This is a complicated storm. The variety of clouds and their varied direction tell me all I need to know. It's surreal. The photographer stated, We had a severe thunderstorm in Amarillo tonight. More storms are to the southeast of us causing large hail, flash flood situations and could possibly generate a tornado or two. I was out on a storm spotters watch. I snapped this shot looking west just after the storm passed through Amarillo.
 

I am joking when I say these are very powerful and dangerous storms. May 11, 2005. Hastings, Nebraska. It was almost like a white out! The hail and rain fell so hard that I couldn't see 20 feet in front of my car and the wind was blowing about 50mph. This is a picture out my side window. The trees were ripped of all leaves and the house was only about 30 feet away. It is all too easy to look at pictures. Hail will hurt a person if they are out in it. Write all your legislators. This isn't going to get better from what I am seeing on the satellites.
 

May 11, 2005. Hastings, Nebraska. Got caught in a hail storm south of hastings. Golf ball size hail fell for 30 minutes and accumulated up to a foot on the ground.
 

May 11, 2005. Hastings, Nebraska. 

Please take care of yourselves. These are very powerful ionic storms. Click on this title. Thank you, Google.

May 12, 2005. GOES West compliments of UNISYS. It does have a central radius. It's a vortex. I'll load the link. You can see the intensity as it developed. This view is 12 hours ago. It is a very intense storm. Watch the 'white' clouds that develops. It is what caused all this. Give me a few minutes.

May 12, 2005. The Hail, tornado storm from the ground in Amarillo, Texas at what appears to be sunset. Wow is that an angry sky. It's like there is a central radius.  

May 12, 2005. Amarillo, Texas. A hailstorm swept through Amarillo tonight pelting the city with glofball to baseball sized hail. This storm was part of a stalled system that has dropped over seven tornadoes (Southeast of Amarillo) and continues to backbuild and spin out of control in Hale and Swisher counties.
 

May 12, 2005. Amarillo, Texas. There goes the Mustang. 

May 12, 2005. Amarillo, Texas Hail. There goes the plants. 

May 12, 2005. Amarillo, Texas. Hail. 

May 12, 2005, Hail from Amarillo, Texas. 

May 12, 2005. Grand Island, Nebraska. Depending on where you were in town, they say we got between 7 and 9 inches of rain in about 4 to 5 hours.
 

May 12, 2005. Grand Island, Nebraska. Yes that is a building. Yes, the foreground is a traffic sign. Yes, this is today. 

May 11, 2005. Waves along the shores near Tel Aviv, Israel. 

May 5, 2005. Sunset along the shore of the Mediterranean.

May 6, 2005. Patano del Ebro, Spain. 

May 6, 2005. Lerapetra, Greece. 

May 9, 2005. Zajecar, Serbia. 

A hazardously rainy in Rochester, New York. 

Skillefjord, Norway. 

Sunlight 

Morning Papers - It's Origins

Rooster "Crowing"

"Okeydoke"

History…

1835 Charles Darwin visits copper mines in North Chile

1898 Louisiana adopts new constitution with "grandfather clause" designed to eliminate black voters

1921 National Hospital Day 1st observed

1928 Mussolini ends woman's rights in Italy

1928 Opium laws enforced

1932 Over two months after he was kidnapped, American aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby is found dead in Hopewell NJ Lindbergh had paid the ransom on April 2.

1933 the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration were established to provide help for the needy and farmers.

1942 1,500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz

1942 Nazi U-boat sinks American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River

1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1949, the Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.

1951 1st H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll

1952 Charlton Playground named in the Bronx

1953 KUHT TV channel 8 in Houston TX (PBS) begins broadcasting

1955 Chicago Cub Sam Jones is 1st black to pitch no-hitter (Pirates, 4-0)

1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak

1963 Mickey Wright wins LPGA Alpine Civitan Golf Open

1963 Race riot in Birmingham AL

1964 Manlio Brosio chosen as secretary-general of NATO

1965, West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.

1970, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice.

