The New Zealand Herald
Missing New Zealanders down to three
07.09.05 4.50pm UPDATE
Even as two New Zealand families were rejoicing at the news their loved ones had turned up safe and well a week after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, three other New Zealand nationals are still unaccounted for.
Earlier today there were four families searching for loved ones, but this afternoon MFAT spokeswoman Emma Reilly said one of the families had contacted their relative.
The three missing New Zealanders are all permanent US residents, not tourists, Ms Reilly said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10344484
Toxic timebomb builds up as water recedes
07.09.05
By Andrew Gumbel and Rupert Cornwell
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week.
Toxicologists and public health experts warned yesterday that pumping billions of gallons of contaminated water from the streets of New Orleans back into the Gulf of Mexico - the only viable option if the city is ever to return to even a semblance of its former self - would have a crippling effect on marine and animal life, compromise the wetlands that form the first line of resistance to future hurricanes, and carry deleterious consequences for human health throughout the region.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10344465
Toxic timebomb builds up as water recedes
07.09.05
By Andrew Gumbel and Rupert Cornwell
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week.
Toxicologists and public health experts warned yesterday that pumping billions of gallons of contaminated water from the streets of New Orleans back into the Gulf of Mexico - the only viable option if the city is ever to return to even a semblance of its former self - would have a crippling effect on marine and animal life, compromise the wetlands that form the first line of resistance to future hurricanes, and carry deleterious consequences for human health throughout the region.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10344465
Bush resists immediate probe into Katrina response
07.09.05 1.00pm
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush has pledged to review what went wrong in the initial response to Hurricane Katrina but resisted any immediate probe and lawmakers launched an investigation of their own.
Partisan tempers flared, the projected cost of Katrina recovery efforts mushroomed and Pentagon leaders denied there was any delay in the military response to the relief effort last week.
After a Cabinet meeting on the myriad challenges posed by his biggest crisis since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush said he would lead an investigation into what went wrong. But he said he first wanted to save lives and solve problems before assessing blame.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10344453
Great apes may die out in a generation
07.09.05
Poaching, logging and disease will soon wipe out the last of the world's great apes unless new strategies are devised to save humankind's closest relatives, conservationists say.
From Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria in Africa to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Asia, scientists fear populations of gorillas, chimpanzees and orang-utans could disappear within a generation without urgent action.
"As we sit today, it is important to remember we are talking about the future of a member of our family, not a strange creature that lives in the jungle," Richard Leakey, a prominent conservationist from Kenya, told delegates from 23 countries at a conference on Monday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on saving apes.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10344310
Texas struggles to cope as refugees hit 250,000
06.09.05 4.00pm
By David Usborne
HOUSTON - The electronic traffic signs along route I-10, the Interstate highway that for days has been the prime artery for the bus caravans of evacuees fleeing southern Louisiana, flashed a new message that no one wanted to see: "ASTRODOME SHELTER CLOSED - I-45 TO DALLAS".
They might almost have said "TEXAS CLOSED", because the state which moved so quickly last week to open its arms to survivors of Hurricane Katrina, taking the brunt of the largest movement of evacuees in modern American history, by yesterday had reached saturation point.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10344259
The Cheney Observer
IT MELTED? Where did the water run off go? Who was affected without knowing they were effected by the run off?
Knoxville News-Sentinel, The (TN)
August 13, 2005
Radioactive pond frozen since 1990s excavated
1950s nuclear waste dump taken to landfill
Author: FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
OAK RIDGE -- A radioactive pond, maintained in a frozen state for seven years to protect the environment, is no longer.
Workers excavated the site earlier this summer and shipped tons of contaminated muck and debris -- requiring 574 truck shipments -- to a nuclear landfill about 10 miles away.
Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., the federal contractor in charge of cleanup, said surveys verified that all of the radioactive materials had been removed. The excavated area, adjacent to an old nuclear reactor, is being backfilled with clean soil and restored, he said.
