March 21, 2005.
Albion, Nebraska.
Photographer writes :: CAN YOU FIND THE CAR?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
It looks like they sent out the sled dogs.
March 21, 2005.
Albion, Nebraska.
Photographer writes :: CAN YOU FIND THE CAR?
Aftermath of the storm
By the numbers
11.5 — inches of snow reported in Lincoln, according to the National Weather Service.
3 — lives claimed on Nebraska roads during storm.
6 — people who landed in Lincoln emergency rooms due to snowblower accidents.
64 — accidents reported in Lincoln Tuesday.
80 — city workers clearing the streets Tuesday.$125,000 to $150,000 — estimated cost per day to clean up 11.5 inches of snow.
11.5 — inches of snow reported in Lincoln, according to the National Weather Service.
3 — lives claimed on Nebraska roads during storm.
6 — people who landed in Lincoln emergency rooms due to snowblower accidents.
64 — accidents reported in Lincoln Tuesday.
80 — city workers clearing the streets Tuesday.$125,000 to $150,000 — estimated cost per day to clean up 11.5 inches of snow.
Life's celebrations are beautiful in other countries. This is Valencia, Span.
In the USA it is all about fundamentalist values and war.
March 18, 2006
Photographer states :: "Streets of Lights" picture title.
Arches of specially lighted streets lead from one Falla to the next in Valencia during 'The Fallas' ... the last four days of winter.
Morning Papers - continued ...
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Candidate chooses Jersey Traffic over own fundraiser with Cheney
Cheney at Fund-Raiser, but Not With the Candidate
By David W. Chen / New York Times
NEWARK, March 20 — In the biggest campaign fund-raiser yet on behalf of State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to New Jersey on Monday and praised Mr. Kean as someone with "the experience, the values and the vision to be a superb United States senator."
But there was one problem: Mr. Kean was a no-show.
Actually, Mr. Kean did show up at the event, which was held at the offices of the IDT Corporation in downtown Newark. But he did not make it until 6:15, roughly 15 minutes after Mr. Cheney's motorcade had left.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6273
Four influential Latino peace activists will lead a 241 mile quest for peace!
Citizens for Pablo
Main Contacts:
Pablo Paredes (619) 857-4947
pablopare@gmail.com
Victor Paredes (917) 864-9179
vicparedes@msn.com
On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 241 mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.
Latinos represent nearly 15% of the US population, 11% of the US military and an estimated 20% of the fallen service members in the first months of the invasion of Iraq. The Latino population is a growing force in the US and their voice must be an active part of the more than 60% of US citizens that oppose the war in Iraq. That’s why on March 12th, 4 Latinos of different ages, nationalities and hometowns will come together to lead the Latino community in a loud and definitive call for an end to the war in Iraq. Because of their unique experiences with this war; Fernando, Pablo, Camilo and Aidan are dedicated to working to end the bloodshed in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5919
Agent Faults FBI on 9/11
The man who caught Zacarias Moussaoui testifies that higher-ups blocked his efforts to determine whether there was a larger plot.
By Richard A. Serrano / Los Angeles Times
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States.
During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit — a witness for the prosecution — accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI.
His testimony appeared to undermine the prosecution's case for the death penalty. Prosecutors argue that had Moussaoui cooperated by identifying some of the 19 hijackers, the FBI could have alerted airport security and kept them off the planes.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6274
Fairbanks, AK; Phoenix, AZ; Little Rock, AR; Claremont, CA (VIDEO); Fresno, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Sacramento, CA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA (PHOTOS); Ventura, CA; Walnut Creek, CA; Denver, CO; Pueblo, CO; New Haven, CT; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Melbourne, FL; Pensacola, FL; Weeki Wachee, FL; West Palm Beach, FL; Batavia, IL; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Louisville, KY; Nicholasville, KY; New Orleans, LA; Boston, MA; Roxbury, MA; Flint, MI; Grand Rapids, MI; Traverse City, MI; Duluth, MN; Lincoln, NE; Reno, NV; Concord, NH; Bloomfield, NJ; Englewood, NJ; Morristown, NJ; Trenton, NJ; Santa Fe, NM; Buffalo, NY; Nanuet, NY; New Paltz, NY; New York, NY; Rochester, NY; Saratoga Springs, NY; Fayetteville, NC; Winston-Salem, NC; Columbus, OH; Corvallis, OR; Eugene, OR ...
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Former Gitmo Detainees Speak of Abuse
By Foster Klug / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - America risks convicting the innocent and letting the guilty evade justice in how it handles detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military attorney defending an Australian terror suspect held at the U.S. prison camp said Monday.
Maj. Michael Mori, a Marine Corps lawyer, told an audience at George Washington University that no civilized justice system would accept "information being acquired potentially under torture or questionable methods."
Mori spoke after several former detainees recounted their experiences at the camp, which holds roughly 500 prisoners. Most were taken in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mori's client, David Hicks, was caught in December 2001, allegedly while fighting alongside Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime. He has pleaded innocent to charges that include attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6277
Iraqi residents say bodies in video from US raid
By Ali al-Mashhadani / Reuters
A video of civilians who may have been killed by U.S. Marines in an Iraqi town in November showed residents describing a rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.
A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organization for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue. The chief doctor at Haditha's hospital, Waleed al-Obaidi, said the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.
Most residents interviewed by Reuters in Haditha on Tuesday echoed accusations by residents in the video that U.S. Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.
They said the Marines opened fire on houses. "I saw a soldier standing outside a house and he opened fire on the house," said one resident, who did not want to be identified.
Time magazine published allegations on Monday that U.S. Marines killed civilians in Haditha after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. It published detailed accounts by people in the town, west of Baghdad.
A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. Time said the main question facing the probe was whether the "Marines killing of 15 non-combatants was an act of legitimate self-defense or negligent homicide."
Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, is in Anbar province, an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents whose campaign to topple the Iraqi government has killed thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians.
On November 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.
U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.
TRUCK PILED WITH CORPSES
Time magazine said this week the video of the corpses it provided to the military in January had prompted the revision.
Accusations that American soldiers often kill innocent people have fueled anger at the occupation among Iraqis over the past three years.
The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about three years old.
One man wept and leaned against a wall as he identified a relative and other residents inspected bodies in the morgue. One man's face had been torn apart by bullets, while a blackened corpse was missing legs and forearms.
The video also showed houses with bullet holes in the walls, pieces of human flesh, pools of blood and clothes and pots scattered across floors.
In one home, a young boy wept as he sat beside a corpse and said: "My father. My father."
Some residents blamed U.S. President George W. Bush, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Jalal Talabani. "Is this the democracy Allawi, Talabani and Bush are talking about?" one resident asked.
Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani, head of Hammurabi, said U.S. Marines had killed 15 people in Haditha after the roadside bomb attack. The group's Haditha branch said it got the video from a local man.
Mashhadani said he had brought the case to the attention of the United Nations office in Baghdad. "These violations of human rights happen every day in Iraq," he told Reuters.
On Tuesday, residents of Haditha had similar accounts to those on the video.
"This room had a family of eight inside, children and their father and mother," one man said of his relatives who were killed in their home. Another resident confirmed his account, saying one of the children was three years old.
"They are all gone," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6280
FREEWAY BLOGGERS IMPEACHMENT PROJECT
http://www.freewayblogger.com/impeachment_project2.htm
Senator blasts U.S. war strategy
RUMSFELD SHOULD GO, FEINSTEIN DECLARES
By Phil Yost / Mercury News
President Bush needs a new team to chart a different course in Iraq, starting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Monday.
``Secretary Rumsfeld is a very strong leader, and I don't think he listens to many people,'' said the Democratic senator in a question and answer session after a luncheon speech to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. ``It's a problem, and his way hasn't worked so we need to try another way.''
It was the first time she had called for Rumsfeld to be replaced. In her speech, Feinstein said the United States needs to ``transition the mission'' by reducing the number of American soldiers in Iraq so that the U.S. military can fight terror more effectively in other countries such as Afghanistan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6275
Who handled the handler?
Dog Handler Guilty of Inmate Abuse at Abu Ghraib
By David Stout and Eric Schmitt / New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 21 — An Army dog handler was found guilty today of abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by frightening them with his unmuzzled Belgian shepherd for his own amusement.
A military jury found the defendant, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, guilty of 6 of the 13 counts lodged against him, although the judge said later that he would not consider one of the six counts in determining sentence because it duplicated another. Sergeant Smith could face more than eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. Had he been convicted of all counts, he would have been subject to more than 24 years in prison.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6278
The Boston Globe
Bush says Iraq pullout up to 'future presidents'
Warns leaving too soon would boost Al Qaeda
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- President Bush suggested yesterday that US troops might stay in Iraq beyond his presidency, which ends in 2009, saying at a press conference that the issue of removing troops from the country ''will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
The president, responding to aggressive questioning at the hastily arranged morning session, declined to give a timetable for pulling US soldiers out of the increasingly unpopular war. But he warned several times about the danger of a ''premature" withdrawal.
''There's no question that if we were to prematurely withdraw and the march to democracy were to fail, then Al Qaeda would be emboldened," Bush said. ''Terrorist groups would be emboldened. The Islamo-fascists would be emboldened."
Asked whether his comments signaled that a complete pullout would not happen during the three remaining years of his presidency, Bush said the decision would be left up to the generals ''on the ground" in Iraq.
Bush's comments -- widely seen as an attempt to shift public expectations away from the notion of a quick pullout -- dovetailed with comments yesterday by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the leading US ally in the war.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/22/bush_says_iraq_pullout_up_to_future_presidents/
Gabrieli readies run for governor
Hires operatives, cites positive polling
By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff March 22, 2006
Christopher Gabrieli, saying he is ''strongly leaning" toward a campaign for governor, has hired a team of experienced political operatives and conducted a poll of Democratic convention delegates that suggests he could have a shot at winning a spot on the September primary ballot.
Gabrieli, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002, said yesterday that he is encouraged by a survey he commissioned. The poll indicates that about a third of the convention delegates elected at caucuses in February are uncommitted to other candidates, Gabrieli said.
