Ice Fishing might still be an option in St. Petersburg, Russia where it can be ten below zero at times.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Morning Papers - continued ...
The Cheney Observer
TX-28: A Statement from Ciro Rodriguez
Posted by Tracy Joan
This morning Ciro Rodriguez released the following statement:
“Last night we didn’t receive the outcome we had hoped for. The end result was true to the intentions of Tom Delay when he carved out this district for his friend — geographic rivalries won out over a true discussion of the issues for working families.
I congratulate Mr. Cuellar on his victory, however, and I hold no bitterness or ill will.
I do hope, however, that he takes seriously the message sent by over 47% of the voters — and by a community of progressive donors from across the country — that a Democratic congressman’s first responsibility is to stand up for the needs of seniors, of children and of working families.
Especially in South and Central Texas, where so many mothers and fathers have sacrificed their whole lives for their children, and so many veterans have answered the call of their country, we need a Democratic congressman to put his personal political ambitions aside and take a stand for Social Security, for quality, public schools, and for affordable health care for all.
The driving force behind our campaign was a group of volunteers who took such a stand — students, retirees, and working people from all parts of the District. For their commitment and dedication, Carolina and I will be forever grateful.
And I believe I speak for all our supporters and campaign team when I say that we were profoundly touched by the thousands of regular working families from throughout the country who helped fund our effort with their checks of $5, $10, and $20. They looked beyond geographic and cultural differences and sent a message that we are all Americans and that we must stand and act together to reclaim our government.
As educators, that inspiration will forever stay with Carolina and I as we take the next step in our lifelong commitment to public service.”
http://www.swingstateproject.com/2006/03/tx28_a_statemen.php
DeLay wins four-way battle for Republican congressional nomination in Texas
WENDY BENJAMINSON
HOUSTON (AP) - In his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay held off three challengers to keep the Republican nomination to the U.S. House.
Now he faces what many consider the real contest - a general election fight against an organized, well-funded Democrat with a score to settle.
Nick Lampson, who was unopposed in Tuesday's primary, represented a district adjacent to DeLay's for four terms until it was redrawn in a redistricting plan engineered by DeLay. Lampson lost in 2004 to Republican Ted Poe.
DeLay, 58, held on to his ballot position by avoiding public discussions of his considerable political problems - a felony money-laundering indictment, close ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the loss of his leadership position.
Instead, DeLay campaigned at carefully orchestrated events, avoided direct interviews with reporters and largely focused on his hometown of Sugar Land. It paid off with a 2-to-1 victory margin over lawyer Tom Campbell, who had ties to the first Bush administration, and two other candidates.
http://canadaeast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/CPW/41355024
DeLay advances to face Lampson
Former House majority leader defeats three GOP challengers
01:17 PM EST on Wednesday, March 8, 2006
By Todd J. Gillman / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Indicted and stripped of power, Rep. Tom DeLay went into Tuesday's GOP primary seeking another chance. Voters gave it to him.
The former House majority leader beat three GOP challengers handily enough to secure a spot on the November ballot, when he'll face former Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson, a victim of the redistricting Mr. DeLay engineered two years ago. But Democrats say the race hobbled Mr. DeLay, and they hope not simply to unseat him but to leverage his ethical and legal troubles into a tectonic shift in congressional power.
Mr. DeLay remained upbeat after his first serious race in 22 years.
"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," he said in a statement claiming victory.
His main rival was Tom Campbell, a soft-spoken lawyer who ran one TV spot that featured voters saying "integrity" over and over.
Mr. DeLay was indicted Sept. 28 in Austin on campaign finance charges he calls politically motivated. He resigned as majority leader in January to avoid a no-confidence vote among fellow Republicans, days after lobbyist Jack Abramoff agreed to cooperate with an FBI corruption inquiry.
Mr. Campbell, a former general counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the first President Bush, pitched himself as a conservative without that sort of baggage. But it wasn't enough.
Still, challengers said they sensed an outpouring of anti-DeLay feeling. "They want an honest congressman who will look after the district," said another primary rival, Mike Fjetland, adding that with Mr. DeLay on the fall ballot, "the Republican Party will crash and burn like the Hindenburg."
The contest is already the nation's costliest House race. Mr. DeLay has raised more than $3.2 million, 13 times more than his trio of primary challengers.
Mr. Lampson has topped $2 million, and with no primary fight he has more in the bank than an incumbent who has dipped deeply into his campaign chest to pay legal bills.
"We're seeing scandal after scandal," Mr. Lampson told supporters Tuesday night. "Americans are ready for a change."
Mr. DeLay started the day at the Sugar Land Country Club, casting his ballot and shaking hands.
"We've had every leftist organization in America down here for a year. But you know what — my constituents get it," he said.
Rather than watch returns in the district, he flew to Washington, where he cast an evening vote on the Patriot Act, chatted on the House floor with colleagues and replenished his campaign chest at a high-dollar reception hosted by lobbyists, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
Critics called the election night fundraising unseemly. Mr. DeLay slipped in and out a side door, avoiding cameras.
Democrats are itching for the fight.
"He's wounded no matter what. Just the fact that he had to campaign, and call on the people he's supposed to be leading to bail him out," said Matt Angle, a longtime Texas Democratic strategist. But he added, "You never want to call him dead."
http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/washington/politics_gillman/030806ccdrPolGillman.6035b8a.html
Sen. Clinton Says Rove Obsesses About Her
Feb 27th - 6:06pm
By MARC HUMBERT AP Political Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Reacting to a new book quoting Karl Rove as saying she will be the 2008 Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that President Bush's chief political strategist "spends a lot of time obsessing about me."
The former first lady also said she believed Rove, national GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman and other Republicans are using her to divert attention from Republican problems as the 2006 congressional elections approach.
"Karl Rove is a brilliant strategist. So, if I were thinking about this," she told WROW-AM radio in Albany, "I'd say, why are they spending so much time talking about me?"
"What they're hoping is that all of their missteps, which are now numbering in the hundreds, are going to somehow be overlooked because people, instead of focusing on the '06 election, will jump ahead and think about the next one," said Clinton, D-N.Y.
In the new book out Monday from Regnery Publishing, "Strategery" by Bill Sammon, Rove is quoted as saying: "Anybody who thinks that she's not going to be the candidate is kidding themselves."
Rove is also quoted as says he thinks Clinton could have difficulty in the general election, in part, because there is a "brittleness about her."
Clinton wouldn't say if she would run for president in 2008, saying she is completely focused on her re-election bid this year.
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=213&sid=710783
What is James Baker up to now?
In the thick of the port deal
by Carol Wolman
I urge everyone to look at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein
James Baker's Double Life: A Special Investigation by Naomi Klein
This is an old article, which basically says that James Baker, senior advisor to the Bush family and major investor in the Carlyle group, was placed in charge of getting other countries to reduce or forgive Iraq's debt to them. The biggest creditor of Iraq is Kuwait, to which Iraq has been paying huge sums in reparations for the 1990 invasion by Saddam.
In essence, the US taxpayer is subsidizing the Iraqi government, whose limited funds are going to wealthy Kuwait rather than to rebuilding Iraq or providing basic services or security there.
According to the article, Baker has NOT reduced Iraq's payments to Kuwait, but rather has enriched the Carlyle corporation by funneling some of the payments through Kuwait to Carlyle. The article is very long and detailed, and I did not follow it all, but I urge people to look at it.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_carol_wo_060307_what_is_james_baker_.htm
James Baker's Double Life: A Special Investigation
When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq's debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker's job "a noble mission." At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker's extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake.
Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker's loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy--an unpaid position--has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker's influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein
SS&C Technologies Announces Record Revenue Numbers for 2005
WINDSOR, Conn. --(Business Wire)-- March 7, 2006 -- SS&C Technologies, Inc.(www.ssctech.com), a global provider of financial services software and outsourcing solutions, today announced record revenue results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2005. Reported revenue on a GAAP basis for the fourth quarter and the year 2005 was $47.4 million and $161.6 million, respectively. Included in reported revenue for the fourth quarter and the year 2005 is a $0.7 million reduction in revenue caused by purchase accounting adjustments to reflect November 23, 2005 deferred revenue at its estimated fair value. Excluding the purchase accounting adjustment, revenue for the fourth quarter of 2005 was $48.1 million, a 78% increase from the fourth quarter of 2004. Revenue for the year 2005 was $162.4 million, an increase of 69% over 2004. Net loss, on a GAAP basis, for the fourth quarter and the year 2005, was $23.5 million and $3.9 million, respectively. Merger costs related to the sale of SS&C were $44.7 million in the quarter and $45.8 million for the year 2005.
… On November 23, 2005, SS&C Technologies, Inc. was acquired by Sunshine Acquisition Corporation, a corporation affiliated with The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Bill Stone, SS&C's Chairman and CEO stated, "Being a privately-held company allows us to channel all of our resources on growing our business and continuing to produce excellent financial results."
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/07/1436306.htm
Bush firmly standing up for his buddies in port deal
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
By David Hunt
Recently, the George W. Bush administration approved the sale of six port terminals to a ``private'' company wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is an oil-rich Muslim nation whose despotic monarchy has long-standing financial ties to the Bush family. They are, therefore, our ``allies.'' It also produced two of the 9-11 terrorists, has long-standing and continuing ties with the Taliban, and long-standing (if not continuing) ties with Osama bin Laden. But, no matter.
It's worth noting, in passing, that administering port authorities was once the job of our various governments. The Republicans ``privatized'' all that, saying it wasn't an ``appropriate government function.''
For all its incompetence and disinterest in governing, this administration has always had keen political instincts. How do we account for its political tone deafness in this deal? Is Bush truly so concerned that we not ``send the wrong message'' and ``damage Muslim sensibilities?''
Can you imagine the UAE saying, ``You've killed more than 100,000 innocent Muslims. You torture us. You destroy our nation's infrastructures. Your supporters call us `ragheads' and `camel jockeys' and you do not chastise them. But now you dare to renege on a business contract! Really, Mr. President, this time you have gone too far!''
http://www.mlive.com/columns/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-2/1141752005317100.xml&coll=7
Who Profits from Dubai Deals? Bush - Carlyle Group
by AL MARTIN
There are two Dubai deals under scrutiny. The first was the Dubai Ports World buyout of P&O, a UK based company that manages ports around the world.
The second is the buyout of the British defense contractor called Doncasters by the Dubai Investment Capital Group, which is a private company not a Dubai state controlled company.
The Dubai Investment Capital Group has investors, which include the ruling family of Kuwait and Dubai, the Bush-family-controlled Pilgrim Investment Trust, the Dick and Lynne Cheney Trust as well as the usual Bushonian Cabal like Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, James Baker, George Schultz et al. By the way, the group was put together by the lead securities consultant, which is, of course, the Carlyle Group. It is essentially a large investment capital group that has been formed which is very similar to a limited partnership. And this is what it all means...This group has purchased a large British defense contractor, Doncasters, which was formerly called Doncaster Aviation, now Doncaster Group.
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=49&contentid=3304
Desperate G.O.P. Attacks the Clintons
When Republican politicians get in trouble, their defense often includes one or both of the following arguments: The Democrats are equally guilty, and it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault anyway. Such claims may be inaccurate as well as irrelevant, but if echoed often enough by conservative pundits on the airwaves and in the papers, they can serve to distract from the original embarrassment.
Consider the example of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who diligently greased his fellow Republicans. The Indian tribes represented by Mr. Abramoff greatly increased the proportion of their political donations to Republicans, while diminishing their donations to Democrats. But many in the media regurgitated the Republican spin that implicated both parties equally.
The controversy over Dubai’s attempt to purchase control of American ports is provoking a similar response. Quickly and mindlessly, the Bush administration approved the takeover by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company. By pushing the Dubai deal—with a veto threat against any Congressional interference—Mr. Bush has drawn fresh attention to his family’s Middle East entanglements. (Remember his handholding with that Saudi prince?) The Carlyle Group boasts deep financial connections to the United Arab Emirates as well as the Bush family. The President’s father and brother Neil have both benefited directly from the largesse of Emirate rulers.
As Dubya’s public approval plunged toward Nixonian levels and shudders of fear wracked the Republican Party, a snarling counterattack was predictable. Just as inevitable was that the target would be the Clintons.
The sideshow began after the Financial Times reported, with more than a touch of exaggeration, that Dubai Ports World executives had received advice from the former President. What should have remained a minor story swiftly blossomed into headlines—and a concerted effort to damage his wife, Hillary Clinton, the junior Senator from New York and possible Presidential candidate.
http://www.observer.com/20060313/20060313_Joe_Conason_politics_joeconason.asp
Dutch media giant VNU agrees to public offer from private equity group
08/03/2006. Source: AltAssets.
Haarlem, the Netherlands and New York, US-headquartered media giant VNU and Valcon Acquisition, a holding company controlled by a private equity consortium consisting of AlpInvest Partners, The Blackstone Group, The Carlyle Group, Hellman & Friedman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Thomas H. Lee Partners, have agreed to a public offer for VNU that values the company's equity at €7.5bn, or €28.75 per common share.
The closing of the transaction is conditioned, among other things, on 95 per cent of VNU shareholders in each class, common and preferred, tendering their shares.
VNU is an information and media company with brands such as ACNielsen in marketing information, Nielsen Media Research in media measurement and information and Adweek, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Computing, Intermediair in business information. The company employs nearly 41,000 people. Total revenues were €3.5bn in 2005.
The private equity consortium said in a joint statement, 'We are investing in the future of a company with an unmatched portfolio of market-leading assets, a highly knowledgeable and dedicated employee base and a sound strategy for the future. We intend to capitalise on these strengths by keeping VNU substantially together as an integrated company and continue to pursue its long-term strategy of improving operational efficiency and investing in product development and innovation.
'VNU's businesses bring together a unique combination of market intelligence, analysis, advice and service. We are confident that the company is well positioned to build further on these strengths,' they continued.
Originally, Permira was part of the private equity consortium but later withdrew from the group. At an earlier stage there was also another private equity consortium interested in buying VNU.
AlpInvest has approximately €30bn of assets under management. Approximately 80 per cent of these funds are invested in private equity funds globally, with the remainder invested directly in companies as a co-investor in Europe and the US. AlpInvest has approximately 55 investment professionals based in Amsterdam and New York. Its shareholders and main clients are ABP and PGGM, two large pension funds.
Blackstone, founded in 1985, has raised over $50bn for alternative asset investing. In addition to private equity investments, the Group's core businesses include real estate investments, corporate debt investments, distressed debt, marketable asset management, corporate advisory services and restructuring advisory services. Blackstone has offices in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Hamburg, Paris and Mumbai.
Carlyle has approximately $35bn under management. Carlyle invests in buy-outs, venture capital, real estate and leveraged finance in North America, Europe and Asia. Since 1987 the Group has invested approximately $15bn of equity in over 440 transactions.
Hellman & Friedman, founded in 1984, has raised and, through its affiliated funds, managed approximately $8bn of committed capital. The firm has offices in San Francisco, New York and London.
KKR specialises in management buy-outs. The company, founded in 1976, has completed approximately 140 transactions globally with a total value of approximately $186bn.
