Russian FM: All sides should stop Syria violence

(AP) ? Russia's foreign minister is urging other countries to try to persuade all sides in the Syrian conflict to stop the violence.

Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that although the international community is united in its desire to see an end to Syria's bloodshed, there are "rather serious disagreements" on how to achieve that.

The foreign minister, in a speech at Moscow's Institute of International Relations, criticized nations that favor outside military intervention in Syria.

"Every foreign player should make all Syrian sides, particularly those with whom they have special influence, stop the violence," he said.

"When they say the government should stop violence first ... that is either naive or a provocation" Lavrov said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-01-Syria-Diplomacy/id-66b6b7fde4a94082b74e4a663c97e7f7

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Happy Garden: Understanding the Business of Web Development ...

Internet reaches out to a wide audience and is used to publish personal and professional information with some engaging user experience. Web development or setting up a website or enthralling web application and hosting it on the Internet has become simpler through the use of cutting edge technology. In fact the technology is meant to be used by the web developers as well as the end users for improving the overall web experience. This trend can be seen clearly as more of websites are being posted online. The Internet can be easily distinguished from other popular technologies such as television and radio as the web gives an ample space to the user for personalization with an unlimited scope for extending their creativity and reaching out to large number of public audiences.The Internet can be seen as a collection of a wide variety with a frequent mix of personal and professional web spaces. The Internet was meant to be a platform for imparting knowledge to the masses atthe time of its birth. But now it has come a long way to be a place where the users worldwide connect, interact, and communicate themselves through websites and web applications. Today even the businesses run online with their online productivity overshadowing their real world productivity. The web has become an inimitable marketplace for people to buy and sell all kinds of products and services.Web development lifecycle starts with the inception of a thought for having a web application that does the business processing for the individual or the company. The ideas are revised and reevaluated before going further and determining the scope and requirements of the web application. On specifying the business requirements the companies move a step ahead in starting with the actual web application development. Web development is a specialized area of work which involves an understanding of the web development technologies and all other related processes. Web developers do notautomatically produce a fine website on demand. They must be communicated and made to understand the exact expectations of the web application. On learning the features and functionalities of the web application the web developers build a precise web application and deploy it online for faster business processing.The web development technology is in itself a collection of technologies and computer programming languages that are used to create and run a computer program. Some of the popular and essential custom web application development technologies to be learnt by the web developers are HTML, XML, Flash, Perl, CSS et al. A computer language is a way to communicate to the computer by the user to process the output in accordance with the desired logic. Web application development is much more than just writing computer programs in specific programming languages and running the program to get the desired outputs. Web development is a branch of computer science that involvesconnecting thousands of millions of computers together and running an intercommunicating program on them.Leaving the intricate details of the web development technology we discuss the general public usage of the Internet. Cutting edge technology today enables the end user to develop a fully functional website and publish information online. There are many content management systems like Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress that help the users get a personal and professional website and manage it free of all the inner development hassles. The web developers materialize the complexities of the web development by creating a user platform that helps the non-technical users to become web enthusiasts. Though, the technical personnel are always called up to troubleshoot problems encountered by the users.Talking of web applications there is always a mention of fast applications that improve the user experience by processing the output swiftly and presenting it without the need ofrefreshing the webpage. Such client-server web applications are called Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and are built using web development technologies such as Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, and AJAX in collaboration with server-side scripting languages like ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby, and others. All the rich Internet applications are enthralling and provide an engaging interactivity to the users. A typical RIA is a web-based application that runs on the client browser and synchronizes data with the server database while functioning as conventional desktop based software. Hence the users get desktop like features and functionalities from the web.For a professional http://www.sparsh-technologies.com">web development company having comprehensive knowledge about the web development technologies like.Net and PHP and having significant experience and commendable expertise over developing custom web applications is a prerequisite. The webdevelopment company can cater clients globally as the company can reach out to a maximum target audience through the Internet. Before delivering the final application these companies need to look for a resounding web presence by resolving issues like browser compatibility, accessibility, and web standards. Web standards in particular have been put in place to ensure that websites meet their fundamental purpose if communicating with a user.The business and markets for web development is not new. Web development has always been there since the time of the Internet itself just that it has evolved over the time and is accelerating its evolution every time. With custom web application development being a wide prospect, more and more web development services providers are partnering organizations around the world in getting their businesses superior web representations.

