The Arab News
Water From Reserves to Ease Crisis
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
JEDDAH, 27 September 2006 — Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Hussayen yesterday announced plans to pump 50,000 cubic meters of water from strategic reserves to solve Jeddah’s water crisis within two days.
The announcement comes after the metropolitan city’s water crisis reached its peak with thousands of people gathering at the water distribution center in Aziziya to buy water-truck deliveries after regular pipeline supply stopped weeks ago.
Al-Hussayen also disclosed plans to establish a new desalination plant in Jeddah. The new plant would replace the existing one that has exceeded its estimated lifespan.
Desalination plants in Shuaiba, located 110 km south of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast, pump water to Jeddah. Contracts have been signed to establish a new plant, Shuaiba-3, which will supply 194 million gallons of water daily to Jeddah, Makkah, Taif and Baha.
“When the new plant in Shuaiba becomes operational in two years the water crisis in Jeddah will be solved once and for all,” he explained. The men and women who thronged the distribution center lost their cool on Monday after staying in the queue for several hours as they engaged in a fistfight that forced authorities to call police.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=87222&d=27&m=9&y=2006
Suicide Bomb Kills 18 in Southern Afghanistan
Reuters
An Afghan man on a bicycle looks at a suicide bombsite outside the governor’s office in Helmand on Tuesday. (Reuters)
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, 27 September 2006 — A suicide bomber killed 18 people outside the governor’s office in a southern Afghan town yesterday while an Italian soldier died in a blast near Kabul, officials said.
The Taleban’s intensified campaign against the government and foreign troops supporting it this year has spawned the worst violence since the hard-line Islamists were ousted after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
The suicide blast went off as foreign troops were passing through Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, an official said. NATO troops were in the area at the time but none was hurt, an alliance spokesman said Near Kabul, a roadside bomb killed an Italian NATO soldier and seriously wounded two compatriots. The Taleban claimed both blasts.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=87233&d=27&m=9&y=2006&pix=world.jpg&category=World
Musharraf’s Book Evokes Hostile Indian Reaction
Nilofar Suhrawardy, Arab News
NEW DELHI, 27 September 2006 — Although the July 2001 Agra summit between then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf failed to yield any accord, neither of the two leaders was insulted there, Vajpayee said yesterday.
Referring to such an assertion by Musharraf in his recently released memoirs, “In the Line of Fire,” the former prime minister said: “I am still to see the book, but his reported comments on the failure of our talks at Agra surprised me. No one insulted the general and certainly no one insulted me.”
Saying that such high-level talks should not be assumed to be failures if they do not lead to any accord or agreement, Vajpayee recalled his bus journey to Lahore to meet then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “That trip was appreciated by all, but it yielded no results,” he said.
Recalling his government’s invitation to Musharraf, following the change in Pakistani establishment, Vajpayee said: “Gen. Musharraf readily accepted our invitation and came to Delhi. But at Agra during our talks, he took a stand that the violence that was taking place in Jammu and Kashmir could not be described as ‘terrorism.’ He continued to claim that the bloodshed in the state was nothing but the people’s battle for freedom. It was this stand of Gen. Musharraf that India just could not accept and this was responsible for the failure of the Agra summit.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=87236&d=27&m=9&y=2006&pix=world.jpg&category=World
Enron’s Fastow Jailed for Six Years
Reuters
HOUSTON, 27 September 2006 — Andrew Fastow, who helped engineer the financial trickery that sank Enron Corp. and then helped prosecutors convict others involved in the scandal, received a six-year sentence yesterday, four years less than the deal he had made. US District Judge Ken Hoyt said the 44-year-old former Enron chief financial officer had given “exceptional” assistance to prosecutors, had pledged to help victims and had remorse, and his wife, Lea had gone to prison for a year.
The judge imposed no fine and recommended a minimum security prison for Fastow. He rejected a request from lawyers for victims who are suing to recover losses that Fastow be allowed to surrender Oct. 23 after giving a deposition in that case.
