13 Mar, 2007- JAKARTA- Two moderate quakes rocked the eastern and western parts of Indonesia on Tuesday with no reports of any damage or casualties, said the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
A moderate quake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale jolted the eastern part of Indonesia at 5.49 am local time, an official of the agency said, adding the epicentre was 174 km northeast of Indonesia's Aceh province, the northern tip of Sumatra island, and 155 km under the seabed.
Two hours and 12 minutes later, another moderate quake with a magnitude of 5.3 struck with the epicentre at 116 km northwest of Ternate town in north Maluku province and 48 km under the seabed, the official added.
The intensity of the quake was felt at 2 to 3 mmi (modified mercally intensity), said the official....    MORE

March 13, 2007- A recent earthquake has brought traces of crude oil to the surface on Stewart Island, strengthening prospects of a significant oil discovery in the nearby Great South Basin offshore area.
Several natural oil seepages have been detected behind the beach at Thule Bay, said Ministry of Economic Development chief petroleum geologist Richard Cook.
The ministry had been monitoring the area, where seepages had been detected years earlier, for some time but found no fresh activity until after the magnitude 4.8 quake last month.
"We are encouraged the latest information strengthens the case for exploration in the area."....    MORE

Srinagar, India- March 13, 2007- At least 50 people were killed as snow engulfed Kashmir and torrential rains pounded the rest of northern India, officials said Tuesday. Some 28 people were killed and 25 others received burn injuries in separate lightning strikes in Uttar Pradesh as rains crippled life in the populous northern Indian state, they said.
Seventeen people, including two children and a soldier died in landslides, cold and floods in Indian Kashmir and its summer capital Srinagar reported its heaviest March snowfall in 15 years, weather officials said.
Five other weather-related casualties were reported from other parts of northern India, lashed by rains since Friday.
In Kashmir, five Hindu pilgrims trekking to a snowbound shrine high in the Himalayas froze to death. . . . .
Earlier this month, India's air force airlifted to safety more than 5,000 people stranded for days in sub-zero temperatures on the main highway by avalanches and landslides....    MORE

Bangkok- Mar 13, 2007- Hundreds of thousands of farmed fish have been found dead in one of Thailand's key rivers, the fisheries department said Tuesday, prompting fears that factories were polluting the waterway. Parts of the central provinces of Ang Thong and Ayutthaya along the Chao Phraya river were officially declared disaster zones Tuesday, after the fish started dying there on Sunday night.
Officials said they were still trying to determine what had caused the deaths of up to one million caged tubtim fish, a type of tilapia, at different locations along the river about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Bangkok.
Jaranthada Karnsasuta, director general of the fisheries department, said a sudden lack of oxygen in the water killed the fish.
"Oxygen in water is very poor. Some reported zero to 0.5 percent of oxygen in the water, while fish need more than three percent to survive," he told AFP.
He said they were currently investigating two possible explanations -- that a sugar boat which capsized earlier this month released toxic byproducts into the river, or that upstream factories had polluted the waterway.
Local villagers and farmers suspect that factories, including one that produces the food additive monosodium glutamate, had released untreated water into the Chao Phraya, which flows down to the capital Bangkok, Jaranthada said. . . . .
The Ministry of Agriculture will compensate fish farmers for their losses, which total about 40 million baht (1.3 million dollars), Jaranthada said.
An official in Ang Thong told AFP that the public health ministry had reassured him that the dead fish were not poisonous to humans, but added that they would be buried rather than entering the food chain.
Jaranthada said that the quality of water on the affected stretch of the Chao Phraya was improving after the irrigation department released clean water from an upstream dam....    MORE

March 13, 2007- A professor at North Idaho College says it's all right to talk about executing "anyone who's ever voted Republican" as long as it's said with a smile.
The belief was expressed by instructor Jessica Bryan when her comments were challenged by a student, Linda Cook, who served as an aide to the late U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, and is a longtime supporter of the Republican Party.
Cook wrote to the school asking for a refund on fees she paid for a course taught by Bryan, after she withdrew because of the instructor's comments. Cook told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that Bryan used every class period in the English composition course to criticize and disparage Republicans, including the suggestion of the death penalty for everyone who chooses to support a Republican with a vote.
"I signed up for an English composition course but was dismayed to receive a level of political vitriol that I believe was strictly extracurricular," Cook said her in letter to the school. . . . .
Among the allegations: Bryan reported President George W. Bush won the election "because people … can't read," and, regarding the death penalty: "First we line up everyone who can't think and right behind them, anyone who's ever voted Republican."
"Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that anyone would take it seriously," Bryan, who doesn't deny making the statements, told the newspaper. "They were always said with a smile."
She said the comments were an attempt "to get my students to think." . . . .
Bryan said she thought Cook had enjoyed the "debate" of the classroom, but Cook said she chose not to confront the teacher during class time. "If someone's suggesting you just be killed you don't sit down and say 'let's talk,'" Cook said.
Bryan's perception is that she was the one who was hurt. "I do see it as an insult, personally and professionally," she said. Bryan told the Sentinel she believes Cook is making a "mountain out of a molehill." . . . .
Reader Stan Hess told the Sentinel someone needs to think. "Consider, if Ms. Jessica Bryant had been a Republican professor, and had been quoted as saying 'I believe in the death penalty … First we line up everyone who can't think and right behind them, anyone who's ever voted Democrat.' What do you think the reaction would have been nationally and locally in the media? Marshall Mend, a founder of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Rights is quoted in the Coeur d Alene Press 'When you say 'kill a bunch of people,' it's hate speech."
Another reader confirmed to the Sentinel Bryan does engage in "unrelated rants" but praised her for them. "It is through her sometimes unrelated rants about society that make you start to think about your very own viewpoint," said Jake Donahue.
Still another reader, Jessyka, said something similar, describing Bryan's lectures as "random and extreme."....    MORE

March 13, 2007- . . . .
Mr. Bush started his day in Santa Cruz Balanya, visiting a medical operation run jointly by the United States and Guatemalan militaries. On another stop, in a traditional, embroidered jacket, Mr. Bush helped load crates of lettuce onto a truck at a packing station in the village of Chirijuyu. The station was operated by Labradores Mayas, a food cooperative that was started by a local farmer who took advantage of an irrigation system built with a Usaid loan to transform subsistence farms into commercial enterprises that now distribute to Wal-Mart Central America and McDonald’s. . . . .
Along the winding road to Iximche, Mr. Bush’s motorcade passed hundreds of indigenous demonstrators who faced off with police and soldiers to oppose the president’s visit to the Mayan spiritual site. At one point protesters managed to block the president’s route with boulders, but soldiers cleared them away in time for the motorcade to pass.
"Iximche represents the dignity of the Mayan people and we can't have a man who represents war come to this place", said Jorge Morales, a protest leader. Our ancestors have spent hundreds of years on this ground and they will feel his presence. . . . .
But after Mr. Bush left, the initial cleanup took a different form. Local people picked up the kernels of corn that had been thrown on the ground as part of the welcome of Mr. Bush. With the bulk of the population living in poverty, local people said they did not want the food to go to waste.....    MORE

March 10, 2007- Guatemala City, Guatemala- The U.S. president who has spent the past five years waging pre-emptive wars and calling various nations "evil" is being called evil himself on his seven-day tour of South American countries.
When United States Pres. George W. Bush landed in Brazil protestors greeted him while Venezuela Pres. Hugo Chavez hurled insults at him from Argentina, inferring Bush was evil.
Now Mayan priests are weighing in saying that after Bush visits Mayan archeological sites that they must perform purifying ceremonies to purge Bush's "bad spirits" from them.
"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization, told the Associated Press Thursday. Tiney has close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders.
Bush is scheduled to visit the archaeological site Iximche in a region of the Central American country populated mostly by Mayans.
Tiney told AP that "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided the sacred site must be cleansed of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace.
The war in Iraq and U.S. trade negotiations have created a climate in which many residents of South American nations are expressing their strong anti-American and anti-Bush sentiments during Bush's tour, AP reported Saturday....    MORE

Mar 13- PARIS- France's highest court Tuesday rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in France, annulling the union of the two men.
Stephane Charpin and Bertrand Charpentier were married in a civil ceremony on June 5, 2004, in Begles, a town in the southwest Bordeaux region. The government immediately said the union was outside the law, and a series of court decisions unfavorable to the couple followed.
In the latest decision, the court ruled that "under French law, marriage is a union between a man and a woman," backing a 2005 decision by an appeals court in Bordeaux. . . . .
Prosecutor Marc Domingo said during an earlier court hearing that it was the parliament, not judges, who should have the final word in any legalization of marriages involving homosexual couples.
The couple said after the 2005 appeals court ruling that they would take their case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. It was not immediately clear whether they would do so.
The lower court that initially rejected the marriage noted that gay couples in France are already covered by legislation that grants non-married cohabiting couples of the same or opposite sexes some rights enjoyed by married couples....    MORE

March 12, 2007- The geomagnetic field was quiet to unsettled on March 11. Solar wind speed ranged between 286 and 444 km/s (average speed was 340 km/s, increasing 16 km/s over the previous day). The first part of the disturbance related to CH260 arrived and solar wind speed is slowly increasing.
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
March 9-11: No obvious fully or partially Earth directed CMEs were observed in LASCO imagery.
Forecast
The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet to minor storm on March 12-14 due to effects from CH260....    MORE

Mar. 12, 2007- The rumble started around 7:15 tonight and within minutes, emergency dispatchers throughout the Akron area began fielding calls from anxious residents.
Ohio seismic officials say a 3.6 earthquake centered somewhere in northern Summit County or southern Cuyahoga County has rattled the region. . . . .
A Cuyahoga Falls dispatcher said residents throughout the community called 911 to report what they thought was an explosion....    MORE

March 12, 2007- JACKSON, Wyo.- An avalanche on the west slope of the Teton mountains swept two brothers down more than 1,000 feet, killing one of them, officials said.
Paul Maniaci, 24, of Steamboat Springs, Colo., died of trauma and suffocation, according to Teton County Coroner Bob Campbell.
The avalanche broke about 5 p.m. Saturday near 10,000 feet on the main shelf of Darby Canyon, which is a few miles from the Idaho state line, authorities said. . . . .
Paul Maniaci, whom Wells said was an experienced skier, is the second avalanche victim to die in Teton County this winter....    MORE

Mar 12- SAN ANTONIO- Flooding caused by torrential rainstorms swept cars off roads in central Texas, killing two people Monday, authorities said. . . . .
Much of the Hill Country outside San Antonio got at least 3 inches of rain in just nine hours overnight.
Lockhart, about 70 miles northeast of San Antonio, received an estimated 8 inches, said meteorologist Greg Jackson at the National Weather Service. He said more rain was possible Tuesday....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Dallas, TX- Rescue crews searched an apartment complex Monday seeking victims of an early morning blaze that injured at least 12 people, authorities said.
Several people were injured when they jumped from balconies in the three-story building, the Associated Press reports. Two people were severely burned in the blaze, officials said.
The fire at Harvey's Racquet Club Apartments, about a mile southeast of Dallas' Love Field airport, damaged as many as 100 units, and wasn't reported until the blaze was well underway, said Fire spokesman Lt. Joel Lavender. . . . .
The American Red Cross said about 300 tenants were forced to seek emergency shelter.
"It's really emotional," Red Cross spokeswoman Anita Foster told the Dallas Morning News. "That's 93 families who, in one fell swoop, have lost everything they have."
The cause of the fire is under investigation....    MORE

12 Mar, 2007- NEW DELHI- A fire broke out in a slum cluster in central Delhi on Sunday night, destroying several hutments.
The fire broke out in Tanga Stand slum near Kutub Road chowk in Sadar Bazar at around midnight and 24 fire tenders were rushed to the spot, fire brigade officials said....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Oneida, NY- Residents from Oneida were forced to evacuate following a an explosion aboard a CSX freight train carrying propane. Currently 12 cars are on fire in this rural community and schools and others have been forced to leave the area. There have been no immediate reports of injuries or fatalities, but the danger remains high as officials worry about more explosions.
The blast occurred around 7 am and this central New York city had its sky lit by an enormous fireball. The trail derailed between Canal and Main Streets in the city of Oneida. Reverse 911 is currently being employed to evacuate people in the area. . . . .
The Post-Standard reports one of their readers as saying, "I thought it was the sun rise it was so bright, that is until I say the huge column of smoke. It is amazing it was so far away, I thought it was the Minoa rail yard." Oneida Mayor Leo Matzke in a report to Syracuse's WSYR-AM revealed the explosion was a result of the derailment of 20 to 25 cars.
Reports also say Hazmat Teams were en route to the scene, and officials are concerned about the possibility of more explosions since the train contained up to 80 cars, with many of those cars transporting propane.Salerno says, "There is danger of further explosions."
A Madison County Sheriff's Department dispatcher said the train was in a non-populated area on Oneida's north side, although within the city limits. Residents with no place to go are gathering at the city's Armory in Cedar Street....    MORE

