Jeudi 31 mars 2011

Mousa Kousa, Gaddafi's foreign minister, defects to UK

Libyan Foreign Minister, Mousa Kousa has defected to the UK claiming he can no longer represent the Gaddafi regime Photograph: MohamedBuy nike running shoes online Messara/EPA

Muammar Gaddafi's authority inside Libya suffered a significant blow when his foreign minister quit and fled to the UK in a specially arranged flight organised by the British intelligence services.

Mousa Kousa, who was one of the Libyan leader's closest allies, arrived on a chartered plane from Tunisia and said he was "no longer willing" to represent the dictator's regime.

We can confirm that Mousa Kousa arrived at Farnborough airport on 30 March from Tunisia," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

Kousa's defection provides Britain with a figure of unparalleled intelligence value in terms of understanding the situation within Gaddafi's inner circle. The move also provides a morale boost to the disorganised rebel forces who have again suffered major reverses at the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces in the past 48 hours.

The Foreign Office said last night: "He travelled here under his own free will. He has told us that he is resigning his post. We are discussing this with him and we will release further detail in due course.

"Mousa Kousa is one of the most senior figures in Gaddafi's government and his role was to represent the regime internationally – something that he is no longer willing to do."

Kousa's defection will be seen as a vindication of the coalition's efforts to intimidate key members of the regime by warning them that if they do not defect they will be taken to the international criminal court to face war crimes trials.

News of the defection first emerged after the official Tunisian news agency reported rumours that Kousa had crossed the border into Libya's western neighbour, but without any clear indication of his motives. The Libyan government, possibly misled by Mousa Kousa, insisted he had left the country on a diplomatic mission for Gaddafi, but the foreign office then disputed this account.

Britain and the US have been in regular contact with him in recent days, mainly through intelligence sources. Probably more than any other senior official inside the Libyan regime, Kousa is seen as the key figure who persuaded Gaddafi to make a deal with British intelligence agencies to stop developing weapons of mass destruction in return for the ending of its pariah status.

However, his relationship with Britain in the past has been far from convivial. Kousa has previously been seen as one of the controlling forces behind the Lockerbie bombing and it was not clear whether he was seeking political asylum.

In 1980, he was expelled from the UK and, for 15 years, he was head of Libyan foreign intelligence – including in the period of the Lockerbie bombing. He has always denied Libya was involved in the bombing.

The Foreign Office added: "We encourage those around Gaddafi to abandon him and embrace a better future for Libya that allows political transition and real reform that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people."

"He has defected from the regime," said Noman Benotman, a friend of Kousa and senior analyst at Britain's Quilliam thinktank.

"He wasn't happy at all. He doesn't support the government attacks on civilians," he said.

"He's seeking refuge in Britain and hopes he will be treated well," Benotman said.

Kousa's decision to abandon the regime came as it emerged that Barack Obama had signed a secret government order authorising covert US help to the Libyan rebels via such organisations as the CIA.

The order, known as a "finding" was signed within the last two or three weeks. The move will undoubtedly fuel speculation that the US and its allies are planning to arm the rebels. Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals

The New York Times has reported that small groups of CIA operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks gathering intelligence for military air strikes and making contacts with the rebels battling Gaddafi's forces, according to American officials. It also reported that "dozens" of British agents and special forces were also inside Libya, helping direct attacks by British aircraft.

Both sides in the Libya conflict are running short of weapons and ammunition after almost two weeks of intense fighting that has brutally exposed the military shortcomings of the rebels, the Guardian has been told.

The rebels were forced into yet another retreaton Wednesday, with Gaddafi's forces regaining much of the territory taken by the rebels at the weekend and threatening to humiliate the western coalition by again coming within striking distance of the city of Benghazi.

Concern is deepening in the coalition about the rebels' fragile morale and lack of military experience to mount a sustained challenge to the regime. A military stalemate is now a real possibility, partly as both sides are struggling to re-equip their forces.

With fighting continuing in Misrata and regime forces pushing east as far as the strategic town of Ajdabiya, the issue of rearming has become paramount.

Coalition bombing raids had helped "chop the legs off" Gaddafi's supply chain, meaning he could no longer get rockets and ammunition to the front line.

"Ammunition is going to become an issue," said a defence source. "The regime's logistics are very stretched. Their ability to move ammunition 400 to 500 miles is becoming constraining. Regime forces have been seriously degraded. But there is more to do to prevent more bloodshed, to prevent more loss of life."