“What moves the arm of justice is mercy,” Hoyt told Fastow. “You were drunk on the wine of greed ... (but) you had a double portion, in that your wife shared in that (punishment).” Fastow, who oversaw Enron’s finances during the giant energy trader’s spectacular rise and fall, pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy in 2004 and agreed to assist prosecutors. His testimony helped convict former Chairman Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=87223&d=27&m=9&y=2006
American Entrepreneur Sees Hidden Strength in Islam
Siraj Wahab, Arab News
JEDDAH, 27 September 2006 — The first time you meet Skip Conover, you are pleasantly surprised. In thobe, ghutra and igal, you might mistake him for an Arab. His comfort in this attire is the result in part of his 15 visits to the Kingdom. Conover, like all Americans, is frank and honest. He makes his points crystal clear and backs them up with solid facts. He describes himself as an entrepreneur. He founded and built two multifaceted international BPO (business process outsourcing) firms. He founded and built an international telecommunications and software development company in India. He has extensive worldwide business experience. He did his MBA from The Simon Graduate School of Business at The University of Rochester.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=9§ion=0&article=87250&d=27&m=9&y=2006
Editorial: Reclaiming Lost Status
27 September 2006
IF there is one defining policy in the Putin Kremlin, it is a steady campaign to reclaim Russia’s lost superpower status. The method is economic and diplomatic, not military. Nevertheless, as should perhaps be expected from a leader who rose to prominence via the former KGB and the Soviet Communist system, the execution is blunt and uncompromising.
The pre-emptory suspension of the multibillion-dollar Sakhalin II oil and gas project being undertaken by an international consortium led by Shell is the latest and most startling step in this campaign. It comes after last winter’s temporary suspension of gas supplies to the Ukraine, which also impacted on deliveries to Western Europe. The Russian authorities claim to have acted on the $20-billion project purely on environmental grounds. Nevertheless, industry sources suggest that the environmental objections would disappear, as if by magic, if state-owned oil company Gazprom were to be given larger equity in the project, without incurring a greater share in the investment, the cost of which has almost doubled since the development began.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=87248&d=27&m=9&y=2006
As US Power Recedes, Europe Should Fill the Gap
Andreas Whittam-Smith, The Independent
Influence is slowly shifting from the US to Europe so far as the Middle East is concerned. Europe has a superior ability to talk to Iran. The presence of substantial numbers of European peacekeeping troops in Lebanon brings with it an increased standing. And against American wishes, the European powers are trying to provide the proposed national unity government in Palestine with room to maneuver. This is the evidence, still sparse.
It is not so much that Europe has become stronger but that the US appears weaker. If the American policy of imposing solutions by force had worked and Afghanistan had been permanently freed of the Taleban and Iraq had turned to democracy rather than civil war, then Europe would have remained more or less irrelevant. But it hasn’t turned out like that.
Worse still, the moral authority of the US and its close allies has been sapped by prisoner abuse and indiscriminate bombing of civilians. While this lack of success had been evident for some time, it took Israel’s failed onslaught on Lebanon this summer to signal the change. The whole world saw that Israel, fighting Hezbollah the American way, could not prevail. It also perceived that the cost in terms of innocent deaths was heavy.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=87249&d=27&m=9&y=2006&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion
Islamophobia: A New Face of Xenophobia
V.A. Mohamad Ashrof, Arab News
COCHIN, 27 September 2006 — The word Islamophobia was first formulated in 1991 and was defined as “unfounded hostility toward Islam, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” Islamophobia was coined by way of an analogy to the word “xenophobia.” Its employment involves distinguishing between unfounded (mad) antipathy of Islam on the one hand and reasoned disagreement or criticism on the other. It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination, prejudice and less favorable treatment against Muslim individuals and communities, and to the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political and social affair.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=9§ion=0&article=87251&d=27&m=9&y=2006&pix=community.jpg&category=Features
New York Times
Opera Canceled Over a Depiction of Muhammad
BERLIN, Sept. 26 — A leading German opera house has canceled performances of a Mozart opera because of security fears stirred by a scene that depicts the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, prompting a storm of protest here about what many see as the surrender of artistic freedom.
The Deutsche Oper Berlin said Tuesday that it had pulled “Idomeneo” from its fall schedule after the police warned of an “incalculable risk” to the performers and the audience.
The company’s director, Kirsten Harms, said she regretted the decision but felt she had no choice. She said she was told in August that the police had received an anonymous threat, but she acted only after extensive deliberations.
Political and cultural figures throughout Germany condemned the cancellation. Some said it recalled the decision of European newspapers not to reprint satirical cartoons about Muhammad, after their publication in Denmark generated a furor among Muslims.
Wolfgang Börnsen, a culture spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in Parliament, accused the opera house of “falling on its knees before the terrorists.”
The disputed scene is not part of Mozart’s opera, but was added by the director, Hans Neuenfels. In it, the king of Crete, Idomeneo, carries the heads of Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon on to the stage, placing each on a stool.
