Los Angeles Times
Santa Ana Winds Whip Fires Across Southland
· Scores of homes are threatened. Evacuations ordered in Agoura Hills, northeast Oak Park, Bell Canyon, Box Canyon and Woolsey Canyon Road.
By Steve Chawkins and Daryl Strickland, Times Staff Writers
A brush fire, fanned by the first Santa Ana winds of season, has charred 7,000 acres near the Los Angeles and Ventura county borders, forcing hundreds from their homes and closing schools today.More than 350 people had been evacuated by early this morning in Agoura Hills, Northeast Oak Park, Bell Canyon, Box Canyon and Woolsey Canyon Road as the fire doubled in size overnight. Driven by overnight winds gusting to 40 mph, the fires produced tall columns of smoke and were visible around the Los Angeles Basin.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-092905fires_lat,0,2735246.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Identifying the dead might prove daunting but it is not impossible.
New York City has far less to work with than the forensics on the Gulf Coast. This is just more proof of the lack of expertise in the South and the poor preparation of higher education to profession.
The South prefers to allow too much error for the sake of ‘function’ and a government where the word perfect does not exist.
It is taking long because every aspect of ‘expertise’ is a struggle and the longer it takes the more intricate the identity becomes and the longer it will take.
We are on a slippery slope and these ‘boyz’ don’t know how to say, “We aren’t this good. Can we have some help?” They are afraid to show their shortcomings as it will lead to a lot of questions about forensics in the South and we all know where that will lead; well beyond just the issues with Katarina. Like, questions regarding who is sitting in prison for what crime based on THIS ???
Katrina's Corpses Are Many, IDs Are Few
By David Zucchino, Nicholas Riccardi and Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writers
BATON ROUGE, La. — A month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana coast, coroners have positively identified just 32 of the nearly 800 corpses collected at a temporary morgue, officials said Wednesday.Only about a third of the recovered bodies have been even tentatively identified, underscoring the difficulty of confirming the identities and causes of death for victims of a disaster that left corpses decomposing in floodwaters and scattered survivors across the country.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bodies29sep29,0,274016.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Peak for Housing Said to Be Near
· Slowing price increases in California may cause a recession by 2007, UCLA economists say.
By Bill Sing, Times Staff Writer
California's housing boom appears to be peaking, and the resultant slowdown is expected to produce "weak growth" in the state's economy during the next two years and a possible recession by the end of 2007.That's the view of economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast, which plans to release its widely watched quarterly outlook this morning.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calecon28sep28,0,2274249.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy
· Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.
By Susannah Rosenblatt and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers
BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-rumors27sep27,0,5536446.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
Racial Gap in Loans Is High in State
· A study finds that borrowers in minority communities in the L.A. area are more than nine times more likely to get higher-cost mortgages.
By Jonathan Peterson, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A racial disparity in mortgage lending rates appears to be sharper in Los Angeles and other California metropolitan areas than the rest of the country, according to an analysis of federal data to be released today.The study by the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an advocacy group for the poor, looked at the percentage of higher-cost loans issued in minority communities compared with nonminority neighborhoods in the same metropolitan area.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-loans29sep29,0,6791563.story?coll=la-home-business
China Daily
China-U.S. textile talks end without agreement
(AFP)Updated: 2005-09-29 21:33
China said Thursday that textile talks in Washington with the United States had ended without an agreement being reached and that another round of negotiations would be held.
"China and the United States held the fifth round of textile talks in Washington D.C., the two sides made positive progress in the talks, but some differences remain as well," the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.
"Both sides agreed to hold the next rounds of talks as quickly as possible and fix the time and place for them through diplomatic channels."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481953.htm
China seen world leader in clean energy
(Reuters)Updated: 2005-09-29 07:09
Smog, soot and a thirst for oil: that's one image of China.
But the Asian colossus is also seen leading the way in the use of "green" energies as alternatives to fossil fuels, the head of a leading environmental watchdog said on Wednesday.
"China is already big in renewables. In 5 years time we see them as a world leader in this department," Chistopher Flavin, president of the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute, told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy conference in Johannesburg.
"Already, 35 million homes in China get their hot water from solar collectors. That is more than the rest of the world combined," he said.