1970 KTVM TV channel 6 in Butte MT (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting

1970 Race riots in Augusta GA; 6 blacks killed (5 by cops)

1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1974 Jo Ann Prentice wins LPGA American Defender-Raleigh Golf Classic

1978 The U.S. Department of Commerce declares that hurricanes will no longer be named exclusively after women.

1982 Pulitzer prize awarded to John Updike (Rabbit is Rich)

1984 South Africa prisoner Nelson Mandela sees his wife for 1st time in 22 years

1985, Amy Eilberg was ordained in New York as the first female rabbi in the Conservative Jewish movement

1991 Hollis Stacy wins LPGA Crestar-Fresh Farm Golf Classic

1992 1st Belgian woman (Ingrid Baeyens) to ascend Mount Everest

1997 Russia & Chechnya sign peace deal after 400 years of conflict

Missing in Action

1967 ASHLOCK CARLOS PHILADELPHIA PA
1967 AGOSTO SANTOS JOSE PR 01/23/68 RELEASED / POW EXCHANGE
1967 GRENZEBACH EARL WILFRE JR. WORCHESTER NY
1967 GADDIS NORMAN C. KNOXVILLE TN 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 JEFFERSON JAMES M. SAN DIEGO CA POSS DEAD REMAINS ID 06/05/00
1967 PITMAN PETER P. ATLANTA GA
1967 STEWART ROBERT A. WASHINGTON DC
1968 BUCHER BERNARD L. EUREKA IL "EXPLODE, NO SEARCH, HOSTIL"
1968 COEN HARRY B. RIVERTON WY GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 CRAVEN ANDREW J. WILMINGTON NC GROUND ATTACT POSS KIA
1968 HEPLER FRANK M. GLENSIDE PA "EXPLODE, NO SEARCH, HOSTIL"
1968 LONG JULIUS W. JR. PULASKI WA 03/16/73 RELEASED BY PRG
1968 LONG GEORGE W. MEDICINE KS "EXPLODE, NO SEARCH, HOSTIL"
1968 MOORE MAURICE H. BALTIMORE MD GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 MC ELROY JOHN L. SCHENECTADY NY "EXPLODE, NO SEARCH, HOSTIL"
1968 MORELAND STEPHEN C. LOS ANGELES CA "EXPLODE, NO SEARCH, HOSTIL"
1968 ORR WARREN R. JR. KEWANEE IL
1968 RANSBOTTOM FREDERICK J. OKLAHOMA CITY OK GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 SIMPSON JOSEPH L. DENVER CO GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 SKIVINGTON WILLIAM E. JR. LAS VEGAS NV GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 SANDS RICHARD E. SPRINGFIELD IL
1968 STULLER JOHN C. FALLS CHURCH VA GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 WIDNER DANNY L. GRAHAM TX GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 WILLIAMS ROY C. WOODVILLE TX GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1968 WIDDISON IMLAY S. WOODS CROSS UT GROUND ATTACK POSS KIA
1970 PREISS ROBERT F. JR. CORNWALL NY REMAINS RETURNED IDENTIFIED 06/30/98
1972 ADAIR SAMUEL Y. JR. MADISON GA REMAINS RECOVERED 11/74
1972 BOGARD LONNIE P. MATARIE LA
1972 CRESSEY DENNIS C. CHEYENNE WY 11/74 REMAINS RECOVERED
1972 OSTERMEYER WILLIAM H. ORLANDO FL

Journalism at Risk

Call for EU intervention for jailed journalists and cyberdissidents
Reporters Without Borders has called on European representatives due to meet Chinese ministers in Beijing on 11 and 12 May 2005 to raise the plight of three recently imprisoned Chinese journalists and cyberdissidents.
The organisation wrote to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and Jean-Claude Junker, prime minister of Luxembourg, which currently holds the EU presidency, to intervene at the next EU-China troika on behalf of Zhang Lin, Shi Tao and Zheng Yichun, charged with posting "illegal" news online.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13725

Two journalists jailed as government seeks to tighten criminal law
Reporters Without Borders condemned nine-month prison sentences for defamation handed down on 4 May 2005 to Darwin Ruslinur and Budiono Syahputr a, respectively chief editor and managing editor of the Sumatra weekly Lampung's Koridor.
The organisation called on the Indonesian authorities to annul the archaic law dating back to the colonial era that provides for prison sentences in defamation cases. The law, put in place to silence dissidents and pro-independence movements, is still regularly used by the courts.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13722

