The Rooster
Friday, November 11, 2005
Morning Papers - It's Origins
Rooster "Cock-A-Doodle-Do"
"Okeydoke"
History
Today is Friday, Nov. 11, the 315th day of 2005. There are 50 days left in the year. This is Veterans Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day in Canada.
1620, 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for a "body politick."
1896 Shirly Graham DuBois, the widow of W.E.B. DuBois and an accomplished writer/playwriter, was born in Indiana.
1918 World War I ends with 200,000 Black Americans coming home. They will represent 11% of the U.S. armed forces overseas.
1918, fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.
1921, President Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1942, during World War II, Germany completed its occupation of France.
1956 The Nat King Cole Show debuts on national T.V. and becomes the first show hosted by an African American
1965, Rhodesia proclaimed its independence from Britain.
1966, Gemini 12 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Fla., with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. aboard.
1984, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. -- father of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. -- died in Atlanta at age 84.
1993, a bronze statue honoring the more than 11,000 American women who'd served in the Vietnam War was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1997 International singer Ray Charles's single, "Hit the Road Jack" goes to #1 on the R&B Chart.
Ten years ago: With a partial government shutdown looming, President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders clashed over Medicare and bickered over who to include in compromise budget talks.
Five years ago: Republicans went to court, seeking an order to block manual recounts from continuing in Florida's razor-thin presidential election.
A cable car crammed with skiers and snowboarders caught fire while being pulled through an Alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155 people. Lennox Lewis won a unanimous 12-round decision over David Tua in Las Vegas to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles.
One year ago: Palestinians at home and abroad wept, waved flags and burned tires in an eruption of grief at the death of Yasser Arafat in Paris at age 75. President Bush expressed hope that Arafat's death would clear the way for successful Mideast peace negotiations with new Palestinian leaders.
The Boston Globe
FBI whistleblower runs for Congress
By Patrick Condon, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
MONTGOMERY, Minn. --For better or worse, Coleen Rowley the candidate for Congress sounds a lot like Coleen Rowley the FBI whistleblower.
The former FBI agent who scathingly exposed the bureau's failure to uncover the Sept. 11 plot is running for a House seat in Minnesota in 2006 as a Democrat, and she is employing her fearlessly blunt style on the campaign trail.
"This was a lied-into war that is a quagmire now," the 50-year-old Rowley recently told a group of rural Democrats in a garage in this small town south of the Twin Cities. "It could be worse than Vietnam. The truth is we can't win, and there's still an ongoing deception."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/fbi_whistleblower_runs_for_congress/
Iowa cities, towns barring child molesters
By Todd Dvorak November 11, 2005
IOWA CITY, Iowa --One after another, cities and towns across Iowa are rushing to shut the door to child molesters.
In the past month, nearly two dozen cities and counties, from Des Moines to the little town of Garrison, have approved or considered restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may live.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/iowa_cities_towns_barring_child_molesters/
Millionaire benefits Montana wildlife
By Susan Gallagher, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
HELENA, Mont. --LeRoy Beckman went to secondhand stores for hearing aids and heated only one room of his small Montana house. He got around in an old panel truck, favored bib overalls and found Social Security adequate in his old age.
"He looked dirt poor," said his friend Jim McDermand.
But the frugal old bachelor had an estate upward of $3 million when he died in 1997 at 88. And it turned out that the curmudgeon secretly had a benevolent side.
The Great Falls farmer directed in his will that his money be used to buy up land and donate it to the state for use by hunters.
Now, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is fully realizing Beckman's legacy. The state is about to formally receive the fourth and final piece of land bought with Beckman's money, now exhausted.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/millionaire_benefits_montana_wildlife/
Attempts made to improve Gaza border
An Israel Arab truck driver loads his cargo at the Karni crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, southern Israel , Wednesday No. 9, 2005. Israel and the Palestinians made progress Wednesday in talks on new arrangements for the Gaza-Israel border, a prerequisite for the economic recovery of the impoverished Palestinian territory, and participants said an agreement could be reached as early as the weekend. Wednesday's talks were the first after a nine-week break, and focused on the Karni cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza. New arrangements at Karni would be applied, with some variations, to other crossings into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
By Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
KARNI CROSSING, Israel --Dozens of trucks lined up on both sides of this Gaza-Israel crossing, inching forward to deliver their cargo: Gaza-made wooden chairs and Mediterranean jumbo shrimp for Israel, and Israeli milk and cement for the coastal strip.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/11/11/attempts_made_to_improve_gaza_border/
Two Kenyans shot dead in referendum violence
By Celestine Achieng November 11, 2005
MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead two opponents of a proposed new constitution on Friday as they sought to disperse a rioting crowd in the latest flare-up of a turbulent campaign ahead of a November 21 referendum.
Two other people were seriously injured.
"The public was surging toward the police with stones and all manner of weapons, and the police shot in defense," local police commander Joseph Mbiithi said, confirming the deaths.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2005/11/11/two_kenyans_shot_dead_in_referendum_violence/
FDA warns companies on unapproved drugs
November 10, 2005
WASHINGTON --The Food and Drug Administration is warning 16 companies that market "alternative hormone therapies" that they appear to be selling unapproved drugs.
The FDA sent warning letters to the companies because they are making unproven claims about their products, which are often advertised as "natural" or "safer" than approved hormone therapies, the agency said Thursday.
"FDA takes seriously its responsibility to protect consumers from products promoted with unproven claims," said Margaret O'K. Glavin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, in a statement. "It's particularly troublesome when these claims provide false hope to patients with serious or life-threatening conditions."
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/aging/articles/2005/11/10/fda_warns_companies_on_unapproved_drugs/
Oil deja vu
November 11, 2005
THE SIGHT of oil company executives being grilled by senators brought back memories of the 1970s, when the first big run-up of gasoline prices repeatedly provoked congressional outrage, culminating in the passage of a windfall profits tax in 1980. The senators and the country as a whole have yet to grasp the lessons of either the 1970s or today's price spike: Americans are no longer masters of the oil markets and need to wean themselves from dependence on gasoline and other petroleum products.
It's true, as the senators noted with scorn, that oil company executives are well compensated and that company profits, when expressed in dollar terms, are huge and markedly higher than they were a year ago. But as a percentage of income, oil profits aren't excessive; 10 percent is typical. Microsoft reported a 32 percent profit last month.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/11/11/oil_deja_vu/
BBC
'Mother ship' behind pirate raids
Pirate attacks off Somalia's coast are being organised from command vessels, or "mother ships", the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has said.
It says speedboats are being launched from ships that prowl the routes of the Indian Ocean, searching for targets.
Last week, a luxury cruise liner off Somalia's coast was attacked by pirates with rocket-propelled grenades.
The IMB says pirates are still holding seven ships and their crews, seized in the world's most dangerous waters.
In the past few days, at least four other vessels are reported to have been attacked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4428808.stm
'Mass grave' uncovered in Namibia
South African troops fought Swapo fighters in Namibia until 1990
At least one suspected mass grave has been found in northern Namibia near a former South African Defence Force (SADF) base.
The grave is thought to date from the South African occupation of Namibia, which ended in 1990.
At the time the SADF was engaged in conflict with Namibian Swapo liberation fighters in northern Namibia and in neighbouring Angola.
Officials say clothes found at the site resemble those worn by Swapo fighters.
The graves were found during construction work near the former Eenhana military base.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4427700.stm
Iraq gunmen target Oman embassy
Four people were wounded when gunmen attacked the Omani embassy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police say.
