Morning Paper - continued

The San Francisco Chronicle

Crews Search for Missing Alaska Climbers
By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
(06-08) 12:04 PDT Anchorage, Alaska (AP) --
Crews searching for two mountain climbers missing on one of Alaska's most difficult peaks spotted a torn backpack in an avalanche debris field and fear the women have now been without food and fuel for over week.
Sue Nott and Karen McNeill, both experienced climbers, started up Mount Foraker on May 14 and planned to complete the route in 10 to 14 days.
The search for the two began on June 1 after an air taxi operator flew the ascent route and didn't see them on the mountain.
"Given the harsh conditions up there, it makes the possibility that they have survived less and less with each passing day," said Kris Fister, spokeswoman for Denali National Park and Preserve.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/06/08/national/a112042D80.DTL



Cervical Cancer Vaccine Approved
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
(06-08) 10:15 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
The first vaccine to protect against most cervical cancer won federal approval Thursday.
The vaccine Gardasil, approved for use in girls and women ages 9 to 26, prevents infection by four strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, Merck & Co. Inc. said. The virus is the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease.
Gardasil protects against the two types of HPV responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The vaccine also blocks infection by two other strains responsible for 90 percent of genital wart cases.
Merck is expected to market Gardasil as a cancer, rather than an STD, vaccine. It remains unclear how widespread will be the use of the three-shot series, in part because of its estimated cost of $300 to $500. Conservative opposition to making the vaccine mandatory for school attendance may also curb its adoption.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/06/08/national/w100720D98.DTL



Senate Rejects Effort to Cut Estate Tax
By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP Tax Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
(06-08) 09:05 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
Senators voted Thursday to reject a Republican effort to abolish taxes on inherited estates during an election year with control of Congress at stake.
GOP leaders had pushed senators to permanently eliminate the estate tax, which disappears in 2010 under President Bush's first tax cut, but rears up again a year later.
A 57-41 vote fell three votes short of advancing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate will vote again this year on a tax that opponents call the "death tax."
"Getting rid of the death tax is just too important an issue to give up so easily," he said.
A small group of senators, knowing Republicans lacked the votes to eliminate the tax, had hoped to keep the issue alive with an agreement to remove the tax from smaller estates and lessen the hit on larger ones.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2006/06/08/national/w082336D29.DTL



SAN FRANCISCO
Police fatally shoot man in friend's attic
Officers thought glasses case was gun and opened fire
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Two San Francisco police officers who shot and killed an unarmed man in the darkened attic of an apartment mistook him for a trespasser with a gun, police officials said Wednesday.
Asa B. Sullivan, 25, had his arms outstretched and was holding a "cylindrical object" when the officers confronted him Tuesday night in the apartment near Lake Merced, prompting them to open fire, said Police Chief Heather Fong. The object turned out to be an eyeglasses case.
Police refused to release the officers' names, saying only that one was a male officer with four years' experience on the force and the other was a female officer with the department for three years.
A department spokesman initially told reporters that Sullivan had fired at the officers through the attic floor, a version of events that police did not officially correct for more than 16 hours. Fong said the earlier story was based on a preliminary account.
The incident began when the two officers, both of whom work at Taraval station, responded to a report of an open door at a two-story townhouse at 2 Garces Drive at the Villas Parkmerced. Police were told the unit was vacant and undergoing renovation, and neighbors said they suspected squatters were living there, Fong said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/08/BAG46JAKDE1.DTL


Federal probe of drugs in sports goes beyond BALCO
Pitcher whose home was raided said he used human growth drug, according to affidavit
Lance Williams, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, June 8, 2006
A federal raid on the home of a veteran pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks highlights a gaping loophole in Major League Baseball's steroid testing policy and shows that government investigators are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to go after suspected sports drug cheats.
A team of 13 federal agents led by the investigator who ramrodded the BALCO steroids case in San Francisco spent six hours Tuesday searching the Scottsdale home of pitcher Jason Grimsley.
The pitcher, who has played for seven major league teams in his 15-year career, was implicated in drug use when a parcel containing $3,200 worth of the powerful anabolic drug human growth hormone was delivered to his home April 19, according to an affidavit written by Internal Revenue Service special agent Jeff Novitzky.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/08/MNGQIJANKI1.DTL


