At 6, Awaiting Hostage’s Release. After 8, Telling Wife He’s Dead.
ISTANBUL — For 18 months, a group of
civilians in South Africa worked to
accomplish what their government had
been unable to do: negotiate the release
of a South African couple held by Al
Qaeda in the lawless desert of southern
Yemen.
In January, the civilian negotiators
succeeded in securing the release of
the woman, Yolande Korkie. And in
recent weeks, they received
confirmation that the terrorist group
had agreed to free her husband, Pierre
Korkie, in return for a $200,000
ransom. On Saturday morning, a
convoy of cars was set to leave the
southern Yemeni city of Aden to pick up
the 54-year-old hostage from the
remote outpost where he was being
held.
At 6 a.m. in Johannesburg, Imtiaz
Sooliman, the director of the aid group
that had led the long effort, sent a text
message to Mrs. Korkie: "The waiting is
almost over."
At 8:03 a.m. his phone rang with
incomprehensible news: Mr. Korkie was
dead.
Hours before his expected release, the
South African hostage was killed by his
Qaeda guards when a military operation
by the United States to save his
cellmate — Luke Somers, an American
photojournalist — went wrong. Mr.
Somers and eight civilians were also
killed in the raid.
United States officials say they did not
know that Mr. Korkie was about to be
freed, revealing the dangerous
disconnect that can occur when
civilians are left to negotiate hostage
releases on their own. The government
of South Africa — like the United States
— hews to a strict policy of not paying
ransoms to terrorist groups holding
their citizens, maintaining that
payments encourage kidnappers and
perpetuate the problem.
Yet as kidnapping for ransom has
turned into a lucrative business for Al
Qaeda and its more extreme offshoot,
the Islamic State, an increasing number
of Westerners have been abducted.
Frustrated by what they see as passive
responses from their governments, the
families and colleagues of hostages
have been thrust into the role of
amateur negotiators, initiating contact
with the terrorists themselves.
That role proved to be nerve-racking
for Mrs. Korkie and the South African
charity trying to free her husband, who
went to Yemen as a teacher.
"The night before, I spent hours on the
phone with Yolande to try to calm her
down," said Mr. Sooliman, who heads the
charity, Gift of the Givers, which runs
humanitarian projects in eight countries,
including Yemen. "I told her, 'I'll call you
the moment Pierre is in our hands,' " he
said. "She went to sleep with that good
feeling in her heart."
Unbeknown to them, a risky nighttime
raid was already in progress in Yemen.
President Obama gave the go-ahead for
a unit of Navy SEAL Team 6
commandos to try to rescue Mr.
Somers after concluding that his life
was in imminent danger, because a
deadline that his captors had set to
meet their demands was about to
expire. Just as Mrs. Korkie was trying
to fall asleep at her home in
Bloemfontein, South Africa, the V-22
Osprey tilt-rotor planes were sweeping
toward a darkened village in rural
Yemen.
It remains unclear what went wrong.
Soon after the commandos reached the
compound where the hostages were
being held, gunfire erupted. Both Mr.
Korkie and Mr. Somers were shot by
their guards before the commandos
could get to them.
Mr. Korkie had already been dead for
several hours when Mrs. Korkie awoke
on Saturday and resumed texting with
Mr. Sooliman, organizing the final details
of her husband's release.
Those planning the American operation
had no indication that the South African
hostage was about to be freed, they
said.
"We were not aware in advance about
any release plans for other hostages,"
a United States official, who requested
anonymity to discuss the delicate
operation, said shortly after the failed
rescue mission. "That was not part of
our planning."
Gift of the Givers had not informed
Yemeni officials or the United States of
the planned release because their Qaeda
contacts had warned them to keep the
plans confidential, Mr. Sooliman said. It
remains unclear whether the South
African government — which said in a
statement that it had been working with
Gift of the Givers and had "undertaken
numerous initiatives" to try to free Mr.
Korkie — had informed the United
States or Yemen about his imminent
release.
