Boston Globe

4 slain in Dorchester house
Victims found in basement in city's deadliest shooting since '91
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff December 14, 2005
Four people were shot dead in a startling attack inside the basement of a Dorchester house last night.
It appeared to be Boston's deadliest shooting since the execution-style murder of five people in an underground Chinatown gambling parlor in 1991.
Boston Police Superintendent Bobbie Johnson said the shooting occurred shortly before 10 p.m. on Bourneside Street, which is near Fields Corner. Police who responded found four men in their late teens to early 20s. Three were dead. The fourth, a 21-year-old suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead, according to police.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/14/4_slain_in_dorchester_house/


Romney aides set a meeting on future
Talks may define his political plans
By Brian C. Mooney and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff December 14, 2005
With anticipation over his political future running high, Governor Mitt Romney's out-of-state political advisers are expected to assemble for strategy meetings in Boston Friday, sources close to Romney said yesterday.
The sources stressed that no firm date had been set for Romney's announcement of whether he will run for reelection. Aides had made tentative plans for an announcement on Monday, but it was in doubt because of changes in Romney's schedule, one source close to the governor said late yesterday.
The date has been pushed back several times, but the governor recently reiterated his intention to declare his plans before the start of winter, which begins next Wednesday, Dec. 21.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/12/14/romney_aides_set_a_meeting_on_future/


EU court says Commission was right to block GE Honeywell merger
By Aoife White, AP Business Writer December 14, 2005
LUXEMBOURG --An EU court ruled Wednesday that the European Commission was right to block a proposed merger between General Electric Co. and Honeywell International Inc. in 2001, although it criticized regulators for how they made the decision.
The EU had blocked the all-American, $46 billion merger after it had been cleared by U.S. regulators.
The Court of First Instance -- the EU's second-highest court -- backed the Commission's view that the deal would have given the combined company too much power in the market for jet engines for large regional aircraft, engines for corporate jet aircraft and the market for small marine gas turbines.
"The Court has not therefore annulled the decision, even though the Commission made errors in relation to other aspects of the case, in particular in its analysis of conglomerate effects," the court said.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2005/12/14/eu_court_says_commission_was_right_to_block_ge_honeywell_merger/


City officials hope to prevent MTA strike
Transit workers are framed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's logo as they picket in front of the Kingsbridge bus depot, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005, in New York. City transit workers say they will strike if the MTA fails to meet their demand by Friday for a three-year contract with an annual 8 percent raise. As a strike date looms, the city transit authority has an extra billion dollars in its coffers that is complicating efforts to convince New Yorkers they can't afford to give subway and bus workers raises. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
By Pat Milton, Associated Press Writer December 14, 2005
NEW YORK --City officials planned to return to court Wednesday to put more legal pressure on subway and bus workers preparing to strike and bring the nation's largest public transit system to a halt.
In a lawsuit against the Transport Workers Union in Brooklyn, the city seeks damages for expenses already incurred in preparation for a strike. The suit also seeks lost revenues and overtime and fines of $25,000 that would double each day for those who walk out on the job.
"The way to resolve this is not on the picket line but at the bargaining table," city Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said.
Arthur Schwartz, attorney for Local 100, called the lawsuit "total hogwash."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/14/city_officials_hope_to_prevent_mta_strike/


Israel to build in West Bank settlements
By Josef Federman, Associated Press Writer December 14, 2005
JERUSALEM --Israel has approved construction of hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday, confirming what would be a violation of the U.S.-backed peace plan.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scrambled to contain a political uproar following a Newsweek report quoting a Sharon aide as saying the prime minister would be willing to cede 90 percent of the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. Sharon's aides denied the report, but his hard-line opponents said it revealed the prime minister's true intentions.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved the new settlement homes in the past week, a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/12/14/israel_to_build_in_west_bank_settlements/


