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Quick and Easy Spanish Learn the basics with easy to follow CD and Book More Spanish Language Learning click here Quick and Easy Spanish - Audio CD and booklet Brand New ( 64 page booklet and CD): Covering Travel Staying the Night Leisure and sport Eating Out Business Shopping Nightlife and Health. Light and compact with an audio CD About the Spanish Language Spanish (español ) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language originally from the northern area of Spain. From there its use gradually spread inside the Kingdom of Castile where it evolved and eventually became the principal language of the government and trade. It was later taken to Africa the Americas and Asia Pacific when extra info…..

The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis performed by Michael York - Audio Book Unabridged (many copies being sold elsewhere are Abridged) Get Other Chronicles of Narnia Audio Books click here Lion Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis performed by Michael York -Audio Book New Unabridged 4 CDs 4 Hours This classic tale celebrates its 50th anniversary with a delightful audio rendition. Actor Michael York’s reading is a perfect match for this story. The narration is clear and distinct and York’s soft and soothing British accent adds the right touch. Listeners (Chronicles Wardrobe Lionthe NEW Book UNABRIDGED will fall under the spell of this master storyteller as they join Peter Edmund Lucy and Susan on their travels. Beginning with Chapter One when Lucy looks into the wardrobe and discovers Narnia and the faun readers will find that this timeless story can still work the magic that C.S. Lewis intended. In this action packed tale the four children take part in several adventures as they travel through Narnia on their quest to rid the country of the Witch and her followers. Narnia fans will want to listen to this story over and over again and new fans will be created as they listen for the first time. About the Author C S Lewis (From Wikipedia) Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898–22 November 1963) commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis was an Irish author and scholar of mixed Irish English and Welsh ancestry. An Ulsterman he was born into a Church of Ireland family

Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich - A Stephanie Plum novel Audio Book read by Lorelei King Other Janet Evanovich Audio Books Evanovich Ten Janet Audio click here Other Fiction Audio Books click here Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich Audio Book CD Brand New (still shrink wrapped): abridged 3 CDs She’s accidentally destroyed a dozen cars. She’s a target for every psycho and miscreant this side of the Jersey Turnpike. Her mother’s convinced she’ll end up dead…or worse without a man. She’s Stephanie Plum and she kicks butt for a living (well she thought it would sound good to put it that way…) It begins as an innocent trip to the deli-mart on a quest for nachos. But Stephanie Plum and her partner Lula are clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. A robbery leads to an explosion which leads to the destruction of yet another car. It would be just another day in the life of Stephanie Plum…except that she becomes the target of a gang. And the target of an even scarier more dangerous force that comes to Trenton. With super bounty hunter Ranger acting more mysteriously than ever (and the tension with vice cop Joe Morelli getting hotter) Stephanie finds herself with a decision to make: how to protect herself and where to hide while on the hunt for a killer known as the Junkman. There’s only one safe place and it has Ranger’s name all over it-if she can find it. And if the Junkman doesn’t find her first.

In addition, on the Gemini side, you learn to speak another language but on the Sagittarian side, you develop the telepathic ability to understand someone else’s language. This ability often transcends the words being spoken and heard …

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PETTIYADICHCHENI, Sri Lanka : Every morning and evening, Velmurugu Kangasuriyam gathers his 2½-year-old daughter and his wife and confronts the wreckage of his former;life.
His wife, Thaya, lights an oil lamp on the mantel of a dark, bare concrete room. Little Theresa follows in imitation. Kangasuriyam presses his hands together and closes his eyes.
Thaya places orange flowers in front of pictures of Hindu gods. For a long minute his new family stands in silent;prayer.
The last flowers sit in front of a photo of a woman in a striking red bridal sari: Devi, who was Kangasuriyam's wife for just 10 months before she died, along with his parents, three of his sisters and a brother, just over four years;ago. She lays several more before a picture of Kangasuriyam's;parents. 26, 2004, and killed 230,000 people washed away close toly everything Kangasuriyam held dear.
The tsunami that crashed over southern Asia on Dec. His seaside village was razed, his house demolished, his business;destroyed. Sixteen close relatives were killed. He has a new family.

