The New York Times
Torture Alleged at Ministry Site Outside Baghdad
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 16, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 16 - Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari held a hurriedly organized news conference to announce the official inquiry. He also said there would be a second investigation, including a comprehensive count of the thousands held in Iraqi jails, to determine whether there was a wider pattern of abuse, as many opponents of his government have claimed. He said the detainees had been moved to another location and had been given all necessary medical care.
A joint statement by the American Embassy and the United States military command called the situation "totally unacceptable" and said American officials "agree with Iraq's leaders that mistreatment of detainees will not be tolerated."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/international/middleeast/16cnd-Iraq.html?hp&ex=1132203600&en=9c4c4a48543e33a0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Names of the Dead
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: November 16, 2005
The Department of Defense has identified 2,061 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
MENDEZ RUIZ, David A., 20, Lance Cpl., Marines; Cleveland; First Marine Division.
SWAIM, Daniel F., 19, Lance Cpl., Marines; Yadkinville, N.C.; Second Marine Division.
ZUBOWSKI, Scott A., 20, Lance Cpl., Marines; Manchester, Ind.; First Marine Division.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/national/16list.html
5 Marines Killed as U.S. Pushes Sweep in Western Iraq
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: November 16, 2005
UBAYDI, Iraq, Nov 16 - Five Marines were killed and 11 were wounded this morning while they searched a house on the outskirts of this town in western Anbar Province, officials said. It was the deadliest day for American troops since beginning a wide sweep of several towns along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border on Nov. 5.
According to several Marines who were briefed on the events, a squad had just entered a farmhouse in northern Ubaydi when a huge explosion occurred, possibly caused by a booby-trapped homemade bomb that insurgents had planted. According to a Marine officer who spoke with survivors, the squad was then attacked with small arms fire and grenades by insurgents hiding in the house.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/international/middleeast/16cnd-marines.html
Kerik Is Accused of Abusing Post as City Official
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: November 16, 2005
New Jersey officials said yesterday that Bernard B. Kerik abused his position as New York City correction commissioner in the late 1990's by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from a construction company that he was helping to pursue business with the city. They say the company has long had ties to organized crime.
Bernard B. Kerik in December 2004, when he withdrew his nomination as homeland security secretary.
The accusations against Mr. Kerik, who had to withdraw his nomination as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security last year, are in court papers filed by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
The agency is seeking to keep the construction company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, from doing work on Atlantic City casinos and became interested in Mr. Kerik's role with the company when the ties were disclosed after his nomination failed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/nyregion/16kerik.html?hp&ex=1132203600&en=afdfb45071498610&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Tornadoes Barrel Across Midwest and Southeast
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 16, 2005
Filed at 10:37 a.m. ET
MADISONVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Nearly three dozen tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, part of a huge line of thunderstorms that destroyed homes and killed at least two people.
Sam Ellsworth/The Messenger-Inquirer, via Associated Press
Tornadoes barreled across the Midwest and portions of the Southeast on Tuesday, knocking out electricity and damaging buildings in Kentucky and several other states.
''We heard a weird sound coming through, kind of a whistle,'' said Penny Leonard, 37, who sought shelter in the basement of a hospital Tuesday in the western Kentucky town of Madisonville. ''I thank God I'm safe.''
Meteorologists said a cold front moving rapidly east collided with warm, unstable air from the south on Tuesday to produce the thunderstorms that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, spawning funnel clouds and tornadoes in parts of Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center had preliminary reports of at least 35 tornadoes in the five states, spokeswoman Peggy Stogsdill said Wednesday at the center in Norman, Okla.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Severe-Weather.html?hp&ex=1132203600&en=f0d214c38f7ec89c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Above the Arctic Circle, Answering the Call of the Wild
Vincent Laforet/The New York Times
A dog sled above the Arctic Circle on the King's Trail in the north of Sweden.
By NATHANIEL VINTON
Published: November 13, 2005
WE were skiing along the edge of a frozen lake, deep in the snowy mountains of northern Sweden, fueled by coffee and swaddled in high-tech fabrics, when we saw our first reindeer. A stampeding herd came over a ridge and rushed down toward us. Behind them a herdsman chased on a snowmobile, his battered machine kicking up a glittering cloud of Arctic snow.
