Michael Moore Today
Here we go again. Bush and Rummy making their own reality. Bush thinks he can just dismiss information of People On The Ground for their own purposes. There are at least as many as 30,000 DEAD. AT LEAST. Don needs to do a manual count of all the graves on street corners, in backyards, on soccer fields and then inspect the dead bodies rotting in morgues without refrigeration. They kill people by the 100s and round them up to stick them in prison by the thousands then they have the God Almighty nerve to make claims that people who are trying to understand this invasion a full THREE YEARS are "W"rong. NO WAY. The Bush White House is "W"rong. End of Discussion !
Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Suggests Misreporting Swaying Public Opinion
By Bill Brubaker / Washington Post
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.
Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are "obviously trying to ignite a civil war," Iraqi security forces have "taken the lead in controlling the situation" and the Iraqi government has taken "a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6121
Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
By Jonathan Steele / Guardian
Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.
"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills," said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6097
Here ya go. A strategy that works in the USA should work in Iraq as well.
Military Will Keep Planting Articles in Iraq
The ranking U.S. general there says a Pentagon review found the program does not violate policy. It could be replicated elsewhere.
By Mark Mazzetti / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the United States after an inquiry found no fault with the controversial practice, the top U.S. general in Iraq said Friday.
Army Gen. George W. Casey said the internal review had concluded that the U.S. military was not violating U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines with the information operations campaign, in which U.S. troops and a private contractor write pro-American articles and pay to have them planted without attribution in Iraqi media.
"By and large, it found that we were operating within our authorities and responsibilities," Casey said, adding that he had no intention of shutting the program down.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6096
Union leaders call for Rumsfeld to resign
By Drew Brown / Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Union officials representing more than 200,000 civilian defense workers across the country issued a vote of no-confidence Tuesday in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and called on him to step down.
The resolution, the first time that federal workers have called for a defense secretary to resign, came in response to the Pentagon's decision to appeal a federal judge's ruling last week that blocks controversial new workplace rules for civilian Defense Department workers.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled Feb. 27 that the National Security Personnel System, which Congress approved in 2003, fails to protect collective-bargaining rights, doesn't allow for independent review of labor relations decisions and fails to provide a fair appeals process in disciplinary cases. The American Federation of Government Employees sued last year.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6127
Four Vermont Towns Back Bush Impeachment
At Least Four Vermont Towns Approve Move to Impeach Bush During Annual Meetings
By David Gram / Associated Press
NEWFANE, Vt. - In a white-clapboard town hall, built circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.
"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning or official agenda for the annual town meeting, a proud Yankee tradition in New England.
"It absolutely affects us locally," Dewalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6123
President Bush casts his vote in Crawford
An error in getting an absentee ballot forced the President to make a trip to his local district to cast his ballot in the primary election.
He arrived in Crawford just before 4:30pm to vote at the local fire station.
It was a mistake in absentee balloting, but for residents in Crawford it was a chance to see their most famous neighbor.
President Bush rolled in along with his motorcade. He gave a quick wave to the crowd, was ushered inside and placed his vote. The President made it in and out in a couple of minutes, and the motorcade pulled out of town.
A couple of dozen people gathered to watch from across the street. There were only a few protesters; the rest came to show support.
It was a mistake that forced the President to come here and an expensive one for tax payers.
It is estimated Air Force One takes 30 to 50 thousand dollars an hour to operate.
For a six hour roundtrip, that comes close to a quarter of a million dollars. So it was a costly treat for the crowd.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6125
Mexico rape victims often denied right to abortion
By Lorraine Orlandi / Reuters
MEXICO CITY, March 7 - When Sandra Rodriguez, a mentally handicapped live-in maid, was raped by her boss and left pregnant in 2002, Mexican courts stopped her from having an abortion although it was her legal right.
Rodriguez, 30, had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old, court-ordered evaluations showed, but Guanajuato state prosecutors questioned whether she had been raped or consented to sex. She gave birth to a girl who was put up for adoption.
Prosecutors later agreed she was raped and admitted local officials had acted irresponsibly in blocking her abortion.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6118
Some Say India Deal Ignores Another Energy Need: Food
By Paul Watson / LA Times
NEW DELHI — A nuclear cooperation deal reached last week between the U.S. and India has added fuel to the debate over whether the South Asian nation can afford a multibillion-dollar push to become a regional military power.
