Morning Papers - continued ...

The New York Times

Experts See Peril in Reduced Monitoring of Nation's Streams and Rivers

By JOHN SCHWARTZ
When Michael Griffin thinks about the stream gauge on the Licking River at Catawba, Ky., he says he has an uncomfortable sense that history may repeat itself.
The stream gauge, one of some 7,400 nationwide, does what its name implies: it measures the level and flow of water in a stream. The data have many uses, most prominently in providing warnings of floods.
In 1994, federal budget cuts led to the loss of a gauge on the Licking River at McKinneysburg. Three years later, a flash flood on the Licking inundated the town of Falmouth, six miles northwest, and killed four people.
The furor over the incident led to more gauges and increased federal financing. But in the past few years, budget pressures have built up once more. And this time, the gauge at Catawba is caught in the squeeze.
"We are on the same river probably within 50 miles of where we were before, and the same danged thing is happening again," said Mr. Griffin, who is the assistant director for hydrologic surveillance at the Kentucky Water Science Center. The center is part of the United States Geological Survey, which runs the nation's stream-gauge network.
"Another flood hits, we might be back in exactly the same situation we were in back in '97," he said.
River flooding kills about 125 people each year and costs billions of dollars in property damage. "That's more deaths per year than are attributed to tornadoes or hurricanes," said Thomas Graziano, the chief of the hydrologic services division of the National Weather Service.
The network of gauges, including temporary devices that can be installed at a spot that becomes worrisome, can help warn that a flood is on the way so people can move to higher ground. Without gauges, however, there are no data, and "we can't meet our river forecast and warning mission without this data," Mr. Graziano said.
For all that, a stream gauge is a humble thing. Typically, a small structure like an outhouse on the stream bank protects the equipment.
Older gauges have sensors in a well dug under the structure. A pipe connects the well to the water flowing by. The "stilling well" isolates the level of the water without the interference of waves, and the position of a float measures the height of the water. Newer gauges accomplish the task without the stilling well. Separate measurements determine the velocity of the flow.
And while the data from gauges are best known for alerting people to floods, the devices serves many other purposes. The data help determine how often an area might be flooded, and with what intensity; that, in turn, guides engineers and architects in building bridges, roads and communities. It helps determine the 100-year flood measurement that figures into flood insurance policies and construction regulations.
The data from the gauges also help measure the gradual changes in patterns of drought and high water. In Maine, for example, stronger stream flow in February and lower flow in May suggest that the winter ice has begun melting earlier. That can help assess the effect of global warming. But it is also important information for recreational fishermen and kayakers.
All of that monitoring costs money: each gauge costs, on average, $13,500 to run, said Michael Norris, coordinator of the National Streamflow Information Program. The national network, which has other costs as well, takes some $120 million each year to run about 7,400 gauges, down from a peak of 8,221 in 1968.
The program has always been supported by a patchwork of money from the United States Geological Survey; other federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation; and more than 800 state and local "funding partners."
That arrangement can sometimes create tension, said Jay Gourley, a vice president of the Public Education Center, an environmental group that advocates greater resources for the system. "It's kind of a game of chicken between the states and the federal government," Mr. Gourley said. "The people who live in these flood-prone areas are the ones who are losing their property and dying in the meantime."
In the case of the Licking River, there is still debate over whether the deactivated stream gauge might have provided a crucial alert if it had still been in operation. Robert Hirsch, the associate director for water at the Geological Survey, said he believed that it would have. "Lives were lost, I think, in part because of the inadequacy of the warning," Dr. Hirsch said.
After that flood, the government expanded the network, mainly by reactivating stream gauges that had been discontinued, bringing the number to more than 7,500 from about 7,000.
It added financing for the network and put more of the program under direct federal control to protect critical gauges, with the budget increase beginning in 2001. "That resulted in a stabilization in the network," Dr. Hirsch said.
But then, Mr. Norris said, "Sept. 11 hit." With greater resources going to national security, the budget for the stream program stayed essentially flat while inflation caused costs to rise about 3 percent each year.
And while the pressure on the federal government to hold the line on rising budgets is fierce, at the state and local level it is even more so. "This year we've been hearing from quite a few of our funding sources that things are not looking so good for continued funding," said Glenn G. Patterson, the head of the cooperative water program for the Geological Survey, which pays for 65 percent of the network.
And so the network has begun to shrink again for the first time since the 1990's. The network lost about 400 gauges in 2005, Mr. Norris said, with 350 added for a net loss of 50. At this point, Mr. Patterson said, about 200 gauges are "threatened" by budget cuts at some level. "We've been holding pretty steady at about 7,400," he said, and added, "We're looking at a pretty big net drop coming into '07."
Dr. Hirsch said, "Now we're in the same position we were at the end of the 90's."
The Bush administration has requested an additional $2 million on top of the roughly $14 million direct federal contribution from the Geological Survey to the program, which Mr. Patterson called "a step in the right direction." But, Mr. Patterson said, it will only help reinstate as many as 50 gauges — but that does little to replace the number already discontinued or threatened. "It won't solve the problem," he said.
The question of money comes down to national priorities, Mr. Norris said. He freely admitted that "there's no reason to keep every stream gauge that's ever started" since the program began in 1889. Yet "there's nobody who says, 'We shouldn't be doing this; this is a waste of taxpayer dollars,' " he added. "What's more important? Is education more important or is a stream gauge at another location more important? Keeping terrorists out or getting more stream flow information?"
Brian Mrazik, a retired Geological Survey official, says complacency often leads people to question the expense of the gauges. "When floods come along, everyone's excited. They say, 'Let's fund gauges.' You go 20, 30 years without a flood, and people say, 'What the hell are we paying for this thing for?' "
The gauges most likely to be cut are those that do not have a critical role in flood alerts and safety, Mr. Patterson said, but loss of that data can have serious implications. "The real impact, the real benefit from stream gauges, comes from the myriad day-to-day decisions of how big to make a culvert or how big to make a bridge," he said.
That loss of data troubles Mark T. Anderson, South Dakota Water Science Center director. He says that the process of losing stream gauges is a "nagging, festering problem" and that South Dakota lost seven gauges because of budget cuts at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. One of those gauges had been operating for 62 years, and another for 53.
"If you have a discontinuity of a couple of years even, you lose part of the substantial investment that's been made in the period of record," Mr. Anderson said. "It's like you're squandering the investment of your predecessors."
Besides, he added, "You can't just run a gauge for 60 years and shut it down and say, 'Everything is fine.' Things keep changing."
And so, Mr. Anderson said, those long-lived gauges could ultimately prove more important than today's flood or tomorrow's bridge. "It is these longer-term stream flow records that help us unravel what is going on with climate change."
Some of the most important gauges for that kind of work are the ones that are the farthest from communities, in rural areas where natural conditions prevail. But those are the gauges that are least likely to alert a community to a flood, and so they are lower on the list of gauges to save.
Advocates for a more robust stream gauge network, like Mr. Gourley, argue that the system is a bit like a pointillist painting: the loss of a single dot would probably not change the overall picture. But lose enough of them over time, and the image is lost.
Robin G. Middlemis-Brown, director of the Geological Survey's Iowa Water Science Center, said he was especially sorry to see a gauge blink out that had been providing data on the Des Moines River in Iowa for 87 years.
"If you don't know your past, you can't tell your future," Mr. Middlemis-Brown said. "It's like going blind, slowly."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11stream.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


Company Finds Clinton Useful, and Vice Versa
Corning Inc., one of upstate New York's largestand oldest employers, has supported Republican candidates for so long that its chairman once joked that it had not raised money for a Democrat since 1812.
Skip to next paragraphBut since Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the Senate in 2000, Corning and its mainly Republican executives have become one of her largest sources of campaign contributions. And in that time, Mrs. Clinton has become one of the company's leading champions, delivering for it like no other Democratic lawmaker.
In April 2003, a month after Corning's political action committee gave $10,000 to her re-election campaign, Mrs. Clinton announced legislation that would provide hundreds of millions in federal aid to reduce diesel pollution, using, among other things, technology pioneered by Corning. It was one of several Congressional initiatives Mrs. Clinton has pushed that benefit the company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/nyregion/12hillary.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=3415c13ccb8f7173&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Seeking Ancestry in DNA Ties Uncovered by Tests
By AMY HARMON
Alan Moldawer's adopted twins, Matt and Andrew, had always thought of themselves as white. But when it came time for them to apply to college last year, Mr. Moldawer thought it might be worth investigating the origins of their slightly tan-tinted skin, with a new DNA kit that he had heard could determine an individual's genetic ancestry.
The results, designating the boys 9 percent Native American and 11 percent northern African, arrived too late for the admissions process. But Mr. Moldawer, a business executive in Silver Spring, Md., says they could be useful in obtaining financial aid.
"Naturally when you're applying to college you're looking at how your genetic status might help you," said Mr. Moldawer, who knows that the twins' birth parents are white, but has little information about their extended family. "I have three kids going now, and you can bet that any advantage we can take we will."
Genetic tests, once obscure tools for scientists, have begun to influence everyday lives in many ways. The tests are reshaping people's sense of themselves — where they came from, why they behave as they do, what disease might be coming their way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/us/12genes.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=7cb857e4ae15fb91&ei=5094&partner=homepage


