The Globe and Mail
PM urges U.S. to follow softwood 'rules'
Prime Minister Paul Martin went on the offensive on the U.S. response to the softwood lumber dispute Thursday during an appearance on the CNN show The Situation Room.
He said the United States must reconsider its response to recent NAFTA rulings in favour of U.S. duties on softwood lumber being lifted.
"What we're saying is we want to work with you in a wide range of areas, but if we have rules, then we got to live up to those rules," he told a reporter during a three-minute sit-down interview.
… He also talked about the environmental damage that is possible if the United States goes ahead and begins drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
During Question Period in Ottawa, the New Democrats criticized Mr. Martin for inaction. They said he is all talk and no action on the softwood trade dispute and attacked the Prime Minister for not telephoning Mr. Bush directly to speak about the issue.
"There's nothing that makes him happier than sounding like he's about to act," MP Libby Davies said. She said the NAFTA ruling passed four months ago. "In those four months Canada has done nothing to protect our jobs and businesses from George Bush's attacks."
Opposition parties have also said his speech in New York on Thursday was nothing but a publicity opportunity.
"What good is another speech when everyone knows this Prime Minister doesn't have the gumption to stand up with his country for jobs and for workers? What good is another speech?" asked Ms. Davies.
Trade Minister David Emerson said it's important that Mr. Martin travel and "carry the Canadian message."
He said Mr. Martin is in New York to bring the message there that the United States must respect the terms of the NAFTA agreement.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051006.wpmpm1006/BNStory/National/
Bush and God
God never told George Bush to attack Afghanistan. Or Iraq for that matter.
"That's absurd," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday.
What was equally, perhaps even more absurd was that the topic of divine instruction to wage war was being taken seriously.
The latest brouhaha over what U.S. President George W. Bush said and whether he said God spoke to him, arose because Britain's venerable and respected BBC television network boasted in a promotional media release that top Palestinian leaders claimed that the President said he had been directed by God.
"I'm driven with a mission from God," Mr. Bush purportedly said in a 2003 meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. "God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.' . . . And I did," the President continued, according to Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath.
Mr. Shaath recounts that version in a TV show entitled "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs," which will be broadcast on Monday.
Asked yesterday about the BBC's claims, the President's spokesman flatly denied them.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051007/BUSHSIDE07/TPInternational/Americas
Toronto illness legionnaires' disease, official says
The disease that has killed 16 people at a Toronto nursing home has been identified.
The cause of the current outbreak at the nursing home is likely legionnaires' disease, officials said Thursday.
Three of the 16 people who died at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged tested positive for the pneumonia-type illness, Dr. David McKeown, Toronto's medical health officer, told a press conference on Thursday.
Dr. McKeown said there have been no new deaths since Wednesday and it appears that the cases have been waning.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051006.wdiseas1006/BNStory/National/
Analysts warn ‘hiccup' could shoot oil higher again
Crude's hasty retreat from a peak of more than $70 (U.S.) a barrel suggests the global economy may be self-correcting to the new reality of expensive oil.
But analysts warned that any future supply and demand blips could quickly send the price of oil shooting higher again.
The price of U.S. crude fell for a fifth straight trading day Thursday, hitting a two-month low of $60.70 a barrel for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange on reports of weaker demand. It eventually closed trading at $61.36.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051006.woily1006/BNStory/Business/
Waist circumference 'a vital sign,' doctor says
In the late 1980s, Canadian researchers pioneered the then radical notion that not all fat is created equal, and that abdominal fat is by far the most dangerous.
But, while the theory is now generally accepted by scientists, this has not translated into doctors taking the beer belly seriously.
In fact, a new survey shows that only one in seven people with other risk factors for heart disease and diabetes -- such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol -- actually has his or her waist circumference measured by a physician.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051006.wxwaist1006/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/
U.S. prisoners are force-fed, Amnesty says
The U.S. military is forcing food into the stomachs of 21 Guantanamo Bay prisoners through tubes pushed up through their noses, Amnesty International and the human- rights group Reprieve said.
