Los Angeles Times
Santa Ana Winds Whip Fires Across Southland
· Scores of homes are threatened. Evacuations ordered in Agoura Hills, northeast Oak Park, Bell Canyon, Box Canyon and Woolsey Canyon Road.
By Steve Chawkins and Daryl Strickland, Times Staff Writers
A brush fire, fanned by the first Santa Ana winds of season, has charred 7,000 acres near the Los Angeles and Ventura county borders, forcing hundreds from their homes and closing schools today.More than 350 people had been evacuated by early this morning in Agoura Hills, Northeast Oak Park, Bell Canyon, Box Canyon and Woolsey Canyon Road as the fire doubled in size overnight. Driven by overnight winds gusting to 40 mph, the fires produced tall columns of smoke and were visible around the Los Angeles Basin.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-092905fires_lat,0,2735246.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Identifying the dead might prove daunting but it is not impossible.
New York City has far less to work with than the forensics on the Gulf Coast. This is just more proof of the lack of expertise in the South and the poor preparation of higher education to profession.
The South prefers to allow too much error for the sake of ‘function’ and a government where the word perfect does not exist.
It is taking long because every aspect of ‘expertise’ is a struggle and the longer it takes the more intricate the identity becomes and the longer it will take.
We are on a slippery slope and these ‘boyz’ don’t know how to say, “We aren’t this good. Can we have some help?” They are afraid to show their shortcomings as it will lead to a lot of questions about forensics in the South and we all know where that will lead; well beyond just the issues with Katarina. Like, questions regarding who is sitting in prison for what crime based on THIS ???
Katrina's Corpses Are Many, IDs Are Few
By David Zucchino, Nicholas Riccardi and Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writers
BATON ROUGE, La. — A month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana coast, coroners have positively identified just 32 of the nearly 800 corpses collected at a temporary morgue, officials said Wednesday.Only about a third of the recovered bodies have been even tentatively identified, underscoring the difficulty of confirming the identities and causes of death for victims of a disaster that left corpses decomposing in floodwaters and scattered survivors across the country.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bodies29sep29,0,274016.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Peak for Housing Said to Be Near
· Slowing price increases in California may cause a recession by 2007, UCLA economists say.
By Bill Sing, Times Staff Writer
California's housing boom appears to be peaking, and the resultant slowdown is expected to produce "weak growth" in the state's economy during the next two years and a possible recession by the end of 2007.That's the view of economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast, which plans to release its widely watched quarterly outlook this morning.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calecon28sep28,0,2274249.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy
· Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.
By Susannah Rosenblatt and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers
BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-rumors27sep27,0,5536446.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
Racial Gap in Loans Is High in State
· A study finds that borrowers in minority communities in the L.A. area are more than nine times more likely to get higher-cost mortgages.
By Jonathan Peterson, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A racial disparity in mortgage lending rates appears to be sharper in Los Angeles and other California metropolitan areas than the rest of the country, according to an analysis of federal data to be released today.The study by the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an advocacy group for the poor, looked at the percentage of higher-cost loans issued in minority communities compared with nonminority neighborhoods in the same metropolitan area.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-loans29sep29,0,6791563.story?coll=la-home-business
China Daily
China-U.S. textile talks end without agreement
(AFP)Updated: 2005-09-29 21:33
China said Thursday that textile talks in Washington with the United States had ended without an agreement being reached and that another round of negotiations would be held.
"China and the United States held the fifth round of textile talks in Washington D.C., the two sides made positive progress in the talks, but some differences remain as well," the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.
"Both sides agreed to hold the next rounds of talks as quickly as possible and fix the time and place for them through diplomatic channels."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481953.htm
China seen world leader in clean energy
(Reuters)Updated: 2005-09-29 07:09
Smog, soot and a thirst for oil: that's one image of China.
But the Asian colossus is also seen leading the way in the use of "green" energies as alternatives to fossil fuels, the head of a leading environmental watchdog said on Wednesday.
"China is already big in renewables. In 5 years time we see them as a world leader in this department," Chistopher Flavin, president of the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute, told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy conference in Johannesburg.
"Already, 35 million homes in China get their hot water from solar collectors. That is more than the rest of the world combined," he said.
Renewable energy is derived from sources that are continually replaced, unlike fossil fuels of which there is a finite supply. Most renewables are non-polluting.
"There are prospects for real take-offs in solar and wind power in China, and not just hot water for homes but in industry," said Flavin.
"State-owned industries and private companies there are investing heavily in renewables," he said.
Sky-high world oil prices have partly been attributed to surging demand from China and the country's overall record on the environment has many greens seeing red.
But Flavin said the rapid growth in oil imports and related costs was making China look for alternatives.
He also said the country was grappling with mounting health and social costs from pollution as well as an energy crisis that has seen rolling black outs.
Flavin earlier told the conference that renewable energy was rapidly growing on a global scale, albeit from a low base compared to fossil fuels.
He said that wind power had an annual average growth rate of about 30 percent from 1994 to 2004, while solar energy had seen yearly growth of close to 25 percent over the same period.
He also said that the costs from such energy sources were falling fast, noting that wind power in 1980 cost 46 cents a kilowatt hour but now cost less than 6 cents.
But he said that much of the oil industry was missing the boat and the message it was sending was that: "Real energy men don't do renewable energy."
China sets up fund to protect stock investors(Reuters)Updated: 2005-09-29 09:09
SHANGHAI - China has launched a stock rescue fund, which will focus on compensating investors and helping brokerages that run into problems, one of a raft of measures designed to buoy the nation's sickly stock markets. Money for the fund will come from a small portion of stock trading commissions from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, as well as brokerages, according to rules governing the use of the fund published in official newspapers on Thursday.
Regulators set up a company to manage the fund in early September, overseen by five government agencies, including the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the People's Bank of China.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481824.htm
Indicted DeLay steps down from US House post
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 13:58
US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.
A defiant DeLay said he had done nothing wrong and denounced the Democratic prosecutor who pursued the case as a "partisan fanatic." He said, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."
Nonetheless, DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481879.htm
Puerto Rico town may build UFO site
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 08:32
People in this sleepy hamlet are so sure they have been receiving other-worldly visitors, they want to build a UFO landing strip to welcome them.
A bright green sign along a lonely country road in southwestern Puerto Rico proudly displays a silhouette of a flying saucer and two words: "Extraterrestrial Route."
Most Puerto Ricans laughed when a horse farmer installed the sign on his property at the request of Reynaldo Rios, a local elementary school teacher who says he's been communicating with alien visitors to this U.S. territory since he was a child.
Rios, a 39-year-old with a goatee and a shock of dark hair, won't be ignored. With the blessing of a local government desperate for tourist dollars, he's dedicated himself to building the UFO landing strip.
"I can't say exactly when they will come, but I know it will happen," Rios said. "I want to keep believing in my dreams."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481768.htm
U.S. : EU slow to freeze terrorist assets
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 21:18
The European Union is moving too slowly in identifying individuals and organizations suspected of links to terrorists and freezing their financial assets, a top U.S. counterterrorism official warned Thursday.
Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury Dept. undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, said European efforts to freeze assets were hampered by bureaucracy and needed to be streamlined to help thwart future attacks.
Levey, who is touring Europe to press his case, said he hoped Austria would make improving the EU's clearinghouse on terrorist information a priority when it takes over the bloc's rotating presidency on Jan. 1.
"The process within the EU has been a troubled one ... slow and cumbersome," Levey told reporters in Vienna, where he was meeting with Austrian political leaders and bankers to call for "a more energetic and aggressive approach."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481950.htm
It is not an inaccurate observation except as of recent the violence that occurred in New Orleans was not as wide spread or heinous as once believed. The exaggerated estimation was primarily to the dire situation of those trapped within the city without food and water.
War in Iraq and natural disaster
Wchao 37bbs.chinadaily.com.cn Updated: 2005-09-29 15:57
With limitless financial resources and scientific know-how to predict all kinds of natural disasters, why was the United States still left with many reported instances of homicides, rapes, robberies and thousands of casualties during the Katrina flooding? That was not just a matter of governmental incompetence: It was a demonstration of just how fragile the social fabric of much of America is today.
Imagine what could happen in an even larger city like Philadelphia, Chicago or Los Angeles if there was a breakdown in law and order caused by a disruptive natural calamity like Katrina, causing a major shortfall in basic amenities such as fresh water?
The authorities have frankly admitted they were incapable of dealing with such problems in view of what happened with the frantic exodus from Texas.
There would be a major breakdown of law and order because social cohesion such as that which exists in the three major East Asian nations, Japan, Korea and China, is simply non-existent in many parts of the United States.
I know, because I have been everywhere except the New England states north of Boston. Racism is an omnipresent endemic disease in all the US states, waiting to raise its ugly head during major civil disturbances such as that which occurred during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and now a natural calamity in New Orleans in 2005.
There is no excuse for it. It is a social-racial problem because that kind of negligence is not likely to happen to eclectic areas in Long Island, New York; or Thousand Oaks, California or Chappaquidick, Massachusetts; or in San Franciso or Reston, Virginia if a comparable event occurred.
If the US performance is so miserable in an expected natural disaster, where plenty of warning was given, what would Americans do in a real terrorist attack aimed at inflicting maximum damage to key urban infrastructures such as the water and electricity supplies of major Western cities?
Prevention of terrorist attacks is very expensive these days. For instance, the New York Subway System has been learning from the London attacks and is projected to spend $US9 billion on personnel, electronic surveillance and other preventative means. How many billions more is US President George W. Bush prepared to dish out for such stop-gap measures in other metropolitan areas?
Unless equality -- in which everyone in the world is given equal justice in redressing grievances -- is allowed to prevail, no amount of prevention is going to make a crucial difference. There will always be loopholes and countermeasures available to dedicated foes.
Ours is indeed a different world even from that at the time of the Kosovo War just a few years ago. Advanced weaponry is not the decisive factor in wars these days because the Iraqi War has shown that car and roadside bomb attacks are effective measures against an occupying army in urban warfare.
Coordinated worldwide anti-Iraq war demonstrations in Rome, London, Washington DC are gaining momentum because of the tangible and intangible costs of the Iraqi quagmire.
The US treasury is not a bottomless pit. The Chinese have a saying that if you sit around and consume a mountain of food without replenishing it, there will come a day when even that mountain disappears for good.
It is very un-American to inflict such pain on its own people, let alone the people of the entire world as they watch every step.
Don't tell me that there was no money allocated to repair those levees (one pre-disaster estimate placed the repair costs for the New Orleans levees at a mere $US 23 million).