As President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the landmark pact Thursday, the World Bank released a study showing that almost 40% of the world's malnourished children live in India.
Bush administration officials say the nuclear accord, which must be approved by Congress, is partly aimed at strengthening India so it can serve as a counterbalance to neighboring China. However, development experts here said the strategy ignores the plight of several hundred million Indians mired in poverty.
"I think the Western world, and perhaps more so the United States of America, has a feeling that India is a highly developed country," said Babu Mathew, India director of the development agency ActionAid. "So they are reluctant to face the reality of the other side of India, which is millions of people living in poverty."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6119
Energy, Iran Spur Turkey's Revival of Nuclear Plans
By Karl Vick / Washington Post
ISTANBUL -- Turkey is reviving its long-deferred quest for nuclear power, pressed both by serious energy shortfalls within its own borders and by strident nuclear ambitions in neighboring Iran that threaten to upset a regional balance of power.
"The rise in oil prices and the need for multiple sources of energy make our need for nuclear energy an utmost priority," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said last month in announcing plans to build as many as five atomic energy plants. The first, to be located on the Black Sea at Sinop, would come on line in 2012 and ease Turkey's costly dependence on natural gas, 90 percent of which arrives by pipeline from Russia and Iran.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6117
Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War
He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread.
By Borzou Daragahi / LA Times
BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon.
In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6120
Gonzales May Be Recalled on Eavesdropping
By Katherine Shrader / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' written answers to questions about the Bush administration's eavesdropping program may require him to testify a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel's Republican chairman said Monday.
"There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters.
The comments from the moderate Republican come as the Bush administration is trying to quell criticism of its surveillance operations and work with the Senate on legislation that would write the program into law.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6109
Leave Cindy ALONE. She is getting used to being abused. It won't be long before someone hands her a jail sentence and then we'll have a grieving mother and a divorced spouse as a Global Example of how the USA treats women who seek peace and not war. This is not a game. Cindy Sheehan feels strongly about this issue. Treat her with respect. Bush needs to realize all his coalition members are leaving. They aren't a part of the internal strife of Iraqi politics.
Peace activist Sheehan arrested in NY protest
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in the Iraq war, was arrested with three other protesters in New York on Monday after a rally with women from Iraq.
Sheehan became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement last summer after she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch and has been arrested at least two other times at protests.
On Monday, she had joined a delegation of women from Iraq at the rally at the United Nations, urging the United Nations to help prevent civil war in Iraq.
About 20 protesters went to the U.S. mission to the United Nations to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures seeking an end to the war. Nobody from the mission received them so Sheehan and three other American women sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.
A police spokesman said they were expected to be released later on Monday.
The Iraqi women plan to deliver a petition to the White House on Wednesday. Earlier they held a news conference at U.N. headquarters calling for the United States to withdraw its forces.
Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at Baghdad's Yarmook Teaching Hospital, wept as she told reporters of the hardships experienced by Iraqi women.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," she said. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
"We thank you, Mr. Bush, for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she said.
(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6105
Daily Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
Associated Press
As of Monday, March 6, 2006, at least 2,301 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 1,805 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is three lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 103 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one death each.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
A soldier died Sunday in western Anbar province.
The latest identifications reported by the military:
Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, Finksburg, Md.; died Friday in a vehicle accident in Anbar province, Iraq; assigned to Combat Service Support Group-1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6108
The Times-Picayune
2006 rebuilding effort based on 1959 study
Corps says legal restrictions most likely hindered updated approach
Corps ignored crucial levee data
Reports showed need for higher defenses
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bob Marshall and Mark Schleifstein
Staff writers
Weather data showing the need to raise the height of levees to defend New Orleans against stronger hurricanes was not incorporated in Army Corps of Engineers designs, even though the agency was informed of the new calculations as early as 1972, government records show.
The heights of floodwalls and levees now being rebuilt by the corps are based on research for a likely worst-case storm done in 1959. When new weather service research in the 1970s increased the size and intensity of that storm and its projected surges, the corps stuck to its original design specifications when work began in the 1980s, including for structures that failed during Hurricane Katrina.
Corps headquarters officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. New Orleans District engineers now involved in reassessing the area's hurricane protection system said the lack of changes in the past probably can be traced the corps' legal restriction to building only what Congress authorizes.