The force-fed prisoners -- among more than 200 prisoners they say are on a hunger strike -- are being shackled 24 hours a day to stop them from pulling out the tubes, they say.
The U.S. military disputes the figures. It says only 27 prisoners are "voluntarily fasting" and 20 are in hospital but are "clinically stable and receive nutrition and fluids as needed."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051007.wxguant1007/BNStory/International/
The Washington Post
IAEA, ElBaradei Share Nobel Peace Prize
By Doug Melgren
The Associated Press
Friday, October 7, 2005; 5:15 AM
OSLO, Norway -- The International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, have won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize and will share the world's most prestigious prize.
The prize, announced Friday, went to the two "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way."
ElBaradei, an Egyptian lawyer, has headed the U.N. nuclear agency as it grappled with the crises in Iraq and North Korea and now Iran.
ElBaradei has led the International Atomic Energy Agency as it rose in prominence from a nondescript bureaucracy monitoring nuclear sites worldwide to a pivotal institution at the vortex of efforts to disarm the two regimes.
The austere and methodical diplomat took a strident line as he guided the Vienna-based IAEA through the most serious troubles it faced since the end of the Cold War.
He accused North Korea, for example, of "nuclear brinkmanship" in December 2002 after it expelled two inspectors who were monitoring a mothballed nuclear complex. Pyongyang said the plant needed to go back on line in light of an electricity shortage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100700179.html
ANYTHING THAT WORKS SO LONG AS IT WORKS ! At least this is not intimidation or shameful ridicule or costs them status that social enforces poverty. It's an incentive to conduct themselves differently. That is quite a step forward.
Virginity Becomes a Commodity In Uganda's War Against AIDS
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 7, 2005; Page A01
KITATYA, Uganda -- Mousisi Anatolius moved from hut to hut, taking notes in a tattered ledger as he interviewed parents and their young daughters. He was searching for virgins.
"How are you faring? What is your status?" Anatolius, a community leader, gently asked Prossy Naluyombia. A haggard girl of 13, she was one of 11 children living in a dark, mud-floor room with soiled laundry stuffed in the corners.
Several months ago, a Ugandan legislator proposed offering "chastity scholarships" in this poor farming district 150 miles southeast of the capital, Kampala. His hope was that the program, in which proven virgins can attend college at no cost, would encourage girls to resist entreaties from older men offering them money and security in exchange for sex.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100602147.html
A friendly letter. The USA intelligence to bolster Bush's claims is based on an obscure friendly letter lacking any information short of a 'pep talk.' What next? Nothing about weapons. Or personnel. Or entanglements with Bin Laden and his location. JUST a friendly letter that anyone could have written. This is Bush's claim to 'the capital of global jihad' existing in Iraq. Not only that but the author admits conducting a GLOBAL JIHAD in poverty !
SO WHAT !!!!!
U.S. Obtains Treatise By Bin Laden Deputy
Zawahiri Envisions Jihad on New Fronts
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 7, 2005; Page A20
The United States has obtained a letter from Osama bin Laden's deputy to the leader of Iraq's insurgency that outlines a long-term strategic vision for a global jihad, with the next phase of the war to be taken into Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, according to U.S. officials.
But the letter, described by one senior administration official as a "treatise" from Ayman Zawahiri, also warns Abu Musab Zarqawi against alienating the Islamic world, and virtually reprimands the Iraqi branch of al Qaeda for beheading hostages and then distributing videotapes, officials said.
Zawahiri also requests financial support from his ally in Iraq and then asks for more information about the insurgency there -- so al Qaeda is as informed as the United States about the activities, the officials said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601819.html
Ex-FBI Chief Puts Clinton Critique in Print
In Book and Interview, Freeh Rails Against Former President's Actions
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 7, 2005; Page A02
Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh has denounced Bill Clinton over the scandals that marred his presidency and for his record on terrorism, saying the level of distrust was so great that he stayed in his post so Clinton could not appoint his successor.