Four years later, with international aid and prodding from his remaining family, the 30-year-old has rebuilt his life.
He opened a new bicycle repair shop to replace the one where he worked alongside his father from;boyhood. He has a bigger house in a resettlement village set back from the;ocean.
“I want to be happy with what I have, and get over it,” he;said.
A quiet man, Kangasuriyam says he is finally getting his life back in;order. More than half a million were left;homeless.
About 35,000 Sri Lankans died in the tsunami.
Many of the survivors have worked to rebuild their lives and carry on, though close toly all bear deep and permanent scars of the;disaster.
Aid groups have since built more than 100,000 new homes, though several thousand families still remain homeless, according to the United;Nations.
Every Friday, as he returns from prayers at the Hindu temple, Kangasuriyam stops at the remnants of his old village, Passikudah, a few hundred meters from the beach in the Batticaloa district on Sri Lanka's east;coast.
For Kangasuriyam, the reminders are hard to;escape.
His parents' home next door is a slab of concrete covered in thick black mud, rotting coconut husks and a tangled shrub and vines.
His parents' home next door is a slab of concrete covered in thick black mud, rotting coconut husks and a tangled shrub and vines. He tries to keep the foundation clean, he said, but the jungle keeps reclaiming;it.
His four sisters and three brothers lived close toby as;well.
They were a close-knit family, Kangasuriyam said. After school, his nieces and nephews would play together outside. After dinner, everyone would converge on his parents' home to drink tea and;gossip.
Growing up, he and his brothers all worked in their father's bicycle repair shop, learning how to rebuild a bike that had been dismantled down to its ball bearings. .
The third started his own bike shop, leaving Kangasuriyam, the youngest son, to drop out of school and help his father in his;shop.
As his parents grew frail with age, it fell to Kangasuriyam to care for them. He could not do it alone, he said, so he asked his parents to arrange a marriage. He met Devi, from a village eight kilometers, or five miles, away, on their wedding;day.
She was a good cook, always smiling and happy. She was kind and took such good care of his parents that when the newlyweds got into an argument, his mother took her side and hit him, he;said.
Devi was a gifted storyteller, and their nieces and nephews flocked to their house. It did not hurt that she snuck them;treats.
“He was extremely happy,” said his brother, Sarawanamuttu. “In our whole village there was no one as good as;her.”
As Kangasuriyam thinks of his first wife, his eyes sink to the ground. He rubs his chin and scratches his lip in silence. She was four months pregnant, he;said.
“Every time I remember that, it's very painful,” he;said.
His memories of the tsunami are confused, but Sarawanamuttu says the brothers were working together in his bicycle shop when villagers ran by screaming that the sea was;coming.
Sarawanamuttu says he grabbed his daughter and ran for safety, while Kangasuriyam ran back toward the village to get his;family.
His other surviving brother, Ganeshamurthi, the priest, says he was in the temple when the screaming started and saw Kangasuriyam running to the village. He grabbed him, but Kangasuriyam broke free and tried to get;home.