THL Partners, founded in 1974, has invested approximately $10bn of equity capital in more than 100 businesses with an aggregate purchase price of more than $70bn. The firm currently manages approximately $12bn of committed capital.
http://www.altassets.com/news/arc/2006/nz8275.php
C-I-A says information sought by Libby is highly classified
WASHINGTON The C-I-A appears ready to fight the release of classified presidential intelligence briefings that Lewis Libby wants to use in his defense.
Vice President Cheney's former top aide is charged with perjury linked to the leak of a C-I-A officer's identity.
A sworn statement from a C-I-A information review officer says it would take up to nine months to gather the material Libby's defense has requested. The officer says the C-I-A thinks releasing it would damage national security. She says the agency wants to be heard in court before any material is turned over to Libby.
The official's affidavit was filed last Friday, but made public today.
Libby's lawyers want access to nearly a year of the President's Daily Brief. It summarizes intelligence on threats against the U-S.
http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4597232&nav=1LFs
The Towering Solons of Abortion
Posted on Mar. 7, 2006
By Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas—South Dakota is so rarely found on the leading edge of the far out, the wiggy, the California-esque. But it has now staked its claim. First to Outlaw Abortion This Century. The state legislature of South Dakota, in all its wisdom and majesty, a legislature comprised of sons and daughters of the soil from Aberdeen to Zell, have usurped the right of the women of that state to decide whether or not to bear the child of an unwanted pregnancy. They will decide. Women will do what they decide.
These towering solons, representing citizens from the great cosmopolitan centers of Rapid City and Sioux Falls to the bosky dells near Yankton, are noted for their sagacity and understanding. When you think “enlightenment,” the first thing that comes to your mind is “the South Dakota Legislature,” right?
As well it might. The purpose of the law is to force a decision from the United States Supreme Court, where the appointments of John Roberts and Sam Alito have now shored up the anti-choice forces.
The South Dakota Legislature has made it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion under any circumstances except to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or to preserve the health of the mother. Should this strike you as hard cheese, State Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, explains how rape and incest could be exceptions under the “life” clause. Napoli believes most abortions are performed for “convenience,” but he told “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” about how he thinks a “real-life example” of the exception could be invoked:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060307_ivins_abortion/
Supreme Court Lawyer Goldstein to Join Akin Gump
By Tony Mauro
Legal Times
Monday, March 6, 2006
Washington, D.C., attorney Thomas Goldstein, who rocked the rarified world of Supreme Court advocacy by his aggressive pursuit of cases, will join the powerhouse law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as a partner May 1.
Goldstein, 35, who has argued 16 cases before the Court, currently runs his three-member firm Goldstein & Howe from his house with wife Amy Howe. "I decided it was time to take on a bigger platform for my Supreme Court work, and this is a great fit." Goldstein declined to put a price tag on the deal, but said he was approached by several firms in the last few years before agreeing to join Akin Gump.
For the 900-lawyer Akin Gump, the hire instantly raises its profile in the increasingly prized Supreme Court practice area. "This is an answer to a prayer," said Akin Gump chairman R. Bruce McLean in an interview. "When clients go to the Supreme Court, they often go to the handful of specialists in this field. We wanted to offer this service to our Fortune 500 client base." Arguing at the Supreme Court is "a very prestigious practice,' McLean added, "and this increases the prestige of our entire firm."
http://www.law.com/jsp/tx/PubArticleTX.jsp?id=1141652120908
Breyer: Supreme Court more relaxed under Chief Justice Roberts
JAY REEVES
Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Adding two new members to the Supreme Court has changed its dynamics, with discussions about cases more free-flowing under new Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer said Monday.
Long the junior member of the court under the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Breyer said operations are "a little more relaxed" under Roberts, who tends to let justices discuss issues at more length during closed-door meetings.
The court's justices have "very nice" interpersonal relationships with the addition of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Breyer said, and members may even be trying harder than normal to get along, as evidenced by a flurry of unanimous decisions.
Breyer said he doesn't know if the newly formed Roberts court is intentionally trying to agree, perhaps to keep its decisions narrow in focus.
"Whether unconsciously or not people are trying to get more agreement, it's possible," said Breyer, addressing law students at the University of Alabama.
On Monday, the court unanimously decided that the government can make colleges open their campuses to military recruiters despite objections to the Pentagon's policy on gays.
The court last month unanimously overturned a lower court's decision that white managers at a chicken plant couldn't be sued for calling black employees "boys," and it unanimously ruled that a small religious sect could use mind-altering tea in a ritual.
"If we are being a little more unanimous it's a good sign," said Breyer. But he cautioned that the agreement might not last because more contentious issues tend to "stack up" at the end of court sessions.
Breyer, a President Clinton appointee, generally sides with the liberal members of the court, but also has been a swing voter. Sometimes the target of conservatives who call him an activist judge, Breyer said everyone on the court believes more in judicial restraint, or not imposing their own beliefs in rulings.
Breyer declined to label his own philosophy.
"I don't characterize myself. It is up to others," he said.
Breyer didn't discuss any cases before the court, but he said "a lot of hesitancy" is needed to overturn past rulings - a key point as the newly constituted court could consider whether to let stand the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/14032816.htm
Story Based on Leaks Stirs Up Debate About Leakers and Leakees
Submitted by editor4 on March 7, 2006 - 2:57pm.
By Edward B. Colby
Source: CJR Daily
Far and away the most talked-about news on Technorati at the moment is a front-page Sunday story from the Washington Post, "White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks."
"The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources," reported the Post 's Dan Eggen. "The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws."
Eggen reported that dozens of employees from the CIA, the NSA and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed in recent weeks by FBI agents "investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program," while numerous employees at agencies including the CIA, FBI, and Justice Department "have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program." "Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation," wrote Eggen, "and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House."
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3592
John Bolton Does AIPAC
Kurt Nimmo
March 6, 2006
It should be obvious, considering the photo to the left, who John Bolton, the Straussian neocon "representative" to the United Nations, works for—the American-Israel Political Action Committee. "U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, speaking at a convention of Jewish-Americans, said it is too soon for the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran but other countries are talking about doing so and Washington is 'beefing up defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat,’" in other words the Pentagon is preparing to shock and awe Iran, maybe later this month, but probably down the road, sooner before later.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m21283&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Details Emerge in Latest Round of Plame E-mails
‘Found’ by the White House
by Jason Leopold
March 3, 2006
The White House confirmed Tuesday that it recently turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald 250 pages of e-mails from the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney related to covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. The e-mails were not submitted three years ago when then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered White House staffers to turn over all documents that contained any reference to Valerie and Joseph Wilson.
Gonzales's directive in October 2003 came 12 hours after he was told by the Justice Department that it was launching an investigation to find out who leaked Plame Wilson's undercover CIA status to reporters in what appeared to be an attempt to discredit and silence her husband from speaking out against the administration's rationale for war. Gonzales spent two weeks with other White House attorneys screening e-mails and other documents his office received before turning them over to Justice Department investigators.
News of the 250 pages of e-mails was revealed to Libby's attorneys during a court hearing Friday.
In addition to witness testimony, investigators working with Fitzgerald are said to have discovered the existence of the e-mails from computers that investigators had confiscated from the Office of the Vice President, people familiar with developments in the investigation said.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar06/Leopold03.htm
Farmer: Republicans fear getting too close to Bush
John Farmer, THE STAR-LEDGER (NEWARK, N.J.)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The campaign flier is elegantly done. One page on fine stock paper, multicolored on both sides, with a detailed list of the money and projects Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach has brought to his 6th District. There's a photograph of the handsome two-term congressman and several hundred words outlining his record in this mailing to his constituents.
One word, however, is conspicuously missing: Republican.
Instead, the mailing bills Gerlach as "An Independent Voice, Working for You." You could have fooled the disgraced ex-House GOP majority leader Tom DeLay, who brooked no independence among GOP troops in his leadership days. His political action committee ponied up money for Gerlach's last campaign. But it's a reflection of how things have changed in Republican ranks.
DeLay is under indictment for laundering corporate contributions into GOP campaign coffers. And more than a few Republican House members who face difficult re-election races are doing their darnedest these days to distance themselves from the klutzy Bush White House and the Republican record in Washington.
Gerlach is typical of these under-fire Republicans. He's a moderate by any reading of GOP ideology, a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports embryonic stem cell research in defiance of Bush administration policy. The Philadelphia suburbs that make up his district are historically Republican — but only narrowly and with a growing tendency to favor the occasional Democrat.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/03/7farmer_edit.html
The Capital Journal
Authorities: Stay off the ice
By LETA NOLAN CHILDERS
Capital Journal Staff
Authorities are warning anglers to remain diligent about ice conditions before they set foot on the river.
“It’s dangerous,” said Sgt. Darin Johnson, of the Hughes County Sheriff’s Office. “We haven’t had the deep freezing where it’s stayed cold to make good ice.”
March 5 is the date for fishermen to remove their ice shacks on some lakes in the state, according to the Game, Fish & Parks department.
River ice, unlike lake or still water body ice, is subject to the currents of the river. While the top of the ice may look thick and safe, the river currents can erode the bottom of the ice. While it can be safely thick in one place, a few feet away it can be dangerously thin, according to Johnson.
http://www.capjournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=14676
The Argus Leader
Rounds explains abortion decision
Governor doesn't embrace ban he signed
PIERRE - Gov. Mike Rounds on Tuesday carved a bit of space between him and the abortion ban he signed into law, repeatedly saying it's not his bill.
Rounds also said he wouldn't campaign actively for it if a threatened referral drive materializes.
Rounds, a Republican, held his first news conference since signing the bill at the same time Tuesday that U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson issued a statement in which he suggested the bill is out of the mainstream.
There's been political speculation that if Rounds wins re-election as expected this year, he might be pressured by the state GOP to challenge Johnson, a Democrat who won his last race by 528 votes.
"This law is an extreme and radical approach to a very difficult and personal subject, and I do not support it," Johnson's statement said.
Rounds, responding to questions from reporters, reminded them at least twice that it's not his legislation.
He signed the bill Monday.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS/603080302/1001
State predicts bird flu deaths
Summit preps for epidemic
About 5,000 South Dakotans would die if a severe mutation of bird flu strikes the United States and another 230,000 state residents would become ill, health officials estimate.
The projections come as Gov. Mike Rounds prepares to host a statewide summit Thursday in Sioux Falls about the potential emergency.
These projections also come amid a climate of disbelief that such a crisis could occur.
Up to 400 state and local officials and health and education specialists are expected for Thursday's session at the Ramkota Hotel.
To them, the bird flu threat is valid.
"It's not if, but when," said Lynn DeJong, emergency management director for Minnehaha County.
South Dakotans dealing with everyday problems might not yet be persuaded.
"People are worried about drought. They're worried about paying their bills with higher utility costs. Until bird flu becomes a little more real, they might not be too interested," said Pam Nielson Boline, associate professor of human services at Dakota Wesleyan University.
The casualty estimates come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS08/603080317
Officials aim to persuade skeptics danger is real
Preparing for a world flu emergency includes selling the idea to some who doubt the threat is real, says South Dakota’s top state health official.
Local governments, emergency workers and medical industry leaders are on board in the preparations, said Health Secretary Doneen Hollingsworth. They are coming from across the state to a five-hour program Thursday in Sioux Falls.
Others need persuading, she said. They should consider that the potential crisis concerns an unknown flu strain and that history points to three such epidemics every 100 years, she said.
Hollingsworth answered questions about the flu Tuesday.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS/60308003
Ex-chief financial officer takes stand against former bosses
KRISTEN HAYS
Associated Press
Article Published: 03/8/06, 3:43 am
HOUSTON – Former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow testified Tuesday he crafted and ran partnerships to help the company hide losses and inflate profits with the blessing of his boss, Jeffrey Skilling.
Fastow appeared contrite in his much-anticipated courtroom confrontation with Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who are on trial for fraud and conspiracy stemming from Enron’s spectacular 2001 collapse.
But Fastow portrayed himself as a cog in a corrupt machine, with Skilling telling him, “Get me as much of that juice as you can,” regarding the partnerships.
Fastow, 44, also fought back tears as he told jurors in a federal courtroom that his wife, Lea, pleaded guilty to a tax crime and finished a yearlong prison term last July for signing a tax return that didn’t include illegal income from business deals unrelated to the partnerships. The partnerships that he said Skilling approved – LJM1 and LJM2 – were named with initials of his wife and sons, Jeffrey and Matthew, though Fastow didn’t share that detail with jurors.
Fastow, who agreed as part of his plea deal to serve 10 years in prison, is a key pillar of the government’s quest to prove Lay and Skilling lied to Wall Street and to their own employees to conceal the crumbling finances that drove the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 2001.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/BUSINESS/60308001/1003
WTO rules Mexican tax on corn illegal
U.S. corn growers were pleased this week when the World Trade Organization ruled that Mexico violated global trade rules in a soft-drink dispute with the United States.
A WTO panel rejected a Mexican appeal, supporting U.S. claims that Mexico was in breach of international law in imposing a 20 percent tax on drinks that are sweetened with anything other than cane sugar grown in Mexico - namely high fructose corn syrup.
The dispute about sugar and corn sweetener has cost U.S. corn refiners $944 million annually, according to the Washington-based Corn Refiners Association.
Only a small amount of South Dakota corn goes to production of corn syrup, said Lisa Richardson, executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.
"So it's not as big a deal here as in other states," Richardson said.
But some corn grown in the northeast corner of the state goes to a plant in North Dakota, said Del Strasser, a member of the corn growers association from Wilmot.
The tariff ruling could work to raise prices for corn syrup and make transportation costs seem more reasonable for growers to sell corn for syrup rather than ethanol, Strasser said.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/BUSINESS/603080314/1003
Asia Times
China goes back to the land
By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presented his third Government Work Report this week to the National People's Congress (NPC), there was plenty to boast about.
With China's economy racing along at 9.9% growth last year and surpassing Britain as the fourth-largest economy in the world, the premier clearly enjoyed basking in the nearly constant applause
of the faithful 3,000 delegates assembled at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for his speech.
But the emphasis in this year's report on building a "new socialist countryside" betrays a worrying trend for the central government: outside of the urban centers - which, following the old Soviet model, have been the focus of economic development since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 - there is growing civil unrest over the gross inequities of China's phenomenal economic growth.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HC09Ad03.html
The Organization of Labor-intensive Exporting Countries
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/olec.html
PART 4: Toward living wages in the modern era
By Henry C K Liu
(For the other articles in this series, click here.)
Modern finance has shown that the bulk of capital comes nowadays from the pension funds of workers, which is the deferred income of currently employed labor.
In the US economy, no one saves voluntarily anymore, not because of a change in Americans' character, but because with low wages and rising asset values not registered as inflation, no one can afford to save, having to spend all income plus
accumulating debt just to manage. This is why the entire US economy is operating on debt. Most savings now come from pension funds, to which the average worker has no legal choice but to contribute, with his company matching payments from his first day of work, with benefits not collectable until some three decades later.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HC09Dj01.html
Blaming the victims as Iraq disintegrates
By Stephen Zunes
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
The sectarian violence which has swept across Iraq following last month's terrorist bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra is yet another example of the tragic consequences of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Until the 2003 US invasion and occupation, Iraq had maintained a longstanding history of secularism and a strong national identity among its Arab population despite its sectarian differences.
