Vettel paces Red Bull's one-two in rainy Chinese F1 GP

SHANGHAI, April 19 -- Germany's Sebastian Vettel won a rain-plagued Chinese Grand Prix here on Sunday to clinch the second title in his career.

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany celebrates with his trophy after winning the Chinese F1 Grand Prix in Shanghai, east China, April 19, 2009. Vettel won with 1 hour 57 minutes and 43.485 seconds.

Vettel, 22, who has his maiden victory in Monza last year, led Red Bull's one-two at the Shanghai International Circuit in one hour 57 minutes and 43.485 seconds, earning a perfect 10-point the first time this season.

Vettel's teammate Mark Webber was 10.970 seconds behind for the second place. Brawn GP's duo Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello managed third and fourth place respectively.


Toyota's Jarno Trulli pulled out the race after being hit by BMW Sauber's Rober Kubica in the 40th minute. The rain caused some trouble for drivers and a couple of spins, slides came up to Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet and Mark Webber.

Sutil was forced out of the race after his car slid out of the track in the last sixth lap to hit the type wall.

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Madonna Horse-riding Accident: Madonna Hospitalized After Horse Tumble

Madonna had a horse-riding accident Saturday in Hamptons, New York. The Material Girl star fell off from a startled horse while horseback riding on New York's Long Island where she was visiting friend and famed photographer Steven Klein.

The 50-year-old suffered minor injuries and bruises after the tumble. She was taken to the Southampton Hospital and released soon.

"The accident occurred when the horse Madonna was riding was startled by paparazzi who jumped out of the bushes to photograph the singer, who was visiting friends on Eastern Long Island over the weekend," the singer's rep Liz Rosenberg told Us Weekly. "Madonna will be having further tests and will continue to remain under observation by doctors."

This was the second time Madonna suffered from a horse-riding accident. In 2005, a much serious accident in London left her with three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand.

Link: Madonna Horse-riding Accident Photos Gallery

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South Africa: Mandela boosts Zuma at final ANC campaign rally

“Nelson Mandela has always been a hard act to follow. At an African National Congress (ANC) rally today, ahead of Wednesday’s elections, the former president of South Africa and famous political prisoner sparked cheers among the tens of thousands of ANC supporters assembled. His role at the rally — as it was when Mr. Mandela was the first post-apartheid president — was to reassure South Africans that the ANC government would stand for reconciliation and peace, as well as correcting historic injustices. The 90-year old Mandela was driven into Coca-Cola Park, a Johannesburg rugby stadium, in a golf cart and helped to the stage by the ANC’s presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma.” (04/19/09)
Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0419/p06s04-woaf.html

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The Torture Memos

The Obama administration granted legal immunity to Central Intelligence Agency officials who followed Justice Department guidelines in carrying out harsh interrogations of terror suspects following the 9/11 attacks.

But in a victory for Attorney General Eric Holder, the administration released four Justice memos on CIA interrogations mostly intact, despite CIA officials' objections. The decision concluded a hard-fought internal debate that highlighted different views on how the Democratic administration should address Bush-era antiterror policies.

Three of the memos were issued in 2005 by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and portray efforts by the Bush administration to wipe away doubts that the interrogations were legal. In one memo, Mr. Bradbury says, "Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms." He follows that with multiple pages that painstakingly define the meaning of "severe" and "physical pain and suffering" to conclude that what the CIA did wasn't torture.

One key factor was the online publication last week by the New York Review of Books of an International Committee of the Red Cross account of detainee interrogations. The president read the account and concluded "virtually everything that was in these memos was out in the public domain," said the senior official.

As of May 2005, the CIA program had held 94 detainees and subjected 28 of them to enhanced interrogations, according to the memos.

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Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton Crowned Miss USA

22-year-old Kristen Dalton from Wilmington, North Carolina was crowned Miss USA tonight. She's pictured above wearing one of the swimsuits from Jessica Simpson's collection that all the contestants wore during the competition. Ms. Dalton is a singer and dancer who completed her degree in Psychology and Spanish at East Carolina University. She comes from a family of pageant winners. Her mother was Miss North Carolina USA in 1982 and her sister was Miss North Carolina Teen USA in 2008. You can see more photos of Kristen Dalton here on the Miss USA website.

Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean was the First Runner Up and Miss Arizona USA, Alicia-Monique Blanco was the Second Runner Up. Miss Wyoming USA, Cynthia Pate was named Miss Congeniality.