Mar 12- WEATHERFORD, Texas- A gas line exploded Monday, sending flames hundreds of feet in the air as some workers were laying a pipeline. Several nearby vehicles were burned but no one was hurt.
About 15 workers were in the area when a backhoe hit the gas line, said Bob Hopkins, a spokesman for the fire department in Weatherford, about 30 miles west of Fort Worth. . . . .
A spokesman for ConocoPhillips said that at about 2 p.m. a third-party contractor working in the area hit an 8-inch line the company uses to carry propylene, a type of natural gas liquid used to produce plastics. He said that ConocoPhillips has cut off the supply to the line. . . . .
Hopkins said the area where the fire is burning is in the middle of the Barnett Shale, a large natural gas field.
At least half a dozen vehicles were burned and several pieces of heavy equipment were in flames or had been scorched. Some power lines were also destroyed in the fire, but electricity was later restored, Hopkins said....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Wild duck in a pond. South Korea said Sunday it culled more than 35,000 ducks at poultry farms in the centre of the country in order to curb a new bird flu outbreak confirmed last week.
South Korea said Sunday it culled more than 35,000 ducks at poultry farms in the centre of the country in order to curb a new bird flu outbreak confirmed last week. . . . .
The latest bird flu outbreak followed one reported on February 10 in Anseong, north of Cheonan, which was the latest in a series of H5NI cases reported since November.
More than two million birds have been culled at poultry farms in the country's central and southwestern areas since a bird flu case was confirmed on November 25, the first in almost three years.
South Korea was hit hard by bird flu between December 2003 and March 2004, prompting the cull of 5.3 million poultry and costing about one billion dollars....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Praised by chefs around the world and devoured by many a celebrity, the rare trout of Lake Ohrid still graces menus in many Macedonian restaurants, despite being on the edge of extinction.
The "Ohrid trout," or Salmo letnica by its scientific name, was identified as unique in 1924, but locals prefer to brand it as "ancient" since its closest species is only found in fossils.
Its moniker comes from the only body of water in which it is found -- Lake Ohrid, one of the oldest in the world along with Baikal in southeast Russia and Tanganyika in eastern Africa. . . . .
His friend, Stefce Ilkov, 75, said fishermen from the tiny lakeside village of Pestani used to pull out up to three tonnes of fish a day in the past.
"Now, if you get one (tonne), you can consider yourself lucky," he said. "It proves that there are fewer and fewer fish in the lake. . . . .
"We buy it from fishermen from Albania, but also here for 10 euros (13 dollars) per kilo and sell it for almost 30 euros in restaurants," he said.
The lake, which lies between Macedonia and Albania, is more than 30 kilometres (18 miles) long and reaches depths of up to 290 metres (950 feet).
Ohrid town and its environs were put on the UN World Heritage list in 1979. And the lake is known as the "museum of living fossils" since, for centuries, it has been home to at least 146 species, including 17 types of fish.
Two-thirds of its small crabs and flatworms and 90 percent of its snails cannot be found anywhere else. . . . .
In Macedonia, where more than 35 percent of the two million population are unemployed, illegal businesses are almost the norm. And in its Ohrid region, it's often fishing, a local occupation for centuries. . . . .
Spirkoski meanwhile said the ban will not help save the species unless the two countries join forces.
"The problem is a lack of cooperation between Macedonia and Albania, and pollution from discharges of untreated sewage," he said....    MORE

March 12, 2007- WASHINGTON- The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.
For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
The draft document by the authoritative INTERGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.
But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it's issued in early April in Brussels, the same city where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Their plan will be presented to President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June. . . . .
The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems -- change in species' habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen -- can be blamed on global warming.
For example, the report says North America "has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes," such as hurricanes and wildfires. . . . .
The United Nations-organized network of 2,000 scientists was established in 1988 to give regular assessments of the Earth's environment. The document issued last month in Paris concluded that scientists are 90 percent certain that people are the cause of global warming and that warming will continue for centuries....    MORE

BEIJING- March 12- Forests of spruce trees are invading the Arctic tundra because of global warming and evicting and endangering species that live there quicker than scientists thought, a new study was quoted as saying Monday by news reports.
Tundra is land area where tree growth is inhibited by low temperatures and a short growing season. In the Arctic, the tundra is dominated by permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen subsoil.
Lichens, grasses and mosses are the only vegetation that can grow in such frigid conditions. Forests of spruce trees and shrubs neighbor these tundra areas, and the boundary where they meet is called the treeline.
The permafrost thaws in summer and the tundra becomes covered in bogs and lakes, offering a unique habitat for plants. But global warming has lengthened the summer warming season and promoted tree growth, causing the treeline to encroach on the tundra.
Researchers reconstructed a 300-year history of tree density and treeline position by looking at tree rings. The results show trees can invade the tundra faster than previously thought.
"The conventional thinking on treeline dynamics has been that advances are very slow because conditions are so harsh at these high latitudes and altitudes," said Ryan Danby of the University of Alberta. "But what our data indicates is that there was an upslope surge of trees in response to warmer temperatures. It's like it waited until conditions were right and then it decided to get up and run, not just walk."
While in many places the idea of more trees is a good one, this Arctic takeover endangers species like caribou and sheep that thrive in the tundra, as well as the native people who depend on these species for their survival.
The details of the study are published in the March issue of the Journal of Ecology. Danby plans to continue his research as a part of the United Nation's International Polar Year research effort....    MORE

Mar 12, 2007- Water supply to hundreds of thousands of people across southern Lebanon remains the priority development issue, say officials, seven months after Israel's bombardment of the area severely damaged an already inadequate water and sanitation system.
The UN Children's Agency, UNICEF, is implementing a series of projects across Lebanon to improve water supply, through its Water, Environment, Sanitation and Hygiene (WESH) unit.
According to WESH figures, only 56 percent of Lebanese are connected to the mains water supply, which in poorer rural areas sometimes only works one day a week. Nearly one in three Lebanese buy drinking water while average leakages of 50 percent from pipes leave an annual water shortfall of around 40 per cent, largely supplemented by mobile water trucks.
"Natural water resources in Lebanon are good but there is a culture of abundance," Mohammed Bendrissi Alami, WESH Senior Programme Officer at UNICEF Beirut, told IRIN.
"People think they have enough so they don't care. The problem is the management, quality and supply of water, not the natural resources. There has been no emphasis on the sector and the needs of people are not being met," Alami said.
Until Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, much of the area's mains water supply came from Israel itself. The already inadequate Lebanese water supply system left behind after the Israeli occupation ended was further damaged by last summer's 34-day war between Israel and the armed wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah.
The Israeli bombardment included the destruction of water tanks, springs and pipelines, leaving most of southern Lebanon totally cut off from mains water supply in the immediate aftermath of the war. Israel said it was targeting terrorist infrastructure.
In Khiyam, the mountain-top town's main 1,000-cubic-metre water tank was partially destroyed by Israeli fire and is now close to being rebuilt with money from WESH's US $9m annual budget.
WESH is also helping rebuild 12 other water tanks as well as pipelines, and has provided 12 generators to southern towns to keep water pumps working during the daily electricity cuts. . . . .
WESH's Alami said sanitation could also rapidly become "a very serious problem for Lebanon, particularly in the south".
"People are building houses too close to springs, or they are digging septic tanks close to water holes, both of which lead to faeces contaminating drinking water and subsequent diseases such as hepatitis and diarrhoea," said Alami.
With 70 per cent of Lebanon's water system lacking any form of sewage treatment, most effluent simply ends up in rivers, further compounding pollution.
By the end of March, 29 gas chlorination systems will have been installed across southern Lebanon, with WESH assistance, to increase water quality, while the EU and World Bank are working on a scheme to build 12 sewage treatment stations across the country....    MORE

Mar 12, 2007- BEIJING- Thousands of Chinese farmers and laid-off workers rioted in central China, attacking police and smashing squad cars, a local official said on Monday, the latest in a string of violent demonstrations.
Nine police cars were burnt during the riot on Friday in the central province of Hunan in which 20,000 people clashed with about 1,000 police armed with guns and electric cattle prods, a local official told Reuters.
"They did it because they were not satisfied with some government behaviour," the official, surnamed Tan, said by telephone from the district of Lingling, which belongs to the Hunan city of Yongzhou.
"They were also unhappy about official corruption," Tan said without elaborating. . . . .
A widening gap between rich and poor, corruption and official abuses of power have fuelled a growing number of demonstrations and riots around China, often sparked by seemingly minor issues.
The government has said the number of "mass incidents" in the country–a term that includes protests, petitions and demonstrations–was about 23,000 last year.
Efforts to reduce inequality and sources of discontent have been a theme of government efforts to improve the livelihoods of its 750 million farmers....    MORE

Mar 12- NEW DELHI- An airplane carrying 138 passengers returned to an eastern Indian city after a mobile phone text message from a passenger triggered a hijack scare, a news report said Monday.
The message from a female passenger to a relative expressed fears about a possible hijack of the New Delhi-bound Indigo Airlines plane by a suspected terrorist on board, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
The relative alerted air traffic control in Calcutta, which declared a security alert, it said.
The plane returned to Calcutta's airport and was taken to an isolation bay and searched by security forces, who found no threat.
Police detained the passenger who had sent the message for questioning, PTI said.
Bruce Ashby, chief executive officer of Indigo Airlines, said in a statement the pilot had to return to Calcutta because of the security alert....    MORE

12 March, 2007- United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia- Villages in the Tbilisi-controlled Upper Kodori Valley in breakaway Abkhazia came under fire overnight on March 12, causing no casualties, the Georgian media sources informed.
The Georgian side has already indicated that the fire was opened from the Abkhaz-controlled territories. Officials also said that Russian army helicopters were over-flying the gorge last night.
"First news about helicopter flying over the villages of Chkhalta, Azhara and Gentsvisi broke at about 10 p.m. [Tbilisi time] on March 11. It was then followed by shelling; rockets were falling in the nearby mountains and were apparently shot from [the Abkhaz-controlled] Tkvarcheli," Head of Abkhaz government-in-exile Malkhaz Akishbaia stated on March 12.
Confirming the reported shelling in Upper Kodori Valley, Georgia''s Deputy Defense Minister Levan Nikolaishvili said at a press briefing on March 12 that the Russian army helicopters entered the Georgian airspace from the Russian Federation and opened fire on the villages in Upper Kodori Gorge. "I can not comment on further details at this stage," he added.
"No casualties have been reported, but several buildings in the villages that came under fire were heavily damaged," RIA Novosti quoted a spokesman for the Georgian Foreign Ministry as commenting on March 12. As the diplomat noted, according to local police and witnesses, prior to the attack, two helicopters had violated Georgia''s air space flying from the Abkhaz side of the border. . . . .
"We have warned for many times that tensions were expected in spring," he said and added that as far as he knows UN observers and Russian peacekeepers are expected to arrive in upper Kodori Gorge to look into the situation on the ground.
De facto Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told Imedi TV early on March 12 that it was "an ordinary, routine clash" between local militias, led by rebel warlord Emzar Kvitsiani and the Georgian forces stationed in the upper Kodori Gorge.
"This kind of clashes has been occurring in the gorge time after time; but it seems that in this recent case exchange of fire was more intensive. Spring is coming and the [rebel militias] are expected to intensify their activities," Shamba said. . . . .
According to Lakoba, the Abkhaz side registered no aerial targets. "Our aviation did not take off… such provocations, be it in Gali District or upper part of Kodori Gorge, are initiated by Georgian security services. It is done in order not to implement the UN Security Council Resolution. International community must interfere in the unlimited chaos," he added. . . . .
He also said that the Georgian Defense Ministry troops, including its air forces, were on high alert after attacks on the villages in upper Kodori Gorge.....    MORE

MOSCOW- March 12- Russia will not play with Iran in anti-American games, a well-informed source in Moscow told Itar-Tass on Monday in his comment on Iran’s nuclear program.
Tehran should reply to the International Atomic Energy Organization’s concerns, otherwise it should bear its responsibility for its own actions without relying on Russia’s assistance, the source said.
Russia “suffers losses in relation to its foreign policy and image, but they (Iran) insist on their line,” the source said.
“Iran with a nuclear bomb or a potential for its creation is impermissible for us. We will not play with them (Iran) in anti-American games,” the source said.
“Unfortunately, Iranians abuse our constructive relation and have done nothing to help us persuade our partners in consistency of Tehran’s actions. They should understand that it is impossible to play endlessly on our methodological good relation to them (Iran),” the source said....    MORE

03/12/2007- Russian President Vladimir Putin heads to Italy and Greece this week for a trip that includes a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and the signing of an oil pipeline agreement.
Putin on Tuesday is to visit the Pope in the Vatican, the first time the two have met since Benedict succeeded the late Pope John Paul II in 2005. That meeting is likely to focus on the continued tensions between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, which have stood in the way of a papal visit to Russia. . . . .
Putin also is to meet Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. He then is scheduled to attend a Greece-Russia-Bulgaria summit in Athens. An agreement on constructing the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline is to be signed during the summit, reports AP.
The pipeline, bypassing Turkey's cramped Bosporus Strait, would carry Russian oil from Burgas on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis on the Mediterranean....    MORE

March 12, 2007- TEHRAN- A Chinese business delegation is in Iran to finalize a groundbreaking deal to extend loans totaling $20 billion to Iran's development projects over the next 5-8 years.
The deal has reportedly been reached between Iran's Interior Ministry and a Chinese-Canadian bank, an Iranian official told Fars news agency, adding that a 17-man team has arrived to finalize the agreement.
"The finance deal includes a $10.5-billion loan and a 7.5-billion-euro loan," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to reveal the details of the deal.
Some 3.9 billion euros of the loans would be earmarked for building reinforcement projects in older parts of Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz, the official said, adding that some two billion euros would also be invested in the country's auto industry as well as in projects to develop the rail transportation sector and construct a monorail in Tehran. "Some 1.5 billion euros would also be spent on the project to promote use of compressed natural gas [as an alternative to petrol] and to expand the taxi fleet," the official said, adding that the $10.5-billion loan would also be used to reinforce older structures in various parts of the country.
Quake-prone Iran has embarked on a massive reinforcement campaign in recent years to protect old structures against tremors, which are almost a daily occurrence in several parts of the country, after a string of powerful earthquakes flattened several cities across Iran, killing tens of thousands of people in the past decade....    MORE