Not only has the United States failed to bring a functional democracy to Iraq, neither US forces nor the US-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad have been able to provide the Iraqi people
with basic security. This has led many ordinary citizens to turn to extremist sectarian groups for protection, further undermining the Bush administration's insistence that US forces must remain in Iraq in order to prevent a civil war.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC09Ak01.html
Bombs rock India's foundations
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - The nature of the serial bomb blasts in the holy city of Varanasi is a strategy that has been followed by terror groups for some time.
The aim is to ignite social tensions by polarizing society along communal lines. Crude bombs that can be easily assembled without being detected by security agencies are planted at crowded places, more often religious sites, to inflict maximum damage within a short area as well as creating the symbolic
impact of attacking the beliefs of a population.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC09Df02.html
'Shark and Awe'
By Tom Engelhardt
The US already has "stealth" aircraft, but what about a little of the stealth that only nature can provide?
Navy SEALs, move over - here come the navy sharks. According to the latest New Scientist magazine, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the blue-sky wing of the
Pentagon, has set yet another group of American scientists loose to create the basis for future red-in-tooth-and-maw Discovery Channel programs.
In this case, they are planning to put neural implants into the brains of sharks in hopes, one day, of "controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling". In their dreams at least, DARPA's far-out funders hope to "exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted."
No other country puts anything like such effort, planning and dreaming into the idea of projecting planet-spanning military power, caught so grimly in that phrase, "full-spectrum dominance". To Pentagon minds this seems to mean: from 20,000 leagues down to 30 kilometers up (and everything that creeps, crawls, swims or flies in between). The phrase first gained attention with the release in 2000 of the US Air Force's Joint Vision 2020 statement - a supposed look into a future world of US war-making.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HC09Aa01.html
Putin's war with radical Islamists
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Russia - which usually makes world news only in relation to gas and oil - has recently emerged as an important foreign-policy broker. President Vladimir Putin's government has engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Iran and the West and between Hamas and the West.
Dealing with Iran and Hamas, Putin tried to persuade them to abandon radical rhetoric and practices and incorporate
themselves into the Western international order. At the same time, he tried to convince Western partners that the Iranians and even Hamas are not the worst of all possible regimes or movements, and with certain encouragements and guarantees could be incorporated into the Western order.
… Udugov argues that any state in today's global community is an institution of oppression and corruption, and the Chechen state, if it were to be established, would inevitably fall into the same pit. What Chechens should have is not a regular state but an organization that is separate from the rest of the world; one that could be used for launching the global jihad that would finally lead to the establishment of the global khalifah (caliphate) and transcend present-day history.
One might state here that al-Qaeda's model is not just wishful thinking but is a reality, as can be seen in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have created a quasi-state designed exclusively for jihadist purposes (see Pakistan battles the forces within, March 7).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HC08Ag02.html
Pakistan battles the forces within
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Protests against the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf and against the US took off in Pakistan about a month ago in the guise of rallies denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
These protests have now reached the stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan: the self-proclaimed "Islamic State of
North Waziristan", a volatile tribal area on the border with Afghanistan.
For the past few days this region has been the scene of fierce battles between the Pakistani armed forces and the Taliban and their supporters. This, analysts believe, is the starting point of taking the nascent Tehrik-i-Nizam-i-Mustafa movement to other areas in Pakistan, that is, to enforce the Prophet Mohammed's way of life, or sharia law, on society. Underground Islamic radical groups will surface in support of this struggle that could ultimately lead to the ousting of the Musharraf government.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC07Df04.html
A 'white coup' in Baghdad
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - What happened in Iraq over the weekend was a neatly planned "white" coup, carried out by the Americans, Kurds, secular Shi'ites and Sunnis, on the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) and its candidate for the premiership, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
After much bickering, they came out and asked Jaafari to step down, demanding that the UIA nominate another Shi'ite politician for the job. For its part, the UIA has insisted on maintaining
Jaafari, but is bound to give in to the mounting pressure practiced by practically everybody in Iraq.
Jaafari's flaws apparently outnumber his positive attributes. The coalition wanting to bring him down complained that he had failed, as the previous premier, to bring security to Iraq, failed to combat unemployment, failed to advance infrastructure, failed to crush the insurgency, and failed to protect Sunnis and their places of worship during the bloody events that followed the terrorist attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC07Ak01.html
continued …
TX-28: A Statement from Ciro Rodriguez
Posted by Tracy Joan
This morning Ciro Rodriguez released the following statement:
“Last night we didn’t receive the outcome we had hoped for. The end result was true to the intentions of Tom Delay when he carved out this district for his friend — geographic rivalries won out over a true discussion of the issues for working families.
I congratulate Mr. Cuellar on his victory, however, and I hold no bitterness or ill will.
I do hope, however, that he takes seriously the message sent by over 47% of the voters — and by a community of progressive donors from across the country — that a Democratic congressman’s first responsibility is to stand up for the needs of seniors, of children and of working families.
Especially in South and Central Texas, where so many mothers and fathers have sacrificed their whole lives for their children, and so many veterans have answered the call of their country, we need a Democratic congressman to put his personal political ambitions aside and take a stand for Social Security, for quality, public schools, and for affordable health care for all.
The driving force behind our campaign was a group of volunteers who took such a stand — students, retirees, and working people from all parts of the District. For their commitment and dedication, Carolina and I will be forever grateful.
And I believe I speak for all our supporters and campaign team when I say that we were profoundly touched by the thousands of regular working families from throughout the country who helped fund our effort with their checks of $5, $10, and $20. They looked beyond geographic and cultural differences and sent a message that we are all Americans and that we must stand and act together to reclaim our government.
As educators, that inspiration will forever stay with Carolina and I as we take the next step in our lifelong commitment to public service.”
http://www.swingstateproject.com/2006/03/tx28_a_statemen.php
DeLay wins four-way battle for Republican congressional nomination in Texas
WENDY BENJAMINSON
HOUSTON (AP) - In his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay held off three challengers to keep the Republican nomination to the U.S. House.
Now he faces what many consider the real contest - a general election fight against an organized, well-funded Democrat with a score to settle.
Nick Lampson, who was unopposed in Tuesday's primary, represented a district adjacent to DeLay's for four terms until it was redrawn in a redistricting plan engineered by DeLay. Lampson lost in 2004 to Republican Ted Poe.
DeLay, 58, held on to his ballot position by avoiding public discussions of his considerable political problems - a felony money-laundering indictment, close ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the loss of his leadership position.
Instead, DeLay campaigned at carefully orchestrated events, avoided direct interviews with reporters and largely focused on his hometown of Sugar Land. It paid off with a 2-to-1 victory margin over lawyer Tom Campbell, who had ties to the first Bush administration, and two other candidates.
http://canadaeast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/CPW/41355024
DeLay advances to face Lampson
Former House majority leader defeats three GOP challengers
01:17 PM EST on Wednesday, March 8, 2006
By Todd J. Gillman / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Indicted and stripped of power, Rep. Tom DeLay went into Tuesday's GOP primary seeking another chance. Voters gave it to him.
The former House majority leader beat three GOP challengers handily enough to secure a spot on the November ballot, when he'll face former Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson, a victim of the redistricting Mr. DeLay engineered two years ago. But Democrats say the race hobbled Mr. DeLay, and they hope not simply to unseat him but to leverage his ethical and legal troubles into a tectonic shift in congressional power.
Mr. DeLay remained upbeat after his first serious race in 22 years.
"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," he said in a statement claiming victory.
His main rival was Tom Campbell, a soft-spoken lawyer who ran one TV spot that featured voters saying "integrity" over and over.
Mr. DeLay was indicted Sept. 28 in Austin on campaign finance charges he calls politically motivated. He resigned as majority leader in January to avoid a no-confidence vote among fellow Republicans, days after lobbyist Jack Abramoff agreed to cooperate with an FBI corruption inquiry.
Mr. Campbell, a former general counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the first President Bush, pitched himself as a conservative without that sort of baggage. But it wasn't enough.
Still, challengers said they sensed an outpouring of anti-DeLay feeling. "They want an honest congressman who will look after the district," said another primary rival, Mike Fjetland, adding that with Mr. DeLay on the fall ballot, "the Republican Party will crash and burn like the Hindenburg."
The contest is already the nation's costliest House race. Mr. DeLay has raised more than $3.2 million, 13 times more than his trio of primary challengers.
Mr. Lampson has topped $2 million, and with no primary fight he has more in the bank than an incumbent who has dipped deeply into his campaign chest to pay legal bills.
"We're seeing scandal after scandal," Mr. Lampson told supporters Tuesday night. "Americans are ready for a change."
Mr. DeLay started the day at the Sugar Land Country Club, casting his ballot and shaking hands.
"We've had every leftist organization in America down here for a year. But you know what — my constituents get it," he said.
Rather than watch returns in the district, he flew to Washington, where he cast an evening vote on the Patriot Act, chatted on the House floor with colleagues and replenished his campaign chest at a high-dollar reception hosted by lobbyists, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
Critics called the election night fundraising unseemly. Mr. DeLay slipped in and out a side door, avoiding cameras.
Democrats are itching for the fight.
"He's wounded no matter what. Just the fact that he had to campaign, and call on the people he's supposed to be leading to bail him out," said Matt Angle, a longtime Texas Democratic strategist. But he added, "You never want to call him dead."
http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/washington/politics_gillman/030806ccdrPolGillman.6035b8a.html
Sen. Clinton Says Rove Obsesses About Her
Feb 27th - 6:06pm
By MARC HUMBERT AP Political Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Reacting to a new book quoting Karl Rove as saying she will be the 2008 Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that President Bush's chief political strategist "spends a lot of time obsessing about me."
The former first lady also said she believed Rove, national GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman and other Republicans are using her to divert attention from Republican problems as the 2006 congressional elections approach.
"Karl Rove is a brilliant strategist. So, if I were thinking about this," she told WROW-AM radio in Albany, "I'd say, why are they spending so much time talking about me?"
"What they're hoping is that all of their missteps, which are now numbering in the hundreds, are going to somehow be overlooked because people, instead of focusing on the '06 election, will jump ahead and think about the next one," said Clinton, D-N.Y.
In the new book out Monday from Regnery Publishing, "Strategery" by Bill Sammon, Rove is quoted as saying: "Anybody who thinks that she's not going to be the candidate is kidding themselves."
Rove is also quoted as says he thinks Clinton could have difficulty in the general election, in part, because there is a "brittleness about her."
Clinton wouldn't say if she would run for president in 2008, saying she is completely focused on her re-election bid this year.
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=213&sid=710783
What is James Baker up to now?
In the thick of the port deal
by Carol Wolman
I urge everyone to look at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein
James Baker's Double Life: A Special Investigation by Naomi Klein
This is an old article, which basically says that James Baker, senior advisor to the Bush family and major investor in the Carlyle group, was placed in charge of getting other countries to reduce or forgive Iraq's debt to them. The biggest creditor of Iraq is Kuwait, to which Iraq has been paying huge sums in reparations for the 1990 invasion by Saddam.
In essence, the US taxpayer is subsidizing the Iraqi government, whose limited funds are going to wealthy Kuwait rather than to rebuilding Iraq or providing basic services or security there.
According to the article, Baker has NOT reduced Iraq's payments to Kuwait, but rather has enriched the Carlyle corporation by funneling some of the payments through Kuwait to Carlyle. The article is very long and detailed, and I did not follow it all, but I urge people to look at it.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_carol_wo_060307_what_is_james_baker_.htm
James Baker's Double Life: A Special Investigation
When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq's debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker's job "a noble mission." At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker's extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake.
Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker's loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy--an unpaid position--has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker's influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein
SS&C Technologies Announces Record Revenue Numbers for 2005
WINDSOR, Conn. --(Business Wire)-- March 7, 2006 -- SS&C Technologies, Inc.(www.ssctech.com), a global provider of financial services software and outsourcing solutions, today announced record revenue results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2005. Reported revenue on a GAAP basis for the fourth quarter and the year 2005 was $47.4 million and $161.6 million, respectively. Included in reported revenue for the fourth quarter and the year 2005 is a $0.7 million reduction in revenue caused by purchase accounting adjustments to reflect November 23, 2005 deferred revenue at its estimated fair value. Excluding the purchase accounting adjustment, revenue for the fourth quarter of 2005 was $48.1 million, a 78% increase from the fourth quarter of 2004. Revenue for the year 2005 was $162.4 million, an increase of 69% over 2004. Net loss, on a GAAP basis, for the fourth quarter and the year 2005, was $23.5 million and $3.9 million, respectively. Merger costs related to the sale of SS&C were $44.7 million in the quarter and $45.8 million for the year 2005.
… On November 23, 2005, SS&C Technologies, Inc. was acquired by Sunshine Acquisition Corporation, a corporation affiliated with The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Bill Stone, SS&C's Chairman and CEO stated, "Being a privately-held company allows us to channel all of our resources on growing our business and continuing to produce excellent financial results."
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/07/1436306.htm
Bush firmly standing up for his buddies in port deal
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
By David Hunt
Recently, the George W. Bush administration approved the sale of six port terminals to a ``private'' company wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is an oil-rich Muslim nation whose despotic monarchy has long-standing financial ties to the Bush family. They are, therefore, our ``allies.'' It also produced two of the 9-11 terrorists, has long-standing and continuing ties with the Taliban, and long-standing (if not continuing) ties with Osama bin Laden. But, no matter.
It's worth noting, in passing, that administering port authorities was once the job of our various governments. The Republicans ``privatized'' all that, saying it wasn't an ``appropriate government function.''
For all its incompetence and disinterest in governing, this administration has always had keen political instincts. How do we account for its political tone deafness in this deal? Is Bush truly so concerned that we not ``send the wrong message'' and ``damage Muslim sensibilities?''
Can you imagine the UAE saying, ``You've killed more than 100,000 innocent Muslims. You torture us. You destroy our nation's infrastructures. Your supporters call us `ragheads' and `camel jockeys' and you do not chastise them. But now you dare to renege on a business contract! Really, Mr. President, this time you have gone too far!''
http://www.mlive.com/columns/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-2/1141752005317100.xml&coll=7
Who Profits from Dubai Deals? Bush - Carlyle Group
by AL MARTIN
There are two Dubai deals under scrutiny. The first was the Dubai Ports World buyout of P&O, a UK based company that manages ports around the world.
The second is the buyout of the British defense contractor called Doncasters by the Dubai Investment Capital Group, which is a private company not a Dubai state controlled company.
