October 21, 2005.

Time is running for the people of Pakistan left homeless due to the earthquake.

This is not the first time this area of the world has suffered in dire circumstances. From January 7th to the 28th of the year 2003; 1935 people died in India, Bangladesh and Nepal from severe and unexpected winter weather.

October 21, 2005. Detlev Mehlis and Kofi Annan. The NEW Lebanese Liberators !!  

MP Hariri meets President Mubarak, calls for creation of international tribunal on late Premier’s assassination

This is the explosion that killed Rafik Hariri. It was a very sophisticated explosive. Obviously members of the Syrian government were involved.

Mr. Hariri was indeed a great man who sought to liberate Lebanon from the oppression of Syria as leveled by Hezbollah. I am sure the people that carried out this crime were members of Hezbollah.

I believe Former Prime Minister Hariri's son now holds office in Lebanon.

This was the Press Release on October 19, 2005. It would seem as though the Arab nations in the area is seeking justice as well. You know one thing the people of the USA don't realize is that this could be any number of Arab leaders including the Saudi Royal Family. This is not being taken lightly.

The Press Release:

Head of the Future Parliamentary Bloc MP Saad Hariri said that all Arabs want to know the truth behind the assassination of Martyr Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, and achieving justice in this heinous crime. He asserted that he will ask for the creation of an international tribunal to put on trial the suspects, because we in Lebanon were unable to carry out a Lebanese investigation and this is why we asked the help of the United Nations.

http://www.rhariri.com/news.aspx?ID=3816&Category=PressReleases

Cindy Sheehan has seen the death of her son.

She has experienced the lose of her marriage due to the stress with the death of Casey. She has taken a stand for peace with foresight most of us can only hope to have realizing Bush is beginning his 'ranting' for more war with a report regarding the murder of the Lebanonese Prime Minister Hariri. The Syrian people are not responsible for the assassination, Hezbollah is along with whoever in the government assisted them. The extremist terrorist organizations that plague Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel and Jordan need to be reigned in and stopped. Hezbollah is more the issue than any particular leader. The United Nations needs to act on this assassination but it needs to act wisely preserving the lives of innocent people while removing those most corrupt. This is the opportunity Lebanon needs to remove the extremist groups within it's bordes by bring their leaders to justice.

Morning Papers - continued

New York Times - They had a really good issue today. They need to reclaim their expertise on the left side of the American landscape. I have to renew by subscription if they continue to return to a langauge and culture I love and understand.

I DO NOT SEE AN INVASION OF SYRIA. The Syrian people are not responsible for the violence of their leaders. I do however see the United Nations Security Council taking action at The World Court regarding this issue. I doubt that is an option that would ever enter the mind of the war monger, John Bolton.


Top Syrian Seen as Prime Suspect in Assassination
By JOHN KIFNER and WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 20 - The United Nations investigation into the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon is focusing on the powerful brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria as the main suspect, a diplomat with intimate knowledge of the inquiry said Thursday.
The diplomat spoke as a long-awaited United Nations report on the killing made public on Thursday said it was a carefully planned terrorist act organized by high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officers.
Though the report did not include names, the diplomat said the investigators were focusing on Syria's military intelligence chief, Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law.
"Their main lead is that he is the ringleader," the diplomat said. "This is where it is heading."
Detlev Mehlis, the United Nations investigator, has been given an extension until December to continue his inquiry. He said his commission had in four months interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents and arrested four high-level officials of the Lebanese "security and intelligence apparatus."
"There is evidence in abundance," the diplomat said. "But to get every piece of the puzzle they need more time." He spoke on condition of anonymity because of what he described as the extreme sensitivity of the matter.
Mr. Shawkat is considered the second most powerful man in Syria and has been seen as a likely candidate to take over the country if the embattled Mr. Assad were removed from office.
The diplomat, describing Syria as a "country run by a little family clique," said the involvement of any one in Mr. Assad's inner circle would be a severe blow to the government.
"There is absolutely no doubt, it goes right to the top," he said. "This is Murder Inc."
In his report, Mr. Mehlis said the killing last February was carried out by "a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities."
The report said, "There is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act."
The 54-page report said the crime had been planned "over many months" and that the movements of Mr. Hariri and the convoy he traveled in had been closely monitored with his "itineraries recorded in detail."
As evidence of the coordination, the report listed cellphone records that showed close street-by-street observation of his convoy by people planning the killing. It also said the telecommunications antenna near the crime scene had been tampered with.
Mr. Hariri and 15 others died when a bomb blew up his six-car convoy on a downtown Beirut street.
It said the van containing the bomb had earlier been seen in a Syrian military base in Lebanon.
Mr. Mehlis and his investigators spent several days in September interrogating Syrian security officials in a resort near the Syria-Lebanon border, and his report said that leads developed there "point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination."
Indications that the Mehlis report would reveal a Syrian role in the Hariri killing have focused pressure on Mr. Assad and caused intense anxiety in political circles in Damascus and Beirut.
As the investigation tightened this month, the Syrian interior minister, Ghazi Kanaan, who for two decades had called the shots in Lebanon as Syria's virtual proconsul, was found dead in his Damascus office, shot in the mouth with his own pistol.
Syria's official news agency announced that the death had been a suicide.
The United Nations investigators - as well as many Lebanese and Syrians - cast doubt on that account, suspecting instead that he was either killed by government agents or forced to kill himself under some threat.
Investigators had two theories, the diplomat said: "One was that he had either given information to Mr. Mehlis or was about to. The other was that he was involved in plotting a coup."
The United States has sought support from allies in the region to isolate Syria and force Mr. Assad to cease the support and financing of anti-Israel militias and stop what Washington believes is a willingness by Damascus to infiltrate insurgents across its border with Iraq.
John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said, "After an initial read, the results are clearly troubling and will require further discussion with the international community."
Diplomats from the United States, Britain and France have been discussing options for action against Syria to be considered next week by the Security Council. Mr. Mehlis will brief the Council on his report on Tuesday.
Among the options are two resolutions that would step up pressure on Damascus to end actions destabilizing the region, according to a European diplomat familiar with talks on the subject between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the French president, Jacques Chirac, in Paris last week.
He said one resolution would be put forward under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which calls for forceful measures like economic and diplomatic sanctions, and the other under Chapter 6, which calls for solutions through negotiation and mediation.
The United States and France sponsored the original resolution in September 2004 calling on Lebanon to reject Syrian interference in its politics and calling on all foreign forces to leave the country. The resolution led to the eventual departure of 20,000 Syrian troops and the virtual end of the decades-long domination of Lebanese politics by Syria.
A second report on Syria originally scheduled for this week, has been put off until next week to avoid what United Nations officials described as a "congestion" of measures dealing with Damascus. That report will verify whether all Syrian troops and intelligence officials have truly withdrawn from Lebanon and track progress in disarming militias as required by a United Nations resolution.
The Mehlis report showed that the commission had discredited a number of other leads and claims of responsibility for the killing that might have been put forward to disguise the real authors of the crime.
Mr. Mehlis said a number of witnesses feared they would be harmed if it became known that they had cooperated with the commission, and said that consequently he had not identified any of them in the report.
He said there were now competent judicial and security authorities in Lebanon to carry forward the investigation with international assistance and support.
Beirut's streets were empty Thursday night as many Lebanese stayed home fearing possible violence resulting from the release of the report. In recent months, a string of bombings have rattled the fragile peace of the city, underscoring the gravity of the political crisis set off by the assassination of Mr. Hariri.
In Beirut, late night traffic on Hamra Street, normally a busy thoroughfare, was little more than a trickle as Lebanese soldiers made spot searches of cars and bicyclists, and armored vehicles patrolled some streets.
A group of young men gathered round a television in a food shop, listening to news of the release of the report but not quite knowing what to make of it.
"Did they name Shawkat?" one man asked.
"I'm not sure," the store owner said.
"Whom did they name?" another asked.
"We don't know yet," said several others as they tried to turn up the volume to listen to the announcer who pored through the report.
Hassan M. Fattah contributed reporting from Beirut for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/international/middleeast/21syria.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


