Pemilihan 7 keajaiban dunia kembali digelar, berbeda dengan kriteria sebelumnya dengan keajaiban yang dibuat secara sengaja oleh manusia dalam bentuk bangunan, kali ini kita diajak untuk memilih 7 keajaiban baru milik dunia bukan dari buatan manusia.
Yang telah terpilih sebanyak 77 tempat di seluruh dunia dari berbagai kategori, dan Indonesia mengajukan atau setidaknya sudah terpilih sebanyak 3 tempat eksotik, antara lain: 1. Komodo Island
2. Krakatau
3. Toba Lake
Tapi sekarang tinggal Pulau Komodo saja yang masuk nominasi.
Voting dilakukan melalui internet, dengan batas waktu sampai akhir 2009! Setiap pemilih (menggunakan id email) harus memilih 7 tempat nominasi, pilih 3 tempat indonesia dan 4 tempat lain yang tidak masuk dalam 77 besar nominasi agar peluang tempat indonesia semakin besar. Gunakan semua email yang kita punya untuk memilih!!. (sesat hahaha)
Indonesia mungkin akan kalah dari negara lain, bahkan negara kecil yang mengajukan tempat yang tidak terlalu menarik, hanya karena negara tersebut lebih melek internet ( Singapore contohnya, yang mengajukan Bukit Timah Nature Reserve). Dan yg lebih menyedihkan lagi, pulau Sipadan juga termasuk dlm nominee yg diajukan oleh Malaysia .
Brazil misalnya, pemerintahnya menyediakan fasilitas gratis untuk masyarakatnya yang tidak punya akses internet agar bisa ikut memilih untuk negaranya.
The other shoe has dropped. CIA Director Leon Panetta, it turns out, ran up tup to Capitol Hill this June not simply to confess the CIA had a secret assassination program it never implemented but rather to confess it had sub-contracted the job out. As first reported by the New York Times on its website Wednesday evening, the CIA hired Blackwater to help with a secret program to assassinate top Al Qaeda leaders. Although no one was ultimately assassinated before the program was ultimately shelved — and the Times reports that it's not clear that Blackwater was engaged to do anything more than assist with planning, training and surveillance — Panetta must have been horrified the CIA turned to mercenaries to play a part in its dirty work. It's one thing, albeit often misguided, for the agency to outsource certain tasks to contractors. It's quite another to involve a company like Blackwater in even just the planning and training of targeted killings, akin to the CIA going to the Mafia to draw up a plan to kill Castro.
I suspect that if the agreements are ever really looked into — rather than a formal contract, the CIA reportedly brokered individual deals with top company brass — we will find out the Blackwater's assassination work was more about bilking the U.S. taxpayer than it was killing bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders. More than a few senior CIA officers retired from the CIA and went to work at Blackwater, the controversial private security shop now known as Xe Services. Not only did they presumably take along their CIA Rolodexes with them out the door, but many probably didn't choose to leave until they had a lucrative new contract lined up. But more to the point Blackwater stood no better chance of placing operatives in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the al Qaeda leadership was hiding in 2004, than did the CIA or the U.S. military.
This leads to the question of what the CIA ever saw in Blackwater that the public hasn't. Even before it was expelled from Iraq after a Blackwater security detail allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, the contractor for unclear reasons took over security duties CIA staff employees used to carry out. In May of this year in Kabul four Blackwater contractors reportedly shot and killed two unarmed Afghans; Blackwater whisked the four out of the country before the Afghans could investigate. The State Dept. has also relied heavily on Blackwater in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the years.
And there may even be a darker side to Blackwater. This August one former anonymous Blackwater employee filed a sworn statement in federal court in Virginia claiming that Blackwater's founder Erik Prince (who is no longer involved with the day-to-day running of the company) was involved in the murder of at least one informant reporting to federal authorities on his company. The allegation, first reported by The Nation magazine, was part of a civil suit filed by several Iraqis for the company's alleged abuses in the country. Blackwater has denied the claims, calling them "anonymous unsubstantiated and offensive assertions."
Still, the CIA has maintained its various Blackwater contracts, which run from protecting CIA operatives in the field to loading Hellfire missiles on Predator drones. None of this is to mention that as soon as CIA money lands in Blackwater's account it is beyond accounting, as good as gone.