The Dubai Investment Capital Group has investors, which include the ruling family of Kuwait and Dubai, the Bush-family-controlled Pilgrim Investment Trust, the Dick and Lynne Cheney Trust as well as the usual Bushonian Cabal like Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, James Baker, George Schultz et al. By the way, the group was put together by the lead securities consultant, which is, of course, the Carlyle Group. It is essentially a large investment capital group that has been formed which is very similar to a limited partnership. And this is what it all means...This group has purchased a large British defense contractor, Doncasters, which was formerly called Doncaster Aviation, now Doncaster Group.
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=49&contentid=3304
Desperate G.O.P. Attacks the Clintons
When Republican politicians get in trouble, their defense often includes one or both of the following arguments: The Democrats are equally guilty, and it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault anyway. Such claims may be inaccurate as well as irrelevant, but if echoed often enough by conservative pundits on the airwaves and in the papers, they can serve to distract from the original embarrassment.
Consider the example of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who diligently greased his fellow Republicans. The Indian tribes represented by Mr. Abramoff greatly increased the proportion of their political donations to Republicans, while diminishing their donations to Democrats. But many in the media regurgitated the Republican spin that implicated both parties equally.
The controversy over Dubai’s attempt to purchase control of American ports is provoking a similar response. Quickly and mindlessly, the Bush administration approved the takeover by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company. By pushing the Dubai deal—with a veto threat against any Congressional interference—Mr. Bush has drawn fresh attention to his family’s Middle East entanglements. (Remember his handholding with that Saudi prince?) The Carlyle Group boasts deep financial connections to the United Arab Emirates as well as the Bush family. The President’s father and brother Neil have both benefited directly from the largesse of Emirate rulers.
As Dubya’s public approval plunged toward Nixonian levels and shudders of fear wracked the Republican Party, a snarling counterattack was predictable. Just as inevitable was that the target would be the Clintons.
The sideshow began after the Financial Times reported, with more than a touch of exaggeration, that Dubai Ports World executives had received advice from the former President. What should have remained a minor story swiftly blossomed into headlines—and a concerted effort to damage his wife, Hillary Clinton, the junior Senator from New York and possible Presidential candidate.
http://www.observer.com/20060313/20060313_Joe_Conason_politics_joeconason.asp
Dutch media giant VNU agrees to public offer from private equity group
08/03/2006. Source: AltAssets.
Haarlem, the Netherlands and New York, US-headquartered media giant VNU and Valcon Acquisition, a holding company controlled by a private equity consortium consisting of AlpInvest Partners, The Blackstone Group, The Carlyle Group, Hellman & Friedman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Thomas H. Lee Partners, have agreed to a public offer for VNU that values the company's equity at €7.5bn, or €28.75 per common share.
The closing of the transaction is conditioned, among other things, on 95 per cent of VNU shareholders in each class, common and preferred, tendering their shares.
VNU is an information and media company with brands such as ACNielsen in marketing information, Nielsen Media Research in media measurement and information and Adweek, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Computing, Intermediair in business information. The company employs nearly 41,000 people. Total revenues were €3.5bn in 2005.
The private equity consortium said in a joint statement, 'We are investing in the future of a company with an unmatched portfolio of market-leading assets, a highly knowledgeable and dedicated employee base and a sound strategy for the future. We intend to capitalise on these strengths by keeping VNU substantially together as an integrated company and continue to pursue its long-term strategy of improving operational efficiency and investing in product development and innovation.
'VNU's businesses bring together a unique combination of market intelligence, analysis, advice and service. We are confident that the company is well positioned to build further on these strengths,' they continued.
Originally, Permira was part of the private equity consortium but later withdrew from the group. At an earlier stage there was also another private equity consortium interested in buying VNU.
AlpInvest has approximately €30bn of assets under management. Approximately 80 per cent of these funds are invested in private equity funds globally, with the remainder invested directly in companies as a co-investor in Europe and the US. AlpInvest has approximately 55 investment professionals based in Amsterdam and New York. Its shareholders and main clients are ABP and PGGM, two large pension funds.
Blackstone, founded in 1985, has raised over $50bn for alternative asset investing. In addition to private equity investments, the Group's core businesses include real estate investments, corporate debt investments, distressed debt, marketable asset management, corporate advisory services and restructuring advisory services. Blackstone has offices in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Hamburg, Paris and Mumbai.
Carlyle has approximately $35bn under management. Carlyle invests in buy-outs, venture capital, real estate and leveraged finance in North America, Europe and Asia. Since 1987 the Group has invested approximately $15bn of equity in over 440 transactions.
Hellman & Friedman, founded in 1984, has raised and, through its affiliated funds, managed approximately $8bn of committed capital. The firm has offices in San Francisco, New York and London.
KKR specialises in management buy-outs. The company, founded in 1976, has completed approximately 140 transactions globally with a total value of approximately $186bn.
THL Partners, founded in 1974, has invested approximately $10bn of equity capital in more than 100 businesses with an aggregate purchase price of more than $70bn. The firm currently manages approximately $12bn of committed capital.
http://www.altassets.com/news/arc/2006/nz8275.php
C-I-A says information sought by Libby is highly classified
WASHINGTON The C-I-A appears ready to fight the release of classified presidential intelligence briefings that Lewis Libby wants to use in his defense.
Vice President Cheney's former top aide is charged with perjury linked to the leak of a C-I-A officer's identity.
A sworn statement from a C-I-A information review officer says it would take up to nine months to gather the material Libby's defense has requested. The officer says the C-I-A thinks releasing it would damage national security. She says the agency wants to be heard in court before any material is turned over to Libby.
The official's affidavit was filed last Friday, but made public today.
Libby's lawyers want access to nearly a year of the President's Daily Brief. It summarizes intelligence on threats against the U-S.
http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4597232&nav=1LFs
The Towering Solons of Abortion
Posted on Mar. 7, 2006
By Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas—South Dakota is so rarely found on the leading edge of the far out, the wiggy, the California-esque. But it has now staked its claim. First to Outlaw Abortion This Century. The state legislature of South Dakota, in all its wisdom and majesty, a legislature comprised of sons and daughters of the soil from Aberdeen to Zell, have usurped the right of the women of that state to decide whether or not to bear the child of an unwanted pregnancy. They will decide. Women will do what they decide.
These towering solons, representing citizens from the great cosmopolitan centers of Rapid City and Sioux Falls to the bosky dells near Yankton, are noted for their sagacity and understanding. When you think “enlightenment,” the first thing that comes to your mind is “the South Dakota Legislature,” right?
As well it might. The purpose of the law is to force a decision from the United States Supreme Court, where the appointments of John Roberts and Sam Alito have now shored up the anti-choice forces.
The South Dakota Legislature has made it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion under any circumstances except to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or to preserve the health of the mother. Should this strike you as hard cheese, State Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, explains how rape and incest could be exceptions under the “life” clause. Napoli believes most abortions are performed for “convenience,” but he told “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” about how he thinks a “real-life example” of the exception could be invoked:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060307_ivins_abortion/
Supreme Court Lawyer Goldstein to Join Akin Gump
By Tony Mauro
Legal Times
Monday, March 6, 2006
Washington, D.C., attorney Thomas Goldstein, who rocked the rarified world of Supreme Court advocacy by his aggressive pursuit of cases, will join the powerhouse law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as a partner May 1.
Goldstein, 35, who has argued 16 cases before the Court, currently runs his three-member firm Goldstein & Howe from his house with wife Amy Howe. "I decided it was time to take on a bigger platform for my Supreme Court work, and this is a great fit." Goldstein declined to put a price tag on the deal, but said he was approached by several firms in the last few years before agreeing to join Akin Gump.
For the 900-lawyer Akin Gump, the hire instantly raises its profile in the increasingly prized Supreme Court practice area. "This is an answer to a prayer," said Akin Gump chairman R. Bruce McLean in an interview. "When clients go to the Supreme Court, they often go to the handful of specialists in this field. We wanted to offer this service to our Fortune 500 client base." Arguing at the Supreme Court is "a very prestigious practice,' McLean added, "and this increases the prestige of our entire firm."
http://www.law.com/jsp/tx/PubArticleTX.jsp?id=1141652120908
Breyer: Supreme Court more relaxed under Chief Justice Roberts
JAY REEVES
Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Adding two new members to the Supreme Court has changed its dynamics, with discussions about cases more free-flowing under new Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer said Monday.
Long the junior member of the court under the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Breyer said operations are "a little more relaxed" under Roberts, who tends to let justices discuss issues at more length during closed-door meetings.
The court's justices have "very nice" interpersonal relationships with the addition of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Breyer said, and members may even be trying harder than normal to get along, as evidenced by a flurry of unanimous decisions.
Breyer said he doesn't know if the newly formed Roberts court is intentionally trying to agree, perhaps to keep its decisions narrow in focus.
"Whether unconsciously or not people are trying to get more agreement, it's possible," said Breyer, addressing law students at the University of Alabama.
On Monday, the court unanimously decided that the government can make colleges open their campuses to military recruiters despite objections to the Pentagon's policy on gays.
The court last month unanimously overturned a lower court's decision that white managers at a chicken plant couldn't be sued for calling black employees "boys," and it unanimously ruled that a small religious sect could use mind-altering tea in a ritual.
"If we are being a little more unanimous it's a good sign," said Breyer. But he cautioned that the agreement might not last because more contentious issues tend to "stack up" at the end of court sessions.
Breyer, a President Clinton appointee, generally sides with the liberal members of the court, but also has been a swing voter. Sometimes the target of conservatives who call him an activist judge, Breyer said everyone on the court believes more in judicial restraint, or not imposing their own beliefs in rulings.
Breyer declined to label his own philosophy.
"I don't characterize myself. It is up to others," he said.
Breyer didn't discuss any cases before the court, but he said "a lot of hesitancy" is needed to overturn past rulings - a key point as the newly constituted court could consider whether to let stand the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/14032816.htm
Story Based on Leaks Stirs Up Debate About Leakers and Leakees
Submitted by editor4 on March 7, 2006 - 2:57pm.
By Edward B. Colby
Source: CJR Daily
Far and away the most talked-about news on Technorati at the moment is a front-page Sunday story from the Washington Post, "White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks."
"The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources," reported the Post 's Dan Eggen. "The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws."
Eggen reported that dozens of employees from the CIA, the NSA and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed in recent weeks by FBI agents "investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program," while numerous employees at agencies including the CIA, FBI, and Justice Department "have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program." "Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation," wrote Eggen, "and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House."
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3592
John Bolton Does AIPAC
Kurt Nimmo
March 6, 2006
It should be obvious, considering the photo to the left, who John Bolton, the Straussian neocon "representative" to the United Nations, works for—the American-Israel Political Action Committee. "U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, speaking at a convention of Jewish-Americans, said it is too soon for the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran but other countries are talking about doing so and Washington is 'beefing up defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat,’" in other words the Pentagon is preparing to shock and awe Iran, maybe later this month, but probably down the road, sooner before later.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m21283&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Details Emerge in Latest Round of Plame E-mails
‘Found’ by the White House
by Jason Leopold
March 3, 2006
The White House confirmed Tuesday that it recently turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald 250 pages of e-mails from the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney related to covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. The e-mails were not submitted three years ago when then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered White House staffers to turn over all documents that contained any reference to Valerie and Joseph Wilson.
Gonzales's directive in October 2003 came 12 hours after he was told by the Justice Department that it was launching an investigation to find out who leaked Plame Wilson's undercover CIA status to reporters in what appeared to be an attempt to discredit and silence her husband from speaking out against the administration's rationale for war. Gonzales spent two weeks with other White House attorneys screening e-mails and other documents his office received before turning them over to Justice Department investigators.
News of the 250 pages of e-mails was revealed to Libby's attorneys during a court hearing Friday.
In addition to witness testimony, investigators working with Fitzgerald are said to have discovered the existence of the e-mails from computers that investigators had confiscated from the Office of the Vice President, people familiar with developments in the investigation said.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar06/Leopold03.htm
Farmer: Republicans fear getting too close to Bush
John Farmer, THE STAR-LEDGER (NEWARK, N.J.)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The campaign flier is elegantly done. One page on fine stock paper, multicolored on both sides, with a detailed list of the money and projects Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach has brought to his 6th District. There's a photograph of the handsome two-term congressman and several hundred words outlining his record in this mailing to his constituents.
One word, however, is conspicuously missing: Republican.
Instead, the mailing bills Gerlach as "An Independent Voice, Working for You." You could have fooled the disgraced ex-House GOP majority leader Tom DeLay, who brooked no independence among GOP troops in his leadership days. His political action committee ponied up money for Gerlach's last campaign. But it's a reflection of how things have changed in Republican ranks.
DeLay is under indictment for laundering corporate contributions into GOP campaign coffers. And more than a few Republican House members who face difficult re-election races are doing their darnedest these days to distance themselves from the klutzy Bush White House and the Republican record in Washington.
Gerlach is typical of these under-fire Republicans. He's a moderate by any reading of GOP ideology, a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports embryonic stem cell research in defiance of Bush administration policy. The Philadelphia suburbs that make up his district are historically Republican — but only narrowly and with a growing tendency to favor the occasional Democrat.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/03/7farmer_edit.html
The Capital Journal
Authorities: Stay off the ice
By LETA NOLAN CHILDERS
Capital Journal Staff
Authorities are warning anglers to remain diligent about ice conditions before they set foot on the river.
“It’s dangerous,” said Sgt. Darin Johnson, of the Hughes County Sheriff’s Office. “We haven’t had the deep freezing where it’s stayed cold to make good ice.”
March 5 is the date for fishermen to remove their ice shacks on some lakes in the state, according to the Game, Fish & Parks department.
River ice, unlike lake or still water body ice, is subject to the currents of the river. While the top of the ice may look thick and safe, the river currents can erode the bottom of the ice. While it can be safely thick in one place, a few feet away it can be dangerously thin, according to Johnson.
http://www.capjournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=14676
The Argus Leader
Rounds explains abortion decision
Governor doesn't embrace ban he signed
PIERRE - Gov. Mike Rounds on Tuesday carved a bit of space between him and the abortion ban he signed into law, repeatedly saying it's not his bill.
Rounds also said he wouldn't campaign actively for it if a threatened referral drive materializes.
Rounds, a Republican, held his first news conference since signing the bill at the same time Tuesday that U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson issued a statement in which he suggested the bill is out of the mainstream.
There's been political speculation that if Rounds wins re-election as expected this year, he might be pressured by the state GOP to challenge Johnson, a Democrat who won his last race by 528 votes.
"This law is an extreme and radical approach to a very difficult and personal subject, and I do not support it," Johnson's statement said.
Rounds, responding to questions from reporters, reminded them at least twice that it's not his legislation.
He signed the bill Monday.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS/603080302/1001
State predicts bird flu deaths
Summit preps for epidemic
About 5,000 South Dakotans would die if a severe mutation of bird flu strikes the United States and another 230,000 state residents would become ill, health officials estimate.
The projections come as Gov. Mike Rounds prepares to host a statewide summit Thursday in Sioux Falls about the potential emergency.
These projections also come amid a climate of disbelief that such a crisis could occur.
Up to 400 state and local officials and health and education specialists are expected for Thursday's session at the Ramkota Hotel.
To them, the bird flu threat is valid.