After 3-Year Battle, Chinese Teenager Is on Road to U.S. Citizenship
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
HOUSTON, April 10 — Young Zheng could not wish for a better 18th birthday present: a green card.
Not the counterfeit kind given to him by Chinese smugglers known as snakeheads before they put him on a plane to the United States. A real one, so he can get out of federal custody, stave off deportation, finish school and chase his dream of becoming a biologist.
It now appears that Young, who once bashed himself against a wall to avoid being sent back to China, has won a three-year legal struggle over his immigration status, putting him on the path to American citizenship — if keeping him in the shadows indefinitely for his own safety.
Young foresees a normal life someday, he said in an interview on Sunday under condition that his whereabouts be withheld and that photographs not reveal his features. "I look so different than when I came here," he said, running a hand through his spiky black hair.
Anyway, he said, "when I am 40 or 50, the smugglers already pass away." They had already threatened family members, he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/us/11smuggle.html


Judges Set Hurdles for Lethal Injection
By ADAM LIPTAK
Judges in several states have started to put up potentially insurmountable roadblocks to the use of lethal injections to execute condemned inmates.
Their decisions are based on new evidence suggesting that prisoners have endured agonizing executions. In response, judges are insisting that doctors take an active role in supervising executions, even though the American Medical Association's code of ethics prohibits that.
A federal judge in North Carolina, for instance, ordered state officials there to find medical personnel by noon today to supervise an execution scheduled for next week. Otherwise, the judge said, he will impose a stay of execution.
"This, of course, will make lethal injections difficult, if not impossible, to perform," said Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, a professor of surgery at Ohio State University who has studied lethal injections and opposes the death penalty.
A California judge plans to hold hearings on the issue next month, after an execution there was called off for lack of doctors, and the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments this month on whether death row inmates may use a civil rights law to challenge lethal injections as cruel and unusual punishment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/us/12lethal.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=6921109d1af546bc&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Principals' Jobs on Line as City Grades Schools
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein yesterday accelerated his drive to hold educators accountable for student achievement, announcing that New York City's more than 1,400 schools will be graded each year just like students, from A to F. Principals whose schools persistently fail could be removed, he said.
Mr. Klein said schools' grades would be determined largely by a more sophisticated analysis of annual standardized test scores. In addition, officials would look at a new set of satisfaction surveys, to be completed by parents, teachers and students.
Any effort to remove principals based on the new grades could require changes in their contract, according to their union. Under their current contract, principals are rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and critics say even poor principals are rarely penalized.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/education/12klein.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=9225639f5decb00e&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Corzine Defies Liberal Expectations in Call to Freeze Aid to Needy Schools
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
TRENTON, April 10 — To those who watched closely as Jon S. Corzine campaigned for governor last year, there were occasional hints that if elected, Mr. Corzine might defy expectations by cutting financing for something considered sacred by many of the liberals and urbanites who make up his political base: the state's needy school districts.
But there was nonetheless a sense of surprise at the State House at Mr. Corzine's announcement late last week that New Jersey's budget problems had compelled him to challenge some parts of a State Supreme Court order that has forced Trenton to pay additional billions of dollars to 31 needy districts.
In a court motion filed on Friday, Zulima V. Farber, the state attorney general, asked the court to freeze financing for those districts at their current levels.
She argued that given an approaching deficit that had forced the governor to propose higher taxes and cuts in spending, those needy districts would have to share in the pain. She also said the state lacked proof that some of the education programs it was underwriting were working.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/nyregion/11corzine.html


Acting Speaker to Convene Iraqi Parliament

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 12, 2006
Filed at 4:48 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The acting parliament speaker said Wednesday he will convene the Iraqi legislature next week to push forward the formation of a new government stalled over the issue of who will serve as prime minister.
Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni Arab, told a press conference he decided to convene the assembly because ''it's my duty to the Iraqi people in order to preserve the credibility of the democratic process.''
Pachachi added that Shiite politicians told him they hope to have the deadlock over the nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari resolved in time for the session.
Parliament was elected Dec. 15 but has held only one session because of the dispute over the prime minister.
As the biggest bloc in parliament, the Shiites have the right to nominate the head of government. But Sunni and Kurdish parties oppose the Shiite choice of al-Jaafari for another term and the Shiites have not agreed whether to replace him.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Parliament.html


Iran Rejects Russian Call to Halt Atomic Work

Published: April 12, 2006
Filed at 4:44 a.m. ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran rejected on Wednesday a Russian call that it end its uranium enrichment work, saying its nuclear program could not be stopped.
Iran said on Tuesday it had produced low-grade enriched uranium suitable for use in nuclear power stations, setting itself on a collision course with the West and U.N. Security Council which have called for a halt to its work on uranium.
Russia described Tuesday's announcement as ``a step in the wrong direction'' but Iran held firm.
``Iran's nuclear activities are like a waterfall which has begun to flow. It cannot be stopped,'' a senior Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency on Wednesday saying Tehran should halt uranium enrichment.
Iran has been referred to the U.N. Security Council for failing to convince much of the international community that it is enriching uranium just for power stations and not branching into weapons.
Iran has traditionally regarded Moscow as a key nuclear ally and several officials in Tehran have confidently predicted that the U.N. Security Council will take no action against Iran because of Russia's veto.
Russia is helping Iran build its first its first nuclear power station at the Gulf port of Bushehr and a Russian firm is helping explore the Anaran oilfield in Western Iran.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-iran-rejection.html


April 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Yes He Would
By PAUL KRUGMAN
"But he wouldn't do that." That sentiment is what made it possible for President Bush to stampede America into the Iraq war and to fend off hard questions about the reasons for that war until after the 2004 election. Many people just didn't want to believe that an American president would deliberately mislead the nation on matters of war and peace.
Now people with contacts in the administration and the military warn that Mr. Bush may be planning another war. The most alarming of the warnings come from Seymour Hersh, the veteran investigative journalist who broke the Abu Ghraib scandal. Writing in The New Yorker, Mr. Hersh suggests that administration officials believe that a bombing campaign could lead to desirable regime change in Iran — and that they refuse to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
"But he wouldn't do that," say people who think they're being sensible. Given what we now know about the origins of the Iraq war, however, discounting the possibility that Mr. Bush will start another ill-conceived and unnecessary war isn't sensible. It's wishful thinking.
As it happens, rumors of a new war coincide with the emergence of evidence that appears to confirm our worst suspicions about the war we're already in.
First, it's clearer than ever that Mr. Bush, who still claims that war with Iraq was a last resort, was actually spoiling for a fight. The New York Times has confirmed the authenticity of a British government memo reporting on a prewar discussion between Mr. Bush and Tony Blair. In that conversation, Mr. Bush told Mr. Blair that he was determined to invade Iraq even if U.N. inspectors came up empty-handed.
Second, it's becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Bush knew that the case he was presenting for war — a case that depended crucially on visions of mushroom clouds — rested on suspect evidence. For example, in the 2003 State of the Union address Mr. Bush cited Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes as clear evidence that Saddam was trying to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Yet Murray Waas of the National Journal reports that Mr. Bush had been warned that many intelligence analysts disagreed with that assessment.
Was the difference between Mr. Bush's public portrayal of the Iraqi threat and the actual intelligence he saw large enough to validate claims that he deliberately misled the nation into war? Karl Rove apparently thought so. According to Mr. Waas, Mr. Rove "cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged" if the contents of an October 2002 "President's Summary" containing dissents about the significance of the aluminum tubes became public.
Now there are rumors of plans to attack Iran. Most strategic analysts think that a bombing campaign would be a disastrous mistake. But that doesn't mean it won't happen: Mr. Bush ignored similar warnings, including those of his own father, about the risks involved in invading Iraq.
As Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently pointed out, the administration seems to be following exactly the same script on Iran that it used on Iraq: "The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary of state tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on U.S. troops."
Why might Mr. Bush want another war? For one thing, Mr. Bush, whose presidency is increasingly defined by the quagmire in Iraq, may believe that he can redeem himself with a new Mission Accomplished moment.
And it's not just Mr. Bush's legacy that's at risk. Current polls suggest that the Democrats could take one or both houses of Congress this November, acquiring the ability to launch investigations backed by subpoena power. This could blow the lid off multiple Bush administration scandals. Political analysts openly suggest that an attack on Iran offers Mr. Bush a way to head off this danger, that an appropriately timed military strike could change the domestic political dynamics.
Does this sound far-fetched? It shouldn't. Given the combination of recklessness and dishonesty Mr. Bush displayed in launching the Iraq war, why should we assume that he wouldn't do it again?

