The New Zealand Herald
Sri Lankan president blames assassination on rebels
15.08.05 1.00pm
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan head of state Chandrika Kumaratunga today accused Tamil Tiger rebels of assassinating her foreign minister -- whose death has rekindled fears of a return to civil war.
The government declared a state of emergency after Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot by a sniper as he emerged from his swimming pool on Friday.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340866
Tests appear to clear Iran over nuke traces
15.08.05 1.00pm
VIENNA - Tests by the UN nuclear watchdog appear to confirm that traces of weapons-grade uranium found in Iran came from abroad, reinforcing Tehran's assertion it does not seek atomic weapons, a diplomat said today.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the issue of contamination is one of two main outstanding questions in its two-year investigation into Iran's nuclear programme. Tehran insists the programme is peaceful, but Western countries suspect it may be a front for developing nuclear weapons.
An analysis of Pakistani components for enrichment centrifuges identical to ones Iran bought on the black market appear to back Tehran's assertion that traces of bomb-grade uranium were the result of contamination, a Western diplomat familiar with the IAEA said.
"There's still some final corroboration to go on but all the preliminary analysis does show that the particles seem to have come from Pakistan," he said, adding that the final result was unlikely to change as a result of work still outstanding.
This appeared to confirm earlier results, reported by Reuters on June 10, that also suggested Tehran did not produce the highly-enriched uranium itself.
Asked whether this cleared up the contamination issue, the diplomat said: "More or less. The contamination issue will never be 100 per cent clear." The IAEA declined to comment.
Diplomats say several other questions about the nature of Iran's nuclear programme remain, including the extent of its work with advanced P-2 centrifuges and the scope of its experimentation with plutonium, which is usable in an atom bomb.
"All declared (nuclear) material in Iran is under verification, but we still are not in a position to say that there is no undeclared nuclear material or activities in Iran," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters after an emergency meeting of the IAEA's governing board last week.
"With regard to the country as a whole, the jury is still out," he added.
France, Britain and Germany called the emergency IAEA board meeting after Iran said it would resume uranium conversion -- the step before enrichment, a process that purifies uranium to levels at which it can be used in power stations or bombs.
Iran resumed conversion last Monday and broke UN seals on machinery on Wednesday to make its conversion plant near the central city of Isfahan fully operational.
The 35-nation IAEA board reacted by urging Iran to resume a suspension of nuclear work usable in an atomic bomb programme, including conversion, and expressed "serious concern" at Iran's move.
The trio of European states and Iran are due to meet at the end of August, in hopes of defusing a crisis in which Iran has rejected a European package of economic and political incentives aimed at convincing it to abandon sensitive nuclear technology.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340869
Endangered species products for sale on the net
16.08.05 1.00pm
Endangered animal products are being sold illegally on the internet by criminal gangs and unscrupulous traders in Australia, an animal rights group says.
A three month investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) revealed that more than 9000 live species or animal products, including a live gorilla, were available for sale on the internet in one week alone.
The investigation, "Caught in the web: wildlife trade on the internet", was conducted in the UK and focused on 66 websites based in the UK, US and Canada.
IFAW Asia Pacific conducted its own study and said internet trading of endangered animal products is a problem in Australia.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341025
Jet-crash bodies 'frozen solid'
Artemis Charalambous, mother of one of the pilots, at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus. Picture / Reuters
16.08.05
ATHENS - An airliner that crashed in Greece may have been a flying tomb when it plunged to Earth with some of the 121 people aboard already either dead or unconscious.
The crash, the worst air disaster in Greece, perplexed aviation experts, who are astounded by what appeared to have been a catastrophic failure of cabin pressure and/or oxygen supply at 35,000ft - nearly 10km up, higher than Mt Everest.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340994
Girl suffocates in sand
16.08.05
A 3-year-old girl suffocated after becoming trapped in a hole dug on a Cornwall beach as she played with her brother.
Police said the walls of the 1.5m-deep hole collapsed, trapping the girl and her older brother as they played at Hayle.
The boy was rescued quickly from the pit but the girl was stuck. When eventually freed, she was flown by air ambulance to hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340986
Double whammy hit dinosaurs
16.08.05
By Steve Connor
The demise of the dinosaurs was triggered by a spectacular and almost unprecedented double whammy for life on Earth.
New evidence shows that a violent volcanic eruption combined with an asteroid collision for disastrous results.
Previously the giant asteroid was thought to have caused the mass extinction 65 million years ago, with its impact leading to a dramatic change in the global climate that dinosaurs were unable to survive.
A new study suggests a more complex catastrophe, instigated by a huge series of eruptions.
