The Jerusalem Post
Sharon undergoing tracheostomy
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH AND AP
Talkbacks for this article: 1
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent the surgical insertion of a tracheostomy tube to "help doctors wean him" from his respirator on Sunday night.
Sharon has been on the respirator since he suffered a massive stroke January 4.
A tracheostomy involves making a small hole in the windpipe while the patient is under general anesthesia and attaching a ventilator to it, rather than to a mask over his face.
Doctors said last week that Sharon might have to undergo the procedure because the plastic tube currently connecting the prime minister's windpipe with the respirator will start to cause him damage if it remains in for too long.
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Olmert to be acting PM until elections
By AP AND JPOST.COM STAFF
Talkbacks for this article: 4
Attorney General Meni Mazuz on Sunday told Ehud Olmert to continue serving as acting prime minister as long as Ariel Sharon lies ill in the hospital, presumably through the March 28 elections.
Mazuz has decided to continue defining Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remains in a coma after a severe stroke on January 4, as temporarily incapacitated.
If Mazuz were to declare Sharon permanently incapacitated, then government ministers would have to choose an acting prime minister within 100 days of Olmert's January 4 takeover from Sharon.
A declaration of permanent incapacitation would be irreversible.
A Justice Ministry spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment on the media reports.
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Olmert wants to disperse ministries
By HERB KEINON
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to appoint between one to four new ministers from the ranks of Kadima MKs by next Sunday to take some of the 15 ministerial portfolios off his shoulders.
Attorney General Menahem Mazuz ruled Sunday that Olmert would not be able to appoint former Labor MKs Shimon Peres, Haim Ramon and Dalia Itzik to these portfolios, because according to law, if an MK quits his party he can not become a minister during that same Knesset term.
The same law does not apply to former Likud MKs who left Likud to join Kadima, because since one-third of the Likud MKs bolted for Kadima, the party is considered to have split, and those one-third who left the mother-party are eligible for ministerial posts.
Among the leading Kadima MKs to
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Police shut down Hamas offices in east Jerusalem
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, AP, AND JPOST STAFF
Talkbacks for this article: 5
The Israel police and the Shin Bet raided offices linked to the Hamas near Nablus Road in east Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon.
An organization called Wifadah was discovered to have been channeling funds to Hamas, to be used for the group's election campaign in east Jerusalem.
Following Sunday's raid, the police declared the premises at Damascus Gate closed for a period of 15 days. Detectives detained for questioning four activists who ran the office.
Among those detained was Mohamed Abu Tir, who holds the top place on Hamas' electoral list in Jerusalem and is considered second in the Hamas heirarchy.
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US to cut funding if Hamas elected
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH AND JPOST STAFF
Talkbacks for this article: 40
A new public opinion poll published on Saturday showed the ruling Fatah party and Hamas running a close race ahead of parliamentary elections slated for January 25.
Security sources in the American government warned that the US will cut funding to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas representatives would be elected to official positions in the new government that was expected to form.
According to Israel Radio, the warning came following a meeting between PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and US representatives David Welch and Elliot Abrams.
Welch and Abrams also met with Israeli Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert earlier in the day, in the presence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's aides Dov Weisglass and Shalom Tourjeman. This was Olmert's first meeting with these representatives since he took the role of acting prime minister some 10 days ago. Olmert was also scheduled to meet with US President George Bush in the near future.
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Why Palestinians are voting for Hamas
By DAVID HOROVITZ
Talkbacks for this article: 4
A multimillion-dollar reconstruction project, funded in large part by the Japanese government, has changed the face of what was Yasser Arafat's embattled Mukata headquarters complex in Ramallah.
Crumpled buildings have been cleared away. The once sandbag-protected entrance to the stairway leading up to Arafat's quarters is now pristine and easily accessible. Building work at what the sign individualistically calls the "Mousoleum of President Yasir Arafat complete with prayer hall" is in full swing, alongside the guarded area where the "rais" lies buried beneath a large Palestinian flag. Mahmoud Abbas's mustachioed portrait now gazes down from the archway leading to the prefab quarters of the security detachment. Half-a-dozen dark Mercedes are parked nearby.
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Report: IAF trained for Iran attack
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Talkbacks for this article: 15
IAF pilots have completed their mission training and fighter jets have been prepared for an Israeli attack on Iran, the British Sunday Times reported.
The article reported that "the elite 69 strategic F-15 I squadron" had been equipped with weapons that will be tested in combat for the first time, and that two missile submarines were on standby: one in the Persian Gulf and the second in Haifa Bay.
The Times also said that special IDF forces would be helicoptered into Iran to take out targets that could not be destroyed in an air strike.
Iran's nuclear facilities, according to the newspaper report, are widely dispersed at some 40 underground sites throughout Iran, which would make any attack by Israel - or any other nation - exponentially more difficult that Israel's successful attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.
Col. [res] Ze'ev Raz, the former IAF pilot who led the Osirak mission, was quoted by the Times as saying, "What we now have is a lot of targets, which makes the operation much more difficult."
Raz believes an aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities is possible. There are many things that the IAF has done over the past few years that the public is not aware of, and it has made many important advances in mid-air refueling. Israel can strike the Iranian nuclear program, Raz said on Israel's Channel 1 TV's Politika program last week.
