Cyborg Santos expects violent rematch with Melvin Manhoef in Brazil

Posted on by

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Evangelista Santos wants revenge.

Eight years after an epic war with Melvin Manhoef at Cage Rage 15, "Cyborg" will finally enter a cage against "No Mercy", as they headline Gringo Super Fight 10 card in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday night, for the vacant welterweight title.

"Ive been dreaming with this fight since the first one ended," Santos told MMAFighting.com. "I worked a lot for this rematch and Im really motivated. Im sure that this fight will be more important and more violent than the first one."

"I asked for this rematch for a long time," he continued. "I tried to fight him at Strikeforce, when we were both there, but it didnt happen. Thanks God its happening now and is happening in Brazil, so I will be more motivated with the support of my people."

The first fight took place in the light heavyweight division, and the Brazilian feels he has an advantage now that the second clash will be at the 170-pound weight class.

"I worked more on my cardio this time, and Im sure I will be better this time," he said. "I will go for the finish as soon as the fight starts, and Im sure that the opportunity will eventually come. Im a striker. Sometimes you plan something but gets too excited during the fight. Hes a fantastic striker. We will start the fight standing, and well go from there."

"Cyborg" wants to avenge the first loss with a finish, and hes not considering the possibility of losing one more time.

"All I want is the win, no matter what," he said. "The only way Ill lose this fight is dying.

"Hes one of the toughest guys I ever fought. I fought guys like Shogun (Rua), (Gegard) Mousasi, (Yuki) Kondo and many others, and I love big challenges. Thats what motivates to continue fighting."

See original here:

Cyborg Santos expects violent rematch with Melvin Manhoef in Brazil

Proposed sales tax could be used for Brunswick beaches

Posted on by

Crews move large section of pipe as renourishment work continues at the East end of Ocean Isle Beach N.C. Monday March 3, 2014. Brunswick County is asking residents to raise the sales tax. If that happens, the money can be used for terminal groins, which is extremely controversial.

Brunswick County is going to need to raise money for beach projects somehow, says Debbie Smith, Ocean Isle Beach mayor.

If residents approve a proposed sales tax increase, using half of the resulting $3 million a year for the beaches is smart, she added.

"It's a very innovative approach," Smith said of county officials. "They understand the need to protect our beaches, so hats off to them."

The money would be earmarked based on a beach town's needs and for projects such as dredging, nourishment, channel widening and terminal groins. And although there is some argument about how to best use the money, most town boards in the county are on board with the tax increase.

County staffers have been making rounds to each municipality, explaining the need for the sales tax increase. Of the 19 municipalities, 11 passed resolutions in favor, according to county spokeswoman Amanda Hutcheson.

Oak Island Mayor Betty Wallace said that though her town council did not endorse the tax hike, she and many on her board favor it.

"We didn't (pass) anything on it because I personally didn't feel like our town council should be endorsing or making any statements against," she said. "But I will personally vote for it."

Leland also didn't pass a resolution, but Mayor Brenda Bozeman said she likes the county's approach to the tax hike.

Over the years, federal money for coastal projects has dwindled. The extra money from the sales tax will help provide a boost when it comes to protecting Brunswick County beaches, County Manager Ann Hardy said.

Follow this link:

Proposed sales tax could be used for Brunswick beaches

The sky is no limit for sibling astronomers

Posted on by

WICHITA, Kan. In 1961, after NASA shot Alan Shepard into space, a 9-year-old boy named Steve Hawley asked his mother to buy him a dime-store telescope.

Several years and several telescopes later, he asked his mother and father to help pay for college. To study astronomy.

Some parents might ask how staring at stars would get him a job. But Bernie and Jeanne Hawley said yes.

Steve Hawley became the astronomer and astronaut who used the robot arm of the space shuttle Discovery in 1990 to lift the Hubble Space Telescope out of the cargo bay while flying in orbit at 17,398 mph.