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/opinion/10krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman


Wag the Camel
By MAUREEN DOWD
Washington
Talk about a fearful symmetry.
Iran was whipping up real uranium while America was whipped up by fake uranium.
Obsessed with going to war against a Middle East country that had no nuclear weapon, the Bush administration lost focus on and leverage over a Middle East country hurtling toward a nuclear weapon.
That's after the Bush crew lost focus on and leverage over an Asian country that says it has now produced a whole bunch of nuclear weapons.
To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, these guys wouldn't have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.
While Dick Cheney was getting booed as he threw out the first pitch for the Nationals — it bounced in the dirt and Scooter wasn't even there to catch it — Iran was jubilantly welcoming itself to the nuclear club and spitting in the eye of the U.S. and U.N.
Speaking before a mural of fluttering white doves, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged that his scientists had concocted enriched uranium. They will now churn out nuclear fuel as fast as they can.
Are they making a bomb? Nah, said the Iranian president, furthest thing from their minds.
Are we going to bomb them before they can get a bomb? Nah, said the American president, furthest thing from our minds.
The nuclear doves announcement was embarrassing for Mr. Bush, who had said on Monday that he was determined to prevent Iran from getting the know-how to enrich uranium. But the Persian logic cannot be faulted. If you pretend to have W.M.D., the U.S. may come and get you. Ask Saddam. If you really have W.M.D., you're bulletproof. Ask Kim Jong Il.
I'm sure the mad-as-cheese Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot believe his luck. The down-the-rabbit-hole Bush administration is tied up in Iraq, helping to create a theocracy friendly to Iran while leaving Iran to do whatever it wants on W.M.D.
In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes about the Pentagon planning for a possible strike against the nutty "apocalyptic Shiites," as the former C.I.A. agent Robert Baer calls the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad and his chorus line of clerics.
Mr. Hersh quotes a source close to the Pentagon saying that Mr. Bush believes "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Which makes sense, in a wag-the-camel way, since saving Iraq is not going to be his legacy.
The Bush hawks, who have already proven themselves cultural cretins in Iraq, seem to still be a long way from that humble foreign policy they promised. A former defense official told Mr. Hersh that the plan was based on an administration belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." The official's reaction: "What are they smoking?"
Just as Rummy dismissed questions back in August 2002 about a possible invasion of Iraq as a media "frenzy" — even as plans were well under way — the defense chief shrugged off The New Yorker story as "Henny Penny, the sky is falling."
Noting that the president is "on a diplomatic track," He Who Should Be Fired said that while W. was obviously concerned about Iran as a country that supports terrorists and wants W.M.D., "it is just simply not useful to get into fantasy land."
Yes, the reality-based community of journalists should stay out of fantasy land, which is already overcrowded with hallucinatory Bushies.
W. defended his authorization of a leak to rebut Joseph Wilson's contention that the administration had hyped up a story about Niger selling Saddam uranium. "I wanted people to see the truth," the president said.
Of course, sometimes in order to help people see the truth, you've got to tell them a big fat lie.
As David Sanger and David Barstow wrote in The Times on Sunday, Scooter's leak about Saddam's efforts to obtain uranium had already been debunked by the time he leaked it. Colin Powell had told The Times that intelligence agencies were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when the secretary of state was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the U.N. Only Scooter and Dick Cheney were willing to use a faulty bit of intelligence to defend their war scam.
With Watergate, reporters followed the money. With Monica, Ken Starr followed the stain. With W. and his bananas second banana, Patrick Fitzgerald is following the uranium. All he needs is a Geiger counter.

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/opinion/12dowd.html?hp


Adiós for a Spanish Hotel Where They Dressed to Kill
By RENWICK McLEAN
MADRID, April 11 — In the ritualistic world of bullfighting, perhaps the most solemn ritual begins about 90 minutes before anyone confronts a bull, as the matadors and their teams begin to dress for the ring.
"The climate is mystic," said Fernando Galindo, a bullfighter in Madrid. "You are preparing to risk your life."
The clothes usually go on slowly, he said, often in front of a makeshift altar, a cross or an image of the Virgin Mary. Some bullfighters prefer solitude, he said, others conversation or the hushed company of friends. But nearly all are superstitious devotees of routine, dressing in the same way in the same place, over and over.
For many bullfighters in Madrid this year, however, sticking to routine will be impossible. The Hotel Reina Victoria, the traditional hub of Madrid's bullfighting culture and the place where Spain's great matadors have been dressing for more than 60 years, was shut down during the off-season to be transformed into something decidedly less Spanish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/europe/12madrid.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=6b21be214f012a3e&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Rieslings From Germany Scale the Heights
By ERIC ASIMOV
THE sap rises. The swallows return. And without fail each year something in the spring air touches the nerve that causes me to crave riesling.
Could it be the scent of the tulips along Park Avenue? The shedding of the winter woolens? The thwack of ball against bat? All right, all right, I'll lose the seasonal romance. It's the clogging of the sinuses, the car alarms now all too audible through open windows, the promise of sweaty days ahead, whatever. Either way, the first warm days of spring signal the official opening of riesling season.
Many wines have their seasonal associations. I think of Sancerre and sauvignon blanc in the summer, Rhone wines in the fall, Amarone in the winter, and Burgundy and Champagne pretty much any time at all. Yet, just as riesling reigns among wines in conveying a sense of origin, it is also unsurpassed in connoting the sense of rebirth and renewal that we almost physically equate with spring. Among its less mystical attributes, riesling is also one of the most versatile wines to pair with food.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/dining/12pour.html


Italy Less Governable Than Usual After Vote
By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune
ROME 'Oh God, it's Florida!"
Perhaps this front-page commentary from the daily Corriere della Sera, a reference to the hanging chads and disputed American vote of 2000, best caught Italy's anxiety after election results revealed a country so perfectly divided as to appear almost perfectly ungovernable.
Romano Prodi, with a narrow advantage in the lower house for his motley center-left alliance, declared victory and his readiness to govern. But Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose oddball center-right grouping also appeared to have lost the upper house, or Senate, by the narrowest of margins, showed no immediate sign of being ready to quit.
Accusations thundered back and forth, as they have throughout a bitterly contested campaign marked by Berlusconi's outlandish - but often calculated - buffoonery and Prodi's measured - but often smug - confidence that Italy was ready for a decisive change.
"Almost indecent," was the lapidary comment of Prodi's party on what it called Berlusconi's defiance of the will of the people. Aides to Berlusconi, who compared himself to Napoleon and Jesus Christ during the campaign, retorted that Prodi's victorious declarations were "anti- democratic."
Ominous talk of recounts and manipulations and political coups suggested it was not so much Florida in the air as cold-war Paraguay. But, of course, a democratic Italy is anchored in the European Union and the chatter was harmless enough.
Still, behind the theater to which Italy is seldom a stranger lay several discomfiting facts. Any new government will need the support of both houses; that support is likely to be unstable at best. Relations between Berlusconi and Prodi are so bad that compromise seems unimaginable.
A languishing and increasingly uncompetitive economy good at making things like textiles and shoes that China makes much more cheaply requires concerted attention, but it now seems unlikely to get it.
With the wealthy north voting for the right and the backward south for the left, the country's historical divisions between a zone of productivity and a zone of state dependency have been exacerbated. Italy today seems split in two in just about every way a country can be: politically, geographically, economically and culturally.
"This Italy is divided between two uncompromising and irreconcilable halves," commented Massimo Giannini in the daily La Repubblica.
In this, to be fair, it is scarcely alone. Italy's knife-edge election follows an almost equally close- fought vote in Germany. America itself is split almost down the middle. It is not merely Berlusconi's "House of Liberty" and Prodi's "Union" - vague names embracing unstable coalitions of interest - that find themselves almost tied in a modern democracy.
Labels of left and right count for little in a post-ideological world where the dictates of the market often leave little room for real political maneuver. What remains are battles of culture and style and personality in which each point of view is comforted by a barrage of partisan Internet communication.
In Italy, the deployment of forces has been clear for some time. On the one side, Berlusconi's, pro-American, pro-market, anti-politically-correct, immigrant-wary, nationalist-tinged followers, united, if anything, in their loathing of what they see as a Communist-influenced left.
On the other, Prodi's anti- American, market-moderating, globalization-wary secular Europeanists united, if anything, in their loathing of Berlusconi's populist style, his apparent skirting of the law in defense of his vast business interests, and his firm support for the war in Iraq.
It had seemed, until Tuesday, that Prodi's forces held a clear upper hand. The Iraq war has festered, weakening Berlusconi's hand. His promises of economic reform have proved largely empty, leaving Italy with an annual growth rate of just 0.7 percent during his five years in office. No country has suffered like Italy from the adoption of the euro, which put an end to its ability to compensate for inefficiency through devaluations of the lira.
By any measure, even in a country where measurements are notoriously unreliable, Italy has trailed under Berlusconi: public finances, competitiveness and employment have all suffered.
But Prodi, the former head of the European Commission whose supporters range from ecologists to unreformed Communists, proved unable to capitalize decisively on these failings. At times he seemed paralyzed by the divisions within his own camp.
If he becomes prime minister, as is probable, his ability to govern seems likely to be limited. That will leave Italy doing what it knows best but can least afford: muddling through and punching below its weight.
As for Berlusconi, his likening of himself to Christ was outrageous, but his talent for political resurrection can scarcely be questioned after a bravado performance suggesting that his pro-American stance was less unpopular than it appeared. His feel for an angry Europe troubled by immigration and tired of political double-speak has proved more acute than his many critics suggested.
America's recent honoring of Berlusconi as a statesman worthy of addressing a joint session of Congress was far-fetched. So, too, was President George W. Bush's recent description of him as a "strong leader." A desperate war in Iraq that has alienated several European allies evidently makes a sober American judgment of European friends difficult.
But there is no question that Berlusconi, with his stubborn but erratic flair, and his flawed brio, has demonstrated the impatience of many Italians with the pat phrases of European anti-Americanism, so loved by intellectuals and much of the mainstream media. He has also given Italian politics a needed shake-up.
The country, however, has scarcely benefited from one of the longest periods of stable government in the post-war years. Consumed by his own persona, and at times by his own legal travails, Berlusconi has not delivered. How Prodi will be able to do so, if he becomes prime minister with the most slender of majorities, is unclear.
Perhaps Angela Merkel, the popular German chancellor now vacationing on the Italian island of Ischia, has a few suggestions. She, of course, emerged from a muddled election at the head of a grand coalition. But such a broad left-right alliance appears as remote here as Italian bravado and theater are from German efficiency and precision.

http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2006/04/12/world/IHT-12globalist.html


