GLOBAL WARMING
Low arctic ice
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16978
Artic Sea ice Declines
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20041004_decline.html
TOMS Aerosol index and chlorophyll levels
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/showqt.php3
The Toronto Star
309 survive jet crash at Pearson
NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
WITH STAR STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Shocked passengers and crew flagged down startled motorists on Highway 401 after an Air France jet carrying 297 passengers and 12 crew crashed and skidded into a ravine at Toronto's Pearson International Airport while attempting to land during a thunderstorm this afternoon.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1122976940055&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Air traffic disrupted across country
FROM CANADIAN PRESS
Delays, diversions and cancellations made for a chaotic day at airports across Canada today as travellers and airline officials tried to cope with the ripple effect of the crash landing of a Air France jet at Toronto's Pearson Airport.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport in Montreal took in 11 diverted international flights.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1123019209131&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Shuttle future hinges on hero with a hacksaw
Astronaut heads outside to repair damage to craft's belly
Scientists fear small piece of tile filler could mean disaster
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
Quick! Without thinking, name three space shuttle astronauts.
Yeah, the Canadians, Roberta Bondar, Marc Garneau ... and then there's ... there's ...
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1123019209044&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Fixing damage not simple: Bondar
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
Astronaut Stephen Robinson calls it "a very delicate task. But ... a simple one."
Roberta Bondar doesn't buy that.
Bondar, who in 1992 became the first Canadian woman in space, says that when Robinson floats out of the space shuttle Discovery today to try to fix damage on the shuttle's belly, it'll be anything but simple. What he and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have not discussed publicly, she told the Toronto Star yesterday, "are the huge issues we face during space walks. This repair job is not going to be as easy as a lot of people may think."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1123019209049&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
CIBC pays $2.4B in Enron suit
TARA PERKINS
CANADIAN PRESS
CIBC is paying $2.4 billion (U.S.) to settle a Enron class-action suit launched on behalf of shareholders of the U.S. energy company, the Toronto-based bank announced today.
The settlement does not include any admission of wrongdoing by CIBC, which said it had agreed to the deal "solely to eliminate the uncertainties, burden and expense of further protracted litigation."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1123019208331&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Hydro supply dips as demand peaks
Businesses, consumers urged to conserve as thermometer rises
STEVE ERWIN
CANADIAN PRESS
Canada’s most populous province will rely more heavily on its U.S. neighbours for power this week amid soaring demand and generating stations that are down for repairs, Ontario’s electricity market watchdog warned today.
Five generating units went offline to undergo repair and maintenance, pulling some 3,000 megawatts out of Ontario’s electricity grid, said Terry Young, spokesman for the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1122978909142&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Pamela Anderson denies she's dating ex-husband
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Despite their on-again, off-again relationship, Pamela Anderson says she and Tommy Lee aren't an item right now.
"Absolutely not," Anderson told reporters recently, according to AP Radio. "(I'm) just trying to get him a little press for his new show."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1122978907863&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705925735&t=TS_Home
Pot activist granted bail in U.S. extradition case
FROM CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER — Canadian justice officials can't turn pot activist Marc Emery over to the United States to face possible life in prison after ignoring his sale of marijuana seeds in this country for nearly a decade, his lawyer said today.
"For nine years he's been doing this quite openly," John Conroy told a news conference after Emery was granted bail. "They've known about it, the local authorities haven't done anything about it."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1123019208527&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
Crack hits new frontier
As Yellowknife residents find wealth from diamond mines, a `devastating' drug problem explodes
In its wake, violent crime is rising in a region that prided itself on being safe
PETER GORRIE
FEATURE WRITER
YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T.—The "Gaza Strip" runs for a bleak block along 50th St., between the Gold Range Hotel and the Right Spot bar, just a few metres from this city's main intersection.
For anyone here who wants to buy crack cocaine, it's the place to be. Day or night, dealers ply their wares, often under the scrutiny of RCMP drug squad officers.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1122933010066&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
The New York Times
China Retreats Now, but It Will Be Back
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: August 3, 2005
HONG KONG, Aug. 2 - Just as a tactical retreat is sometimes useful in winning broader battles, as Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago, the withdrawal of Cnooc Ltd.'s bid for Unocal seems unlikely to derail China Inc.'s economic expansion overseas, and may even hold a few lessons.
