The Guardian Unlimited
Turkey reports five new bird flu cases
Staff and agencies
Monday January 9, 2006
Fears of human bird flu in Turkey grew today as five more cases were reported across the country and 21 patients in an Istanbul hospital waited for test results.
A Turkish health ministry official told the Anatolian news agency that laboratories had identified the virus in the Black Sea provinces of Kastamonu, Corum and Samsun and in the eastern province of Van.
If any of the 21 people under observation in Istanbul are found to be infected with the disease, they would be the first human cases of bird flu in Europe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1682515,00.html
Special Report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/0,14207,1131431,00.html
Iran to resume nuclear fuel research
Staff and agencies
Monday January 9, 2006
Diplomatic efforts to resolve international concern over Iran's nuclear programme were today thrown into doubt when Tehran said it was to resume fuel research.
Gholamhossein Elham, an Iranian government spokesman, made the announcement at a press conference.
The European Union and United States earlier warned that if Iran went ahead with nuclear fuel research it could lead to Tehran being referred to the UN security council for possible sanctions.
Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel peace prize winner and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Sky News in an interview broadcast today that the world was "running out of patience with Iran".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1682625,00.html
Special Report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/0,12858,889981,00.html
US blunder aided Iran's atomic aims, book claims
The CIA may have helped Iran to design a nuclear bomb through a botched attempt to channel flawed blueprints to Tehran's weapon designers, according to a new book on the US "war on terror".
In an excerpt from State of War, printed today in G2, the author and New York Times intelligence correspondent, James Risen, writes that the abortive operation misfired when a Russian defector on the CIA payroll, chosen to deliver the deliberately flawed nuclear warhead blueprints to Iranian officials in February 2000, tipped them off about the defects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1678133,00.html
Secret services say Iran is trying to assemble a nuclear missile
Document seen by Guardian details web of front companies and middlemen
Ian Cobain and Ian Traynor
Wednesday January 4, 2006
The Guardian
The Iranian government has been successfully scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to develop a nuclear bomb, according to the latest western intelligence assessment of the country's weapons programmes.
Scientists in Tehran are also shopping for parts for a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe, with "import requests and acquisitions ... registered almost daily", the report seen by the Guardian concludes.
The warning came as Iran raised the stakes in its dispute with the United States and the European Union yesterday by notifying the International Atomic Energy Authority that it intended to resume nuclear fuel research next week. Tehran has refused to rule out a return to attempts at uranium enrichment, the key to the development of a nuclear weapon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1677542,00.html
New call to impeach Blair over Iraq
Matthew Tempest and agencies
Monday January 9, 2006
Tony Blair should be impeached over the Iraq war, according to one of Britain's most senior former soldiers.
General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded UN forces in Bosnia, accused the prime minister of taking the country to war on what turned out to be "false grounds", saying it is something "no one should be allowed to walk away from".
Despite publicly insisting that his aim was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Blair "probably had some other strategy in mind", said Gen Rose.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1682466,00.html
The insurance coverage is a bit odd.
Covering cancer
Virgin Money has launched an insurance policy designed to cover against the financial costs of a cancer diagnosis. Hilary Osborne looks at how the policy works and whom it might be suitable for
Monday January 9, 2006
A new policy offering financial cover against a cancer diagnosis went on sale this morning. The first of its kind in the UK, Virgin Money's policy also claims to offer the most comprehensive cover against the disease and is being sold as a low-cost alternative to critical illness insurance.
