July 19, 2005. UNISYS GOES West. "Eugene" in the Pacifc and "Emily" in the Atlantic. Mexico in the Middle.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Is anyone paying attention to Romania?
Epidemics - new risk in floods affected areas
published in issue 3473
page 2 at 2005-07-19
The greatest danger for the floods victims in eastern Romania’s Moldavia is now represented by the numerous centres of infection, which can be sources of epidemics. In the village of Vadu Rosca, Vrancea County, several thousands cows, dogs, pigs and chicken have died drowned in the flooding. Their bodies can still be seen in the streets or even in the people’s yards. The authorities have taken measures to collect them, but the equipment cannot reach all the regions because the waters have not entirely receded. The vaccination campaign is in full swing, but many locals refuse to go to dispensaries....
Fighting the Siret
...Environment Minister said yesterday that the waters of the Siret are being discharged at Calimanesti, at a rate of 800 cu.m. per second, but this will not prompt new floods. Lucia Varga, Secretary of State in Environment Ministry, said that the new discharges will conduct to a rise of the Siret waters by a few centimetres, but there will not be any danger. “I want to make a comparison, more and more frequently used lately, with the floods of 1970, when the Siret produced a disaster. Then, the flash flood counted 3,000 cu.m. per second, while now it has been 4,500 cu.m., much more.”...
Death toll rises to 21
...Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu announced yesterday, at Victoria Palace, after a new session of the National Emergency Committee, which was attended for the third time also by President Traian Basescu, that the number of the floods victims has reached 21 in Moldavia, after the body of a man was discovered in the village of Maicanesti, Vrancea County. The latter was actually the county where the floods made the greatest number of victims - 14....
published in issue 3473
page 2 at 2005-07-19
The greatest danger for the floods victims in eastern Romania’s Moldavia is now represented by the numerous centres of infection, which can be sources of epidemics. In the village of Vadu Rosca, Vrancea County, several thousands cows, dogs, pigs and chicken have died drowned in the flooding. Their bodies can still be seen in the streets or even in the people’s yards. The authorities have taken measures to collect them, but the equipment cannot reach all the regions because the waters have not entirely receded. The vaccination campaign is in full swing, but many locals refuse to go to dispensaries....
Fighting the Siret
...Environment Minister said yesterday that the waters of the Siret are being discharged at Calimanesti, at a rate of 800 cu.m. per second, but this will not prompt new floods. Lucia Varga, Secretary of State in Environment Ministry, said that the new discharges will conduct to a rise of the Siret waters by a few centimetres, but there will not be any danger. “I want to make a comparison, more and more frequently used lately, with the floods of 1970, when the Siret produced a disaster. Then, the flash flood counted 3,000 cu.m. per second, while now it has been 4,500 cu.m., much more.”...
Death toll rises to 21
...Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu announced yesterday, at Victoria Palace, after a new session of the National Emergency Committee, which was attended for the third time also by President Traian Basescu, that the number of the floods victims has reached 21 in Moldavia, after the body of a man was discovered in the village of Maicanesti, Vrancea County. The latter was actually the county where the floods made the greatest number of victims - 14....
Monday, July 18, 2005
Michael Moore Today
First Source;
Rove: "I've already said too much."
Time reporter Rove was first source on CIA agent
By Randall Mikkelsen / Reuters
WASHINGTON - White House political aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was a CIA agent, the reporter said in an article on Sunday.
Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3355
Cheney's Chief of Staff Implicated
Reporter Says Cheney Aide Was a Source
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was a source along with the president's chief political adviser for a Time story that identified a CIA officer, the magazine reporter said Sunday, further countering White House claims that neither aide was involved in the leak.
In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to fire deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, Republicans said that Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame's identity from the news media. That exonerates Rove, the Republican Party chairman said, and Democrats should apologize.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3365
"What I Told The Grand Jury"-- by Matthew Cooper
"What I Told The Grand Jury"
Matthew Cooper reveals exactly what Karl Rove told him--and what the special counsel zeroed in on
By Matthew Cooper / Time
It was my first interview with the President, and I expected a simple "Hello" when I walked into the Oval Office last December. Instead, George W. Bush joked, "Cooper! I thought you'd be in jail by now." The leader of the free world, it seems, had been following my fight against a federal subpoena seeking my testimony in the case of the leaking of the name of a CIA officer. I thought it was funny and good-natured of the President, but the line reminded me that I was, very weirdly, in the Oval Office, out on bond from a prison sentence, awaiting appeal--in large part, for protecting the confidence of someone in the West Wing. "What can I say, Mr. President," I replied, smiling. "The wheels of justice grind slowly."
After a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, the wheels of justice have stopped grinding--for me, anyway. Last week I testified before the federal grand jury investigating the leak. I did so after I received a specific last-minute waiver from one of my sources, Karl Rove, the President's top political adviser, releasing me from any claim of confidentiality he might have about our conversations in July 2003. Under federal law grand jurors and prosecutors are sworn to secrecy but those who testify, like me, are under no such obligation, which is why I'm able to tell you what happened in the grand jury room. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel, told me that he would prefer that I not discuss the matter, and I suspect he said the same thing to White House officials who are now treating his request as a command and refusing to comment on the case. I don't know if I can illuminate this confounding investigation, but I can at least explain my small part in it. Like the blindfolded man and the elephant, all I know is what seems to be in front of me.