Cover-Up Issue Is Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: October 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.
Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/politics/21leak.html?hp&ex=1129953600&en=e9e43780001cbcef&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Winter Is the Enemy for Quake's Homeless Millions
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and DAVID ROHDE
Published: October 21, 2005
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 20 - United Nations and private aid workers said Thursday that the pressing need to shelter up to three million Pakistani earthquake survivors before the harsh Himalayan winter sets in was threatening to become the most difficult relief operation the world has ever faced.
Gurinder Osan/Associated Press
This family had a makeshift tent with a fireplace Thursday, but with wintry weather near, a crisis is at hand.
(October 11, 2005)
David Guttenfelder/Associated Press
In the refugee camp at Balakot, Pakistan, an earthquake survivor shivered in the rain. In the background at left are Pakistani soldiers.
Compounding the problems posed by the sheer number of people displaced - three times as many as those affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami last December - are the mountainous terrain and the onset of a winter that is likely to arrive in less than three weeks and sever the stricken mountain hamlets of the north from the rest of the country until spring.
And yet, perhaps out of fatigue after a year of seemingly endless natural disasters, aid officials say, the international response has been weak. Even in the face of the epic destruction, foreign donors have so far pledged less than $90 million, or barely a quarter of the $312 million that the United Nations estimates it will need for immediate relief.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/international/asia/21quake.html?hp&ex=1129953600&en=d8dc24f6467397d0&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Storage Room Fire Halts Service on 7 Subway Lines
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 21, 2005
NEW YORK -- An apparent electrical fire in a subway storage room produced heavy smoke below and above ground, forcing the evacuation of the West Fourth Street subway station and shutting down a half-dozen Manhattan subway lines, authorities said.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, and the fire was still burning more than an hour later, said police Capt. Stephen Hughes.
The fire, reported at 8:05 a.m., forced the suspension of service in both directions on the A, B, C, D, E, F, G and V trains, along the Sixth and Eighth avenue corridors, said NYC Transit spokesman James Anyansi. West Fourth Street is a major subway hub along Manhattan's West Side.
The smoke rose through street grates, causing a heavy smoke condition at street level as well, said David Billig, a fire department spokesman.
He said 106 firefighters and 25 pieces of fire equipment were at the scene.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A large subway fire in January knocked out service to two of those busy subway lines, causing officials to initially say that repairs would take up to five years. Transit authorities later backpedaled after an outcry from the public, and said the revised estimate was six to nine months. Full non-peak service on the A and C lines was restored Feb. 1, nine days later.
The January fire caused extreme damage to a signal room in lower Manhattan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/nyregion/21cnd-subway.html?hp&ex=1129953600&en=1b96ae9804967db7&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Hurricane Wilma Slams Into Mexico
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:31 a.m. ET
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) -- The fearsome core of Hurricane Wilma slammed into the island of Cozumel Friday, starting a long, grinding march across Mexico's resort-studded coastline. Wilma flooded streets, knocked out power and stranded thousands of tourists in sweltering shelters.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane's outer eyewall -- part of the fastest-moving section surrounding the eye -- had hit Cozumel, a popular stop for divers and cruise ship passengers where hundreds of residents and 970 tourists were riding out the hurricane.
The hurricane was expected to make an agonizingly slow journey to the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and sideswipe Cuba -- 220 kilometers (130 miles) east of Cancun -- then swing east toward hurricane-weary Florida.
Cuba evacuated nearly 370,000 people in the face of the storm, which has already killed at least 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica.
''The most important thing now ... is to protect lives,'' President Vicente Fox said in a broadcast address to the nation Thursday night.
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm ''has the potential to do catastrophic damage.''
Power was cut early Friday to most parts of Cancun -- a standard safety precaution -- and winds blasted waves across streets flooded 1 meter (3 feet) deep in some places.
''God protect us!'' ran the headline Friday in a local newspaper, Quequi.
About 1,500 people were crowded into a dark, sweltering municipal gymnasium downtown. Many took shelter under plastic tarps because of a leaking ceiling.
''After one more day of this, I believe people will start getting cranky. Things could get messy,'' said Scott Stout, 26, of Willisville, Illinois, who was on a honeymoon with his wife Jamie.
Wilma had weakened slightly, but it was still a terrifying Category 4 hurricane with of 230 kph (145 mph).
While the wall of the eye had hit, the hurricane center said that the large, slow-moving center of the storm was still about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Cozumel. The hurricane was moving toward the northwest at 6 mph (9 kph), which was expected to bring the eye to shore by midday.
Forecasters said the storm could dump as much as 40 inches (1 meter) of rain over isolated, mountainous parts of western Cuba and about half that in some other parts of Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula.
Its slow progress delayed its expected arrival in Florida until Monday, but fueled fears that it would have more time to dump rain and pummel the low-lying Mayan Riviera, possibly causing major damage. The hurricane was expected to churn over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula for most of the weekend.
The hurricane's eye is so large it might take hours to pass over land, leading to fears that confused residents might leave shelters in the calm of the middle of the storm.
At the beachside Playa Azul hotel on Cozumel's north end, manager Martha Nieto said ''the waves are getting very high.''
''We wish it was over. The waiting drives you to desperation,'' Nieto said by telephone.
After airports closed late Thursday, desperate tourists who had lined up for hours in a failed bid to get on the last planes out were instead shuttled to sweaty emergency shelters.
Devon Anderson, 21, from Sacramento, California, was packed into a local school with other Americans. He said the army never arrived to board up the windows.
''There's no food, no water,'' he said. ''We've pretty much just been deserted.''
About 20,000 tourists remained at shelters and hotels on the mainland south of Cancun, and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 in the city itself.
Some, like 30-year-old Carlos Porta of Barcelona, Spain, were handed plastic bags with a pillow and blanket.
''From a luxury hotel to a shelter. It makes you angry. But what can you do?'' he said. ''It's just bad luck.''
In Cancun, high winds bent palm trees and waves gobbled the city's white-sand beaches. Nearly 50 hotels were evacuated, leaving the normally busy tourist zone deserted. The city of 500,000 people
Early Wednesday, Wilma became the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic. The storm's 882 millibars of pressure broke the record low of 888 set by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Lower pressure brings faster winds.
With Florida the following target, Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency, and officials cleared tourists out of the exposed Florida Keys. Across Florida's southwest coast, people put up shutters, bought canned goods and bottled water and waited in ever-growing lines at gas stations.
In Belize, a nation south of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, officials canceled cruise ship visits and tourists were evacuated from islands offshore. But the tiny country weathered the storm with few reports of damage.

