Sydney Morning Herald
Wild weather
7 September 2006
Duration 00:46
Wild weather has caused massive delays around Sydney. Shannon Jones braved the gale-force winds to check it out.
http://media.smh.com.au/?sy=smh&category=bulletin&rid=21706&source=smh.com.au%2F&t=7EUCKN&ie=1&player=wm7&rate=1092&flash=1
Good turn ends in storm death
A building site worker died after trying to row out in Sydney's wild weather today to save a yacht being battered in the high winds.
Police say the 38-year-old man's dinghy flipped as he was en route to secure the boat during wild weather on the harbour on Sydney's North Shore.
He had been working on a waterfront building site at Mosman about 8.40am when he saw a boat moored nearby being damaged by the wind, police said.
Even though the vessel in trouble was not his, he launched a dinghy and headed towards the boat to secure it, police said.
The dinghy apparently flipped over, throwing the man into the water, police said.
Passing NSW Maritime boating officers were first on the scene and pulled two men from the harbour, a spokeswoman said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/good-turn-ends-in-storm-death/2006/09/07/1157222228299.html
The Age
City-country divide may grow over water
The divide between Australia's city dwellers and their rural cousins could grow unless action is taken over water supply, a Senate report warns.
The Senate's Rural, Regional and Transport References Committee looked at the impact of rural water usage.
"Rural versus urban usage has emerged as a major issue of concern suggesting that unless these issues are dealt with effectively they will lead to increased bad feelings between growers and city folk," committee chair, Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert told the Senate.
The inquiry examined the question of development of water property titles, protection of rivers, farming innovation, monitoring of drought and predicting farm water demand and predicting weather and its implications for agriculture.
The study found that the issue is even more difficult due to the "uncertainty of the science assessing the resource and predicting the impacts of drought and increased climate variability."
The report also stated the lack of rainfall and therefore water security is a policy challenge whether it be due to drought or climate change.
Senator Siewert said climate change was a topic which had to be addressed.
"Many see this as the elephant in the room. Water policy that is not being acknowledged. While the exact scope of this change may be uncertain and open to dispute it is clear that any significant change in rainfall and temperature patterns could leave a major hole in our water accounting process," the West Australian senator said.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Citycountry-divide-may-grow-over-water/2006/09/07/1157222255529.html
Globe and Mail
Scientists find new global warming threat
SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.
As Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.
Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.
Scientists are fretting about a global-warming cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060906.wpermaf0906/BNStory/Science/home
Virulent strain of TB discovered in S. Africa
MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press
Tugela Ferry, South Africa — A deadly new strain of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis discovered in South Africa is likely to have spread beyond the rural area where 52 of the 53 people diagnosed with it have died, the doctor who discovered the super bug said.
The extent of the outbreak in the Kwazulu-Natal region of eastern South Africa is unknown because tests are expensive and specialized, said Dr. Tony Moll.
Dr. Moll identified the strain in tests carried out at King George V Hospital in Durban, the provincial capital about 240 kilometres southeast of Tugela Ferry, where he works at a government hospital.
“Most hospitals don't have such facilities and support,” Dr. Moll said in an interview this week.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060906.wtb0906/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home
NATO commander calls for reinforcements in Afghanistan
General James L. Jones says coming weeks will be 'decisive'
PAUL AMES
Associated Press
CASTEAU, BELGIUM — NATO's top commander, General James L. Jones, on Thursday called for allied nations to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan, saying the coming weeks could be decisive in the fight against the Taliban.
Gen. Jones will meet top generals from the 26 NATO nations Friday and Saturday in Warsaw in an attempt to generate troops, planes and helicopters needed for the mission in southern Afghanistan.
Gen. Jones acknowledged that NATO had been surprised by the “level of intensity” of Taliban attacks since the alliance moved into the southern region in July and by the fact that the insurgents were prepared to stand and fight rather than deploy their usual hit-and-run tactics.
However, he was confident that NATO troops could win the battle.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wnato0907/BNStory/International/home
The Fallen in Afghanistan's Canadian Force
World-class runner and former Olympian Private Mark Anthony Graham, a member of 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, based in Petawawa, Ont., was killed in Afghanistan Monday September 4, 2006, mistakenly hit by fire from a U.S. warplane.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060422.wsoldiergallery0422/PhotoGallery01?slot=1
New maps open up depths of Atlantic Ocean
JEFFREY GOLD
Associated Press
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Although only 325 kilometres off the New Jersey-New York coast, the features of the Hudson Canyon have been largely hidden beneath hundreds of metres of water.
Created by the Hudson River centuries ago, parts of the massive, undersea region rival the Grand Canyon in scale. Now, for the first time, scientists have a vivid picture of what the mysterious region looks like.
A four-year study using high-tech tools has produced maps that will allow scientists to study many things, including whether methane gas trapped in frozen sediment below the sea floor is escaping and exacerbating global warming.
