The Australian
Diva walks alone with third Melbourne Cup
Stuart Rintoul
November 02, 2005
"GO and find the smallest child," trainer Lee Freedman said. "That will be an example of the only person here who will live long enough to see something like that again."
And so Makybe Diva, Australia's greatest horse, who raced away to win the Melbourne Cup for an unprecedented third time, yesterday entered Australian folklore.
There are times when words fall short and superlatives cheapen what the eyes have seen. But throughout the nation today, those who did not back the mare will be scratching their heads and wondering what possessed them to think any other horse could win, while the multitude who did back her will be cursing that they did not wager a greater amount.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112537%255E601,00.html
Applause please, Diva exits stage
Brendan Cormick
November 02, 2005
IT was the race that stopped the nation like in no other year. And when it was over, the star of the greatest show on turf took her final bow.
The people may have backed others but they united as one to applaud an achievement unrivalled in the sport of kings by the undisputed queen. With 58kg, Makybe Diva split the field open turning for home, sailed to the front and sprinted clear to register her third successive victory in Australian racing's toughest contest.
Little did we know at the time it would be a farewell performance.
Owner Tony Santic dedicated the Cup to the mare's "20 million owners" and then shocked them with the news Makybe Diva had run her last race.
"This is for you, the people," Santic said holding the Cup aloft as he responded at the presentation for the first time. His racing manager Kevin Williams usually makes the speeches on behalf of the shy owner. Yesterday, there was something that he had to say.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17110331%255E2722,00.html
Race riots expose France's fault lines
Emma-Kate Symons, Paris
November 02, 2005
FRANCE has plunged into a bitter debate over the failure to integrate its large Muslim community after five nights of rioting in a Paris suburb populated by North African immigrants.
As locals mourned the deaths of two teenage boys rumoured to have died last week while being chased by police, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy reiterated his vow of zero tolerance against urban violence.
But he stood accused of playing into the hands of the extreme Right and National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen by using words such as "scum" to describe violent youths who made life "impossible" on high-rise council estates such as those in Clichy-sous-Bois.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112484%255E601,00.html
UN veto powers unite on Syria
November 01, 2005
NEW YORK: The UN Security Council has hammered out a tough resolution demanding that Syria co-operate with a probe into the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister or face possible sanctions.
Diplomats from Britain, France and the US told The New York Times they expected the resolution to pass the Security Council overnight and did not foresee a veto from China or Russia, the two countries most reluctant to punish Syria.
The resolution, which will ratchet up international pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad, threatens Syria with economic penalties if it does not give full co-operation to the UN investigation that has identified high-ranking security officials as suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the paper said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17100127%255E2703,00.html
British blunder may free terrorist suspect
November 01, 2005
LONDON: An extraordinary legal blunder by British government officials may allow a suspected terrorist ringleader being held in Britain to go free.
Italian officials claim that Britain has taken so long to extradite Farj Hassan Faraj that a three-year deadline has passed and he can no longer face trial in Milan for plotting bomb attacks in Europe.
The mix-up over Mr Faraj has caused a serious rift with legal authorities in Italy, who complain that they handed over one of the alleged July 21 London bombers within two months of his arrest in Rome.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17100146%255E2703,00.html
ASIO fears terror cells among us
Patrick Walters, National security editor
November 02, 2005
ASIO has publicly warned for the first time of the existence of a home-grown terror threat - Australian-born Islamic extremists.
The intelligence agency has detailed its concerns about militant Islam in Australia and extremists who advocate violence against "un-Islamic governments".
Its annual report says some Islamic extremists living in Australia have chosen to lean heavily on their perception of conflict as a battle between "Muslims and infidels".
"This perception engenders a sense of isolation and rejection, which is difficult for moderate elements in the Australian community to counteract, and the moderates are perceived to be part of the problem by the extremists."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112535%255E601,00.html
Iraq war makes us target: Faulkner
Samantha Maiden
November 02, 2005
LABOR heavyweight John Faulkner yesterday blamed the Iraq war for making Australia a bigger terror target during a fiery caucus debate over the party's position on proposed anti-terror laws.