At least one embassy worker and two Iraqi guards were hit in the drive-by shooting in Mansour district shortly after 1800 (1500 GMT), they say.
The attack came hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Arab nations to re-open embassies in Iraq.
A driver for Sudan's embassy was killed in the same district on Thursday.
Police immediately sealed off the area of Friday's shooting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4429566.stm
Polio spread halted across Africa
In many places it has been hard to carry out vaccinations
Polio has been wiped out in 10 African countries, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.
The WHO said the news demonstrated that the world's poorest countries are committed to eradicating polio around the world within 18 months.
Over 200 children were paralysed during the polio outbreaks, which spread from Nigeria across Africa and into the Middle East, even reaching Indonesia.
No cases have been found in the 10 west and central African states since June.
"This is the light at the end of the tunnel," said Bruce Aylward, WHO co-ordinator for the eradication of polio.
"The world can be polio-free in another 18 months everywhere and the poorest countries in the world are committed to turning this around."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4426836.stm
San Francisco Chronicle
Bill O'Reilly finally shows his Homophobia !!
Talk host's towering rant: S.F. not worth saving
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
Conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly is ready to scratch San Francisco off the map of the United States. Gone. Coit Tower? Terrorists can blow it up, and the rest of the country shouldn't care.
The Fox News talk-show host and one-man conservative media juggernaut has concluded that the United States and San Francisco just don't go together anymore. Voting to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership, as San Franciscans did Tuesday, means the city should be cut off from federal dollars. And then some.
"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures. Perhaps, he didn't realize that he'd be speaking mostly to foreign tourists and suburbanites if he were standing in Union Square.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV41.DTL
Misdirected outrage
Friday, November 11, 2005
SENATE MAJORITY Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert expressed great indignation at a Washington Post report that the United States has set up a web of secret prisons around the globe to house and interrogate terrorism suspects.
The two Republican leaders immediately requested an investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Unfortunately, the Frist-Hastert letter demanding hearings did not focus on the existence of these U.S.-sanctioned "black sites" in eight nations and the serious national security and human rights implications of operating clandestine prisons. Their letter did not demand to know who authorized these secret prisons and what was going on in them.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/11/EDG5PFLP5Q1.DTL
Mom arrested for allegedly offering her 4-year-old daughter for sex
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 08:31 PST MARTINEZ -- A 22-year-old Martinez woman is in police custody after allegedly having Internet correspondence with someone who solicited sex from her and her 4-year-old daughter in exchange for $500, police said.
Shannon Nicole Woods, of the 200 block of Thistle Circle, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of offering a minor under 16 for lewd and lascivious acts. She is being held on $50,000 bail, said Martinez police detective Sgt. Gary Peterson.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGT7FMQK57.DTL
Ex-Chronicle publisher to head S.F. Chamber
Steven Falk will take over Dec. 1 as president, CEO
Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
Steven Falk, the former publisher and president of The Chronicle, has been named president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the organization said Thursday.
Falk will take over his new roles Dec. 1.
In a statement, he said the chamber "has a pivotal role to play in reshaping our urban environment, advocating for sound public policy and assisting businesses large and small to achieve success."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/11/BUGBRFMKAH1.DTL&type=business
Schwarzenegger drops legal fight over nurse staffing ratios
By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 11:18 PST SACRAMENTO, (AP) --
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped the fight against one of his most vocal critics, deciding to stop battling the California Nurses Association over hospital staffing ratios.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a motion late Thursday on behalf of the governor's office that withdrew the state's appeal of an earlier court ruling. In June, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that the administration erred when it issued an emergency order a year ago seeking to delay a first-in-the-nation law requiring hospitals to provide more nurses.
The governor's office filed an appeal shortly after with the state 3rd District Court of Appeal. Schwarzenegger's office on Friday referred calls about its decision to drop that appeal to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/11/state/n104310S27.DTL
Reports: Top-Level Aide to Saddam Is Dead
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 11:13 PST BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
There are reports that a top-level aide to Saddam Hussein has died. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri has been at large since Saddam was ousted. The BBC and CNN are among those quoting the Baath Party as saying al-Douri is dead.
After Saddam was captured, al-Douri became the most-wanted Iraqi still at large, and a $10 million bounty was placed on his head. He's also believed to have had a role in the insurgency in Iraq.
Several months ago, Iraq's government reported that al-Douri was sick, and that he was losing influence among leaders of the outlawed party.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/11/international/i104605S31.DTL
Merkel to Be Germany's First Female Leader
By GEIR MOULSON
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 09:46 PST BERLIN, Germany (AP) --
Germany's biggest political parties reached a deal Friday to form a coalition government, sealing an accord that would make Angela Merkel the nation's first woman chancellor. Merkel's primary task will be reviving Germany's economy while taming its huge budget deficit.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/11/international/i090707S96.DTL
U2's Bono makes fiery case for rocking the world with ambitious mission to eradicate global misery
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Friday, November 11, 2005
If there's one thing Irish rocker and citizen of the world Bono knows, it's how to open a show. He proved that earlier this week when he sat down to talk about his efforts to fight disease and poverty in Third World countries: He launched into the topic with The Chronicle's editorial board by praising the Bush administration.
Wearing pink-tinted, wraparound glasses beneath a beat-up, perfectly molded straw cowboy hat, the U2 front man said that although the United States has much work to do and more money to give to fight poverty and AIDS, the Bush administration had gone from a "standing start" to tripling its aid to Africa over the past four years. He singled out the president's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has put a quarter-million Africans on antiviral medication in the past year.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/DDGJBFLS9K1.DTL
Warning Issued for Birth-Control Patch
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005(11-11) 06:10 PST (AP) --
The Food and Drug Administration warned users of the popular Ortho Evra birth control patch that they are being exposed to more hormones, and are therefore at higher risk of blood clots and other serious side effects, than previously disclosed.
Until now, regulators and patch-maker Ortho McNeil, a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary, had maintained the patch was expected to be associated with similar risks as the pill. But a strongly worded warning was added to the patch label Thursday that says women using the patch will be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than those using typical birth control pills.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/10/national/a170630S11.DTL
Paperwork is 21% of health costs
$26 billion goes to administration each year in state
About 21 percent of private health spending in California goes to insurance paperwork, according to a report released Thursday.
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs, investigated the cost to insurance companies, doctors and hospitals of billing and other administrative tasks, such as referrals and appeals.
That translates into about $26 billion a year in California, according to the study's main author, Dr. James G. Kahn, professor at the Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/BUGM8FM8I11.DTL
RIA Novosti
Embassy in Kabul has no data on Russians in Afghan air crash
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Embassy in Kabul said it did not have conclusive information on the presence of Russians on board a cargo plane that crashed about 30 kilometers north of the Afghan capital Friday killing all crewmembers.
"The company that leased the plane said the crew comprised five Russians, but this information has not been confirmed," the embassy said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry was also unable to confirm this information. "The plane's crew included eight people but their nationalities are unknown," a ministry official said.
The Associated Press quoted eyewitnesses as saying Russian magazines and ruble notes had been found among the debris.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42065976.html
NASA to buy 4 spacecraft in Russia
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - NASA is planning to order two Soyuz manned spacecraft and two Progress cargo ships from the Russian Federal Space Agency on a commercial basis for missions to the International Space Station, the head of a Russian aerospace corporation said Friday.