Injuries Mount as Demonstrators Battle With Police in Nepal
By TILAK P. POKHAREL and SOMINI SENGUPTA
KATMANDU, Nepal, April 11 — For the fifth day in a row, Nepalis on Tuesday defied a curfew imposed by their king. And for the sixth day in a row, Nepalis here in the capital defied a ban on political rallies the king had imposed. As violent pro-democracy demonstrations mounted, questions mounted, too, about the very authority of the palace.
Reports of violence poured in as protests organized by Nepal's seven largest political parties and supported by Maoist rebels continued in a bid to restore parliamentary rule.
In the Gongobu section of the capital on Tuesday, a crowd of thousands burned down a police post.
When demonstrators rushed toward a police line, the police charged at the crowd wielding batons. A journalist on the scene said the police followed up with rubber bullets, then live shots. The army stood guard nearby, but did not fire.
A Nepali Red Cross volunteer at the scene said at least 90 people had been injured in the clash.
At nearby Vinayak Hospital, a 50-year-old street vendor named Ganesh Bohara vowed to return to the streets as soon as doctors treated him for head injuries. "I am ready to die for democracy," he said.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Katmandu issued a statement on Tuesday saying it "deplores the excessive use of force" by the police and soldiers. It said its monitors had witnessed police firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and beating demonstrators on the head with batons, causing head injuries.
"Police have been seen attacking bystanders, charging into houses, engaging in indiscriminate beatings and causing some gratuitous damage to property," the statement read.
The statement added that monitors also "witnessed restraint being exercised by security forces in the face of provocation and violence by demonstrators."
The police also fired on protesters in the Himalayan resort town of Pokhara, injuring two, The Associated Press reported. All told, three people have been killed in the six days of demonstrations.
The government on Tuesday ordered security forces to comb through private homes and buildings for suspected Maoist rebels that it accuses of having infiltrated the protests. Earlier this week, the Maoists said they would tear down signs and statues representing the monarchy.
King Gyanendra has not been heard from since demonstrations began last Thursday. He is scheduled to address the nation on Friday, the start of the Nepali New Year. The king, who assumed the throne after the killing of his brother in 2001, seized absolute control of Nepal's government in February 2005, saying the move was necessary to crush the Maoist insurgency.
The State Department on Monday night described King Gyanendra's power-grab as having "failed in every regard." Some 13,000 people have died in the Maoist conflict, a majority during the king's tenure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/asia/12nepal.html


29 Are Indicted in Connection With Attacks in Madrid

By RENWICK McLEAN
Published: April 12, 2006
MADRID, April 11 — A Spanish judge indicted 29 people on Tuesday in connection with the Madrid train bombings two years ago, suggesting that the group attacked Spain for its support of the American-led invasion of Iraq and for its increasingly aggressive police investigations of Islamic radical groups.
The indictment, part of a long-awaited report about the attacks running nearly 1,500 pages, did not assert directly that the plotters had been motivated by anger at the policies of Spain's government. But the judge who wrote the report, Juan del Olmo, noted that the timing of the attacks, March 11, was just three days before Spain's general election.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Socialist Party won that election in a surprise victory and fulfilled his campaign pledge to withdraw Spanish troops immediately after taking office in April.
Five of the men indicted Tuesday were charged with carrying out or conspiring to carry out the attacks, done with 10 strategically placed bombs that exploded on four commuter trains, killing 191 people and wounding about 1,800.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/europe/12spain.html


2 Wall Street Employees Charged With Insider Trading
By JENNY ANDERSON
Ever since Michael Douglas declared that "greed is good" in the 1987 movie "Wall Street," the character he played, Gordon Gekko, has been the face of insider trading on Wall Street.
But it was $2 million in profits made by a 63-year-old retired seamstress in Croatia that tipped off the Securities and Exchange Commission about an ambitious and unusually creative insider trading ring, investigators say. That lead culminated in the arrests yesterday of two junior-level employees at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
The seamstress, Sonja Anticevic, made more than $2 million — a seventeenfold return — on a two-day investment in options on Reebok International after the company announced last August it would be acquired by Adidas-Salomon and the stock surged 30 percent.
Regulators say it was her nephew, David Pajcin, a 29-year-old former Goldman Sachs bond research analyst, who made the trades. They said he was working with Stanislav Shpigelman, 23, an analyst in Merrill Lynch's mergers and acquisitions department, and Eugene Plotkin, a 26-year-old Harvard graduate who was an associate in the Goldman Sachs bond research department until he was suspended yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/business/12inside.html


The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order
By MATT RICHTEL
SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Like many American teenagers, Julissa Vargas, 17, has a minimum-wage job in the fast-food industry — but hers has an unusual geographic reach.
"Would you like your Coke and orange juice medium or large?" Ms. Vargas said into her headset to an unseen woman who was ordering breakfast from a drive-through line. She did not neglect the small details —"You Must Ask for Condiments," a sign next to her computer terminal instructs — and wished the woman a wonderful day.
What made the $12.08 transaction remarkable was that the customer was not just outside Ms. Vargas's workplace here on California's central coast. She was at a McDonald's in Honolulu. And within a two-minute span Ms. Vargas had also taken orders from drive-through windows in Gulfport, Miss., and Gillette, Wyo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/11fast.html?ex=1144987200&en=42e6f397d4d75c51&ei=5087%0A



MySpace.com Hires Official to Oversee Users' Safety
MySpace.com, the social networking Internet site popular with young people that has alarmed some parents and law enforcement officials concerned about sexual predators, announced yesterday that it was hiring a former federal prosecutor to be its first chief security officer.
The site, acquired last July by the News Corporation, which also owns Fox Broadcasting and DirecTV satellite television, is used by young people to post personal pages that can include their photographs and other details about their lives and interests so they can interact with others on the site.
Because of concern by parents and school and law enforcement officials that the site sometimes unwittingly makes young people vulnerable to pornographers or predators, the company has hired Hemanshu Nigam, director of consumer security outreach and child-safe computing at the Microsoft Corporation, to oversee safety, education and privacy programs and law enforcement affairs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/technology/12myspace.html

BACKGROUND

Homeland Security official confesses to child pornBy Shaun WatermanUnited Press International Published April 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security official who was arrested this week on cyber child sex charges made a "full confession" to investigators, the man in charge of the investigation said.
Polk County, Fla., Sheriff Grady Judd said that after Brian Doyle's arrest Tuesday, the deputy press spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security "confessed and acknowledged, although it was off-tape, that he did like young girls."
Sheriff Judd said Mr. Doyle made admissions both off tape and later, during a formal tape-recorded interview, but "he was a lot less forthcoming once the tape recorder was switched on."

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060408-111227-8794r


Panel Considers Revamping College Aid and Accrediting
By SAM DILLON
Months after suggesting that standardized testing should be brought to colleges and universities, a higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining proposals to change sharply how the nation's colleges are accredited and how federal student aid is administered.
One proposal calls for scrapping the current system of accreditation, which has been done largely by private regional bodies, in favor of a National Accreditation Foundation that would be created by Congress and the president. Another proposal calls for streamlining the federal student aid system, replacing some 17 grant, loan and tax-credit programs with just one, or perhaps three, federal aid programs.
The commission, which includes corporate and academic officials, was set up last fall by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to examine college costs and accountability.
Sweeping proposals like the accreditation idea have seemed to turn the commission's deliberations into a tug-of-war between corporate executives and educators over how to solve problems in the nation's higher education system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/education/12commission.html?pagewanted=print


Sip Slowly: a $1, 000 Mint Julep
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:11 a.m. ET
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- As if custom-made hats, premium box seats and limo rides weren't enough, the Kentucky Derby will now feature the $1,000 mint julep.
Sip this drink slowly.
The sweet cocktail will be made with one of the state's finest bourbons and served in a gold-plated cup with a silver straw to the first 50 people willing to put down the cash at the May 6 race.
Mint from Morocco, ice from the Arctic Circle and sugar from the South Pacific will put this mint julep in a class of its own, the distillery selling the drink said.
''We thought we would reflect on and complement the international nature of the Kentucky Derby,'' said Chris Morris, master distiller for Woodford Reserve. The distillery, owned by Louisville-based Brown-Forman Corp., will sell the drink only on race day to raise money for a charity for retired race horses.
The company already sells about 90,000 mint juleps at the Derby each year but hopes what's being dubbed the ''ultimate'' mint julep will catch on. Those who buy the $1,000 cocktail will get to watch Morris and others make it.
''People want a memory,'' said Wayne Rose, Woodford Reserve's brand director. ''This is something they can take home and share with friends.''
Mint juleps have been synonymous with the Kentucky Derby for decades. They are often served in silver or pewter cups and are meant to be sipped and savored.
The new 24-karat gold cup promotion fits in with the high-class atmosphere, said Gary Regan, a spirit and cocktail expert who's been to the Derby twice.
''I think there will be enough people with enough money at the Kentucky Derby that will go for that sort of thing,'' said Regan, author of ''The Joy of Mixology.''
Churchill Downs officials said the expensive mint juleps will help raise awareness about the needs of retired thoroughbreds.
''A concern has developed over time that these horses were finding their way to be sold for slaughter,'' track spokeswoman Julie Koenig said.
Churchill Downs will funnel money from the pricey juleps to the New Jersey-based Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides homes for the former race horses.
''These horses are there making these memories special to us,'' Kornig said. ''It's nice to find a way to give back to them.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Derby-Costly-Cocktail.html


