April 24, 2006
Photographer states :: Taken a few minutes before the first tornado touched down.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Mesocyclone
April 24, 2006
Photographer states :: Taken a few minutes before the first tornado touched down.
Tornado in El Reno
April 24, 2006
Why that was only a few days ago.
Hm.
What will be 'The Day After Tomorrow?'
Morning Papers - continued ...
The Boston Globe
Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.
The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said yesterday that when the bill Kennedy backs that would effectively halt the wind farm comes up for a vote in the Senate, they will object on procedural grounds. They say they'll argue that a renewable energy project shouldn't be lumped in with a bill governing the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it was slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind farm time to make their case to members of Congress.
''Are we going to be for developing alternative energy or not?" said Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who helped persuade House leaders to table the bill until at least mid-May. ''The longer you delay it, the longer there is for people to examine the issue, and to determine what's going on here."
The efforts to move the wind farm forward occur amid growing attention to Kennedy's role in the secret, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stop it. Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senator who inserted the wind-farm provision into the Coast Guard bill, has acknowledged discussing the matter privately with the Massachusetts Democrat.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/27/kennedy_faces_fight_on_cape_wind/
Memories turn chilling
Cancer fears haunt those who grew up by Ashland plant
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ASHLAND -- As a boy, Reginald Mimms recalls, he fired a pellet gun at canisters behind the Nyanza Inc. chemical and dye plant, cheering with his friends as they exploded into a cloud of steel-gray vapor.
Long foul balls sent Neil MacLennan wading thigh-high into pools of sludgy, iridescent water, as his baseball buddies watched from the bank.
In a game of tag that was an after-school ritual, Kathy Zilioli chased her younger brother, as he shrieked with delight, into the marshy woods behind their house.
These were idyllic memories of childhood in Ashland, a middle-class suburb 25 miles west of Boston. Now, decades later, these recollections are flooding back, not as the escapades of carefree youth, but as horrific moments those who experienced them wish had never happened.
A new study by the state Department of Public Health has shown that for hundreds who grew up in Ashland, swimming or wading in the foul water behind the plant put them at a far higher risk of developing cancer.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/memories_turn_chilling/
State releases Ashland cancer estimates
Up to 600 people at greater risk
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Up to 600 former or current Ashland residents could be at greater risk for developing cancer because they played in contaminated water at or near a toxic waste site, according to data released yesterday by the state Department of Public Health. But the number could be as small as 200.
The state issued a broad warning Tuesday to Ashland residents who waded or swam in areas polluted by the now-closed Nyanza Inc. dye manufacturing plant between 1965 and 1985. State officials said these people should consult with a doctor about their cancer risk, but could not immediately say how many people to whom the alert applied.
Yesterday they provided the Globe with more detailed data from the study, which concluded that residents who were between 10 and 18 in those years had a risk of developing cancer that was two to four times greater if they came into contact with the water.
The state estimates that 2,751 residents were in that age group during two decades when the plant's grounds were accessible to the public -- ages when people were most likely to play in the pools, streams, and wetlands on and around the property. They tracked down and interviewed about half of that group, and found that between 7 percent and 22 percent of those interviewed reported having been in contact with contaminated water in the three highest-risk areas, said Suzanne Condon, assistant commissioner of the State Department of Public Health who oversaw the study. That means that between 200 and 605 people in the target age group could be at risk.
The warning has sparked deep concern in the suburban community of almost 15,000 about 25 miles west of Boston, though doctors and health officials in the area reported receiving only a smattering of calls from residents yesterday. The physicians and health agents said they were unsure precisely what to advise patients or how to monitor their health, because the state study found an elevated risk for cancer in general, not any one particular type.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/state_releases_ashland_cancer_estimates/
Healey vows to shift from Romney's path
Draws differences on policy, style
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey made clear yesterday that she plans to step out of Governor Mitt Romney's shadow and set a sharply different style of governing by attempting to establish a strong working relationship with the Democrat-controlled Legislature if she is elected.
In an interview on the eve of the state Republican convention, Healey promised to be an ''extremely hands-on, personally involved governor" with lawmakers to advance a frugal, pro-business agenda that is markedly more socially moderate than Romney's.
''Each governor is different," she said when pressed on whether she had a different governing style than Romney, ''and I believe that I would be an extremely hands-on, personally involved governor who would work with the Legislature to advance the best interests of the people of the Commonwealth."
Her description of the role she envisions contrasts with the image of Romney, who is seen by many legislators, special interest groups, and some business people as aloof and disengaged, except on a few issues such as healthcare legislation.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/04/27/healey_vows_to_shift_from_romneys_path/
When parents' values conflict with public schools
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist April 27, 2006
OF THE FIVE candidates running to succeed Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts, all but one have chosen to send their children to private schools. Nothing wrong with that -- millions of parents would move their kids out of public schools tomorrow if they thought they could afford something better. For millions more, government schooling isn't an option in the first place: They would no sooner let the state decide what their children should learn than they would let it to decide whom they should marry.
In an interview this month, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the only Republican in the race, explained why she and her husband picked a private school for their son and daughter. "I want my kids to be in an environment where they can talk about values," she said -- talk about values, that is, "in a way that you can't always do in a public school setting."
It's hard to see anything objectionable in Healey's words, but they triggered a broadside from Attorney General Thomas Reilly, a Democrat and the only gubernatorial candidate whose children all attended public schools.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/27/when_parents_values_conflict_with_public_schools/
Fleeing guerrillas, Colombian tribe makes perilous journey
By Indira A. R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ISTMINA, Colombia -- With just the clothes on their backs and enough bananas for the journey, the people of one of Colombia's oldest indigenous tribes are fleeing for their lives.
In one teeming motorized canoe after another, more than 700 Wounaan people made harrowing 13-hour journeys upriver from their ancestral lands in western Colombia in recent days, escaping Marxist rebels who had murdered two of the tribe's leaders and vowed to exterminate 14 others on a hit list. More than half of the terrified tribe was left behind when the community ran out of money to buy fuel for the canoe engines.
The Wounaan of Chocó province are among as many as 3 million displaced Colombians who have been forced off their land in the past 20 years to escape execution by rebel groups, recruitment into illegal armies, obligatory cultivation of coca leaf and opium poppy, or military operations.
The vicious campaign by leftist rebels against the Colombian government has persisted for four decades and faded from international headlines, but the war continues to create one the world's largest populations of displaced people. The United Nations says Colombia's is one of the worst internal refugee crises since World War II, and Human Rights Watch this year called it the most serious human rights situation in all of Latin America.
Last year alone, an average of 850 people fled their communities every day in this nation of 43 million people, according to Codhes, an independent Colombian watchdog group that tracks displaced people. In the capital, Bogotá, 1,100 new displaced families have registered for public assistance in the past month, according to the government.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/04/27/fleeing_guerrillas_colombian_tribe_makes_perilous_journey/
Israeli barrier draws artists to a cause
Many Palestinians object to paintings as disguising reality
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent April 27, 2006
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- For Israelis, the 451-mile security barrier snaking through the West Bank has been highly effective in keeping out would-be suicide bombers. For Palestinians, it's an ugly symbol of Israeli control over every aspect of their lives.
For European artists who sympathize with the Palestinian cause, the concrete urban portion of the barrier has become the world's most inviting canvas. Some Palestinians say they appreciate that artistic support. But many Palestinian artists have expressed outrage, saying the art disguises the reality of the wall.
Most of the barrier is being built through the wilderness close to the Green Line, the old West Bank border between Israel and Jordan before the 1967 Six-Day War. On those isolated hills, the barrier is a see-through fence equipped with electronic sensors, topped with barbed wire and flanked by an anti-tank ditch.
The five percent of the barrier that passes between houses in urban areas is a much narrower and starker 30-foot-high, gray cement wall. It has been daubed with slogans, posters, and even advertisements by local shopkeepers. But it is the eye-catching paintings adorning these sections of the barrier that have ignited a sharp debate.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/israeli_barrier_draws_artists_to_a_cause/
Nepal's rebels call 3-month cease-fire
By Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press April 27, 2006
KATMANDU -- Nepal's communist rebels, who backed the opposition protests that forced King Gyanendra to restore parliament, declared a three-month, unilateral cease-fire today in their violent campaign against the monarchist government.
The announcement came a day before the reinstated parliament convenes in Katmandu. It is expected to elect a new prime minister and initiate the process for electing a special assembly that would write a new constitution.
''We declare a unilateral cease-fire for three months," the elusive rebel leader Prachanda said in a statement. He said the rebels would hold their fire ''to express deep commitment to people's desire for peace."
The rebel decision follows a meeting between Prachanda and Girija Prasad Koirala, who is likely to be named prime minister. Their talk cleared up misunderstanding between the alliance of seven opposition parties and the rebels.
The rebels initially had been angered by the alliance's acceptance of Gyanendra's offer to hand over power and reinstate parliament that would form a new government, saying it was a betrayal of an understanding between the alliance and the rebels.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/nepals_rebels_call_3_month_cease_fire/
Peace Corp.