US envoy "worst ambassador in history": N.Korea
December 14, 2005
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, who labeled Pyongyang "a criminal regime," was the worst ambassador in history and should be recalled, its official media reported on Wednesday.
Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said at a forum on December 7 that Pyongyang was engaged in the sale of weapons and illicit narcotics and Washington would not lift sanctions against it as long as those activities continue.
"This is a criminal regime," he said.
North Korea blasted the comments on Sunday, saying the remark was a declaration of war that had killed the spirit of six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/12/14/us_envoy_worst_ambassador_in_history_nkorea/


EPA would ease pollution reporting rules
By John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer December 14, 2005
WASHINGTON --If the Bush administration has its way, some factories won't have to report all the pollution spewed from their smokestacks, making it harder for government scientists to calculate the health risks of the air Americans breathe.
The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to an AP analysis that found broad inequities in the racial and economic status of those who breathe the nation's most unhealthy air, says total annual emissions of 188 regulated air toxins have declined 36 percent in the past 15 years.
But the EPA wants to ease some of the Clean Air Act regulations that have contributed to those results and proposes to exempt some companies from having to tell the government about what it considers to be small releases of toxic pollutants. The EPA also plans to ask Congress for permission to require the accounting every other year instead of annually.
The agency said in September it wants to reduce its "regulatory burden" on companies by allowing some to use a "short form" when they report their pollution to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory.
The inventory program began under a 1986 community right-to-know law. If Congress agrees, the first year the changes could be possible would be 2008.
Those changes would exempt companies from disclosing their toxic pollution if they claim to release fewer than 5,000 pounds of a specific chemical -- the current limit is 500 pounds -- or if they store it onsite but claim to release "zero" amounts of the worst pollutants. Those include mercury, DDT, PCBs and other chemicals that persist in the environment and work up the food chain. However, companies must report any storage of dioxin or dioxin-like compounds, even if none are released.
EPA officials say communities will still know about the types of toxic releases, but not some of the details about how each chemical was managed or released. Critics say it will reduce the information the public has on more than 600 chemicals put in the air, water and land, making it harder for officials, communities and interest groups to help protect public health.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/12/14/epa_would_ease_pollution_reporting_rules/


