UL,General Elections today [ 1174 ]

Voting begins as final polls point to David Cameron victory

06.05.10

• Standard poll: Election result on a knife-edge
• Voting: Police probe allegations of electoral fraud

Voters started to go to the polls today in the most tightly-contested General Election in a generation.
Polling stations opened at 7am, with the electorate having until 10pm to cast their votes.
A string of eve-of-election opinion polls gave David Cameron's Conservatives a clear lead over Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but suggested that the Tories will not reach the level of support they need to claim an overall majority in the House of Commons.
As voters began to cast their votes this morning, there was more genuine uncertainty about who would eventually emerge as Prime Minister than in any election since 1992 and a real expectation of a hung Parliament for the first time since 1974.
After a frenetic final 48 hours of campaigning, which saw them criss-cross the country in a whirlwind of rallies and constituency visits, all three leaders last night issued appeals to activists to help get the vote out today.
Mr Cameron told cheering supporters in Bristol that it was time for the Tories to "win for Britain", urging them: "Get out tomorrow. Vote for change. Vote Conservative. Vote to give this country the hope, the optimism and the change we need. Together, we can build a better, stronger country."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown returned to Scotland, where he rounded off his campaign at a rally in Dumfries with a plea to wavering voters: "At this moment of risk to our economy, at this moment of decision for our country, I ask you to come home to Labour."
And Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg addressed a crowd of hundreds of people on the steps of Sheffield City Hall, with an appeal for voters to "aim higher, don't settle for second best".
The final newspaper polls of the campaign all put Conservatives in the lead with support ranging between 35% and 37%. The other two parties were vying for second place, with Labour apparently edging slightly ahead on 28%-29% and the Liberal Democrats on 26%-28%.
On an even swing, the figures would make the Tories the largest party, with between 268 and 294 seats in the House of Commons, but leave them well short of the 326 MPs Mr Cameron needs to lead a majority administration.
The polls suggest Labour could emerge with around 248-274 MPs, with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power on 77-82 seats.
But much will depend on performance in individual constituencies, particularly the 100 or so Labour/Conservative marginals which hold the key to tonight's result and where the fiercest battles have been fought.
Strategists believe that an unusually large number of voters will only make their minds up when they get into the polling booths, adding an additional layer of uncertainty to the result.
If the Lib Dems suffer a classic last-minute "third party squeeze", with voters gravitating to the two larger parties, it could even have the effect of handing the balance of power to the Welsh and Scottish nationalists or the Northern Irish parties.
The Democratic Unionist Party last night claimed that they were being courted by Mr Brown ahead of a possible hung Parliament, releasing a letter in which the Labour leader promised to maintain the size of the block grant from Westminster to Northern Ireland if he remains in 10 Downing Street.
The national newspapers did their bit to boost the chances of their preferred candidates.
The Sun hailed Mr Cameron as "Our Only Hope" in a front-page echoing the famous campaign posters of Barack Obama, while the Daily Mirror painted a less flattering picture, asking "Prime Minister? Really?" alongside a picture of the Tory leader and a CV featuring his Eton education and support for fox hunting and listing his real-life experience as "None".
Mr Cameron and wife Samantha will cast their votes early today in his constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire, while Mr Brown and Sarah will go to the polling station in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Mr Clegg will be accompanied by wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez to the polls in Sheffield Hallam, but she will not be able to vote for her husband as she is a Spanish citizen.
As well as the 650 MPs of the new Parliament, voters are also electing councillors in 166 local authorities across England - including London boroughs - and mayors in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Watford.

Naples, the capital of theItalian crime cartels, VBS.. [ 1173 ]

Environmental crisis plagues Southern Italy

By VBS Staff

May 5, 2010 3:28 p.m. EDT

Mutated sheep, soaring cancer in Italy

Editor's note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE, an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a very transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers. Viewer discretion advised.

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) --

Recently, VBS headed to Naples, the capital of the Campania region in southern Italy, to shoot two documentaries about the Camorra, the most powerful but least understood of the Italian crime cartels.

One piece was about the peculiar world of the Camorra's homegrown Neapolitan pop stars, known as Neomelodics. 

The other, excerpted here, focused on the environmental emergency brought on by the Camorra's manipulation of garbage disposal in the region.

Each proved to be a strange and infuriating experience.

The daytime hours were spent visiting housing blocks where every family had reported at least one case of cancer because of illegal toxic waste dumps behind their homes. 

Our evenings, however, were spent at town square celebrations sponsored by the Camorra two blocks away and attended by the same families we had met earlier that day. 

The Camorra, it was suddenly clear, was dumping toxic waste in people's backyards and then hosting Neomelodic pop concerts in their front yards.