"I can only guess, but what I think you'll find is that since the authorization (in the legislation) never changed, then the people involved felt they couldn't change" design specifications, said Janis Hote, a corps engineer who, like most of the local staff, was not involved in those earlier projects.
Had the changes been incorporated in corps planning starting in 1972, they almost certainly would have resulted in higher or stronger structures in some areas, hurricane researchers said. Though the project was authorized in 1965, financing problems and court battles delayed much of the construction until 1982, and the designs for many structures that failed during Katrina were not completed until the late 1980s and early '90s.
It is unclear how much levees and floodwalls would have been raised had the changes been acted upon, researchers said, because interpretations of the changes depend largely on the type of computer models being used to predict storm surge height. However, they agreed the new data would have certainly included predictions of higher water, which would have required higher levees and walls.
"If you increase the intensity of a storm, and you run it on the same track through the same area at the same speed, you'll increase the (storm) surge," said Will Shaffer, a storm modeler who designs the storm surge model used by the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for forecasting and emergency planning.
LSU revisits reports
Staffers at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who reviewed the 1972 and 1979 reports produced by the weather service for use by the corps in designing levees along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, estimated the stronger storm outlined in the reports would have raised the so-called "standard project hurricane" to the equivalent of a Category 4, rather than the fast-moving Category 3 generally associated with the 1959 parameters. The standard project hurricane was designed to be "the most severe combination of meteorological conditions that are considered characteristic" of the area.
Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge modeler at LSU, said the increased intensity outlined in the 1979 report would have raised the predicted storm surge along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet from 22 feet to 30 feet. During Katrina much of St. Bernard Parish suffered catastrophic flooding when long sections of the 17.5-foot-high MR-GO levee were topped and collapsed by storm surges that the corps has measured at 18.5 feet.
The Industrial Canal, meanwhile, was topped and collapsed by a peak storm surge that the corps measured at 15.9 feet. That breach destroyed much of the Lower 9th Ward and contributed to flooding in parts of St. Bernard Parish.
It is unclear whether higher floodwalls would have prevented the breaches at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals that put much of the rest of New Orleans underwater. Forensic engineers working with the National Science Foundation have said weak soil layers beneath the floodwalls failed when the canals began filling with water, causing the breaches.
Ivor van Heerden, assistant director of the LSU Hurricane Center and a frequent critic of the corps, said the authorization issue should not have prevented the corps from changing design specifications based on updated information.
"The legislation never mentions a standard project hurricane. That was something the engineers came up with to define the most severe threat," he said. "There is no reason they could not have changed."
In 1965, Congress authorized the corps to develop a system to protect the New Orleans area from "the most severe meteorological conditions that are considered reasonably characteristic of the region," giving birth to the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project.
Limited range of storms
To determine what those conditions were, the corps relied on a study of worst-case hurricanes developed by the Weather Bureau -- today the National Weather Service -- for the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. The Weather Bureau looked only at storms that occurred between 1900 and 1957 for the New Orleans area.
That search produced the hypothetical standard project hurricane for New Orleans, which was adopted by the corps, with some revisions, as the basis of its levee and floodwall designs. It had a central pressure of at least 27.6 inches of mercury, maximum sustained winds of 100 mph in a radius of at least 30 miles, and a forward speed of between 4 and 28 mph. And it had a 1 in 200 chance of occurring in any year.
The corps then determined that such a hurricane could create a maximum storm surge of 11.2 feet at locations in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, based on the shape of the lake bottom and ability of water to enter the lake from Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico. Surge heights for other sections, using the same storm data, were 12.5 feet for Mandeville, 11.9 feet for Chalmette, 12.5 feet for the Citrus and eastern New Orleans back levees, and 13 feet in the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes.
The target date to complete the Lake Pontchartrain levee project was 1978.
As meteorological science improved, the Weather Bureau felt compelled to revisit its definition of the standard project hurricane. Improved data collection led to the discovery of 50 more tropical storms than had been counted in the 1959 report.
In June 1972 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a preliminary report making its first update of the standard project hurricane, dropping the pressure to 27.3 inches, which increased the storm's strength, and increasing the wind speed to 114 mph and the frequency of return from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.
In September 1979 the National Weather Service issued a final report establishing new criteria for the standard project hurricane. By then hurricane specialists had expanded the list of variables considered critical to measuring storm impacts, including the radius of the maximum sustained winds and the forward speed of the storm. It also changed the way maximum sustained winds were measured.