Although recent activities have been slowed by rain, Hill said, "It's been handled very well -- no releases or injuries or things like that."
Cost of the cleanup activities is about $2.6 million, he said. Sevenson Environmental Services is heading the work under a subcontract to Bechtel Jacobs.
The pond was created in the 1950s to receive nucle! ar wastes from the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment -- a test reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In about 1970, the 300,000-gallon pond was backfilled with clay, shale and other materials and capped with asphalt. But the waste pipelines were left in place, and, over time, the pond's nuclear pollutants began to migrate down a slope and contaminate Melton Branch and other local streams.
The biggest concern was radioactive strontium-90, but there were other hazardous materials buried at the site.
In the mid-1990s, an Alaskan company, Arctic Foundations, was hired to install a series of thermoprobes to freeze the contaminated zone -- including the groundwater -- down to a depth of about 30 feet. The cost of that experimental project was about $1.2 million, with annual maintenance costs of about $27,000.
The idea was to use ice walls to stem the migration of radioactivity until a permanent solution was developed.
Project officials say the ! technical scheme was successful, virtually eliminating leakage in that area since 1997 -- when the deep freeze took hold.
The plug was pulled on the cryogenic systems last year, but the frozen pond was so slow to thaw that project planners decided to begin the excavation of still-icy ground.
Wastes removed from the site were trucked to the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge landfill, which has multiple liners and drainage systems designed to isolate the nuclear contaminants from the environment.
Senior Writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
Copyright (c) 2005 The Knoxville News-Sentinel
Record Number: 417073812
http://webmail.att.net/wmc/v/wm/431E39FE0006B00800006C9021604666489B9B0A9D9D0E0DD20E9C07040A?cmd=Show&no=4&uid=278686&sid=c0
Cronies in the making.
Estero grad selected for White House internship
By DENISE ZOLDAN, dczoldan@naplesnews.com
September 5, 2005
Shaun Lara glanced down at his cell phone and saw that the incoming call had a 202 area code — but the rest of the numbers were blanked out.
The 21-year-old Estero High School grad who's majoring in political science and economics at the University of Central Florida knew instantly what that meant.
"I knew it was the White House," he said. "And I knew it was good. They don't call to tell you that you didn't make it."
Lara was interning at the conservative Leadership Institute, in Arlington, Va., when he had applied for a White House internship for this fall The Leadership Institute's mission is to identify young conservatives who are potential leaders and to help them enter politics and the media.
Lara used the institute's president, Morton Blackwell, as a reference on his application to work for White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.
He is pretty sure that's one reason why his cell phone rang that mid-July day.
"He trained Rove," Lara said.
http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/bonitanews/article/0,2071,NPDN_14894_4056008,00.html
Thank you Halliburton/KBR
Often overlooked in the MSM’s daily casualty tally is the toll taken on our contract support workers in Iraq. On August 3, a wall hanging was dedicated
in Baghdad honoring the 43 men and women of Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) who have paid the ultimate sacrifice supporting our service members and other civilian staff.
Steven Arnold, the current director and project manager of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program III (LOGCAP), recalled how in Somalia, KBR civilians fed the Soldiers, got them out of the dirt to get a shower and “made all the difference in the world.” In Bosnia, KBR employees followed right behind the lead combat echelon to set up the main airfield so additional troops and supplies could flow in to make the mission a success.
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=2860
Unacceptable Regimes in Iraq and the United States
http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20416
Terry Guttormson letter: CAFTA will exploit sweatshop workers
The Forum
Published Saturday, August 13, 2005
Ronald Reagan, arguably one of the most popular presidents in recent history, couldn’t get North American Free Trade Agreement passed in his two terms. George Herbert Walker Bush, widely respected by members of both parties, couldn’t get NAFTA passed. Ross Perot, thought by millions as a quirky little candidate, was right on the money as a warned us of a huge “sucking sound” created by jobs going south to Mexico if NAFTA was passed during the 1992 presidential race.
