HAVANA

At the Communist Party’s first national conference in Havana, Cuba on Sunday, President Raul Castro delivered his discourse and defense of Cuba’s one-party political system. He also issued a strident warning to the 800 delegates attending the Communist Party’s first national conference to fight corruption that he said was the greatest threat to the revolution. Corruption, Castro said, was greater than anything the United States could dream up.

In an unyielding closing speech to the conference, Castro vowed to continue his pledge to institute 2, 5-year term-limits for Cuban officials. Castro explained that a constitutional amendment would be required, however, urged leaders to begin to adopt the practice even before its formalization.

The recurring theme in Castro’s speech at the conference was the U.S. threat to Cuba and the limits the threat placed on Cuba’s reform. “There has been no shortage of criticism and exhortations by those who have confused their intimate desires with reality, deluding themselves that this conference would consecrate the beginning of the dismantling of the political and social system the revolution has fought for for more than half a century,” Castro said. He further declared that Cubans that push for a multi-party system are forgetting that Cuba is under siege from their Goliath (the United States) neighbor to the north that would stop at nothing to destroy it. “To renounce the principle of a one-party system would be the equivalent of legalizing a party, or parties, of imperialism on our soil,” he said.

Using the United States’ democratic system as an example, Castro said the U.S. multi-party democratic system only concentrated power in the hands of the wealthy. He said that while Cuba had only one party, it sought the participation of all citizens through party and workplace meetings. “We must promote democracy in our society, starting with the [one] party, he said, urging rank-and-file members to speak up when they disagree with something.”

USAid, however, declares that Cuba “today remains one of the most politically repressed countries in the world. Current Cuban law and practice prevent the right to assemble without the permission of the state, criminalized dissemination of information contrary to the official line, and provide a state monopoly over mass media (the ACN, Cuba’s official news agency). Cuba is the only non-democratically-elected government in the Western Hemisphere.”

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LOS ANGELES

TMZ reported Sunday that Fear Factor will not air a previously scheduled episode entitled “Hee Haw! Hee Haw!” where contestants would eat the unimaginable: donkey semen, as NBC is concerned. Unimaginable? More like, nonhuman! What kind of sick f— dreams up the episodes on Fear Factor? And NBC is merely concerned?

In an earlier report released on Saturday, TMZ stated: “contestants on the show — shot last summer — are challenged to drink a glass of donkey semen (and one of urine) … and several of them did. The episode is scheduled to air Monday night.”

As of Wednesday last week TMZ has been reporting about the donkey semen episode and neither ethics nor animal cruelty has been discussed in any one of their reports.

Talk about animal cruelty? It is unthinkable, regardless of how the reality show obtained the donkey semen, this is just wrong.

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100 Occupy Oakland protesters are in the process of being arrested for failing to disperse according to Oakland officials. Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton says protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of the protesters entering a YMCA building in the city’s downtown. The 100 arrests Saturday night come after 19 people were arrested in Occupy Oakland protests during the day making Saturday a busy day at the Oakland Police Department.

Tear gas and “flash” grenades were reported used by the police on the group of protesters Saturday afternoon after some of them threw rocks and other objects at the police and tore down fencing.

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DES MOINES

Crawford S. Shaw, a Yale graduate and attorney licensed to practice in New York, said he represents a trust that owned a winning Iowa Lottery jackpot ticket purchased at a convenience store in December of 2010 that was associated with criminal proceedings and bankruptcy filings in New York and Delaware for which the clients involved with the trust are in Belize and as such have abandoned the claim for the jackpot worth $14.3 million dollars. The Iowa Lottery has confirmed the ticket as authentic.

The Associated Press states that Shaw is the former C.E.O. of Industrial Enterprises of America Inc., a bankrupt public company District Attorney’s office in Manhattan said was looted in a securities fraud scheme valued at $100 million.