Vanessa Arrington in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, contributed to this report.

On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Hurricane-Wilma.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


Defense Lawyer in Hussein Trial Is Found Dead
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 21, 2005
Filed at 10:02 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A defense lawyer in Saddam Hussein's mass murder trial has been found dead, his body dumped near a Baghdad mosque with two gunshots to the head, police and a top lawyers union official said Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?hp&ex=1129953600&en=0499ca0fe42a92a3&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Ford Reports a Loss and Expects 'Significant Plant Closings'
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: October 21, 2005
DETROIT, Oct. 20 - The Ford Motor Company is the latest Detroit auto giant to stall.
Ford's chairman and chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr., said Thursday that his company would announce a plan for its American

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/business/21ford.html


Profit Rises Sevenfold at Google
By SAUL HANSELL
Published: October 21, 2005
Finding more ways to make money from its spot as the world's most popular Internet search engine, Google topped Wall Street expectations yesterday and posted a sharply higher profit in the third quarter.
The results even exceeded the expectations of the company.
(Oct. 20, 2005)
"We were surprised, pleasantly, I might say," Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Google earned $381 million, or $1.32 a share, in the third quarter, up more than sevenfold from its $52 million, or 19 cents a share, a year ago. Last year's results were depressed by a $201 million noncash charge related to settling a patent dispute with Yahoo.
Google shares rose about 10 percent after the announcement, which was at the end of regular trading. In after-hours trading, shares hit $335, a record, up from the $303.20 closing price in regular trading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/technology/21google.html