“Idomeneo,” first performed in 1781, tells a mythical story of Poseidon, or Neptune, the god of the sea, who toys with men’s lives and demands spiteful sacrifice.
The cancellation of the performances fanned a debate in Europe about whether the West is compromising values like free expression to avoid stoking anger in the Muslim world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/world/europe/27germany.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=b63d4e8f371503b6&ei=5094&partner=homepage
D’Aquino, Convicted as Tokyo Rose, Dies at 90
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: September 27, 2006
Iva Toguri D’Aquino, the Japanese-American convicted of treason in 1949 for broadcasting propaganda from Japan to United States servicemen during World War II as the seductive but sinister Tokyo Rose, died Tuesday in Chicago. She was 90.
Her death, at a Chicago hospital, was confirmed by a nephew, William Toguri, who said only that Mrs. D’Aquino had died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.
Tokyo Rose was a mythical figure. The persona, its origin murky, had been bestowed by American servicemen collectively on a dozen or so women who broadcast for Radio Tokyo, telling soldiers, sailors and marines in the Pacific that their cause was lost and that their sweethearts back home were betraying them.
The broadcasts did nothing to dim American morale. The servicemen enjoyed the recordings of American popular music, and the United States Navy bestowed a satirical citation on Tokyo Rose at war’s end for her entertainment value.
But the identity of Tokyo Rose became attached to Mrs. D’Aquino, a native of Southern California and the only woman broadcasting for Radio Tokyo known to be an American citizen. She emerged as an infamous figure in a rare treason trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/world/asia/28rose.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=4347e1e49d0c5853&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Gotti Case Ends With Mistrial for Third Time in a Year
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and MATTHEW SWEENEY
The trial in the racketeering conspiracy case against John A. Gotti concluded this afternoon with a hung jury, the third time in the last year that a federal jury has failed to reach a verdict in a racketeering prosecution against Mr. Gotti.
The jury, which told Judge Shira A. Scheindlin in Federal District Court in Manhattan that it had made no progress since Monday, deliberated for six-and-a-half days and was dismissed after sending a note that read, “Your Honor, unfortunately, we are deadlocked.”
Mr. Gotti, 42, known as Junior, began crying at the defense table, resting his head on his folded hands, before reaching over to hug his lead lawyer, Charles Carnesi, who had also represented him in the second trial. In the galley, his sister Angel, brother Peter and other friends and family members in the packed courtroom also began to sob.
“I can go home and watch my son play football for the first time,” he said. This evening, he said, he plans to have martinis and drinks with family members and his defense team.
His attorneys told Judge Scheindlin that they would file a motion to have the charges against Mr. Gotti dismissed, and to have some of the conditions of his parole — home confinement and electronic monitoring — ended.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/nyregion/27cnd-gotti.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=9fead7a1d9bb579e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Housing Sector Gets a Reprieve
By JEREMY W. PETERS
The beleaguered housing industry got an unexpected reprieve today from the seemingly endless stream of bad news: sales of new homes rose in August.
This was the first time since March that sales did not fall.
But in a sign that builders are facing a tougher market than they were in 2005, the median nationwide price of a new home fell 1.3 percent last month, to $237,000, from a year earlier.
In its monthly report on the condition of the new home market, the Commerce Department said today that sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.05 million, 4.1 percent higher than in July.
That helped push down the inventory of unsold new homes to a 6.6-month supply, meaning that at the current selling rate, it would take 6.6 months to sell all the new homes currently on the market.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/27cnd-econ.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=01ab07383dc9f8a5&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Congress Calls 5 Detectives to Hewlett-Packard Hearing
By DAMON DARLIN
Published: September 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — Five additional witnesses, all private detectives, have been subpoenaed to appear Thursday before a Congressional hearing on the Hewlett-Packard spying case.
The five were hired on behalf of Hewlett-Packard to obtain the phone records of company directors, journalists and others, staff members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said. The staff members said the five are reported to have used subterfuge to obtain the records, a practice that detectives call pretexting.
Those subpoenaed are Bryan Wagner of Littleton, Colo.; Darren Brost of Austin, Tex.; Charles Kelly of CAS Agency in Villa Rica, Ga.; Cassandra Selvage of Eye in the Sky Investigations in Dade City, Fla.; and Valerie Preston of InSearchOf Inc. in Cooper City, Fla.