Also of interest is whether gas releases could spark undersea landslides that produce tsunamis. Such landslides could also cleave the undersea phone cables that handle much of the nation's overseas communications, said Peter Rona, a Rutgers University professor who led the team that produced the maps.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060904.wseafloor0904/BNStory/Science/home
The stones of Banff
High in the Rockies, a simple stone cabin represents a heroic effort – and the magnetic pull of the mountains
LISA ROCHON
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
BANFF NATIONAL PARK, ALTA. — I never wanted to be a mountain climber. Never wanted to walk a narrow ledge with nothing to cling to but a crumbling rock wall and thin air. Stupid, I know. But, promise me a stone cabin of unparalleled honesty and defiance that requires one of the toughest scree slogs in the Rockies, and I'm willing to see the intelligence of the argument. Why did I climb up 600 metres of sliding, cascading, hateful rock? Because of the architecture on the mountain.
The Abbot Pass Hut still occupies my dreams and my nightmares. It is a fearsome structure that lords itself over a terrible moonscape. Set impossibly high in the Rockies, its construction in 1923 requiring extraordinary human guts and determination, the hut is a rare work of heroic architecture. There's nothing embellished or frivolous about the cabin, nothing pretty. The thick stone walls of the hut are as unforgiving and sublime as the cliffs that surround it on all sides.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wxrochon07/BNStory/Entertainment/home
From TV starlet to director, via a road less travelled
LEAH McLAREN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
TORONTO — "No one should have to go through puberty in a period costume," says Sarah Polley, fixing her interviewer with an unnerving, blue gaze that makes it almost impossible to tell whether she's joking. She cracks a smile and the clouds part. "It's really embarrassing."
As she sits in the Café Diplomatico, in Toronto's west end, there is little of the crinoline-clad child star Canadians came to know in the '90s. Tiny and unmade-up in jeans and hooded sweatshirt, Ms. Polley is contemplating her transition from CBC Television's petticoat-sporting darling on Road to Avonlea to full-grown writer/director.
At the not-so-ancient age of 27, she has just completed her first feature film. Away From Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent, will have its gala opening at the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Critics are already humming with delight over the film, which promises to catapult the ever-beyond-her-years actress/director to the first tier of Canadian filmmakers her first time out.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wxpolley07/BNStory/TIFF06/home
A brave opening choice
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen is both an obvious and a wonderfully brave choice as tonight's kickoff gala, RICK GROEN writes
RICK GROEN
Picture this, because it just might happen.
Tonight, 8 o'clock, Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall. The curtain is set to rise on the opening film in what may now be the world's most influential festival. Taking their expensive seats, the dignitaries dignify, the glitterati glitter, the moneyed talk. Then silence and hushed expectation as the kickoff gala -- The Journals of Knud Rasmussen -- begins to unspool.
Tonight, 10 o'clock, the end credits roll. The dignitaries, the glitterati, the moneyed are still silent but no longer excited. Many politely applaud, some dutifully stand, but most are wondering how in hell the edge got taken right off the evening. What they heard, for the past two hours, is abundantly evident -- lots of unrecognizable Inuit actors speaking in their strange native language. And what they didn't see, for the past two hours, is crystal clear -- barely a hint of action, scarcely more plot and nary a glimpse of a Brad or a Gwyneth or a Scarlett or a Cruise. So what exactly did they witness? Must be art, the frustrated are bound to grumble, because it sure felt like watching paint dry. Now where's the damn party?
So it might go down and, if that's the case, bloody marvellous. The Journals may not be a great movie, but it is a good movie and the perfect one to open any film festival, especially a Canadian festival. Give the TIFF programmers full marks for making a choice that manages to be -- all at once -- completely obvious and politically correct, yet also wonderfully brave and curiously apposite to the whole experience of spending 10 days in the darkened theatres and the glaring spotlights of cinema's modern times.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060907.KNUD07/TPStory/
Bush admits to secret prisons
President defends clandestine program, announces trials for 14 top terror suspects
ALAN FREEMAN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush admitted for the first time that the CIA has been operating clandestine prisons as he announced plans to try 14 high-profile terrorist suspects -- including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks -- who have been held at the secret jails.
After his administration spent months steadfastly refusing to confirm the existence of the widely criticized "black sites," Mr. Bush not only acknowledged that terrorists had been "held and questioned outside the United States" by the Central Intelligence Agency but he praised the program as one that had broken up several plots and kept "potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill us." The presumed terrorists, including suspects in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, have already been transferred to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where 455 other suspects are also being held.
Mr. Bush strongly defended the clandestine program, saying it had saved lives and remained "vital to the security of the United States and our friends and allies." While admitting that procedures used in the detention centres were "tough," Mr. Bush denied any use of torture. "It's against our laws and against our values."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wxbush07/BNStory/International/home
Blair's word expected today on when he'll quit
HAMIDA GHAFOUR
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
LONDON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to speak out today about the timing of his resignation, a day after he struggled to contain a growing rebellion by party dissidents who are demanding that he quit as soon as possible.