Former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Uzi Dayan said last week that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, then so would terror organizations, like Hizbullah. "Israel needs to be ready to act on a military option," Dayan said. "Without getting into details, Israel is capable of doing these things."
When Dayan was head of the National Security Agency, he advised the government not to allow a situation in which Israel, and the world now finds itself, with a radical regime in Tehran on the verge of attaining nuclear weapons. Dayan laid much of the blame on the United States, which allowed this to happen. "The military option does exist, but only if the international community works together. The government that arises in Israel after the elections will have to deal with this issue," he said.
Shabtai Shoval, a former operative in the Israeli intelligence community, who wrote a book that Iran will reach nuclear weapons capability by 2009, says that covert action, for example by the Mossad, is the most interesting option, but would still not stop Tehran's push for nuclear weapons.
Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, a senior lecturer at the Strategic Studies Program at Tel Aviv University, believes Israel would be making a "disastrous strategic error" if it embarked on a full-scale attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "The military option is not relevant, we simply don't have the right amount of intelligence and information; many of the targets are buried deep under ground.
Only if the Americans decide to do it, then that option is possible," Pedatzur said last week. Pedatzur added that the day Iran gets a nuclear weapon, Israel will have no choice but to abandon its policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Amir Mizroch contributed to this report.
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The Tehran Times
German official calls sanctions on Iran a "very dangerous path"
BERLIN (Reuters) -- Imposing economic sanctions against Iran to persuade it to relinquish its nuclear program would be a "very dangerous path", German deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler told German radio, according to a summary of his comments released on Saturday.
He said sanctions would hurt both sides and that he favored imposing travel restrictions on Iranian politicians as a more effective way of exerting pressure on Tehran.
He said travel restrictions would have "an extraordinarily unpleasant impact," according to the summary of the interview, which is due to be broadcast on Sunday.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=1/15/2006&Cat=2&Num=010
Interview with Gernot Erler, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, on the radio station
"Deutschlandfunk", 16 December 2005 (excerpts)
Question: There's a pattern behind these verbal attacks: the Holocaust is a myth; the myth of the massacre of Jews is considered more important in the West than God, religions and the prophets. These are the words of President Ahmadinejad of Iran who, in a speech he made in the provinces, called once more for Israel to be moved to Europe, the US, Canada or Alaska. Naturally, the West is outraged and shocked, while Israel is alarmed. What should be done? The German Bundestag is debating this issue today […]. Has the Federal Foreign Office already invited the Iranian President or at least the Iranian Ambassador in Berlin to visit a concentration camp or the Holocaust Memorial?
Answer: That's yesterday's suggestion. However, the Federal Foreign Office summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires and informed him in no uncertain terms how scandalous the Iranian President's provocation is. That was the diplomatic step taken. The Federal Foreign Minister, as well as the Chancellor, have also expressed very clear views on this matter.
Q: President Ahmadinejad should actually be arrested on charges of inciting hatred and violence if he enters Germany, shouldn't he?
A: That's why a motion sponsored by all parties in the Bundestag is being discussed during today's debate on human rights. And the parties will state their standpoints in all clarity.
Q: Have the President's remarks … put Iran on the "axis of evil"?
A: This "axis of evil" is an attempt, as it were, to exclude a country from the international community. The question is whether that is the right solution at this point in time. We know that many Iranians don't agree with their President and are fully aware that he's trying to raise his domestic profile… He is appealing here to the masses. What makes this so dangerous is that he is not only appealing to the masses in Iran but also to a broader public in the Arab world. It is high time for these states to react. I am genuinely concerned that the Arab states have been so reluctant to respond to date, even those which do recognize Israel's right to exist, for example Egypt and Jordan. They are afraid that Ahmadinejad's remarks will strike a chord among their own population and haven't found the courage to categorically condemn this provocation.
Q: Isn't the Iranian President simply saying out loud what many Arab leaders think?
A: I fear that he is saying out loud what is certainly in the minds of poor sections of the population, in the minds of those who have few prospects for the future and are looking for someone to blame for their problems. It is therefore vital that political leaders who know that this is an extremely dangerous development because it is completely unpredictable, e.g. in terms of the reactions in the case of Israel, whose existence is threatened once again, now use their authority and resolutely stand up to such a trend. For the first Arab voices have been heard applauding this attempt to infringe upon Israel's right to exist, this denial of Israel's right to exist… It is therefore to be feared that a process with unpredictable consequences has been set in motion.
Q: There will be an all-party Bundestag resolution today. Apparently the EU summit has also now presented a draft statement condemning of the Iranian President's remarks ... Is that enough? Can we respond to these verbal attacks with mere words?
A: The problem is that if, for example, we take other steps, such as suspending or even breaking off diplomatic relations – this would of course also be conceivable – then that would put another goal further out of reach, namely that of negotiating an end to Iran's nuclear programmes, in so far as they produce weapons-grade plutonium… We are about to resume talks with Iran. Another meeting between … Britain, France and Germany, which are negotiating on behalf of the EU, with the deputy chairman of Iran's National Security Council is due to take place on 21 December… This issue is so important that it has to be taken into consideration when deciding what steps to take in response to the outrageous remarks made by Ahmadinejad.
