Panetta formally shuts down US war in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — After nearly nine years, 4,500 American dead, 32,000 wounded and more than $800 billion, U.S. officials formally shut down the war in Iraq — a conflict that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy.

Panetta stepped off his military plane in Baghdad Thursday as the leader of America's war in Iraq, but will leave as one of many top U.S. and global officials who hope to work with the struggling nation as it tries to find its new place in the Middle East and the broader world.

Presiden Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou Menang Untuk Kedua Kalinya

Presiden Ma berteriak lantang pada babak
akhir pemilihan Presiden 

Tepatnya pada tanggal 14 Januari lalu, Presiden Ma Ying-jeou dielu-elukan oleh para pendukung di markas besarnya dalam kampanye pemilihan Presiden baru. Presiden Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou telah memenangkan masa jabatan kedua, beliau menjanjikan untuk lebih meningkatkan hubungan dengan negara tetangganya, China. Lawan utamanya, Tsai Ing-wen mengatakan, ia mengambil tanggung jawab atas kekalahan dan mengundurkan diri sebagai pemimpin Partai Progresif Demokratik (DPP).
 Ma berkampanye dalam catatannya meningkatkan hubungan dengan China. Cina tidak mengakui Taiwan, mengenai pulau sebagai provinsi yang memisahkan diri. Ia menginginkan unifikasi. "Dalam empat tahun ke depan, hubungan lintas-selat akan lebih damai, dengan saling percaya yang lebih besar dan kemungkinan konflik akan kurang," kata  Ma gembira pada pendukungnya. "Aku harus membiarkan Taiwan memiliki lingkungan jangka panjang perdamaian dan stabilitas." Dia menambahkan: "Ini bukan kemenangan pribadi saya, kemenangan milik semua Taiwan, mereka memberitahu kami bahwa kami berada di jalur yang benar," ungkapnya.

Barbie's Doll Secret

And it's not just Barbie manufacturer Mattel who's at fault. Disney toy figures, including Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White, as well as Hasbro and Lego products were also found to be using packaging made from endangered rainforest wood.
Greenpeace bought 30 mainly Mattel-made dolls from Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, the U.S. and Australia which were sent to a laboratory where scientists were able to detect the type of wood fibres used in the packaging.
Longer fibres indicate tropical hardwood from rainforests while shorter fibres indicate softwood grown on plantations. All but five of the 30 products tested were found to have used rainforest wood.
Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace's campaign to save the forests of Indonesia said: 'Barbie is trashing rainforests and pushing critically-endangered wildlife, like tigers, towards extinction.
'Mattel, which makes Barbie, must stop wrapping the world's most famous toy in rainforest destruction.'
Every year Indonesia loses an area of rainforest to rainforest equivalent to the size of Devon. The country has now become the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world after the U.S. and China.
Mattel, the world's most profitable toy company, sources paper from Indonesia's Asia Pulp & Paper company which many retailers have banned due to their use of rainforest wood. The company, which admits using wood from natural forests, say they plan to continue to do so until 2015 when they will switch to purely sustainable resources.