AP: More blacks live with pollution
By David Pace, Associated Press Writer December 14, 2005
CHICAGO --An Associated Press analysis of a little-known government research project shows that black Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger.
Residents in neighborhoods with the highest pollution scores also tend to be poorer, less educated and more often unemployed than those elsewhere in the country, AP found.
"Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately," said Carol Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration when the scoring system was developed. "If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper middle class neighborhoods."
With help from government scientists, AP mapped the risk scores for every neighborhood counted by the Census Bureau in 2000. The scores were then used to compare risks between neighborhoods and to study the racial and economic status of those who breathe America's most unhealthy air.
President Clinton ordered the government in 1993 to ensure equality in protecting Americans from pollution, but more than a decade later, factory emissions still disproportionately place minorities and the poor at risk, AP found.
In 19 states, blacks were more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods where air pollution seems to pose the greatest health danger, the analysis showed.
More than half the blacks in Kansas and nearly half of Missouri's black population, for example, live in the 10 percent of their states' neighborhoods with the highest risk scores. Similarly, more than four out of every 10 blacks in Kentucky, Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin live in high-risk neighborhoods.
And while Hispanics and Asians aren't overrepresented in high-risk neighborhoods nationally, in certain states they are. In Michigan, for example, 8.3 percent of the people living in high-risk areas are Hispanic, though Hispanics make up 3.3 percent of the statewide population.
All told, there are 12 states where Hispanics are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanics to live in neighborhoods with the highest risk scores. There are seven states where Asians are more than twice as likely as whites to live in the most polluted areas.
The average income in the highest risk neighborhoods was $18,806 when the Census last measured it, more than $3,000 less than the nationwide average.
One of every six people in the high-risk areas lived in poverty, compared with one of eight elsewhere, AP found.
Unemployment was nearly 20 percent higher than the national average in the neighborhoods with the highest risk scores, and residents there were far less likely to have college degrees.
Research over the past two decades has shown that short-term exposure to common air pollution worsens existing lung and heart disease and is linked to diseases like asthma, bronchitis and cancer. Long-term exposure increases the risks.
The Bush administration, which has tried to ease some Clean Air Act regulations, says its mission isn't to alleviate pollution among specific racial or income groups but rather to protect everyone facing the highest risk.
"We're going to get at those folks to make sure that they are going to be breathing clean air, and that's regardless of their race, creed or color," said Deputy EPA Administrator Marcus Peacock.
Peacock said industrial air pollution has declined significantly in the past 30 years as regulations and technology have improved. Since 1990, according to EPA, total annual emissions of 188 regulated toxins have declined by 36 percent.
Still, Peacock acknowledged, "there are risks, and I would assume some unacceptable risks, posed by industrial air pollution in some parts of the country."
Government scientists and contractors spent millions of dollars creating the health risk measures. They're based on air emission reports from industry, ratings of each chemical's potential health dangers, the paths pollution takes as it spreads through neighborhoods, and the number of people of different ages and genders living near plants.
The AP used EPA risk scores from 2000 so they would match the Census data and because it takes years for the government to get corrected emissions data. Some risks may have changed since then as factories opened or closed or their emissions changed. The risk scores aren't meant to calculate a citizen's precise odds of getting sick but rather to help compare communities and identify those in need of further attention.
The scores also don't include risks from other types of air pollution, such as automobile exhaust.
Kevin Brown's most feared opponent on the sandlot or basketball court while he was growing up wasn't another kid. It was the polluted air he breathed.
"I would look outside and I would see him just leaning on a tree or leaning over a pole, gasping, gasping, trying to get some breath so he could go back to playing," recalls his mother, Lana Brown.
Kevin suffered from asthma. His mother is convinced the factory air that covered their neighborhood triggered the son's attacks that sent them rushing to the emergency room week after week, his panic filling the car.
"I can't breathe! I have no air, I'm going to die!"
The air in the neighborhood where Kevin played is among the least healthy in the country, according to research that assigns risk scores for industrial air pollution in every square kilometer of the United States.
Altgeld Gardens, the housing project where Kevin spent most of his childhood staying with his grandmother and going to school, is in a virtually all-black neighborhood where more than half the people live in poverty. The two-story project is nestled among the south Chicago steel mills, which for decades turned the night skies orange with pollution.
Most of those steel mills are now closed, victims of imports. But the area still retains enough industry to rank among the nation's neighborhoods with the highest health risks.
Just across the Little Calumet River from Altgeld, the ISG Riverdale steel plant annually releases into the air tens of thousands of pounds of heavy metals like manganese, zinc, lead and nickel. Dave Allen, a spokesman for Mittal Steel, which acquired the factory this year, said his company is committed to improvements.
"The environment is a matter of focus and pride for us and we hope to be good operators," he said.
Mrs. Brown said the asthma attacks that hit Kevin, now 29, were most serious and frequent during the time he stayed in Altgeld Gardens.
"He may now get an attack maybe once a year, if that often, where he has to go to a hospital," she said. "He was having them at one point quite frequently, at least two to three times a month."
Mrs. Brown was interviewed at the home she purchased seven years ago on a tree-lined street neighborhood south of the plant, where the health risk from industrial pollution is one-fifth the level in Altgeld Gardens.
She said she never considered pollution the culprit in her son's asthma, even after she left the neighborhood. It was only after she moved back into her mother's home for several years that she began to realize how widespread breathing problems were in Altgeld Gardens. Two children who lived next door had asthma, and one used a breathing machine as many as three times a day, she said.
"You see things happening and then you say let me start investigating," she said. "I found out a lot of people either had bronchitis or some kind of respiratory problem. Someone in each household seemed to have a respiratory problem."
In Louisville, Ky., Renee Murphy blames smokestack emissions in the "Rubbertown" industrial strip near her home for the asthma attacks that trouble her five children. Her neighborhood, which is 96 percent black, ranks among the nation's highest in risk from factory pollution.