March 12, 2007- A retired Air Force pilot who once carried the nuclear codes for President Bill Clinton says it is very disturbing that a former U.S. Navy sailor has been arrested on terrorism charges. The suspect Hassan Abujihaad, also known as Paul R. Hall, is accused of mishandling classified information that ended up in the hands of a suspected terrorism financier.
During the probe, investigators discovered computer files containing classified information about the positions of U.S. Navy ships and discussing their susceptibility to attack. . . . .
"It's a little bit difficult when you've got 2.3 million people in the services," Patterson observes, "to know and to be able to document their personality behaviors, their financial situations, their marital situations." Most of the time, he notes, an individual will commit treason for financial gain; however, he says in this case the motivation may have been purely for the cause of radical Islam.
"This stuff happens from time to time," the former presidential attache notes. "It's unfortunate, but it's human nature, and we've seen it in the past," he says. "It happened a lot during the Cold War -- a lot of military folks made that decision to divulge classified information to the Soviets in exchange for money."
And that is probably the case with Abujihaad, Patterson asserts. He says the suspect may have been after financial gain, or perhaps "he had a religious awakening to the Islamofascist cause and decided to do it for that reason."
According to an affidavit, the suspect allegedly purchased videos promoting Jihad. Patterson says he hopes the former sailor will eventually be convicted of treason....    MORE

03/12/2007- Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found bound, drunk and nude, according to information reported Monday by Israeli media and confirmed by a government spokeswoman.
The longtime diplomat, Tsuriel Raphael, has been removed from his post and the Foreign Ministry has begun searching for a replacement, ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel said.
Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Raphael in the yard of his residence, tied up, gagged and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing several sex toys at the time, the media said. After he was untied, Raphael told police he was the ambassador of Israel, the reports said.
Ben-Hillel said the reports were accurate and that Raphael has been recalled although he did not break any laws.
"We're talking about behavior that is unbecoming of a diplomat," she said.
The ambassador did not file any police complaint in connection with the incident, she said. . . . .
The embarrassing affair was one of several involving Israeli diplomats in recent years. In 2000, Israel's ambassador to France died of cardiac arrest in a Paris hotel under circumstances the Foreign Ministry refused to publicize. Media reports said he was with a woman who was not his wife at the time, reports AP.
Last year, Israel replaced its ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir, after he said Israel and Australia are "like sisters" because both are located in Asia and their peoples don't have the Asian characteristics of "yellow skin and slanted eyes."
In 2005, Israel canceled the appointment of a diplomat to Australia after it was discovered that he published pictures of nude Brazilian women on the Internet while on a mission in Brazil....    MORE

12 March 2007- The British military's Skynet 5 satellite has been launched into space from Kourou in French Guiana.
The spacecraft is part of a £3.2bn system that will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and allied forces.
Sunday's lift-off came 24 hours after a first attempt was thwarted by a technical glitch in ground equipment.
Skynet rode atop an Ariane 5-ECA rocket, which left the ground at 1903 local time (2203 GMT) . . . .
The British spacecraft is the first in what will eventually be a three-satellite constellation designed to allow the Army, Royal Navy and RAF to pass much more data, faster between command centres.
"Skynet's going to provide five times the capacity that the previous system provided, and allow the military to do things they just haven't been able to do in the past," Mr Woods explained.
Skynet 5 matches the capability of the best modern satellite platforms - on which the world depends for much of its telephone, TV, and internet traffic - but has been specially prepared for military use. . . . .
"Modern warfare is all about information," said Bill Sweetman, the technology and aerospace editor for Jane's Information Group. "Every piece of satellite bandwidth is valuable and the military is always hungry for more. . . . .
The whole Skynet 5 constellation has been funded through the largest Private Finance Initiative (PFI) signed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The MoD does not own the hardware; it merely buys the services run over it. . . . .
As part of this £2.6bn deal, Paradigm agreed to loft new and more advanced spacecraft, and overhaul the ground systems needed to support them. This has included replacing and updating control centres, and major antennas and terminals on military ships, land vehicles and planes.
Paradigm gets an annual fee for providing this service. It can also earn money by selling excess bandwidth - expected to be about 50% on each spacecraft - to Nato and other friendly countries.
The cost to the British taxpayer of the PFI jumped by several hundred million pounds in 2005, principally because of a decision to go for the "physical assurance" of building a spare spacecraft rather than a straightforward insurance policy that would pay out in the event of a launch failure or breakdown in orbit....    MORE

12 March 2007- The European and US space agencies are moving ahead on their next major missions to explore the Solar System.
Nasa has begun choosing a destination for a "flagship" robotic venture along the lines of Cassini-Huygens, which has been exploring Saturn and its moons.
It is considering four targets: the Jupiter system, Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan.
The European Space Agency has called for proposals for one flagship mission and another medium-sized mission. . . . .
The American and European agencies are developing their space exploration programmes separately, but both say co-operation further down the line is a distinct possibility. . . . .
Saturn's moon Enceladus has recently surged up the list of priority targets for exploration.
When the Cassini-Huygens probe arrived at the Saturn system in 2004, it observed water vapour erupting in huge geysers from an active volcanic region at Enceladus' south pole. . . . .
An independent evaluation will take place over the following few months with a view to choosing a target for the flagship mission. . . . .
A previous joint Esa-Nasa mission to Europa was dropped following budgetary changes at the US space agency in 2006....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Washington, D.C.- With most of the nation's food crops depending on pollination by bees, the mysterious ailment that is causing bees to disappear is affecting the nation's food security.
A lack of honeybees means that some farmers won't waste money by planting crops that can't mature without pollination by bees. Which will undoubtedly yield less food and leave consumers paying more for what is available.
No one is sure what is causing bees to vanish, but the syndrome is so prevalent it now has a name: Colony Collapse Disorder.
Florida beekeeper David Hackenberg alone has lost 2,000 of his 3,000 hives over the past few weeks, according to BBC news.
To solve the problem FEDERAL SCIENTISTS, the National Beekeepers Association and state researchers have formed an emergency working group.
Because of urban development most farm fields in America are not surrounded by woods and bees. That means that the nation's beekeepers take their hives to farmers around the nation, renting them out for a while. That exposes the nation's bees to a variety of potential toxins in the environment.
One of the many theories is that pesticides in general are to blame and that in particular a new generation of nicotine-based pesticides is killing the bees.
"It may be that the honeybee has become the victim of these insecticides that are meant for other pests," Hackenberg told BBC. "IF WE DON'T FIGURE THIS OUT REAL QUICK, IT'S GOING TO WIPE OUT OUR FOOD SUPPLY."
Beekeepers in France are facing similar problems and do blame pesticides. They say that bees kept in urban areas and not exposed to the pesticides that farmers use on their fields are healthy while rural bees are dying....    MORE

3/12/2007- The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is moving closer to granting the U.S. and Canada "controlled risk" status relative to BSE.
The OIE's Scientific Commission late last week endorsed putting the U.S. and Canada's status at "controlled risk," a move which is expected to become final in May at the at the OIE’s General Assembly meeting.
Canadian Ag Minister Chuck Strahl welcomed the news for Canada. “Canada’s New Government is appreciative that international animal health experts have recommended that Canada be officially recognized as a country that is effectively controlling BSE risks. The OIE’s science-based categorization system provides the framework for fair and standardized international trade based on the safeguards that trading partners have implemented. There is a high level of international confidence and respect for the effectiveness of Canada’s BSE control measures and our commitment to protecting animal and public health. This has been demonstrated by the unprecedented market recovery achieved to date. Should the preliminary categorization be adopted, it would provide further proof, endorsed by animal health experts, that Canada has taken responsible actions to manage BSE that are internationally recognized.”....    MORE

March 12, 2007- There is only one figure in On the Origin of Species, and that is a tree diagram. As Darwin’s model for the theory of evolution, he used the Tree of Life (TOL) to clearly and visually explain the interrelatedness of all living things, implying that from one common ancestor (the root) sprung branches, which produced smaller offshoots as genetic progeny, etc.
In this model, similarities between species reveal a common ancestor, and differences result from (and explain) Darwin’s main catalysts: competition and natural selection, which generate improvement in future generations. As a simile, the TOL served a vital purpose for introducing the theory of evolution to the community in an understandable way. Although there is no external evidence to support the idea that evolution is inclusively hierarchical, many evolutionists believe the TOL provides an accurate general representation of the history of life, which could potentially be completely reconstructed by knowing the relevant data.
In recent times, however, a minority of biologists and evolutionists have questioned the accuracy of the TOL hypothesis, including W. Ford Doolittle and Eric Bapteste. In a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Pattern Pluralism and the Tree of Life Hypothesis,” the scientists investigate the shortcomings of the TOL, as well as propose alternative models that would better explain how to classify the history of evolving life forms. . . . .
In their paper, Doolittle and Bapteste highlight research that shows other causes of genetic modification, suggesting that evolutionary history is more complex than described by the TOL. For example, recombination, gene loss, duplication, and gene creation are a few of the processes whereby genes can be transferred within and between species, causing variation that’s not due to vertical transfer. These transfer methods give results that don’t fit on the TOL, including species that cannot be traced to a common ancestor. . . . .
If this combination of thinking seems to clash, Doolittle and Bapteste suggest that the Western philosophical tradition of thinking in universal patterns has caused biologists to cling to classification without realizing it. The authors point out that many algorithms used to study evolutionary hierarchies impose or extract the TOL structure due to their intrinsic design. TOL is a paradigm that has stuck. But Doolittle sees ways to alter this mentality.
“Sure we can [re-train Western thinking]. That's what ‘postmodernism’ is about,” he said. “I would agree that the need to classify might be built in, but the coupling of this practice to a specific theory about what classifications are ‘natural’ is surely not. . . . .
As for any blow to Darwin’s ego, the scientists point out that he never wrote about reconstructing the tree in an attempt to relate every living thing, but rather used the model as a general guide.
“I'd like to think he would adjust,” Doolittle said about Darwin. “After all, his theory was developed before there was any understanding of genetics and when bacteria were still believed to be spontaneously generated.”....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.
"Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor.
"I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."
Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a "religion", forcing alternative explanations to be ignored.
Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.
"Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."
Dr Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. He said: "THE GREEN MOVEMENT has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."
Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said: "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."....    MORE

March 12, 2007- On Sunday (March 11) a visiting delegation of the Israel Defence Forces commemorated Hungarian Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
At an event staged at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, David Admon, Israel's Ambassador to Hungary and Erno Lazarovics, representing the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz), laid wreaths in remembrance of the 600,000 Hungarian Jews known to have been killed in the Holocaust, MTI reports. The two representatives then gave speeches to those who had gathered, both officials and members of the public.
According to some internet speculation, the Israeli Forces visiting might have been timed to coincide with Holocaust revisionist David Irving visiting Hungary. One online article stated that the Israeli Parliament passed a law stating that Israeli's could capture "holocaust deniers" anywhere in the world and bring them back for trial in Israel....    MORE

March 11, 2007- According to an Al Jazeera article some 100 Israeli soldiers arrived in Budapest Hungary a few days ago. David Irving is scheduled to speak in Budapest on March 12, 2007 - March 15, 2007.
A couple of years ago the Israeli Knesset [Parliament] passed a law stating that Israeli's could if they wanted, capture "holocause deniers" anywhere in the world and bring them back for trial in Israel.
Are they thinking about catching Irving in order to set a bit of precedent?
The Jerusalem Post did a write up on this new law in July 2004 when it was first passed.
Budapest under Israeli Occupation?
The Men in Blue have arrived- The murderers and child killers in blue arrived on the 9th of March.
200 Israeli solders in their standard blue uniforms as a “military delegation” arrived in four buses - windows covered – to the center of Budapest to a huge city block sized synagogue. They did get out of the bus and walked into this center of unrestrained human love and source of all wisdom for mankind.
They were also received in the Hungarian Parliament by Mr. Laszlo Mandur before they drove to the synagogue.
Obviously the intention is to house them there in the center of the city, within a few hundred yards from the spots where all the action will be played out on the 15th of March. Interesting that the Israeli Supreme Court just made a decision that it is forbidden to use civilians as human shields for Israeli soldiers. How will these fine people protect themselves in our country now? . . . .
Generally, the government and the media is trying to create maximum hysteria in advance in order to justify the coming beating, blinding and maiming of Hungarians on the 15th of March. This is the day when the Hungarian war of independence broke out against Austria in 1848. When the Hungarians won against Austria the Russians dutifully sent in an army to help out…
We do have around a hundred celebrations and demonstrations already lined up for this day.
The local Jewish organizations are openly promoting to their members to spend the very long weekend starting on March 15th in a foreign country.
This writer is sitting here in the middle of this whole mass, speaks the language, has access to all possible information sources and he is familiar with all local customs and history, still it is increasingly difficult for him to separate reality from hysteria. The whole country is shifting into lala-land and there is only one fix point: The local Judeo-Bolshevik government increasingly depends on 30,000 policemen to survive from week to week. It just might turn out to be a very long and hot summer this year.
The government and their well paid and numerous agents keep complaining that the rebels are importing firearms into the country. No proof was ever provided. The whole thing sounds like an urban legend to justify the dramatically increasing expenses for police hardware. . . . .