While the regime is thought to be "hurting more and missing more" because many of its heavy weapons have been destroyed, the rebels could struggle to take advantage because of their own problems. They do not have a supply chain or logistical mechanisms.

Many of the rebels have not experienced being under fire before the last three weeks and there is no sign of any improvement in their fighting capability.

Though the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and British foreign secretary William Hague have hinted that arming the rebels might be allowed under the terms of the two UN resolutions, it is understood the UK has not provided any equipment so far, and there are no plans to do so. No training has been provided either.

A defence source insisted there had been "no request for ground forces" and that the coalition had "no intention" of providing them. People who had returned to Ajdabiya after it fell to the revolutionaries on Saturday again fled on Wednesday as the government's army seized two important oil towns further along the coastal highway, Ras Lanuf and Brega.

It was not immediately clear if the regime intended to try to take Ajdabiya again after air strikes last week destroyed a significant number of tanks and armoured vehicles. But the government has pressed ahead with its counteroffensive using not only the artillery that it still retains but what appears to be a larger ground force than previously deployed.

On Monday, the rebels moved within 45 miles of Sirte, the strategically and politically important birthplace of Gaddafi, and were proclaiming they would be in Tripoli before the end of the week after advancing about 200 miles in two days under the cover of the western air strikes.

But the regime's counterattack has outmanoeuvred the poorly disciplined and ill-trained rebels who barely made a stand at Brega before fleeing toward Ajdabiya. If the government were to move on Ajdabiya, that would once again open the road to Benghazi. brand shoes

The revolutionary leadership, which has called for an intensification of air strikes, said it was not concerned by the see-sawing military fortunes. "Whether we advance 50km or retreat 50km … it's a big country. They will go back the next day," said spokesman Mustafa Gheriani in Benghazi. But the situation has raised concerns that the rebels' inability to hold territory will undermine coalition commitment.

The coalition now believes it has a much clearer idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the two sides and the issues that could be crucial in the coming days and weeks. It is now thought that:

• Thousands of foreign fighters are in Libya helping to support Gaddafi and more are still coming from countries such as Chad, Niger and Mali. Many are being lured to Tripoli because Gaddafi pays them well. The foreigners, some of them migrant workers, are being used for security in urban areas, freeing up other soldiers to fight the rebels.

• Misrata has become a crucible of the fighting and is the focus of the regime's attempts to snuff out the opposition. Coalition air strikes have crushed attempts by Gaddafi's navy to blockade the city and attack it from the sea. Four Libyan vessels have been sunk, and one beached.

• Al-Qaida has a negligible presence in Libya and is not considered a factor at all in the current fighting.

• Gaddafi has no chemical weapons in any usable form. It is thought that he only has the remnants of the weapons programme that was dismantled in 2004, and coalition air strikes have targeted the Scud missiles that could have been used to deliver them.

How the conflict now develops may depend on whether Gaddafi's opponents in the west of the country are prepared to rise up against a regime that has promoted a culture of fear for the last 40 years.

That culture is thought to be most acute inside the regime itself – Gaddafi is said to hold his lieutenants, extended family, and indeed his children in a state of near perpetual conflict and fear. The default position in society is assessed to be that any resistance to Gaddafi or his regime is something only talked about in the privacy of your own home.

The scale of the deployment by UK forces has also become clear. Ten Typhoon and eight Tornado aircraft are operating out of Italy, supported by the cruise missile submarine, HMS Turbulent, which has been replaced by HMS Triumph.

Getting equipment and armaments to the Mediterranean involved 24 transport aircraft, including nine C17s and 11 Hercules aircraft, and two chartered Antonov flights for 583 military personnel. The RAF so far has undertaken 130 hours of refuelling missions, involving 500,000 litres of aviation fuel.

Par 112111473 - 1 commentaire(s)le 31 mars 2011
Mercredi 30 mars 2011

Ivory Coast Rebels Advance South

Troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of November’s presidential nike running shoes onlineelection in Ivory Coast, moved closer to Abidjan and a key cocoa-exporting port, adding to pressure on embattled incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo.

The Republican Forces seized at least five towns this week and moved to within 240 kilometers (149 miles) of Abidjan, the commercial capital, after taking the eastern town of Abengourou yesterday, said Meite Sindou, spokesman for Ouattara’s prime minister and defense minister, Guillaume Soro.