Renewable energy is derived from sources that are continually replaced, unlike fossil fuels of which there is a finite supply. Most renewables are non-polluting.
"There are prospects for real take-offs in solar and wind power in China, and not just hot water for homes but in industry," said Flavin.
"State-owned industries and private companies there are investing heavily in renewables," he said.
Sky-high world oil prices have partly been attributed to surging demand from China and the country's overall record on the environment has many greens seeing red.
But Flavin said the rapid growth in oil imports and related costs was making China look for alternatives.
He also said the country was grappling with mounting health and social costs from pollution as well as an energy crisis that has seen rolling black outs.
Flavin earlier told the conference that renewable energy was rapidly growing on a global scale, albeit from a low base compared to fossil fuels.
He said that wind power had an annual average growth rate of about 30 percent from 1994 to 2004, while solar energy had seen yearly growth of close to 25 percent over the same period.
He also said that the costs from such energy sources were falling fast, noting that wind power in 1980 cost 46 cents a kilowatt hour but now cost less than 6 cents.
But he said that much of the oil industry was missing the boat and the message it was sending was that: "Real energy men don't do renewable energy."
China sets up fund to protect stock investors(Reuters)Updated: 2005-09-29 09:09
SHANGHAI - China has launched a stock rescue fund, which will focus on compensating investors and helping brokerages that run into problems, one of a raft of measures designed to buoy the nation's sickly stock markets. Money for the fund will come from a small portion of stock trading commissions from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, as well as brokerages, according to rules governing the use of the fund published in official newspapers on Thursday.
Regulators set up a company to manage the fund in early September, overseen by five government agencies, including the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the People's Bank of China.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481824.htm
Indicted DeLay steps down from US House post
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 13:58
US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.
A defiant DeLay said he had done nothing wrong and denounced the Democratic prosecutor who pursued the case as a "partisan fanatic." He said, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."
Nonetheless, DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481879.htm
Puerto Rico town may build UFO site
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 08:32
People in this sleepy hamlet are so sure they have been receiving other-worldly visitors, they want to build a UFO landing strip to welcome them.
A bright green sign along a lonely country road in southwestern Puerto Rico proudly displays a silhouette of a flying saucer and two words: "Extraterrestrial Route."
Most Puerto Ricans laughed when a horse farmer installed the sign on his property at the request of Reynaldo Rios, a local elementary school teacher who says he's been communicating with alien visitors to this U.S. territory since he was a child.
Rios, a 39-year-old with a goatee and a shock of dark hair, won't be ignored. With the blessing of a local government desperate for tourist dollars, he's dedicated himself to building the UFO landing strip.
"I can't say exactly when they will come, but I know it will happen," Rios said. "I want to keep believing in my dreams."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481768.htm
U.S. : EU slow to freeze terrorist assets
(AP)Updated: 2005-09-29 21:18
The European Union is moving too slowly in identifying individuals and organizations suspected of links to terrorists and freezing their financial assets, a top U.S. counterterrorism official warned Thursday.
Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury Dept. undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, said European efforts to freeze assets were hampered by bureaucracy and needed to be streamlined to help thwart future attacks.
Levey, who is touring Europe to press his case, said he hoped Austria would make improving the EU's clearinghouse on terrorist information a priority when it takes over the bloc's rotating presidency on Jan. 1.
"The process within the EU has been a troubled one ... slow and cumbersome," Levey told reporters in Vienna, where he was meeting with Austrian political leaders and bankers to call for "a more energetic and aggressive approach."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481950.htm
It is not an inaccurate observation except as of recent the violence that occurred in New Orleans was not as wide spread or heinous as once believed. The exaggerated estimation was primarily to the dire situation of those trapped within the city without food and water.
War in Iraq and natural disaster
Wchao 37bbs.chinadaily.com.cn Updated: 2005-09-29 15:57
With limitless financial resources and scientific know-how to predict all kinds of natural disasters, why was the United States still left with many reported instances of homicides, rapes, robberies and thousands of casualties during the Katrina flooding? That was not just a matter of governmental incompetence: It was a demonstration of just how fragile the social fabric of much of America is today.