So here's what happened last Wednesday.
Before going into the grand jury room at 9:30 a.m., my lawyers and I met briefly with Fitzgerald, a couple of his attorneys and the lead FBI agent in the case. It was, to say the least, unsettling sitting there in the federal courthouse in Washington with the man who, for months, had tried to get me to testify or he would put me in jail. Fitzgerald counseled me that he wanted me to answer completely but didn't want to force any answers on me or have me act as if I remembered things more clearly than I did. "If I show you a picture of your kindergarten teacher and it really refreshes your memory, say so," he said. "If it doesn't, don't say yes just because I show you a photo of you and her sitting together."
Grand juries are in the business of handing out indictments, and their docility is infamous. A grand jury, the old maxim goes, will indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it of them. But I didn't get that sense from this group of grand jurors. They somewhat reflected the demographics of the District of Columbia. The majority were African American and were disproportionately women. Most sat in black vinyl chairs with little desks in rows that were slightly elevated, as if it were a shabby classroom at a rundown college. A kindly African-American forewoman swore me in, and when I had to leave the room to consult with my attorneys, I asked her permission to be excused, not the prosecutor's, as is the custom. These grand jurors did not seem the types to passively indict a ham sandwich. I would say one-third of my 2 1/2 hours of testimony was spent answering their questions, not the prosecutor's, although he posed them on their behalf. I began to take notes but then was told I had to stop, so I'm reliant on memory.
For my part, I sat at the end of an L-shaped table next to one of the prosecutor's lawyers, who handed me various documents to review while an overhead projector displayed the documents on a screen near me. Virtually all the questions centered on the week of July 6, 2003. I was new to covering the Bush White House, having been the deputy Washington bureau chief for TIME. As it happens, that week was a big one at the White House. On that Sunday, the New York Times had published former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's now infamous Op-Ed describing his mission to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium to make nuclear weapons. Wilson said he had found no evidence of that and was confounded as to why the President would claim otherwise in his 2003 State of the Union address. As a freshly minted White House correspondent, I told the grand jury, I was all over that story by midweek, especially because it emerged as a likely candidate for TIME's cover the following Monday.
The grand jurors wanted to know what was on my mind, and I told them. The White House had done something it hardly ever does: it admitted a mistake. Shortly after Wilson's piece appeared, the White House said that the African uranium claim, while probably still true, should not have been in the President's State of the Union address because it hadn't been proved well enough. That was big news as the media flocked to find out who had vetted the President's speech. But at the same time, I was interested in an ancillary question about why government officials, publicly and privately, seemed to be disparaging Wilson. It struck me, as I told the grand jury, as odd and unnecessary, especially after their saying the President's address should not have included the 16-word claim about Saddam and African uranium.
I told the grand jurors that I was curious about Wilson when I called Karl Rove on Friday, July 11. Rove was an obvious call for any White House correspondent, let alone someone trying to prove himself at a new beat. As I told the grand jury--which seemed very interested in my prior dealings with Rove--I don't think we had spoken more than a handful of times before that. I recalled that when I got the White House job a couple of weeks earlier, I left a message for him trying to introduce myself and announce my new posting.
As I told the grand jury--and we went over this in microscopic, excruciating detail, which may someday prove relevant--I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office. I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation. But then, I recall, she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him. I recall saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected. "Don't get too far out on Wilson," he told me. I started taking notes on my computer, and while an e-mail I sent moments after the call has been leaked, my notes have not been.
The grand jury asked about one of the more interesting lines in that e-mail, in which I refer to my conversation with Rove as being on "double super secret background," a line that's raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain. I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film Animal House, in which John Belushi's wild Delta House fraternity is placed on "double secret probation." ("Super" was my own addition.) In fact, I told the grand jury, Rove told me the conversation was on "deep background." I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential.
Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and, I believe from my subsequent e-mails--although it's not in my notes--that Rove added that Dick Cheney didn't send him either. Indeed, the next day the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, told me Cheney had not been responsible for Wilson's mission.
Much of my grand jury session revolved around my notes and my e-mails. (Those e-mails and notes were given to the special counsel when Time Inc., over my objections, complied with a court order.) Owing to my typing, some words were a jumble. For instance, I wrote "don't get too war out on Wilson," when I clearly meant "far out." There were some words in my notes that I could not account for--at one point they read, "...notable..." I didn't know if that was Rove's word or mine, and one grand juror asked if it might mean "not able," as in "Wilson was not an able person." I said that was possible, but I just didn't recall that. The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings.
As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.
Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much." This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years.
This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a specific waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recounted an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew about or played any role in the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. Did Fitzgerald's questions give me a sense of where the investigation is heading? Perhaps. He asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.) Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document.