Now. Billions must be paid to make up for the folly of not planning for the disaster that followed from doing nothing.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481912.htm
Washington Post
Supply Concerns Elevate Futures
Storms May Have Lasting Effect On Operations
By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, September 29, 2005; Page D01
Gasoline and natural gas prices soared on the futures markets yesterday as traders grew concerned that energy operations damaged by hurricanes Rita and Katrina could be hobbled longer than expected.
Analysts said that if futures prices remain at elevated levels, national pump prices for a gallon of regular could move above $3 a gallon, as they did following Hurricane Katrina. They added that a run-up in natural gas prices likely will mean increases for winter heating bills.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800413.html
Indonesia is OPEC.
At the Pump, Pressure From Indonesian Drivers
Plan to Raise Fuel Prices Holds Risk for President
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A14
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- As the Indonesian government prepares to raise fuel prices next month by as much as 50 percent, Kasum, a veteran taxi driver, frets about continuing the work he has done since he was 12 years old.
"Given fuel prices today, it's already hard to get enough money to pay my family's rent," said Kasum, 40, his brow baked by years up front in a three-wheel bajaj cab. "I don't know what will happen if the prices go up again."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802288.html
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Ramadi
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
The Associated PressThursday, September 29, 2005; 12:39 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A roadside bomb killed five American soldiers during combat in the western town of Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent activity, the U.S military said Thursday.
The five, who were assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, were hit while "conducting combat operations" on Wednesday, a statement by the Marines said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092900273.html
Pentagon Analyst to Plead Guilty to Leak
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
The Associated PressThursday, September 29, 2005; 12:33 PM
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A Pentagon analyst charged with providing classified information to an Israeli official and members of a pro-Israeli lobbying group will plead guilty, according to the U.S. District Court clerk's office.
Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., was indicted in June on charges of leaking classified materials _ including information about potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq _ to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and an Israeli official.
Edward Adams, a spokesman for U.S. District Court Clerk in Alexandria, said a hearing to accept Franklin's guilty plea has been scheduled for Wednesday. However, the charges to which he would enter the plea were not disclosed. Franklin was indicted on five charges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092900893.html
No-Bid Contracts To Get Close Look
Inspectors General Promise to Review Katrina Deals, Earlier FEMA Agreements
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A11
The officials responsible for monitoring more than $60 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina spending promised yesterday to take a hard look at every no-bid contract awarded since the storm and to investigate the adequacy of contracts the government had in place before disaster struck.
The assurances came at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing at which lawmakers from both parties questioned a panel of inspectors general about whether Katrina aid money is being well spent. The inspectors general provided few answers because, they said, their work has just begun. But they said repeatedly that they would investigate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802252.html
Free Speech Issues Still Problematic For Vietnam
U.S. Urging Release of 5 'Prisoners of Conscience'
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A14
JAKARTA, Indonesia A business manager in Hanoi, Pham Hong Son, has spent 42 months in a Vietnamese prison. His crime: downloading an essay titled "What is Democracy?" from a U.S. State Department Web site, translating it and sending it to friends and senior Communist Party officials.
Son, 36, who worked for a pharmaceutical company, was convicted of espionage in Vietnam after a closed, one-day trial in June 2003. He was sentenced to 13 years, later reduced to five.
"What he did was legal," insisted his wife, Vu Thuy Ha, 34, in a June interview in Hanoi. She said that her husband was exercising free speech and did not commit a seditious act. "What can anyone do with the translation? What can they do to overthrow the government?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802218.html
A President in Need of a Blunt Friend
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page A23
What George W. Bush needs right now is his own version of Clark Clifford. He needs a friend close enough to tell him that his presidency is failing -- and wise enough to describe what Bush must do to salvage it.
Clifford played that truth-telling role for Lyndon Johnson at the height of LBJ's Vietnam crisis. Through a unique combination of being loyal to Johnson and yet not being dependent on him, this archetype of the Washington legal establishment could not only talk to the president but also be heard -- if not necessarily followed in detail.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802120.html
ALL THE ‘NUT CASE’ legislation is coming out of the woodwork now that Robert’s is headed for the Supremes.
Kill Bill
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page A22
TODAY, THE SENATE Judiciary Committee takes up the so-called Streamlined Procedures Act, a bill that radically scales back federal review of state convictions and death sentences. Calling what this bill does "streamlining" is a little like calling a scalping a haircut. A better name would have been the Eliminating Essential Legal Protections Act. What it does, in effect, is curtail the federal role in policing constitutional violations in state criminal justice systems using the venerable mechanism of habeas corpus. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has moderated some of the worst provisions, but this bill is beyond rehabilitation. If it passes, the chances that innocent people will be executed will go way up.
Even after Mr. Specter's efforts, the bill creates onerous procedural hurdles for convicts. It tries to speed up habeas corpus proceedings by making it easier for convicts to lose their right to appeal to federal courts. For example, if a convict fails to raise an argument in state court, federal courts will have no jurisdiction over the claim even if there was a good reason for the failure. If he filed a claim in federal court before going to state court, that claim would be thrown out and lost forever. Supposed exceptions for cases of actual innocence are so narrow as to be useless. And the bill would allow states to race petitions through the courts if they can convince the attorney general that they have an adequate system for providing lawyers in post-conviction proceedings.
Why the radical change? We see no reason. Nor does the Judicial Conference, the administrative arm of the federal judiciary. Like a national organization of state-court chief jus-
tices, which came out against the bill this summer, the Judicial Conference made clear that it "does not believe" in "the need for a comprehensive overhaul of federal habeas jurisprudence." Indeed, if anything, federal rules are too strict. Around the country, concerns about potentially irreversible miscarriages of justice have led state legislatures to take a hard look at their death penalty systems. Congress itself passed important legislation not too long ago to encourage states to improve the quality of lawyers they provide capital defendants. This bill would more than undo that progress.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802149.html
continued ...
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Morning Papers - Preliminary
Buenos Aires Herald
DeLay indicted, quits
AUSTIN, TX — US House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the second-ranking House Republican, resigned his post yesterday after being indicted for his part in a Texas campaign-finance conspiracy. The powerful Texan, nicknamed "The Hammer" for his reputation as a tough party enforcer, could face up to two years in prison if convicted. DeLay (photo) denied any wrongdoing and said he was being persecuted because of his political successes by "an unabashed partisan zealot," Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Demo-crat, in Austin. "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It’s a sham and Mr. Earle knows it. It’s a charge that cannot hold up even under the most glancing scrutiny," DeLay said in Washington. "The attacks are what I would expect," Earle said of DeLay’s comments. "I don’t know what else they would say." DeLay was indicted by a Travis County grand jury for criminal conspiracy in a scheme with two alleged co-conspirators, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to launder 190,000 dollars in corporate donations through the Republican National Committee for distribution to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Texas law does not permit the use of corporate money in political campaigns. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Republicans chose Roy Blunt of Missouri to replace DeLay, who was first elected as majority leader in November 2002. The indictment is the latest in a recent spate of ethical questions involving high-ranking Republicans or Bush administration officials. Last week, it was disclosed that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was under federal investigation for a stock sale.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/the_world/note.jsp?idContent=210322&hideIntro=true
Argentina ‘acutely’ corrupt, a bit more competitive
Clearly the government must still take on some major challenges, including reducing public debt to more sustainable levels, fighting poverty and income inequalities and acute corruption," said Augusto López Claros, the director of the Forum’s global competitiveness programme.He added that steps should be taken to restore the business community’s confidence and boost the role of the public sector in generating sound policy and intelligent and transparent regulations."The local private sector remains deeply sceptical about the strength of the However, the Forum’s report showed that Argentina had risen slightly in its global competitiveness rankings — from 74 to 72 in the field of " institutional framework," the economist said.
117 world economies. But it lagged in fifth place in Latin America, trailing Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and Brazil.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/business/note.jsp?idContent=210332&hideIntro=true
Underground still overgrown
As with poverty last week, the latest figures on informal unemployment reflect a positive trend but (just like poverty) they are ultimately disappointing. Just as reducing the percentage of the population below the poverty line from 40.2 to 38.5 seems almost feeble when measured against double-digit economic growth in the second quarter, so a reduction of the informally employed from 48.3 to 47.2 percent seems almost discouraging given that 430,000 jobs have been created thus far this year (around 90 percent of them legal) — especially considering that the informally employed were only a third of the workforce as little as a decade ago.The percentage of those informally employed is the most important of the latest data on the subject but also possibly the least interesting — that the underground economy reaches almost half the workforce has long been widely known. One of the most interesting conclusions from the new data is that the evident reindustrialization of the country (fostered by exchange rate policies favouring import substitution) has not done more to replenish the ranks of organized labour — a disturbing thought indeed for the trade unions in their rivalry with the picket movement for the leadership of the underprivileged. While industry has definitely recovered, it has no chance of regaining its former status as the country’s chief employer from the tertiary sector. Everything works in favour of the services. While technology streamlines industry by mechanizing production, it multiplies the range of services on offer and hence the potential for employment. Even a devaluation specifically designed to favour manufacturing industry has probably done more to create jobs in the labour-intensive tourist sector.Dare we suggest that the dearth of labour law reform could be part of the reason for the failure to make a bigger dent in the ranks of the informally unemployed? The government can be rightly proud of creating 430,000 jobs and even prouder that such a high percentage of this employment is legal but the achievement pales when measured against the almost four million people who are jobless or underemployed (a quarter of the workforce who are evolving from being a cyclically to structurally unemployed underclass). Employers might shy away from hiring people under the table but while policies like double severance persist, they are also going to be discouraged from hiring them at all.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/editorial/editorial_english.jsp?idContent=210277
Times – Picayune
Nagin forced Compass out
Chief fired after heated confrontation'He had tears in his eyes. He didn't want to go.'By Trymaine D. LeeAnd Walt PhilbinStaff writersAfter announcing his retirement Tuesday, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass told several high-ranking officers that he had been forced out by Mayor Ray Nagin, the officers said Wednesday.They said Compass told them the decision came on the heels of a heated confrontation with the mayor. The officers spoke only on condition that they not be named.Reached Wednesday by e-mail, Nagin said that those accounts were "inaccurate." Compass could not be reached for comment. At a hastily called news conference Tuesday with Nagin in attendance, Compass announced that he was retiring. When asked by a reporter whether Compass was being forced out, Nagin said no.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_29.html#083577
City expands re-entry ZIP codes
More ZIP codes will be opened for re-entry for business owners on Thursday, and to residents on Friday, the New Orleans mayor's office announced late Thursday.Mayor Ray Nagin's office announced the expanded ZIP code openings in targeted areas of 70112, 70113, 70114, 70115, 70116, 70118, 70130 and 70131. Those areas include Algiers, the Central Business District, the French Quarter and Uptown.Business owners will be allowed to re-enter Thursday . . . on Friday, residents will be allowed back. The mayor's office offered extended cautions about the lack of basic city services and health hazards, and said that anyone entering would do so at their own risk.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaking/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_localbreakingnews/archives/2005_09.html#083498
City report on zip code status
http://www.nola.com/cityofno/
Tips for cleaning mildew
One Cleaners of Metairie advises on how to salvage fabrics exposed to moldDocument damage- If damage to clothing is extensive, document for insurance purposes before attempting garment recovery.Identify damage- Mildew can range in color from black or gray to orange and red in addition to white. It can look like a powder on the surface of fabric and its appearance often takes on an irregularly shaped stain or small splatter-like spots.- Mildew damage can occur when clothing is exposed to any combination of the following: high temperatures, moisture, unsanitary soils or water, a dark environment absent of sunlight with little or no air circulation.How to prevent mildew in the future- Keep garments clean and dry. Soil on the surface of clothing may create an environment for mildew to start growing. - Expose garments to circulating air and sun, being careful of sun fading. It can be helpful to open all closet doors when traveling. Keep the air as cool as possible.- Do not overcrowd closets.- Maximize the amount of sun that strikes the roof of the house by keeping trees trimmed.- Check that sprinklers are not hitting the side of your house.- Keep shrubs trimmed at least 12 inches from the exterior wall to increase
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/hurricanehelp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_hurricanehelpcenter/archives/2005_09.html#083341
The Guardian
I don’t consider it insensitive. The people of New Orleans died because of government neglect at all levels including the EPA and it’s refusal to deal with Global Warming and Climate Change. If the deaths of these people need definition then let it start with that.