“It seems the security forces of Laurent Gbagbo refused to fight when the rebels entered the town,” said Modeste Kouao, a resident of Abengourou.

Until now, the loyalty of the army and police has proved key to Gbagbo’s ability to retain control of much of the world’s top cocoa producer. He refuses to hand power to Ouattara, alleging electoral fraud in the election on Nov. 28.

“Militarily, Gbagbo is weak,” said Rinaldo Depagne, a Dakar-based analyst for International Crisis Group. “If he wants to stay, he’s got to put all the forces he has in Abidjan and he’s got to try to stop the progression of rebels inside Abidjan. Inside the army you’ve got mass desertions and mass divisions.”

Taking Cocoa Towns

The Republican Forces have stepped up their military campaign in the past month, mainly in the western cocoa- producing region, taking the towns of Duekoue, Guiglo and Daloa in the past few days, Sindou said. Duekoue sits on a major north-south transit corridor linking the west with the port of San Pedro. cheap nike mens acg sandals

“Except in Duekoue, there was no real resistance,” Sindou said. The fighters also seized the central-west town of Zuenoula, he said late yesterday.

“We are staying hidden at home for now, but we can hear the rebels shouting for joy,” said resident Alexandre Dje Bi.

The insurgents’ advance boosted Ivory Coast’s defaulted dollar-denominated bonds to their highest in at least two months yesterday, rallying 4.2 percent to 39.875 cents on the dollar at 7:51 p.m. in London. The yield fell 31 basis points to 8.6 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Cocoa for May delivery fell to the lowest in more than two months, declining $191, or 5.9 percent, to $3,057 per metric ton at 2:57 p.m. in New York.

“Gbagbo is isolated financially, politically, and now he’s losing ground militarily,” said Drew Geraghty, buy Reebok ZigTech a commodity broker at ICAP Futures LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. “Traders are taking this as a sign that the risk premium is coming out of the market.”

Rights Violations

The Republican Forces trace their roots to an uprising of mutinous military officers in 2002, which led to the division of the country into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south. The election was meant to unify the country, which was once the second-biggest economy in West Africa.

“All parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations including unlawful killings and rape and sexual violence against women,” U.K.-based Amnesty International said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Rebels fired on and missed a United Nations helicopter that was flying over Duekoue on March 28, the UN mission in the country said in a statement.

Lass Com, a spokesman for the fighters, said troops thought the helicopter belonged to Gbagbo.

“There was a lot of confusion,” he said.

Par 112111473 - 1 commentaire(s)le 30 mars 2011
Mardi 29 mars 2011

Newt Gingrich on Libya policy

My best guess is that for the moment, at least,y nike running shoes  Gingrich kind of supports President Obama’s decision to use military force against Libyan despot Moammar Gaddafi, or at least that he hopes it succeeds. But it’s hard to be certain. On Libya, the former House speaker has shown the ability to be both pro and con with equal moral certainty and intellectual arrogance.

Why does it matter if a man known for rhetorical bomb-throwing happens to lob a few contradictory grenades? Because when Gingrich said on “Fox News Sunday” that he hopes to announce his candidacy for president within a month, nobody laughed. There’s no clear front-runner for the Republican nomination, and one has to assume that anything can happen.

In that same interview, Gingrich completed the final full twist in a “flip-flop-flip” maneuver that would have merited perfect “10s” in an Olympic diving competition — demonstrating why he should never, ever be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

Gingrich launched himself from the springboard on March 7, when Fox News host Greta Van Susteren asked what he would do about Gaddafi’s use of heavy weapons and deadly force against peaceful demonstrators.

“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening,” he replied “All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.”

His first somersault came on March 23, days after the U.N.-authorized military intervention had begun. You’d think he might applaud the operation — enforcement of a no-fly zone and attacks on Gaddafi’s armored columns, all in an attempt to protect civilians from an impending massacre — since that was what he had suggested. But you’d be wrong.

“I would not have intervened,” he told NBC’s Matt Lauer. “I would not have used American and European forces,  nike mens acg sandals bombing Arabs and that country.” The next day, he elaborated “We are not in a position to go around the world every time there’s a local problem and intervene,” he told Fox.

But then on Saturday, at an appearance in Iowa, he spun to what looked suspiciously like his original position, arguing that the United States and its allies should “defeat Gaddafi as rapidly as possible.”