The Congressional staff members said they did not know if any of the detectives would actually testify at the hearing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/technology/27cnd-hewlett.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=003d1be3cb8368c2&ei=5094&partner=homepage
New Premier Seeks a Japan With Muscle and a Voice
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: September 27, 2006
TOKYO, Sept. 26 — In his first act after being installed as prime minister, Shinzo Abe, a popular nationalist who has vowed to make Japan more assertive globally, appointed a cabinet on Tuesday packed with social conservatives and foreign-policy hawks.
Mr. Abe, 52, bowed deeply in front of lawmakers after winning 339 votes in the 476-member lower house, which selects the prime minister.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Abe’s predecessor and political mentor, Junichiro Koizumi, vacated the prime minister’s residence in central Tokyo after nearly five and a half years. Mr. Abe had been virtually guaranteed to succeed Mr. Koizumi, 64, since winning last week’s leadership election in the Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the past half-century.
Mr. Abe is Japan’s youngest prime minister since World War II and the first to be born after the war. His ascension appears to be a changing of the guard in a country that has kept a low profile in international affairs since its defeat in 1945. He enters office riding a crest of popularity, as his message of renewed national pride has found followers amid the resurgence of Japan’s long dormant economy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/world/asia/27japan.html
As a Test Lab on Dirty Air, an Ohio Town Has Changed
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 27, 2006
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio, Sept. 23 — For three generations, people here commuted beneath the scraggly bluffs along the Ohio River to jobs where they made the steel from which 20th-century America — the cars, the skyscrapers, the cans — was built.
Then, starting in the 1970’s, Steubenville residents began contributing more personal raw material to a different sort of endeavor. They provided details about their lung function and cardiac rhythms, about the manner of their lives and the cause of their deaths, to the science on which 21st-century air pollution policies are built.
Data from Steubenville have played a central role in many decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency on air pollution regulations, including two of the more controversial — one in 2005 setting the first limits on mercury emissions, and another last week to tighten one but not both of the standards for lethal fine soot particles.
Three decades ago, Steubenville’s reputation for having the country’s foulest air made it a magnet for researchers in the young field of environmental epidemiology.
“Steubenville is a perfect environmental laboratory,” said James Slater, a chemistry professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Two large steel mills and two plants that turned coal into furnace-ready coke for those plants operated nearby, he said, and the Ohio River Valley is prone to temperature inversions that trap polluted air. “We have it all,” Dr. Slater said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/us/27steubenville.html
Bill Would Reimburse States for Printing Alternate Ballots
Senators Barbara Boxer and Christopher J. Dodd with Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, all Democrats, discussed their proposal for emergency paper ballots Tuesday in Washington.
Published: September 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three Senate Democrats proposed emergency legislation on Tuesday to reimburse states for printing paper ballots in case of problems with electronic voting machines on Nov. 7.
The proposal is a response to grass-roots pressures and growing concern by local and state officials about touch-screen machines. An estimated 40 percent of voters will use those machines in the election.
“If someone asks for a paper ballot, they ought to be able to have it,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.
Republican leadership aides were skeptical about the prospects for the measure. It would have to advance without opposition from any senator and then make it through the House in the short time available before Election Day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27ballots.html
New York City Plans Limits on Restaurants’ Use of Trans Fats
The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city’s 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease.
The board, which is authorized to adopt the plan without the consent of any other agency, did not take that step yesterday, but it set in motion a period for written public comments, leading up a public hearing on Oct. 30 and a final vote in December.
Yesterday’s initiative appeared to ensure that the city would eventually take some formal action against artificial trans fats. If approved, the proposal voted on yesterday by the Board of Health would make New York the first large city in the country to strictly limit such fats in restaurants. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in annual sales.
The New York prohibition would affect the city’s entire restaurant industry, by far the nation’s largest, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to street corner takeouts across the five boroughs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/nyregion/27fat.html
Secretary Vows to Improve Results of Higher Education
By SAM DILLON
Published: September 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Saying she hoped to jolt American higher education out of a dangerous complacency, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings vowed Tuesday to help finance state universities that administer standardized tests, establish a national database to track students’ progress toward a degree and cut the red tape surrounding federal student aid.
In a speech, Ms. Spellings emphasized those and a few other measures from among dozens of recommendations issued recently by a federal panel, the Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
“This is the beginning of a process of long-overdue reform,” Ms. Spellings told a crowd of university presidents, business executives, lobbyists and journalists in a speech that her department billed as one in which she would outline her agenda for change at the nation’s colleges and universities.
The commission, convened by Ms. Spellings, completed work in August on a report that warned that American universities, while still the finest in the world, were losing their edge against heightened global competition.