Reporters Insist Others, Not They, Be Targeted in Leak Case
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for five journalists found in contempt for refusing to name confidential sources told a federal appeals court Monday that a former nuclear weapons scientist who is suing the government should have tried harder to get the information from other sources before taking the journalists to court.
But the lawyer for former weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee said that even government investigators were stymied in their attempt to identify who might have leaked information to the press about a government espionage investigation of Lee in the late 1990s.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-reporters10may10,1,1374330.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

10 Journalists quit press club
National
Four senior members of the Negros Press Club (NPC) resigned Tuesday, days after First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo joined the organization.
Arman Toga, the organization's vice-president, Jaime Espina, secretary, and directors Henry Cestina and Amado Villacarlos resigned to protest what they said as "the serious damage to the integrity and honor of the organization by the unwarranted and undeserved induction" of Arroyo.

http://news.balita.ph/html/public_html/article.php?story=20050510220409973

Latvian Journalists Deported
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
Pskov police have deported a three-member Latvian television crew, inflaming tensions between Latvia and Russia.
Police in the northwestern region detained the crew from Latvian Television as they were filming Victory Day celebrations on Monday. After questioning them, police ordered them to leave the country, even though they had obtained accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry and violated no laws, the Latvian Foreign Ministry said.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/05/12/010.html

BBC journalists vote for strike
LONDON - British Broadcasting Corp. journalists and technical workers have voted to strike to protest thousands of job cuts, union officials said Wednesday.
The BBC now faces the threat of a walkout at TV and radio stations across the country later this month and the possible disruption of some programs.
Gerry Morrissey, assistant general secretary of the broadcasting union Bectu, said 80 percent of members had voted for industrial action to protest cutting 2,050 jobs, in addition to 1,730 previously announced cuts.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005205120328&source=email

For Thinking People

12 Indiana power plants on list of dirtiest in U.S.
Report underscores the potential health threat from coal smokestacks throughout the state.
By John Strauss
john.strauss@indystar.com

An environmental group on Wednesday named 12 Indiana coal-burning power plants, including one on the Southside of Indianapolis, among the 50 "dirtiest" in the country for producing health-damaging pollutants.
Plainfield-based Cinergy/PSI had three of its power plants among those listed. Company officials said they have spent millions of dollars to clean emissions and are scheduled to spend millions more on improvements during the next few years.
The report underscores the potential health threat from power company smokestacks throughout Indiana. With one exception, the Indiana companies did not challenge the group's findings.
The report, "Dirty Kilowatts: America's Most Polluting Power Plants," compiled data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and carbon dioxide. The mercury data were from 2002, and the rest of the information came from 2004.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/NEWS01/505120468/1007/LIVING

What we are breathing
Here's what 12 Indiana power plants ranked among the nation's 50 dirtiest are emitting, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. Some made the list for multiple pollutants.
• Carbon dioxide: Released by four plants in Jasper, Porter and Warrick counties, it can reduce oxygen delivery to the heart and brain.
• Nitrogen oxides: Released by four plants in Jefferson, Lake, LaPorte and Porter counties, they can damage the respiratory system and cause premature death.
• Sulfur dioxide: Released by six plants in Floyd, Lake, Marion, Vermillion, Vigo and Warrick counties. High levels can cause temporary breathing problems for asthmatics. Long-term, it can cause respiratory illness and aggravate heart disease.
Sources: EPA, Environmental Integrity Project

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/NEWS01/505120468/1007/LIVING

Bush asked to explain UK war memo
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002 -- well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.
The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/britain.war.memo/index.html

The End Of Pensions
Dan Ackman, 05.11.05, 8:35 AM ET
NEW YORK - In the future, will any company offer a pension? The answer is probably not, and the future is getting closer all the time.
Yesterday a U.S. federal bankruptcy judge approved a plan by UAL (otc: UALAQ - news - people ), the parent company of United Airlines, to transfer its pension plans, which are underfunded by $9.8 billion, to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which is itself underfunded.

http://www.forbes.com/2005/05/11/cx_da_0511topnews.html?partner=daily_newsletter

Wilmington Star News

Women still feel free to drop tops at Topsail Beach
From time to time, visitors to Topsail Beach uncover something unexpected: a glimpse of a woman sunbathing topless.
And it’s perfectly legal.
Unlike its island neighbor Surf City, Topsail Beach doesn’t have an ordinance prohibiting women from baring their breasts in public. As a guideline, the small town uses state law that does not distinguish between men’s and women’s bare chests.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550510021&source=email