Hubble weighed 11 tons. At 43 feet it was the length of a large school bus. And Steve Hawley, from Salina, Kan., parked it expertly in space, 360 miles above Earth.

The Hubble has made what scientists say are the most astonishing discoveries in human history. It's still up there making more.

Hawley has a unique relationship with the Hubble. He deployed it, repaired it years later in space. Now he is one of the long list of scientists who get to tap on an office keyboard and tell Hubble what to look for.

John Hawley, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Virginia, can list many other historic Hubble discoveries off the top of his head:

_The age of the universe: 13.7 billion years.

_Vivid, compelling evidence that everything in creation started with a Big Bang.

See the article here:

The sky is no limit for sibling astronomers

MV Bill – A Luz #PersianaBaixaMix (prod. DJ Nato pk) Part. @KmillaCdd – Video

Posted on by


MV Bill - A Luz #PersianaBaixaMix (prod. DJ Nato pk) Part. @KmillaCdd
Musica: A Luz Interpretes:MV Bill Kmilla Cdd Producao:DJ Nato pk Captacao de voz:Estudio Tudo Bom por Shadow my nigga Edicao:DJ Luciano sp Baixo:Rick Lira Lyric Video:Diego Figueiredo Album:Vitor...

By: MV Bill

Read more from the original source:

MV Bill - A Luz #PersianaBaixaMix (prod. DJ Nato pk) Part. @KmillaCdd - Video

European observers detained in Ukraine are branded ‘Nato spies’ – Video

Posted on by


European observers detained in Ukraine are branded #39;Nato spies #39;
Pro-Russian activists say a group of European military observers seized by separatists in eastern Ukraine are #39;NATO spies #39;. In the separatist stronghold of Slovyansk, some insist the 13-strong...

By: euronews (in English)

Go here to see the original:

European observers detained in Ukraine are branded 'Nato spies' - Video

5 NATO troops killed in Kandahar Afghanistan UK’s helicopter crash – Video

Posted on by


5 NATO troops killed in Kandahar Afghanistan UK #39;s helicopter crash
Five members of NATO #39;s forces in Afghanistan have been killed in a helicopter crash in the south of the country. The coalition forces and a provincial official said it was an accident due...

By: TheAbdaliBacha

Read the original here:

5 NATO troops killed in Kandahar Afghanistan UK's helicopter crash - Video

NATO: Definition from Answers.com – Answers – The Most …

Posted on by

the North Atlantic Treaty Organizationwas originally created by representatives of twelve Western powers: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in 1949, as a military security alliance to deter the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' (USSR) expansion on the European Continent. From 1945 to 1949, to widen the Communist sphere of influence, the USSR had annexed Czechoslovakia, East Prussia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and sections of Finland, and had penetrated into the governments of Albania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

The foundation for NATO had been set in Brussels, Belgium, in March 1948, when representatives of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom met to forge a mutual assistance treaty to provide a common defense system. The Brussels Treaty stipulated that should any of the five signatories be the target of armed aggression in Europe, the other treaty parties would provide the party attacked all the military aid and assistance in their power. In June 1948, after a losing battle by isolationists, the U.S. Congress adopted a resolution recommending that the United States join in a defensive pact for the North Atlantic area. President Harry S. Truman urged U.S. participation in NATO as a critical part of his policy of containment of Soviet expansion. Containment had begun with the Truman Doctrine of 1947 with military assistance to Greece and Turkey to resist Communist subversion. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on 4 April 1949 in Washington, D.C. It formally committed the European signatories and the United States and Canada to the defense of Western Europe. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, 82 to 13. This treaty marked a fundamental departure with tradition of the United States because it was Washington's first peacetime military alliance since the FrancoAmerican Alliance of 1778. In October 1949, in the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, Congress authorized $1.3 billion in military aid for NATO. Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952. The Federal Republic of Germany joined in 1955 following an agreement on the termination of the Allies' postwar occupation of West Germany and an understanding that the country would maintain foreign forces on its soil. A rearmed Germany became a major component of NATO.