In one of its most highly debated recommendations, the report called on public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, and listed two by name: the Collegiate Learning Assessment and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress. During the panel’s deliberations, many educators opposed the testing proposal, calling it misguided for the federal government to require the nation’s more than 3,000 colleges, universities and trade schools to test and compare learning outcomes among such disparate students as physics scholars at Caltech and dance majors at Juilliard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/education/27spellings.html
Prequel to a Hydrogen Future: Driving G.M.’s Fuel Cell Prototype
Next year G.M. will start building fuel cell Chevrolet Equinoxes based on the Sequel prototype.
IF an afternoon behind the wheel of General Motors’ latest prototype hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Sequel, is any indication, automotive powertrains of the future will not feel much different from the engines that drive today’s cars and trucks.
By a seat-of-the-pants evaluation, the Sequel feels reasonably peppy; acceleration is smooth and nearly silent. And it is capable of reaching 90 miles an hour, said Mohsen Shabana, chief engineer for the Sequel program and my passenger on the test drive.
More important than its performance or apparent normalness, though, is its role as a development mule for future production models. Next year G.M. will demonstrate the real-world capabilities of the Sequel’s fuel cell technology when it begins to deploy a fleet of more than 100 fuel-cell-powered vehicles in the United States. Vehicles for this program, called Project Driveway, will be powered by the same fourth-generation fuel cell used in the Sequel I drove, but installed in a Chevrolet Equinox crossover sport wagon.
There’s more: G.M. promised three years ago that by 2010 it would have a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system, fully validated for production, that would compete head-to-head with the internal combustion engine in overall performance and durability. By all indications, that fuel cell — a development of the Sequel’s powertrain — will be installed in a redesigned Equinox body scheduled to makes its debut in 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/automobiles/24SEQUEL.html
Intel Fires Back at A.M.D. Over Bragging Rights on Chip
Published: September 27, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26 — A war of words between Advanced Micro Devices and Intel is heating up as they vie to claim the advantage in creating a new generation of chips with four processing cores.
A week after A.M.D.’s chief executive, Hector Ruiz, called Intel an “abusive Goliath” using monopoly tactics, his Intel counterpart responded Tuesday that the harsh words were those of a rival losing ground on a new battlefront.
“This is about bragging rights,” the Intel chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, said in an interview after his speech opening the three-day Intel Developers Forum, an annual event for makers of PC’s and accessories.
Mr. Otellini announced that Intel would begin shipping quad-core processors for both high-end PC’s and servers in November, at least six months before quad-core processors are due from A.M.D.
Advanced Micro was first to make dual-core chips, featuring two processors, an approach the industry has taken in recent years to gain performance without increasing PC energy consumption. And in the last two years it has made significant inroads in Intel’s market share of both desktop and server computers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/technology/27chip.html
The Moves to Restrict Voting (8 Letters)
To the Editor:
Re “Stricter Voting Laws Carve Latest Partisan Divide” (front page, Sept. 26):
Republicans deny any partisan motive behind moves to require driver’s licenses or similar identification to vote, although it is clear that most of those without such ID’s are Democrats.
At the same time, in Congress and all across the country, Republicans either oppose or willfully ignore attempts to provide electronic voting machines that will produce a verifiable record of actual votes.
The number of individuals masquerading as voters has been infinitesimal; corrupted computerized voting machines can steal thousands of votes in the flick of an eye.
Enough said.
Jonathan J. Margolis
Boston, Sept. 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/opinion/l27vote.html
Baseball’s Oldest Old-Timer Opens a Window
By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: September 26, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Sept. 20 — Silas Simmons was handed a photograph and asked if he recognized anyone in it. He fixed his eyes on the sepia stares and moved his curled fingers over the glass and frame, soaking in the faces for more than 20 silent seconds.
Silas Simmons identified himself as the second player from the right in the middle row in this 1913 photograph of the Homestead Grays.
M.L.B.
It was a picture of the 1913 Homestead Grays, a primordial Pittsburgh-area baseball team that played before the Negro leagues were even born. His mind, Simmons said, needed time to connect the faces to positions to names. He was entitled to the delay; next month, he will turn 111 years old.
Simmons, known as Si, was born on Oct. 14, 1895 — the same year as Babe Ruth and Rudolph Valentino, and before F. Scott Fitzgerald and Amelia Earhart. He played at the highest level of black baseball while a boy named Satchel Paige was still in grade school.