If he can secure the signatures of 500 convention delegates, he will need support from 15 percent of the projected 5,300 party activists who will gather in Worcester June 2-3 to qualify for the primary ballot.
The survey of about 2,000 delegates suggests that Deval Patrick has a 3-to-1 lead over Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, according to Gabrieli adviser Joe Ganley. Reilly was slightly above the 15 percent mark, and Patrick was just below the 50 percent needed for the convention endorsement, Ganley said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/22/gabrieli_readies_run_for_governor/
Missing family found alive after 2 weeks
This undated family photo show the Stivers family who disappeared more than two weeks ago after setting out on an overnight trip in a recreational vehicle, were found Tuesday, March 21, 2006, in a mountainous area of southwestern Oregon. Shown left to right are Sabastyan, Peter, Marlo and Gabrayell. The two parents were found first after they had left their stranded recreational vehicle on Monday to seek help. Rescuers then located the RV and the four others, including two children. (AP Photo Family Photo via The Daily Tidings)
By Joseph B. Frazier, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
GLENDALE, Ore. --A family that disappeared more than two weeks ago after leaving for a short trip in an RV was found alive Tuesday in a remote area of southwestern Oregon.
Two adults were found after they left the RV, which had gotten stuck in snow, to seek help. Hours later, rescuers located the others and they were reunited in Glendale, about 80 miles north of the California border.
"I love you, baby," Marlo Hill-Stivers told her daughter, Gabrayell, 8, as the reunion was carried live on television.
"I love you too, mommy," she replied.
Peter Stivers, resting his hands on the shoulders of his 9-year-old son, Sabastyan, said the kids had fun: "They didn't know we were in trouble."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/22/missing_family_found_alive_after_2_weeks/
Nagin says New Orleans is better prepared
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin answers questions during an interview in his office at City Hall in New Orleans Tuesday, March 21, 2006. Nagin answered a wide range of questions concerning his personal life as well as his political future, and naturally Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)
By Michelle Roberts, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
NEW ORLEANS --Determined to avoid a repeat of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, Mayor Ray Nagin says the city has improved its plans for evacuating residents during the upcoming hurricane season.
Residents would be bused away from the city rather than to shelters like the Superdome, where residents were stuck for days after Katrina hit. Locals also would be more likely to comply with evacuation orders now, Nagin said.
"People are pretty attuned to leaving if I say you have to leave, so I don't see that as being as much of a challenge," Nagin said.
In an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, Nagin said New Orleans is better prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of stronger flood walls and better evacuation plans after Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/22/nagin_says_new_orleans_is_better_prepared/
Iran leader sanctions Iraq talks with US
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in Mashhad, March 21, 2006. (REUTERS/Stringer)
March 22, 2006
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday sanctioned talks with the United States on Iraq, saying Iranian officials would tell the U.S. to leave the country.
"If Iranian officials can express Iran's opinion about Iraq to Americans and make them understand Iran's views, talks on this issue are not problematic," Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, said in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
"But if (talks) mean opening up an arena for deceitful Americans to continue their bullying attitude, talks with America on Iraq are banned," he said in a televised speech.
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday Washington would make clear in the talks, expected this week, that it would not accept attempts to spread sectarian violence in Iraq.
Tehran denies U.S. charges it is helping inflame sectarian violence in Iraq and that some components of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used by insurgents in Iraq have been traced to Iran.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/22/iran_leader_sanctions_iraq_talks_with_us_1143024767/
Charges dropped in Fla. student sex case
In this July 18, 2005, file photo, former middle school teacher Debra Lafave waits for the start of a hearing at the Hillsborough County Courthouse in Tampa, Fla. State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against Lafave, who was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)
By Mitch Stacy, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
TAMPA, Fla. --A former teacher sentenced to three years of house arrest for having sex with a 14-year-old student in one Florida county won't face charges in another.
Prosecutors in Marion County decided to drop charges Tuesday after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have kept Debra Lafave out of prison.
Prosecutors, defense attorneys and the victim's mother urged the judge to accept the deal so the boy wouldn't have to testify. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge previously that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case.
Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court."
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/03/22/charges_dropped_in_fla_student_sex_case/
Panel weighs new warnings on ADHD drugs
By Andrew Bridges, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON --A month after advisers told the government some attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs should bear stronger warnings of cardiovascular risks, officials are asking a second panel whether to add warnings about psychosis or mania.
Small numbers of reports of adverse psychiatric events, including hallucinations, in children are associated with all of the increasingly popular drugs used to treat ADHD, according to recently released Food and Drug Administration documents.
The FDA is asking its pediatric advisory committee to review those reports and then recommend how to communicate the potential risks to doctors and parents. It's asking the same about a report of increased risks of heart attack, stroke and hypertension associated with some ADHD drugs.
The panel was to meet Wednesday.
Last month, the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management advisory committee voted to recommend adding "black-box" warnings to stimulants used to treat ADHD, alerting doctors, patients and parents of the uncertainty regarding the risk the drugs may pose to the cardiovascular system. The warnings are the most serious that prescription drugs may bear.
The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, but usually does.
The latest reviews show that psychosis or mania can occur in some juvenile patients at normal doses of any ADHD drug. The reviews included roughly 90 studies of the drugs as well as reports from doctors, parents and others.
The ADHD drugs include Ritalin, manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. and in generic form by other companies; Adderall, made by Shire Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Strattera, produced by Eli Lilly and Co.
FDA officials say patients and doctors should be aware that the small number of psychiatric events could represent side effects of the drugs, although they cannot point to a definitive link. However, they noted a "complete absence" of similar reports in children treated with dummy pills during dozens of clinical trials of the drugs. In many children, the events ceased once they stopped taking the drugs -- and resumed if they restarted.
McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals said in briefing documents that it is customary to weigh the "therapeutic benefits and potential risks" of treatment and warned of the negative effects of leaving ADHD untreated. The unit of Johnson & Johnson makes Concerta, a long-acting form of methylphenidate, the drug in Ritalin.
In the United States, nearly 3.3 million people age 19 and younger used an ADHD drug in 2005, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., a prescription drug benefit program manager.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/03/22/panel_weighs_new_warnings_on_adhd_drugs/
Protesters gear up for Canada seal hunt
A harp seal sits on a ice pan in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Tuesday March 21, 2006. The annual harp seal hunt which is expected to begin on the ice floes sometime this week will harvest 325,000 animals this year. (AP Photo/CP, Jonathan Hayward)
By Beth Duff-Brown, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
TORONTO --Protesters, celebrities and fishermen were gearing up for Canada's hotly debated seal hunt, set to get under way later this week in the gulf off the Atlantic Ocean.
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has given a cold shoulder to French film legend Brigitte Bardot, who intends to visit Ottawa on Wednesday to implore the federal government to end the regulated slaughter of some 325,000 harp seals.
Hearn told the St. John's Telegram in Newfoundland, where the largest leg of the hunt takes place, that he turned down a request by Bardot to meet during her visit.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also turned down a meeting.
Fisheries officials and sealers say the annual hunt provides badly needed income for the isolated fishing communities in Atlantic Canada, as well as food and shelter for the aboriginal Inuits in the Arctic North.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/groups_prepare_for_contested_seal_hunt/
Bottled water big for multinationals
Women carry drinking water at Mohanpur, in the eastern Indian state of Tripura, Tuesday, March 21, 2006. March 22 is observed as World Water Day. (AP Photo/Ramakanta Dey)
By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
MEXICO CITY --Violent protests have driven away corporate investment in desperately needed municipal water systems in developing nations. So the world's poor buy bottled water from Coke, Pepsi and other multinational companies.
"Water is not for sale," demonstrators chanted at the World Water Forum this week. But they couldn't be more wrong -- private companies make much more money selling bottled water than they ever did developing public water systems. Companies also stand to benefit from a renewed push for big dams in the Third World.
So even though just about everybody, from CEOs to aid workers, spoke out against the privatization of water, the apparent victory for anti-corporate forces may prove hollow.
"Nobody is talking about privatizing a resource," said Mexico's Environment Secretary Jose Luis Luege. "That is something inalienable, sovereign."
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/bottled_water_big_for_multinationals/
Group backs grizzlies on endangered list
*FILE** This is an undated handout photo showing a Grizzly bear inside Yellowstone National Park provided by the national Park Service. (AP Photo/National Park Service, File)
By Becky Bohrer, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
BILLINGS, Mont. --More than 250 scientists and researchers have signed a letter protesting a federal proposal to no longer protect grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area under the Endangered Species Act.
The letter dated Monday was addressed to Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator. Servheen has said he expects a final decision on the proposal by year's end or early next year.
Among those signing the letter were primatologist Jane Goodall and bear researchers Chuck Jonkel and John Craighead Sr.
The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in November "delisting" bears in the Yellowstone area, declaring them recovered. The bears currently are classified as threatened.
The agency said the population has grown 4 percent to 7 percent a year since the mid-'90s, and it estimated the number of bears at more than 600.
The scientists and researchers said in their letter that an isolated population of 500 to 600 bears does not constitute a biologically recovered one.
A population of 2,000 to 3,000 is needed for genetic diversity and to withstand regional variations such as food sources, they said. A smaller one is likely to go extinct, they argued.
In a conference call Monday, three researchers also questioned the accuracy of the agency's population estimates.
Monday marked the end of the comment period on the proposal.
Seth Willey, acting recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional office in Denver, said the agency has received about 160,000 comments, many from "recognized academics" who have worked on the issue for years.
The proposal affects bears in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and surrounding national forests in parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/group_backs_grizzlies_on_endangered_list/
Ancient sarcophagus unearthed in Cyprus
Workers of Antiquities Department work in the ancient tomb in Kouklia village near the coastal town of Paphos, Cyprus, southwest of capital Nicosia about 130 kilometers (80 miles) on Thursday, March 16, 2006. A very rare, 2,500-year-old stone coffin with well-preserved color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus. The white-stone sarcophagus was accidentally discovered by construction workers last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia. The artifact dated to 500 B.C., when Greek cultural influence was gaining a firm hold on the eastern Mediterranean island. (AP Photo/Andreas Lazarou)
By George Psyllides, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
NICOSIA, Cyprus --A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.