9 Comments:

Anonymous said...
If the Hungarian government has in mind to compromise its sovereignty by letting Israeli military perform an illegal abduction in its country there will be no option than to expel Hungary from the EU immediately. If that does not happen not only has Hungary become a colony of Israel, but so has the EU at large.
It should be remembered that this criminal Zionist regime has refused the extradition of a war criminal to Poland, where he is wanted to stand trial for concentration camp crimes.
It is obvious that Israel is sincere when it expresses that "we may judge others, but nobody will ever be allowed to judge us" as expressed by war criminal Sharon.
4:14 PM
Anonymous said...
If we are seeing the activities of the NWO - and as the PC Apostate has pointed out - this is in fact a "precedent setting" abduction, it is NOT illegal, as the Israeli knesset already passed its law and Hungary would merely be "allowing a sovreign ally" to abduct a criminal. Remember the NWO is essentially a single entity - it destroyed the "nation state" long ago. Internationalism at its finest.
4:34 PM
Anonymous said...
The more I learn about the behavior of the Israelis, the more I become convinced that the "attrocities" committed against Jews during WWII are either complete fabrications or wholly justified.
4:34 PM
Anonymous said...
I don’t know if the following story has any relation to your post about the Israelis who arrived in Hungary. It appeared in the Polish media and I haven’t found an English version.
Basically, it tells of an Italian living in the Kazimierz District (mainly Jewish) of Krakow who was beaten by several members of the Israeli security service. Here is a rough translation/recap:
[caption under photo] Sprained shoulders, bruised and sore wrists, back and stomach. This is how Roberto L. looks after an encounter with members of the Israeli security service. He was beaten in the Kazimierz District of Krakow after he asked that the driver of the Israeli tour bus turn off his engine.
Roberto L. has spent several days in a hospital under observation.
Every day the people living in the Roberto L.’s building as well as several others on Dwajor Street have to deal with tourist buses running their engines under their windows. There is room for only three buses in that spot but the drivers continually ignore this rule. The lives of the people living at this location is a nightmare of fumes, noise and vibration from the running engines. On Wednesday (March 7, 2007) there were five buses which kept their engines running for over 20 minutes. Roberto went up to the driver of the first bus and asked if he would turn off his engine. The driver ignored his request. Suddenly, a passenger stepped down from the bus and pushed him and soon after four others from the other buses came towards Roberto. He got scared and picked up a large stone. The others hesitated, but when Roberto put the stone back on the ground they attacked him. “They manacled me with plastic handcuffs and twisted my hands all the way up to my head. They threw me on the ground and my face was pressed in dog waste. When I tried to get up, they kicked me all over. Suddenly they went back to their buses and left.”
Michael Soberman, the press attache at the Israeli embassy apologized. He said it was a misunderstanding and the incident will be investigated. The members of the Israeli security forces stated that the children on the bus were endangered, that [Roberto] threw an „unknown object” into the bus.
The Polish authorities will conduct their own investigation which might difficult since the Israelis had diplomatic passports.
This type of thing is what the Israelis usually leave behind…the Israelis’ statements
sound very much like the IDF excuses—first they lie, then they retract.
5:29 PM
Anonymous said...
me too. the more i learn about these despicable people the more my prior sympathies for them turn into a torrent of rage
7:33 PM
Anonymous said...
The entire Old Testament is mostly the story of Israel suffering the consequences of transgression against divine laws. To the extent that they continue to transgress, they will reap the consequences, no one need rail against them.
8:42 PM
Kike Me said...
You anti-semites will get what is due. We will hunt you holocaust deniers who are actually holocaust lovers wherever you are. We have the support and backing of the American People to take you to Justice. Yes, I said TAKE you. Hungary is ours for the taking. You must comply. You have no choice. One hair on our heads is more valuable than a thousand of you gentiles. Your women and children included. Christians should know better than deny God's chosen people. Long live Zionism and Israel!
12:07 AM
Anonymous said...
WOW! Right out of 1984! Bow to a certain version of history or a death squad will be dispatched to abduct you. Folks, this is hell on Earth. How much longer can these evil absurdities reign before humans take a stand?....    MORE

I was expecting a baseless attack on my reputation, a warantless smear of anti-semitism or otherwise, but I was not expecting two anti-terrorism detectives to come knocking at my door to investigate an accusation that my site is funded by or funds Hamas.
Not only is the accusation outrageous because it's a LIE, but also far from a routine cry of anti-semitism, the 'anonymous female caller from Brooklyn' who claimed to be 'a former friend of mine' was aiming to land me in federal prison for a very, very long time.
This was a very malicious plot. But, also a stupid one, as the accusation is obviously patently false.
As a 'former friend,' she knows enough about me to be absolutely certain that her accusations are false, and that a few dozen years in prison would destroy not only my life but the lives of those dependent on me.
But, then again, 'anonymous tips' are the perfect avenue for cowards to launch their malicious attacks on political victims, without fear of being held accountable for their lies.
Of course, I have no way of knowing for certain 'who' this anonymous caller is. But, suffice it to say that I have strong suspicions about who 'she' might be.
And if I ever come across evidence that the person I suspect indeed made these accusations, then she will be staring at a major defamation lawsuit, not unlike the one that the Wiesenthal Center lost in Paris recently.
Finally, I have one last thing to say to this 'former friend' of mine and anyone else who seeks to silence critics of israel through smears, defamation, and threats of physical violence and imprisonment - for every critic that you silence, a thousand more will follow in their footsteps.
We have remained silent for too long.
We will not give up.
The Truth is Eternal.
And you cannot prevail....    www.WakeUpFromYourSlumber.com

March 12, 2007- City officials in San Francisco, California, have tried to silence a weekend Christian youth revival service known as "BattleCry." More than 20,000 teenagers from several states gathered to attend the Saturday morning service sponsored by Teen Mania Ministries.
This marks the second year in a row that BattleCry has been held in San Francisco. Last year, city officials issued a condemnation of the weekend revival.
This year, the city's board of supervisors issued a resolution saying the public address system at the San Francisco Giants' stadium could not be used before 10 in the morning. However, Teen Mania Ministries founder Ron Luce says a local Christian radio station agreed to broadcast the morning service so those attending the event could participate through the use of radios.
In an interview prior to the weekend revival service, Luce explained, "It'll be broadcast live from the stage. None of the P.A. system will be turned on, but we'll be hooked in live to the radio. We're encouraging young people to bring radios, so it may be the first 'persecuted church' service in America done in a very unique way with the help of our radio friends."
In preparation for the Saturday worship service, thousands of Christian teenagers came together on Friday afternoon for a prayer rally led by Luce on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, an event homosexual activists had vowed to protest. Luce says homosexual activists and their supporters are not used to being challenged.
"These people have dominated our culture for so long," the Teen Mania spokesman observes, "and they don't want anybody that disagrees with them to raise their voice." Essentially, these homosexual activists "have gone unopposed," he says.
But now that young Christians are raising their voices to communicate a message that contradicts that of the homosexual activists, Luce asserts, "they're saying, 'Wait a minute. We don't want you to lift your voice.' And I think part of the reason is that, the Christian world view -- nobody can compete with it."
Last year's prayer rally at City Hall was interrupted by homosexual protestors, and city officials formally condemned the BattleCry event. As similar events have unfolded surrounding this year's Teen Mania events, Tony Perkins of Family Research Council notes that the American Center for Law and Justice has intervened and is considering legal action in an effort to get the city to reverse its decree prohibiting the use of the Giants' stadium sound system before 10 a.m.
In a recent Washington Update brief, Perkins pointed out that the stadium hosts concerts and ballgames year-round at all times of the day and night; however, he commented, "San Francisco has found the limit of its tolerance in BattleCry's morning worship service." The FRC spokesman said San Francisco city officials have been "working overtime to dampen what has proven to be a life-changing, health-promoting rally for the nation's youth."....    MORE

March 12, 2007- The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that Anchorage Baptist Temple, a church in the state, will be allowed to defend a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union contesting certain tax exemptions granted to the church. The ACLU has filed two lawsuits challenging a statewide tax exemption on real property owned by a religious group, when the property serves as the residence of a teacher in a private religious or parochial school.
Anchorage Baptist Temple (ABT) runs a number of ministries, including alcohol and drug abuse recovery programs, community outreaches, a bus ministry and other services. The congregation also owns six residences that house teachers at a Christian school. Now that the Alaskan high court has ruled, the church will have its day in court to defend a tax exemption for the teachers' residences.
Mat Staver is president of Liberty Counsel, which has filed a motion to intervene in the case. He says losing the tax exemption would put an undue burden on ABT, but he believes THE SUIT AGAINST THE CHURCH IS IN KEEPING WITH THE ACLU'S AGENDA.
"The Alaska Legislature has seen the need," Staver notes. "They've chosen to give tax exemption to these housing projects or these housing parsonages, but the ACLU could care less," he says. "They want to shout their mantra of separation of church and state and stop this process right now, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE CONSEQUENCES."
Without the tax exmeption, ABT would divert about $23,000 each year from other services to pay property taxes, the pro-family attorney points out. And, he notes, other churches will face similar hardships if the tax exemption law is lifted.
But Staver feels the American Civil Liberties Union's complaint is without merit. "Frankly, not taxing a house that will be used for an education person is not an establishment of religion by any stretch of the imagination," he asserts. "We're glad that now we can defend this case against the ACLU on behalf of the churches," the attorney adds. "IT'S AN IMPORTANT CASE."....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Boulder officials are speaking out against two assaults this weekend that appear to be motivated by intolerance.
In one on Saturday in the area of 10th Street and University Avenue, a 19-year-old man of mixed race was assaulted by two men who asked "Are you black or white?" and then used the "n" word toward him.
The suspect also reportedly made comments about Nazis shaving Jewish people, before grabbing the victim’s hair and holding it back, as though he were bald, according to the victim. The victim reported that the suspect then shoved him and punched him in the face, causing him to fall. While he was on the ground, he was kicked in the face by a second male.
His friend, an 18-year-old man, also was assaulted when he stepped in to help his friend.
In the other incident, a man was attacked early Sunday morning for having his arm around his male friend.
In the statement from Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin and City Manager Frank Bruno, they say:>
"We are very disturbed by reports of several assaults and brawls throughout the city this past weekend. Two assaults in particular that involved derogatory statements about the victim’s race and sexual orientation are extremely troublesome as they fall on the heels of an assault in February that is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
"First and foremost we would like to express compassion to the victims in these cases. An attack on a community member for any reason, including sexual orientation, race or any other bias, threatens the feeling of safety and security within Boulder’s diverse populations and will not be tolerated. We believe that diversity enhances our community and is to be embraced and celebrated. These shameful acts do not represent the values of our city.
"The Boulder City Council and city of Boulder management will support its police department in the enforcement of state laws relating to such incidents and any potential hate crime to the fullest extent possible....    MORE

Mar 12- MADISON, Wis.- Wisconsin's worst sex offenders would have to drive around with bright green license plates under a bill a Republican lawmaker introduced Monday.
Serious child molesters and sexually violent offenders would be required to bolt the plates onto their cars and trucks when they're released from prison, Rep. Joel Kleefisch said.
Many sex offenders use their cars to commit crimes, driving to see someone they meet online or prowling parks and schools, Kleefisch said. He picked green because children associate it with Mr. Yuk, a symbol designed to warn children of poison.
Kleefisch said he's also considering emblazoning each plate with a sex offender warning.
Ohio lawmakers are working on similar legislation, and Gov. Ted Strickland has said supports it. Ohio already requires repeat drunken drivers to display bright yellow tags.
It wasn't clear whether Wisconsin lawmakers would support Kleefisch's proposal. Messages left for a Senate leader and a spokesman for Gov. Jim Doyle spokesman weren't immediately returned....    MORE

March 12, 2007- A rundown Hertfordshire estate that BP bought in the 1970s as a safe investment for its pension fund may prove to be the best deal the company ever made.
The 1,500-hectare [3,700 acres] of wood and field north of Harlow New Town cost the oil giant around £1m as farmland, but with planning permission expected to be given in the next year for up to 25,000 homes, along with business parks, offices and shops employing nearly 30,000 people, the land is now thought to be worth £9bn-£11bn - nearly as much as the fourth largest company in the world made out of extracting oil in 2005.
The trouble, say opponents of its plan to build a town for 60,000 people, is that at least half the BP land is designated metropolitan greenbelt, a green lung for London and the people of Harlow.
Pressure has been growing from developers and some politicians to relax greenbelt restrictions to ease a housing crisis in the south-east of England, driven by people moving for work as well as a steady flow of people from overseas into London. Government estimates say about 4m new dwellings will be needed by 2016. . . . .
"Not only does BP hit us with global warming, it now makes vast profits out of land that was protected for the public benefit," said John Clarke, who has been a resident in the village of Gilston for nearly 70 years and who lives in a BP-owned house. Gilston, with its beautiful Tudor church and orchards surrounded by green fields, will be near the centre of what BP's pension fund calls "Harlow North".
It says this will be a "sustainable urban extension that builds on the pioneering spirit of Harlow New Town", but Mr Clarke and others say it will be built on greenbelt land that will, if anything, leave Harlow even more run down.
"There is no comparison with the building of Harlow in the 1950s," said Mr Clarke. "Harlow was publicly funded. It was built to provide homes for the poor sods living in cowsheds after a vile world war. People wanted houses. The only opposition was from a few landowners. Now we have a giant corporation hand in hand with the government thundering across the countryside against everyone's wishes. "
But Hertfordshire stands to lose far more than the Harlow greenbelt. "We have four reviews of our greenbelt. The government plan gives us a minimum of 86,000 new homes and we reckon about 30,000 will have to go on greenbelt land," said Jon Tiley, head of forward planning at Hertfordshire county council. . . . .
Airports are expected to take large areas of greenbelt. Birmingham is seeking 290 hectares for its second runway; Bristol 200 hectares, and Manchester 270 hectares for a freight terminal. Gatwick wants 240 hectares for its second runway....    MORE