Loaiza Leads A's Over Indians 4-1
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
(06-08) 11:49 PDT CLEVELAND (AP) --
Esteban Loaiza came off the disabled list and got his first win for Oakland, pitching seven superb innings Thursday to give the Athletics a 4-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians.
Activated before the game, Loaiza (1-3) took a two-hit shutout into the seventh in his first major league start since April 23. The right-hander, signed as a free agent in the offseason, had been sidelined with a strained shoulder muscle.
Loaiza, however, looked sharp in his return and had no trouble handling the hot-one-day-cold-the-next Indians, who didn't get a runner past second base until the seventh when Ben Broussard homered leading off.
Loaiza allowed three hits, walked one, struck out five and gave the A's some return on their three-year, $21 million investment in him.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/06/08/sports/s114918D82.DTL&type=as


GOP senator accuses Cheney of meddling
Specter says VP went behind his back
Carl Hulse, Jim Rutenberg, New York Times
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Washington -- A senior Republican lawmaker went public on Wednesday about his often tense and complicated relationship with the Bush White House in a remarkable display of the strains within the party.
The lawmaker, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, accused Vice President Dick Cheney of meddling behind his back in the committee's business, bringing into the open a conflict that has simmered for months.
In a letter to Cheney that the senator released to the news media, Specter said the vice president had cut him out of discussions with all the other Republicans on his own committee about oversight of the administration's eavesdropping programs, a subject on which Specter has often been at odds with the White House.
The trigger for Specter's anger was a deal Cheney made with the other Republicans on the committee to block testimony from phone companies that reportedly cooperated in providing call records to the National Security Agency.
Specter, who had been considering issuing subpoenas to compel telephone company executives to testify, learned of Cheney's actions only when he went into a closed meeting of the committee's Republicans on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after encountering the vice president at a weekly luncheon of all Senate Republicans.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/08/MNGQIJANKC1.DTL


AIDS AT 25
Steven Winn
Thursday, June 8, 2006
First of two parts.
They were tenors and trumpeters, playwrights and dancers, novelists and record producers, actors and printmakers. The roster of Bay Area artists who have died from AIDS over the past 25 years carries a poignant double message. It reminds us of all the light these men and women brought — and how much more they had to give when the shadow fell. Death came, in most cases, when these artists were just reaching their prime. Much of their best work lay ahead. Names, inevitably, are missing here. No list of this type can be complete. Even this imperfect register requires two days to print (the second half will appear here Friday). Time, as it will, has started to buff away details, reputations, the sight of someone’s face at a piano or in a pas de deux in a moment of inspiration. In trying to remember, we realize just how much life and art have been lost to AIDS.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/08/DDGOGJ9EQP1.DTL


CALIFORNIA
State's schools found skimping on PE classes
Less than 20 minutes a day at majority of districts reviewed
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006
More than half of school districts reviewed by the state are giving kids less physical education than the law requires -- at least 20 minutes a day -- according to public documents obtained by the nonprofit California Center for Public Health Advocacy.
"This is a tragedy for California education," said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the group, which found that 37 of the 73 school districts checked by the state Education Department over the last two years had failed to make students sweat to the extent required.
"These results are appalling," Goldstein said. He added that children are increasingly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes -- once associated with adults -- because of their sedentary, snack-gobbling habits.
Goldstein and his team of health experts are the same people who got junk food banned from public school premises, beginning in July 2007.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/08/BAG46JAKDG1.DTL


The Jakarta Post

Villagers huddle for survival in flimsy tents
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Life was already difficult for residents of the two remote hamlets in the parched hills of Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, but it took a turn for the worse on May 27.
Karang and Padangan, which lie in the village of Nglegi, did not suffer the widespread damage or deaths of many areas battered by the earthquake, but their difficult to reach, rugged location leave them at a disadvantage in recovering from the damage.
The area is plagued by deficiencies: There is not enough food at the best of times, and the electricity supply was cut by the disaster.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060608.B01&irec=0