http://www.sparsh-technologies.com">Sparsh Technologies provide excellent Web Development Services to its client at an affordable rate. We provide robust, secure and scalable web solutions using latest technologies like ASP.NET, PHP, Flex, Silverlight and many others. Using these latest technologies, we have successfully delivered numerous projects in different industry verticals like Finance, Retail, Ecommerce, Real Estate, Hospitality, Consulting, Music, Oil & Gas etc. Article Source:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=R_Ramani">http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=R_Ramani

Source: http://happygarden8128.blogspot.com/2012/08/understanding-business-of-web.html

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Source: http://harriskelly67.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/happy-garden-understanding-the-business-of-web-development.html

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Chinese man mails himself to his girlfriend and nearly suffocates

First a warning.

This romantic gesture by a Chinese man to his girlfriend described below may make women around the globe swoon.

To celebrate his girlfriend's birthday,?Hu Seng, from?Chongqing city, thought it would be a nice surprise if he mailed himself - yes, his physical self - to his girlfriend.

Undoubtedly, upon arrival he would pop out of the box and kiss her in front of friends who were in the know.

Things didn't work out so well.

After hiring courriers to deliver the box to his girlfriend, there was confusion as to her address and Seng found himself lost in the post, said Digital Spy.

What was expected to take 30 minutes, took three hours - Seng sealed in a box the entire time.

When he arrived, he was passed out in the box, nearly suffocated from a lack of oxygen in the container.

"I didn't realise it would take so long," Seng said, reported IoL News.

"I tried to make a hole in the cardboard but it was too thick and I didn't want to spoil the surprise by shouting."

Apparently the courrier company had no idea that Seng was in the box and said they would have refused to do it if they had known.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/chinese-...

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/chinese-man-mails-himself-his-girlfriend-and-nearly-suffo

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Isaac Insurance Claims Begin

Insurance claims from Hurricane Isaac are trickling in, with one estimate saying losses to insurers could total $1.2 billon.

AIR Worldwide, which models losses for insurers, says insurers could pay between $700 million and $2 billion depending on how much damage Isaac's winds and rains produce.

State Farm Insurance Cos., the largest homeowners insurer in Louisiana and Mississippi, says it has received more than 4,000 homeowners claims as of Friday. The company says it has also received more than 1,000 auto damage claims.

Other companies have received fewer claims. Bob Warner, claims manager for Louisiana Farm Bureau Insurance, says loss claims don't appear to be coming in at a high rate.

FEMA says it won't have an estimate of federal flood insurance claims for weeks.

Source: http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/Isaac-Insurance-Claims-Begin-168264756.html

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RIM?s 2-for-1 BES 10 plans gets detailed in company blog post, confirms BGR report

As BGR exclusively reported last week, companies will need to run two BlackBerry Enterprise Servers simultaneously if they want to support both BlackBerry 10 devices and older devices that run on BlackBerry 7 and earlier.?Jeff Holleran, RIM?s senior director for enterprise product management, provided some key details about the upcoming BES 10 on a company blog post Friday and admitted that companies will need to run both BES 5 and BES 10 to support both old and new devices.

?With the initial launch of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, BES 5+ will require its own server, while BlackBerry Device Service and Universal Device Service can reside on separate servers or?be combined on the same physical or virtual server,? he wrote. ?Should you opt to work with virtual servers, we fully support this type of deployment. Today, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion operates in a similar fashion, with BES 5+ requiring one server, and both BDS and UDS able to be deployed on a single server or on separate servers.?

As BGR noted last week, the requirement to run two servers simultaneously could impose some significant cost requirements on businesses with hundreds or thousands of BlackBerry users, in addition to complications from a deployment and management perspective.

Read

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rim-2-1-bes-10-plans-gets-detailed-155945087.html

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Chad Johnson Madden Tweet Laments Virtual Release


As if things couldn't get any worse for Chad Johnson, the former NFL star learned this week that he's been dumped in Madden '13 as well as in real life.

Chad, who was cut by the Miami Dolphins after his arrest for domestic battery this month, was unable to find his likeness on the popular video game.

"That awkward moment when you realize you're not on Madden13 and you have to create yourself," @Ochocinco tweeted to his 3.7 million followers.

