General Stanley McChrystal threatened withdrawn from duty because of insulting President Barack Obama

Washington, Force Commander United States (U.S.) in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal threatened withdrawn after he and his assistants “making fun” President Barack Obama and his senior advisers. The White House criticism of the commander of U.S. forces and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is displayed after the statement quoted a magazine article “Rolling Stone” which will be published Friday. A spokesman for the White House, Tuesday, said the general who was also architect of President Obama’s war strategy has also been called to Washington DC to explain the “big mistake in his assessment was” directly to the president.

Would President Obama would consider withdrawal of the general, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said all options are open. McChrystal himself had apologized for the article to be published in the magazine. Citing aides McChrystal, the magazine said an aide to President Obama as a “clown” and another as a “wounded animal”. General McChrystal own disparaging statement which also revealed the Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Government Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

The Pentagon criticized the general’s statement and lost confidence in his ability to continue the leadership of U.S. and multinational forces in the Afghan War that had lasted nearly nine years. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, General McChrystal “already made keselahan big and bad assessment.” Admiral Mike Mullen who headed the joint chiefs also expressed “deep disappointment.” “General McChrystal has apologized to me or to people whose names are mentioned in the article,” he said.

In the midst of controversy over the general, President Hamid Karzai even defend him. President Karzai supports full-General McChrystal is believed to be the “commander of U.S. forces the best ever sent to Afghanistan over the last nine years.” About six months ago, President Obama will meet the demand for General McChrystal additional amount of U.S. troops to support the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Until mid-June 2010, the number of foreign soldiers who have died since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 reached 1831 people.

Laguna Beach home in the private community of Irvine Cove

Laguna Beach home in the private community of Irvine Cove.A heavily detailed three-quarter-inch layer of French limestone encloses the steel-framed structure, creating the illusion that it’s one, monolithic column of limestone.On both sides of the main entry, curved glass panels are accented with rivets. A bridge leading from the entrance to the great room crosses over the atrium.Inside the gallery-styled great room, an art wall features a sculptured circular black brick fireplace with stainless steel trim.

“Every element of the house is done very artfully,” says Newport Beach architect Christian Light. “My clients were interested in making sure it wasn’t going to be just another rectilinear home.”

Adjacent to the kitchen and morning room, a Lolli e Memmoli crystal chandelier hanging over the dining table is another example of a fixture that doubles as a piece of art.Five columns were strategically placed to support the 9-foot ceiling that vaults to 12 feet for unobstructed panoramic ocean views.Honed limestone flooring — nearly 5,000 square feet — stretches to the edge of the saltwater pool, which is trimmed in black granite.

The great room and pool patio area are separated by mahogany-framed doors that open to create an indoor-outdoor living space.The ceiling of the main floor is a 1,500-square-foot skylight that covers the entry, great room, art wall and atrium. It links the front of the house to the back master bedroom and entertainment spaces.The subterranean level has a large open media room, office/studio, guest suite, spa area and wine cellar.

Academy Awards night is one of the most glamorous of the year

Academy Awards night is one of the most glamorous of the year, but the ceremony does far more than offer up red carpet glitz and golden statuettes.Those three-plus hours of television also fund a year’s worth of philanthropic endeavors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

With the license fee somewhere north of $65 million that ABC pays for the rights to air the Oscars, the academy funds an entire year’s worth of projects that fulfill the organization’s original mission: to promote the art and science of filmmaking.

“The awards are one night; the place goes on for 364 more days,” says academy President Tom Sherak, pointing out that the nonprofit organization doesn’t fund-raise throughout the year. “That award night pays for the entire organization.”

A year’s worth of concerns for the group include preserving film history, screening films for the public, developing young talent and keeping up with the technologies of the future.

Sherak, whose four-year term started just last year, says that among his chief concerns for the industry are film preservation and the changeover to digital cinema. The organization, he points out, recently funded a study on digital storage that looks at the compatibility and reliability of the technology in terms of what issues might arise down the road.

“Decisions we make today are going to be the ones that are going to last for decades,” he says.While many eyes are on the future of the business, safeguarding the past is of equal importance. In addition to retaining prints of nearly every best picture Oscar winner since the ceremony started in 1929, the academy has literally millions of film-related items dating to the industry’s inception.

“The academy has 10 million photographs, 100 million press-clip files, 80,000 screenplays, 34,000 movie posters — stuff that never should be allowed to die,” Sherak says.

Stuff that should, in fact, probably be in a museum. Although in 2007 the organization consulted an architect and drew up plans for an 8-acre campus adjacent to the existing Pickford Center in Hollywood, the Museum of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been put on indefinite hold, until the needed construction funds can be raised.

“You can’t have a future without a past or a present. You can’t forget the people that have come before you,” Sherak says. “The board believes that the history of our business is something that will interest people. We are going to build a museum, [but] right now it’s on hold.”In the meantime, the academy has plenty of philanthropic programs to keep its members busy, the most prestigious of which is the Don and Gee Nicholls Fellowships in Screenwriting. Offered to screenwriters who have earned less than $5,000 writing for film or TV, the Nicholls Fellowship gives $30,000 to five writers a year and counts Allison Anders (“Mi vida loca”)and “Erin Brockovich” screenwriter Susannah Grant among its previous recipients.