Urging a stronger stance on the issue, Senator Faulkner said the ALP should not recoil from making the link.
Labor MPs at the marathon meeting also lashed the premiers for effectively locking the ALP into supporting John Howard's new regime.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112955%255E601,00.html
Local group linked to killing: Mufti
Ean Higgins
November 02, 2005
THE nation's most senior Islamic cleric has called for an urgent investigation into the Australian operations of a Lebanese-based organisation allegedly linked to the assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon.
Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali made the call after a UN inquiry implicated al-Ahbash, a Beirut-based Islamic sect and pro-Syrian political organisation, in the bombing murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The Australian has learned that Mahmoud Abdel-Al, one of the members of al-Ahbash arrested and charged last week following the UN report, has been to Australia and visited al-Ahbash leaders in this country.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112956%255E601,00.html
'All in the loop' on AWB deal
Caroline Overington and Jennifer Sexton
November 02, 2005
THE former executive at the centre of the Iraqi kickbacks scandal claims people at all levels of AWB knew about payments to a Jordanian trucking firm since revealed as sham transactions to funnel millions of dollars in bribes to Saddam Hussein.
Mark Emons, who was manager of Middle East marketing for AWB until 2001, said he did not understand why he had become a target of the investigation into the UN's corrupt oil-for-food program.
"I was part of a management team at the AWB," Mr Emons told The Australian yesterday. "I was just one person and there were many people involved in this, on all different levels (in AWB)." Several directors of the former Australian Wheat Board have said they had no knowledge of payments made to the Iraqi Government front company Alia - which sent $290 million over four years in kickbacks directly to the Saddam regime - until they learnt of the allegations in the UN's Volcker inquiry report released last week.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17112532%255E2702,00.html
Fields of double-dealing
The vastness of the oil-for-food scandal is sweeping dozens of nations and corporations into a worldwide legal and moral minefield, writes David Nason
November 02, 2005
BEFORE last week's release of the final and most shocking report on the UN oil-for-food scandal, it wasn't hard to find people in New York's diplomatic community who disliked Paul Volcker.
The former chairman of the US Federal Reserve has a gruff, overbearing manner to match his oversized 1.9m frame and he won few friends on First Avenue while completing the task given to him by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in April last year: report on the extent of the corruption that flourished in the oil-for-food program, tell the world how it occurred and advise what should be done to prevent it happening again.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17110477%255E28737,00.html
The New York Times
But Will It Stop Cancer?
By GINA KOLATA
Published: November 1, 2005
Bernyce Edwards's daughter was 42 in 1997 when she died of breast cancer. It was just 69 days from diagnosis to death. And through her shock and grief, Ms. Edwards had a terrible worry: what if she got breast cancer, too
John Giustina/Getty Images
Preventing Cancer
Part 1: Diet and Cancer
Later articles in this series will look at the effects of stress and the roles of genetics and the immune system.
Peter Yates for The New York Times
ZEALOUS RUNNER Bernyce Edwards, 73, near her home in Bellingham, Wash. She began running regularly after her daughter died of breast cancer.
"That's my biggest fear," she said.
So, to protect herself, she has taken up exercise.
And not just any exercise. This 73-year-old woman has turned into an exercise zealot.
She walks, she runs, she leaves her house in Bellingham, Wash., as early as 5 a.m. and spends an hour every day, rain or shine, putting in the miles on the trails and around a lake.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/science/01canc.html?hp
Bush Calls for $7.1 Billion to Prepare for Bird Flu Threat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 1, 2005
Filed at 11:08 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu.
The president also said the United States must approve liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the number of American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry has been hit with a flood of lawsuits.
Related Site: Pandemicflu.gov
Bush said no one knows when or where a deadly strain of flu will strike but ''at some point we are likely to face another pandemic.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Bush-Flu.html?hp&ex=1130907600&en=8bc68b8aab58d0c3&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Malawi Is Burning, and Deforestation Erodes Economy
Jeffrey Barbee for The New York Times
The hills overlooking Malosa, and throughout Malawi, are being stripped by illegal logging by people who eke out a barren living by selling firewood.