Q: Is there any point to the talks on 21 December now that Ahmadinejad himself has said that Tehran has absolutely no intention of abandoning any part of its programme?
A: Precisely this contradiction is very typical of the current situation in Iran. On the one side we hear the tough comments in public … on the other side … there are again signs that they are after all prepared to overcome the deadlock in the negotiations. It is not so easy for the international community to find the right response.
Q: Nevertheless, shouldn't we stop German companies which exported goods to the tune of 3.6 billion euro last year to Iran? For in theory there is a danger that key components for the country's nuclear or armaments programme could be supplied indirectly in this way, thus indirectly threatening Israel once more?
A: Both our external trade regulations as well as the rules on arms exports, which also govern the trade in so-called dual-use goods, that is to say goods which can be used for either civilian or military purposes, provide for extremely tight controls. The relevant regulations in Germany are tougher and more restrictive than in any other European state.
Q: Would you rule out a trade embargo?
A: Of course I do not rule that out. At least I wouldn't say that our economic interests are so important that we can't even talk about such a measure. At the moment I can't see what could move us to impose a sanction of this kind. However, should we have to weigh up between Israel's right of existence and to integrity on one side and German trade interests on the other, then it is clear how we would decide.
Q: Demands are now being made, for example, to exclude Iran from the World Cup […]. What do you think of that?
A: My response to that would be that maybe there is another solution. Instead of excluding Iran from the World Cup we could perhaps, if the issue is still so pressing then, take advantage of this event to make it clear to Iranian guests at every opportunity, to everyone with whom we have a chance to speak, how much Iran has isolated itself, to what extent it has laid itself open to international criticism, indeed is excluding itself from the international community. Such an event, where we will have more contact with Iranians than usual, would provide a good opportunity to get our message across. […]
published: 16.12.2005
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=7940
German Ex-Minister Under Fire Over CIA Abduction
Germany's former interior minister, Otto Schily, is facing pressure by opposition politicians to reveal his knowledge about the abduction of a German national by the US intelligence service.
Greens parliamentarian Volker Beck said that Schily, who left office Nov. 22, should tell the legislature what he knew about the abduction.
"We will question the government on this and push for a clarification," Beck said.
According to a report published by The Washington Post -- and contrary to Berlin's claims --the former German government had been informed about at least one case of a CIA abduction of a terror suspect.
A CIA plane that was allegedly used for transporting terror suspects
In May last year, Daniel Coats, the then United States ambassador in Berlin, told Schily that Khaled el-Masri -- a German citizen -- had been wrongfully held by the CIA but would soon be released, according to the report.
El-Masri was abducted by the American intelligence agency in 2003 and spent 5 months in a prison in Afghanistan.
German public prosecutors such as Eberhard Beyer have started to look into the case of Khaled el-Masri, issuing arrest warrants against 22 people allegedly involved in the
abduction.
"These agents were operating on German soil which automatically means they committed their crimes under German jurisdiction," Beyer said. "That is why we've started legal investigations on grounds of coercion and deprivation of liberty rights."
Schily, a Social Democrat, has so far not commented on the case. A spokeswoman for the interior ministry, which is now led by conservative Wolfgang Schäuble, said she could not speak for the previous regime.
Will Rice talk in Berlin?
Gernot Erler
Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler (SPD) said he understood that governments do not want to reveal details about the fight against terror, but added that the public has a right to "at least know what the legal situation was and whether national and international laws were adhered to."
In an interview with public broadcaster RBB, Erler added that expected US officials to inform their German counterparts about allegations regarding secret CIA flights transporting terror suspects across German air space. The United States airbase in Frankfurt allegedly was the hub of clandestine CIA operations, which have triggered a public outcry in Europe.
But Erler said it wasn't clear whether such information would become available during US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Berlin late Monday and Tuesday.
Hadley denies allegations
In an interview for CNN on Sunday, US national security advisor Stephen Hadley gave a first impression of the type of answer Europeans can expect.
"The terrorists threaten all of us," he said. "This is a threat really to the civilized world. We need to cooperate together to deal with this terrorist threat. That cooperation is characterized by three things: One, we comply with US constitution, US laws and US treaty obligations. Secondly, we respect the sovereignty of those countries with whom we are cooperating, and three -- we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is trying to get German-US relations back on a more friendly footing, has said that she believes the Americans will clear up the case.
"The new German government will do everything in its power to work for close, genuine and trusting relations with the United States," she said. "That's why I'm also fully convinced that the American administration will do everything to dispel European concern and clear up allegations of illegal CIA activities as quickly as possible."
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1801715,00.html
Opposition to Iran’s nuclear program is medieval: president
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN – President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said here on Saturday that civilized Iran does not need nuclear weapons.
“We are a civilized and ancient nation, and a nation that has culture and logic does not need nuclear weapons,” Ahmadinejad told reporters at a news conference.
Nuclear weapons are sought by people who intend to solve everything through force and bullying, he underlined.
“Unfortunately, today people face rulers who think they have more rights than other nations because their arsenals are stocked with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.”