"It's hard to watch your children gasp for breath," she said.
The Murphy family lives just a few blocks from Zeon Chemicals, which released more than 25,000 pounds of a chemical called acrylonitrile into the air during 2000. The chemical is suspected of causing cancer, and the government has determined it is much more toxic to children than adults.
Tom Herman, corporate environmental manager at Zeon, said the plant is reducing its emissions and is talking with area residents concerned about air quality to show that "there are real people working here concerned for them as well as our own health."
Malcolm Wright, 43, operates power washing equipment in Camden, N.J., where several neighborhoods also rank among the worst nationally. He said he developed asthma after moving to the city in his early 30s, and he blames the city's air pollution for attacks that sent him to the hospital four times last year.
Air pollution "works with many other factors, genetics and environment, to heighten one's risk of developing asthma and chronic lung disease, and if you have it, it will make it worse," said Dr. John Brofman, director of respiratory intensive care at MacNeal Hospital in the suburban Chicago town of Berwyn.
"Evidence suggests that not only do people get hospitalized but they die at higher rates in areas with significant air pollution," he said.
Repeated studies during the 1980s and 1990s found that blacks and poor people were far more likely than whites to live near hazardous waste disposal sites, polluting power plants or industrial parks. The disparities were blamed on a lack of political clout by minorities to influence land use decisions in their neighborhoods.
The studies brought charges of racism. Clinton responded in 1993 by issuing an "environmental justice" order requiring federal agencies to ensure that minorities and poor people aren't exposed to more pollution and other environmental dangers than other Americans.
Recent reports suggest little has changed:
--The Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this year that EPA devoted little attention to environmental equality when it developed three major rules to implement the Clean Air Act between 2000 and 2004.
--The EPA's inspector general reported last year that the agency hadn't implemented Clinton's order nor "consistently integrated environmental justice into its day-to-day operations." The watchdog said EPA had not identified minority and low income groups nor developed any criteria to determine if those groups were bearing more than their share of health risks from environmental hazards.
--The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded two years ago after an investigation that "federal agencies still have neither fully incorporated environmental justice into their core missions nor established accountability and performance outcomes for programs and activities."
EPA Assistant Administrator Granta Nakayama disputed those reports, saying the agency has been choosing its enforcement initiatives to maximize the impact on minority and poor communities.
Environmental experts say most pollution inequities result from historical land use decisions and local development policies. Also, regulators too often focus on one plant or one pollutant without regard to the cumulative impact, they say.
Short of government action, citizens in high-risk neighborhoods have little legal recourse. They can file lawsuits under the 1964 Civil Rights Act but must prove intentional discrimination, a difficult burden.
And while some federal agencies have rules that ban environmental practices that result in discrimination, the Supreme Court has said private citizens can't file lawsuits to enforce those rules.
Citizen complaints to EPA have had little effect. From 1993 through last summer, the agency received 164 complaints alleging civil rights violations in environmental decisions and accepted 47 for investigation. Twenty-eight of the 47 later were dismissed; 19 are pending.
"There is no level playing field," said Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. "Any time our society says that a powerful chemical company has the same right as a low income family that's living next door, that playing field is not level, is not fair."
------
The Associated Press analyzed the health risk posed by industrial air pollution using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Census Bureau.
EPA uses toxic chemical air releases reported by factories to calculate a health risk score for each square kilometer of the United States. The scores can be used to compare risks from long-term exposure to factory pollution from one area to another.
The scores are based on:
--The amount of toxic pollution released by each factory.
--The path the pollution takes as it spreads through the air.
--The level of danger to humans posed by each different chemical released.
--The number of males and females of different ages who live in the exposure paths.
The scores aren't meant to measure the actual risks of getting sick or the actual exposure to toxic chemicals. Instead, they are designed to help screen for polluted areas that may need additional study of potential health problems, EPA said.
The AP mapped the health risk scores to the census blocks used during the 2000 population count, using a method developed in consultation with EPA. The news service then compared racial and socio-economic makeup with risk scores in the top 5 percent to the population elsewhere.
Similar analyses were done in each state, comparing the 10 percent of neighborhoods with the highest risk scores to the rest in the state.
To match the 2000 Census data, the AP used health risk scores calculated from industrial air pollution reports that companies filed for EPA's 2000 Toxic Release Inventory. It often takes several years for EPA to learn of and correct inaccurate reports from factories, and the 2000 data were more complete than data from more recent reports that were still being corrected.
The AP adjusted the 2000 health risk scores in Census blocks around some plants that filed incorrect air release reports in 2000, after plant officials provided corrected data.
------
Counties that had the highest potential health risk from industrial air pollution in 2000, according to an AP analysis of government records. The health risk varies from year to year based on the level of factory emissions, the opening of new plants and the closing of older plants.
1. Washington County, Ohio
2. Wood County, W.Va.
3. Muscatine County, Iowa
4. Leflore County, Miss.
5. Cowlitz County, Wash.
6. Henry County, Ind.
7. Tooele County, Utah
8. Scott County, Iowa
9. Gila County, Ariz.
10. Whiteside County, Ill.
Factories whose emissions created the most potential health risk for residents in surrounding communities in 2000, according to an AP analysis of government records:
1. Eramet Marietta Inc., Marietta, Ohio
2. Titan Wheel Corp., Walcott, Iowa (closed in 2003)
3. Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y.
4. American Minerals Inc., El Paso, Texas
5. F.W. Winter Inc., Camden, N.J.
6. Meridian Rail Corp., Cicero, Ill.
7. Carpenter Tech. Corp., Reading, Pa.
8. Longview Aluminum LLC, Longview, Wash. (closed in 2001)
9. DDE Louisville, Louisville, Ky.
10. Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland
------
On the Net:
The Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov
Details of the EPA's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators Project at: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/rsei/views.html

