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By John Terrett in Americas on February 7th, 2010
Photo by Reuters

By all accounts it was a huge explosion … ripping through part of the Kleen Energy Systems power plant at Middletown Connecticut 188km northeast of New York City.
 
It was heard at least 16km away.
 
Dozens of people telephoned emergency services to report a large explosion and earthquake-like tremors.
 
Lynn Townsend was among the first to get through:
 
"It really shook the house and everybody was scared and the kids started to cry because they didn't know if the house was going to be on fire. Immediately I went to call 9-1-1 and I was the first call in to let them know that the power plant, that there was a loud explosion. I mean, it was a very scary thought and it was almost like an earthquake."
 
It was so powerful that portions of a building were completely blown away … others were turned to rubble.
 

By Rob Reynolds in Americas on February 7th, 2010
AFP photo

On Saturday February 6, I returned to Port-au-Prince after an absence of 10 days. I found some things have changed, with some positive signs indicating more aid is flowing and the very first steps towards recovery are under way.

But there are far too many things which appear to have remained the same - or even gotten worse.

Food aid is getting out to more and more hungry and homeless Haitian people. The World Food Programme says 1.8 million people have received food aid, out of a total population of two million in need.

In the makeshift tent camps that have sprung up everywhere in the city there are signs of food in greater abundance - rice especially.

Women-only coupons

A new system of organising food distributions through coupons given only to women has made a difference.

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on February 6th, 2010
Photo by EPA

On the first Sunday in October Brazilians will go to the polls to decide who will get the task of trying to replace Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as the next president of South America's largest and most influential country.

By Cath Turner in Americas on February 6th, 2010

The Tea Party movement does not have one, single leader. And that's just the way the Tea Partiers like it.
 
Many observers describe them as "disorganised". They prefer to use the word "decentralised".
 
This movement believes it has several hundred leaders across the country within each county, each district, each state. The Tea Partiers believe one person taking the lead and heading to Washington to represent them would be the death of their cause. 
 
The first ever Tea Party Convention is designed to bring dozens of groups together, to share ideas, connect like-minded people and work out where to take the movement from here. 

By Cath Turner in Americas on February 5th, 2010
Tami and Robert Kilmarx, who say they quit Tea Party Nation in disgust

The Tea Party movement is driven by two powerful emotions: anger and fear.

The groups are angry about big government, big spending, big taxes and progressive policies under the Obama administration.  And they're fearful of losing their values, their freedom and their rights.

Dozens of Tea Party groups have popped up across the United States, and you can see their strength in numbers when they co-ordinate mass rallies and protests.  And now we're starting to see their power on the political scene.  Once they decide to throw their weight behind a candidate, the Tea Partiers have proven they're capable of influencing an election outcome.

Most Tea Partiers want to stay politically separate from both the Republicans and the Democrats but their values and beliefs naturally align them more to the Republicans.

By John Terrett in Americas on February 4th, 2010
File photo by AFP

American International Group is paying out another round of whopping bonuses to execs.

Not surprisingly, the move has led to anger on Capitol Hill, at street level here in the US and I'm sure wherever you are now.

American International Group is lavishing up to $100 million in bonuses to executives in the firm's financial products division - yes - that's the outfit that nearly brought the giant insurer to the brink of collapse at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. (Hey! Nice work if you can get it)

This latest round of payouts comes almost a year after bonuses worth $168 million went to the same department.

On the streets of Washington, DC taxpayers who helped prop up AIG on the basis it was "too big to fail" are angry:

By John Terrett in Americas on February 2nd, 2010
Photo from EPA

The Investment bank Goldman Sachs is facing a storm of criticism over reports its chief executive could pocket a bonus of up to $100m.

By John Terrett in Americas on February 2nd, 2010
Photo by AFP

On Monday February 1, 2010 the Pentagon published a major strategy document known as the Quadrennial Defence Review.
 
The QDR is an every four years assessment of the threats and challenges faced by the US military now and in the future.
 
For decades the Pentagon's been geared up to fight at least two major wars simultaneously ... but that worldview is changing.
 
In its Quadrennial Defence Review, Defence Secretary Robert Gates admitted it's no longer appropriate to speak of major regional conflicts and the military must prepare to take on a multiplicity of threats from terrorists using satellite and cyber technology to a greater number of nuclear armed countries.  He said:
 

Tags: Pentagon
By John Terrett in Americas on February 1st, 2010
AFP photo

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he'll meet his maker!"  So says President Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs.
 
From that we can deduce that the White House clearly has no doubt about the verdict and sentence KSM should receive ... but the big problem is when, where and how the trial will take place.
 
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admits masterminding 9/11 2001 but politicians can't agree on where he should be tried.
 
A Federal court in lower Manhattan had been selected but New York doesn't want it and the Obama administration - forced to reconsider - remains committed to a civilian court trial at least for now.  Gibbs told a U.S. TV network on Sunday:
 

By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on January 31st, 2010

The Menifee Union School District of Southern California has banned the Merriam Webster Dictionary from schools.

The dictionary had been approved for 10-year-olds, but parents and local officials have now decided that the dictionary contains terms that are not "age appropriate".

In this case, the offending term was "oral sex".

It's not clear whether it was the existence of  the term itself in the dictionary that was the problem, or the way the dictionary chose to explain it.

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