See the rest of Toxic: Napoli at VBS.TV

Today, the Camorra's Naples is Italy on steroids, and it's the result of a marriage of convenience between two powerful Italian forces. Neapolitans we met were, on the one hand, fed up with the garbage situation. On the other, very few had any interest in pointing fingers at the Camorra.

The Gerlando family is a prime example. On one of the last days of our shoot, we spent an afternoon with sheep farmers Patrizia and Mario Gerlando at their home in the Campanian countryside.

The Gerlandos were forced to leave their home in the town of Acerra (a suburb of Naples) because all of their sheep were mutating and dying due to the high levels of dioxin in the pastures where they grazed.

Despite Acerra being the most well-documented case of the Camorra's involvement in Campania's environmental crisis, after the cameras were packed away, Mario and Patrizia told us that the Camorra had nothing to do with anything and that it would take someone like Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to come fix the situation.

NASA Image of the Day [ 1172 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Visions of Future Past

The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft is the subject of this long exposure, and is seen as it is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. 

 

The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan, occurred on Monday, Dec. 21, 2009. 

 

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Τετάρτη, 5 Μάιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

UK.,General Elections... [ 1171 ]

British Elections 2010

Britons go to the polls on May 6. | Full coverage | Track tweets | Photos

In copying U.S. politics, British candidates have a ways to go

Gallery

In British election, candidates make final appeals for votes

In the May 6 general election, the two traditional-party candidates -- incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative Party front-runner David Cameron -- are facing a challenge from Nicholas Clegg of the Liberal Democrats.

Click and » LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

By Dan Balz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 5, 2010; 2:22 PM

It's true that the first nationally televised debates among the leaders of the three major parties have raised the interest level in the prime ministerial campaign and made personality rather than policy a dominant feature of the coverage.
But in other ways, British politics is a pale version of what Americans are used to seeing.
Start with Wednesday morning's rally in Eastbourne, a seaside town in southeast England. It was the site of the opening event on the schedule of Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and by all measures the most charismatic and energized candidate of the campaign.
Wednesday is the final day of campaigning in what is the closest and most unpredictable three-way election in decades, the last day to energize voters and send a message. And yet, when I arrived an hour before the rally was to begin, the broad, green Western Lawns along King Edward's Parade were nearly devoid of people.
There were a couple of television trucks along the street and a few police in evidence. On the lawn, a handful of volunteers were hastily blowing up yellow balloons, which they tied to the steel barriers that marked off the area from which Clegg would speak.
That was the extent of the stagecraft. There was, in fact, no stage to speak of -- just a small platform with a crate set on top of it. No backdrop, no big signs, nothing else. As people arrived, they were handed placards. "You can make a difference," said one. "I agree with Nick," said the other.
In the United States, the closing days of a presidential election are filled with events that can draw thousands, even tens of thousands of people. In the final weeks of his presidential campaign in 2008, Barack Obama drew 100,000 people in both Denver and St. Louis. John McCain and Sarah Palin drew crowds in the thousands.
In Eastbourne, Clegg drew at best only a couple of hundred. Bob Beatty, a political scientist from Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., who was here to observe the election, said the crowd barely compared with one that a U.S. presidential candidate might encounter in the earliest days of the Iowa caucuses.
The entire staging spoke of the contrast between American and British politics. Clegg arrived by auto; his "battle bus," as the campaign buses are called here, arrived a few minutes earlier.
He was given a big cheer as he arrived and as he made his way along the short runway to the platform. But there was no music, not even an introduction of the candidate. No local party leaders warmed up the crowd. Clegg simply hopped up on the platform and started speaking.
Obama would often speak for 30 or 45 minutes. Clegg's prepared remarks lasted little more than six minutes. His closing argument was a clarion call for change, but what was most striking was the reserve of the polite audience. Though they whooped at his arrival and when he finished, his best lines were greeted with virtual silence.

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Russia,a regional president has met aliens ??..[ 1170 ]

Russian president asked to investigate alien claims

Richard Galpin BBC News, Moscow, Mr Ilyumzhinov made the claims in a TV interview Wednesday, 5 May 2010 16:01 UK  A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalymkia, made his claim in a television interview. MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern. He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets. The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns. In his letter he says that - assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke - it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin. He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state secrets. Mr Ilyumzhinov said in an interview on primetime television that he had been taken on board an alien spaceship which had come to planet Earth to take samples - and claims to have several witnesses. He has been president of Kalmykia, a small Buddhist region of Russia which lies on the shores of the Caspian Sea, for 17 years. The millionaire former businessman has a reputation as an eccentric character. As president of the World Chess Federation, he has spent tens of millions of dollars turning the impoverished republic into a mecca for chess players - building an entire village to host international tournaments