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2005/12/14/ap_more_blacks_live_with_pollution?mode=PF

Taipei Times

Keyser offers guilty plea to US court
SECRET TRIP: A former US official said he made false official statements when trying to hide a trip to Taipei and his romance with a Taiwanese spy
By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 1
Donald Keyser, a former US State Department official known to be friendly to Taiwan, has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a romantic entanglement with a senior Taiwanese intelligence officer once stationed in the Taipei representative's office in Washington. The charges centered on a secret trip he took to be with her in Taipei for several days in September 2003.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/12/14/2003284329


China-Japan tiff overshadows ASEAN summit
AP , KUALA LUMPUR
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 1
Japan's prime minister said yesterday that he is baffled by the Chinese premier's refusal to meet one-on-one, fueling a row dating back to World War II and clouding a summit with grand visions for a pan-Asian community.
South Korea and Southeast Asian nations inked an accord during meetings yesterday to set up a free trade area, while the Philippines invited Russia and China to join a Southeast Asian anti-terror coalition.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/12/14/2003284330


Ang Lee's latest film tops Golden Globe nominations
AFP , LOS ANGELES
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 1
The gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain led nominations for the Golden Globe Awards yesterday, picking up seven nods as Hollywood launched its annual awards season and countdown to the Oscars.
As well as best dramatic picture, the film garnered nominations for director Ang Lee (李安), actor Heath Ledger and supporting actress Michelle Williams.
Other contenders for best dramatic film were Woody Allen's Match Point, conspiracy thriller The Constant Gardner, broadcast drama Good Night, and Good Luck and the psychological mob hit A History of Violence."
The seven Globe nominations for Brokeback Mountain confirm its status as an Oscar front-runner, having already been named best picture by the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/12/14/2003284334