The Deccan Traps in Maharashtra, India, are one of the Earth's largest flows of volcanic lava - more than a kilometre deep and covering about 322,000sq km.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340992
Indonesia and rebels sign Aceh peace deal
16.08.05
HELSINKI - The Indonesian government and rebels from Aceh signed a truce yesterday aimed at ending nearly three decades of fighting in the province devastated by last December's tsunami.
The deal, signed in Helsinki by Indonesian Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin and Malik Mahmood of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), provides for an amnesty and disarming of the rebels from September 15 and restricts government troop movements in Aceh.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called it a "very happy, thankful and historic day" and expressed gratitude to his "brothers" in GAM for working to "reunite with the big Indonesian family to build a better future in Aceh".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340998
World War II bombs removed from fairground
16.08.05 5.20am
Authorities have removed 63 unexploded World War II bombs from beneath a German fairground where Pope Benedict XVI will preach this week. The bombs and hundreds of unexploded shells were uncovered in a security sweep.
The Pontiff will arrive on Friday to attend the Catholic Church's World Youth Day in the city of Cologne.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10340996
Russia reports suspected case of Anthrax
16.08.05 12.10am
MOSCOW - Two Russian butchers in the southern Siberian region of Altai were suspected of having contracted anthrax yesterday after slaughtering an infected cow, local media reported.
Itar-Tass news agency reported that the men had already sold contaminated meat to a client, possibly from the neighbouring region of Kemerovo, raising fears the disease could spread.
"Their preliminary diagnosis is anthrax," Ria-Novosti news agency quoted a regional health official as saying.
Altai, a steppe region near Russia's border with China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, one of the country's suppliers of meat products and grain.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341007
Plane crash leaves Australian 2-year-old alone in world
Demos and Margarita and their son George.
17.08.05
By Greg Ansley
The world of two-year-old George Xiourouppa disintegrated at noon on Sunday, when Helios Airways' Flight 522 slammed into a Greek mountain north of Athens, killing all on board.
Among the dead were George's Australian father Demos, 39, his Cypriot mother Margarita, 34, and sisters Sophia, 10, and Joanna, 9.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341165
Zimbabwe dismisses AU mediation effort on crisis
17.08.05
HARARE - Zimbabwe's government will not engage the opposition to end the country's political crisis despite African Union (AU) efforts to mediate, state media said yesterday.
The AU's chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, last week appointed former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano to mediate in Zimbabwe's worst crisis since independence in 1980.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341174
Human-like skin gives robots sense of touch
17.08.05
WASHINGTON - A flexible, electronic skin could provide robots, car seats and even carpets the ability to sense pressure and heat, Japanese researchers reported.
They described a new "skin" that not only senses both heat and pressure but that is flexible, cheap and easy to make.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they said their artificial skin might even be tweaked to outperform human skin.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341158
Research is good news for chocoholics
17.08.05
LONDON - Chocolate consumers will benefit from a research project in Britain aimed at improving cocoa production and tackling pests and diseases, which wipe out up to one-third of the world crop each year.
The Dutch Government and a UK-based industry body have donated 1.4 million ($2.53 million) to the world's first ever study of cocoa epigenetics: how the environment influences the plant's genes and how this changes over a tree's lifetime and under the effects of stresses such as disease and drought.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341104
Sunscreen does not encourage over-exposure, study shows
16.08.05 1.00pm
Using a strong sunscreen does not lead people to spend more time sunbathing in the belief they can do so safely, researchers said today.
Study author Alain Dupuy of the Saint Louis Hospital in Paris wanted to know if the higher protection afforded by stronger sunscreens would encourage longer sun exposure by delaying the warning sign of sunburn and giving a false sense of safety.
As part of the study, sunscreen was provided for free to 367 vacationers at French seaside resorts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341057
Americans in NZ support Bush anti-war camper
17.08.05 7.00am
Concerned Americans in Auckland are holding an anti-war candlelight vigil tonight to support a woman camping in protest outside President George W. Bush's ranch in Texas.
Cindy Sheehan has been camping since August 6, demanding that the President explain why he sent her son Casey to die in Iraq. The President has so far refused to meet her.
The vigil will be held at 7.30pm in front of the American Consulate on Customs St East.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10341145
Los Angeles Times
Emotional Settlers Resist Gaza Evictions
By Ken Ellingwood and Laura King, Times Staff Writers
NETZER HAZANI, Gaza Strip -- Jewish settlers, some weeping, some draped in prayer shawls, and some holding infants in their arms, pleaded today with Israeli troops not to push ahead with the evacuation of the settlements of the Gaza Strip.