Construction workers found the limestone sarcophagus last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia, in the coastal Paphos area. The tomb, which probably belonged to an ancient warrior, had been looted during antiquity.
"The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colors used," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department.
Only two similar sarcophagi have ever been discovered in Cyprus before. One is housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other in the British Museum in London, but their colors are more faded, Flourentzos said.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/ancient_sarcophagus_unearthed_in_cyprus/
New Zealand Herald
Humans blamed for surge in extinctions
22.03.06
OSLO - Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a United Nations report said.
Habitats ranging from coral reefs to tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity said in the report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 UN meeting in Curitiba, Brazil.
"In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of Earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.
Apart from the disappearance of the dinosaurs, the other "Big Five" extinctions were about 205, 250, 375 and 440 million years ago. Scientists suspect that asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions or sudden climate shifts may explain the five.
A rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution, expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of "alien species" and global warming.
It estimated the current pace of extinctions was 1000 times faster than historical rates.
According to a "Red List" compiled by the World Conservation Union, 844 animals and plants are known to have gone extinct in the last 500 years, ranging from the dodo to the golden toad in Costa Rica. It says the figures are probably a big underestimate.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373767
Little threat from Cyclone Wati
22.03.06 8.00am
Tropical Cyclone Wati is unlikely to have much effect on New Zealand.
The category two cyclone is expected to turn away from Australia and may move towards New Zealand.
But MetService forecaster Steve Ready said it was moving slowly and did not pose a threat. "There's nothing imminent and it's days away if it is to have any effect at all."
Yesterday Wati was about 750km off Australia and moving at less than 20km/h.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10373843
Government should follow Parker's lead, says Brash
22.03.06 4.00pm
David Parker did the honourable thing in resigning his Cabinet portfolios but the same standards were not being applied to other aspects of the Government, National leader Don Brash said today.
"I think he did the honourable thing," Dr Brash said.
But the question was why those high standards were not being applied to other ministers -- such as Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope who "misled Parliament" last year.
He also referred to the Prime Minister, given the Labour Party's apparent breach of the Electoral Act with its campaign spending last year, her signing of an artist's painting as her own, and the speeding motorcade.
"We want the same kind of standards applying to other aspects of the Government's behaviour."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10373873
Howard to assess cyclone devastation
22.03.06 12.00pm
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie will visit Innisfail today as the clean-up operation continues in the cyclone-ravaged north of Queensland. Mr Beattie will talk to the Prime Minister about appointing someone to oversee the rebuilding effort.
Mr Howard will tour the devastated north this morning and will announce more about the Commonwealth's response.
"I'll have something more to say both about our assessment of the extent of the damage and also the Federal Government's response," he said.
"We're working very closely with the Queensland Government and all the information I have is that the assistance is getting through very well."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373882
UK police probing Blair's Labour over honours
22.03.06 9.20am
LONDON - British police said today they were investigating Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party in response to complaints related to the country's age-old honours system.
"The Metropolitan Police Service has received three complaints about the Labour party under section 1 of the Honours Act 1925," the police said in a statement. "These allegations are being investigated by the Specialist Crime Directorate."
It was not immediately clear who had made the complaints or what the implications of the probe might be.
Labour has come under fire for accepting loans from businessmen, some of whom were later proposed for honours in the form of seats in the upper house of parliament.
The party has responded by insisting it has not broken the rules on party funding.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373871
Top FBI official unaware of Moussaoui terror ties
22.03.06 2.20pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before Sept. 11 said today he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act.
Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories.
Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3000 people, testified yesterday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack.
Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The trial -- the only one in the United States in connection with the attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373905
September 11 alert was ignored, says FBI agent
22.03.06
ALEXANDRIA - An FBI agent testified in the sentencing trial of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that agency superiors blocked his efforts to flag a possible terror attack.
Harry Samit, who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the airliner hijackings, said he tried to warn that a hijacking might be in the works.
Moussaoui was arrested on August 16, 2001, after raising suspicions at a flight school. Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman had "radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs" and thought he was part of a bigger plot. In an message to his superiors on August 18, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was "conspiring to commit a terrorist act."
Samit warned that Moussaoui had been taking simulator lessons to learn the basics of flying a jumbo jet and could be plotting a possible hijacking.
Samit said he was unable to get authority to seek a warrant in order to search Moussaoui's belongings.
"I am so desperate to get into his computer, I'll take anything," he wrote in an email to Catherine Kiser, an intelligence official, a day before the deadly attacks.
Her response was ominous: "You fought the good fight. God help us all if the next terrorist incident involves the same type of plane."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373766
THIS IS PRECIOUS. BUSH WILL ATTACK IRAN AFTER THEY DROP AN ATOMIC WEAPON ON ISRAEL. With friends like that who needs enemies. These idiots are Jihadists George, they stop at nothing, not even self preservation.
Don't strike Israel, says Bush
22.03.06 7.20am
President George W. Bush issued a stark warning to Iran when he said that America's military would be ordered into action if Tehran attacked Israel.
"I see a threat in Iran. The threat is of course their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. I've made it clear and I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373801
Israel briefly opens Gaza crossing amid shortages
21.03.06 1.20pm
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA - Israel reopened the main goods crossing into Gaza today following warnings of a looming humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, but later closed it citing a security alert.
Six trucks carrying flour and sugar went through the Karni terminal, Palestinian officials said. The amounts were tiny compared with the needs of 1.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they added.
Israel reopened Karni for limited shipments into Gaza after shutting it sporadically in the past two months because of intelligence warnings of impending militant attack.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the crossing was shut again because of an alert. A security source said the crossing was due to open again at 8 am (6.00pm NZT) today but this depended on the security situation there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373707
Ancient Homer pictures discovered in tomb
22.03.06 6.20am
A 2500-year-old sarcophagus with colour illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus.
The tomb features Ulysses in scenes from Iliad and Odyssey.
In one painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373800
Medal winner takes dad on podium – via cellphone
22.03.06 5.45pm
By Dylan Cleaver
When Keisha-Dean Soffe won a medal at the Commonwealth Games today she wanted her father to be there to share it with her.
The only problem was her dad, Blackie, doesn't fly. So Soffe did the next best thing and took him up to the podium with her via her cellphone.
It was an extraordinary sight. Soffe, who had just finished third in the women's 75kg and over weightlifting final had a New Zealand flag draped over one shoulder and the cellphone attached to her ear, waving to her mother Sandra who was in the crowd.
"I was up on the podium talking to him," Soffe said afterwards. "He sounds pretty stoked."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=508&objectid=10373927
Shot Put: Vili throws Commonwealth Games record
22.03.06 10.35pm
MELBOURNE - It was "great shot that" at the Melbourne Cricket Ground tonight, as New Zealander shot putter Valerie Vili made short work of winning Commonwealth Games gold.
Vili, 21, fired good shot after good shot. Her best was a Commonwealth Games record 19.66 metres in the second round.
Even her shortest throw flew into territory no other could reach as she threw Nigerian Vivian Chukwuemeka from the Commonwealth throne.
Chukwuemeka took silver with 18.25m, ahead of Cleopatra Borel-Brown from Trinidad, 17.87m.
In her search for perfection, Vili fouled out throws that would have won minor medals for her rivals. When she sealed victory she signalled her joy with both arms raised.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=19&objectid=10373983
Region will not stockpile bird flu drugs
22.03.06 1.00pm
Bay of Plenty health officials have rejected government advice to stockpile the anti-viral bird flu drug Tamiflu.
The Health Ministry last November asked all district health boards to stock the drug, which can help protect people from potentially deadly bird flu.
And last week the World Health Organisation reaffirmed Tamiflu should be used to treat suspected cases of human bird flu and to prevent the disease in healthcare workers or others who may have been exposed to infection, but clinical trials were lacking to show any effectiveness against the deadly H5N1 virus.
The WHO called for urgent studies to determine optimal doses of Tamiflu to be used against human bird flu.
The H5N1 strain has killed 98 people, roughly half of the 177 who have contracted it since late 2003, and experts fear a pandemic if the disease evolves into a form which can be transmitted easily between humans.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10373888
Poor nations need help fighting bird flu
22.03.06 1.00pm
By Jim Loney
ATLANTA - Fewer than three dozen nations, including New Zealand, are capable of the early detection and quick response needed to contain rapidly spreading bird flu and other viruses that could threaten humans, a health official said today.
Combating the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza, which has killed 103 people worldwide since it reemerged in 2003, has become critical to governments across the globe because experts fear it could become a pandemic that could kill millions and cause catastrophic economic damage.
"Developed countries are in position to practice satisfactory early detection and rapid response. Worldwide, only 20 to 30 countries are able to do that currently," said Dr. Bernard Vallat, director-general of the World Organisation for Animal Health. "All the others, 140 or more, need help."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373901
Bird flu kills five in Azerbaijan
22.03.06 12.20pm
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA - Bird flu has killed five young people in Azerbaijan, the World Health Organisation said today, adding it was investigating whether some of the victims could have been infected collecting feathers from dead swans.
Confirmation of the deaths in Azerbaijan, which lies at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, takes the WHO toll from the virus to 103 since it reemerged in late 2003.
Egypt reported its fourth suspected human case over the past week. The Egyptian authorities have said that one of the patients died of bird flu last week, but that has not been confirmed by the WHO.
Pakistan today became the latest country to confirm bird flu in poultry, saying the virus found in two poultry flocks
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373895
Police to review criminal profiling after paedophile's $25,000 compensation
22.03.06
By Mike Houlahan
Police are to urgently review their rules on criminal profiling after a $25,000 damages payout to a convicted paedophile.
The district court decision, which police are considering appealing against, said the privacy of Barry Grant Brown was breached when a police pamphlet identifying him was placed in his neighbour's letterboxes.
