Barcelona best team in the world

At the heart of the plot is Coach Josep Guardiola i Sala, who is often called Pep and whose only experience guiding a team was one season with Barcelona’s third division squad. When he was chosen to replace the Dutchman Frank Rijkaard, making him the Spanish Primera Liga’s youngest head coach at 37, many were hard pressed to see the rationale.

The question gained urgency after the team scored only one goal in Guardiola’s first two games in charge — a loss and a tie. But then, his cure for the team’s ailments seemed to kick in: Barcelona won 15 of its next 16 league games (the other was a tie), scoring 48 goals. With a little more than half the season to play, it is on pace to surpass the season-high 107 goals set by Real Madrid in 1989-90. The team enters the winter break with 41 points, its most ever at this stage, leaving second-place Sevilla 10 points behind and rival Madrid, last season’s champion, 12 points back, a lead no team has overcome to win the title.

“This team has the possibility of being one of the best in Barca history, ranking with the best of Cruyff, if it can sustain it,” said Carles Rexach, a retired coach and a former assistant to Johan Cruyff.

Cruyff led Barcelona from 1988 to 1996, when along with four league titles, it won its first European Cup (now the Champions League) and erased Barcelona’s stigma as second fiddle to Real Madrid.

The problem, he said, was not that Americans spend too much, but that foreigners save too much. The Chinese have piled up so much excess savings that they lend money to the United States at low rates, underwriting American consumption.

This colossal credit cycle could not last forever, he said. But in a global economy, the transfer of Chinese money to America was a market phenomenon that would take years, even a decade, to work itself out. For now, he said, “we probably have little choice except to be patient.”

Today, the dependence of the United States on Chinese money looks less benign. And the economist who proposed the theory, is dealing with the consequences, having been promoted to chairman of the Fed in 2006, as these cross-border money flows were reaching stratospheric levels.

In the past decade, China has invested upward of $1 trillion, mostly earnings from manufacturing exports, into American government bonds and government-backed mortgage debt. That has lowered interest rates and helped fuel a historic consumption binge and housing bubble in the United States.

China, some economists say, lulled American consumers, and their leaders, into complacency about their spendthrift ways.

4yrs after Asian tsunami

The whole world watched in horror 4 years ago as the worst natural disaster in the history of the earth as the tsunami hit almost seven countries killing 220 000 people and also destroyed many houses.Sri Lanka was one of the worst affected countries, with nearly 40,000 deaths. Nearly one million people in coastal areas were rendered homeless.

The Nation struggled to come to terms with the enormity of the tragedy for a number of days, but the massive outpouring of grief translated into an unprecedented relief effort with local and international support. The rehabilitation process in terms of rebuilding damaged structures including houses, schools, places of worship, hospitals is mostly complete, but the healing of mental scars will perhaps never be.

Four years on, the bitter memories of the tsunami still remain. There is one crucial difference, though. In 2004, only a handful knew even the meaning of the word tsunami (Japanese for massive tidal wave), leave alone seen one. With the tsunami behind us, there is almost 100 per cent awareness of the magnitude of the destruction that could be caused by a tsunami. People are now willing to evacuate their coastal dwellings at the merest warning or earthquake alert. This is a positive development, to say the least.

Singapore flyer is expected to be out of action for until the New Year

The Singapore flyer, which is the world's biggest observation wheel is currently undergoing repairs after some unknown faulty equipment caused the flyer to shut down for six hours. The Singapore flyer's control panel on the third floor caught on fire jamming the flyer. The authorities finally managed to get everyone safely down by winching them down ropes from the flyer. Many have questioned why the safety procedures that the flyer had were so inadequate. They felt that if the london eye had  broke down due to electrical failure then the authorities would be able to turn the heel manually so that the people who were stuck up there could be brought down easily.  However the Singapore flyer seemed to have none of this procedures in place and the only way the some of the people were brought down was after being winched down ropes after a six hour wait. The way the management handed the situation was also criticized as many who were stuck felt that no information was forth coming as to what was happening on the ground. People who were stuck included pregnant woman, young children and elderly one as old as 75 years old. Many questioned as what would have happened if a medical emergency arise. After some hours of wait pressing needs such as  hunger, thirst and the need to relive oneself become a primary concern. This episode highlighted the need for the authorities to have a better safety procedure and backup plan.      

Pirates outwit the Navy

In the past two months alone, the pirates have attacked more than 30 vessels, eluding the naval patrols, going farther out to sea and seeking bigger, more lucrative game, including an American cruise ship and a 1,000-foot Saudi oil tanker. The pirates seem to have been able to escape the military of at least nine nations to capture some of the biggest ships in the shipping industry. This rebellious pirate activities threatens to bring the entire shipping industry to a stand still.The pirates are recalibrating their tactics, attacking ships in beelike swarms of 20 to 30 skiffs, and threatening to choke off one of the busiest shipping arteries in the world, at the mouth of the Red Sea.The pirates are totally outgunned. They continue to cruise around in fiberglass skiffs with assault rifles and at best a few rocket-propelled grenades. One Italian officer said that going after them in a 485-foot-long destroyer, bristling with surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes, was like “going after someone on a bicycle with a truck.”

However the pirates are not the least bit worried about this and true to their motto they whiz around in their modified speed boats and evade the soldiers radar, which is supposed to be one of the best in the world. Despite tough talk, the guards are unarmed (because most countries do not allow them to bring weapons into port), so they are often forced to confront machine-gun-toting pirates with fire hoses.

Israeli person throws shoes at George Bush.

An Israeli journalist has embarrassed George Bush by hurling two shoes at the President and called him a "dog" for bringing death and sorrow to the country for six miserable years. President Bush was at the conference with the Israeli prime minister to sign a agreement that stated that all American forces would be withdrawn from Israel by the year 2011. However, this occasion is now being overshadowed over the fact that a "Green Zone Area", the area with the tightest security could let such a thing happen. The journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, got up during the meeting and said that he was going to give Bush a present from his country and the present was from all the orphans and people who died from the American campaign. He then proceeded to throw his shoes at the American President. The first shoe caught everyone by surprise and Bush had to be quick on his feet to miss it. As the guards and other journalists watched in horror, the israeli journalist proceeded to throw his second shoe which would had hit Bush in the face if the Israeli Prime Minister had not stretched out his arm to block it.

Other Iraqi journalists who witnessed the incident apologized to Mr. Bush for the man's behavior. Mr Bush, who was uninjured, tried to brush off the incident by making a joke. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” he said, continuing to take questions and noting the apologies. He also called the incident a sign of democracy, saying, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” as the man’s screaming could be heard outside.

Obama has started to create jobs.

Barack Obama has now started to put together a plan to make sure that people have jobs when he goes into parliament coming January. He promises that there will be such a wide scale project that will bet put in place that will match the size of the Inter State high way that took place a decade ago. The project is said to be able to provide at least a thousand people jobs for at least five years. Obama is certainly living up to his promises he made during his presidential campaign. He is bringing new  possibilities and hope that Bush did not not give to the American people. The American people will be very happy when they see Obama become president coming January. The current economic crisis has caused many people in the United States Of America to lose money and jobs. The new scheme provides a light at the end of a dark tunnel to those people.

I think that Obama has done a excellent job so far and he is truly trying his best to make this world a better place as he promised. He has now stated that he is thinking about removing the US soldiers in Iraq and has also proposed this new system where he creates more jobs for people so as to help them with their economic crisis.