Bob Marley Heirs Wage Global War On Trademark Pirates

Heirs of the Jamaican reggae legend are plunging into the global trademark wars, seeking to enforce their exclusive rights to an image that has grown steadily in scope and appeal since the Jamaican superstar died of brain cancer in 1981 at age 36.

The Marley name, look and sound are estimated to generate an estimated $600 million a year in sales of unlicensed wares. Legal sales are much smaller — just $4 million for his descendants in 2007, according to Forbes magazine. The Marleys refuse to give a figure.

Now the family has hired Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital to protect their rights to the brand. Hilco CEO Jamie Salter believes Marley products could be a $1 billion business in a few years.

Central Bank Of Barbados 3rd Quarter 2009 Economic Review

Outgoing Central Bank Governor gave her last economic review for the first three quarters of 2009.

Barbados economy declined by 4.4 per cent during the first three quarters of this year.Central Bank Governor Dr Marion Williams believes the economic slide will not stop by year-end but it should certainly slow with a possible recovery late next year.

Speaking yesterday at the Tom Adams Financial Centre, Church Village, The City, where she delivered her last economic review as head of the bank, Williams said declining tourist arrivals triggered the reduced activity in the island’s traded and non-traded sectors.

Reporting on the performance of various sectors, the economist said Barbados’ main foreign exchange earner – tourism – had suffered an 11.4 per cent decline in long-stay arrivals up to September.

German Chancellor And Ministers To Get Special H1N1 Vaccine

German newspaper Spiegel Online reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and government ministers will receive a special, additive-free H1N1 vaccine. “The Vakzin [vaccine] does not contain disputed additives — contrary to the vaccine for the remainder of the population,” reports the newspaper.

NY Times – Afghan ‘Opium’ Kingpin On CIA Payroll

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

German Health Expert On H1N1 Vaccine Risks

The swine flu vaccine has been hit by new cancer fears after a German health expert gave a shock warning about its safety.

Lung specialist Wolfgang Wodarg has said that there are many risks associated with the vaccine for the H1N1 virus. He has grave reservations about the firm Novartis who are developing the vaccine and testing it in Germany. The vaccination is injected “with a very hot needle”, Wodarg said.

The nutrient solution for the vaccine consists of cancerous cells from animals and “we do not know if there could be an allergic reaction”. But more importantly, some people fear that the risk of cancer could be increased by injecting the cells.

Beautiful Only People Website

An online dating agency that allows membership only to good looking people is to launch its website worldwide this week despite criticism being superficial.

The site, Beautifulpeople.com, which was launched in Denmark several years ago, will now operate as one unified website across the globe, the Telegraph reported today.

The lonely hearts website has currently some 180,000 members, who were asked to submit a photograph of themselves, allowing other members to decide through an online rating system whether they were attractive enough to be admitted.

Internet Change For Non-English Addresses

The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the expected approval this week of international domain names - or addresses – that can be written in languages other than English, an official said on Monday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN – the non-profit group that oversees domain names – is holding a meeting this week in Seoul. Domain names are the monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post, such as “.com” and other suffixes.

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Stanford Investors Seek To Block Antigua’s IMF Loan

  As Antigua and Barbuda awaits final word from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a loan it says it needs, victims of the alleged Stanford fraud are trying to stop the twin-island nation from accessing any funds from the lending agency.

In its latest campaign against the island, the Stanford Victims Coalition (SVC), through lawyers from the New York firm Morgenstern & Blue LLC, has written to members of Congress to get help blocking any IMF loan.

Antigua and Barbuda recently held talks with the Washington-based institution and are close to a final deal, although the amount it would receive has not yet been finalised.

6-2 BLP Leadership Vote Retains Mottley

  Opposition Leader Mia Mottley swept away all doubts about her leadership of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) with a convincing victory at the Roebuck Street, Bridgetown party headquarters last night.

With former Prime Minister Owen Arthur glaringly absent, Mottley was announced political leader and Leader of the Opposition shortly before 10 p.m. after a three-hour-long parliamentary group meeting.

Thanking the group for its confidence, she said it was critical for the party to move forward with certainty at this point since the Government was not performing.

BLP Leadership Vote Today To End Rumours

The leadership of the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) will be determined once and for all with a vote by the nine-member Parliamentary group today.

Opposition Leader, Mia Mottley, addressed rumours of a leadership struggle yesterday and said that the public perception of a divide was hurting the party’s chances of unseating the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration in the next election. Therefore, Mottley said she was prepared to take the issue to the Parliamentary group and that “come Tuesday, this issue must be resolved and we must go forward”.

CIA To Start Spying On Social Media?

Visible Technologies, a company that monitors online social activity and packages the findings for clients, has forged a “strategic partnership” with In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s not-for-profit investment arm, to give the organization insight into social media.

The deal was first reported on Monday (19 Oct) by Wired.

According to Visible Technologies, In-Q-Tel is also investing in the company through a “technology development agreement.” It did not release more details than that. However, examining Visible Technologies’ work may offer insight into what In-Q-Tel has in mind.