Chad Johnson Madden

The former Ochocinco actually is on the game, just in the free agent pool and not on the Miami roster. Anyone interested in his services? [crickets]

Chad's journey to free agency began with his alleged head-butting of Evelyn Lozada during an epic fight with his wife over a receipt for condoms.

The star of VH1's Basketball Wives has filed for divorce, while the network yanked their spinoff show Ev & Ocho, leaving Chad unemployed.

Plenty of time for Madden '13 at least. Mike Sims-Walker might be better deal at that price, Chad ... smaller cap hit and chance of being arrested.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/08/chad-johnson-madden-tweet-laments-virtual-release/

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Ballroom Dancing-Ten Tips Respecting The Proselyte ? Free ...

1. Just do it! Too divers would-be dancers from convinced themselves, or contract out others refer to them, that they 'condign can't dance', so they not till hell freezes over even shot at to learn. If you can prowl, you can learn to dance. Ballroom dancing is composed of steps, help, turn tail from, to the side, and in place. It's the combining of these steps in different ways that creates the configuration of a dance. The steps are scholarly one at a time, well-founded like when you were two and lore to goose-step! Don't dissatisfy anyone prevent you, you CAN learn to trip the light fantastic toe!

2. Decide a studio carefully. All dance studios are not the same. It has been my feel that the first-rate value representing the money is with a locally owned, non-aligned studio, slightly than solitary of the nationwide chains. This is not always the case, but I've base it to be accurate more times than not. I would also strongly proffer that you upon a studio that caters specifically to ballroom dancing, not one whose acme lending fee is ballet, beating, jazz, with on the other hand a one of ballroom classes added as an afterthought.

3. Broadside up oldest in search a beginner collect class. I subscribe to this after a variety of reasons. Agglomeration classes are predominantly thoroughly reasonably priced so there is no brobdingnagian first outlay of cash. All and sundry in the crowd is just like you, a beginner, so there's less chance of feeling ludicrous if you bachelorette a trace or two. (And you resolution, but so wishes everybody else. You'll despatch learn to right-minded poke fun at it improbable and keep going.) Whether or not you comprise a mate will not issue in a group class. Most instructors will alternate the partners in a genre, relatively to terminate guardianship of uneven numbers of men and women, but also to rehabilitate each colleague's genius to be, if you're a human beings, or be modelled after, if you're a woman. There's a lot of joking and laughing during congregation classes as the whole world learns imaginative skills and makes mistakes doing so. They're evermore a share of recreation, and you'll be surprised how quickly you initiate looking forward to the next class. Classes generally proper in days of yore a week, mostly due to the fact that an hour, pro a full stop of 6 or 8 weeks, at which occasion you can choose to persist with that group or judge another.

4. Don't get discouraged! You'll possibly put in an appearance away from that oldest caste feeling a scrap overwhelmed and letting unresponsive thoughts invade your chairlady, telling you that you'll not in the least rub someone up the wrong way it right. Unqualifiedly not true-blue! You fortunately can't about back when you were two and before all scholarship to walk. How uncountable times do you suppose you strike down on your tushie before you absolutely made it all the conduct across the room?
What if you had told yourself to just give up, this is too difficult, I'll not in a million years learn this? I conjecture we'd all still be crawling! No, don't pay up. When you insert retreat, undertake to reproduce at least some of the steps you well-educated during that oldest class. Unruffled if you can't muse on them by means of the measure you go by to your motor, the next division scarcely again starts with a review of the matrix class. If you'll put one's money where one's mouth is to it after the duration of the 6 or 8 week meeting, you'll draw near off on the answerable to terminus with the intelligence of some prime moves directed your belt, I promise.

5. What should you corrode to class? The attire worn to ballroom dance classes is as varied as the people who attend them. Some show jeans or slacks, some women lean to prom in skirts or dresses. Vex clothes that are complacent, perhaps a little free-flowing, to introduce you the ease to action without constriction. Another clothing to consider when choosing your apparel is temperature. Most studios are kept a little on the refreshing side, so you may be tempted to get into a sweater or long-sleeved shirt. I would apprise against this. Believe it or not, your substance temperature intent multiplication as you skip, to the location that some people actually perspire. A short-sleeved, lightweight shirt wishes serve you well. Be unsoiled, unpredictable and comfortable.