"It's not if, but when," said Lynn DeJong, emergency management director for Minnehaha County.
South Dakotans dealing with everyday problems might not yet be persuaded.
"People are worried about drought. They're worried about paying their bills with higher utility costs. Until bird flu becomes a little more real, they might not be too interested," said Pam Nielson Boline, associate professor of human services at Dakota Wesleyan University.
The casualty estimates come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS08/603080317
Officials aim to persuade skeptics danger is real
Preparing for a world flu emergency includes selling the idea to some who doubt the threat is real, says South Dakota’s top state health official.
Local governments, emergency workers and medical industry leaders are on board in the preparations, said Health Secretary Doneen Hollingsworth. They are coming from across the state to a five-hour program Thursday in Sioux Falls.
Others need persuading, she said. They should consider that the potential crisis concerns an unknown flu strain and that history points to three such epidemics every 100 years, she said.
Hollingsworth answered questions about the flu Tuesday.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS/60308003
Ex-chief financial officer takes stand against former bosses
KRISTEN HAYS
Associated Press
Article Published: 03/8/06, 3:43 am
HOUSTON – Former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow testified Tuesday he crafted and ran partnerships to help the company hide losses and inflate profits with the blessing of his boss, Jeffrey Skilling.
Fastow appeared contrite in his much-anticipated courtroom confrontation with Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who are on trial for fraud and conspiracy stemming from Enron’s spectacular 2001 collapse.
But Fastow portrayed himself as a cog in a corrupt machine, with Skilling telling him, “Get me as much of that juice as you can,” regarding the partnerships.
Fastow, 44, also fought back tears as he told jurors in a federal courtroom that his wife, Lea, pleaded guilty to a tax crime and finished a yearlong prison term last July for signing a tax return that didn’t include illegal income from business deals unrelated to the partnerships. The partnerships that he said Skilling approved – LJM1 and LJM2 – were named with initials of his wife and sons, Jeffrey and Matthew, though Fastow didn’t share that detail with jurors.
Fastow, who agreed as part of his plea deal to serve 10 years in prison, is a key pillar of the government’s quest to prove Lay and Skilling lied to Wall Street and to their own employees to conceal the crumbling finances that drove the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 2001.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/BUSINESS/60308001/1003
WTO rules Mexican tax on corn illegal
U.S. corn growers were pleased this week when the World Trade Organization ruled that Mexico violated global trade rules in a soft-drink dispute with the United States.
A WTO panel rejected a Mexican appeal, supporting U.S. claims that Mexico was in breach of international law in imposing a 20 percent tax on drinks that are sweetened with anything other than cane sugar grown in Mexico - namely high fructose corn syrup.
The dispute about sugar and corn sweetener has cost U.S. corn refiners $944 million annually, according to the Washington-based Corn Refiners Association.
Only a small amount of South Dakota corn goes to production of corn syrup, said Lisa Richardson, executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.
"So it's not as big a deal here as in other states," Richardson said.
But some corn grown in the northeast corner of the state goes to a plant in North Dakota, said Del Strasser, a member of the corn growers association from Wilmot.
The tariff ruling could work to raise prices for corn syrup and make transportation costs seem more reasonable for growers to sell corn for syrup rather than ethanol, Strasser said.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/BUSINESS/603080314/1003
Asia Times
China goes back to the land
By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presented his third Government Work Report this week to the National People's Congress (NPC), there was plenty to boast about.
With China's economy racing along at 9.9% growth last year and surpassing Britain as the fourth-largest economy in the world, the premier clearly enjoyed basking in the nearly constant applause
of the faithful 3,000 delegates assembled at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for his speech.
But the emphasis in this year's report on building a "new socialist countryside" betrays a worrying trend for the central government: outside of the urban centers - which, following the old Soviet model, have been the focus of economic development since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 - there is growing civil unrest over the gross inequities of China's phenomenal economic growth.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HC09Ad03.html
The Organization of Labor-intensive Exporting Countries
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/olec.html
PART 4: Toward living wages in the modern era
By Henry C K Liu
(For the other articles in this series, click here.)
Modern finance has shown that the bulk of capital comes nowadays from the pension funds of workers, which is the deferred income of currently employed labor.
In the US economy, no one saves voluntarily anymore, not because of a change in Americans' character, but because with low wages and rising asset values not registered as inflation, no one can afford to save, having to spend all income plus
accumulating debt just to manage. This is why the entire US economy is operating on debt. Most savings now come from pension funds, to which the average worker has no legal choice but to contribute, with his company matching payments from his first day of work, with benefits not collectable until some three decades later.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HC09Dj01.html
Blaming the victims as Iraq disintegrates
By Stephen Zunes
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
The sectarian violence which has swept across Iraq following last month's terrorist bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra is yet another example of the tragic consequences of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Until the 2003 US invasion and occupation, Iraq had maintained a longstanding history of secularism and a strong national identity among its Arab population despite its sectarian differences.
Not only has the United States failed to bring a functional democracy to Iraq, neither US forces nor the US-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad have been able to provide the Iraqi people
with basic security. This has led many ordinary citizens to turn to extremist sectarian groups for protection, further undermining the Bush administration's insistence that US forces must remain in Iraq in order to prevent a civil war.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC09Ak01.html
Bombs rock India's foundations
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - The nature of the serial bomb blasts in the holy city of Varanasi is a strategy that has been followed by terror groups for some time.
The aim is to ignite social tensions by polarizing society along communal lines. Crude bombs that can be easily assembled without being detected by security agencies are planted at crowded places, more often religious sites, to inflict maximum damage within a short area as well as creating the symbolic
impact of attacking the beliefs of a population.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC09Df02.html
'Shark and Awe'
By Tom Engelhardt
The US already has "stealth" aircraft, but what about a little of the stealth that only nature can provide?
Navy SEALs, move over - here come the navy sharks. According to the latest New Scientist magazine, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the blue-sky wing of the
Pentagon, has set yet another group of American scientists loose to create the basis for future red-in-tooth-and-maw Discovery Channel programs.
In this case, they are planning to put neural implants into the brains of sharks in hopes, one day, of "controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling". In their dreams at least, DARPA's far-out funders hope to "exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted."
No other country puts anything like such effort, planning and dreaming into the idea of projecting planet-spanning military power, caught so grimly in that phrase, "full-spectrum dominance". To Pentagon minds this seems to mean: from 20,000 leagues down to 30 kilometers up (and everything that creeps, crawls, swims or flies in between). The phrase first gained attention with the release in 2000 of the US Air Force's Joint Vision 2020 statement - a supposed look into a future world of US war-making.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HC09Aa01.html
Putin's war with radical Islamists
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Russia - which usually makes world news only in relation to gas and oil - has recently emerged as an important foreign-policy broker. President Vladimir Putin's government has engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Iran and the West and between Hamas and the West.
Dealing with Iran and Hamas, Putin tried to persuade them to abandon radical rhetoric and practices and incorporate
themselves into the Western international order. At the same time, he tried to convince Western partners that the Iranians and even Hamas are not the worst of all possible regimes or movements, and with certain encouragements and guarantees could be incorporated into the Western order.
… Udugov argues that any state in today's global community is an institution of oppression and corruption, and the Chechen state, if it were to be established, would inevitably fall into the same pit. What Chechens should have is not a regular state but an organization that is separate from the rest of the world; one that could be used for launching the global jihad that would finally lead to the establishment of the global khalifah (caliphate) and transcend present-day history.
One might state here that al-Qaeda's model is not just wishful thinking but is a reality, as can be seen in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have created a quasi-state designed exclusively for jihadist purposes (see Pakistan battles the forces within, March 7).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HC08Ag02.html
Pakistan battles the forces within
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Protests against the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf and against the US took off in Pakistan about a month ago in the guise of rallies denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
These protests have now reached the stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan: the self-proclaimed "Islamic State of
North Waziristan", a volatile tribal area on the border with Afghanistan.
For the past few days this region has been the scene of fierce battles between the Pakistani armed forces and the Taliban and their supporters. This, analysts believe, is the starting point of taking the nascent Tehrik-i-Nizam-i-Mustafa movement to other areas in Pakistan, that is, to enforce the Prophet Mohammed's way of life, or sharia law, on society. Underground Islamic radical groups will surface in support of this struggle that could ultimately lead to the ousting of the Musharraf government.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC07Df04.html
A 'white coup' in Baghdad
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - What happened in Iraq over the weekend was a neatly planned "white" coup, carried out by the Americans, Kurds, secular Shi'ites and Sunnis, on the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) and its candidate for the premiership, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
After much bickering, they came out and asked Jaafari to step down, demanding that the UIA nominate another Shi'ite politician for the job. For its part, the UIA has insisted on maintaining
Jaafari, but is bound to give in to the mounting pressure practiced by practically everybody in Iraq.
Jaafari's flaws apparently outnumber his positive attributes. The coalition wanting to bring him down complained that he had failed, as the previous premier, to bring security to Iraq, failed to combat unemployment, failed to advance infrastructure, failed to crush the insurgency, and failed to protect Sunnis and their places of worship during the bloody events that followed the terrorist attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC07Ak01.html
continued …
This is a well run government? Everyone for themselves?
Everybody for themselves.
Grab a piece of the pie !
Is there any wonder why the Iraqi people are fit to be tied?
February 23, 2006.
Iraqi Shi'ite women protest in Baghdad.
Bush and Cheney's Pride and Joy. Iraq continues to be a Rouge Nation even with American Occupation.
February 25, 2006.
Wounded Iraqi Girl at Karbala Hospital.
Morning Papers - continued ...
Michael Moore Today
Here we go again. Bush and Rummy making their own reality. Bush thinks he can just dismiss information of People On The Ground for their own purposes. There are at least as many as 30,000 DEAD. AT LEAST. Don needs to do a manual count of all the graves on street corners, in backyards, on soccer fields and then inspect the dead bodies rotting in morgues without refrigeration. They kill people by the 100s and round them up to stick them in prison by the thousands then they have the God Almighty nerve to make claims that people who are trying to understand this invasion a full THREE YEARS are "W"rong. NO WAY. The Bush White House is "W"rong. End of Discussion !
Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Suggests Misreporting Swaying Public Opinion
By Bill Brubaker / Washington Post
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.
Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are "obviously trying to ignite a civil war," Iraqi security forces have "taken the lead in controlling the situation" and the Iraqi government has taken "a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6121
Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
By Jonathan Steele / Guardian
Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.
"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills," said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6097
Here ya go. A strategy that works in the USA should work in Iraq as well.
Military Will Keep Planting Articles in Iraq
The ranking U.S. general there says a Pentagon review found the program does not violate policy. It could be replicated elsewhere.
By Mark Mazzetti / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the United States after an inquiry found no fault with the controversial practice, the top U.S. general in Iraq said Friday.
Army Gen. George W. Casey said the internal review had concluded that the U.S. military was not violating U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines with the information operations campaign, in which U.S. troops and a private contractor write pro-American articles and pay to have them planted without attribution in Iraqi media.
"By and large, it found that we were operating within our authorities and responsibilities," Casey said, adding that he had no intention of shutting the program down.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6096
Union leaders call for Rumsfeld to resign
By Drew Brown / Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Union officials representing more than 200,000 civilian defense workers across the country issued a vote of no-confidence Tuesday in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and called on him to step down.
The resolution, the first time that federal workers have called for a defense secretary to resign, came in response to the Pentagon's decision to appeal a federal judge's ruling last week that blocks controversial new workplace rules for civilian Defense Department workers.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled Feb. 27 that the National Security Personnel System, which Congress approved in 2003, fails to protect collective-bargaining rights, doesn't allow for independent review of labor relations decisions and fails to provide a fair appeals process in disciplinary cases. The American Federation of Government Employees sued last year.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6127
Four Vermont Towns Back Bush Impeachment
At Least Four Vermont Towns Approve Move to Impeach Bush During Annual Meetings
By David Gram / Associated Press
NEWFANE, Vt. - In a white-clapboard town hall, built circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.
"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning or official agenda for the annual town meeting, a proud Yankee tradition in New England.
"It absolutely affects us locally," Dewalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6123
President Bush casts his vote in Crawford
An error in getting an absentee ballot forced the President to make a trip to his local district to cast his ballot in the primary election.
He arrived in Crawford just before 4:30pm to vote at the local fire station.
It was a mistake in absentee balloting, but for residents in Crawford it was a chance to see their most famous neighbor.
President Bush rolled in along with his motorcade. He gave a quick wave to the crowd, was ushered inside and placed his vote. The President made it in and out in a couple of minutes, and the motorcade pulled out of town.
A couple of dozen people gathered to watch from across the street. There were only a few protesters; the rest came to show support.
It was a mistake that forced the President to come here and an expensive one for tax payers.
It is estimated Air Force One takes 30 to 50 thousand dollars an hour to operate.
For a six hour roundtrip, that comes close to a quarter of a million dollars. So it was a costly treat for the crowd.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6125
Mexico rape victims often denied right to abortion
By Lorraine Orlandi / Reuters
MEXICO CITY, March 7 - When Sandra Rodriguez, a mentally handicapped live-in maid, was raped by her boss and left pregnant in 2002, Mexican courts stopped her from having an abortion although it was her legal right.
Rodriguez, 30, had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old, court-ordered evaluations showed, but Guanajuato state prosecutors questioned whether she had been raped or consented to sex. She gave birth to a girl who was put up for adoption.
Prosecutors later agreed she was raped and admitted local officials had acted irresponsibly in blocking her abortion.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6118
Some Say India Deal Ignores Another Energy Need: Food
By Paul Watson / LA Times
NEW DELHI — A nuclear cooperation deal reached last week between the U.S. and India has added fuel to the debate over whether the South Asian nation can afford a multibillion-dollar push to become a regional military power.
As President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the landmark pact Thursday, the World Bank released a study showing that almost 40% of the world's malnourished children live in India.
Bush administration officials say the nuclear accord, which must be approved by Congress, is partly aimed at strengthening India so it can serve as a counterbalance to neighboring China. However, development experts here said the strategy ignores the plight of several hundred million Indians mired in poverty.
"I think the Western world, and perhaps more so the United States of America, has a feeling that India is a highly developed country," said Babu Mathew, India director of the development agency ActionAid. "So they are reluctant to face the reality of the other side of India, which is millions of people living in poverty."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6119
Energy, Iran Spur Turkey's Revival of Nuclear Plans
By Karl Vick / Washington Post
ISTANBUL -- Turkey is reviving its long-deferred quest for nuclear power, pressed both by serious energy shortfalls within its own borders and by strident nuclear ambitions in neighboring Iran that threaten to upset a regional balance of power.
"The rise in oil prices and the need for multiple sources of energy make our need for nuclear energy an utmost priority," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said last month in announcing plans to build as many as five atomic energy plants. The first, to be located on the Black Sea at Sinop, would come on line in 2012 and ease Turkey's costly dependence on natural gas, 90 percent of which arrives by pipeline from Russia and Iran.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6117
Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War
He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread.
By Borzou Daragahi / LA Times
BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon.