With Internet betting firms taking wagers from fevered gamblers on Mr. Blair's departure date, the Prime Minister held meetings with his heir apparent, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, and warned 15 rebel Labour lawmakers that their protest could ruin the ruling party's prospects in the 2009 election.
"It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country," junior defence minister Tom Watson wrote in a letter of resignation to Mr. Blair. Up to now, Mr. Watson has been a loyal Blairite and he is the highest-ranking dissident. Eight junior government officials were among 15 officials who signed a separate document saying that "without an urgent change in the leadership of the party, it becomes less likely that we will win election."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wxblair07/BNStory/International
Pedophile who breached parole five times out of jail again
SHANNON KARI
Globe and Mail Update
VANCOUVER — A pedophile who repeatedly breached his long-term supervision order has been released from prison and is living in an undisclosed location in British Columbia.
Shaun Joshua Deacon, 40, was released last week following an Aug. 28 National Parole Board ruling.
Mr. Deacon had been back in prison since June when he refused to tell his supervisors at a halfway house in Kelowna about new keys in his possession.
In its decision to release Mr. Deacon, the parole board reprimanded him and added a condition that he not possess pictures of children under the age of 16, after one was found on his computer.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060906.bc-pedophile07/BNStory/National/home
The Sierra Vista Herald
Nuclear courier accused of theft, fraud
U.S. Video
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AMARILLO, Texas (AP) -- A former nuclear materials courier with top secret clearance was indicted Wednesday on charges that he used his position to obtain restricted items and sell them over the Internet.
Joe Allen Sizemore, 41, of Amarillo, was charged with wire fraud, theft of government property and possession of unregistered firearms, U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper announced Wednesday in a news release.
Roper said Sizemore was expected to surrender to federal authorities and make his initial court appearance within the next two weeks.
No telephone listing for Sizemore could immediately be found in the Amarillo area.
Sizemore worked as a nuclear materials courier for the Office of Secure Transportation under the Department of Energy and was assigned to the Pantex Plant, a nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility near Amarillo.
Couriers transport nuclear weapons and obtain body armor, night scopes and weaponry restricted to government and law-enforcement officials. They agree to return equipment the DOE that has been provided to them during their employment, according to Roper's statement.
From July 2003 until August 2005, Sizemore prepared purchase requests of restricted items on DOE letterhead and submitted them to his supervisors, who signed them, according to the indictment. After he received the items, he posted them for sale on the Internet, prosecutors say.
Authorities recovered two submachine guns when they searched Sizemore's home in October, according to the release. The fully automatic weapons are required by law to be registered in the National Firearms Registry.
Sizemore had worked at Pantex since 1990 and had top secret clearance, according to a previous report published in the Amarillo Globe-News.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_COURIER_FRAUD?SITE=AZSVH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-07-00-28-06
Army general recalls Katrina aftermath
By GREG BLUESTEIN
Associated Press Writer
FOREST PARK, Ga. (AP) -- When civilian officials couldn't get a grip on Hurricane Katrina's devastation, it was Lt. Gen. Russel Honore who took charge, leading federal troops to help rescue thousands still stranded in New Orleans days after the storm.
The cigar-chomping three-star general, whose leadership in the drowning city earned him the praise of even the government's harshest critics, has since settled back to his chief duty: Training National Guard and Reserve soldiers for their deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
But as the face of the military's role in disaster recovery - and a Louisiana native - Honore has a personal stake in New Orleans' future, returning recently for anniversary ceremonies and keeping tabs as the city tries to build a better New Orleans.
"Better is always harder," Honore said with a sigh while seated behind his office desk at Fort Gillem, just south of Atlanta. "Better costs more. Better takes time."
When Katrina made landfall, the veteran soldier - who once commanded troops in Korea and prepares troops to deal with explosives in Iraq - approached the storm as he would a cunning enemy that cut supply lines and communications with one fell swoop.
Honore soon became an icon of leadership, a walking caricature of a take-charge soldier whose growling one-liners and commanding presence didn't just compel his soldiers into action, but civilians as well.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_GENERAL?SITE=AZSVH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-07-04-17-07
Mont. firefighters battling blaze, bees
By SUSAN GALLAGHER
Associated Press Writer
HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Firefighters battling a wildfire that has blackened nearly 290 square miles and burned 26 homes faced a new challenge, authorities said Wednesday: bees.
The blaze that started with lightning on Aug. 22 has forced hundreds to evacuate. After being grounded by smoke for a day, firefighting helicopters returned to work Wednesday, pouring water on the fire that was 45 percent contained.
Bee stings among firefighters have surged to as many as 50 a day, information officer Joan Dickerson said. Some of those stung required medical attention.
"We've had a couple of our leaders taken to the hospital," she said, but added that she had no explanation for the surge in stings.
