Women ALIVE Ministries

After Irene Westley died, her daughter, Juanita Westley, launched a ministry called Women of Many Hats in her memory.

Visitors examine Chinese photovoltaic solar cell products at the 2011 China (Wuxi) International Renewable Energy Conference and Exhibition held in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, last week. [Photo/China Daily]

Officials warn that action could hurt industry in both countries

BEIJING / NEW YORK – China is very concerned about the anti-dumping, anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese photovoltaic (PV) solar cell producers initiated by the United States, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Thursday.

The investigation will hurt bilateral cooperation in the clean-energy sector as well as the US solar industry, according to the statement.

China hopes the US will keep its promise not to take new trade protection measures and avoid hurting the economic and trade relationship between the two countries, said Shen Danyang, ministry spokesman.

China has the right to take relevant measures within the framework of the World Trade Organization, Shen said.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) held the first hearing on Wednesday in Washington, dealing with a petition by American manufacturers, led by the US arm of SolarWorld AG, one of Germanys largest solar product makers.

The petition claims that Chinese companies are dumping solar panels in the US at less than half of what the production costs would be. The petition asks for 100 percent tariffs to make up the difference.

However, because of objections by other large US solar companies, the ITC postponed its vote on the matter until Dec 2, according to Li Junfeng, secretary-general of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association (CREIA).

He said many major US solar companies clearly realize that if the US government imposes higher tariffs on Chinese solar products, it will increase costs for US companies and reduce shipments of solar cell production equipment from the US to China.

Many PV solar producers in both China and the US are facing difficulties because of reduced incentives, improper investment decisions and lack of scale, and it is normal some companies will be eliminated from the industry, said Li.

The US government should not hurt the development of the global clean-energy industry in order to protect a few US companies benefits.

Should tariffs be imposed, our business would continue to compete, but it would unfortunately stall the industry and prevent our customers from hiring many more people to advance the solar industry, said Robert Petrina, managing director, Yingli Americas.

China-based Yingli Green Energy Holding Co Ltd, the worlds third-largest solar panel maker, established US operations at the beginning of 2009.

Responding to the dumping claims, Yingli said it does not think that its products are unfairly subsidized.

The anti-dumping case is likely to succeed in the end, said Kevin Tu, senior associate of China Energy Climate Policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Nevertheless, it will become a messy situation for the solar industry in the end, as the Chinese solar industry is likely to file a retaliation case against the US dumping poly-silicon exports in China, according to Tu.

According to CREIA, China spends $2 billion annually to import raw materials such as poly-silicon for PV solar cell production from the US.

The group also said that PV equipment imported from the US, combined with technology licensing, cost Chinese manufacturers at least $3 billion in 2010.

Aleph, the rape victim who brought sexual assault charges against
former-president Moshe Katsav, expressed her satisfaction with the
Supreme Court decision denying his appeal on Thursday.

The
severity of the punishment is not as important as the decision, Aleph,
who remains anonymous, said from the Tourism Ministry. Katsav will begin
a seven-year prison sentence in December.

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Aleph
also encouraged other women who have been victims of sexual assault to
speak up. I hope that women are not afraid to complain, she said.

Alephs lawyer added that Katsavs punishment was appropriate. Now the
criminal process has finally come to an end, the court has ruled, and
the person who hurt her has received the punishment he deserved.

Also reacting to the sentence, Aleph from Beit Hanassi said Thursday that Katsav should have got double the sentence.

Aleph,
who worked for Katsav during his term as president was the one who
first brought the president’s wrongdoing to light, but controversially
was not included in the final indictment against the former president.

By Joe Parkinson

The decades-old conflict between Turkeys government and Kurdish militants has intensified in recent months, but this week saw the emergence of a new front: the Internet.

According to Turkeys government, operatives sympathetic to the outlawed Kurdistan Worker Party, or PKK, hacked into the finance ministrys website in the early hours of Wednesday, the final day of Turkeys religious Eid al-Adha holiday. Part of the landing page for the ministry website, www.maliye.gov.tr, was replaced by a song praising Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK leader via a YouTube link, Turkish media reported. Throughout Wednesday the site was not accessible but was back online on Thursday.

Finance ministry officials said PKK sympathizers sought to replace existing website information with pro-PKK messages. A spokesman said that top ministry officials intervened and interupted broadcasting of PKK propaganda.

A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.

Courts dismissed Dallas’ request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the  Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.

In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so.

A similar controversy came up in Houston last year, involving Feed a Friend, a ministry led by Christian rapper Tre9, Bobby Herring, that weekly distributes meals to homeless people. Herring appeared before City Council to defend their program, and the city ultimately agreed to consider drafting an ordinance that would make special accommodations for small-scale outreach.

Manama-Nov 12 (BNA) Around 60 people tonight staged an illegal rally at 10.55 pm Bilad Al-Qadim with the intention of blocking the road and disrupting the traffic.
The rioters committed acts of sabotage, hurling Molotov cocktails and stones on the security forces.
The anti-riot police intervened to disperse the saboteurs and reopen the road, using tear gas and sound gunshots, Northern Police Directorate said. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry denied allegations spread through social networking sites the security forces targeted the house and car of Al-Wefaq secretary-general.

The security forces were about 100 metres from the house and uses tear gas and sound gunshots only-making it difficult to reach the house and car and damage them, he said. A specialized forensic team went to the site of the incident to investigate.
No one party has reported the incident – which means that those who cause the damage assume the responsibility, he added.
AHN

Published: Saturday, Nov 12, 2011, 8:30 IST
By DNA Correspondent | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

BANGKOK, Thailand: Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has come under fire from her own Twitter account after it was briefly taken over by an anonymous hacker who accused her of incompetence.

Thailands Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) ministry said it was investigating the hijacking of the PouYingluck tweet feed for around 20 minutes early on Sunday.

Yingluck, the sister of ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, was lambasted on a variety of subjects in eight posts, including her response to recent serious flooding and a number of key government policies.

The Health Ministry director-general said Sunday that, The majority of resignations were made in groups, entire departments will go home together, in some departments almost 50 percent have quit, in response to the resignation of 702 medical interns and 32 specialist doctors.

The doctors are set to leave their jobs on Tuesday, and Health Ministry Director-General Professor Roni Gamzu told a Sunday morning press conference that it would become difficult to continue operating the departments.

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He described the issue as difficult, complex and problematic, adding, Its very bitter fruit to taste when confronted with real concerns about hospital survival plans.

The Health Ministry appealed to the court for the resignations to be executed progressively, rather than all at once in a large group.

Previously 200 residents privately resigned in September in response to a National Labor Court ruling that deemed the coordinated mass resignation of residents and interns illegal.

In a unanimous ruling, the National Labor Court issued an injunction ordering 1,000 residents who had signed letters of resignation to report to work as usual. The court ruled that the resignations signed by the residents were illegal and therefore invalid.

Failure to report to work as stated will constitute an unauthorized abandonment of their jobs by the workers, and will be subject to the appropriate consequences, the court ruled.

Kristen Anderson, founder of Reaching You Ministries, will speak at 6 pm Tuesday in the Campus Life Center Ballroom at the University of South Carolina Upstate. In May 2010, Anderson released her autobiography, Life, In Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope After a Fatal Choice. Reaching You Ministries aims to prevent suicide and help people struggling with depression. For more information, call 503-5122.