Showing posts with label aims. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Bristol Palin goes after McCain’s wife, daughter

22:35 rabiul islam No comments

Bristol Palin is taking aim at ex-fiancee Levi Johnston, the father of her child, but has found two other targets in a just-published autobiography — the wife and daughter of Sen. John McCain.
She doesn’t have much use for Cindy and Meghan McCain, respectively the wife and daughter of the Arizona senator who propelled Sarah Palin onto the national stage as the Republicans’ 2008 vice presidential nominee.

The 20-year-old single mother has produced an autobiography, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far,” ,which will be followed this fall by Levi Johnston’s deer-in-the-headlights account of life with the Palins.
Bristol Palin had an initial encounter with Meghan McCain as her mother was being introduced as the vice presidential nominee.
She relates that Meghan McCain at first ignored the Palins, but eventually introduces her self with the words, “I’m a big fan of your mother’+s, and we’re about to go on a fun journey together.”
The Alaska governor’s daughter was struck by “the sneaking suspicion that I might need to watch my back.”
“Every time we saw Meghan, she seemed to constantly be checking us out, comparing my family to hers and complaining. Oh, the complaining,” Bristol Palin writes.
She claims that Meghan McCain became angry after entering a dressing room and finding that the Palin ladies were having their hair done. Asked by the stylists to wait, Meghan McCain responds: “If anyone had told me that I had to do my own hair and makeup, I would’ve done my own (bleeping) hair and makeup!” and left.
John McCain has never spoken a critical word in public about his 2008 running mate. Sarah Palin came to his aid last year when a right-wing challenger, ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth, challenged McCain in Arizona’s Republican Senate primary.
But the McCain campaign would not permit Palin to deliver her own concession speech at the Arizona Biltmore on election night 2008 after the presidential candidate had conceded.
Sen. McCain even gave an enthusiastic greeting to Levi Johnston, complimenting the teenage father-to-be on having the hard, tough hands of a working man.
But Bristol Palin has not-so-kind words for the candidate’s wife, Cindy McCain. She reports that Mrs. McCain “looks like a queen and holds herself like royalty,” even when giving advice to the daughter of her husband’s running mate. Cindy McCain allegedly told her:
“Bristol, I have three things I want to tell you. I just want you to know that I want to be one of the first people to hold your baby. Also, I want to go to your wedding when it comes together. And lastly, John and I want to be godparents to your child.”
Bristol Palin claims to have been taken aback: “I had just met her, and I wondered why she wanted any type of guardianship over my child. I was nice to her, but I was left speechless by her comment.”
Bristol Palin is now an Arizona resident. Her parents recently bought a large home in north Scottsdale.
Meghan McCain has become a pundit espousing moderate Republican views. Cindy and Meghan McCain are strong gay rights advocates, even though John McCain vociferously opposed repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy.

Bristol Palin slams Johnston, calls him ‘gnat’ in book

Bristol Palin writes in her new book of losing her virginity to boyfriend Levi Johnston on a camping trip after getting drunk for the first time on too many wine coolers.
She awoke in her tent, alone, with no memories of what had happened as Johnston "talked with his friends on the other side of the canvas." She had vowed to wait until marriage. And she had lied to her parents about where she was going.
Palin, a 20-year-old single mother and the daughter of former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, tells a story of "deception and disappointment" in the book, "Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far."
The memoir, co-written with Nancy French, is scheduled for publication by William Morrow next week. The Associated Press purchased a copy Friday.

Palin's book covers growing up with her family, which she portrays affectionately, and the excitement of her mother's political life as governor and then, in 2008, as the Republican vice presidential candidate. But the main theme is her on-and-off-again relationship with Johnston, with whom she had a child and was briefly engaged while caught in a media spotlight.
She blasts him as "the gnat named Levi Johnston constantly spreading false accusations against our family" and calls him a self-involved slacker "who cheated on me about as frequently as he sharpened his hockey skates."

African leaders launch talks on biggest free-trade bloc

02:34 rabiul islam No comments

South African president Jacob Zuma, centre, King Mswati lll of the Kingdom of Swaziland, left, and Namibia’s president Hifikepunye Pohamba sit together at the opening of the tripartite SADC summit in Johannesburg.

African leaders Sunday agreed to a framework to guide the next phase of negotiations on creating the continent’s biggest free-trade bloc, in a communiqué issued after a day of talks.

The new bloc would integrate the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community, an idea first backed in 2008.
It would combine 26 countries home to 700 million people with a combined economy estimated at $875 billion.

The bloc aims to enhance connectivity among the nations and reduce costs of doing business, while increasing investment flows to address capacity constraints.

‘It is now well documented that regional integration is one of the four factors that have sustained Africa’s growth in the last decade, as well as the quick and robust recovery from the recent financial crisis,’ said Eratus Mwencha, the deputy chairman of the AU Commission.

‘We all know that trade can act as an engine of growth,’ said Mwencha. ‘For the people of Africa, this will mean a paycheque in their pocket.’

The International Monetary Fund expects Africa to grow faster than the global average in the coming years. Six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies were on the continent last year.

Mwencha added that it was projected that Africa would double its GDP in the next ten years, a growth expected to be propelled by the growing middle class.

The mega-bloc would bring together the continent’s most developed economies of South Africa and Egypt and some of its most energetic, such as Angola and Ethiopia.

It is expected to end the challenges presented by the current trade blocs which have different rules, with some countries belonging to more than one grouping, complicating efforts to streamline trade.

‘This Tripartite is blazing a path to be followed by other regions in Africa in realising the dream of a united Africa,’ said Sindiso Ngwenya, general secretary of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
‘There are a number of areas where, by building on the work already done by member and partner states, working regionally, we can expect quick wins,’ he said.

But the pact faces immense hurdles: tariff barriers, poor infrastructure, weak supply chains, and economies often largely reliant on natural resources rather than manufactured products.

The three existing free trade areas — of which the five-member East African Community is the most advanced — have failed to meet intra-trade targets despite removing the bulk of trade tariffs.
And the bloc includes countries hit by conflicts, coups and political turmoil, such as Libya, Madagascar, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

New World Bank research says trade within southern African accounts for just 10 per cent of the total in the region — compared to 60 per cent in Europe and 40 per cent in North America.

Southern African Development Community exports increased from 20 to more than 30 per cent of combined GDP over the past decade, but regional trade made up a mere three per cent of the increase.