The Rooster and his Chicks
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Morning Papers- It's Origins
Rooster "Cock - A - Doodle - When - Due"
"Oak - He - Doe - $he"
Today in History
378 Battle of Adrianople, Visigoth Calvary defeats Roman Army
480 -BC- Persia defeats Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae
1778 Capt Cook passes through Bering Strait
1786 1st ascent of Mt Blanc
1790 Columbia becomes 1st US flagged ship to voyage around the world
1803 1st horses arrive in Hawaii
1829 "Stourbridge Lion" locomotive goes into service
1831 1st US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
1842 US-Canada border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
1848 Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merges with the Free Soil Party nominating Martin Van Buren for president
1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes "Walden"
1893 1st US bowling magazine, Gut Holz, published in NY
1930 Betty Boop debutes in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes
1936 Jesse Owens wins 4th gold medal of Berlin Olympics
1942 British arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas K Gandhi
1945 US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki
1946 1st time all major-league baseball games (8) are played at night
1956 1st state-wide, state-supported educational TV network, Alabama
1956 South African women demonstrate against pass laws
1960 Race riot in Jacksonville Florida
1961 James B Parsons is 1st black appointed to Federal District Court
1972 Rockwell receives NASA contract to construct the Space Shuttle
1973 USSR launches Mars 7
1974 Richard Nixon resigns presidency, VP Gerald Ford becomes 38th pres
1976 USSR launches Luna 24, last Lunar flight to date from Earth
1981 6 English lifeguards set relay swim record the English Channel (7:17)
1988 Just 1 day after 8/8/88 NY's daily number is 888
1990 12 Arab leaders agree to send pan-Arab forces to protect Saudi Arabia
1992 25th Olympic Summer games close in Barcelona, Spain
Missing in Action
August 9
1967 CHERRY ALLEN SHELDON UNIVERSITY CITY MO REMAINS IDENTIFIED 15 JULY 1999
1967 LENGYEL LAUREN ROBERT LYNNFIELD MA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 MYERS GLENN L. PENN HILLS PA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 WOLFKEIL WAYNE B. WILKES BARRE PA
1968 WINN DAVID W. AUSTIN MN 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1969 BECK EDWARD EUGENE JR. NORTH CANTON OH
1969 DOTSON JEFFERSON S. POUND VA
1969 GOURLEY LAURENT L. VILLISCA IA
1969 JANOUSEK RONALD J. POSEN IL
1969 KANE BRUCE E. DEER PARK NY
August 8
1964 GRAINGER JOSEPH W. WEST HARTFORD CT 01/25/65 DIED ON PRG DIC LIST PER WIDOW 1965
1966 FLOM FREDRIC R. MENASHA WI 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 GOLBERG LAWRENCE CLOQUET MN 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED SRV
1966 KOMMENDANT AADO LAKEWOOD NJ
1966 KASLER JAMES H. ZANESVILLE OH 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 WALLING CHARLES M PHOENIX AZ
1966 WYNNE PATRICK EDWARD EAU GALLIE FL 03/18/77 SRV RETURNED REMAINS TO PCOM
August 7
1965 GRAY HAROLD EDWIN JR. NEW YORK NY
1966 BRAZELTON MICHAEL L. INGLEWOOD CA 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 FRYER CHARLES WIGGER OKLAHOMA CITY OK
1966 GIDEON WILLARD S. SILVER SPRINGS MD 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1966 MORAN RICHARD ALLAN FORT SMITH AR
1966 PYLE THOMAS S. NEW CASTLE DE 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 SANDVICK ROBERT J. GLASGOW MT 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1966 WENDELL JOHN H. HOUSTON TX 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 CHAMBERS CARL D. SANTA MONICA CA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 WILSON GLENN H. ST. ALBANS WV 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV DECEASED
1971 BERG BRUCE A. OLYMPIA WA
August 6
1964 CUTRER FRED C. JR. OSYKA MS AC CRASH EXPLODE VC
1964 KASTER LEONARD L. HOLYOKE MA AC CRASH EXPLODE
1967 KEMMERER DONALD R. QUAKERTOWN PA
1967 PAGE ALBERT L. DERRY NH
1972 PENN MICHAEL G. JR. FORT WORTH TX 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
Jerusalem Post
Netzarim, Gadid settlers hand in their weapons
By JPOST.COM STAFF
In a decision that may symbolize the Gaza settlers' acquiescence to the inevitability of the disengagement plan, residents of the isolated Gaza settlement of Netzarim decided on Tuesday to hand in their weapons to the security forces.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553937020
IDF seals off Ganim and Kadim
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
OC Central Command Maj.Gen. Yair Naveh imposed a closed military zone on Ganim and Kadim in northern Samaria Tuesday afternoon, after residents of the two communities expressed fears that extremists would attempt to hamper the evacuation from their homes.
Recognizing the settlers' intentions to leave their homes willingly and in an orderly fashion, Naveh declared the area from the Jalameh checkpoint crossing and the access route leading to the two settlements a closed military zone.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553939560
IDF on high alert along northern border
By DAVID RUDGE
IDF troops along the northern border have been placed on a high state of alert and preparedness in case of any attempted attacks from Lebanon prior to or during disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Reports in the Lebanese press on Tuesday said Hizbullah had also increased the alert level of its forces deployed on the Lebanese side of the border.
According to the A-Nahar Beirut daily, Hizbullah has taken widespread defensive measures out of concern that Israel may try and launch an operation against its forces.
Senior IDF sources however dismissed the reports as being part of Hizbullah's psychological warfare against Israel. The sources said the misinformation was being distributed to the Lebanese media to serve the interests of the extremist Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim organization.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553939617
US to invest millions in checkpoints
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
At a meeting between Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, PA Minister Mohammed Dahlan and World Bank envoy James Wolfensohn on Tueday night in Jerusalem, it was decided that the US would invest $50 million to improve major checkpoint crossings in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Security officials said the finances would be used to equip the Erez and Karni crossing in Gaza and the Tarkumiya and She'ar Ephraim crossing in the West Bank with new electronic equipment.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553941084
Our World: Netanyahu's great gamble
As I interviewed now former finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, it was clear that he was in the midst of a personal struggle. As he laid out the ways he felt his presence in the government had mitigated some of the enormous damage the Sharon-Peres government's withdrawal and expulsion plan from Gaza and northern Samaria will cause to Israel's security, it was evident to me that for him it was not enough. And he was right.
Netanyahu has led the campaign to refuse the bizarre American demand that Israel rearm the Palestinian Authority's militias which themselves are deeply involved in terrorism. But, as he stated, the government's recent decision to relinquish control over the strategically vital Philadephi Corridor, which connects Gaza to the Sinai, together with its intention to enable the creation of a seaport in Gaza over which Israel will exert no security control, "will create a highway for the transfer of terrorists and terror materiel."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123467496854
Haaretz
Last update - 01:15 10/08/2005
Israel, PA agree on plan to raze evacuated settlements
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed during a Tuesday meeting on the details of a plan to demolish the houses in Gaza Strip settlements set for evacuation under the disengagement. The plan must still receive final approval.
According to the plan, an international body, probably the World Bank, will oversee the demolition.
The meeting, held at Jerusalem's King David hotel, was attended by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Palestinian Minister Mohammed Dahlan and the Quartet's Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610578.html
IDF: Forced evacuation to begin August 17 in Gaza
By Amos Harel and Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondents
Israel Defense Forces officers distributed letters Monday afternoon to Gaza settlers telling them their presence in the Strip will be considered illegal as of August 15. Starting from midnight August 17, the IDF will evacuate any settlers still in Gaza.
The letters, which were signed by GOC Central Command Dan Harel and Brigadier General Guy Tzur, also offer IDF assistance in the evacuation for those who decide to leave voluntarily by midnight of August 16.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610039.html
Palestinian fatwa forbids attacks that might delay the pullout
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent
A senior Palestinian religious leader has issued an edict banning shooting attacks against Israeli security forces and settlements, out of concern they might lead to a postponement of the pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of northern Samaria.
"Anyone who causes the delay of the withdrawal of the occupation, or prolongs its existence on Islamic soil, is committing a crime according to Islamic law," Sheikh Jamal al-Bawatna, the mufti of the Ramallah district, says in a fatwa issued in the past few days.
He was responding to a question from Fatah institutions in the region, asking what should be done to those who "disturb the completion of the Israeli withdrawal."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610066.html
Haaretz poll: Netanyahu gets 47%, Sharon 32%, in Likud runoff
By Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Former finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu would beat Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by a substantial margin in a race for the Likud Party leadership if the party primary were held today, according to a new poll of Likud members conducted for Haaretz by Dialogue.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610570.html
The Mail and Guardian has the most accurate estimation of the nuclear activities of Iran.
Iran sets off diplomatic scramble
Michael Adler Vienna, Austria
09 August 2005 02:45
Amid intense diplomacy, Britain, France and Germany circulated a draft resolution on Tuesday, ahead of a key meeting of the United Nations atomic watchdog, urging Iran to stop nuclear fuel work that has raised concerns of a possible weapons programme.
But diplomats said the tactic is running into opposition from non-aligned and other states that warned that cracking down on Iran could isolate it, as with North Korea.
They said the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), due to meet at 3pm GMT, is backing away from referring Iran to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
It follows Iran resuming nuclear fuel-cycle work that it had suspended in line with a deal with European Union negotiators Britain, France and Germany.
The United States, which claims the work is a front for developing nuclear weapons -- a charge Tehran strongly denies -- and the so-called EU-3 appeared to be having problems on Tuesday winning a consensus for a resolution condemning Iran, despite French Minister of Foreign Affairs Philippe Douste-Blazy having called the situation a "grave crisis".
He said French officials had received a letter from Tehran rejecting a package of EU incentives offered in exchange for Iran continuing to suspend nuclear work.
Iran says it has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position supported by IAEA board members, such as Brazil, which have their own nuclear programmes.
Iranian Defence Minister Ali Skamkhani said Tehran will "resist" mounting international pressure and is unworried about threats of UN Security Council intervention.
A diplomat from one of the EU-3 states said they are circulating a draft resolution "that calls on the Iranians to stop activities in Isfahan", where the Iranians resumed uranium-conversion work suspended last November.
The resolution does not mention the harsher measure of taking Iran before the Security Council, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
"At this stage, options should be kept open," the diplomat added, saying the Iranians have only started on the first stage of conversion, itself a first step in enriching uranium into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors but also the explosive core of atom bombs.
"We want to get a unified response from the board of governors," the diplomat said.
The EU must win support for a resolution condemning Iran from board members Russia -- which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant -- and China, a big client for Iranian oil.
A diplomat close to the IAEA said China, Russia and South Africa are working on a proposal that would allow Iran to do conversion work, with the uranium gas made from this process given to another country to distil into enriched uranium.
The Iranians seem to have won a political victory by ending the suspension and limiting the diplomatic reaction, diplomats said.
"The idea was to stop the Iranians from doing something but they've already done it and so the board is stymied," a Western diplomat said.
The diplomat described Tuesday's IAEA board meeting as "the beginning of a process" rather than the international community's definitive response to the Iranians, who have been under investigation for almost two years for failing to declare sensitive nuclear activities.
The board, whose meeting was delayed from the morning to the mid-afternoon in order to allow time for closed-door negotiations, had been expected to meet for one day but will now continue at least until Wednesday, diplomats said.
"While the Europeans would like to get a resolution, some don't think they will. The best they will get will be a simple statement from the chairman of the board," a Western diplomat said.
"The threat [of referral] is being held for a second meeting," a diplomat close to the IAEA said on Monday.
But another said the EU-3, the United States, Canada and Australia are discussing among themselves imposing economic measures against Iran, beyond a US embargo already in place, if the IAEA board fails to act. -- Sapa-AFP
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=247592&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Globe and Mail
Canadian stem cell star shuns U. S. riches
By CAROLYN ABRAHAM
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Updated at 8:37 AM EDT
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
A leading stem-cell scientist has turned down a multimillion-dollar offer in the United States in favour of heading Canada's first stem-cell research centre.
Mick Bhatia, a 35-year-old developmental biologist who specializes in the controversial study of human embryonic stem cells, is to become scientific director of a research centre now being built at McMaster University in Hamilton.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050809.wxstemcells09/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/
Chicago Tribune
Founder of Ebony Magazine dead at 87
The Associated Press
Published August 8, 2005, 3:53 PM CDT
John H. Johnson, who with the creation Ebony magazine single-handedly ended the stereotypical coverage of blacks and made corporate America recognize the existence of the black consumer market, died today. Johnson was 87.
Born January 19, 1918 in Arkansas City, Arkanas, Johnson moved to Chicago with his family at age 15. After graduating from public schools, Johnson attended the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050808johnsonobit,1,5420082.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Behave yourself on Michigan Avenue
By Jason George
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 8, 2005
Stand on Michigan Avenue and look up to the spire of the Water Tower. You'll see history in the Gothic Revival architecture.
The future, however, is staring back.
Surveillance cameras peer down from rooftops at the tower square, while others scan from one passing face to another. Then there are those hidden in tinted globes. The Park Hyatt Chicago has one. So does Giorgio Armani.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0508080145aug08,1,7163844.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Judge threatens contempt for Patterson lawyer who walked out on hearings
By Mike Robinson
Associated Press Writer
Published August 8, 2005, 3:22 PM CDT
An attorney for former death row inmate Aaron Patterson could be held in contempt of court and fined for twice storming out of the courtroom in tears and delaying the start of his drug and firearms trial.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050808patterson,1,2891692.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Starbucks is grinding out hits as well as coffee
Joe purveyor adds music to its assets
By Bob Gendron
Special to the Tribune
Published August 7, 2005
More than 40 years after he got his start there, Bob Dylan is returning to the coffeehouse. Like older favorites such as Joni Mitchell and Carole King, the famous singer-songwriter has hitched his horse to the delivery wagon of Starbucks, the coffee purveyor and suddenly influential music retailer.
The concept of Starbucks selling music isn't new. Since purchasing Hear Music in 1999, the Seattle-based chain has carried compilations unobtainable elsewhere. Hear Music developed into a recognizable in-house label and sprouted the popular "Artist's Choice" series.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0508070302aug07,1,6214291.story?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed
Forest-preserve raccoons seeking food, water in city
Drought and a ruined berry crop are driving a new population into the neighborhood
By Kelly Kennedy
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 8, 2005
A combination of the drought and a late freeze has sent Chicago's raccoons foraging for food and water in unusual places.