"NASA is willing to buy two Soyuz and two Progress spacecraft," Energia head Nikolai Sevastyanov said at a round table on the space industry's role in the Russian national security system, held in the parliament's upper house.
Sevastyanov said the U.S. Congress had lifted restrictions on purchasing Russian spacecraft with an amendment that past both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The document's signing is pending.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051111/42059241.html
Paul McCartney to wake up ISS crew
WASHINGTON, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney will perform live for the crew of the International Space Station November 13, NASA's press service said Thursday.
U.S. astronaut William McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will wake up this Sunday to McCartney serenading them live from Anaheim, California. He is scheduled to sing two songs, God Day Sunshine from The Beatles' Revolver album and English Tea from his last album, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.
It is the first time that a live concert will be transmitted to a spacecraft.
Good Day Sunshine was used to wake up astronauts aboard the Discovery shuttle in August, and McCartney said he was so proud about their choice that he wanted to express his gratitude by giving a concert for the ISS crew.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051110/42053194.html
Russian space official reveals projected Moon spending
(Adds details after paragraph 1)
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, Russia's space industry leader, said Friday that the United States was intending to spend $11 billion and Russia $2 billion on new lunar programs.
Nikolai Sevastyanov told a roundtable session at the Federation Council, parliament's upper house, that Russia could make three flights to the Moon for $2 billion, using serially produced rockets.
"It is possible to use serially produced rockets to launch space modules into orbit, using the International Space Station (ISS) as an assembly facility for spacecraft, which will make flights to the Moon," he said.
Sevastyanov said the ISS would also be used for testing industry-applied space systems, adding that the Smotr remote sensing system, designed for monitoring industrial infrastructure, including technical conditions of pipelines, is currently being tested along with antennas for commercial satellites.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42060727.html
Russia, NATO to discuss compatibility of anti-terror military units
BRUSSELS, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and NATO are set to discuss the compatibility of military units in counter-terrorism efforts in 2006, the Russian senior military representative to NATO said Thursday.
"We will open this cooperation sphere for the first time next year," Vice Admiral Valentin Kuznetsov said.
He said Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky and NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General James Jones would discuss these prospects at a bilateral meeting in Mons, Belgium November 14.
Russia will join NATO's Active Endeavor counter-terrorism operation in the Mediterranean in early 2006, Kuznetsov said. He noted that Russia and NATO would also hold a joint air defense exercise in Moscow next year.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051110/42052816.html
Commission proposes tightening adoption rules
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's interdepartmental commission for child adoption has proposed the abolishment of the independent adoption system through which children are adopted via unaccredited organizations, Russian human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said Friday following a commission meeting.
The commission considers this system counterproductive and thinks it "opens up strong possibilities of various kinds of manipulation", he said.
Three foreign agencies have already had their accreditation removed "because they did not meet the raised criteria that have now been developed", he said.
There are currently 84 branches of foreign adoption organizations in Russia that were at some point accredited. Of these, 56 have had their accreditation extended, while 28 are under review.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42061783.html
Japan asks Russia to release arrested fishing boat
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Japan's Ambassador to Russia Issei Nomura has approached Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a request that the Japanese fishing boat arrested November 2 be released, the Japanese embassy in Moscow said Friday.
The boat was arrested near the coast of Kunashir, the southernmost of Russia's Kuril Islands north of Japan, four of which have been the center of a Russian-Japanese dispute since the end of World War II. Five crewmembers were sent to a detention center in Yuzhno-Kurlisk.
Lavrov promised the ambassador he would try to solve this problem.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russian border guards found illegal catch on the vessel.
The Russian-Japanese 1998 intergovernmental agreement stipulates that Japanese fishermen may catch certain fish species and laminaria in the Russian territorial waters in certain seasons.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42065913.html
Economy Ministry steps toward Gazprom liberalization
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Economic Development and Trade Ministry sent the Justice Ministry additional information on Russian gas monopoly Gazprom's share market liberalization, the ministry said Friday.
The ministry said if a decision were received before December, work would proceed as planned.
Earlier, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told foreign investors that non-residents of Russia would be able to buy shares freely in the world's largest natural gas company.
Under restrictions introduced in the 1990s to prevent a foreign takeover of Gazprom, non-residents are allowed to buy up to 20% of the company's shares. The removal of restrictions on ownership of Gazprom stock will open up full foreign access to shares. The so-called "ring-fence" on Gazprom shares will be removed on the condition that the state increases its stake in the mega-company to 50% plus one share.
http://en.rian.ru/business/20051111/42065544.html
Russia interested in a new Japan
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political analyst Dmitry Kosyrev).
Only a month ago, it seemed that Russia was the only regional country to maintain good relations with Japan, as compared with recently revived animosity toward that country on the part of Beijing and Seoul. This was highlighted by Vladimir Putin's forthcoming visit to Tokyo right after his projected participation in APEC's Pusan summit.
Current diplomatic efforts are toning down to some extent the acute conflict between China, Korea and Japan. For instance, the three national leaders will communicate with each other in Pusan. Moreover, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, South Korean and U.S. representatives are jointly negotiating with North Korea in Beijing.
However, Russia is concerned over problems still persisting in Japan's relations with its neighbors.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20051111/42063280.html
Can French events be reenacted in Russia?
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yuri Filippov.)
Can Russia learn a lesson from the current unrest in France? Is there a lesson to be learned for anyone at all?
Several respected Russian politicians and a great number of journalists started looking for similarities between the night acts of vandalisms perpetrated by teenagers in French suburbs and the situation in the big Russian cities, where the share of Muslim immigrants has reached 10% or more.
I would say that the situation in Russia, which faced an uncontrolled influx of immigrants in the mid-1990s and has not yet come to terms with its consequences, differs radically from the events in France and other countries of the European Union.
The French are reaping the fruit of an ineffective immigration policy, which their authorities have pursued for decades, while the Russian leadership is only "sowing the wind" and are yet to learn from their own and others' mistakes.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20051111/42060507.html
LUKoil to propose solution to gasoline price crisis
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian oil major LUKoil plans to put forward an initiative to counter the problem of rapidly rising gasoline prices in Russia, Vice President Leonid Fedun said Friday.
However, he did not specify what measures the company would propose or indicate a timeframe.
According to Federal State Statistics Service data, gasoline prices rose 15.1% during the first nine months of 2005 and 7.9% in September.
On September 19, TNK-BP, LUKoil, Sibneft, Surgutneftegas, and Tatneft agreed to freeze the retail gasoline price until the end of 2005.
When asked whether the price would remain frozen at the beginning of next year, Fedun said the decision would depend on the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).
The Nizhny Novgorod regional department of the FAS has launched proceedings against the company for its price controlling policy, he said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42060438.html
President of Russian Jewish Congress resigns
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti, Olga Lipich) - The Russian Jewish Congress (RJC), the largest secular Jewish organization in the country, has changed its leadership, an RJC official said Friday.
Natalia Rykova, the RJC public relations director, said the president of the Russian Jewish Congress Vladimir Slutsker, 49, had announced his resignation after just under a year in the post at a meeting of the RJC Presidium "due to opposing views he and other presidium members have on further development of the organization." Some members had already tried to secure his removal on October 6.
"Vladimir Slutsker considers his resignation final and does not want to take the post of chairman of the RJC director's board offered to him by the presidium," Rykova said.