"It will potentially form a top-up for someone who already has critical illness cover or income protection policies, but we think it will be an alternative for many people who don't have those types of cover," says Scott Mowbray, spokesman for Virgin Money. He points out that sales of critical illness cover have been falling, with many consumers citing the high cost as a reason not to buy that type of cover, and argues that a cheaper policy offering cover just against cancer could therefore prove attractive.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/insurance_/lifeandhealth/story/0,1456,1682696,00.html
The Boston Globe
Marine water invaders on Most Wanted list
State aims to stop non-native species
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff January 9, 2006
The sea slime alarm was sounded in 2002. Scientists discovered small, dense mats of a strange gooey creature on the ocean floor more than 100 miles offshore. A year later, the sea squirts had carpeted more than 6 square miles there and kept going. Soon, the bizarre, stringy squirts were showing up in enormous colonies in new places along the shoreline and fishermen began complaining they were smothering shellfish beds.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/01/09/marine_water_invaders_on_most_wanted_list/
US copter crash kills 12 in Iraq
Five more Marines die in separate action
By Chris Kraul and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times January 9, 2006
BAGHDAD -- A US helicopter with 12 passengers and crew members crashed in northern Iraq, killing all on board, the military command said yesterday. In addition, five Marines were reported killed in action, bringing to as many as 28 the number of American troops slain in Iraq since Thursday.
The crash of the UH-60 Black Hawk military copter late Saturday was the deadliest in Iraq since a Chinook transport helicopter went down last January near the Jordanian border, killing 30 Marines and a sailor.
A spokesman for US-led forces would not confirm the nationality or identity of those killed in the Black Hawk pending notification of next of kin. ''At this time we believe all the victims were US citizens," a spokesman said.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/01/09/us_copter_crash_kills_12_in_iraq/
Vatican official called to deposition
January 9, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO -- A high-ranking Vatican official is expected at a deposition today, at which lawyers plan to ask him how the Portland diocese handled priest sex abuse allegations during his tenure there. Former Portland archbishop William Levada was served with a subpoena before he became prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The deposition is to help a bankruptcy judge decide on the validity of plantiffs' claims against the diocese. (AP)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/09/vatican_official_called_to_deposition/
Alito's fantasy world
By Kate Michelman January 9, 2006
IN THE 1998 movie ''Pleasantville," Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play typical '90s kids who are inadvertently transported into the unreal reality of a 1950s sitcom. They use their '90s values to teach the sitcom world some lessons about diversity and tolerance.
Today many people have a stylized, ''Pleasantville" vision of the pre-Roe era in which I grew up. They imagine fondly that almost all families had a Daddy at the office and a Mommy in the kitchen; that almost all family relations were well-ordered and unthreatening; in short, that life looked like ''Leave It to Beaver" -- and that, with a few legal adjustments, it could do so again.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/09/alitos_fantasy_world/
The arc of Ariel
By James Carroll January 9, 2006
WHAT IF Europe were so determined to be rid of its Jews that, once Hitler's program fell short, it arranged to settle the surviving Jews into a ''camp" where they could readily be targeted and eliminated? Call that camp Israel. Call the instrument of elimination the aggrieved Muslim population for whom the presence of Jews seems an act of blasphemous ''occupation" of holy places. And now imagine that such a population arms itself with a weapon that will make the completion of the anti-Jewish genocide real.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/09/the_arc_of_ariel/
Taipei Times
Environmentalists deride global warming meeting led by the US
Environmentalists yesterday slammed this week's inaugural meeting of a US-led partnership that aims to develop cleaner energy technologies to combat global warming, with one group calling it a "trade show" for business interests.
The two-day meeting of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate begins on Wednesday and brings together government and business representatives from the US, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan.
It aims to spur more private investment in the region, while also slowing global warming.
But environmentalists were skeptical that a meeting led in part by the two industrialized nations that rejected the Kyoto Protocol on global warming -- Australia and the US -- can yield any meaningful results.
"The record of both the Australian and US governments on this issue on the international stages has been appalling," said Erwin Jackson of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
"This is an opportunity, their second opportunity, to show that they are serious about tackling the climate change problem. Our hope would be that they don't miss that opportunity again," he said.
Several private companies were expected to attend the meeting, the Australian newspaper reported in its weekend edition. Among those were mining and energy giants Rio Tinto, Chevron Australia, Xstrata Coal and BP Solar, along with a number of US, Chinese, Korean and Indian power and steel interests.