In a forthcoming book and "60 Minutes" interview, Freeh, whose strained relations with Clinton were no secret, says he was so determined to distance himself from Clinton that he sent back a White House pass so that all his visits would be deemed official. This, he said, antagonized Clinton.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601797.html
It's understandable why Louis Freeh would concentrate on a carnal knowledge regarding Clinton as a 'pickable' point to sell a book. His career from 1993 to 2001 was a bit of a 'lack luster' course to say the least..
Major events under Freeh:
September 11, 2001
The FBI reports were ignored by Bush leading up to the attacks. Hm.
June 21, 2001 -- On his last official day in office, Freeh and Attorney General John Ashcroft announced 14 indictments in connection with the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military barracks that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. The 46-count indictment alleges that all 14 men were members of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which federal officials said received support and inspiration from individuals within the Iranian government. No Iranian officials were named as defendants.
May 15, 2001 -- The FBI expanded its search for additional documents in the Oklahoma City bombing probe after seven new documents were discovered in its Baltimore office. Those documents were not included in an original batch of 700 documents totaling more than 3,000 pages that the FBI failed to turn over to McVeigh's attorneys.
May 11, 2001 -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed the execution of Timothy McVeigh to give his attorneys time to review thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation.
May 10, 2001 -- The FBI told Timothy McVeigh's attorneys that it had withheld about 3,000 pages of documents related to the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
May 1, 2001 -- FBI Director Louis Freeh announced he planned to resign in June after leading the agency since 1993
February 18, 2001 -- Veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested in a Vienna, Virginia, park and charged with spying for the Russians. Hanssen spent much of his 25-year career in counterintelligence and is accused of selling the Soviet Union and later the Russians 6,000 pages of documents and 27 computer diskettes cataloguing secret and top secret programs over 15 years.
September 12, 2000 -- Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee pleads guilty to one of 59 felony counts of mishandling classified data at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and is sentenced to the nine months he served in pretrial detention. Lee had agreed to help authorities with their investigation into what happened to 10 computer tape that prosecutors said contained the "crown jewels" of U.S. nuclear defense secrets. The FBI and Justice Department were criticized for their treatment of the Taiwan-born naturalized citizen. In Senate hearings Freeh vigorously defended his agency's actions.
September 10, 1999 -- After denying for six years that potentially flammable tear gas canisters were used on the final day of the Branch Davidian standoff near Waco, Texas, the Justice Department and FBI turn over documents indicating that pyrotechnic military tear gas rounds were in fact used. Attorney General Janet Reno appoints former Sen. John Danforth to lead an independent probe into the standoff. The investigation later finds that tear gas rounds were not to blame for the fire that killed about 80 people inside the compound. A federal judge cleared the government of wrongdoing in September, 2000.
May 5, 1998 -- The FBI launches a nationwide manhunt for Eric Robert Rudolph, accused of the deadly 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, clinic that performed abortions, the 1996 bombing of the Centennial Olympic Park that killed one person in Atlanta, Georgia, and the 1997 bombings of a nightclub and a women's clinic in the Atlanta area. Rudolph was put on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List but remains at large.
November 1997 -- Freeh writes a memo urging Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint an independent counsel to investigate allegations of illicit fund raising during the 1996 presidential campaign. Reno chooses not to appoint an independent counsel and the memo becomes the center of a tug-of-war between Reno and Rep. Dan Burton who threatens to hold her in contempt of Congress for not turning the memo over to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
May 20, 1997 -- Three FBI agents who investigated the 1996 bombing at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta are punished for tricking security guard Richard Jewell into answering questions without a lawyer present. Jewell discovered the bomb and helped move people away just before it exploded, killing one person and injuring 111. Jewell quickly became the prime suspect, but the FBI cleared him after a three-month investigation.