March 12, 2007- The thought of 12-year-old girls being vaccinated against a virus spread by sexual activity sends shudders through some Colorado parents who can't imagine their daughters needing such protection for years.
But others say you can't be certain what your children will do next month, not to mention five years from now. And that it's better to protect them against the unforeseen than to watch them die at a tender age.
Legislators are trodding difficult territory while trying to decide whether to add the new HPV vaccine to the list of immunizations given to schoolchildren. Human papillomavirus is often transmitted through sexual activity and causes 70 percent of the cases of cervical cancer.
If the bill becomes law, the HPV vaccine would be given to sixth-grade girls starting in 2008. As with other vaccines - for whooping cough, measles, tetanus and the rest - it would not be mandatory. Parents could choose to say "no" to the vaccine for religious or other reasons. . . . .
"Evidence of its benefit is so scanty, it may do nothing but make Merck $12 billion," he said.
Merck officials have used connections in Women in Government chapters to push state legislators to sponsor legislation to add its Gardasil HPV vaccine to the list of immunizations.
Under pressure in Colorado and other states, Merck recently decided to stop lobbying efforts in state legislatures. . . . .
Most of the time, a woman's own immune system can fight off the virus, he said. . . . .
The Freedom of Health Foundation says some people who've gotten the vaccine have complained of joint pain, seizures and neurological problems. . . . .
The great diffuser of the debate is that the vaccine isn't going to be mandatory.
Davis, a proponent of the vaccine, said the vaccine must remain an option.
Williams noted the only mandatory part of her bill would be that parents would be given information drawing the link between HPV and cervical cancer. Whether their girls get the vaccine is up to them....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Sewage plants in metro Denver and across Colorado are preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with tough new rules to protect fish by limiting ammonia in rivers and streams. . . . .
The costly upgrades are linked to new federal ammonia rules, which are based on numerous studies showing that standards dating to 1987 don't sufficiently protect fish from what can be the toxic effects of the chemical - formed from urine and manure that wind up in wastewater plants.
Utilities will need several years to upgrade their facilities, but the effort could mean improved fish habitat in warm-water rivers such as the South Platte. Native species such as fathead minnows and johnny darters have been making a comeback there, but some, like the Iowa darter and plains minnow, still struggle. . . . .
Ammonia isn't always fatal to fish, "but it certainly counts as a stressor," said Pete Walker, a fish pathologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. It crimps their ability to cope with other environmental hardships, including disease, he said. . . . .
• What's ammonia: A chemical associated with urine and feces. It collects at wastewater plants and can be harmful to fish even after the water is treated and released into streams....    MORE

BEIJING- March 12- Chinese Government health experts are investigating a possible cancer-causing additive in oil used to cook KFC products.
The move comes after some KFC outlets in NW China's Shaanxi Province were found to be using a suspected carcinogenic additive to filter and recycle old frying oil.
However, the restaurant chain's parent company Yum China said in a press release that the additive had been approved by the country as a safe additive in food manufacturing as well as being accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for filtering used frying oil. It said all KFC restaurants in China had used the additive since 1999, and all recycled frying oil met national standards. . . . .
The suspect additive, said to be Magnesium Trisilicate by the restaurant, is used as a kind of absorbent to filter unwanted residue from used frying oil. Chinese media reported that it enables KFC to recycle oil up to 10 days old.
The additive's manufacturer, U.S. chemical company Dallas Group, claimed the product could help maintain frying oil's quality by absorbing fatty acids and removing impurities which form in edible oils during the frying process.
"Recycled frying oil contains various carcinogens such as Benzypyrene, and these can't be reduced by additives," said a surgeon surnamed Li from the city's Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital. . . . .
Local health authorities in Shaanxi Province seized and halted the use of the suspect additive.
KFC said the reports were inconsistent with the facts, and would consider legal action....    MORE

March 12, 2007- PHILADELPHIA- After a good meal, how about asking the head waiter if you can take the waste grease from the kitchen to fuel your car?
In the search for sustainable and non-polluting alternatives to fossil fuels, a small band of ecologically minded people are turning to vegetable oil and recycled restaurant grease to run their cars, trucks and even home-heating systems.
Entrepreneurs, some backed by public funds, are proving cars can be run on low-cost materials that are a readily available alternative to environmentally damaging fossil fuels. . . . .
In Easthampton, Massachusetts, Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems makes conversion kits for cars to run on vegetable oil. The company has sold about 3,500 kits during its nine years in business, and says sales have been doubling annually in the last few years.
The kits are priced between $800 and $2,000 and users typically get used vegetable oil from local restaurants that are happy to give it away because they usually have to pay for disposal. . . . .
Fuel consumption for vegetable oil is similar to diesel, which gets 20 to 30 percent better mileage than gasoline. Emissions are much less toxic than those from gasoline, and it's carbon neutral because the carbon dioxide absorbed by the plant from which the oil is derived offsets CO2 generated when it is used as fuel, Carven said.
In Philadelphia, a small company is finding a use for another restaurant by-product.
Philadelphia Fry-O-Diesel converts the foul brown grease from restaurant sink traps into usable, clean-burning biodiesel fuel for heating and transportation. . . . .
Fry-O-Diesel and North American Biofuels, based in Long Island, New York, are believed to be the only U.S. companies making biofuels from trap grease.
In Philadelphia, the grease is trucked to the plant after being pumped out of traps that separate it from water in restaurant kitchens. . . . .
However, the company's output hasn't fueled any trucks or heating systems yet -- the experimental facility in an old gasket factory was never intended for commercial production. . . . .
According to Fry-O-Diesel, biodiesel can be used in most diesel engines without adaptation -- unlike ethanol which requires a "flex fuel" gasoline vehicle -- and can be alternated with petroleum diesel. The new fuel cuts engine wear because it is a better lubricant than regular diesel, and is biodegradable. . . . .
If all the estimated 3.8 billion pounds of U.S. restaurant grease produced annually was used, it would make 495 million gallons of biodiesel or heating fuel, equivalent to just 1 percent of the country's diesel consumption, Bantz said, quoting figures from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
While vegetable oil and restaurant grease may never make a big dent in overall energy needs, the existence of such enterprises underlines the urgency of the search for alternatives to fossil fuels, said Bantz.
"We have to look under every rock and down every drain for alternative energy sources," he said....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Scientists hoping to find new treatments for one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases say drugs used to treat common fungal infections may provide the answer.
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a highly contagious disease of the lungs that was thought to have been virtually eliminated by the 1960s, but is now resurgent and kills nearly two million people worldwide every year. New infections are occurring at a rate of one per second.
Of equal concern is the dramatic rise in the incidence of new strains of TB that are resistant to traditional antibiotics. As a result, the World Health Organisation, the Bill Gates Foundation and the European Union have all launched initiatives to tackle the problem.
Now, biologists at The University of Manchester have shown that chemicals called azoles – the active agent in many antifungal drugs – kill the TB bacteria, and could be effective in tackling the emerging drug-resistant strains.
"TB is back with a vengeance with a third of the world’s population currently infected," said Professor Andrew Munro, who led the research in Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences.
"The bacterium survives the initial attack by the body’s immune system and then lies dormant, usually in the lungs, waiting for any sign of weakness, such as a secondary infection. Its resurgence over the last 20 years has been closely associated with the AIDS epidemic, which destroys the human immune system and has allowed TB to get a grip once again." . . . .
"People in places like India or Africa would be given antibiotics but often not in sufficient quantities to kill the bug completely; this is how resistant strains develop and these regions have become huge breeding grounds for these ‘super strains’." . . . .
"We knew that the TB bacterium was a clever organism, able to evade the human immune system and to survive long-term, sometimes unnoticed, in the body. We also realised that these peculiar features of the TB bacterium must mean that there are ‘unusual’ aspects of its composition and biochemistry that set it apart from most other bacteria and that could provide new targets for antibiotic drugs.
"When we began looking at the bug and its DNA content in more detail, we noticed it had some unusual characteristics. In particular, we noted the presence of a very large number of enzymes called P450s, which are usually associated with more complex organisms.
"In humans, P450s oxygenate molecules in the body and are essential for steroid metabolism; they are also prevalent in the liver where they help us detoxify and dispose of countless chemicals and toxins that enter our system. Most bacteria have few, if any, P450s but we discovered that the TB bacterium has 20 different types."
Even more exciting for the team was the knowledge that existing anti-fungal drugs already target P450s as a way to treat, for example, systemic and more superficial infections caused by fungi such as Candida albicans (the causative agent of thrush).
"The class of drugs called azoles are able to kill off fungal infections by blocking the actions of one of its P450s that is essential for maintaining the cell structure," said Professor Munro. "We were able to show in laboratory experiments that various types of these azole drugs were also very good at killing the TB bacterium, and also that they bind very tightly to a number of the TB P450 enzymes that we have isolated – inactivating their function."....    MORE

March 12, 2007- Every time you switch on a light bulb, 10 to the power of 15 visible photons, the elementary particles of light, are illuminating the room in every second. If that is too many for you, light a candle. If that is still too many, and say, you just want one and not more than one photon every time you press the button, you will have to work a little harder.
A team of physicists in the group of Professor Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich, Germany, have now built a single-photon server based on a single trapped neutral atom. The high quality of the single photons and their ready availability are important for future quantum information processing experiments with single photons. In the relatively new field of quantum information processing the goal is to make use of quantum mechanics to compute certain tasks much more efficiently than with a classical computer.
A single atom, by its nature, can only emit one photon at a time. A single photon can be generated at will by applying a laser pulse to a trapped atom. By putting a single atom between two highly reflective mirrors, a so called cavity, all of these photons are sent in the same direction. Compared with other methods of single-photon generation the photons are of a very high quality, i.e. their energy varies very little, and the properties of the photons can be controlled. They can for instance be made indistinguishable, a property necessary for quantum computation. On the other hand, up to now, it was not possible to trap a neutral atom in a cavity and at the same time generate single photons for a sufficiently long time to make practical usage of the photons. . . . .
With the progress reported now, quantum information processing with photons has come one step closer. With the single-photon server operating, Gerhard Rempe and his team are now ready to take on the next challenges such as deterministic atom-photon and atom-atom entanglement experiments....    MORE

Edmonton, Canada- Mar 12, 2007- A whimsical attempt to establish a herd of mouflon for sport hunting on a remote island in the Indian Ocean 50 years ago has inadvertently created a laboratory for genetic researchers and led to a surprising discovery. A mouflon population, bred over dozens of generations from a single male and female pair transplanted to Haute Island from a Parisian zoo, has maintained the genetic diversity of its founding parents. This finding challenges the widely accepted theory of genetic drift, which states the genetic diversity of an inbred population will decrease over time.
"What is amazing is that models of genetic drift predict the genetic diversity of these animals should have been lost over time, but we've found that it has been maintained," said Dr. David Coltman, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Alberta.
"We think this has happened because natural selection is more important to the evolutionary process than is commonly believed," he added.
Genetic diversity refers to the total amount of possible gene combinations that a mating male and female couple can produce. Scientists believe greater genetic diversity corresponds with greater odds of survival and successful reproduction due to a greater variety of genetic tools an organism has to combat the forces, such as diseases, that may otherwise weaken or kill it. . . . .
Haute Island sits in the Kerguelen Archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean and is more than 3,000 kilometres from its nearest port. The French government has used the island as a military outpost since the early 1900s, with French settlers arriving in the 1950s.
The Haute Island mouflon descended from two Corsican mouflons taken from the Vincennes Zoo in Paris in 1957. Mouflon are a hardy and fecund species of sheep, with the ewes able to produce an average of more than five offspring in a four-year lifespan. The Haute Island mouflon population peaked around 700 in the 1970s and since then has bounced between 200 and 600.
Coltman and his colleagues were able to trace the DNA of the original Haute Island mouflon couple using some samples of teeth, bone and fur that had been preserved from the Vincennes Zoo since in the 1950s. DNA samples from subsequent generations were taken from the mouflon that had been kept as hunted "trophies" in the 1960s, and then scientists arrived in the '70s and began collecting samples themselves.
"The Haute Island mouflon have presented us with a rare opportunity," Coltman said. "There may be other natural populations that may have been studied in a controlled environment over the years, but I don't think there has ever been one in which you've been able to trace the DNA of the original, founding couple."....    MORE

12 Mar 2007- Researchers at University College London claim to have found the first physiological evidence that subliminal images can attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level.
The research suggests that techniques such as subliminal advertising, banned in the UK but still legal in the US, can actually have an effect.
The scientists found that an image which reached the retina still had an impact on brain activity even when the subject was not conscious of having seen the image.
Bahador Bahrami, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the UCL Department of Psychology, said: "What is interesting here is that your brain logs things that you are not aware of and cannot ever become aware of.
"We showed that there is a brain response in the primary visual cortex to subliminal images that attract our attention without us having the impression of having seen anything.
"These findings point to the sort of impact that subliminal advertising may have on the brain. What our study does not address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product. . . . .
Bahrami claimed that the findings challenge the previous assumption that what is subconscious is also automatic, effortless and unaffected by attention.
"This research shows that when your brain does not have the capacity to pay attention to an image, even images that act on our subconscious simply do not get registered," he said....    MORE

March 11, 2007- San Juan, Puerto Rico- Volcanic ash from a volcano in Montserrat caused some travel delays for people in Puerto Rico. Several airlines faced delays and cancellations on the island. . . . .
Four Delta flights were canceled in San Juan, but most of the problems were in a small airport in Ponce.
Ash from the eruption also mixed with a cloud of dust from the Sahara Desert.
The ash cloud was last measured at 8,000 feet and heading west. Dozens of homes have been evacuated from Monserrat since January when the government there ordered it....    MORE

Mar 11- ANAHEIM, Calif.- A fast-moving brush fire scorched more than 2,000 acres of parched hillside and charred at least three homes Sunday, forcing authorities to evacuate more than 500 homes, Orange County fire officials said. . . . .
The fire, stoked by hot dry winds and fueled by chaparral, spread south and west quickly in an unincorporated part of Orange County and threatened multimillion-dollar homes here and in Anaheim Hills, about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities said the blaze may have been started by a vehicle fire, and were investigating if the car was stolen and set on fire to destroy evidence. . . . .
The area, like much of Southern California, is under a red flag alert, indicating a high fire danger. A prolonged drought has left the chaparral-covered hills highly combustible. . . . .
Meanwhile, another brush fire had started about 20 miles away in Corona in Riverside County, said Capt. Julie Hutchinson from the California Department of Forestry. It had consumed about 25 acres but didn't threaten any houses, said Hutchinson....    MORE

