Oscar-winning film star Ernest Borgnine dies in LA at age 95

By Wendy Carpenter of The Upshot

Lifetime achievement honoree Ernest Borgnine waves after receiving his award at the 17th annual Screen Actors Guild …Ernest Borgnine, who created a variety of memorable characters in both movies and television and won the best-actor Oscar for his role as a lovesick butcher in "Marty" in 1955, died Sunday. He was 95.

Borgnine's longtime spokesman, Harry Flynn, told The Associated Press that Borgnine died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with his family by his side.

A prolific and talented character actor, Borgnine was known for gruff, villainous roles such as the heavy who beats up Frank Sinatra in "From Here to Eternity" and one of the bad guys who harasses Spencer Tracy in "Bad Day at Black Rock."

Embattled Syrian regime in defiance show of military force

By ALBERT AJI and ZEINA KARAM of Associated Press

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — In a show of force, Syria began large-scale military exercises Sunday to simulate defending the country against outside "aggression." Damascus' staunch ally Iran warned of a "catastrophe" in the region if no political solution to the 16-month-old Syrian conflict is found.

Tehran is Syria's closest ally, and has stood by President Bashar Assad's regime throughout the revolt against his rule despite a growing chorus of international condemnation. The relentless bloodshed has accelerated diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the crisis, and spurred some in the Syrian opposition to urge the West to intervene militarily to stop a conflict that activists say has left more than 14,000 people dead.

Guns, threats won’t scare us, say natives

If the government continues to remain aloof from clashes
between natives and oil palm companies, then it should
be prepared for a bloodbath.

KUCHING: Despite two attempts on his life by workers allegedly from Palm Raya Pelita, Semawi Anak Renang will not be intimidated in defending his native customary rights (NCR) land and that of 25 other families.

Instead the threats against him and the other landowners of Rumah Randi, Selangau, have made them more determined than ever to defend their 3,000 hectares of land.

The landowners claimed that the Palm Raya Pelita oil palm plantation is owned by Tiong King Sing, the MP for Bintulu. Tiong is also the deputy president of Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and one Peter Hii.

Public land: Musa gets ultimatum

City dwellers are concerned about the grand
sell-off of public property by the state
government under Chief Minister Musa Aman.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) will use all means to ensure prime public land in the city is not sold off by the Barisan Nasional state government under Chief Minister Musa Aman.

Two opposition state assembly representatives, Liew Teck Chan (Likas) and Melanie Chia (Luyang), will raise issue of the status of the Kota Kinabalu High Court and City Library land at the coming State Legislative Assembly sitting later this month.

They said they would demand a debate on the issue as long as there is no guarantee by the chief minister that these two pieces of land would be reserved for public use. They announced their intention during a news conference held at its Luyang office here.

Wong files RM150m suit against Sabah govt

Sri Tanjung assemblyman Jimmy Wong alleged that statements
made against him were calculated to make negative
inferences of him and that he is a liar.

KOTA KINABALU: A Sabah state assemblyman has filed a RM150 million suit against the state government and several of its agencies for defamation.

Sri Tanjung assemblyman, Jimmy Wong, named Land and Survey Department director Osman Jamal, the Native Certificate Holders Transfer Committee (NTHTC), State Native Affairs Council, Local Government and Housing Minister and the Sabah state government as the defendants, in that order, in the suit filed yesterday.

Wong, 62, who is also DAP Sabah chief is seeking RM100 million in damages from the first and second defendant and another RM50 million or damages to be assessed by the court as well as punitive damages against all the defendants for unconstitutional actions.

A sympathetic expose by a West Malaysian on Sabah's poverty-stricken folks

I read Dr Hams letter and cannot help but agree with many of his observations. I worked in Sabah for over seven years as a house officer and medical officer. After my housemanship, I was sent to Ranau to serve in the district hospital. What Dr Hams described in Kota Marudu is not something isolated to that district alone in Sabah . It is an often repeated story in the whole of Sabah .

My first introduction to the poverty in Sabah came during my first months there, when a sweet 70- year-old lady from Kota Marudu was sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with deep jaundice. She lived alone in a small village off Kota Marudu and noticed the jaundice about a month before.

We Can Hit 35 US Bases in 'Minutes'

By LEE FERRAN of ABC News

TEHRAN : An Iranian military commander said that his country has detailed contingency plans to strike nearly three dozen U.S. military bases in the region should Iran be attacked, local media reported Wednesday.

Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, told reporters the U.S. has 35 bases around Iran and all are "within the reach of our missiles" and could be hit "in the early minutes after an attack," according to an English-language report from Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency. The bases were no threat but instead an "opportunity" for the Iranian military, Hajizadeh said last month, according to Fars.

All must stand up against racist taunts!

By Joe Fernandez
We cannot continue to tolerate a situation where people hurl racist remarks against us and taunt us whenever we want to be heard or give a hearing to others.

Indians in particular must shed the image of being soft targets. They need to speak up so that they can be heard.

Even one ounce of Indian blood, for example, is enough for others to defecate all over us for this reason and no other.

Everyone has Right of Reply, no need to run amok!

By Joe Fernandez

It’s not the done thing for Jeffrey Kitingan’s State Reform Party (Star) to take a leaf from the mosquito political parties in Sabah and run amok, samseng-style, whenever they run into a spell of stormy weather in the media. The verdict from the Barisan Nasional (BN) is that the party (Star) needs a dose of its own medicine after running amok in recent weeks with numerous statements in the media.

Star’s inspiration stems from one particular mosquito party in the opposition – allegedly planning a reverse frogging after the 13^th GE -- in Sabah which has been known to avoid press interviews like the plague, preferring to hide behind public relations statements structured as “news stories” and written by journalists on the take – “ang pow journalism” -- in the local media, and responding to criticisms with venomous personal and offensive attacks against journalists who incur its wrath.

New Particle at World's Largest Atom Smasher is Likely Higgs Boson

SWITZERLAND: Physicists are more than 99 percent sure that they've found a new elementary particle that is likely the long-sought Higgs boson.

Evidence for the new particle was reported today (July 4) by scientists from the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Researchers reported they'd seen a particle weighing roughly 125 times the mass of the proton, with a level of certainty that all but seals the deal it's the Higgs boson.