Imagine what could happen in an even larger city like Philadelphia, Chicago or Los Angeles if there was a breakdown in law and order caused by a disruptive natural calamity like Katrina, causing a major shortfall in basic amenities such as fresh water?
The authorities have frankly admitted they were incapable of dealing with such problems in view of what happened with the frantic exodus from Texas.
There would be a major breakdown of law and order because social cohesion such as that which exists in the three major East Asian nations, Japan, Korea and China, is simply non-existent in many parts of the United States.
I know, because I have been everywhere except the New England states north of Boston. Racism is an omnipresent endemic disease in all the US states, waiting to raise its ugly head during major civil disturbances such as that which occurred during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and now a natural calamity in New Orleans in 2005.
There is no excuse for it. It is a social-racial problem because that kind of negligence is not likely to happen to eclectic areas in Long Island, New York; or Thousand Oaks, California or Chappaquidick, Massachusetts; or in San Franciso or Reston, Virginia if a comparable event occurred.
If the US performance is so miserable in an expected natural disaster, where plenty of warning was given, what would Americans do in a real terrorist attack aimed at inflicting maximum damage to key urban infrastructures such as the water and electricity supplies of major Western cities?
Prevention of terrorist attacks is very expensive these days. For instance, the New York Subway System has been learning from the London attacks and is projected to spend $US9 billion on personnel, electronic surveillance and other preventative means. How many billions more is US President George W. Bush prepared to dish out for such stop-gap measures in other metropolitan areas?
Unless equality -- in which everyone in the world is given equal justice in redressing grievances -- is allowed to prevail, no amount of prevention is going to make a crucial difference. There will always be loopholes and countermeasures available to dedicated foes.
Ours is indeed a different world even from that at the time of the Kosovo War just a few years ago. Advanced weaponry is not the decisive factor in wars these days because the Iraqi War has shown that car and roadside bomb attacks are effective measures against an occupying army in urban warfare.
Coordinated worldwide anti-Iraq war demonstrations in Rome, London, Washington DC are gaining momentum because of the tangible and intangible costs of the Iraqi quagmire.
The US treasury is not a bottomless pit. The Chinese have a saying that if you sit around and consume a mountain of food without replenishing it, there will come a day when even that mountain disappears for good.
It is very un-American to inflict such pain on its own people, let alone the people of the entire world as they watch every step.
Don't tell me that there was no money allocated to repair those levees (one pre-disaster estimate placed the repair costs for the New Orleans levees at a mere $US 23 million).
Now. Billions must be paid to make up for the folly of not planning for the disaster that followed from doing nothing.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/29/content_481912.htm
Washington Post
Supply Concerns Elevate Futures
Storms May Have Lasting Effect On Operations
By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, September 29, 2005; Page D01
Gasoline and natural gas prices soared on the futures markets yesterday as traders grew concerned that energy operations damaged by hurricanes Rita and Katrina could be hobbled longer than expected.
Analysts said that if futures prices remain at elevated levels, national pump prices for a gallon of regular could move above $3 a gallon, as they did following Hurricane Katrina. They added that a run-up in natural gas prices likely will mean increases for winter heating bills.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800413.html
Indonesia is OPEC.
At the Pump, Pressure From Indonesian Drivers
Plan to Raise Fuel Prices Holds Risk for President
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A14
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- As the Indonesian government prepares to raise fuel prices next month by as much as 50 percent, Kasum, a veteran taxi driver, frets about continuing the work he has done since he was 12 years old.
"Given fuel prices today, it's already hard to get enough money to pay my family's rent," said Kasum, 40, his brow baked by years up front in a three-wheel bajaj cab. "I don't know what will happen if the prices go up again."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802288.html
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Ramadi
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
The Associated PressThursday, September 29, 2005; 12:39 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A roadside bomb killed five American soldiers during combat in the western town of Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent activity, the U.S military said Thursday.
The five, who were assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, were hit while "conducting combat operations" on Wednesday, a statement by the Marines said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092900273.html
Pentagon Analyst to Plead Guilty to Leak
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
The Associated PressThursday, September 29, 2005; 12:33 PM
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A Pentagon analyst charged with providing classified information to an Israeli official and members of a pro-Israeli lobbying group will plead guilty, according to the U.S. District Court clerk's office.
Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., was indicted in June on charges of leaking classified materials _ including information about potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq _ to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and an Israeli official.
Edward Adams, a spokesman for U.S. District Court Clerk in Alexandria, said a hearing to accept Franklin's guilty plea has been scheduled for Wednesday. However, the charges to which he would enter the plea were not disclosed. Franklin was indicted on five charges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092900893.html
No-Bid Contracts To Get Close Look
Inspectors General Promise to Review Katrina Deals, Earlier FEMA Agreements
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A11
The officials responsible for monitoring more than $60 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina spending promised yesterday to take a hard look at every no-bid contract awarded since the storm and to investigate the adequacy of contracts the government had in place before disaster struck.
The assurances came at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing at which lawmakers from both parties questioned a panel of inspectors general about whether Katrina aid money is being well spent. The inspectors general provided few answers because, they said, their work has just begun. But they said repeatedly that they would investigate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802252.html
Free Speech Issues Still Problematic For Vietnam
U.S. Urging Release of 5 'Prisoners of Conscience'
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, September 29, 2005; Page A14
JAKARTA, Indonesia A business manager in Hanoi, Pham Hong Son, has spent 42 months in a Vietnamese prison. His crime: downloading an essay titled "What is Democracy?" from a U.S. State Department Web site, translating it and sending it to friends and senior Communist Party officials.
Son, 36, who worked for a pharmaceutical company, was convicted of espionage in Vietnam after a closed, one-day trial in June 2003. He was sentenced to 13 years, later reduced to five.
"What he did was legal," insisted his wife, Vu Thuy Ha, 34, in a June interview in Hanoi. She said that her husband was exercising free speech and did not commit a seditious act. "What can anyone do with the translation? What can they do to overthrow the government?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802218.html
A President in Need of a Blunt Friend
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page A23
What George W. Bush needs right now is his own version of Clark Clifford. He needs a friend close enough to tell him that his presidency is failing -- and wise enough to describe what Bush must do to salvage it.
Clifford played that truth-telling role for Lyndon Johnson at the height of LBJ's Vietnam crisis. Through a unique combination of being loyal to Johnson and yet not being dependent on him, this archetype of the Washington legal establishment could not only talk to the president but also be heard -- if not necessarily followed in detail.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802120.html
ALL THE ‘NUT CASE’ legislation is coming out of the woodwork now that Robert’s is headed for the Supremes.
Kill Bill
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page A22
TODAY, THE SENATE Judiciary Committee takes up the so-called Streamlined Procedures Act, a bill that radically scales back federal review of state convictions and death sentences. Calling what this bill does "streamlining" is a little like calling a scalping a haircut. A better name would have been the Eliminating Essential Legal Protections Act. What it does, in effect, is curtail the federal role in policing constitutional violations in state criminal justice systems using the venerable mechanism of habeas corpus. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has moderated some of the worst provisions, but this bill is beyond rehabilitation. If it passes, the chances that innocent people will be executed will go way up.
Even after Mr. Specter's efforts, the bill creates onerous procedural hurdles for convicts. It tries to speed up habeas corpus proceedings by making it easier for convicts to lose their right to appeal to federal courts. For example, if a convict fails to raise an argument in state court, federal courts will have no jurisdiction over the claim even if there was a good reason for the failure. If he filed a claim in federal court before going to state court, that claim would be thrown out and lost forever. Supposed exceptions for cases of actual innocence are so narrow as to be useless. And the bill would allow states to race petitions through the courts if they can convince the attorney general that they have an adequate system for providing lawyers in post-conviction proceedings.
Why the radical change? We see no reason. Nor does the Judicial Conference, the administrative arm of the federal judiciary. Like a national organization of state-court chief jus-
tices, which came out against the bill this summer, the Judicial Conference made clear that it "does not believe" in "the need for a comprehensive overhaul of federal habeas jurisprudence." Indeed, if anything, federal rules are too strict. Around the country, concerns about potentially irreversible miscarriages of justice have led state legislatures to take a hard look at their death penalty systems. Congress itself passed important legislation not too long ago to encourage states to improve the quality of lawyers they provide capital defendants. This bill would more than undo that progress.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802149.html
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