The Scotsman
Biggest wind farm gets go-ahead and will be able to power 280,000 homes
EBEN HARRELL
Biggest wind farm in Europe to be built on moorland site near Glasgow
Landmark site will generate two percent of country's energy needs
Opponents claim it damages views and disrupts natural environment
Key quote
"Whitelee is the largest single onshore wind farm to be consented in Europe and is a significant milestone towards achieving our renewable energy and climate change targets. We are strongly committed to the continued development of a diverse renewable energy portfolio in this country." - ALLAN WILSON, DEPUTY ENTERPRISE MINISTER
Story in full THE biggest onshore wind farm in Europe is to be built on a vast stretch of moorland near Glasgow and will open by the end of the decade, the Executive announced yesterday.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=635192006
Wind power is way Forth, says council
COUNCIL chiefs believe a new Forth Road Bridge should be constructed with wind turbines to lessen its environmental impact.
Fife Council says the ambitious plans would demonstrate a commitment to renewable energy sources, and would allow the crossing to be powered in an environmentally friendly way.
The local authority's environment advisor, Fenella McEwan, said: "The new bridge at Kincardine is to begin construction soon, and proposals are being discussed concerning a new bridge across the Forth at Queensferry.
"Both have grid infrastructure in close proximity, but neither proposal incorporates renewable generation, though there are a number of technologies, including wind turbines and river flow turbines, with potential for such sites.
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=605&id=631462006
Scotsman launches campaign to ease financial burden for the suffering
ALISON HARDIE SENIOR NEWS WRITER
Launch of campaign to abolish prescription charges for chronically ill
System of charging currently under review by Executive
Abolition thought to cost £9m of £960m NHS drugs budget
EILEEN Hogg has battled breast cancer for two years, but every month has had to pay up to £40 for the drugs that keep her alive.
The 46-year-old had to pay for her own supply of the anti-cancer drug tamoxifen when she was discharged from hospital, and even had to pay for cream to soothe her scalp when chemotherapy made her hair fall out.
Mrs Hogg is just one of the thousands of chronically ill people in Scotland who are forced to pay, through prescription charges , for the medication that keeps them healthy and, in some cases, alive.
The outdated system of prescription charging which does not exclude people with chronic illnesses including cancer, leukaemia, hepatitis C, asthma, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis from payment, is under review by the Scottish Executive.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=634662006
Brown drives hole through green targets
GERRI PEEV POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
GORDON Brown has refused the offer of an eco-friendly ministerial Toyota Prius car in favour of his gas-guzzling Vauxhall Omega, despite the government missing its target for cutting gas emissions from its fleet.
Contrary to earlier suggestions that he had a Prius "on order", the Chancellor is sticking to his vehicle, which produces nearly three times as many greenhouse gases as the hybrid fuel Toyota.
His decision sparked controversy as the Government Car Service, the agency responsible for the fleet of vehicles used by ministers and civil servants, has consistently missed its emission-cutting targets.
The Toyota Prius emits just 104g/km of while the Vauxhall Omega pumps out 276g/km.
Environmental campaigners criticised Mr Brown's choice, saying that it undermined his bid to brand himself the green Chancellor.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=633982006
5,000 firms fold as failure rate hits fastest since 1999
VICTORIA THOMSON
BRITISH businesses are going bust faster than at any time since the end of the last century, according to market researchers Experian, with almost 5,000 firms going to the wall in the first three months of this year.
The number of failing firms is rising as they struggle to pay off debts, win new business and keep their heads above water in the current economic climate.
The number is rising at a faster rate than at any time since 1999, said the business information group.
According to its figures, the first three months of 2006 saw 4,818 firms go bust, up 15.3 per cent on the 4,180 companies that collapsed in the same quarter of 2005.
It was the highest quarterly increase for seven years.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=633342006
The New York Times
400 Dead Dolphins Found Off African Coast
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 28, 2006
Filed at 3:55 p.m. ET
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania (AP) -- Hundreds of dead dolphins washed up Friday along the shore of a popular tourist destination on Zanzibar's northern coast, and scientists ruled out poisoning.