According to a report in MSNBC, Shaw referred a reporter to a statement issued by a law firm based in Des Moines that had performed work on behalf of the trust which said the identity of the buyer(s) of the ticket were unknown even to Shaw and offered to authorize the Iowa Lottery to pay the winnings, after taxes, to charities, but lottery officials declined, saying no payments would be made until the identities of the buyers were known.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office and Division of Criminal Investigation announced a criminal probe into the matter.

According to the Des Moines Register, the ticket was signed by Shaw on behalf of an company called Hexham Investments Trust. The name Hexham, however, was misspelled on the signature.

Apparently, Iowa Lottery officials have given the winners until 3 p..m. Friday to reveal themselves or forfeit the prize.

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27-year veteran detective Ramon Alvarez of the Los Angeles Police Department Gang and Narcotics Division was arrested Friday and charged with grand theft upon him serving an arrest warrant at a suspected narcotics location when a fellow detective witnessed Alvarez take money from said site, according to a statement released by the LAPD.

The detective that witnessed Alvarez take money from the site immediately notified his supervisor, and Alvarez’s official vehicle was searched. Money that was believed to belong to the narcotics suspect was found inside Alvarez’s vehicle, according to the LAPD statement. LAPD’s Internal Affairs Criminal Investigation Division then arrested Alvarez for grand theft.

“I am extremely disturbed and shocked by the arrest, but heartened by the actions of the detective who immediately reported what appeared to be criminal behavior,” said Police Chief Charlie Beck in a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Bail was set at $20,000 and Alvarez was placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the criminal investigation, as well as the outcome of an administrative investigation.

“The arrest of an LAPD officer and a classmate is shocking and very disappointing,” said Tyler Izen, President of the Los Angeles Police Protective League in the Los Angeles Times report. “We expect law enforcement officers to hold themselves to the highest moral standards in their professional and personal lives, making the news doubly upsetting.”

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UCLA's Rape Trail also known as the Saxon Steps which connects the Saxon Residential Suites to Gayley Avenue

LOS ANGELES

Police continue a search for a man accused of sexual assault of a female UCLA student, the university which is ranked second of all universities nationwide and first in community service according to Washington Monthly’s rankings.

The sexual assault occurred at about 2:20 a.m. Friday at the top of the steps that connects the Saxon Suites dormitories with Gayley Avenue also known as the Rape Trail. The man accused of the assault called out to the female UCLA student while she was climbing the steps. After a short conversation, the man sexually assaulted her. Their brief conversation could have sounded something similar to the following: “Hey. What’s your name? What’s your major? Do you live around here? Yes? Well take some of this,” and the sexual assault occurred. The assault victim eventually got away from the man and immediately called the police, who arrived shortly thereafter and after the man had already fled the scene, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

It appears that UCLA police are looking for the suspect who is described as a 6 foot tall white male weighing 150 pounds and about 21 years old with short brown hair and blue eyes, according to a crime alert issued by the UCLA’s campus police department.

NBC4 was told by several students that the sexual assault occurred along a narrow stairway where other similar crimes have occurred in the past. Those students said that female students usually try to avoid walking the stairway alone at night.

Real the original article at Allvoices.

26 Died from fire at an unlicensed overcrowded rehabilitation center in the nation's capital

LIMA

In a country where firefighters are not just notoriously underfunded, they volunteer where the entire nation’s firefighting budget is only $19 million dollars per year, it is no surprise that a fire killed 26 people and injured 10 others at a 2-story unlicensed and overcrowded private rehabilitation center in the Peruvian capital, Lima on Saturday, officials said. The blaze started around 9 a.m. local time at the “God is Love” rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics located in the capital city’s poor Zarate district.

The cause of the fire is still unknown and the 10 injured were taken to Lima hospitals, said Zarate police chief Clever Zegarra. Peru’s chief fire fighter, Antonio Zavala, said the fire was of “Dantesque proportions, with most of the people having died from asphyxiation” Gianfranco Huerta, who was being treated at the center, told local radio station RPP that he jumped from the second floor of the center to escape the fire. “The doors were locked, there was no way to get out,” he said. Residents were apparently kept inside like prisoners, Health Minister Alberto Tejada told the Associated Press.