China not a military force to be reckoned with, yet
By Chang Yun-ping
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 3
The rise of China and the growth of its economic and military power has not yet challenged US supremacy in maritime East and Southeast Asia as US strategic partnerships with regional allies are getting stronger and China still lacks the capability to build a powerful navy, a US scholar specializing in China-US affairs said at a conference in Taipei yesterday.
Robert Ross, executive board member and research associate of the Harvard-based John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies, made the comments yesterday at a forum entitled "The Rise of China and the Future of the Asia-Pacific Region," which was organized by the Asia Foundation in Taiwan and sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/12/14/2003284354


Legislature raises pensions for farmers, fishermen
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 4
The legislature yesterday passed amendments to the Temporary Statute Regarding the Welfare Pension of Senior Farmers, which will increase the monthly pension of senior farmers from NT$4,000 to NT$5,000.
The revised scheme will go into effect on Jan. 1 next year and is estimated to benefit 710,000 farmers and fishermen. The government is projected to spend an additional NT$8.6 billion annually to extend the scheme. The annual cost currently is about NT$23 billion and benefits 670,000 farmers and fishermen nationwide.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/12/14/2003284363


Taiwan Quick Take
STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005,Page 3
Arms bill fails again
The legislature's Procedure Committee yesterday placed the government budget at the top of the next legislative agenda, while voting down the arms procurement bill for the 41st time as well as the confirmation of Control Yuan members. The Procedure Committee voted 17 to 12 in favor of a proposal filed by People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Te-fu not to table the long-stalled arms procurement plan, consideration of the president's nomination of Control Yuan members, draft amendments to the Referendum Law and amendments to the Organic Law of the Ministry of Justice Organization, which would establish a new department dedicated to the investigation of corruption and related crimes.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/12/14/2003284349


The Washington Post

For Kurds, A Surge Of Violence In Campaign
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A01
DAHUK, Iraq -- When hundreds of rioters ransacked and torched the Kurdistan Islamic Union office in this northern Iraqi city last week, their message seemed as clear as the electric-blue graffiti left on the building's blackened shell.
Spray-painted across a stone facade dimpled with hundreds of bullet holes were the words "Long live 730," the numerical ballot designation for the political alliance led by Iraq's two largest Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Along a stairwell, someone had written "traitors."
Mobs carried out similar daylight attacks in four other cities in normally tranquil Dahuk province on Dec. 6, destroying offices of the Islamic Union, which quit the alliance last month to field its own candidates in Thursday's parliamentary elections. Four party members were killed, including two shot in the head here in the provincial capital who died of their wounds Saturday. Dozens were injured, many of them police officers.
Although U.S. officials consider the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq a model of what the rest of the country could someday become, the attacks last week were another reminder that Iraqis have been slow to discard the politics of force and intimidation in the country's lurch toward democracy. They also suggest that as Iraqis prepare to choose their first full-term government since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, some of the deepest social fissures lie not just among its large communities, but within them.
"Is there any doubt the big parties punished us for leaving the coalition? It is impossible that anything like this can happen here without their hand in it," said Omar Badi, an Islamic Union candidate for parliament, standing beside the wreckage of 21 cars set ablaze that day. "This had to be organized. It did not happen spontaneously."
Local officials and police said the KDP, the dominant power in the province, had not orchestrated the attacks. Public animosity had built for weeks against the Islamic Union, a Sunni Muslim party, for portraying the coming election as a clash of believers and nonbelievers in a region known for secularism and religious tolerance, politicians and residents said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121302119_pf.html



Marshals To Patrol Land, Sea Transport
TSA Test Includes Surveillance Teams On Metro System
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A01
Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit facilities across the country this week in a new test program to conduct surveillance and "counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation," according to internal federal documents.
According to internal Transportation Security Administration documents, the program calls for newly created "Visible Intermodal Protection and Response" teams -- called "Viper" teams -- to take positions in public areas along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; ferries in Washington state; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Viper teams will also patrol the Washington Metro system.
A Viper team will consist of two air marshals, one TSA bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security inspectors, one local law enforcement officer, and one other TSA employee. Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling public and wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious people. It is unclear how many Viper teams will be on patrol through the New Year holiday, but air marshal officials confirm that they will be at seven locations across the country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301709_pf.html