Vyacheslav Kantor, chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Jewish
Congress and founding president of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, has been elected as acting head of the Russian congress, which was founded by a group of tycoons in 1996 to promote a Jewish revival in the country.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42062424.html
Washington Post
Alito Defends His Actions In Two Appeals Court Cases
In Letter to Senators, Nominee Denies Conflict of Interest
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A02
Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. said yesterday that he did nothing improper when he ruled in cases involving two financial firms in which he held accounts, although he had told the Senate 15 years ago that he would step aside in matters involving the companies.
Alito, trying to quell conflict-of-interest issues raised by liberal opponents, said he had been "unduly restrictive" in promising in 1990 to recuse himself in cases involving Vanguard Group Inc. and Smith Barney Inc. After the Senate confirmed him as an appellate judge and when he subsequently ruled on routine cases involving the two companies, he said, he acted properly because his connections to the firms did not constitute a conflict of interest under the applicable rules and laws.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111002188.html
New Md. Test of English Shows Wide Disparities
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page B06
Less than 45 percent of Prince George's County students who took Maryland's new high school English test passed the exam last spring, while Howard County's 77 percent passing rate was the highest in the state, according to data made public yesterday.
Seven of 10 passed the test in Montgomery County, and all other school systems in Washington's Maryland suburbs exceeded the statewide passing rate of 57 percent.Most students who took the test were sophomores, and they faced no individual consequences for failure. But that will change in the spring of 2007. The 10th-grade students who take the test then must pass it or risk failing to earn a diploma when their class graduates in 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001876.html
U.S. Official Tours Damage in Darfur
Sudanese Aide Tries to Block Briefing
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A14
SHEK EN NIL, Sudan, Nov. 10 -- With the debris of a burned village crunching underfoot and African Union soldiers on guard, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick toured a hauntingly empty stretch of Sudan's war-torn Darfur region Thursday, seeing firsthand the violent devastation that continues here nearly three years after conflict broke out.
But the visit degenerated into an angry confrontation when a Sudanese official tried to prevent Zoellick from speaking with African Union monitors, shouting in his face repeatedly. Zoellick held his ground, while startled monitors moved closer, momentarily concerned that a fight might break out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001894.html
Angry Assad Says Syria Will Cooperate in Probe
By Rhonda Roumani and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A21
DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 10 -- President Bashar Assad promised Thursday to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, but in a defiant speech to cabinet ministers, Baath Party members and students, he warned that a confrontation might be inevitable.
"President Bashar Assad won't bow to anyone in this world nor would he let his people or country to bow to anyone," he said to applause. "We only bow to God."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said Syria was failing to cooperate with the probe, in violation of a U.N. resolution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001314.html
Daily Star
Assad lashes out at West, insists on Syria's innocence
President blasts lebanese premier
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
Taking a defiant line that could bring Syria into further confrontation with the United Nations, President Bashar Assad said Thursday his government would cooperate with a UN investigation that implicated Syrian officials in the killing of a Lebanese leader, but warned the policy would end if Syria were to be harmed. Assad also disclosed the chief UN investigator into the killing of Rafik Hariri had rejected Syria's terms for interviewing six Syrian officials.
He gave no hint of how the matter would be resolved, but the UN Security Council has warned Syria it must cooperate fully with the investigator, who has the right to determine the place and conditions of such interviews.
"We will play their game" and cooperate with the United Nations, Assad said in a hard-line speech at Damascus University. But the country will "stop when Syria is going to be harmed."
Hours later, the U.S. State Department ruled out setting conditions for the probe.
"It's up to the commission to decide what it wants and it's up to Syria to respond positively to the commission. It's not up to Syria to negotiate terms," the department's deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said.
At the United Nations in New York, American Ambassador John Bolton said: "What we want are not speeches or words. We want cooperation, full and complete, and immediate, with commissioner Mehlis."
From Paris, President Jacques Chirac warned of sanctions against Syria if Assad "persists in not wanting to listen or understand."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=19955
Hizbullah, Amal ministers stage Cabinet walk-out
'There was an insistence on discussing Assad's speech so we decided to withdraw'
By Nafez Qawas and Therese Sfeir
Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
BEIRUT: Hizbullah and Amal ministers walked out of a Cabinet session Thursday, protesting the government's reactions to a speech made by Syrian President Bashar Assad. In an unprecedented attack on the Lebanese government, Assad said Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had allowed Lebanon to become a base for Syria's enemies, describing him as a "slave following the orders of another slave."
"The truth we see today is that Lebanon has become a passageway, a factory and a financier of these conspiracies," Assad said in a televised speech on Thursday.
Siniora responded mildly, vowing Lebanon would remain committed "to the will of life, independence, freedom, democracy and sovereignty."
"Lebanon will remain committed to being part of the Arab nation and its causes ... despite all that is being said or will be said," he added.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19953
Argentine prosecutor accuses Hizbullah of 1994 suicide attack
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
BEIRUT: An Argentinian prosecutor has accused a Lebanese member of Hizbullah of bombing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association in 1994 in a suicide attack that killed 85 and wounded 300.
Hizbullah denied the accusation, describing it as "completely false."
Prosecutor Alberto Nissman said he was able to identify the man as Ibrahim Hussein Berro through "work by Argentina's secretariat of intelligence, along with the FBI and through the corroboration of statements from at least three witnesses." He said Hussein, who was 21 at the time, had been a member of Hizbullah.
Attacks against the Israeli Embassy in 1992, in which 22 died and 200 were wounded, and against the center in 1994 remain unsolved with no arrests. This has prompted outcries from Jewish leaders.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19952
It's time for Syria to take the advice it proffered to Iraq
By Ibrahim Hamidi
Commentary by
Friday, November 11, 2005
For many reasons - and Damascus must be held accountable for quite a few of them - the present international consensus against Syria is greater than that which Iraq faced just before the launch of the Anglo-American invasion in March 2003.
...It is also necessary for the regime to open a frank dialogue with the Syrian people, to discuss all the mistakes that took place in Lebanon and share with Syrians the concerns threatening the nation. The regime must make a deal with its citizens, one that involves reform, by taking their demands into consideration and using them to help fight the unachievable demands coming from abroad. The release of 190 political prisoners by presidential decree on November 2 was a positive step, but more needs to be done.
Prior to the war in Iraq, Iraqi officials used to say that the U.S. would target Iraq regardless of whether it cooperated with the UN or not. At the time, Syrian officials replied that it was better not to give the Americans reasons to carry out their plans; that it was best to fully cooperate and pay attention to the Iraqi people. Other Syrian officials even insisted that some Iraqi officials should not stand in the way of security for Iraq and its citizens. Now is the time for Syrian officials to act on the advice they once gave to their Iraqi counterparts.
Ibrahim Hamidi is a Damascus-based journalist and a specialist on Syrian affairs. He wrote this article for THE DAILY STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=19934
Assad is quick to condemn the West but fails to see his own inadequacies
Friday, November 11, 2005
Editorial
Syrian President Bashar Assad's fighting words in his speech on Thursday were the reflex response of an injured regime. Assad predictably denounced a Western "onslaught" of his country - a campaign which has been conducted through the media and the UN Security Council. In more ways than one, the Syrian president was correct in his assessment that the greater Arab world is under attack. The U.S. military is killing civilians just meters away from the Syrian border in occupied Iraq. And the world has stood by and done nothing as Palestinians, who have been stateless for over 50 years, have taken a beating under a brutal Israeli occupation.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&article_id=19935&categ_id=17
continued …
"Okeydoke"
History
Today is Friday, Nov. 11, the 315th day of 2005. There are 50 days left in the year. This is Veterans Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day in Canada.