April 21, 1995 -- The FBI links Timothy McVeigh to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City two days after the blast killed 168 people. McVeigh is found about 60 miles away in Perry, Oklahoma, where he had been arrested the day of the bombing on misdemeanor charges.
DeLay Meeting, RNC Actions Coincided
Financial Transactions Began on Day Texan Met With Fundraiser
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 7, 2005; Page A05
Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) met for at least 30 minutes with the top fundraiser of his Texas political action committee on Oct. 2, 2002, the same day that the Republican National Committee in Washington set in motion a series of financial transactions at the heart of the money-laundering and conspiracy case against DeLay.
During the meeting at his Capitol office, DeLay conferred with James W. Ellis, the head of his principal fundraising committee in Washington and his chief fundraiser in Texas. Ellis had earlier given the Republican National Committee a check for $190,000 drawn mostly from corporate contributions. The same day as the meeting, the RNC ordered $190,000 worth of checks sent to seven Republican legislative candidates in Texas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601903.html
Sydney Morning Herald
Great white shark sets trans-oceanic swimming record
By Andrew Darby
October 7, 2005
The great white shark's mastery of the open ocean has been revealed by scientists who have followed one of the fearsome fish from South Africa to Australia, and back again.
A young female dubbed Nicole was tracked by satellite on an epic 11,000-kilometre swim from the shores of South Africa's Western Cape province across the Indian Ocean to Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, in 99 days.
Just six months later she was photographed at the cape again.
It was claimed as the fastest trans-oceanic round trip recorded by any marine animal in a report to the US magazine Science by a New York researcher, Ramon Bonfil, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and South African colleagues. The finding raises the prospect that South African and Australian great white shark populations are physically connected, and that the endangered, totally protected species may be vulnerable to high-seas fishing.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/great-white-shark-sets-transoceanic-swimming-record/2005/10/07/1128562949067.html
NOT ONE OF BUSH'S SUCCESSFUL THWARTINGS.
US offers $13m bounty for Bali mastermind
October 7, 2005 - 11:24AM
United States is offering a reward of up to $13 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspected mastermind in the 2002 Bali bombings.
Identified as Dulmatin, he is a member of the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiah group suspected of being behind last weekend's blasts that killed 22 people, including four Australians.
The nightclub bombings in 2002 killed 202 people, most of them foreigners and 88 of them Australians.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-offers-13m-bounty-for-bali-mastermind/2005/10/07/1128562975015.html
New York subway 'baby stroller bomb' alert
October 7, 2005 - 2:54PM
A major security blanket has been thrown over New York's subway system after American soldiers in Iraq claimed they had uncovered evidence of a terrorist bomb plot.
Although Washington intelligence and law enforcement officials said the information about the threat was shaky, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered an anti-terror clampdown after being brief by the FBI.
He said the threat - including the use of explosive packed in baby strollers - suggested New York's underground train network and its 4.5 million daily passengers could be attacked within days.
Mindful of the July 7 deadly attacks on the London Underground, New York police stepped up searches of bags, briefcases, strollers and other luggage.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/new-york-subway-baby-stroller-bomb-alert/2005/10/07/1128562967610.html
Bird flu catastrophe alert
October 7, 2005 - 2:54PM
The United States fears a worldwide pandemic of bird flu among humans would be "catastrophic".
At an 80-nation conference on the disease, it pleaded with the world's governments not to cover up outbreaks.
Fears are mounting that bird flu, which has so far killed about 60 people and tens of millions of poultry in Asia, could mutate into a deadly virus that can spread directly among humans.
"If avian flu does mutate to allow easier human to human transmission, the results would be catastrophic locally, regionally and globally," Paula Dobriansky, US under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bird-flu-catastrophe-alert/2005/10/07/1128562984791.html
Pentagon man let secrets slip
By Eric Lichtblau in Alexandria, Virginia
October 7, 2005
A senior Pentagon analyst has admitted he shared secret military information with two pro-Israel lobbyists and an Israeli official in an effort to create a "back channel" to the Bush Administration on Middle East policy.