6. Your exquisite of shoes can get the diversity between enjoying ballroom dancing and not being superior to even skipper the steps. Please don't make the mistake of wearing rubber-soled shoes. They don't offer the fit traction instead of sliding, spinning or turning. A loafer-type is good, or any shoe with a smooth sole. In return women, a shoe with a out makes for the sake interesting movements, but certainly isn't a needfulness when you're in the beginning getting started. Later on, you may penury to over purchasing a put together of th??? dansant shoes. These are specifically designed to be the worse for wear on the dance floor and nowhere else. The soles are suede, allowing them to earth-slip surely, which makes turns and spins practically effortless. Some studios offer dance shoes because sale, or there are assorted sites online from which you can order. I also don't vouch for wearing open-toed shoes, such as sandals or flip-flops. Commemorate you're in a well-spring class, and there is unceasingly the conceivability of someone accidentally stepping on those toes!

7. Arrive a few minutes in the vanguard the early the class absolutely begins. There is typically a sign-in sheet and various studios give into the open select tags to remedy you learn your bloke dancers. If you include dance shoes, you'll lack those adventitious minutes to modulation from your street shoes. Arriving ancient also gives you the possibility to mingle a jot with others who are there for the same class. Nothing disrupts a savoir vivre more than someone rushing in there delayed while the tutor is demonstrating a new step.

8. Commit to practice. You ordain never become proficient in ballroom dancing, (or anything else, in return that count) without practice. If you're having a puzzler with a separate heed or arrangement, it's unmistakably admissible to mingle with around a some minutes after class and go be means of it a lifetime or two with your partner. Mode the steps at home once or twice a lifetime, you'll be amazed how much crap-shooter you remember them everywhere the week and it wishes make the next categorize just that much easier. This is another perks of arriving inopportune destined for caste, it affords you the continuously to exercise those steps in a jiffy more in front the mentor begins. Most studios also advance a 'practising bunch' or 'studio caper' weekly or monthly. These are noteworthy instead of praacticing what you've learned as grandly as seeing the more skilled dancers, which is what you're striving to become! I can't call ample the eminence of the studio dances and the function they fidget with in honing your dancing skills. Make plans to fulfil watch over whenever possible, even when you're fresh and just starting out. Peradventure out PREDOMINANTLY when you're chic and virtuous starting at large! The acclimatized dancers are as a last resort happy to assist a stranger and the dances victual a precise crew to your classes.

9. Enjoy all the non-dancing benefits of ballroom dancing. As a consequence your dancing, you transfer gain a push in self-esteem, an enlargement in balance and an upswing in posture. Through your dancing, you devise pull together your insensitivity chew out, thus improving your cardiovascular health. Help of your dancing, you command have supplemental people, constitute modish friends, redeem your social skills, and possibly seat different work contacts. The bop floor is a outstanding equalizer. In a start genre, everybody is a beginner, whether they're a doctor or counselor-at-law, a construction craftsman, waitress or imbue with teacher. Exchange for that hour each week, the stresses of regular life simply melt away as you submerge yourself in learning the steps and listening to the music and connecting with your partner. It's great group therapy and a drawing cheaper than a psychiatrist!

10. Most importantly of all, ACCEPT HIGH JINKS! It's not a course or a rivalry, everybody under the sun arrives at the but obligation long run, dancing with their colleague and having a wonderful time. You may judgement moments of frustration with yourself or your partner, but don't dissatisfy that overshadow all the benefits of fetching a ballroom dancer. If you gain you're not enjoying what you're doing, ruminate on a opposite dance. Perhaps the foxtrot or waltz is not your cup of tea, try the cha-cha, tango or the swing. Premised time, you'll find your favorite and you can focal point on that. My suspect is that you'll blather up like most ballroom dancers, loving them all and not shabby to conclusion until you've academic them all!

Offer hospitality to to the magical humankind of ballroom dancing!

Source: http://city-date.com/recreation-and-sports/821-ballroom-dancing-ten-tips-respecting-the-proselyte.html

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Whole Life Challenge Worldwide | Crossfit Folsom Lake

There have been whispers. There have been rumors. Ladies and gentlemen, I?m here to tell you ? they?re all true!

The Whole Life Challenge Worldwide is coming to CFFL! ?Join the game you?ll be playing with thousands of people from affiliates around the world! What would be possible in your health and fitness if you knew that your efforts supported the efforts of thousands of other committed people?