As Big Race Nears, a Few Smell the Roses
By JOE DRAPE
The starting gate for the Kentucky Derby holds 20 horses, and in most years those post positions are spoken for when the field is drawn on the Wednesday before the race, the first Saturday in May.
Each owner wants to believe his horse has a realistic shot at winning America's most famous race, but horsemen on the back side of Churchill Downs will tell you that in most years only seven or eight have a real chance.
With two major prep races left before the Derby's 132nd running, some strong contenders have emerged.
The likely favorite is Brother Derek, who turned in a spectacular victory Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby. The colt had already run well, but in the effortless way in which he earned his fourth consecutive victory, Brother Derek wowed his jockey, Alex Solis, and probably struck fear in the camps of his rivals.
"This was incredible," Solis said after the colt's three-and-a-quarter-length victory. Solis merely scrubbed his colt's neck down the lane and was ecstatic that his horse had expended so little energy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/sports/othersports/10derby.html


G.M. Plans to Sell Its 7.9% Stake in Isuzu
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO, April 11 — General Motors said Tuesday that it would sell the last of its large stakes in a Japanese carmaker, 7.9 percent of Isuzu Motors, for $300 million.
It is the third time since October that G.M. has sold off a stake in a Japanese auto concern, dissolving equity partnerships built up over more than three decades, to raise cash that it needs for an overhaul at home. G.M. has already earned $2.7 billion from the sale of shares of Suzuki Motor and Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subaru.
Troy A. Clarke, president of G.M.'s Asia-Pacific operations, said the Isuzu sale would yield cash to pay for revamping and to invest in new products and growth opportunities elsewhere in the world.
"The sale will allow us to strengthen our balance sheet, increase liquidity and maintain flexibility for investment in other growth initiatives," Mr. Clarke told reporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/business/worldbusiness/12isuzu.html


China Daily

Passenger trains collision kills two
Two passenger trains collided in Heping County in South China's Guangdong Province, April 11, 2006. The accident killed two workers aboard the trains and injured dozens of others. The railway is part of the track linking Beijing and Kowloon in Hong Kong. [Xinhua]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_565971.htm


Iran has got enriched uranium
Iran's Astan Qods Razavi museum chief carries a sample of enriched uranium after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speeches in Mashad, 924 km (574 miles) east of Tehran, April 11, 2006. Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran had joined the group of countries possessing nuclear technology and was determined to achieve industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_566061.htm


Iranian artists perform as they hold up samples of enriched uranium after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches in Mashad, 924 km (574 miles) east of Tehran April 11, 2006. Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran had joined the group of countries possessing nuclear technology and was determined to achieve industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_566061_3.htm


The Doves of Peace are a nice touch.

Iran says it joins nuclear club
(Reuters)Updated: 2006-04-12 14:25
TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran wants to achieve industrial-scale uranium enrichment, setting his country on a collision course with the United States which fears Tehran wants to make an atomic bomb. On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said Iran had successfully produced the enriched uranium needed to make nuclear fuel for the first time, triggering a warning from Washington that Tehran's latest declared nuclear advance could heighten international pressure.
Ahmadinejad said in a televised address: "I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear technology. This is the result of the Iranian nation's resistance." "Based on international regulations, we will continue our path until we achieve production of industrial-scale enrichment," he told officials and some ambassadors from regional states gathered in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_566213.htm


Iran: Enrichment goal is peaceful
(AP)Updated: 2006-04-12 08:49

An Iranian official holds a capsule of uranium hexaflouride, or UF6 gas during a ceremony in Mashhad, Iran's holiest city Tuesday, April 11, 2006. Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, although he insisted his country does not aim to develop atomic weapons. In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad called on the West 'not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians' by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment. [AP]
Iran's hard-line president said Tuesday that the country "has joined the club of nuclear countries" by successfully enriching uranium for the first time ¡ª a key process in what Iran maintains is a peaceful energy program.
The announcement from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was certain to heighten international tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program. The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment by April 28 because of suspicions the program is designed to make nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad warned the West that trying to force it to abandon uranium enrichment would "cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians."
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, was heading to Iran on Wednesday for talks aimed at resolving the standoff. The timing of the announcement suggested Iran wanted to present him with a fait accompli and argue that it cannot be expected to entirely give up a program showing progress.
Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful member of Iran's ruling clerical regime, said the breakthrough means ElBaradei "faces new circumstances."
The White House, which is pressing for U.N. sanctions against Iran, said the enrichment claims "show that Iran is moving in the wrong direction."
"Defiant statements and actions only further isolate the regime from the rest of the world," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Britain's Foreign Office issued a statement reiterating the U.N. call for a halt to enrichment work and warned that "if Iran does not comply, the Security Council will revisit the issue."
The Iranian enrichment announcement "is not particularly helpful," it said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_565786.htm


Iran Nuke Issue

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/world_iran2006_page.html


US sceptical of Iran offer on Iraq talks
(Agencies)Updated: 2006-03-20 16:28
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley expressed scepticism on Friday about Iran's offer to talk to the United States about Iraq, saying it may be an attempt to divert pressure over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Hadley told a group of reporters his concern was that the Iran offer is "simply a device by the Iranians to divert pressure that they are feeling in New York," where members of the UN Security Council are debating a statement aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear program.
The United States last November offered to have talks with Iran about US allegations that Iranians are shipping components for home-made bombs into Iraq for use against Iraqi and American targets and taking other steps to provoke instability.
Iran initially rejected the offer. But Tehran shifted course on Thursday and said it was willing to open a dialogue with the United States on Iraq.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-03/20/content_547520.htm


'Peaceful development road is Chinese choice'
By Zhang Ping (chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2006-04-12 11:26
Canberra, Australia - China's pursuit of a peaceful development road is a choice made by its people in accordance with its national interests, said Cai Wu, minister in charge of the State Council Information Office. Cai is heading a Chinese media delegation on a weeklong visit to Australia.
Addressing the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on Wednesday, Cai said that China's peaceful development should be interpreted as an attempt to accelerate growth in a peaceful international environment while simultaneously promoting world peace and prosperity through its own development.
"It requires China to show an all-dimensional openness to the world, " Cai said. " It aims for mutually beneficial win-win results and common development with the international community in step with the trend of economic globalization.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_566089.htm


'Police should only shoot as last resort'
By Zhu Zhe (China Daily)Updated: 2006-04-12 05:57
The Ministry of Public Security reiterated that it supports the legal use of firearms by authorized police officers to shoot and kill criminals when their lives, or the lives of the public, are seriously threatened.
"Police officers are allowed to legally use guns," said ministry spokesman Wu Heping at a regular press briefing yesterday in Beijing.
He made such a remark in response to a statement made by Zhang Guifang, deputy Party secretary of Guangzhong, provincial capital of South China's Guangdong Province.
At a meeting on the city's public security situation last Tuesday, Zhang urged police officers "not to be afraid of shooting criminals when their lives or the lives of common people are seriously threatened. Otherwise, it would be deplorable for the Chinese police force," he said.
Wu echoed that legal use of guns by police officers is supported by the Criminal Law.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_565656.htm


China agrees to import US beef(chinadaily.com.cn/AFP)
Updated: 2006-04-12 08:19
To help reduce a massive trade gap, Beijing has agreed to lift a ban on US beef exports during latest bilateral trade talks in Washington, said a joint statement issued by US and Chinese officials.
"China has agreed to reopen its market to US beef subject to completion of the technical protocol," the statement said. The two sides promised to "work closely together" on final details to lift the ban which has been in place since 2003 when the mad cow disease row erupted in North America.
During the annual trade talks, the Chinese government also agreed to a range of measures to ease some serious US concerns on the trade front, AFP reported.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_565722.htm


President Hu to visit US next week
By Le Tian (China Daily)Updated: 2006-04-12 05:52
President Hu Jintao will visit the United States next week to strengthen bilateral ties amid frictions over trade and the renminbi's exchange rate, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
Hu's four-day US trip, starting from April 18, will take him to Seattle and Washington D.C., ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular news briefing in Beijing.
"He is expected to meet his US counterpart George W. Bush and other senior officials for in-depth discussions on bilateral relations and other international or regional issues of common concern," the spokesman said.
He added that the president is also expected to deliver a speech at Yale University in Connecticut.
Following the US trip, Hu will travel to Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya for official visits which will last until April 29, Liu said.
Hu's first visit to the White House since taking office comes amid mounting pressure from the US side to take action on China's surging trade surplus as well as revaluation of its currency.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_565598.htm


China to buy 80 Boeing jets(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-12 08:33
Boeing Co. said Tuesday it had struck a tentative agreement to sell China 80 narrow-body 737 airplanes.
The deal is valued at $4.6 billion (euro3.8 billion) at list prices, although customers typically negotiate big discounts. It is expected to be finalized with individual Chinese carriers in the next few weeks.
The agreement is in addition to 70 airplanes China agreed to buy from the Chicago-based jetmaker in November, as part of a planned 150-plane purchase.
It was announced amid high-level meetings between Chinese and U.S. officials, and comes a week before Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to visit the United States. His trip includes a tour of Boeing's Everett, Washington. plant.
In December, China agreed to buy 150 of rival Airbus SAS' jets, in a deal valued at more than $9 billion (euro7.4 billion) at list prices.