Karzai Condemns Alleged Body Desecration
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 21, 2005
Filed at 8:28 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- President Hamid Karzai on Friday condemned the alleged desecration of the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters by U.S. troops, but he said mistakes happen in war and Afghans shouldn't let it mar their impression of the United States.
His apparent attempt to reduce Afghans' anger over the incident came amid warnings by Islamic clerics of a possible violent anti-American backlash.
''Sometimes things happen in these sort of operations, during war. Soldiers make mistakes,'' he told reporters in Kabul. ''We are very grateful for the international community's assistance. ... Their soldiers have shed their blood in our country.''
But he added, ''We in Afghanistan in accordance with our religion ... are very unhappy and condemn the burning of the two Taliban dead bodies. I hope such incidents will not occur again.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US.html


Indonesian Students Challenge U.S. Envoy in Lively Exchange
By REUTERS
Published: October 21, 2005
Filed at 3:13 a.m. ET
JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. goodwill envoy Karen Hughes got a earful from a group of mostly female Indonesian Muslim students on Friday, who expressed anger at the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and attacked Washington's foreign policies.
Tasked by U.S. President George W. Bush to polish America's image overseas, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy is in Jakarta to meet leading Muslim clerics and students during a tour of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-indonesia-usa.html


Worker Tells of Response by FEMA
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - It was on the day before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, after thousands of people had packed the Superdome, that the lone FEMA worker in New Orleans sent his first plea for help.
"Issues developing at the Superdome," the official, Marty J. Bahamonde, wrote in an agency e-mail message released Thursday by Congressional investigators. "The medical staff at the dome says they will run out of oxygen in about two hours."
Mr. Bahamonde sent a series of messages as the hours and days passed, desperation growing. Most startling, he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, was that his supervisors in Washington did not seem to understand. In a series of e-mail messages in which he warned of worsening problems, he was told that the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency needed time to eat dinner at a restaurant in Baton Rouge, La., and to have a television interview.
"It was sad, it was inhumane, it was heartbreaking, and it was so wrong," Mr. Bahamonde said of the conditions and the response. "There was a systematic failure at all levels of government to understand the magnitude of the situation."
A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, William R. Knocke, said Mr. Bahamonde was a respected official and did not contest his testimony. He said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was also frustrated at the response that Mr. Bahamonde was reporting.
Mr. Bahamonde's being the sole FEMA representative in New Orleans for the storm was unintentional, he said. He drove there on Aug. 27, two days before the storm hit, to introduce himself to City Hall officials. Though instructed by officials in Washington to leave, he stayed behind because of traffic jams.
Mr. Bahamonde stayed near the Superdome, where he had been told that a FEMA medical team, as well as 360,000 ready-to-eat meals and 15 water trucks, were being sent ahead of the storm.
None of that turned out to be true. Five water trucks and 40,000 meals were in place. The medical team did not arrive until Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane hit.
The situation worsened by late morning on Aug. 29, when Mr. Bahamonde learned that the 17th Street Canal levee had failed and that the city was flooding. An e-mail message at 1:38 p.m. to FEMA headquarters described the levee break, as well as reports that an estimated 12,000 people were at the Superdome and that 30,000 tourists were stuck in the city.
"North side of city under est. 11' water in heavy residential area," the message said, attributing the information to Mr. Bahamonde.
Mr. Chertoff has often said he did not know about the levee break and flooding until Aug. 30, explaining in part why he went to a meeting that day in Atlanta on avian flu.
"That is incredible," Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said about the communications delay.
Mr. Levin questioned Mr. Bahamonde about testimony last month by the former director of the emergency agency, Michael D. Brown, that a dozen agency employees were in New Orleans before the storm, including an emergency response team.
"How many FEMA people were pre-positioned at the Superdome or in New Orleans?" Mr. Levin asked.
"One," Mr. Bahamonde said.
"And that was?"
"Me."
On Aug. 31, Mr. Bahamonde decided to send an e-mail message directly to Mr. Brown.
"I know you know, the situation is past critical," Mr. Bahamonde wrote. "Hotels are kicking people out, thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water."'
An aide to Mr. Brown responded hours later that the director would need a restaurant in Baton Rouge that night. "It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner," the message said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/national/nationalspecial/21response.html?pagewanted=print