1620, 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for a "body politick."
1896 Shirly Graham DuBois, the widow of W.E.B. DuBois and an accomplished writer/playwriter, was born in Indiana.
1918 World War I ends with 200,000 Black Americans coming home. They will represent 11% of the U.S. armed forces overseas.
1918, fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.
1921, President Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1942, during World War II, Germany completed its occupation of France.
1956 The Nat King Cole Show debuts on national T.V. and becomes the first show hosted by an African American
1965, Rhodesia proclaimed its independence from Britain.
1966, Gemini 12 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Fla., with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. aboard.
1984, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. -- father of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. -- died in Atlanta at age 84.
1993, a bronze statue honoring the more than 11,000 American women who'd served in the Vietnam War was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1997 International singer Ray Charles's single, "Hit the Road Jack" goes to #1 on the R&B Chart.
Ten years ago: With a partial government shutdown looming, President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders clashed over Medicare and bickered over who to include in compromise budget talks.
Five years ago: Republicans went to court, seeking an order to block manual recounts from continuing in Florida's razor-thin presidential election.
A cable car crammed with skiers and snowboarders caught fire while being pulled through an Alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155 people. Lennox Lewis won a unanimous 12-round decision over David Tua in Las Vegas to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles.
One year ago: Palestinians at home and abroad wept, waved flags and burned tires in an eruption of grief at the death of Yasser Arafat in Paris at age 75. President Bush expressed hope that Arafat's death would clear the way for successful Mideast peace negotiations with new Palestinian leaders.
The Boston Globe
FBI whistleblower runs for Congress
By Patrick Condon, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
MONTGOMERY, Minn. --For better or worse, Coleen Rowley the candidate for Congress sounds a lot like Coleen Rowley the FBI whistleblower.
The former FBI agent who scathingly exposed the bureau's failure to uncover the Sept. 11 plot is running for a House seat in Minnesota in 2006 as a Democrat, and she is employing her fearlessly blunt style on the campaign trail.
"This was a lied-into war that is a quagmire now," the 50-year-old Rowley recently told a group of rural Democrats in a garage in this small town south of the Twin Cities. "It could be worse than Vietnam. The truth is we can't win, and there's still an ongoing deception."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/fbi_whistleblower_runs_for_congress/
Iowa cities, towns barring child molesters
By Todd Dvorak November 11, 2005
IOWA CITY, Iowa --One after another, cities and towns across Iowa are rushing to shut the door to child molesters.
In the past month, nearly two dozen cities and counties, from Des Moines to the little town of Garrison, have approved or considered restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may live.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/iowa_cities_towns_barring_child_molesters/
Millionaire benefits Montana wildlife
By Susan Gallagher, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
HELENA, Mont. --LeRoy Beckman went to secondhand stores for hearing aids and heated only one room of his small Montana house. He got around in an old panel truck, favored bib overalls and found Social Security adequate in his old age.
"He looked dirt poor," said his friend Jim McDermand.
But the frugal old bachelor had an estate upward of $3 million when he died in 1997 at 88. And it turned out that the curmudgeon secretly had a benevolent side.
The Great Falls farmer directed in his will that his money be used to buy up land and donate it to the state for use by hunters.
Now, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is fully realizing Beckman's legacy. The state is about to formally receive the fourth and final piece of land bought with Beckman's money, now exhausted.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/11/millionaire_benefits_montana_wildlife/
Attempts made to improve Gaza border
An Israel Arab truck driver loads his cargo at the Karni crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, southern Israel , Wednesday No. 9, 2005. Israel and the Palestinians made progress Wednesday in talks on new arrangements for the Gaza-Israel border, a prerequisite for the economic recovery of the impoverished Palestinian territory, and participants said an agreement could be reached as early as the weekend. Wednesday's talks were the first after a nine-week break, and focused on the Karni cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza. New arrangements at Karni would be applied, with some variations, to other crossings into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
By Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005
KARNI CROSSING, Israel --Dozens of trucks lined up on both sides of this Gaza-Israel crossing, inching forward to deliver their cargo: Gaza-made wooden chairs and Mediterranean jumbo shrimp for Israel, and Israeli milk and cement for the coastal strip.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/11/11/attempts_made_to_improve_gaza_border/
Two Kenyans shot dead in referendum violence
By Celestine Achieng November 11, 2005
MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead two opponents of a proposed new constitution on Friday as they sought to disperse a rioting crowd in the latest flare-up of a turbulent campaign ahead of a November 21 referendum.
Two other people were seriously injured.
"The public was surging toward the police with stones and all manner of weapons, and the police shot in defense," local police commander Joseph Mbiithi said, confirming the deaths.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2005/11/11/two_kenyans_shot_dead_in_referendum_violence/
FDA warns companies on unapproved drugs
November 10, 2005
WASHINGTON --The Food and Drug Administration is warning 16 companies that market "alternative hormone therapies" that they appear to be selling unapproved drugs.
The FDA sent warning letters to the companies because they are making unproven claims about their products, which are often advertised as "natural" or "safer" than approved hormone therapies, the agency said Thursday.
"FDA takes seriously its responsibility to protect consumers from products promoted with unproven claims," said Margaret O'K. Glavin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, in a statement. "It's particularly troublesome when these claims provide false hope to patients with serious or life-threatening conditions."
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/aging/articles/2005/11/10/fda_warns_companies_on_unapproved_drugs/
Oil deja vu
November 11, 2005
THE SIGHT of oil company executives being grilled by senators brought back memories of the 1970s, when the first big run-up of gasoline prices repeatedly provoked congressional outrage, culminating in the passage of a windfall profits tax in 1980. The senators and the country as a whole have yet to grasp the lessons of either the 1970s or today's price spike: Americans are no longer masters of the oil markets and need to wean themselves from dependence on gasoline and other petroleum products.
It's true, as the senators noted with scorn, that oil company executives are well compensated and that company profits, when expressed in dollar terms, are huge and markedly higher than they were a year ago. But as a percentage of income, oil profits aren't excessive; 10 percent is typical. Microsoft reported a 32 percent profit last month.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/11/11/oil_deja_vu/
BBC
'Mother ship' behind pirate raids
Pirate attacks off Somalia's coast are being organised from command vessels, or "mother ships", the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has said.
It says speedboats are being launched from ships that prowl the routes of the Indian Ocean, searching for targets.
Last week, a luxury cruise liner off Somalia's coast was attacked by pirates with rocket-propelled grenades.
The IMB says pirates are still holding seven ships and their crews, seized in the world's most dangerous waters.
In the past few days, at least four other vessels are reported to have been attacked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4428808.stm
'Mass grave' uncovered in Namibia
South African troops fought Swapo fighters in Namibia until 1990
At least one suspected mass grave has been found in northern Namibia near a former South African Defence Force (SADF) base.
The grave is thought to date from the South African occupation of Namibia, which ended in 1990.
At the time the SADF was engaged in conflict with Namibian Swapo liberation fighters in northern Namibia and in neighbouring Angola.
Officials say clothes found at the site resemble those worn by Swapo fighters.
The graves were found during construction work near the former Eenhana military base.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4427700.stm
Iraq gunmen target Oman embassy
Four people were wounded when gunmen attacked the Omani embassy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police say.
At least one embassy worker and two Iraqi guards were hit in the drive-by shooting in Mansour district shortly after 1800 (1500 GMT), they say.
The attack came hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Arab nations to re-open embassies in Iraq.