If this Administration ever hopes to get a handle on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other countries around the world where the 'war on terrorism' has been fought it's going to have to figure out what happened to the billions and billions spent on contracts. So far the Obama White House has been happy to work with the Bush Administration contracting mess. In Afghanistan today, the company that supervises Blackwater is a British security called Aegis, which is headed by a notorious British mercenary. Afghans are a people that do not take well to mercenaries.
Even more troubling, I think we will find out that in the unraveling of the Bush years, Blackwater is not the worst of the contractors, some of which did reportedly end up carrying out their assigned hits.
— Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower
Yoke Paramita Djati Walujo from Bali, Indonesia Won the 1st Place in Bikini Contest [Miss Tourism Queen International 2009]
The Winner of Miss Bikini Contest in Miss Tourism Queen International 2009 in Xingyang, Henan Province, China.
Final Contest was held on 17 August. Yoke Eliminates other 120 Contestan from All over the World.
The First Runner up is From Russia, and Second Runner up is From Ukrania.
Miss Tourism Queen International was Founded by Charlie See. Since 1949, more than 80 Country held this Competition. In 1993 Miss Tourism Queen International organization held the First Worlds Final in Sri Lanka and in the United States, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Singapore, And many other Countries.
As predicted by the mayans 2012 Doomday may be just aroudn the corner! Read more below.
According to scientist the Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years . The magnetic poles are different from geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of Earth's rotation. The shift could mean that Alaska will lose its northern lights, or auroras, which might then be more visible in areas of Siberia and Europe. Magnetic poles have been known to migrate and reverse. "This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada," Joseph Stoner, a palaeomagnetist at Oregon State University, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. Wandering poles Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth's magnetic shield has decreased 10% over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 1,100km (685 miles) into the Arctic, according to the new analysis. The rate of the magnetic pole's movement has increased in the last century compared with fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said. The Oregon team examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes. Since the sediments record the Earth's magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field. They found that the north magnetic field shifted significantly in the last thousand years. It generally migrated between northern Canada and Siberia, but has occasionally moved in other directions. Rate of change At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, Alaska could lose its northern lights, or auroras, which occur when charged particles streaming away from the Sun collide with gases in the ionosphere, causing them to glow. The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831 and when it was revisited in 1904, explorers found it had moved by 50km (31 miles). For centuries, navigators using compasses had to learn to deal with the difference between magnetic and geographic north. A compass needle points to the north magnetic pole, not the geographic North Pole. 2012 Doomsday Mayan Calender Pole Shift Pole Reversal Doomsday 2012 Doomsday
MAYAN CALENDAR
If you are reading this you are living in one of the most interesting times. From the Mayan perspective and from many other perspectives: These are the End Times. This is the time of prophecy about a 2012 Doomsday. Just about everybody has heard of the date 2012 and read about 2012 doomsday predictions. Most people hear about Dec 21, 2012 and say, “Hmm, isn’t that when the Mayan calendar ends? Isn't that 2012 Doomsday date? Accoding to some scholars the Mayan calendar doesn’t end in 2012. The Mayan calendar is based on cycles within cycles within cycles. What happens in 2012 is the ending of a major cycle. For the Maya 2012 is the ending of what is known as the Great Cycle. The GreatCycle is a 5,125 year cycle that began at the date 13.0.0.0.0 on the Mayan calendar. Modern day media has tagged this date as "2012 Doomsday" The present Kali Yuga cycle of the Hindus began just 11 years later in 3102 B.C., this is supposedly when Lord Krishna disincarnated and then the Kali Yuga began. Kali Yuga is the final and darkest age. For the Maya, history did begin at 3113 B.C. The first dynasty of Egypt was established circa 3100 B.C. The first city in history was founded circa 3100 B.C. That was the city of Uruk, from which the name Iraq is derived. Uruk was founded by seven wise men at the beginning of history in Mesopotamia. If you look at the history books you will see that virtually everything we think of as the history of civilization began at that point and slowly builds up from there—this is the Babylonian/Mesopotamian origin of civilization. Mayans say that this whole cycle of civilization 5,125 years comes to an end on the Winter Solstice December 21, 2012 A.D.