The pamphlet, headed "Convicted paedophile in your area" included a "dishevelled and furtive" and "by no means flattering" mugshot of Mr Brown and brought him a level of public attention "amounting really to vilification", Wellington District Court judge Robert Spear said in a decision released on Monday.
In awarding Mr Brown $25,000 damages, Judge Spear said that after the pamphlet was distributed in August 2001, Mr Brown went from anonymity to being a target subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10373819
Perils of online dating prompt safety efforts
22.03.06 4.20pm
By Verna Gates
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Josie Phyllis Brown never had a chance against her 2m killer, although his stature was one of the few things she should have known from his internet profile.
John Christopher Gaumer, who confessed to the murder and led Baltimore County police to Brown's body on February 7, listed his height and other attributes in his quest for dates on MySpace.com, a free internet social site owned by News Corp. where mostly young people connect for friendship and romance.
Some personal profiles on the website are frighteningly revealing. People publish their birth dates, schools they attend, even clubs they will frequent on a given Saturday night, complete with a cellphone number for whomever might care to join them.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373916
Volunteer finds $30k in wall of New Orleans house
22.03.06 3.20pm
By David Usborne
NEW YORK - When volunteers with a church mission volunteered recently to help gut a New Orleans house damaged by last year's Hurricane Katrina, they didn't know that it would contain a lot more than the expected tide marks and creeping blotches of mould.
This home, it turned out, also had a surprising lining of gold.
Trista Wright, a 19-year-old student from Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, made the discovery while raking up crumbled plaster from walls inside one of the house's bedrooms.
There, poking out from the rubble, lay a very old and dusty one-hundred-dollar bill.
Ms Wright, who had volunteered to work in New Orleans during her annual spring break, wondered where it had come from.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373915
Afghan relics booming business
22.03.06
LONDON - It cost £40 ($112) from an antique market in central London, not a bad price for a 4000-year-old relic of an ancient civilisation in what is now northern Afghanistan.
What made the metal axe handle stand out was the fact that it was identical to artefacts in a collection in the British Museum.
Those there were in a secure storage area, among many cartons of looted Afghan artefacts impounded by customs officers at ports and airports.
Scotland Yard's arts and antiques squad say London is the number one destination for stolen Afghan antiquities and the seized material is the tip of the iceberg. Most finds its way onto the open market. Experts believe the objects seized are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Most have not been properly examined and many are corroded with age.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373763
Ban on smoking in cars supported
22.03.06 5.20am
Witnesses to a New South Wales parliamentary committee into tobacco smoking have backed calls for smoking to be banned in cars.
Cancer Council NSW health strategies director Anita Tang said 56 per cent of respondents to a survey supported bans in cars.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373799
Asymmetrical breasts might be cancer sign, says study
21.03.06
Women who have asymmetrical breasts are more likely to develop breast cancer, a study has revealed.
The findings, published in the journal Breast Cancer Research, were based on the mammograms of 504 women taken 27 years ago.
A study of the scans found that the odds of developing breast cancer grew by 1.5 with each 100ml increase in breast asymmetry.
Researchers at the University of Liverpool studied the mammograms of 252 women who did not have breast cancer at the time of the mammography but later developed the disease and compared them with the same number of mammograms of women who remained cancer-free.
The results showed that women who went on to develop cancer had a higher breast volume asymmetry than women who did not.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373735
German court prescribes viagra for stallion
21.03.06 3.20pm
BERLIN - A German court ordered viagra to be given to a stallion after his new owner claimed he was impotent and refused to pay the full asking price.
The buyer of the horse called Vedor paid just a tenth of the price of over € 4,000 ($7796.62), claiming it had only one testicle and failed to get frisky with a female pony.
A vet found the testicle after an examination, said Egbert Simons, a spokesman for the court in the eastern town of Neuruppin.
And when the stallion was given the potency drug, it emerged he was fully functional, he added.
The court ordered the buyer to pay the full price.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373691
Children addicted to 'super cannabis'
22.03.06
By Isabel Conway
AMSTERDAM - Dutch children as young as 12 are being treated for addiction to a powerful home-grown cannabis up to 20 times stronger than imported varieties, an addiction clinic has revealed.
But while the age of regular and dependent cannabis users has dropped sharply in recent years, the dangers and health hazards of soft drugs have been "completely underestimated" by parents caught "in a flower-power time warp", addiction specialist Dr Romeo Ashruf said.
It was not unusual for children as young as 12 using "nederwiet" to be referred to drugs clinics by their GPs for addiction, said Ashruf.
"In years gone by, the age group for referrals was between 16 and 21 but now it has gone down to between 14 and 19," he said. "Children of 12 and 13 who are addicted are also brought in. An alarming development."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373771
Abu Ghraib dog handler found guilty of abuse
22.03.06 1.20pm
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON - A US Army dog handler was found guilty today of abusing detainees at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and faces up to eight years and nine months in prison, an Army spokeswoman said.
The sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, was set to begin later in the day, Lt. Col. Shawn Jirik said.
Smith was charged with using his dog to harass and threaten inmates at Abu Ghraib in order to make them urinate and defecate on themselves in 2003 and 2004.
Disturbing photos of inmates being intimidated by dogs and sexually humiliated were broadcast around the world after the abuses became public in 2004, undermining Washington's efforts to win support for its war in Iraq.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373897
UN Council deadlocked on Iran statement
22.03.06 1.00pm
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council ran into new obstacles today in trying to issue a statement on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions after Russia insisted on deleting key parts of the text.
A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled today was delayed until later in the week while diplomats talk in small groups, US Ambassador John Bolton said. Members last week thought a deal was close.
"The impact on the negotiations which we are trying to do here was not as positive as we would have wished," British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. "That is the basic problem."
Council members have mulled a reaction to Iran's nuclear program, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making, since receiving a dossier from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 8.
Russia, supported by China, has been wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut all contact with the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog. On the statement, Russia wants about half the text deleted, China said.
A statement requires agreement from all 15 Security Council members while a resolution needs nine votes in favour and no veto from any of the permanent members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.
The Western powers could turn the statement, drafted by France and Britain, into a resolution and dare Russia and China to take what would be a serious step and veto a text on Iran.
Asked about a resolution, Britain's Jones Parry said everything was on the table "if it produces a satisfactory outcome, sends the right message to the government in Tehran."
"I think what France and I both feel is that if this text is to be amended further, it should be amended in order to come to an agreed conclusion. And if there is no prospect of an agreed conclusion we won't be amending the text," Jones Parry said.
Moscow would like to cut a provision that weapons of mass destruction constitute "a threat to international peace and security" because it could lead to a action under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes demands mandatory and can lead to sanctions or even military action, China said.
"The Russian argument is that it has the implication of leading to Chapter 7 actions," China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said.
"I believe that the Russian concern has its logic," Wang said when asked if China agreed.
Russia also wants a brief statement that does not reiterate all demands from the IAEA's 35-nation board, such as suspending all uranium enrichment activities. Instead it wants only to point to the number of the IAEA resolution, Wang said.
Senior officials from the five permanent council members and Germany met yesterday to discuss future action but came to no agreement, diplomats said.
Before the meeting, Britain had floated the possibility of tougher Security Council measures against Tehran in exchange for a package of incentives, which had been offered by the Europeans earlier in talks that collapsed, diplomats said.
Russia, Wang said, informally floated its own proposals -- talks with Iran, the IAEA's director general Mohamed ElBaradei and the six countries, similar to talks on North Korea, which are not part of Security Council measures.
But he said neither the British proposals nor the Russian ones were discussed at the meeting.
"They (the Russians) argued for two tracks. "On one hand you put pressure, on the other hand show a way out of this," Wang said without elaborating.
Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, negotiators for the European Union, Iran agreed to freeze any uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities in return for economic and political rewards.
That deal broke down last year and Iran restarted uranium conversion in August.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373885
22 killed as insurgents storm Iraqi police post
22.03.06 10.30am
BAGHDAD - Insurgents stormed an Iraqi police post and jail last night, killing at least 22 people, freeing more than 30 prisoners and inflicting another setback on the country's new security forces.
Police said 18 policemen and four civilians were killed in the hour-long battle in Miqdadiya, 100km northeast of Baghdad. A senior Interior Ministry source put the overall death toll at 24, in addition to 10 insurgents.
One of the two buildings attacked served as a courthouse. The Interior Ministry source said 33 prisoners escaped.
The governor of Diyala province, which has a volatile ethnic and sectarian mix and has seen many al Qaeda attacks in recent months, had the police commander and other officers arrested.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373875
Police, court attacked in Iraq
22.03.06 8.20am
Guerrillas attacked the police headquarters and courthouse in the Iraqi town of Miqdadiya last night, killing at least 16 people and releasing prisoners.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373802
US military investigates Iraq deaths
22.03.06
The United States military is conducting a criminal investigation into allegations that US Marines shot and killed 15 Iraqi civilians.
The killings occurred last November, after a roadside bomb explosion in which one Marine was killed and two injured.
At the time it was claimed the civilians died in the blast in the town of Haditha.
But Time magazine forced the US military command in Baghdad to revisit the conclusions of a military report which said the 15 civilians, including three young children, died in the initial explosion.
A preliminary military investigation was launched. It established that the two families were indeed killed by the Marines, though it described the deaths as collateral damage.
Now the case has been referred for criminal investigation by the US Navy to establish whether the 12 Marines involved were guilty of misconduct.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373850
Civil war fears grip Iraq on third anniversary
21.03.06 1.00pm
By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD - A major Shi'ite religious ritual unfolded amid heavy security in the sacred city of Kerbala today as the spectre of a sectarian civil war stalked Iraq on the third anniversary of the US-led invasion.
Nearly 10,000 troops and police guarded hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims gathered for Arbain, an annual mourning ritual banned under Saddam Hussein and which Sunni Arab suicide bombers have targeted in the past.