A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so.
So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3354
Flashback:"They Gave Me the Name and I Used It"-- Robert Novak
Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover
By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce / Newsday
WASHINGTON - The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3353
Studies: War spawning insurgents
By Brian Bender / Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank - both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States - have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3359
Labour MPs blame bombings on Iraq war
By Colin Brown and Andrew Grice / The Independent
The uneasy truce inside the Labour Party over the London bombings ended last night as an ex-cabinet minister and left-wing Labour MPs linked the attacks with the war in Iraq.
Left-wing Labour MPs said they would use a conference in London today to pile the pressure on Tony Blair to hasten the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. And Clare Short, the former cabinet minister, said in a television interview to be broadcast tomorrow that she "had no doubt" that the bombings were connected to the Iraqi conflict.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3360
Rove: "I've already said too much."
Time reporter Rove was first source on CIA agent
By Randall Mikkelsen / Reuters
WASHINGTON - White House political aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell a Time magazine reporter that the wife of a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy was a CIA agent, the reporter said in an article on Sunday.
Time correspondent Matthew Cooper said he told a grand jury last week that Rove told him the woman worked at the "agency," or CIA, on weapons of mass destruction issues, and ended the call by saying "I've already said too much."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3355
Cheney's Chief of Staff Implicated
Reporter Says Cheney Aide Was a Source
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was a source along with the president's chief political adviser for a Time story that identified a CIA officer, the magazine reporter said Sunday, further countering White House claims that neither aide was involved in the leak.
In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to fire deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, Republicans said that Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame's identity from the news media. That exonerates Rove, the Republican Party chairman said, and Democrats should apologize.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3365
"What I Told The Grand Jury"-- by Matthew Cooper
"What I Told The Grand Jury"
Matthew Cooper reveals exactly what Karl Rove told him--and what the special counsel zeroed in on
By Matthew Cooper / Time
It was my first interview with the President, and I expected a simple "Hello" when I walked into the Oval Office last December. Instead, George W. Bush joked, "Cooper! I thought you'd be in jail by now." The leader of the free world, it seems, had been following my fight against a federal subpoena seeking my testimony in the case of the leaking of the name of a CIA officer. I thought it was funny and good-natured of the President, but the line reminded me that I was, very weirdly, in the Oval Office, out on bond from a prison sentence, awaiting appeal--in large part, for protecting the confidence of someone in the West Wing. "What can I say, Mr. President," I replied, smiling. "The wheels of justice grind slowly."
After a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, the wheels of justice have stopped grinding--for me, anyway. Last week I testified before the federal grand jury investigating the leak. I did so after I received a specific last-minute waiver from one of my sources, Karl Rove, the President's top political adviser, releasing me from any claim of confidentiality he might have about our conversations in July 2003. Under federal law grand jurors and prosecutors are sworn to secrecy but those who testify, like me, are under no such obligation, which is why I'm able to tell you what happened in the grand jury room. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel, told me that he would prefer that I not discuss the matter, and I suspect he said the same thing to White House officials who are now treating his request as a command and refusing to comment on the case. I don't know if I can illuminate this confounding investigation, but I can at least explain my small part in it. Like the blindfolded man and the elephant, all I know is what seems to be in front of me.
So here's what happened last Wednesday.
Before going into the grand jury room at 9:30 a.m., my lawyers and I met briefly with Fitzgerald, a couple of his attorneys and the lead FBI agent in the case. It was, to say the least, unsettling sitting there in the federal courthouse in Washington with the man who, for months, had tried to get me to testify or he would put me in jail. Fitzgerald counseled me that he wanted me to answer completely but didn't want to force any answers on me or have me act as if I remembered things more clearly than I did. "If I show you a picture of your kindergarten teacher and it really refreshes your memory, say so," he said. "If it doesn't, don't say yes just because I show you a photo of you and her sitting together."
Grand juries are in the business of handing out indictments, and their docility is infamous. A grand jury, the old maxim goes, will indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it of them. But I didn't get that sense from this group of grand jurors. They somewhat reflected the demographics of the District of Columbia. The majority were African American and were disproportionately women. Most sat in black vinyl chairs with little desks in rows that were slightly elevated, as if it were a shabby classroom at a rundown college. A kindly African-American forewoman swore me in, and when I had to leave the room to consult with my attorneys, I asked her permission to be excused, not the prosecutor's, as is the custom. These grand jurors did not seem the types to passively indict a ham sandwich. I would say one-third of my 2 1/2 hours of testimony was spent answering their questions, not the prosecutor's, although he posed them on their behalf. I began to take notes but then was told I had to stop, so I'm reliant on memory.