Like McDonald's.
"There was a late freeze just when many of our wild fruity trees and bushes were budding," said Robert Frazee, a natural resources educator from the University of Illinois Extension service. "When the berries didn't set on, it became really hard to find food, so the raccoons have been raiding many of the towns and villages."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0508080091aug08,1,5080695.story?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed
LA Times
Federal Probe Sought in Toddler's Death During Police Shootout
By Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writer
Lawyers for the family of the toddler killed by police during a firefight with her father last month announced today they are seeking a federal probe into the child's death.
During a press conference outside LAPD headquarters, attorney Luis Carrillo said the Los Angeles Police Department has a conflict of interest when investigating the shooting of 19-month-old Suzie Marie Peña.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-080805baby_lat,0,439115.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Another way to cut medical costs: Split your pills
More health insurers are endorsing the practice, but some physicians say it's risky.
By Timothy Gower, Special to The Times
Smart shoppers can't resist a two-for-one sale. But should you purchase prescription drugs the same way you buy pizza or canned corn? For years, people who take daily medications have saved money by asking their doctors to prescribe pills with double the dose they need, which they then cut in half with a knife.
Although skeptics say the practice may be unsafe, a growing number of health insurers are encouraging patients to split pills as a way to combat the rising costs of prescription drugs. In June, UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation's largest managed-care companies, advised members in Wisconsin to discuss pill splitting with their physicians. The insurer plans to introduce the program nationwide before the end of the year.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-pillsplit8aug08,0,5169585.story?coll=la-home-headlines
How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect
AS SOMEBODY WHO doesn't have the slightest feeling one way or another about baseball star Rafael Palmeiro, I have to say that it seems pretty clear Palmeiro has used steroids. Palmeiro recently tested positive for steroid use. And then there's former teammate Jose Canseco's allegation that he and Palmeiro both used steroids, which is impossible to verify but would seem to explain why Palmeiro's annual home run total nearly doubled after Canseco joined him on the Texas Rangers. None of this is ironclad proof, but it seems the simplest way to reconcile the available data.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-chait5aug05,0,6079158.column?track=hpmostemailedlink
World News Mideast
Bird-Filled Emirates Wetlands Diminishing
August 08, 2005 — By Jim Krane, Associated Press
UMM AL-QUWAIN, United Arab Emirates — The Khor al-Beidah lagoon is a pristine tidal flat teeming with wildlife, including endangered birds, sea turtles and manatee-like dugong that swim among its tangles of mangroves.
But a bevy of dredges and construction gangs are about to begin transforming a 1,500-acre parcel into a $3.3 billion luxury conglomeration of homes, shops, marinas and beach resorts aimed at foreign buyers and tourists.
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8459
Musharraf snubs Miandad ceremony
BBC ONLINE, LONDON
Aug 6: Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has snubbed an invite to a celebration of the wedding of ex-cricketer Javed Miandad's son to a fugitive's daughter.
Junaid Miandad had married Mahrukh Ibrahim, daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, a man the US suspects of al-Qaeda links.
The post-wedding party drew more than 1,200 guests in Karachi on Thursday but not the president nor prime minister. Miandad had earlier expressed anger at the "negative propaganda" in the Indian media of the 23 July wedding in Dubai.
The lavish post-wedding party - or walima - was held in a five-star hotel in the southern port city of Karachi.
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/aug/07/07082005sp.htm#A28
Former President Bush, Cheney visit Saudi king
Bush, Cheney, Powell: The visit is meant to show the importance of the nations' relationship
By Salah Nasrawi
The Associated Press
Vice President Dick Cheney, center, and former President Bush pay their respects Friday to new Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Riyadh. (Saudi Press Agency/The Associated Press )
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A U.S. delegation led by Vice President Dick Cheney paid respects Friday to King Abdullah, a visit intended to show the importance Washington attaches to close ties with oil power Saudi Arabia.
Cheney, former President Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell offered condolences on the death Monday of the new monarch's half brother King Fahd.
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2919057
Cheney, Powell, former President Bush pay respects to new Saudi monarch
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
08/06/2005
They reportedly discuss Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S.-Saudi relations.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A U.S. delegation led by Vice President Dick Cheney paid respects Friday to King Abdullah.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/world/story/8FC14DB615EDD57E862570550007FD43?OpenDocument
High-ranking US officials in Riyadh to pay respects to new King
AP, RIYADH
Aug 5: Vice President Dick Cheney, accompanied by former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, paid respects Friday to new Saudi King Abdullah and offered condolences on the death of his half brother, the former king.
Reporters in the capital, Riyadh, were barred access to the American delegation, which was to have an audience with the new king after Friday prayers in the deeply conservative desert kingdom.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, and Abdullah has worked to repair ties strained by the Sept. 11 attacks, in which 15 of the attackers were Saudis. The Bush family has had close ties with the Saudi leadership for decades.
At King Abdullah's formal investiture Wednesday, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said he expected U.S.-Saudi relations to continue improving, and he vowed a "total war" on terrorism.
Abdullah had served as de facto leader for a decade after King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke. Top clerics Friday called on Saudis to join others in expressing their "bayah," or oath of allegiance, to Abdullah, which they said was every Muslim's religious duty. Tens of thousands of Saudis - tribal chiefs, Islamic clerics, army commanders and commoners - have been pouring into the governor's palace here to pledge loyalty to Abdullah, vowing to "hear and obey" in a traditional Islamic ceremony sealing his status as monarch.
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/aug/06/06082005ap.htm#A18
Cheney invites new Saudi king to US
US vice President, King Abdullah hold talks on developments on regional, international scenes.
RIYADH - US Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday invited Saudi Arabia's new King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to visit the United States during talks near the Saudi capital, the official SPA agency reported.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/saudi/?id=14215
Britain warns of terror attack in Saudi
Foreign Office says it has credible reports terrorists are in 'final stages' of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia.
LONDON - Britain said Monday it has "credible reports" that terrorists are in the "final stages" of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia, following the closure of the US embassy in Riyadh.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/saudi/?id=14227
The Arab News
Abdullah, Cheney Review Ties
Javid Hassan & Mohammed Rasooldeen, Arab News
King Abdullah with members of the US delegation in Riyadh on Friday. (SPA)
RIYADH, 6 August 2005 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has been invited to visit the US by Vice President Dick Cheney.
King Abdullah also held a meeting with Cheney at his farm in Janadriyadh, near Riyadh, during which the two leaders reviewed their bilateral relations, and the situations in Palestine and Iraq as well as issues that came to the forefront during the Saudi-US summit at President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68033&d=6&m=8&y=2005
New Ambassador to UK Named
Arab News
Prince Muhammad ibn Nawaf
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — Prince Muhammad ibn Nawaf will be the new Saudi ambassador to Britain, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal announced here yesterday during a wide-ranging press conference that touched on Saudi-British intelligence-sharing, Saudi-US relations as well as the Kingdom’s interests in preserving global oil-market stability and supporting the new government of Iraq.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68125&d=8&m=8&y=2005
No Terror Threat, Says Interior Ministry
Mohammed Rasooldeen, Arab News
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — The US Embassy in Riyadh and its consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran will be closed today and tomorrow due to terrorist threats against the missions’ buildings in the Kingdom, the US Embassy announced here yesterday. Last week, these missions were closed for three days on account of the demise of King Fahd.
In a warden’s message issued yesterday, the US Embassy advised all its citizens that its three missions in the Kingdom will remain closed in response to a threat against US government buildings in the Kingdom. It has also requested personnel working in its missions to limit their non-official travel during this period.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68131&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Legal Mechanism Needs Strengthening, Feel Expats
Javid Hassan, Arab News
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — Members of the expatriate community have said that the government under Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah should strengthen the legal mechanism for the protection of expatriates.
They also support the Kingdom’s recently announced “Look East” policy and favor a Saudi initiative for an international conference on security and economic cooperation involving the countries of South and Southeast Asia. Among other issues, they want the government to look into the problems of overseas contract workers and re-examine the criteria for the granting of Saudi citizenship to expatriates.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68087&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Desert Can Be Deadly If You Aren’t Prepared
Mahmoud Ahmad, Arab News
In the desert when things go wrong they can be deadly if you are not prepared for the worst. (AN photo by Roger Harrison)
JEDDAH, 8 August 2005 — Saudi Arabia is a big place, and in the summer months it is a very hot place. These are facts easily overlooked by motorists rolling along through remote areas with their air-conditioners blasting out cold air.
For those traveling through unfamiliar areas or those who have car trouble, that summer jaunt quickly can turn into a life-threatening situation. In the old days, it was commonplace to hear about people getting lost in the desert and dying there. That did serve as a deterrent for the inexperienced traveler.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68132&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Editorial: Preparing for Withdrawal
8 August 2005
Starting next week, the Israeli Army will do the unprecedented: It will begin evacuating, by force if necessary, about 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. Even the resignation of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister and Ariel Sharon’s main rival in the right-wing Likud party in protest will not prevent it. This first-time event has brought with it unparalleled situations.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=68099&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Lawrence of Arabia Could Have Slipped Through Blair’s Laws
Sarah Whalen, sawhalen@xula.com.edu
His family called him “Ned.”
Like the July 21, 2005 London train bombers, he was as British as cricket.
And like the London bombers, Ned, young, intense and often scowling, with beady, deep-set eyes, blew up trains.
He killed people, destroyed millions of dollars of property, and caused populations to panic.
He sought to topple some governments, some kings and princes, and to place his friends into power.
What would Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair do about Ned?
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=68107&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Abdullah Pardons Al-Hamid, Al-Faleh, Al-Damini, Saeed ibn Zaeer and Libyan Assassination Plotters
Rasheed Abou-Alsamh & P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah chairs the Cabinet meeting, the first after his accession to the throne, in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — In a day of dramatic developments and in a show of magnanimity, King Abdullah just seven days into his reign, pardoned three jailed dissidents and a group of Libyans who had plotted to assassinate him.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68189&d=9&m=8&y=2005
Thousands of Vacant Positions Await Saudis: Gosaibi
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — As many as 82,312 jobs in the private sector are available for Saudi applicants, Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi announced yesterday.
He said his ministry had provided jobs to 40,000 Saudis during the last five months after a nationwide campaign to register jobseekers. He called upon unemployed Saudis to approach labor offices across the country and complete the formalities for placement in suitable jobs.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68191&d=9&m=8&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Renowned Muslim Icon Deedat Dies
Samir Al-Saadi & Abdul Maqsood Mirza, Arab News
Sheikh Ahmed Deedat
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — Sheikh Ahmed Hussein Deedat died at the age of 87 in South Africa early yesterday morning. After suffering a stroke in 1996, Sheikh Deedat, founder of Islamic Propagation Center (IPCI) was paralyzed for the past nine years. Yusuf Deedat, Sheikh Ahmad Deedat’s son told Arab News that “It’s a nation’s great loss; he was an incredible debater who will be hard to replace.”
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68169&d=9&m=8&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
continued...
"Oak - He - Doe - $he"
Today in History
378 Battle of Adrianople, Visigoth Calvary defeats Roman Army
480 -BC- Persia defeats Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae
1778 Capt Cook passes through Bering Strait
1786 1st ascent of Mt Blanc
1790 Columbia becomes 1st US flagged ship to voyage around the world
1803 1st horses arrive in Hawaii
1829 "Stourbridge Lion" locomotive goes into service
1831 1st US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
1842 US-Canada border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
1848 Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merges with the Free Soil Party nominating Martin Van Buren for president
1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes "Walden"
1893 1st US bowling magazine, Gut Holz, published in NY
1930 Betty Boop debutes in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes
1936 Jesse Owens wins 4th gold medal of Berlin Olympics
1942 British arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas K Gandhi
1945 US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki
1946 1st time all major-league baseball games (8) are played at night
1956 1st state-wide, state-supported educational TV network, Alabama
1956 South African women demonstrate against pass laws
1960 Race riot in Jacksonville Florida
1961 James B Parsons is 1st black appointed to Federal District Court
1972 Rockwell receives NASA contract to construct the Space Shuttle
1973 USSR launches Mars 7
1974 Richard Nixon resigns presidency, VP Gerald Ford becomes 38th pres
1976 USSR launches Luna 24, last Lunar flight to date from Earth
1981 6 English lifeguards set relay swim record the English Channel (7:17)
1988 Just 1 day after 8/8/88 NY's daily number is 888
1990 12 Arab leaders agree to send pan-Arab forces to protect Saudi Arabia
1992 25th Olympic Summer games close in Barcelona, Spain
Missing in Action
August 9
1967 CHERRY ALLEN SHELDON UNIVERSITY CITY MO REMAINS IDENTIFIED 15 JULY 1999
1967 LENGYEL LAUREN ROBERT LYNNFIELD MA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 MYERS GLENN L. PENN HILLS PA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 WOLFKEIL WAYNE B. WILKES BARRE PA
1968 WINN DAVID W. AUSTIN MN 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1969 BECK EDWARD EUGENE JR. NORTH CANTON OH
1969 DOTSON JEFFERSON S. POUND VA
1969 GOURLEY LAURENT L. VILLISCA IA
1969 JANOUSEK RONALD J. POSEN IL
1969 KANE BRUCE E. DEER PARK NY
August 8
1964 GRAINGER JOSEPH W. WEST HARTFORD CT 01/25/65 DIED ON PRG DIC LIST PER WIDOW 1965
1966 FLOM FREDRIC R. MENASHA WI 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 GOLBERG LAWRENCE CLOQUET MN 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED SRV
1966 KOMMENDANT AADO LAKEWOOD NJ
1966 KASLER JAMES H. ZANESVILLE OH 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 WALLING CHARLES M PHOENIX AZ
1966 WYNNE PATRICK EDWARD EAU GALLIE FL 03/18/77 SRV RETURNED REMAINS TO PCOM
August 7
1965 GRAY HAROLD EDWIN JR. NEW YORK NY
1966 BRAZELTON MICHAEL L. INGLEWOOD CA 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 FRYER CHARLES WIGGER OKLAHOMA CITY OK
1966 GIDEON WILLARD S. SILVER SPRINGS MD 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1966 MORAN RICHARD ALLAN FORT SMITH AR
1966 PYLE THOMAS S. NEW CASTLE DE 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1966 SANDVICK ROBERT J. GLASGOW MT 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1966 WENDELL JOHN H. HOUSTON TX 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 CHAMBERS CARL D. SANTA MONICA CA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 WILSON GLENN H. ST. ALBANS WV 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV DECEASED
1971 BERG BRUCE A. OLYMPIA WA
August 6
1964 CUTRER FRED C. JR. OSYKA MS AC CRASH EXPLODE VC
1964 KASTER LEONARD L. HOLYOKE MA AC CRASH EXPLODE
1967 KEMMERER DONALD R. QUAKERTOWN PA
1967 PAGE ALBERT L. DERRY NH
1972 PENN MICHAEL G. JR. FORT WORTH TX 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
Jerusalem Post
Netzarim, Gadid settlers hand in their weapons
By JPOST.COM STAFF
In a decision that may symbolize the Gaza settlers' acquiescence to the inevitability of the disengagement plan, residents of the isolated Gaza settlement of Netzarim decided on Tuesday to hand in their weapons to the security forces.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553937020
IDF seals off Ganim and Kadim
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
OC Central Command Maj.Gen. Yair Naveh imposed a closed military zone on Ganim and Kadim in northern Samaria Tuesday afternoon, after residents of the two communities expressed fears that extremists would attempt to hamper the evacuation from their homes.