Arctic Map Vanishes, and Oil Area Expands
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: October 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Maps matter. They chronicle the struggles of empires and zoning boards. They chart political compromise. So it was natural for Republican Congressional aides, doing due diligence for what may be the last battle in the fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to ask for the legally binding 1978 map of the refuge and its coastal plain.
It was gone. No map, no copies, no digitized version.
The wall-size 1:250,000-scale map delineated the tundra in the biggest national land-use controversy of the last quarter-century, an area that environmentalists call America's Serengeti and that oil enthusiasts see as America's Oman.
The map had been stored behind a filing cabinet in a locked room in Arlington, Va. Late in 2002, it was there. In early 2003, it disappeared. There are just a few reflection-flecked photographs to remember it by.
All this may have real consequences. The United States Geological Survey drew up a new map. On Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee passed a measure based on the new map that opened to drilling 1.5 million acres of coastal plain in the refuge.
The missing map did not seem to include in the coastal plain tens of thousands of acres of Native Alaskans' lands. On the new map, those lands were included, arguably making it easier to open them to energy development.
The measure is scheduled to be in the budget reconciliation bill to be voted on next month.
"People have asked me several times, 'Do you think someone took this intentionally?' " said Doug Vandegraft, the cartographer for the Fish and Wildlife Service who was the last known person to see the old map. "I hope to God not. So few people knew about it. I'm able to sleep at night because I don't think it was maliciously taken. I do think it was thrown out."
Mr. Vandegraft said he had folded the map in half, cushioned within its foam-board backing, and put it behind the filing cabinet in the locked room for safekeeping.
He said he was distraught when he learned of the loss. In its place in the original nook, he said, he found a new, folded piece of foam board similar to the old one - but with no map attached.
"I felt sick to my stomach," he said. "I queried everyone here. I think people could tell that I was angry about it."
No one admitted knowing what had happened.
"It infuriated me," he said. "It was in no one's way. Why would someone take it on themselves to say no one needs this?
"No one knew where the foam-core boards came from."
The implications of the contours on the new map, at least for the native lands, are in dispute. Some people argue that the native owners, the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, which controls much of the surface rights to the land, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which controls the mineral rights, would be able to offer energy leases no matter where the lines are drawn, as soon as Congress opens the plain.
The legislative counsel of the Interior Department, Jane M. Lyder, did not go quite that far, but did say the new map might make the question moot.
"It's a very circular kind of thing," Ms. Lyder said. "Changing the line on the map makes it a lot easier."
In addition, she said, the inclusion of the native lands within the coastal plain ensures that they will be covered by the bill's requirement that no more than 2,000 acres of the plain be used for drilling platforms, airstrips, roads and other surface disturbances. By including the native lands in the plain, any work there would count to the 2,000-acre limit, she said.
Mr. Vandegraft, the cartographer, said the experience had changed his habits.
"Anything I considered historic, we scanned them and took them to the National Archives," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/politics/21map.html


Someone has to arm the armies of God within the USA. Let's rumble !!

Congress Passes New Legal Shield for Gun Industry
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: October 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a long-sought victory to the gun industry on Thursday when the House voted to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits. The bill now goes to President Bush, who has promised to sign it.
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
Wayne LaPierre of the N.R.A. called the bill "historic."
The gun liability bill has for years been the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association, which has lobbied lawmakers intensely for it. Its final passage, by a vote of 283 to 144, with considerable Democratic support, reflected the changing politics of gun control, an issue many Democrats began shying away from after Al Gore, who promoted it, was defeated in the 2000 presidential race.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/politics/21guns.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1129914728-/fK7fXJaUdm8OeCm6yCG0Q


Hubble Telescope Turns to Moon and Sees Possible Oxygen Source
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: October 20, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The Hubble Space Telescope, which normally surveys the edges of the universe, has turned its attention to our nearby Moon and found mineral concentrations that might prove to be sources of oxygen for human visitors, researchers said Wednesday.
In an unusual use of the Hubble, astronomers trained the large Earth-orbiting telescope on the Moon in August to take the first high-resolution ultraviolet images of certain geologically interesting areas.
The images allow scientists to see areas of mineral variation within the crust and could help identify the most valuable sites for sending robotic and human missions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/national/20moon.html


Michael Moore Today

A Palpable Silence at the White House
Few Ready to Face Effects of Leak Case
By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker / Washington Post
At 7:30 each morning, President Bush's senior staff gathers to discuss the important issues of the day -- Middle East peace, the Harriet Miers nomination, the latest hurricane bearing down on the coast. Everything, that is, except the issue on everyone's mind.
With special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald driving his CIA leak investigation toward an apparent conclusion, the White House now confronts the looming prospect that no one in the building is eager to address: a Bush presidency without Karl Rove. In a capital consumed by scandal speculation, most White House senior officials are no more privy than outsiders to the prosecutor's intentions. But the surreal silence in the Roosevelt Room each morning belies the nervous discussions racing elsewhere around the West Wing.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4600


Bush Critic Became Target of Libby, Former Aides Say
Cheney's chief of staff reportedly sought an aggressive campaign against Wilson.
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was so angry about the public statements of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a Bush administration critic married to an undercover CIA officer, that he monitored all of Wilson's television appearances and urged the White House to mount an aggressive public campaign against him, former aides say.
Those efforts by the chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began shortly after Wilson went public with his criticisms in 2003. But they continued into last year — well after the Justice Department began an investigation in September 2003, into whether administration officials had illegally disclosed the CIA operative's identity, say former White House aides.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4602


Cover-Up Issue Is Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry
By David Johnston / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.
Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4601


White House Defense Crumbling in Leak Case
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The evidence prosecutors have assembled in the CIA leak case suggests Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff sought out reporters in the weeks before an undercover operative's identity was compromised in the news media, casting doubt on one of the White House's main lines of defense.
For months, the White House and its supporters have argued top presidential aides did not knowingly expose Valerie Plame, the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative.
At most, the aides passed on information about her that entered the White House from reporters, the supporters argued.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4598


‘Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy’
By Edward Alden / Financial Times
Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.
In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4589