An evacuation order for 265 homes remained in effect, three days after it was issued. An alert for evacuation readiness covered another 20 homes.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WILDFIRES?SITE=AZSVH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-07-02-36-30
Ex-Ill. gov gets 6 1/2 years in prison
By MIKE ROBINSON
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST
U.S. Video
CHICAGO (AP) -- Former Gov. George Ryan, who was acclaimed by capital punishment foes for suspending executions in Illinois and emptying out death row, was sentenced Wednesday to 6 1/2 years behind bars in the corruption scandal that ruined his political career.
"When they elected me as the governor of this state, they expected better, and I let 'em down and for that I apologize," the 72-year-old Republican said in court before hearing his sentence.
Federal prosecutors had asked for eight to 10 years in prison. Defense attorneys argued that even 2 1/2 years would deprive Ryan of the last healthy years of his life.
"Government leaders have an obligation to stand as the example. Mr. Ryan failed to meet that standard," U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer said.
Ryan and about a dozen members of his family stood stoically as Pallmeyer imposed the sentence. He said "involuntary separation" from his wife of 50 years, Lura Lynn, would be "excruciating."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOVERNORS_TRIAL?SITE=AZSVH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-07-04-39-41
Fugitive named to '15 Most Wanted' list
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A fugitive suspected of killing a state trooper and wounding two others has been named by federal marshals to their "15 Most Wanted" list while a two-state manhunt continues.
The search for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, a career thief who broke out of an Erie County jail in April, has become one of the largest in New York history.
Authorities believe Phillips has been helped by numerous people since his escape, but has also broken into unoccupied hunting cabins in New York and Pennsylvania and stolen about 15 cars to remain one step ahead of police, authorities said.
Phillips may have spent 11 days hiding out in a western Pennsylvania home last month, slipping back into New York at least once to steal 41 guns from a gun shop, authorities said Wednesday.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TROOPER_SHOT?SITE=AZSVH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-07-03-41-49
Border apprehensions down again in county
By Jonathan Clark
Herald/Review
TUCSON — Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Cochise County were down 32 percent to 5,996 last month as compared with August 2005, the agency’s Tucson Sector reported Wednesday.
The figure suggests a continued decline in local illegal border crossings since the start of the year, although August’s drop in apprehensions was less significant than the 50 and 48 percent declines registered in June and July, respectively. The Border Patrol attributes the decline in local apprehensions to a buildup of manpower and technology in the area, once a focal point for illegal entry into the United States.
According to Tucson Sector spokesman Sean King, Cochise County’s three Border Patrol stations in Naco, Douglas and Willcox counted a combined total of 699 agents on Oct. 1, 2002. By Oct. 1, 2005, that number had risen to 964.
In terms of disrupting drug trafficking, the Border Patrol confiscated 1,327 pounds of marijuana in Cochise County last month as compared with 3,319 pounds in August 2005, King said.
http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/09/07/local_news/news5.txt
Newly revised Army manual released
BY BILL HESS
Herald/Review
FORT HUACHUCA — A new Army field manual emphasizes soldiers involved in human intelligence collection are bound by the Geneva Convention, even when it comes to the detention of individuals considered unlawful enemy combatants.
Army Field Manual 22-2.3, which was released Wednesday, doesn’t just apply to soldiers. Sailors, airmen, Marines and civil service and contract employees involved in intelligence collection, including interrogation of detainees, will have to comply with the 384-page document, said Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who commands the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, the military’s home of human collection training. The manual “is very consistent with (U.S.) Sen. (John) McCain’s view about detainees,” she said.
McCain, who was tortured by the North Vietnamese while he was a prisoner of war for years during the Vietnam War, is an outspoken critic of improper interrogation procedures.
Last year, the Arizona Republican led the charge for a bill to define and limit interrogation techniques that may be used against terrorism suspects.
http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/09/07/local_news/news2.txt
Who among us shall mourn their loss?
To the Editor:
Two brown bears, a cub and a sow, died Tuesday. Not from natural causes, or even the result of the unfettered process of natural selection. It was from the barrel of a gun, fired by people society has hired to protect us from our lazy way, and personal preferences about which animals shall live or die.
The residents of Ramsey Canyon issued the assassination order for these bears, so they did not have to spend the money to bear-proof trash cans, or alter their schedule for putting trash cans out the night before, rather than the morning of, trash collection, both proven methods for discouraging bears according to the Arizona Department of Game and Fish. What about those same people who, wanting to see wildlife, decide to feed wildlife, especially hummingbirds, because their right to personal enjoyment trumps the right of other species to live, since the bears are only interested in a little food? In this case, the bears that are tempted to grab a feeder are put in the path of a bullet. The loss of two bears is not very big in the great scheme of things, unless one reaches ever so slightly for the underlying meaning behind the human action. Among those hidden meanings might be ignorance, a total disregard for the natural laws that keeps all life in balance and the ignorance that loss of one species might just somehow be connected to our own well being. Perhaps we might consider our arrogance, assuming that our role on the planet is to dominate all life. Or, maybe the most fundamental of all motivations might be the “me first” philosophy, which has become the new foundation for our personal decisions.