Prescott links global warming to Katrina
Juliette Jowit and Ned TemkoSunday September 11, 2005
The Observer
John Prescott sparked controversy yesterday by linking America's refusal to tackle climate change to the devastation of the New Orleans hurricane.
The Deputy Prime Minister caused potential embarrassment for Britain by drawing a parallel between the US city destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and island states that scientists believe are under threat of being swamped.
In a speech in Berlin, he also criticised the US for failing to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which is aimed at slowing global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
A debate has raged in the US over whether global warming is responsible for the recent series of storms. So far this year there have been 15 named storms, significantly more than average.
President George Bush says he does not believe that human activity causes global warming, but some experts say excessive carbon emissions lead to higher sea temperatures and stronger storms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1567349,00.html
Global companies snub survey on climate change
David Adam, environment correspondent
Thursday September 15, 2005
The Guardian
More than 100 of the world's largest companies have been accused of not facing up to global warming after they snubbed a global survey of corporate attitudes to climate change.
Aerospace company Boeing, computer giant Apple, online retailer Amazon and News Corporation, which publishes the Sun and Times newspapers, are among the organisations that failed to respond to a survey from the Carbon Disclosure Project, which launched a report on its findings yesterday in New York.
Acting on behalf of institutional investors with combined assets of more than £11 trillion, the London-based project asked the heads of the largest 500 companies how big a risk climate change posed to their business and what they were doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of the 354 firms that responded, 90% said climate change posed commercial risks or opportunities and 63% claimed they were taking steps to cut emissions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1570195,00.html
The Jerusalem Post
Dispelling rumors, PM reaffirms pledge to road map
By HERB KEINON AND JPOST STAFF
"There is no other plan besides the road map," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday a day after key officials declared their support for more unilateral steps.
Sharon, who addressed an economic conference in Tel Aviv, said, "This country is plagued by rumors. Yesterday such a rumor began circulating, a rumor which emanated from unfounded comments, as if Israel was examining other plans."
"Israel is not and will not examine any other plan; there is only one plan – the road map. It is the best plan for the future of Israel," Sharon emphasized.
According to the prime minister, "One ambassador after another approached the Prime Minister's Office to determine if the rumor was correct, including a very stern appeal from Washington."
On Wednesday, outgoing OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) and Eival Gilady, former head of strategic planning in the IDF,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127874076237
Palestinians and Jews clash in Hebron kasba
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Some fifty Jewish settlers from Hebron entered the Kasba in Hebron on Thursday evening.
According to a Hebron District police report, both Palestinians and Jews were hurling stones at the other.
No injuries have been reported, while three people, two of them women, were arrested for unlawful congregation and assault.
Earlier in the day a Palestinian woman suffered moderate to serious wounds after a fight broke out between Jews and Arabs in the Beit Romano neighborhood in Hebron's Jewish quarter.
According to a Zaka report, the woman suffered her wounds after a cinder block was thrown at her; apparently by a Jew.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127987658567
Germany's Social Democratic leader: talks with Merkel 'fruitful"
By ASSOCIATED PRESSBERLIN
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger
Angela Merkel held talks Wednesday that both sides called helpful - but they did not resolve their dispute over who should be Germany's next leader.
Merkel came out of the meeting at the Reichstag parliament building looking relaxed and describing the talks as "constructive and serious," while Franz Muentefering, head of Schroeder's Social Democratic Party, called the preliminary discussions "fruitful."
Both sides said they focused on policy, but had to leave their most serious dispute - over who should be the next chancellor - for further talks in the coming weeks. The two sides are scheduled to meet again next Wednesday.
Germany's stock market, however, seemed willing to ignore the political stalemate and hit a new high for the year.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127874075306
continued ...
DeLay indicted, quits
AUSTIN, TX — US House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the second-ranking House Republican, resigned his post yesterday after being indicted for his part in a Texas campaign-finance conspiracy. The powerful Texan, nicknamed "The Hammer" for his reputation as a tough party enforcer, could face up to two years in prison if convicted. DeLay (photo) denied any wrongdoing and said he was being persecuted because of his political successes by "an unabashed partisan zealot," Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Demo-crat, in Austin. "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It’s a sham and Mr. Earle knows it. It’s a charge that cannot hold up even under the most glancing scrutiny," DeLay said in Washington. "The attacks are what I would expect," Earle said of DeLay’s comments. "I don’t know what else they would say." DeLay was indicted by a Travis County grand jury for criminal conspiracy in a scheme with two alleged co-conspirators, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to launder 190,000 dollars in corporate donations through the Republican National Committee for distribution to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Texas law does not permit the use of corporate money in political campaigns. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Republicans chose Roy Blunt of Missouri to replace DeLay, who was first elected as majority leader in November 2002. The indictment is the latest in a recent spate of ethical questions involving high-ranking Republicans or Bush administration officials. Last week, it was disclosed that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was under federal investigation for a stock sale.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/the_world/note.jsp?idContent=210322&hideIntro=true
Argentina ‘acutely’ corrupt, a bit more competitive
Clearly the government must still take on some major challenges, including reducing public debt to more sustainable levels, fighting poverty and income inequalities and acute corruption," said Augusto López Claros, the director of the Forum’s global competitiveness programme.He added that steps should be taken to restore the business community’s confidence and boost the role of the public sector in generating sound policy and intelligent and transparent regulations."The local private sector remains deeply sceptical about the strength of the However, the Forum’s report showed that Argentina had risen slightly in its global competitiveness rankings — from 74 to 72 in the field of " institutional framework," the economist said.
117 world economies. But it lagged in fifth place in Latin America, trailing Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and Brazil.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/business/note.jsp?idContent=210332&hideIntro=true
Underground still overgrown
As with poverty last week, the latest figures on informal unemployment reflect a positive trend but (just like poverty) they are ultimately disappointing. Just as reducing the percentage of the population below the poverty line from 40.2 to 38.5 seems almost feeble when measured against double-digit economic growth in the second quarter, so a reduction of the informally employed from 48.3 to 47.2 percent seems almost discouraging given that 430,000 jobs have been created thus far this year (around 90 percent of them legal) — especially considering that the informally employed were only a third of the workforce as little as a decade ago.The percentage of those informally employed is the most important of the latest data on the subject but also possibly the least interesting — that the underground economy reaches almost half the workforce has long been widely known. One of the most interesting conclusions from the new data is that the evident reindustrialization of the country (fostered by exchange rate policies favouring import substitution) has not done more to replenish the ranks of organized labour — a disturbing thought indeed for the trade unions in their rivalry with the picket movement for the leadership of the underprivileged. While industry has definitely recovered, it has no chance of regaining its former status as the country’s chief employer from the tertiary sector. Everything works in favour of the services. While technology streamlines industry by mechanizing production, it multiplies the range of services on offer and hence the potential for employment. Even a devaluation specifically designed to favour manufacturing industry has probably done more to create jobs in the labour-intensive tourist sector.Dare we suggest that the dearth of labour law reform could be part of the reason for the failure to make a bigger dent in the ranks of the informally unemployed? The government can be rightly proud of creating 430,000 jobs and even prouder that such a high percentage of this employment is legal but the achievement pales when measured against the almost four million people who are jobless or underemployed (a quarter of the workforce who are evolving from being a cyclically to structurally unemployed underclass). Employers might shy away from hiring people under the table but while policies like double severance persist, they are also going to be discouraged from hiring them at all.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/editorial/editorial_english.jsp?idContent=210277
Times – Picayune
Nagin forced Compass out
Chief fired after heated confrontation'He had tears in his eyes. He didn't want to go.'By Trymaine D. LeeAnd Walt PhilbinStaff writersAfter announcing his retirement Tuesday, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass told several high-ranking officers that he had been forced out by Mayor Ray Nagin, the officers said Wednesday.They said Compass told them the decision came on the heels of a heated confrontation with the mayor. The officers spoke only on condition that they not be named.Reached Wednesday by e-mail, Nagin said that those accounts were "inaccurate." Compass could not be reached for comment. At a hastily called news conference Tuesday with Nagin in attendance, Compass announced that he was retiring. When asked by a reporter whether Compass was being forced out, Nagin said no.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_29.html#083577
City expands re-entry ZIP codes
More ZIP codes will be opened for re-entry for business owners on Thursday, and to residents on Friday, the New Orleans mayor's office announced late Thursday.Mayor Ray Nagin's office announced the expanded ZIP code openings in targeted areas of 70112, 70113, 70114, 70115, 70116, 70118, 70130 and 70131. Those areas include Algiers, the Central Business District, the French Quarter and Uptown.Business owners will be allowed to re-enter Thursday . . . on Friday, residents will be allowed back. The mayor's office offered extended cautions about the lack of basic city services and health hazards, and said that anyone entering would do so at their own risk.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaking/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_localbreakingnews/archives/2005_09.html#083498
City report on zip code status
http://www.nola.com/cityofno/
Tips for cleaning mildew
One Cleaners of Metairie advises on how to salvage fabrics exposed to moldDocument damage- If damage to clothing is extensive, document for insurance purposes before attempting garment recovery.Identify damage- Mildew can range in color from black or gray to orange and red in addition to white. It can look like a powder on the surface of fabric and its appearance often takes on an irregularly shaped stain or small splatter-like spots.- Mildew damage can occur when clothing is exposed to any combination of the following: high temperatures, moisture, unsanitary soils or water, a dark environment absent of sunlight with little or no air circulation.How to prevent mildew in the future- Keep garments clean and dry. Soil on the surface of clothing may create an environment for mildew to start growing. - Expose garments to circulating air and sun, being careful of sun fading. It can be helpful to open all closet doors when traveling. Keep the air as cool as possible.- Do not overcrowd closets.- Maximize the amount of sun that strikes the roof of the house by keeping trees trimmed.- Check that sprinklers are not hitting the side of your house.- Keep shrubs trimmed at least 12 inches from the exterior wall to increase
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/hurricanehelp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_hurricanehelpcenter/archives/2005_09.html#083341
The Guardian
I don’t consider it insensitive. The people of New Orleans died because of government neglect at all levels including the EPA and it’s refusal to deal with Global Warming and Climate Change. If the deaths of these people need definition then let it start with that.
