Journalism at Risk
Reporter shot to death in Iraq
By Tom Lasseter / Knight Ridder
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight Ridder, was shot to death in Baghdad last Friday.
The shot appears to have been fired by a U.S. military sniper, though there were Iraqi soldiers in the area who also may have been shooting at the time.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3174
Reporters ordered to answer questions:-
WASHINGTON June 30, 2005 12:11:20 AM IST
Four reporters have been ordered to answer questions about their sources regarding an investigation of former U.S. nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=92710&cat=World
US Calls for Release of Jailed Iranian Journalist
By David Gollust
State Department
29 June 2005
Akbar Ganji (File photo)
The United States Wednesday called for the immediate release of Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, imprisoned since 2000 after reporting on alleged government involvement in extra-judicial killings. Mr. Ganji is reported to be in poor health.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-06-29-voa77.cfm
Journalists to be jailed next week, judge warns
Unless they comply with a court order and disclose who passed along CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to them, Matt Cooper and Judith Miller can expect to go to jail and Time magazine can expect a substantial daily fine after a final hearing next Wednesday, Judge Thomas Hogan ruled today.
June 29, 2005 · Saying "there are no other avenues left," U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan on Wednesday told The New York Times' Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper that they should be prepared to go to jail next Wednesday if they do not reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
http://www.rcfp.org/news/2005/0629-con-journa.html
Three jailed journalists on hunger-strike
Reporters Without Borders expressed great concern today at the plight of three imprisoned independent journalists - Mario Enrique Mayo, Adolfo Fernández Sainz and Ivan Hernández Carillo - who have been on hunger-strike for the past 10 days in the town of Holguin (eastern Cuba). They are demanding proper food and medicine for prisoners who have serious illnesses.
"Most jailed independent journalists in Cuba, especially Mayo, are being held in bad conditions that gravely endanger their lives," it said. "Their transfer to prisons hundreds of kilometres from their families exposes them even more to illness and lack of food." It called for the release for "humanitarian reasons" of Mayo and other journalists who were ill
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7844
Three journalists jailed in the capital but not in...
Kufuor
Source: CPJ Posted: Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Since the abolition of Criminal Libel from Ghana's Criminal Code in 2001, freedom of expression, whether in the media or in private, cannot be criminalized by any court.
Ghana is therefore enjoying a surfeit of media pluralism that is unparalleled. However, in other parts of Africa and the world criminal libel is still alive and wreaking havoc.
Below is an alert from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide, on some of the happenings elsewhere on the African continent, reminiscent of the PNDC/NDC days in Ghana
http://www.accra-mail.com/mailnews.asp?id=13316
US court shuns reporters' appeal
The two reporters face up to 18 months in jail for contempt of court
The US Supreme Court has refused to take up the case of two journalists who would not reveal their sources in a leak probe involving a CIA agent.
Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time face up to 18 months in jail for contempt of court.
The two journalists, their employers and rights groups said they were dismayed by the court's decision.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4629615.stm
The Belfast Telegraph
US in new push to restore devolution
Bush and Rice in Ulster offer
By Noel McAdam
30 June 2005
President George Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice are ready to become directly involved in renewed efforts to restore devolution.
Secretary of State Peter Hain also said there was no difference between the British, Irish and American governments over expectations of the IRA's expected statement.
With Taoiseach Bertie Ahern saying he anticipates the statement by August, unionists have made clear the Provisionals must come up with actions other than words alone and not only decommission all their weapons but end recruitment and training, intelligence gathering and targeting and involvement in all violence and expulsions.
Concluding a four-day stateside visit Mr Hain said Dr Rice had in particular "made a direct offer of personal engagement by her and by the President".
"The American administration is very engaged in what we are doing in Northern Ireland and are very interested."
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=650580
Seventeen rural police stations are set to close
By Jonathan McCambridge
30 June 2005
The Chief Constable was set to recommend today that 17 rural police stations should close as the latest stage of an ongoing review of PSNI bases.
Most of the bases affected are in Fermanagh and several already operate on a part-time basis.
Sir Hugh Orde is expected to make the recommendations, which have angered unionist politicians, at a private session of the Policing Board today.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=650587
'A few brave souls'
Bridgeen pays her tribute to those who helped murder inquiry
By Marie Foy
30 June 2005
The partner of murder victim Robert McCartney has spoken of the "few brave souls" who have come forward to help police track down his killers.