The huts are surrounded by a woodshed, an outhouse and a caretaker's hut.
It was hard to tell, in this treeless expanse, how far away he was. Far enough that we couldn't hear a motor.
Good thing. We were on a weeklong retreat from interior combustion, and all its attendant anxieties. Trekking from hut to hut across the legendary King's Trail, the only link between our group of 12 and the fume-filled 21st-century world was an emergency radio stashed somewhere in the dog sleds that carried our supplies. As we watched, the herdsman piloted himself around the animals and turned suddenly into their path. To avoid him, a hundred reindeer banked in synchronicity like a school of fish, and a brilliant flash of sunlight caught in their golden hides.
It turns out that in this part of the world even the four-legged animals are blond.
The vast highlands north of the Arctic Circle in Norway and Sweden are sometimes called Europe's last remaining wilderness. Across much of this lonesome landscape, mankind's only trace is a network of cross-country skiing trails.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/travel/13kings.html
Skiing the King's Trail
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/travel/20051113_TRAIL_FEATURE/blocker.html
Serving Essence of Pumpkin, Instead of the Annual Pie
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: November 16, 2005
It may be Thanksgiving, but to make pumpkin pie is a relatively thankless task. Always invited but often ignored, most pumpkin pies are too heavy to enjoy after a large dinner. Yet the meal is somehow incomplete without it.
Puff pastry envelops tart grated Granny Smith apples.
"It's as if there is a need to look at a pumpkin pie, and then everyone goes for the other desserts," said Laurel Gilson, a nurse in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sometimes it's kinder to break up the union of pumpkin and pie. An ethereal custard covered with crunchy cookie crumbs and spicy-sweet ginger plays the pumpkin role with more grace. Traditional pumpkin-pie spices like cinnamon and nutmeg can be used or not, according to the impeccable taste of the cook.
Performing in the role of pie, crisp little turnovers can be made by folding puff pastry around grated apples, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked. Bake them just before dessert to give the house the smell of buttery pie crust. Mince pie loyalists can subtract half the apple in the recipe and add raisins instead. For a more luxurious finish, dip warm turnovers into sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/dining/16bake.html
The Moscow Times
Kiriyenko Tapped to Run RosAtom
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer Itar-Tass
Sergei Kiriyenko
The day after he lost his job as a presidential envoy, Sergei Kiriyenko was named the new head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday in a move seen as an effort to make the agency more commercially viable.
Kiriyenko, 43, replaces Alexander Rumyantsev, 60, who had held the position since 2001. The appointment was made by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and announced by Sergei Naryshkin, the Cabinet chief of staff.
Industry experts said Kiriyenko, a former prime minister who has broad experience in business and government, could steer the agency toward greater profits from technology exports, imports of spent nuclear fuel and electricity sales.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/001.html
Sobyanin Touted as Kremlin Wild Card
By Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writer
President Vladimir Putin's new chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was being touted on Tuesday as a wild card who could help reduce tensions between powerful clans in the Kremlin -- and potentially get stalled reforms moving again.
But where Sobyanin, the 47-year-old Tyumen governor, will likely stand in the rivalry between the siloviki and the liberals within the presidential administration will become clear only over time, analysts said.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/002.html
Supreme Court Bans Bolsheviks
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer Mikhail Fomichev / Itar-Tass
Eduard Limonov, leader of the radical National Bolshevik Party, on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday re-imposed a ban on the radical National Bolshevik Party, or NBP, reversing its own decision earlier this year to cancel a ban imposed by a lower court.
"This was a historic humiliation for the Supreme Court," NBP leader Eduard Limonov said after the verdict. "Big players such as the Prosecutor General's Office intervened and pressed the judges to discard their previous verdict."