Draft Gives Birth

A doctor examines a 1.1-meter-tall woman who gave birth to a baby weighing 2.22 kg at an affiliate hospital of the Chinese Medical University in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province on April 11, 2006. [newsphoto]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_566237.htm


'Private equity fund should be legalized'By Chen Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-08 07:30
SHENZHEN: It's time to consider legalizing the private equity (PE) fund in China, a legislative official suggested on Friday, noting that this would help bolster the development of the VC (venture capital) industry in China.
"People's knowledge on PE fund has been widened over the past decade and the environment to run PE fund in China is getting mature," said Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislative body.
He made a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the eighth China Venture Capital Forum, an annual event that has attracted more than 1,000 venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and government officials.
Cheng, who was dubbed as China's "father of venture capital," said he has chaired a close-door seminar focusing on the PE fund recently, which was attended by the reform commission officials, financial professionals and scholars.
While keeping the details under wraps, Cheng said he was quite positive on the issue. "I think firstly it should be a regulation, then a law," he said.
However, the central government will make the final decision and more research should be done, he added.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/08/content_563255.htm


Poverty alleviation targets gender inequality
By Jiang Zhuqing (China Daily)Updated: 2006-04-12 09:30
China will pay more attention to gender mainstreaming and forming gender-sensitive policies in the development of the new countryside, said a senior official from the State Council yesterday.The population of poor women in China's rural areas decreased to 23 million at the end of 2005. In 1994 the figure stood at 35 million, said Wang Guoliang, vice-director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development."Great progress has been achieved in poverty alleviation for Chinese women in many fields, including improvements in education, employment and social participation, when compared to 10 years ago," said Wang at a high-level workshop, co-organized by the poverty alleviation group, the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank (ADB).

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/12/content_565906.htm


IPRs 'not a factor' behind trade surplusBy Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-12 05:52
Senior officials of ministries and agencies directly dealing with intellectual property rights (IPR) were at a press conference yesterday to address questions on China's IPR protection but Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai ended up doing most of the answering.
Is China really getting tough with IPR offenders? Will China's campaign to protect IPRs help narrow the trade surplus with the United States? Will the crackdown on IPR infringements affect China's economy?
A smiling Bo answered: China will go all out to bolster IPR protection, even though it affects jobs.
"As far as I know, at least 300,000 law-enforcers and other people are involved in IPR protection in China," he said, adding that between 2000 and 2005, 13,000 people were arrested for IPR violations.
In Beijing, for example, the local authorities have banned the sale of 48 famous brands at the Silk Street shopping mall a landmark known for inexpensive branded goods to help stamp out counterfeit products.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/12/content_565796.htm


Japanese investment hits US$6.53b(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-06 14:43
Japan's direct investment in China rose 19.8 percent to a record US$6.53 billion last year, a Japanese trade group said Monday.
Direct investment from Japan in 2005 ¡ª excluding banking, securities and insurance sectors ¡ª surpassed the previous record of US$5.45 billion registered in 2004, the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) said.
Japanese investment accelerated in the latter half of last year as companies that had remained cautious earlier in the year because of anti-Japan demonstrations regained confidence in China¡¯s market, the report said. Another major factor pushing up Japan¡¯s direct investment was a series of large-scale investments by Japanese automakers, along with Japanese auto parts makers that have moved to set up manufacturing bases in China, the report said.

FM spokesman rebuts Japan's criticism of nationalism in China(Xinhua)Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Tuesday said here in Beijing that he disagreed with a Japanese official's criticism of "nationalism" in China.
In response to remarks by a Japanese Embassy spokesman that nationalism was on the steady rise in China, Liu said the Chinese government opposed ultra-nationalism.
Liu described the remarks as a misinterpretation of the Chinese government's attitudes and positions, adding they were unhelpful in resolving historical differences between China and Japan and in improving bilateral relations.
Japan should squarely face the crux of difficulties in Sino-Japanese relations and take concrete measures to resolve its historical problems, to return to the track of healthy growth for bilateral relations, said the spokesman.

Official lashes rumors on "concentration camp"
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_566177.htm


Bomber kills 41 at Pakistan prayer service(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-12 08:18
Volunteers move a wounded Muslim after a blast during a religious gathering in Karachi, Pakistan, April 11, 2006. The bomb targeting Sunni Muslims killed at least 47 people and injured 50 others in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Tuesday as they gathered to celebrate the anniversary of Prophet Mohammad's birth.
Karachi bomb death toll hits 57(Reuters)Updated: 2006-04-12 14:55
The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a Sunni Muslim prayer meeting rose on Wednesday to 57 in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, where officials said they were on high alert for more violence.
Tuesday's strike by two suspected suicide bombers was the worst ever on Karachi, which has been plagued by sectarian violence and Islamist militant organizations angered by President Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
"The death toll has now risen to 57, while there are also reports that some people are still missing," Salahuddin Haider, spokesman of the provincial Sindh government, said.
"Our initial investigations suggest that there were at least two suicide bombers involved in the attack. We have found the body parts, including the heads, of the suspected attackers."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_566243.htm


World Bank faces dilemma on Hamas contacts
(Reuters)Updated: 2006-04-12 11:07
A push by the United States and its European allies to isolate the Hamas-led government posed an awkward dilemma for the World Bank, which has been a major distributor of aid and policy advisor to the Palestinian Authority.
World Bank officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said on Tuesday contact with the new Palestinian government has been "limited" until World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz decides how to proceed.
Although the World Bank insists on its political neutrality, the Palestinian issue is complicated by U.S and European Union views that Hamas, an Islamist organization blamed for dozens of suicide attacks in Israel, is a terrorist organization.
"As long as Hamas is branded by major donors as a terrorist-related organization it'll be very difficult for the bank staff to proceed, and if they would like to, they will also have to go to the board" of member countries, one senior bank official said.
"There is no formal stop in grant disbursements, but they are not going out, so it is a dilemma," the official added.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-04/12/content_566110.htm


Britney back in unwanted spotlight
(e!online)Updated: 2006-04-12 09:51
Britney Spears has come under renewed scrutiny from Los Angeles child-welfare officials. At least one social worker, accompanied by deputies, visited Spears' Malibu home Saturday afternoon, L.A. County Sheriff's Lieutenant Debra Glafkides said Wednesday.
The call was rather prompted after the pop star's seven-month-old son was diagnosed with a skull fracture, Star magazine reported Wednesday.
A call seeking comment from Spears' publicist was not returned.
The sheriff's department could confirm only that its deputies went to Spears' home to "keep the peace," as Glafkides put it, while the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services conducted its business. For their part, the deputies didn't take any action or write any reports, she said.
The Department of Children and Family Services could not be reached for comment.
Per the Star, Spears' baby, Sean Preston, was injured Mar. 31 in a high chair mishap while in the care of his nanny in California. Spears and her husband, aspiring rapper Kevin Federline, were in Dallas at the time, the tabloid said.
Last Friday, the Star said, a CAT scan revealed Sean Preston had sustained a "minor skull fracture and a blood clot." As is the routine, the magazine reported, the head-injury diagnosis was red-flagged by child welfare officials, and an inquiry opened.
In February, the Department of Children and Family Services dispatched sheriff's deputies to Spears' home after photographers caught the singer in the act of driving with her young son on her lap, the boy unbuckled and unrestrained.
Initially, Spears said she acted "instinctively" in order to get her baby away from prying paparazzi. Later, she admitted that she "made a mistake."

Jolie hits out at Aniston(World Entertainment News )Updated: 2006-04-12 11:16
Angelina Jolie has reportedly accused Jennifer Aniston of using an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show last September to turn the public against her and Aniston's former husband Brad Pitt.Jolie's close pal, Tonya Hart, is quoted in British magazine Star saying the actress was enraged by Aniston's behavior, claiming she was "milking" her split with Pitt.
And the movie beauty even cut ties with Winfrey herself, when the talk-show hostess then tried to invite her on the show.
Tonya claims Jolie said, "Oh my God, it makes me want to throw up! She shot her mouth off and Oprah took it all in.
"The audience took it all in. They were all against Brad and me from that moment on.
"She wanted people to feel sorry for her that her marriage was down the pan. Brad and I couldn't defend ourselves."
Tonya adds, "Angie told Oprah she was extremely upset with her and wanted nothing to do with the show, even though Oprah reportedly said, 'Don't bear a grudge against me."

Where to buy wedding dress(That's Beijing)Updated: 2006-04-12 11:14
There are plenty of options for buying wedding gowns in Beijing, enough perhaps to drive a future bride crazy trying to find that one dream wedding dress. Those getting married back home might also want to consider buying a dress here-ever notice how everything is made in China anyway?
Just how cheap do wedding dresses come, here in Beijing? In Wukesong Photography Equipment City, brides can find custom-fit wedding dresses for as low as RMB 200. However, shoppers should not expect great quality or even a great shopping experience. There are no real fitting rooms, no returns, and their fabrics and craftsmanship are hardly first-class. Don't forget to haggle.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/citylife/2006-04/12/content_566115.htm


Fake Brangelina baby on the cover of New York magazine
Updated: 2006-04-11 14:58
While humanity awaits the arrival of the BRANGELINA BABY, the April issue of New York magazine put a fake picture on its cover. Brad is an impostor; Angelina is a computer clone. The baby has not yet been born.
Just as the artilce in the magazine said, "If the blessed event occurs by the time of publication, let's just pretend this cover never happened." This also shows how people are eagerly anticipating this blessed baby.
These people are not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or any of their children. Sorry. But at least there's no digital manipulation here! These are models photographed by Alison Jackson, who specializes in staging fictitious scenes involving celebrity look-alikes.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/lifestyle/2006-04/11/content_565336.htm


Iraq After War
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/world_06iraq_page.html