The USSR strongly opposed the NATO alliance. The Berlin Blockade in 194748 and the threat of war had in fact given impetus to the creation of NATO. Following the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, fearing the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe as a result of a miscalculation by Moscow, NATO countries expanded their military forces in Europe. Allied forces in Western Europe numbered twelve divisions to deter a Soviet threat of eighty divisions. The sending of several U.S. divisions to Europe was strongly debated in the U.S. Congress. Proponents of isolationism, including former President Herbert Hoover and Senator Robert Taft, opposed the assignment of ground troops to Europe. Others, including retired Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supported an increase in the U.S. commitment to the Cold War and urged expansion of NATO forces. The isolationists lost, and Truman in 1951 added four more to the two divisions already in Germany to bring the Seventh U.S. Army to six divisions. Truman also brought Eisenhower out of retirement to become Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR), following the creation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1951. NATO ministers, in the Lisbon Agreement on NATO Force Levels of February 1952, set new force goals for 1954 consisting of 10,000 aircraft and 89 divisions, half of them combatready. These were unrealistic; but by 1953, NATO had fielded 25 active divisions, 15 in Central Europe, and 5,200 aircraft, making it at least equal to Soviet forces in East Germany. In 1955, Moscow created the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance composed of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

EastWest relations were further strained by Nikita Khrushchev, who emerged as the Soviet leader after Josef Stalin's death in 1953. Although he had criticized Stalin's dictatorship and had accused his predecessor of escalating international tensions, Khrushchev ordered a Soviet force into Hungary to suppress a rebellion and maintain Communist rule in 1956. In 1957, the USSR's launching of Sputnik, the first of the space satellites, indicated that the Soviet Union was developing longrange nuclear missiles. NATO had planned in 1954 to use nuclear weapons in case of a massive Soviet invasion. In 1957, it planned to make the thirty NATO divisions and its tactical aircraft nuclearcapable. By 1960, NATO's commander, SACEUR, probably had some 7,000 nuclear weapons; but two SACEURs, Gen. Alfred Gruenther and Gen. Lauris Norstad, warned of NATO's declining conventional capabilities as a result of reductions or redeployments in British and French forces.

During the 1960s, French president Charles de Gaulle rejected the lead of the United States and Britain in Europe and pushed for a larger diplomatic role for France. The French developed their own nuclear capacity; then, in 1966, while still remaining a part of the NATO community, France withdrew its troops from the alliance and requested that NATO's headquarters and all allied units and installations not under the control of French authorities be removed from French soil. NATO headquarters officially opened in October 1967, in Brussels, where it has remained. East and West efforts to achieve peaceful coexistence decreased a year later when the Soviet Union and four of its satellite nations invaded Czechoslovakia.

In an effort to reach an era of detente, a relaxation of tensions reached through reciprocal beneficial relations between East and West, the Nixon administration took the lead with the Leonid Brezhnev government in Moscow, and NATO members and Warsaw Pact members opened the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in November 1969. In May 1972, the first series of SALT Treaties was signed. The following year a SALT II agreement was reached, although it was never ratified by the United States. Further efforts during the 1970s for EastWest balanced force reductions proved unsuccessful. The ArabIsraeli War did little to ease world tensions when it erupted on 6 October 1973, after which the Soviets implied that they might intervene in the crisis due to the strategic importance of oil reserves in that part of the world. A year later, Brezhnev accused NATO of creating a multinational nuclear force and called for cancelation of the alliance as a first step toward world peace. In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and that ongoing conflict caused the suspension of negotiations between the United States and the USSR on reductions in intermediaterange nuclear forces (INF) that had opened in 1981. Talks resumed in 1984 primarily to prevent the militarization of outer space and then led to negotiations on arms control and disarmament. Reformer Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR in March 1985, and that October he met President Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss ceilings of 100 nuclear missile warheads for each side (none of which would remain in Europe) and 100 residual warheads to remain in Soviet Asia and on U.S. territories in the Pacific. Verification arrangements were also agreed upon for the first time.