Prescott links global warming to Katrina
Juliette Jowit and Ned TemkoSunday September 11, 2005
The Observer
John Prescott sparked controversy yesterday by linking America's refusal to tackle climate change to the devastation of the New Orleans hurricane.
The Deputy Prime Minister caused potential embarrassment for Britain by drawing a parallel between the US city destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and island states that scientists believe are under threat of being swamped.
In a speech in Berlin, he also criticised the US for failing to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which is aimed at slowing global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
A debate has raged in the US over whether global warming is responsible for the recent series of storms. So far this year there have been 15 named storms, significantly more than average.
President George Bush says he does not believe that human activity causes global warming, but some experts say excessive carbon emissions lead to higher sea temperatures and stronger storms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1567349,00.html
Global companies snub survey on climate change
David Adam, environment correspondent
Thursday September 15, 2005
The Guardian
More than 100 of the world's largest companies have been accused of not facing up to global warming after they snubbed a global survey of corporate attitudes to climate change.
Aerospace company Boeing, computer giant Apple, online retailer Amazon and News Corporation, which publishes the Sun and Times newspapers, are among the organisations that failed to respond to a survey from the Carbon Disclosure Project, which launched a report on its findings yesterday in New York.
Acting on behalf of institutional investors with combined assets of more than £11 trillion, the London-based project asked the heads of the largest 500 companies how big a risk climate change posed to their business and what they were doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of the 354 firms that responded, 90% said climate change posed commercial risks or opportunities and 63% claimed they were taking steps to cut emissions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1570195,00.html
Loss of soil carbon 'will speed global warming'
Tim Radford, science editorThursday September 8, 2005
England's soils have been losing carbon at the rate of four million tonnes a year for the past 25 years - losses which will accelerate global warming and which have already offset all the cuts in Britain's industrial carbon emissions between 1990 and 2002, scientists warn today.
The research dashes hopes that more carbon dioxide emissions might mean more vegetation growth and therefore more carbon removed from the atmosphere.
The unexpected loss of carbon from the soils - consistently, everywhere in England and Wales and therefore probably everywhere in the temperate world - means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which means even more global warming, and yet more carbon lost from the soil.
"All the consequences of global warming will occur more rapidly. That's the scary thing: the amount of time we have got to do something about it is smaller than we thought," Guy Kirk, of Cranfield University, told the British Association Festival of Science, in Dublin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1565049,00.html
How carbon causes global warming
Jenny BirdSunday June 19, 2005
Why do carbon dioxide emissions heat up the planet?
The temperature of the Earth depends on a balance between incoming energy from the Sun and the energy that bounces back into space. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat that would otherwise be lost to space. Some of this energy is re-emitted back to Earth, causing additional heating of the planet.
What are the major sources of carbon dioxide?
Most man-made carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels for energy. In the UK, the biggest emitters are from transport and the domestic sectors, of which aviation is the fastest growing. Because of their varying chemical constituents, different fossil fuels produce different amounts of carbon dioxide. Coal produces most, then oil, and then gas.
Which country produces most carbon?
The US emits the most: 5,800 million tonnes every year. Next is China, over 3,000; Russia, over 2,000; Japan, 1,200; and India, 1,000 million tonnes. Other major emitters are Germany, 800; Canada, 600m; the UK, 500m; and Italy, 47m.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1509861,00.html
How high-pressure politics threatens action on climate
American resistance will not be the only obstacle to saving the world when Tony Blair meets the G8 leaders - but they must act or face catastrophe, says Robin McKie
Sunday June 19, 2005
The Observer
David King has a simple aim this summer. The government's chief scientific adviser hopes to persuade the leaders of the world's greatest powers to sign an agreement that global warming is real, man-made and requires global action.
Not much to ask, you might think. After all, the signs are everywhere: earlier and earlier springs, melting glaciers, rising oceans, more and more searing summers and increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Nevertheless, King - who has toured the world over the past two months, promoting the carbon-cutting cause and drumming up support for Tony Blair ahead of next month's G8 meeting - has promised he will celebrate in style when this basic agreement is backed by the world's most powerful men: 'I will crack open the champagne. Absolutely.'
Such an effusive reaction would seem more appropriate
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1509761,00.html
The Jerusalem Post
Dispelling rumors, PM reaffirms pledge to road map
By HERB KEINON AND JPOST STAFF
"There is no other plan besides the road map," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday a day after key officials declared their support for more unilateral steps.
Sharon, who addressed an economic conference in Tel Aviv, said, "This country is plagued by rumors. Yesterday such a rumor began circulating, a rumor which emanated from unfounded comments, as if Israel was examining other plans."
"Israel is not and will not examine any other plan; there is only one plan – the road map. It is the best plan for the future of Israel," Sharon emphasized.
According to the prime minister, "One ambassador after another approached the Prime Minister's Office to determine if the rumor was correct, including a very stern appeal from Washington."
On Wednesday, outgoing OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) and Eival Gilady, former head of strategic planning in the IDF,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127874076237
Palestinians and Jews clash in Hebron kasba
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Some fifty Jewish settlers from Hebron entered the Kasba in Hebron on Thursday evening.
According to a Hebron District police report, both Palestinians and Jews were hurling stones at the other.
No injuries have been reported, while three people, two of them women, were arrested for unlawful congregation and assault.
Earlier in the day a Palestinian woman suffered moderate to serious wounds after a fight broke out between Jews and Arabs in the Beit Romano neighborhood in Hebron's Jewish quarter.
According to a Zaka report, the woman suffered her wounds after a cinder block was thrown at her; apparently by a Jew.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127987658567
Germany's Social Democratic leader: talks with Merkel 'fruitful"
By ASSOCIATED PRESSBERLIN
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger
Angela Merkel held talks Wednesday that both sides called helpful - but they did not resolve their dispute over who should be Germany's next leader.
Merkel came out of the meeting at the Reichstag parliament building looking relaxed and describing the talks as "constructive and serious," while Franz Muentefering, head of Schroeder's Social Democratic Party, called the preliminary discussions "fruitful."
Both sides said they focused on policy, but had to leave their most serious dispute - over who should be the next chancellor - for further talks in the coming weeks. The two sides are scheduled to meet again next Wednesday.
Germany's stock market, however, seemed willing to ignore the political stalemate and hit a new high for the year.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1127874075306
continued ...
Rita and Erosion
Photographer states :: Rita's Surge caused considerable damage to the sand dune's on the southern end of South Padre Island. The peak of the Hurricane swell slowly fading throughout the day on Saturday. At first light there were still consistent surges of swell. This photo is of the surge against the battered sand dune.
Pre - Dawn.
Three seagulls enjoy the view as well.
Red Tide continues....
September 24, 2005.
South Padre Island
Dragon Fly's everywhere...Dawn on South Padre Island. With Rita's clouds ominous over the eastern sky. It set up to be another very hot 'record breaking' day. All thanks to being on the "back side" of the Hurricane. Not even a sprinkle of rain. Can't say the same for our neighbors up the coast.
September 24, 2005.
South Padre Island, Texas.
Photographer states :: Late Friday and into the early hours of Saturday morning increadibly large swells unloaded on South Texas Beaches.
Eroding dunes along the way.
Not only did thousands of Dragon Fly's fill the air, but also the effects of a Red Tide would take your breath away.
Kinda wierd.
Morning Papers - concluded
...isms
The Commission on the Status of Women met today to convene two panel discussions on the integration of gender perspectives in macroeconomics and the role of regional and intergovernmental organizations promoting gender equality.
Statements
NENADI E. USMAN, Minister of State for Finance of Nigeria, said that though the Constitution provided for equality of rights for every citizen, a national policy for women had had to be fashioned to remove gender equalities as a result of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. A number of policies to reduce gender equality had also been put in place. The Government had enhanced women’s access to the country’s socio-economic activities. Line ministries had been instructed to address gender issues, and that focus had resulted in a number of achievements, including special bank loans, the establishment of cottage industries for women, literacy and health programmes, microcredit schemes, and mass literacy and education programmes.
She said some 70 per cent of Nigeria’s poor were women. Nigerian women faced many challenges in benefiting from the Government’s macroeconomic incentives. Nigerian women were becoming increasingly involved in monitoring the impact of those programmes. For the first time in its history, Nigeria had a woman in charge of the Government’s finances. Women had also been put in charge of the investment and securities tribunal and the bureau for public enterprises. Deliberate efforts had been made to bring more women on board.
Regarding the way forward, she said Nigeria’s quest for macroeconomic stability and sustainable economic growth would continue to be gender sensitive. The Government was directing more public resources to the sectors of the economy that directly impacted women, such as the provision of water and rural electrification. The Government appreciated women’s efforts in the scheme of things and would continue to encourage their participation in projects designed for their betterment.
http://i-newswire.com/pr9732.html
U.S. Sponsors Discrimination.