"It's becoming clear that it is really just a trade show," Greenpeace campaigner Danny Kennedy said. "It's about how big business and bureaucrats can best ensure that the climate change agenda and the politics of confronting ... global warming doesn't derail their profit taking."
Repeated calls to Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell's office seeking comment went unanswered yesterday.
The 1997 Kyoto treaty mandates specific cutbacks in emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 2012 in 35 industrialized countries.
The US and Australia rejected it, in part, because of its mandatory cuts in gases believed to be warming Earth's atmosphere.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to attend the meeting but canceled amid concerns over the health of ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Rice will be replaced by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
Kennedy said Rice's absence from the summit, along with its lack of emphasis on mandatory emissions reductions targets, would seriously "undercut" its effectiveness.
Jackson said he too was "not very optimistic" about the meeting's outcome.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288187
Cold spell kills dozens across South Asia
AP , NEW DELHI
Monday, Jan 09, 2006,Page 4
Millions of people in the Indian capital woke yesterday to the coldest weather in 70 years, as the death toll from northern India's cold spell rose to 116, a police spokesman and the Meteorology Department said.
The toll included nine people who froze to death overnight in Uttar Pradesh state, Mahendra Verma, a spokesman for the state police, said in Lucknow, the state capital.
Most of the state's 101 victims have been poor people forced to sleep outside in parks or in public places such as railway stations, protecting themselves with plastic sheets and jute bags, Verma said.
Another 15 people have died of cold in northern Punjab and Haryana states since November, Press Trust of India said, bringing India's death toll from this year's cold snap to 116.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288175
Third toxic spill in three months hits China's rivers
AFP , BEIJING
Monday, Jan 09, 2006,Page 1
A third major toxic spill in China in as many months has threatened water supplies to millions of residents of two central cities, officials and state media said yesterday.
A clean-up accident allowed the chemical cadmium, which can cause neurological disorders and cancer, to flood out of a smelting works and into the Xiangjiang River in Hunan Province on Jan. 4, Xinhua news agency said.
The river supplies tap water to residents in the provincial capital Changsha, which has about 6 million people, and nearby Xiangtan city, which has 700,000 inhabitants.
Officials said they have taken emergency measures and residents were not in danger.
Local authorities have blocked off the spill and are trying to neutralize the cadmium slick with different chemicals and dilute it by releasing water from a dam.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/01/09/2003288147
China to put billions into 5-year river clean up campaign
AP , BEIJING
Monday, Jan 09, 2006,Page 4
China will invest 26.6 billion yuan (US$3.28 billion) over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that reached into Russia, reports said yesterday.
The effort will cover the entire river valley in four provinces that are home to more than 62 million people, with drinking water sources in large and medium-sized cities given priority, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
By 2010, more than 90 percent of the people living in the four provinces should have access to clean drinking water, the paper quoted environmental officials meeting in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, as saying. The percentage of those with access to clean drinking water now wasn't given.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288173
Foreign minister in secret visit to UAE
DIPLOMACY: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Mark Chen left on Thursday on a trip to offer condolences to the UAE on the death of its prime minister
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) left for a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday to extend condolences on the death of the country's vice president and prime minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) confirmed yesterday.
Unusual
Chen's visit was unusual due to the absence of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the UAE. The foreign minister paid several visits to the UAE last year to discuss an ongoing project to open a new representative office in Abu Dhabi, the UAE's capital.
Currently, Taipei maintains a commercial office in Dubai.
Quiet departure
A foreign ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Chen left for the UAE on Thursday afternoon, one day after the UAE's prime minister Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al-Maktoum died.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2006/01/09/2003288164
UN quake aid may resume
AP , ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
Monday, Jan 09, 2006,Page 4
UN flights to two areas of Pakistan's quake-hit Kashmir region could resume next week, the UN said yesterday, a day after suspending air deliveries because dozens of survivors stormed two helicopters.