The sight of a Chinese company trying to buy a business once known for the Union 76 brand of gasoline made the proposed deal a lightning rod for American worries about everything from manufacturing job losses to high oil prices to the security of energy supplies. But while Congressional resistance appears to have torpedoed the Chinese bid, the economic fundamentals behind that bid remain in place, from China's vast foreign currency reserves to its ravenous appetite for imported oil.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/business/worldbusiness/03assess.html?hp&ex=1123128000&en=244305a0e9418199&ei=5094&partner=homepage
California Air Is Cleaner, but Troubles Remain
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: August 3, 2005
TOPANGA STATE PARK, Calif. - On many days, a hiker on the Temescal Ridge trail above the Pacific Ocean, 30 to 50 miles west of the San Gabriel Mountains, can trace the snowy ridges and the thin, brown lines of canyons with the naked eye. Three decades ago, an entire summer could pass before homeowners just five miles from the mountains could see the peaks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/national/03angeles.html?hp&ex=1123128000&en=5ce3cf9b483a86d7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Your Body Is Younger Than You Think
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: August 2, 2005
Whatever your age, your body is many years younger. In fact, even if you're middle aged, most of you may be just 10 years old or less.
This heartening truth, which arises from the fact that most of the body's tissues are under constant renewal, has been underlined by a novel method of estimating the age of human cells. Its inventor, Jonas Frisen, believes the average age of all the cells in an adult's body may turn out to be as young as 7 to 10 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/science/02cell.html?incamp=article_popular_1
The NEW Bush Kenneth Lay's have permission to destroy unions and their assets with immunity.
The Imperfect Storm
Published: August 3, 2005
When trying to explain United Airlines' recent pension default, various analysts and assorted lawmakers often use the phrase "perfect storm," suggesting that an unstoppable combination of impersonal economic forces blindsided the carrier. It's a faulty metaphor. Some of United's problems may have been due to avoidable waste and human greed. Congress should take heed, for the sake of the 44 million American workers who are covered by pensions similar to United's.
A recent report by The Times's Mary Williams Walsh documents the likelihood that the United employees who collectively lost $3.4 billion in benefits in the default weren't simply the victims of a bad stock market and low interest rates. From 1999 through 2003, Labor Department records show, some 30 money managers, consultants and other professionals that handled United's pensions earned at least $125 million, paid out of plan assets. During that same period, a huge gap opened between the value of the pensions' assets and the amount owed to present and future retirees - from a surplus of about $2 billion to a deficit of nearly $7 billion. The record is silent on how individual money managers performed, making it impossible to determine who may have acted in a way that contributed to the pensions' failures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/opinion/03wed1.html?8br
CIBC Pays to Settle Enron Case
By JEFF BAILEY
Published: August 3, 2005
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce agreed yesterday to pay $2.4 billion to settle claims that it helped hide losses at the Enron Corporation, raising to $7.1 billion the sum that banks and other defendants have thus far agreed to pay to compensate investors.
The agreement follows by weeks settlements by Citigroup of $2 billion and J. P. Morgan Chase of $2.2 billion, as part of a sprawling case in federal court in Houston that accuses financial institutions and others of helping Enron pull off accounting deceptions that preceded its bankruptcy filing in 2001.
The amount makes it the largest class-action securities settlement on record and puts pressure on the remaining defendants in the lawsuit to settle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/business/worldbusiness/03enron.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1123059625-wd7JeJodCxBrIWl8oQ9EyQ
Modesty? He should keep his skirt down below his knees then.
Court Nominee Prizes 'Modesty,' He Tells the Senate
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
and DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
Published: August 3, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - In his first written response to questions from the lawmakers who will review his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge John G. Roberts Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that judges must possess "a degree of modesty and humility," must be respectful of legal precedent and must be willing to change their minds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/politics/politicsspecial1/03confirm.html?hp&ex=1123128000&en=9474b56854046844&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Prospero May Manipulate Nature, but Here, Nature Sets the Stage
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: August 3, 2005
GARRISON, N.Y., July 31 - The green haze of a midsummer Hudson River view in early evening is taking human form. Over the western horizon of the grounds of the Boscobel Restoration here, a slippery, wriggly, distinctly verdant creature is emerging in sections - a figure that might well be compounded of air and grass and perhaps a few drops of muddy water. Its name is Ariel. And who at this point would dare to believe that it hasn't been summoned by magic.
Walter Garschagen
Joey Parsons, center, as Ariel, with the cast of "The Tempest" at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.