Hospital funds: Only a Band-Aid?
Federal program aims to ease cost of treating immigrants
A federal program that will provide almost $5 million to North Carolina hospitals that care for illegal immigrants may benefit larger institutions such as New Hanover Regional Medical Center, but smaller facilities say the aid might not be worth the effort.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services program came out of 2003 legislation and will provide a $1 billion pot of money emergency health care providers can dip into over the next four years.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550510023&source=email

Doctors, Azalea Festival leader receive honors
This year’s Star-News Lifetime Achievement Awards go to three men of far-reaching vision, Dr. Daniel Gottovi, Dr. R. Bertram Williams Jr. and Hugh Morton.
The two doctors helped shape the medical services field in Southeastern North Carolina. Mr. Morton, owner of Grandfather Mountain, was instrumental in starting the N.C. Azalea Festival and bringing the Battleship North Carolina to Wilmington.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550511022&source=email

The buzz on mosquitoes
A few precautions can reduce bites from skeeters and ticks this summer
Be prepared: Area residents will soon feel the bite of last week’s rainfall and this week’s warm weather.
Millions of tiny mosquito eggs have hatched in mud flats, salt marshes and backyard birdbaths in recent days. They’re on track to sprout wings and satisfy their appetite for blood by next week unless we do something about it.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550511026&source=email

Topsail Beach mayor quits amid public pressure
TOPSAIL BEACH Weeks after making accusations that the town’s volunteer firefighters attended training session under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Mayor Jimmy Morris resigned Wednesday night.
Residents clapped as he walked out of Town Hall. Mayor Pro tem Howard Braxton will be the town’s mayor and the board will remain a five-member board. The town will hold a special mayoral election in November and the winner will finish the four-year term.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550511029&source=email

Game’s social, legal costs probed
By Margaret Lillard
RALEIGH - If North Carolina joins every other state on the East Coast and creates a lottery, the cost of policing it and offering help to problem gamblers could cost several million dollars a year, witnesses told a Senate committee Wednesday.
The state likely would use the lottery’s own proceeds to pay for such programs, although that’s not addressed in either the House-passed bill to create a lottery or the Senate’s budget proposal, which included lottery provisions, approved last week.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005205120335&source=email

FBI head praises Saudi crackdown
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - FBI director Robert Mueller praised progress in Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on militants Wednesday, a day after the kingdom said it had captured one of al-Qaida’s key "ideologues" in a shootout.
Saudi police wounded and arrested Abdul Aziz bin Rasheed al-Anzy, one of the editors of online al-Qaida periodicals that call for jihad, or holy war, and incite aggression, the Interior Ministry said.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005205120322&source=email

Area golfers take chance at Open
WALLACE The cheers were always there. So was Cortney Brisson’s game when it counted.
The Bladen County native and Wallace resident birdied the first hole of a playoff Wednesday evening to advance to U.S. Open sectional qualifying in Rockville, Md.
It will mark the second time in three years that Brisson has made his way out of the local stage. The first was in 2003 when he progressed all the way to the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields.
This trip came only after Brisson chipped in for birdie from the back fringe on his 72nd hole. That prompted a roar from a partisan crowd that was audible from one end of the River Course to the other.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550511019&source=email

New research center to focus on terrorism
RALEIGH - Two universities and a North Carolina-based contract research organization have formed a new center to study terrorism and ways to prevent attacks.
Researchers and scholars from Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Research Triangle Institute International will work together to study terrorism and look for strategies to prevent attacks.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005205120340&source=email

He’s never been so insulted
SANFORD, FLA. - A county Republican chairman says his bid to head the state party was sabotaged because a letter falsely accused him of having been married six times. The right number, he says, is five.
"That’s unconscionable," Seminole County Republican Party Chairman Jim Stelling said Tuesday in the trial over his defamation suit. "I have four children and eight grandchildren that I love dearly. I believe in family values."

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005205120341&source=email

The Cheney Observer

A SIMPLE VOTE ON JUDGES. How can a vote for judges be simple? Perhaps Bush can explain that one. At least try because I know this is nothing but pure manipulation over judges that were already voted on and defeated.