It was not immediately clear what killed the 400 dolphins, whose carcasses were strewn along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of Nungwi, said Narriman Jidawi, a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Science in Zanzibar.
But the bottleneck dolphins, which live in deep offshore waters, had empty stomachs, meaning that they could have been disoriented and were swimming for some time to reorient themselves. They did not starve to death and were not poisoned, Jidawi said.
In the United States, experts were investigating the possibility that sonar from U.S. submarines could have been responsible for a similar incident in Marathon, Fla., where 68 deep-water dolphins stranded themselves in March 2005.
A U.S. Navy task force patrols the East Africa coast as part of counterterrorism operations. A Navy official was not immediately available for comment, but the service rarely comments on the location of submarines at sea.
The deaths are a blow to the tourism industry in Zanzibar, where thousands of visitors go to watch and swim with wild dolphins, said Abdulsamad Melhi, owner of Sunset Bungalows, perched atop a small cliff overlooking the beach.
Villagers, fishermen and hotel residents found the carcasses and alerted officials. Mussa Aboud Jumbe, Zanzibar's director of fisheries, went on state radio to warn the public against eating the dolphin meat, saying the cause of death had not been determined.
But residents who did eat the meat were all doing fine, Jidawi said.
The Indo-Pacific bottlenose, humpback and spinner porpoises, commonly known as dolphins, are the most common species in Zanzibar's coastal waters, with bottlenose and humpback dolphins often found in mixed-species groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Tanzania-Dolphin-Deaths.html
10 States Sue E.P.A. on Emissions
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: April 28, 2006
ALBANY, April 27 — In the latest legal broadside against the Bush administration's policy on global warming, New York, California and eight other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday for refusing to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York, the lead plaintiff, said the agency's refusal "continues a sad course of conduct on the part of the Bush administration and reflects a disregard for science, statute and wise policy."
A similar suit involving many of the same states and led by Massachusetts was dismissed last year by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where the new lawsuit was filed. Another suit by several of the same states sought to compel power producers to reduce emissions and was dismissed last year in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Both cases are being appealed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/us/28emissions.html
Pfizer Boldly Advertising Celebrex Again
By ALEX BERENSON
The ads feature a man holding a boy's hand as they walk up a stadium staircase. "52 steps won't keep you from taking him out to the ball game," they say.
But a heart attack would.
As it resumes advertising its controversial painkiller Celebrex, Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, is offering consumers a mixed message. Sixteen months after the company stopped advertising Celebrex over concerns about its heart risks, Pfizer has returned with new ads that juxtapose folksy imagery with a jarring, bold-face warning about the drug's dangers. "Important Information: CELEBREX may increase the chance of a heart attack or stroke that can lead to death," the paragraph-long caveat begins.
Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, hopes the campaign will revive Celebrex sales, which plunged last year during the advertising moratorium. But the new campaign has raised the ire of consumer groups, who say that Celebrex is so dangerous that Pfizer should stop selling it, not encourage patients to use it.
The campaign is more evidence of the drug industry's dependence on consumer advertising to prop up sales, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a frequent critic of drug makers."There's no objective evidence of any unique benefit with this drug, and there is objective evidence of a unique risk," said Dr. Wolfe said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/business/media/28cnd-celebrex.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=1d4f2edb7a775fe4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
New York Killers, and Those Killed, by Numbers
By JO CRAVEN McGINTY
The oldest killer was 88; he murdered his wife. The youngest was 9; she stabbed her friend. The women were more than twice as likely as men to murder a current spouse or lover. But once the romance was over, only the men killed their exes. The deadliest day was on July 10, 2004, when eight people died in separate homicides.
Five people eliminated a boss; 10 others murdered co-workers. Males who killed favored firearms, while women and girls chose knives as often as guns. More homicides occurred in Brooklyn than in any other borough. More happened on Saturday. And roughly a third are unsolved.