In addition to not paying ransoms,
unlike some countries in Europe whose
officials have secretly funneled tens of
millions of dollars to free their citizens,
South Africa and the United States, do
not engage in other ways with the
terrorist groups holding their citizens. A
prisoner exchange that led to the
release of an American soldier, Sgt.
Bowe Bergdahl, was different, United
States officials say, because special
laws apply to prisoners of war and
because the Taliban, which was holding
Sergeant Bergdahl, had not been
designated as a terrorist organization.
Gregory D. Johnsen, the author of a
book on Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen
who was nearly kidnapped on the same
street in Sana where Mr. Somers was
abducted last year, said he was
troubled by the United States' approach.
"When the U.S. unilaterally takes all the
other options off the table and leaves
itself with only the military option, then
if that goes wrong, the results can be
tragic," he said. "There are a lot of
different ways to negotiate even
without paying ransom. It calls for
innovative diplomacy."
Mr. Sooliman said Gifts of the Givers
felt a moral obligation to help the
Korkies — fellow South Africans in
harm's way in a country where the
charity had deep ties. Although he said
that the South African government had
helped with diplomatic hurdles — such
as issuing Mr. Korkie a new passport —
its policy of non-engagement meant
that the charity was on its own in
contacting the terrorist group.
A South African government
spokesman, Nelson Kgwete, said in a
text message: "We do not, under any
circumstances, pay ransom." He did not
answer further questions about what
else the country had done to help Mr.
Korkie.
Using its tribal connections in southern
Yemen, Gift of the Givers contacted the
kidnappers last year.
More than seven months after her
abduction on May 27, 2013, Mrs. Korkie
was released by Al Qaeda in January
with no ransom requirement. The group
refused to let her husband go,
demanding $3 million for him and saying
that releasing him without payment
would set a bad precedent.
"They said they would not be able to
waive the ransom for Pierre, because
'if we do it for you, then we will have
to do it for everyone,' " Mr. Sooliman
said.
After months of silence, Gift of the
Givers had a breakthrough in August,
when tribal leaders sent a delegation,
acting on behalf of the charity, into the
remote badlands. The assembled Qaeda
fighters took a vote on reducing the
ransom, and half the jihadists voted
"yes" while half voted "no," Mr. Sooliman
said. In October, the abductors said
that they would accept $700,000. The
family, which had already said it could
not afford $3 million, still did not have
enough money.
In November, the tribal leaders went
back to meet with Qaeda members. The
car was hit by a drone strike, killing the
mediators, according to Mr. Sooliman.
"We thought it was over," he said.
But that tragedy appears to have
spurred Al Qaeda to agree to a lower
sum, which it promised to use in part
to reimburse families of the dead tribal
negotiators. On Nov. 26, Mr. Korkie's
abductors sent word they would accept
$200,000, to be split with the tribe
members.
By Saturday, the money raised by Mrs.
Korkie from friends and other donors
had been delivered to Yemen. The cars
were preparing to leave.
"That's when I got the call. I said, 'How
can Pierre be dead?' " Mr. Sooliman said.
"They are going now!"
The cash was not delivered and will be
returned, he said.
Mr. Korkie's body is due to be
transported to South Africa on Monday.
His remains will arrive at roughly the
same time that Mr. Korkie was expected
to be reunited with his family.
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> The PlayStation gaming console wrapped
> up its second decade on Wednesday, and
> Sony celebrated by looking to the past.
> The Japanese tech giant announced that a
> limited edition 20th Anniversary
> PlayStation 4 will be released soon. The
> console will be gray, like the first
> PlayStation released December 3, 1994 in
> Japan. It will include other imagery like the
> iconic four-color PlayStation logo that
> harks back to the system's history.
> "The mid-'90s were an exciting time for
> game developers, driven by the explosion
> of powerful but affordable 3-D graphics
> rendering hardware and the birth of many
> young and adventurous development
> studios," Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony
> Computer Entertainment Worldwide
> Studios, wrote in the post on the
> PlayStation blog. "The original PlayStation
> was meant to embody that sense of
> adventure and discovery, that sense that
> anything was possible."
> The PlayStation sold a then unheard-of
> 100,000 units in its first weekend and hit 1
> million units in six months, according to
> Sony.