Lawrence Franklin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and terrorism issues, worked at the time for the Pentagon's under-secretary of defence for policy, Douglas Feith.
Franklin pleaded guilty in a federal court to retaining and disclosing classified information. The offences carry a maximum of 25 years in jail, but as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors are expected to recommend leniency for Franklin in return for his co-operation in the investigation into the two lobbyists, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman.
The lobbyists were dismissed last year by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the investigation became public.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/pentagon-man-let-secrets-slip/2005/10/06/1128562943186.html
The Australian
First bomber named as hunt gathers pace
Simon Kearney and Stephen Fitzpatrick
October 07, 2005
FIVE elite police teams began scouring the Indonesian archipelago by helicopter yesterday as the hunt for senior members of the Bali terror network was stepped up after the first suicide bomber was identified.
Police in Surakarta, central Java, confirmed yesterday a man known as Gareng had been "a target of our investigations" since well before the weekend's blasts, but that he had recently escaped their surveillance.
Police believe Gareng was the suicide bomber responsible for the last of three attacks on Saturday night. Husband and wife Colin and Fiona Zwolinski and Jennifer Williamson, all of Newcastle in NSW, were killed in that assault, on Nyoman Cafe on Jimbaran Bay, south of Kuta.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16840982%5E601,00.html
Three Bali victims stable
October 07, 2005
THREE Australians injured in the Bali blasts remain in a Singapore hospital today, where their condition is listed as stable and unchanged.
Seriously injured Perth real estate agent Terry Fitzgerald, his 13-year-old daughter Jessica and 50-year-old Newcastle man Bruce Williamson were medically evacuated from Denpasar to Singapore General Hospital on Sunday night.
All three were in a stable, unchanged condition and were continuing to receive treatment, a hospital spokeswoman said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16844872%5E1702,00.html
Australia is world's 'happiest nation'
October 07, 2005
AUSTRALIA has been hailed as the world's happiest nation in an international survey.
Federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey today said more than 30,000 people across the globe participated in the "happiness" survey by market research company Gfk NOP.
The survey focused on factors such as environment, quality of life and health.
"The results of this survey provide international travellers with even more encouragement to travel to Australia and for Australians to make their holidays at home," Ms Bailey said.
She said the results come as an increasing number of international tourists chose Australia as a holiday or business event destination.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16847082%5E1702,00.html
New Zealand Herald
Gun stolen at security guard conference
07.10.05 3.20pm
You'd think the last place that thieves would want to strike, would be at a gathering of security guards.
However, brazen thieves have stolen a pistol that was on display at a security guard conference on the Gold Coast.
It was taken from a locked display cabinet some time yesterday at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, police said.
The theft was reported to police at 7pm when other weapons on display were signed back into the armoury.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10349095
Global court targets Uganda cult in first case
07.10.05 1.00pm
By Evelyn Leopold
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan cult notorious for raping, maiming and killing children, a UN official said today.
The warrants are the first issued by the ICC, based in The Hague. The tribunal, which began functioning in mid-2003, is the world's first permanent global court set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"I know they have issued arrest warrants for five people," said William Lacy Swing, the American diplomat who heads the UN mission in the Congo.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10349096
Central American flood victims mourned
07.10.05 10.30am
By Eduardo Garcia
Mourning villagers today prepared to bury their dead in Guatemala's highlands after Hurricane Stan's torrential rains killed at least 167 people.
Meanwhile, flood waters blocked rescue efforts across most of Central America.
As bodies were pulled from the mud, emergency teams battled to reach remote villages where hillsides collapsed under torrential rains, trapping peasant farmers and tourists.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10349093
concluding ...