Those changes resulted in a new standard project hurricane with sustained winds as high as 140 mph, according to van Heerden.
Outdated standard used
Had those new parameters been plugged into the Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring storm intensity that made its debut in 1969, the 1972 changes would have equaled a Category 4 storm with surges between 13 and 18 feet, van Heerden said. The 1978 changes would have pushed the standard project hurricane to a Category 5 level, with surges above 18 feet, he said.
"The corps has consistently been saying the standard project hurricane (in its design documents) related roughly to a fast-moving Category 3 storm, but we can see that is plainly not the case," van Heerden said. "The Saffir-Simpson scale was in wide use by 1979, but there's no indication (in the design documents for the projects) that the corps took this into consideration."
As evolving storm science raised the severity of the threat, the corps continued to use the now-outdated standard project hurricane parameters set in 1959, even as its timeline for construction had been delayed into the late '90s.
For example, the corps' 1984 design memorandum for improving New Orleans' lakefront levees says the engineering criteria are based on the frequency of return of 1 in 300 years, pressure at 27.6 inches, wind speed at 100 mph and a surge of 11.5 feet.
The same references to the standard project hurricane established by the 1965 legislation are repeated for floodwall projects on the London Avenue Canal project in 1989 and the 17th Street Canal in 1990.
The first changes found in the parameters for the standard project hurricane in local corps hurricane projects come with a 2000 plan for the West Bank. The agency's planning includes the 1979 standard project hurricane parameters, as well as science on the impact of sea level rise to levee heights.
Although the corps' design documents between 1972 and 2000 don't reflect awareness of the changes, other government reports related to those projects did.
In a 1982 report to the secretary of the Army titled "Improved Planning Needed By The Corps of Engineers to Resolve Environmental, Technical And Financial Issues On The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project," the General Accounting Office -- now the Government Accountability Office -- says: "Subsequent to project authorization and based on the Weather Bureau's new data pertaining to hurricane severity, the Corps determined that the levees along the three drainage canals which drain major portions of New Orleans and empty into Lake Pontchartrain are not high enough since they are subject to overflow by hurricane surges."
Other GAO reports indicate the corps actually was lowering its levee heights even as the new science was raising the heights of expected storm surges.
In a 1976 report on the project, the GAO said the corps expected levees to range between 16 feet and 18.5 feet. But by the time the 1982 report was issued, those averages had been dropped to between 13.5 feet and 16.5 feet -- even though by then, based on weather service reports, the possible storm surge for the standard project hurricane had been increased to more than 18 feet.
Neither the National Weather Service nor corps officials could shed light on why the changed parameters were not reflected in the corps project specifications. A weather service spokesman said current staffers either were not at the agency then or were uninvolved in writing the reports.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539. Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141802754126640.xml
Panel defies Bush, loosens La.'s grip on storm grants
Other states swoop in for more money
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the House Appropriations Committee have stripped President Bush's request to earmark $4.2 billion for housing recovery in Louisiana, throwing the state's rebuilding plan into question and unleashing a scramble among hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast states for a cut of the money.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141803370126640.xml
Katrina remains from Carville are back in Orleans
DNA-matching work continues
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Hundreds of sets of human remains found in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have come home to the parish coroner's office after undergoing DNA testing at a temporary morgue in Carville.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141800945126640.xml
Population up 35% in December to January
But New Orleans remains far from its pre-Katrina number
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
New Orleans' population was just above 180,000 at the end of January, up 35 percent from the early December figure of about 134,000, according to the latest estimate from the city's Emergency Operations Center.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141801130126640.xml
Iran threatens U.S. with 'harm and pain'
3/8/2006, 6:16 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" on Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its suspect nuclear program.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141820968298530.xml&storylist=topstories
U.N. urged to take action against Iran
3/8/2006, 5:37 a.m. CT
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The United States and its European allies said Wednesday that Iran's intransigence over its nuclear program has left the world no choice but to ask for the U.N. Security Council to take action against the Islamic regime.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141814355111000.xml&storylist=topstories
Afghan poppy eradication campaign launched
3/8/2006, 6:11 a.m. CT
By NOOR KHAN
The Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Narcotic agents on tractors launched a massive campaign Wednesday to destroy fields of poppies in the main drug belt of Afghanistan — the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, officials said.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-15/1141821001298530.xml&storylist=topstories
Sudan warns of spreading Darfur violence
3/8/2006, 6:18 a.m. CT
By ANTHONY MITCHELL
The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region will spread if a U.N. peacekeeping mission replaces a beleaguered African Union force, a senior Sudanese government official warned Wednesday.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1141820965298530.xml&storylist=topstories
New Zealand Herald
UK kindergartens bleat about nursery rhyme
08.03.06 3.20pm
Kindergartens in Britain have sparked controversy by changing the lyrics of a traditional nursery rhyme.