Bush calls for simple vote on judges
By Holly Yeager in Washington
Published: May 9 2005 18:22 Last updated: May 9 2005 23:26

President George W. Bush weighed in forcefully on Monday on a debate that threatens to bring the Senate to a near-standstill, calling on members to “put aside the partisan practices of the past” and allow an up-or-down vote on his candidates for the federal courts.
His comments, four years to the day after he nominated his first group of judges, come as a show-down nears on Senate rules governing debate on judicial nominees. Mr Bush complained that Democrats had used the filibuste-- a procedure that allows just 40 members of the 100-seat chamber to block a vote -- to prevent a vote on confirmation of several of his court choices.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6bf871be-c0ac-11d9-a3da-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=46d6f5a8-d260-11d8-b661-00000e2511c8.html

Grenade reportedly thrown toward Bush during Georgia speech
05.11.2005, 12:04 AM
WASHINGTON (AFX) - An apparent hand grenade was thrown close to US President George W. Bush on Tuesday as he gave a speech in front of tens of thousands of Georgians in Tbilisi, the US Secret Service said.
A Secret Service spokesman said the agency, which is charged with protecting US presidents, was only informed of the incident by Georgian officials after Bush had left the country.

http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/05/10/afx2016719.html

Democrats To Get Some Bolton Data
(CBS/AP) At the State Department's urging, Senate Democrats narrowed their request for internal government documents bearing on John R. Bolton's fitness to be the United States' ambassador to the United Nations.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have threatened to force a delay in the panel's planned Thursday vote on Bolton unless they get the information they want. They planned a private strategy session Tuesday and were hoping to receive more material from the State Department later in the day, said Norm Kurz, a spokesman for the committee's senior Democrat, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/10/politics/main694203.shtml

Pastor Who Ousted Democrats From Church Resigns
Make WFMY News 2 Your Home Page
Chan Chandler endorsed Bush from the pulpit during last year's presidential campaign, saying John Kerry supporters needed to "repent or resign."
Waynesville, NC -- The Baptist pastor accused of running congregants out for not supporting President Bush resigned Tuesday night.
The Reverend Chan Chandler had called a meeting Tuesday night at the East Waynesville Baptist Church but did not announce an agenda.
Congregants of the 100-member church say Chandler endorsed Bush from the pulpit during last year's presidential campaign and said that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry needed to "repent or resign."
They say he continued to preach about politics after Bush won re-election. That led to a church gathering last week in which the nine members say they were ousted.

http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/local_state/local_article.aspx?storyid=40809

The less thought of, Bechtel and Iraq

By Jeffrey St. Clair
Republished from Counterpunch
On the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Bechtel issued its revenue numbers for 2005.
On the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Bechtel, the gargantuan global construction firm based in San Francisco, issued its revenue numbers for 2005. While the situation continued to deteriorate for the US military forces in Iraq, Bechtel reported more fragrant news.
Although the privately-owned company doesn’t disclose its profits, Bechtel did announce that its income was soaring to new heights not seen since the 1960s when the company was damming some of the world’s most glorious canyons, building some of the most dangerous nuclear plants and constructing military bases for the staging of the war on Vietnam.
For the year 2004, Bechtel brought in more than $17.4 billion, a record haul for the company. That makes two record years in a row. Last year Bechtel earned more than $17 billion for the first time. Both records were all the more impressive given the senescent condition of the economy.

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/2768/Bechtel_More_Powerful_than_the_US_Army

RETRO - Follow the Thought Stream - Have we made progress? NO, NO, NO !!!

The Cheney Observer Revisited

More than 50 arrested after Iraq car bombs, as Bush vows polls to go ahead
12-21-2004, 07h09
Ahmad Al-Rubaye - (AFP)
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - US President George W. Bush vowed that Iraqi elections would go ahead as planned despite a wave of deadly insurgent attacks, as Iraqi authorities announced 51 arrests following Sunday's devastating car bombings.

http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=041221070954.uvb4ssjc.xml

Dealing with Putin giving Bush headaches
AWKWARD DANCE: The US president still maintains close ties with his increasingly hard-line Russian counterpart. But tensions have worsened over the Ukraine election

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/12/22/2003216238

ANOTHER MINOR MISCALCULATION

Bush blames Iraqi troops for setbacks
SHAKEN RESOLVE: The US president is off on his long vacation, but not before telling reporters that Americans could be forgiven for thinking that Iraqis aren't up to the task