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Charter and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), all member states have the right to gain access to nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes and no pretexts can be used to infringe on these rights, even inspections, he pointed out.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=1/15/2006&Cat=2&Num=011
Destroying the global village to save it
By Hamid Golpira
Once upon a time in the Vietnam War, it was reported that a U.S. soldier had said: “It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”
The fact that some researchers say that no soldier ever really said it and that a journalist fabricated the quote is irrelevant. “Destroying the village to save it” entered the popular culture as a catchphrase that defined the zeitgeist.
Now there is a so-called war on terrorism that is supposed to save civilization, apparently by destroying it.
Yes, the self-proclaimed defenders of “freedom” seem determined to destroy civilization in order to save it.
What else can we call it?
When the cultural heritage of the world is plundered from the Baghdad Museum and Iraq’s ancient sites are irrevocably damaged in the very cradle of civilization while occupation troops watch and do nothing, when there is a new classification of prisoner called “unlawful combatants”, when these “unlawful combatants” are held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and secret prisons in Eastern Europe, when U.S. officials and their allies say that international law and the Geneva Conventions are not applicable in the treatment of these prisoners, isn’t this destroying civilization in order to save it?
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=1/15/2006&Cat=14&Num=001
Students stage anti-U.S. protest in Lebanon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese riot police fired smoke grenades and sprayed water on Saturday to disperse dozens of students protesting against the visit of senior U.S. diplomats to Beirut.
The protest turned nasty when security forces tried to clear protesters who gathered outside the government headquarters ahead of a visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch.
Some of the protesters, waving Lebanese flags and carrying placards protesting against U.S. influence in Lebanon and the Middle East, pelted police with stones.
"Welch is not welcome in Lebanon," one placard read.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=1/15/2006&Cat=4&Num=024
The Washington Post
40,000 Customers Lose Power in Windstorm
By Martin Weil and Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page C13
Electricity was knocked out to more than 40,000 homes and businesses in the Washington region yesterday as winds gusted to more than 50 mph and the first snow of the new year fell in a number of spots.
Seasons appeared to shift in the course of a single day, as temperatures plunged within hours from the springlike 60s to more wintry readings in the 30s, and wind chills made conditions seem even harsher.
Thunderstorms, more common in spring and summer, raked parts of the area early yesterday. Winds connected with those storms damaged buildings in Warrenton, in Fauquier County, according to reports made to the National Weather Service.
"Just a huge roar came through," M. Scott Taylor, chief of the Warrenton Volunteer Fire Company, said last night. "There was actually enough wind to move a dumpster about seven feet from muddy grass onto pavement. There's actually a trail imprint where the skids are on the bottom in the mud."
More than 2,500 homes and businesses in Fauquier were without electricity for part of yesterday, according to Dominion Virginia Power.
In all, about 35,000 customers were without power in the Northern Virginia area at 9:30 p.m., the utility said.
In Maryland, the largest number of outages at that hour appeared to be in Montgomery County, where the figure was more than 4,400, according to Pepco.
Earlier, in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. said more than 2,000 homes were affected. BGE also reported about 1,000 homes and businesses in the dark in Howard County.
Pepco said fewer than 100 D.C. customers lost power.
Some of the day's biggest gusts were reported at Reagan National Airport, where a peak gust of 54 mph was reported about 3 p.m. and a similar gust of 53 mph was reported at 9.
The Weather Service said the fierce winds were the result of a form of atmospheric imbalance created by a low-pressure system off the New Jersey and New England coasts and a high-pressure system that was arriving from the west.
The contrasts in pressure help produce strong winds.
The Weather Service issued a high-wind warning yesterday afternoon for the Washington area as the gusts persisted, felling trees, snapping branches and flinging clouds of grit through city streets.
Winds are expected to diminish today, although they will remain strong.
A tornado of minimal size was reported in King and Queen County, Va.
Light snow, not enough to stick, fell late in the day at many places in the area, including Leesburg, Dulles International Airport and National Airport.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401404.html
Tide of Sentiment Shifts in Water War
Traditional Favoritism to Agricultural Interests Is Challenged as Demand Increases
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006; A03
BIG SKY, Mont. -- A hundred years after the city of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley farmers battled neighboring Owens Valley for control over water from the Owens River, there's a new kind of water war in the West.
From Montana to Arizona to California and beyond, alliances of environmentalists, fishermen and city dwellers are challenging the West's traditional water barons -- farmers and ranchers -- who have long controlled the increasingly scarce resource.
The West largely depends on its rivers and snowmelt for its water supply, and a combination of recent urban growth and prolonged drought has resulted in demand greatly outstripping supply. Under longstanding federal and state policies reinforced by farmers' historic political clout, agriculture has laid claim to about 80 percent of those scant resources -- at rock-bottom prices -- on the grounds that water is critical to the survival of crops and livestock.
Now, however, other users are arguing that this system is unfair, uneconomical and a threat to many delicate ecosystems, and not only in the West.
Farmers typically pay less for their water than nearby cities: In California's Central Valley, they get their water from the federal government at below-market prices, a subsidy that amounts to $416 million a year, according to the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. And unlike cities getting the same water, farmers are paying back the cost of the region's giant irrigation system without interest.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400820_pf.html
Looking Over Jordan
The conclusion of an epic trilogy shows the civil rights movement both succeeding and fraying.