Bill Clinton, however, unctuously persuaded Congress to eventually pass NAFTA during his stint as commander in chief. The net effect of NAFTA was lost textile jobs at home, a huge and growing trade deficit with Mexico, a huge and growing trade deficit with Canada while our NAFTA partners reneged on their deals in reference to allowing U.S. access to their markets. And, of course, the multi-nationals added even more billons per quarter to their profits.
The passage of Central American Free Trade Agreement was so important to George W. Bush that he used black mail and extortion methods to get his sweat shop labor bill passed. On its own merits, CAFTA was going to crash and burn in the House of Representatives much like the Air France flight 358 as it slipped off the end of the runway in Toronto. But when W threatened to hold federal bridge and highway funding over the heads of congressmen that were going to vote against CAFTA, the scales were tipped and CAFTA passed.
http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=100144§ion=Opinion
Fox News Refines its Cindy Sheehan Smear
One of the guests on Your World w/Neil Cavuto today (August 12, 2005,) was Lance Cpl. Klay South. South, who sat rod-straight and was dressed in a Marine officer's evening dress uniform, was shot in the face and in the foot in Fallujah in November, 2004. His facial scars are quite prominent but he is nonetheless a good-looking, articulate man.
He is not unaccustomed to attention. He was mentioned in a November, 2004, Washington Post article, and in that same month he sat very close to George W. Bush during an event at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. He will also be profiled in an "explosive, two hour" (as the ads say) Fox News "special" on Sunday evening titled, Company of Heroes.
Early in the segment, Cavuto said, "Cindy Sheehan is a mom who's hurting, obviously. She lost her son. She's mad at the President. Are you?" (Note: Cavuto didn't say Sheehan lost her son in Iraq.)
Fox cut to a split-screen and aired video of Sheehan in Texas, looking disheveled and exhausted, next to the crisp, neat soldier. "No," South said. "I can't be mad because I love my corps. I love my family. I love my country. Being in the hospital, I was with a lot of people and I never came across one military person that was bitter or family [sic] bitter about being injured or losing any loved ones. It's what you signed up to do. You're serving your country. It's an honor."
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/08/12/fox_news_refines_its_cindy_sheehan_smear.php
Audit: DeLay political fund misstated cash
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
The Washington Post
Published August 12, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission criticized a political fund directed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for misstating accounts and failing to report debts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The watchdog agency issued its findings after auditing DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC for 2001 and 2002. The PAC is one of a growing number of so-called leadership PACs, through which members of Congress provide financing and electoral assistance to other candidates for office.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0508120128aug12,1,4018333.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Why the IAPAC indictment is Bad News for Karl Rove
http://mathaba.net/news/print.shtml?cmd%5b40%5d=i-42-599edc61f412e539b06e7c63dd6e0f84
Bunny blows whistle on Halliburton
By Debora Hastings
WASHINGTON — In the world as Bunnatine Greenhouse sees it, people do the right thing. They stand up for the greater good and they speak up when things go wrong. She believes God has a purpose for each life and she prays every day for that purpose to be made evident. These days she is praying her heart out, because she is in a great deal of trouble.
Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (“PARC” in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers’ money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there. She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up, before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.
She has asked many questions: Why is Halliburton — a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq — getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding? Do the durations of those contracts make sense? Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money?
Halliburton denies any wrongdoing. “These false allegations have been recycled in the media ad nauseam,” the company said in response to a list of e-mailed questions from The Associated Press. Now Bunny Greenhouse may lose her job _ and her reputation, which she spent a lifetime building. She is a black woman in a world of mostly white men; a 60-year-old workaholic who abides neither fools nor frauds. But she is out of her element in this fight, her former boss said.