Regardless, the death of blameless animals will likely continue, as long as people move to the fringes of towns and villages and fail to adopt a way of life that is harmonious with living with wildlife, insisting instead that they will impose city values on their rural location. We can all expect this same scenario to play out again, in Ash Canyon, Miller Canyon, Carr Canyon and Three Canyons. The major question remains that at what point, if it is not our own conscience that bothers us over the loss of animals and their habitat, do we start to become dimly aware that our own survival is at risk from our continued ignorance, arrogance and self-centeredness.
J. Mack
Sierra Vista
http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/09/07/local_news/features_and_opinions/letters_to_editor/letter1.txt
Shame on residents, state agents for bears' deaths
To the Editor:
After reading about the Game and Fish Department killing two bears and now a resident shooting and wounding one, I had to write.
First of all, I am not a tree-hugger or any kind of environmentalist. I am, however, a person who thinks that the bears are the ones that own the land near Ramsey Canyon Inn. Wildlife has been there long before people decided to build up in that area. If residents do not like seeing wildlife then I suggest that they move to the city. I can only assume that since the Game and Fish has taken to killing bears then the residents of that area now feel free to kill them any time they see one roaming the area. Whatever happened to the Game and Fish using tranquilizers on the bears and then moving them to another area? All I can say is shame on the Game and Fish Department and the residents of that area.
Scott French
Sierra Vista
http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/09/07/local_news/features_and_opinions/letters_to_editor/letter2.txt
The New Zealand Herald
Two new breast cancer treatments being trialled
1.00pm Monday September 4, 2006
Around 40 New Zealand breast cancer patients are hoped to be taking part in an international drug trial which aims to improve medication used to prevent recurrence of the disease.
The trial will compare two new inhibitors - treatments which effectively starve breast cancer cells of oestrogen, preventing the disease from recurring in post-treatment breast cancer patients.
Research nurse Jenni Scarlet is co-ordinating the trial from Waikato and Auckland Hospitals, and said it was hoped about 5000 women worldwide would take part.
The trial would not suit all breast cancer patients -- the women must be post-menopausal, and have already received treatment for the disease.
The trial is being funded by pharmaceutical research company Novartis.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10399636
UK police investigate alleged terrorism training network
1.00pm Monday September 4, 2006
LONDON - British police investigating an alleged terrorist training network searched 17 homes in London on Sunday and were granted more time to question 14 suspects, they said.
The police also searched a sprawling Islamic school in southern England for a second day.
A court gave the police until Wednesday to question three of the 14 people arrested this weekend as part of the investigation, the police said in a statement.
The police were given permission to detain the remaining 11 until Friday, by which time they must decide to charge or release them or seek more time to question them.
"Searches are being carried out at 17 residential premises in south, east and north London," a police spokeswoman said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10399639
Sudan asks African Union force to leave Darfur
9.45am Monday September 4, 2006
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM - Sudan on Sunday asked African Union forces monitoring a shaky truce in its violent Darfur region to leave the country by September 30, as Khartoum launched a new offensive threatening a return to full-blown war.
Khartoum has defied the international community and rejected a UN Security Council resolution passed on Thursday to deploy more than 20,000 UN troops and police to Darfur to replace the cash-strapped and ill-equipped AU mission.
Instead Khartoum has moved thousands of troops to North Darfur and launching a new offensive against rebels who did not sign an AU-brokered peace deal in May, according to the AU, rights groups and Washington.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10399615
Mexican leftist vows to set up parallel government
1.00pm Monday September 4, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's leftist opposition leader has said he will never recognise his right-wing rival as president and vowed a "radical transformation" of the country by setting up a parallel government.
Mexico's electoral court is almost certain to confirm the ruling party's Felipe Calderon as president-elect this week, but Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insists he was robbed in the July 2 election.
"We will never accept usurpation nor recognise a president-elect who is illegitimate," the former mayor of Mexico City told a rally of thousands of supporters in the capital's main square on Sunday.
"We are going for deep change, root change, because that is what Mexico needs," he said. "It is a radical transformation. We are going for the construction of a new country that is fair and honourable."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10399612
Annan tells Iran Holocaust is undeniable
7.20am Monday September 4, 2006
TEHRAN - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Iranians the Holocaust was "an undeniable historical fact" today after meeting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who caused outrage in the West when he said it was a "myth".
Annan also condemned an exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran that was staged by an Iranian newspaper in retaliation for the September publication of caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers.
Those drawings angered many Muslims and prompted attacks on European embassies, including missions in Iran.
"I think all of us in this room remember the uproar the Danish cartoons created particularly in this region," Annan said, adding that the right to freedom of expression had to be exercised with sensitivity and responsibility.
"I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is a sad and an undeniable historical fact so we should really handle that, accept that fact and teach children what happened in World War 2 and ensure that it is never repeated.
"We should be careful not to say anything that is used as an excuse for incitement to hatred or violence," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10399600
Austrian captive 'felt like battery hen' [+video]
1.00pm Thursday September 7, 2006
By Tony Paterson
BERLIN - Her blonde hair swept under a headscarf and eyes showing emotions of suffering and quiet defiance, Natascha Kampusch, the teenager held prisoner in an underground cell for eight years, appeared on Austrian television last night and told how she had imagined cutting her captor's head off with an axe to escape.