Recognizing the settlers' intentions to leave their homes willingly and in an orderly fashion, Naveh declared the area from the Jalameh checkpoint crossing and the access route leading to the two settlements a closed military zone.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553939560
IDF on high alert along northern border
By DAVID RUDGE
IDF troops along the northern border have been placed on a high state of alert and preparedness in case of any attempted attacks from Lebanon prior to or during disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Reports in the Lebanese press on Tuesday said Hizbullah had also increased the alert level of its forces deployed on the Lebanese side of the border.
According to the A-Nahar Beirut daily, Hizbullah has taken widespread defensive measures out of concern that Israel may try and launch an operation against its forces.
Senior IDF sources however dismissed the reports as being part of Hizbullah's psychological warfare against Israel. The sources said the misinformation was being distributed to the Lebanese media to serve the interests of the extremist Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim organization.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553939617
US to invest millions in checkpoints
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
At a meeting between Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, PA Minister Mohammed Dahlan and World Bank envoy James Wolfensohn on Tueday night in Jerusalem, it was decided that the US would invest $50 million to improve major checkpoint crossings in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Security officials said the finances would be used to equip the Erez and Karni crossing in Gaza and the Tarkumiya and She'ar Ephraim crossing in the West Bank with new electronic equipment.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123553941084
Our World: Netanyahu's great gamble
As I interviewed now former finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, it was clear that he was in the midst of a personal struggle. As he laid out the ways he felt his presence in the government had mitigated some of the enormous damage the Sharon-Peres government's withdrawal and expulsion plan from Gaza and northern Samaria will cause to Israel's security, it was evident to me that for him it was not enough. And he was right.
Netanyahu has led the campaign to refuse the bizarre American demand that Israel rearm the Palestinian Authority's militias which themselves are deeply involved in terrorism. But, as he stated, the government's recent decision to relinquish control over the strategically vital Philadephi Corridor, which connects Gaza to the Sinai, together with its intention to enable the creation of a seaport in Gaza over which Israel will exert no security control, "will create a highway for the transfer of terrorists and terror materiel."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123467496854
Haaretz
Last update - 01:15 10/08/2005
Israel, PA agree on plan to raze evacuated settlements
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed during a Tuesday meeting on the details of a plan to demolish the houses in Gaza Strip settlements set for evacuation under the disengagement. The plan must still receive final approval.
According to the plan, an international body, probably the World Bank, will oversee the demolition.
The meeting, held at Jerusalem's King David hotel, was attended by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Palestinian Minister Mohammed Dahlan and the Quartet's Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610578.html
IDF: Forced evacuation to begin August 17 in Gaza
By Amos Harel and Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondents
Israel Defense Forces officers distributed letters Monday afternoon to Gaza settlers telling them their presence in the Strip will be considered illegal as of August 15. Starting from midnight August 17, the IDF will evacuate any settlers still in Gaza.
The letters, which were signed by GOC Central Command Dan Harel and Brigadier General Guy Tzur, also offer IDF assistance in the evacuation for those who decide to leave voluntarily by midnight of August 16.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610039.html
Palestinian fatwa forbids attacks that might delay the pullout
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent
A senior Palestinian religious leader has issued an edict banning shooting attacks against Israeli security forces and settlements, out of concern they might lead to a postponement of the pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of northern Samaria.
"Anyone who causes the delay of the withdrawal of the occupation, or prolongs its existence on Islamic soil, is committing a crime according to Islamic law," Sheikh Jamal al-Bawatna, the mufti of the Ramallah district, says in a fatwa issued in the past few days.
He was responding to a question from Fatah institutions in the region, asking what should be done to those who "disturb the completion of the Israeli withdrawal."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610066.html
Haaretz poll: Netanyahu gets 47%, Sharon 32%, in Likud runoff
By Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Former finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu would beat Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by a substantial margin in a race for the Likud Party leadership if the party primary were held today, according to a new poll of Likud members conducted for Haaretz by Dialogue.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610570.html
The Mail and Guardian has the most accurate estimation of the nuclear activities of Iran.
Iran sets off diplomatic scramble
Michael Adler Vienna, Austria
09 August 2005 02:45
Amid intense diplomacy, Britain, France and Germany circulated a draft resolution on Tuesday, ahead of a key meeting of the United Nations atomic watchdog, urging Iran to stop nuclear fuel work that has raised concerns of a possible weapons programme.
But diplomats said the tactic is running into opposition from non-aligned and other states that warned that cracking down on Iran could isolate it, as with North Korea.
They said the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), due to meet at 3pm GMT, is backing away from referring Iran to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
It follows Iran resuming nuclear fuel-cycle work that it had suspended in line with a deal with European Union negotiators Britain, France and Germany.
The United States, which claims the work is a front for developing nuclear weapons -- a charge Tehran strongly denies -- and the so-called EU-3 appeared to be having problems on Tuesday winning a consensus for a resolution condemning Iran, despite French Minister of Foreign Affairs Philippe Douste-Blazy having called the situation a "grave crisis".
He said French officials had received a letter from Tehran rejecting a package of EU incentives offered in exchange for Iran continuing to suspend nuclear work.
Iran says it has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position supported by IAEA board members, such as Brazil, which have their own nuclear programmes.
Iranian Defence Minister Ali Skamkhani said Tehran will "resist" mounting international pressure and is unworried about threats of UN Security Council intervention.
A diplomat from one of the EU-3 states said they are circulating a draft resolution "that calls on the Iranians to stop activities in Isfahan", where the Iranians resumed uranium-conversion work suspended last November.
The resolution does not mention the harsher measure of taking Iran before the Security Council, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
"At this stage, options should be kept open," the diplomat added, saying the Iranians have only started on the first stage of conversion, itself a first step in enriching uranium into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors but also the explosive core of atom bombs.
"We want to get a unified response from the board of governors," the diplomat said.
The EU must win support for a resolution condemning Iran from board members Russia -- which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant -- and China, a big client for Iranian oil.
A diplomat close to the IAEA said China, Russia and South Africa are working on a proposal that would allow Iran to do conversion work, with the uranium gas made from this process given to another country to distil into enriched uranium.
The Iranians seem to have won a political victory by ending the suspension and limiting the diplomatic reaction, diplomats said.
"The idea was to stop the Iranians from doing something but they've already done it and so the board is stymied," a Western diplomat said.
The diplomat described Tuesday's IAEA board meeting as "the beginning of a process" rather than the international community's definitive response to the Iranians, who have been under investigation for almost two years for failing to declare sensitive nuclear activities.
The board, whose meeting was delayed from the morning to the mid-afternoon in order to allow time for closed-door negotiations, had been expected to meet for one day but will now continue at least until Wednesday, diplomats said.
"While the Europeans would like to get a resolution, some don't think they will. The best they will get will be a simple statement from the chairman of the board," a Western diplomat said.
"The threat [of referral] is being held for a second meeting," a diplomat close to the IAEA said on Monday.
But another said the EU-3, the United States, Canada and Australia are discussing among themselves imposing economic measures against Iran, beyond a US embargo already in place, if the IAEA board fails to act. -- Sapa-AFP
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=247592&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Globe and Mail
Canadian stem cell star shuns U. S. riches
By CAROLYN ABRAHAM
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Updated at 8:37 AM EDT
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
A leading stem-cell scientist has turned down a multimillion-dollar offer in the United States in favour of heading Canada's first stem-cell research centre.
Mick Bhatia, a 35-year-old developmental biologist who specializes in the controversial study of human embryonic stem cells, is to become scientific director of a research centre now being built at McMaster University in Hamilton.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050809.wxstemcells09/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/
Chicago Tribune
Founder of Ebony Magazine dead at 87
The Associated Press
Published August 8, 2005, 3:53 PM CDT
John H. Johnson, who with the creation Ebony magazine single-handedly ended the stereotypical coverage of blacks and made corporate America recognize the existence of the black consumer market, died today. Johnson was 87.
Born January 19, 1918 in Arkansas City, Arkanas, Johnson moved to Chicago with his family at age 15. After graduating from public schools, Johnson attended the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050808johnsonobit,1,5420082.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Behave yourself on Michigan Avenue
By Jason George
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 8, 2005
Stand on Michigan Avenue and look up to the spire of the Water Tower. You'll see history in the Gothic Revival architecture.
The future, however, is staring back.
Surveillance cameras peer down from rooftops at the tower square, while others scan from one passing face to another. Then there are those hidden in tinted globes. The Park Hyatt Chicago has one. So does Giorgio Armani.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0508080145aug08,1,7163844.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Judge threatens contempt for Patterson lawyer who walked out on hearings
By Mike Robinson
Associated Press Writer
Published August 8, 2005, 3:22 PM CDT
An attorney for former death row inmate Aaron Patterson could be held in contempt of court and fined for twice storming out of the courtroom in tears and delaying the start of his drug and firearms trial.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050808patterson,1,2891692.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Starbucks is grinding out hits as well as coffee
Joe purveyor adds music to its assets
By Bob Gendron
Special to the Tribune
Published August 7, 2005
More than 40 years after he got his start there, Bob Dylan is returning to the coffeehouse. Like older favorites such as Joni Mitchell and Carole King, the famous singer-songwriter has hitched his horse to the delivery wagon of Starbucks, the coffee purveyor and suddenly influential music retailer.
The concept of Starbucks selling music isn't new. Since purchasing Hear Music in 1999, the Seattle-based chain has carried compilations unobtainable elsewhere. Hear Music developed into a recognizable in-house label and sprouted the popular "Artist's Choice" series.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0508070302aug07,1,6214291.story?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed
Forest-preserve raccoons seeking food, water in city
Drought and a ruined berry crop are driving a new population into the neighborhood
By Kelly Kennedy
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 8, 2005
A combination of the drought and a late freeze has sent Chicago's raccoons foraging for food and water in unusual places.
Like McDonald's.
"There was a late freeze just when many of our wild fruity trees and bushes were budding," said Robert Frazee, a natural resources educator from the University of Illinois Extension service. "When the berries didn't set on, it became really hard to find food, so the raccoons have been raiding many of the towns and villages."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0508080091aug08,1,5080695.story?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed
LA Times
Federal Probe Sought in Toddler's Death During Police Shootout
By Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writer
Lawyers for the family of the toddler killed by police during a firefight with her father last month announced today they are seeking a federal probe into the child's death.
During a press conference outside LAPD headquarters, attorney Luis Carrillo said the Los Angeles Police Department has a conflict of interest when investigating the shooting of 19-month-old Suzie Marie Peña.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-080805baby_lat,0,439115.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Another way to cut medical costs: Split your pills
More health insurers are endorsing the practice, but some physicians say it's risky.
By Timothy Gower, Special to The Times
Smart shoppers can't resist a two-for-one sale. But should you purchase prescription drugs the same way you buy pizza or canned corn? For years, people who take daily medications have saved money by asking their doctors to prescribe pills with double the dose they need, which they then cut in half with a knife.
Although skeptics say the practice may be unsafe, a growing number of health insurers are encouraging patients to split pills as a way to combat the rising costs of prescription drugs. In June, UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation's largest managed-care companies, advised members in Wisconsin to discuss pill splitting with their physicians. The insurer plans to introduce the program nationwide before the end of the year.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-pillsplit8aug08,0,5169585.story?coll=la-home-headlines
How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect
AS SOMEBODY WHO doesn't have the slightest feeling one way or another about baseball star Rafael Palmeiro, I have to say that it seems pretty clear Palmeiro has used steroids. Palmeiro recently tested positive for steroid use. And then there's former teammate Jose Canseco's allegation that he and Palmeiro both used steroids, which is impossible to verify but would seem to explain why Palmeiro's annual home run total nearly doubled after Canseco joined him on the Texas Rangers. None of this is ironclad proof, but it seems the simplest way to reconcile the available data.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-chait5aug05,0,6079158.column?track=hpmostemailedlink
World News Mideast
Bird-Filled Emirates Wetlands Diminishing
August 08, 2005 — By Jim Krane, Associated Press
UMM AL-QUWAIN, United Arab Emirates — The Khor al-Beidah lagoon is a pristine tidal flat teeming with wildlife, including endangered birds, sea turtles and manatee-like dugong that swim among its tangles of mangroves.
But a bevy of dredges and construction gangs are about to begin transforming a 1,500-acre parcel into a $3.3 billion luxury conglomeration of homes, shops, marinas and beach resorts aimed at foreign buyers and tourists.
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8459
Musharraf snubs Miandad ceremony
BBC ONLINE, LONDON
Aug 6: Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has snubbed an invite to a celebration of the wedding of ex-cricketer Javed Miandad's son to a fugitive's daughter.
Junaid Miandad had married Mahrukh Ibrahim, daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, a man the US suspects of al-Qaeda links.
The post-wedding party drew more than 1,200 guests in Karachi on Thursday but not the president nor prime minister. Miandad had earlier expressed anger at the "negative propaganda" in the Indian media of the 23 July wedding in Dubai.