The court did not publish any reason for Tuesday's decision, and no one answered the telephone at the Supreme Court's press office on Tuesday afternoon.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/011.html
Putin Laments Crashes
The Associated Press
President Vladimir Putin lamented the high rate of traffic accidents in Russia, saying Tuesday that the loss of life was a threat to the country's economic potential. Last year, nearly 35,000 people died in vehicle crashes, he said.
"The largest part of the population dying are the able-bodied. These are absolutely irrecoverable losses," he said in televised comments. "It undermines the potential of Russian society."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/017.html
Switzerland to return arrested paintings to Russia
RIA NOVOSTI. November 16, 2005, 8:10 PM
GENEVA, November 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Swiss government has given its permission for the arrested paintings from the Moscow-based Pushkin Fine Arts Museum to be returned to Russia, the Russian embassy said Wednesday.
"In fact, the Swiss government has lifted the arrest but has not forwarded written permission to the Russian embassy. We are expecting this in an hour," an embassy official said.
The Swiss government held a special session to discuss the arrest of the $1-billion artwork collection. It was seized earlier on Wednesday at the request of Swiss trading company Noga as part of a long-standing legal dispute with the Russian government over contractual obligations.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
Poland: Ban Costs $1M Daily
By Anna Smolchenko
Staff Writer Mikhail Metzel / AP
Foreign Minister Meller arriving at Ekho Moskvy for an interview on Tuesday.
Poland said Tuesday that Russia's ban on food imports was costing its agricultural industry $1 million per day in lost revenues, as Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Meller slammed Russian authorities for imposing the ban so indiscriminately.
Conceding that some Polish products enter the country illegally, Meller said in a radio interview he objected to how Russia imposed a sweeping ban on meat and vegetable products in just a few days.
"It is a bit stunning that there is such a sweeping reaction because of a few dishonest exporters," Meller told Ekho Moskvy radio, admitting some exports do enter the country on forged documents.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/041.html
Russian Monks Cater to Presidential Tastes
By Conor Humphries
Staff Writer
Vladimir Filonov / MT
One of 20 bottles of wine specially produced for Putin's visit to an ancient Russian monastery in Greece this year.
At an international wine fair in Moscow last month, one bottle was not for sale.
The bottle -- one of 20 presented to President Vladimir Putin by monks from an ancient Russian monastery in Greece in September -- was kept under close watch by nervous representatives of the Greek trade delegation.
"Do you want to find me at the bottom of the Moscow River?" said an official at the Greek stand when asked if the dry red in question was on the market.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/048.html
Disabled Students Spend a Year in U.S.
By Alastair Gee
Special to The Moscow Times
Vladimir Filonov / MT
FLEX alumnus Anatoly Popko speaking with coordinator Mary Shea in her office near the Oktyabrskaya metro station.
In a classroom decorated with classical Greek busts and flowering potted plants, in a school for children with disabilities near Pushkinskaya metro station, 17 teenagers from across the Moscow region took an exam last Tuesday that could change their lives.
American-accented voices recorded on a tape gave four descriptions of pictures in the students' booklets, from which they had to choose the most appropriate. They were being tested on their competency in English and later had to write essays. The group, all with spinal disabilities, were competing for the chance to spend a year in the United States on the FLEX program.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/16/015.html
The Times Picayune
THREE DECADES WORTH OF TRASH
New Orleans area struggles with what Katrina left behind
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Bruce Hamilton
Staff writer
Tuesday was garbage day on Ponce de Leon Street, but for the second time in two weeks, the trucks bypassed the pile of 30-gallon trash bags that block part of the street in front of Gary Parky's house near the Fair Grounds.
In fact, the trucks haven't stopped in the neighborhood in at least three weeks, Parky said, even though 23 stinking refrigerators and huge piles of debris line the streets.
"We're trying to do the right thing and move back into the city," said Parky, who returned to his flooded property three weeks ago after cleaning out the first floor of his two-story house. "But the work is not getting done. Why would you want to live here when it's like this?"
Among the many crises caused by Katrina, cleanup may be the most enduring. Long after evacuees have resettled, political dust-ups have died down and the region has rebounded, the landscape will be littered with towering heaps of trash.