Reviewed by James T. Patterson
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page BW03
AT CANAAN'S EDGE
America in the King Years 1965-68
Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 (AP)
By Taylor Branch
Simon & Schuster. 1,039 pp. $35
In At Canaan's Edge, Taylor Branch offers a moving and panoramic view of America during the last three years of the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. To get a feel for the book's scope, take, for example, Branch's juxtaposition of the streams of events that were rushing together in January, 1966, 40 years ago this month.
One such episode took place on a numbingly cold day in Chicago, where King dramatized his forthcoming battle against poverty and racial injustice by moving into a third-floor walk-up in a rundown black neighborhood. A bare dirt floor graced the entry to the tenement. "The smell of urine," his wife, Coretta, recalled, "was overpowering. We were told that this was because the door was always open, and drunks came in off the street to use the hallway as a toilet."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201688.html
Hussein Judge Is Said To Quit
Conflicting Reports Follow Complaints, Political Pressure
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page A24
BAGHDAD, Jan. 14 -- The chief judge presiding over the trial of Saddam Hussein submitted his resignation last week after coming under public criticism for the way he was handling the courtroom, another judge involved in the case said Saturday.
For two days, rumors have circulated that Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin had resigned. Two other judges told news agencies that he had not. But Hussein Mussawi, a judge involved with the case, said Amin had quit after all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400995.html
Italians Rally for Abortion Rights, Gay Unions
Rallies, Denounced by Church, Government Ministers, Fuel Election Debate
By Frances D'Emilio
Associated Press
Sunday, January 15, 2006; Page A22
ROME, Jan. 14 -- Tens of thousands of women marched through Milan on Saturday to demand that Italy keep its liberal abortion law intact while gays rallied in Rome to push for legal recognition for homosexual couples.
Both topics have become issues in Italy's election campaign, and the Roman Catholic Church and ministers in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government were scathing in denouncing the rallies.
"These demonstrators are really nauseating," said Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli, a member of the right-wing Northern League, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. "Family is a serious thing, based on love between a man and a woman."
Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione, who is close to the Vatican, told reporters that people's energy should be spent on what he called pro-family efforts such as finding jobs and housing.
"These are the political problems you should put the spotlight on, because without children, Italy dies," Buttiglione said.
The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, denounced as "provocations" efforts to give legal recognition to unmarried couples "independent of whether the partners are of different or the same sex." A program on Vatican Radio described the gay rights rally in Piazza Farnese as "ideological sexuality."
Police estimated 1,000 people attended the rally in Rome to lobby for legal recognition for both gay and unmarried heterosexual couples. An estimated 50,000 people joined in the abortion rights march.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401028.html?nav=hcmodule
The New Zealand Herald
Crackdown on China train ticket scam
15.01.06 5.00pm
XIAN - Police in CHina have paraded illegal train ticket dealers during a public sentence at the Xian Railway Station.
They have launched campaigns to crack down on illegal selling of train tickets, theft, robbery and other crimes around the station.
The operation coincides with the Spring Festival travel season, one of the busiest periods of the year, starting from today.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363783
Row over sex offenders in UK schools
15.01.06 5.00pm
LONDON - A political storm triggered after a British minister admitted he had cleared a registered sex offender to work as a teacher gathered pace on Saturday after a newspaper reported a number of similar cases.
The Times said there were several instances of sex offenders working in schools despite government assurances earlier this week that such men are barred from working with children.
The report came after Kim Howells, a former junior education minister and now at the Foreign Office, said on Thursday he had cleared a man cautioned by police for viewing child pornography on the internet to work as a teacher in "good faith" after reading the file and seeking advice.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363781
Old, blind, infirm - and fit for execution
16.01.06
By Andrew Gumbel
LOS ANGELES - Clarence Ray Allen is 75, legally blind, nearly deaf and crippled. This week he will be executed by the State of California after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied him clemency.
Although Allen still has an appeal pending before the Supreme Court, the Governor's decision increases the likelihood he will be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday night (NZ time), a day after he turns 76.
Scwarzenegger ruled the oldest prisoner on Death Row will not be spared, saying a murderer is still a murderer whatever his health. The decision, was denounced as an affront to human dignity by campaigners.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363847
Communist Party wary of Mao milestones
16.01.06
BEIJING - China's Communist Party vigilantly guards its history, but in 2006 the country must navigate a cascade of traumatic anniversaries of Mao Zedong's rule that may provoke debate over its censored past.
Forty years ago, in May 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, the mass campaign that spiralled into a decade of violence and repression.
The 30th anniversary of Mao's death is September 9.
Then there is the October 6 arrest of the Gang of Four, marking the party's renunciation of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
And there is the Tangshan earthquake, which 30 years ago on July 28 levelled the city in north China, killing at least 240,000 and laying bare the country's weakness and isolation after decades of political campaigns.
Today the Communist Party still strictly guards the country's archives of those times and restricts books about the Cultural Revolution.
Party scholars said they expected few new works to make it past censors.
"The central leadership doesn't worry about history for its own sake, but they don't want to look like they're encouraging doubts about the party when there are already enough doubts," said one Beijing researcher whose study of the Cultural Revolution has been blocked for years.
But Zhang Guangyou, a retired reporter who witnessed many key episodes of the Cultural Revolution, said recalling those years may help China change for the better.
"History offers lessons we all need to remember, and leaders who remember the past will understand how much we need more reform, more change," Zhang told Reuters.