Scott Plous
Book from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Release date: 22 October, 2002
More of our democracy and formerly "free" country got flushed down the toilet last week when the House of Republicans voted to allow states to freely discriminate against American citizens on the basis of religion.
That's right, we can already freely discriminate against gays in this country, now we can add religion to the list of the discriminated.
The Republican-led House approved a bill that lets churches and other faith-based preschool centers hire only people who share their religion, yet still receive federal tax dollars.
Yay! Free discrimination with no consequences - and the government will even pay you to do it!
That's right, Head Start Programs that are run by Catholics, now would have the right to refuse employment to anyone who is not Catholic. And the same would hold true for any faith. So what we have here is government funded discrimination. I'd love to see what would happen if a traditional company decided not to hire Christians because they disagreed with their religion - how fast would that company be slapped with lawsuits and lose any form of federal assistance or support?
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/26/161820.php
Human rights must include freedom from economic discrimination
By Hope Lewis and Ibrahim Gassama
Published: Monday, September 26, 2005
It should now be obvious: The catastrophe in the Gulf Coast is more than an appalling natural disaster requiring a humanitarian response. It is a horrific human rights crisis that demands a re-examination of communal obligations to those who for various reasons lack the means to save themselves.
The responses now coming from federal, state and local authorities, as well as private individuals and groups, will help address the many social needs exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/09/26/ed.col.gassama.0926.p1.php?section=opinion
Question of network's role may play key role in discrimination case
The Associated Press - ATLANTA
Is The Weather Channel a business or entertainment?
That's the question U.S. Magistrate Christopher Hagy asked lawyers on Monday during an evidentiary hearing on an age discrimination case. The answer may help determine a lawsuit filed by former reporter Marny Stanier Midkiff, who claims the Atlanta-based network dismissed her in favor of younger, sexier forecasters.
Midkiff, who was 41 when she was fired in 2003, claims the network purged older employees, particularly women. Her lawyer, Dan Klein, introduced an October 2002 memo from Terry Connelly, a network official, that said viewers described the network's female broadcasters as matronly, dowdy and old.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=65579
Amid Criticism of Federal Efforts, Charges of Racism Are Lodged
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: September 5, 2005
HOUSTON, Sept. 4 - The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina became a rallying cry for African-American religious and political leaders here in President Bush's former hometown on Sunday, with pleas for charity mixed with a seething anger at the response to the crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05race.html
Political hurricane swirls around Bush
Accusations of racism, slow response to Katrina dog administration
NEW ORLEANS — Five days after it had expressed only polite interest in the hurricane sweeping across the United States' south-eastern states, the Bush administration found itself lashed by the storm's wake.
… Senator Chuck Hagel, a leading contender for his party's nomination to succeed Mr Bush, added: "There must be some accountability."
… It hasn't helped Mr Bush that he did not alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remained on holiday in Wyoming. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Washington after being seen buying US$7,000 ($11,700) shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/70544.asp
Kanye West Accuses Bush of Racism on Hurricane Telethon
Posted on 9/4/05 at 12:59 AM ET
Kanye West, never one to shy away from expressing his opinions, has accused the U.S. government of forsaking its black population at Friday’s “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.”
The rapper declared that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a 90-second segment he did with comedian Mike Myers on the celebrity telethon for Hurricane Katrina survivors. West surprised everyone when he went off script on the special, which aired live on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Pax.
http://www.andpop.com/article/4833
Message: I Care About the Black Folks
By FRANK RICH
ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.
The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.
In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.
Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.
Taking responsibility, as opposed to paying lip service to doing so, is not in this administration's gene pool. It was particularly shameful that Laura Bush was sent among the storm's dispossessed to try to scapegoat the news media for her husband's ineptitude. When she complained of seeing "a lot of the same footage over and over that isn't necessarily representative of what really happened," the first lady sounded just like Donald Rumsfeld shirking responsibility for the looting of Baghdad. The defense secretary, too, griped about seeing the same picture "over and over" on television (a looter with a vase) to hide the reality that the Pentagon had no plan to secure Iraq, a catastrophic failure being paid for in Iraqi and American blood to this day.
This White House doesn't hate all pictures, of course. It loves those by Karl Rove's Imagineers, from the spectacularly lighted Statue of Liberty backdrop of Mr. Bush's first 9/11 anniversary speech to his "Top Gun" stunt to Thursday's laughably stagy stride across the lawn to his lectern in Jackson Square. (Message: I am a leader, not that vacationing slacker who first surveyed the hurricane damage from my presidential jet.)
The most odious image-mongering, however, has been Mr. Bush's repeated deployment of African-Americans as dress extras to advertise his "compassion." In 2000, the Republican convention filled the stage with break dancers and gospel singers, trying to dispel the memory of Mr. Bush's craven appearance at Bob Jones University when it forbade interracial dating. (The few blacks in the convention hall itself were positioned near celebrities so they'd show up in TV shots.) In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site had a page titled "Compassion" devoted mainly to photos of the president with black people, Colin Powell included.
Some of these poses are re-enacted in the "Hurricane Relief" photo gallery currently on display on the White House Web site. But this time the old magic isn't working. The "compassion" photos are outweighed by the cinéma vérité of poor people screaming for their lives. The government effort to keep body recovery efforts in New Orleans as invisible as the coffins from Iraq was abandoned when challenged in court by CNN.
But even now the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process. Brazenly enough, Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.
The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.
WHEN there's money on the line, cronies always come first in this White House, no matter how great the human suffering. After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place.
It was back in 2000 that Mr. Bush, in a debate with Al Gore, bragged about his gubernatorial prowess "on the front line of catastrophic situations," specifically citing a Texas flood, and paid the Clinton administration a rare compliment for putting a professional as effective as James Lee Witt in charge of FEMA. Exactly why Mr. Bush would staff that same agency months later with political hacks is one of many questions that must be answered by the independent investigation he and the Congressional majority are trying every which way to avoid. With or without a 9/11-style commission, the answers will come out. There are too many Americans who are angry and too many reporters who are on the case. (NBC and CNN are both opening full-time bureaus in New Orleans.) You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.
What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html?ei=5090&en=64a2f63f0c39dc70&ex=1284696000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
FDA OKs Generic Versions of AIDS Drug
Published September 20 2005, 2:02 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The FDA has approved the first generic versions of the AIDS medication AZT, a move that could reduce the expense for people in the United States being treated for the disease.
AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that is also known as Zidovudine, helps prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing in the body. It is often used in combination with other medications to treat an HIV infection.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top13sep20,0,501565.story?coll=scn-newsnation-headlines
Austrian national anthem to go for gender equality
Vienna September 26, 2005 5:25:06 PM IST
Austria's national anthem may be changed to give equality to men and women, according to a proposal by Women's Affairs Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat Monday.
She said a reference to "great sons" of Austria should be changed to "great daughters, sons". The term "fatherland" should be replaced by "homeland", and the words "brotherly choirs" by "joyful choirs".
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=121073&n_date=20050926&cat=World
Panel discusses gender identity
by Emily Bitton
September 25, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, a panel met discussing "Media Portrayals of Gender Identity: What are Ethical Alternatives?" as part of Ethics Week.
Arwen Castillo, student and employee of the Equity Center, was the moderator for the discussion. She asked Kolby Jensen, a business major and employee of the Equity Center, and philosophy major Gregory Lucero, questions regarding the media. Jensen and Lucero were the two panelists.
An initial inquiry was, "How does the media shape gender identity?" Panelists replied with, "Gender identity is how the media tells a woman what will make her feminine and how the media tells a man what will make him masculine."
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/25/433841b92caed
Residents charge discrimination
By LEE ROMNEY / Los Ángeles Times
(Published Wednesday, September, 28, 2005 11:45AM)
MODESTO --This city has grown in lurches in recent decades, snatching up vacant land to erect subdivisions with soothing names like The Bluffs and Fleur de Lis.
The costs of sidewalks, sewers and other urban amenities were borne by developers, who passed them down to incoming -- and largely white -- homeowners.
Left behind in the hopscotching growth rush were a cluster of aging unincorporated pockets just outside the city's southern flank. Poor, predominantly Latino, and now nearly surrounded by annexed property, the neighborhoods had long outgrown their fraying rural infrastructure.
http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/news/english/story/11279085p-12029333c.html
Feds sue Sonic Drive-In alleging discrimination
ALBUQUERQUE -- The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Albuquerque Sonic Drive-In, alleging it discriminated against pregnant women.
The EEOC says the drive-ins -- operated by RWW Enterprises -- refused to hire pregnant women for carhop jobs.
The agency says that violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
The federal lawsuit also contends Sonic fired or rescinded a job offer to one woman because she was pregnant.
The regional attorney for the EEOC says there has been a 37 percent increase in pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the commission over the past ten years.
http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?ID=12225
FedEx accused of discrimination
SEP. 28 8:29 P.M. ET A federal judge on Wednesday certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corp. amid allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated 10,000 current and former hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and parts of Texas.
James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg added.
"FedEx knows that black and Hispanics fail at a much higher rate, but yet has not changed the test," Finberg said.
Jim McCluskey, a FedEx spokesman, said the Memphis, Tenn.-based company was considering appealing the ruling, which the company called a "procedural decision" that does not address the case's merits.
"We are confident that when the merits of the case are considered, it will be shown that the plaintiffs were not treated differently because of their race or ethnicity," McCluskey said.
The suit was filed in 2003 by eight current and former employees. It seeks millions of dollars in damages and an end to the company's alleged discriminatory practices.
In court documents, FedEx contended that promotions were based on "objective" factors, not race, that include time of service, passing a basic skills test, previous performance evaluations and whether the employee has been disciplined.
FedEx's statistical analysis shows that minorities receive higher evaluations on average than whites in many job categories, and showed that minorities received higher wages than whites in many jobs.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said it would be up to a jury to decide the conflicting data. No trial has been set.
Pasted from <http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8CTJAP04.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db
Judge certifies class action accusing FedEx of discrimination
SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge in San Francisco has certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corporation of Memphis.