In about half of the 21 Jewish settlements of Gaza, soldiers who came to serve eviction notices were turned back by hostile protesters who locked settlement gates, blockaded roads and burned tires. The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the withdrawal would continue according to schedule.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-081505gaza_lat,0,3530015.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Abortion Pill Investigated in Four California Deaths
The FDA warns patients as federal, state and L.A. County agencies try to trace deadly infections.
By Maria L. La Ganga, Times Staff Writer
Health officials are investigating whether there are any links in the cases of four California women — at least two in Los Angeles County — who have died since 2003 of massive infection after taking the so-called abortion pill, RU-486, and a follow-up drug.
The state and federal probe follows an announcement last month by the Food and Drug Administration, after the June death of a Sherman Oaks woman, warning doctors and patients of the potential for serious bacterial infection under certain circumstances.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-abortion15aug15,0,5805155.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Hunting the Monster of Machado Lake
Stories of mysterious water dwellers are as old as Loch Ness. But this L.A. tale has teeth.
By Ashley Powers, Times Staff Writer
Like the best creature tales, this one begins with something lurking in a lake.
The story has been unfolding in Harbor City, just north of San Pedro, where people have packed into Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park for three days. They scan the water for a glimpse of what authorities believe is a spectacled caiman, a crocodile cousin from Central and South America.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gator15aug15,0,1398093.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Madonna breaks bones in accident
From Associated Press
NEW YORK — Madonna's 47th birthday celebration was marred when she suffered several broken bones in a horse riding accident at her country home outside London, her publicist told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The superstar was hospitalized with three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand, according to Liz Rosenberg, her spokeswoman based in New York.
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/qtakes/cl-et-madonna16aug16,0,4203839.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Drivers' Ideas to Save on Gas Are Getting Plenty of Mileage
By Hector Becerra and Amanda Covarrubias, Times Staff Writers
As gasoline prices hit a new record in Southern California on Monday, each customer at the USA Gasoline station on Peck Road in El Monte seemed to have his own strategy for dealing with the rising costs.
Raymond Valenzuela keeps his air conditioning off, instead rolling down the windows of his burgundy Plymouth Acclaim. The 32-year-old machine operator also avoids gas stations near freeways, which he believes charge more, and sometimes fills up at night because a friend told him pumps deliver more gas when temperatures are cool.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gas16aug16,0,1664727.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Oil Prices, Inflation Concerns Weigh Down Stocks
By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer
The economic impact of rising oil prices weighed down Wall Street stocks today as soaring energy costs were blamed for depressing the quarterly financial results of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and driving up inflation in June.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 60 points in early afternoon trading. Other major financial indexes, including the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, were also lower.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-081605stocks_lat,0,922103.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Sierra divide
At Bearpaw camp, the mountains come with quiche and pears amandine, but for some the comfortable digs create tension.
By Barbara E. Hernandez, Special to The Times
Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.
John Muir, Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1896
On a granite saddle overlooking the Great Western Divide, nearly 12 miles from Sequoia's Giant Forest and just off the High Sierra Trail, sunlight lances through a forest of lodgepole pine. Mule deer graze in the distance; Steller's jays and marmots are hunting for pine nuts. It's early morning at Bearpaw High Sierra Camp, and breakfast is in the air.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/outdoors/la-os-bearpaw16aug16,0,7006822.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=hppromo
Study Sees Painkiller Risk for Women
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer
Women who regularly take acetaminophen, ibuprofen or similar painkillers have as much as double the normal risk of developing high blood pressure, Boston researchers reported Monday.
The regular use of the drugs by millions of Americans may help explain the growing incidence of hypertension in the United States, where one in five people suffers from the problem, a team from Brigham and Women's Hospital reported in the online edition of the journal Hypertension.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-painkiller16aug16,0,6713799.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
MALARIA: THE STING OF DEATH
An effective, but costly, cure
ASK RICHARD IDRO IF HE HAD MALARIA as a child, and you will begin to grasp the toll this disease takes on sub-Saharan Africa. Patiently, as though explaining breathing to a visiting Martian, he will answer, "Everybody got malaria."
Growing up in northwestern Uganda, Idro and his nine brothers and sisters had malaria "over and over," especially after the war that toppled strongman Idi Amin destroyed their home and sent them to a crowded refugee camp. But Idro's worst brush came when he was just a year old and lapsed into a coma from cerebral malaria, the most severe form. His mother prayed he would pull through.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-maldrugs15aug15,0,5592730.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
Iran's revolution isn't going away
Far from being on the brink of democracy, the country is becoming increasingly belligerent. And once again, the West is divided on how to respond.
