Chief of Blacks, Gills decide to step down

The chief executive officer of the Blacks Leisure, Neil Gills, is known to be resigning from the group of outdoor retail. The decision of resignation came just 2 weeks after the termination of the process of selling the company. Gills will resign from the retail chains of the Blacks & Millets within the next six months thus dropping the curtains on what has been tenure full of events. Neil Gills joined the company in the month of November in the year 2007. It has been under the leadership of Gills that the Blacks and Millets were the target of many approaches of a takeover. The critical financial situation of the Blacks & Millets compelled it to carry out the CVA which means company voluntary arrangement. The company voluntary arrangement i. e. CVA is a procedure of insolvency which allowed the company to reduce the number of shops by 101 and also helped the company to avoid the collapse in the year 2009.

WASHINGTON -- A judge has denied a Chinese-Mexican businessman's attempts to block extradition from the United States to face drug charges in Mexico.

Zhenli Ye Gon has been jailed in the United States since July 2007 when authorities seized more than US$205 million from his Mexico City mansion. At the time, U.S. authorities said it was the largest drug-related cash seizure in world history.
He had been charged with importing methamphetamine into the United States, but the U.S. charges were dismissed after a witness recanted and another refused to testify.
Ye Gon claimed chemicals he imported were for use in legitimate prescription drugs. He fought to stay in the United States because he said he cannot receive a fair trial in Mexico. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola denied his request Wednesday.source

US corn reserves hit lowest level in 15 years

LOUIS U.S. reserves of corn have hit their lowest level in more than 15 years, reflecting tighter supplies that will lead to higher food prices in 2011. Increasing demand for corn from the ethanol industry is a major reason for the decline.


The United States' Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported Wednesday that the ethanol industry's projected orders this year rose 8.4 percent, to 13.01 billion bushels, after record-high production in December and January.
That means the United States will have about 675 million bushels of corn left over at the end of year. That's roughly 5 percent of all corn that will be consumed, the lowest surplus level since 1996.
One bushel of corn equals 25.4 kilograms, or 56 pounds.

SAN FRANCISCO, Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday announced that it is adding its own operating software to personal computers to augment the capabilities of Microsoft's Windows.

HP executives said webOS software from freshly-acquired Palm would complement Windows in machines designed to synch with the computer giant's smart phones, printers and a new TouchPad tablet computer built on the platform.
“It indicates, at least somewhat, a HP rejection of Microsoft,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg.
“The fact that they said webOS is coming to PCs (personal computers) is indicative that there is something they are not getting from Microsoft right now.”
HP bought Palm last year in a US$1.2-billion deal evidently driven by a desire to get its hands on Palm's webOS software platform.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican officials have hit back at rumors swirling that Mexican President Felipe Calderon had a problem with alcoholism in the wake of the controversial firing of a radio journalist who reported the claims.

“During the four years of his administration (the president) has never missed any activity for health reasons,” Calderon spokesman Roberto Gil said Wednesday, describing the rumors as “lies.”
Radio journalist Carmen Aristegui of the media conglomerate MVS Comunicaciones was removed from her position Monday after commenting on a placard that opposition lawmakers held up in Congress last week alleging that Calderon was an alcoholic.

WASHINGTON -- A Missouri man was executed Wednesday for the 1991 kidnap, rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

Martin Link was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. (0615 GMT), 14 minutes after being given a lethal injection at Bonne Terre prison, the Missouri Department of Corrections said. It was the state's first execution in two years and its second since late 2005.
The 47-year-old was first sentenced to death in 1995.
Elissa Self-Braun had gone missing while walking to her school bus stop. Investigators later discovered her body along the St. Francis River, south of her hometown of St. Louis.
They subsequently found a jar of Vaseline inside Link's vehicle with traces of blood mixed with the petroleum jelly. A DNA test confirmed Link was a match with evidence found on the girl's body.source

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The Pentagon has reduced the sentence of an al-Qaida cook convicted at a war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo under a plea deal.

Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi of Sudan pleaded guilty in July to supporting terrorism by providing logistical support to al-Qaida. The terms of his plea deal were not released at the time. A military jury recommended he serve 14 years in prison.
But the final say in the matter comes from the Pentagon's Convening Authority for Military Commissions. The Pentagon said in a statement Wednesday the authority suspended 12 years of al-Qosi's sentence, reducing it to two years.
Al-Qosi's sentence does not include the more than eight years he spent at Guantanamo before his conviction.read more

WASHINGTON -- The FBI has opened a preliminary probe into ousted Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his circle to determine whether they have any U.S. assets, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is teaming up with a new anti-kleptocracy squad at the Justice Department that is searching for fraudulent proceeds foreign officials have stashed away abroad, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
A week after a popular uprising toppled Ben Ali on Jan. 14, the U.S. Treasury warned financial institutions of a possible “flow of illicit assets” out of Tunisia, fearing government officials would seek to take proceeds from corruption out of the country.

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey -- A former chemist killed her estranged husband by poisoning him with a “lethal and massive dose” of a highly toxic metal that a nurse's sharp eye helped identify, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.

Tianle Li, a former employee of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., pleaded not guilty to murdering Xiaoye Wang by poisoning him with thallium, and not guilty to hindering the prosecution. The plea was entered by her attorney, and Li did not speak during the brief arraignment Wednesday afternoon in front of state Superior Court Judge Michael Toto.
“The state's allegation is that the defendant administered a lethal and massive dose to the victim and caused his death,” Deputy First Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Nicholas Sewitch said.
Sewitch declined to say how much poison was administered and over what period of time, citing the ongoing investigation and incomplete toxicology tests. Thallium was once used in rat poison, he said.

CLARENCE, New York -- A married upstate New York congressman accused of sending a shirtless photo of himself to a woman abruptly resigned Wednesday, saying he regretted the actions that had hurt his family and others.

By Carolyn Thompson, AP

The gossip website Gawker reported Wednesday that Rep. Christopher Lee, a two-term Republican with a young son, had e-mailed the photo to a woman he met on the Craigslist classified-ads website.

Lee said in an e-mailed statement that his resignation was effective immediately. The statement offered no confirmation or details of a Craigslist posting.

“I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents,” Lee said in a statement posted on his congressional website. “I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”

LOS ANGELES -- U.S. lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords has begun speaking as she continues her stunning recovery a month after being shot in the head — and one of her first requests was for toast.

The 40-year-old, shot at point-blank range by a reportedly unstable gunman on Jan. 8, is talking more and more every day as she undergoes intensive rehabilitation in a hospital in Houston, Texas, said a spokesman Wednesday.
“All I can tell you is that she requested toast ... she asked for it at breakfast the other day. And she's speaking more and more and doing more and more with each passing day,” said the spokesman, C.J. Karamargin.
“Needless to say we are jubilant at this news ... We've said many times that the congresswoman is improving in all areas, and this is one of them,” he told AFP.

Mubarak/Suleiman status quo a no-go for pro-democracy groups

by Tony Esposito for USA News Port
Tension has returned to the streets of Cairo, this time all the way to the parliamentary buildings of President Mubarak’s ironically named National Democratic Party.

Although Mubarak claims to have plans to leave office in September the government protesters do not trust him based on past experience. Furthermore, his handpicked vice-president and probable successor, Omar Suleiman, has been a rock-solid supporter of the Mubarak regime and has recently been its spy chief. As if to confirm the fears of the pro-democracy groups, Suleiman warned of a coup and said that the crisis must end, adding, "We don't want to deal with Egyptian society with police tools."