What happens 70 years ago 

British air attack directed to the Baltic port of Lübeck, the attack destroy two halves of the medieval centre.

British commandos attack the port of St. Nazaire, France. The port is the only in France that can refuge the battleship Tirpitz, that can be a danger in British commerce operations. The HMS Campbelton is fulled with explosives and crash the docks, destroying the port. However, two halves of the raiding force is lost.

Dutch surrender in Sumatra.

What happens 70 years ago 

James Somerville took command of the Far East Fleet with base in Ceilan.

Sir Thomas Blamey took command of the Australian forces in the Southwest Pacific area, under command of General Douglas MacArthur.

What happens 70 years 

A fractured convoy reaches Malta, after heavy losses to the Luftwaffe and an Italian sea force. Continued heavy bombing attacks on the island with slight opposition from overtaxed RAF air forces.

In Sofia, Hitler and King Boris of Bulgaria met, to talk about the send of troops to the Soviet Union.

What happens 70 years ago

Malta is heavy bombed.

What happens 70 years ago 

Operation Outward begins. 

What happens 70 years ago 

Nothing intersting

What happens 70 years ago

Japanese land troops in the Solomon Islands , underscoring Australia's dangerous situation, especially if, as it is soon made clear, an airfield is built on Guadalcanal.

The Japanese are now threatening American forces around Manila Bay; the retreat to Corregidor begins.

First American Troops arrive to Australia.

Brazil's economy tops United Kingdom's

Brazil's Gross Domestic Product for the year was $2.469 trillion, according to the study -- making it the sixth-largest economy in the world.

Brazil eked ahead of the United Kingdom -- which had total production of $2.420 trillion -- by a razor-thin margin of only $49.2 billion.
"Brazil has a large workforce and extensive natural resources," said Tim Ohlenburg, a senior economist at CEBR. "It's set to grow faster than most European countries."
Still, the year wasn't all roses for the South American powerhouse. Growth slowed to only 2.7% in 2011, a sharp decline from the 7.5% rate registered in 2010.
The UK grew at only 0.8% last year, and the island nation's economy actually contracted slightly in the fourth quarter.
The United States, China, Japan, Germany and France remain the five largest economies in the world.


Comment: is good to see that other countries are staring to grew up in economy, now we have another big country with a big economy, and is good that they too start increasing the use of the natural resources. Brazil is a beautiful place, has more that on failure, but still is a very cool place to visit. I think is very, very good that this country just increase its economy. This is just the start to put Latin America in the next level, first is Brazil, them maybe Argentina, and who knows maybe then is the turn of Guatemala.       

EU kills Kill Bill-style video over racism complaints

Trying to riff on one of the bad-boy movie director's iconic characters, the European Union has landed itself in a whole mess of trouble.

The 27-nation bloc released a video last week trying to promote an anti-racist message, then pulled it days later amid accusations that the clip itself was racist.

It features a white woman wearing a yellow track suit, like that of the Uma Thurman character The Bride in Tarantino's two-part kung-fu fest "Kill Bill."

Standing alone in an abandoned train station, she is threatened first by an east Asian karate master, then a scimitar-wielding turbaned Arab, and finally a bare-chested, dreadlocked black man.

She calmly duplicates herself 11 times and surrounds her three attackers, prompting them to stop threatening her and sit cross-legged as the 12 track-suited white women do the same. The entire scene then morphs into the European Union flag, her track suits becoming the flag's 12 yellow stars.

The 127,000-euro ($167,000) ad prompted head-smacking from critics as it spread across 7,000 websites starting on Friday.

"So the message of this video is: no other race can challenge 'white supremacy'?" was the most popular comment on the video on YouTube.

But EU spokesman Peter Stano said the video was "absolutely not intended to be racist and we obviously regret that it has been perceived in this way by some people," and apologized "to anyone who may have felt offended."

The clip was aimed at 16-to-24-year-olds "who understand the plots and themes of martial arts films and video games" and featured "typical characters for the martial arts genre," he said.

"It started with demonstration of their skills and ended with all characters showing their mutual respect, concluding in a position of peace and harmony," Stano said.