For my part, I sat at the end of an L-shaped table next to one of the prosecutor's lawyers, who handed me various documents to review while an overhead projector displayed the documents on a screen near me. Virtually all the questions centered on the week of July 6, 2003. I was new to covering the Bush White House, having been the deputy Washington bureau chief for TIME. As it happens, that week was a big one at the White House. On that Sunday, the New York Times had published former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's now infamous Op-Ed describing his mission to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium to make nuclear weapons. Wilson said he had found no evidence of that and was confounded as to why the President would claim otherwise in his 2003 State of the Union address. As a freshly minted White House correspondent, I told the grand jury, I was all over that story by midweek, especially because it emerged as a likely candidate for TIME's cover the following Monday.
The grand jurors wanted to know what was on my mind, and I told them. The White House had done something it hardly ever does: it admitted a mistake. Shortly after Wilson's piece appeared, the White House said that the African uranium claim, while probably still true, should not have been in the President's State of the Union address because it hadn't been proved well enough. That was big news as the media flocked to find out who had vetted the President's speech. But at the same time, I was interested in an ancillary question about why government officials, publicly and privately, seemed to be disparaging Wilson. It struck me, as I told the grand jury, as odd and unnecessary, especially after their saying the President's address should not have included the 16-word claim about Saddam and African uranium.
I told the grand jurors that I was curious about Wilson when I called Karl Rove on Friday, July 11. Rove was an obvious call for any White House correspondent, let alone someone trying to prove himself at a new beat. As I told the grand jury--which seemed very interested in my prior dealings with Rove--I don't think we had spoken more than a handful of times before that. I recalled that when I got the White House job a couple of weeks earlier, I left a message for him trying to introduce myself and announce my new posting.
As I told the grand jury--and we went over this in microscopic, excruciating detail, which may someday prove relevant--I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office. I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation. But then, I recall, she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him. I recall saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected. "Don't get too far out on Wilson," he told me. I started taking notes on my computer, and while an e-mail I sent moments after the call has been leaked, my notes have not been.
The grand jury asked about one of the more interesting lines in that e-mail, in which I refer to my conversation with Rove as being on "double super secret background," a line that's raised a few eyebrows ever since it leaked into the public domain. I told the grand jury that the phrase is not a journalistic term of art but a reference to the film Animal House, in which John Belushi's wild Delta House fraternity is placed on "double secret probation." ("Super" was my own addition.) In fact, I told the grand jury, Rove told me the conversation was on "deep background." I explained to the grand jury that I take the term to mean that I can use the material but not quote it, and that I must keep the identity of my source confidential.
Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and, I believe from my subsequent e-mails--although it's not in my notes--that Rove added that Dick Cheney didn't send him either. Indeed, the next day the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, told me Cheney had not been responsible for Wilson's mission.
Much of my grand jury session revolved around my notes and my e-mails. (Those e-mails and notes were given to the special counsel when Time Inc., over my objections, complied with a court order.) Owing to my typing, some words were a jumble. For instance, I wrote "don't get too war out on Wilson," when I clearly meant "far out." There were some words in my notes that I could not account for--at one point they read, "...notable..." I didn't know if that was Rove's word or mine, and one grand juror asked if it might mean "not able," as in "Wilson was not an able person." I said that was possible, but I just didn't recall that. The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings.
As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.
Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much." This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years.
This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a specific waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recounted an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew about or played any role in the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. Did Fitzgerald's questions give me a sense of where the investigation is heading? Perhaps. He asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.) Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document.
A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so.
So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3354
Flashback:"They Gave Me the Name and I Used It"-- Robert Novak
Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover
By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce / Newsday
WASHINGTON - The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3353
Studies: War spawning insurgents
By Brian Bender / Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank - both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States - have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3359
Labour MPs blame bombings on Iraq war
By Colin Brown and Andrew Grice / The Independent
The uneasy truce inside the Labour Party over the London bombings ended last night as an ex-cabinet minister and left-wing Labour MPs linked the attacks with the war in Iraq.
Left-wing Labour MPs said they would use a conference in London today to pile the pressure on Tony Blair to hasten the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. And Clare Short, the former cabinet minister, said in a television interview to be broadcast tomorrow that she "had no doubt" that the bombings were connected to the Iraqi conflict.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3360
Sunday, July 17, 2005
My Morning Papers - continued ...
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Top Cheney aide among sources in CIA story
By PETE YOSTASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
In this photograph provided by 'Meet the Press', Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper talks about his testimony to the grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame during the taping of 'Meet the Press' Sunday, July 17, 2005 at the NBC studios in Washington..
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151&slug=CIA%20Leak%20Investigation
British Sunni group condemns bombingsTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this CCTV image made available in London Saturday July 16, 2005, by the Metropolitan Police, the four London bombers are seen arriving at Luton railway station at 0721 local time on Thursday July 7 , 2005. The image shows from left to right Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay, dark cap, Mohammed Sidique Khan, light cap, and Shahzad Tanweer.(AP Photo/Metropolitan Police, ho) BIRMINGHAM, England -- Britain's largest Sunni group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, known as a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings in London.