At the end of each year, the New York Police Department reports the number of killings — there were 540 in 2005. Typically, much is made of how the number has fallen in recent years — to totals not seen since the early 1960's. But beyond summarizing the overarching trends, the police spend little time compiling the individual details.
The New York Times obtained the basic records for every murder in the city over the last three years, and while the events make for disturbing reading, the numbers can hint at trends, occasionally solve a mystery and in at least some straightforward way answer for the city the questions of who kills and who is killed in the five boroughs.
From 2003 through 2005, 1,662 murders were committed in New York. No information, beyond an occasional physical description, is available on the killers in the unsolved cases.
Of the rest, men and boys were responsible for 93 percent of the murders; they killed with guns about two-thirds of the time; their victims tended to be other men and boys; and in more than half the cases, the killer and the victim knew each other.
The police said they were more interested in disrupting crime patterns. "We're looking for things with operational implications — time of day, day of the week — to see that we deploy officers at the right times and in sufficient numbers," said Michael J. Farrell, deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives.
The offender and victim were of the same race in more than three-quarters of the killings. And according to Mr. Farrell, they often had something else in common: More than 90 percent of the killers had criminal records; and of those who wound up killed, more than half had them.
"If the average New Yorker is concerned about being murdered in a random crime, the odds of that happening are really remote," Mr. Farrell said. "If you are living apart from a life of crime, your risk is negligible."
Criminologists confirm that assessment. "People will be shocked to see how safe it is to live in New York City," said Andrew Karmen, a sociology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an expert on victimology. "Victims and offenders are pretty much pulled from the same background. Very often, young victims have young killers. Very often, the victim and killer knew each other."
But plenty of times, events diverge from the norm.
At least a quarter of the city's murders in these three years, were committed by strangers, and in those instances, most were the result of a dispute. Stranger homicides now happen at almost twice the rate of 50 years ago, when, according to a classic study by Marvin Wolfgang, a criminologist, about 14 percent of murders were committed by strangers.
"Homicide used to be regarded as an acquaintance phenomenon with relatively rare incidents involving strangers," said Steven F. Messner, a homicide expert and a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Albany. "It's still characteristically an acquaintance event. But the stranger homicides are now nontrivial."
After four years as commander of the Brooklyn North homicide squad, Lt. John Cornicello said the murders in his section of the borough had begun to run together. Yet from memory, he rolled off the details of several: The good Samaritan shot for his Lincoln Navigator after offering a ride to a group of stranded people. The ".40-caliber killer," a serial murderer who shot and killed but did not rob four shopkeepers because he believed they were Middle Eastern.
"More and more, they seem to be the result of stupidity," Lieutenant Cornicello said. "Take the Potato Wedge Killer."
In that recent case, a customer at a KFC restaurant became incensed when he did not receive enough starch with his fried chicken order. After demanding both a refund and an order of potato wedges, he later confronted the cashier with whom he had argued and stabbed him to death.
Among all the city's victims, the oldest was 91; she died during a robbery. Whites and Asians, who seldom murdered, were also infrequently killed: Together, they represented 75 or fewer victims each year. Most homicides occurred outdoors. The deadliest hour was 1 to 2 a.m.
And a small but unsettling number of children were among the victims, including 21 infants and 32 children ages 1 to 10, most of whom died at the hands of a parent.
According to Professor Karmen, 10 is the safest age. "You're too old to be abused or neglected as a child," he said, "and you're not old enough to be out on the streets."
An interesting, though uncommon, group of murders that made it into the police accounting in these years involved a handful of victims who died of injuries they had first suffered in crimes committed one or more years before.
Stabbed, shot, beaten or burned, they survived long enough to be counted as murder victims in another calendar year.
Sixty-nine victims fit this description.
In some instances, they were injured decades ago. The medical examiner alerts the police when such deaths occur, according to Sgt. Edward Yee of the Police Department's crime analysis unit, and the police add the victims to that year's murder tally.
For example, 21 deaths that were counted as murders in 2005 resulted from injuries that occurred in earlier years.