By the end of the 1980s, dramatic changes had occurred in the Warsaw Pact countries. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened, which led the way to a unified Germany ten months later. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania took steps toward breaking from Soviet domination. When Russian troops were withdrawn from Eastern Europe in 1990, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. In response to these events, NATO members at a summit conference in London in July 1990 declared that they no longer considered the Soviets to be an adversary and laid plans for a new strategic concept that was adopted in 1991 in Rome. The concept reaffirmed the significance of collective defense to meet evolving security threatsparticularly from civil wars and massive refugee problemsand established the basis for peacekeeping operations, as well as coalition crisis management both inside and outside the NATO area. It also stressed cooperation and partnership with the emerging democracies of the former Warsaw Pact.

The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) was created in 1991 to draw former Soviet republics, as well as the Baltic states and Albania, into a closer relationship with NATO countries. The same year, the Soviet Union established diplomatic links with NATO and joined the NACC on a foreign ministerial level. Hungary and Romania entered a twentyfivenation Partnership for Peace (PFP), an arm of NATO created in 1994. The PFP administers exercises, exchanges, and other military contacts to encourage military reform. The partnership also provides for peacekeeping, humanitarian, and rescue operations. Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic aspired to become full members of NATO, and debate opened on a secondtier Russian NATO membership allowing for political, but not military, integration for the former Soviet Union. In June 1994, Russian leader Boris Yeltsin announced that the Russians would join the PFP, but Russian fears of an eastward expansion of NATO remained a contentious issue.

In 1992, due to the escalation of the Bosnian Crisis, and Serbia's armed support of the Bosnian Serbs against Muslims and Croats, NATO's mission was expanded to include peacekeeping operations in support of United Nations (UN) efforts to restrain the fighting and find a solution to the conflict. In July 1992, NATO ships and aircraft commenced monitoring operations in support of the UN arms embargoes on Serbia and Bosnia from the former Yugoslavia. In April 1993, NATO aircraft began patrolling the skies over Bosnia to monitor and enforce the UN ban on Serbian military aircraft. In November 1995, following U.S.sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, a peace agreement was signed in Paris in December calling for a MuslimCroat federation and a Serb entity in Bosnia. During 1996, fourteen nonNATO countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, and Ukraine) were invited to contribute to the NATOled Implementation Force (IFOR). All the NATO countries with armed forces (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States) pledged to contribute military forces to the operation, and Iceland provided medical personnel. With 60,000 troops, 20,000 of them from the U.S. forces, IFOR was the largest military operation ever undertaken by NATO. It was the first ground force operation, the first deployment out of area, and the first joint operation with NATO's PFP partners and other nonNATO countries. NATO's IFOR halted the pitched battles and urban sieges that ravaged Bosnia during the fouryear war. National elections were held in September 1996, and plans were made for a reduced IFOR force.

The collapse of Communism in Europe led NATO to search for new roles beyond that of a mutual defense pact. One was to bolster democracy and national security in former Warsaw bloc nations; consequently in March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were made members of NATO. The other new role for NATO was as a regional policeman seeking to restrict ethnic wars, terrorism, and the generation of massive flows of refugees through genocidal violence. Consequently, as a result of military and paramilitary actions by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic against hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo, NATO in late March 1999 began a military offensive against Serbian forces and installations By April 1999, when the 50th anniversary of the establishment of NATO was observed, NATO forces in the Kosovo Crisis were engaged in the largest military assault in Europe since World War II. The NATO air offensive ended successfully with the Serbian forces withdrawal from Kosovo in June and the establishment of a UN administered and NATO implemented peacekeeping force there. With the end of the Cold War (and NATO's first war), a new era for NATO had clearly emerged.

Read this article:

NATO: Definition from Answers.com - Answers - The Most ...