Instead of "Baa Baa Black Sheep", toddlers at the kindergartens in Oxfordshire chant "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep."
Supporters argue the original words alienate and offend young black children.
Parents of the children are understood to be unhappy about the move.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371621
NZ contributes to $65m aid for Palestinians
08.03.06 1.00pm
JERUSALEM - New Zealand has made a contribution towards an aid package to help the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.
The World Bank approved a US$42 million ($65 million) aid package to help the Authority until Islamic militant group Hamas forms the next government.
An NZAID spokeswoman said the $500,000 from New Zealand was a standard humanitarian assistance allocation.
"The Palestinian Authority is facing a fiscal short-fall and NZAID has supported governance reform efforts and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people," the spokeswoman said. "It's basically for humanitarian efforts."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371625
Shi'ites seek delay to break impasse over PM
08.03.06 4.20pm
By Waleed Ibrahim and Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD - The United States conceded today that Iraq could yet descend into sectarian civil war as US diplomats strove to break a deadlock among Iraqi political leaders that threatens further delay in opening a parliament.
"We have opened the Pandora's box," US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The question is, what is the way forward?" he asked, speaking two weeks after the bombing of a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra sparked days of bloodshed that killed hundreds.
"If another incident (occurs), Iraq is really vulnerable," the envoy, who is at the heart of talks to forge a coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, told the Los Angeles Times. "The way forward ... is an effort to build bridges across communities."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371640
UK troops plan Iraqi pullout by mid-2008
07.03.06 4.00pm
LONDON - Britain plans to pull out nearly all its soldiers from Iraq by the summer of 2008, with the first withdrawals within weeks, a top military commander said in an interview published today.
Lieutenant General Nick Houghton, Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, outlined a phased two-year withdrawal plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
"There is a fine line between staying too long and leaving too soon," he was quoted as saying. "A military transition over two years has a reasonable chance of avoiding the pitfalls of overstaying our welcome but gives us the best opportunity of consolidating the Iraqi security forces."
Britain has given no firm timetable for the withdrawal of its 8,000 troops in Iraq, based in and around the southern port of Basra.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371465
US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress
08.03.06 11.20am
By Robin Pomeroy
ROME - A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.
According to an Italian court document obtained by Reuters today, James Michael Brown, a 27-year-old paratrooper from Oregon stationed in northern Italy, was sentenced to five years and eight months for rape in February 2004.
Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371606
Moussaoui's lies led to 9/11 deaths says prosecutor
08.03.06
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - Federal prosecutors argued yesterday that even though September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail during the attacks he should be executed because his lies led to the deaths of 3,000 people.
But one of his court-appointed lawyers said executing Moussaoui would only make him a martyr because many al Qaeda members only "live so that they can die."
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April to six counts, three of which carry the death penalty. The charges included conspiracy to commit terrorism.
"Please don't make him a hero," defence attorney Edward MacMahon said at the start of the trial to determine Moussaoui's sentence. "He just doesn't deserve it."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371550
US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s, FBI agent says
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The US government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said today.
FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the US government knew by the mid 1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries.
Operatives at the training camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained in how to avoid detection, he said.
At that time, the US government was tracking several top al Qaeda members, Anticev said, and between 1996 and 1998 made an attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the man who has been described as the brains behind the September 11 hijackings.
Anticev said the attempt, made "somewhere in the Middle East", failed after Mohammed was apparently tipped off.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371605
This is great. Families get relief there are pictures (Hi, Mom) of people who should not be hostages in the first place. Iraq has turned out to be the Islamic Heaven on Earth everyone has hoped for.
Family relieved at hostage video
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Ian Stuart
The Auckland family of hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden said today they were enormously relieved to see him looking in apparent good health on newly released video footage.
Mr Sooden's brother-in-law Mark Brewer said they were "pleased and relieved he is still alive but saddened the saga continues".