> Only 12,300 units of the 20th Anniversary
> PS4 will be released, according to a video
> on the blog post. Pre-orders will begin
> Saturday, and details about how to vie for
> one of the handful of slots will come
> during a keynote presentation from
> PlayStation Experience, a fan and
> developer expo being held in Las Vegas.
> The keynote will be Saturday at 1 pm ET.
> To celebrate the 20th anniversary, we
> assembled a gallery of images of the
> PlayStation, and the people who love it,
> from the past two decades.
>
> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bond is back and we're pleased to have
>> all of the details of the new movie.
>> Director Sam Mendes revealed the
>> name and cast of the new movie,
>> Spectre, during a live event held at
>> London's Pinewood Studios.
>> The movie is set to be released on 6th
>> November 2015. Avid fans will know
>> Spectre stands for: Special Executive
>> for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism,
>> Revenge and Extortion,
>
>
>> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Gangnam Style hit music video by
>>> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
>>> YouTube's view limit, prompting
>>> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
>>> The video which was released in 2012,
>>> was announced to be its most watched
>>> ever and has been viewed more than
>>> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
>>> changed the maximum view limit to
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
>>> than nine quintillion.
>>> On December 1, YouTube posted a
>>> statement saying: "We never thought a
>>> video would be watched in numbers
>>> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
>>> that was before we met Psy."
>>> Meanwhile, how do you say
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
>>> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
>>> over a billion.
>
>
>>> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>>>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>>>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>>>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>>>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>>>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>>>> for Paper magazine.
>>>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>>>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>>>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>>>> after the cut...
>>>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>>>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>>>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>>>> 4. Katy Perry
>>>> 5. Justin Bieber
>>>> 6. Joan Rivers
>>>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>>>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>>>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>>>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>>>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>>>> spectacular.
>>>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>>>> personal."
>>>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>>>> Image
>>>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>>>> infrastructure.
>>>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>>>> the vehicle.
>>>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>>>> whiplash."
>>>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>>>> same car service.
>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
>>> --
>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
>
>> --
>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>> 12/07/2014 03:24:00 am
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 06:03:00 am
>
civilians in South Africa worked to
accomplish what their government had
been unable to do: negotiate the release
of a South African couple held by Al
Qaeda in the lawless desert of southern
Yemen.
In January, the civilian negotiators
succeeded in securing the release of
the woman, Yolande Korkie. And in
recent weeks, they received
confirmation that the terrorist group
had agreed to free her husband, Pierre
Korkie, in return for a $200,000
ransom. On Saturday morning, a
convoy of cars was set to leave the
southern Yemeni city of Aden to pick up
the 54-year-old hostage from the
remote outpost where he was being
held.
At 6 a.m. in Johannesburg, Imtiaz
Sooliman, the director of the aid group
that had led the long effort, sent a text
message to Mrs. Korkie: "The waiting is
almost over."
At 8:03 a.m. his phone rang with
incomprehensible news: Mr. Korkie was
dead.
Hours before his expected release, the
South African hostage was killed by his
Qaeda guards when a military operation
by the United States to save his
cellmate — Luke Somers, an American
photojournalist — went wrong. Mr.
Somers and eight civilians were also
killed in the raid.
United States officials say they did not
know that Mr. Korkie was about to be
freed, revealing the dangerous
disconnect that can occur when
civilians are left to negotiate hostage
releases on their own. The government
of South Africa — like the United States
— hews to a strict policy of not paying
ransoms to terrorist groups holding
their citizens, maintaining that
payments encourage kidnappers and
perpetuate the problem.
Yet as kidnapping for ransom has
turned into a lucrative business for Al
Qaeda and its more extreme offshoot,
the Islamic State, an increasing number
of Westerners have been abducted.
Frustrated by what they see as passive
responses from their governments, the
families and colleagues of hostages
have been thrust into the role of
amateur negotiators, initiating contact
with the terrorists themselves.
That role proved to be nerve-racking
for Mrs. Korkie and the South African
charity trying to free her husband, who
went to Yemen as a teacher.