11 Mar, 2007- NEW DELHI- Pakistan also insisted on keeping terrorism in J&K out of the discussions. Insistent diplomacy by the Indian side ensured that this was kept out of the joint statement issued at the end of the two-day talks.
The very first meeting brought to light the inherent flaws in the joint terror mechanism. Apart from the wide gaps in what constitutes terrorism in both countries, it is rapidly descending into yet another platform for trading charges. . . . .
Groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba will essentially stay out of the terror mechanism, said Indian officials....    MORE

March 11, 2007- COLUMBUS, Ga.- "This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.
The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.
That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield." . . . .
Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said....    MORE

New Delhi- March 11- An alleged attempt at sodomy, a beast that is usually brushed under the carpet to safeguard the morale of the men in uniform, drove a policeman to gun down at dawn five of his colleagues guarding a bank in the capital.
Constable Nari Lepcha of the India Reserve Battalion has confessed to shooting five of his colleagues after one of them tried to sodomise him at the Dena Bank branch in Daryaganj, where Mughal-era history lurks in every nook and corner.
The six policemen — all on deputation from Sikkim — were on night duty at the bank. The battalion is a central force but it is maintained by the Sikkim government to ease the pressure on the regular paramilitary wings.
Lepcha had earlier in the day tried to frame another Sikkim constable, Jai Bahadur Subba, who was not present at the time of the murders.
After interrogating both through the day, the police said Lepcha had confessed. “Under sustained questioning, he broke down and admitted that he had murdered his colleagues,” Alok Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (central Delhi ), said. . . . .
Subba told the police that he, too, was on duty with the six, but did not report for work last night. He came to the branch just after the shooting — apparently so that his absenteeism would not be noticed if any official turned up for inspection on Sunday. . . . .
Uniformed forces the world over, especially those stationed in remote areas, have found it hard to battle the curse. But several of the reserve battalion members in Delhi had their families staying with them....    MORE

March 11, 2007- When the Animal Planet TV network set out to film an episode on bear poaching, producers assumed their most horrifying images would come from remote and unregulated corners of Southeast Asia.
They never imagined some of the worst cases would be found in California.
But after spending a day and a half in October with California Department of Fish and Game wardens, the crew had film of three black bears illegally killed in the mountains of Plumas and Nevada counties. The crimes included a 3-month-old cub shot through the head while trying to escape poachers who had just killed its mother.
It was further evidence of a drastic game warden shortage in the Golden State that has become the subject of growing concern among the public and in the state Legislature. With only about 190 field wardens on the job for the entire state of California, vast areas of the state remain unprotected from poachers. . . . .
Feldon's excursion had the full blessing and cooperation of Fish and Game administrators. The wardens involved said two of the illegal bear kills led to arrests and convictions. A third, involving the bear cub, remains under investigation -- partly because wardens lack the right DNA matching technology. . . . .
The shortage of game wardens began IN 2000, WHEN THE DOT-COM BUST LED TO A STATE BUDGET CRISIS that included slashing about 100 game warden jobs.
Attrition has led to many more vacancies, largely because wardens are underpaid compared with other law-enforcement agencies, said Capt. Dennis Deanda, a 20-year veteran of the department and president of the California Fish & Game Warden Managers and Supervisors Association. . . . .
The department has about 75 vacancies because it can't attract enough qualified candidates.
The state's new budget gave wardens a 15 percent pay raise effective Jan. 1. But CHP officers got a 10 percent raise, so the disparity remains....    MORE

March 11, 2007- WASHINGTON- High feed costs, created by the explosive growth of the fuel ethanol industry, will lower U.S. beef and broiler chicken output this year by a quarter billion lbs from earlier forecasts, the U.S. government said on Friday.
The Agriculture Department also said freeze damage would cut the Florida orange crop by 6 percent and California's by 20 percent from a month ago. A drop-off in cotton exports will create the largest year-end surplus in 21 years, 8.8 million bales weighing 480 lbs each.
The Agriculture Department said beef output would dip by 62 million lbs and chicken by 124 million lbs from last month's estimate, with total red meat and poultry production forecast for 90.359 billion lbs. Cattle, hog and poultry feeders say abrupt increases in feed costs -- predominantly corn -- are squeezing their operations.
Producers will send fewer animals to slaughter and at lower prices this year, said USDA. Both are ways to use less feed. Corn prices have doubled since last fall. The ethanol industry is expected to use 2.15 billion bushels of the 2006 corn crop and 3.2 billion bushels of this year's crop.
"The decline in beef carcass weights reflects several factors, including higher feed costs, harsh winter weather and higher-than-expected first quarter beef slaughter," said USDA. Based on low slaughter numbers in January, broiler output was expected to fall in the first half of this year but rebound in the final half.
It was the second month in a row that USDA lowered its forecast for beef and broiler production in 2007. In February, it reduced its beef estimate by 60 million lbs, saying "relatively high grain prices will encourage cattle to remain on grass longer" and result in lower beef production. USDA shaved its broiler forecast by 163 million lbs because fewer chicks were being hatched.
Brazil and Argentina are forecast to grow record corn (maize) crops in 2006/07, said USDA. It pegged Brazil's crop at 48 million tonnes, up 2 million tonnes from February, and Argentina's at 21.5 million tonnes, up 500,000 tonnes from last month.
USDA estimated Brazil's soybean crop at a record 57 million tonnes, up 1 million tonnes from its February estimate.
"It's comforting since we know our (U.S.) crop will go down,"" said private consultant John Schnittker. U.S. soybean plantings are expected to fall sharply as corn seedings zoom, drawn upward by prices that could hit a farm-gate high....    MORE

HOUSTON- March 11- Halliburton, the big energy services company, said on Sunday that it would open a corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai and move its chairman and chief executive, David J. Lesar, there.
Press Release From Halliburton (halliburton.com)The company will maintain its existing corporate office here as well as its legal incorporation in the United States, meaning that it will still be subject to domestic laws and regulations.
Although the announcement of the new Dubai arrangement took many by surprise, Halliburton said that the move was part of a strategy announced in mid-2006 to concentrate its efforts in the Middle East and surrounding areas, where state-owned oil companies represent a growing source of business.
Halliburton, which was led by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000, is currently in the process of spinning off KBR, its military contracting unit, to focus on its business of drilling wells and maintaining fields for oil companies. The company did not say what implications the Dubai development might have for its military contracts. Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, referred questions about the company’s plans to Halliburton.
The Dubai announcement, which Halliburton made at a regional energy conference in Bahrain, comes at a time when the company is being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations of improper dealings in Iraq, Kuwait and Nigeria. Halliburton has also agreed to pay billions of dollars in settlements in asbestos litigation. . . . .
During Mr. Cheney’s tenure as chief executive, Halliburton bought a company that saddled it with asbestos claims. The company has agreed to pay nearly $5 billion in settlements.
Despite its recent problems, Halliburton posted record revenue, net income and margins last year.
Perhaps the biggest winner could be Dubai itself, one of seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates confederation, which has sought to establish itself as a regional commercial center on par with Singapore and Hong Kong. Most multinational companies, including Halliburton, have made Dubai a regional hub for their Middle Eastern business over the last decade....    MORE

March 11, 2007- The nation's banks are just beginning to feel the pain of defaults on risky mortgages they made at low introductory rates when housing prices were soaring, U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Susan Bies said.
Bies, who has been the Fed's top banking policy official in her tenure at the U.S. central bank, said today banks are likely to see more missed payments and foreclosures as consumers with weak credit histories begin to face higher monthly mortgage payments.
``What's happening is the front end of this wave of teaser- rate loans that are coming into full pricing,'' Bies said at a risk-management forum in Charlotte, North Carolina. ``So what we're seeing in THIS NARROW SEGMENT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE WAVE. THIS IS NOT THE END, THIS IS THE BEGINNING.''....    MORE

Mar 11- NEW YORK- The search for the remains of Sept. 11 victims has moved across the street from the site of the World Trade Center to the lot of a destroyed church, where important relics, including the bones of three saints, may also be buried.
Since October, more than 400 bones have been unearthed from the debris of a service road that construction trucks used to get in and out of the site after the 2001 attacks. The city, which oversaw the original cleanup of ground zero, is conducting a new search to find more remains of the 2,749 victims. Forty percent of the victims have not had remains identified.
Last week, two bones were recovered in the place where St. Nicholas' Greek Orthodox Church used to be, and where digging has begun for remains, said an official who knows about the search but is not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Debris from both towers collapsed onto the church and its parking lot on Sept. 11, 2001. The site was paved over to be used a staging area for reconstruction at the site, making it a likely place to find long-buried debris and remains, those involved in the initial cleanup say.
In the months after the attacks, some relics were returned to the St. Nicholas congregants, including a small bell and cross, several Bibles and even wax candles that had not melted from the heat of the attacks, said Peter Drakoulias, a church board member.
But its most precious relic is still missing: a 600-pound, 2-foot-by-2-foot safe that contains church documents and a small enamel box containing three bone fragments less than a half-inch long, said Drakoulias. The bones are believed to be those of St. Nicholas - the church's founding saint - St. Sava, and St. Katherine, he said.
Drakoulias said the loss of the saints' remains cannot compare to the loss of Sept. 11 victims who may be buried with them. "That said, perhaps there is some very small comfort to those families if they knew that their loved ones rested among such company," he said....    MORE

March 11, 2007- Several times a week, astronomers detect the violent death cry of a massive star -- an extraordinarily energetic release of gamma rays that takes place in just a matter of seconds to minutes, called a gamma-ray burst (GRB). The GRB's ejecta, which is thought to be beamed in narrow jets, slams into interstellar gas at near light speed. This violent collision shocks the material and produces a bright afterglow that can radiate brightly at X-ray and other wavelengths for several days, or even a few weeks. But a GRB observed by NASA's Swift satellite on 29 July 2006 generated an X-ray afterglow that remained detectable to the spacecraft's X-ray Telescope (XRT) for an astonishing 125 days.
Swift's Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) detected the GRB in the constellation Pictor on 29 July 2006. XRT picked up GRB 060729 (named for the date of its first observation) 124 seconds after the BAT detected it. Normally, XRT monitors an afterglow for a week or two until it fades to near invisibility. But GRB 060729's afterglow started off so bright and faded so slowly that XRT could regularly monitor it for months, and the instrument still was able to detect it in late November. The burst's relatively close proximity to Earth, about 5 billion light-years, also was a factor in XRT's ability to monitor the afterglow for such an extended period.
The slow fading of the X-ray afterglow has several important ramifications for our understanding of GRBs. "It requires a larger energy injection than we normally see in bursts, and may require continuous energy input from the central engine," says astronomer Dirk Grupe of Penn State University, in University Park, Pennsylvania, who is lead author of the international team that reports these results in a paper scheduled to appear in the June 20, 2007 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
One possibility is that the central engine, perhaps an accreting black hole, ejected multiple shells of material at near light speed. "Forward shells may have decelerated when they slammed into interstellar gas, allowing back shells to catch up and slam into them with tremendous force," says paper coauthor Xiang-Yu Wang, a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State. "The resulting shock waves could have powered the afterglow and made it shine brightly in X-rays."
But another possibility is that the GRB's central engine was a magnetar -- a neutron star with an ultra-powerful magnetic field. The magnetar's magnetic field acts like a brake, forcing the star's rotation rate to spin down rapidly. The energy of this spin-down can be converted into magnetic energy that is continuously injected into the initial blast wave that triggered the GRB. Wang's calculations show that this energy could power the observed X-ray afterglow and keep it shining for months.
A burst observed by Swift on 10 January 2007 also suggests that magnetars power some GRBs. GRB 070110's X-ray afterglow remained nearly constant in brightness for 5 hours, then faded rapidly more than tenfold. In a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, an international group led by Eleonora Troja of the INAF--IASF of Palermo, Italy, proposes that a magnetar best explains these observations. . . . .
"From the properties of the X-ray afterglow, we estimate that the central object should have been rotating with an initial frequency of about 1,000 times per second," says Troja. "That initial frequency is very close to the break-up speed of a spinning neutron star."
"People have thought for a long time that GRBs are black holes being born, but scientists are now thinking of other possibilities," says Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels of NASA Goddard, a co-author on both studies. According to several studies, a relatively weak GRB observed by Swift on 18 February 2006 was also from a stellar death that produced a magnetar. That GRB was linked firmly to an exploding star: Supernova 2006aj. . . . .
Gehrels points out that one of the biggest puzzles posed by Swift is the fact that it has rarely seen evidence for jet breaks in X-rays. "GRB 060729 is an extreme example of what we've already been realizing is a problem. It brings into question our whole understanding of jet outflows," he says. "This is a new, hot result. It's pushing this to the limit and forcing people to deal with the problem." . . . .
Grupe and his colleagues will use NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe the 29 July GRB afterglow later this month, and they have applied for time on the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory to see if they can catch it this summer or autumn. Two GRBs from the pre-Swift era have exhibited longer X-ray afterglows, the bursts of 25 April 1998, and 29 March 2003. But those afterglows were monitored infrequently and were much closer to Earth. If Chandra or XMM-Newton can see the afterglow later this year, GRB 060729 will break the record for longest observed X-ray afterglow. ...    MORE

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY- March 10- The city's all appropriate services are dealing now with consequences of the heavy snowfall that hit the peninsula overnight.
Roads are open almost everywhere in the city, and the public transport is operating, Mayor Vladislav Skvortsov said. . . . .
The most serious problem is cuts of electricity supplying to residential districts because of wet snow sticking to wire and torn electro-transmission lines. As a result, heat supplying was halted in some areas. . . . .
The cyclone that came to Kamchatka from the Pacific overnight hit the regional centre and the Yelizovo region most severely with heavy snowfalls and strong winds.
The city administration’s commission on emergencies has considered the situation. It was decided not to declare a state of emergency, a source at the mayor's office told Itar-Tass.
The snowstorm is subsiding now. The weather is expected to improve on March 11, the regional meteorological service said....    MORE