A driver for Sudan's embassy was killed in the same district on Thursday.
Police immediately sealed off the area of Friday's shooting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4429566.stm
Polio spread halted across Africa
In many places it has been hard to carry out vaccinations
Polio has been wiped out in 10 African countries, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.
The WHO said the news demonstrated that the world's poorest countries are committed to eradicating polio around the world within 18 months.
Over 200 children were paralysed during the polio outbreaks, which spread from Nigeria across Africa and into the Middle East, even reaching Indonesia.
No cases have been found in the 10 west and central African states since June.
"This is the light at the end of the tunnel," said Bruce Aylward, WHO co-ordinator for the eradication of polio.
"The world can be polio-free in another 18 months everywhere and the poorest countries in the world are committed to turning this around."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4426836.stm
San Francisco Chronicle
Bill O'Reilly finally shows his Homophobia !!
Talk host's towering rant: S.F. not worth saving
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
Conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly is ready to scratch San Francisco off the map of the United States. Gone. Coit Tower? Terrorists can blow it up, and the rest of the country shouldn't care.
The Fox News talk-show host and one-man conservative media juggernaut has concluded that the United States and San Francisco just don't go together anymore. Voting to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership, as San Franciscans did Tuesday, means the city should be cut off from federal dollars. And then some.
"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures. Perhaps, he didn't realize that he'd be speaking mostly to foreign tourists and suburbanites if he were standing in Union Square.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV41.DTL
Misdirected outrage
Friday, November 11, 2005
SENATE MAJORITY Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert expressed great indignation at a Washington Post report that the United States has set up a web of secret prisons around the globe to house and interrogate terrorism suspects.
The two Republican leaders immediately requested an investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Unfortunately, the Frist-Hastert letter demanding hearings did not focus on the existence of these U.S.-sanctioned "black sites" in eight nations and the serious national security and human rights implications of operating clandestine prisons. Their letter did not demand to know who authorized these secret prisons and what was going on in them.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/11/EDG5PFLP5Q1.DTL
Mom arrested for allegedly offering her 4-year-old daughter for sex
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 08:31 PST MARTINEZ -- A 22-year-old Martinez woman is in police custody after allegedly having Internet correspondence with someone who solicited sex from her and her 4-year-old daughter in exchange for $500, police said.
Shannon Nicole Woods, of the 200 block of Thistle Circle, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of offering a minor under 16 for lewd and lascivious acts. She is being held on $50,000 bail, said Martinez police detective Sgt. Gary Peterson.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGT7FMQK57.DTL
Ex-Chronicle publisher to head S.F. Chamber
Steven Falk will take over Dec. 1 as president, CEO
Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
Steven Falk, the former publisher and president of The Chronicle, has been named president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the organization said Thursday.
Falk will take over his new roles Dec. 1.
In a statement, he said the chamber "has a pivotal role to play in reshaping our urban environment, advocating for sound public policy and assisting businesses large and small to achieve success."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/11/BUGBRFMKAH1.DTL&type=business
Schwarzenegger drops legal fight over nurse staffing ratios
By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 11:18 PST SACRAMENTO, (AP) --
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped the fight against one of his most vocal critics, deciding to stop battling the California Nurses Association over hospital staffing ratios.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a motion late Thursday on behalf of the governor's office that withdrew the state's appeal of an earlier court ruling. In June, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that the administration erred when it issued an emergency order a year ago seeking to delay a first-in-the-nation law requiring hospitals to provide more nurses.
The governor's office filed an appeal shortly after with the state 3rd District Court of Appeal. Schwarzenegger's office on Friday referred calls about its decision to drop that appeal to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/11/state/n104310S27.DTL
Reports: Top-Level Aide to Saddam Is Dead
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 11:13 PST BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
There are reports that a top-level aide to Saddam Hussein has died. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri has been at large since Saddam was ousted. The BBC and CNN are among those quoting the Baath Party as saying al-Douri is dead.
After Saddam was captured, al-Douri became the most-wanted Iraqi still at large, and a $10 million bounty was placed on his head. He's also believed to have had a role in the insurgency in Iraq.
Several months ago, Iraq's government reported that al-Douri was sick, and that he was losing influence among leaders of the outlawed party.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/11/international/i104605S31.DTL
Merkel to Be Germany's First Female Leader
By GEIR MOULSON
Friday, November 11, 2005
(11-11) 09:46 PST BERLIN, Germany (AP) --
Germany's biggest political parties reached a deal Friday to form a coalition government, sealing an accord that would make Angela Merkel the nation's first woman chancellor. Merkel's primary task will be reviving Germany's economy while taming its huge budget deficit.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/11/international/i090707S96.DTL
U2's Bono makes fiery case for rocking the world with ambitious mission to eradicate global misery
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Friday, November 11, 2005
If there's one thing Irish rocker and citizen of the world Bono knows, it's how to open a show. He proved that earlier this week when he sat down to talk about his efforts to fight disease and poverty in Third World countries: He launched into the topic with The Chronicle's editorial board by praising the Bush administration.
Wearing pink-tinted, wraparound glasses beneath a beat-up, perfectly molded straw cowboy hat, the U2 front man said that although the United States has much work to do and more money to give to fight poverty and AIDS, the Bush administration had gone from a "standing start" to tripling its aid to Africa over the past four years. He singled out the president's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has put a quarter-million Africans on antiviral medication in the past year.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/DDGJBFLS9K1.DTL
Warning Issued for Birth-Control Patch
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005(11-11) 06:10 PST (AP) --
The Food and Drug Administration warned users of the popular Ortho Evra birth control patch that they are being exposed to more hormones, and are therefore at higher risk of blood clots and other serious side effects, than previously disclosed.
Until now, regulators and patch-maker Ortho McNeil, a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary, had maintained the patch was expected to be associated with similar risks as the pill. But a strongly worded warning was added to the patch label Thursday that says women using the patch will be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than those using typical birth control pills.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/10/national/a170630S11.DTL
Paperwork is 21% of health costs
$26 billion goes to administration each year in state
About 21 percent of private health spending in California goes to insurance paperwork, according to a report released Thursday.
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs, investigated the cost to insurance companies, doctors and hospitals of billing and other administrative tasks, such as referrals and appeals.
That translates into about $26 billion a year in California, according to the study's main author, Dr. James G. Kahn, professor at the Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/11/BUGM8FM8I11.DTL
RIA Novosti
Embassy in Kabul has no data on Russians in Afghan air crash
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Embassy in Kabul said it did not have conclusive information on the presence of Russians on board a cargo plane that crashed about 30 kilometers north of the Afghan capital Friday killing all crewmembers.
"The company that leased the plane said the crew comprised five Russians, but this information has not been confirmed," the embassy said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry was also unable to confirm this information. "The plane's crew included eight people but their nationalities are unknown," a ministry official said.
The Associated Press quoted eyewitnesses as saying Russian magazines and ruble notes had been found among the debris.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42065976.html
NASA to buy 4 spacecraft in Russia
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - NASA is planning to order two Soyuz manned spacecraft and two Progress cargo ships from the Russian Federal Space Agency on a commercial basis for missions to the International Space Station, the head of a Russian aerospace corporation said Friday.
"NASA is willing to buy two Soyuz and two Progress spacecraft," Energia head Nikolai Sevastyanov said at a round table on the space industry's role in the Russian national security system, held in the parliament's upper house.