The oldest involved a shooting in 1975, when a man attacked his brother in a domestic dispute. That raised the murder toll to 540, the lowest figure recorded by the city in four decades, but only 519 murders were committed last year.
Subtracting these belated deaths makes the recent decline in the number of homicides — which has grabbed headlines — seem even more stunning. But for the purpose of generating the annual murder tally, the police do not distinguish between fresh and delayed murders.
"No one does," Mr. Farrell said, referring to other police departments.
Within the city, 40 percent of the murders occurred in Brooklyn. The 75th Precinct, with 90, had the most of any precinct, but there were hot spots scattered throughout the city, in Brooklyn's 73rd, 79th and 83rd Precincts, for example, and in the 44th and 46th Precincts in the Bronx. In and around the 32nd Precinct in Harlem could be dangerous, too.
No one is certain what explains the recent decreases in the overall number of homicides, but many criminologists believe social factors may help explain why, and where, most murders continue to occur.
"The problem of crime and violence is rooted in neighborhood conditions — high rates of poverty, family disruption, failing schools, lack of recreational opportunities, active recruitment by street gangs, drug markets," Professor Karmen said. "People forced to reside under those conditions are at a greater risk of getting caught up in violence, as victims or as perpetrators."
The police are generally unimpressed by such theories, as well as the minutiae surrounding the deaths.
"Crime is concentrated," Mr. Farrell said. "Who knows why? We're looking at what we can affect."
The roughly one-third of the homicides that remain unsolved create one of the larger categories of murder. Typically, 50 to 55 percent of murders are solved in the same calendar year in which the crime is committed, according to Paul J. Browne, a deputy police commissioner in New York.
The police clear an additional number of murders from previous years, for an overall annual clearance rate of about 70 percent. That beats the national average, which is closer to 62 percent, according to F.B.I. statistics.
In New York, several things may contribute to the number of open cases, according to the police and criminologists. A significant number may have been stranger murders, which are particularly hard to solve. It can take months to collect witness statements.
And sometimes, detectives just cannot get the right person to talk.
"The big secret of detective work," Lieutenant Cornicello said, "is that you've got to get somebody else to tell you what happened."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/nyregion/28homicide.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=bda64c7c2945b725&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Surviving Miner Says Air Masks Failed
By IAN URBINA
In the final desperate hours of the Sago Mine disaster that left 12 men dead in West Virginia, at least four of the air masks meant to protect the miners from dangerous smoke and fumes did not work, the sole survivor wrote in a letter to victims' families this week.
"The first thing we did was activate our rescuers, as we had been trained," wrote the miner, Randal McCloy Jr. "At least four of the rescuers did not function. There were not enough rescuers to go around."
The two-page typed letter offers the first detailed account of what happened to the 13 men trapped 260 feet underground, struggling for air as rescue crews tried to reach them.
"As my trapped co-workers lost consciousness one by one, the room grew still and I continued to sit and wait, unable to do much else," Mr. McCloy wrote.
Mr. McCloy was comatose when he was rescued and spent months in a hospital with extensive brain damage, originally described as remembering nothing about the disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/us/28mines.html
Melee in Cairo Reveals Stress in Government
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
CAIRO, April 27 — Thousands of riot police officers sealed off access to the High Court on Thursday, beating and arresting protesters who had turned out to support two judges facing a disciplinary panel because they had accused the government of election fraud.
The huge show of force, appearing larger even than what was deployed in the Sinai after four bombings there this week, seemed to signal that President Hosni Mubarak's government had reached a breaking point over shows of dissent.
The focus was a relatively small demonstration over the treatment of the two judges and in support of more than 80 others who had been staging a sit-in for more than a week at the stately old Judges Club to demand an independent judiciary.
The persistent demands by the group, who represent thousands of judges across the country, has united a wide swath of political opposition and has sparked new life in a reform movement that had withered after the presidential election in September.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html
Iraq's New Premier Gains Support in Talks With Shiite Leaders
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 27 — Hours after ending two days of meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Iraqi prime minister-designate, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, traveled to the Shiite holy city of Najaf to meet with two of the powers he must now contend with, the Shiite leaders Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Moktada al-Sadr.