A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
By The Associated Press Thu Oct 20, 9:23 PM ET
As of Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005, at least 1,988 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the
Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,541 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
(image placeholder)
The AP count is 11 higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Thursday.
The British military has reported 97 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark,
El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia one death each.
Since May 1, 2003, when
President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,849 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,432 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
Since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, 15,220 U.S. service members have been wounded, according to a Defense Department tally Thursday.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
• Three U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday when their patrol struck an explosive near Balad, Iraq.
• A Marine was killed Wednesday by an explosive near Karabilah, Iraq.
• A U.S. soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound near Mosul, Iraq.
The latest identifications reported by the military:
• Army Spc. Daniel D. Bartels, 22, Huron, S.D.; died Wednesday in Mosul, Iraq, of a non-hostile cause; assigned to the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
• Marine Lance Cpl. Norman W. Anderson III, 21, Parkton, Md.; killed Wednesday by an explosive in Karabilah, Iraq; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
• Army Staff Sgt. Tommy I. Folks Jr., 31, Amarillo, Texas; died Wednesday in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered Tuesday when explosives detonated near his vehicle in Iskandariyah, Iraq; assigned to the National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 56th Brigade Combat Team, 36th Infantry Division, Amarillo, Texas.
On the Net:

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_mi_ea/storytext/iraq_us_deaths/16816177/SIG=112ft9jui/*http:/www.defenselink.mil/news/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_us_deaths


U.S. General: Iraqi Army Needs More Time
By Lolita C. Baldor / The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- It will take up to two years for the Iraqi army to have the military leadership and supplies it needs to operate on its own, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad said Friday.
Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., told Pentagon reporters that the Iraqi security forces are continuing to grow, but their major need is for support systems, such as fuel and replacement parts.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4603


Guard Equipment Needed at Home Is Left in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) — Army National Guard units are short of equipment at home partly because they have been told to leave such vital items as armored Humvees in Iraq for replacement troops, congressional investigators say.
As of June, Guard units had left overseas more than 64,000 pieces of equipment worth more than $1.2 billion, and the Army cannot account for more than half, said the report Thursday by the Government Accountability Office.
On average, Guard units at home have about 34% of their essential war-fighting equipment, which could leave them vulnerable in a domestic emergency, according to the report released at a hearing of the House Committee on Government Reform.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4604


Lawyer Representing Defendant in Hussein Trial Is Found Dead
By Timothy Williams / The New York Times
A lawyer representing one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants was found dead with a bullet wound to the head in Baghdad, the Iraqi government said today.
The body of Sa'doun Antar Nsaif Al Janabi was foundThursday night, but he was not identified until today. He was representing Awad Hammad Albander, who is on trial in Baghdad with Mr. Hussein for their alleged roles in the massacre of Shiites 1982 after an assassination attempt on Mr. Hussein.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4605


Congress OKs Gun Industry Lawsuit Shield
By Laurie Kellman / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill protecting the firearms industry from massive crime-victim lawsuits. President Bush said he will sign it.
"Our laws should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes, not law-abiding manufacturers of lawful products," Bush said in a statement.
The House voted 283-144 to send the bill to the president after supporters, led by the National Rifle Association, proclaimed it vital to protect the industry from being bankrupted by huge jury awards. Opponents, waging a tough battle against growing public support for the legislation, called it proof of the gun lobby's power over the Republican-controlled Congress.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4596


SITTING DUCK
They say the President of the United States has the loneliest job in the world. For George W. Bush, that reality may finally hit home in the next week or so.
Four years ago terrorists attacked America. Three years ago George and his pals made up some stuff so we could invade Iraq. Two years ago they sprinkled new lies on top of old lies and stayed the course. Last year they beat a flip-flopper in an election. Now, right now, everything is falling apart.
Throughout it all, George has been surrounded by a viciously loyal cabal of advisers, handlers, and surrogates. They have done George's dirty work and hidden his dirty laundry. They have served as confidants and saviors. They are the bubble in which George exists.
And now, right now, George's bubble may be about to burst.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=523


Insurgents Torch Iraq's Main Oil Pipeline
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents using explosives set fire to the main oil pipeline in northern Iraq on Thursday, officials said. Violence continued around the country, and the U.S. military said three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb the previous day.
The pipeline links an oil field in the northern city of Kirkuk to Iraq's largest oil refinery in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.
The explosion occurred at about 5 a.m. (8 p.m. EDT Wednesday), setting fire to the pipeline and several oil valves about 34 miles west of Kirkuk, said firefighter Adil Mohammed.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4594