Few stages have wings like those of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, where the theater is an open-sided tent perched on a riverside knoll. In Terrence O'Brien's charming production of "The Tempest," which runs through Saturday, the performers often materialize from the top of a sharply sloped hill or from a wood that looks as if it might indeed hold the sprites and beasts described in Shakespeare's romance of rage and redemption on an enchanted island.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/theater/reviews/03temp.html
St.-Tropez à Go-Go
By SETH SHERWOOD
Published: July 31, 2005
JUNE had barely begun, but the legendary French Riviera celebrity bastion of St.-Tropez already had its first scandale of the summer. All across the seaside village, fresh piles of the June 10 issue of La Tribune de St.-Tropez declared the breaking news. From socialites shopping in the Rodeo Drive-like stores along Rue François Sibilli to the jet-setting playboys and billionaires trawling the coconut-oil-scented fleshpots along Mediterranean beaches, the summer crowd that arrives early suddenly found a disturbing front-page discovery that would once have been unthinkable.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/travel/31tropez.html?8dpc
The New Zealand Herald
Todd looks at LNG imports to power proposed gas plants
03.08.05 1.00pm
Todd Energy is considering importing fuel for up to three gas-fired power stations planned for Auckland.
Two competitors, Contact Energy and state power company Genesis Energy, had been examining the feasibility of importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) and concluded last year that it was economic.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10338925
Mourners shocked by teens' 'burn out' tributes
Friends at the funeral of Che Orbell-Pere, one of four teenagers who died in an accident in Hastings last Friday night. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today
03.08.05 1.00pm
Mourners at funerals for two of the Hastings youths killed in Friday's car smash were shocked yesterday as the boys' friends revved their vehicles in tribute, oblivious to the pain they were causing to grieving family members.
As the hearse carrying the coffin of 17-year-old Michael Jeffries pulled away from the Hastings Racecourse, the driver of a vehicle carrying pallbearers pulled a "handbreaky" in the loose gravel in the car park in front of an upset crowd.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10338933
Spacewalk repairs concern astronauts
Discovery Commander Eileen Collins waves as the assembled crew of the shuttle and the space station talk to US President George W. Bush. Picture / Reuters
03.08.05 1.00pm
HOUSTON - The shuttle Discovery's crew had misgivings about performing a spacewalk to remove two fabric fillers dangling from the ship's delicate heat shield, astronauts said.
Nasa ordered the repair because it fears another heat shield failure, such as the one that claimed Columbia and its seven-member crew in February 2003.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338953
Emergency appeal for £8m to avert famine in Niger
Fatou Ousseini lies with her malnourished one-year-old son Alassa Galisou at an emergency feeding clinic in the town of Tahoua in northwestern Niger. Picture / Reuters
03.08.05 4.00pm
By Genevieve Roberts
A campaign to raise £8m to try to avert the famine in Niger was launched last night in the UK, with charities collaborating in a bid to help starving millions.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338947
North Korea nuclear talks hang in the balance
03.08.05 1.00pm
BEIJING - Talks aimed at ending the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programmes hung in the balance on Wednesday, with the six parties deadlocked after more than a week and some delegates talking openly of breakdown.
Negotiators from the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China have been at the table for a record eight days and remain at loggerheads on the issue of when Pyongyang should dismantle its programmes -- before, or after, it receives US security guarantees and aid.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338963
Seven US Marines killed in Iraq, toll passes 1800
03.08.05 8.25am
BAGHDAD - Seven American Marines have been killed in fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province, the guerrilla heartland which keeps challenging US and Iraqi troops despite repeated security crackdowns.
One of Iraq's most violent Islamic militant groups, Army of Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the deaths, saying it had killed eight Marines.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338914
Americans anxious about US foreign policy - poll
03.08.05 1.20pm
WASHINGTON - Americans are anxious about the direction of United States foreign policy and how the country is perceived overseas and a majority believe the government has been too quick to go to war, a survey said.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom that the American public doesn't know and doesn't care how it is seen abroad, strong majorities" believe the US image overseas is suffering and "large majorities are worried about it," the survey concluded.
Sixty three per cent of Americans say the charge that the US has been too quick to go to war is justified and three-quarters worry about losing trust abroad and about the growing hatred of the US in Muslim countries, it said.
"So far, public thinking is a disquieting mix of high anxiety, growing uncertainty about current policy and virtually no consensus about what else the country might do," the survey concluded.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338964
Corby devastated by lack of help says lawyer
Australian beauty therapist Schapelle Corby (R) walks with her lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea after a hearing in the Denpasar court last month. Picture / Reuters
03.08.05 4.20pm
DENPASAR, Bali - Schapelle Corby is devastated that the Australian government has not helped her more, her lawyer said ahead of her appeal hearing today.
Corby has arrived at Denpasar District Court for the appeal in which she is hoping to have her conviction and 20-year sentence for drug smuggling quashed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338971
Zimbabwe's white farmers vow to press on
03.08.05 11.20am
HARARE - Zimbabwe's remaining white commercial farmers have vowed to keep tilling the land in the face of proposed constitutional changes that would bar them from challenging land seizures in court.
President Robert Mugabe's government has seized thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks after often violent invasions by state-backed veterans of the country's 1970s struggle against white rule.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10338945
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