UN spokesman Ben Malor said both the world body and Pakistani authorities were investigating Friday's incident, and flights could resume in the next few days. The UN said on Saturday it canceled flights to Bana Mula and Leepa, both more than 120km southwest of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
More than 50 survivors forced the pilots of two UN helicopters to take them to Muzaffarabad and Abbottabad, a hub for quake relief activities.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288178
Gas spat has Japan and China worried over energy
SUPPLY CONCERNS: Moscow's decision to turn off Ukraine's gas supply last week has raised fears in Asian countries heavily dependant on Russia for their energy supplies
As Russia wielded its energy weapon against Ukraine to devastating effect last week, China and Japan were wary observers, worrying that one day the same might happen to them, observers said.
Neither Asian power has ever felt entirely comfortable with the Kremlin, and its decision to drastically raise the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine has done nothing to boost their confidence in the Russian bear.
"To control a nation's energy is to control the nation's activities," said Hiroshi Watanabe, a Tokyo-based economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research.
"Russia seems to have lost some trust by making threats through a reduction of supplies," he said.
Unfortunately for both China and Japan, Russia has the world's largest natural gas reserves and is the second largest exporter of crude oil, making it too big an actor to be ignored in Asia's great energy game.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288179
China punishes 1,248 health workers
AFP , BEIJING
Monday, Jan 09, 2006,Page 4
China last year punished 1,248 health workers for corrupt practices including taking commissions from drug companies to ply their drugs, and vowed to step up a crackdown this year, reports said yesterday.
The punishments were imposed after the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection asked the health ministry to investigate illegal deals by hospital staff, Xinhua news agency said.
Among their findings, health officials uncovered 216 cases of medical workers illegally buying and selling medicine for personal profit.
Of those, 179 cases which involved 10.99 million yuan (US$1.34 million) were handed over to judiciary departments, with 282 people punished, Xinhua quoted the head of the investigation team as saying.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288177
Iraqi leaders may form new government
Iraq's fractious political groups are moving ahead to a shape a national unity government, progress that should help stop the carnage seen around Iraq over the past several days, the country's prime minister and other leaders said on Saturday.
Iraq's Kurdish president predicted that a new government could be formed within weeks and said the country's main political groups had agreed in principle on a coalition of national unity.
Jalal Talabani made the comments after meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who said Iraqis remain optimistic about their future despite suffering through a violent week that saw nearly 200 people killed in two days, including 11 US troops.
In an effort to help draw Sunni Arabs into the country's political process as a way to dampen insurgent activity, US officials for months have been communicating directly or through channels with Sunni Arabs once or currently involved in the insurgency. A Western diplomat on Saturday said there had been a recent "uptick" in those contacts.
Those insurgents "sense that the political process does protect the Sunni community's interest," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/01/09/2003288194
Down with multimedia monopolies
On Jan. 3, the legislature finally passed the Statute Regarding the Disposition of Government Shareholdings in the Terrestrial Television Industry (無線電視事業公股處理條例). This legislation is vital to eliminate partisan, political and military control of the media. The dispute over media ownership -- a relic of the party-state era -- was thus resolved. However, does this signal a rejuvenation of Taiwan's media?
In accordance with the provisions for the disposition of government shareholdings and the policies of the related agencies, the withdrawal of government and military capital from the Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) and the Chinese Television System in the near future will see the former becoming a private station, and the latter a public one. Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) recently sold China Television Company, the Broadcasting Corporation of China and the Central Motion Pictures Corp to the China Times Group. As a result of these moves, commercial interests are likely to be preponderant in Taiwan's media. The establishment of the proposed public media group still awaits the drawing up of government policy and the necessary legislative amendments before it can come into existence, so it is certainly worth asking whether there is any danger of Taiwan's media environment becoming the monopoly of a small number of private interests.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/01/09/2003288210
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