The fear of fresh communal bloodshed and the failure of Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders to form a national unity government that could avert civil war underlined Iraq's instability three years after Saddam's overthrow.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373696
Bush says US will not abandon Iraq
21.03.06 1.00pm
By Tabassum Zakaria
CLEVELAND - President George W. Bush said today he understands that unrelenting violence in Iraq has shaken Americans' confidence but pledged the United States will not abandon the country as the fourth post-invasion year begins.
In a series of speeches, Bush is trying to convince an increasingly sceptical public that he has a winning strategy for Iraq amid widespread concerns that sectarian violence is turning into civil war.
Speaking to the City Club of Cleveland, Bush sprinkled his characteristic optimism with a more sombre description than usual of the situation, saying bluntly that Iraq remains an uphill battle three years after the US-led invasion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373698
continued …
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Candidate chooses Jersey Traffic over own fundraiser with Cheney
Cheney at Fund-Raiser, but Not With the Candidate
By David W. Chen / New York Times
NEWARK, March 20 — In the biggest campaign fund-raiser yet on behalf of State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to New Jersey on Monday and praised Mr. Kean as someone with "the experience, the values and the vision to be a superb United States senator."
But there was one problem: Mr. Kean was a no-show.
Actually, Mr. Kean did show up at the event, which was held at the offices of the IDT Corporation in downtown Newark. But he did not make it until 6:15, roughly 15 minutes after Mr. Cheney's motorcade had left.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6273
Four influential Latino peace activists will lead a 241 mile quest for peace!
Citizens for Pablo
Main Contacts:
Pablo Paredes (619) 857-4947
pablopare@gmail.com
Victor Paredes (917) 864-9179
vicparedes@msn.com
On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 241 mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.
Latinos represent nearly 15% of the US population, 11% of the US military and an estimated 20% of the fallen service members in the first months of the invasion of Iraq. The Latino population is a growing force in the US and their voice must be an active part of the more than 60% of US citizens that oppose the war in Iraq. That’s why on March 12th, 4 Latinos of different ages, nationalities and hometowns will come together to lead the Latino community in a loud and definitive call for an end to the war in Iraq. Because of their unique experiences with this war; Fernando, Pablo, Camilo and Aidan are dedicated to working to end the bloodshed in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5919
Agent Faults FBI on 9/11
The man who caught Zacarias Moussaoui testifies that higher-ups blocked his efforts to determine whether there was a larger plot.
By Richard A. Serrano / Los Angeles Times
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States.
During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit — a witness for the prosecution — accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI.
His testimony appeared to undermine the prosecution's case for the death penalty. Prosecutors argue that had Moussaoui cooperated by identifying some of the 19 hijackers, the FBI could have alerted airport security and kept them off the planes.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6274
Fairbanks, AK; Phoenix, AZ; Little Rock, AR; Claremont, CA (VIDEO); Fresno, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Sacramento, CA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA (PHOTOS); Ventura, CA; Walnut Creek, CA; Denver, CO; Pueblo, CO; New Haven, CT; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Melbourne, FL; Pensacola, FL; Weeki Wachee, FL; West Palm Beach, FL; Batavia, IL; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Louisville, KY; Nicholasville, KY; New Orleans, LA; Boston, MA; Roxbury, MA; Flint, MI; Grand Rapids, MI; Traverse City, MI; Duluth, MN; Lincoln, NE; Reno, NV; Concord, NH; Bloomfield, NJ; Englewood, NJ; Morristown, NJ; Trenton, NJ; Santa Fe, NM; Buffalo, NY; Nanuet, NY; New Paltz, NY; New York, NY; Rochester, NY; Saratoga Springs, NY; Fayetteville, NC; Winston-Salem, NC; Columbus, OH; Corvallis, OR; Eugene, OR ...
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Former Gitmo Detainees Speak of Abuse
By Foster Klug / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - America risks convicting the innocent and letting the guilty evade justice in how it handles detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military attorney defending an Australian terror suspect held at the U.S. prison camp said Monday.
Maj. Michael Mori, a Marine Corps lawyer, told an audience at George Washington University that no civilized justice system would accept "information being acquired potentially under torture or questionable methods."
Mori spoke after several former detainees recounted their experiences at the camp, which holds roughly 500 prisoners. Most were taken in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mori's client, David Hicks, was caught in December 2001, allegedly while fighting alongside Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime. He has pleaded innocent to charges that include attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6277
Iraqi residents say bodies in video from US raid
By Ali al-Mashhadani / Reuters
A video of civilians who may have been killed by U.S. Marines in an Iraqi town in November showed residents describing a rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.
A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organization for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue. The chief doctor at Haditha's hospital, Waleed al-Obaidi, said the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.
Most residents interviewed by Reuters in Haditha on Tuesday echoed accusations by residents in the video that U.S. Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.
They said the Marines opened fire on houses. "I saw a soldier standing outside a house and he opened fire on the house," said one resident, who did not want to be identified.
Time magazine published allegations on Monday that U.S. Marines killed civilians in Haditha after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. It published detailed accounts by people in the town, west of Baghdad.
A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. Time said the main question facing the probe was whether the "Marines killing of 15 non-combatants was an act of legitimate self-defense or negligent homicide."
Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, is in Anbar province, an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents whose campaign to topple the Iraqi government has killed thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians.
On November 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.
U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.
TRUCK PILED WITH CORPSES
Time magazine said this week the video of the corpses it provided to the military in January had prompted the revision.
Accusations that American soldiers often kill innocent people have fueled anger at the occupation among Iraqis over the past three years.
The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about three years old.
One man wept and leaned against a wall as he identified a relative and other residents inspected bodies in the morgue. One man's face had been torn apart by bullets, while a blackened corpse was missing legs and forearms.
The video also showed houses with bullet holes in the walls, pieces of human flesh, pools of blood and clothes and pots scattered across floors.
In one home, a young boy wept as he sat beside a corpse and said: "My father. My father."
Some residents blamed U.S. President George W. Bush, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Jalal Talabani. "Is this the democracy Allawi, Talabani and Bush are talking about?" one resident asked.
Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani, head of Hammurabi, said U.S. Marines had killed 15 people in Haditha after the roadside bomb attack. The group's Haditha branch said it got the video from a local man.
Mashhadani said he had brought the case to the attention of the United Nations office in Baghdad. "These violations of human rights happen every day in Iraq," he told Reuters.
On Tuesday, residents of Haditha had similar accounts to those on the video.
"This room had a family of eight inside, children and their father and mother," one man said of his relatives who were killed in their home. Another resident confirmed his account, saying one of the children was three years old.
"They are all gone," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6280
FREEWAY BLOGGERS IMPEACHMENT PROJECT
http://www.freewayblogger.com/impeachment_project2.htm
Senator blasts U.S. war strategy
RUMSFELD SHOULD GO, FEINSTEIN DECLARES
By Phil Yost / Mercury News
President Bush needs a new team to chart a different course in Iraq, starting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Monday.
``Secretary Rumsfeld is a very strong leader, and I don't think he listens to many people,'' said the Democratic senator in a question and answer session after a luncheon speech to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. ``It's a problem, and his way hasn't worked so we need to try another way.''
It was the first time she had called for Rumsfeld to be replaced. In her speech, Feinstein said the United States needs to ``transition the mission'' by reducing the number of American soldiers in Iraq so that the U.S. military can fight terror more effectively in other countries such as Afghanistan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6275
Who handled the handler?
Dog Handler Guilty of Inmate Abuse at Abu Ghraib
By David Stout and Eric Schmitt / New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 21 — An Army dog handler was found guilty today of abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by frightening them with his unmuzzled Belgian shepherd for his own amusement.
A military jury found the defendant, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, guilty of 6 of the 13 counts lodged against him, although the judge said later that he would not consider one of the six counts in determining sentence because it duplicated another. Sergeant Smith could face more than eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. Had he been convicted of all counts, he would have been subject to more than 24 years in prison.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6278
The Boston Globe
Bush says Iraq pullout up to 'future presidents'
Warns leaving too soon would boost Al Qaeda
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- President Bush suggested yesterday that US troops might stay in Iraq beyond his presidency, which ends in 2009, saying at a press conference that the issue of removing troops from the country ''will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
The president, responding to aggressive questioning at the hastily arranged morning session, declined to give a timetable for pulling US soldiers out of the increasingly unpopular war. But he warned several times about the danger of a ''premature" withdrawal.
''There's no question that if we were to prematurely withdraw and the march to democracy were to fail, then Al Qaeda would be emboldened," Bush said. ''Terrorist groups would be emboldened. The Islamo-fascists would be emboldened."
Asked whether his comments signaled that a complete pullout would not happen during the three remaining years of his presidency, Bush said the decision would be left up to the generals ''on the ground" in Iraq.
Bush's comments -- widely seen as an attempt to shift public expectations away from the notion of a quick pullout -- dovetailed with comments yesterday by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the leading US ally in the war.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/22/bush_says_iraq_pullout_up_to_future_presidents/
Gabrieli readies run for governor
Hires operatives, cites positive polling
By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff March 22, 2006
Christopher Gabrieli, saying he is ''strongly leaning" toward a campaign for governor, has hired a team of experienced political operatives and conducted a poll of Democratic convention delegates that suggests he could have a shot at winning a spot on the September primary ballot.
Gabrieli, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002, said yesterday that he is encouraged by a survey he commissioned. The poll indicates that about a third of the convention delegates elected at caucuses in February are uncommitted to other candidates, Gabrieli said.
If he can secure the signatures of 500 convention delegates, he will need support from 15 percent of the projected 5,300 party activists who will gather in Worcester June 2-3 to qualify for the primary ballot.
The survey of about 2,000 delegates suggests that Deval Patrick has a 3-to-1 lead over Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, according to Gabrieli adviser Joe Ganley. Reilly was slightly above the 15 percent mark, and Patrick was just below the 50 percent needed for the convention endorsement, Ganley said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/22/gabrieli_readies_run_for_governor/
Missing family found alive after 2 weeks
This undated family photo show the Stivers family who disappeared more than two weeks ago after setting out on an overnight trip in a recreational vehicle, were found Tuesday, March 21, 2006, in a mountainous area of southwestern Oregon. Shown left to right are Sabastyan, Peter, Marlo and Gabrayell. The two parents were found first after they had left their stranded recreational vehicle on Monday to seek help. Rescuers then located the RV and the four others, including two children. (AP Photo Family Photo via The Daily Tidings)
By Joseph B. Frazier, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
GLENDALE, Ore. --A family that disappeared more than two weeks ago after leaving for a short trip in an RV was found alive Tuesday in a remote area of southwestern Oregon.