As the international community dithers over Darfur, private military companies say they've got what it takes to stop the carnage, if only someone would hire them.
THREE YEARS OF FIGHTING in the Darfur region of Sudan have left an estimated 180,000 dead and nearly 2 million refugees. In recent weeks, both the UN and the US have turned up the volume of their demands to end the violence (which the Bush administration has publicly called genocide), but they've been hard pressed to turn their exhortations into action. The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/04/23/peace_corp/
Modern love
Style is softer and warmer now, often mixing with traditional elements
By Paul Frederick Roberts, Globe Correspondent April 23, 2006
Kathy Ball-Toncic loved the open floor plan and ample windows that bathed the Cambridge condominium in sunlight. But she was concerned the building's unusual design would be a turn-off to her husband, an architect with particular tastes.
It turned out he loved the place on Bellis Circle, too. But after the couple moved in last September, they learned some of their new neighbors were not so taken with it.
''One person actually said to me, 'Well, at least you're nice!' " recalled Ball-Toncic.
With its flat roof, sharp angles, and metal protuberances, the Bellis Circle building strikes an aggressive, modernist profile that homeowners seem to either love or hate. Like it or not, such intensely styled houses are making a quiet comeback.
Unlike their early 20th century predecessors, which were often derided as impractical and sterile, even jarring, today's modern homes strive for warmer, softer touches, even going so far as to blend modernist elements with more traditional, familiar, or comforting architectural features.
http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2006/04/23/modern_love/
Roll out the second home
A younger generation develops a passion for RVs
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Darlene Bell and her husband, Jason, bought a second home in New Hampshire a few years ago but quickly realized they weren't using it as much as they had assumed they would -- a situation made more irksome by the fact that they were paying property taxes and utility bills for that largely unused house.
So they put the house on the market and did what an increasing number of young Americans are doing: They bought a recreational vehicle, or RV. Theirs is a 25-foot-long towable trailer with a bed, bathroom, kitchen with microwave and refrigerator, and hookups for cable TV. It has become, in effect, their second home, but a cheaper one that has turned summer weekends into a moveable feast.
''We don't always have to go to the same place all the time," said Bell, 31, who lives in Hanover. ''We can go to New Hampshire if we want, or we can go to Maine, or down the Cape."
Think RV, and you might think of retirees burning up their children's inheritances as they tool down the road in an oversized, gas-guzzling motor home. But the reality is that people under 35 -- who came of age watching MTV's ''Road Rules," in which an RV was a vehicle for youthful adventure -- now constitute a fast-growing segment of RV buyers. Last year the number of RV owners in the United States younger than 35 topped 1 million, up from 850,000 four years earlier.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2006/04/27/roll_out_the_second_home/
Jane Jacobs, 1916-2006
April 27, 2006
JANE JACOBS, the groundbreaking urban thinker who died Tuesday, never made her home in Boston, but she had strong views on how the city had changed and great affection for one neighborhood that hadn't: the North End. Her 1961 book, ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities," influenced many people who would guide development of the city in the 1970s and '80s -- and more by what they didn't build than what they did.
''It was a great experience to read her book," said Frederick Salvucci, former state secretary of transportation in a telephone interview yesterday. ''She was writing what I was thinking."
Jacobs wasn't antiautomobile, but she detested expressways that cut through urban neighborhoods. In the 1960s, she helped defeat a plan to slice a highway through Greenwich Village in Manhattan, where she lived. Salvucci and other activists drew inspiration from her insights as they fought to spare Boston and Cambridge from the Inner Belt and the Southwest Expressway.
Jacobs didn't have much use for the concept of high buildings scattered about plazas: ''vertical concentrations of people, separated by vacuities," she called them. ''She altered the way people thought about cities," said Beatrice Nessen, one of the leaders of the successful struggle to prevent construction of Park Plaza, a high-rise complex between Tremont and Arlington streets in the 1970s.
''Her book was a beacon," said Stephen Coyle, who read it as an undergraduate at Brandeis. When he became director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 1984, Jacobs's insights guided BRA policy to insist on active public uses for the first floors of commercial buildings. Jacobs's thinking guided the authority as it stressed the necessity of neighborhood input into development. ''She allowed alternative thinking to grow up, that all wisdom did not reside in those in power, " Coyle said.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/04/27/jane_jacobs_1916_2006/
Journalism at Risk
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHES OUT ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
Governments, Nongovernmental Organizations Promote Press Freedom
World Press Freedom Day celebrates accomplishments, marks problems
Washington – Each year, May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day when the importance of a free press to civil society is celebrated and the state of press freedom around the world is evaluated. The day also serves as a reminder to governments to respect their commitments to uphold the fundamental rights of journalists and their public audience’s right to be informed about the state of their countries and the world.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed May 3 as World Press Freedom Day in 1993 to be a reminder to the world that in many countries the independence of the media is threatened by government censorship of newspapers and other media, and in some cases, the lives of journalists are threatened as they work to bring light to issues of public importance.
Press freedom and the extent to which independent media thrive vary greatly around the world, according to organizations such as Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists that support a free press. Press freedom is nonexistent in some countries but thriving in others. Often, there is a mixture involving some degree of press freedom but also serious restrictions. Consequently, the task of supporting independent media is complex and very much dependent on the reality of life in particular areas.
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060425144727maduobbA0.5204737&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
MediaNews to acquire more Bay Area papers
San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times transactions part of McClatchy sale
MediaNews Group of Denver has agreed to acquire the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times -- the Bay Area's second and third largest newspapers -- as well as newspapers in Monterey and St. Paul, Minn., from McClatchy Co. in $1 billion deal that creates a regional newspaper power.
The Hearst Corp. of New York, publisher of The Chronicle, would provide financial backing for the transaction in exchange for a minority ownership stake in MediaNews newspaper operations outside the Bay Area, the companies said Wednesday. The deal would give MediaNews and its CEO, William Dean Singleton, a commanding presence in the region.
The company owns nine Bay Area papers, including the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal and others in Alameda, San Mateo and Solano counties, with a combined daily circulation of 300,000 as well as two local weeklies. Adding the Mercury News, with a daily circulation of 274,000 and the Contra Costa Times, with 185,000, plus an assortment of Knight Ridder local weeklies, would give MediaNews a combined circulation of well over 700,000 and a dominant footprint in six counties.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/SINGLETON.TMP
Think yourself lucky if your big worry is the future of journalism
Thursday, 27 April 2006
The British media is fond of studying itself. The relationship and rivalry between print and digital journalism is today's preoccupation. Can printed and digital publications survive alongside each other and, if so, for how long? Is one platform better than the other? Are newspapers doomed? And so on.
And on and on. This never-ending neurosis about technology and the future crowds out some timeless struggles going on beyond the borders of the media-rich continents of Europe and America. The journalists involved in these timeless battles over free expression do not have the luxury of time to blog about the editorial standards at huffingtonpost.com.
Do the names U Win Tin, Al- Sanussi Al-Darrat and Dawit Isaac ring any bells?
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/270406/think_yourself_lucky_if_your_big_worry_is_the_future_of_journalism
Days of dictatorship are over
Keshab Raj Seadie
New York,
April 26, 2006
Freedom of press is a hallmark of democracy. Despite King Gyanendra's statements that he wants revive democracy in Nepal, recent actions have presented a different picture.
According to media reports, approximately 200 journalists marched through Kathmandu on April 15.
Police blocked the rally and beat them with batons.
The journalists were simply calling for restoration of press freedom and the release of journalists who had been jailed since King Gyanendra seized power on February 1, 2005.
Reports indicate that seven journalists were wounded and at least a dozen detained during the peaceful protest.
The Federation of Nepalese Journalists continues to denounce such actions.
On April 14, King Gyanendra issued a statement calling for conversation with seven major political parties in Nepal and suggesting general election.
At the same time, he did not offer any specifics.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1683181,0093.htm
High time for donors to support an all-Ethiopian Conference - NES
Thursday 27 April 2006 00:21.
Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)
Scandinavian Chapter
Press Release No. 28
April 26, 2006
Title: It is High Time that Donors Support an Agenda for an All-Ethiopian and All- Inclusive National Conference and Dialogue
"We have no enemies in this struggle; ...... our struggle is to create a level playing field where everyone’s voice is heard and the collective vision that comes out of that is one shared by all. That is what the Ethiopian people hoped for in May 2005. That is what our leaders are in jail for. That is what our compatriots have paid the ultimate sacrifice for. That is what we will continue to struggle towards, for as long as it takes." Kinijit Open Letter, to the US Ambassador in Ethiopia, April 19, 2006
“... Only when we have wiped the tears from the faces of all, have we truly arrived as a nation”. M. Ghandi
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15293
Ethiopia jails two more journalists, squashes private enterprise
Posted Wed, 26 Apr 2006
Addis Ababa - Ethiopia has sentenced two more journalists to jail on revived charges under the country's 1992 press law, said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists' sources on Tuesday.
The sources said that Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on anti-state charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April18 2006, while freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced Monday to one year and he was jailed on the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of the 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order.
They were arrested in a crackdown following anti-government protests in November 2005 and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code.
Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law.
Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
These circumstances work against Ethiopia’s policy of becoming a middle-income country through sustainable growth as private enterprise is undermined. Furthermore, the alleged treatment of these journalists does not show a country that is interested in developing first world rights and so the possible benefits of growing wealth are undermined. -panapress
http://www.businessinafrica.net/news/east_africa/269778.htm
Reporters without Borders
Income and expenditure
The Reporters Without Borders budget in 2004 was €3,235,928 and the financial situation remained steady. Self-generated funds increased and the organisation achieved a surplus while substantially expanding its activities.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10594
Ethiopia: Two More Journalists Sentenced to Jail On Old Charges
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2006
Posted to the web April 26, 2006
Ethiopia
Two more journalists have been sentenced to jail on revived charges under Ethiopia's 1992 press law, according to CPJ sources. Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on antistate charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April 18. Freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced yesterday to one year and jailed the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order. They were arrested in a crackdown following antigovernment protests in November and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code. Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law. Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604260675.html
From the Right, as if there is anything else intended …
Reporters and Investigations
There is no reason for delay in pursuing the CIA leak case.
National Review's Byron York sensibly asks: what are the next steps in the investigation into the intelligence community's leaking of classified information to the press, including the deeply sensitive detention arrangements for high-ranking al Qaeda captives (the so-called "black-site" prisons)? That disclosure profoundly harmed our nation's critical relationship with foreign intelligence services which have been assisting the war effort.
In connection with the internal CIA end of that probe, one intelligence officer, Mary O. McCarthy, has been terminated for unauthorized contacts with members of the media, including the Washington Post's Dana Priest. It was Priest who reported the black-sites story last year. Thus, it came as no surprise this weekend when several press accounts, including an Associated Press story published by the Post itself, identified McCarthy as a black-sites source.
McCarthy, however, has now flatly denied that this is the case, asserting that she did not even have access to such information. Today, the Post reports that at least one senior intelligence official familiar with the probe is supporting McCarthy's claims. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the CIA's public statements, while strongly suggestive of McCarthy's having leaked classified information, did not tie her directly to the black-sites disclosure.
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604251149.asp
Time to Support Haiti
Tuesday 25 April 2006
By Michael Deibert [1]
Op-Ed submitted to AlterPresse - 23rd April 2006
On 14th May, if everything goes according to plan, Haiti will inaugurate René Garcia Prèval as its new president. Shortly thereafter, the country will install new senators and deputies for its upper and lower houses of parliament. Mr. Prèval, who served as Haiti’s president from 1996 until 2001, will take over the leadership of a country courtesy of a ballot supervised by the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and replace an unelected interim government that has overseen convulsing violence and economic stagnation since the flight of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
MINUSTAH, lead by former Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdès and consisting of 7,519 UN peacekeeping troops, 1,776 police and a staff of 1,132 civilian personnel, has been widely and often accurately criticised for its inability to impose order in Haiti’s lawless capital, Port-au-Prince. The city has seen hundreds, possibly thousands, killed in waves of kidnappings, gang wars, blanket police retaliation and vigilante justice since Aristide fled amid an armed rebellion and massive street protests against his rule. But the mission, even despite the timid turnout for this month’s second-round vote, must nonetheless be congratulated on pulling off in the first round a feat that even a few months before many would have thought impossible: mass participation in an electoral process now widely viewed as legitimate in a country riven by class and political hatreds.
http://www.alterpresse.org/article.php3?id_article=4536
Campaign highlights press freedom
DELENE PIENAAR
ON PRESS Freedom Day – on May 3 – attention is drawn to the more than 500 journalists world-wide who were arrested last year simply for doing their jobs.
The theme for this year’s campaign, run by The World Association of Newspapers (Wan), is: “Don’t lock up information – stop jailing journalists”.
Their website speaks of journalists like Raul Rivero who spent two years behind bars in Cuba; San San Nwe, a Burmese journalist, who was released from prison after seven years and her colleague U Win Tin who has been jailed 16 years.
The most intriguing story is that of Pius Njawe, one of Africa’s most prominent journalists. He was arrested 126 times over the past 34 years in Cameroon.
http://www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components/Category_Article_Text_Template/0,,541-545-549_1922448~A,00.html
London Nepal Embassy Protest Sat 29th
NEPAL OR NOTHING
Our correspondent in Kathmandu writes..
In Nepal the showdown between a fat power-crazed king and a huge pro-democracy movement has shut down the entire country since April 6th. The strike is absolute - no driving vehicles, no work, often no shops at all. Hospitals, commercial airlines and banks are on strike. Food is getting expensive and fuel is scarce, but until the king stands down and returns democracy and human rights to the people, the strike is likely to continue.
The media and the world in general has paid little notice. Nepal is not rich in oil or uranium, and doesn't export much. The only thing at stake here is the freedom and future of its 23 million citizens.
The police and army are loyal to King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev - a man who believes he is an incarnation of Vishnu with a divine right to screw the country. Everybody else thinks he's a fat old nutter who killed off the entire royal family and blamed his son-in-law, who then conveniently died, in order to become king. He decided a year ago to take over complete control as a divine ruler and dump democracy and parliament. Famously he declared that the "days of monarchy being seen but not heard... are over". All human rights have been canceled and thousands have been jailed without trial.
Massive numbers have hit the streets in virtually every town in the country. The andolan (protest) was initially called for April 6th-9th, but in response to police violence it was extended indefinitely. Every part of society has held marches and demos against the king. Lawyers, journalists, doctors, women, old people, families of 'disappeared' people, professors, schoolkids, tourists, government workers, NGO workers, students and families of police have taken part. Police have attacked all of the above, perhaps with the exception of their own families!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338730.html
New Zealand Herald
All beneficiaries to be offered work
27.04.06 4.00pm
New beneficiaries will get help to find work regardless of the type of benefits they are on after it was found that one-in-five said they are able to work, Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said today.
"From May 2006, all new Work and Income clients will be case managed differently to improve the focus on getting people into the right job," Mr Benson-Pope said.
"The starting point will be what a person can do rather than what benefit they are entitled to."
Work and Income has been piloting an employment case management approach to beneficiaries not receiving the dole -- such as the Domestic Purposes, Sickness or Invalid's Benefit - similar to the approach taken with the unemployment benefit.
"The pilots we ran showed that up to 20 per cent of clients who get a non-unemployment related benefit were identified as being able to work now, be it part-time or full-time," Mr Benson-Pope said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379212
Former Catholic brother jailed for sexually abusing boys
27.04.06 1.00pm
Disgraced former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath has been jailed for five years -- his third prison term for the sexual abuse of boys.
At a sentencing following a four-week trial in the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Lester Chisholm told the 58-year-old that he was sceptical about his claims of remorse.
In setting the length of the jail term, he had to take into account a 1993 jail term imposed on McGrath in Christchurch, and a nine-month term in Sydney later.
The latest offending was against boys at Marylands School in the 1970s, where McGrath was a brother, teacher and housemaster.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379187
NZ soldier caught up in new Egypt blast
27.04.06 9.05am UPDATE
A New Zealander has escaped injury in twin suicide attacks targeting security personnel in Egypt.
The attacks came two days after triple bombings killed 24 people in a resort further south.
One suicide bomber targeted an Egyptian police officer and peacekeepers from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) near the Gaza Strip border town of Rafah.
The second suicide bomber targeted Egyptian police as they rushed to the scene of the first explosion.
The soldier was named today as Army Private Joshua Roewen, who has been in the Army for three years and is 21-years-old. He was driving close to the North Camp base at the time of one of the explosions.
Private Roewen's quick actions assisted in getting the vehicle away from the danger area, the army said.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Shatford said: "He is coping well with the situation and is undergoing critical incident management support from MFO staff, which occurs routinely after any significant event. He is expected to remain with the MFO to complete his deployment."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379139
Radiation therapists go on strike
27.04.06 1.00pm
Hundreds of cancer patients nationwide are having their radiation therapy deferred today, as radiation therapists go on strike.
The therapists are walking off the job for 14 hours in protest at the rejection of their claim for a cost of living rise. They say the district health boards are offering them a zero increase.
But DHBs say radiation therapists are already getting between two and six per cent more this year, as part of a package negotiated in 2002 to address the severe shortage of trained people in their profession.
They say the therapists' salaries have increased 25 per cent in three years, and there's now no shortage.
The DHBs say radiation therapists are not just claiming a cost of living increase, but also want a six per cent superannuation contribution and an extra week's leave.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379159
Iran threatens to strike at US targets
27.04.06 1.00pm
TEHRAN - Iran vowed today to strike at US interests worldwide if it is attacked by the United States, which is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear programme.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the threat two days before the UN nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is meeting Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.
Iran says it will not stop enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is a clandestine effort to make atomic bombs.
"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.
"The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379176
Sri Lanka strikes at Tigers as thousands flee homes
27.04.06 1.00pm
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's military launched air and artillery strikes on Tamil Tiger targets in the island's northeast on Wednesday, with thousands fleeing their homes a day after a suicide attack damaged an already fragile cease-fire.
Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the latest strikes came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired at the military near the northeastern port of Trincomalee. By night, the army said the island was quiet.
The rebels said they would retaliate if the government continued the attacks, launched after a suspected Tiger suicide blast in the capital killed 10 and wounded the army commander.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379194
UK finds bird flu in dead chickens
27.04.06 10.15am
LONDON - Dead chickens on a farm in eastern England have tested positive for bird flu, the British government has announced.
First tests suggest they had the H7 strain of the disease, and not the H5N1 strain, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement. H5N1 has killed more than 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia.
"Further tests are being carried out to determine the strain of the virus and more will be known tomorrow," it said.
Britain said all the birds will be killed at the farm near the market town of Dereham, in the eastern English county of Norfolk, an agricultural center which is home to some of Europe's biggest poultry farms.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379167
Oxfam withdraws backing for trade deal talks
27.04.06 1.00pm
By Philip Thornton
Oxfam has abandoned its support for the current talks on a new trade deal, saying Europe and the US have failed to live up to their promises to use trade to cut poverty in the world's poorest countries.
In a marked U-turn after four years of support for the painfully protracted negotiations, the global aid agency will today warn poor countries the deal currently on the table would make them worse off.
The move comes as MPs blame the UK for failing to use its presidency of the EU last year to force through a better deal.
It said no deal was better than a bad deal, accusing the leading rich countries of failing to offer meaningful cuts in farm subsidies and tariffs.
It blames Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, and his US counterpart Rob Portman for playing a game of brinkmanship that has sidelined the poverty agenda - at the heart of the talks when they were launched in November 2001.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379163
Jolie speaks about schools, not babies or Brad
27.04.06 1.00pm
JOHANNESBURG - Heavily-pregnant Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has broken her silence from her African hideaway, but she wasn't talking babies or Brad Pitt.
Jolie, whose trip to Namibia has sparked a blaze of interest in the international media, took time to promote one of her favourite causes: boosting educational opportunities for the world's poor.
Talking to reporters in a teleconference with British finance minister Gordon Brown, Jolie said it was time for the world to get behind the Global Campaign for Education, a new plan aimed at giving 100 million children in poor countries the chance to go to school.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379150
White House aide Rove testifies in leak case
27.04.06 10.30am
WASHINGTON - Karl Rove has appeared before a US grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer's identity but his lawyer said there was still no sign the top presidential adviser will face charges in the case.
Rove remains under investigation but has not received any indication from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about whether he would be charged, attorney Robert Luskin said.
"He testified voluntarily and unconditionally ... to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005," Luskin said in a statement. "Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges."
Fitzgerald has told Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, that he is not a target of the investigation, Luskin said, meaning that he has not received a letter indicating that legal charges are likely.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379171
Wrong body returned to Australia from Iraq
27.04.06 9.20am
Defence Department officials in Australia have revealed a body which has arrived in Melbourne, is not that of the first Australian troop killed in Iraq.
The family of Private Jake Kovco had gathered at Melbourne Airport to claim the soldier's body, only to find out the wrong one had been sent from Baghdad.
It is not yet known how the error happened, but Private Kovco's body is still in Kuwait and Australia's Defence Department is promising to make all efforts to return it as quickly as possible.
The 26-year-old soldier was cleaning his weapon on Friday, when he accidently shot himself.
There are 110 Australian troops in Baghdad as part of a security detachment assigned to protect officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379154
Rice joins Rumsfeld in Iraq to meet new PM
27.04.06 8.00am
BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said after meeting Iraq's new prime minister-designate on Wednesday they were impressed with his commitment to unite the country.
President Bush, who has called for a national unity government in Baghdad to help defeat a Sunni Arab insurgency and end sectarian blood-letting, dispatched Rice and Rumsfeld to Baghdad to hold talks with Nuri al-Maliki.
"He was really impressive," Rice told reporters after the meeting with the tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, nominated last week at the end of four months of political paralysis in Baghdad over the formation of a new government after December elections.
On top of the long-running insurgency there has been an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed in February, raising fears among many Iraqis of a possible slide into civil war.
The bloodshed has threatened Bush's hopes of starting to withdraw some of the 133,000 US troops in Iraq before US congressional elections in November.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379144
Bush blocks assets related to Hariri killing
27.04.06 7.25am
WASHINGTON - President George W Bush has issued an order blocking the assets of anyone connected with the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Bush in a statement said the new order blocks the property and interests of anyone determined to have been involved in Hariri's assassination and that additional steps were being taken "concerning certain actions of the government of Syria."
A UN report last year implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing and said Syria was impeding the inquiry. Syria has denied involvement.
Bush's order does not designate anyone specifically, but establishes the criteria for who would fall under the order.
In addition to blocking the assets of anyone found to be involved in Hariri's assassination, the order targets anyone involved in an assassination or bombing in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, related to Hariri's killing or implicating the Syrian government, an administration official said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379140
Egypt hit by more bombings
27.04.06
ISMAILIA, Egypt - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai in what appeared to be abortive attacks by a mysterious militant group on a multinational peace force and on the Egyptian police.
One bomber died near an airport used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which monitors the border with Israel, and another close to an Egyptian police vehicle. No one else was hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said he thought the incidents could be linked to bombings which killed 18 people in the budget resort of Dahab on Monday - the third attack in two years on Sinai resorts frequented by foreign tourists.
The state news agency MENA quoted informed security sources as saying all the attacks were related and the Dahab bombings could have been the work of three Sinai Bedouin who have been on the run in the mountainous region since last July.
"The sources said ... that the perpetrators of the Dahab bombings were from the fugitive remnants of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings (in July 2005)," the agency said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379142
Nepal's Maoist rebels declare ceasefire
27.04.06 11.25am
KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist rebels declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire from Thursday and said the move reflected their desire for the formation of a special assembly to write a new constitution.
"Our People's Liberation Army will not carry out any offensive military action during this period and will remain defensive," rebel chief Prachanda said in a statement.
"Our party believes that this declaration will highly respect the aspiration for the constituent assembly, a democratic republic and peace that is seen on the street."
The Maoists have been fighting to overthrow the monarchy since 1996 and at least 13,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379178
Book on Maasai tribe fuels debate on lost lands
27.04.06 1.40pm
NAIROBI - Kenya's Maasai lost their best land through British colonial swindling and their own political intrigues, a historian has written in a new account of the struggle by one of Africa's most emblematic tribes.
A century on, the Maasai still suffer from a colonial hangover they say was aggravated by post-independence government policies that keep them estranged from ancestral lands.
But slim knowledge about the signing of 1904 and 1911 treaties between Britain and illiterate Maasai tribesmen, and a 1913 lawsuit, have led to confusion about how the disastrous moves came about, author Lotte Hughes said.
"It is not a black and white issue, and I do not mean racially," Hughes, a historian at Britain's Open University, told Reuters at this week's launch in Kenya of her book.
"Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure" has already given new fodder to Maasai activists seeking to sue Kenya and Britain for the return of their lands.
Among Kenya's smallest but best-known tribes, Maasai, with their spears, bright red clothes and beads, represent an almost mythic image of Africa.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379195
Suspected US agent silenced
27.04.06
DERA ISMAIL KHAN - Officials said pro-Taleban militants beheaded a cab driver on suspicion of being an informer for the United States, the fourth such killing in Pakistan's restive Waziristan region this month.
The body was found by the roadside in Shavai Kainari, 25km south of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan that borders Afghanistan in an area where US-led forces are hunting al Qaeda militants and their allies.
An intelligence official said the driver was kidnapped by the Muslim militants last week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379057
Bush picks Fox News host as press secretary
26.04.06 4.20pm
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush has picked Fox News Radio host Tony Snow as his new White House press secretary and is expected to announce the choice as early as Wednesday, a Republican official said today.
Snow will replace Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week as part of a staff shake-up engineered by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten aimed at reviving Bush's presidency.
Sources familiar with the situation said Snow wrestled with the decision for several days on whether to take the gruelling job. A former speechwriter for former President George Bush, he was treated for colon cancer last year.
Fox News said on its website Snow was given a clean bill of health by his oncologist Tuesday, following a CAT scan and other tests that were undertaken last Thursday.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379031
Chinese trio get death for killing 9 prostitutes
27.04.06 4.20pm
BEIJING - A Chinese court has sentenced three men to death for robbing, raping and killing nine women, most of whom were prostitutes, and then skinning one of them.
Hong Kong's Beijing-funded Wen Wei Po newspaper said the Shaanxi province High Court upheld death sentences handed down by the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Xian to Yin Xiaomin, Cao Ying and Hu Yuelong.
They dismembered their first victim, a prostitute who had worked at a barber shop serving as a front for a brothel, in 1993 after raping and robbing her of 20 yuan ($4), according to Beijing's mouthpiece in Hong Kong.
The gang also kidnapped and skinned a nightclub hostess and made a vest out of her skin, the newspaper said.
Crime was virtually unheard of in China in the years after the Communists swept to power in 1949 but it has staged a comeback since economic reforms introduced in the late 1970s widened a wealth gap and left an ideological vacuum.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379204
Flowers and tears mark Chernobyl anniversary
27.04.06 8.00am
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -Mourners laid red carnations - symbols of grief - in the shadow of the ruined Chernobyl power station on Wednesday as they marked the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident.
