The Commission on the Status of Women met today to convene two panel discussions on the integration of gender perspectives in macroeconomics and the role of regional and intergovernmental organizations promoting gender equality.
Statements
NENADI E. USMAN, Minister of State for Finance of Nigeria, said that though the Constitution provided for equality of rights for every citizen, a national policy for women had had to be fashioned to remove gender equalities as a result of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. A number of policies to reduce gender equality had also been put in place. The Government had enhanced women’s access to the country’s socio-economic activities. Line ministries had been instructed to address gender issues, and that focus had resulted in a number of achievements, including special bank loans, the establishment of cottage industries for women, literacy and health programmes, microcredit schemes, and mass literacy and education programmes.
She said some 70 per cent of Nigeria’s poor were women. Nigerian women faced many challenges in benefiting from the Government’s macroeconomic incentives. Nigerian women were becoming increasingly involved in monitoring the impact of those programmes. For the first time in its history, Nigeria had a woman in charge of the Government’s finances. Women had also been put in charge of the investment and securities tribunal and the bureau for public enterprises. Deliberate efforts had been made to bring more women on board.
Regarding the way forward, she said Nigeria’s quest for macroeconomic stability and sustainable economic growth would continue to be gender sensitive. The Government was directing more public resources to the sectors of the economy that directly impacted women, such as the provision of water and rural electrification. The Government appreciated women’s efforts in the scheme of things and would continue to encourage their participation in projects designed for their betterment.
http://i-newswire.com/pr9732.html
U.S. Sponsors Discrimination.
Scott Plous
Book from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Release date: 22 October, 2002
More of our democracy and formerly "free" country got flushed down the toilet last week when the House of Republicans voted to allow states to freely discriminate against American citizens on the basis of religion.
That's right, we can already freely discriminate against gays in this country, now we can add religion to the list of the discriminated.
The Republican-led House approved a bill that lets churches and other faith-based preschool centers hire only people who share their religion, yet still receive federal tax dollars.
Yay! Free discrimination with no consequences - and the government will even pay you to do it!
That's right, Head Start Programs that are run by Catholics, now would have the right to refuse employment to anyone who is not Catholic. And the same would hold true for any faith. So what we have here is government funded discrimination. I'd love to see what would happen if a traditional company decided not to hire Christians because they disagreed with their religion - how fast would that company be slapped with lawsuits and lose any form of federal assistance or support?
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/26/161820.php
Human rights must include freedom from economic discrimination
By Hope Lewis and Ibrahim Gassama
Published: Monday, September 26, 2005
It should now be obvious: The catastrophe in the Gulf Coast is more than an appalling natural disaster requiring a humanitarian response. It is a horrific human rights crisis that demands a re-examination of communal obligations to those who for various reasons lack the means to save themselves.
The responses now coming from federal, state and local authorities, as well as private individuals and groups, will help address the many social needs exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/09/26/ed.col.gassama.0926.p1.php?section=opinion
Question of network's role may play key role in discrimination case
The Associated Press - ATLANTA
Is The Weather Channel a business or entertainment?
That's the question U.S. Magistrate Christopher Hagy asked lawyers on Monday during an evidentiary hearing on an age discrimination case. The answer may help determine a lawsuit filed by former reporter Marny Stanier Midkiff, who claims the Atlanta-based network dismissed her in favor of younger, sexier forecasters.
Midkiff, who was 41 when she was fired in 2003, claims the network purged older employees, particularly women. Her lawyer, Dan Klein, introduced an October 2002 memo from Terry Connelly, a network official, that said viewers described the network's female broadcasters as matronly, dowdy and old.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=65579
Amid Criticism of Federal Efforts, Charges of Racism Are Lodged
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: September 5, 2005
HOUSTON, Sept. 4 - The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina became a rallying cry for African-American religious and political leaders here in President Bush's former hometown on Sunday, with pleas for charity mixed with a seething anger at the response to the crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05race.html
Political hurricane swirls around Bush
Accusations of racism, slow response to Katrina dog administration
NEW ORLEANS — Five days after it had expressed only polite interest in the hurricane sweeping across the United States' south-eastern states, the Bush administration found itself lashed by the storm's wake.
… Senator Chuck Hagel, a leading contender for his party's nomination to succeed Mr Bush, added: "There must be some accountability."