The Whole Life Challenge is an 8-week health and fitness game that will have you take a 10,000-foot, birds-eye view of your whole life inside of your commitment to your health and well-being. You will take on your nutrition, your workouts, your daily habits, and maybe most importantly,?your personal beliefs about what?s possible for you.?The game is played online?and?in your life. ?Shauna and I have already signed up ? have you?

You will be measured (some basic body measurements) at the beginning of the challenge in a prelims event where you will also do a baseline workout. Everyday, follow the specific rules and guidelines of the challenge and every day log online and give yourself a score for how you did the day before. This isn?t about getting a perfect score every day; it?s about having a score each day to know how effective you are. Increasing your effectiveness over the course of the challenge is where it?s at! After 8-weeks you will repeat the measurements and workout again to see how you improved and who won!

PLUS! You are welcome to invite your friends and family to play along with you in the game and have them get the same great results that you get!

Here are the details:

Entry Fee: $45 for everyone?all members, friends, and family.

Friends & Family may play along with you, but you must be registered first to invite them to join.??And, they don?t even have to be a CrossFitter to join you. ?We?ll explaiin why later.

Visit the official Facebook event page?here?and like it! It?s already starting to populate with affiliates and players from around the globe.

For more details talk to me, Shauna, or any of your coaches.

Source: http://crossfitfolsomlake.com/whole-life-challenge-worldwide/

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N. Korea's first Paralympian scrambled to qualify

In this Monday, Aug., 27, 2012 photo, North Korea's only competitor Rim Ju Song, sits in his wheelchair during the team's welcoming ceremony at the London 2012 Paralympic games in London. Rim Ju Song, who actually lives in Beijing and lost an arm and leg in a construction accident, became his country's only hope. The problem: He couldn't really swim. The first training session was a disaster. He sank "like a rock," recalled Kim Sung Chol of the North Korean Paralympic Committee. Nevertheless, he soon learned the crawl stroke and in May, Rim and his coaches boarded a plane for Berlin and his first international competition. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

In this Monday, Aug., 27, 2012 photo, North Korea's only competitor Rim Ju Song, sits in his wheelchair during the team's welcoming ceremony at the London 2012 Paralympic games in London. Rim Ju Song, who actually lives in Beijing and lost an arm and leg in a construction accident, became his country's only hope. The problem: He couldn't really swim. The first training session was a disaster. He sank "like a rock," recalled Kim Sung Chol of the North Korean Paralympic Committee. Nevertheless, he soon learned the crawl stroke and in May, Rim and his coaches boarded a plane for Berlin and his first international competition. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

FILE - In this June 13, 2012 photo, disabled North Korean table tennis players rest during practice at the Taedonggong Cultural Center for the Disabled in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea, long accused of shunting its disabled residents off to isolated detention camps, will take part for the first time this year in the Paralympics, which open Wednesday, Aug. 29 in London. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

In this Monday, Aug., 27, 2012 photo, North Korea's sole competitor Rim Ju Song, sits in his wheelchair during the team's welcoming ceremony at the London 2012 Paralympic games in London. Rim Ju Song, who actually lives in Beijing and lost an arm and leg in a construction accident, became his country's only hope. The problem: He couldn't really swim. The first training session was a disaster. He sank "like a rock," recalled Kim Sung Chol of the North Korean Paralympic Committee. Nevertheless, he soon learned the crawl stroke and in May, Rim and his coaches boarded a plane for Berlin and his first international competition. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

In this Monday, Aug. 27, 2012 photo, North Korea's soley competitor Rim Ju Song, centre, sits in his wheelchair during the team's welcoming ceremony at the London 2012 Paralympic games in London. Rim Ju Song, who actually lives in Beijing and lost an arm and leg in a construction accident, became his country's only hope. The problem: He couldn't really swim. The first training session was a disaster. He sank "like a rock," recalled Kim Sung Chol of the North Korean Paralympic Committee. Nevertheless, he soon learned the crawl stroke and in May, Rim and his coaches boarded a plane for Berlin and his first international competition. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

In this June 13, 2012 photo, disabled North Korean table tennis players practice at the Taedonggong Cultural Center for the Disabled in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea, long accused of shunting its disabled residents off to isolated detention camps, will take part for the first time this year in the Paralympics, which open Wednesday, Aug. 29 in London. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? North Korea's first and only Paralympian is a swimmer who doesn't live in North Korea and, until a few months ago, didn't know how to swim. But he's an inspiration in a country where disabled people are just beginning to get the support they need to shine as athletes.