Courtroom chaos halts Saddam Trial
[ 2006-03-16 14:34 ]
Saddam Hussein's trial is on hold once again, this time until early next month.
The Iraqi chief judge in Baghdad adjourned the stormy trial until April 5 after the obstinate former dictator outright refused to answer prosecutors' questions. Wednesday marked the first time Saddam testified at his trial, and he did so with fiery political speeches that prompted the chief judge to close the courtroom, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.
Saddam called on Iraqis to stop a bloody wave of sectarian violence and instead fight American troops. He also encouraged Iraqis to "unite in a jihad against the occupiers," Logan reports.
Even as the judge repeatedly yelled at him to stop, Saddam read from a prepared text, insisting he was still Iraq's president.
"Let the (Iraqi) people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency. "In my eyes, you are the resistance to the American invasion."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-03/16/content_541014.htm


Drug firms enjoy healthy export growthBy Jiang Wei
(China Daily)Updated: 2006-04-12 06:20
China's export of pharmaceuticals is expected to continue its fast growth this year, despite the impact of trade conflicts and a revaluation of China's RMB currency.
"Global demand for China's pharmaceuticals is strong," said Cui Bin, deputy secretary-general with the China Chamber of Commerce for Importers and Exporters of Medicines and Health Products.
It is predicted that the global pharmaceutical market will grow at an annual growth rate of about 5 per cent over the next few years.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/12/content_565816.htm


Major news websites back Internet self-censorship
(Xinhua)Updated: 2006-04-12 08:53
China's central news websites on Tuesday backed the proposal of major Beijing-based portals for self-censorship and the eradication of pornographic and violent Internet content.
In a joint announcement, 11 news websites vehemently supported the initiative, saying it represents the aspiration of China's Internet users.
"Chinese websites are capable and confident of resisting indecent Internet content," the announcement said.
The central websites are China's major channels of Internet news releases and the main sources of news on other websites. "We all agree and actively respond to the joint proposal," the announcement said.
The websites also vowed to play a leading role in self-censoring Internet content in compliance with the "Eight Honors and Disgraces", a new concept of socialist morality set forth by Hu Jintao, president and general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, recently.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/12/content_565793.htm


The Columbus Dispatch

Easter eggs, naturally
Ohio birds provide plenty of colorful shells
Tuesday, April 11, 2006Before you drop those tiny colored tablets in those little cups of vinegar, you might want to take a hike through Ohio this week for some natural inspiration. There, in tree cavities, on limbs and along the ground, you’ll find the real thing — eggs of many colors. All-natural. No dyes.
From the common grackle to the great-crested flycatcher, Ohio’s birds lay some pretty interesting eggs, some of which are on this page at full size.
Most birds that build their nests in tree cavities don’t need color or camouflage to protect their eggs. But those that build nests on tree branches or along the ground often rely on color and patterns to keep their progeny safe from predators.
Take the killdeer. Bob Glotzhober, curator of natural history for the Ohio Historical Society, said the killdeer will build a nest just about anywhere.
"I’ve seen them all over the state," he said. "I’ve seen them in grassy parking-lot dividers and football fields."
There are several things that keep killdeer eggs safe. First, the eggs are strong and hard to break. Second, they are tapered on one end and are usually laid in groups of four, so they fit snug in the nest. They also sport a bold pattern that resembles rocks or gravel.
"It’s as much chance as evolution," Glotzhober said. "It’s whatever works."
Another bird hides its eggs in plain sight and relies on the kindness of strangers.
Brown-headed cowbirds are deadbeat parents. The female lays her eggs in other birds’ nests and hopes for the best. In most cases, it works, even though the speckled eggs might not resemble those in the nest (some birds simply don’t see the difference).
But the yellow warbler can tell the difference between its speckled eggs and those of the cowbird. The warbler will build a new nest on top of its own eggs, killing them and the cowbird’s eggs rather than see them hatch together, said Jim McCormac, avian education specialist with the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
If the cowbird returns and deposits more eggs, the warbler simply adds another layer to the nest.

http://www.dispatch.com/science/science.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/11/20060411-C8-01.html


Muhammad Ali Sells Marketing Rights
NEW YORK (AP) -- Muhammad Ali, one of the world's most recognized people, has sold 80 percent of the marketing rights to his name and likeness to a firm for $50 million.
The 64-year-old former heavyweight champion, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, will retain a 20 percent interest in the business. The new venture will be operated by a company called G.O.A.T. LLC, an acronym for "The Greatest of All Time."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOX_ALI_NAMING_RIGHTS?SITE=OHCOL&SECTION=HOME


Britney and Kevin get visit from child welfare agents
Associated Press
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:46 AM
MALIBU, Calif. -- Child welfare officials and a sheriff's deputy visited Britney Spears' home because her infant son was accidentally dropped from a high chair, People Magazine and the Los Angeles Times reported.
Six-month-old Sean Preston fell April 1 as his nanny was lifting him from the high chair and something in the chair snapped, People said yesterday on its Web site. The infant slipped from her arms and fell, bruising his head on the floor, the magazine said.
Though a doctor examined the baby at the house, Spears and husband Kevin Federline took the baby to the emergency room to have him examined six days later, the report said.

http://www.dispatch.com/features-story.php?story=178957


Mexico Army Finds Tons of Cocaine on Plane
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican soldiers seized 5 1/2 tons of cocaine worth more than $100 million from a commercial plane arriving from Venezuela, Mexico's Defense Department announced Tuesday.
The army was waiting for the plane on Monday at the airport of Cuidad de Carmen, 550 miles east of Mexico City, after receiving information from Venezuelan and U.S. authorities, Gen. Carlos Gaytan told a news conference.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MEXICO_VENEZUELA_DRUGS?SITE=OHCOL&SECTION=HOME


New COSI director off and running
He wants to perk up long, austere hallways with ‘family-friendly’ exhibits
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Robert Ruth
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
As David Chesebrough hopped on COSI Columbus’ elevator last week, he joked with two women and their children who were already inside.
"We wanted the mezzanine," one of the women said.
"Well, you’ve landed on the third floor where the administrative offices are," said Chesebrough, the science museum’s new president and chief executive officer. "We have very interesting offices, if you want a tour."
The women laughed and shook their heads.
Chesebrough’s banter with the visitors demonstrated one of the qualities that impressed COSI’s board of trustees.
"He’s very personable," said Robert J. Weiler, a board member who was on the committee that recommended hiring Chesebrough. "He’s good with people and remembers everyone’s name."
Carl F. Kohrt, chairman of the trustees board, agreed. "He couples a good personality with being a good listener," Kohrt said.

http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/12/20060412-B1-01.html


NO GRAY AREA
Buckeyes’ uniform change brings wave of angry responses
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Ken Gordon
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Among the hundreds of white-hot angry responses to a question about the new Ohio State football jerseys came this simple one:
"Woody is turning over."
Really? If legendary former coach Woody Hayes were alive today, he might put a quick end to the flood of complaints.
When OSU announced last week that it was changing its jerseys, the news didn’t just touch a nerve among the Buckeye faithful. It’s more like it nicked an artery, judging by how fans’ scarlet blood began boiling.
The jersey features thinner stripes on the sleeves — scarlet, white and black instead of the old pattern of scarlet, white, black and gray.
The Buckeyes’ helmets and pants are still gray, and gray remains in the road jerseys, as well.
But phone lines to radio talk shows lit up, and when The Dispatch asked for reader comment online, the Internet practically melted from the heat.
Most dispatch.com poll questions draw between 100 and 200 responses. The record was 433, for a question on same-sex marriage. As of yesterday afternoon, however, the jersey change had prompted 734 responses, with 79 percent opposing the switch.

http://www.dispatch.com/football/football.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/12/20060412-E1-00.html


Online, cell-phone shows nominated in new category
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Brian Bergstein
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TV programming created for cell phones, hand-held computers and the Internet has arrived as its own medium: Six broadband-specific shows have been nominated in a new category of the Emmy Awards.
With the rise of a diverse range of programming for computers and mobile devices, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences decided last year to recognize the field with the new award, for "original entertainment programming created specifically for nontraditional viewing platforms."
The nominees:
• 24: Conspiracy by Fox Mobile Entertainment. A spinoff of 24, the drama created for mobile phones has a different cast from the Fox series.
• It’s JerryTime! by Ozone Inc. JerryTime is a quirky, collagestyle animated blog chronicling the misadventures of a 40-something single guy.
• Live 8 on AOL. On July 2, simultaneous concerts were staged around the world to draw attention to global poverty. AOL provided live feeds and later offered footage on demand.
• mtvU Stand In by MTV Networks’ mtvU. The short episodes focus on university life.
• Sophie Chase by CB Films Inc. The police show stars Kate Clarke.
• Stranger Adventures: Helen Beaumont by Riddle Productions. The interactive, online puzzle contest combines video and email. Each weeklong episode generates clues.
The winner is to be announced April 22, in conjunction with the Daytime Emmys in New York.

http://www.dispatch.com/features-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/11/20060411-D3-03.html


State aid helps move jobs out of Columbus
The state is providing at least $2.4 million in grants, loans and tax credits to help a manufacturing company move out of Columbus and into Licking County.
Samuel Strapping Systems, a division of Samuel Manu-Tech, needs room to expand from 37 to 100 full-time employees. The industrial packaging manufacturer is discussing a move from its Groves Road facility on the East Side into an industrial park in Heath.
The Ohio Department of Development package again raises questions about the state’s use of business incentives, especially when they benefit one part of Ohio at the expense of another.

http://www.dispatch.com/business/business.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/12/20060412-A1-04.html


RECIPE BONUS:Ways to useleftover Easter eggs
Monday, April 10, 2006

What do you do with leftover Easter eggs?
Dispatch Food Editor Robin Davis asked readers that question and they responded with a variety of recipes that make use of the hardboiled eggs.
In addition to the recipes below, more reader suggestions will be printed in the Food section on Wednesday.
SPANISH EGGS
(Makes 6 servings)
Irene Noble of Waverly sent this in. She wrote that it takes time to make the deviled eggs, but it is worth it. She serves it on rice, noodles or toast.
Deviled eggs:
6 hard-boiled eggs
1 teaspoon butter
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
Dash of hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
Salt and pepper to taste
Sauce:
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1 large onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups canned tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
To make eggs: Cut eggs in half lengthwise. Remove yolks and place in a small bowl. Mash yolks with butter, mayonnaise and mustard. Season to taste with hot sauce, salt and pepper. Mix until smooth. Spoon back into whites.
To make sauce: Melt butter in a large skillet. Add onion and garlic and saute until tender. Blend in flour. Add tomatoes and simmer until thickened, stirring frequently.
Pour sauce into shallow baking pan. Arrange eggs, yolk side up, in sauce. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake until sauce is bubbly, about 10 minutes


Passover, Traditional and Unique

Passover is more than a religious holiday. It is about the essence of Freedom.