Violence cast a shadow on the meetings, with the drive-by killing in Baghdad of the sister of Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and the deaths of one Romanian and three Italian soldiers near Nasiriya, which spurred calls from some Italian political leaders to speed up the withdrawal of the country's 2,600 remaining troops in Iraq.
In his meeting with Ayatollah Sistani, Mr. Maliki won a statement from the religious leader calling for an end to militias and urging that the Iraqi security forces be freed from the grip of sectarian and political dominance. "Weapons should be carried only by government forces" loyal to the government and not to leaders of political or other groups, the ayatollah said.
It was a firm message of support for Mr. Maliki, who said on Thursday that he believed he could complete the selection of his cabinet within a week. Mr. Maliki, with prodding from the United States ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has made a priority of reducing the influence of the militias that have helped push Iraq to the brink of civil war.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
Chevron Earnings Soar 49 Percent to $4 Billion
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:13 p.m. ET
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) -- Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices.
Chevron released its results Friday after two of its biggest rivals, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., already provoked public outrage with similarly large first-quarter profits. Combined, the three oil companies earned $15.7 billion during the first three months of the year. That's 17 percent more than the trio made during the same time last year when they went on to pocket a combined profit of nearly $64 billion.
''All these companies have so much money, they don't know what to do with it,'' said Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit.
President Bush offered a suggestion to the oil companies Friday, urging them to plow more of their investments into projects that will increase energy supplies to meet a rising demand that is expected to intensify as emerging economic powerhouses like India and China continue to grow.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Earns-Chevron.html
Mexican Congress Approves Overhaul of Antitrust Law
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: April 28, 2006
MEXICO CITY, April 27 — The Mexican Congress approved an overhaul of antitrust law on Thursday, giving the government new authority to rein in the giant companies that control many parts of the country’s economy.
The measure passed despite strong lobbying against the bill by Carlos Slim Helú, whose control of Teléfonos de México, the country’s dominant telecommunications company, has helped him become one of the world’s richest men.
The passage of the bill came as a surprise to many who feared that legislators would bend before the power of Mexico’s largest companies. At the beginning of the month, Congress passed a media law that critics said gave the country’s two television companies additional privileges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/business/worldbusiness/28peso.web.html
Prosecutor Weighs Charges Against Rove in Leak Case
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, April 27 — Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, is expected to decide in the next two to three weeks whether to bring perjury charges against Karl Rove, the powerful adviser to President Bush, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.
With the completion of Mr. Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury on Wednesday, Mr. Fitzgerald is now believed to have assembled all of the facts necessary to determine whether to seek an indictment of Mr. Rove or drop the case.
Lawyers in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald would spend the coming days reviewing the transcript of Mr. Rove's three hours of testimony on Wednesday and weigh it against his previous statements to the grand jury as well as the testimony of others, including a sworn statement that Mr. Rove's lawyer gave to the prosecutor earlier this year. The lawyers were granted anonymity so they could speak about the internal legal deliberations in Mr. Rove's case.
A lawyer with knowledge of the case said that Mr. Rove had known for more than a month that he was likely to make another appearance before the grand jury, and that he had known since last fall that he would be subject to further questions from Mr. Fitzgerald before the prosecutor completed his inquiry.
Mr. Rove was relieved of his day-to-day domestic policy duties at the White House in a staff shake-up last week, but White House officials say the change was unrelated to his legal complications.
Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, declined to comment.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Mr. Rove, said Mr. Rove would be cleared. "We're confident at the end of this that Mr. Fitzgerald is going to find that Karl has been totally truthful and not only has done nothing wrong but has done everything right," Mr. Corallo said.
Mr. Fitzgerald must specifically decide whether Mr. Rove misled the grand jury in testimony he gave in 2004 about his conversations with reporters about Valerie Wilson, the intelligence officer at the heart of the C.I.A. leak case.