… It hasn't helped Mr Bush that he did not alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remained on holiday in Wyoming. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Washington after being seen buying US$7,000 ($11,700) shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/70544.asp
Kanye West Accuses Bush of Racism on Hurricane Telethon
Posted on 9/4/05 at 12:59 AM ET
Kanye West, never one to shy away from expressing his opinions, has accused the U.S. government of forsaking its black population at Friday’s “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.”
The rapper declared that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a 90-second segment he did with comedian Mike Myers on the celebrity telethon for Hurricane Katrina survivors. West surprised everyone when he went off script on the special, which aired live on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Pax.
http://www.andpop.com/article/4833
Message: I Care About the Black Folks
By FRANK RICH
ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.
The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.
In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.
Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.
Taking responsibility, as opposed to paying lip service to doing so, is not in this administration's gene pool. It was particularly shameful that Laura Bush was sent among the storm's dispossessed to try to scapegoat the news media for her husband's ineptitude. When she complained of seeing "a lot of the same footage over and over that isn't necessarily representative of what really happened," the first lady sounded just like Donald Rumsfeld shirking responsibility for the looting of Baghdad. The defense secretary, too, griped about seeing the same picture "over and over" on television (a looter with a vase) to hide the reality that the Pentagon had no plan to secure Iraq, a catastrophic failure being paid for in Iraqi and American blood to this day.
This White House doesn't hate all pictures, of course. It loves those by Karl Rove's Imagineers, from the spectacularly lighted Statue of Liberty backdrop of Mr. Bush's first 9/11 anniversary speech to his "Top Gun" stunt to Thursday's laughably stagy stride across the lawn to his lectern in Jackson Square. (Message: I am a leader, not that vacationing slacker who first surveyed the hurricane damage from my presidential jet.)
The most odious image-mongering, however, has been Mr. Bush's repeated deployment of African-Americans as dress extras to advertise his "compassion." In 2000, the Republican convention filled the stage with break dancers and gospel singers, trying to dispel the memory of Mr. Bush's craven appearance at Bob Jones University when it forbade interracial dating. (The few blacks in the convention hall itself were positioned near celebrities so they'd show up in TV shots.) In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site had a page titled "Compassion" devoted mainly to photos of the president with black people, Colin Powell included.
Some of these poses are re-enacted in the "Hurricane Relief" photo gallery currently on display on the White House Web site. But this time the old magic isn't working. The "compassion" photos are outweighed by the cinéma vérité of poor people screaming for their lives. The government effort to keep body recovery efforts in New Orleans as invisible as the coffins from Iraq was abandoned when challenged in court by CNN.
But even now the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process. Brazenly enough, Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.
The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.
WHEN there's money on the line, cronies always come first in this White House, no matter how great the human suffering. After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place.
It was back in 2000 that Mr. Bush, in a debate with Al Gore, bragged about his gubernatorial prowess "on the front line of catastrophic situations," specifically citing a Texas flood, and paid the Clinton administration a rare compliment for putting a professional as effective as James Lee Witt in charge of FEMA. Exactly why Mr. Bush would staff that same agency months later with political hacks is one of many questions that must be answered by the independent investigation he and the Congressional majority are trying every which way to avoid. With or without a 9/11-style commission, the answers will come out. There are too many Americans who are angry and too many reporters who are on the case. (NBC and CNN are both opening full-time bureaus in New Orleans.) You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.
What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html?ei=5090&en=64a2f63f0c39dc70&ex=1284696000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
FDA OKs Generic Versions of AIDS Drug
Published September 20 2005, 2:02 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The FDA has approved the first generic versions of the AIDS medication AZT, a move that could reduce the expense for people in the United States being treated for the disease.
AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that is also known as Zidovudine, helps prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing in the body. It is often used in combination with other medications to treat an HIV infection.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top13sep20,0,501565.story?coll=scn-newsnation-headlines
Austrian national anthem to go for gender equality
Vienna September 26, 2005 5:25:06 PM IST
Austria's national anthem may be changed to give equality to men and women, according to a proposal by Women's Affairs Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat Monday.
She said a reference to "great sons" of Austria should be changed to "great daughters, sons". The term "fatherland" should be replaced by "homeland", and the words "brotherly choirs" by "joyful choirs".
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=121073&n_date=20050926&cat=World
Panel discusses gender identity
by Emily Bitton
September 25, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, a panel met discussing "Media Portrayals of Gender Identity: What are Ethical Alternatives?" as part of Ethics Week.