Gingrich seems to be having a particularly heated argument with himself over the whole “air power” thing. On March 7, pro-intervention Newt declared: “We don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress [Gaddafi’s] air force, which we could do in minutes.” On March 24, anti-intervention Newt scoffed to Fox: “If they’re serious about protecting civilians, you can’t do that from the air. . . . This is a fundamental mistake, and I think is a typical politician’s overreliance on air power.” On March 26, defeat-Gaddafi-rapidly Newt said that vanquishing the dictator should involve “using all of Western air power as decisively as possible.”

In a rare understatement, Gingrich acknowledged Saturday that “obviously there were contradictions” in his various statements. Typically, however, he defended them all.

The fact that he had appeared to take so many sides of the issue, he claimed, was somehow Obama’s fault. Just like not intervening was Obama’s fault, intervening was Obama’s fault, and whatever the allies are doing with air power is Obama’s fault.

Obama moved painstakingly toward committing U.S. forces to the Libya intervention, first securing a U.N. mandate,Reebok ZigTech online some measure of support from Arab nations and a guarantee of meaningful involvement by our European allies. He thought about the precedent this kind of humanitarian military action might set. He tried to assess how the other beleaguered autocrats in the region might react to U.S. action or inaction.

Leave aside, for the moment, whether Obama made the right call. At least he tried. Gingrich, by contrast, reflexively shoots from the lip. On any conceivable subject, he’s always ready to tell you more than he knows. He is certain that his view is 100 percent right — until he decides it’s 100 percent wrong.

I realize his criticism of Obama from all sides of the Libya question is fundamentally a political tactic — go on the attack, make a lot of noise, attract some attention. But his cavalier recklessness on a matter of war and peace should send chills up the spine of anyone who sees the words “Newt Gingrich” and “presidential candidate” in the same sentence. Heaven help us.

Par 112111473 - 1 commentaire(s)le 29 mars 2011
Lundi 28 mars 2011

Israel deploys

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday deployed for the first time the Iron Dome anti- rocket system amid a sharp escalation of violence along the Gaza border in recent weeksnike running shoes online.

The system's first battery was positioned on the northern outskirts of Beer Sheva, a desert city hit by three Grad-type rockets fired by Gaza militants last week. A second battery is slated to be deployed later this week near the coastal city of Ashkelon.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday ordered the deployment of Iron Dome in the face of growing public pressure, saying the decision was approved "as a preliminary trial." buy Reebok EasyTone

Development of Iron Dome, which tracks and blows up projectiles in mid-air, began in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war, during which an estimated 4,000 Katyusha rockets and mortars showered northern Israel.

The system, which intercepts rockets at ranges of 5 to 70 km, was developed in record-time: about three years from the drawing board to Sunday's deployment. A battery includes three launchers with 20 missiles each.buy Reebok ZigTech

In November last year, it succeeded in destroying a salvo of three Grad and two Qassam rockets in one of numerous field trials.

Par 112111473 - 0 commentaire(s)le 28 mars 2011
Samedi 26 mars 2011

Fear and devastation on the road to Japan's nuclear disaster zone

Once this road was thronged with traffic: nike running shoes an expressway, one of the arteries of a nation's economic life, as familiar and modern a sight as you would find anywhere in Japan. The only barriers on the route to Fukushima Daiichi were the other people heading in the same direction.

 

Today the journey is different. It is a journey to the heart of a catastrophe. About 10 kilometres beyond the half-deserted city of Iwaki, the coastal road is blocked not by commuters but by landslides; the satellite navigation system that might once have flashed up traffic jams shows clusters of red circles that denote barred roads. And when we reach the inland expressway itself, the only vehicles disturbing the silence are the rumbling military trucks of Japan's Self Defence Force. Twenty kilometres out from the nuclear plant, abandoned road blocks mutely signal our entry into the nuclear exclusion zone.

It is a scene of devastation. Underneath us the road cuts across rice fields strewn with cars, their wreckages seemingly tossed by the hand of an angry child: in one paddy an upturned Nissan Micra; in another a Toyota people carrier filled to its sunroof with mud. The second storey of a nearby house perches on a single pillar, like a boxy flamingo. The ground floor has been erased, splinters of wood pointing the way the wall of water had gone.