“What Bunny is caught up in is politics of the highest damn order,” said retired Gen. Joe Ballard, who hired Greenhouse and headed the Corps until 2000. “This is real hardball they’re playing here. Bunny is a procurement officer, she’s not a politician. She’s not trained to do this.”
http://www.bakusun.az/cgi-bin/ayten/bakusun/show.cgi?code=8247
US: BOOK CLAIMS CHENEY KNEW BUT DID NOTHING TO STOP PAKISTANI NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION
Washington DC, 12 August (AKI/DAWN) - US vice-president Dick Cheney knew about the the network of nuclear proliferators in Pakistan for more than a decade but did not act to stop it, says Jason Leopold, the author of a new book, News Junkie. In an article first published on a liberal American website, Common Dreams News Center, and later reproduced by other sites, Leopold argues that Cheney knew the network had been selling nuclear technology to ‘outlaw nations’ for almost 15 years.
Leopold, who writes regularly for major international newspapers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, says the International Atomic Energy Association launched an investigation two years ago in an attempt to uncover how Iran obtained components and parts for nuclear centrifuges.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.196674524&par=
Some of Cindy Sheehan's Supporters "Are People Who Support the Insurgents"
(And, Shame on Juan Williams)
The subject of Cindy Sheehan came up today (August 11, 2005) for the first time on Your World w/Neil Cavuto. Cavuto's guests were Juan Williams, the alleged "liberal" on the panel, from NPR (and a "Fox News Contributor"), and radical Republican John O'Sullivan of The National Interest magazine.
The topic was introduced by Cavuto as being whether or not President Bush can "win," "either way, on this Sheehan situation."
… Comment: This is called, "How to Pretend You're Covering An Issue, but Instead to Bash and Trivialize the 'Enemy," and not to Cover the Issue at All."
(One of Fox's "tricks" is to feature two guests and to thus give the impression it's presenting both sides. However, very, very often, the two guests agree with the conservative position, as happened today. No firm voice of opposition is actually heard. (We have a category for likes of Juan Williams - the "Not-so-Liberal Liberals.") And it works. Judging from our mail, Fox's viewers overwhelmingly believe they are hearing both sides.)
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/08/11/some_of_cindy_sheehans_supporters_are_people_who_support_the_insurgents.php
FEC Faults Accounting at DeLay's PAC
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page A02
The Federal Election Commission criticized a political fund chaired by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for misstating accounts and failing to report debts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The watchdog agency issued its findings after auditing DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC (ARMPAC) for 2001 and 2002. ARMPAC is one of a growing number of "leadership" PACs, through which members of Congress provide financing and electoral assistance to other candidates for office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/11/AR2005081101607.html
Tom DeLay, Opera Buff
I'm not making this up. I swear.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005, at 4:09 PM PT
DeLay's secret passion
Jack Abramoff, Washington sleazeball extraordinaire, has finally been indicted. Surprisingly, the indictment is not related—directly, anyway—to the allegation that he defrauded the Indian tribes he represented as a lobbyist, which is the crime Abramoff is most widely suspected of committing. Instead, Abramoff stands accused of committing bank fraud by failing, along with his partner, Adam Kiden, to put up a promised $23 million for the purchase of SunCruz Casinos, a fleet of cruise ships whose customers enjoy the rare opportunity to play blackjack, craps, roulette, baccarat, etc. while getting seasick plying the waters of Florida's Atlantic coast. (The Washington angle is that Abramoff allegedly used proceeds from SunCruz to pay for political fund-raisers at his skyboxes at Washington's MCI Center and Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards.) According to the Miami Herald's description of the indictment, Kidan provided the bank with a phony document purporting to show that the $23 million had been sent to the seller, one Konstantinos ''Gus'' Boulis, who was subsequently gunned down in a gangland-style killing. This last detail is obviously a lot more interesting than playing Three Card Monte with Choctaw gambling profits.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2124417/
What exactly did Rove tell the president?
(image placeholder)
By Pete Yost
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:50 p.m. August 11, 2005
WASHINGTON – Among the many questions surrounding the investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer is whether President Bush's top political adviser told his boss the truth about his connection to the case.