"The night before, I spent hours on the
phone with Yolande to try to calm her
down," said Mr. Sooliman, who heads the
charity, Gift of the Givers, which runs
humanitarian projects in eight countries,
including Yemen. "I told her, 'I'll call you
the moment Pierre is in our hands,' " he
said. "She went to sleep with that good
feeling in her heart."
Unbeknown to them, a risky nighttime
raid was already in progress in Yemen.
President Obama gave the go-ahead for
a unit of Navy SEAL Team 6
commandos to try to rescue Mr.
Somers after concluding that his life
was in imminent danger, because a
deadline that his captors had set to
meet their demands was about to
expire. Just as Mrs. Korkie was trying
to fall asleep at her home in
Bloemfontein, South Africa, the V-22
Osprey tilt-rotor planes were sweeping
toward a darkened village in rural
Yemen.
It remains unclear what went wrong.
Soon after the commandos reached the
compound where the hostages were
being held, gunfire erupted. Both Mr.
Korkie and Mr. Somers were shot by
their guards before the commandos
could get to them.
Mr. Korkie had already been dead for
several hours when Mrs. Korkie awoke
on Saturday and resumed texting with
Mr. Sooliman, organizing the final details
of her husband's release.
Those planning the American operation
had no indication that the South African
hostage was about to be freed, they
said.
"We were not aware in advance about
any release plans for other hostages,"
a United States official, who requested
anonymity to discuss the delicate
operation, said shortly after the failed
rescue mission. "That was not part of
our planning."
Gift of the Givers had not informed
Yemeni officials or the United States of
the planned release because their Qaeda
contacts had warned them to keep the
plans confidential, Mr. Sooliman said. It
remains unclear whether the South
African government — which said in a
statement that it had been working with
Gift of the Givers and had "undertaken
numerous initiatives" to try to free Mr.
Korkie — had informed the United
States or Yemen about his imminent
release.
In addition to not paying ransoms,
unlike some countries in Europe whose
officials have secretly funneled tens of
millions of dollars to free their citizens,
South Africa and the United States, do
not engage in other ways with the
terrorist groups holding their citizens. A
prisoner exchange that led to the
release of an American soldier, Sgt.
Bowe Bergdahl, was different, United
States officials say, because special
laws apply to prisoners of war and
because the Taliban, which was holding
Sergeant Bergdahl, had not been
designated as a terrorist organization.
Gregory D. Johnsen, the author of a
book on Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen
who was nearly kidnapped on the same
street in Sana where Mr. Somers was
abducted last year, said he was
troubled by the United States' approach.
"When the U.S. unilaterally takes all the
other options off the table and leaves
itself with only the military option, then
if that goes wrong, the results can be
tragic," he said. "There are a lot of
different ways to negotiate even
without paying ransom. It calls for
innovative diplomacy."
Mr. Sooliman said Gifts of the Givers
felt a moral obligation to help the
Korkies — fellow South Africans in
harm's way in a country where the
charity had deep ties. Although he said
that the South African government had
helped with diplomatic hurdles — such
as issuing Mr. Korkie a new passport —
its policy of non-engagement meant
that the charity was on its own in
contacting the terrorist group.
A South African government
spokesman, Nelson Kgwete, said in a
text message: "We do not, under any
circumstances, pay ransom." He did not
answer further questions about what
else the country had done to help Mr.
Korkie.
Using its tribal connections in southern
Yemen, Gift of the Givers contacted the
kidnappers last year.
More than seven months after her
abduction on May 27, 2013, Mrs. Korkie
was released by Al Qaeda in January
with no ransom requirement. The group
refused to let her husband go,
demanding $3 million for him and saying
that releasing him without payment
would set a bad precedent.
"They said they would not be able to
waive the ransom for Pierre, because
'if we do it for you, then we will have
to do it for everyone,' " Mr. Sooliman
said.
After months of silence, Gift of the
Givers had a breakthrough in August,
when tribal leaders sent a delegation,
acting on behalf of the charity, into the
remote badlands. The assembled Qaeda
fighters took a vote on reducing the
ransom, and half the jihadists voted
"yes" while half voted "no," Mr. Sooliman
said. In October, the abductors said
that they would accept $700,000. The
family, which had already said it could
not afford $3 million, still did not have
enough money.