Arwen Castillo, student and employee of the Equity Center, was the moderator for the discussion. She asked Kolby Jensen, a business major and employee of the Equity Center, and philosophy major Gregory Lucero, questions regarding the media. Jensen and Lucero were the two panelists.
An initial inquiry was, "How does the media shape gender identity?" Panelists replied with, "Gender identity is how the media tells a woman what will make her feminine and how the media tells a man what will make him masculine."
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/25/433841b92caed
Residents charge discrimination
By LEE ROMNEY / Los Ángeles Times
(Published Wednesday, September, 28, 2005 11:45AM)
MODESTO --This city has grown in lurches in recent decades, snatching up vacant land to erect subdivisions with soothing names like The Bluffs and Fleur de Lis.
The costs of sidewalks, sewers and other urban amenities were borne by developers, who passed them down to incoming -- and largely white -- homeowners.
Left behind in the hopscotching growth rush were a cluster of aging unincorporated pockets just outside the city's southern flank. Poor, predominantly Latino, and now nearly surrounded by annexed property, the neighborhoods had long outgrown their fraying rural infrastructure.
http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/news/english/story/11279085p-12029333c.html
Feds sue Sonic Drive-In alleging discrimination
ALBUQUERQUE -- The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Albuquerque Sonic Drive-In, alleging it discriminated against pregnant women.
The EEOC says the drive-ins -- operated by RWW Enterprises -- refused to hire pregnant women for carhop jobs.
The agency says that violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
The federal lawsuit also contends Sonic fired or rescinded a job offer to one woman because she was pregnant.
The regional attorney for the EEOC says there has been a 37 percent increase in pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the commission over the past ten years.
http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?ID=12225
FedEx accused of discrimination
SEP. 28 8:29 P.M. ET A federal judge on Wednesday certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corp. amid allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated 10,000 current and former hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and parts of Texas.
James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg added.
"FedEx knows that black and Hispanics fail at a much higher rate, but yet has not changed the test," Finberg said.
Jim McCluskey, a FedEx spokesman, said the Memphis, Tenn.-based company was considering appealing the ruling, which the company called a "procedural decision" that does not address the case's merits.
"We are confident that when the merits of the case are considered, it will be shown that the plaintiffs were not treated differently because of their race or ethnicity," McCluskey said.
The suit was filed in 2003 by eight current and former employees. It seeks millions of dollars in damages and an end to the company's alleged discriminatory practices.
In court documents, FedEx contended that promotions were based on "objective" factors, not race, that include time of service, passing a basic skills test, previous performance evaluations and whether the employee has been disciplined.
FedEx's statistical analysis shows that minorities receive higher evaluations on average than whites in many job categories, and showed that minorities received higher wages than whites in many jobs.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said it would be up to a jury to decide the conflicting data. No trial has been set.
Pasted from <http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8CTJAP04.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db
Judge certifies class action accusing FedEx of discrimination
SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge in San Francisco has certified a class action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corporation of Memphis.
At issue is allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
The case includes an estimated ten-thousand current and former hourly workers and about one-thousand low-level management employees.
http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3913327
EEOC complaints allege age discrimination, violations of disability act by Greece School district
9/28/05
NEWS 10NBC has obtained copies of complaints filed against the Greece school district as part of a discrimination suit brought by 5 teachers. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission filings continue to fuel rumors that the Greece School Board is actually targeting the superintendent. The complaints allege unfair treatment based on age and in at least one-instance charges the school system violated the Americans with disabilities act. In its initial investigation, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissions Buffalo office determined: "there is reason to believe the violations have occurred" in all five cases. "We will find out if the process that's in question is a fair one. And that's really what we're after," said School Board President Ken Walsh This week the Greece School District hired an outside investigator to look into the claims. Last Friday at a contentious school board meeting, parents and teachers questioned the board’s real intentions.
http://www.10nbc.com/news.asp?template=item&story_id=16330
Westerly Officer Files Notice Of Intent To Sue Town For Gender Discrimination
Matarese Says She Was Passed Over For Chief's Position
Tim Martin
Lauren Matarese has her Westerly Police captain's badge pinned on her by retired police chief Jim Gulluscio after being sworn in at a ceremony in the City Council chambers at Westerly Town Hall in August of 2004. Matarese has filed notice of intent to sue the department for gender discrimination after being passed over for chief.