Two adults were found after they left the RV, which had gotten stuck in snow, to seek help. Hours later, rescuers located the others and they were reunited in Glendale, about 80 miles north of the California border.
"I love you, baby," Marlo Hill-Stivers told her daughter, Gabrayell, 8, as the reunion was carried live on television.
"I love you too, mommy," she replied.
Peter Stivers, resting his hands on the shoulders of his 9-year-old son, Sabastyan, said the kids had fun: "They didn't know we were in trouble."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/22/missing_family_found_alive_after_2_weeks/
Nagin says New Orleans is better prepared
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin answers questions during an interview in his office at City Hall in New Orleans Tuesday, March 21, 2006. Nagin answered a wide range of questions concerning his personal life as well as his political future, and naturally Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)
By Michelle Roberts, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
NEW ORLEANS --Determined to avoid a repeat of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, Mayor Ray Nagin says the city has improved its plans for evacuating residents during the upcoming hurricane season.
Residents would be bused away from the city rather than to shelters like the Superdome, where residents were stuck for days after Katrina hit. Locals also would be more likely to comply with evacuation orders now, Nagin said.
"People are pretty attuned to leaving if I say you have to leave, so I don't see that as being as much of a challenge," Nagin said.
In an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, Nagin said New Orleans is better prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of stronger flood walls and better evacuation plans after Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/22/nagin_says_new_orleans_is_better_prepared/
Iran leader sanctions Iraq talks with US
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in Mashhad, March 21, 2006. (REUTERS/Stringer)
March 22, 2006
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday sanctioned talks with the United States on Iraq, saying Iranian officials would tell the U.S. to leave the country.
"If Iranian officials can express Iran's opinion about Iraq to Americans and make them understand Iran's views, talks on this issue are not problematic," Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, said in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
"But if (talks) mean opening up an arena for deceitful Americans to continue their bullying attitude, talks with America on Iraq are banned," he said in a televised speech.
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday Washington would make clear in the talks, expected this week, that it would not accept attempts to spread sectarian violence in Iraq.
Tehran denies U.S. charges it is helping inflame sectarian violence in Iraq and that some components of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used by insurgents in Iraq have been traced to Iran.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/22/iran_leader_sanctions_iraq_talks_with_us_1143024767/
Charges dropped in Fla. student sex case
In this July 18, 2005, file photo, former middle school teacher Debra Lafave waits for the start of a hearing at the Hillsborough County Courthouse in Tampa, Fla. State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against Lafave, who was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)
By Mitch Stacy, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
TAMPA, Fla. --A former teacher sentenced to three years of house arrest for having sex with a 14-year-old student in one Florida county won't face charges in another.
Prosecutors in Marion County decided to drop charges Tuesday after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have kept Debra Lafave out of prison.
Prosecutors, defense attorneys and the victim's mother urged the judge to accept the deal so the boy wouldn't have to testify. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge previously that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case.
Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court."
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/03/22/charges_dropped_in_fla_student_sex_case/
Panel weighs new warnings on ADHD drugs
By Andrew Bridges, Associated Press Writer March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON --A month after advisers told the government some attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs should bear stronger warnings of cardiovascular risks, officials are asking a second panel whether to add warnings about psychosis or mania.
Small numbers of reports of adverse psychiatric events, including hallucinations, in children are associated with all of the increasingly popular drugs used to treat ADHD, according to recently released Food and Drug Administration documents.
The FDA is asking its pediatric advisory committee to review those reports and then recommend how to communicate the potential risks to doctors and parents. It's asking the same about a report of increased risks of heart attack, stroke and hypertension associated with some ADHD drugs.
The panel was to meet Wednesday.
Last month, the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management advisory committee voted to recommend adding "black-box" warnings to stimulants used to treat ADHD, alerting doctors, patients and parents of the uncertainty regarding the risk the drugs may pose to the cardiovascular system. The warnings are the most serious that prescription drugs may bear.
The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, but usually does.
The latest reviews show that psychosis or mania can occur in some juvenile patients at normal doses of any ADHD drug. The reviews included roughly 90 studies of the drugs as well as reports from doctors, parents and others.
The ADHD drugs include Ritalin, manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. and in generic form by other companies; Adderall, made by Shire Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Strattera, produced by Eli Lilly and Co.
FDA officials say patients and doctors should be aware that the small number of psychiatric events could represent side effects of the drugs, although they cannot point to a definitive link. However, they noted a "complete absence" of similar reports in children treated with dummy pills during dozens of clinical trials of the drugs. In many children, the events ceased once they stopped taking the drugs -- and resumed if they restarted.
McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals said in briefing documents that it is customary to weigh the "therapeutic benefits and potential risks" of treatment and warned of the negative effects of leaving ADHD untreated. The unit of Johnson & Johnson makes Concerta, a long-acting form of methylphenidate, the drug in Ritalin.
In the United States, nearly 3.3 million people age 19 and younger used an ADHD drug in 2005, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., a prescription drug benefit program manager.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/03/22/panel_weighs_new_warnings_on_adhd_drugs/
Protesters gear up for Canada seal hunt
A harp seal sits on a ice pan in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Tuesday March 21, 2006. The annual harp seal hunt which is expected to begin on the ice floes sometime this week will harvest 325,000 animals this year. (AP Photo/CP, Jonathan Hayward)
By Beth Duff-Brown, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
TORONTO --Protesters, celebrities and fishermen were gearing up for Canada's hotly debated seal hunt, set to get under way later this week in the gulf off the Atlantic Ocean.
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has given a cold shoulder to French film legend Brigitte Bardot, who intends to visit Ottawa on Wednesday to implore the federal government to end the regulated slaughter of some 325,000 harp seals.
Hearn told the St. John's Telegram in Newfoundland, where the largest leg of the hunt takes place, that he turned down a request by Bardot to meet during her visit.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also turned down a meeting.
Fisheries officials and sealers say the annual hunt provides badly needed income for the isolated fishing communities in Atlantic Canada, as well as food and shelter for the aboriginal Inuits in the Arctic North.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/groups_prepare_for_contested_seal_hunt/
Bottled water big for multinationals
Women carry drinking water at Mohanpur, in the eastern Indian state of Tripura, Tuesday, March 21, 2006. March 22 is observed as World Water Day. (AP Photo/Ramakanta Dey)
By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
MEXICO CITY --Violent protests have driven away corporate investment in desperately needed municipal water systems in developing nations. So the world's poor buy bottled water from Coke, Pepsi and other multinational companies.
"Water is not for sale," demonstrators chanted at the World Water Forum this week. But they couldn't be more wrong -- private companies make much more money selling bottled water than they ever did developing public water systems. Companies also stand to benefit from a renewed push for big dams in the Third World.
So even though just about everybody, from CEOs to aid workers, spoke out against the privatization of water, the apparent victory for anti-corporate forces may prove hollow.
"Nobody is talking about privatizing a resource," said Mexico's Environment Secretary Jose Luis Luege. "That is something inalienable, sovereign."
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/bottled_water_big_for_multinationals/
Group backs grizzlies on endangered list
*FILE** This is an undated handout photo showing a Grizzly bear inside Yellowstone National Park provided by the national Park Service. (AP Photo/National Park Service, File)
By Becky Bohrer, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
BILLINGS, Mont. --More than 250 scientists and researchers have signed a letter protesting a federal proposal to no longer protect grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area under the Endangered Species Act.
The letter dated Monday was addressed to Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator. Servheen has said he expects a final decision on the proposal by year's end or early next year.
Among those signing the letter were primatologist Jane Goodall and bear researchers Chuck Jonkel and John Craighead Sr.
The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in November "delisting" bears in the Yellowstone area, declaring them recovered. The bears currently are classified as threatened.
The agency said the population has grown 4 percent to 7 percent a year since the mid-'90s, and it estimated the number of bears at more than 600.
The scientists and researchers said in their letter that an isolated population of 500 to 600 bears does not constitute a biologically recovered one.
A population of 2,000 to 3,000 is needed for genetic diversity and to withstand regional variations such as food sources, they said. A smaller one is likely to go extinct, they argued.
In a conference call Monday, three researchers also questioned the accuracy of the agency's population estimates.
Monday marked the end of the comment period on the proposal.
Seth Willey, acting recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional office in Denver, said the agency has received about 160,000 comments, many from "recognized academics" who have worked on the issue for years.
The proposal affects bears in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and surrounding national forests in parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/group_backs_grizzlies_on_endangered_list/
Ancient sarcophagus unearthed in Cyprus
Workers of Antiquities Department work in the ancient tomb in Kouklia village near the coastal town of Paphos, Cyprus, southwest of capital Nicosia about 130 kilometers (80 miles) on Thursday, March 16, 2006. A very rare, 2,500-year-old stone coffin with well-preserved color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus. The white-stone sarcophagus was accidentally discovered by construction workers last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia. The artifact dated to 500 B.C., when Greek cultural influence was gaining a firm hold on the eastern Mediterranean island. (AP Photo/Andreas Lazarou)
By George Psyllides, Associated Press Writer March 21, 2006
NICOSIA, Cyprus --A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.
Construction workers found the limestone sarcophagus last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia, in the coastal Paphos area. The tomb, which probably belonged to an ancient warrior, had been looted during antiquity.
"The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colors used," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department.
Only two similar sarcophagi have ever been discovered in Cyprus before. One is housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other in the British Museum in London, but their colors are more faded, Flourentzos said.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/21/ancient_sarcophagus_unearthed_in_cyprus/
New Zealand Herald
Humans blamed for surge in extinctions
22.03.06
OSLO - Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a United Nations report said.