In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6120
Gonzales May Be Recalled on Eavesdropping
By Katherine Shrader / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' written answers to questions about the Bush administration's eavesdropping program may require him to testify a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel's Republican chairman said Monday.
"There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters.
The comments from the moderate Republican come as the Bush administration is trying to quell criticism of its surveillance operations and work with the Senate on legislation that would write the program into law.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6109
Leave Cindy ALONE. She is getting used to being abused. It won't be long before someone hands her a jail sentence and then we'll have a grieving mother and a divorced spouse as a Global Example of how the USA treats women who seek peace and not war. This is not a game. Cindy Sheehan feels strongly about this issue. Treat her with respect. Bush needs to realize all his coalition members are leaving. They aren't a part of the internal strife of Iraqi politics.
Peace activist Sheehan arrested in NY protest
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in the Iraq war, was arrested with three other protesters in New York on Monday after a rally with women from Iraq.
Sheehan became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement last summer after she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch and has been arrested at least two other times at protests.
On Monday, she had joined a delegation of women from Iraq at the rally at the United Nations, urging the United Nations to help prevent civil war in Iraq.
About 20 protesters went to the U.S. mission to the United Nations to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures seeking an end to the war. Nobody from the mission received them so Sheehan and three other American women sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.
A police spokesman said they were expected to be released later on Monday.
The Iraqi women plan to deliver a petition to the White House on Wednesday. Earlier they held a news conference at U.N. headquarters calling for the United States to withdraw its forces.
Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at Baghdad's Yarmook Teaching Hospital, wept as she told reporters of the hardships experienced by Iraqi women.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," she said. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
"We thank you, Mr. Bush, for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she said.
(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6105
Daily Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
Associated Press
As of Monday, March 6, 2006, at least 2,301 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 1,805 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is three lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 103 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one death each.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
A soldier died Sunday in western Anbar province.
The latest identifications reported by the military:
Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, Finksburg, Md.; died Friday in a vehicle accident in Anbar province, Iraq; assigned to Combat Service Support Group-1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6108
The Times-Picayune
2006 rebuilding effort based on 1959 study
Corps says legal restrictions most likely hindered updated approach
Corps ignored crucial levee data
Reports showed need for higher defenses
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bob Marshall and Mark Schleifstein
Staff writers
Weather data showing the need to raise the height of levees to defend New Orleans against stronger hurricanes was not incorporated in Army Corps of Engineers designs, even though the agency was informed of the new calculations as early as 1972, government records show.
The heights of floodwalls and levees now being rebuilt by the corps are based on research for a likely worst-case storm done in 1959. When new weather service research in the 1970s increased the size and intensity of that storm and its projected surges, the corps stuck to its original design specifications when work began in the 1980s, including for structures that failed during Hurricane Katrina.
Corps headquarters officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. New Orleans District engineers now involved in reassessing the area's hurricane protection system said the lack of changes in the past probably can be traced the corps' legal restriction to building only what Congress authorizes.
"I can only guess, but what I think you'll find is that since the authorization (in the legislation) never changed, then the people involved felt they couldn't change" design specifications, said Janis Hote, a corps engineer who, like most of the local staff, was not involved in those earlier projects.
Had the changes been incorporated in corps planning starting in 1972, they almost certainly would have resulted in higher or stronger structures in some areas, hurricane researchers said. Though the project was authorized in 1965, financing problems and court battles delayed much of the construction until 1982, and the designs for many structures that failed during Katrina were not completed until the late 1980s and early '90s.
It is unclear how much levees and floodwalls would have been raised had the changes been acted upon, researchers said, because interpretations of the changes depend largely on the type of computer models being used to predict storm surge height. However, they agreed the new data would have certainly included predictions of higher water, which would have required higher levees and walls.
"If you increase the intensity of a storm, and you run it on the same track through the same area at the same speed, you'll increase the (storm) surge," said Will Shaffer, a storm modeler who designs the storm surge model used by the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for forecasting and emergency planning.
LSU revisits reports
Staffers at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who reviewed the 1972 and 1979 reports produced by the weather service for use by the corps in designing levees along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, estimated the stronger storm outlined in the reports would have raised the so-called "standard project hurricane" to the equivalent of a Category 4, rather than the fast-moving Category 3 generally associated with the 1959 parameters. The standard project hurricane was designed to be "the most severe combination of meteorological conditions that are considered characteristic" of the area.
Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge modeler at LSU, said the increased intensity outlined in the 1979 report would have raised the predicted storm surge along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet from 22 feet to 30 feet. During Katrina much of St. Bernard Parish suffered catastrophic flooding when long sections of the 17.5-foot-high MR-GO levee were topped and collapsed by storm surges that the corps has measured at 18.5 feet.
The Industrial Canal, meanwhile, was topped and collapsed by a peak storm surge that the corps measured at 15.9 feet. That breach destroyed much of the Lower 9th Ward and contributed to flooding in parts of St. Bernard Parish.
It is unclear whether higher floodwalls would have prevented the breaches at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals that put much of the rest of New Orleans underwater. Forensic engineers working with the National Science Foundation have said weak soil layers beneath the floodwalls failed when the canals began filling with water, causing the breaches.
Ivor van Heerden, assistant director of the LSU Hurricane Center and a frequent critic of the corps, said the authorization issue should not have prevented the corps from changing design specifications based on updated information.
"The legislation never mentions a standard project hurricane. That was something the engineers came up with to define the most severe threat," he said. "There is no reason they could not have changed."
In 1965, Congress authorized the corps to develop a system to protect the New Orleans area from "the most severe meteorological conditions that are considered reasonably characteristic of the region," giving birth to the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project.
Limited range of storms
To determine what those conditions were, the corps relied on a study of worst-case hurricanes developed by the Weather Bureau -- today the National Weather Service -- for the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. The Weather Bureau looked only at storms that occurred between 1900 and 1957 for the New Orleans area.
That search produced the hypothetical standard project hurricane for New Orleans, which was adopted by the corps, with some revisions, as the basis of its levee and floodwall designs. It had a central pressure of at least 27.6 inches of mercury, maximum sustained winds of 100 mph in a radius of at least 30 miles, and a forward speed of between 4 and 28 mph. And it had a 1 in 200 chance of occurring in any year.
The corps then determined that such a hurricane could create a maximum storm surge of 11.2 feet at locations in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, based on the shape of the lake bottom and ability of water to enter the lake from Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico. Surge heights for other sections, using the same storm data, were 12.5 feet for Mandeville, 11.9 feet for Chalmette, 12.5 feet for the Citrus and eastern New Orleans back levees, and 13 feet in the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes.
The target date to complete the Lake Pontchartrain levee project was 1978.
As meteorological science improved, the Weather Bureau felt compelled to revisit its definition of the standard project hurricane. Improved data collection led to the discovery of 50 more tropical storms than had been counted in the 1959 report.
In June 1972 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a preliminary report making its first update of the standard project hurricane, dropping the pressure to 27.3 inches, which increased the storm's strength, and increasing the wind speed to 114 mph and the frequency of return from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.
In September 1979 the National Weather Service issued a final report establishing new criteria for the standard project hurricane. By then hurricane specialists had expanded the list of variables considered critical to measuring storm impacts, including the radius of the maximum sustained winds and the forward speed of the storm. It also changed the way maximum sustained winds were measured.
Those changes resulted in a new standard project hurricane with sustained winds as high as 140 mph, according to van Heerden.
Outdated standard used
Had those new parameters been plugged into the Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring storm intensity that made its debut in 1969, the 1972 changes would have equaled a Category 4 storm with surges between 13 and 18 feet, van Heerden said. The 1978 changes would have pushed the standard project hurricane to a Category 5 level, with surges above 18 feet, he said.
"The corps has consistently been saying the standard project hurricane (in its design documents) related roughly to a fast-moving Category 3 storm, but we can see that is plainly not the case," van Heerden said. "The Saffir-Simpson scale was in wide use by 1979, but there's no indication (in the design documents for the projects) that the corps took this into consideration."
As evolving storm science raised the severity of the threat, the corps continued to use the now-outdated standard project hurricane parameters set in 1959, even as its timeline for construction had been delayed into the late '90s.
For example, the corps' 1984 design memorandum for improving New Orleans' lakefront levees says the engineering criteria are based on the frequency of return of 1 in 300 years, pressure at 27.6 inches, wind speed at 100 mph and a surge of 11.5 feet.
The same references to the standard project hurricane established by the 1965 legislation are repeated for floodwall projects on the London Avenue Canal project in 1989 and the 17th Street Canal in 1990.
The first changes found in the parameters for the standard project hurricane in local corps hurricane projects come with a 2000 plan for the West Bank. The agency's planning includes the 1979 standard project hurricane parameters, as well as science on the impact of sea level rise to levee heights.
Although the corps' design documents between 1972 and 2000 don't reflect awareness of the changes, other government reports related to those projects did.
In a 1982 report to the secretary of the Army titled "Improved Planning Needed By The Corps of Engineers to Resolve Environmental, Technical And Financial Issues On The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project," the General Accounting Office -- now the Government Accountability Office -- says: "Subsequent to project authorization and based on the Weather Bureau's new data pertaining to hurricane severity, the Corps determined that the levees along the three drainage canals which drain major portions of New Orleans and empty into Lake Pontchartrain are not high enough since they are subject to overflow by hurricane surges."
Other GAO reports indicate the corps actually was lowering its levee heights even as the new science was raising the heights of expected storm surges.
In a 1976 report on the project, the GAO said the corps expected levees to range between 16 feet and 18.5 feet. But by the time the 1982 report was issued, those averages had been dropped to between 13.5 feet and 16.5 feet -- even though by then, based on weather service reports, the possible storm surge for the standard project hurricane had been increased to more than 18 feet.
Neither the National Weather Service nor corps officials could shed light on why the changed parameters were not reflected in the corps project specifications. A weather service spokesman said current staffers either were not at the agency then or were uninvolved in writing the reports.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539. Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141802754126640.xml
Panel defies Bush, loosens La.'s grip on storm grants
Other states swoop in for more money
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the House Appropriations Committee have stripped President Bush's request to earmark $4.2 billion for housing recovery in Louisiana, throwing the state's rebuilding plan into question and unleashing a scramble among hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast states for a cut of the money.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141803370126640.xml
Katrina remains from Carville are back in Orleans
DNA-matching work continues
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Hundreds of sets of human remains found in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have come home to the parish coroner's office after undergoing DNA testing at a temporary morgue in Carville.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141800945126640.xml
Population up 35% in December to January
But New Orleans remains far from its pre-Katrina number
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
New Orleans' population was just above 180,000 at the end of January, up 35 percent from the early December figure of about 134,000, according to the latest estimate from the city's Emergency Operations Center.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141801130126640.xml
Iran threatens U.S. with 'harm and pain'
3/8/2006, 6:16 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" on Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its suspect nuclear program.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141820968298530.xml&storylist=topstories
U.N. urged to take action against Iran
3/8/2006, 5:37 a.m. CT
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The United States and its European allies said Wednesday that Iran's intransigence over its nuclear program has left the world no choice but to ask for the U.N. Security Council to take action against the Islamic regime.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141814355111000.xml&storylist=topstories
Afghan poppy eradication campaign launched
3/8/2006, 6:11 a.m. CT
By NOOR KHAN
The Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Narcotic agents on tractors launched a massive campaign Wednesday to destroy fields of poppies in the main drug belt of Afghanistan — the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, officials said.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-15/1141821001298530.xml&storylist=topstories
Sudan warns of spreading Darfur violence
3/8/2006, 6:18 a.m. CT
By ANTHONY MITCHELL
The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region will spread if a U.N. peacekeeping mission replaces a beleaguered African Union force, a senior Sudanese government official warned Wednesday.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1141820965298530.xml&storylist=topstories
New Zealand Herald
UK kindergartens bleat about nursery rhyme
08.03.06 3.20pm
Kindergartens in Britain have sparked controversy by changing the lyrics of a traditional nursery rhyme.
Instead of "Baa Baa Black Sheep", toddlers at the kindergartens in Oxfordshire chant "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep."
Supporters argue the original words alienate and offend young black children.
Parents of the children are understood to be unhappy about the move.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371621
NZ contributes to $65m aid for Palestinians
08.03.06 1.00pm
JERUSALEM - New Zealand has made a contribution towards an aid package to help the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.
The World Bank approved a US$42 million ($65 million) aid package to help the Authority until Islamic militant group Hamas forms the next government.
An NZAID spokeswoman said the $500,000 from New Zealand was a standard humanitarian assistance allocation.
"The Palestinian Authority is facing a fiscal short-fall and NZAID has supported governance reform efforts and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people," the spokeswoman said. "It's basically for humanitarian efforts."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371625
Shi'ites seek delay to break impasse over PM
08.03.06 4.20pm
By Waleed Ibrahim and Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD - The United States conceded today that Iraq could yet descend into sectarian civil war as US diplomats strove to break a deadlock among Iraqi political leaders that threatens further delay in opening a parliament.
"We have opened the Pandora's box," US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The question is, what is the way forward?" he asked, speaking two weeks after the bombing of a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra sparked days of bloodshed that killed hundreds.
"If another incident (occurs), Iraq is really vulnerable," the envoy, who is at the heart of talks to forge a coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, told the Los Angeles Times. "The way forward ... is an effort to build bridges across communities."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371640
UK troops plan Iraqi pullout by mid-2008
07.03.06 4.00pm
LONDON - Britain plans to pull out nearly all its soldiers from Iraq by the summer of 2008, with the first withdrawals within weeks, a top military commander said in an interview published today.
Lieutenant General Nick Houghton, Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, outlined a phased two-year withdrawal plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
"There is a fine line between staying too long and leaving too soon," he was quoted as saying. "A military transition over two years has a reasonable chance of avoiding the pitfalls of overstaying our welcome but gives us the best opportunity of consolidating the Iraqi security forces."
Britain has given no firm timetable for the withdrawal of its 8,000 troops in Iraq, based in and around the southern port of Basra.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371465
US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress
08.03.06 11.20am
By Robin Pomeroy
ROME - A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.
According to an Italian court document obtained by Reuters today, James Michael Brown, a 27-year-old paratrooper from Oregon stationed in northern Italy, was sentenced to five years and eight months for rape in February 2004.
Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371606
Moussaoui's lies led to 9/11 deaths says prosecutor
08.03.06
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - Federal prosecutors argued yesterday that even though September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail during the attacks he should be executed because his lies led to the deaths of 3,000 people.
But one of his court-appointed lawyers said executing Moussaoui would only make him a martyr because many al Qaeda members only "live so that they can die."
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April to six counts, three of which carry the death penalty. The charges included conspiracy to commit terrorism.
"Please don't make him a hero," defence attorney Edward MacMahon said at the start of the trial to determine Moussaoui's sentence. "He just doesn't deserve it."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371550
US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s, FBI agent says
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The US government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said today.
FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the US government knew by the mid 1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries.
Operatives at the training camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained in how to avoid detection, he said.
At that time, the US government was tracking several top al Qaeda members, Anticev said, and between 1996 and 1998 made an attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the man who has been described as the brains behind the September 11 hijackings.