“I’ve been on the board for six years now, and I went to my first Nicholls award winners dinner this year. I listened to the stories about the adversities they went through and their passion for writing, and I realized just how much we do as an organization,” Sherak says.

The academy reaches out to the community at large as well, offering retrospectives, lectures and exhibitions to film enthusiasts (usually free or for a nominal fee).

For instance, the group premiered a restored print of “Citizen Kane” as part of a sold-out tribute to visual-effects pioneer Linwood Dunn. And with an eye toward the academy’s decision to have 10 best picture nominees this year, the Grand Lobby Gallery at academy headquarters is exhibiting posters from an eclectic mix of best picture nominees from 1936 through ’43, when the number of nominees was anywhere from three to 12.

Other public services include providing grants to film festivals and colleges, creating film-related internships for college students — such as this year’s position at Pixar Animation Studios — and reaching out to high schoolers to create a broader media literacy.

During past president Sid Ganis’ term, the outreach went worldwide, including sending members of different branches to learn about such far-flung film industries as those in Iran and Vietnam and inviting foreign filmmakers to the U.S. The Iranian exchange culminated in a five-night screening and discussion series.

“They’re not political, we’re not political, so it makes it really comfortable to express ideas about the movie business,” Sherak says. “It makes us whole; it makes us who we want to be.”

RAMALLAH, West Bank Israel to build 700 apartments in east Jerusalem

Israel 700 apartments

RAMALLAH, West Bank  Israel announced Monday it is building nearly 700 new apartments for Jews in east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope to set up the capital of a future state. The U.S., Palestinians and the European Union condemned the plan, a fresh setback to American efforts to restart Mideast peace talks.The Palestinians have said they will not resume talks without an Israeli settlement freeze, and criticized what they said was another show of bad faith by Israel.”With each individual action it undertakes on the ground, Israel is saying no to meaningful negotiations,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, who is trying to find a formula for reviving negotiations, is due in Israel and the West Bank in the second week of January.White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. “opposes new Israeli construction in east Jerusalem” and that neither side should take steps that pre-empt the outcome of talks. He urged both sides to restart negotiations without preconditions.

Sweden, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, said Israel’s latest plans “prevent the creation of an atmosphere conducive to resuming negotiations on a two-state solution.”Israel insists the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem are not settlements, but part of its own capital, a view disputed by the international community.The plan announced Monday takes the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into new political territory, by initiating construction for Jews in east Jerusalem. Up to now, the government has been saying it was endorsing plans already in the pipeline. Israel’s Housing Ministry confirmed that the new construction bids are Netanyahu’s first in east Jerusalem.

A partition of Jerusalem – with Jewish neighborhoods going to Israel and Arab neighborhoods to a future Palestine – would likely be part of any peace deal. Palestinians say that with each expansion of Jewish areas, the Arab portion of the city is shrinking and partition becomes more difficult.Netanyahu said he was willing to get back to talks immediately, telling a group of Israeli ambassadors: “Israel wants peace.”

Israeli-Palestinian talks broke off a year ago. After coming to power nine months ago, Netanyahu withdrew key promises made to the Palestinians by his predecessor, including a willingness, in principle, to discuss the future of Jerusalem.About 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and another 180,000 in east Jerusalem, areas claimed by the Palestinians for their state. Under U.S. pressure, Netanyahu agreed to slow new housing construction in the West Bank, though construction of more than 3,000 houses there continues.

The Israeli leader refuses to stop building in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed. He says he will not cede any part of the city.Successive Israeli governments have put up sprawling Jewish neighborhoods around east Jerusalem, and Monday’s decision would build in three of them: Pisgat Zeev, Har Homa and Neve Yaakov.

Abbas insists on a total settlement construction freeze, including east Jerusalem, and also wants assurances that the pre-1967 war borders would serve as the basis for talks that would pick up where they left off under Netanyahu’s more moderate predecessor, Ehud Olmert.In those talks, Olmert and Abbas accepted the principle of swapping land – meaning Israel would retain some West Bank land to incorporate large Jewish settlements but compensate the Palestinians with Israeli land. However, the Palestinians did not accept the offer because they felt Israel wanted to hold on to too much land, and Netanyahu withdrew it.

Mitchell has been sounding out Israel about possible compromise, in hopes of getting the talks restarted, according to an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former Israeli lawmaker Yossi Beilin.Beilin said Netanyahu has not accepted the idea of basing the talks on the borders before the 1967 war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Beilin, an architect of Israeli-Palestinian peace accords in the 1990s, remains in touch with government officials.

An Abbas aide said Mitchell is also talking to Israeli officials about possible goodwill gestures, such as releasing more Palestinian prisoners and expanding West Bank areas under full or partial Palestinian control. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the content of the meetings.