Bridgeen Hagans also poignantly renewed her appeal for help in the family's quest for justice.
Ms Hagans touchingly said that the knife which was driven deep into Mr McCartney had "severed much more than the artery to his heart".
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=650537
Poverty strategy 'fails to deliver'
Group's concern at lack of budget
By Marie Foy
30 June 2005
An anti-poverty lobby group yesterday hit out at a new Government strategy document aimed at tackling the problem because it does not include a budget.
The group spoke out after the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister Anti-Poverty Unit issued its second development strategy paper, called the NEW TSN.
But according to the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network (NIAPN), the document includes no budget and sets no targets.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=650538
Globalising the debate on poverty
Eamonn McCann
30 June 2005
"We believe that people intent on violence should stay away from Gleneagles. If they don't, they should be ejected by whatever means are necessary."
The message comes on the Globalise Resistance website, setting out the clear distinction between those who believe that the G8 leaders are potential saviours of Africa, and those who believe that they are among the main villains of the piece.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/features/story.jsp?story=650546
Give students fair deal at tribunals
30 June 2005
Your editorial of May 31 called for more transparency in the workings of the University of Ulster.
I hope you meant this plea to be applied to disciplinary tribunals adjudicating on 20-year-old students, which appear to be lacking in fair play.
I hear of the atmosphere of: "You are guilty, prove your innocence" - no presumption of innocence - judgment by a number of adult academics versus a 20-year-old accompanied by another 20-year-old with no experience - the sudden adjournment of the appeal when the 20-year-old has collected four witnesses to prove his innocence, no legal representation allowed - no relatives or members of the public admitted - suspension before appeals are heard. It reminds me of the Whitelaw tribunals of 1973.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/letters/story.jsp?story=650552
St. Louis Post Dispatch
CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Prosecutors: Pay them or lose them
By JENNIFER M. JOYCE
06/28/2005
Your mother, your sister, your aunt or daughter. Any of them could have fallen prey to Bobby Collins Jr. But thanks to a seasoned prosecutor in our office, Catherine Crowley, he never will violate another woman.
In July 2002, Collins was arrested on circumstantial evidence for stealing a woman's purse. On a hunch, Crowley asked police to do a DNA test on a ski mask found among Collins' possessions. The DNA recovered from the ski mask linked Collins to a vicious rape in St. Louis and implicated him in another rape in Colorado.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/360F50869BBCCDEA8625702E00324B6F?OpenDocument
Boeing names 3M chief as its CEO
By Tim McLaughlin
Of the Post-Dispatch
06/30/2005
James McNerney
Boeing Co. named James McNerney Jr. as the new leader of the aerospace and defense giant Thursday, picking the 3M Co. chief over two senior Boeing executives in a move that could be disruptive if they decide to leave the company's largest divisions.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/20C3F4C04A36DE0086257030004340C5?OpenDocument
Praxair finds no asbestos in air
By David Hunn
Of the Post-Dispatch
06/29/2005
Officials said Wednesday that the people of Lafayette Square can breathe easier.
Test results released by industrial gas company Praxair found no asbestos in the air around the historic homes in the St. Louis neighborhood, company officials said late Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/107FC5C5BE9468AF86257030001191F1?OpenDocument
CHINA: Hands off the oil
06/30/2005
IF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT offered to buy Boeing's fighter-jet plant in north St. Louis County, they would be told, in the ever-so-polite language of diplomacy, to buzz off. Military superiority is vital to America's national security. It's simply not for sale.
That's just the response America should give to China's $18.5 billion bid for the Unocal Corp., the big California oil firm. America imports about 60 percent of its oil. Without it, the U.S. economy would freeze up. Access to energy is vital to our economic security. It shouldn't be for sale to the Chinese.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/D219366D0D7E78DD86257030003225A7?OpenDocument
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Partners In Crime?;
Secret air campaign against Iraq?
Downing Street memo, other documents may show war really started earlier than March 2003.