Zhang, 75, worked as a reporter for the official Xinhua news agency for much of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao summoned the country into frenzied, often violent struggle against "capitalist roader" officials accused of betraying the revolution.
Hundreds of thousands died in purges and bouts of warfare, including Mao's one-time designated successor, Liu Shaoqi, who died in prison.
Zhang has written memoirs of his reporting, but does not think the manuscripts will be published this year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363813
Farmer burns school in China
16.01.06 5.20am
A farmer in eastern China threw a flaming petrol-filled bottle into a classroom, injuring 24 people, before committing suicide. Li Guosheng forced his way into the Anhui province school, threw the bottle into the class and jumped out a third-storey window. Police say the motive was unknown.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363844
Polygamy gets political tick in Chechnya
16.01.06
GROZNY - Russia's idiosyncratic loyalist strongman in Chechnya has said he wants to legalise polygamy and allow men to take up to four wives because there aren't enough males to go around after more than a decade of war.
Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's acting Prime Minister, said that the number of women in Chechnya was 9 to 18 per cent higher than the number of men, and argued that polygamy was a practical way of replenishing the republic's war-ravaged population.
"I think that it is necessary because we are at war. It is very important for the Chechen people. Shariah law allows this, it does not run counter to it. Therefore, each man who can provide for four wives should do it."
Chechnya, a largely Muslim republic, has been embroiled in a brutal on-off war of secession from Russia since 1994.
Human rights group Memorial estimates that 75,000 Russian and Chechen civilians have died since then, most of them men.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363801
British MPs to face phone-tapping
16.01.06
LONDON - Tony Blair is preparing to scrap a 40-year ban on tapping MPs' telephones, despite fierce Cabinet opposition, it is reported.
He is expected to formally announce to the Commons within weeks that MPs can no longer be sure that the security services and others will not intercept their communications.
Until now, successive Administrations have pledged that there should be no tapping "whatsoever" of MPs' phones, and that they would be told if it was necessary to breach the ban.
But that convention is to be abandoned in an expansion of MI5 powers following the London bombings.
MPs should be treated in the same way as other citizens and will be given the same safeguards against wrongful tapping, the Prime Minister will say.
The decision provoked a furious row in the Cabinet just before Christmas, when the Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, surprised other ministers by voicing his opposition.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363802
Greenpeace deny 'prolonging whales' suffering' claims
14.01.06 1.00pm
Greenpeace has denied claims by Japanese officials that protesters are increasing whales' suffering in order to obtain "bloody footage" for their PR campaign.
New Zealander Phil Lloyd, a crew member on one of two Greenpeace ships shadowing a Japanese "scientific whaling" fleet in the Southern Ocean, said protesters were confident their actions had prevented a lot of hunting, The Dominion Post reported.
He believed 242 minke whales had been caught 40 days into the 100-day hunt -- far short of Japan's target of 935 minkes and 10 fin whales.
Japan's Far Seas Fisheries Division deputy director Hideki Moronuki, earlier told Reuters the protest was slowing down the hunt, which was necessary to "study" ages and breeding patterns.
"If the harassment continues, there may be some effect," he said.
But when later contacted by The Dominion Post, he denied there were any progress targets for the catch.
Meanwhile, Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research said Greenpeace was prolonging the time taken for whales to die.
Director-general Hiroshi Hatanaka said without Greenpeace interference, 52 per cent of the whales would die instantly, and the rest in less than two minutes.
"The point is that Greenpeace knows that if they harass the catcher boats they can get the bloody footage required for their PR campaign."
New Zealand has ordered its Air Force Orion surveillance fleet to widen its brief from monitoring fishing vessels to keeping tabs on the situation but has stopped short of agreeing to Green Party and conservation group calls to send a navy frigate to the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363696
Gay cowboys denied an Aussie show
16.01.06
Parts of north and central Queensland won't be seeing the controversial cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain.
The film - banned in two cinemas in the US because of its tale of gay cowboy love - won't be seen in Townsville or Rockhampton because of its "limited release" status.
The snub has angered gay activists, who say many could relate to the gay character played by Australian actor Heath Ledger.
Townsville-based Colin Edwards said: "We have gay property owners, jackaroos, jillaroos. They really do exist and they really do fall in love."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363789
Former Saddam frontman gravely ill
14.01.06
Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz may have only weeks to live, his lawyer said on Thursday after visiting the man who was once the public face of Saddam Hussein's Government overseas.
Aziz, a tough, eloquent and loyal spokesman for Saddam and now in his late sixties, was jailed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq but no formal charges have been brought against him.
"He is suffering from high blood pressure and he cannot walk properly. He is being given 13 pills a day for his blood pressure, diabetes and other illnesses to prevent strokes," his lawyer said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363624
NZ firm acquires rights to map tool
16.01.06
Wellington-based technology company Surveylab, which last year attracted $2 million from venture capital company No. 8 Ventures, has licensed American military technology which merges a handheld computer with global positioning capability.
Set up three years ago by engineer Leon Toorenburg and businessman Rex Nicholls to make "Ike" - a handheld recorder for use by the military - Surveylab has bought rights to a sophisticated device created by the US Army Construction Engineering Research Lab in Champaign, Illinois.