Immigration Pushes Apart GOP, Chamber
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A01
The House Republican leadership and the nation's business lobby, usually close allies, are battling each other over the issue of immigration.
In a rare schism, employer groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are pressing to kill a Republican-sponsored measure that would require businesses to verify that all of their workers are in the United States legally and would increase penalties for hiring illegal employees.
Lobby groups including the chamber, the National Restaurant Association and the Associated General Contractors of America are so vehement in their opposition that they will consider lawmakers' votes on the bill a key measure of whether they will support them in the future.
Still, acting House majority leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) appears to welcome the chance to disagree with his normal confederates. "Congressman Blunt sees no problem with being in a different place from the chamber on this legislation," said Burson Taylor, a spokeswoman for Blunt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301706_pf.html


PowerPoint Slides: the New Puppy-Dog Eyes
Kids Increasingly Use Tech Savvy To Sell Their Holiday Wish Lists
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page D01
Sometimes, when children want something badly enough, miracles start to happen.
Promises of spotless rooms and perfect report cards are made. Letters to Santa are neatly typed and spellchecked. Sullen teenagers take the headphones from their ears to shower their parents with compliments.
In hopes of receiving exactly what she wants for Christmas this year, Katie Johnsen, 11, created a Power Point presentation to show her parents what's on her wish list.
In hopes of receiving exactly what she wants for Christmas this year, Katie Johnsen, 11, created a Power Point presentation to show her parents what's on her wish list.
But kids today don't stop there. They are employing their high-tech savvy to wow their parents into fulfilling their Christmas wish lists.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301826.html


Democrat on Panel Probing Abramoff to Return Tribal Donations
By Jonathan Weisman and Derek Willis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A04
The senior Democrat on the Senate committee investigating former lobbyist Jack Abramoff announced this week that he will return $67,000 in donations from Indian tribes represented by the indicted Republican.
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, said he has never met Abramoff, nor did he advocate any program backed by Abramoff's tribal clients that he would not have otherwise embraced. But his move, reported yesterday in the Forum of Fargo, N.D., illustrates how broadly the political stain of Abramoff's money is spreading on Capitol Hill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301582.html


Guidelines Designed to Ensure Vote Accuracy
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A15
Voting systems would be more secure and voter access improved for those with disabilities under voluntary guidelines approved yesterday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The guidelines are a result of legislation passed two years after the 2000 presidential election, with its hanging chads, complaints of inadequate polling places and problems with mistaken voting. The Help America Vote Act requires improved voting systems, improved voter access and statewide voter registration lists by Jan. 1.
The act also required the guidelines that were approved yesterday. "The voting system guidelines we've adopted are structured to make sure voting systems function properly, that they are secure, that the votes cast by voters are counted accurately, that they are accessible to all voters no matter their age, disability and level of literacy," commission Chair Gracia M. Hillman said.
Under the guidelines, those responsible for the voting systems would have to ensure that all voters can cast ballots with privacy, independence and the knowledge that their votes will be counted accurately.
These protections extend to people with disabilities, the elderly and those with limited English skills. Improvements include higher-quality audio aids, larger type for ballots for the vision-impaired and buttons and controls that are easily identifiable.
According to the new guidelines:
Voters should be able to review their choices on the ballot and change them if they want.
Voting machines should have verifiable paper trails that are reliable and secure. Those guidelines could be used by many states that require electronic voting machines that create paper trails.
Security of software and other computer technology used in voting machines should be assured.
The guidelines developed by the Election Assistance Commission will update guidelines adopted by the Federal Election Commission in 2002. By December 2007, all voting systems will be tested against the new standards, but states can adopt the guidelines earlier.
Currently, 39 states require their voting systems to meet federal standards.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301960_pf.html