At issue is allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated ten-thousand current and former hourly workers and about one-thousand low-level management employees.
http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3913327
EEOC complaints allege age discrimination, violations of disability act by Greece School district
9/28/05
NEWS 10NBC has obtained copies of complaints filed against the Greece school district as part of a discrimination suit brought by 5 teachers. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission filings continue to fuel rumors that the Greece School Board is actually targeting the superintendent. The complaints allege unfair treatment based on age and in at least one-instance charges the school system violated the Americans with disabilities act. In its initial investigation, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissions Buffalo office determined: "there is reason to believe the violations have occurred" in all five cases. "We will find out if the process that's in question is a fair one. And that's really what we're after," said School Board President Ken Walsh This week the Greece School District hired an outside investigator to look into the claims. Last Friday at a contentious school board meeting, parents and teachers questioned the board’s real intentions.
http://www.10nbc.com/news.asp?template=item&story_id=16330
Westerly Officer Files Notice Of Intent To Sue Town For Gender Discrimination
Matarese Says She Was Passed Over For Chief's Position
Tim Martin
Lauren Matarese has her Westerly Police captain's badge pinned on her by retired police chief Jim Gulluscio after being sworn in at a ceremony in the City Council chambers at Westerly Town Hall in August of 2004. Matarese has filed notice of intent to sue the department for gender discrimination after being passed over for chief.
By ELAINE STOLL
Day Staff Writer, Westerly/North Stonington
Published on 9/28/2005
Westerly — Capt. Lauren A. Matarese, a 23-year veteran of the Westerly Police Department and its highest-ranking female member ever, notified the town this month of her intent to sue because she was passed over for promotion to chief.
Seeking “an amount no less than $500,000,” Matarese plans to sue Westerly over a decision last year by Town Manager Joseph T. Turo to pass over her, instead appointing then-Capt. Edward A. Mello for the job.
Starting Friday, Matarese will serve as acting chief while Mello trains in Virginia for 11 weeks.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=b4ac454c-6bb0-44c7-920a-7534dc04404c
Where the state may not enter
Educate the girl child, but leave family planning to the family
Recently, a slew of measures to improve women’s conditions have been announced or promulgated — a bill against domestic violence, reform
of property rights for Hindu women and, most recently, enabling measures for the girl child. All these are welcome and much-needed interventions to improve the lives of women. To the credit of the government, it zeroed in early to the declining numbers of girls evidenced in the 2001 census and set about creating measures to ameliorate the situation. As a result, we have seen a change in the attitude of the government in its ‘‘family planning’’ advertising and in several schemes introduced from time to time.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=78961
WATERVILLE -- Two accountants, a minister and a doctor will present their views in support of a law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination at a panel set for tonight.
Sponsored by Maine Won't Discriminate, the group will talk about why they support the law that is being challenged by a people's veto. On Nov. 8, voters will be asked whether they want to repeal a law that gives gays and lesbians protection from discrimination in housing, education, employment, credit and public accommodations.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1999663.shtml
Tyson Foods Faces Discrimination Lawsuit
'Whites Only' sign said to be in Ala. food processing plant, Black employees file suit against corp.
By Shaleem Thompson
Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Forty-one years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, several employees at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Ashland, Ala., said they revisited the Jim Crow era by being forced to work in a segregated work area.
On August 11, 13 black employees for the plant quietly filed a complaint claiming that a "Whites Only" sign was placed on a bathroom door in their work area. The employees said that a padlock, to which only certain white employees had a key, prevented them from entering the bathroom.
The employees said that when they complained about the segregated bathroom, plant managers told them that it was closed because the bathroom was "dirty," even though white employees regularly used the room.
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/media/paper590/news/2005/09/28/NationWorld/Tyson.Foods.Faces.Discrimination.Lawsuit-1000922.shtml
Carmike settles employee discrimination suit
Carmike Cinemas will pay $765,000 to settle a Sept. 2004 employee discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC filed the suit on behalf of 14 young men working for a theater in Raleigh, N.C. who were subject to unwelcome sexual touching, egregious sexual comments and other sexual advances from a male supervisor. The settlement will be divided among the victims in varying amounts agreed to by the victims and Carmike, said Lynette Barnes, acting regional attorney with the EEOC.
The payment is the largest is the largest damages that have been awarded since the EEOC began tracking teen harassment lawsuits in 2001. At its theaters in North Carolina and Virginia, Carmike will also be made to distribute its sexual harassment policy to all new hires. It will also have to post a revised summary of the policy, provide annual training seminars to managers, supervisors and new hires on sexual harassment and post a notice at those theaters about the lawsuit and employees' rights under unit-discrimination laws.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/business/12756166.htm
The Commission on the Status of Women met today to convene two panel discussions on the integration of gender perspectives in macroeconomics and the role of regional and intergovernmental organizations promoting gender equality.
Statements
NENADI E. USMAN, Minister of State for Finance of Nigeria, said that though the Constitution provided for equality of rights for every citizen, a national policy for women had had to be fashioned to remove gender equalities as a result of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. A number of policies to reduce gender equality had also been put in place. The Government had enhanced women’s access to the country’s socio-economic activities. Line ministries had been instructed to address gender issues, and that focus had resulted in a number of achievements, including special bank loans, the establishment of cottage industries for women, literacy and health programmes, microcredit schemes, and mass literacy and education programmes.
She said some 70 per cent of Nigeria’s poor were women. Nigerian women faced many challenges in benefiting from the Government’s macroeconomic incentives. Nigerian women were becoming increasingly involved in monitoring the impact of those programmes. For the first time in its history, Nigeria had a woman in charge of the Government’s finances. Women had also been put in charge of the investment and securities tribunal and the bureau for public enterprises. Deliberate efforts had been made to bring more women on board.
Regarding the way forward, she said Nigeria’s quest for macroeconomic stability and sustainable economic growth would continue to be gender sensitive. The Government was directing more public resources to the sectors of the economy that directly impacted women, such as the provision of water and rural electrification. The Government appreciated women’s efforts in the scheme of things and would continue to encourage their participation in projects designed for their betterment.
http://i-newswire.com/pr9732.html
U.S. Sponsors Discrimination.
Scott Plous
Book from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Release date: 22 October, 2002
More of our democracy and formerly "free" country got flushed down the toilet last week when the House of Republicans voted to allow states to freely discriminate against American citizens on the basis of religion.
That's right, we can already freely discriminate against gays in this country, now we can add religion to the list of the discriminated.
The Republican-led House approved a bill that lets churches and other faith-based preschool centers hire only people who share their religion, yet still receive federal tax dollars.
Yay! Free discrimination with no consequences - and the government will even pay you to do it!
That's right, Head Start Programs that are run by Catholics, now would have the right to refuse employment to anyone who is not Catholic. And the same would hold true for any faith. So what we have here is government funded discrimination. I'd love to see what would happen if a traditional company decided not to hire Christians because they disagreed with their religion - how fast would that company be slapped with lawsuits and lose any form of federal assistance or support?
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/26/161820.php
Human rights must include freedom from economic discrimination
By Hope Lewis and Ibrahim Gassama
Published: Monday, September 26, 2005
It should now be obvious: The catastrophe in the Gulf Coast is more than an appalling natural disaster requiring a humanitarian response. It is a horrific human rights crisis that demands a re-examination of communal obligations to those who for various reasons lack the means to save themselves.
The responses now coming from federal, state and local authorities, as well as private individuals and groups, will help address the many social needs exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/09/26/ed.col.gassama.0926.p1.php?section=opinion
Question of network's role may play key role in discrimination case
The Associated Press - ATLANTA
Is The Weather Channel a business or entertainment?
That's the question U.S. Magistrate Christopher Hagy asked lawyers on Monday during an evidentiary hearing on an age discrimination case. The answer may help determine a lawsuit filed by former reporter Marny Stanier Midkiff, who claims the Atlanta-based network dismissed her in favor of younger, sexier forecasters.
Midkiff, who was 41 when she was fired in 2003, claims the network purged older employees, particularly women. Her lawyer, Dan Klein, introduced an October 2002 memo from Terry Connelly, a network official, that said viewers described the network's female broadcasters as matronly, dowdy and old.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=65579
Amid Criticism of Federal Efforts, Charges of Racism Are Lodged
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: September 5, 2005
HOUSTON, Sept. 4 - The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina became a rallying cry for African-American religious and political leaders here in President Bush's former hometown on Sunday, with pleas for charity mixed with a seething anger at the response to the crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05race.html
Political hurricane swirls around Bush
Accusations of racism, slow response to Katrina dog administration
NEW ORLEANS — Five days after it had expressed only polite interest in the hurricane sweeping across the United States' south-eastern states, the Bush administration found itself lashed by the storm's wake.
… Senator Chuck Hagel, a leading contender for his party's nomination to succeed Mr Bush, added: "There must be some accountability."
… It hasn't helped Mr Bush that he did not alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remained on holiday in Wyoming. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Washington after being seen buying US$7,000 ($11,700) shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/70544.asp
Kanye West Accuses Bush of Racism on Hurricane Telethon
Posted on 9/4/05 at 12:59 AM ET
Kanye West, never one to shy away from expressing his opinions, has accused the U.S. government of forsaking its black population at Friday’s “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.”
The rapper declared that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a 90-second segment he did with comedian Mike Myers on the celebrity telethon for Hurricane Katrina survivors. West surprised everyone when he went off script on the special, which aired live on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Pax.
http://www.andpop.com/article/4833
Message: I Care About the Black Folks
By FRANK RICH
ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.
The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.
In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.
Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.
Taking responsibility, as opposed to paying lip service to doing so, is not in this administration's gene pool. It was particularly shameful that Laura Bush was sent among the storm's dispossessed to try to scapegoat the news media for her husband's ineptitude. When she complained of seeing "a lot of the same footage over and over that isn't necessarily representative of what really happened," the first lady sounded just like Donald Rumsfeld shirking responsibility for the looting of Baghdad. The defense secretary, too, griped about seeing the same picture "over and over" on television (a looter with a vase) to hide the reality that the Pentagon had no plan to secure Iraq, a catastrophic failure being paid for in Iraqi and American blood to this day.
This White House doesn't hate all pictures, of course. It loves those by Karl Rove's Imagineers, from the spectacularly lighted Statue of Liberty backdrop of Mr. Bush's first 9/11 anniversary speech to his "Top Gun" stunt to Thursday's laughably stagy stride across the lawn to his lectern in Jackson Square. (Message: I am a leader, not that vacationing slacker who first surveyed the hurricane damage from my presidential jet.)
The most odious image-mongering, however, has been Mr. Bush's repeated deployment of African-Americans as dress extras to advertise his "compassion." In 2000, the Republican convention filled the stage with break dancers and gospel singers, trying to dispel the memory of Mr. Bush's craven appearance at Bob Jones University when it forbade interracial dating. (The few blacks in the convention hall itself were positioned near celebrities so they'd show up in TV shots.) In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site had a page titled "Compassion" devoted mainly to photos of the president with black people, Colin Powell included.