Merapi spews more hot gas clouds, 15,000 villagers flee
MT. MERAPI, Yogyakarta (AP): Indonesia's Mt. Merapi spewed a spectacular roiling cloud of hot gas and ash down its southern slope Thursday, sending more than 15,000 villagers running to safety or piling into cars and trucks, officials and witnessessaid.
The volcano has been venting steam and ash for weeks, but the 9:15 a.m. (0215 GMT) burst was the largest yet, with billowing, dark gray clouds avalanching 5 1/2 kilometers (3 1/2 miles) downits slopes, said Sugiono, a government vulcanologist.
It was one of a series of powerful explosions early Thursday at Indonesia's most dangerous volcano - but hundreds of villagers living on the mountainside were still refusing to leave.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608130111&irec=6


'Playboy' back with more skin but ad pages laid bare
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The second edition of Playboy Indonesia is not only free of steamy nude pictorials, but also conspicuously lacking in advertisements.
White space occupied the pages where the glossy advertisements that filled April's first edition should have been placed.
"These blank pages are dedicated to our loyal clients who have been threatened against placing ads in this magazine," is the message from publisher PT Velvet Silver Media on the blank pages, acknowledging unnamed cell phone, cologne and tobacco advertisers

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060608.@03&irec=5


Police find 43 bombs in East Java, motive unclear
JAKARTA (AP): Police found a box full of bombs in central Indonesia after one of the explosives accidentally detonated, but refused to speculate whether the cache was intended for terroristattacks or dynamite fishing."We are investigating," Ari Subiyanto, a senior police official in East Java, said Thursday after 43 homemade bombs were discovered in a house in the city of Pasuruan. "We don't know yet what they were for."
The man who allegedly assembled the bombs, identified only as Jordan, was seriously wounded when one accidentally detonated late Wednesday, ripping off his left hand and burning his face, chest and legs, said Subiyanto.
Though the man was a fisherman, Subiyanto said the explosives - along with sulfur residue, circuits and batteries - were not the type usually used by fisherman in the area.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608173355&irec=0


Australia, Indonesia to discuss security accord
SYDNEY, Australia (Bloomberg): Australia's Prime Minister John Howard said he will discuss a security agreement when he holds talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
A meeting with Yudhoyono will probably take place later this month, Howard said Thursday in Sydney. The security accord will include counter-terrorism and illegal immigration, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.
"Our relationship with Indonesia is very important," Howard said. A security agreement "would be one of a number of things that we would discuss."

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608135553&irec=3


Thai police seize Sumatran tiger body parts
BANGKOK (AP): The body parts of six endangered Sumatran tigers discovered at a warehouse near Thailand's main international airport were likely destined for China to be sold for traditionalChinese medicine, police said Thursday.
Police discovered tiger skulls, fangs and other body parts stored in fruit boxes when they raided a cargo warehouse near Bangkok airport late Wednesday, said Lt. Gen. Wuth Liptapanlop, chief of the police economic crime division.
The six tigers likely came from Indonesia or Malaysia, Wuth said, adding that police raided the warehouse on a tip that the parts had been transported there from the southern Thai city ofHat Yai, near the Malaysian border.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608151655&irec=2



Attackers burn down a district office in East Timor
DILI (AP): A mob looted and burned a district office of East Timor's ruling party on Thursday in an area where rebel soldiers are based, officials said, in the first reported violence outside the capital since fighting broke out in Dili last month.
The attack occurred in Gleno, a district capital 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of Dili, said Parliament Speaker Francisco Guterres.
"I condemn those who attacked my representative in Ermera district and burned down our office," Guterres told a news conference. Many East Timorese blame the government for recent violence and are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the dissolution of Parliament.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, but Saturnino Babo, the head of the ruling Fretilin party in the district, said his deputy was attacked by a crowd as he headed to the office, and was forced to hand over his government car.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608125039&irec=7



Soeharto celebrates 85th birthday with big party
JAKARTA (AP): Former Indonesian President Soeharto may be too sick to stand trial, but he planned to celebrate his 85th birthday with a party for up to 400 people at his upscale home Thursday.
A close aide to the former strongman said the Soeharto family also planned to distribute 85,000 packages of staples - rice, noodles, coconut oil, soap, books and pens - to poor people in Jakarta and victims of the recent earthquake in Yogyakarta andCentral Java.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608133052&irec=4



Bird sellers say bird flu does not exist
JAKARTA (Antara): Bird sellers in Jakarta said Thursday they did not believe that bird flu really existed, although it has killed at least 37 people in the country, 13 of whom were from the capital.
"I do not believe that bird flu really exists. There is no bird trader here infected with the disease," Santoso, 30, a bird trader at Pramuka bird market in Central Jakarta was quoted by
Antara news agency as saying.
"If there is bird flu, all the birds in the market would have already died," he added.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah said Wednesday she was struggling to warn people of the danger of bird flu. During a seminar for Indonesia's second-largest Muslim group, Muhammadiyah, she said many people have seen information campaigns on television but "donot realize that they are directly threatened by the disease".