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SHANGHAI : The former chairwoman of one of China's biggest dairy producers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling tainted powdered baby formula and acknowledged for the first time that the company knew of the problem months before alerting local officials to what has become one of the country's biggest food-safety crises, according to the state-run news;media.
The former executive, Tian Wenhua, is one of the highest ranking corporate executives to go on trial in China and could face life imprisonment or even the death sentence, according to legal experts and the local;media. The chemical, melamine, can cause kidney stones and other ailments, and the tainted formula sickened nearly 300,000 children and killed;six.
Since September, when the scandal became public, investigations have shown how widespread the problem of tainted milk is in China, with watered-down milk being doctored with a chemical used in plastics and fertilizer to falsely raise its protein count. The scandal, which follows others in China's food and drug industries, has devastated the country's dairy industry and prompted global recalls of suspect food products, and forced the Chinese authorities to try to demonstrate a new seriousness in;enforcement.
The government has accused Sanlu and other big Chinese companies of failing to monitor the quality and safety of their powdered baby formula, and in some cases covering up knowledge that their dairy products contained high and impermissible levels of melamine. The court said that consumer complaints about Sanlu's milk came in as early as December 2007.
Tian's plea came on the first day of a trial that involves three other Sanlu executives. Between May and September, when Sanlu stopped production, prosecutors said the company made more than 900 tons of melamine contaminated baby milk;powder. Tian said she knew the company was selling contaminated formula by May 2008, but did not report the problem to local government officials until August. That is when executives at the Fonterra Group of New Zealand, which owns a large stake in Sanlu, said they became aware of a problem and pushed Sanlu to issue a;recall.

Until Wednesday, company officials had maintained that they learned of the problem in only in August. The trial involving Tian is in the city of Shijiazhuang, in the northern province of Hebei, where Sanlu is based. . On Wednesday, Chinese state-controlled media broadcast images of Tian, who is 66, looking pale and ill, standing handcuffed before a microphone in a yellow jacket acknowledging her;guilt. This week, an intermediate court rejected requests by some foreign media to attend. In September, some Sanlu products were found to have over 2,000 milligrams per;kilogram.
According to state media reports, Tian said she was told in May 2008 that European standards allowed up to 20 milligrams of melamine per kilogram to be present in food products, in an indication that there was a problem with the chemical. State-run media outlets said he tried to commit suicide this year.
Wang Yuliang, another former Sanlu executive on trial, appeared in a wheelchair.
Several high ranking Shijiazhuang government officials have been fired for not guarding public safety. Sanlu filed for bankruptcy protection last;week. In Shijiazhuang, some families with children who had been sickened by the tainted milk powder gathered outside the courthouse on Wednesday, according to the state-run news;media. The trial of the Sanlu executives and separate trials involving about 15 other dairy middlemen in Hebei Province during the past week has rekindled anger over the scandal.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : Backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery, Pakistani security forces on Tuesday shut down a crucial supply line for NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan as they launched an offensive against Taliban militants who dominate the Khyber Pass;region.
NATO uses the Khyber Pass, an ancient trade and military gateway that cuts through the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to transport the majority of provisions for troops fighting the resilient Afghan insurgency.
But Taliban militants, including forces led by an upstart lieutenant to the warlord Baitullah Mehsud, have taken over the area between the pass and Peshawar, and now routinely attack convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov;rifles. Supplies are ferried from Karachi in Pakistan 700 miles north to Peshawar, and then trucked 40 miles westward through the pass and into;Afghanistan. Militants also ransacked a half-dozen supply depots in Peshawar this month, burning 300 cargo trucks and Humvees destined for NATO;troops.
Many drivers in the convoys have already quit making the trip because the route is so deadly. NATO officials said that they believed that shutting down the route through the Khyber Pass during the military offensive that began Tuesday would not deprive them of necessary;supplies.
The attacks — and the Pakistani government's inability to quell them — have sent American military officials scrambling to secure other supply routes into Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia. “There will obviously be a minor effect in the short term, but it's for the long-term good of our;operation.

“Over all, it's a temporary irritation,” said a NATO spokesman in Kabul, Captain Mark Windsor of the British Royal Navy.” Hayat declined to say how many troops were involved in the offensive, but he said they were drawn almost entirely from the country's paramilitary Frontier Corps.”
However, Tariq Hayat, the top civilian official in the Khyber Agency, the formal name for the Pakistani district between the Khyber Pass and Peshawar, said there was no timetable for the operation, which he said would continue until “I am satisfied that the area is clear of all lawless and miscreant elements.
He said that there had been no casualties during the offensive among Pakistani forces but that he had received a report that several children and a woman had been killed by an artillery;shell. Pakistani Army soldiers are standing by in reserve should they be needed, he;said.m.
Ibrahim Khan, who lives near the supply route in the village of Jamrud, said troops came through his village at 3:30 a. ., using loudspeakers to warn residents to stay inside.