By ELAINE STOLL
Day Staff Writer, Westerly/North Stonington
Published on 9/28/2005
Westerly — Capt. Lauren A. Matarese, a 23-year veteran of the Westerly Police Department and its highest-ranking female member ever, notified the town this month of her intent to sue because she was passed over for promotion to chief.
Seeking “an amount no less than $500,000,” Matarese plans to sue Westerly over a decision last year by Town Manager Joseph T. Turo to pass over her, instead appointing then-Capt. Edward A. Mello for the job.
Starting Friday, Matarese will serve as acting chief while Mello trains in Virginia for 11 weeks.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=b4ac454c-6bb0-44c7-920a-7534dc04404c
Where the state may not enter
Educate the girl child, but leave family planning to the family
Recently, a slew of measures to improve women’s conditions have been announced or promulgated — a bill against domestic violence, reform
of property rights for Hindu women and, most recently, enabling measures for the girl child. All these are welcome and much-needed interventions to improve the lives of women. To the credit of the government, it zeroed in early to the declining numbers of girls evidenced in the 2001 census and set about creating measures to ameliorate the situation. As a result, we have seen a change in the attitude of the government in its ‘‘family planning’’ advertising and in several schemes introduced from time to time.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=78961
WATERVILLE -- Two accountants, a minister and a doctor will present their views in support of a law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination at a panel set for tonight.
Sponsored by Maine Won't Discriminate, the group will talk about why they support the law that is being challenged by a people's veto. On Nov. 8, voters will be asked whether they want to repeal a law that gives gays and lesbians protection from discrimination in housing, education, employment, credit and public accommodations.
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1999663.shtml
Tyson Foods Faces Discrimination Lawsuit
'Whites Only' sign said to be in Ala. food processing plant, Black employees file suit against corp.
By Shaleem Thompson
Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Forty-one years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, several employees at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Ashland, Ala., said they revisited the Jim Crow era by being forced to work in a segregated work area.
On August 11, 13 black employees for the plant quietly filed a complaint claiming that a "Whites Only" sign was placed on a bathroom door in their work area. The employees said that a padlock, to which only certain white employees had a key, prevented them from entering the bathroom.
The employees said that when they complained about the segregated bathroom, plant managers told them that it was closed because the bathroom was "dirty," even though white employees regularly used the room.
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/media/paper590/news/2005/09/28/NationWorld/Tyson.Foods.Faces.Discrimination.Lawsuit-1000922.shtml
Carmike settles employee discrimination suit
Carmike Cinemas will pay $765,000 to settle a Sept. 2004 employee discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC filed the suit on behalf of 14 young men working for a theater in Raleigh, N.C. who were subject to unwelcome sexual touching, egregious sexual comments and other sexual advances from a male supervisor. The settlement will be divided among the victims in varying amounts agreed to by the victims and Carmike, said Lynette Barnes, acting regional attorney with the EEOC.
The payment is the largest is the largest damages that have been awarded since the EEOC began tracking teen harassment lawsuits in 2001. At its theaters in North Carolina and Virginia, Carmike will also be made to distribute its sexual harassment policy to all new hires. It will also have to post a revised summary of the policy, provide annual training seminars to managers, supervisors and new hires on sexual harassment and post a notice at those theaters about the lawsuit and employees' rights under unit-discrimination laws.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/business/12756166.htm
The New York Times
IT IS ALL, ALL, ALL A LITTLE TOO CONSERVATIVE FOR ME. There were some interesting 'trends' but nothing I really value.
From Gucci, Designs So Tame They're Dangerous
By CATHY HORYN
Published: September 29, 2005
MILAN, Sept. 28 - Diana Vreeland was famous for going up to Seventh Avenue manufacturers and demanding, "Show me the lemons." Lemons were the clothes that no merchant bought, and Vreeland prized these rejects for what the odd proportion or the ugly shoulder might reveal about the direction of fashion.
Judging by the sour pusses at Gucci tonight, Frida Giannini's first major runway show since succeeding Tom Ford was a stinker. Comments from retail executives about her pinched-shoulder jackets, her black satin Bermudas and beaded tea dresses ranged from "dreadful" to "disaster." A Neiman Marcus executive, requesting anonymity because of the store's pending sale and its lucrative business with Gucci, said: "This is a brand that represents desire and want. When you put something that safe on the runway it's dangerous."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/fashion/shows/29FASHION.html?hp
For G.O.P., DeLay Indictment Adds to a Sea of Troubles
By ROBIN TONER
Published: September 29, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - This is not what the Republicans envisioned 11 months ago, when they were returned to office as a powerful one-party government with a big agenda and - it seemed - little to fear from the opposition.