Castro’s Sister Worked For CIA

The younger sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita Castro, collaborated with the US Central Intelligence Agency against her brothers’ rule in Cuba before going into exile in Miami in 1964, she said on Sunday.

Juanita Castro, 76, who has not spoken to either of her brothers for more than four decades, made the revelation to the Spanish-language TV channel Univision-Noticias 23 on the eve of the publication of her memoirs about Fidel and Raul Castro.

The book in Spanish entitled Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History, co-written with Mexican journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, is being published on Monday.

Internet Giants Join Forces To Fight e-mails Scams

Millions of internet users have received messages offering them a huge financial reward if they help to release money trapped in a foreign bank account. And, although the majority of these e-mails are deleted, the fraudsters still find a sufficient number of gullible Britons to cost the country millions a year.

Nigeria’s anti-corruption police have now joined forces with the world’s leading technology companies, including Microsoft, to create a system that will warn e-mail users when they are the target of a scam.

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Caricom Countries Opt Out Of ALBA ‘SUCRE’ Currency

Member nations of Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) have agreed to implement a single currency to be used among themselves from next year, but the three Eastern Caribbean countries who are part of the nine-member Venezuela-led bloc say they won’t be a part – a position that was accepted by a weekend summit.

The decision to go ahead with the use of the use of the virtual Single Regional Payment Compensation System (SUCRE) as a replacement for the US dollar in commercial exchanges among members was endorsed by the Prime Ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica at ALBA’s Seventh Summit in Bolivia.

But according to media reports, the three who already use the EC dollar under the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, said they would not be participating in the proposed currency at this time.

C’bbean Getting Vaccine Before Second Wave Swine Flu

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries can expect the first shipment of the HINI vaccine to arrive in the region in late November, as they prepare for further attacks from the virus known as swine flu.

 
The vaccine will provide immunisation for CARCIOM’s most vulnerable groups – children, pregnant mothers, persons suffering from Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases and young people – against an anticipated second attack of the virus later this year.
 
“The bad news is this virus is expected to intensify its attack during the colder months of December to January; the good news is that the Caribbean is more prepared to deal this virus the second time around as most member states are seeking to acquire the vaccine,” said Dr Rudolph Cummings, CARICOM Secretariat’s Programme Manager, Health Sector Development.

Cocaine Use Rife In The BBC

A former BBC emplyee has blown the whistle on cocaine use among the corporation’s TV and radio producers and star performers.

Sarah Graham told a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing into the cocaine trade, that it is seen as “part of your creative genius or part of your extraordinary personality”.

She says that instead of being reprimanded, those who take the drug are praised for their “off-the-wall” brilliance.

Miss Graham has worked for BBC Radio 5, Children’s BBC and Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, and says she was offered the drug by a presenter and producer on her first day at work.

Afghanistan Opium Production Reaches 6,900 Tons

Opium production rate has soared to 6,900 tons in Afghanistan in the past 10 years despite the presence of 100,000 foreign troops in the country for nearly eight years.

A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Wednesday that Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world’s opium that has devastating global consequences.

The UN report also noted that Afghanistan’s illegal opium production is worth 65 billion dollars. The heroin and opium market feeds 15 million addicts, with Europe, Russia and Iran consuming half the supply, UNODC reported.

The UN office estimated some 15 million people take the drug each year, out of which 100,000 people die annually, warning that opium use contributes to the spread of HIV and AIDS.

‘If Israel Strike Iran, US Would Likely Join’

The United States would find it difficult not to join an Israeli air strike in the event that Jerusalem decides to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a former top-ranking U.S. Air Force officer told participants at a conference this weekend organized by a Washington think tank.

Charles F. Wald, former deputy commander of United States European Command, said a military strike on Iran could set back the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear weapons program by several years, but cautioned, “I don’t think Israel can do it alone.”

The former commander’s remarks were made at an annual gathering of financial backers of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who were joined by diplomats, journalists and analysts.

Mother Found Honour Killing Victim ‘Tied Up The Day Before She Was Murdered’ By Father

The mother of an alleged schoolgirl ‘honour killing’ victim wept today as she described finding her tied up the day before she was said to have been murdered.

Hanim Goren told jurors she discovered 15-year-old daughter Tulay lying face down on the floor in a bedroom with her hands and her feet bound.

She said her husband Mehmet, who yesterday collapsed in court as he heard his wife give evidence, told her that he had tied their daughter up to stop her from running away.

Blue Roses Anyone?

Which colour would you like your roses? Red, white, yellow … or perhaps blue?

Japan’s Suntory Ltd. said Tuesday it would start selling the world’s first genetically-modified blue roses next month, 20 years after it began research to create the novelty flowers.

The major whisky distiller said it succeeded in developing blue roses in 2004 with the Australian biotech company Florigene Pty Ltd.

The blue roses are created by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of the blue pigment Delphinidin in pansies, the firm said.