” Obama said in a written statement. “The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.”

Obama has searched for the right tone in light of political pressures on all sides. On Capitol Hill, Congress pressed him to condemn the Iranian government’s response. In Iran, the leadership was poised to blame the U.S. for interference and draw Obama in more directly.

Obama met with advisers at the White House as developments in Iran grew more ominous, with police seen beating protesters.

“Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away,” the president said, recalling a theme from the speech he gave in Cairo, Egypt, this month.

“The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government,” Obama said. “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”

Protests at White House
Obama’s comments came as protesters outside the White House waved Iranian flags and denounced Iranian government efforts to suppress the protesters.

Protesters in Iran have demanded that government cancel and rerun the June 12 elections that ended with a declaration of overwhelming victory for hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says he won and claimed widespread fraud.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there was no ballot rigging. He warned of a crackdown if protesters continued their massive street rallies.

Then on Saturday, police in Iran beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in open defiance of Iran’s clerical government. Witnesses described fierce clashes after some 3,000 protesters chanted “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to dictatorship!” in downtown Tehran.

Obama’s criticism came one day after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to condemn the actions by the Iranian government against demonstrators and moves to interfere with Internet and cell phone communications. That was seen in part as a veiled criticism of Obama’s response, too.

Responding to critics
The president already was on record as saying the United States stood behind those who were seeking justice in a peaceful way. He responded to critics that he hadn’t been forceful enough in support of protesters, telling CBS News: “The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do.”

That was Friday, before the conflict in Iran appeared to deepen.

Obama has refrained from passing final judgment on the underlying question of the legitimacy of the election itself, although he has expressed “deep concerns” about it.

The president returned Saturday to his theme that the world is watching the way the Iranian government responds.

Obama cited Martin Luther King’s statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): UPI

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.

Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president’s town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn’t get in trouble.

“Do you need me to write a note?” Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.

On a piece of paper, he wrote: “To Kennedy’s teacher: Please excuse Kennedy’s absence. She’s with me. Barack Obama.” He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note — to Kennedy’s surprise.

“I thought he was joking until he started walking down,” Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. “It was like the best thing ever.”The fourth-grader at Aldo Leopold elementary in Green Bay already knew what she was going to do with the note: frame it along with her ticket to the event. She said she’d make a copy for her teacher.

Kennedy said she had never seen Obama before. “He’s really nice,” she said.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): MSNBC

Paul and Shirly Buchkovich of Ocala Florida exercise their First Amendment rights with their Good Guys Automotive and Hercules Fence sign. They even show good faith by sending out their African American Slave to speak with the media. This is not the first time these proud Americans have spoken their mind for the world to see, here is a sign they posted in 2007:

“What has four wheels and flies? A dead cripple in a wheelchair.”

God bless America and Paul and Shirly Buchkovich too.