Sevastyanov said the U.S. Congress had lifted restrictions on purchasing Russian spacecraft with an amendment that past both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The document's signing is pending.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051111/42059241.html
Paul McCartney to wake up ISS crew
WASHINGTON, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney will perform live for the crew of the International Space Station November 13, NASA's press service said Thursday.
U.S. astronaut William McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will wake up this Sunday to McCartney serenading them live from Anaheim, California. He is scheduled to sing two songs, God Day Sunshine from The Beatles' Revolver album and English Tea from his last album, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.
It is the first time that a live concert will be transmitted to a spacecraft.
Good Day Sunshine was used to wake up astronauts aboard the Discovery shuttle in August, and McCartney said he was so proud about their choice that he wanted to express his gratitude by giving a concert for the ISS crew.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051110/42053194.html
Russian space official reveals projected Moon spending
(Adds details after paragraph 1)
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, Russia's space industry leader, said Friday that the United States was intending to spend $11 billion and Russia $2 billion on new lunar programs.
Nikolai Sevastyanov told a roundtable session at the Federation Council, parliament's upper house, that Russia could make three flights to the Moon for $2 billion, using serially produced rockets.
"It is possible to use serially produced rockets to launch space modules into orbit, using the International Space Station (ISS) as an assembly facility for spacecraft, which will make flights to the Moon," he said.
Sevastyanov said the ISS would also be used for testing industry-applied space systems, adding that the Smotr remote sensing system, designed for monitoring industrial infrastructure, including technical conditions of pipelines, is currently being tested along with antennas for commercial satellites.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42060727.html
Russia, NATO to discuss compatibility of anti-terror military units
BRUSSELS, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and NATO are set to discuss the compatibility of military units in counter-terrorism efforts in 2006, the Russian senior military representative to NATO said Thursday.
"We will open this cooperation sphere for the first time next year," Vice Admiral Valentin Kuznetsov said.
He said Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky and NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General James Jones would discuss these prospects at a bilateral meeting in Mons, Belgium November 14.
Russia will join NATO's Active Endeavor counter-terrorism operation in the Mediterranean in early 2006, Kuznetsov said. He noted that Russia and NATO would also hold a joint air defense exercise in Moscow next year.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20051110/42052816.html
Commission proposes tightening adoption rules
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's interdepartmental commission for child adoption has proposed the abolishment of the independent adoption system through which children are adopted via unaccredited organizations, Russian human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said Friday following a commission meeting.
The commission considers this system counterproductive and thinks it "opens up strong possibilities of various kinds of manipulation", he said.
Three foreign agencies have already had their accreditation removed "because they did not meet the raised criteria that have now been developed", he said.
There are currently 84 branches of foreign adoption organizations in Russia that were at some point accredited. Of these, 56 have had their accreditation extended, while 28 are under review.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42061783.html
Japan asks Russia to release arrested fishing boat
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Japan's Ambassador to Russia Issei Nomura has approached Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a request that the Japanese fishing boat arrested November 2 be released, the Japanese embassy in Moscow said Friday.
The boat was arrested near the coast of Kunashir, the southernmost of Russia's Kuril Islands north of Japan, four of which have been the center of a Russian-Japanese dispute since the end of World War II. Five crewmembers were sent to a detention center in Yuzhno-Kurlisk.
Lavrov promised the ambassador he would try to solve this problem.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russian border guards found illegal catch on the vessel.
The Russian-Japanese 1998 intergovernmental agreement stipulates that Japanese fishermen may catch certain fish species and laminaria in the Russian territorial waters in certain seasons.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42065913.html
Economy Ministry steps toward Gazprom liberalization
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Economic Development and Trade Ministry sent the Justice Ministry additional information on Russian gas monopoly Gazprom's share market liberalization, the ministry said Friday.
The ministry said if a decision were received before December, work would proceed as planned.
Earlier, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told foreign investors that non-residents of Russia would be able to buy shares freely in the world's largest natural gas company.
Under restrictions introduced in the 1990s to prevent a foreign takeover of Gazprom, non-residents are allowed to buy up to 20% of the company's shares. The removal of restrictions on ownership of Gazprom stock will open up full foreign access to shares. The so-called "ring-fence" on Gazprom shares will be removed on the condition that the state increases its stake in the mega-company to 50% plus one share.
http://en.rian.ru/business/20051111/42065544.html
Russia interested in a new Japan
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political analyst Dmitry Kosyrev).
Only a month ago, it seemed that Russia was the only regional country to maintain good relations with Japan, as compared with recently revived animosity toward that country on the part of Beijing and Seoul. This was highlighted by Vladimir Putin's forthcoming visit to Tokyo right after his projected participation in APEC's Pusan summit.
Current diplomatic efforts are toning down to some extent the acute conflict between China, Korea and Japan. For instance, the three national leaders will communicate with each other in Pusan. Moreover, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, South Korean and U.S. representatives are jointly negotiating with North Korea in Beijing.
However, Russia is concerned over problems still persisting in Japan's relations with its neighbors.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20051111/42063280.html
Can French events be reenacted in Russia?
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yuri Filippov.)
Can Russia learn a lesson from the current unrest in France? Is there a lesson to be learned for anyone at all?
Several respected Russian politicians and a great number of journalists started looking for similarities between the night acts of vandalisms perpetrated by teenagers in French suburbs and the situation in the big Russian cities, where the share of Muslim immigrants has reached 10% or more.
I would say that the situation in Russia, which faced an uncontrolled influx of immigrants in the mid-1990s and has not yet come to terms with its consequences, differs radically from the events in France and other countries of the European Union.
The French are reaping the fruit of an ineffective immigration policy, which their authorities have pursued for decades, while the Russian leadership is only "sowing the wind" and are yet to learn from their own and others' mistakes.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20051111/42060507.html
LUKoil to propose solution to gasoline price crisis
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian oil major LUKoil plans to put forward an initiative to counter the problem of rapidly rising gasoline prices in Russia, Vice President Leonid Fedun said Friday.
However, he did not specify what measures the company would propose or indicate a timeframe.
According to Federal State Statistics Service data, gasoline prices rose 15.1% during the first nine months of 2005 and 7.9% in September.
On September 19, TNK-BP, LUKoil, Sibneft, Surgutneftegas, and Tatneft agreed to freeze the retail gasoline price until the end of 2005.
When asked whether the price would remain frozen at the beginning of next year, Fedun said the decision would depend on the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).
The Nizhny Novgorod regional department of the FAS has launched proceedings against the company for its price controlling policy, he said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42060438.html
President of Russian Jewish Congress resigns
MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti, Olga Lipich) - The Russian Jewish Congress (RJC), the largest secular Jewish organization in the country, has changed its leadership, an RJC official said Friday.
Natalia Rykova, the RJC public relations director, said the president of the Russian Jewish Congress Vladimir Slutsker, 49, had announced his resignation after just under a year in the post at a meeting of the RJC Presidium "due to opposing views he and other presidium members have on further development of the organization." Some members had already tried to secure his removal on October 6.
"Vladimir Slutsker considers his resignation final and does not want to take the post of chairman of the RJC director's board offered to him by the presidium," Rykova said.
Vyacheslav Kantor, chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Jewish
Congress and founding president of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, has been elected as acting head of the Russian congress, which was founded by a group of tycoons in 1996 to promote a Jewish revival in the country.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051111/42062424.html
Washington Post
Alito Defends His Actions In Two Appeals Court Cases
In Letter to Senators, Nominee Denies Conflict of Interest
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A02
Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. said yesterday that he did nothing improper when he ruled in cases involving two financial firms in which he held accounts, although he had told the Senate 15 years ago that he would step aside in matters involving the companies.