Habitats ranging from coral reefs to tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity said in the report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 UN meeting in Curitiba, Brazil.
"In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of Earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.
Apart from the disappearance of the dinosaurs, the other "Big Five" extinctions were about 205, 250, 375 and 440 million years ago. Scientists suspect that asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions or sudden climate shifts may explain the five.
A rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution, expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of "alien species" and global warming.
It estimated the current pace of extinctions was 1000 times faster than historical rates.
According to a "Red List" compiled by the World Conservation Union, 844 animals and plants are known to have gone extinct in the last 500 years, ranging from the dodo to the golden toad in Costa Rica. It says the figures are probably a big underestimate.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373767
Little threat from Cyclone Wati
22.03.06 8.00am
Tropical Cyclone Wati is unlikely to have much effect on New Zealand.
The category two cyclone is expected to turn away from Australia and may move towards New Zealand.
But MetService forecaster Steve Ready said it was moving slowly and did not pose a threat. "There's nothing imminent and it's days away if it is to have any effect at all."
Yesterday Wati was about 750km off Australia and moving at less than 20km/h.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10373843
Government should follow Parker's lead, says Brash
22.03.06 4.00pm
David Parker did the honourable thing in resigning his Cabinet portfolios but the same standards were not being applied to other aspects of the Government, National leader Don Brash said today.
"I think he did the honourable thing," Dr Brash said.
But the question was why those high standards were not being applied to other ministers -- such as Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope who "misled Parliament" last year.
He also referred to the Prime Minister, given the Labour Party's apparent breach of the Electoral Act with its campaign spending last year, her signing of an artist's painting as her own, and the speeding motorcade.
"We want the same kind of standards applying to other aspects of the Government's behaviour."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10373873
Howard to assess cyclone devastation
22.03.06 12.00pm
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie will visit Innisfail today as the clean-up operation continues in the cyclone-ravaged north of Queensland. Mr Beattie will talk to the Prime Minister about appointing someone to oversee the rebuilding effort.
Mr Howard will tour the devastated north this morning and will announce more about the Commonwealth's response.
"I'll have something more to say both about our assessment of the extent of the damage and also the Federal Government's response," he said.
"We're working very closely with the Queensland Government and all the information I have is that the assistance is getting through very well."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373882
UK police probing Blair's Labour over honours
22.03.06 9.20am
LONDON - British police said today they were investigating Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party in response to complaints related to the country's age-old honours system.
"The Metropolitan Police Service has received three complaints about the Labour party under section 1 of the Honours Act 1925," the police said in a statement. "These allegations are being investigated by the Specialist Crime Directorate."
It was not immediately clear who had made the complaints or what the implications of the probe might be.
Labour has come under fire for accepting loans from businessmen, some of whom were later proposed for honours in the form of seats in the upper house of parliament.
The party has responded by insisting it has not broken the rules on party funding.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373871
Top FBI official unaware of Moussaoui terror ties
22.03.06 2.20pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before Sept. 11 said today he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act.
Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories.
Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3000 people, testified yesterday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack.
Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The trial -- the only one in the United States in connection with the attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373905
September 11 alert was ignored, says FBI agent
22.03.06
ALEXANDRIA - An FBI agent testified in the sentencing trial of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that agency superiors blocked his efforts to flag a possible terror attack.
Harry Samit, who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the airliner hijackings, said he tried to warn that a hijacking might be in the works.
Moussaoui was arrested on August 16, 2001, after raising suspicions at a flight school. Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman had "radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs" and thought he was part of a bigger plot. In an message to his superiors on August 18, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was "conspiring to commit a terrorist act."
Samit warned that Moussaoui had been taking simulator lessons to learn the basics of flying a jumbo jet and could be plotting a possible hijacking.
Samit said he was unable to get authority to seek a warrant in order to search Moussaoui's belongings.
"I am so desperate to get into his computer, I'll take anything," he wrote in an email to Catherine Kiser, an intelligence official, a day before the deadly attacks.
Her response was ominous: "You fought the good fight. God help us all if the next terrorist incident involves the same type of plane."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373766
THIS IS PRECIOUS. BUSH WILL ATTACK IRAN AFTER THEY DROP AN ATOMIC WEAPON ON ISRAEL. With friends like that who needs enemies. These idiots are Jihadists George, they stop at nothing, not even self preservation.
Don't strike Israel, says Bush
22.03.06 7.20am
President George W. Bush issued a stark warning to Iran when he said that America's military would be ordered into action if Tehran attacked Israel.
"I see a threat in Iran. The threat is of course their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. I've made it clear and I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373801
Israel briefly opens Gaza crossing amid shortages
21.03.06 1.20pm
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA - Israel reopened the main goods crossing into Gaza today following warnings of a looming humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, but later closed it citing a security alert.
Six trucks carrying flour and sugar went through the Karni terminal, Palestinian officials said. The amounts were tiny compared with the needs of 1.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they added.
Israel reopened Karni for limited shipments into Gaza after shutting it sporadically in the past two months because of intelligence warnings of impending militant attack.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the crossing was shut again because of an alert. A security source said the crossing was due to open again at 8 am (6.00pm NZT) today but this depended on the security situation there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373707
Ancient Homer pictures discovered in tomb
22.03.06 6.20am
A 2500-year-old sarcophagus with colour illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus.
The tomb features Ulysses in scenes from Iliad and Odyssey.
In one painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373800
Medal winner takes dad on podium – via cellphone
22.03.06 5.45pm
By Dylan Cleaver
When Keisha-Dean Soffe won a medal at the Commonwealth Games today she wanted her father to be there to share it with her.
The only problem was her dad, Blackie, doesn't fly. So Soffe did the next best thing and took him up to the podium with her via her cellphone.
It was an extraordinary sight. Soffe, who had just finished third in the women's 75kg and over weightlifting final had a New Zealand flag draped over one shoulder and the cellphone attached to her ear, waving to her mother Sandra who was in the crowd.
"I was up on the podium talking to him," Soffe said afterwards. "He sounds pretty stoked."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=508&objectid=10373927
Shot Put: Vili throws Commonwealth Games record
22.03.06 10.35pm
MELBOURNE - It was "great shot that" at the Melbourne Cricket Ground tonight, as New Zealander shot putter Valerie Vili made short work of winning Commonwealth Games gold.
Vili, 21, fired good shot after good shot. Her best was a Commonwealth Games record 19.66 metres in the second round.
Even her shortest throw flew into territory no other could reach as she threw Nigerian Vivian Chukwuemeka from the Commonwealth throne.
Chukwuemeka took silver with 18.25m, ahead of Cleopatra Borel-Brown from Trinidad, 17.87m.
In her search for perfection, Vili fouled out throws that would have won minor medals for her rivals. When she sealed victory she signalled her joy with both arms raised.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=19&objectid=10373983
Region will not stockpile bird flu drugs
22.03.06 1.00pm
Bay of Plenty health officials have rejected government advice to stockpile the anti-viral bird flu drug Tamiflu.
The Health Ministry last November asked all district health boards to stock the drug, which can help protect people from potentially deadly bird flu.
And last week the World Health Organisation reaffirmed Tamiflu should be used to treat suspected cases of human bird flu and to prevent the disease in healthcare workers or others who may have been exposed to infection, but clinical trials were lacking to show any effectiveness against the deadly H5N1 virus.
The WHO called for urgent studies to determine optimal doses of Tamiflu to be used against human bird flu.
The H5N1 strain has killed 98 people, roughly half of the 177 who have contracted it since late 2003, and experts fear a pandemic if the disease evolves into a form which can be transmitted easily between humans.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10373888
Poor nations need help fighting bird flu
22.03.06 1.00pm
By Jim Loney
ATLANTA - Fewer than three dozen nations, including New Zealand, are capable of the early detection and quick response needed to contain rapidly spreading bird flu and other viruses that could threaten humans, a health official said today.
Combating the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza, which has killed 103 people worldwide since it reemerged in 2003, has become critical to governments across the globe because experts fear it could become a pandemic that could kill millions and cause catastrophic economic damage.
"Developed countries are in position to practice satisfactory early detection and rapid response. Worldwide, only 20 to 30 countries are able to do that currently," said Dr. Bernard Vallat, director-general of the World Organisation for Animal Health. "All the others, 140 or more, need help."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373901
Bird flu kills five in Azerbaijan
22.03.06 12.20pm
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA - Bird flu has killed five young people in Azerbaijan, the World Health Organisation said today, adding it was investigating whether some of the victims could have been infected collecting feathers from dead swans.
Confirmation of the deaths in Azerbaijan, which lies at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, takes the WHO toll from the virus to 103 since it reemerged in late 2003.
Egypt reported its fourth suspected human case over the past week. The Egyptian authorities have said that one of the patients died of bird flu last week, but that has not been confirmed by the WHO.
Pakistan today became the latest country to confirm bird flu in poultry, saying the virus found in two poultry flocks
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373895
Police to review criminal profiling after paedophile's $25,000 compensation
22.03.06
By Mike Houlahan
Police are to urgently review their rules on criminal profiling after a $25,000 damages payout to a convicted paedophile.
The district court decision, which police are considering appealing against, said the privacy of Barry Grant Brown was breached when a police pamphlet identifying him was placed in his neighbour's letterboxes.
The pamphlet, headed "Convicted paedophile in your area" included a "dishevelled and furtive" and "by no means flattering" mugshot of Mr Brown and brought him a level of public attention "amounting really to vilification", Wellington District Court judge Robert Spear said in a decision released on Monday.
In awarding Mr Brown $25,000 damages, Judge Spear said that after the pamphlet was distributed in August 2001, Mr Brown went from anonymity to being a target subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10373819
Perils of online dating prompt safety efforts
22.03.06 4.20pm
By Verna Gates
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Josie Phyllis Brown never had a chance against her 2m killer, although his stature was one of the few things she should have known from his internet profile.
John Christopher Gaumer, who confessed to the murder and led Baltimore County police to Brown's body on February 7, listed his height and other attributes in his quest for dates on MySpace.com, a free internet social site owned by News Corp. where mostly young people connect for friendship and romance.