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SEOUL : The authorities are questioning four North Koreans who defected to South Korea by sea this week, the Seoul intelligence agency said;Wednesday.
A spokesman for the spy agency, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity, gave no further details. But Yonhap, the South Korean national news agency, reported that the defectors were a husband and wife and their son and;daughter-in-law.
Escapes from North Korea across the heavily guarded land and sea borders between the two Koreas are uncommon.
Yonhap, which cited no sources in its report, said the four North Koreans were in a small, wooden boat when a patrol boat from the South Korean Navy picked them up Tuesday;night.
On Oct. More than 14,000 people from the hunger-stricken North have defected to South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, but most of them have traveled through;China. . At the time, the North's military was threatening to attack unless Seoul prevented anti-North Korea “provocations,” including the sending of airborne leaflets into the Communist;North. The man apparently entered at a South Korean military guard post. The leaflets harshly criticize the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, and carry news about his alleged illness, a topic that is taboo in the;North.

In recent months, conservative activists in the South - mainly North Korean defectors supported by Christian churches - have been unleashing balloons that carry leaflets to the North. 22 that they had sent about 1.
Defectors from North Korea said Dec.5 million propaganda leaflets across the border, ignoring an appeal by the South Korean government that they stop.5 million propaganda leaflets across the border, ignoring an appeal by the South Korean government that they stop.

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ALUVA, India : In the sticky night air, next to a grove of mahogany trees, close toly 50 young men in madras shirts saunter back and forth along a basketball court, reciting the;rosary.
They are seminarians studying to become Roman Catholic;priests.
Together, they send a great murmuring into the hilly village, mingling with the Muslim call to prayer and the chanting of Vedas from a Hindu temple on a close toby;ridge. Within a few miles of this seminary, called Don Bosco College, are two much larger seminaries - each with more than 400;students.
Young men willing to join the priesthood are plentiful in India, unlike in the United States and Europe. Hundreds have been allowed to go, siphoning support from India's widespread network of Catholic churches, schools, orphanages, missionary projects and social service;programs.
As a result, bishops trek here from the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia examining for spare priests to fill their empty pulpits.

At least 800 Indian priests are working in the United States;alone.
But these days the Indian prelates have reason to reconsider their generosity.
India, Vietnam and the Philippines are among the leading exporters of priests, according to data compiled by researchers at Catholic University of America in;Washington.
“There is a great danger just now because the spirit of materialism is on the increase,” said Bishop Mar James Pazhayattil, the founding bishop of the Diocese of Irinjalakuda, as he sat barefoot at his desk, surrounded by bric-a-brac mementos of a lifetime of church service. With India modernizing at breakneck speed, more young men are choosing financial gain over spiritual;sacrifice.”
Some of the forces contributing to the lack of priests in Europe and the United States have begun to take shape;here. “Faith and the life of sacrifice are becoming;less.
Parents are having fewer children, with even devout Catholics freely admitting they use birth control.
Parents are having fewer children, with even devout Catholics freely admitting they use birth control. But now land is scarce, the soil tapped out. . And educated young Catholics are increasingly attracted to fields like engineering and;technology. Families are moving to cities, far from the tight-knit parishes that for generations kept Indian Catholics connected to their faith. Kuriedath recounted an adage in Malayalam, the local language: “It is equal in dignity to have either an elephant or a priest in the;family.
In past generations, having a son become a priest increased the family's stature, said the Reverend José Kuriedath, a sociologist in Aluva who has written a book about vocations in India.
At St.”
But this is;changing.
Among them is Chacko Kuttuparambil, a stocky 17-year-old who wears high-top basketball shoes and slim, stylish glasses. Paul's Minor Seminary in the Diocese of Irinjalakuda, sleepy teenage boys clamber from their dormitory every morning down to chapel, past a statue of Mary and portraits of Pope Benedict XVI and;Gandhi.
His father, an apartment building manager, wanted him to be a computer engineer.
His father, an apartment building manager, wanted him to be a computer engineer. His brother, a business executive, also tried to dissuade him. Chacko is the younger of two sons, and traditionally it is the responsibility of the youngest son to care for the parents in their old;age.
But Chacko felt called to the priesthood because, he said, as a child he was miraculously cured of a viral infection that paralyzed the right side of his body for two;years.
“He gave me life,” Chacko said, “so I am to give my life to;Him.”
On a hot day before the rainy season arrived, Chacko and his fellow students boarded a bus for a field trip intended to expose them to ministry work. Along the way, the teenagers clapped and belted out Christian hymns and pop tunes. They craned to look out at billboards of motorcycles, mobile phones and models with bare midriffs advertising sari;shops.
The students arrived at a home for mentally ill adults run by an order of nuns in pink saris. Some students initially recoiled at the patients' odd tics. But as they had been taught, they separated into small groups to talk with the patients, many of whom brightened under the boys' attention. Most of the students were selected for the seminary after attending a “life guidance camp” that each year draws hundreds of local teenagers for a three-day session at St.;Paul's.
Those who seem promising are invited back for a vocation retreat, and the best of those are invited to join the;seminary.
In a first-year class, the students studied a pamphlet called “Growing up Gracefully.” The school's rector, the Reverend Sebastian Panjikaran, demonstrated proper priestly etiquette. Panjikaran acted out the wrong way for a priest to walk through town, charging down the aisle between the students' desks, his eyes fixed on the;ground.