In his February 2004 testimony, Mr. Rove acknowledged talking to the columnist Robert D. Novak about Ms. Wilson, but he did not tell the grand jury about a second conversation he had about her with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter. Mr. Novak revealed her name and C.I.A. employment in a column on July 14, 2003.
Critics of the Bush administration have asserted that the revelation was retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting some of the intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq.
Mr. Rove later voluntarily told the grand jury about the conversation with Mr. Cooper, and said that he had forgotten about it in the rush of his daily business. But Mr. Fitzgerald has long been skeptical of Mr. Rove's account of his forgetfulness, lawyers in the case say. On Wednesday Mr. Fitzgerald questioned Mr. Rove about how he came to remember his conversation with Mr. Cooper.
Robert D. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer, issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that Mr. Rove had testified "voluntarily and unconditionally" about a matter that had arisen since Mr. Rove's last grand jury appearance, in October 2005. Mr. Luskin was evidently referring to the testimony of Viveca Novak, a former reporter at Time magazine, who has said that she told Mr. Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that she believed that Mr. Rove had been a source for Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Rove admitted from the outset to investigators that he spoke to Mr. Novak on July 9, 2003, about Ms. Wilson. It was in that conversation that Mr. Rove first learned the name of Ms. Wilson from Mr. Novak, lawyers in the case said.
Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Cooper occurred two days later. In that conversation, Mr. Rove did not mention Ms. Wilson's name, but, Mr. Cooper said, Mr. Rove did say that she worked at the C.I.A.
Mr. Fitzgerald did not learn of Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Cooper until long after the investigation had begun, when a search of Mr. Rove's e-mail messages uncovered one that he had sent to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, about the Cooper conversation.
It is still not publicly known why Mr. Rove's e-mail message to Mr. Hadley was not turned over earlier, but a lawyer in the case said White House documents were collected in response to several separate requests that may not have covered certain time periods or all relevant officials. Mr. Rove had no role in the search for documents, which was carried out by an administrative office in the White House.
Also on Thursday, a federal judge refused to dismiss charges against I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges in the leak case last year.
The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court, turned down a motion by lawyers for Mr. Libby who challenged Mr. Fitzgerald's authority to handle the case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/washington/28leak.html?pagewanted=print
Puerto Rico Protest Demands Budget Deal to Avert Shutdown
By REUTERS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, April 28 (Reuters) - Up to 50,000 people demonstrated peacefully in front of Puerto Rico's Capitol building on Friday to demand a budget agreement to avert a partial shutdown of government offices and schools.
Some 95,000 public employees -- including teachers -- will be out of work on Monday if no deal is reached because the government will run out of money two months before the end of the fiscal year.
Demonstrators arrived at the Capitol building with signs demanding a resolution as speakers took turns delivering messages to legislators through loud speakers.
"Today there are no political parties," screamed an organizer through speakers. "Today there is only this crisis."
Police estimated the crowd of protesters at 45,000 to 50,000.
Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, who is battling legislative leaders over tax reforms and a budget, has set a Monday deadline for passage of a bill that would clear the way for a $738 million loan to fill a current-year budget gap.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/us/wire-rico.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=86a93ffffb2ffaac&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Rosie O'Donnell to Join 'The View'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:26 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Rosie O'Donnell is expected to make a surprise return to daytime television by taking over exiting Meredith Vieira's slot on the talk show ''The View.''
O'Donnell's appointment was reported Thursday by the newsmagazine ''Extra.'' It was confirmed by a person close to the show who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because ''The View'' wanted to make the announcement on Friday's show.
ABC officials declined comment on the report on Thursday.
Dubbed ''The Queen of Nice'' when her syndicated talk show went on the air in 1996 and became an instant hit, O'Donnell won six Daytime Emmy Awards in six years as best talk-show host. She left the show to help raise four children with her partner, Kelli Carpenter O'Donnell.
It's an important appointment for ''The View,'' which was created by Barbara Walters. Vieira's news background helped make her the solid center of the program on the days Walters didn't appear on air.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-TV-The-View-ODonnell.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=c503717380d8c21e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Bush Rejects Tax on Oil Companies' Profits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 28, 2006
Filed at 3:56 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Friday rejected calls by some lawmakers for a tax on oil company windfall profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent gains into finding and producing more energy.