Cindy Sheehan Pledges Civil Disobedience Campaign
Peace mom plans more arrests in D.C.—and Thanksgiving in Crawford
By Sarah Ferguson / Village Voice
Cindy Sheehan made a return visit to the streets of New York Wednesday, joining the weekly vigil of Grandmothers Against the War outside Rockefeller Center.
In contrast to the scene in Union Square last month, when the police stormed the podium and cut off Sheehan’s mic, this time the NYPD went out of its way to be gracious to America’s leading peace mom.
Police politely urged the jostling camera crews and passing tourists to “please clear the sidewalk,” overseen by the NYPD’s top spokesperson Paul J. Browne, who said he was there to prevent any rush-hour snafus. “It’s the hometown of NBC, so it’s a big TV area,” Browne said, with a shrug.
But if the event was less a protest than a love fest between Sheehan and her elderly fans, who lined up for autographs and snapshots with the celebrity activist and plied her with heart-shaped sugar cookies, Sheehan still had plenty of fighting words for President Bush and New York’s pro-war senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, who’s widely said to be mulling a bid for the White House.
“I think that if anybody wants to run for president in 2008, then they have to come out against the war, and if they don’t then we don’t support them, whether it’s Hillary or whoever it is that’s going to run for president,” charged Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in Baghdad's Sadr City last year.
“The last time I was here, Chuck Schumer’s aide stated to me that the senator thinks the war in Iraq was a great thing for America,” Sheehan alleged. “I don’t think the people of New York believe that. We the people have to start taking responsibility for our democracy and firing leaders who do not represent us.”
Sheehan’s challenge to Clinton and Schumer not to take their heavily antiwar base in New York for granted echoed a scathing message she posted Saturday on Michael Moore’s website, in which she termed Clinton a “political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys.”
Saying she “will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for president again,” Sheehan warned Clinton she would “resist your candidacy with every bit of my power and strength unless you show us the wisdom it takes to be a truly great leader.”
That got a rise out of Rush Limbaugh, who termed Sheehan either “gutsy or stupid” for taking on the Democrats’ leading lady.
Sheehan was all smiles as she milled among the antiwar grannies, 18 of whom were arrested for trying to enlist at the Times Square Recruiting Station on Monday.
Her plans for this trip to New York are fairly low key. Besides doing press interviews, she’ll be guest hosting on Air America with Randi Rhodes on Friday at 6 p.m. and giving the keynote address at the Brooklyn Peace Fair this Saturday at 11 a.m.
But Sheehan vowed to turn up the heat by returning to the front gate of the White House as soon as the death toll of American soldiers hits 2,000 (as of Thursday, the Department of Defense reported 1,982, including the five killed Wednesday). “I’m going to deliver a speech and then I’m going to get arrested. And when I get out I’m going to go back and get arrested,” Sheehan told the Voice.
Sheehan said she now believes lobbying and marching in the streets is no longer enough and that “nonviolent civil disobedience is the way we have to go” to end the war.
“Hundreds of thousands of people were in D.C. on September 24 and the leaders still are not leading us,” Sheehan said of last month’s antiwar demo in Washington. “They’re still spouting the Republican talking points even if they’re Democrats. So what are we going to do? It’s going to have to be massive non-violent civil disobedience I believe.”
Sheehan said she and her fellow members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, and Iraq Veterans Against the War plan to hit the road again for another speaking tour in November, caravanning from the West Coast to Crawford, Texas, where they will reprise their “Camp Casey” protest over Thanksgiving weekend and demand once again that the president meet with them to explain what noble cause their loved ones were dying for.
“We’re going to invite George and Laura—and tell Laura to bring the turkey,” the peace mom quipped.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4599


October 17, 2005 - Breaking News: FEMA Extends the Deadline for Louisiana Hurricane Victims
On Saturday, October 15th FEMA announced that it was extending the aid application deadline to January 11th, 2006 for Louisiana victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We applaud FEMA for taking this important action, but it is critical that FEMA also extend the deadline for the hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas -- the other states declared disaster areas after the hurricanes. Please send a message below to help ensure that hurricane victims in those states get more time to apply for benefits, like the Louisiana victims.

http://www.extendthedeadline.org/


New Zealand Herald

Storm severs main roads to Gisborne
22.10.05
By Claire Trevett and Mathew Dearnaley
Dozens of people were evacuated last night after flooding and slips in Hawkes Bay closed all three highways into Gisborne and left many Labour weekend travellers stranded.
Civil Defence units and police evacuated several households in rural valleys north and south of Gisborne as a precaution.
Rain was expected to continue last night, and with a high tide due at 10pm, Civil Defence units in the region were on high alert.
Gisborne was cut off to traffic from the north, between Gisborne and Matawai, and the south between Napier and Gisborne.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10351534


Parents succeed in UK baby right-to-life case
22.10.05
LONDON - The parents of gravely ill baby Charlotte Wyatt succeeded yesterday in overturning a legal ruling which had given doctors permission to let her die naturally if her condition worsened.
Debbie and Darren Wyatt had failed several times to get the ruling overturned as judges consistently decided it would not be right to attempt to revive her with aggressive invasive treatment if she stopped breathing.
On Friday, High Court judge Justice Hedley changed the judgement which he himself made a year ago, following a review at a hearing last week.
He said doctors should now act in Charlotte's best interests.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10351537


UN despairs 'huge disaster'
22.10.05
Pakistan is facing a "second massive wave of death" unless the relief effort for earthquake survivors is stepped up drastically, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said.
The UN's senior relief co-ordinator has called for an operation on the scale of the 1940s Berlin airlift to get aid into affected areas and to evacuate tens of thousands of victims before winter sets in.
In a stark summary of the scale of the emergency, Annan said: "An estimated three million men, women and children are homeless. Many of them have no tents to protect them against the merciless Himalayan winter. That means a second, massive wave of death will happen if we do not step up our efforts.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10351461


Scientists reveal true scale of Amazon logging
22.10.05
The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed twice as quickly as previously estimated, according to a satellite survey of the region.
A team of American and Brazilian specialists have been able to assess the damage done by "selective logging", when one or two trees are removed, leaving surrounding trees intact.
They found that selective logging of mahogany and other valuable hardwood trees, which is often illegal, is destroying an area equal to that razed by conventional logging.
Study leader Dr Gregory Asner said the new satellite technique had provided a shocking insight into the true scale of destruction.
Conventional satellite images showed that an area of about 9334 sq km of the rainforest is burnt or cleared each year to make way for cattle ranching, farming or other development. However, scientists using the new technique found that selective logging damage was comparable in area.
The volume of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of selective logging between 1999 and 2002 is estimated between about 10 million and 15 million tonnes.
This represents a 25 per cent increase in the overall flow of carbon from the Amazonian forests into the atmosphere.
Studies of area subjected to selective logging show light penetrates to the understorey and dries out the forest floor, making it vulnerable to fires. Selective logging also involves heavy equipment being used to create makeshift dirt roads, allowing more people to come in later and change the landscape further, fuelling the process of deforestation.
The satellite technique developed by the scientists at Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution allows the scientists to peer through the dense forest canopy to find out what is happening underneath.
- INDEPENDENT