NIALL FERGUSON, NIALL FERGUSON is a professor of history at Harvard University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Website: www.niallferguson.org
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE a revolutionary regime. In particular, never underestimate the durability of the revolutionaries' fervor to fight for their cause.
The French Revolution began in 1789, but it was only after two decades of war that the fight was finally knocked out of it. The Russian Revolution began in 1917, but the Soviet Union posed a mortal threat until the mid-1980s. As for the Communist Chinese revolution of 1949, it was only last month that the regime in Beijing was threatening to go nuclear over Taiwan.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson15aug15,0,1239784.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Bush's blind spot on Iran
WE DON'T respect or understand any religious or nationalist fervor other than our own. That myopic distortion has been a persistent historical failure of U.S. foreign policy, but it has reached the point of total blindness in the Bush administration.
The latest exhibition of this approach was President Bush's thinly veiled threat this weekend to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort, sparked by Tehran's troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer16aug16,0,610889.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Why Sharon?
By Aluf Benn
ALUF BENN is the diplomatic editor of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
August 15, 2005
ON WEDNESDAY, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will face the toughest challenge of his long and storied military and political career: The forced evacuation of the remaining Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip and a few enclaves in the northern West Bank. After two years of decision-making and preparations, Israel's military and police forces will be ordered to direct — or drag — the reluctant settlers to waiting buses, enroute to their new life outside Gaza.
For Israel's right wing, Sharon's "disengagement" amounts to heresy, a destruction of Zionism and a security folly. For the left, it offers a chance to consolidate Israel's democracy and its Jewish majority, albeit on a smaller slice of Mideast territory. The less-ideological centrists will be happy to get rid of the Gaza nightmare, even if "the day after" is blurred in uncertainty.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-benn15aug15,0,6728751,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
China, Russia Flaunt Forces in Joint Military Maneuvers
By Mark Magnier and Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writers
BEIJING -- As they prepare to join forces for their largest military exercise in modern history, China and Russia have billed this week's maneuvers as a cooperative fight against terrorism. But they're also sending a message to Washington, analysts say: Don't push the two former Cold War adversaries too far.
The eight-day exercise, which is set to begin Thursday, will be the most extensive since Beijing and Moscow fought together against U.S.-led forces during the Korean War half a century ago. Originally billed as a modest exercise when proposed last year, it has grown in scope to include nearly 10,000 troops using a range of sophisticated weapons systems.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-081605exercise_lat,0,6421778.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Cuba Net
US governor touches down in Cuba on trade mission
HAVANA, 14 (AFP) - The Republican governor from the US farm state of Nebraska, Dave Heineman, arrived in Cuba with a trade delegation hoping to secure export deals for his state's agricultural products.
Heineman and a 10-member delegation, including business executives, are due to remain in Cuba through to Wednesday. The US delegation will hold talks with officials from the Cuban state importer Alimport.
"The state of Nebraska is well-known for good quality agricultural products and Alimport hopes to advance commercial relations," Alimport said in a statement.
The US delegation will also be exploring opportunities to sell medical equipment to the Communist-ruled Caribbean island despite President Fidel Castro's thorny relations with Washington.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y05/ago05/15e8.htm
Castro urges US to free suspected Cuban spies
HAVANA, 14 (AFP) - President Fidel Castro managed to speak by telephone with a suspected Cuban spy jailed in the United States and urged Washington to free the man and four others whose US convictions were recently overturned, official media said.
Castro was meeting with the family of the five imprisoned Cubans Saturday when one of the men was allowed to call his wife in Havana, official media said. Castro, who was celebrating his 79th birthday, spoke with the prisoner, Gerardo Hernandez.
The communist leader told Hernandez the decision by a US appeals court to overturn the convictions was a "triumph of the truth and in the best tradition of the American people," according to Cuban media.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y05/ago05/15e8.htm
Cuba's Menendez Sets World Javelin Record
AP via Yahoo! Asia News, August 14, 2005.
Osleidys Menendez of Cuba set a world record in the women's javelin with a throw of 235 feet, 3 inches Sunday at the world track and field championships.
Menedez broke her own world record of 234-8 on her first attempt. The Cuban set the previous record in 2001.
Castro reaches 79 still driving Cuba's revolution
HAVANA, 13 (AFP) - Fidel Castro turned 79, regaining strength from a close alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that also helps him keep the United States at bay and ignore dissident voices.
The world's longest serving leader and the head of the only communist nation in the Americas remains as defiant as ever in believing that Marxist Leninist thought is the only way forward though he has reconciled with the Roman Catholic church.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y05/ago05/15e8.htm
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