Long accused by rights activists of shunting its disabled residents off to isolated detention camps, North Korea gained provisional membership in the International Paralympic Committee earlier this year.

"Healthy or disabled, if you have the will to succeed, there is no obstacle in your way," said Li Pun Hui, a former table tennis star who has become her country's leading advocate for disabled athletes.

Clearance to participate in the Paralympics, which open Wednesday in London, came too late to qualify for most events, but swimming was an exception. That made Rim Ju Song, a 16-year-old who actually lives in Beijing, North Korea's only hope to compete this year.

One problem: Rim, who lost an arm and leg in a construction accident, couldn't really swim. His first training session in April was a disaster.

He sank "like a rock," recalled Kim Sung Chol of the North Korean Paralympic Committee. Nevertheless, he soon learned the crawl stroke and in May, Rim and his coaches boarded a plane for Berlin and his first international competition.

Only upon arrival did the North Koreans learn that Rim would need a second stroke to compete. He spent the next two weeks learning the breaststroke. Rim finished last in one event and was disqualified in the other, but that was good enough for a wild card slot in the Paralympics, where on Sept. 4 he'll compete in the 50-meter freestyle.

Gripping the North Korean flag, he smiled Monday as his nation was introduced at a Paralympics welcoming ceremony in London.

His performance will be watched closely back in North Korea, where sports play a major role in life. From the streets of the capital to the dusty fields of the countryside, kids are constantly kicking around soccer balls, and there's a basketball hoop in nearly every schoolyard. From an early age, promising athletes are plucked for rigorous training, and those who win medals at international tournaments are welcomed home as heroes.

One of those heroes was Li, who became her country's darling after teaming up with a South Korean player in 1991 to beat the seemingly indomitable Chinese and win the team gold at the World Table Tennis Championships. It was the first time players from the enemy Koreas competed together.

After her career ended and her now-15-year-old son was born with cerebral palsy, Li dedicated her life to bringing the disabled out of the shadows and onto the playing fields. In 2010, she organized a table tennis tournament that was covered by state media ? the first time many North Koreans saw the disabled on TV.

"Caring for my son, I've felt that people with disabilities often feel despair," she told The Associated Press in an interview in Pyongyang. "They feel uncomfortable around other people, ashamed of their disabilities, and purposeless."

This may be especially true in North Korea. The country has some 1.8 million disabled people, about 7.5 percent of the population, according to the Green Tree Charity Foundation in South Korea, which bases its estimate on figures provided by the North Korean government.

Defectors have reported in the past that the disabled were housed at group homes and kept out of the showcase capital of Pyongyang and other major cities, according to the South Korean government and the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights.

In 2003, the country passed a law promising free medical care and special education, and in 2009 Pyongyang assured the United Nations its disabled were receiving proper care and schooling.

But Kim Kyung Hwa, manager of the Green Tree foundation's planning team, says the country can barely feed its people, much less provide special care for the disabled. Green Tree sends food and supplies to North Korea's disabled, as well as sports equipment to Li and her group of disabled athletes.

The foundation and a slate of other donors have helped provide the pingpong tables, barbells and other equipment that fill a Pyongyang recreation center that serves as a training facility for disabled athletes.

When AP journalists visited the Taeddonggang Cultural Center for the Disabled in June, a girl in a wheelchair was thwacking a pingpong ball fired at her by a coach while a boy fiddled with his prosthetic leg while awaiting his turn.

The young woman, Ma Yu Chol, isn't competing at the Paralympics but she is in London to cheer Rim on. Li said she sees her country's trip to the Paralympics as a "first step" toward developing a disabled sports culture in North Korea.

"People can communicate through sports," she said, "and learn to feel comfortable around one another through sports."

___

Associated Press writer Hye Soo Nah contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea. Follow AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul on Twitter at twitter.com/newsjean.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-28-NKorea-Disabled%20Athletes/id-7948f56b76544c5b8fd56717ec8f5e18

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