According to state estimates, the hurricane created 22 million tons of debris in southeast Louisiana, more than half of that in the New Orleans area. That includes debris from more than 160,000 homes, but it does not include about 350,000 vehicles and 35,000 recreational fishing boats that were damaged by floodwaters.
The unprecedented volume of waste, generated in the space of several hours, is equivalent to decades worth of the city's normal output, and it will take years to clear away. The monumental task raises a daunting question: Where will it all go?
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1132122546309620.xml
Ex-levee official returns back pay
Huey's settlement deemed against law
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Frank Donze
Staff writer
Former Orleans Levee Board President Jim Huey has refunded his after-taxes share of a controversial, $91,000-plus back pay settlement that Attorney General Charles Foti recently branded a clear violation of state law.
Acting Levee Board President Mike McCrossen said Huey, who resigned under fire last month, handed over a check for $57,760.27 Monday.
Huey's decision to return the money came less than three weeks after Foti issued a legal opinion labeling the salary transaction illegal. Foti's Oct. 27 opinion came in response to a request by state Inspector General Sharon Robinson, who is conducting an investigation into Huey's unilateral decision in July to pay himself the back salary.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1132124244309620.xml
Entergy expands utility work forces
Council: Power fixes need to speed up
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Keith Darcé
Staff writer
With pressure building to repower New Orleans more quickly, Entergy New Orleans is more than doubling the number of workers repairing the city's hurricane-damaged electrical grid, the utility's chief executive said Tuesday.
The company, which supplies electricity and natural gas services to homes and businesses in the city, also will boost its gas line repair crew by 35 percent, said Dan Packer, chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1132122727309620.xml
Parish fears flooding by clogged waterways
Crews are clearing debris, but federal help is needed
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Charlie Chapple
St. Tammany bureau
Fearing winter and spring rains could trigger disastrous flooding, St. Tammany Parish officials have assigned public works crews to remove debris and trees toppled by Katrina from sections of key drainage arteries throughout the parish.
But unless the parish gets federal help to unclog the dozens of rivers, bayous, canals and streams, residents will face the serious threat of floods during heavy rains, Parish President Kevin Davis said.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1132123274309620.xml
Angry residents pack meeting
Questions bombard Kenner, FEMA officials
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Mary Swerczek
Kenner bureau
At the first meeting of the University City subdivision since Hurricane Katrina flooded most of the neighborhood, residents packed Kenner's City Park pavilion Tuesday to yell at Kenner and federal officials.
More than 250 people showed up, many standing in back and some even standing outside watching through windows.
The meeting dissolved into anarchy at points, with residents yelling their questions as loud as they could while others screamed over them or yelled at them to be quiet so FEMA officials could be heard.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1132124528309620.xml
New York jazz auction to help stranded New Orleans musicians
11/16/2005, 10:42 a.m. CT
By VERENA DOBNIK
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Terrell Batiste has no idea where his grandmother is — or even if she's alive — more than two months after Hurricane Katrina.
All the 21-year-old trumpeter has now is a temporary home, a donated horn and a chance to eke out a living by playing New Orleans music in other parts of America.
On Wednesday night, the Jazz Foundation of America is holding an auction to help Batiste and hundreds of other hurricane-displaced musicians with food, clothes, housing and jobs.
Among those playing at the fund-raiser will be 95-year-old tenor saxophonist Max Lucas, who once performed with Louis Armstrong, and 91-year-old alto saxophonist Fred Staton, who played with Art Blakey, Count Basie and Billy Strayhorn.
On the auction block are more than 50 jazz treasures ranging from Miles Davis's boa constrictor snakeskin jacket to the Boesendorfer grand piano from Manhattan's Blue Note club.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1132159746167210.xml&storylist=louisiana
Flights reappear out of thin air
Recovery pushing scheduled trips to 33% of normal
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By Matt Scallan
Kenner bureau
The skies are becoming a little friendlier for travelers who use Louis Armstrong International Airport, as the number of scheduled flights this week approaches one-third the airport's pre-Katrina levels of 166 flights into the city.