The lavish post-wedding party - or walima - was held in a five-star hotel in the southern port city of Karachi.
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/aug/07/07082005sp.htm#A28
Former President Bush, Cheney visit Saudi king
Bush, Cheney, Powell: The visit is meant to show the importance of the nations' relationship
By Salah Nasrawi
The Associated Press
Vice President Dick Cheney, center, and former President Bush pay their respects Friday to new Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Riyadh. (Saudi Press Agency/The Associated Press )
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A U.S. delegation led by Vice President Dick Cheney paid respects Friday to King Abdullah, a visit intended to show the importance Washington attaches to close ties with oil power Saudi Arabia.
Cheney, former President Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell offered condolences on the death Monday of the new monarch's half brother King Fahd.
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2919057
Cheney, Powell, former President Bush pay respects to new Saudi monarch
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
08/06/2005
They reportedly discuss Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S.-Saudi relations.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A U.S. delegation led by Vice President Dick Cheney paid respects Friday to King Abdullah.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/world/story/8FC14DB615EDD57E862570550007FD43?OpenDocument
High-ranking US officials in Riyadh to pay respects to new King
AP, RIYADH
Aug 5: Vice President Dick Cheney, accompanied by former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, paid respects Friday to new Saudi King Abdullah and offered condolences on the death of his half brother, the former king.
Reporters in the capital, Riyadh, were barred access to the American delegation, which was to have an audience with the new king after Friday prayers in the deeply conservative desert kingdom.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, and Abdullah has worked to repair ties strained by the Sept. 11 attacks, in which 15 of the attackers were Saudis. The Bush family has had close ties with the Saudi leadership for decades.
At King Abdullah's formal investiture Wednesday, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said he expected U.S.-Saudi relations to continue improving, and he vowed a "total war" on terrorism.
Abdullah had served as de facto leader for a decade after King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke. Top clerics Friday called on Saudis to join others in expressing their "bayah," or oath of allegiance, to Abdullah, which they said was every Muslim's religious duty. Tens of thousands of Saudis - tribal chiefs, Islamic clerics, army commanders and commoners - have been pouring into the governor's palace here to pledge loyalty to Abdullah, vowing to "hear and obey" in a traditional Islamic ceremony sealing his status as monarch.
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/aug/06/06082005ap.htm#A18
Cheney invites new Saudi king to US
US vice President, King Abdullah hold talks on developments on regional, international scenes.
RIYADH - US Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday invited Saudi Arabia's new King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to visit the United States during talks near the Saudi capital, the official SPA agency reported.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/saudi/?id=14215
Britain warns of terror attack in Saudi
Foreign Office says it has credible reports terrorists are in 'final stages' of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia.
LONDON - Britain said Monday it has "credible reports" that terrorists are in the "final stages" of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia, following the closure of the US embassy in Riyadh.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/saudi/?id=14227
The Arab News
Abdullah, Cheney Review Ties
Javid Hassan & Mohammed Rasooldeen, Arab News
King Abdullah with members of the US delegation in Riyadh on Friday. (SPA)
RIYADH, 6 August 2005 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has been invited to visit the US by Vice President Dick Cheney.
King Abdullah also held a meeting with Cheney at his farm in Janadriyadh, near Riyadh, during which the two leaders reviewed their bilateral relations, and the situations in Palestine and Iraq as well as issues that came to the forefront during the Saudi-US summit at President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68033&d=6&m=8&y=2005
New Ambassador to UK Named
Arab News
Prince Muhammad ibn Nawaf
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — Prince Muhammad ibn Nawaf will be the new Saudi ambassador to Britain, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal announced here yesterday during a wide-ranging press conference that touched on Saudi-British intelligence-sharing, Saudi-US relations as well as the Kingdom’s interests in preserving global oil-market stability and supporting the new government of Iraq.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68125&d=8&m=8&y=2005
No Terror Threat, Says Interior Ministry
Mohammed Rasooldeen, Arab News
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — The US Embassy in Riyadh and its consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran will be closed today and tomorrow due to terrorist threats against the missions’ buildings in the Kingdom, the US Embassy announced here yesterday. Last week, these missions were closed for three days on account of the demise of King Fahd.
In a warden’s message issued yesterday, the US Embassy advised all its citizens that its three missions in the Kingdom will remain closed in response to a threat against US government buildings in the Kingdom. It has also requested personnel working in its missions to limit their non-official travel during this period.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68131&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Legal Mechanism Needs Strengthening, Feel Expats
Javid Hassan, Arab News
RIYADH, 8 August 2005 — Members of the expatriate community have said that the government under Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah should strengthen the legal mechanism for the protection of expatriates.
They also support the Kingdom’s recently announced “Look East” policy and favor a Saudi initiative for an international conference on security and economic cooperation involving the countries of South and Southeast Asia. Among other issues, they want the government to look into the problems of overseas contract workers and re-examine the criteria for the granting of Saudi citizenship to expatriates.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68087&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Desert Can Be Deadly If You Aren’t Prepared
Mahmoud Ahmad, Arab News
In the desert when things go wrong they can be deadly if you are not prepared for the worst. (AN photo by Roger Harrison)
JEDDAH, 8 August 2005 — Saudi Arabia is a big place, and in the summer months it is a very hot place. These are facts easily overlooked by motorists rolling along through remote areas with their air-conditioners blasting out cold air.
For those traveling through unfamiliar areas or those who have car trouble, that summer jaunt quickly can turn into a life-threatening situation. In the old days, it was commonplace to hear about people getting lost in the desert and dying there. That did serve as a deterrent for the inexperienced traveler.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68132&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Editorial: Preparing for Withdrawal
8 August 2005
Starting next week, the Israeli Army will do the unprecedented: It will begin evacuating, by force if necessary, about 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. Even the resignation of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister and Ariel Sharon’s main rival in the right-wing Likud party in protest will not prevent it. This first-time event has brought with it unparalleled situations.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=68099&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Lawrence of Arabia Could Have Slipped Through Blair’s Laws
Sarah Whalen, sawhalen@xula.com.edu
His family called him “Ned.”
Like the July 21, 2005 London train bombers, he was as British as cricket.
And like the London bombers, Ned, young, intense and often scowling, with beady, deep-set eyes, blew up trains.
He killed people, destroyed millions of dollars of property, and caused populations to panic.
He sought to topple some governments, some kings and princes, and to place his friends into power.
What would Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair do about Ned?
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=68107&d=8&m=8&y=2005
Abdullah Pardons Al-Hamid, Al-Faleh, Al-Damini, Saeed ibn Zaeer and Libyan Assassination Plotters
Rasheed Abou-Alsamh & P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah chairs the Cabinet meeting, the first after his accession to the throne, in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — In a day of dramatic developments and in a show of magnanimity, King Abdullah just seven days into his reign, pardoned three jailed dissidents and a group of Libyans who had plotted to assassinate him.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68189&d=9&m=8&y=2005
Thousands of Vacant Positions Await Saudis: Gosaibi
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — As many as 82,312 jobs in the private sector are available for Saudi applicants, Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi announced yesterday.
He said his ministry had provided jobs to 40,000 Saudis during the last five months after a nationwide campaign to register jobseekers. He called upon unemployed Saudis to approach labor offices across the country and complete the formalities for placement in suitable jobs.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68191&d=9&m=8&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Renowned Muslim Icon Deedat Dies
Samir Al-Saadi & Abdul Maqsood Mirza, Arab News
Sheikh Ahmed Deedat
JEDDAH, 9 August 2005 — Sheikh Ahmed Hussein Deedat died at the age of 87 in South Africa early yesterday morning. After suffering a stroke in 1996, Sheikh Deedat, founder of Islamic Propagation Center (IPCI) was paralyzed for the past nine years. Yusuf Deedat, Sheikh Ahmad Deedat’s son told Arab News that “It’s a nation’s great loss; he was an incredible debater who will be hard to replace.”
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68169&d=9&m=8&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
continued...
Ms. Sheehan's Promise to her son. Will it be respected ?
August 9, 2005.
The Neocons are looking for reasons to avoid confronting the issue of families that have sent their sons and daughters to Iraq.
They made the sacrifice.
They opposed the war but never backed away from their obligation to this country. Now, they are shunned when all they want is for their views to be respected.
That is the role of the Commander and Chief. That is the role of a President and Vice President. To listen to the heart of the people and not just the onces that agree with their politics. These parents and families are in pain that can't be contained anymore. Ms. Sheehan is being joined by other families of the fallen.
Military Families to Join Cindy Sheehan in Crawford
Gold Star and Military Families from Across Country on Their Way to Texas
CRAWFORD, Texas,
Aug. 9 /U.S. Newswire
More members of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) are traveling to Texas to join the protest outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing for the month of August.
Starting today, Gold Star families from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arkansas and other states whose loved ones have died as a result of the war in Iraq will be joining one of their members, Cindy Sheehan, at the protest. Ms. Sheehan, whose son Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed in Sadr City, Iraq on April 4, 2004, has been in Crawford since August 5th, demanding a meeting with the President. These families will be joined by military families with loved ones currently serving in Iraq or about to deploy or redeploy to Iraq. All of these families are coming to Crawford, Texas to share their stories about the personal costs of the war in Iraq and add their voices to the call for a meeting with President Bush.
On August 3, 2005 President Bush, speaking about the dreadful loss of life in Iraq in early August, said "We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission... The families of the fallen can be assured that they died for a noble cause." Gold Star and military families coming to Crawford know that the cause was not noble; that their loved ones died, or are currently in harm's way, serving in a war based on lies.
In the first 8 days of August, 36 service members died in Iraq; countless Iraq children, women and men are dying each day. All of the families traveling to Crawford will carry the message to the vacationing President: Honor our fallen and honor our loved ones' service by ending the occupation, bringing the troops home now and taking care of them when they get here.
President Bush has consistently tried to hide, and to hide from, the cost of the war in Iraq. This August, these costs are being brought right to his doorstep.
Members of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out who are traveling to Crawford will be available for interview beginning on Tuesday afternoon August 9th.
Morning Papers - continued ...
The New York Times
AGAIN? STILL?
A Violent Day in Baghdad Kills More Than 20
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 9, 2005
Filed at 3:42 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. convoy waiting at an intersection Tuesday in Baghdad, killing seven people -- including one American soldier -- and wounding more than 90. More than a dozen others died in scattered attacks across the capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?hp
Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: August 9, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html?hp&ex=1123646400&en=8cdd39c879100274&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Voracious Snakehead Fish Discovered in a Queens Lake
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: August 9, 2005
New York welcomes all, as the big green lady in the harbor says, no matter how poor, how tired, how hungry or how wretched. But Lady Liberty never mentioned anything about ugly, or freaky, or downright devilish, and even she might have a hard time getting at all gushy about some of the most recent immigrants to the city.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/nyregion/09snakeheads.html
Melanoma Is Epidemic. Or Is It?
By GINA KOLATA
Published: August 9, 2005
The nation is in the grip of what looks like a terrifying melanoma epidemic: melanoma is being diagnosed at more than double the rate it was in 1986, increasing faster than any other major cancer.
But why the numbers are increasing is a contentious subject, so touchy that one dermatologist called it "the third rail of dermatology."
Many dermatologists argue that melanoma, the most deadly of the skin cancers, is in fact becoming more common. And they recommend regular skin cancer screening as the best way to save lives. But some specialists say that what the numbers represent is not an epidemic of skin cancer but an epidemic of skin cancer screening, and a new study lends support to this view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/health/09skin.html
The Sydney Morning Herald
Web pedophile caught flying to Australia
August 10, 2005
An American has been arrested in a police internet sting before flying to Australia to allegedly sexually abuse children.
In an explicit internet chat, Harold Lynn Winslow, 55, apparently believed he was talking to an Australian man who had been arrested for having sex with his grandchildren. Instead, he was talking to an undercover officer.
"I like the seven to 10s myself, and would really like to have a 10-year-old," Winslow allegedly said. A resident of Bradenton, Florida, he was taken into custody by US customs and immigration officials at Florida's Tampa International Airport on Saturday.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/web-pedophile-caught-flying-to-australia/2005/08/09/1123353318894.html
BUT, ISRAEL CAN'T SELL WAR TECHNOLOGY TO CHINA. I SEE.
Uranium deal leaves exporters aglow
By Cynthia Banham and Stephanie Peatling
August 10, 2005
Australia will start exporting uranium to China after the Federal Government announced yesterday it would begin negotiating a nuclear co-operation agreement with Beijing.
The announcement, by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, came after months of sensitive negotiations and lobbying from China, which wants to expand its civilian nuclear program as a way to deal with its increasing energy needs and pollution problems.
Mr Downer said the nuclear agreement would contain safeguards to ensure the uranium was used "exclusively for peaceful purposes".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/uranium-deal-leaves-exporters-aglow/2005/08/09/1123353318897.html
Bank robbers tunnelled their way to $89m haul
August 10, 2005
Sao Paulo: Police have launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of the biggest bank robbery in Brazil's history.
Brazil's central bank was robbed of 156 million reais ($89 million) by thieves who dug a tunnel under the bank's office in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza, police said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bank-robbers-tunnelled-their-way-to-89m-haul/2005/08/09/1123353318265.html
Willow headed for Big Apple
August 10, 2005
Kit Willow's describes One Thread range as organic, contemporary, tribal and feminine.
Melbourne fashion designer Kit Willow has been selected to showcase her One Thread range during New York Fashion Week next month.
Willow's clothing range will show at New York's Bryant Park during the week-long fashion festival, joining nine other up and coming designers and some of the industry's biggest names.
"This is a big honour and has made it possible for the label financially to show at one of the world's major fashion weeks," Willow said today.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion/willow-headed-for-big-apple/2005/08/09/1123353311931.html
Willow
Willow's diaphanous lingerie has been replaced by sexy suiting and sheer, pleated party dresses.
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge it
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2005/05/04/1115092564719.html
US nears deal to send Guantanamo detainees home
By Robin Wright and Josh White in Washington
August 10, 2005
The United States is nearing agreement with 10 Muslim governments to return their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in an effort to quicken the pace of transfers and increase the role of countries whose nationals are alleged terrorists.