Hundreds filed past a memorial wall engraved with the names of the local fire crew. They were among the first to perish when Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 blew up on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive dust across Europe.
One old woman in a headscarf made the sign of the cross as she stooped to lay a single carnation at the foot of the wall.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko said it was time to start healing the scars left by the disaster.
"After 20 years of pain and fear, this land must feel progress," he told mourners in Chernobyl - epicenter of a still-contaminated 30-km "exclusion zone" that straddles parts of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379147
King gets judges to sort out crisis
27.04.06
BANGKOK - Thailand's top judges are to meet tomorrow to find a solution to the country's political crisis in response to a rare intervention by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The ruling Thai Rak Thai party and the three main Opposition parties were separately holding talks.
The King summoned senior judges to tell them he could not produce a solution to the crisis. The Opposition's election boycott on April 2 had produced a undemocratic one-party Parliament.
The boycott has made it unlikely Parliament will be able to meet to begin the process of forming a new Government.
It was the King's first direct political intervention since 1992 when he stepped in to end a bloody confrontation between a military Government and a "people power" street protest.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379058
Solomons PM forced out after eight days
27.04.06
By Ainsley Thomson
HONIARA - "We need change, we need change," they yelled, waving palm branches and shouting with joy, as news filtered through to a jubilant crowd that their Prime Minister had stood down.
The same Solomon Islanders who eight days ago went on a violent rampage to protest against Snyder Rini's election, yesterday took to the streets in celebration after the Opposition pulled together the numbers to force his resignation.
Resident Luke Hoasi told the Herald people expected a change of government.
"We don't want any of the old ministers in the new government, we want a completely new government."
Rini was associated with the old guard of politics in the Solomon Islands and with the failed governments of the past, which led to the armed intervention in 2003 by New Zealand and Australia to end five years of civil strife.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379130
Antarctica
Protection sought for islands off Antarctica
11.03.06
The Government plans to seek United Nations protection in the Ross Sea equivalent to a marine reserve around the icy Balleny Islands, which may provide a foothold for wildlife dispersed by the effects of global warming.
A scientific expedition that returned from the islands on March 5 found there had been a surge in the population of chinstrap penguins.
Numbers were well up on the previously recorded population of about 30, said the expedition's scientific leader, Franz Smith.
"We did one shore landing and found 300 birds," he said. "One interpretation of that ... is that this could be something to do with climate change."
One island in the Balleny group, Sabrina Island, is already listed as a special protected area because its population of a few dozen chinstrap penguins was thought to be the only ones of that species for thousands of kilometres along the Antarctic coast.
The Ballenys are a 195km-long chain of volcanic ice-covered islands, 250km off the coast of Antarctica, which scientists describe as an "oasis".
They rise from a seafloor depth of nearly 2000m, directly in the path of circumpolar ocean currents, forcing an upwelling of nutrient-rich waters where the Ross Sea meets the Southern Ocean.
Because they are the only islands at this latitude for thousands of kilometres in both directions they also provide essential breeding and nesting habitat for land-dependent Antarctic seal and seabird populations.
Several whale species are known to feed in the area, some of them migrating long distances to get there.
Dr Smith said the diversity of marine life there was unique.
To obtain a high seas marine protected area around the Balleny Islands under the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, New Zealand will have to show ecological processes around the islands are critical to the healthy functioning of the larger Ross Sea ecosystem. It will also need permission under the Antarctic Treaty System.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&ObjectID=10372042
continued …
Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.
The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said yesterday that when the bill Kennedy backs that would effectively halt the wind farm comes up for a vote in the Senate, they will object on procedural grounds. They say they'll argue that a renewable energy project shouldn't be lumped in with a bill governing the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it was slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind farm time to make their case to members of Congress.
''Are we going to be for developing alternative energy or not?" said Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who helped persuade House leaders to table the bill until at least mid-May. ''The longer you delay it, the longer there is for people to examine the issue, and to determine what's going on here."
The efforts to move the wind farm forward occur amid growing attention to Kennedy's role in the secret, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stop it. Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senator who inserted the wind-farm provision into the Coast Guard bill, has acknowledged discussing the matter privately with the Massachusetts Democrat.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/27/kennedy_faces_fight_on_cape_wind/
Memories turn chilling
Cancer fears haunt those who grew up by Ashland plant
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ASHLAND -- As a boy, Reginald Mimms recalls, he fired a pellet gun at canisters behind the Nyanza Inc. chemical and dye plant, cheering with his friends as they exploded into a cloud of steel-gray vapor.
Long foul balls sent Neil MacLennan wading thigh-high into pools of sludgy, iridescent water, as his baseball buddies watched from the bank.
In a game of tag that was an after-school ritual, Kathy Zilioli chased her younger brother, as he shrieked with delight, into the marshy woods behind their house.
These were idyllic memories of childhood in Ashland, a middle-class suburb 25 miles west of Boston. Now, decades later, these recollections are flooding back, not as the escapades of carefree youth, but as horrific moments those who experienced them wish had never happened.
A new study by the state Department of Public Health has shown that for hundreds who grew up in Ashland, swimming or wading in the foul water behind the plant put them at a far higher risk of developing cancer.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/memories_turn_chilling/
State releases Ashland cancer estimates
Up to 600 people at greater risk
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Up to 600 former or current Ashland residents could be at greater risk for developing cancer because they played in contaminated water at or near a toxic waste site, according to data released yesterday by the state Department of Public Health. But the number could be as small as 200.
The state issued a broad warning Tuesday to Ashland residents who waded or swam in areas polluted by the now-closed Nyanza Inc. dye manufacturing plant between 1965 and 1985. State officials said these people should consult with a doctor about their cancer risk, but could not immediately say how many people to whom the alert applied.
Yesterday they provided the Globe with more detailed data from the study, which concluded that residents who were between 10 and 18 in those years had a risk of developing cancer that was two to four times greater if they came into contact with the water.
The state estimates that 2,751 residents were in that age group during two decades when the plant's grounds were accessible to the public -- ages when people were most likely to play in the pools, streams, and wetlands on and around the property. They tracked down and interviewed about half of that group, and found that between 7 percent and 22 percent of those interviewed reported having been in contact with contaminated water in the three highest-risk areas, said Suzanne Condon, assistant commissioner of the State Department of Public Health who oversaw the study. That means that between 200 and 605 people in the target age group could be at risk.
The warning has sparked deep concern in the suburban community of almost 15,000 about 25 miles west of Boston, though doctors and health officials in the area reported receiving only a smattering of calls from residents yesterday. The physicians and health agents said they were unsure precisely what to advise patients or how to monitor their health, because the state study found an elevated risk for cancer in general, not any one particular type.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/state_releases_ashland_cancer_estimates/
Healey vows to shift from Romney's path
Draws differences on policy, style
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey made clear yesterday that she plans to step out of Governor Mitt Romney's shadow and set a sharply different style of governing by attempting to establish a strong working relationship with the Democrat-controlled Legislature if she is elected.
In an interview on the eve of the state Republican convention, Healey promised to be an ''extremely hands-on, personally involved governor" with lawmakers to advance a frugal, pro-business agenda that is markedly more socially moderate than Romney's.
''Each governor is different," she said when pressed on whether she had a different governing style than Romney, ''and I believe that I would be an extremely hands-on, personally involved governor who would work with the Legislature to advance the best interests of the people of the Commonwealth."
Her description of the role she envisions contrasts with the image of Romney, who is seen by many legislators, special interest groups, and some business people as aloof and disengaged, except on a few issues such as healthcare legislation.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/04/27/healey_vows_to_shift_from_romneys_path/
When parents' values conflict with public schools
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist April 27, 2006
OF THE FIVE candidates running to succeed Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts, all but one have chosen to send their children to private schools. Nothing wrong with that -- millions of parents would move their kids out of public schools tomorrow if they thought they could afford something better. For millions more, government schooling isn't an option in the first place: They would no sooner let the state decide what their children should learn than they would let it to decide whom they should marry.
In an interview this month, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the only Republican in the race, explained why she and her husband picked a private school for their son and daughter. "I want my kids to be in an environment where they can talk about values," she said -- talk about values, that is, "in a way that you can't always do in a public school setting."
It's hard to see anything objectionable in Healey's words, but they triggered a broadside from Attorney General Thomas Reilly, a Democrat and the only gubernatorial candidate whose children all attended public schools.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/27/when_parents_values_conflict_with_public_schools/
Fleeing guerrillas, Colombian tribe makes perilous journey
By Indira A. R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ISTMINA, Colombia -- With just the clothes on their backs and enough bananas for the journey, the people of one of Colombia's oldest indigenous tribes are fleeing for their lives.
In one teeming motorized canoe after another, more than 700 Wounaan people made harrowing 13-hour journeys upriver from their ancestral lands in western Colombia in recent days, escaping Marxist rebels who had murdered two of the tribe's leaders and vowed to exterminate 14 others on a hit list. More than half of the terrified tribe was left behind when the community ran out of money to buy fuel for the canoe engines.