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060608172713&irec=1


The Boston Globe

Somalis flee possible militia offensive
Seizure of capital has citizens in fear
By Mohamed Ali Bile, Reuters June 8, 2006
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Scores of Somali residents fled the warlord stronghold of Jowhar yesterday, in fear of a bloody offensive for control of the town by Islamic militia members who had taken Mogadishu two days earlier.
Gunmen loyal to courts that use the Islamic code of justice known as sharia seized the capital on Monday from a group of clan leaders who described themselves as antiterrorist, and who are widely believed to be backed by the United States. They won after fierce fighting that reportedly has killed 350 people since February.
Locals said the clan leaders were preparing to defend their last redoubt of Jowhar, about 55 miles north of the capital, including an advance line outside the town.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/06/08/somalis_flee_possible_militia_offensive/


Senate OKs syringe sales
By Russell Nichols, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
The state Senate passed a bill yesterday to legalize purchase of hypodermic needles over the counter, setting up a battle with Governor Mitt Romney, who has said he opposes the legislation.
Massachusetts would become the 48th state to legalize over-the-counter sales of syringes to curb the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C through dirty needles shared by drug users. Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey joined other Republicans in opposing the bill, saying it would encourage illegal drug use.
Supporters say the bill would save the state healthcare costs and lives.
New Jersey and Delaware are the only other states where over-the-counter sales are illegal. Currently, four Massachusetts cities -- Boston, Cambridge, Northampton, and Provincetown -- are running needle exchange centers where used needles can be returned for clean ones.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/08/mass_senate_oks_sales_of_syringes/


Wet, wary, and weary again
Drenching storm brings sodden memories of May
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
Unrelenting rains smothered the Boston area yesterday, prompting another round of flood watches, closing roads on the South Shore, and prolonging a record-setting stretch of soggy weather that is disrupting daily life and dampening spirits.
Forecasters predicted that another coastal storm would bring more rain through early Saturday, though less severe than yesterday. Early June, they said, is shaping up much like May, when nearly 12.5 inches fell in Boston, making it the second-wettest May since record-keeping began in the late 1800s.
Yesterday's northeaster lingered mostly over Southeastern Massachusetts. Authorities there nervously watched the Blackstone, Taunton, Wading, and several other rivers that were on the brink of overflowing, but expected any flooding to be less serious than that on the North Shore, because South Shore rivers are generally smaller.
``There aren't a lot of serious rivers down there," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. ``We're keeping our fingers crossed."

http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2006/06/08/wet_wary_and_weary_again/


Lamenting the decline of good conversation
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist June 8, 2006
IF I HAD to guess at the three most spoken words in the English language - or what passes for English in 21st-century America - my nominees would be: ''And I'm like.''
Certainly one can't walk across the Common or down Newbury Street at any weekend hour remotely inhospitable to vampires without being bombarded with that multi-purpose locution, usually followed by a similarly phrased summary of a second person's sentiment: ''And he's like.''
Things can get idiomatically involute when a story requires that the speaker relate what an- other party told her (or him) about the sentiments of a third. Then, you get something along these lines: And she's like, he's like, they're like, no way. It's enough to make you fear you've become entangled in a Mobius-strip simile.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/06/08/lamenting_the_decline_of_good_conversation/


GOP takes aim at PBS funding
House panel backs budget reductions
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs.
On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending.
The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/06/08/gop_takes_aim_at_pbs_funding/


Secret US `web' of prisons alleged
Europe aided CIA flights, probe says
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
BERLIN -- The head of an investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons charged yesterday that 14 European nations collaborated with the United States to create a ``spider's web" of clandestine flights and detention centers across the continent and beyond.
Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led the Council of Europe's investigation, offered little in the way of hard evidence for what he called serious violations of the human rights of at least 17 terrorist suspects allegedly shunted around the globe by CIA interrogators. But the long-awaited report issued by the council -- which monitors human rights issues -- signaled the outrage felt by many Europeans over America's alleged use of the continent's air space and landing ports in prosecuting its war against Islamic terrorism.
``It is now clear -- although we are still far from having established the whole truth -- that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities," Marty said at a news conference in Paris.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/06/08/secret_us_web_of_prisons_alleged/