And yet after two weeks of minutely documented destruction, these scenes seem more familiar than eerie. The empty streets on the hillside of nearby Kumamachi, which escaped the tsunami, attest to a different kind of fear. Outside its abandoned houses a gentler tremor has shaken roof tiles to the floor and knocked over bicycles. But it feels as though the residents could return at any moment. Their doors are open.

The people here must have been able to hear the hydrogen explosions that rocked the power plant only three kilometres away. They can't have waited much longer to leave. No one will see the cherry blossom that's opening on the boughs of a tree in the school playground, or observe the custom to share a drink underneath it with friends. The children's umbrellas will stay in the rack outside their empty classroom.

Stray cats provide a flicker of movement as they wander in the newly emptied landscape. A few dogs have been left behind, one trailing its lead. In a village beneath one of the flyovers on Route 6, an elderly couple emerge from their car and run into a house. By the time we backtrack and climb down to find them they have gone.

Despite the hundreds of homes still standing they will be the only non-emergency workers we see. Their fleeting presence is a reminder of our own vulnerability, even inside a sealed car on a deliberately brief journey through the zone. We only venture outside the vehicle to remove heavy debris in our way. As we edge closer to our destination, we make our way over buckled tarmac where sand has been shovelled into yawning cracks and logs have been rolled into the broken steps carved by the earthquake.

The brooding presence of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is telegraphed by the crowds of transmission-tower pylons converging on their source. A stream of white vehicles manned by ghostly figures in protective overalls, all breathing through respirators, suggests no let-up in the fight against a meltdown.  2011 nike running shoes online

Finally we are seeing people on our journey. When we wave one of the vehicles down, the driver removes his respirator long enough to say that yes, he is working on the emergency at the plant. But his speech is flecked with panic. He insists he cannot speak to journalists and hurries away.

But nobody stops us. And so we move closer. Tell-tale wisps of grey smoke rise above the tree cover to point the way. Japan's newest heroes, the "Samurai 50", flash past, almost invisible in their white body-suits and hoods aboard a white bus, going towards the reactors. Before long we, too, are at the main entrance of Fukushima No 1.

In the midst of an all-consuming havoc, it appears to be the only place that has escaped intact. Only a spotless white sign in the stone wall tells us we are at the centre of the crisis. Next to the Japanese characters that give the plant's name is the playful red logo of Tepco, the now notorious Tokyo power giant that finds itself in the eye of a nuclear storm.

We would learn later that Tepco has belatedly admitted that the pressure containment vessel at reactor No 3 "may" have been breached – the last step before molten fuel pours onto the concrete base of the reactor triggering a massive release of radioactive material. Three workers inside the plant have been taken to hospital with burns after wading into water contaminated by 10,000 times the expected dose of radiation.

The half-dozen reactors where small teams of engineers have been battling in shifts to prevent a meltdown are only a few hundred metres away. But even if the risks are manageable on a brief visit, there is no mistaking that we are close to disaster.

A Tepco vehicle comes in the other direction but stops abruptly on seeing a car from the outside world inside the stricken power plant. It reverses noisily towards us, and the driver's door opens to show two men inside wearing heavy-duty protective overalls. Unable to make themselves heard over respirators, they make the Japanese gesture meaning "forbidden", crossing and uncrossing their arms and then pointing back the way they had come. It was the closest thing to a security barrier that we encountered. Reebok EasyTone

Our route away is just as unimpeded. But if the approach has been a powerful introduction to the destructive force of the tsunami, our journey towards Minamisoma, the nearest town to the ruined plant, does not offer a corresponding escape.

The town is trapped in what the government has called the "stay inside zone": a 10km-wide band not yet evacuated but too contaminated to go outside. As we escape the perimeter of the plant, the final stretch of Route 6 into Minamisoma breaks through the numbness. Remnants of boats and cars are scattered in unlikely poses for miles in all directions, while the pylons that flank the road have been twisted like the Spanish bearded trees of the bayou. Crows pick through the wreckage of a destroyed garden centre on the roadside.

The ghastly spell is broken by loudspeakers in the distance that are somehow still working. One of Japan's beloved town announcements echoes across the grey devastation, repeating the promise that petrol and kerosene rations will arrive that afternoon.

Picking our way through we find Haranomachi Tokusawa. An old man, he seems less terrified than others of the radiation and has taken his pickup down to the coastal stretch of Minamisoma to look for people lost in the maze of smashed junctions. "It's not safe for you here, you're still inside the exclusion zone," he warns, before leading us out to where everyone else is sheltering.