Washington hoped to conclude the agreements within the next two months, a senior State Department official said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-nears-deal-to-send-guantanamo-detainees-home/2005/08/09/1123353318235.html
9/11 hijackers watched a year earlier
August 10, 2005 - 5:49AM
September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers were identified by US defence intelligence officials more than a year before the attacks but information about their possible connections to al-Qaeda were never forwarded to law enforcement, a US congressman says.
Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the hijackers were identified in September of 2000 by a classified military intelligence unit known as Able Danger, which determined they could be members of an al-Qaeda cell.
At the time, Weldon said, the unit recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists," Weldon said in an interview.
Defence Department lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the United States legally, he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/911-hijackers-watched-a-year-earlier/2005/08/10/1123353344186.html
Micheal Moore Today
Of the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President
By Richard W. Stevenson / New York Times
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 7 - President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.
Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington State.
Pasted from <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3596>
Mom of Slain Soldier Stages Bush Protest
By Deb Reichmann / Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch on Saturday, demanding an accounting from the president of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.
Supported by more than 50 shouting demonstrators, Cindy Sheehan, 48, told reporters, "I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?"
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3585
Mom Protesting Iraq War Meets Bush Aides
By Deb Riechmann / Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch Saturday, demanding an accounting from Bush of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.
Supported by more than 50 demonstrators who chanted, "W. killed her son!" Cindy Sheehan told reporters: "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?'" Sheehan, 48, didn't get to see Bush, but did talk about 45 minutes with national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin, who went out to hear her concerns.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3588
Soldier's mom digs in near Bush ranch
Senator sees 'echoes of Vietnam' in vigil to meet president
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- A mother whose son was killed in Iraq says she is prepared to continue her protest outside President Bush's ranch through August until she is granted an opportunity to speak with him.
Later, in a TV interview, a Democratic senator from California said the episode evokes images that were commonplace during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Sheehan's 24-year-old son -- Army Spc. Casey Sheehan of Vacaville, California -- was killed in Baghdad's Sadr City on April 4, 2004. The Humvee mechanic was one of eight U.S. soldiers killed there that day by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3589
UPDATES ON CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD
Saturday, Aug. 6, 2005
Photos of the Aug. 6 activities are at the bottom of this page, plus a message from Cindy Sheehan to George W. Bush.
The Lone Star Iconoclast is covering Saturday's journey to Crawford by several groups, including Veterans For Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Code Pink, Crawford Peace House, and others.
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, is seeking a meeting with President Bush, who is vacationing in Crawford, to have some of her questions answered about the war. Several busloads of interested individuals are expected in Crawford to support her cause. Sheehan has said that she is willing to camp out in Crawford until she gets to meet with the President.
Iconoclast reporter Nathan Diebenow is on the scene and will be dispatching reports during the day. As they come in they will be reported here:
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/31-40/31news02.htm
War Plans Drafted To Counter Terror Attacks in U.S.
Domestic Effort Is Big Shift for Military
By Bradley Graham / Washington Post
COLORADO SPRINGS -- The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3601
UK says Saudi attacks in 'final stages' of planning
RIYADH (Reuters) - Britain warned on Monday that militants were in the final stages of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia as Washington shut its missions there for two days and Australia told its citizens to avoid travel to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia, battling a two-year campaign of violence by supporters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said it had no solid information of any imminent attack in the oil giant.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3599
Leak Investigation: An Oversight Issue?
Newsweek
Aug. 15, 2005 issue - The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale. One question: how much authority Comey's successor will have over Fitzgerald. When Comey appointed Fitzgerald in 2003, the deputy granted him extraordinary powers to act however he saw fit—but noted he still had the right to revoke Fitzgerald's authority. The questions are pertinent because law-yers close to the case believe the probe is in its final stages. Fitzgerald recently called White House aide Karl Rove's secretary and his former top aide to testify before the grand jury. They were asked why there was no record of a phone call from Time reporter Matt Cooper, with whom Rove discussed the CIA agent, says a source close to Rove who requested anonymity because the FBI asked participants not to comment. The source says the call went through the White House switchboard, not directly to Rove.
—Michael Isikoff
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3593
The Meeting
Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column. And Patrick Fitzgerald is very interested.
By Murray Waas / American Prospect
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3595
The New York Post
WAR OF THE ROSES
August 9, 2005 -- ALBANY - Setting up a historic, all-female face-off for the U.S. Senate, Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro yesterday declared she'll seek to unseat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Republican Pirro made the precedent-shattering announcement of her candidacy for the GOP nomination yesterday - and wasted no time in going after Clinton.
She accused the former first lady of using New Yorkers as "her doormat" as Clinton tries to return to the White House, by refusing to commit to serving a full term — and not run for president in 2008 — if re-elected next year.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/51543.htm
PIRRO'S CHALLENGE
August 9, 2005 -- Hillary Clinton's got a race on her hands — but not one she's likely to lose sleep over.
Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced yesterday that she's running for Clinton's Senate seat next year.
We wish her luck. (She'll need it.)
Pirro joins two other Republicans — attorney Ed Cox, son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon, and former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer — who already have formed exploratory committees for what will be (for all of them) an uphill race.
At the outset, Pirro makes an important point: Clinton has her eyes set on the White House in 2008. If she retains her seat next year, she's likely to give short shrift to that job while campaigning for president the following two years.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/51484.htm
Mayor slams Pirro over Riverkeeper funds
Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro & Buchanan Mayor Dan O'Neill
by Martin Wilbur
Buchanan Mayor Dan O'Neill has sharply criticized Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro for permitting a Riverkeeper-sponsored program to receive money from a Peekskill manufacturing plant that pleaded guilty to environmental infractions.
O'Neill fired off a June 30 letter to Pirro chastising her judgment in agreeing to permit the Englehard Corporation, a pigment-manufacturing facility off of Welcher Avenue, to pay an undisclosed sum to the Riverkeeper-Hollowbrook Conservation Program.
In its guilty pleas, the Englehard Corporation pledged to spend $4.2 million to upgrade the plant. It was sentenced to two $10,000 fines as well.
The corporation is also required to complete community service. A stipulation of that community service is to allocate funds to the Hollowbrook Water Watch, a conservation organization to protect the Hollowbrook Watershed, which includes Peekskill, Putnam Valley, Cortlandt and Yorktown.
http://www.northcountynews.com/archives_2004/7-14-04/news4.htm
WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL.
By John F. Bailey.
November 13, 2003
An orderly, quiet, relentless squad of supporters of convicted New York Transit Police officer Richard Diguglielmo, currently in prison in the seventh year of a 20-year to life term for the killing of Charles Campbell in the parking lot of his father’s deli, picketed District Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s private book-signing party for her law enforcement colleagues at Vintage on Main Street in White Plains Wednesday evening.
One of the sign-carriers was Rosemarie Diguglielmo, the former police officer’s mother, who said her group was continuing to picket Mrs. Pirro’s book publicity stops because the District Attorney's book, To Punish and Protect, (that many of her employees inside were purchasing),
distorts the circumstances of the shooting. It was the third such Pirro publicity tour that the “PirroBusters” have picketed.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/Diguglielmo.htm
continued …
AGAIN? STILL?
A Violent Day in Baghdad Kills More Than 20
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 9, 2005
Filed at 3:42 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. convoy waiting at an intersection Tuesday in Baghdad, killing seven people -- including one American soldier -- and wounding more than 90. More than a dozen others died in scattered attacks across the capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?hp
Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: August 9, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09intel.html?hp&ex=1123646400&en=8cdd39c879100274&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Voracious Snakehead Fish Discovered in a Queens Lake
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: August 9, 2005
New York welcomes all, as the big green lady in the harbor says, no matter how poor, how tired, how hungry or how wretched. But Lady Liberty never mentioned anything about ugly, or freaky, or downright devilish, and even she might have a hard time getting at all gushy about some of the most recent immigrants to the city.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/nyregion/09snakeheads.html
Melanoma Is Epidemic. Or Is It?
By GINA KOLATA
Published: August 9, 2005
The nation is in the grip of what looks like a terrifying melanoma epidemic: melanoma is being diagnosed at more than double the rate it was in 1986, increasing faster than any other major cancer.
But why the numbers are increasing is a contentious subject, so touchy that one dermatologist called it "the third rail of dermatology."
Many dermatologists argue that melanoma, the most deadly of the skin cancers, is in fact becoming more common. And they recommend regular skin cancer screening as the best way to save lives. But some specialists say that what the numbers represent is not an epidemic of skin cancer but an epidemic of skin cancer screening, and a new study lends support to this view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/health/09skin.html
The Sydney Morning Herald
Web pedophile caught flying to Australia
August 10, 2005
An American has been arrested in a police internet sting before flying to Australia to allegedly sexually abuse children.
In an explicit internet chat, Harold Lynn Winslow, 55, apparently believed he was talking to an Australian man who had been arrested for having sex with his grandchildren. Instead, he was talking to an undercover officer.
"I like the seven to 10s myself, and would really like to have a 10-year-old," Winslow allegedly said. A resident of Bradenton, Florida, he was taken into custody by US customs and immigration officials at Florida's Tampa International Airport on Saturday.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/web-pedophile-caught-flying-to-australia/2005/08/09/1123353318894.html
BUT, ISRAEL CAN'T SELL WAR TECHNOLOGY TO CHINA. I SEE.
Uranium deal leaves exporters aglow
By Cynthia Banham and Stephanie Peatling
August 10, 2005
Australia will start exporting uranium to China after the Federal Government announced yesterday it would begin negotiating a nuclear co-operation agreement with Beijing.
The announcement, by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, came after months of sensitive negotiations and lobbying from China, which wants to expand its civilian nuclear program as a way to deal with its increasing energy needs and pollution problems.
Mr Downer said the nuclear agreement would contain safeguards to ensure the uranium was used "exclusively for peaceful purposes".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/uranium-deal-leaves-exporters-aglow/2005/08/09/1123353318897.html
Bank robbers tunnelled their way to $89m haul
August 10, 2005
Sao Paulo: Police have launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of the biggest bank robbery in Brazil's history.
Brazil's central bank was robbed of 156 million reais ($89 million) by thieves who dug a tunnel under the bank's office in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza, police said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bank-robbers-tunnelled-their-way-to-89m-haul/2005/08/09/1123353318265.html
Willow headed for Big Apple
August 10, 2005
Kit Willow's describes One Thread range as organic, contemporary, tribal and feminine.
Melbourne fashion designer Kit Willow has been selected to showcase her One Thread range during New York Fashion Week next month.
Willow's clothing range will show at New York's Bryant Park during the week-long fashion festival, joining nine other up and coming designers and some of the industry's biggest names.
"This is a big honour and has made it possible for the label financially to show at one of the world's major fashion weeks," Willow said today.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion/willow-headed-for-big-apple/2005/08/09/1123353311931.html
Willow
Willow's diaphanous lingerie has been replaced by sexy suiting and sheer, pleated party dresses.
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge it
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2005/05/04/1115092564719.html
US nears deal to send Guantanamo detainees home
By Robin Wright and Josh White in Washington
August 10, 2005
The United States is nearing agreement with 10 Muslim governments to return their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in an effort to quicken the pace of transfers and increase the role of countries whose nationals are alleged terrorists.
Washington hoped to conclude the agreements within the next two months, a senior State Department official said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-nears-deal-to-send-guantanamo-detainees-home/2005/08/09/1123353318235.html
9/11 hijackers watched a year earlier
August 10, 2005 - 5:49AM
September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers were identified by US defence intelligence officials more than a year before the attacks but information about their possible connections to al-Qaeda were never forwarded to law enforcement, a US congressman says.
Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the hijackers were identified in September of 2000 by a classified military intelligence unit known as Able Danger, which determined they could be members of an al-Qaeda cell.
At the time, Weldon said, the unit recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists," Weldon said in an interview.
Defence Department lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the United States legally, he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/911-hijackers-watched-a-year-earlier/2005/08/10/1123353344186.html
Micheal Moore Today
Of the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President
By Richard W. Stevenson / New York Times
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 7 - President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.
Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington State.
Pasted from <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3596>
Mom of Slain Soldier Stages Bush Protest
By Deb Reichmann / Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch on Saturday, demanding an accounting from the president of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.
Supported by more than 50 shouting demonstrators, Cindy Sheehan, 48, told reporters, "I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?"
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3585
Mom Protesting Iraq War Meets Bush Aides
By Deb Riechmann / Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch Saturday, demanding an accounting from Bush of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.
Supported by more than 50 demonstrators who chanted, "W. killed her son!" Cindy Sheehan told reporters: "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?'" Sheehan, 48, didn't get to see Bush, but did talk about 45 minutes with national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin, who went out to hear her concerns.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3588
Soldier's mom digs in near Bush ranch
Senator sees 'echoes of Vietnam' in vigil to meet president
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- A mother whose son was killed in Iraq says she is prepared to continue her protest outside President Bush's ranch through August until she is granted an opportunity to speak with him.
Later, in a TV interview, a Democratic senator from California said the episode evokes images that were commonplace during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Sheehan's 24-year-old son -- Army Spc. Casey Sheehan of Vacaville, California -- was killed in Baghdad's Sadr City on April 4, 2004. The Humvee mechanic was one of eight U.S. soldiers killed there that day by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3589
UPDATES ON CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD
Saturday, Aug. 6, 2005
Photos of the Aug. 6 activities are at the bottom of this page, plus a message from Cindy Sheehan to George W. Bush.
The Lone Star Iconoclast is covering Saturday's journey to Crawford by several groups, including Veterans For Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Code Pink, Crawford Peace House, and others.
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, is seeking a meeting with President Bush, who is vacationing in Crawford, to have some of her questions answered about the war. Several busloads of interested individuals are expected in Crawford to support her cause. Sheehan has said that she is willing to camp out in Crawford until she gets to meet with the President.
Iconoclast reporter Nathan Diebenow is on the scene and will be dispatching reports during the day. As they come in they will be reported here:
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/31-40/31news02.htm
War Plans Drafted To Counter Terror Attacks in U.S.