Reaction to Assassination Shows Rifts in Beirut
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A26
BEIRUT, Dec. 13 -- In the tony parts of Christian east Beirut, shops and restaurants shuttered their doors Tuesday to mourn the death of Gebran Tueni, a journalist, lawmaker and opponent of Syria assassinated Monday when a car bomb hurled his armored sport-utility vehicle over a hillside.
In the Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Ghabairi, however, it was business as usual: Mechanics hammered dents out of cars, vegetable carts plied shoddy streets and traffic crawled beneath a religious banner.
Lebanon, long a battleground for other people's conflicts, greeted Tueni's death in ways that illustrated what many see as the growing sectarian divide in the country's politics.
Across the spectrum, virtually everyone condemned Tueni's assassination, the latest in a string of attacks that have killed and wounded some of Lebanon's most prominent opponents of Syria. But more telling were the differences in who they held responsible and how they thought the government should respond.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301687_pf.html


Saudi Gives $20 Million to Georgetown
Prince Says He Wants to Promote Understanding of Islam
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; B01
A prominent Saudi businessman said yesterday that he is donating $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities for the study of Islam and the Muslim world as part of his philanthropic efforts to promote interfaith understanding.
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family, said in a telephone interview from the Saudi capital of Riyadh that he also has donated $15 million to establish the Middle East's first two centers for American studies, at universities in Beirut and Cairo.
"As you know, since the 9/11 events, the image of Islam has been tarnished in the West," said Alwaleed, who is chairman of the Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Co. and has extensive business holdings in Europe and the United States.
He said his gifts to Georgetown and Harvard will be used "to teach about the Islamic world to the United States," and the new programs at American University in Beirut and American University in Cairo will "teach the Arab world about the American situation."
The $20 million gift to Georgetown is the second-largest ever received by the Jesuit-run university, school officials said. It will be used to expand the activities of the university's 12-year-old Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
"We are deeply honored by Prince Alwaleed's generosity," said a statement from Georgetown President John J. DeGioia, who met Alwaleed Nov. 7 in a Paris hotel to sign documents formalizing the donation.
Alwaleed, a grandson of the Saudi kingdom's founder, King Abdel Aziz, tried to give $10 million to the Twin Towers Fund shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. But then-New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani rejected the donation after the prince said in a news release that the United States needed to "re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause."
Asked about the controversy over his New York gift, Alwaleed replied that "this is behind us and now we are working for the present and the future. . . . My love and admiration to the United States was never diminished."
The Georgetown center, part of the university's School of Foreign Service, will be renamed the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The $20 million will endow three faculty chairs, expand programs and academic outreach, provide scholarships for students and expand library facilities, Alwaleed said.
Center director John L. Esposito said in an interview that "a significant part of the money will be used to beef up the think tank part of what the center does."
Up to now, he said, the center has not had enough resources "to respond to the tremendous demand that is out there, from the government, church and religious groups, the media and corporations to address and answer issues like, 'What is the actual relationship between the West and the Muslim world? Is Islam compatible with modernization?' Now we can run workshops and conferences [on these subjects] both here and overseas."
When asked about the comments that caused the rejection of Alwaleed's gift to New York, Esposito said: "There is nothing wrong with his expressing his opinion on American foreign policy. Clearly, it was done in a constructive way. He was expressing his enormous sympathy with the United States but also trying to give people the context in which this [terrorist attack] occurred."
Alwaleed said his $20 million donation to Harvard will fund its Islamic studies program, which crosses many disciplines.
Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers expressed gratitude to Alwaleed, saying in a statement yesterday that his gift "will enable us to recruit additional faculty of the highest caliber, adding to our strong team of professors . . . [in] this important area of scholarship."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121200591_pf.html

continued ...