Families prepare for Passover
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Passover begins tonight at sunset, a weeklong observance commemorating the deliverance of ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.

The name 'Passover' refers to the fact that God 'passed over' the houses of the Jews when he was slaying the firstborn of Egypt. In Hebrew, it is known as Pesach, based on the Hebrew root meaning 'pass over.

'Margo Olson of Saratoga Springs started preparing Tuesday for their family Seder. The seder is a ceremonial feast where the family gathers together. Many families will have a family seder today and go to a congressional seder Thursday evening.

Olson said there are certain parts of the Seder for the youngest child to read.

'Some families act it out to become more interactive,' she said. 'That's what makes it such a personable holiday, because it's done in the home.'

She said since the holiday celebrates freedom from slavery, some families use contemporary readings.Kids also can get involved in the cleaning, food preparation and ceremony.

'It's a very family- and food-oriented holiday,' Olson said.

Part of the preparation is cleaning the house of foods that are not kosher. Families must clean their home of all chametz prior to Passover. Chametz includes anything made from the five major grains -- wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt.

Rabbi Fred Levine, of Congregation Shaara T'fille, said they use different silverware, pots and pans and utensils during Passover. He said toaster ovens cannot be used during the week and ovens and refrigerators must be cleaned out. He said only Kosher foods can be in the house for Passover.

This recognizes that the Jews left Egypt in a hurry, and did not have time to let their bread rise. The grain product that Jews eat during Passover is called matzah, which is unleavened bread, made simply from flour and water and cooked very quickly. This is the bread that the Jews made for their flight from Egypt.

Background information from www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.

http://www.saratogian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16465838&BRD=1169&PAG=461&dept_id=17708&rfi=6


PREPARING FOR PASSOVER: Jewish customs shared
Men learn rites through bonding
April 12, 2006
BY STEVE NEAVLING
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
It had all the makings of a wild night: a keg of beer, mammoth steaks and enough men to suit up two football teams.
"I want you to know there is a keg of beer, so there are no limits," the bearded host told the elated guests, who sat shoulder-to-shoulder at three long tables.
It could have been a reunion of college friends or hunting buddies.
Not this party. Rabbi Reuven Spolter had a higher purpose.
Spolter told members of Young Israel of Oak Park that they should spend more time preparing for the 8-day observance of Passover, which begins this evening for the nearly 100,000 Jews in southeast Michigan.
The holiday commemorates the exodus of Jews from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. Its name comes from the biblical story that describes God sending a series of plagues to force the Egyptians to free the Jews. In the final plague, which took the lives of Egyptian children, the ancient account says God passed over Jewish homes.
Spolter served up the beer and steaks on Sunday night to lure men away from their busy schedules and help them get ready for the challenge of conducting seders, the ritual meals on the first two nights of Passover that preserve lessons from the ancient story.
Various early versions of the seder, called model seders, are held each year in Jewish communities around metro Detroit to prepare people for the holiday customs.
In homes across metro Detroit, tonight's seder menu almost certainly will not be steak and beer. An authentic seder involves a series of symbolic foods, including matzo, the unleavened bread that reminds people of food eaten by the Jews after leaving Egypt. The hours of stories, prayers and songs that interpret these symbols at a seder are contained in a guidebook called a Haggadah.
"There's so much to learn," Nathaniel Washay, 42, said during Sunday's event as he pointed to the many Jewish texts he will need to master as he leads a seder with family and friends at his Oak Park home. Washay said he only began observing these Jewish customs four years ago.
The story of the exodus defines the Jewish faith, Spolter told the men. "Our belief is that God redeemed us in a special way."
During seders, families also reflect on current hardships. Steve Cohen, 52, and his family will talk about the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, in north Africa that has killed more than 200,000 people.
"It's beyond horrible," Cohen said. "Terrible things still happen."
The Cohens aren't alone. Many Jewish families will add special prayers to their seders this year to remember those suffering in Darfur. Then, at 1 p.m. Sunday, the Jewish Community Council is cohosting a community-wide educational program on Darfur. It will take place at the Jewish Community Center, 15110 W. Ten Mile Road in Oak Park.
As Spolter moved through his seder training program on Sunday night, he touched on many somber themes in modern life, including the dangers of pornography.
Then, he finally declared, "That's the end of the heavy stuff. Now for dessert!"
Out came lamb, horseradish, pitas, watermelon and brownies. And another round of beer.

Contact STEVE NEAVLING at 586-469-4935 or sneavling@freepress.com.
Religion writer David Crumm contributed to this report.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS05/604120421/1007


Passover honors roots of Judaism
By Amber Scottascott@journalandcourier.com
The Jewish holiday of Passover is one of deliverance, celebrating the time when Jews were physically removed from slavery and became a people.
Philip Schlossberg, director of Purdue's Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student center, said that up until that point, Jews were just an affiliation of loose tribes. The Exodus is "where we started."
The celebration of the Exodus, called Passover, begins today at sundown. The name "Passover," or Pesach, refers to the time that God "passed over" the houses of Jews during one of the biblical plagues that killed the Egyptians' first-born sons.
The holiday is observed by way of Seder, a dinner consisting of significant foods, traditions, stories, dishes and utensils.
Jon Geiger, a Purdue sophomore, said it is difficult to be away from home during a holiday such as Passover. He said he appreciates how Jews come together to celebrate, including students at Purdue.
"If we did it alone, it wouldn't be as special," he said, "but we're doing it together, and it's special."
Geiger, a resident of Lake Zurich, Ill., said academic reasons are preventing him from returning home for Passover. He is staying on campus this year to celebrate at Hillel.
In addition to Seder, Jews are restricted from eating certain foods during the eight-day holiday. Leavened foods, such as bread, pasta and even corn syrup, are forbidden. In their place, matzo, which is unleavened bread, is eaten. The unleavened bread represents how Jews had not enough time to allow bread to rise in their rush to escape slavery.
He said that although the food restrictions are difficult, the whole process is rewarding.
"When it's over, it makes you feel good to be a Jew," he said.
Schlossberg said that along with Geiger, many Purdue students believe Hillel is an important part of their lives -- allowing them to meet others with similar values, ideas and holidays.
During Seder, the story of Exodus is retold, coinciding with the special foods eaten to represent different parts of the story.
Schlossberg said the holiday is not just one where special things are observed, such as the food, but Jews also are commanded to tell the story of Exodus.
"Not as an historical event, but as if we were there ourselves," he said. "It's important to eat matzo, but you have to tell the story and experience as best you can going from slavery to freedom."
Geiger called the whole story "enormous," and said Passover is extremely important because it's arguably the second holiest holiday in the Jewish faith. The holiest holiday is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
The Seder also involves Jews of all ages. The youngest child asks the Four Questions, which eventually answer the main question of "Why is this night different from all other nights?" Other people read the story of Exodus from the Haggadah ("the telling"), the Book of Exodus.
Geiger said his favorite part of Seder is the Four Questions because he is an only child and therefore always was chosen to ask them.
Also, he said he enjoys the part where children are asked to find the "Afikomen," which is a piece of matzo broken in half. Originally, there are three pieces of matzo stacked on top of each other with the middle piece broken in half. Halfway through the Seder, the piece is hidden and the children must retrieve it.

http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS/604120317/1152


Fundamentally Freund: Passover: On Remembrance and Redemption
1031 10:57 Apr 12, '06 / 14 Nisan 5766
(IsraelNN.com)

Passover is upon us once again, the festival of freedom when we commemorate our ancestors’ deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

Throughout the world, a familiar scene will repeat itself, as Jewish parents relate the story of the Exodus to their children, preserving the chain of Jewish memory that links us to our past while fortifying our future.

The Passover Seder is a powerful ritual, one that continues to resonate with many Jews who otherwise are largely unaffiliated or even uninvolved with Jewish life.

But the question that comes to mind, and which demands an answer, is what is the relevance of all this in the 21st century? After all, Israel is a sovereign and independent country, and most of world Jewry currently resides in the West, where they enjoy unprecedented freedom to live as they see fit.

The answer, in fact, is really quite simple, and it goes directly to the heart of what Passover, and our nation’s history, is truly all about: the Jewish people’s unshakeable determination to persevere, even in the wake of disaster and tragedy...

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=101934

continued …