Only 20,000 of Minamisoma's population of 70,000 have stayed on here. In his office plastered with photographs of the aftermath, Sakurai Katsunobe, the town's lean and furious mayor, says residents have been left to fend for themselves. "Everyone here is angry with Tepco," he seethes. "They give us no information and no help."

Joking that he's a samurai, he vows to save his town with its crippled power plant, its poisoned rice paddies and terrified survivors. He is unlikely to get the chance. Late yesterday the government expanded the evacuation zone in response to the deepening emergency at Fukushima. Even the brave hangers-on will have to pack what they can and leave.

But until that order came, the few that remained were inhabitants of a kind of ghost world, removed entirely from the ordinary life they had once lived. Weighing that new reality in his office, Katsunobe stared at the images of devastation tacked to his wall. They were placed over the pictures that had decorated the room in more normal times. "We can't get supplies as drivers don't want to come here," he said. "We're like an island cut off from outside world."

Par 112111473 - 0 commentaire(s)le 26 mars 2011
Vendredi 25 mars 2011

Elizabeth Taylor's

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE, 79, lost her fight for life yesterday in the same hospital where she was admittednike running shoes  just over five weeks ago for symptoms of the congestive heart failure that took her life.  In 2009, the star had heart surgery to repair a valve, and was quoted afterwards: “It’s like having a brand new ticker.”   As we mourn this dear champions' passing, it's bittersweet comfort to know that Taylor has been quoted as saying, that she wanted her tombstone to read: "She lived."  Literally, she did just that.

Elizabeth Taylor was born on February 27th, 1932 in London, the second child of Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) an art dealer and Sara Viola Warmbrodt (1895–1994), an actress whose stage name was "Sara Sothern".  At the time, they were Americans residing in England.  

According to Wichita NBC affiliate, KSN News, several years before baby Elizabeth's arrival, Francis and Sara hailed from Arkansas City, Kansas, where they met.  Sara retired from the acting stage when she and Francis moved to New York City to be married in 1926.  Within a few years of their marriage, Mr.Taylor was transferred to Howard Young's art gallery in London, England, where he and Sara began their family, living there until the outbreak of Britain's involvement in World War II.  

They then returned to the United States, living for a short time with Elizabeth's grandparents at 310 N. A Street in Arkansas City allowing Elizabeth and her brother, Howard, to briefly attend school at Roosevelt Elementary.  Her parents and all of her grandparents were from Ark City.  According to Heather Ferguson, 2011 nike running shoes the director of the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum in Arkansas City, "That's about all we know...", adding, "This is a little known fact to most of Taylor's fans".

Following the brief layover in Ark City, Kansas in 1939, after Taylor's father wrapped up matters in the art business in London, seven months later the family of four settled in Los Angeles, California, where Sara's family, the Warmbrodts, were then living.

A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, Elizabeth Taylor was born a British subject through her birth on British soil and an American citizen through her parents.  She reportedly sought, in 1965, to renounce her United States citizenship, to wit: "Though never accepted by the State Department, Liz renounced in 1965.  Attempting to shield much of her European income from U.S. taxes, Liz wished to become solely a British citizen.

“We don’t have pictures or anything like that because at the time they didn’t have yearbooks like we do today", says Ferguson.  She suspects Taylor never spoke much about her Kansas roots because it wasn’t as glamorous as being from
London.  The big screen star was invited back to Arkansas City several times by local leaders but always refused the invites.

Elizabeth Taylor was a British-born American actress.  She was a dynamic child star that eventually evolved out of old Hollywood glamour and beauty to continue her silver screen status as one of the most beautiful actresses to date. To her fans, her much publicized private life seemed like an extention of their own, not caring that she weathered countless health scares and eight marriages.  Her public saw throughshipping. buy Reebok EasyTone the Hollywood enigma and found a true champion who stood up and was an advocate for AIDS awareness, hoping to garner some attention to prevention and eventually a cure.  All of this social activism, when it was taboo!   She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress and was considered, by most, as one of the greatest screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age.  On the American Film Institute "Female Legends List", Elizabeth Taylor is number seven!     

Even Dame Elizabeth understood the need for having a relationship with her creator, making these statements, "I'm not worried about dying.  I consult with God, My Maker.  And, I don't have a lot problems to work out.  I'm pretty squared away.  It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance".

Par 112111473 - 0 commentaire(s)le 25 mars 2011
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