The EU spent 121,500 euros ($160,500) distributing the ad, which was made by the Mostra agency, Stano said.

That's a total cost of nearly a quarter of a million euros for a clip which -- like Tarantino's Bill -- got killed.

Comment: I think that the people that produce this video didn't make this mistake on purpose, because no one spends this amount of money on a useless thing, or something that will not get benefits of it, for me the commercial was very funny, but the real mistake was of the people that poorly designed  and gave double sense to things, and the worst part was giving the opposite meaning of something that is good, but the other mistake was that they don't realize, who are they affecting, maybe the black  people community is already injured for this, and the people that make this commercial is the one that has to apologize for this, and not that people that put that dumb thinking's on the brains of people.

What happens 70 years ago

Rangoon falls to the Japanese. 

Malta receives more fighters for its on-going defence.

The Japanese enter to Yakarta(Java).

New Japanese landings in New Guinea

Chavez illness changes the game for Venezuelan election

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) -- The possibility that poor health may prevent Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from being re-elected in October has altered the country's political landscape.

On Monday, Chavez underwent an operation in Cuba to remove a tumor from his abdomen. He also was diagnosed with cancer last June, though the type wasn't revealed.

The detection of the tumor comes at a bad time for the ruling United Socialist Party. With the presidential election campaign scheduled to start soon, the opposition Democratic Unity alliance is in better shape than ever. Just days before the president announced his health issues, the alliance had elected its own presidential candidate in primaries featuring an unexpectedly high turnout of 3 million voters.

The candidate, centrist Henrique Capriles, governor of the important state of Miranda, obtained almost two-thirds of the votes, giving him a solid mandate to face off against Chavez. At 39, Capriles is almost 20 years younger than the president, and his message of change seems to have found a ready audience after 13 years of 'revolution' under the former army officer.

This leaves the chavistas -- as the president's supporters are known -- in a dilemma. With a plentiful flow of cash from the state-run oil industry and control of all the country's levers of power, the popular and charismatic Chavez might normally be expected to win in October. But a weakened Chavez, perhaps unable to campaign, could prove a liability.

In the absence of the president -- either through death or incapacitation -- it might be impossible to keep the party's squabbling factions together. Chavez has, apparently quite deliberately, declined to cultivate a viable successor. The very real prospect of defeat has already brought some disagreements into the open. More bad news might lead some to jump ship or seek backroom deals with the opposition.

A defeat for the government in October would bring more than a simple handover of power. Chavez seeks the installation of a "communal" state with a centrally planned economy, and he has been taking steps in this direction since he was last re-elected in 2006. The opposition would gradually restore the political institutions and economic freedom theoretically guaranteed under the 1999 constitution.

The prospect that the president might die or lose power peacefully in this year's elections triggered an optimistic response from the markets. Venezuelan bonds gained a couple of percentage points after Chavez announced his operation, and they continued to rally throughout last week, reflecting the possibility of a more business-friendly regime taking power next January.

Much interest also focuses on the country's role as a major oil exporter. Already heavily dependent on oil revenue, the Venezuelan economy has become even more petroleum-centered since Chavez took power in 1999. Of every $100 in foreign earnings, $95 now come from oil and its derivatives. Yet production has fallen, and much of what the country exports now brings in less revenue, thanks to concessionary deals for friendly countries such as Cuba. These would be cut back under a Democratic Unity alliance government.

Oil exports to the United States, historically Venezuela's most important market, are at their lowest level for more than 20 years. But despite his anti-U.S. rhetoric, Chavez seems unlikely to halt them altogether because of their importance to the government's cash flow.

The likeliest cause of such a disruption is perhaps a U.S. embargo, triggered by Venezuelan support for its ally Iran, especially if a Republican president were to take over in Washington. But by then, the Chavez government might just be history.

Comment

Anibody in this planet has the life assured even is a president, a senator, a millionary or whatever has the life assured. In this post of CNN ther is an example of a famous president that has like 12 yaers in the power and is very recognized in all the world an in his 52 years he has cancer.

What happens 70 years ago
A Red Army offensive in the Crimea begins; in the north, the siege of Leningrad continues.
New Japanese landings in Java, that is suffer heavy air bombardements