By Tom Regan / Christian Science Monitor
Most American media have focused on the allegations from the Downing Street memo that the Bush administration was going to "fix" the intelligence in order to justify the war against Iraq. Now the reporter who broke the original story says they have missed a more substantial allegation to arise from the same set of leaked documents.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3173
Downing Street memo, other documents may show Iraq war really started before Congress approved military action
US finds 16 dead from Afghan crash, others missing
By David Brunnstrom 1 hour, 44 minutes ago
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces have recovered the bodies of 16 American troops from a helicopter shot down in
Afghanistan but some ground troops were unaccounted for, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
The casualties, during a battle with al Qaeda militants in mountainous Kunar province bordering Pakistan, were the heaviest for U.S. forces in a combat incident in Afghanistan since they invaded and overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050630/ts_nm/afghan_dc_16
Iraq: 8,000 killed in 6 months
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgent attacks in the last six months have killed more than 8,000 Iraqi civilians, police and troops, according to Iraq's interior minister.
Meanwhile Thursday, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said the Iraqi insurgency had probably reached its "high water mark" over the past 12 months.
In an interview with CNN, Iraqi Interior Minister Baqir Jabbur said "terrorists" had killed 8,175 people and wounded another 12,000 since January 2005.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3171
Honor fallen soldiers by ending Iraq war
By Celeste Zappala / Philadelphia Inquirer
This July Fourth weekend, amid the raucous celebration of visitors, concerts, and fireworks, a profoundly quiet event will take place outside Philadelphia's Independence Visitor Center.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3168
Backing for Bush on Iraq is gone, local veterans say
Michael Mayo / South Florida Sun-Sentinal
HOLLYWOOD · The televisions at VFW Post 2500 in Hollywood were tuned to President Bush on Tuesday, but his words weren't getting rapt attention.
About 30 people were around the bar drinking, chatting, smoking as the president talked. "Does it have to be so loud?" asked Barbara Flint as she sat next to Jerry Giblock, a visiting Vietnam veteran.
"He's running scared," said Giblock, 63, a former Post 2500 member who lives in Anchorage, Ala. "His poll numbers are so low, he's got to say something, but the support is gone. It's gone. I don't think there's anybody in here who's behind him."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3166
Taking the Fight to Karl
http://takeittokarl.blogspot.com/
TAKING THE FIGHT TO KARL (ROVE).
The New Zealand Herald
Thousands evacuated as floods hit NSW
30.06.05 4.00pm
Thousands of residents have been evacuated from their northern NSW homes as emergency crews brace for further flooding when rivers hit their peak later today.
The State Emergency Service (SES) has ordered residents to evacuate north and south Lismore, and has also told business owners and residents to leave the CBD.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333553
Two feared dead in Gold Coast floods
A woman rushes through a lunchtime downpour in Sydney yesterday. Picture / Reuters
01.07.05
By Greg Ansley
Two people are feared dead after thousands of people were evacuated from their homes as torrential rain flooded southern Queensland and northern New South Wales yesterday.
Record downfalls were dumped on a country still gripped by the worst drought in a century.
The two people feared dead are thought to have been swept from one of dozens of cars trapped by rapidly rising rivers, and the Gold Coast was paralysed as water ran waist-deep through some of its densest shopping precincts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333618
Flood-ravaged town 'will be hit again'
A house destroyed in Matata in May's flood. Picture / Rotorua Daily Post
30.06.05 10.05pm
By Juliet Rowan
Geological experts have found that some parts of flood-hit Matata are unsafe to live in because of the danger of further landslides.
Areas of the Bay of Plenty town are at risk from "debris flows" - flood waters churned up with silt, sand and rubble to the consistency of wet concrete and able to carry huge boulders, they said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10333426
Woman and child missing on Ninety Mile Beach
01.07.05 9.00am
A woman and a seven-year-old girl are missing on Ninety Mile Beach after their car apparently ran out of fuel late last night.
Police said two cars were being driven on the beach last night when one ran short of fuel and headed back.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10333681
Fed raises US rates for ninth time in row
01.07.05 9.00am
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve raised key US interest rates a quarter-percentage point this morning for a ninth straight time and gave no sign a year-long campaign of increases was nearing an end.
The US central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to lift the benchmark federal funds rate -- charged on overnight loans between banks and intended to influence credit costs throughout the economy -- to 3.25 per cent, as economists had expected.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10333679
Woman had 'hots for me' says pack-rape accused
29.06.05 1.00pm
A man accused of pack-raping a woman at Mount Maunganui 16 years ago, said today he was flattered that she "had the hots" for him.
The 47-year-old is the second of four men accused of raping a 20-year-old woman in January 1989 to give evidence in a trial before the High Court at Wellington.
