Hyundai Plant Receives 22,000 Applications For Just 877 Jobs

from the Huffington Post

To get a job at Hyundai’s plant in Montgomery, Alabama, this summer, you’ll have to best over two dozen other competitors.

Yes, the plant that manufactures Hyundai’s Santa Fe SUV, Elantra sedan and Sonata sedan received over 22,000 applications after announcing 877 job openings, CNNMoney reports. Those fortunate enough to land a gig will have one of two positions: a production-line assembly job at $16 an hour, or a maintenance worker at $22.

The scramble for a job at Hyundai’s plant comes at a time when jobs prospects appear to be dimming once again, as the May’s jobs report disappointed many.

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More Afghans Killed: Karzai Blasts US “This is unacceptable. It cannot be tolerated,”

by Robert Dreyfuss, Information Clearinghouse

Leon Panetta, the over-his-head U.S. secretary of defense, is in Afghanistan today after a day on which the greatest number of civilians were killed so far in 2012. But Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, isn’t there. He’s in Beijing, meeting with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an all-Asian bloc  led by China and Russia. The SCO, not surprisingly, is expressing a greater interest in building ties with Afghanistan as the U.S. begins in long, drawn-out drawdown to 2014. And Panetta, it seems is trying to interest India, a rival to China, is taking a greater interest in Afghanistan too. It’s the Afghan Endgame.
First, the civilian dead.

Karzai is charging that a NATO airstrike killed 18 Afghan civilians, including woman and children, as part of a U.S.-led ground operation in Logar province. Reports AP: “Villagers displayed 18 bodies at the provincial capital on Wednesday, including five women, seven children and six men.” Added AP:

“This is unacceptable. It cannot be tolerated,” President Hamid Karzai said in a statement condemning the strike in Logar. He criticized NATO for not being able to provide an explanation for the vans piled with bodies of women and children that villagers displayed to reporters.

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Mazraat al-Qubeir People Tell of Horror and Armed Terrorist Groups’ Crimes against them

from SANA

Several people from Mazraat al-Qubeir and Marzaf villages in Hama countryside narrated the horror and crimes which were committed by the armed terrorist groups against them, revealing the reality of the horrific crime which took place in their village last night as 9 citizens were killed with cold blood.

In phone calls with the Syrian TV, Abu Hawash, a citizen from Mazraat al-Qubeir village, said that armed terrorists who had RPG launchers and PKC machineguns stormed the area and attacked children and women, calling on the Syrian army and law-enforcement forces to protect them from the terrorists.

Another citizen denounced the bloody satellite channels which are counterfeiting the truth to serve their interests.

Eyewitness account: Media lies about Syria

by Natalia Mihailova, Global Research

Independent journalist Anhar Kochneva has been living and working in Syria for more than ten years. She says that the situation in Syria is not at all similar to how it has been presented in the mass media.

… I’ve been living permanently in Syria for the last seven months, and I saw only three ‘so-called demonstrations’. So-called, because there were very few people and they were clearly staged as a performance for journalists. “Protests” were shot on video for five or ten minutes before people quickly dispersed. In some cities, where bandits took control temporarily, they forced people to go to demonstrations.

… Some weeks ago I was in Homs. I was in the sadly known Baba Amr district of Homs. Most of the residents have left their homes. My friends live 800 meters from Baba Amr. They told me that bandits fired at their houses. Not the Army. The Syrian army does not kill people. They only answer when the situation is extreme.

Most of the last months’ casualties were soldiers of the Syrian Army. The so-called rebels fight in the streets, shoot videos and burn tires. If you see black smoke on a video “made by mobile phone”, it’s not the result of artillery fire by the army, it is smoke from burning tires.

[read the rest, here]

Russia vows to block UN mandate for Syria intervention

By Maria Antonova, AFP

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Thursday vowed there would be no UN Security Council mandate for outside intervention in Syria, indicating Moscow would use its veto to block any military action.

“There will not be a Security Council mandate for outside intervention, I guarantee you that,” Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a trip to Kazakhstan by President Vladimir Putin…

… “There are sides in the Syria conflict, especially the so called (opposition) Syrian National Council, who are saying no negotiations with the regime, only continued armed battle until the Security Council gives a mandate for outside intervention,” said Lavrov.

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