Anticev said the attempt, made "somewhere in the Middle East", failed after Mohammed was apparently tipped off.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371605
This is great. Families get relief there are pictures (Hi, Mom) of people who should not be hostages in the first place. Iraq has turned out to be the Islamic Heaven on Earth everyone has hoped for.
Family relieved at hostage video
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Ian Stuart
The Auckland family of hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden said today they were enormously relieved to see him looking in apparent good health on newly released video footage.
Mr Sooden's brother-in-law Mark Brewer said they were "pleased and relieved he is still alive but saddened the saga continues".
Mr Sooden, a Canadian citizen who lived and studied in Auckland, was captured in Baghdad along with Canadian James Loney, Norman Kember of Britain and American Tom Fox in November last year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371609
I am beginning to get the feeling Iran has no nuclear capacity, but, only threats of such. North Korea uses this type of strategy to get monies and garner favors it normally would not get otherwise.
Russia denies Iran atom offer
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Mark Heinrich and Parisa Hafezi
VIENNA - Russia today backed away from what EU diplomats said was a proposal to let Iran do some atomic research if it agreed to refrain from enriching uranium on an industrial scale for 7-9 years.
Russia abandoned the informal proposal, aimed at finding a compromise to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Western rejection of the idea.
The United States and the European Union want Iran to shelve all work to enrich uranium because of suspicions that Tehran is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371612
N Korea says it won't be forced back into talks
08.03.06 4.00pm
TOKYO - North Korea will not return to six-way talks on its nuclear programme unless the United States ends its financial crackdown on Pyongyang's assets, the Kyodo news agency has quoted a senior North Korean official as saying.
Washington has cracked down on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in counterfeiting and money laundering that it says help fund the North's nuclear programmes.
"Under such pressure, we cannot return to the six-way talks. Our position has not changed," Kyodo quoted Ri Gun, North Korea's deputy chief envoy to the talks, as saying.
He was in New York following separate talks with US officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371642
Two security staff arrested over UK robbery
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Jason Bennetto
Two members of staff at the security firm targeted in Britain's biggest robbery have been arrested - leading to the suspicion that the raiders had inside help.
The man and woman, who were sub-contracted to work for Securitas, were questioned about the £53m robbery at Tonbridge in Kent, police said yesterday.
Police have also revealed that they suspect that some gang members have fled abroad with a significant amount of the stolen cash.
So far detectives have recovered about £20m of the record haul.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371604
PhD graduate Melbourne's youngest at 21
08.03.06 1.00pm
A former New Zealand student has become the youngest PhD graduate at Melbourne University, at the age of 21.
Yao-ban Chan started work on his undergraduate degree at the age of 10 while he was being home-schooled.
Mr Chan moved to Melbourne from New Zealand when he was 16.
"I always liked maths, I always found it fun," Mr Chan told The Age newspaper.
He was born in Malaysia and raised in New Zealand and was largely home-schooled by his mother Peck-Woon, a microbiologist, and father George, a director with Heinz.
He completed his bachelor of information science by correspondence in six years.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371630
Pope appeals for release of kidnapped toddler
08.03.06 12.20pm
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict today appealed for the release of a sick 18-month old toddler whose mysterious kidnapping has gripped Italy.
The Pope, in a message to a bishop in northern Italy, called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Tommaso Onofri and said he was praying for the boy's suffering parents.
The Pope condemned the kidnapping as "brutal" and said he was close to the family.
Tommaso, who needs an anti-convulsive medicine twice a day, was abducted by two men who broke into the family home last Friday in Casalbaroncolo near the wealthy city of Parma in northern Italy.
The boy's mother has appeared on television in tears to urge kidnappers to give him regular doses of an anti-epilepsy drug.
The Onofri family is not rich and investigators say that no ransom has been demanded so far.
Pictures of wide-eyed, curly-haired Tommaso wearing a blue and red clown costume, have been splashed on the front pages of all newspapers as politicians, priests, pop stars and football players have appealed for his release.
The anti-Mafia police have also joined the probe after a jailed pentito, or informer, said he had heard of a plot to kidnap someone in the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371615
Hollow victory as rural China battles march of capitalism
08.03.06
By Clifford Coonan
IN ZHEJIANG, CHINA - Si Xiaoyan weeps as she tells how her husband, Liu Huirong, was sentenced to five years in jail for taking part in riots last year in the town of Huaxi over the illegal granting of land rights to 13 chemical factories.
"I miss him," says Si, 31, tears streaming from behind her glasses as we sit in a brick farmhouse in the town in Zhejiang province.
Her sorrow is in contrast to the jubilation in the village in April last year, when 30,000 farmers stopped 1500 police from entering Huaxi and the farmers won the battle.
Huaxi became famous among activists in China, one of the first of many disturbances as rampant industrialisation led to clashes between the authorities and those left behind - the farmers and migrant workers who make up two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371531
continued ...
Here we go again. Bush and Rummy making their own reality. Bush thinks he can just dismiss information of People On The Ground for their own purposes. There are at least as many as 30,000 DEAD. AT LEAST. Don needs to do a manual count of all the graves on street corners, in backyards, on soccer fields and then inspect the dead bodies rotting in morgues without refrigeration. They kill people by the 100s and round them up to stick them in prison by the thousands then they have the God Almighty nerve to make claims that people who are trying to understand this invasion a full THREE YEARS are "W"rong. NO WAY. The Bush White House is "W"rong. End of Discussion !
Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Suggests Misreporting Swaying Public Opinion
By Bill Brubaker / Washington Post
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.
Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are "obviously trying to ignite a civil war," Iraqi security forces have "taken the lead in controlling the situation" and the Iraqi government has taken "a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6121
Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
By Jonathan Steele / Guardian
Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.
"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills," said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6097
Here ya go. A strategy that works in the USA should work in Iraq as well.
Military Will Keep Planting Articles in Iraq
The ranking U.S. general there says a Pentagon review found the program does not violate policy. It could be replicated elsewhere.
By Mark Mazzetti / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the United States after an inquiry found no fault with the controversial practice, the top U.S. general in Iraq said Friday.
Army Gen. George W. Casey said the internal review had concluded that the U.S. military was not violating U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines with the information operations campaign, in which U.S. troops and a private contractor write pro-American articles and pay to have them planted without attribution in Iraqi media.
"By and large, it found that we were operating within our authorities and responsibilities," Casey said, adding that he had no intention of shutting the program down.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6096
Union leaders call for Rumsfeld to resign
By Drew Brown / Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Union officials representing more than 200,000 civilian defense workers across the country issued a vote of no-confidence Tuesday in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and called on him to step down.
The resolution, the first time that federal workers have called for a defense secretary to resign, came in response to the Pentagon's decision to appeal a federal judge's ruling last week that blocks controversial new workplace rules for civilian Defense Department workers.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled Feb. 27 that the National Security Personnel System, which Congress approved in 2003, fails to protect collective-bargaining rights, doesn't allow for independent review of labor relations decisions and fails to provide a fair appeals process in disciplinary cases. The American Federation of Government Employees sued last year.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6127
Four Vermont Towns Back Bush Impeachment
At Least Four Vermont Towns Approve Move to Impeach Bush During Annual Meetings
By David Gram / Associated Press
NEWFANE, Vt. - In a white-clapboard town hall, built circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.
"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning or official agenda for the annual town meeting, a proud Yankee tradition in New England.
"It absolutely affects us locally," Dewalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6123
President Bush casts his vote in Crawford
An error in getting an absentee ballot forced the President to make a trip to his local district to cast his ballot in the primary election.
He arrived in Crawford just before 4:30pm to vote at the local fire station.
It was a mistake in absentee balloting, but for residents in Crawford it was a chance to see their most famous neighbor.
President Bush rolled in along with his motorcade. He gave a quick wave to the crowd, was ushered inside and placed his vote. The President made it in and out in a couple of minutes, and the motorcade pulled out of town.
A couple of dozen people gathered to watch from across the street. There were only a few protesters; the rest came to show support.
It was a mistake that forced the President to come here and an expensive one for tax payers.
It is estimated Air Force One takes 30 to 50 thousand dollars an hour to operate.
For a six hour roundtrip, that comes close to a quarter of a million dollars. So it was a costly treat for the crowd.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6125
Mexico rape victims often denied right to abortion
By Lorraine Orlandi / Reuters
MEXICO CITY, March 7 - When Sandra Rodriguez, a mentally handicapped live-in maid, was raped by her boss and left pregnant in 2002, Mexican courts stopped her from having an abortion although it was her legal right.
Rodriguez, 30, had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old, court-ordered evaluations showed, but Guanajuato state prosecutors questioned whether she had been raped or consented to sex. She gave birth to a girl who was put up for adoption.
Prosecutors later agreed she was raped and admitted local officials had acted irresponsibly in blocking her abortion.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6118
Some Say India Deal Ignores Another Energy Need: Food
By Paul Watson / LA Times
NEW DELHI — A nuclear cooperation deal reached last week between the U.S. and India has added fuel to the debate over whether the South Asian nation can afford a multibillion-dollar push to become a regional military power.
As President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the landmark pact Thursday, the World Bank released a study showing that almost 40% of the world's malnourished children live in India.
Bush administration officials say the nuclear accord, which must be approved by Congress, is partly aimed at strengthening India so it can serve as a counterbalance to neighboring China. However, development experts here said the strategy ignores the plight of several hundred million Indians mired in poverty.
"I think the Western world, and perhaps more so the United States of America, has a feeling that India is a highly developed country," said Babu Mathew, India director of the development agency ActionAid. "So they are reluctant to face the reality of the other side of India, which is millions of people living in poverty."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6119
Energy, Iran Spur Turkey's Revival of Nuclear Plans
By Karl Vick / Washington Post
ISTANBUL -- Turkey is reviving its long-deferred quest for nuclear power, pressed both by serious energy shortfalls within its own borders and by strident nuclear ambitions in neighboring Iran that threaten to upset a regional balance of power.
"The rise in oil prices and the need for multiple sources of energy make our need for nuclear energy an utmost priority," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said last month in announcing plans to build as many as five atomic energy plants. The first, to be located on the Black Sea at Sinop, would come on line in 2012 and ease Turkey's costly dependence on natural gas, 90 percent of which arrives by pipeline from Russia and Iran.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6117
Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War
He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread.
By Borzou Daragahi / LA Times
BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon.
In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6120
Gonzales May Be Recalled on Eavesdropping
By Katherine Shrader / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' written answers to questions about the Bush administration's eavesdropping program may require him to testify a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel's Republican chairman said Monday.
"There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters.
The comments from the moderate Republican come as the Bush administration is trying to quell criticism of its surveillance operations and work with the Senate on legislation that would write the program into law.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6109
Leave Cindy ALONE. She is getting used to being abused. It won't be long before someone hands her a jail sentence and then we'll have a grieving mother and a divorced spouse as a Global Example of how the USA treats women who seek peace and not war. This is not a game. Cindy Sheehan feels strongly about this issue. Treat her with respect. Bush needs to realize all his coalition members are leaving. They aren't a part of the internal strife of Iraqi politics.
Peace activist Sheehan arrested in NY protest
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in the Iraq war, was arrested with three other protesters in New York on Monday after a rally with women from Iraq.
Sheehan became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement last summer after she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch and has been arrested at least two other times at protests.
On Monday, she had joined a delegation of women from Iraq at the rally at the United Nations, urging the United Nations to help prevent civil war in Iraq.
About 20 protesters went to the U.S. mission to the United Nations to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures seeking an end to the war. Nobody from the mission received them so Sheehan and three other American women sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.
A police spokesman said they were expected to be released later on Monday.
The Iraqi women plan to deliver a petition to the White House on Wednesday. Earlier they held a news conference at U.N. headquarters calling for the United States to withdraw its forces.
Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at Baghdad's Yarmook Teaching Hospital, wept as she told reporters of the hardships experienced by Iraqi women.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," she said. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
"We thank you, Mr. Bush, for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she said.
(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6105
Daily Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
Associated Press
As of Monday, March 6, 2006, at least 2,301 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 1,805 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is three lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 103 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one death each.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
A soldier died Sunday in western Anbar province.
The latest identifications reported by the military:
Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, Finksburg, Md.; died Friday in a vehicle accident in Anbar province, Iraq; assigned to Combat Service Support Group-1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6108
The Times-Picayune
2006 rebuilding effort based on 1959 study
Corps says legal restrictions most likely hindered updated approach
Corps ignored crucial levee data
Reports showed need for higher defenses
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bob Marshall and Mark Schleifstein
Staff writers
Weather data showing the need to raise the height of levees to defend New Orleans against stronger hurricanes was not incorporated in Army Corps of Engineers designs, even though the agency was informed of the new calculations as early as 1972, government records show.
The heights of floodwalls and levees now being rebuilt by the corps are based on research for a likely worst-case storm done in 1959. When new weather service research in the 1970s increased the size and intensity of that storm and its projected surges, the corps stuck to its original design specifications when work began in the 1980s, including for structures that failed during Hurricane Katrina.
Corps headquarters officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. New Orleans District engineers now involved in reassessing the area's hurricane protection system said the lack of changes in the past probably can be traced the corps' legal restriction to building only what Congress authorizes.
"I can only guess, but what I think you'll find is that since the authorization (in the legislation) never changed, then the people involved felt they couldn't change" design specifications, said Janis Hote, a corps engineer who, like most of the local staff, was not involved in those earlier projects.
Had the changes been incorporated in corps planning starting in 1972, they almost certainly would have resulted in higher or stronger structures in some areas, hurricane researchers said. Though the project was authorized in 1965, financing problems and court battles delayed much of the construction until 1982, and the designs for many structures that failed during Katrina were not completed until the late 1980s and early '90s.
It is unclear how much levees and floodwalls would have been raised had the changes been acted upon, researchers said, because interpretations of the changes depend largely on the type of computer models being used to predict storm surge height. However, they agreed the new data would have certainly included predictions of higher water, which would have required higher levees and walls.
"If you increase the intensity of a storm, and you run it on the same track through the same area at the same speed, you'll increase the (storm) surge," said Will Shaffer, a storm modeler who designs the storm surge model used by the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for forecasting and emergency planning.
LSU revisits reports
Staffers at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who reviewed the 1972 and 1979 reports produced by the weather service for use by the corps in designing levees along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, estimated the stronger storm outlined in the reports would have raised the so-called "standard project hurricane" to the equivalent of a Category 4, rather than the fast-moving Category 3 generally associated with the 1959 parameters. The standard project hurricane was designed to be "the most severe combination of meteorological conditions that are considered characteristic" of the area.
Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge modeler at LSU, said the increased intensity outlined in the 1979 report would have raised the predicted storm surge along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet from 22 feet to 30 feet. During Katrina much of St. Bernard Parish suffered catastrophic flooding when long sections of the 17.5-foot-high MR-GO levee were topped and collapsed by storm surges that the corps has measured at 18.5 feet.
The Industrial Canal, meanwhile, was topped and collapsed by a peak storm surge that the corps measured at 15.9 feet. That breach destroyed much of the Lower 9th Ward and contributed to flooding in parts of St. Bernard Parish.