Some personal profiles on the website are frighteningly revealing. People publish their birth dates, schools they attend, even clubs they will frequent on a given Saturday night, complete with a cellphone number for whomever might care to join them.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373916
Volunteer finds $30k in wall of New Orleans house
22.03.06 3.20pm
By David Usborne
NEW YORK - When volunteers with a church mission volunteered recently to help gut a New Orleans house damaged by last year's Hurricane Katrina, they didn't know that it would contain a lot more than the expected tide marks and creeping blotches of mould.
This home, it turned out, also had a surprising lining of gold.
Trista Wright, a 19-year-old student from Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, made the discovery while raking up crumbled plaster from walls inside one of the house's bedrooms.
There, poking out from the rubble, lay a very old and dusty one-hundred-dollar bill.
Ms Wright, who had volunteered to work in New Orleans during her annual spring break, wondered where it had come from.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373915
Afghan relics booming business
22.03.06
LONDON - It cost £40 ($112) from an antique market in central London, not a bad price for a 4000-year-old relic of an ancient civilisation in what is now northern Afghanistan.
What made the metal axe handle stand out was the fact that it was identical to artefacts in a collection in the British Museum.
Those there were in a secure storage area, among many cartons of looted Afghan artefacts impounded by customs officers at ports and airports.
Scotland Yard's arts and antiques squad say London is the number one destination for stolen Afghan antiquities and the seized material is the tip of the iceberg. Most finds its way onto the open market. Experts believe the objects seized are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Most have not been properly examined and many are corroded with age.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373763
Ban on smoking in cars supported
22.03.06 5.20am
Witnesses to a New South Wales parliamentary committee into tobacco smoking have backed calls for smoking to be banned in cars.
Cancer Council NSW health strategies director Anita Tang said 56 per cent of respondents to a survey supported bans in cars.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373799
Asymmetrical breasts might be cancer sign, says study
21.03.06
Women who have asymmetrical breasts are more likely to develop breast cancer, a study has revealed.
The findings, published in the journal Breast Cancer Research, were based on the mammograms of 504 women taken 27 years ago.
A study of the scans found that the odds of developing breast cancer grew by 1.5 with each 100ml increase in breast asymmetry.
Researchers at the University of Liverpool studied the mammograms of 252 women who did not have breast cancer at the time of the mammography but later developed the disease and compared them with the same number of mammograms of women who remained cancer-free.
The results showed that women who went on to develop cancer had a higher breast volume asymmetry than women who did not.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373735
German court prescribes viagra for stallion
21.03.06 3.20pm
BERLIN - A German court ordered viagra to be given to a stallion after his new owner claimed he was impotent and refused to pay the full asking price.
The buyer of the horse called Vedor paid just a tenth of the price of over € 4,000 ($7796.62), claiming it had only one testicle and failed to get frisky with a female pony.
A vet found the testicle after an examination, said Egbert Simons, a spokesman for the court in the eastern town of Neuruppin.
And when the stallion was given the potency drug, it emerged he was fully functional, he added.
The court ordered the buyer to pay the full price.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373691
Children addicted to 'super cannabis'
22.03.06
By Isabel Conway
AMSTERDAM - Dutch children as young as 12 are being treated for addiction to a powerful home-grown cannabis up to 20 times stronger than imported varieties, an addiction clinic has revealed.
But while the age of regular and dependent cannabis users has dropped sharply in recent years, the dangers and health hazards of soft drugs have been "completely underestimated" by parents caught "in a flower-power time warp", addiction specialist Dr Romeo Ashruf said.
It was not unusual for children as young as 12 using "nederwiet" to be referred to drugs clinics by their GPs for addiction, said Ashruf.
"In years gone by, the age group for referrals was between 16 and 21 but now it has gone down to between 14 and 19," he said. "Children of 12 and 13 who are addicted are also brought in. An alarming development."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373771
Abu Ghraib dog handler found guilty of abuse
22.03.06 1.20pm
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON - A US Army dog handler was found guilty today of abusing detainees at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and faces up to eight years and nine months in prison, an Army spokeswoman said.
The sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, was set to begin later in the day, Lt. Col. Shawn Jirik said.
Smith was charged with using his dog to harass and threaten inmates at Abu Ghraib in order to make them urinate and defecate on themselves in 2003 and 2004.
Disturbing photos of inmates being intimidated by dogs and sexually humiliated were broadcast around the world after the abuses became public in 2004, undermining Washington's efforts to win support for its war in Iraq.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373897
UN Council deadlocked on Iran statement
22.03.06 1.00pm
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council ran into new obstacles today in trying to issue a statement on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions after Russia insisted on deleting key parts of the text.
A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled today was delayed until later in the week while diplomats talk in small groups, US Ambassador John Bolton said. Members last week thought a deal was close.
"The impact on the negotiations which we are trying to do here was not as positive as we would have wished," British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. "That is the basic problem."
Council members have mulled a reaction to Iran's nuclear program, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making, since receiving a dossier from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 8.
Russia, supported by China, has been wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut all contact with the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog. On the statement, Russia wants about half the text deleted, China said.
A statement requires agreement from all 15 Security Council members while a resolution needs nine votes in favour and no veto from any of the permanent members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.
The Western powers could turn the statement, drafted by France and Britain, into a resolution and dare Russia and China to take what would be a serious step and veto a text on Iran.
Asked about a resolution, Britain's Jones Parry said everything was on the table "if it produces a satisfactory outcome, sends the right message to the government in Tehran."
"I think what France and I both feel is that if this text is to be amended further, it should be amended in order to come to an agreed conclusion. And if there is no prospect of an agreed conclusion we won't be amending the text," Jones Parry said.
Moscow would like to cut a provision that weapons of mass destruction constitute "a threat to international peace and security" because it could lead to a action under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes demands mandatory and can lead to sanctions or even military action, China said.
"The Russian argument is that it has the implication of leading to Chapter 7 actions," China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said.
"I believe that the Russian concern has its logic," Wang said when asked if China agreed.
Russia also wants a brief statement that does not reiterate all demands from the IAEA's 35-nation board, such as suspending all uranium enrichment activities. Instead it wants only to point to the number of the IAEA resolution, Wang said.
Senior officials from the five permanent council members and Germany met yesterday to discuss future action but came to no agreement, diplomats said.
Before the meeting, Britain had floated the possibility of tougher Security Council measures against Tehran in exchange for a package of incentives, which had been offered by the Europeans earlier in talks that collapsed, diplomats said.
Russia, Wang said, informally floated its own proposals -- talks with Iran, the IAEA's director general Mohamed ElBaradei and the six countries, similar to talks on North Korea, which are not part of Security Council measures.
But he said neither the British proposals nor the Russian ones were discussed at the meeting.
"They (the Russians) argued for two tracks. "On one hand you put pressure, on the other hand show a way out of this," Wang said without elaborating.
Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, negotiators for the European Union, Iran agreed to freeze any uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities in return for economic and political rewards.
That deal broke down last year and Iran restarted uranium conversion in August.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373885
22 killed as insurgents storm Iraqi police post
22.03.06 10.30am
BAGHDAD - Insurgents stormed an Iraqi police post and jail last night, killing at least 22 people, freeing more than 30 prisoners and inflicting another setback on the country's new security forces.
Police said 18 policemen and four civilians were killed in the hour-long battle in Miqdadiya, 100km northeast of Baghdad. A senior Interior Ministry source put the overall death toll at 24, in addition to 10 insurgents.
One of the two buildings attacked served as a courthouse. The Interior Ministry source said 33 prisoners escaped.
The governor of Diyala province, which has a volatile ethnic and sectarian mix and has seen many al Qaeda attacks in recent months, had the police commander and other officers arrested.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373875
Police, court attacked in Iraq
22.03.06 8.20am
Guerrillas attacked the police headquarters and courthouse in the Iraqi town of Miqdadiya last night, killing at least 16 people and releasing prisoners.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373802
US military investigates Iraq deaths
22.03.06
The United States military is conducting a criminal investigation into allegations that US Marines shot and killed 15 Iraqi civilians.
The killings occurred last November, after a roadside bomb explosion in which one Marine was killed and two injured.
At the time it was claimed the civilians died in the blast in the town of Haditha.
But Time magazine forced the US military command in Baghdad to revisit the conclusions of a military report which said the 15 civilians, including three young children, died in the initial explosion.
A preliminary military investigation was launched. It established that the two families were indeed killed by the Marines, though it described the deaths as collateral damage.
Now the case has been referred for criminal investigation by the US Navy to establish whether the 12 Marines involved were guilty of misconduct.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10373850
Civil war fears grip Iraq on third anniversary
21.03.06 1.00pm
By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD - A major Shi'ite religious ritual unfolded amid heavy security in the sacred city of Kerbala today as the spectre of a sectarian civil war stalked Iraq on the third anniversary of the US-led invasion.
Nearly 10,000 troops and police guarded hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims gathered for Arbain, an annual mourning ritual banned under Saddam Hussein and which Sunni Arab suicide bombers have targeted in the past.
The fear of fresh communal bloodshed and the failure of Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders to form a national unity government that could avert civil war underlined Iraq's instability three years after Saddam's overthrow.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373696
Bush says US will not abandon Iraq
21.03.06 1.00pm
By Tabassum Zakaria
CLEVELAND - President George W. Bush said today he understands that unrelenting violence in Iraq has shaken Americans' confidence but pledged the United States will not abandon the country as the fourth post-invasion year begins.
In a series of speeches, Bush is trying to convince an increasingly sceptical public that he has a winning strategy for Iraq amid widespread concerns that sectarian violence is turning into civil war.
Speaking to the City Club of Cleveland, Bush sprinkled his characteristic optimism with a more sombre description than usual of the situation, saying bluntly that Iraq remains an uphill battle three years after the US-led invasion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10373698
continued …
Yes, these are pictures of The Grand Canyon
March 18, 2006.
The ground and sun were too hot for the snow to reach the ground and stay any length of time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)