The Wounaan of Chocó province are among as many as 3 million displaced Colombians who have been forced off their land in the past 20 years to escape execution by rebel groups, recruitment into illegal armies, obligatory cultivation of coca leaf and opium poppy, or military operations.
The vicious campaign by leftist rebels against the Colombian government has persisted for four decades and faded from international headlines, but the war continues to create one the world's largest populations of displaced people. The United Nations says Colombia's is one of the worst internal refugee crises since World War II, and Human Rights Watch this year called it the most serious human rights situation in all of Latin America.
Last year alone, an average of 850 people fled their communities every day in this nation of 43 million people, according to Codhes, an independent Colombian watchdog group that tracks displaced people. In the capital, Bogotá, 1,100 new displaced families have registered for public assistance in the past month, according to the government.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/04/27/fleeing_guerrillas_colombian_tribe_makes_perilous_journey/
Israeli barrier draws artists to a cause
Many Palestinians object to paintings as disguising reality
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent April 27, 2006
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- For Israelis, the 451-mile security barrier snaking through the West Bank has been highly effective in keeping out would-be suicide bombers. For Palestinians, it's an ugly symbol of Israeli control over every aspect of their lives.
For European artists who sympathize with the Palestinian cause, the concrete urban portion of the barrier has become the world's most inviting canvas. Some Palestinians say they appreciate that artistic support. But many Palestinian artists have expressed outrage, saying the art disguises the reality of the wall.
Most of the barrier is being built through the wilderness close to the Green Line, the old West Bank border between Israel and Jordan before the 1967 Six-Day War. On those isolated hills, the barrier is a see-through fence equipped with electronic sensors, topped with barbed wire and flanked by an anti-tank ditch.
The five percent of the barrier that passes between houses in urban areas is a much narrower and starker 30-foot-high, gray cement wall. It has been daubed with slogans, posters, and even advertisements by local shopkeepers. But it is the eye-catching paintings adorning these sections of the barrier that have ignited a sharp debate.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/israeli_barrier_draws_artists_to_a_cause/
Nepal's rebels call 3-month cease-fire
By Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press April 27, 2006
KATMANDU -- Nepal's communist rebels, who backed the opposition protests that forced King Gyanendra to restore parliament, declared a three-month, unilateral cease-fire today in their violent campaign against the monarchist government.
The announcement came a day before the reinstated parliament convenes in Katmandu. It is expected to elect a new prime minister and initiate the process for electing a special assembly that would write a new constitution.
''We declare a unilateral cease-fire for three months," the elusive rebel leader Prachanda said in a statement. He said the rebels would hold their fire ''to express deep commitment to people's desire for peace."
The rebel decision follows a meeting between Prachanda and Girija Prasad Koirala, who is likely to be named prime minister. Their talk cleared up misunderstanding between the alliance of seven opposition parties and the rebels.
The rebels initially had been angered by the alliance's acceptance of Gyanendra's offer to hand over power and reinstate parliament that would form a new government, saying it was a betrayal of an understanding between the alliance and the rebels.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/nepals_rebels_call_3_month_cease_fire/
Peace Corp.
As the international community dithers over Darfur, private military companies say they've got what it takes to stop the carnage, if only someone would hire them.
THREE YEARS OF FIGHTING in the Darfur region of Sudan have left an estimated 180,000 dead and nearly 2 million refugees. In recent weeks, both the UN and the US have turned up the volume of their demands to end the violence (which the Bush administration has publicly called genocide), but they've been hard pressed to turn their exhortations into action. The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/04/23/peace_corp/
Modern love
Style is softer and warmer now, often mixing with traditional elements
By Paul Frederick Roberts, Globe Correspondent April 23, 2006
Kathy Ball-Toncic loved the open floor plan and ample windows that bathed the Cambridge condominium in sunlight. But she was concerned the building's unusual design would be a turn-off to her husband, an architect with particular tastes.
It turned out he loved the place on Bellis Circle, too. But after the couple moved in last September, they learned some of their new neighbors were not so taken with it.
''One person actually said to me, 'Well, at least you're nice!' " recalled Ball-Toncic.
With its flat roof, sharp angles, and metal protuberances, the Bellis Circle building strikes an aggressive, modernist profile that homeowners seem to either love or hate. Like it or not, such intensely styled houses are making a quiet comeback.
Unlike their early 20th century predecessors, which were often derided as impractical and sterile, even jarring, today's modern homes strive for warmer, softer touches, even going so far as to blend modernist elements with more traditional, familiar, or comforting architectural features.
http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2006/04/23/modern_love/
Roll out the second home
A younger generation develops a passion for RVs
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Darlene Bell and her husband, Jason, bought a second home in New Hampshire a few years ago but quickly realized they weren't using it as much as they had assumed they would -- a situation made more irksome by the fact that they were paying property taxes and utility bills for that largely unused house.
So they put the house on the market and did what an increasing number of young Americans are doing: They bought a recreational vehicle, or RV. Theirs is a 25-foot-long towable trailer with a bed, bathroom, kitchen with microwave and refrigerator, and hookups for cable TV. It has become, in effect, their second home, but a cheaper one that has turned summer weekends into a moveable feast.
''We don't always have to go to the same place all the time," said Bell, 31, who lives in Hanover. ''We can go to New Hampshire if we want, or we can go to Maine, or down the Cape."
Think RV, and you might think of retirees burning up their children's inheritances as they tool down the road in an oversized, gas-guzzling motor home. But the reality is that people under 35 -- who came of age watching MTV's ''Road Rules," in which an RV was a vehicle for youthful adventure -- now constitute a fast-growing segment of RV buyers. Last year the number of RV owners in the United States younger than 35 topped 1 million, up from 850,000 four years earlier.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2006/04/27/roll_out_the_second_home/
Jane Jacobs, 1916-2006
April 27, 2006
JANE JACOBS, the groundbreaking urban thinker who died Tuesday, never made her home in Boston, but she had strong views on how the city had changed and great affection for one neighborhood that hadn't: the North End. Her 1961 book, ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities," influenced many people who would guide development of the city in the 1970s and '80s -- and more by what they didn't build than what they did.
''It was a great experience to read her book," said Frederick Salvucci, former state secretary of transportation in a telephone interview yesterday. ''She was writing what I was thinking."
Jacobs wasn't antiautomobile, but she detested expressways that cut through urban neighborhoods. In the 1960s, she helped defeat a plan to slice a highway through Greenwich Village in Manhattan, where she lived. Salvucci and other activists drew inspiration from her insights as they fought to spare Boston and Cambridge from the Inner Belt and the Southwest Expressway.
Jacobs didn't have much use for the concept of high buildings scattered about plazas: ''vertical concentrations of people, separated by vacuities," she called them. ''She altered the way people thought about cities," said Beatrice Nessen, one of the leaders of the successful struggle to prevent construction of Park Plaza, a high-rise complex between Tremont and Arlington streets in the 1970s.
''Her book was a beacon," said Stephen Coyle, who read it as an undergraduate at Brandeis. When he became director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 1984, Jacobs's insights guided BRA policy to insist on active public uses for the first floors of commercial buildings. Jacobs's thinking guided the authority as it stressed the necessity of neighborhood input into development. ''She allowed alternative thinking to grow up, that all wisdom did not reside in those in power, " Coyle said.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/04/27/jane_jacobs_1916_2006/
Journalism at Risk
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHES OUT ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
Governments, Nongovernmental Organizations Promote Press Freedom
World Press Freedom Day celebrates accomplishments, marks problems
Washington – Each year, May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day when the importance of a free press to civil society is celebrated and the state of press freedom around the world is evaluated. The day also serves as a reminder to governments to respect their commitments to uphold the fundamental rights of journalists and their public audience’s right to be informed about the state of their countries and the world.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed May 3 as World Press Freedom Day in 1993 to be a reminder to the world that in many countries the independence of the media is threatened by government censorship of newspapers and other media, and in some cases, the lives of journalists are threatened as they work to bring light to issues of public importance.
Press freedom and the extent to which independent media thrive vary greatly around the world, according to organizations such as Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists that support a free press. Press freedom is nonexistent in some countries but thriving in others. Often, there is a mixture involving some degree of press freedom but also serious restrictions. Consequently, the task of supporting independent media is complex and very much dependent on the reality of life in particular areas.
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060425144727maduobbA0.5204737&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
MediaNews to acquire more Bay Area papers
San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times transactions part of McClatchy sale
MediaNews Group of Denver has agreed to acquire the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times -- the Bay Area's second and third largest newspapers -- as well as newspapers in Monterey and St. Paul, Minn., from McClatchy Co. in $1 billion deal that creates a regional newspaper power.
The Hearst Corp. of New York, publisher of The Chronicle, would provide financial backing for the transaction in exchange for a minority ownership stake in MediaNews newspaper operations outside the Bay Area, the companies said Wednesday. The deal would give MediaNews and its CEO, William Dean Singleton, a commanding presence in the region.