It is unclear whether higher floodwalls would have prevented the breaches at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals that put much of the rest of New Orleans underwater. Forensic engineers working with the National Science Foundation have said weak soil layers beneath the floodwalls failed when the canals began filling with water, causing the breaches.
Ivor van Heerden, assistant director of the LSU Hurricane Center and a frequent critic of the corps, said the authorization issue should not have prevented the corps from changing design specifications based on updated information.
"The legislation never mentions a standard project hurricane. That was something the engineers came up with to define the most severe threat," he said. "There is no reason they could not have changed."
In 1965, Congress authorized the corps to develop a system to protect the New Orleans area from "the most severe meteorological conditions that are considered reasonably characteristic of the region," giving birth to the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project.
Limited range of storms
To determine what those conditions were, the corps relied on a study of worst-case hurricanes developed by the Weather Bureau -- today the National Weather Service -- for the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. The Weather Bureau looked only at storms that occurred between 1900 and 1957 for the New Orleans area.
That search produced the hypothetical standard project hurricane for New Orleans, which was adopted by the corps, with some revisions, as the basis of its levee and floodwall designs. It had a central pressure of at least 27.6 inches of mercury, maximum sustained winds of 100 mph in a radius of at least 30 miles, and a forward speed of between 4 and 28 mph. And it had a 1 in 200 chance of occurring in any year.
The corps then determined that such a hurricane could create a maximum storm surge of 11.2 feet at locations in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, based on the shape of the lake bottom and ability of water to enter the lake from Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico. Surge heights for other sections, using the same storm data, were 12.5 feet for Mandeville, 11.9 feet for Chalmette, 12.5 feet for the Citrus and eastern New Orleans back levees, and 13 feet in the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes.
The target date to complete the Lake Pontchartrain levee project was 1978.
As meteorological science improved, the Weather Bureau felt compelled to revisit its definition of the standard project hurricane. Improved data collection led to the discovery of 50 more tropical storms than had been counted in the 1959 report.
In June 1972 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a preliminary report making its first update of the standard project hurricane, dropping the pressure to 27.3 inches, which increased the storm's strength, and increasing the wind speed to 114 mph and the frequency of return from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.
In September 1979 the National Weather Service issued a final report establishing new criteria for the standard project hurricane. By then hurricane specialists had expanded the list of variables considered critical to measuring storm impacts, including the radius of the maximum sustained winds and the forward speed of the storm. It also changed the way maximum sustained winds were measured.
Those changes resulted in a new standard project hurricane with sustained winds as high as 140 mph, according to van Heerden.
Outdated standard used
Had those new parameters been plugged into the Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring storm intensity that made its debut in 1969, the 1972 changes would have equaled a Category 4 storm with surges between 13 and 18 feet, van Heerden said. The 1978 changes would have pushed the standard project hurricane to a Category 5 level, with surges above 18 feet, he said.
"The corps has consistently been saying the standard project hurricane (in its design documents) related roughly to a fast-moving Category 3 storm, but we can see that is plainly not the case," van Heerden said. "The Saffir-Simpson scale was in wide use by 1979, but there's no indication (in the design documents for the projects) that the corps took this into consideration."
As evolving storm science raised the severity of the threat, the corps continued to use the now-outdated standard project hurricane parameters set in 1959, even as its timeline for construction had been delayed into the late '90s.
For example, the corps' 1984 design memorandum for improving New Orleans' lakefront levees says the engineering criteria are based on the frequency of return of 1 in 300 years, pressure at 27.6 inches, wind speed at 100 mph and a surge of 11.5 feet.
The same references to the standard project hurricane established by the 1965 legislation are repeated for floodwall projects on the London Avenue Canal project in 1989 and the 17th Street Canal in 1990.
The first changes found in the parameters for the standard project hurricane in local corps hurricane projects come with a 2000 plan for the West Bank. The agency's planning includes the 1979 standard project hurricane parameters, as well as science on the impact of sea level rise to levee heights.
Although the corps' design documents between 1972 and 2000 don't reflect awareness of the changes, other government reports related to those projects did.
In a 1982 report to the secretary of the Army titled "Improved Planning Needed By The Corps of Engineers to Resolve Environmental, Technical And Financial Issues On The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project," the General Accounting Office -- now the Government Accountability Office -- says: "Subsequent to project authorization and based on the Weather Bureau's new data pertaining to hurricane severity, the Corps determined that the levees along the three drainage canals which drain major portions of New Orleans and empty into Lake Pontchartrain are not high enough since they are subject to overflow by hurricane surges."
Other GAO reports indicate the corps actually was lowering its levee heights even as the new science was raising the heights of expected storm surges.
In a 1976 report on the project, the GAO said the corps expected levees to range between 16 feet and 18.5 feet. But by the time the 1982 report was issued, those averages had been dropped to between 13.5 feet and 16.5 feet -- even though by then, based on weather service reports, the possible storm surge for the standard project hurricane had been increased to more than 18 feet.
Neither the National Weather Service nor corps officials could shed light on why the changed parameters were not reflected in the corps project specifications. A weather service spokesman said current staffers either were not at the agency then or were uninvolved in writing the reports.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539. Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141802754126640.xml
Panel defies Bush, loosens La.'s grip on storm grants
Other states swoop in for more money
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the House Appropriations Committee have stripped President Bush's request to earmark $4.2 billion for housing recovery in Louisiana, throwing the state's rebuilding plan into question and unleashing a scramble among hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast states for a cut of the money.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141803370126640.xml
Katrina remains from Carville are back in Orleans
DNA-matching work continues
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Hundreds of sets of human remains found in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have come home to the parish coroner's office after undergoing DNA testing at a temporary morgue in Carville.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141800945126640.xml
Population up 35% in December to January
But New Orleans remains far from its pre-Katrina number
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
New Orleans' population was just above 180,000 at the end of January, up 35 percent from the early December figure of about 134,000, according to the latest estimate from the city's Emergency Operations Center.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141801130126640.xml
Iran threatens U.S. with 'harm and pain'
3/8/2006, 6:16 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" on Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its suspect nuclear program.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141820968298530.xml&storylist=topstories
U.N. urged to take action against Iran
3/8/2006, 5:37 a.m. CT
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The United States and its European allies said Wednesday that Iran's intransigence over its nuclear program has left the world no choice but to ask for the U.N. Security Council to take action against the Islamic regime.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141814355111000.xml&storylist=topstories
Afghan poppy eradication campaign launched
3/8/2006, 6:11 a.m. CT
By NOOR KHAN
The Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Narcotic agents on tractors launched a massive campaign Wednesday to destroy fields of poppies in the main drug belt of Afghanistan — the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, officials said.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-15/1141821001298530.xml&storylist=topstories
Sudan warns of spreading Darfur violence
3/8/2006, 6:18 a.m. CT
By ANTHONY MITCHELL
The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region will spread if a U.N. peacekeeping mission replaces a beleaguered African Union force, a senior Sudanese government official warned Wednesday.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1141820965298530.xml&storylist=topstories
New Zealand Herald
UK kindergartens bleat about nursery rhyme
08.03.06 3.20pm
Kindergartens in Britain have sparked controversy by changing the lyrics of a traditional nursery rhyme.
Instead of "Baa Baa Black Sheep", toddlers at the kindergartens in Oxfordshire chant "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep."
Supporters argue the original words alienate and offend young black children.
Parents of the children are understood to be unhappy about the move.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371621
NZ contributes to $65m aid for Palestinians
08.03.06 1.00pm
JERUSALEM - New Zealand has made a contribution towards an aid package to help the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.
The World Bank approved a US$42 million ($65 million) aid package to help the Authority until Islamic militant group Hamas forms the next government.
An NZAID spokeswoman said the $500,000 from New Zealand was a standard humanitarian assistance allocation.
"The Palestinian Authority is facing a fiscal short-fall and NZAID has supported governance reform efforts and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people," the spokeswoman said. "It's basically for humanitarian efforts."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371625
Shi'ites seek delay to break impasse over PM
08.03.06 4.20pm
By Waleed Ibrahim and Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD - The United States conceded today that Iraq could yet descend into sectarian civil war as US diplomats strove to break a deadlock among Iraqi political leaders that threatens further delay in opening a parliament.
"We have opened the Pandora's box," US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The question is, what is the way forward?" he asked, speaking two weeks after the bombing of a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra sparked days of bloodshed that killed hundreds.
"If another incident (occurs), Iraq is really vulnerable," the envoy, who is at the heart of talks to forge a coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, told the Los Angeles Times. "The way forward ... is an effort to build bridges across communities."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371640
UK troops plan Iraqi pullout by mid-2008
07.03.06 4.00pm
LONDON - Britain plans to pull out nearly all its soldiers from Iraq by the summer of 2008, with the first withdrawals within weeks, a top military commander said in an interview published today.
Lieutenant General Nick Houghton, Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, outlined a phased two-year withdrawal plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
"There is a fine line between staying too long and leaving too soon," he was quoted as saying. "A military transition over two years has a reasonable chance of avoiding the pitfalls of overstaying our welcome but gives us the best opportunity of consolidating the Iraqi security forces."
Britain has given no firm timetable for the withdrawal of its 8,000 troops in Iraq, based in and around the southern port of Basra.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371465
US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress
08.03.06 11.20am
By Robin Pomeroy
ROME - A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.
According to an Italian court document obtained by Reuters today, James Michael Brown, a 27-year-old paratrooper from Oregon stationed in northern Italy, was sentenced to five years and eight months for rape in February 2004.
Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371606
Moussaoui's lies led to 9/11 deaths says prosecutor
08.03.06
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - Federal prosecutors argued yesterday that even though September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail during the attacks he should be executed because his lies led to the deaths of 3,000 people.
But one of his court-appointed lawyers said executing Moussaoui would only make him a martyr because many al Qaeda members only "live so that they can die."
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April to six counts, three of which carry the death penalty. The charges included conspiracy to commit terrorism.
"Please don't make him a hero," defence attorney Edward MacMahon said at the start of the trial to determine Moussaoui's sentence. "He just doesn't deserve it."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371550
US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s, FBI agent says
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The US government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said today.
FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the US government knew by the mid 1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries.
Operatives at the training camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained in how to avoid detection, he said.
At that time, the US government was tracking several top al Qaeda members, Anticev said, and between 1996 and 1998 made an attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the man who has been described as the brains behind the September 11 hijackings.
Anticev said the attempt, made "somewhere in the Middle East", failed after Mohammed was apparently tipped off.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371605
This is great. Families get relief there are pictures (Hi, Mom) of people who should not be hostages in the first place. Iraq has turned out to be the Islamic Heaven on Earth everyone has hoped for.
Family relieved at hostage video
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Ian Stuart
The Auckland family of hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden said today they were enormously relieved to see him looking in apparent good health on newly released video footage.
Mr Sooden's brother-in-law Mark Brewer said they were "pleased and relieved he is still alive but saddened the saga continues".
Mr Sooden, a Canadian citizen who lived and studied in Auckland, was captured in Baghdad along with Canadian James Loney, Norman Kember of Britain and American Tom Fox in November last year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371609
I am beginning to get the feeling Iran has no nuclear capacity, but, only threats of such. North Korea uses this type of strategy to get monies and garner favors it normally would not get otherwise.
Russia denies Iran atom offer
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Mark Heinrich and Parisa Hafezi
VIENNA - Russia today backed away from what EU diplomats said was a proposal to let Iran do some atomic research if it agreed to refrain from enriching uranium on an industrial scale for 7-9 years.
Russia abandoned the informal proposal, aimed at finding a compromise to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Western rejection of the idea.
The United States and the European Union want Iran to shelve all work to enrich uranium because of suspicions that Tehran is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371612
N Korea says it won't be forced back into talks
08.03.06 4.00pm
TOKYO - North Korea will not return to six-way talks on its nuclear programme unless the United States ends its financial crackdown on Pyongyang's assets, the Kyodo news agency has quoted a senior North Korean official as saying.
Washington has cracked down on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in counterfeiting and money laundering that it says help fund the North's nuclear programmes.
"Under such pressure, we cannot return to the six-way talks. Our position has not changed," Kyodo quoted Ri Gun, North Korea's deputy chief envoy to the talks, as saying.
He was in New York following separate talks with US officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371642
Two security staff arrested over UK robbery
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Jason Bennetto
Two members of staff at the security firm targeted in Britain's biggest robbery have been arrested - leading to the suspicion that the raiders had inside help.
The man and woman, who were sub-contracted to work for Securitas, were questioned about the £53m robbery at Tonbridge in Kent, police said yesterday.
Police have also revealed that they suspect that some gang members have fled abroad with a significant amount of the stolen cash.
So far detectives have recovered about £20m of the record haul.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371604
PhD graduate Melbourne's youngest at 21
08.03.06 1.00pm
A former New Zealand student has become the youngest PhD graduate at Melbourne University, at the age of 21.
Yao-ban Chan started work on his undergraduate degree at the age of 10 while he was being home-schooled.
Mr Chan moved to Melbourne from New Zealand when he was 16.
"I always liked maths, I always found it fun," Mr Chan told The Age newspaper.
He was born in Malaysia and raised in New Zealand and was largely home-schooled by his mother Peck-Woon, a microbiologist, and father George, a director with Heinz.
He completed his bachelor of information science by correspondence in six years.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371630
Pope appeals for release of kidnapped toddler
08.03.06 12.20pm
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict today appealed for the release of a sick 18-month old toddler whose mysterious kidnapping has gripped Italy.
The Pope, in a message to a bishop in northern Italy, called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Tommaso Onofri and said he was praying for the boy's suffering parents.
The Pope condemned the kidnapping as "brutal" and said he was close to the family.
Tommaso, who needs an anti-convulsive medicine twice a day, was abducted by two men who broke into the family home last Friday in Casalbaroncolo near the wealthy city of Parma in northern Italy.
The boy's mother has appeared on television in tears to urge kidnappers to give him regular doses of an anti-epilepsy drug.
The Onofri family is not rich and investigators say that no ransom has been demanded so far.
Pictures of wide-eyed, curly-haired Tommaso wearing a blue and red clown costume, have been splashed on the front pages of all newspapers as politicians, priests, pop stars and football players have appealed for his release.
The anti-Mafia police have also joined the probe after a jailed pentito, or informer, said he had heard of a plot to kidnap someone in the area.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371615
Hollow victory as rural China battles march of capitalism
08.03.06
By Clifford Coonan
IN ZHEJIANG, CHINA - Si Xiaoyan weeps as she tells how her husband, Liu Huirong, was sentenced to five years in jail for taking part in riots last year in the town of Huaxi over the illegal granting of land rights to 13 chemical factories.
"I miss him," says Si, 31, tears streaming from behind her glasses as we sit in a brick farmhouse in the town in Zhejiang province.
Her sorrow is in contrast to the jubilation in the village in April last year, when 30,000 farmers stopped 1500 police from entering Huaxi and the farmers won the battle.
Huaxi became famous among activists in China, one of the first of many disturbances as rampant industrialisation led to clashes between the authorities and those left behind - the farmers and migrant workers who make up two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371531
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