In the speech, given on 8 December on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mr Sarkozy said: "How is it that a people such as the Iranian people - one of the world's greatest peoples, one of the world's oldest civilisations, sophisticated, cultured, open - have the misfortune of being represented as they are today by some of their leaders?
"I have said this to my friend Kofi [Annan]: I find it impossible to shake hands with somebody who has dared to say that Israel must be wiped off the map.
"I know perfectly well that we must resolve what is perhaps the most serious international crisis we are having to resolve: that of Iran moving towards a nuclear bomb.
"We cannot resolve it without talking to Iranian leaders, but, after what was the Shoah, after what was the 20th Century, I cannot sit at the same table as a man who dares to say: Israel must be wiped off the map."
In an open statement published in Taiwan newspapers yesterday, PTSF Chairman Cheng Tung-liao, PTSF President Feng Hsien-hsien and 13 other executives and senior managers decried the ruling KMT's effort to take direct control over the operation and programming of the TPS network, which includes Taiwan Public Television, Hakka Television and Indigenous Television and the China Television Service.
On Great Britain and social decline:Oh, my!
"Britain is performing a valuable service, by setting such an obviously bad example for others to avoid."
On the negative view of history:
"I think this negative historiography is extremely important and destructive. One of its functions, of course, is to aggrandize public intellectuals."
On why intellectuals seem to sympathize with the wrongdoer:
"Intellectuals need to say things that are not immediately obvious or do not occur to the man in the street. The man in the street instinctively sympathizes with the victim of crime; therefore, to distinguish himself from the man in the street, the intellectual has to sympathize with the criminal, by turning him into a victim of forces which only he, the intellectual, has sufficient sophistication to see."
“Our history of having our government play an active role in the organization of enterprises is not great,” Farber said.
“The government should play as little [a] role as possible,” he added.
A freeze on salary raises for all faculty and non-union staff members as well as a hold on the bulk of current searches for tenure-track and tenured faculty were among the cost-cutting measures announced in a letter circulated to department chairs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences yesterday afternoon.
Signed by the top deans of the Faculty, the letter also put forward a new, more restrictive set of guidelines for what sort of candidates will be considered for “essential” instructorships and visiting faculty positions.
The new policy marks a considerable departure from the stance outlined by FAS Dean Michael D. Smith at a Faculty meeting in November, when he told department leaders to go ahead with all current searches if applicant pools remained as strong as anticipated.
Citing a projected 30 percent drop in the University’s endowment value this year, the deans wrote that the cost-cutting measures followed from a need to reduce the budget for the next fiscal year to levels at least $105 million below the current year’s budget. The Faculty’s budget for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2009 is set to be completed by March.
The 30-bed Hau Sheng Hospital in Yuanlin in central Taiwan is reportedly the world's first Hello Kitty themed medical establishment.
From blankets and birth certificates to cots and uniforms worn by staff, every aspect of the Hello Kitty hospital is emblazoned with the feline motif.
Patients are welcomed by a statue of Hello Kitty dressed in a doctor's uniform, before travelling in a Hello Kitty elevator to a pink examination room with Hello Kitty posters on the wall.
The hospital's director Tsai Tsung-chi opened the £2m (T$100m) hospital in his hometown after obtaining authorisation from the fictitious cat's Japanese parent company Sanrio Co Ltd.
Describing the objectives of the hospital, he said: "I wish that everyone who comes here, mothers who suffer while giving birth and children who suffer from an illness, can get medical care while seeing these kitties and bring a smile to their faces, helping forget about discomfort and recover faster."
Sheer madness.