Two years ago, the White House denied that Karl Rove played any role, but revelations in the past month have shown that Rove spoke with two journalists about the operative, Valerie Plame. Whether Bush knew the truth while the White House was issuing its denials is not publicly known.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050811-1450-cialeak-investigation.html
Whose side is Karl Rove really on?
Thursday, August 11, 2005
By MEA KAEMMERLEN
Whose side is Karl Rove really on?
Something is bothering me these days. It involves intelligence. Or not.
I've never been personally accused of having buckets of the stuff myself, but I like to see it in other people, especially people who are running our big, beautiful country.
http://www.nj.com/columns/times/kaemmerlen/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1123747817321720.xml&coll=5
China View
Chinese, US presidents to meet in New York
BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese president Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush will meet in New York on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of common concern, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said here Tuesday. The two heads of state agreed last Saturday in their phone conversation to hold bilateral meeting when attending the United Nations 60th anniversary summit in New York in mid September.
They will also exchange views on matters concerned the United Nations, spokesman Qin Gang told a regular press conference.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/06/content_3453536.htm
It's stupid to be afraid of China's development: Lee Kuan Yew
http://www.chinaview.cn/ 2005-09-07 15:42:33
BERLIN, Sept. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- A shift of the world's economic center of gravity from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific is inevitable but it's stupid to be afraid of China's development, Singaporean political mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said.
"Economically, there will be a shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean and you can already see that in the shipping volumes of Chinese ports," Lee said in a recent exclusive interview with German-language weekly Der Spiegel.
"Every shipping line is trying to get into association with a Chinese container port," he noted.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/07/content_3456069.htm
Palestinian ex-security chief killed in Gaza
GAZA, Sept. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Dozens of unknown masked militants stormed home of ex-security chief in Gaza, Gen. Moussa Arafat, before dawn Wednesday, and shot him dead, officials said.
The militants threw grenades at Arafat's home in the neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, southern Gaza, and clashed with his personal bodyguards, the officials said.
They added that the militants killed Arafat and abducted his son Manhal, 29, considered his father's right-hand man.
Medical sources at al-Quds Hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the city confirmed that Arafat arrived dead at the hospital.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/07/content_3455035.htm
Mainland bank offers huge loans to Taiwan investors
BEIJING, Sept. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Chen Yunlin, director of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, and Chen Yuan, president of the State Development Bank (SDB) signed an agreement Wednesday, to offer huge bank loans to business people from China's Taiwan Province who invest in the mainland.
It makes the SDB the first mainland bank to grant loans to Taiwan investors.
Under the agreement, the mainland promises to provide Taiwan investors with credit loans totaling 30 billion yuan (about 3.9 billion US dollars), in the coming five years.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/07/content_3454881.htm
Nothing like playing both sides of the street. India as well?
Sino-US military exchanges maintain momentum
BEIJING, Sept. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese and US senior military leaders vowed yesterday in Beijing to keep a good momentum in the bilateral inter-military relationship.
Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of US Pacific Command, stressed during meetings with Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army Liang Guanglie and Central Military Commission Vice-Chairman Guo Boxiong that the United States is willing to expand exchanges with the Chinese military in a number of areas.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/07/content_3454076.htm
US economic development not example for China
BEIJING, Sept. 7 (Xinhuanet, Xinhua writer Ren Fang) -- Lester Brown, who scared the world by asking "Who will feed China" in 1994, said today that, "the United States has become the greatest threat to world energy."
Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute, based in the United States, called for the China to give up its model of economic development, which evolved in the United States and is characterized by inefficiency and pollution.
"The fossil-fuel based, auto-centered economy of the United States threatens not only the world energy supply, but also the climate," said Brown, during his stay in Beijing to attend the "Twenty First Forum," in an exclusive interview with Xinhua which sharply criticized US energy policy.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/07/content_3458906.htm
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