03/10/2007- THE ENEMY WITHIN.
That's what author Stephen Flynn is worried about. The enemies that threaten us within the borders of our own country.
To be more specific, Flynn is concerned that we're spending so much effort fighting terrorism abroad that we're actually lowering our guard when it comes to natural threats.
Earthquakes, global warming, hurricanes, tornadoes - his list of potential disasters awaiting us is a clear warning that more needs to be done to prepare us for these inevitable calamities.
A graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, Flynn was a lead consultant on homeland security for the Hart-Rudman Commission. He also served in the administration of George H.W. Bush in the White House Military Office. Flynn also was director for Global Issues on the National Security Council during the Clinton years. He now serves as a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. . . . .
Flynn says Americans must demand that our national leaders make building resiliency from within as important as confronting dangers from without.
"The Pentagon's budget and the war in Iraq are costing U.S. taxpayers more than half a trillion dollars annually. ... It is illogical to invest so much in confronting the terrorist threats beyond our shores while being so parsimonious when it comes to protecting ourselves from acts of terror or catastrophic events here at home." . . . .
"As the wealthiest nation in the world, we can afford both a second-to-none military and pragmatic investments that will make us a more resilient society. It is self-defeating to pursue the former at the cost of the latter," Flynn concludes....    MORE

March 10, 2007- British citizens who refuse to provide personal details for the planned "voluntary" national identification card have been told they will be denied passports and be unable to leave the UK.
James Hall, CEO of the Identity and Passport Service, the agency charged with running the National Identity Scheme to provide ID cards to all residents of the UK, confirmed many privacy advocates' fears this week when he revealed those who opt out of the program will be unable to obtain or renew travel documents.
Hall made the revelation during a national "webchat" where questions were submitted by the public.
In response to a questioner asking what would happen to those who refused to join the nearly $11 billion program, Hall answered, "There is no need to register and have fingerprints taken - but you will forgo the ability to have a passport."
According to a government website:
The National Identity Scheme is an easy-to-use and extremely secure system of personal identification for adults living in the UK. Its cornerstone is the introduction of national ID cards for all UK residents over the age of 16.
Each ID card will be unique and will combine the cardholder's biometric data with their checked and confirmed identity details, called a "biographical footprint". These identity details and the biometrics will be stored on the National Identity Register. Basic identity information will also be held in a chip on the ID card itself.
Additionally, applicants for the ID cards, which will first be issued in 2009 to anyone seeking a passport, will be required to supply personal details, including second homes and driver's license and insurance numbers.>
Phil Booth, of the privacy-advocacy group NO2ID, told the London Daily Mail, "The idea that ID cards scheme is voluntary, and people can opt out, is a joke.
"There are all sorts of reasons why people need to travel, not just for holidays. There is work, visiting relatives. What are these people supposed to do? It stretches the definition of voluntary beyond breaking point. They will go to any length to get personal information for this huge database. Who knows what will happen to it then?"
The ID-card bill only advanced through Parliament after assurances were given that those who needed a passport and did not wish to participate in the National Identity Scheme would have the choice to opt out.
But, as implemented, the only opt-out for British citizens is that they will be able to refuse the physical ID card but, if they wish to travel abroad, they will have to provide the same information for storage in the national database. They will also still have to pay the nearly $200 fee charged for both an ID card and passport – or stay in the UK for the rest of their lives.
Some 6.6 million people apply for travel documents in the UK each year.
"This comment confirms long standing suspicions that the government's claim that the ID database will be voluntary is simply not true," said Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg.
"The voluntary claim is serving as a fig leaf for a universal compulsory system. Once again the government's ID card plans are being pursued behind the backs of the British people."....    MORE

Mar 10- LOS ANGELES- A part-time aide to a state assemblyman shot his wife to death and then killed himself, authorities said Saturday.
The bodies of Michael Robbins, 67, and Kim Gehring, 48, were found after police were called to the home Friday afternoon, Officer Norma Eisenman said.
Robbins pulled a handgun after an argument with Gehring escalated, Eisenman said. He shot his wife several times, then killed himself, she said.
Police were called by a woman who said her son-in-law had shot her daughter.
Robbins worked as a field aide to Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally. A call to Dymally's office in Compton seeking comment Saturday was not immediately returned....    MORE

March 10, 2007- Children's medicines contain a cocktail of additives which are banned in food and drink aimed at under-threes, says a report out today from the Food Commission.
Dyes, preservatives, and sweeteners were found in cough syrups, paracetamol tablets and teething gels. One product contained eight E numbers.
The campaign group looked at 41 medicines for children under three. Only one, Superdrug children's dry cough syrup, was totally free of colourings and preservatives. Some of the additives can lead to asthma or act as mild laxatives, and most are banned from food and drink for under-threes, even though they are allowed in medicines aimed at young children.
Across the medicines analysed, there were four synthetic colourings or azo dyes, 10 preservatives, and six sweeteners. Some 31 out of 41 products contained preservatives, the most common being benzoates - E numbers E210 to E219; reactions can include skin rashes or wheezing. Only some of the medicines displayed warnings of additives' possible side effects.
Buttercup infant cough syrup had two E number dyes, while Calpol paracetamol, Anbesol teething gel, Sudafed children's syrup, and Superdrug children's chesty cough syrup, contained one azo dye apiece. Tixylix night cough syrup, sold for children over one year old, contained both benzoate and sulphite preservatives. Some medicines contained sweeteners sorbitol, maltitol and xylitol, which can have a laxative effect in high doses.
A Food Commission spokesman, Ian Tokelove, said additives were usually listed in the fine print inside the product packs. "If you are a concerned parent, you are often not going to know what is in medicine until you get it home."
The commission is lobbying the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to ensure child medicines are additive-free. The agency said drug manufacturers were required to justify any additives before getting a licence to market a product; some needed preservatives to maintain their shelf-life.
"Many also have a very unpleasant taste, and require sweeteners and other flavours to help ensure palatability, especially for children," it said. "Some people, including children, have to take multiple medicines and easy identification by colour and other means helps ensure they take the right medicine at the right time."
The report said natural colourings were an alternative to synthetic azo dyes....    MORE

March 10, 2007- SWEETWATER, Texas- When Chris Soles says he works in a snake pit, he's not kidding.
The lanky Texan stands among hundreds of slithering rattlesnakes and prods them with special tongs that allow him to snatch the reptiles at arm's length.
"I'm sorting out the dead snakes," said Soles, wearing protective pants as he occasionally picks up a lifeless rattler from the bundle and throws it into a bucket outside the pit.
The snakes are caught during the annual rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, which this town 200 miles west of Dallas bills as the biggest in the world.
The three-day event, which ends on Sunday, includes a rattlesnake-eating contest.
The roundup rattles ecologists but locals see it as a boon for drawing up to 30,000 visitors. Farmers say it helps control a pest that occasionally maims or kills livestock.
Nothing is wasted, the organizers say, with the skins made into belts, the meat sold as a delicacy and the venom "milked" for sale to pharmaceutical companies.
But scientists raise ecological and ethical concerns. . . . .
Hunters scour the arid landscape for snake dens, into which they pump gas fumes to drive them out. Then they snatch them with the tongs.
Hunters say the fumes have minimal ecological impact but many scientists disagree.
"It's an unethical way to hunt and it harms other animals such as scorpions and rodents," said Fitzgerald. . . . .
"The biological ramifications of decades of rattlesnake roundups are difficult to assess, but they have great potential to affect snake populations negatively, and it is difficult to predict when rattlesnake harvests will push local populations beyond the point of recovery," it said.
The society also raised ethical issues.
"Snakes are handled roughly and are decapitated and butchered in large numbers in front of an audience, including small children, as entertainment. It is hard to imagine subjecting any other vertebrate animal to such thoughtless and inhumane treatment." . . . .
In Sweetwater, ecological or moral objections are brushed aside as overblown or just plain crazy.
"We don't hardly put a dent into the population," said one cowboy as he prepared to tuck into some freshly fried snake. "More are killed on the road every year."....    MORE

March 10, 2007- Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show.
The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site.
They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers.
Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them.
The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the program to compensate workers whose illnesses can be tied to working with radioactive and other toxic materials at nuclear weapons plants, such as the now-defunct Rocky Flats.
More than 60,000 ill atomic bomb makers, including thousands from Rocky Flats, have sought help. About 16,000 workers nationwide have received a total of $2.6 billion. Far more have been denied or still are waiting for help.
Throughout the documents, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Labor Shelby Hallmark and other officials express grave concern that the bill for providing $150,000 per ill worker could reach $7 billion over 10 years.
Coincidentally, $7 billion is what the U.S. Department of Energy spent over 10 years cleaning up just one of its sites - Rocky Flats. The department has spent $65 billion so far cleaning up 84 of its weapons sites, which were left contaminated by the drive to win the Cold War.
In the memos, Hallmark worries about compensation costs soaring in "an arms race among members (of Congress) jockeying to demonstrate their ability to bring home 'special' benefits to their constituents." His boss, Assistant Secretary of Labor Victoria Lipnic, bemoaned, "There is not a fiscal conservative left anywhere."
Now, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is looking into whether the Labor Department overstepped its bounds and meddled in the payments illegally.
Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said, "Clearly, the administration put dollars above honoring the nation's promise to the Cold War veterans."
He added this is "almost worse" than the bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. That was negligence, Udall said, where "this seems to be a pretty callous plan that the administration knew could harm sick veterans." . . . .
In memos and e-mails in October 2005, Labor Department officials expressed concern about approving compensation for whole groups of workers, called "special exposure cohorts."
Congress ordered these special cohorts if records on workers' radiation exposure were so incomplete, missing or destroyed that scientists could not reconstruct the radiation doses to link them to workers' illness. . . . .
Costs could approach $7 billion, Nesvet said. "At this point, it is clear that only intervention by the OMB is likely to stem this trend," his memo said.
Hallmark, in other memos, notes that it would be unfair to pay claims to "undeserving" workers whose illnesses might not be related to their work. . . . .
In December, Hallmark testified in Hostettler's congressional hearing that allegations of a covert cost-containment effort "are simply not true." No such effort ever happened, he said. . . . .
The memos indicate a big shift in Labor Department sympathies since early 2004.
Hallmark wrote in a February 2004 e-mail that it seemed like "common sense" to give Rocky Flats special cohort status since it is "probably one of, if not THE, dirtiest site."
At one point, he wondered in writing if they should just give every nuclear weapons worker the benefit of the doubt.
Then something changed.
The same month, Labor Department officials began to request rewrites in NIOSH documents that mentioned problems with radiation exposure reports.
Acknowledging faults with the records would "undermine confidence" in how scientists determine workers' radiation doses, the memos say.
In December 2004, Hallmark complained that NIOSH's independent radiation advisory board was successfully pushing NIOSH to approve more claims, the memos show. The next month, Hallmark said he was worried that giving cohort status to the plants in Iowa and Missouri would set a precedent for approving other sites.
The draft approval for the Mallinckrodt plant in St. Louis cited missing or corrupted data.
"The same allegation has been made for virtually every DOE site, and in most cases, acknowledged to one degree or another," Hallmark wrote Jan. 31, 2005.
Giving this reason for the special cohort status "would essentially signal acceptance of SECs at all DOE sites," he wrote.
For the Iowa plant, the advisory board recommended approval because the government couldn't tell workers exactly what they were exposed to. Doing so would reveal secret information about nuclear weapons manufacturing. . . . .
In February 2005, the Steelworkers' union filed its petition for cohort status for Rocky Flats. It argued that autopsies have shown more plutonium in Rocky Flats workers' bodies than shown in tests while they were alive.
That's proof exposure records are unreliable, the union said.
By law, a decision on the petition was supposed to be made within six months of the filing. The decision expected in May is nearly two years late.
The recently released internal documents have infuriated lawmakers, who say Congress intended to give Cold War veterans the benefit of the doubt and help them as quickly as possible.
More than half a billion dollars has been spent on administrative costs and trying to reconstruct workers' dosages of radiation. The compensation program was so problem-plagued that the half run by the Energy Department was transferred in 2004 to the Labor Department. . . . .
Daniel Bertoni, who heads the GAO's workforce investigations, said, "The concern is: What had changed? If they weren't reviewing these cases before, why are they now?"
Udall, of Colorado, said the documents "confirm what many of us suspected was under way, which was the administration tried to override science to cut costs at the expense of sick workers. And it might have succeeded if the plan hadn't been exposed."....    MORE

March 10, 2007- BEIJING- China will soon create one of the world’s largest investment funds, with ramifications for global stock, bond and commodities markets and for how the U.S. finances its trade deficits.
Finance Minister Jin Renqing said on Friday the aim is to make more profitable use of its $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves that have piled up as it posted huge trade surpluses year after year. Most of those funds are now parked in safe, but relatively low-yielding U.S. Treasury securities and other dollar-denominated assets.
“We can achieve more profit from the investments,” Jin said at a news conference. “We are now preparing the organization of this new corporation.” . . . .
Analysts have speculated for some time that China would create an investment company, and officials have said repeatedly they want to make better use of the country’s reserves.
Economists have suggested Beijing might allocate as much as $200 billion to $400 billion to the new company, which in a single move could create one of the world’s richest investment funds.
“They want to be more aggressive than what they do with current reserves,” said economist Mingchun Sun at Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong. “They could invest in higheryield products — stocks, corporate bonds, maybe even commodities,” Sun said. “Basically, the returns would be higher because the risk is higher.”
A shift in China’s investment strategy could change its purchases of Treasuries, affecting a market that Washington relies on to help finance multibillion-dollar budget deficits, and perhaps eventually push up U.S. interest rates. . . . .
Chinese economists and media reports have suggested China might adopt more unusual investment approaches, ranging from stockpiling oil and other raw materials to spending more on social programs in order to encourage Chinese consumers to spend more and reduce dependence on exports.
The growth in China’s reserves is driven by the rapid growth of its exports, which brings in dollars, euros and other foreign currency, and by the billions of investment dollars being poured into the country.
The surge in money flooding in from abroad forces the central bank to drain billions of dollars from the economy every month by selling bonds in order to reduce inflationary pressures. . . . .
Stephen Green, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, calculated that last year the central bank made a $29 billion profit on its Treasury holdings after paying interest on its own bonds and other expenses.
But even that represents a return of less than 3 percent on the $1 trillion in holdings.
By contrast, Singapore’s Temasek says it has averaged an 18 percent annual return since it was created in 1974....    MORE

UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Forum Rediscovers Responsibility for Environmental Pillar of Sustainable Development . . . .
Nairobi- 9 February 2007-An enhanced programme to reduce health and environmental threats from toxic mercury pollution was agreed by 140 governments at the close of an international gathering of environment ministers. The decision includes developing partnerships between governments, industry and other key groups to curb emissions of the heavy metal from power stations and mines to industrial and consumer products. After two years, governments will gauge its success and reflect on whether the voluntary initiative has worked or whether negotiations should commence on a new international and legally-binding treaty. The mercury decision, along with 15 other key decisions, was made on the final day of the United Nations Environment Programmes (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum. Part of the new programme may mirror a successful UNEP-coordinated partnership to clean up vehicle fuels in developing countries. In four years this voluntary partnership, launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, has phased out another notorious heavy metalleadfrom petrol pumps across sub-Saharan Africa. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: The mercury decision, along with ones on water, municipal waste and monitoring the state of the global environment to technology support and capacity building for developing countries under the Bali Plan, underlines a new determination by environment ministers to rise to the challenges of our time. For too long environment ministers have met and spoken but their collective voice has not been loudly and decisively heard in the world. This, I believe has changed at this 24th session of the UNEP Governing Council, he added. Mr. Steiner said the new momentum was partly driven by growing global concern over the impacts of globalization and climate change and partly by a new understanding, cemented at the meeting, of the economic importance of natural or nature-based assets.
Ministers brought forward creative and constructive ideas and proposals on how to maximize the benefits and minimize the environmental risks of globalization and booming international trade onto a more sustainable and intelligent path which is vital if the Earths resources and life support systems are to survive and thrive, he said.
The 16 decisions, including the one on mercury, came after five days of discussions against the backdrop of United Nations reform and the request of governments and the Secretary General to deliver as one.
It also came against the backdrop of growing momentum among nations to dramatically improve international environment governance including strengthening UNEP as the global authority and environmental pillar of sustainable development.
Mr. Steiner said it was therefore significant that governments agreed to increase UNEPs core biennium budget from $144 million to $152 million.
He said it was equally significant that the GC/GMEF was attended by the heads of the World Trade Organisation, the UN Development Programme, the UN Industrial and Development Organization and World Tourism Organisation. . . . .
We were also joined by the two UN ambassadors from Mexico and Switzerland who are spearheading the environment governance reform discussions in New York. I am sure that they will take back a great deal of new thinking which will guide and inspire them in their important work to a satisfactory conclusion, said Mr. Steiner. . . . .
The Billion Tree Campaign, launched at the recent climate change convention meeting held in Nairobi, also received a boost during the GC/GMEF.
Close to 90 million trees were promised including a plantings pledge of 45 million trees by Cameroon; Haiti, one million; Myanmar, 20 million and Venezuela, 20 million. Pledges also came from Kenyan groups including youth networks.
This brings the total number to over a quarter of a billion trees putting the campaign, aimed at empowering governments to the grass roots to take practical steps to fight climate change, on track to the one billion goal....    MORE

3/09/07- Russian trade and transportation blockades may have weakened Georgia’s economic growth, but the country has managed to secure significant foreign investments. Last year’s economic expansion of 10 percent, according to government figures, is due not least to the emergence of new economic partners, among them Israel.
Since the early 1980s, more than 80 percent of some 50,000 Jews living in Georgia have left the country, mainly to go to Israel, according to Tbilisi Jewish Community, an organization that functions under the auspices of American Jews Joint Distribution Committee, a non-governmental organization which assists Jewish communities worldwide.
Economic hardship or a wish to return to the Jewish homeland motivated the exodus, commented Zaira Davarashvili, deputy director of the Jewish Community House in Tbilisi, but a desire to assist in Georgia’s development is now bringing many Georgian Jews back. "Jews have been living in Georgia for 26 centuries," said Davarashvili.
Georgia has long taken pride in its Jewish community and its relations with Israel, but in the post-Shevardnadze era these relations have taken on a much more pragmatic dimension.
Soon after the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia’s new president, Mikheil Saakashvili, went to Israel accompanied by what he described as "the largest delegation I have taken anywhere," which included his foreign, defense and finance ministers. "Georgia is two hours away from Israel," The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli daily, quoted Saakashvili as saying, and compared him to a tour operator. "We have an extremely hospitable environment, ski resorts, seaside resorts, site-seeing, lots of culture and history, and a people that [are] very friendly towards Jews," Saakashvili stated and added that he saw immense potential in joint business ventures and tourism.
TO MAKE INVESTMENTS EASIER, ESPECIALLY FOR ISRAELIS OF GEORGIAN ORIGIN, SAAKASHVILI OFFERED THEM DUAL CITIZENSHIP. HE MADE THE OFFER AS HE TOOK PART IN HANNUKAH FESTIVITIES AT THE CROWDED TBILISI SYNAGOGUE IN DECEMBER 2005. . . . .
But instead of the expected destabilization, some local observers say, Russia’s pressure achieved the opposite; it accelerated economic development. "Georgia’s economy has continued its remarkable performance, in spite of the loss of major export markets and higher energy prices," a March 1 press release from the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) quotes Deputy Managing Director Takatoshi Kato as saying.
This economic success has encouraged Jews who have left Georgia long ago to look for new opportunities in the country that once was their home. According to the Georgian National Investment Agency, Israel’s direct foreign investment in Georgia had increased twenty-fold by 2006 compared with the previous two years, climbing from some $500,000 in 2003 to almost $3 million in the first quarter of 2006 alone.
Saakashvili’s offer for dual citizenship has been well received. Three hundred and thirty-eight individuals of Jewish background obtained Georgian citizenship in 2006, according to the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Some have already bought an apartment or a house. "Georgian Jews living in Israel very much like the idea of having real estate in Georgia, especially as the prices are rising from year to year," said Israeli investor Zeev Frenkiel, whose company Tsavkisi Valley is now building 168 private villas in a Tbilisi suburb. Frenkiel also runs a telecommunications company, a medical center and an agro-business company in western Georgia that he claims are all profitable.
Aside from real estate development and construction, Israeli investors have shown interest in infrastructure projects, food industries and banking. In January of this year, the second-largest Israeli bank, Leumi Bank, signed a preliminary agreement with Georgia’s TBC bank to acquire 20 percent of its shares. "Israel is one of the leading investors in Georgia, which largely determined our choice to establish a partnership with Leumi Bank," TBC Bank Supervisory Board Chairman Mamuka Khazaradze told Georgian television station Rustavi-2 on January 26.
Israel’s energy ambitions and Georgia’s role as a transit country for Caspian Sea oil and gas also play a role. In recent months, Turkey and Israel have entered into a provisional agreement to carry Caspian oil from the port of Ceyhan in Turkey to Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat, allowing for shipment of the oil to Asian markets. As A TRANSIT COUNTRY FOR THE BAKU-TBILISI-CEYHAN PIPELINE, Georgia benefits directly from these arrangements through increased transit free revenue.
Such deals are a sign that the country is consolidating its historical position as a vital crossroads between Europe and Asia. As this process continues, the government is hoping that the emotional ties that bind foreign investors in Israel to Georgia will help make the difference....    MORE

Next celebration is June 23, 2007
Nonfiction books about responsible boylove: Beyond Hysteria: Boy Erotica on the Internet (2004)
Could they ALL have been WRONG? (2005)
Read about these books and about other works by the same author.
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2007 March 2- After almost a year of combined efforts, Russia and Europe enter the final stage in determining a look of a new-generation spacecraft, which would carry astronauts to the Moon.
In May or June of this year, Russian and European space officials are expected to choose what they identify as an "initial preferred concept" for a future manned spacecraft. It is the first major milestone in the implementation of the Advanced Crew Transportation System, or ACTS. The program envisions a space vehicle, which would replace Russia’s veteran Soyuz spacecraft. It is designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, ISS, and to the lunar orbit, where it could eventually support human expeditions on the surface of the Moon. The program parallels a similar NASA effort to return American astronauts to the Moon.
Manuel Valls, Head of the Policy and Plans in the Human Spaceflight and Exploration Directorate of the European Space Agency, ESA, said that the ACTS program goes far beyond of simple upgrades to the Soyuz spacecraft: "Our plans are far more ambitious, and (therefore) it will not be just modernization of the Soyuz."....    MORE

March 1, 2007- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today adopted an amendment by U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) that will add one judgeship to the federal appeals court that serves Arizona and the Western region.
The amendment eliminates the twelfth seat on the D.C. Circuit and adds one on the Ninth Circuit.
“For years, members of the Judiciary Committee have noted that the twelfth seat on the D.C. Circuit is not justified by that court’s caseload,” said Kyl. “The Ninth Circuit, which serves Arizona and the Western states, on the other hand has the most of any court to decide cases despite the fact it has a full complement of active judges. Adding another judge would help alleviate this backlog and burden.
“The backlog in the Ninth Circuit injures ordinary people in Arizona who have to wait to have their lawsuits resolved. Plaintiffs who have been injured, criminal defendants seeking reviews of their conviction, and victims who are waiting for justice; for these people, justice delayed in justice denied. This amendment will help alleviate the delays of the Ninth Circuit.”
The twelfth seat of the D.C. Circuit was first authorized in 1984, but has remained vacant the majority of the years since that time, including for the last 10 years. The Ninth Circuit, however, has the most pending cases per judge anywhere in the country, many of which are immigration-related....    MORE

Tuesday February 20, 2007- Shire Pharmaceuticals of the UK on Tuesday said it was paying $2.6bn in cash to acquire New River Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NRPH - news) , a US drugs group that specialises in treatments for attention deficit and hyperactivity disortder (ADHD), Shire (LSE: SHP.L - news) ’s main market. . . . .
The deal, which values New River at $64 a share, comes two years after Shire entered into a collaborative agreement with the US company to develop and co-promote an ADHD treatment known as Vyvanse....    MORE

16 February 2007- Spain's BBVA has agreed to buy US bank Compass Bancshares for $9.6bn (£4.9bn). BBVA shares closed 0.5% lower on concern that it might be paying too much, offering a 16% premium over the average share price for the last 10 days.
Compass Bancshares runs more than 400 branches of Compass Bank in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Texas.
One of the top 30 banks in the US, in 2006 it reported profits up 15% to a record $460m.
BBVA will sell its 5% stake in the Spanish utility Iberdrola and issue 3.9 billion euros ($5.1bn; £2.6bn) of new shares to help fund the acquisition. . . . .
BBVA has been trying to break into the US market for some time and last year bought banks in Texas to take advantage of cross-border money flows with Mexico, where it owns the biggest lender.
Its attempts to expand in Europe ran into a roadblock in 2005 when its attempt to buy Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) was blocked by the Italian government....    MORE

Feb 28, 2006- National Grid, the owner of Britain's gas and electricity transmission networks, yesterday became the third largest energy supplier in the US after buying one of America's leading gas distributors in a pounds 6.8bn cash deal.
The debt-financed acquisition of KeySpan, which is based on the north-eastern seaboard, is Grid's fifth US takeover since 2000 and means that it will now make more of its profits in America than the UK.
Roger Urwin, Grid's chief executive, denied that the move was a defensive one to protect the company from being taken over itself as the wave of consolidation sweeping through Europe's energy sector gathers pace. He also rejected suggestions that Grid had been forced into buying US businesses as a "second best" option because of its inability to penetrate "Fortress Europe". . . . .
Steve Holliday, who takes over as Grid's chief executive at the end of the year, signalled there was more American expansion to come as the company added to its gas distribution business. He did not rule out moving beyond the north-east of the US, which Grid has made its home since the initial pounds 2.6bn purchase of New England Electric System six years ago.
This latest deal will increase Grid's US customer numbers to 7.7 million - making it the country's third largest gas distributor and seventh biggest electricity supplier. KeySpan is the biggest gas supplier in the north-eastern US, with 2.6 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It also has an electricity transmission and distribution business in Long Island serving 1.1 million customers and 6,700 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity. Grid is paying $7.3bn or $42 a share for KeySpan's equity - a premium of just 2.5 per cent to its 12-month high - and assuming a further $4.5bn of debt. . . . .
However, Mr Urwin resisted the temptation to characterise Grid as the UK's "national champion" pointing out that E.ON of Germany could have bought the company for cash before deciding instead to launch a EUR29bn offer for Endesa of Spain. He also predicted that THE FRENZY OF MERGER ACTIVITY TAKING PLACE ACROSS EUROPE was likely to spur the other big German utility, RWE, into action.
Meanwhile, there was no sign of any let-up in the war of words between France and Italy over the Gaz de France-Suez merger - a tie- up designed to thwart a counter bid for Suez from Italy's Enel.
"This is a very ugly sign for Europe because it wipes out the reason we are together in the first place," said Giorgio La Malfa, Italy's minister for European affairs. "Europe is closing up. It has a single currency but it does not have a single market."....    MORE

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