The company owns nine Bay Area papers, including the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal and others in Alameda, San Mateo and Solano counties, with a combined daily circulation of 300,000 as well as two local weeklies. Adding the Mercury News, with a daily circulation of 274,000 and the Contra Costa Times, with 185,000, plus an assortment of Knight Ridder local weeklies, would give MediaNews a combined circulation of well over 700,000 and a dominant footprint in six counties.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/SINGLETON.TMP
Think yourself lucky if your big worry is the future of journalism
Thursday, 27 April 2006
The British media is fond of studying itself. The relationship and rivalry between print and digital journalism is today's preoccupation. Can printed and digital publications survive alongside each other and, if so, for how long? Is one platform better than the other? Are newspapers doomed? And so on.
And on and on. This never-ending neurosis about technology and the future crowds out some timeless struggles going on beyond the borders of the media-rich continents of Europe and America. The journalists involved in these timeless battles over free expression do not have the luxury of time to blog about the editorial standards at huffingtonpost.com.
Do the names U Win Tin, Al- Sanussi Al-Darrat and Dawit Isaac ring any bells?
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/270406/think_yourself_lucky_if_your_big_worry_is_the_future_of_journalism
Days of dictatorship are over
Keshab Raj Seadie
New York,
April 26, 2006
Freedom of press is a hallmark of democracy. Despite King Gyanendra's statements that he wants revive democracy in Nepal, recent actions have presented a different picture.
According to media reports, approximately 200 journalists marched through Kathmandu on April 15.
Police blocked the rally and beat them with batons.
The journalists were simply calling for restoration of press freedom and the release of journalists who had been jailed since King Gyanendra seized power on February 1, 2005.
Reports indicate that seven journalists were wounded and at least a dozen detained during the peaceful protest.
The Federation of Nepalese Journalists continues to denounce such actions.
On April 14, King Gyanendra issued a statement calling for conversation with seven major political parties in Nepal and suggesting general election.
At the same time, he did not offer any specifics.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1683181,0093.htm
High time for donors to support an all-Ethiopian Conference - NES
Thursday 27 April 2006 00:21.
Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)
Scandinavian Chapter
Press Release No. 28
April 26, 2006
Title: It is High Time that Donors Support an Agenda for an All-Ethiopian and All- Inclusive National Conference and Dialogue
"We have no enemies in this struggle; ...... our struggle is to create a level playing field where everyone’s voice is heard and the collective vision that comes out of that is one shared by all. That is what the Ethiopian people hoped for in May 2005. That is what our leaders are in jail for. That is what our compatriots have paid the ultimate sacrifice for. That is what we will continue to struggle towards, for as long as it takes." Kinijit Open Letter, to the US Ambassador in Ethiopia, April 19, 2006
“... Only when we have wiped the tears from the faces of all, have we truly arrived as a nation”. M. Ghandi
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15293
Ethiopia jails two more journalists, squashes private enterprise
Posted Wed, 26 Apr 2006
Addis Ababa - Ethiopia has sentenced two more journalists to jail on revived charges under the country's 1992 press law, said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists' sources on Tuesday.
The sources said that Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on anti-state charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April18 2006, while freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced Monday to one year and he was jailed on the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of the 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order.
They were arrested in a crackdown following anti-government protests in November 2005 and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code.
Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law.
Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
These circumstances work against Ethiopia’s policy of becoming a middle-income country through sustainable growth as private enterprise is undermined. Furthermore, the alleged treatment of these journalists does not show a country that is interested in developing first world rights and so the possible benefits of growing wealth are undermined. -panapress
http://www.businessinafrica.net/news/east_africa/269778.htm
Reporters without Borders
Income and expenditure
The Reporters Without Borders budget in 2004 was €3,235,928 and the financial situation remained steady. Self-generated funds increased and the organisation achieved a surplus while substantially expanding its activities.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10594
Ethiopia: Two More Journalists Sentenced to Jail On Old Charges
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2006
Posted to the web April 26, 2006
Ethiopia
Two more journalists have been sentenced to jail on revived charges under Ethiopia's 1992 press law, according to CPJ sources. Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on antistate charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April 18. Freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced yesterday to one year and jailed the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order. They were arrested in a crackdown following antigovernment protests in November and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code. Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law. Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604260675.html
From the Right, as if there is anything else intended …
Reporters and Investigations
There is no reason for delay in pursuing the CIA leak case.
National Review's Byron York sensibly asks: what are the next steps in the investigation into the intelligence community's leaking of classified information to the press, including the deeply sensitive detention arrangements for high-ranking al Qaeda captives (the so-called "black-site" prisons)? That disclosure profoundly harmed our nation's critical relationship with foreign intelligence services which have been assisting the war effort.
In connection with the internal CIA end of that probe, one intelligence officer, Mary O. McCarthy, has been terminated for unauthorized contacts with members of the media, including the Washington Post's Dana Priest. It was Priest who reported the black-sites story last year. Thus, it came as no surprise this weekend when several press accounts, including an Associated Press story published by the Post itself, identified McCarthy as a black-sites source.
McCarthy, however, has now flatly denied that this is the case, asserting that she did not even have access to such information. Today, the Post reports that at least one senior intelligence official familiar with the probe is supporting McCarthy's claims. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the CIA's public statements, while strongly suggestive of McCarthy's having leaked classified information, did not tie her directly to the black-sites disclosure.
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604251149.asp
Time to Support Haiti
Tuesday 25 April 2006
By Michael Deibert [1]
Op-Ed submitted to AlterPresse - 23rd April 2006
On 14th May, if everything goes according to plan, Haiti will inaugurate René Garcia Prèval as its new president. Shortly thereafter, the country will install new senators and deputies for its upper and lower houses of parliament. Mr. Prèval, who served as Haiti’s president from 1996 until 2001, will take over the leadership of a country courtesy of a ballot supervised by the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and replace an unelected interim government that has overseen convulsing violence and economic stagnation since the flight of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
MINUSTAH, lead by former Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdès and consisting of 7,519 UN peacekeeping troops, 1,776 police and a staff of 1,132 civilian personnel, has been widely and often accurately criticised for its inability to impose order in Haiti’s lawless capital, Port-au-Prince. The city has seen hundreds, possibly thousands, killed in waves of kidnappings, gang wars, blanket police retaliation and vigilante justice since Aristide fled amid an armed rebellion and massive street protests against his rule. But the mission, even despite the timid turnout for this month’s second-round vote, must nonetheless be congratulated on pulling off in the first round a feat that even a few months before many would have thought impossible: mass participation in an electoral process now widely viewed as legitimate in a country riven by class and political hatreds.
http://www.alterpresse.org/article.php3?id_article=4536
Campaign highlights press freedom
DELENE PIENAAR
ON PRESS Freedom Day – on May 3 – attention is drawn to the more than 500 journalists world-wide who were arrested last year simply for doing their jobs.
The theme for this year’s campaign, run by The World Association of Newspapers (Wan), is: “Don’t lock up information – stop jailing journalists”.
Their website speaks of journalists like Raul Rivero who spent two years behind bars in Cuba; San San Nwe, a Burmese journalist, who was released from prison after seven years and her colleague U Win Tin who has been jailed 16 years.
The most intriguing story is that of Pius Njawe, one of Africa’s most prominent journalists. He was arrested 126 times over the past 34 years in Cameroon.
http://www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components/Category_Article_Text_Template/0,,541-545-549_1922448~A,00.html
London Nepal Embassy Protest Sat 29th
NEPAL OR NOTHING
Our correspondent in Kathmandu writes..
In Nepal the showdown between a fat power-crazed king and a huge pro-democracy movement has shut down the entire country since April 6th. The strike is absolute - no driving vehicles, no work, often no shops at all. Hospitals, commercial airlines and banks are on strike. Food is getting expensive and fuel is scarce, but until the king stands down and returns democracy and human rights to the people, the strike is likely to continue.
The media and the world in general has paid little notice. Nepal is not rich in oil or uranium, and doesn't export much. The only thing at stake here is the freedom and future of its 23 million citizens.
The police and army are loyal to King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev - a man who believes he is an incarnation of Vishnu with a divine right to screw the country. Everybody else thinks he's a fat old nutter who killed off the entire royal family and blamed his son-in-law, who then conveniently died, in order to become king. He decided a year ago to take over complete control as a divine ruler and dump democracy and parliament. Famously he declared that the "days of monarchy being seen but not heard... are over". All human rights have been canceled and thousands have been jailed without trial.
Massive numbers have hit the streets in virtually every town in the country. The andolan (protest) was initially called for April 6th-9th, but in response to police violence it was extended indefinitely. Every part of society has held marches and demos against the king. Lawyers, journalists, doctors, women, old people, families of 'disappeared' people, professors, schoolkids, tourists, government workers, NGO workers, students and families of police have taken part. Police have attacked all of the above, perhaps with the exception of their own families!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338730.html
New Zealand Herald
All beneficiaries to be offered work
27.04.06 4.00pm
New beneficiaries will get help to find work regardless of the type of benefits they are on after it was found that one-in-five said they are able to work, Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said today.