In November, the tribal leaders went
back to meet with Qaeda members. The
car was hit by a drone strike, killing the
mediators, according to Mr. Sooliman.
"We thought it was over," he said.
But that tragedy appears to have
spurred Al Qaeda to agree to a lower
sum, which it promised to use in part
to reimburse families of the dead tribal
negotiators. On Nov. 26, Mr. Korkie's
abductors sent word they would accept
$200,000, to be split with the tribe
members.
By Saturday, the money raised by Mrs.
Korkie from friends and other donors
had been delivered to Yemen. The cars
were preparing to leave.
"That's when I got the call. I said, 'How
can Pierre be dead?' " Mr. Sooliman said.
"They are going now!"
The cash was not delivered and will be
returned, he said.
Mr. Korkie's body is due to be
transported to South Africa on Monday.
His remains will arrive at roughly the
same time that Mr. Korkie was expected
to be reunited with his family.
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> The PlayStation gaming console wrapped
> up its second decade on Wednesday, and
> Sony celebrated by looking to the past.
> The Japanese tech giant announced that a
> limited edition 20th Anniversary
> PlayStation 4 will be released soon. The
> console will be gray, like the first
> PlayStation released December 3, 1994 in
> Japan. It will include other imagery like the
> iconic four-color PlayStation logo that
> harks back to the system's history.
> "The mid-'90s were an exciting time for
> game developers, driven by the explosion
> of powerful but affordable 3-D graphics
> rendering hardware and the birth of many
> young and adventurous development
> studios," Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony
> Computer Entertainment Worldwide
> Studios, wrote in the post on the
> PlayStation blog. "The original PlayStation
> was meant to embody that sense of
> adventure and discovery, that sense that
> anything was possible."
> The PlayStation sold a then unheard-of
> 100,000 units in its first weekend and hit 1
> million units in six months, according to
> Sony.
> Only 12,300 units of the 20th Anniversary
> PS4 will be released, according to a video
> on the blog post. Pre-orders will begin
> Saturday, and details about how to vie for
> one of the handful of slots will come
> during a keynote presentation from
> PlayStation Experience, a fan and
> developer expo being held in Las Vegas.
> The keynote will be Saturday at 1 pm ET.
> To celebrate the 20th anniversary, we
> assembled a gallery of images of the
> PlayStation, and the people who love it,
> from the past two decades.
>
> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bond is back and we're pleased to have
>> all of the details of the new movie.
>> Director Sam Mendes revealed the
>> name and cast of the new movie,
>> Spectre, during a live event held at
>> London's Pinewood Studios.
>> The movie is set to be released on 6th
>> November 2015. Avid fans will know
>> Spectre stands for: Special Executive
>> for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism,
>> Revenge and Extortion,
>
>
>> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Gangnam Style hit music video by
>>> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
>>> YouTube's view limit, prompting
>>> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
>>> The video which was released in 2012,
>>> was announced to be its most watched
>>> ever and has been viewed more than
>>> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
>>> changed the maximum view limit to
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
>>> than nine quintillion.
>>> On December 1, YouTube posted a
>>> statement saying: "We never thought a
>>> video would be watched in numbers
>>> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
>>> that was before we met Psy."
>>> Meanwhile, how do you say
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
>>> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
>>> over a billion.
>
>
>>> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>>>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>>>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>>>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>>>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>>>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>>>> for Paper magazine.
>>>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>>>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>>>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>>>> after the cut...
>>>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>>>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>>>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>>>> 4. Katy Perry
>>>> 5. Justin Bieber
>>>> 6. Joan Rivers
>>>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>>>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>>>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>>>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>>>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>>>> spectacular.
>>>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>>>> personal."
>>>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>>>> Image
>>>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>>>> infrastructure.
>>>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>>>> the vehicle.
>>>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>>>> whiplash."
>>>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>>>> same car service.
>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
>>> --
>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
>
>> --
>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>> 12/07/2014 03:24:00 am
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 06:03:00 am
>
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