Domestic Effort Is Big Shift for Military
By Bradley Graham / Washington Post
COLORADO SPRINGS -- The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3601
UK says Saudi attacks in 'final stages' of planning
RIYADH (Reuters) - Britain warned on Monday that militants were in the final stages of planning attacks in Saudi Arabia as Washington shut its missions there for two days and Australia told its citizens to avoid travel to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia, battling a two-year campaign of violence by supporters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said it had no solid information of any imminent attack in the oil giant.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3599
Leak Investigation: An Oversight Issue?
Newsweek
Aug. 15, 2005 issue - The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale. One question: how much authority Comey's successor will have over Fitzgerald. When Comey appointed Fitzgerald in 2003, the deputy granted him extraordinary powers to act however he saw fit—but noted he still had the right to revoke Fitzgerald's authority. The questions are pertinent because law-yers close to the case believe the probe is in its final stages. Fitzgerald recently called White House aide Karl Rove's secretary and his former top aide to testify before the grand jury. They were asked why there was no record of a phone call from Time reporter Matt Cooper, with whom Rove discussed the CIA agent, says a source close to Rove who requested anonymity because the FBI asked participants not to comment. The source says the call went through the White House switchboard, not directly to Rove.
—Michael Isikoff
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3593
The Meeting
Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column. And Patrick Fitzgerald is very interested.
By Murray Waas / American Prospect
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3595
The New York Post
WAR OF THE ROSES
August 9, 2005 -- ALBANY - Setting up a historic, all-female face-off for the U.S. Senate, Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro yesterday declared she'll seek to unseat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Republican Pirro made the precedent-shattering announcement of her candidacy for the GOP nomination yesterday - and wasted no time in going after Clinton.
She accused the former first lady of using New Yorkers as "her doormat" as Clinton tries to return to the White House, by refusing to commit to serving a full term — and not run for president in 2008 — if re-elected next year.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/51543.htm
PIRRO'S CHALLENGE
August 9, 2005 -- Hillary Clinton's got a race on her hands — but not one she's likely to lose sleep over.
Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced yesterday that she's running for Clinton's Senate seat next year.
We wish her luck. (She'll need it.)
Pirro joins two other Republicans — attorney Ed Cox, son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon, and former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer — who already have formed exploratory committees for what will be (for all of them) an uphill race.
At the outset, Pirro makes an important point: Clinton has her eyes set on the White House in 2008. If she retains her seat next year, she's likely to give short shrift to that job while campaigning for president the following two years.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/51484.htm
Mayor slams Pirro over Riverkeeper funds
Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro & Buchanan Mayor Dan O'Neill
by Martin Wilbur
Buchanan Mayor Dan O'Neill has sharply criticized Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro for permitting a Riverkeeper-sponsored program to receive money from a Peekskill manufacturing plant that pleaded guilty to environmental infractions.
O'Neill fired off a June 30 letter to Pirro chastising her judgment in agreeing to permit the Englehard Corporation, a pigment-manufacturing facility off of Welcher Avenue, to pay an undisclosed sum to the Riverkeeper-Hollowbrook Conservation Program.
In its guilty pleas, the Englehard Corporation pledged to spend $4.2 million to upgrade the plant. It was sentenced to two $10,000 fines as well.
The corporation is also required to complete community service. A stipulation of that community service is to allocate funds to the Hollowbrook Water Watch, a conservation organization to protect the Hollowbrook Watershed, which includes Peekskill, Putnam Valley, Cortlandt and Yorktown.
http://www.northcountynews.com/archives_2004/7-14-04/news4.htm
WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL.
By John F. Bailey.
November 13, 2003
An orderly, quiet, relentless squad of supporters of convicted New York Transit Police officer Richard Diguglielmo, currently in prison in the seventh year of a 20-year to life term for the killing of Charles Campbell in the parking lot of his father’s deli, picketed District Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s private book-signing party for her law enforcement colleagues at Vintage on Main Street in White Plains Wednesday evening.
One of the sign-carriers was Rosemarie Diguglielmo, the former police officer’s mother, who said her group was continuing to picket Mrs. Pirro’s book publicity stops because the District Attorney's book, To Punish and Protect, (that many of her employees inside were purchasing),
distorts the circumstances of the shooting. It was the third such Pirro publicity tour that the “PirroBusters” have picketed.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/Diguglielmo.htm
continued …
August 8, 2005. This is not the first sand storm in Iraq. Sand making it's way into the lungs can be like cement and literally choke of the people who can not cough out the particals at the realtiy coughing invites more inhalation with deeper breaths before the cough. It's unfortunate weather.
Caption :: A woman and child make slow progress through the blowing dust of a massive sandstorm in Baghdad. The sandstorm blocked out the sun for most of the day and closed airports across the country. The Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad treated crowds of people young and old who fell victim to the storm�s suffocating dust with oxygen masks and medicine.
From left, Alexander Ivanov, Sergei Belozerov, commander Vyacheslav Milashevsky, Valery Lepetukha, Anatoly Popov, Alexander Uibin and Alexander Boloshin posing in a Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky hospital on Monday, a day after they were rescued from the mini-submarine where they were trapped for three days.
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite 12 hour loop - click here
August 9, 2005. I don't know what the parameters for landing at Edwards is except it is a bigger landing field in the desert. There is a vortex flow that complicates the picture. I won't venture a guess to say New Mexico is an option, at this point it definately doesn't seem to be.
August 9, 2005. A chance of rain in Florida prompted NASA to delay the return to Earth of the space shuttle Discovery on Tuesday after the first space shuttle mission since the deadly Columbia accident in 2003. The shuttle had been due to land at 5:07 a.m. EDT (0907 GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA has several opportunities to land the shuttle on Tuesday, the next at 6:43 a.m. EDT (1043 GMT) in Florida. In this picture taken on Monday, low clouds shroud the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Pierre Ducharme/Reuters)
August 8, 2005. Giant Panda "Shenling No 1" walks out of a cage before disappearing into the Longxi-Hongkou National Natural Preserve in Dujiangyan, Southwest China's Sichuan Province August 8, 2005. The panda came into the media spotlight on July 16 when she was found wandering the city of Dujiangyan.
August 8, 2005. Chinese residents walk past a car submerged in water on a flooded street in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning province, August 8, 2005. Typhoon Matsa has weakened to a tropical storm as it has plowed north up China's coast, but eastern provinces are still bracing for torrential rains and possible floods. [newsphoto]
Pakistani Foreign Ministry senior official Tariq Osman Hyder, third left, looks on during a meeting with Indian Joint Secretary of Ministry of External Affairs Dilip Sinha, third right, and other Indian and Pakistani delegates in New Delhi, India, Monday, Aug. 8, 2005. India and Pakistan on Monday agreed to continue a nearly two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but didn't discuss the question of reducing the massive military presence in the Himalayan region.
Morning Papers - continued...
The Moscow Times
Sub Crew Was Running Out of Water and Air
By Vladimir Isachenkov
From left, Alexander Ivanov, Sergei Belozerov, commander Vyacheslav Milashevsky, Valery Lepetukha, Anatoly Popov, Alexander Uibin and Alexander Boloshin posing in a Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky hospital on Monday, a day after they were rescued from the mini-submarine where they were trapped for three days.
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY -- Crew members rescued with British help after three days trapped in a mini-submarine deep in the Pacific told on Monday how they struggled with rapidly decreasing water and oxygen supplies while waiting anxiously in the darkness and cold.
The seven men had only six hours of oxygen left when they finally reached the surface, said Commander Ian Riches, the British naval officer who directed the effort to use a remote-controlled Scorpio underwater vehicle to free the submarine from fishing nets.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/002.html
Russia, Kyrgyz presidents discuss cooperation
RIA NOVOSTI. August 8, 2005, 8:47 PM
MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyz President-elect Kurmanbek Bakiyev spoke on the phone Monday to discuss bilateral relations and impending cooperation, the Russian presidential press service said
S&P raises LUKoil outlook from stable to positive, and confirms credit rating
RIA NOVOSTI. August 8, 2005, 8:46 PM
MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - International rating agency Standard & Poor's has changed the rating outlook of Russian oil company LUKoil from stable to positive, and confirmed its long-term credit rating at BB.
A statement released Monday by the agency said that the outlook has been changed following analysis of 2004 operational and financial results.
LUKoil's financial flows have risen substantially, due partly to the oil price rise, but also to a 7% production increase, a higher proportion of exported crude, higher oil product prices on the domestic market, and stable expenditure on extraction, despite the ruble strengthening 18.5% in real terms during 2004.
Standard & Poor's also considers LUKoil's strategy for sustaining investment levels to be positive, in that it provides strong long-term growth in oil extraction levels while keeping dividend payouts at moderate levels compared to similar companies.
However, the agency still considers LUKoil's profit level and financial flows to be weak compared to competitors
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
Luzhkov Takes on Catherine's Folly
By Kevin O'Flynn
Staff Writer
Yuriy Samoligo / For MT
A view of the ruins of the main palace at Catherine the Great's planned summer residence in southern Moscow.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been compared to a tsar many times. Now he has his eye on one tsar's folly.
After agreeing with federal authorities to swap a museum for Catherine the Great's Tsaritsyno summer estate, Luzhkov is pouring 410 million rubles ($14.38 million) into the ruins and surrounding park to turn them into a major tourist attraction.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/001.html
Russian Accused in UN Probe
The Moscow Times
A United Nations commission on Monday accused the former head of the UN Oil-for-Food Program, Benon Sevan, of personally profiting from oil sales, and said a Russian UN employee, Alexander Yakovlev, solicited a bribe from a company that did business with the UN in the mid-1990s.
In a report Monday, the commission said Yakovlev "actively solicited a bribe in connection with the oil-for-food program ... and presumptively accepted bribes from other United Nations contractors."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/010.html
New Call to Suspend Adoptions
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
A Federation Council committee urged the Prosecutor General's Office on Monday to set a moratorium on foreign adoptions, echoing a recent call by a senior State Duma deputy.
Valentina Petrenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council's Social Committee, said her committee was seeking the moratorium because "a huge number" of Russian children have been killed by their adoptive foreign parents.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/013.html
Clowning Around to Cheer Up Orphaned Kids
By Antonio Lupher
Special to The Moscow Times
Yevgeny Filonov / MT
Volunteers preparing artwork prints for sale at the Maria's Children auction, which took place last Thursday at the Starlite Diner on Bolshaya Sadovaya.
The front lawn of the Starlite Diner on Bolshaya Sadovaya saw a curious sight last Thursday: a gathering of child artists, goofy clowns clad in rainbow colors, local and foreign philanthropists, and canvas upon canvas decorated with vibrantly upbeat acrylics and pastels.
The occasion was the third annual fundraising auction for Maria's Children, an organization that uses art as therapy to cheer up and improve the lives of often-neglected orphans.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/016.html
Iran Restarts Work Under IAEA Watch
By Ali Akbar Darenini
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran resumed uranium conversion activities Monday at a nuclear facility in central Iran, a step that Europeans and the United States warned would prompt them to seek UN sanctions against Tehran.
Work resumed at the Isfahan conversion facility quickly after inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog finished installing surveillance equipment there, and seals on equipment were removed.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/252.html
Global Eye
Blood and Gravy
By Chris Floyd
Published: August 5, 2005
It's easy to forget sometimes -- amid all the lofty talk of geopolitics, of apocalyptic clashes between good and evil, of terror, liberty, security and God -- that the war on Iraq is "largely a matter of loot," as Kasper Gutman so aptly described the Crusades in that seminal treatise on human nature, "The Maltese Falcon." And nowhere is this more evident than in the festering, oozing imposthume of corruption centered around the Gutman-like figure of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Yes, it's once more unto the breach with Halliburton, the gargantuan government contractor that still pays Cheney, its former CEO, enormous annual sums in "deferred compensation" and stock options -- even while he presides over a White House war council that has steered more than $10 billion in no-bid Iraqi war contracts back to his corporate paymaster. This is rainmaking of monsoon proportions. Indeed, the company's military servicing wing announced a second-quarter profit spike of 284 percent last week -- a feast of blood and gravy that will send Cheney's stock options soaring into the stratosphere.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/05/120.html
Moscow on the Hudson
The Bolshoi Ballet's performances in New York win a vigorous round of applause from U.S. dance critics.
By Antonio Lupher
Published: August 5, 2005
The Bolshoi Ballet wrapped up its tour of New York last weekend, completing its first visit to the U.S. capital of dance since 2000 and its first appearance on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House since 1987. Its two-week series of performances at the Met won praise from the New York dance community -- including strong endorsements of artistic director Alexei Ratmansky's handling of the venerable troupe -- along with some inevitable sighs of nostalgia for the Bolshoi's Soviet days.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/155123/
Women's Hour
As Russia's female authors continue to reap awards and top the bestseller lists, several of them share their thoughts about why the second sex has taken first place.
By Victor Sonkin
Published: August 5, 2005
In a classic essay from 1929, Virginia Woolf stated that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Under Soviet rule, money was mostly irrelevant, and very few people had rooms of their own. Gender issues in the communist era were confused: On the one hand, patriarchal tradition called for women to be submissive, while on the other hand, the new world order demanded that the so-called "weaker sex" participate actively in the construction of a better future.
We are still dealing with the aftermath of this confusion. Patriarchy seems to be alive and well in post-Soviet Russia, with men dominating most of the influential spheres of life, such as politics and business. But there is at least one sphere of life where Russian women have surpassed their male counterparts: literature.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/155121/
The Boston Globe
Human error, weather eyed in Toronto crash
By Beth Duff-Brown, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
TORONTO --Investigators have ruled out engine or mechanical failure in last week's jet crash at the Toronto airport, and appeared Monday to be focused on runway conditions, stormy weather and pilot error as possible causes.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/canada/articles/2005/08/08/human_error_weather_eyed_in_toronto_crash/
Close calls at Logan stir runway plan
Latest event involves cargo jet, mechanic
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff August 9, 2005
Federal, state, and airline officials said yesterday they are putting together a runway safety plan to prevent a possibly catastrophic collision at Logan International Airport.
The latest close call occurred yesterday, when a FedEx cargo jet with a mechanic at the controls taxied across a runway and forced a passenger jet to delay its takeoff, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/09/close_calls_at_logan_stir_runway_plan/
Florida out, California in for shuttle landing
August 9, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA rejected its second chance to land space shuttle Discovery in Florida on Tuesday, making California the likely landing spot for the first shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia accident.