The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette says the hand-held apparatus for mobile mapping and expedited reporting - or HAMMER - can be used to assess and record damage to infrastructure like roads, bridges, sewers and dams.
The hand-held iPaq computer has GPS capability, a digital camera, compass, laser distance meter, inclinometer (to measure slope) and geographic information system or GIS mapping software.
The information collected with the device can easily be incorporated in a database, tied to a map, and turned into a report. It has two kinds of wireless capability, plus wired connections so its contents can be moved into a laptop, or sent to a portable printer, other HAMMERS, or the internet.
"Things that used to take you days or weeks to generate a report are now done at the end of the day with the push of a button," said CERL researcher Tad Britt, who used one in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Some of the devices are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan to lay out Army camps and record environmental conditions to assess damage and liability from US operations, but they could also be used on the battlefield for surveying troop movement and supply routes or minefields.
Britt, an archaeologist, has also used it in that field. He said there was a civilian market for the system in real estate management, civil engineering and surveying. It could also be used for "homeland security", say, to study access points at facilities like airports.
CERL started developing the system to map archaeological data at military construction sites and found that Surveylab, with eight staff, had done something similar with its Ike (I Know Everything) device which takes photographs and simultaneously labels them with a GPS position so that they can be downloaded on to a GIS map.
Surveylab has sold Ikes for use in Canada, US, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Africa, Europe, Asia, India, and Australia, as well as NZ, and is negotiating a major sale to the NZ Defence Force.
Company chief executive Andy Nicoll said it was setting up a sales operation in the US.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10363819
Secret file on spying found in PM papers
16.01.06
By Derek Cheng and NZPA
The Government will look into how a top-secret report, which should have been tracked and carefully monitored, found its way into a box of archives left by former Prime Minister David Lange.
The document indicated that the United States had threatened to spy on New Zealand in the wake of its anti-nuclear stance.
The report, by the Government Communications Security Bureau, was among the private papers retained by Mr Lange, who died in August.
Duty Minister Jim Anderton last night said such a confidential report should have been closely monitored by intelligence officials and handed straight back after Mr Lange read it.
"There was a failure of the system somewhere. It's 20 years or so ago ... but there are lessons to be learnt and that should be learnt," he said.
"Officials will look at the circumstances surrounding the presence of the report in the archives ... [and] how that paper was handled."
He said the contents of the archived box - including cheque butts and other miscellaneous material - suggested that the report had not been deliberately misplaced.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363868
Frogs heading dinosaur's way
14.01.06
Global warming has triggered the extinction of hundreds of species of frogs and toads.
Scientists believe they have found the first clear proof that global warming has caused outbreaks of an infectious disease that is wiping out entire populations of amphibians.
The dramatic demise of the 6000 species of amphibians was first identified in 1990 and one theory for the loss was the spread of a devastating skin infection caused by a fungus.
A study by an international team of researchers has now linked the spread of a species of chytrid fungus with a rise in tropical temperatures associated with global warming.
The scientists believe that the average temperatures of many tropical highland regions, which are rich in endemic species of frogs and toads, have shifted to become perfect for the growth of the fungus.
Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa of the University of Alberta in Canada, one of the authors of the study published in Nature this week, said that the analysis firmly links climate change with the rapid demise of many frogs and toads.
"There is absolutely a linkage between global warming and this disease, they go hand in hand," Professor Sanchez-Azofeifa said. "With this increase in temperature, the fungus has been able to increase its niche and wipe out large populations of amphibians in the Americas."
The dramatic loss of amphibians - frogs, toads, newts and salamanders - has led to about a third of them, some 1856 species, being officially classified as threatened. Hundreds more are on the brink of extinction.
Alan Pounds of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica and the lead author of the Nature study, said that the average air temperatures in the region are responsible for the spread of the fungus.
"Disease is the bullet killing frogs, but climate change is pulling the trigger. Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians, and will cause staggering losses of biodiversity if we don't do something fast," he said.
The study found that between 1975 and 2000, average air temperatures for the tropics increased by 0.18C per decade - triple the average rate of warming for the 20th century. Most "extinctions" - when the species was last sighted - occurred in unusually warm years.
The likelihood of this association being chance was less than one in a thousand.
Professor Pounds said that rising temperatures enhance cloud cover over tropical mountains leading to cooler days and warmer nights, both of which favour the growth of the fungus.
The discovery helps to overcome a paradox that puzzled scientists for warmer air temperatures should not favour the spread of the fungus, which thrives best in cooler, damper conditions. It was known that the fungus kills frogs mostly in cool highland regions or during winter months, implying that low temperatures make it more deadly. The study, however, found that the fungus is vulnerable to extremes in temperature and anything that moderates these extremes - such as more frequent mists and clouds in warmer weather - can unleash it.
"This new study ... should give us cause for concern about human health in a warmer world," said Professor Andrew Blaustein, a zoologist at Oregon State University.
"As global change is occurring at an unprecedented pace, we should expect many other [animals] from ants to zebras to be confronted with similar challenges."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=000A43D1-390C-13C7-ACFA83027AF1002A
Waikato uni tests on map could change world history
16.01.06
Researchers at Waikato University are conducting tests on the paper and ink used for a Chinese map which indicates that a Chinese eunuch discovered America.