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: November 1, 2005
MALOSA, Malawi - Lovely and lissome, the masuku tree rises maybe 35 feet at maturity, its wood the hue of a rare steak, its branches dotted with sweet golfball-size fruits that ferment into a tasty wine.
Jeffrey Barbee for The New York Times
Joseph Singano cuts yet another tree on a burned-out hillside. Electricity would be a cheaper fuel, but few villages have access to power lines.
The New York Times
Once heavily forested, Malawi is only about 20 percent covered by tree canopies, and the pace of deforestation is faster than almost anywhere else.
Working just after sunrise atop a small mountain not far from here, Injes Juma and his nine friends needed less than five minutes to sever a masuku at its base and send it crashing to the ground.
Another five minutes of furious hacking with axes and machetes reduced the tree to a stack of five-foot logs, ready to be carried down the steep grade to the highway below.
Mr. Juma and his friends are loggers, members of a vast fraternity that has illegally laid waste to half this nation, mostly in the last 15 years, all to hawk firewood and charcoal at roadside stands.
Because of them, experts say, Malawi loses nearly 200 square miles of its forests annually, a deforestation rate of 2.8 percent that the Southern Africa Development Community says is one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
The cutting blights a pastoral, sometimes breathtaking landscape. It dries up streams, pollutes the air, lowers the water table, erodes the soil and silts rivers so badly that, officials here say, hydroelectric plants are blacked out by the gunk.
It is hard to think of many other things that Mr. Juma and his fellow loggers could do that would damage the nation more.
The problem is that it is hard to think of many other ways that Mr. Juma and his fellow loggers could make a living, period.
"The problem is that we have nothing else to do," said Mr. Juma, a wiry 33-year-old with a neon green shirt tied around his bare waist, standing over the remains of the chopped-up masuku. "We have no money to raise our families. We have nowhere to run, nothing else to do. So we have to cut the trees to feed our families."
In few places do the dictates of modern environmentalism butt so painfully against economic reality as they do here in Malawi.
Two-thirds of the nation's 12 million people earn less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations Human Development report. Nine-tenths of those two-thirds live in rural areas where both jobs and the odds of escaping poverty are nonexistent.
For hundreds of thousands of those rural dwellers, sales of firewood and charcoal provide virtually their only income.
Wood and charcoal are the preferred cooking and heating fuels in Malawi, even in the poorer parts of cities, and the demand is huge: the World Bank estimated in 2001 that charcoal consumption alone was twice what the nation's woodlands could sustain without further deforestation. Indeed, loggers illegally clear 100 square miles of forest each year just to meet the demand for charcoal, the government says.
Yet the income - less than $8 million a year nationwide, by official estimates - is pitifully meager, as Mr. Juma's band of loggers can testify.
A single masuku tree, felled and cut into logs and branches, brings about 2,000 kwacha, or about $15 at current exchange rates, when all has been sold. A bundle of three or four branches sold by the roadside brings about 15 cents; a thick five-foot section of trunk, up to $1.50.
Mr. Juma and his fellow loggers say they cut about 15 trees a year, the most the group can sell in a region where dozens of wood vendors line the main street of every town. That provides an income, on average, of about $20 a month.
That $20 must support the 10 men, their 8 wives and 16 children - 34 people in all. Whatever else they have comes from casual labor as gardeners, for about 40 cents a day, or from the vegetable plots outside their one-room huts, just off the main road linking Blantyre and Lilongwe, Malawi's two main cities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/international/africa/01malawi.html?hp
The New Zealand Herald
Australia may force tourists to declare cheques
01.11.05 4.00pm
SYDNEY - New Zealand tourists arriving in or exiting Australia may have to declare their cache of travellers cheques, or they could be confiscated under the federal government's new anti-terrorism laws.
Existing law requires people to tell officers if they are taking more than $A10,000 ($NZ10,803) worth of cash in or out of Australia, but new financial transaction reporting requirements attached to the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 include a provision to show travellers cheques as well.