Kidnapped child held captive for eight years [+pictures]
It was the moment Austria had been waiting for.
Ever since Natascha, 18, made her escape from her kidnapper, a 44-year-old communications technician on 23 August, offers for an interview with her had risen to more than a million euros.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10400154
European Parliament calls for end to seal slaughter
1.00pm Thursday September 7, 2006
The European Parliament has adopted a proposal designed to halt the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals in Canada and Russia.
The declaration, signed by 373 MEPs, calls for the European Commission to immediately introduce legislation banning the trade in seal body parts and products.
South-East England's Green Party Europe MP, Caroline Lucas proposed the ban after it emerged that more than a million wild harp and hooded seals had been slaughtered in Canada in just the last three years – and over a hundred thousand in Russia .
Canada's government says the "hunt" helps the local economy and keeps the seal population in check.
Dr Lucas said: "More than 20 years after the EU banned the import of fur products from the very youngest seal pups, hundreds of thousands of seals pups annually – most just a few weeks old – are clubbed on the ice floes or shot from moving boats as they attempt to flee. Many are skinned alive.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10400187
Mexico vote gives Bush new 'amigo' in Latin America
Thursday September 7, 2006
By Catherine Bremer
MEXICO CITY - Felipe Calderon's election victory in Mexico gives the US government a much-needed conservative ally in Latin America, where it has lost influence in recent years as a string of leftist leaders took power.
For months, it seemed that Washington would have to work with a combative Mexican leader in Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a fiery leftist who led opinion polls and promised to end two decades of US-backed economic reforms.
But Calderon won a narrow victory and Mexico's electoral court named him president-elect on Tuesday local time, throwing out Lopez Obrador's accusations of massive fraud.
Like outgoing President Vicente Fox, Calderon will be a counterweight to leftists in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina who are challenging US interests.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400199
Smelter 'poisons 2000 villagers'
Thursday September 7, 2006
HONG KONG - Two thousand Chinese villagers are being treated in hospital for lead poisoning which they say was caused by a local smelting plant, the South China Morning Post said.
The villagers, including 300 children, had travelled from their northwestern province of Gansu to a hospital in Xi'an in neighbouring Shaanxi because hospitals near their three villages had insisted they were fine, the newspaper said, quoting the local Huashang Daily.
"We don't trust local hospitals because they said our lead concentration levels were normal, so we travelled to somewhere further away," Liu Jiangtao, from Hui county, was quoted as saying. "Everyone from our village has gone there."
One county officials said only two villages were close to the lead smelter and the county was still probing how many were poisoned. Another said only two villagers had been found to be sick and the smelter was shut down last month.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400120
Death penalty imposed on four of Bali Nine, says paper
1.00pm Wednesday September 6, 2006
Indonesia's supreme court has imposed the death penalty on four of the 'Bali Nine' convicted Australian drug smugglers, an Australian newspaper has reported.
The court is said to have handed down the heavier sentences after an appeal by prosecutors.
The Australian government said it had yet to receive confirmation of the report.
A supreme court official in Jakarta said four of the nine appeals had been decided.
A court spokesman, Djoko Sarwoko, told Australia's The Age newspaper "those with life sentences have had their sentences increased to death".
Tan Duc Than Nguyen, 23, Si Yi Chen, 21, and Matthew Norman, 19, were arrested together at the Melasti Beach bungalows in Bali and sentenced to life at their original trial, but that was later cut to 20 years by the island's high court.
Prosecutors then appealed to the supreme court, which - according to The Age - has now given them the death penalty.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400012
Germany says Iran can't be allowed to harm UN
Thursday September 7, 2006
BERLIN - Germany said yesterday Iran could not be allowed to harm the United Nations by pursuing its nuclear programme, but Russia said any economic sanctions must rule out the use of force against the Islamic Republic.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's comments are among the strongest from any European leader since Iran rejected a UN demand for it to halt uranium enrichment in exchange for an offer of economic and political incentives.
"Iran's response is not satisfactory. We won't close the door to negotiations but we the international community won't stand by and watch as Iran harms the rules of the UN nuclear authorities," Merkel told German lawmakers in a speech.
Merkel made clear, however, that military action against Iran was not an option.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400141
World powers to discuss Iran's nuclear defiance
1.25pm Thursday September 7, 2006
BERLIN - Senior diplomats from six world powers meet in the German capital on Thursday to discuss what to do with Iran after it ignored a UN Security Council deadline to freeze its nuclear enrichment programme.
The negotiators from Germany and the five permanent Security Council members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - were expected to consider the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Islamic republic for continuing to enrich uranium past the August 31 deadline, diplomats said.
Declining to give details about the talks, the first such meeting since the deadline expired, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters in Berlin he had "no doubt they will be very substantive and very serious".