Alito, trying to quell conflict-of-interest issues raised by liberal opponents, said he had been "unduly restrictive" in promising in 1990 to recuse himself in cases involving Vanguard Group Inc. and Smith Barney Inc. After the Senate confirmed him as an appellate judge and when he subsequently ruled on routine cases involving the two companies, he said, he acted properly because his connections to the firms did not constitute a conflict of interest under the applicable rules and laws.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111002188.html
New Md. Test of English Shows Wide Disparities
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page B06
Less than 45 percent of Prince George's County students who took Maryland's new high school English test passed the exam last spring, while Howard County's 77 percent passing rate was the highest in the state, according to data made public yesterday.
Seven of 10 passed the test in Montgomery County, and all other school systems in Washington's Maryland suburbs exceeded the statewide passing rate of 57 percent.Most students who took the test were sophomores, and they faced no individual consequences for failure. But that will change in the spring of 2007. The 10th-grade students who take the test then must pass it or risk failing to earn a diploma when their class graduates in 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001876.html
U.S. Official Tours Damage in Darfur
Sudanese Aide Tries to Block Briefing
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A14
SHEK EN NIL, Sudan, Nov. 10 -- With the debris of a burned village crunching underfoot and African Union soldiers on guard, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick toured a hauntingly empty stretch of Sudan's war-torn Darfur region Thursday, seeing firsthand the violent devastation that continues here nearly three years after conflict broke out.
But the visit degenerated into an angry confrontation when a Sudanese official tried to prevent Zoellick from speaking with African Union monitors, shouting in his face repeatedly. Zoellick held his ground, while startled monitors moved closer, momentarily concerned that a fight might break out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001894.html
Angry Assad Says Syria Will Cooperate in Probe
By Rhonda Roumani and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A21
DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 10 -- President Bashar Assad promised Thursday to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, but in a defiant speech to cabinet ministers, Baath Party members and students, he warned that a confrontation might be inevitable.
"President Bashar Assad won't bow to anyone in this world nor would he let his people or country to bow to anyone," he said to applause. "We only bow to God."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said Syria was failing to cooperate with the probe, in violation of a U.N. resolution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001314.html
Daily Star
Assad lashes out at West, insists on Syria's innocence
President blasts lebanese premier
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
Taking a defiant line that could bring Syria into further confrontation with the United Nations, President Bashar Assad said Thursday his government would cooperate with a UN investigation that implicated Syrian officials in the killing of a Lebanese leader, but warned the policy would end if Syria were to be harmed. Assad also disclosed the chief UN investigator into the killing of Rafik Hariri had rejected Syria's terms for interviewing six Syrian officials.
He gave no hint of how the matter would be resolved, but the UN Security Council has warned Syria it must cooperate fully with the investigator, who has the right to determine the place and conditions of such interviews.
"We will play their game" and cooperate with the United Nations, Assad said in a hard-line speech at Damascus University. But the country will "stop when Syria is going to be harmed."
Hours later, the U.S. State Department ruled out setting conditions for the probe.
"It's up to the commission to decide what it wants and it's up to Syria to respond positively to the commission. It's not up to Syria to negotiate terms," the department's deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said.
At the United Nations in New York, American Ambassador John Bolton said: "What we want are not speeches or words. We want cooperation, full and complete, and immediate, with commissioner Mehlis."
From Paris, President Jacques Chirac warned of sanctions against Syria if Assad "persists in not wanting to listen or understand."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=19955
Hizbullah, Amal ministers stage Cabinet walk-out
'There was an insistence on discussing Assad's speech so we decided to withdraw'
By Nafez Qawas and Therese Sfeir
Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
BEIRUT: Hizbullah and Amal ministers walked out of a Cabinet session Thursday, protesting the government's reactions to a speech made by Syrian President Bashar Assad. In an unprecedented attack on the Lebanese government, Assad said Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had allowed Lebanon to become a base for Syria's enemies, describing him as a "slave following the orders of another slave."
"The truth we see today is that Lebanon has become a passageway, a factory and a financier of these conspiracies," Assad said in a televised speech on Thursday.
Siniora responded mildly, vowing Lebanon would remain committed "to the will of life, independence, freedom, democracy and sovereignty."
"Lebanon will remain committed to being part of the Arab nation and its causes ... despite all that is being said or will be said," he added.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19953
Argentine prosecutor accuses Hizbullah of 1994 suicide attack
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, November 11, 2005
BEIRUT: An Argentinian prosecutor has accused a Lebanese member of Hizbullah of bombing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association in 1994 in a suicide attack that killed 85 and wounded 300.
Hizbullah denied the accusation, describing it as "completely false."
Prosecutor Alberto Nissman said he was able to identify the man as Ibrahim Hussein Berro through "work by Argentina's secretariat of intelligence, along with the FBI and through the corroboration of statements from at least three witnesses." He said Hussein, who was 21 at the time, had been a member of Hizbullah.
Attacks against the Israeli Embassy in 1992, in which 22 died and 200 were wounded, and against the center in 1994 remain unsolved with no arrests. This has prompted outcries from Jewish leaders.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19952
It's time for Syria to take the advice it proffered to Iraq
By Ibrahim Hamidi
Commentary by
Friday, November 11, 2005
For many reasons - and Damascus must be held accountable for quite a few of them - the present international consensus against Syria is greater than that which Iraq faced just before the launch of the Anglo-American invasion in March 2003.
...It is also necessary for the regime to open a frank dialogue with the Syrian people, to discuss all the mistakes that took place in Lebanon and share with Syrians the concerns threatening the nation. The regime must make a deal with its citizens, one that involves reform, by taking their demands into consideration and using them to help fight the unachievable demands coming from abroad. The release of 190 political prisoners by presidential decree on November 2 was a positive step, but more needs to be done.
Prior to the war in Iraq, Iraqi officials used to say that the U.S. would target Iraq regardless of whether it cooperated with the UN or not. At the time, Syrian officials replied that it was better not to give the Americans reasons to carry out their plans; that it was best to fully cooperate and pay attention to the Iraqi people. Other Syrian officials even insisted that some Iraqi officials should not stand in the way of security for Iraq and its citizens. Now is the time for Syrian officials to act on the advice they once gave to their Iraqi counterparts.
Ibrahim Hamidi is a Damascus-based journalist and a specialist on Syrian affairs. He wrote this article for THE DAILY STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=19934
Assad is quick to condemn the West but fails to see his own inadequacies
Friday, November 11, 2005
Editorial
Syrian President Bashar Assad's fighting words in his speech on Thursday were the reflex response of an injured regime. Assad predictably denounced a Western "onslaught" of his country - a campaign which has been conducted through the media and the UN Security Council. In more ways than one, the Syrian president was correct in his assessment that the greater Arab world is under attack. The U.S. military is killing civilians just meters away from the Syrian border in occupied Iraq. And the world has stood by and done nothing as Palestinians, who have been stateless for over 50 years, have taken a beating under a brutal Israeli occupation.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&article_id=19935&categ_id=17
continued …
November 11, 2005.
New Orleans, Louisiana keeps it's charm.
Caption :: Richard Gagnier sips tea Thursday with a friend above St. Peter Street in the French Quarter while trash is picked up below. Gagnier, who has operated a jewelry business in a first-floor leased shop for 20 years, senses less enthusiasm regarding the comeback of the French Quarter.
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