The indictment of Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, on Wednesday was the latest in a series of scandals and setbacks that have buffeted Republican leaders in Congress and the Bush administration, and transformed what might have been a victory lap into a hard political scramble. Republicans are still managing to score some victories - notably, Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s expected confirmation as chief justice of the United States on Thursday - but their governing majority is showing signs of strain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/politics/29assess.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=5363f9e5944b39a4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Governor Bars Freedom Center at Ground Zero
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: September 29, 2005
After a summer of furious and steadily rising criticism, Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum yesterday from its place next to the World Trade Center memorial site. With that, the museum declared itself to be out of business.
"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Mr. Pataki said in a statement. That quadrant, at the southwest corner of the trade center site, contains the footprints of the twin towers.
The Freedom Center, picked for the memorial site by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was envisioned as a living memorial in which the story of Sept. 11, 2001, would be told in the context of the worldwide struggle for freedom through the ages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/nyregion/29freedom.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=de3ad1b7844ba5b7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
It's interesting.
Cut-Rate Homes For Middle Class Are Catching On
By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: September 29, 2005
NOVATO, Calif. - Janice Quinci likes nice things: fashionable clothes, dinner out with her husband, a private school for her daughter. With a household income in the six figures, Ms. Quinci can pretty much enjoy it all.
Janice Quinci with her children, Frankie, 1, and Sophia, 3, outside their new home in Novato, Calif.
With the notable exception, until now, of a home of her own.
"We figured we would rent our whole lives," Ms. Quinci said. "We didn't really think that we could afford to have a place to ourselves."
Ms. Quinci, 29, was speaking from the front porch of her three-bedroom townhouse here in suburban Marin County, north of San Francisco. She and her husband, Vito, a salesman for a wine distributor, bought it new from a developer last November with no money down and at a steep discount. Inside, the refrigerator was pushed aside as workers laid a new kitchen floor - at no cost to the Quincis - because the original one was not up to snuff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/29afford.html?hp&ex=1128052800&en=c7bf961b1313bd57&ei=5094&partner=homepage
I hope Mayor Nigan includes citizens in the commission. New Orleans needs to have more income to it's people with opportunity they value. There are a lot of dynamics to New Orleans but certainly the poverty proliferating itself is detrimental and should not be tolerated. Not tolerated from the stand point of opportunity and not exclusion.
A Mogul Who Would Rebuild New Orleans
By GARY RIVLIN
Published: September 29, 2005
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 28 - Many of the business elite of New Orleans seem preoccupied these days by what some here simply call The List - the chosen few Mayor C. Ray Nagin is expected to name on Friday to a commission to advise him on the rebuilding of the stricken city. Almost certain to make the grade is the real estate mogul Joseph C. Canizaro, the man best known for bringing high-rises to the New Orleans skyline.
Mr. Canizaro has emerged as perhaps the single most influential business executive from New Orleans. One fellow business leader calls him the local Donald Trump. But Mr. Canizaro derives his influence far less from a flamboyant style than from his close ties to President Bush as well as to Mr. Nagin, and that combination could make him a pivotal figure in deciding how and where New Orleans will be resurrected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/business/29mogul.html
The New Zealand Herald
Typhoon Damrey toll mounts as floods sweep in
29.09.05
HANOI - Flash floods spawned by Typhoon Damrey killed at least four people in Thailand and hard-hit Vietnam reported 22 swept away in similar torrents in its northern mountains.
The deaths took the known toll to at least 41 in Damrey's rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan -- where the econmic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion -- Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand.
Despite waning after hitting land in Vietnam, Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- was still pounding wide areas with heavy rain and a Thai official said water spilling from a breached dam threatened the northern city of Chiang Mai.
"Heavy rain broke the reservoir and the water will flow into Chiang Mai today. Right now, the city is throwing up walls of sand bags," said Prasert Indee, a senior official in the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347775
Arctic sea ice melts to record low
29.09.05 4.00pm
By Steve Connor
Arctic sea ice has melted to a record low this month prompting fears that the entire polar ice cap may disappear within decades during the summer period.
Satellite images of the northern hemisphere's floating sea ice show that the area of ocean covered by the ice this September was the lowest ever observed by scientists.