That Simmons is still living was unknown to baseball researchers until this summer, when a genealogist near the nursing home where he lives in St. Petersburg alerted a Negro leagues expert.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/sports/baseball/26oldest.html?ex=1159502400&en=0d67626e24beb195&ei=5087%0A
The Choice: A Longer Life or More Stuff
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: September 27, 2006
The most authoritative report on the cost of health insurance came out yesterday, and it’s sure to cause some new outrage.
The average cost of a family insurance plan that Americans get through their jobs has risen another 7.7 percent this year, to $11,500, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In only seven years, the cost has doubled, while incomes and company revenue, which pay for health insurance, haven’t risen nearly as much.
These spiraling costs — a phrase that has virtually become a prefix for the words “health care” — are slowly creating a crisis. Many executives have decided that they cannot afford to keep insuring their workers, and the portion of Americans without coverage has jumped 23 percent since 1987.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/27leonhardt.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=871fc43fb375884c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Renault Chief May Look to Ford if G.M. Talks Fail
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Published: September 27, 2006
PARIS, Sept. 27 — Carlos Ghosn, who runs the French automaker Renault and Nissan of Japan, said today that he would continue to seek a North American partner if negotiations on an alliance with General Motors fail — raising the prospect of eventual talks with the Ford Motor Company.
Mr. Ghosn’s comments came hours after he met with General Motors’ chief executive, Rick Wagoner, for the first time since their two companies formally began negotiations in July on a possible three-way alliance.
Following today’s meeting at Renault’s headquarters in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, the automakers issued a joint statement saying that “our companies continue to explore the potential opportunities of an industrial alliance.” They said study teams created to analyze a deal would work through mid-October.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/automobiles/27cnd-auto.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=129a1794bc5b209f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
New York Times
In Gamble, Calif. Tries to Curb Greenhouse Gases
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/us/15energy.html?hp&ex=1158379200&en=291624f0d44f67a9&ei=5094&partner=homepage
SACRAMENTO — In the Rocky Mountain States and the fast-growing desert Southwest, more than 20 power plants, designed to burn coal that is plentiful and cheap, are on the drawing boards. Much of the power, their owners expected, would be destined for the people of California.
Clearing the Air
Articles in this series are examining the ways in which the world is, and is not, moving toward a more energy efficient, environmentally benign future.
Environmental Defense/Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology Report on Coal-Fired Plants
Report on Climate Change and Management of Water Resources in California
2004 National Academy of Sciences Report on the Impact of Climate Change in California
American Council for Capital Form
ation Report "Is AB 32 a Cost-Effective Approach?"The Chamber of Commerce Rebuttal to the Governor's Climate Action Team's Report
But such plants would also be among the country’s most potent producers of carbon dioxide, the king of gases linked to global warming. So California has just delivered a new message to these energy suppliers: If you cannot produce power with the lowest possible emissions of these greenhouse gases, we are not interested.
“When your biggest customer says, ‘I ain’t buying,’ you rethink,” said Hal Harvey, the environment program director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, in Menlo Park, Calif. “When you have 38 million customers you don’t have access to, you rethink. Selling to Phoenix is nice. Las Vegas is nice. But they aren’t California.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/us/15energy.html?hp&ex=1158379200&en=291624f0d44f67a9&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Attacks in Afghanistan Kill Soldiers and Civilians
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghanistan.html?hp&ex=1159329600&en=6ee7697631bb99b6&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Immigrants fuel population rise: StatsCan
Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Canada's immigration rate is rising steadily and was responsible for about two-thirds of the country's population increase over the last year, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada.
Between July 1, 2005 and July 1, 2006 Canada took in 254,000 immigrants - 9,800 more than in the previous year and the third consecutive increase since 2001/2002. The newcomers helped to push Canada's population to an estimated 32,623,500.
Slightly more than half (52 per cent) of immigrants chose Ontario as their new home, but that was the lowest proportion in more than a decade. The appeal of Canada's most populous province has been declining since 2000, the report notes.
British Columbia is gaining as a popular destination for immigrants and took the second spot behind Ontario, surpassing Quebec for the first time five years. British Columbia received 43,900 newcomers and Quebec 42,000.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=97320c5d-ebfd-4cd6-a726-1a8f4e1dfbc2&k=5915
Harper slams Martin on Afghanistan mission comments
Allan Woods, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
BUCHAREST - It is irresponsible for former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin to criticize Canada's military mission in Afghanistan when he was the one who originally sent troops to the country and approved a decision to place soldiers in the country's most dangerous region in the south, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The Conservative prime minister was responding to a published interview in which Martin said that Canada's military efforts have gone off track and are now disproportionately focused on combat fighting, not reconstruction and aid.