There were 53 flights on Monday. By Dec. 15, the airlines have scheduled 60 flights into the city. That's way up from 19 on Sept. 21. Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29.
http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-0/1132122867309620.xml
U.K. says white phosphorous used for smoke
11/16/2005, 11:07 a.m. CT
BY ED JOHNSON
The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — The British military uses white phosphorous in Iraq but only to lay smoke screens, the government said Wednesday, after allegations that U.S. troops used the incendiary weapon against civilians during the battle of Fallujah last year.
White phosphorous, in a form used by the military, ignites when it is exposed to oxygen, producing such heat that it bursts into a yellow flame and produces a dense white smoke. It is used to mask troop movements and to light up a battlefield but also can cause painful burn injuries to exposed human flesh.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/iraq/index.ssf?/base/international-15/113214747147820.xml&storylist=iraq
Dutch system of flood control an engineering marvel
Sunday, November 13 2005
By John McQuaid
Staff writer
TER HEIJDE, NETHERLANDS -The North Sea's furious winters can kick up storm surges more than 13 feet high - a lethal threat to a country where millions live below sea level, some as much as 22 feet down. And the Dutch have devised a peerless system of flood defenses - one of the world's engineering marvels - to keep that water out.
Giant barriers straddle ocean inlets, their gates poised to slam shut to repel the invading sea. Massive earthen dams run for miles, blocking off vast areas once open to the North Sea, now converted to freshwater lakes and new living space.
http://www.nola.com/speced/ruinandrecovery/t-p/index.ssf?/speced/ruinandrecovery/articles/dutch13.html
Haaretz
Abbas meets Shalom in Tunis, praises Gaza deal
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters
TUNIS - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas held two rounds of talks with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Wednesday at a United Nations technology summit in Tunisia, during which Abbas praised the newly agreed deal to reopen the Gaza border with Egypt.
This is the highest-level contact between the two sides in months, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
The first meeting between the two was by chance. "It was an unscheduled meeting. They met by accident," an Israeli official said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/645797.html
Sources: EU monitors to take 'active role' at Gaza border
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies
The agreement on the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt calls for European Union observer forces to take an "active role" at the terminal, senior sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, hours after the deal was finalized.
The sources said it will be the EU's duty to enforce the agreement, and that they will be given the authority to do so.
The agreement brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice states that the terminal will be under the control of the PA and Egypt, with each party patrolling its own side of the border.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/646355.html
IDF troops arrest Palestinian youth carrying explosive belt at Nablus checkpoint
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Israel Defense Forces soldiers arrested a Palestinian youth carrying an explosive belt at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday afternoon, Israel Radio reported.
The youth was attempting to pass through the Hawara checkpoint in the direction of Nablus. A Military Police officer at the checkpoint asked him to open his bag and found a bolt of fabric. Soldiers passed the bag through a metal detector and called for bomb disposal unit when the device beeped.
Sappers found at least six small, separate explosive devices connected together in a belt. The bombs were safely detonated in a controlled explosion.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/645873.html
Singapore National Library removes Arafat's image from terror exhibit
By The Associated Press
SINGAPORE - Singapore's National Library said Wednesday it has removed an image of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from its new terrorism exhibition after complaints from the public.
Arafat's picture was used in a montage of 24 faces to "attract visitors to the exhibits," Kwa Chong Guan, a consultant to the government-backed terrorism exhibition at the National Library, explained in a letter published in The Straits Times newspaper.
"We received feedback from visitors that if one looked at the montage without looking at the exhibition in totality, the faces displayed were open to many different interpretations," he said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/646215.html
Israel to ask American Jewish communities to finance its foreign aid projects
By Shlomo Shamir
Israel is trying to persuade Jewish federations and communities in the Unites States to finance Israeli aid programs in foreign countries, Haaretz has learned.
The first initiative of this sort will be presented today at the United Jewish Communities (UJC) General Assembly taking place in Toronto.
Israel's Consul General in New York, Arye Mekel, will propose to the UJC that it become an active partner in the Foreign Ministry's projects in developing and poor countries.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=645394&contrassID=19
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