The Sunni Council said the bombings in London trains and a double-decker bus were against Islam, adding that any type of suicide attack was against the Quran. The attacks killed 55 people, including the four bombers, who were Muslims.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Britain%20Bombings
Small tsunami reveals big gaps in readiness along Pacific coast
By ALICIA CHANGAP SCIENCE WRITER
VENTURA, Calif. -- The tiny wave generated by a major undersea earthquake off the far Northern California coast last month revealed large gaps in how ready communities hugging the Pacific shoreline are for a true tsunami threat.
Although the alert was canceled about an hour after blaring sirens warned some towns of a could-be killer wave that never arrived, the effects of the magnitude-7.2 quake are still rattling emergency planners.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=CA%20Tsunami%20Warning
Seattle women bound for Cuba in defiance of law
By GEORGE ESTRADAASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEATTLE -- Cindy Domingo has been to Cuba a dozen times, but hopes she isn't pushing her luck too far for her 13th trip, when she'll travel without U.S government permission to protest tight new restrictions on visiting the communist country.
Domingo, a longtime Seattle activist dedicated to humanitarian and feminist causes, will accompany three other Seattle-area women on the July 21 trip and expects to join hundreds of other defiant travelers in a "travel challenge."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Defiant%20Travelers
Quake triggers rockfall at Mount St. HelensS
EATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES
MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT --
A magnitude 3 earthquake rattled Mount St. Helens yesterday, triggering rockfall and sending an ash plume above the crater rim, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The quake occurred at 5:22 a.m., the largest recorded at the volcano in several months. Its cause was not immediately known.
In the past two days scientists have placed new Global Positioning System monitors and a seismic station on the east and west sides of the glacier. Gas-emission readings earlier this week showed little change.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/232896_sthelens16.html
Governors voice National Guard concerns
By ROBERT TANNERAP NATIONAL WRITER
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, right, chairman of the National Governors Association, speaks during the opening news conference of the association's annual meeting as Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack listens Saturday, July 16, 2005, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) DES MOINES, Iowa -- The nation's governors voiced sharp worries Saturday for the National Guard troops they share with the federal government, saying changes caused by the huge demands of the war in Iraq need more examination.
More than 30 governors gathered here for their summer meeting, where they were scheduled to meet privately on Monday with top officials of the Guard, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Homeland Security Department.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%20Guard
Governors eyeing White House in 2008
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Many governors are potential presidential candidates in 2008, which makes Iowa, with its first-in-the-nation presidential voting status, a suitable setting for a National Governors Association meeting. Presidential politics was never far from the governors' minds during the meeting in Des Moines:
"I can tell you these guys will be friends of mine for a long time no matter what happens in politics." - Democratic Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, standing beside fellow Democrat Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Republican Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. All three are association leaders with presidential aspirations.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%202008
Governors aim to ease voters about change
By RON FOURNIERAP POLITICAL WRITER
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican or Democrat, most governors have two things in common. First, they want to be president. And they know that to be president they must find new policies and language - presumably both - that help voters feel less anxious about their place in a rapidly changing society.
"People sense that there are enormous changes going on in the world and they don't see Washington providing any answers," said Democratic Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%20Changing%20World
Groups fighting illegal immigration spread
By DUNCAN MANSFIELDASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. -- A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia.
At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped up nationally, inspired by the Minuteman Project that rallied hundreds this year to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Anti%20Immigration%20Minutemen
Pakistan probes ties to London bombings
By PAUL HAVENASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Intelligence agents swooped down on a religious school suspected of links to one of the London suicide bombers, questioning students, teachers and administrators about the alleged attacker, school and intelligence officials said Saturday.
Agents also visited at least two radical Islamic centers, armed with pictures and a dossier on Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old Briton of Pakistani ancestry who blew himself up in London's Underground. The July 7 attacks on subways and a double-decker bus killed 55, including four bombers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Pakistan%20Britain%20Bombings
Indonesia, Aceh rebels agree to peace dealBy SLOBODAN LEKICASSOCIATED PRESS
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) Supreme Leader Hasan di Tiro, right, and leader Malik Mahmud pose for a photo on the balcony of their office in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden, on June 23, 2005. The latest round of peace talks between the Indonesian government and separatists from tsunami-ravaged Aceh province of the country kicked off Tuesday, July 12, 2005 in Finland and both sides appeared to be nearing a deal to overcome the main obstacle in peace talks aimed at ending the long and bloody conflict in the province. (AP Photo/Naofumi Takeuchi) HELSINKI, Finland -- The Indonesian government and Aceh rebels agreed Sunday to sign a formal peace agreement next month, vowing to end a 29-year conflict that has killed 15,000 people in the tsunami-ravaged province.
The peace deal - which will allow reconstruction aid for victims of the Dec. 26 natural disaster - is to be signed Aug. 15 in Helsinki, the two sides said after wrapping up the fifth and final round of talks in the Finnish capital.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Aceh%20Peace%20Talks
Experts urge release of Iraq scientists
By CHARLES J. HANLEYAP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Former U.S. arms inspectors are calling for release of the final handful of Iraqi weapons scientists still imprisoned at Baghdad's high-security detention center, where the death of one of them remains an unsolved mystery 18 months after his battered body turned up at a local hospital.