Rain showers near the Kennedy Space Center prompted NASA to opt out of its two Florida landing opportunities on Tuesday. Its next chance to land the shuttle will be at 8:12 EDT (1212 GMT) at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, the primary backup landing strip.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/08/09/weather_in_florida_delays_shuttle_return_again/
Russia to buy submarine rescue vehicles from UK
August 9, 2005
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will buy from Britain two Scorpio underwater rescue vehicles of the type used to rescue a stranded Russian mini-submarine from the Pacific last Sunday, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Tuesday.
It took less than four hours for the unmanned British Scorpio-45, airlifted to the Kamchatka peninsula off Russia's Pacific coast, to free the AS-28 mini-sub, stranded for three days with its seven-man crew 190 meters (625 feet) down.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/08/09/russia_to_buy_submarine_rescue_vehicles_from_uk/
Bill would force church to disclose its finances
Attitude shifts on Beacon Hill
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff August 8, 2005
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, still dealing with the fallout from the clergy abuse crisis and upheaval over church closings, faces a major battle on Beacon Hill this week as lawmakers push for an unprecedented measure to force the church to open its books to the public.
The legislation, authored by state Senator Marian Walsh and backed by 32 other lawmakers, is being considered at a time when the church faces deep skepticism and in some cases open hostility from politicians on Beacon Hill and at City Hall. Some lawmakers who champion the bill, which will be brought up at a hearing Wednesday, previously stood side by side with church leaders on policy issues like abortion.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/08/bill_would_force_church_to_disclose_its_finances/
Guarding Georges Bank
August 8, 2005
GEORGES BANK -- the fecund, oval-shaped area off the coast of Nantucket -- is central to the survival of local fisheries. Oil and gas interests are not welcome. That message needs to be sounded loudly now that Congress has approved an energy bill that could threaten this sensitive and accessible fishing bank.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/08/08/guarding_georges_bank/
Wal-Mart asks appeals court to block suit
By Michael Kahn August 8, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Lawyers for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. urged a federal appeals court on Monday to block a sex-discrimination lawsuit against it that could cost the retailer an estimated billions of dollars.
The retailer is seeking to overturn a June 2004 U.S. District Court decision certifying as class-action a lawsuit that now covers more than 1.6 million women and charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against female workers in pay, promotions and training.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/08/09/wal_mart_asks_appeals_court_to_block_suit/
Box: Bill drops gas additive requirements
August 9, 2005
ADDITIVES GONE: The new energy bill President Bush signed ends a federal rule that had required service stations in many urban areas to sell specially formulated, "oxygenated" gasoline designed to reduce smog.
WASN'T NEEDED: Most experts say the requirement that gasoline contain at least 2 percent oxygen by weight isn't needed anymore. Some say it never was.
MTBE-ETHANOL: The most commonly used substances for adding oxygen to gasoline are methyl tertiary butyl ether, known as MTBE, and ethanol derived from corn. Several states, including California and New York, have banned MTBE after it seeped into local water supplies, and other states are phasing it out.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/09/box_bill_drops_gas_additive_requirements/
India, Pakistan vow to keep Kashmir truce
Pakistani Foreign Ministry senior official Tariq Osman Hyder, third left, looks on during a meeting with Indian Joint Secretary of Ministry of External Affairs Dilip Sinha, third right, and other Indian and Pakistani delegates in New Delhi, India, Monday, Aug. 8, 2005. India and Pakistan on Monday agreed to continue a nearly two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but didn't discuss the question of reducing the massive military presence in the Himalayan region. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)
By Ashok Sharma, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
NEW DELHI --India and Pakistan agreed Monday to extend a two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but did not discuss the question of reducing their military presence there, an Indian official said.
Delegates at the talks also agreed not to develop new guard posts or defense installments along the cease-fire line dividing the Himalayan territory claimed by both nations, said Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for India's External Affairs Ministry.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/08/india_pakistan_vow_to_keep_kashmir_truce/
Flood traps 102 Chinese coal miners
August 8, 2005
SHANGHAI, China --A coal mine flooded in southern China, trapping 102 miners more than 1,000 feet underground as rescuers on Monday used water pumps in an effort to reach them. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
The accident occurred Sunday afternoon in a tunnel 1,378 feet underground at the privately owned Daxing Colliery in Meizhou City in Guangdong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a local official.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/08/flood_traps_102_chinese_coal_miners/
N.Korea food shortage growing serious - WFP chief
By Jon Herskovitz August 9, 2005
SEOUL (Reuters) - People in North Korea are foraging for nuts and leaves to counter a serious food shortage but there is no danger of widespread famine or starvation, the head of the U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday.
James Morris, the WFP's executive director said commodity prices have gone up in the impoverished state, food stocks have dwindled, and nascent economic reforms have only made it more difficult for North Korea's poor and urban dwellers to buy food.
"Our sense is that the food situation in North Korea is particularly serious right now," Morris told reporters in Seoul.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/09/nkorea_food_shortage_growing_serious___wfp_chief/
Saudi King pardons activists, professor
By Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia --King Abdullah on Monday pardoned four prominent activists who were jailed after criticizing the strict religious environment in Saudi Arabia and the slow pace of democratic reform.
A Saudi Television anchor read a statement from Interior Minister Prince Nayef saying the king, who has pushed an unprecedented campaign for greater democracy in the kingdom, had ordered the release of the four.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/08/saudi_king_pardons_activists_professor/
U.S. foresees autumn rise in troop levels in Iraq
By Will Dunham August 8, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expects to raise its troop levels in Iraq this fall to bolster security for the planned October constitutional referendum and December elections for a new government, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Planning for a short-term bulge in troop levels comes as U.S. commanders, according to defense officials, also are working toward cutting the current force by 20,000 to 30,000 troops next spring and summer, contingent on progress in Iraq's political process and in developing Iraqi security forces.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/08/us_foresees_autumn_rise_in_troop_levels_in_iraq/
U.S. mulls sanctions on Venezuela over drug move
By Saul Hudson August 8, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering punishing Venezuela with sanctions for breaking off work with U.S. anti-drug agents in the world's top cocaine-exporting region, the State Department said on Monday.
In a new blow to fraying ties between the United States and a key oil supplier, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he had suspended cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration because it was unnecessary and accused the U.S. agency of spying on his government.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/08/09/us_mulls_sanctions_on_venezuela_over_drug_move/
Dissident: Tehran has 4,000 centrifuges
By William J. Kole, Associated Press Writer August 9, 2005
VIENNA, Austria --Iran has manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002 said Tuesday.
Alireza Jafarzadeh told The Associated Press the centrifuges -- which he said are unknown to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency -- are ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/09/dissident_tehran_has_4000_centrifuges/
China Daily
Suicide bomber strikes on bus, injuring 31
By Hu Meidong and Li Dapeng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:50
FUZHOU: A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in central Fuzhou yesterday, killing himself and injuring 31 others, local police said.
The blast in the capital of East China's Fujian Province went off at 2:32 pm as the No 5 bus pulled in at the Dongjiekou Stop in Dongda Road, one of the city's busiest streets.
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467358.htm
102 miners trapped as flood waters rise
By Qiu Quanlin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:50
XINGNING, Guangdong Province: More than 600 rescuers were battling against time yesterday to save 102 miners trapped in a coal mine in Xingning County, South China's Guangdong Province.
But after more than 24 hours trapped underground, hopes were fading last night of finding any of the men alive.
The Daxing Coal Mine, about 70 kilometres from Xingning, was flooded with an estimated 15-20 million cubic metre of water at 1:30 pm on Sunday.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467447.htm
Economist sees no more yuan moves soon
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-09 15:07
China will not adjust the yuan's exchange rate any further in the next three to six months while it assesses the impact of last month's 2.1 percent revaluation, a senior Chinese economist said, the Reuters reported.
"Policy makers will observe the effects of the revaluation on the economy and the degree to which it is digested. This is an adjustment period," said Ba Shusong, a vice director with the State Council's Development Research Center.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467560.htm
Australia announces China Uranium talks
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 14:33
Australia and China are negotiating an agreement to allow Australia to export uranium to China for peaceful purposes, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
Preliminary talks are already under way to secure a Chinese commitment that the uranium would be used only for electricity generation, said Downer.
Australia prohibits the sale of uranium for nuclear weapons, nuclear-powered warships or other military uses.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467542.htm
Typhoon-hit areas picking up pieces
By Shao Xiaoyi in Hangzhou and Cao Li in Shanghai (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:52
Zhejiang Province and Shanghai Municipality in East China are recovering from the carnage wrought by Typhoon Masta, which swept across the area over the weekend.
Shanghai has almost finished cleaning up operations following the natural disaster.
At 8:50am yesterday, Shanghai Hongqiao Airport welcomed the landing of the last Shanghai-bound flight to have been delayed by the storm. The hurricane stranded nearly 100,000 people at airports in Shanghai, other provinces and even abroad.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467392.htm
Sandstorm halts work on Iraqi constitution
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 08:47
Enveloping the capital in an eerie orange glow, a blinding sandstorm Monday reduced visibility in Baghdad to a few feet — slowing traffic to a crawl, canceling a key meeting on the Iraqi constitution and sending hundreds of people to the hospital with breathing problems, reported Associated Press.
Howling winds whipped up desert sands overnight, coating the streets of the city in a gritty opaque haze. Though sandstorms are common in Iraq's desert terrain, especially during the summer, the one that arrived overnight was the worst in two years, long-suffering residents said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467449.htm
Car export soars in 1st half
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-08-09 10:54
In the first half of this year, China exported a total of 9,600 cars, jumping 183 percent year-on-year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce.
In the first six months, the Chinese automaker Chery Automotive Co. (CAC), based in east China's Anhui Province, exported 3,357 cars with volume of 16.45 million US dollars, up 117.8 percent and104.4 percent respectively, according to the Chinese customs.
Currently China mainly exports cars with low prices. In the first half year, the per-unit export value was only 7,238.5 US dollars, down 14.4 percent year on year.
The main destinations of China-made cars are developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, an official with the Ministry of Commerce said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467510.htm
Chinese carriers to buy 42 Boeing 787s
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 07:08
Four Chinese airline companies have agreed to buy 42 Boeing 787 jets for a total of US $5.04 billion (euro4 billion), the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
This file photo released 28 January 2005 by US aircraft constructor Boeing shows the new Boeing 787 jet pictured airborne. [AFP]
China's flag carrier Air China Ltd. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. will each buy 15 planes, Shanghai Airlines Co. will buy nine and Xiamen Airline Co. will buy three, the report said.
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467413.htm
continued...
Sub Crew Was Running Out of Water and Air
By Vladimir Isachenkov
From left, Alexander Ivanov, Sergei Belozerov, commander Vyacheslav Milashevsky, Valery Lepetukha, Anatoly Popov, Alexander Uibin and Alexander Boloshin posing in a Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky hospital on Monday, a day after they were rescued from the mini-submarine where they were trapped for three days.
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY -- Crew members rescued with British help after three days trapped in a mini-submarine deep in the Pacific told on Monday how they struggled with rapidly decreasing water and oxygen supplies while waiting anxiously in the darkness and cold.
The seven men had only six hours of oxygen left when they finally reached the surface, said Commander Ian Riches, the British naval officer who directed the effort to use a remote-controlled Scorpio underwater vehicle to free the submarine from fishing nets.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/002.html
Russia, Kyrgyz presidents discuss cooperation
RIA NOVOSTI. August 8, 2005, 8:47 PM
MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyz President-elect Kurmanbek Bakiyev spoke on the phone Monday to discuss bilateral relations and impending cooperation, the Russian presidential press service said
S&P raises LUKoil outlook from stable to positive, and confirms credit rating
RIA NOVOSTI. August 8, 2005, 8:46 PM
MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - International rating agency Standard & Poor's has changed the rating outlook of Russian oil company LUKoil from stable to positive, and confirmed its long-term credit rating at BB.
A statement released Monday by the agency said that the outlook has been changed following analysis of 2004 operational and financial results.
LUKoil's financial flows have risen substantially, due partly to the oil price rise, but also to a 7% production increase, a higher proportion of exported crude, higher oil product prices on the domestic market, and stable expenditure on extraction, despite the ruble strengthening 18.5% in real terms during 2004.
Standard & Poor's also considers LUKoil's strategy for sustaining investment levels to be positive, in that it provides strong long-term growth in oil extraction levels while keeping dividend payouts at moderate levels compared to similar companies.
However, the agency still considers LUKoil's profit level and financial flows to be weak compared to competitors
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
Luzhkov Takes on Catherine's Folly
By Kevin O'Flynn
Staff Writer
Yuriy Samoligo / For MT
A view of the ruins of the main palace at Catherine the Great's planned summer residence in southern Moscow.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been compared to a tsar many times. Now he has his eye on one tsar's folly.
After agreeing with federal authorities to swap a museum for Catherine the Great's Tsaritsyno summer estate, Luzhkov is pouring 410 million rubles ($14.38 million) into the ruins and surrounding park to turn them into a major tourist attraction.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/001.html
Russian Accused in UN Probe
The Moscow Times
A United Nations commission on Monday accused the former head of the UN Oil-for-Food Program, Benon Sevan, of personally profiting from oil sales, and said a Russian UN employee, Alexander Yakovlev, solicited a bribe from a company that did business with the UN in the mid-1990s.
In a report Monday, the commission said Yakovlev "actively solicited a bribe in connection with the oil-for-food program ... and presumptively accepted bribes from other United Nations contractors."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/010.html
New Call to Suspend Adoptions
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
A Federation Council committee urged the Prosecutor General's Office on Monday to set a moratorium on foreign adoptions, echoing a recent call by a senior State Duma deputy.
Valentina Petrenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council's Social Committee, said her committee was seeking the moratorium because "a huge number" of Russian children have been killed by their adoptive foreign parents.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/013.html
Clowning Around to Cheer Up Orphaned Kids
By Antonio Lupher
Special to The Moscow Times
Yevgeny Filonov / MT
Volunteers preparing artwork prints for sale at the Maria's Children auction, which took place last Thursday at the Starlite Diner on Bolshaya Sadovaya.
The front lawn of the Starlite Diner on Bolshaya Sadovaya saw a curious sight last Thursday: a gathering of child artists, goofy clowns clad in rainbow colors, local and foreign philanthropists, and canvas upon canvas decorated with vibrantly upbeat acrylics and pastels.