It is the fourth consecutive summer that the area covered by the sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk below even the long-term decline, which began at least as far back as the late 1970s.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10347877
Family of Brazilian killed by police visit London station
29.09.05 1.10pm
By Terry Kirby
After an emotional visit to the spot where Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police marksmen, his parents said that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, must take the blame for failing in his duty to protect their son.
Maria Otone de Menezes said her 27-year-old son, an electrician, had been "killed like a mad dog" when he was shot by Scotland Yard officers on a train at Stockwell Underground station on 22 July in the mistaken belief he was a suicide bomber.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347864
South African gold mining magnate murdered say police
29.09.05 1.00pm
By Basildon Peta
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa is in shock after the apparent contract killing of one of the country's most prominent gold mining magnates and political figures, who was shot dead at the wheel of his car.
Brett Kebble, a member of President Thabo Mbeki's ruling African National Congress (ANC) and a key supporter of the recently sacked deputy president Jacob Zuma, was killed on Tuesday evening as he drove his silver Mercedes through northern Johannesburg's plush Melrose suburb on his way to dinner at a friend's house.
The blood-spattered body of the heavy-set businessman was found slumped over the steering wheel of his bullet-riddled car after it smashed into the railing of a bridge.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347854
Civil rights at risk in terror backlash
29.09.05
By Helen Tunnah and Agencies
John Howard has been accused of frightening Australians with harsh new anti-terror laws he says are necessary but which even some supporters admit are "draconian".
The Australian Prime Minister's plan to change the law so a person can be detained for up to two weeks without charge has also been labelled a threat to the freedoms the so-called "war on terror" is meant to be protecting.
New Zealand is not expected to follow Australia's lead in seeking house arrest or greater detention powers, although measures such as increased personal searches and questioning at big events, such as sporting contests, cannot be ruled out.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347806
Five foreshore and seabed claims lodged
30.09.05 6.45pm
Five claims for customary rights orders over parts of the coastline have now been lodged with the Maori Land Court under the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
The Justice Ministry yesterday publicly notified and called for submissions on two of the claims.
The first, on behalf of Te Whakatohea Iwi, is seeking rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga -- authority and guardianship -- over a 50km stretch of Bay of Plenty coastline east of Whakatane.
The claim was lodged earlier this year.
The second is by a southern group called Te Makati whanau, which is asking for kaitiakitanga over an area of Southland coast between Chaslands Mistake and Wallace Head.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10347905
Health board refuses to back down on child's bill
29.09.05
Fourteen and half years is too long to wait for full payment of a non-resident child's heart disease treatment, the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) says.
The father of three-year-old stroke victim Shihab Fahim has asked the ADHB to allow the family to repay their $37,500 medical bill in weekly payments of $50.
But the board has told the family the bill must be paid within 12 months -- the equivalent of $664.47 a week -- or the case would be "placed in the hands of an international debt collector and New Zealand immigration service."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10347862
Weed has trout rivers in its grip
29.09.05
By Anne Beston
Two popular trout rivers have been effectively closed and restrictions will be put on a third in the next few days as an invasive foreign weed threatens some of New Zealand's most beautiful waterways.
As the trout fishing season kicks off this weekend, around 200km of Southland's lower Waiau and Mararoa Rivers have been declared biosecurity zones, effectively barring anglers and whitebaiters, while restrictions will be put on the Buller River soon.
The invasive aquatic plant didymo (pronounced did-ee-mo) has been found in all three rivers. A microscopic organism that blooms into thick, unsightly clumps, didymo suffocates riverbeds, threatens trout and other fish and makes wading dangerous.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10347802
German candidates optimistic for coalition talks
29.09.05 1.00pm
BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative leader Angela Merkel voiced optimism after talks to forge a power-sharing coalition on Wednesday despite disagreeing on who should lead the country.
"Constructive, serious," was the verdict of Merkel to reporters after meeting Schroeder and Social Democrat (SPD) chief Franz Muentefering.
"And when you think how we spoke with and against each other 14 days ago in the election campaign, I would have thought it almost impossible, but there is a great seriousness there to find a way as to whether we can forge a coalition together."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10347867
UK rules out military action against Iran
29.09.05
BRIGHTON - Military action against Iran over its nuclear ambitions is not on the agenda of the United States or Europe, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said.
Straw also urged Tehran to cooperate with the West to resolve a stand-off over its nuclear programme.
"There is no question of us going to war in Iran. Why? Because it's not going to resolve the issue," Straw said.
"No one is talking about going to war against Iran. It's not on the agenda of the United States," he told Sky News from the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10347781