Some of these poses are re-enacted in the "Hurricane Relief" photo gallery currently on display on the White House Web site. But this time the old magic isn't working. The "compassion" photos are outweighed by the cinéma vérité of poor people screaming for their lives. The government effort to keep body recovery efforts in New Orleans as invisible as the coffins from Iraq was abandoned when challenged in court by CNN.
But even now the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process. Brazenly enough, Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.
The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.
WHEN there's money on the line, cronies always come first in this White House, no matter how great the human suffering. After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place.
It was back in 2000 that Mr. Bush, in a debate with Al Gore, bragged about his gubernatorial prowess "on the front line of catastrophic situations," specifically citing a Texas flood, and paid the Clinton administration a rare compliment for putting a professional as effective as James Lee Witt in charge of FEMA. Exactly why Mr. Bush would staff that same agency months later with political hacks is one of many questions that must be answered by the independent investigation he and the Congressional majority are trying every which way to avoid. With or without a 9/11-style commission, the answers will come out. There are too many Americans who are angry and too many reporters who are on the case. (NBC and CNN are both opening full-time bureaus in New Orleans.) You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.
What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html?ei=5090&en=64a2f63f0c39dc70&ex=1284696000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
FDA OKs Generic Versions of AIDS Drug
Published September 20 2005, 2:02 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The FDA has approved the first generic versions of the AIDS medication AZT, a move that could reduce the expense for people in the United States being treated for the disease.
AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that is also known as Zidovudine, helps prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing in the body. It is often used in combination with other medications to treat an HIV infection.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top13sep20,0,501565.story?coll=scn-newsnation-headlines
Austrian national anthem to go for gender equality
Vienna September 26, 2005 5:25:06 PM IST
Austria's national anthem may be changed to give equality to men and women, according to a proposal by Women's Affairs Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat Monday.
She said a reference to "great sons" of Austria should be changed to "great daughters, sons". The term "fatherland" should be replaced by "homeland", and the words "brotherly choirs" by "joyful choirs".
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=121073&n_date=20050926&cat=World
Panel discusses gender identity
by Emily Bitton
September 25, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, a panel met discussing "Media Portrayals of Gender Identity: What are Ethical Alternatives?" as part of Ethics Week.
Arwen Castillo, student and employee of the Equity Center, was the moderator for the discussion. She asked Kolby Jensen, a business major and employee of the Equity Center, and philosophy major Gregory Lucero, questions regarding the media. Jensen and Lucero were the two panelists.
An initial inquiry was, "How does the media shape gender identity?" Panelists replied with, "Gender identity is how the media tells a woman what will make her feminine and how the media tells a man what will make him masculine."
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/25/433841b92caed
Residents charge discrimination
By LEE ROMNEY / Los Ángeles Times
(Published Wednesday, September, 28, 2005 11:45AM)
MODESTO --This city has grown in lurches in recent decades, snatching up vacant land to erect subdivisions with soothing names like The Bluffs and Fleur de Lis.
The costs of sidewalks, sewers and other urban amenities were borne by developers, who passed them down to incoming -- and largely white -- homeowners.
Left behind in the hopscotching growth rush were a cluster of aging unincorporated pockets just outside the city's southern flank. Poor, predominantly Latino, and now nearly surrounded by annexed property, the neighborhoods had long outgrown their fraying rural infrastructure.
http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/news/english/story/11279085p-12029333c.html
Feds sue Sonic Drive-In alleging discrimination
ALBUQUERQUE -- The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Albuquerque Sonic Drive-In, alleging it discriminated against pregnant women.
The EEOC says the drive-ins -- operated by RWW Enterprises -- refused to hire pregnant women for carhop jobs.
The agency says that violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
The federal lawsuit also contends Sonic fired or rescinded a job offer to one woman because she was pregnant.
The regional attorney for the EEOC says there has been a 37 percent increase in pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the commission over the past ten years.
http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?ID=12225
FedEx accused of discrimination
SEP. 28 8:29 P.M. ET A federal judge on Wednesday certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corp. amid allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated 10,000 current and former hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and parts of Texas.
James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg added.
"FedEx knows that black and Hispanics fail at a much higher rate, but yet has not changed the test," Finberg said.
Jim McCluskey, a FedEx spokesman, said the Memphis, Tenn.-based company was considering appealing the ruling, which the company called a "procedural decision" that does not address the case's merits.
"We are confident that when the merits of the case are considered, it will be shown that the plaintiffs were not treated differently because of their race or ethnicity," McCluskey said.
The suit was filed in 2003 by eight current and former employees. It seeks millions of dollars in damages and an end to the company's alleged discriminatory practices.
In court documents, FedEx contended that promotions were based on "objective" factors, not race, that include time of service, passing a basic skills test, previous performance evaluations and whether the employee has been disciplined.
FedEx's statistical analysis shows that minorities receive higher evaluations on average than whites in many job categories, and showed that minorities received higher wages than whites in many jobs.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said it would be up to a jury to decide the conflicting data. No trial has been set.
Pasted from <http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8CTJAP04.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db
Judge certifies class action accusing FedEx of discrimination
SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge in San Francisco has certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corporation of Memphis.
At issue is allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated ten-thousand current and former hourly workers and about one-thousand low-level management employees.
http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3913327
EEOC complaints allege age discrimination, violations of disability act by Greece School district
9/28/05
NEWS 10NBC has obtained copies of complaints filed against the Greece school district as part of a discrimination suit brought by 5 teachers. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission filings continue to fuel rumors that the Greece School Board is actually targeting the superintendent. The complaints allege unfair treatment based on age and in at least one-instance charges the school system violated the Americans with disabilities act. In its initial investigation, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissions Buffalo office determined: "there is reason to believe the violations have occurred" in all five cases. "We will find out if the process that's in question is a fair one. And that's really what we're after," said School Board President Ken Walsh This week the Greece School District hired an outside investigator to look into the claims. Last Friday at a contentious school board meeting, parents and teachers questioned the board’s real intentions.
http://www.10nbc.com/news.asp?template=item&story_id=16330
Westerly Officer Files Notice Of Intent To Sue Town For Gender Discrimination
Matarese Says She Was Passed Over For Chief's Position
Tim Martin
Lauren Matarese has her Westerly Police captain's badge pinned on her by retired police chief Jim Gulluscio after being sworn in at a ceremony in the City Council chambers at Westerly Town Hall in August of 2004. Matarese has filed notice of intent to sue the department for gender discrimination after being passed over for chief.
By ELAINE STOLL
Day Staff Writer, Westerly/North Stonington
Published on 9/28/2005
Westerly — Capt. Lauren A. Matarese, a 23-year veteran of the Westerly Police Department and its highest-ranking female member ever, notified the town this month of her intent to sue because she was passed over for promotion to chief.
Seeking “an amount no less than $500,000,” Matarese plans to sue Westerly over a decision last year by Town Manager Joseph T. Turo to pass over her, instead appointing then-Capt. Edward A. Mello for the job.
Starting Friday, Matarese will serve as acting chief while Mello trains in Virginia for 11 weeks.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=b4ac454c-6bb0-44c7-920a-7534dc04404c
Where the state may not enter
Educate the girl child, but leave family planning to the family
Recently, a slew of measures to improve women’s conditions have been announced or promulgated — a bill against domestic violence, reform
of property rights for Hindu women and, most recently, enabling measures for the girl child. All these are welcome and much-needed interventions to improve the lives of women. To the credit of the government, it zeroed in early to the declining numbers of girls evidenced in the 2001 census and set about creating measures to ameliorate the situation. As a result, we have seen a change in the attitude of the government in its ‘‘family planning’’ advertising and in several schemes introduced from time to time.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=78961
WATERVILLE -- Two accountants, a minister and a doctor will present their views in support of a law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination at a panel set for tonight.
Sponsored by Maine Won't Discriminate, the group will talk about why they support the law that is being challenged by a people's veto. On Nov. 8, voters will be asked whether they want to repeal a law that gives gays and lesbians protection from discrimination in housing, education, employment, credit and public accommodations.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1999663.shtml
Tyson Foods Faces Discrimination Lawsuit
'Whites Only' sign said to be in Ala. food processing plant, Black employees file suit against corp.
By Shaleem Thompson
Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Forty-one years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, several employees at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Ashland, Ala., said they revisited the Jim Crow era by being forced to work in a segregated work area.
On August 11, 13 black employees for the plant quietly filed a complaint claiming that a "Whites Only" sign was placed on a bathroom door in their work area. The employees said that a padlock, to which only certain white employees had a key, prevented them from entering the bathroom.
The employees said that when they complained about the segregated bathroom, plant managers told them that it was closed because the bathroom was "dirty," even though white employees regularly used the room.
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/media/paper590/news/2005/09/28/NationWorld/Tyson.Foods.Faces.Discrimination.Lawsuit-1000922.shtml
Carmike settles employee discrimination suit
Carmike Cinemas will pay $765,000 to settle a Sept. 2004 employee discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC filed the suit on behalf of 14 young men working for a theater in Raleigh, N.C. who were subject to unwelcome sexual touching, egregious sexual comments and other sexual advances from a male supervisor. The settlement will be divided among the victims in varying amounts agreed to by the victims and Carmike, said Lynette Barnes, acting regional attorney with the EEOC.
The payment is the largest is the largest damages that have been awarded since the EEOC began tracking teen harassment lawsuits in 2001. At its theaters in North Carolina and Virginia, Carmike will also be made to distribute its sexual harassment policy to all new hires. It will also have to post a revised summary of the policy, provide annual training seminars to managers, supervisors and new hires on sexual harassment and post a notice at those theaters about the lawsuit and employees' rights under unit-discrimination laws.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/business/12756166.htm
The New York Times
IT IS ALL, ALL, ALL A LITTLE TOO CONSERVATIVE FOR ME. There were some interesting 'trends' but nothing I really value.
From Gucci, Designs So Tame They're Dangerous
By CATHY HORYN
Published: September 29, 2005
MILAN, Sept. 28 - Diana Vreeland was famous for going up to Seventh Avenue manufacturers and demanding, "Show me the lemons." Lemons were the clothes that no merchant bought, and Vreeland prized these rejects for what the odd proportion or the ugly shoulder might reveal about the direction of fashion.