The copy of a map made in 1763, of a map dated 1418 - to be made public in Beijing today - may show that Admiral Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus, the Economist reported.
If the tests and authentication by other experts showed the map - with a clear depiction of the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, Americas, Africa and Europe - to be genuine, it would overturn centuries of European teaching. Traditional histories record that Columbus found the New World in 1492, Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and Magellan set off to circumnavigate the world in 1519.
Gunnar Thompson, a researcher of ancient maps and early explorers, said if the map was genuine it would revolutionise thinking about 15th-century world history.
Results of the mass spectrography analysis at Waikato University to date the materials on which the map was copied is due to be announced next month, but will only be direct evidence of the paper and inks used in the copy.
Five Chinese academic experts on ancient charts have noted that the 1418 map puts together information that was available piecemeal in China from earlier nautical maps, going back to the 13th century and Kublai Khan, who was himself an explorer, the Economist said.
The naval fleets of Zheng He roamed the oceans between 1405 and 1435, and his exploits - well documented in Chinese history - were recorded in a 1418 book called The Marvellous Visions of the Star Raft.
The copy of the map will be unveiled in Beijing today and at Britain's National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on Wednesday. Six Chinese characters in the upper right-hand corner of the map say this is a "general chart of the integrated world". In the lower left-hand corner is a note that says the chart was drawn by Mo Yi Tong, imitating a world chart made in 1418 which showed the barbarians paying tribute to the Ming emperor, Zhu Di.
The copyist differentiated between what he took from the original from what he added himself.
The copy of the map was bought from a small Shanghai dealer in 2001 by Liu Gang, an eminent Chinese lawyer who collects maps.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10363864
Chris de Freitas: Keep a weather eye on climate change
16.01.06
Sizzling 2005 takes fourth place in record books" announced the Herald headline. The national daily temperature was on average 13.1C, the report said, making last year the fourth-hottest year nationally since climate records began in the 1860s. It was topped only by 1971, 1998 and 1999.
But the fine print shows that the averages for these four hottest years differ by a maximum of two-tenths of a degree, and 1971 was only one-tenth of a degree warmer than last year. These amounts are well within the error margin for the data.
The statistics could be re-interpreted to show that the hottest year was 1998, with an average temperature of 13.3C, so you could say that since 1998 there has been cooling. This approach to interpreting climate statistics is what climatologists call data-picking, as in cherry-picking.
Climate is about statistics and the opportunity for new records to be set increases with time because the instrument record of climate is seldom more than about 100 years. In identifying patterns of climate change and variability through statistical averages, return periods and probabilities of occurrence, this is a minute fragment.
Climate scientist and statistician Douglas Hoyt points out that because the probability of establishing a new weather record never drops to zero, every year some region will establish a new rainfall, storm, temperature or other climate record.
Even in the warmest years some locations will set a new monthly mean low-temperature record. Even in the coolest years some locations will have periods of record warmth.
For example, even though last year was one of the warmest globally, Somalia experienced its "first ever" snowfall in May and China entered its coldest winter in 20 years.
It is important to keep in mind is that climate statistics are mathematical constructs.
They are no more than human inventions, the meaning of which is often misunderstood.
For example, it is false to assume that a 100-year heatwave, flood or storm will occur or be exceeded every 100 years. In fact, there is a high probability (63 per cent) of a 100-year event occurring more than once in a given 100-year period.
Moreover, there is a small but significant likelihood that two or more floods that are more serious than a 100-year flood will occur in a given 20-year period.
An example is the two major floods in Greymouth during 1988, where a 13-year and a 36-year flood occurred in the same year.
There is the worry that whatever the statistical norm for climate may be, this will change as climate changes.
Scientists advising the Government's Climate Change Project say most regions are likely to face more varied rainfall patterns through the century and floods will become four times more frequent because rainfall is likely to become more intense.
On the other hand, a great deal of research which, taken together, suggests that extreme climate events may become less frequent and less severe.
American researchers Karl and Easterling report the results of climate models that suggest temperatures in the future will be confined to a tighter range, on average.
The researchers found that most of the increase in global temperatures so far has been occurring during the winter and at night.
If these forecasts are correct, variability in the data will shrink more and reduce the occurrence of extreme hot and cold spells, but only on average.
* Dr Chris de Freitas is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=0000A5D8-D4CE-13C9-8FCC83027AF10107
Global warming set to accelerate
16.01.06
LONDON - Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in carbon dioxide levels.
Preliminary figures show that levels of the gas - the main cause of climate change - have risen abruptly in the past four years. Scientists fear that warming is entering a new phase, and may accelerate further.
But a summit of the most polluting countries, convened by the Bush Administration, last week refused to set targets for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions.
Set up in competition to the Kyoto Protocol, the Sydney summit, attended by the US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea, instead pledged to develop cleaner technologies - which some experts believe will not arrive in time.
Through most of the past 50 years, levels of the gas rose by an average of 1.3 parts per million a year. But unpublished figures for the first 10 months of this year show a rise of 2.2ppm.
Scientists believe this may be the first evidence that climate change is starting to produce itself, as rising temperatures so alter natural systems that the Earth itself releases more gas, driving the thermometer ever higher
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=0002306F-DE68-13C9-8FCC83027AF10107
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