Mr Sooden, a Canadian citizen who lived and studied in Auckland, was captured in Baghdad along with Canadian James Loney, Norman Kember of Britain and American Tom Fox in November last year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371609
I am beginning to get the feeling Iran has no nuclear capacity, but, only threats of such. North Korea uses this type of strategy to get monies and garner favors it normally would not get otherwise.
Russia denies Iran atom offer
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Mark Heinrich and Parisa Hafezi
VIENNA - Russia today backed away from what EU diplomats said was a proposal to let Iran do some atomic research if it agreed to refrain from enriching uranium on an industrial scale for 7-9 years.
Russia abandoned the informal proposal, aimed at finding a compromise to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Western rejection of the idea.
The United States and the European Union want Iran to shelve all work to enrich uranium because of suspicions that Tehran is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371612
N Korea says it won't be forced back into talks
08.03.06 4.00pm
TOKYO - North Korea will not return to six-way talks on its nuclear programme unless the United States ends its financial crackdown on Pyongyang's assets, the Kyodo news agency has quoted a senior North Korean official as saying.
Washington has cracked down on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in counterfeiting and money laundering that it says help fund the North's nuclear programmes.
"Under such pressure, we cannot return to the six-way talks. Our position has not changed," Kyodo quoted Ri Gun, North Korea's deputy chief envoy to the talks, as saying.
He was in New York following separate talks with US officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371642
Two security staff arrested over UK robbery
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Jason Bennetto
Two members of staff at the security firm targeted in Britain's biggest robbery have been arrested - leading to the suspicion that the raiders had inside help.
The man and woman, who were sub-contracted to work for Securitas, were questioned about the £53m robbery at Tonbridge in Kent, police said yesterday.
Police have also revealed that they suspect that some gang members have fled abroad with a significant amount of the stolen cash.
So far detectives have recovered about £20m of the record haul.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371604
PhD graduate Melbourne's youngest at 21
08.03.06 1.00pm
A former New Zealand student has become the youngest PhD graduate at Melbourne University, at the age of 21.
Yao-ban Chan started work on his undergraduate degree at the age of 10 while he was being home-schooled.
Mr Chan moved to Melbourne from New Zealand when he was 16.
"I always liked maths, I always found it fun," Mr Chan told The Age newspaper.
He was born in Malaysia and raised in New Zealand and was largely home-schooled by his mother Peck-Woon, a microbiologist, and father George, a director with Heinz.
He completed his bachelor of information science by correspondence in six years.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371630
Pope appeals for release of kidnapped toddler
08.03.06 12.20pm
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict today appealed for the release of a sick 18-month old toddler whose mysterious kidnapping has gripped Italy.
The Pope, in a message to a bishop in northern Italy, called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Tommaso Onofri and said he was praying for the boy's suffering parents.
The Pope condemned the kidnapping as "brutal" and said he was close to the family.
Tommaso, who needs an anti-convulsive medicine twice a day, was abducted by two men who broke into the family home last Friday in Casalbaroncolo near the wealthy city of Parma in northern Italy.
The boy's mother has appeared on television in tears to urge kidnappers to give him regular doses of an anti-epilepsy drug.
The Onofri family is not rich and investigators say that no ransom has been demanded so far.
Pictures of wide-eyed, curly-haired Tommaso wearing a blue and red clown costume, have been splashed on the front pages of all newspapers as politicians, priests, pop stars and football players have appealed for his release.
The anti-Mafia police have also joined the probe after a jailed pentito, or informer, said he had heard of a plot to kidnap someone in the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371615
Hollow victory as rural China battles march of capitalism
08.03.06
By Clifford Coonan
IN ZHEJIANG, CHINA - Si Xiaoyan weeps as she tells how her husband, Liu Huirong, was sentenced to five years in jail for taking part in riots last year in the town of Huaxi over the illegal granting of land rights to 13 chemical factories.
"I miss him," says Si, 31, tears streaming from behind her glasses as we sit in a brick farmhouse in the town in Zhejiang province.
Her sorrow is in contrast to the jubilation in the village in April last year, when 30,000 farmers stopped 1500 police from entering Huaxi and the farmers won the battle.
Huaxi became famous among activists in China, one of the first of many disturbances as rampant industrialisation led to clashes between the authorities and those left behind - the farmers and migrant workers who make up two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371531
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