Judging by the sour pusses at Gucci tonight, Frida Giannini's first major runway show since succeeding Tom Ford was a stinker. Comments from retail executives about her pinched-shoulder jackets, her black satin Bermudas and beaded tea dresses ranged from "dreadful" to "disaster." A Neiman Marcus executive, requesting anonymity because of the store's pending sale and its lucrative business with Gucci, said: "This is a brand that represents desire and want. When you put something that safe on the runway it's dangerous."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/fashion/shows/29FASHION.html?hp
For G.O.P., DeLay Indictment Adds to a Sea of Troubles
By ROBIN TONER
Published: September 29, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - This is not what the Republicans envisioned 11 months ago, when they were returned to office as a powerful one-party government with a big agenda and - it seemed - little to fear from the opposition.
The indictment of Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, on Wednesday was the latest in a series of scandals and setbacks that have buffeted Republican leaders in Congress and the Bush administration, and transformed what might have been a victory lap into a hard political scramble. Republicans are still managing to score some victories - notably, Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s expected confirmation as chief justice of the United States on Thursday - but their governing majority is showing signs of strain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/politics/29assess.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=5363f9e5944b39a4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Governor Bars Freedom Center at Ground Zero
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: September 29, 2005
After a summer of furious and steadily rising criticism, Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum yesterday from its place next to the World Trade Center memorial site. With that, the museum declared itself to be out of business.
"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Mr. Pataki said in a statement. That quadrant, at the southwest corner of the trade center site, contains the footprints of the twin towers.
The Freedom Center, picked for the memorial site by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was envisioned as a living memorial in which the story of Sept. 11, 2001, would be told in the context of the worldwide struggle for freedom through the ages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/nyregion/29freedom.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=de3ad1b7844ba5b7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
It's interesting.
Cut-Rate Homes For Middle Class Are Catching On
By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: September 29, 2005
NOVATO, Calif. - Janice Quinci likes nice things: fashionable clothes, dinner out with her husband, a private school for her daughter. With a household income in the six figures, Ms. Quinci can pretty much enjoy it all.
Janice Quinci with her children, Frankie, 1, and Sophia, 3, outside their new home in Novato, Calif.
With the notable exception, until now, of a home of her own.
"We figured we would rent our whole lives," Ms. Quinci said. "We didn't really think that we could afford to have a place to ourselves."
Ms. Quinci, 29, was speaking from the front porch of her three-bedroom townhouse here in suburban Marin County, north of San Francisco. She and her husband, Vito, a salesman for a wine distributor, bought it new from a developer last November with no money down and at a steep discount. Inside, the refrigerator was pushed aside as workers laid a new kitchen floor - at no cost to the Quincis - because the original one was not up to snuff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/29afford.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=c7bf961b1313bd57&ei=5094&partner=homepage
I hope Mayor Nigan includes citizens in the commission. New Orleans needs to have more income to it's people with opportunity they value. There are a lot of dynamics to New Orleans but certainly the poverty proliferating itself is detrimental and should not be tolerated. Not tolerated from the stand point of opportunity and not exclusion.
A Mogul Who Would Rebuild New Orleans
By GARY RIVLIN
Published: September 29, 2005
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 28 - Many of the business elite of New Orleans seem preoccupied these days by what some here simply call The List - the chosen few Mayor C. Ray Nagin is expected to name on Friday to a commission to advise him on the rebuilding of the stricken city. Almost certain to make the grade is the real estate mogul Joseph C. Canizaro, the man best known for bringing high-rises to the New Orleans skyline.
Mr. Canizaro has emerged as perhaps the single most influential business executive from New Orleans. One fellow business leader calls him the local Donald Trump. But Mr. Canizaro derives his influence far less from a flamboyant style than from his close ties to President Bush as well as to Mr. Nagin, and that combination could make him a pivotal figure in deciding how and where New Orleans will be resurrected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/business/29mogul.html
The New Zealand Herald
Typhoon Damrey toll mounts as floods sweep in
29.09.05
HANOI - Flash floods spawned by Typhoon Damrey killed at least four people in Thailand and hard-hit Vietnam reported 22 swept away in similar torrents in its northern mountains.
The deaths took the known toll to at least 41 in Damrey's rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan -- where the econmic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion -- Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand.
Despite waning after hitting land in Vietnam, Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- was still pounding wide areas with heavy rain and a Thai official said water spilling from a breached dam threatened the northern city of Chiang Mai.
"Heavy rain broke the reservoir and the water will flow into Chiang Mai today. Right now, the city is throwing up walls of sand bags," said Prasert Indee, a senior official in the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347775
Arctic sea ice melts to record low
29.09.05 4.00pm
By Steve Connor
Arctic sea ice has melted to a record low this month prompting fears that the entire polar ice cap may disappear within decades during the summer period.
Satellite images of the northern hemisphere's floating sea ice show that the area of ocean covered by the ice this September was the lowest ever observed by scientists.
It is the fourth consecutive summer that the area covered by the sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk below even the long-term decline, which began at least as far back as the late 1970s.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10347877
Family of Brazilian killed by police visit London station
29.09.05 1.10pm
By Terry Kirby
After an emotional visit to the spot where Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police marksmen, his parents said that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, must take the blame for failing in his duty to protect their son.
Maria Otone de Menezes said her 27-year-old son, an electrician, had been "killed like a mad dog" when he was shot by Scotland Yard officers on a train at Stockwell Underground station on 22 July in the mistaken belief he was a suicide bomber.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347864
South African gold mining magnate murdered say police
29.09.05 1.00pm
By Basildon Peta
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa is in shock after the apparent contract killing of one of the country's most prominent gold mining magnates and political figures, who was shot dead at the wheel of his car.
Brett Kebble, a member of President Thabo Mbeki's ruling African National Congress (ANC) and a key supporter of the recently sacked deputy president Jacob Zuma, was killed on Tuesday evening as he drove his silver Mercedes through northern Johannesburg's plush Melrose suburb on his way to dinner at a friend's house.
The blood-spattered body of the heavy-set businessman was found slumped over the steering wheel of his bullet-riddled car after it smashed into the railing of a bridge.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347854
Civil rights at risk in terror backlash
29.09.05
By Helen Tunnah and Agencies
John Howard has been accused of frightening Australians with harsh new anti-terror laws he says are necessary but which even some supporters admit are "draconian".
The Australian Prime Minister's plan to change the law so a person can be detained for up to two weeks without charge has also been labelled a threat to the freedoms the so-called "war on terror" is meant to be protecting.
New Zealand is not expected to follow Australia's lead in seeking house arrest or greater detention powers, although measures such as increased personal searches and questioning at big events, such as sporting contests, cannot be ruled out.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347806
Five foreshore and seabed claims lodged
30.09.05 6.45pm
Five claims for customary rights orders over parts of the coastline have now been lodged with the Maori Land Court under the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
The Justice Ministry yesterday publicly notified and called for submissions on two of the claims.
The first, on behalf of Te Whakatohea Iwi, is seeking rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga -- authority and guardianship -- over a 50km stretch of Bay of Plenty coastline east of Whakatane.
The claim was lodged earlier this year.
The second is by a southern group called Te Makati whanau, which is asking for kaitiakitanga over an area of Southland coast between Chaslands Mistake and Wallace Head.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10347905
Health board refuses to back down on child's bill
29.09.05
Fourteen and half years is too long to wait for full payment of a non-resident child's heart disease treatment, the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) says.
The father of three-year-old stroke victim Shihab Fahim has asked the ADHB to allow the family to repay their $37,500 medical bill in weekly payments of $50.
But the board has told the family the bill must be paid within 12 months -- the equivalent of $664.47 a week -- or the case would be "placed in the hands of an international debt collector and New Zealand immigration service."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10347862
Weed has trout rivers in its grip
29.09.05
By Anne Beston
Two popular trout rivers have been effectively closed and restrictions will be put on a third in the next few days as an invasive foreign weed threatens some of New Zealand's most beautiful waterways.
As the trout fishing season kicks off this weekend, around 200km of Southland's lower Waiau and Mararoa Rivers have been declared biosecurity zones, effectively barring anglers and whitebaiters, while restrictions will be put on the Buller River soon.
The invasive aquatic plant didymo (pronounced did-ee-mo) has been found in all three rivers. A microscopic organism that blooms into thick, unsightly clumps, didymo suffocates riverbeds, threatens trout and other fish and makes wading dangerous.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10347802
German candidates optimistic for coalition talks
29.09.05 1.00pm
BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative leader Angela Merkel voiced optimism after talks to forge a power-sharing coalition on Wednesday despite disagreeing on who should lead the country.
"Constructive, serious," was the verdict of Merkel to reporters after meeting Schroeder and Social Democrat (SPD) chief Franz Muentefering.
"And when you think how we spoke with and against each other 14 days ago in the election campaign, I would have thought it almost impossible, but there is a great seriousness there to find a way as to whether we can forge a coalition together."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10347867
UK rules out military action against Iran
29.09.05
BRIGHTON - Military action against Iran over its nuclear ambitions is not on the agenda of the United States or Europe, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said.
Straw also urged Tehran to cooperate with the West to resolve a stand-off over its nuclear programme.
"There is no question of us going to war in Iran. Why? Because it's not going to resolve the issue," Straw said.
"No one is talking about going to war against Iran. It's not on the agenda of the United States," he told Sky News from the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347781
Thialand was in the path of the December 24, 2004 tsunami, too.
Today, September 29, 2005.
Chiang Mai, Thialand.
Photographer states :: Heavy rains from Typhoon Damrey overwhelmed a dam in northern Thailand and the Ping River will flood Chiang Mai for the 4th time in 6 weeks. The river is expected to be 1 meter over flood stage.
Morning Papers - Concluded
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:
Scott Base
Clear
-21.0°
Updated Thursday 29 Sep 8:59PM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:
48 °F / 9 °C
Mostly Cloudy
Windchill:
43 °F / 6 °C
Humidity:
82%
Dew Point:
43 °F / 6 °C
Wind:
13 mph / 20 km/h from the SE
Pressure:
29.36 in / 994 hPa
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Mostly Cloudy 4400 ft / 1341 m
Mostly Cloudy 5000 ft / 1524 m
(Above Ground Level)
end
Scott Base
Clear
-21.0°
Updated Thursday 29 Sep 8:59PM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:
48 °F / 9 °C
Mostly Cloudy
Windchill:
43 °F / 6 °C
Humidity:
82%
Dew Point:
43 °F / 6 °C
Wind:
13 mph / 20 km/h from the SE
Pressure:
29.36 in / 994 hPa
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Mostly Cloudy 4400 ft / 1341 m
Mostly Cloudy 5000 ft / 1524 m
(Above Ground Level)
end
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