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/12/22/2003216180

Bush Opens Door to Imported Drugs
oo many restrictions are attached, Congressional backers of the idea say.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-122104reimport_lat,0,5553658.story?coll=la-home-nation

A threat to the Kurds

Dec 21, 2004 — ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged President Bush to act against Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq during a telephone call on Tuesday, Turkish officials said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=349210

11/01/99
Text: Scheffer Makes Case for War Crimes Prosecution of Saddam Hussein
(Address to Iraqi National Congress in New York Oct. 29)
David Scheffer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues, has laid out the U.S. case for prosecuting Saddam Hussein and a handful of close associates before an international war crimes tribunal.
In a speech delivered before the Iraqi National Congress in New York October 29, Scheffer accused the Iraqi regime of nine counts of possible war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Three of these continue to this day. They are:
-- "Since the 1980s, possible crimes against humanity for killings, ostensibly against political opponents, within Iraq;
-- Since 1991, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq, and
-- Since 1991, crimes against humanity and possible genocide against the peoples of the southern Iraqi marshes."
"Before any government entertains further thoughts about deeper relations with the Iraqi regime, the factual record of this criminal enterprise needs to be fully appreciated," Scheffer told the INC.

http://www.usembassy.it/file9911/alia/99110119.htm

Russia's Gazprom to sell oil unit in apparent bid to escape US legal action

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's state-run gas behemoth Gazprom announced that it would dispose of an oil unit in an apparent bid to escape US legal action over the forced sale of the main asset of the stricken Yukos oil giant.

http://www.turkishpress.com/business/news.asp?id=041221184044.0vmtzp8t.xml>

Iraqi northern oil pipeline hub ablaze after attack
Updated 04:16am (Mla time) Dec 22, 2004
Agence France-Presse
KIRKUK, Iraq -- A grid of intersecting export and domestic oil pipelines in northern Iraq was on fire Tuesday, belching black smoke and shooting out bright red flames.

http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story_id=21998

Darfur rebels attack oil institutions
Sudan, Politics, 12/21/2004
The Sudanese government accused the Darfur rebels of attacking oil establishments in Darfur south where battles were renewed between the two sides and the African Union forces were obliged to provisionally postpone the monitoring mission.

http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/041221/2004122105.html

Maintenance at Athabasca Oil Sands upgrader extended to end of January

Canadian Press
Wednesday, December 22, 2004

CALGARY (CP) - The Athabasca Oil Sands Project will continue to lose production through to the end of January as more repairs are needed on the Scotford upgrader at Fort Saskatchewan, northeast of Edmonton.

http://www.canada.com/businesscentre/story.html?id=616bb063-abd4-4e70-8fc7-b55f648a325e

Elf Petroleum Executes N800m IPP
This Day (Lagos)
December 20, 2004
Posted to the web December 21, 2004
Mike Oduniyi
Lagos
As public power supply continues to decline, French oil firm Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited, is currently buidling an N800 million Independent Power Project (IPP) in Rivers State.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200412210108.html

USA: EXXONMOBIL: Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil Announce Commencement of Major Activities for $12 billion Qatargas II Project
Publication Date: Dec 21,2004, 12:58
SUMMARY: Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) announced that the companies are commencing a number of significant activities to advance the $12 billion Qatargas II project, which will supply LNG from Qatar to the United Kingdom by the winter of 2007/8.

http://webbolt.ecnext.com/coms2/description_41181_EXXONMOBIL211204_CON

NNPC Sacks 2,355 Workers Five Days to Xmas
Vanguard (Lagos)
December 21, 2004
Posted to the web December 21, 2004
John Ighodaro, Hector Igbikiowubo & Luka Binniyat
Port Harcourt
IT was a black day yesterday for 2,355 workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) after they were laid off even as the second floor of the Port Harcourt office of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was razed yesterday.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200412210525.html

continued...

The Latest Excuse to Stay "On the Air" was yesterday when a Private Plane drifted into White House Air Space

CNN's "Nuclear Option"

Now, today, the Anchors at CNN are claiming citizens of the USA actually wants such incidents to end shooting down small engine planes.

CNN is making far too much of the issue in DC today.

Everyone is acting childish about what amounts to a 'Fire Drill.'

If it were a sincerely angry person they would have dumped the plane into any available neighborhood if they didn't care about their own lives.