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An Indonesian court cleared a former deputy intelligence chief of any wrongdoing in connection with the murder of Indonesia's most celebrated human rights campaigner Wednesday, a decision that will likely bring renewed attention to the country's dubious justice system as well as its poor human rights;record.
Hundreds of Indonesians took to the streets after the court announced its decision to free the intelligence officer, Muchdi Purwoprandjono, who is also a former Indonesian Army major general. The demonstrators called on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to follow through with a promise he made to bring to justice those responsible for the high-profile murder of the campaigner, Munir Said Thalib, in;2004. Munir was poisoned with arsenic while traveling to the Netherlands on a commercial flight aboard state-carrier Garuda in 2004.
Mr. Munir during the flight, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the;murder. Earlier this year, an off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who jockeyed to sit next to Mr.
Analysts, however, have long suspected that Indonesia's intelligence agency ordered the killing. Pollycarpus had telephoned General Muchdi dozens of times leading up to the;murder. Phone records discovered during the initial investigation showed that Mr. .
The case has been considered by the international community as a test of how successful Indonesia has been in instituting reforms since the fall of Suharto, the country's former authoritarian ruler, in;1998. Mr. Yudhoyono, who swept into office during Indonesia's first direct elections on promises to clean up a corrupt government and military. Yudhoyono, also a former general, is up for re-election next;year. Yudhoyono, also a former general, is up for re-election next;year.
Analysts said they had concerns about the trial's procedures. But human rights activists said the case is now another example of the culture of impunity enjoyed by military;personnel.
“If Indonesia is to move beyond its authoritarian past, the justice system must show that generals are not above the law,” said Matt Easton, an analyst with Human Rights Watch. Several witnesses contradicted their original statements, tried to withdraw statements altogether, or just simply failed to appear in court, seriously hampering;prosecutors.”
News agencies reported that Mr. “Investigators, prosecutors, and the courts must be ready to go where the evidence and the law lead;them.” She has campaigned vigorously to have the officials responsible for ordering the murder jailed. Munir's widow, Suciwati, was visibly distressed after the verdict Wednesday, saying, “This is a painful thing.
“I have not only lost a husband,” she told reporters after the verdict. She accused at least one of the judges responsible of being corrupt and said he lacked credibility, noting that several high-profile corruption suspects have gone free after his rulings, including Tommy Suharto, son of the late president, who was accused of embezzling;millions.”
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