A declassified document, meanwhile, tells of beatings and other abuse at the same Baghdad airport detention complex.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Scientists
Candidate returns Penthouse donations
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher has refunded $3,000 in campaign donations from companies tied to Penthouse magazine.
Gallagher, Florida's chief financial officer, said he rejected the money because the magazine doesn't reflect his conservative views.
"I have a strict policy of not accepting contributions from entities that don't share the mainstream Republican values I believe in," Gallagher said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1134&slug=Candidate%20Penthouse
Glacial cover-up won't stop global warming
By GEORGE JAHNASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Marc Olefs and Andrea Fischer, from left, researchers from the Innsbruck University take samples from the glacier, July 4, 2005, at Eisgrat (Ice Spine) skiing station on Stubai glacier near the village of Neustift im Stubaital in the alpine Austrian province of Tyrol. It gets so cold up at this Alpine skiing station that the locals call it Eisgrat, "Icy Spine." But Eisgrat's spine is melting.(AP Photo/George Jahn) EISGRAT, Austria -- It gets so cold up at this Alpine skiing station that the locals call it Eisgrat - "Icy Spine." But Eisgrat's spine is melting. A sign on a sheer cliff wall nearby points to a mountain hut. It should have been at visitors' eye level but is more than 60 feet above their heads. That's how much of the glacier has shrunk since the sign went up 35 years ago.
"It's not a good feeling," says Alois Ranalter, a maintenance worker who spends his summers focused on stopping the melt. "The glacier is our life."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Saving%20Glaciers
Mexico evacuates tourists before hurricaneBy MARK STEVENSONASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Tourists evacuate Isla Mujeres island on one of the last ferries as Hurricane Emily approaches Saturday July 16, 2005, in Islas Mujeres, Mexico. Mexican officials issued a hurricane warning Saturday for much of the eastern Yucatan peninsula, including the resort of Cancun, as Hurricane Emily barreled across the Caribbean south of Jamaica.(AP Photo/Israel Leal) CANCUN, Mexico -- A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world's largest resorts began Sunday, with hundreds of buses dispatched to move tens of thousands of vacationers away from Hurricane Emily, heading for a direct hit on Mexico's coast.
The size of the task was daunting: About 500 buses were ordered to move 30,000 tourists in Cancun - part of a total of 70,000-80,000 mostly foreign visitors to be evacuated statewide to temporary shelters in ballrooms and convention centers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Hurricane%20Emily
Top Cheney aide among sources in CIA story
By PETE YOSTASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
In this photograph provided by 'Meet the Press', Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper talks about his testimony to the grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame during the taping of 'Meet the Press' Sunday, July 17, 2005 at the NBC studios in Washington..
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151&slug=CIA%20Leak%20Investigation
British Sunni group condemns bombingsTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this CCTV image made available in London Saturday July 16, 2005, by the Metropolitan Police, the four London bombers are seen arriving at Luton railway station at 0721 local time on Thursday July 7 , 2005. The image shows from left to right Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay, dark cap, Mohammed Sidique Khan, light cap, and Shahzad Tanweer.(AP Photo/Metropolitan Police, ho) BIRMINGHAM, England -- Britain's largest Sunni group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, known as a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings in London.
The Sunni Council said the bombings in London trains and a double-decker bus were against Islam, adding that any type of suicide attack was against the Quran. The attacks killed 55 people, including the four bombers, who were Muslims.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Britain%20Bombings
Small tsunami reveals big gaps in readiness along Pacific coast
By ALICIA CHANGAP SCIENCE WRITER
VENTURA, Calif. -- The tiny wave generated by a major undersea earthquake off the far Northern California coast last month revealed large gaps in how ready communities hugging the Pacific shoreline are for a true tsunami threat.
Although the alert was canceled about an hour after blaring sirens warned some towns of a could-be killer wave that never arrived, the effects of the magnitude-7.2 quake are still rattling emergency planners.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=CA%20Tsunami%20Warning
Seattle women bound for Cuba in defiance of law
By GEORGE ESTRADAASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEATTLE -- Cindy Domingo has been to Cuba a dozen times, but hopes she isn't pushing her luck too far for her 13th trip, when she'll travel without U.S government permission to protest tight new restrictions on visiting the communist country.
Domingo, a longtime Seattle activist dedicated to humanitarian and feminist causes, will accompany three other Seattle-area women on the July 21 trip and expects to join hundreds of other defiant travelers in a "travel challenge."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Defiant%20Travelers
Quake triggers rockfall at Mount St. HelensS
EATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES
MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT --
A magnitude 3 earthquake rattled Mount St. Helens yesterday, triggering rockfall and sending an ash plume above the crater rim, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The quake occurred at 5:22 a.m., the largest recorded at the volcano in several months. Its cause was not immediately known.