"We are doing the defence," Martin told the Toronto Star newspaper. "But are we doing the amount of reconstruction, the amount of aid that I believe was part of the original mission? The answer unequivocally is that we're not. And I believe that we should."
Harper was asked about Martin's comments following a meeting in Bucharest with Romanian President Traian Basescu, where they also discussed the shared effort in Afghanistan where the two countries are involved in a NATO-led mission to support the Afghan government and eliminate the Taliban.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f6118f4e-8a48-47d4-a081-b079aaf97d7e&k=47229
France, Canada sign deal to rebuild Haiti
Norman Delisle, Canadian Press
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
BUCHAREST, Romania - Canada and France signed a deal Tuesday to help rebuild Haiti that sets a framework for aid to other disadvantaged countries.
"We will work together for the development of this country," said Josee Verner, the federal minister responsible for La Francophonie. "Haiti is among our priorities." Her French counterpart, Brigitte Girardin, echoed Verner's commitment during the signing ceremony held at the summit of Francophone nations.
"This country was destroyed and this protocol which we signed today opens the door to a very close co-operation," she said. "Taking into account our involvement, it is necessary to provide mutual assistance and work together."
The text of the deal says Canada and France "will endeavour to accompany the efforts by the Haitian authorities to create conditions favourable with the rebuilding of a State in Haiti."
Particular support will be given to reforms in the areas of security and justice as well as economic development, which will see assistance in the form of co-financing of projects.
Verner pointed out the Canadian government had announced $520 million in aide for Haiti last July. The amount will be spread over five years.
The Canada-France deal not only affects Haiti but sets out a framework for aid to other disadvantaged countries.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=39d257f9-8f01-4925-be75-0a39df97cc7e&k=24530
Egypt demands Hamas release Israeli soldier
Salah Nasrawi, Canadian Press
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt has demanded that Hamas immediately release a captured Israeli soldier to avoid a worsening crisis in the violence-battered Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials and Arab diplomats said Tuesday.
The Egyptian demand came in a "strongly worded letter" from Egypt's powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the letter.
The letter also demanded Hamas co-operate fully with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in forming a national unity government, a step that has been stalled by the militant group's refusal to form an administration that recognizes Israel.
The message reflected increasing impatience with Hamas by Egypt, which has been mediating for months, trying to reach a deal on a prisoner swap for the release of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who is being held by Hamas-allied militants in Gaza.
"The leadership has received the Egyptian letter today and is studying it" a Hamas official close to Mashaal told the Associated Press from Damascus.
Shalit, was captured on June 25 outside the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants, sparking a military offensive against Gaza. Days later, Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two soldiers in northern Israel, triggering an even larger assault against Lebanon that lasted a month.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=9ab63903-e6d6-4733-922f-06733054588f&k=7675
The Boondocks is not coming back
Even though I'm on vacation – that's v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n – through the miracle of email and voice mail I'm still able to keep up with the comics news. It broke today: The Boondocks, as predicted, isn't coming back as a newspaper strip anytime soon.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/comics/index.html
A secret revealed
Mona Lisa probably a new mom. Canadian technology offers high-tech peek
PAUL GESSELL, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Scientists did an autopsy on the Mona Lisa and discovered the woman with the enigmatic smile probably had a baby just before being painted 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci.
This conclusion was reached through 3-D imaging technology pioneered by Canada's National Research Council. Consider this form of forensic examination a high-tech version of Superman's X-ray vision.
The NRC study discovered, under dark varnish, a previously unseen gauzy, veil-like cloth hanging from the bodice of Mona Lisa's dress. Such a garment was common in Renaissance Italy for women who had recently given birth.
The woman in the Mona Lisa is generally believed by art historians to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant named Francesco del Giocondo.
The painting, known in France as La Gioconda or La Joconde, now is thought to depict Lisa after the birth of her second son, French and Canadian scientists said yesterday during a news conference at NRC headquarters.
Dark varnish had also made invisible a newly discovered small bonnet worn on the back part of Mona Lisa's head. The bonnet peeks through the varnish only with the aid of the NRC's high-tech laser vision.
Virtuous women, back in Leonardo's day, tended to have their hair covered to some extent. Mona Lisa's hair has, for the last few centuries, appeared to be totally unfettered. Her loose hair has been equated with loose morals.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f2d039ca-ba41-46ac-8b84-59b18db4c8cd&k=15550
Border fears lifting
Proposed delay by Congress could signify key victory for Harper
SHELDON ALBERTS, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The U.S. Congress took a major step yesterday toward delaying controversial travel rules that will require Canadians to carry a passport or equivalent document when entering the United States across land and maritime borders.