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10351458


US schools can choose students by race, court says
21.10.05 12.35pm
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO - Public schools can use race as a consideration to help balance the composition of public high schools, a US appeals court ruled on Thursday.
In a 7-4 decision, an 11-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2004 three-judge panel ruling on the controversial and long-debated issue.
The judges were considering whether race is a permissible factor in deciding which students will be admitted to oversubscribed high schools in Seattle, Washington.
The Thursday ruling swung back in favour of the lower court's earlier decision.
"It is true that for some students their first choice of school, based on geographical proximity, will be denied because other students' choices are granted in order to advance the overall interest in maintaining racially diverse school enrollments," a judge wrote for the majority.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351396


Babies for sale online, girls half-price
21.10.05
SHANGHAI - Police are investigating advertisements offering babies for sale on a Chinese website owned by internet auction house eBay.
The ads, which appeared on the eBay EachNet site on October 16, promised babies under 100 days old from the impoverished province of Henan at prices of 28,000 yuan ($5000) for boys and 13,000 yuan for girls, the China Daily reported.
More than 50 people looked at the baby auction but no "purchases" were made before it was removed.
The sale of children and women is a problem in China, where rules on family planning allow couples to just have one child, at least in cities.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351295


In-vitro mothers bloom in summer
22.10.05
By Maxine Frith
MONTREAL - Women who undergo fertility treatment during the summer are twice as likely to become pregnant as when they try in winter, British researchers have found.
Longer daylight hours appear to improve the chances of successful treatment, says the study.
The research was presented at the annual conference of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) this week.
Dr Simon Wood and a team from the Countess of Chester Hospital in Ellesmere Port looked at more than 3000 cycles of fertility treatment carried out over a four-year period.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351436


Toddler survives fortnight by body
21.10.05
By Terri Judd
An emaciated toddler who was found keeping vigil over the body of his dead mother survived alone at their home for two weeks on crisps and fruit juice.
Michael McGarrity, 3, was discovered in a "painfully thin" condition next to his mother's body at their fifth-floor flat in Edinburgh. Yesterday he was making a good recovery in hospital.
He was too small to open the front door but was able to push the mail back through the post box in what may have been an attempt to raise the alarm.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351265


Dramatic results in cancer testing
21.10.05
One of the world's leading medical journals is describing a new breast cancer drug as "simply stunning" and "maybe even a cure".
The New England Journal of Medicine said the results from the first trials of Herceptin on women with early stage breast cancer were "revolutionary, not evolutionary" and represented a "dramatic and perhaps permanent perturbation in the natural history of the disease, maybe even a cure".
It went on to say that the care of patients with HER2 positive breast cancer "must change today".
Medical journals rarely speak of a cure for cancer but trials of Herceptin found it reduced the risk of the cancer returning by 46 per cent.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351320


Bird flu scare in Australia
21.10.05 11.15am
CANBERRA - Australia will immediately impose a ban the import of birds from Canada until there is an adequate explanation about how pigeons that tested positive for avian flu antibodies reached Australia.
Federal agriculture minister Peter McGauran will ask officials at the Canadian embassy about the consignment of pigeons which arrived in Australian with full veterinary documentation from Canadian authorities that said they were disease-free.
Three of the 102 birds tested positive to avian influenza antibodies and for Newcastle Disease antibodies.
The infected birds will be destroyed and the rest may be returned to Canada.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351378


Bird flu outbreaks spread
21.10.05
By Aine Gallagher
BRUSSELS - Russia, China and Romania confirmed new outbreaks of potentially lethal bird flu yesterday, fuelling fears of a global influenza pandemic as Europe scrambled to contain the virus on its southeastern flank.
The European Commission said Russia had identified the H5N1 bird flu strain about 200km south of Moscow in the Tula region, next to a lake with numerous wild ducks.
The H5N1 strain - which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and forced the slaughter of thousands of birds - has also been discovered in Romania and Turkey, along with a new outbreak in Mongolia.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351351


Pinochet faces tax fraud charges
21.10.05 8.20am
Chile's Supreme Court stripped former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution yesterday so he can face charges of tax fraud involving an estimated $US27 million ($39 million) in offshore accounts. The decision upholds a lower court ruling.
Pinochet, who is 89 and ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 after a military coup, has been stripped of his presidential immunity from prosecution in a handful of human rights cases but has not had to face the charges because his lawyers have successfully argued he was too ill for a criminal trial.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351301


Mozambique blows up landmines
21.10.05 5.20am
Mozambique blew up thousands of guns and landmines yesterday in the biggest single act of destruction of arms in an 11-year-old programme to rid the region of its civil war-era weapons.
The huge explosion destroyed some 3400 rifles, mines, rocket launchers and other weapons, sending shrapnel high into the air in a blast that could be felt by journalists 2km from the site near Bilene, north of the capital Maputo.
Mozambique launched operation Rachel with neighbouring South Africa to prevent weapons left after Mozambique's civil war ended in 1992 from reaching criminals.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10351298

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