In the past two days scientists have placed new Global Positioning System monitors and a seismic station on the east and west sides of the glacier. Gas-emission readings earlier this week showed little change.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/232896_sthelens16.html
Governors voice National Guard concerns
By ROBERT TANNERAP NATIONAL WRITER
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, right, chairman of the National Governors Association, speaks during the opening news conference of the association's annual meeting as Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack listens Saturday, July 16, 2005, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) DES MOINES, Iowa -- The nation's governors voiced sharp worries Saturday for the National Guard troops they share with the federal government, saying changes caused by the huge demands of the war in Iraq need more examination.
More than 30 governors gathered here for their summer meeting, where they were scheduled to meet privately on Monday with top officials of the Guard, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Homeland Security Department.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%20Guard
Governors eyeing White House in 2008
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Many governors are potential presidential candidates in 2008, which makes Iowa, with its first-in-the-nation presidential voting status, a suitable setting for a National Governors Association meeting. Presidential politics was never far from the governors' minds during the meeting in Des Moines:
"I can tell you these guys will be friends of mine for a long time no matter what happens in politics." - Democratic Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, standing beside fellow Democrat Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Republican Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. All three are association leaders with presidential aspirations.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%202008
Governors aim to ease voters about change
By RON FOURNIERAP POLITICAL WRITER
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican or Democrat, most governors have two things in common. First, they want to be president. And they know that to be president they must find new policies and language - presumably both - that help voters feel less anxious about their place in a rapidly changing society.
"People sense that there are enormous changes going on in the world and they don't see Washington providing any answers," said Democratic Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Governors%20Changing%20World
Groups fighting illegal immigration spread
By DUNCAN MANSFIELDASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MORRISTOWN, Tenn. -- A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia.
At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped up nationally, inspired by the Minuteman Project that rallied hundreds this year to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Anti%20Immigration%20Minutemen
Pakistan probes ties to London bombings
By PAUL HAVENASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Intelligence agents swooped down on a religious school suspected of links to one of the London suicide bombers, questioning students, teachers and administrators about the alleged attacker, school and intelligence officials said Saturday.
Agents also visited at least two radical Islamic centers, armed with pictures and a dossier on Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old Briton of Pakistani ancestry who blew himself up in London's Underground. The July 7 attacks on subways and a double-decker bus killed 55, including four bombers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Pakistan%20Britain%20Bombings
Indonesia, Aceh rebels agree to peace dealBy SLOBODAN LEKICASSOCIATED PRESS
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) Supreme Leader Hasan di Tiro, right, and leader Malik Mahmud pose for a photo on the balcony of their office in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden, on June 23, 2005. The latest round of peace talks between the Indonesian government and separatists from tsunami-ravaged Aceh province of the country kicked off Tuesday, July 12, 2005 in Finland and both sides appeared to be nearing a deal to overcome the main obstacle in peace talks aimed at ending the long and bloody conflict in the province. (AP Photo/Naofumi Takeuchi) HELSINKI, Finland -- The Indonesian government and Aceh rebels agreed Sunday to sign a formal peace agreement next month, vowing to end a 29-year conflict that has killed 15,000 people in the tsunami-ravaged province.
The peace deal - which will allow reconstruction aid for victims of the Dec. 26 natural disaster - is to be signed Aug. 15 in Helsinki, the two sides said after wrapping up the fifth and final round of talks in the Finnish capital.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Aceh%20Peace%20Talks
Experts urge release of Iraq scientists
By CHARLES J. HANLEYAP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Former U.S. arms inspectors are calling for release of the final handful of Iraqi weapons scientists still imprisoned at Baghdad's high-security detention center, where the death of one of them remains an unsolved mystery 18 months after his battered body turned up at a local hospital.
A declassified document, meanwhile, tells of beatings and other abuse at the same Baghdad airport detention complex.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Scientists
Candidate returns Penthouse donations
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher has refunded $3,000 in campaign donations from companies tied to Penthouse magazine.
Gallagher, Florida's chief financial officer, said he rejected the money because the magazine doesn't reflect his conservative views.
"I have a strict policy of not accepting contributions from entities that don't share the mainstream Republican values I believe in," Gallagher said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1134&slug=Candidate%20Penthouse
Glacial cover-up won't stop global warming
By GEORGE JAHNASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Marc Olefs and Andrea Fischer, from left, researchers from the Innsbruck University take samples from the glacier, July 4, 2005, at Eisgrat (Ice Spine) skiing station on Stubai glacier near the village of Neustift im Stubaital in the alpine Austrian province of Tyrol. It gets so cold up at this Alpine skiing station that the locals call it Eisgrat, "Icy Spine." But Eisgrat's spine is melting.(AP Photo/George Jahn) EISGRAT, Austria -- It gets so cold up at this Alpine skiing station that the locals call it Eisgrat - "Icy Spine." But Eisgrat's spine is melting. A sign on a sheer cliff wall nearby points to a mountain hut. It should have been at visitors' eye level but is more than 60 feet above their heads. That's how much of the glacier has shrunk since the sign went up 35 years ago.