If police or customs officers have reasonable grounds for believing the traveller has made a false declaration about their cheques, they can search the traveller and his or her bags.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10353048
Bomb kills 20 in Iraq after bloodiest month for US
01.11.05 1.00pm
BASRA, Iraq - A car bomb killed 20 people in Iraq's second city of Basra today at the end of the bloodiest month for US troops in Iraq since early this year.
Witnesses said a suicide bomber targeted Iraqi troops.
Seven US troops were killed by bombs near Baghdad, taking October's death toll to 93, the highest in one month since January, when 107 died. The number of Americans killed in Iraq passed the 2,000 mark a week ago.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10353031
Fonterra says it knew nothing of Iraq bribes
01.11.05 1.00pm
Dairy giant Fonterra said today it could not be expected to know about any bribes paid by a Vietnamese company to Iraq under the United Nations oil-for-food programme.
A Government inquiry will investigate any links between Fonterra and the Vietnamese firm.
A Fonterra spokesman confirmed the co-op sold to VinaMilk and VinaFood.
But the spokesman said of any bribes paid: "I don't know how we could be expected to discover that."
The spokesman said Fonterra would investigate the situation in light of the latest concerns.
He said Fonterra sold product to many parties around the world who then took control of it.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10353027
Public took pictures of cop in trouble
01.11.05 1.00pm
By Kristin MacFarlane
A police officer says witnesses took photographs as he wrestled with an alleged offender and did not try to help him.
Constable Darrell Earney said he had stopped a man in Rotorua at around 4.15pm yesterday for riding a bicycle without a helmet.
He said the man told him exactly "where to go and what he thought of the police" before trying to ride away.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10353025
Exxon dismisses Chinese buyout bid
01.11.05 1.00pm
NEW YORK - Exxon Mobil today dismissed a bid to acquire it for US$450 billion by a little-known Chinese concern with an apparent history of making unsolicited offers for large companies.
King Win Laurel Ltd. filed papers Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission offering to buy the world's largest publicly traded oil company for US dollars plus Chinese yuan worth a total of US$70 per share.
The company said the offer was subject to financing and carried certain incentives for shareholders should the price of oil rise further.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10353039
Volcker blames UN's problems on its structure
01.11.05
WASHINGTON - The chairman of an independent commission probing the UN's oil-for-food programme has blamed lapses at the world body on a "systemic problem" instead of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Paul Volcker, who chaired a year-long investigation of the scandal-plagued US$64 ($92.63) billion humanitarian programme for Iraq, also disputed a senator's description of a "culture of corruption" at the United Nations, saying he found "limited" corruption.
Volcker testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman who has called for Annan's ouster and for a drastic overhaul of the United Nations.
Last week, Volcker's panel issued a report that showed 2200 companies from around the world that did business with Iraq in the oil-for-food programme fed Saddam Hussein's regime nearly US$2 billion either through straight bribes or surcharges on oil sales.
Pressed by Coleman on whether Annan should be fired for corruption in the oil-for-food programme and other problems, Volcker said, "I think it is a systemic problem."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10353041
Warship seizes $505m cocaine load in Caribbean
01.11.05 4.20pm
LONDON - A British warship seized two tonnes of cocaine worth an estimated 200 million pounds (NZ$505m) after chasing a gang of smugglers in a speedboat in the Caribbean, the British government said on Monday.
Snipers aboard a Royal Navy helicopter fired shots to stop the boat's engines about 160 km off the Nicaraguan coast after it tried to outrun them.
The chase began when the frigate Cumberland intercepted the speedboat during a routine anti-smuggling patrol, the Ministry of Defence in London said.
"This is a great success for the Royal Navy," Defence Secretary John Reid said in a statement. "(It) has dealt a sledgehammer blow to the drug traffickers."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10353050
Fourth night of riots in Paris
01.11.05 10.20am
BOBIGNY, France - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has defended his tough anti-crime policies after a fourth night of riots in a Paris suburb in which tear gas was fired into a mosque during evening prayers.