An AP journalist at scene said all the windows of the building were barred that he was able to see. As police cordoned off the block, Journalists were not allowed inside. By early afternoon, all bodies had been removed from the center.

“This rehabilitation center wasn’t authorized. It was a house that they had taken over… for patients with addictions and they had the habit of leaving people locked up with no medical supervision,” Tejada said.

Authorities said they did not know how many people were inside the center at the time of the fire and were looking for the center’s owners and staff, some of whom apparently fled the scene. “We’ve had to use electric saws to cut through the metal bars of the doors to be able to work,” Zavala said.

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LOS ANGELES

E Online entertainment news columnist Leslie Gornstein, Ask the Answer Bitch, in her column Thursday covered a report on the celebrity splits Heidi Klum and Seal, K.D. Lang and her domestic partner, Drew Carey and the lady he dated for 5 years, and Katy Perry and Russell Brand. In covering the report, as all of the split-ups happened in or around January, Gornstein raises the question “Is January to blame?”

Since Leslie the Answer Bitch Gornstein knows everything, she answered her own question, with assistance from her colleagues, and the following is the response to whether January is to blame for all of the reported celebrity splits: quite simply put, “yes.”

Divorce attorneys confirm that January is a busy month for breakups and divorce filings in general, which includes celebrities.

“People go through a very exhausting year, and people looking at the new year as a new life,” says family law specialist Marilyn B. Chinitz a Partner of Blank Rome LLP at their New York office. “So as soon as January rolls around, people think, ‘This is my new beginning.’”

Gornstein also responded by stating that the holidays are also stressful. Traveling and complaining family members can lead to fights that end with a filing for divorce from which celebrities are not immune.

Lastly, couples who decide to breakup often wait until the holidays are over, states the Answer Bitch.

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LOS ANGELES

49-year old actress Demi Moore, mother of 3 daughters from former husband Bruce Willis, suffered convulsions after smoking an undisclosed substance, according to an emergency 911 recorded call from last Monday in which she was described as being “barely semi-conscious.” The recording was released by Los Angeles fire officials and captures the few minutes it took paramedics to arrive as friends surrounded the actress who had collapsed. In the recording, an unidentified female is asked by the emergency operator “is she breathing normal?” The female responded and stated “No, not so normal. More kind of shaking, convulsing, burning up.”

When the operator asked if Moore had ingested or smoked anything, the female replied: “She smoked something. It’s not marijuana but it is similar to incense,” according to a BBC News report, although the complete reply was redacted on the advice of the city attorney’s office citing federal medical privacy rules. “She’s been having some issues lately with some other stuff,” said the female.

Asked by the operator if this had happened before, the female voice said: “There’s been some stuff recently that we’re all just finding out.”

Apparently, as the call was about to end, Moore began to improve when a man got on the telephone and told the operator that Demi Moore had calmed down and began speaking.

Demi Moore’s publicist had previously declared that Moore was suffering from exhaustion post her divorce from Ashton Kutcher, 16 years her junior at 33, last November.

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LOS ANGELES

America’s favorite game show of times past Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajack appeared on ESPN2 Tuesday and declared he used to host the game show while intoxicated. Sajack on Dan LeBatard is Highly Questionable said about his drunken game show days that when he first started the game show he was much younger and could tolerate the alcohol. Sajack said that he and Vanna White, who he commented smelled “great,” would take 2 ½ dinner breaks at Los Arcos (now Acapulco Restaurant) in Burbank across from NBC and usually have around 4 margaritas, or more, only to return to the studio and have difficulty recognizing letters of the alphabet.

“I had a great time,” Sajak continued. “I have no idea if the shows were any good, but no one said anything, so I guess I did OK.”

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