''The temptation in Washington is to tax everything,'' Bush said in an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden. ''The answer is for there to be strong reinvestment to make this country more secure from an energy perspective.''
With gasoline at over $3 a gallon in some areas, Bush said there was ''no evidence'' of price-gouging of consumers.
Soaring gas prices have become a top political issue in Congress in this midterm congressional election year. Bush spoke a day after Exxon-Mobil, the nation's biggest oil company, said its earnings climbed by 7 percent to $8.4 billion during the January-March period.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html
Suffolk County Plans to Offer Free Wireless Internet Access
By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: April 28, 2006
Suffolk County is planning a wireless system to provide free access to the Internet to the 1.5 million residents who live throughout its 900 square miles. It would be one of the largest government-sponsored wireless networks in the nation.
The system would allow anyone to use computers and P.D.A. devices with wireless capabilities anywhere in the county, and would also be available to visitors, businesses, government agencies, institutions and groups. County officials hope to start installation next year.
"People could connect to the Internet anytime, any place," said Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who proposed the plan. A private company selected by the county would build the system at no cost to taxpayers and finance it by selling Internet advertising or by charging a fee for connections with a faster speed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/nyregion/28suffolk.html
Bush to Meet Big 3 for Talks on Fuel Issues and Pensions
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Published: April 27, 2006
DEARBORN, Mich., April 26 — President Bush, who touched a nerve this year when he told Detroit carmakers to build "relevant" vehicles, will meet with the companies' leaders next month, William Clay Ford Jr., the chief executive of Ford Motor, said Wednesday.
People involved in planning the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the high level of the talks, said it would focus on three areas: energy and the environment; costs like pensions and health care premiums that add hundreds of dollars to the price of a Detroit car; and how currency issues affect the Japanese automakers.
The meeting is expected to take place on May 18 at the White House. It would be the first time during his presidency that Mr. Bush has met collectively with Mr. Ford, Rick Wagoner of General Motors and Thomas W. LaSorda of Chrysler.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/automobiles/27auto.html
Daimler Earnings Rise Despite Setbacks
By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: April 28, 2006
DETROIT, April 27 — DaimlerChrysler said Thursday that its earnings rose slightly in the first quarter despite heavy losses in the Mercedes-Benz division and signs of weakness at Chrysler.
Overall profit was helped by results at Chrysler, the company's American arm, and at the financial services division.
Income at Chrysler, which has offset Mercedes' losses and kept DaimlerChrysler profitable in recent quarters, declined for the first quarter and the company is now charging less on average for a vehicle than it was a year ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/automobiles/28daimler.html
Daily Mail and Guardian
Zuma: 'Don't dismiss conspiracy theory'
The belief that the rape charge against Jacob Zuma is part of a political conspiracy cannot be dismissed, his lawyer Kemp J Kemp told the Johannesburg High Court on Friday.
"It is not something that one can just dismiss out of hand," said Kemp, summarising why he thinks Zuma is not guilty.
Zuma believes that the rape charge and his forthcoming corruption trial in Durban are part of a conspiracy to prevent him from succeeding President Thabo Mbeki when his second terms ends in 2009.
In summing up points that he believes points to his client's innocence, Kemp said: "A political plot to discredit the accused is also, with respect, not without [basis]."
He continued: "However much I would like to say, my Lord, that she was a set-up, I can't do that because there is nothing in the facts to say that."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270391&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Striking guards ransack govt offices in Durban
About 500 striking security guards were arrested in Durban on Friday after they ransacked the Department of Labour's offices, KwaZulu-Natal police said.
"About 600 people marched illegally to the Department of Labour in Masonic Road," Inspector Michael Read said. "They invaded the building and caused damage to property, furniture, motor vehicles and computers."
Some staff sustained minor injuries.