This is OVERKILL at CNN.

There is no reason to make a huge issue of a 'Mistake.'

The people in the plane were probably terrified themselves.

Oh, Georgie was on a bike ride. How nice. He's right about one thing, we need to just carry on and get over A LITTLE BIT OF UPSET.

The Fire Drill in DC today didn't cost all that much.

It cost the administration some 'time' but the Senate was debating a Filibuster anyway. It cost the court and Cheney some time but in the case of Cheney it meant the country got a respite from his plotting for future oil invasions.

It cost some fuel but the jet pilots were already on salary.

Oh, pulllleeezzzz.... Now, they are exploiting the idea of killing the people in the little plane who drifted into WHITE HOUSE airspace.

Go home, Aaron, you haven't said a thing worthwhile yet !!

Now, we are wishing people dead. What next !!

Does anyone at CNN live near an airport?

Have anyone in this nation ever been exposed to low flying jets?

What the heck is this junk all about?

You know one day I came out of a friends house and there was this UFO flying over our heads.

Sincerely. Didn't look like a plane and it was flying overhead.

We looked at this 'thing' and we finally figured out as it came down in elevation that it was a Stealth Fighter, one of those Black Coated Jets, heading out to the east. For cryin' out loud....Grow up, Lady.

THIS WAS THE REVIEW OF "NewsNight" last night !!

Does anyone at 5 Penn Plaza realize there is a real world that is falling apart?

This was a simple little mistake by a pilot and a student pilot.

You know they tried to pull this HYPERSENSITIVE approach over the Gal that changed her mind about marriage but didn't have coping skills.

I tell you what.

CNN could do some Community Service and find a way to help these folks out in DC by giving them effective coping skills after a simple mistake like this rather than TRYING to inflame the situation to be preceived as another September 11th.

Sorry, Aaron, you should be ashamed tonight for your inflammatory newscast that makes no difference to any of the issues you approach tonight.

This is pure propaganda and nothing else.

Take a good hard look at it, that is all it is.

Plug into it and you'll be afraid to leave your home and buy a police radio for hypervigilance 24 hours a day.

Let's put it this way, September 11th BETTER NOT HAPPEN AGAIN.

This kind of exploitation to achieve hypersentive response by society is designed to give permission to the thought we will be attacked again. I guess the only thing giving that brevity is the fact Osama bin Laden is still on the loose in Afghanistan. The leadership of this nation will allow this to continue as long as it serves this purpose.

Today, a little plane drifted into WHITE HOUSE air space and nothing else.

They all ought to be ashamed of themselves. I know I am and apologize for all the terrible feelings they are causing.

Now that everyone is scared half to death here comes the political pitch.

Here comes Repuglican John Mica, who will play the 'interviewee' game to satify the public tonight and bring them on board to an administration who is competent and realizes that CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL weapons flow like water in the USA. I guess if you are David Hatfield and have a kitchen sink you might have something there, but, let's face it an administration of Repuglicans looked all over Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction without any success. You would think they would have nailed down the potential inside the borders of the USA, right?..

Propaganda. Oh, there ya go, John Mica was stressed because his family was in the building for lunch. How nice. They didn't get promised a $500,000 vacation or something, right there Rep. Mica? Propaganda. Nothing but propaganda. Helloooo...not born yesterday.

There was a time when we were the heroes

Students from Kabul University burn a U.S. flag during a protest in Kabul on Thursday. Three days of protests have left four people dead.


Instead of embellishing the issue of the 'flight error' in DC, NewsNight should have been examing the diminished esteem of the USA in Afghanistan and how an illegal war in Iraq brought it to an issue whereby deaths occurred in opposition of the presence of the USA. This is serious. Why are these young people dying for believing in themselves. They are standing up for their country through their concern expressed in demonstrations. That is the way democracies handle opposition while coming to understand why their citizens feel that way. At least that is the way it's suppose to work even though opposition voices in the USA are being muffled and censored. The leadership in Afghanistan, I am thinking Dr. Abdullah Abdullah needs to reach out to these young people before they decide al Qaeda is a better option to democracy.

Red Square the Day After VE Day Celebration. It seems so lonely.

The Load of Bush as per Australia. In other words our best allies know this is going NOWHERE!!

Symbol of Sawfar is an endangered species.