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All A-Twitter

“This week Ashton Kutcher (aka @aplusk) broke the one million mark in Twitter followers and introduced Oprah (@oprah) to the phenomenon. He’s also using his fame and Twitterlebrity to raise awareness of malaria and ask fans to support Malaria No More in sending insecticide-treated mosquito nets to African countries where they are needed most.” So reports the blog celebrity-baby (of which we are, of course, devoted readers).

Kutcher, the “other half” of Demi Moore, is now the leading celanthropist when it comes to using the new media to promote a cause. (Point of information for those who think philanthrocapitalism is an ugly word: “celanthropist” was coined by Time magazine, whilst the winner is surely celebrity-baby’s Twitterlebrity.) However, if Oprah starts to “tweet” on a regular basis, she will soon overtake him.

Ray Chambers, the billionaire philanthrocapitalist who helped found Malaria No More, was excited about the potential of Twitter and other interactive technologies to help change the world, when he
spoke on April 17th at Georgetown University’s well-attended and strikingly upbeat Global Forum on “Profit, Policy and Philanthropy: The Keys to Global Development” (at which Matthew also spoke).

Malaria No More is fast emerging as one of the most innovative and effective partnerships in the world of philanthrocapitalism, with a coalition spanning News Corp to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and best-selling purpose-driven evangelical minister Rick Warren to, well, Ashton Kutcher. Read Matthew’s account of the entertaining goings-on at its first White house Summit here.

Whatever happens to the economy, we expect doing good to be transformed over the next few years by interactive technologies. Among other things, this will enable all donors - not just the super rich - to have greater confidence that their money is having an impact. It will also enable one of the most frequently ignored groups to have more of a voice - the needy people who philanthropy, large and small, is trying to help. We are big fans of internet-based organisations such as Kiva.org,DonorsChoose.org and globalgiving.com - but we also think they are only the beginning of what will be a revolutionary change. For a good read on the potential, we recommend “Causewired” by Tom Watson.

For anyone bemused by Twitter, check out this naughty Stephen Colbert moment as well as this how-tovideo on youtube. Matthew will start to “tweet” more frequently under the alias @mattbish. Help him beat Oprah to the two million mark by signing up to “follow” him here.

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Obama: Chavez’s Gift Was A “Nice Gesture”

The whole point of Chavez giving Obama that book was to create an opportunity for himself to go back to Venezuela and appear on his state-run media and scream about how he confronted the imperialist devil Americans and slapped a digest of their sins right in their faces. Unwittingly (I hope, because if Obama did this on purpose he’s a worse leader than I thought) Obama created a wonderful propaganda moment for Chavez that the red-shirted “President for life” tyrant will no doubt be exploiting for years.

And for Obama’s part, there’s not really anything he can do. He went there to try and “charm” people like Chavez. He took th book. Now he’s got to pretend like Chavez didn’t just play him for a fool.


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Obama sits through anti-American diatribe with a smile

President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba’s Communist government.

Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes. The speech was part of the opening ceremonies at the fifth Summit of the Americas here.

To say that Obama is different than Bush and many other leaders America had in the last 50 years would be an understatement. I cannot imagine Bush, Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower, or even Clinton (Carter I can of course) imagine listening to an idiotic, hatefilled diatribe from a socialist like Ortega.

Some will undoubtedly say that Obama believes that kindness and humility will help America more than it hurts. Perhaps. Like the guys at Power Line, I am not so sure it will, however. Not at all, even.

Instead, I get the distinct impression that Latin American leaders believe they can slap Obama around. Whether that is true or not - I am betting it is not - is of little consequence with regards to the actions they will take believing they can get away with anything.

Obama is treating these people with too much respect and kindness. When Ortega railed against the U.S. for 50 minutes, Obama should have stood up and walked out.

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NZ joins anti-racism conference boycott

New Zealand is joining the boycott on the UN's anti-racism conference in Geneva. It follows similar moves by a number of other governments including the United States, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands. They pulled out over fears the conference will be used as a platform for criticism of Israel. The meeting is aimed at healing wounds from the last summit in 2001, where Arab states sought to define Zionism as racist. Foreign Minister Murray McCully says wording emerging from preparatory discussions suggest this conference could descend into the same kind of rancorous and unproductive debate.

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