With fears mounting that the rules will cripple cross-border trade and devastate border communities, negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives cut a deal to postpone the plan by 17 months - from Jan. 1, 2008, until June 1, 2009.
The proposed delay would not apply to Canadians travelling to the States by airplane. Those will be required to have a passport as of Jan. 7, 2007.
The move, subject to final ratification, marks a potentially significant victory for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Last week, he warned that the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative "threatens to divide" Canada and the U.S. just as bilateral relations were on the mend.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3e94682f-6626-4f93-b08f-74e574e99fe4&k=9709
Multinationals turning away from Quebec
Increasingly difficult for local subsidiaries to coax investment from parent companies
ROBERT GIBBENS, The Gazette
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Quebec is rapidly losing its attractions for direct investment by foreign multinationals as they turn toward the lower labour costs and huge markets awaiting them in "new" economies from Mexico to China, a new competitiveness study said yesterday.
That senior managers of Quebec-based subsidiaries find it harder and harder to sell the province to their parents as a location for new investment is a sure sign the situation is nearing a crisis point, said Howard Silverman, CEO of CAI Global Group Inc., a site location consultant that handled the study.
"The quality of Quebec manpower is good, but social costs are becoming a problem," he said. "The fiscal paradise has long gone and though Quebec is very secure in a volatile world, its vaunted quality of life won't sell it as a location for multinationals. We've studied the problem to death and now it's time to act."
Silverman, flanked by five senior executives from the Quebec subsidiaries of such multinationals as Bowater, Wyeth, Bridgestone, Komatsu and L3 Communications MAS, compared the new study, titled Why Reinvest in Quebec?, with a similar study done in1994.
A poll of nearly 100 senior executives at the Quebec subsidiaries showed 40 per cent of respondents said the province is not becoming more competitive globally, against 33 per cent who said it is (27 per cent didn't know). In 1994, 70 per cent said Quebec was getting more competitive and 30 per cent said it wasn't.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=1e656d0f-238d-453b-9a85-870cee08d7fe&k=11302
False rumours, fruitless leads mark five-year hunt for Osama bin Laden
Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, September 26, 2006
NEW YORK -- He was blown up in the caves of Tora Bora. He was on dialysis and dying of kidney disease. He was in the hands of Pakistani intelligence and about to be turned over to the United States.
Rumours of Osama bin Laden’s death or capture go back years, and they have always proved greatly exaggerated. The latest came Saturday, when a leaked French intelligence document citing a "usually reliable" source said the Saudi secret service was convinced the 52-year-old al-Qaida terror chief had died of typhoid last month in Pakistan.
Officials from Riyadh to Paris to Washington rushed to insist they had nothing to substantiate the report, but not before news of it reached every corner of the globe and renewed the debate about why the world’s largest dragnet has failed to get its man.
"There has been a grave failure five years after 9-11 that the true leaders of the attacks are still free, and that they are still alive," said Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.
Gunaratna cited comments by bin Laden’s no. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, released on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, as evidence the French report was erroneous.
"Ayman al-Zawahri issued a statement on Sept. 11 in which he specifically refers to Osama bin Laden being alive," Gunaratna says. "There is no reason for al-Zawahri to lie, since he wants to keep his credibility within the movement."
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3b908c36-41a3-48fd-93b0-5f208b831a4e&k=55239
U.S. ports, commuter transit systems to get millions in security grants
Published: Tuesday, September 26, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. administration doled out nearly $400 million this week to help protect seaports, commuter trains and other transit systems from terrorists, boosting money to high-risk cities that saw funding cuts earlier this year.
Major winners included New York City, which won $79.5 million to secure its port, subways, bus and rail systems, up from $50 million in 2005.
Losing cities that got no money for 2006 after being on the Homeland Security Department funding list last year included Memphis, Tenn., and Tampa, Fla., which lost funds for ports.
In all, the department distributed $399 million in grants, up from $388 million last year, to secure key buildings, transportation systems and other sites that might seem attractive targets for terrorists. The money follows a furor nearly four months ago after Homeland Security cut funding for New York and Washington, the two cities targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, by 40 per cent.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the new round of department grants was given out based only on risk, and should not be viewed as a competition to see which city gets the most money.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=e65adbf3-4c35-4963-acbc-c9dd7893ab28&k=62119
continued ...