The identity of the accused and many elements of the case are suppressed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10333338
Wrongful Australian detention report leaked
29.06.05 1.25pm
CANBERRA - Christine Rau today demanded to see a full copy of the report into her sister's wrongful detention after scathing extracts were published today.
In leaked extracts published in The Australian, inquiry head and former federal police commissioner Mick Palmer said Cornelia Rau spent five weeks in Baxter detention centre before being assessed by a psychiatrist even though she arrived there in a distressed and confused state.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333350
Taiwan trader buys $359m in shares by mistake
29.06.05
TAIPEI - A Taiwan stock trader mistakenly bought $T7.9 billion ($NZ359 million) worth of shares with a mis-stroke of her computer.
The trader with Fubon Securities mis-keyed in a small order from Merrill Lynch on Monday, creating confusion when many small firms inexplicably surged the 7 percent trading limit.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333245
Michael Richardson: Asia heads for over-fishing crisis as demand just keeps growing
28.06.05
When Taiwan's Government sent two navy frigates last week into an area of the East China Sea disputed with Japan and China, it was intending to make political points at home and abroad.
But the intent was not just to defend Taipeh's claim to sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands north of Taiwan, known in Japan as the Senkaku, it was also to protect the rights of Taiwanese fishermen who had complained of harassment from Japanese patrol boats.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=466&ObjectID=10332968
Sex slaves recruited to Australia, court told
01.07.05 6.20am
Southeast Asian women were recruited and placed under contract bondage in Australia to service up to 900 clients each in the sex industry, a court has been told.
Danny Kwok, Hosea Yoe, Jenny Ong and her son Raymond Tan are standing trial in the New South Wales District Court for allegedly conspiring to bring eight women from Thailand and Indonesia to Australia as sex slaves.
The women were all of legal age.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333609
CIA agents more 'Austin than 007'
01.07.05
WASHINGTON - CIA agents charged with kidnapping a Muslim cleric in Milan appear to have bungled their way into an international incident by ignoring the most basic rules of the spy trade, experts say.
Far from the suave discretion of James Bond, experts say the operatives who snatched radical Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr on February 17, 2003, sound more like the bumbling secret agent Austin Powers.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333611
Old rockers anchor Live 8 line-up
Organiser Bob Geldof hopes Live8 will pressure rich countries at this month's G8 summit to alleviate Africa's poverty. Picture / Reuters
01.07.05
Wrinkly rockers never die, they just do charity gigs.
Teenage pop fans hoping to hail their heroes at Sunday's Live 8 concerts are in for a rude awakening when headline acts hit the stage.
It is more likely to be their parents singing along to veteran rock stars who wrote the soundtrack to their lives all those years ago.
Irish rocker Bob Geldof, whose aim is to pressure rich countries to alleviate poverty in Africa at July's G8 summit of Western industrialised nations, has his sights set high and makes no apology for the acts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333569
Africans in the dark about Bob's big gigs
Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour will be the face of Africa at Live 8. Picture / Reuters
01.07.05
It's after midnight and Youssou N'Dour has just walked into his studio in Senegal's capital Dakar. He takes the microphone and the haunting tones of the man who will be the main face of Africa at Live 8 fill the room.
"The very fact of announcing Live 8 ... has pushed people to take decisions, but we want more," the Senegalese music icon said in a break between recordings.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333567
Arroyo's scandal-prone husband to leave Philippines
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
30.06.05
By Manny Mogato
MANILA - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo moved dramatically to reduce pressure on her government from graft allegations, saying her scandal-prone husband had agreed to leave the country.
She did not say how long her husband would remain abroad, but analysts doubted whether the move would protect her from further attacks and noted that it could be seen as a sign of growing weakness, or desperation.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333455
Problems in pipeline for Russia's oil dream
01.07.05
MOSCOW - Russia's plan to build an oil pipeline to the Pacific, equivalent to adding another Libya to the world oil market, risks foundering over money, politics, the environment and the question of where the oil will come from.
The US$11.5 billion plan, mooted four years ago by the Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft, promises Russia its biggest economic fillip since a financial meltdown in 1998.
At 4130km, almost as long as Chile, the pipeline, if it goes ahead, will pump 80 million tonnes of oil a year (1.6 million barrels a day) to the Pacific, where growing Chinese demand is gobbling up more and more of the oil shipped to the region.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10333592
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