The occasion was the third annual fundraising auction for Maria's Children, an organization that uses art as therapy to cheer up and improve the lives of often-neglected orphans.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/016.html
Iran Restarts Work Under IAEA Watch
By Ali Akbar Darenini
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran resumed uranium conversion activities Monday at a nuclear facility in central Iran, a step that Europeans and the United States warned would prompt them to seek UN sanctions against Tehran.
Work resumed at the Isfahan conversion facility quickly after inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog finished installing surveillance equipment there, and seals on equipment were removed.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/09/252.html
Global Eye
Blood and Gravy
By Chris Floyd
Published: August 5, 2005
It's easy to forget sometimes -- amid all the lofty talk of geopolitics, of apocalyptic clashes between good and evil, of terror, liberty, security and God -- that the war on Iraq is "largely a matter of loot," as Kasper Gutman so aptly described the Crusades in that seminal treatise on human nature, "The Maltese Falcon." And nowhere is this more evident than in the festering, oozing imposthume of corruption centered around the Gutman-like figure of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Yes, it's once more unto the breach with Halliburton, the gargantuan government contractor that still pays Cheney, its former CEO, enormous annual sums in "deferred compensation" and stock options -- even while he presides over a White House war council that has steered more than $10 billion in no-bid Iraqi war contracts back to his corporate paymaster. This is rainmaking of monsoon proportions. Indeed, the company's military servicing wing announced a second-quarter profit spike of 284 percent last week -- a feast of blood and gravy that will send Cheney's stock options soaring into the stratosphere.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/05/120.html
Moscow on the Hudson
The Bolshoi Ballet's performances in New York win a vigorous round of applause from U.S. dance critics.
By Antonio Lupher
Published: August 5, 2005
The Bolshoi Ballet wrapped up its tour of New York last weekend, completing its first visit to the U.S. capital of dance since 2000 and its first appearance on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House since 1987. Its two-week series of performances at the Met won praise from the New York dance community -- including strong endorsements of artistic director Alexei Ratmansky's handling of the venerable troupe -- along with some inevitable sighs of nostalgia for the Bolshoi's Soviet days.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/155123/
Women's Hour
As Russia's female authors continue to reap awards and top the bestseller lists, several of them share their thoughts about why the second sex has taken first place.
By Victor Sonkin
Published: August 5, 2005
In a classic essay from 1929, Virginia Woolf stated that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Under Soviet rule, money was mostly irrelevant, and very few people had rooms of their own. Gender issues in the communist era were confused: On the one hand, patriarchal tradition called for women to be submissive, while on the other hand, the new world order demanded that the so-called "weaker sex" participate actively in the construction of a better future.
We are still dealing with the aftermath of this confusion. Patriarchy seems to be alive and well in post-Soviet Russia, with men dominating most of the influential spheres of life, such as politics and business. But there is at least one sphere of life where Russian women have surpassed their male counterparts: literature.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/155121/
The Boston Globe
Human error, weather eyed in Toronto crash
By Beth Duff-Brown, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
TORONTO --Investigators have ruled out engine or mechanical failure in last week's jet crash at the Toronto airport, and appeared Monday to be focused on runway conditions, stormy weather and pilot error as possible causes.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/canada/articles/2005/08/08/human_error_weather_eyed_in_toronto_crash/
Close calls at Logan stir runway plan
Latest event involves cargo jet, mechanic
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff August 9, 2005
Federal, state, and airline officials said yesterday they are putting together a runway safety plan to prevent a possibly catastrophic collision at Logan International Airport.
The latest close call occurred yesterday, when a FedEx cargo jet with a mechanic at the controls taxied across a runway and forced a passenger jet to delay its takeoff, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/09/close_calls_at_logan_stir_runway_plan/
Florida out, California in for shuttle landing
August 9, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA rejected its second chance to land space shuttle Discovery in Florida on Tuesday, making California the likely landing spot for the first shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia accident.
Rain showers near the Kennedy Space Center prompted NASA to opt out of its two Florida landing opportunities on Tuesday. Its next chance to land the shuttle will be at 8:12 EDT (1212 GMT) at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, the primary backup landing strip.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/08/09/weather_in_florida_delays_shuttle_return_again/
Russia to buy submarine rescue vehicles from UK
August 9, 2005
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will buy from Britain two Scorpio underwater rescue vehicles of the type used to rescue a stranded Russian mini-submarine from the Pacific last Sunday, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Tuesday.
It took less than four hours for the unmanned British Scorpio-45, airlifted to the Kamchatka peninsula off Russia's Pacific coast, to free the AS-28 mini-sub, stranded for three days with its seven-man crew 190 meters (625 feet) down.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/08/09/russia_to_buy_submarine_rescue_vehicles_from_uk/
Bill would force church to disclose its finances
Attitude shifts on Beacon Hill
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff August 8, 2005
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, still dealing with the fallout from the clergy abuse crisis and upheaval over church closings, faces a major battle on Beacon Hill this week as lawmakers push for an unprecedented measure to force the church to open its books to the public.
The legislation, authored by state Senator Marian Walsh and backed by 32 other lawmakers, is being considered at a time when the church faces deep skepticism and in some cases open hostility from politicians on Beacon Hill and at City Hall. Some lawmakers who champion the bill, which will be brought up at a hearing Wednesday, previously stood side by side with church leaders on policy issues like abortion.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/08/bill_would_force_church_to_disclose_its_finances/
Guarding Georges Bank
August 8, 2005
GEORGES BANK -- the fecund, oval-shaped area off the coast of Nantucket -- is central to the survival of local fisheries. Oil and gas interests are not welcome. That message needs to be sounded loudly now that Congress has approved an energy bill that could threaten this sensitive and accessible fishing bank.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/08/08/guarding_georges_bank/
Wal-Mart asks appeals court to block suit
By Michael Kahn August 8, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Lawyers for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The retailer is seeking to overturn a June 2004 U.S. District Court decision certifying as class-action a lawsuit that now covers more than 1.6 million women and charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against female workers in pay, promotions and training.
Box: Bill drops gas additive requirements
August 9, 2005
ADDITIVES GONE: The new energy bill President Bush signed ends a federal rule that had required service stations in many urban areas to sell specially formulated, "oxygenated" gasoline designed to reduce smog.
WASN'T NEEDED: Most experts say the requirement that gasoline contain at least 2 percent oxygen by weight isn't needed anymore. Some say it never was.
MTBE-ETHANOL: The most commonly used substances for adding oxygen to gasoline are methyl tertiary butyl ether, known as MTBE, and ethanol derived from corn. Several states, including California and New York, have banned MTBE after it seeped into local water supplies, and other states are phasing it out.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/09/box_bill_drops_gas_additive_requirements/
India, Pakistan vow to keep Kashmir truce
Pakistani Foreign Ministry senior official Tariq Osman Hyder, third left, looks on during a meeting with Indian Joint Secretary of Ministry of External Affairs Dilip Sinha, third right, and other Indian and Pakistani delegates in New Delhi, India, Monday, Aug. 8, 2005. India and Pakistan on Monday agreed to continue a nearly two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but didn't discuss the question of reducing the massive military presence in the Himalayan region. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)
By Ashok Sharma, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
NEW DELHI --India and Pakistan agreed Monday to extend a two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but did not discuss the question of reducing their military presence there, an Indian official said.
Delegates at the talks also agreed not to develop new guard posts or defense installments along the cease-fire line dividing the Himalayan territory claimed by both nations, said Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for India's External Affairs Ministry.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/08/india_pakistan_vow_to_keep_kashmir_truce/
Flood traps 102 Chinese coal miners
August 8, 2005
SHANGHAI, China --A coal mine flooded in southern China, trapping 102 miners more than 1,000 feet underground as rescuers on Monday used water pumps in an effort to reach them. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
The accident occurred Sunday afternoon in a tunnel 1,378 feet underground at the privately owned Daxing Colliery in Meizhou City in Guangdong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a local official.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/08/flood_traps_102_chinese_coal_miners/
N.Korea food shortage growing serious - WFP chief
By Jon Herskovitz August 9, 2005
SEOUL (Reuters) - People in North Korea are foraging for nuts and leaves to counter a serious food shortage but there is no danger of widespread famine or starvation, the head of the U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday.
James Morris, the WFP's executive director said commodity prices have gone up in the impoverished state, food stocks have dwindled, and nascent economic reforms have only made it more difficult for North Korea's poor and urban dwellers to buy food.
"Our sense is that the food situation in North Korea is particularly serious right now," Morris told reporters in Seoul.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/08/09/nkorea_food_shortage_growing_serious___wfp_chief/
Saudi King pardons activists, professor
By Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press Writer August 8, 2005
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia --King Abdullah on Monday pardoned four prominent activists who were jailed after criticizing the strict religious environment in Saudi Arabia and the slow pace of democratic reform.
A Saudi Television anchor read a statement from Interior Minister Prince Nayef saying the king, who has pushed an unprecedented campaign for greater democracy in the kingdom, had ordered the release of the four.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/08/saudi_king_pardons_activists_professor/
U.S. foresees autumn rise in troop levels in Iraq
By Will Dunham August 8, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expects to raise its troop levels in Iraq this fall to bolster security for the planned October constitutional referendum and December elections for a new government, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Planning for a short-term bulge in troop levels comes as U.S. commanders, according to defense officials, also are working toward cutting the current force by 20,000 to 30,000 troops next spring and summer, contingent on progress in Iraq's political process and in developing Iraqi security forces.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/08/us_foresees_autumn_rise_in_troop_levels_in_iraq/
U.S. mulls sanctions on Venezuela over drug move
By Saul Hudson August 8, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering punishing Venezuela with sanctions for breaking off work with U.S. anti-drug agents in the world's top cocaine-exporting region, the State Department said on Monday.
In a new blow to fraying ties between the United States and a key oil supplier, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he had suspended cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration because it was unnecessary and accused the U.S. agency of spying on his government.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/08/09/us_mulls_sanctions_on_venezuela_over_drug_move/
Dissident: Tehran has 4,000 centrifuges
By William J. Kole, Associated Press Writer August 9, 2005
VIENNA, Austria --Iran has manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002 said Tuesday.
Alireza Jafarzadeh told The Associated Press the centrifuges -- which he said are unknown to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency -- are ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/09/dissident_tehran_has_4000_centrifuges/
China Daily
Suicide bomber strikes on bus, injuring 31
By Hu Meidong and Li Dapeng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:50
FUZHOU: A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in central Fuzhou yesterday, killing himself and injuring 31 others, local police said.
The blast in the capital of East China's Fujian Province went off at 2:32 pm as the No 5 bus pulled in at the Dongjiekou Stop in Dongda Road, one of the city's busiest streets.
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467358.htm
102 miners trapped as flood waters rise
By Qiu Quanlin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:50
XINGNING, Guangdong Province: More than 600 rescuers were battling against time yesterday to save 102 miners trapped in a coal mine in Xingning County, South China's Guangdong Province.
But after more than 24 hours trapped underground, hopes were fading last night of finding any of the men alive.
The Daxing Coal Mine, about 70 kilometres from Xingning, was flooded with an estimated 15-20 million cubic metre of water at 1:30 pm on Sunday.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467447.htm
Economist sees no more yuan moves soon
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-09 15:07
China will not adjust the yuan's exchange rate any further in the next three to six months while it assesses the impact of last month's 2.1 percent revaluation, a senior Chinese economist said, the Reuters reported.
"Policy makers will observe the effects of the revaluation on the economy and the degree to which it is digested. This is an adjustment period," said Ba Shusong, a vice director with the State Council's Development Research Center.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467560.htm
Australia announces China Uranium talks
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 14:33
Australia and China are negotiating an agreement to allow Australia to export uranium to China for peaceful purposes, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
Preliminary talks are already under way to secure a Chinese commitment that the uranium would be used only for electricity generation, said Downer.
Australia prohibits the sale of uranium for nuclear weapons, nuclear-powered warships or other military uses.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467542.htm
Typhoon-hit areas picking up pieces
By Shao Xiaoyi in Hangzhou and Cao Li in Shanghai (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-09 05:52
Zhejiang Province and Shanghai Municipality in East China are recovering from the carnage wrought by Typhoon Masta, which swept across the area over the weekend.
Shanghai has almost finished cleaning up operations following the natural disaster.
At 8:50am yesterday, Shanghai Hongqiao Airport welcomed the landing of the last Shanghai-bound flight to have been delayed by the storm. The hurricane stranded nearly 100,000 people at airports in Shanghai, other provinces and even abroad.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467392.htm
Sandstorm halts work on Iraqi constitution
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 08:47
Enveloping the capital in an eerie orange glow, a blinding sandstorm Monday reduced visibility in Baghdad to a few feet — slowing traffic to a crawl, canceling a key meeting on the Iraqi constitution and sending hundreds of people to the hospital with breathing problems, reported Associated Press.
Howling winds whipped up desert sands overnight, coating the streets of the city in a gritty opaque haze. Though sandstorms are common in Iraq's desert terrain, especially during the summer, the one that arrived overnight was the worst in two years, long-suffering residents said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467449.htm
Car export soars in 1st half
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-08-09 10:54
In the first half of this year, China exported a total of 9,600 cars, jumping 183 percent year-on-year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce.
In the first six months, the Chinese automaker Chery Automotive Co. (CAC), based in east China's Anhui Province, exported 3,357 cars with volume of 16.45 million US dollars, up 117.8 percent and104.4 percent respectively, according to the Chinese customs.
Currently China mainly exports cars with low prices. In the first half year, the per-unit export value was only 7,238.5 US dollars, down 14.4 percent year on year.
The main destinations of China-made cars are developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, an official with the Ministry of Commerce said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467510.htm
Chinese carriers to buy 42 Boeing 787s
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-09 07:08
Four Chinese airline companies have agreed to buy 42 Boeing 787 jets for a total of US $5.04 billion (euro4 billion), the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
This file photo released 28 January 2005 by US aircraft constructor Boeing shows the new Boeing 787 jet pictured airborne. [AFP]
China's flag carrier Air China Ltd. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. will each buy 15 planes, Shanghai Airlines Co. will buy nine and Xiamen Airline Co. will buy three, the report said.
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/09/content_467413.htm
continued...
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