Sarkozy vowed to investigate the tear gas incident and repeated his "zero tolerance" policy towards violence that began when two teenagers were electrocuted to death after clambering into a power sub-station while apparently fleeing police.
Overnight youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital, where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence.
French television said six police officers were hurt and 11 people arrested in the violence.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10353007
German coalition plans in turmoil
01.11.05 9.40am
BERLIN - Efforts to forge a German bipartisan coalition were disrupted on Monday when the head of the Social Democrats said he would step down as party leader and might not join a new cabinet after a revolt within his party.
Franz Muentefering made his shock announcement after party leaders voted against his candidate for SPD general secretary, plunging the party into crisis in the midst of talks on forming a power-sharing government with the conservatives.
Traditional rivals, the SPD and conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) were forced into coalition talks after an inconclusive election on Sept. 18 left them with no realistic alternative for a stable majority government.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10353004
Church destroyed in Dresden inferno rises from the ashes
01.11.05
By Tony Paterson
Tens of thousands took part in a moving and symbolic ceremony marking the formal re-consecration of Dresden’s painstakingly rebuilt Church of our Lady yesterday (Sunday) - 60 years after the Baroque masterpiece was destroyed by Allied bombing during the Second World War.
The event, which marked the completion of a Euros 180 million ($217 million) restoration project funded by donors from across the globe, was attended by Dresdeners with tears in their eyes and dignitaries from Germany, Britain and the United States.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10352947
North Korea says US spy flights hurt nuclear talks
01.11.05 2.20pm
SEOUL - North Korea said today the United States conducted at least 180 espionage flights in October, adding the missions hurt the chances for a settlement in talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
North Korea, which says it has nuclear weapons, regularly accuses the United States of flying spy planes such as the U-2 to photograph strategic targets from the near the fortified Demilitarised Zone that divides the Korean peninsula.
"These aerial espionage flights clearly prove that the US imperialists are desperately trying to stifle the DPRK militarily behind the scene though they are giving lip-service to the negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue," the North's official KCNA news agency reported.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10353033
Indonesia police seek leads on teenage beheadings
01.11.05
By Ade Rina and Telly Nathalia
JAKARTA - Residents of Indonesia’s eastern region of Poso geared up for the biggest holiday on the Islamic calendar as police sought clues to the beheadings of three teenage Christian girls by mysterious assailants.
Police said they had questioned six people about the attacks on the students but had yet to identify leads into the killings, which have again highlighted simmering tension in Poso regency, racked for years by sectarian violence.
Most of the communal violence in the large but sparsely populated Poso area occurs around the predominantly Muslim seaside town of Poso and the hilltop Christian town of Tentena.
National police spokesman Aryanto Budihardjo said one student who survived the attack was among the six witnesses under questioning.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10352949
North Korea says US spy flights hurt nuclear talks
01.11.05 2.20pm
SEOUL - North Korea said today the United States conducted at least 180 espionage flights in October, adding the missions hurt the chances for a settlement in talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
North Korea, which says it has nuclear weapons, regularly accuses the United States of flying spy planes such as the U-2 to photograph strategic targets from the near the fortified Demilitarised Zone that divides the Korean peninsula.
"These aerial espionage flights clearly prove that the US imperialists are desperately trying to stifle the DPRK militarily behind the scene though they are giving lip-service to the negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue," the North's official KCNA news agency reported.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10353033
Trial opens over random search of NY subway riders
01.11.05 3.20pm
NEW YORK - An attack on New York's subway system would not be deterred by random searches of riders' bags at subway stations, lawyers for the New York Civil Liberties Union argued in court on Monday.
NYCLU lawyer Christopher Dunn told a federal court in Manhattan that the city's search policy, introduced after this summer's London bomb attacks, was unprecedented in the United States and violated constitutional rights protecting citizens from being searched without suspicion of criminal activity.
"It is simply difficult to understand that anyone could believe that sophisticated terrorists trying to attack the subway system are going to be deterred," Dunn said in opening arguments. "The only people being searched are innocent New Yorkers."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10353042
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