Diplomats from several countries to be represented at the talks said the United States hoped to use the meeting to persuade Russia and China that it was time to increase pressure on Iran by preparing to ask the UN Security Council to consider sanctions.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400198
Israel to lift Lebanon blockade
11.25am Thursday September 7, 2006
BEIRUT - Israel said on Wednesday it would lift an eight-week-old air and sea blockade against Lebanon on Thursday, handing over control to international forces.
Shortly after the announcement, Lebanon said it had formally asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - who brokered the end of the blockade - to authorise the deployment of German naval ships to monitor the Lebanese coast.
In New York, UN officials said they expected Germany to lead a contingent of naval ships that was likely to include vessels from other countries. They said French, Italian, Greek and British naval ships would form an interim deployment.
Israel said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been told by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Annan that "international forces are ready to take over control posts over the sea ports and airports of Lebanon".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400179
Blast hits Yemen arms facility, 2 killed
10.20am Thursday September 7, 2006
ADEN - An explosion hit a Yemeni arms storage facility at the port city of Aden on Wednesday and medical sources said two civilian women were killed.
"The blast was the result of an electrical spark at a storage facility where old weapons are stored at the Jabal Hadid Camp," Aden's Governor Ahmad al-Kahlani told the Yemeni ruling party's electronic newspaper Almotamar.net.
Kahlani said the camp, which is close to the Aden port, was being evacuated when the blast took place.
A medical source at an Aden hospital said two women were killed and a man was wounded in a civilian bus hit by shrapnel from the blast as it passed in the vicinity.
Officials were not immediately available for comment.
Earlier, Civil Defence Colonel Hamoud Adnan al-Harthi said there were no casualties.
The official news agency Saba also quoted an interior ministry official as saying no one was hurt in the incident.
A similar explosion hit the facility in the 1990s without causing any casualties.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, joined the US-led war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10400163
UK charges two more over alleged airline bomb plot
12.20pm Thursday September 7, 2006
LONDON - Two more men were charged on Wednesday in connection with an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners, British police said.
Donald Douglas Stewart Whyte and Mohammed Usman Saddique were charged with intending to commit acts of terrorism intending to "smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board."
Both are to appear in court on Thursday.
The men were among 25 arrested by British anti-terrorism detectives who said on August 10 they had foiled a plan to use homemade liquid explosives to bring down several airliners on the way from Britain to the United States.
Three other men were later released without charge.
A total of 17 people have now been charged in connection with the alleged plot.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10400176
Airlines and EU official oppose total liquid ban
9.20am Thursday September 7, 2006
BRUSSELS - European airlines and the European Union's justice and security commissioner said on Wednesday they opposed any attempt to ban passengers from carrying all forms of liquids on flights.
EU security experts were meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to make recommendations after Britain said on August 10 it had foiled a plot to blow up US-bound transatlantic airliners. Officials said the plot involved homemade liquid explosives.
Sources close to the meeting said liquids and gels may be banned from hand luggage on flights.
"Prohibiting all liquids on board we see as unrealistic," said Francoise Humbert, spokeswoman for the Association of European Airlines.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10400151
Space shuttle launch postponed again
11.10am Thursday September 7, 2006
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - Nasa on Wednesday postponed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis at least until Friday because of a problem with a power system aboard the ship, officials with the US space agency said.
"We're going to delay at least 24 hours, until Friday," Nasa press secretary Dean Acosta said.
The launch of Atlantis on Nasa's first construction mission to the International Space Station since the 2003 Columbia accident had been planned for 12.29pm (4.29am today NZT) Wednesday.
Engineers detected a voltage spike in a power unit inside one of the shuttle's three onboard fuel cells. The problem was found shortly before the shuttle was to be loaded with a half-million gallons of propellants for launch.
The 113-kg units combine oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity for the shuttle's systems and water that is used for cooling and for the crew to drink. All three must be operating for the shuttle to fly.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400173
Billions still lack clean water and sanitation, UN says
1.00pm Wednesday September 6, 2006
GENEVA - More than a billion people still have no clean water to drink as the international community falls far behind in its plan to halve their number by 2015, two UN agencies have said.
Six years after the goal was set, 1.1 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion lack reasonable sanitation, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) and World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a joint report.
"The world is in danger of missing targets for providing clean water and sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015," the agencies said.
Unicef and WHO estimate that, in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals, infrastructure must be built to provide sanitation services to a further 1.6 billion people and better access to drinking water for another 1.1 billion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10399976
Winters 'wiped out whole population'
Thursday September 7, 2006
By Steve Connor
LONDON - Britain has been colonised at least eight times over the past 700,000 years and on seven of these occasions the entire human population was wiped out by intensely cold winters.
This is one of the main conclusions of a five-year investigation into the prehistoric sites of Britain which has shown that the last colonisation occurred less than 12,000 years ago - making Britain a younger country than Australia, which has been continuously inhabited for at least 50,000 years.