"It's not a good feeling," says Alois Ranalter, a maintenance worker who spends his summers focused on stopping the melt. "The glacier is our life."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Saving%20Glaciers
Mexico evacuates tourists before hurricaneBy MARK STEVENSONASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Tourists evacuate Isla Mujeres island on one of the last ferries as Hurricane Emily approaches Saturday July 16, 2005, in Islas Mujeres, Mexico. Mexican officials issued a hurricane warning Saturday for much of the eastern Yucatan peninsula, including the resort of Cancun, as Hurricane Emily barreled across the Caribbean south of Jamaica.(AP Photo/Israel Leal) CANCUN, Mexico -- A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world's largest resorts began Sunday, with hundreds of buses dispatched to move tens of thousands of vacationers away from Hurricane Emily, heading for a direct hit on Mexico's coast.
The size of the task was daunting: About 500 buses were ordered to move 30,000 tourists in Cancun - part of a total of 70,000-80,000 mostly foreign visitors to be evacuated statewide to temporary shelters in ballrooms and convention centers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Hurricane%20Emily
The New Zealand Herald
Heavy rain floods houses and roads in Coromandel region
17.07.05 5.15pm
Homes and roads were left flooded in parts of Coromandel Peninsula this afternoon as heavy rain lashed the area before moving towards Gisborne.
While there were no reports of injuries, several motorists had to be rescued from vehicles caught in rising floodwaters on State Highway 25 near Hikuai north of Whangamata.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10336216
Suicide bomber in fuel truck kills 60
17.07.05 8.30am By Sami Jumaili
KERBALA. Iraq - A suicide bomber in a fuel truck killed at least 60 people near a crowded vegetable market in a town south of Baghdad on Saturday and al Qaeda warned of more violence in a bid to seize the Iraqi capital.
The blast near a Shi'ite mosque in Musayyib, near Kerbala, also wounded 82 people and destroyed nine cars, police said.
"This is a black day in the history of the town," Musayyib police chief Yas Khudayr told Reuters by telephone.
Some people who rushed to the scene discovered they had lost loved ones.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336189
Bomb probe widens to Egypt, Arrests in Pakistan
16.07.05 10.00am
LONDON - Egyptian police today questioned a British-trained biochemist about last week's London suicide attacks, and Pakistan arrested four people as it investigated possible al Qaeda links to one of the bombers.
Magdy Elnashar, a 33-year-old researcher at Leeds University, who also studied in the United States, was being questioned about the attacks that killed more than 50 people and injured 700 on July 7, Egypt's Interior Ministry said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336126
Suicide bomber's family suspect son was 'brainwashed'
17.07.05 By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON - Relatives of one of the London suicide bombers said on Saturday he may have been "brainwashed" and appealed for new leads in a fast-moving investigation which has so far linked Britain, Egypt and Pakistan.
"We are devastated that our son may have been brainwashed into carrying out such an atrocity, since we know him as a kind and caring member of our family," said the parents of Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336188
Ten suicide bombs in Iraqi capital, 25 dead
BAGHDAD - Ten suicide car bombers exploded in a series of apparently coordinated attacks across the Iraqi capital on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 100, police sources said.
All appeared to target US or Iraqi security forces, police said. Reuters journalists saw the aftermath of five. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for those, before police reported a further five suicide car bomb attacks late in the day.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336134
Bombers had been banned from mosques in Leeds
By Ian Herbert and Arifa Akbar
Three of the London bombers had been banned from mosques in the Beeston area of Leeds, where one of them lived, a Muslim academic has said.
Razaq Raj, who is a senior lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University, said he knew that Shahzad Tanweer, Hasib Mir Hussain and Mohammad Sidique Khan had been banned but did not know the reason why.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336132
NZ Tube bomb victim named
Shelley Mather was 'a bubbly young girl with a very positive outlook on life', said a former colleague. 16.07.05 By Monique Devereux and Stuart Dye
Shelley Marie Mather should have been sunning herself today under the Greek summer sun.
Instead, her parents, John Mather and Kathryn Gilkison, are keeping vigil in London, waiting for news that their 26-year-old daughter's body has been identified among those recovered from the bowels of the city's Underground system.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336121
Israeli forces kill seven Hamas activists in Gaza
16.07.05 1.00pm
By Donald Macintyre
ZEITOUN, Gaza City - Israel has assassinated seven Hamas militants in an apparent shift of policy executed only hours after the Palestinian Authority (PA) had itself confronted the faction in fierce clashes that left two Palestinians dead and 30 injured.
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian factions was plunged into its greatest peril yesterday since it was called over four months ago.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336133
LONDON - British police have released a chilling photograph of the four young men who bombed London last week which shows them trudging into a train station on the morning they detonated their explosives.
One newspaper said British officials had checked out one of the four last year but concluded he did not pose a threat.
As the investigation into the bombings continued in Pakistan and Egypt, Scotland Yard detectives published the picture in a bid to jog memories and garner more information from the public about the men's movements on the morning of the attacks.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10336278
continued . . .
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