Giving online world a link to JFK
Project to allow detailed look at presidential papers, photos
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
A handwritten draft of President Kennedy's inaugural address is beginning to show its 45 years of age. The coloring has begun to change along the edges, and the yellow legal paper containing its famous words feels fragile.
But rather than be restricted to the view of a very few, this precious document, which talks of a torch being passed to a new generation, and millions of others are scheduled to be preserved for posterity through digital technology. The project is an unprecedented effort to replicate the entire collection of a presidential library and post much of it on the Internet.
The years-long project , made possible by donations of computer equipment and technical support from EMC Corp. in Hopkinton, will give researchers worldwide an opportunity to study Kennedy's career without visiting the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/08/giving_online_world_a_link_to_jfk/


Army reserve support hospital deployed
June 8, 2006
AUBURN, Maine --Dozens of Army Reserve doctors, nurses and medics left Maine on Thursday in preparation for deployment to Iraq.
The 399th Combat Support Hospital is the second combat hospital unit from New England sent to Iraq. The unit is based in Taunton, Mass., and consists of about 450 soldiers, more than 50 of whom come from Maine.
The Maine group left the state by bus Thursday afternoon. A mobilization ceremony will be held in Boston on Saturday, according to Linda Jeleniewski, spokeswoman for the 94th Regional Readiness Command.
The unit will spend one to three months training in Wisconsin before being sent overseas. The deployment could last up to 18 months, Jeleniewski said.
While in Iraq, the unit will serve as a mobile hospital, treating soldiers and civilians.
The combat support hospital is the present-day equivalent of the former mobile Army surgical hospital, or MASH unit.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2006/06/08/army_reserve_support_hospital_deployed/


In proposed Iran deal, Bush might have to waive law
'05 statute forbids providing reactor
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff June 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- If President Bush follows through on a reported proposal to provide a nuclear reactor to Iran in exchange for a pledge by Iranian leaders to cease activities that could produce an atomic bomb, he could set up another confrontation between presidential power and a law passed by Congress.
In August 2005, Congress passed a law forbidding the United States from exporting any nuclear materials or equipment to countries the State Department says sponsor terrorism -- a list that includes Iran. The law allows Bush to waive the ban if he certifies to Congress that the technology transfer would not increase the risk that Iran will acquire ``nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, or any materials or components of nuclear weapons."
The terms of the proposed deal, as reported in the European and American press, would involve the United States and European nations providing Iran with a light-water nuclear reactor technology to produce electricity. Legal specialists said that if the United States offers any equipment or know-how that results in Iran getting a nuclear reactor, it would be difficult for Bush to justify waiving the law.
Bush may not believe he is bound to obey the law, however. When he signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law on Aug. 8, 2005, he issued a ``signing statement" in which he asserted that he has the authority to ignore several dozen of the newly-created statutes because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/06/08/in_proposed_iran_deal_bush_might_have_to_waive_law/



Militants hit Nigeria plant
By Associated Press June 8, 2006
LAGOS, Nigeria -- Gunmen in speedboats attacked a Shell gas plant early yesterday , sparking a firefight and kidnapping five South Korean contractors in the latest violence to hit Africa's leading crude producer.
Police spokesman Haz Iwendi in the capital, Abuja, said one policeman was in critical condition , and four civilians were injured.
The Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta, which claimed responsibility, has been responsible for a wave of attacks and abductions this year in the country's oil-rich southern delta. The militants say impoverished southern Nigerians aren't getting enough of the oil revenue.
Abductions are common in the volatile delta, with most captives released unharmed.
An official at the Nigerian arm of Royal Dutch Shell said the hostages were working near Nigeria's oil hub, Port Harcourt. Shell said it had shut down the plant .
The militants said they would exchange the hostages for the region's most prominent leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who called for autonomy for southerners and was jailed last year on treason charges. His release has been a top militant demand this year.
Nigeria is the United States' fifth-largest oil supplier . Violence has been common in the Niger Delta for the past 15 years.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/06/08/militants_hit_nigeria_plant/

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