"Britain had to be repopulated over and over again. Completely new people had to come back, sometimes with a gap of 100,000 years between these occupations," said Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London.
"Early Britons had to cope with these changes of climate. Often they couldn't and they died out completely. Britain and the British people today are new arrivals. We're products of only the last 12,000 years," Stringer said.
Studies of several prehistoric sites have revealed that the early human inhabitants of Britain lived alongside large mammals such as elephants, mammoths, rhinos and hippos as well as fierce carnivores such as hyaenas and scimitar-toothed cats.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400105
Republicans face life in the twilight zone
Thursday September 7, 2006
By Rupert Cornwall
WASHINGTON - For an idea of the upheaval that may be about to overtake the US Congress, just three words suffice: Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
This is no denigration of the member for California's 8th district in the House of Representatives.
She is as competent, ambitious and driven a politician as they come. But nothing would so perfectly symbolise the twilight of a conservative era as a House led by a woman with a near perfect liberal voting record from the great city of San Francisco, a place that lives in Republican mythology as Sodom and Gomorrah made flesh.
And the chances right now are that it will happen. America's mid-term elections, in which all 435 House seats and a third of the Senate are at stake, are just two months away. A new poll yesterday found the party leading by 53 per cent to 43 per cent in a generic vote for Congress, while Democrats are set to gain several State governorships as well.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400109
Open combat turns hunters into hunted
Thursday September 7, 2006
By Kim Sengupta
LONDON - Reports by two international think-tanks yesterday highlighted failures of United States and British policy in Afghanistan and warned of the deteriorating security situation.
The Senlis Council claimed that the campaign against the Taleban has inflicted lawlessness, misery and starvation on the Afghan people. Thousands of villagers fleeing the fighting and a continuing drought, as well as farming families who have lost their livelihood because of the eradication of the opium crop, have ended up suffering in makeshift refugee camps.
And the influential International Institute of Strategic Studies said that a vital opportunity was lost when the West failed to carry out adequate reconstruction work after the Taleban retreat in 2001. Christopher Langton, the head of the defence analysis department, also said that attempts to impose secular laws on a tribal Pashtun society, without the establishment of security, had not worked.
Dr John Chipman, director-general and chief executive of the IISS, said the British tactic of moving into remote areas in Helmand has "acted as a catalyst for intensifying insurgency by drawing the Taleban into open combat. However, it is also true the insurgency has a new energy and the Taleban see ... troops from the European member states as an opportunity target. Furthermore the Taleban message that the foreign troops are 'occupiers' resonates loudly in the villages of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan.
"The counter-narcotics policy [has] caused tensions between local people, the Government and the [Nato] coalition. The removal of the farmers' livelihood programme runs counter to win 'hearts and minds'. The Taleban capitalise on this contradiction by championing the cause of the farmers."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400130
Aids experts demand sacking of S Africa's health minister
Thursday September 7, 2006
JOHANNESBURG - More than 80 international scientists, including a Nobel laureate, have appealed to South Africa's president to fire his controversial health minister for what they say are "pseudo-scientific" policies on Aids.
Calls for the dismissal of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for promoting alternative treatments have grown since last month's global Aids conference in Toronto.
Experts have criticised President Thabo Mbeki's government for underplaying anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs and promoting home-grown Aids treatments such as garlic, beetroot and lemon at the conference.
"To have as health minister a person who now has no international respect is an embarrassment to the South African government," said the letter, dated September 4.
"We therefore call ... for an end to the disastrous, pseudo-scientific policies that have characterised the South African government's response to HIV/Aids."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400146
Irwin's father says he lost his best mate
Thursday September 7, 2006
SYDNEY - Steve Irwin's father said yesterday he lost his best mate when the TV naturalist known as the "Crocodile Hunter" died in a freak diving accident, adding that his son would hate the fuss of a state funeral.
In the first public comments by Irwin's family since his death on Monday while diving off Australia's northeast coast, Bob Irwin thanked his son's many fans from Australia and around the world for their messages of condolence.
"Steve and I weren't like father and son, we never were," Bob Irwin told reporters outside Australia Zoo, the animal park in tropical Queensland state known to his son's millions of viewers around the world.
"We were good mates. I'll remember Steve as my best mate ever," he said.
Irwin, 44, died after the serrated barb of a stingray's tail pierced his heart.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10400140
Friends vow to continue Irwin's work
1.00pm Wednesday September 6, 2006
By Sam Benger
It's the man behind the myth that "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin's friends and staff will miss most, but all are determined to keep his legacy burning bright.
The website for the charity established by Steve and wife Terri to help injured animals, Wildlife Warriors, was unable to keep up with demand yesterday.
It continually crashed as people attempted to log on and leave messages of support and donations.
Wildlife Warriors executive manager Michael Hornby said the team was struggling to come to terms with the death of their close friend and benefactor, but the public response had been overwhelming.
"People are coming to the zoo, leaving donations, flowers, the phones are ringing off the hook, I suppose
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=000B565D-F9FB-14FD-B67B83027AF10144
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