Read said police cordoned off the scene and arrested 500 people. They were taken to Durban Central police station, charged with public violence, malicious damage to property and trespassing, and detained.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270404&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/
UN threatens to suspend aid in Darfur
28 April 2006 03:02
The United Nations threatened on Friday to suspend relief operations in parts of Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region because of continued attacks against aid workers by rebel fighters.
The UN blames the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), the armed wing of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the main rebel group in the region, for a spate of attacks in north Darfur.
"Several reports indicate that many of these attacks have been waged by SLA factions. Armed robbery and hijackings have endangered humanitarian workers assisting over 450 000 vulnerable people living in the area," it said in a statement.
It added that the UN has "credible information" that armed groups have also commandeered vehicles for military purposes, something it said is "unacceptable and contrary to international humanitarian law".
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270398&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Clooney urges action against 'genocide' in Darfur
Hollywood star George Clooney pleaded on Thursday for a more vigorous United States effort to end what he called "the first genocide of the 21st century" in Sudan's war-devastated Darfur region.
The Oscar-winning actor and director urged broad participation at demonstrations to be held on Sunday in Washington, San Francisco and several other US cities, saying that a louder public outcry would encourage the United States and other governments to do more in the western Sudan region, where about 300 000 people have died in an ongoing civil war.
"The president wants to put a stop to it, the Congress want to put a stop to it. What they need now is the American people and the world's populations to help them, to tell them that it matters that much to them," said the actor, who returned earlier this week from a tour of Darfur.
"It is the first genocide of the 21st century," Clooney said at a press conference in Washington.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270283&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Mandela's daughter helps free Snoop Dogg
United States rapper Snoop Dogg was released from a London police station on Thursday with the help of Nelson Mandela's daughter, Zinzi.
"I think they sent a letter but I do not have the details," Big Concerts spokesperson Lara Cohen said on Friday.
Snoop and his entourage were arrested at Heathrow airport after they allegedly hurled bottles of whisky and argued with staff.
The Big Boss Dogg, as he is recently known, had been expected to perform at the Johannesburg Stadium on Thursday, but could not make the trip.
Thousands of music fans were left disappointed and had to settle for performances by Jamali, Zola, Hip-Hop Pantsula, internationally acclaimed Mario, Pharrel and Sean Paul.
Cohen said, however, that Snoop will perform in Johannesburg on Wednesday after shows in Durban on Saturday and Cape Town on Monday.
At the Johannesburg concert on Thursday night, music fans were told to keep their tickets and exchange them at Computicket before Wednesday for that night's gig. -- Sapa
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270403&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Musharraf: 'I'm nobody's poodle'
General Pervez Musharraf, facing a surge of anti-American sentiment, on Thursday warned that covert Untied States air strikes against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan were an infringement of national sovereignty.
Admitting that his popularity was waning, the Pakistani president insisted he was "not a poodle" of George Bush and rejected accusations he was running a military dictatorship.
Speaking to The Guardian at Army House in Rawalpindi weeks after a tense visit by the US president that brought a torrent of domestic criticism, Musharraf insisted he was his own man.
"When you are talking about fighting terrorism or extremism, I'm not doing that for the US or Britain. I'm doing it for Pakistan," he said. "It's not a question of being a poodle. I'm nobody's poodle. I have enough strength of my own to lead."
If necessary he had "teeth" to bite back, he added. "Yes sir, I personally do. A lot of teeth. Sometimes the teeth do not have to be shown. Pragmatism is required in international relations."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270353&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
EU gives millions in aid to Southern Africa
The European Commission has donated €18-million to Southern African countries to modernise their customs systems and improve border posts, officials said.
The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, and the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc signed the deal in the Namibian capital late on Thursday.
It followed a two-day meeting to map out a development plan for the region until 2020.
"The grant will support the SADC to put in place a legal and institutional framework for a future SADC customs union envisaged for 2010," said Paul Malin, who signed the deal on behalf of the European Commission.
"The target set for establishing the customs union in four years [from now] will necessitate substantial transformation and modernisation in national customs administrations," Malin added.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=270392&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
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