"From May 2006, all new Work and Income clients will be case managed differently to improve the focus on getting people into the right job," Mr Benson-Pope said.
"The starting point will be what a person can do rather than what benefit they are entitled to."
Work and Income has been piloting an employment case management approach to beneficiaries not receiving the dole -- such as the Domestic Purposes, Sickness or Invalid's Benefit - similar to the approach taken with the unemployment benefit.
"The pilots we ran showed that up to 20 per cent of clients who get a non-unemployment related benefit were identified as being able to work now, be it part-time or full-time," Mr Benson-Pope said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379212
Former Catholic brother jailed for sexually abusing boys
27.04.06 1.00pm
Disgraced former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath has been jailed for five years -- his third prison term for the sexual abuse of boys.
At a sentencing following a four-week trial in the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Lester Chisholm told the 58-year-old that he was sceptical about his claims of remorse.
In setting the length of the jail term, he had to take into account a 1993 jail term imposed on McGrath in Christchurch, and a nine-month term in Sydney later.
The latest offending was against boys at Marylands School in the 1970s, where McGrath was a brother, teacher and housemaster.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379187
NZ soldier caught up in new Egypt blast
27.04.06 9.05am UPDATE
A New Zealander has escaped injury in twin suicide attacks targeting security personnel in Egypt.
The attacks came two days after triple bombings killed 24 people in a resort further south.
One suicide bomber targeted an Egyptian police officer and peacekeepers from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) near the Gaza Strip border town of Rafah.
The second suicide bomber targeted Egyptian police as they rushed to the scene of the first explosion.
The soldier was named today as Army Private Joshua Roewen, who has been in the Army for three years and is 21-years-old. He was driving close to the North Camp base at the time of one of the explosions.
Private Roewen's quick actions assisted in getting the vehicle away from the danger area, the army said.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Shatford said: "He is coping well with the situation and is undergoing critical incident management support from MFO staff, which occurs routinely after any significant event. He is expected to remain with the MFO to complete his deployment."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379139
Radiation therapists go on strike
27.04.06 1.00pm
Hundreds of cancer patients nationwide are having their radiation therapy deferred today, as radiation therapists go on strike.
The therapists are walking off the job for 14 hours in protest at the rejection of their claim for a cost of living rise. They say the district health boards are offering them a zero increase.
But DHBs say radiation therapists are already getting between two and six per cent more this year, as part of a package negotiated in 2002 to address the severe shortage of trained people in their profession.
They say the therapists' salaries have increased 25 per cent in three years, and there's now no shortage.
The DHBs say radiation therapists are not just claiming a cost of living increase, but also want a six per cent superannuation contribution and an extra week's leave.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379159
Iran threatens to strike at US targets
27.04.06 1.00pm
TEHRAN - Iran vowed today to strike at US interests worldwide if it is attacked by the United States, which is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear programme.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the threat two days before the UN nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is meeting Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.
Iran says it will not stop enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is a clandestine effort to make atomic bombs.
"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.
"The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379176
Sri Lanka strikes at Tigers as thousands flee homes
27.04.06 1.00pm
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's military launched air and artillery strikes on Tamil Tiger targets in the island's northeast on Wednesday, with thousands fleeing their homes a day after a suicide attack damaged an already fragile cease-fire.
Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the latest strikes came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired at the military near the northeastern port of Trincomalee. By night, the army said the island was quiet.
The rebels said they would retaliate if the government continued the attacks, launched after a suspected Tiger suicide blast in the capital killed 10 and wounded the army commander.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379194
UK finds bird flu in dead chickens
27.04.06 10.15am
LONDON - Dead chickens on a farm in eastern England have tested positive for bird flu, the British government has announced.
First tests suggest they had the H7 strain of the disease, and not the H5N1 strain, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement. H5N1 has killed more than 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia.
"Further tests are being carried out to determine the strain of the virus and more will be known tomorrow," it said.
Britain said all the birds will be killed at the farm near the market town of Dereham, in the eastern English county of Norfolk, an agricultural center which is home to some of Europe's biggest poultry farms.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379167
Oxfam withdraws backing for trade deal talks
27.04.06 1.00pm
By Philip Thornton
Oxfam has abandoned its support for the current talks on a new trade deal, saying Europe and the US have failed to live up to their promises to use trade to cut poverty in the world's poorest countries.
In a marked U-turn after four years of support for the painfully protracted negotiations, the global aid agency will today warn poor countries the deal currently on the table would make them worse off.
The move comes as MPs blame the UK for failing to use its presidency of the EU last year to force through a better deal.
It said no deal was better than a bad deal, accusing the leading rich countries of failing to offer meaningful cuts in farm subsidies and tariffs.
It blames Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, and his US counterpart Rob Portman for playing a game of brinkmanship that has sidelined the poverty agenda - at the heart of the talks when they were launched in November 2001.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379163
Jolie speaks about schools, not babies or Brad
27.04.06 1.00pm
JOHANNESBURG - Heavily-pregnant Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has broken her silence from her African hideaway, but she wasn't talking babies or Brad Pitt.
Jolie, whose trip to Namibia has sparked a blaze of interest in the international media, took time to promote one of her favourite causes: boosting educational opportunities for the world's poor.
Talking to reporters in a teleconference with British finance minister Gordon Brown, Jolie said it was time for the world to get behind the Global Campaign for Education, a new plan aimed at giving 100 million children in poor countries the chance to go to school.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379150
White House aide Rove testifies in leak case
27.04.06 10.30am
WASHINGTON - Karl Rove has appeared before a US grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer's identity but his lawyer said there was still no sign the top presidential adviser will face charges in the case.
Rove remains under investigation but has not received any indication from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about whether he would be charged, attorney Robert Luskin said.
"He testified voluntarily and unconditionally ... to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005," Luskin said in a statement. "Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges."
Fitzgerald has told Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, that he is not a target of the investigation, Luskin said, meaning that he has not received a letter indicating that legal charges are likely.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379171
Wrong body returned to Australia from Iraq
27.04.06 9.20am
Defence Department officials in Australia have revealed a body which has arrived in Melbourne, is not that of the first Australian troop killed in Iraq.
The family of Private Jake Kovco had gathered at Melbourne Airport to claim the soldier's body, only to find out the wrong one had been sent from Baghdad.
It is not yet known how the error happened, but Private Kovco's body is still in Kuwait and Australia's Defence Department is promising to make all efforts to return it as quickly as possible.
The 26-year-old soldier was cleaning his weapon on Friday, when he accidently shot himself.
There are 110 Australian troops in Baghdad as part of a security detachment assigned to protect officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379154
Rice joins Rumsfeld in Iraq to meet new PM
27.04.06 8.00am
BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said after meeting Iraq's new prime minister-designate on Wednesday they were impressed with his commitment to unite the country.
President Bush, who has called for a national unity government in Baghdad to help defeat a Sunni Arab insurgency and end sectarian blood-letting, dispatched Rice and Rumsfeld to Baghdad to hold talks with Nuri al-Maliki.
"He was really impressive," Rice told reporters after the meeting with the tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, nominated last week at the end of four months of political paralysis in Baghdad over the formation of a new government after December elections.
On top of the long-running insurgency there has been an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed in February, raising fears among many Iraqis of a possible slide into civil war.
The bloodshed has threatened Bush's hopes of starting to withdraw some of the 133,000 US troops in Iraq before US congressional elections in November.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379144
Bush blocks assets related to Hariri killing
27.04.06 7.25am
WASHINGTON - President George W Bush has issued an order blocking the assets of anyone connected with the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Bush in a statement said the new order blocks the property and interests of anyone determined to have been involved in Hariri's assassination and that additional steps were being taken "concerning certain actions of the government of Syria."
A UN report last year implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing and said Syria was impeding the inquiry. Syria has denied involvement.
Bush's order does not designate anyone specifically, but establishes the criteria for who would fall under the order.
In addition to blocking the assets of anyone found to be involved in Hariri's assassination, the order targets anyone involved in an assassination or bombing in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, related to Hariri's killing or implicating the Syrian government, an administration official said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379140
Egypt hit by more bombings
27.04.06
ISMAILIA, Egypt - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai in what appeared to be abortive attacks by a mysterious militant group on a multinational peace force and on the Egyptian police.
One bomber died near an airport used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which monitors the border with Israel, and another close to an Egyptian police vehicle. No one else was hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said he thought the incidents could be linked to bombings which killed 18 people in the budget resort of Dahab on Monday - the third attack in two years on Sinai resorts frequented by foreign tourists.
The state news agency MENA quoted informed security sources as saying all the attacks were related and the Dahab bombings could have been the work of three Sinai Bedouin who have been on the run in the mountainous region since last July.
"The sources said ... that the perpetrators of the Dahab bombings were from the fugitive remnants of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings (in July 2005)," the agency said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379142
Nepal's Maoist rebels declare ceasefire
27.04.06 11.25am
KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist rebels declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire from Thursday and said the move reflected their desire for the formation of a special assembly to write a new constitution.
"Our People's Liberation Army will not carry out any offensive military action during this period and will remain defensive," rebel chief Prachanda said in a statement.
"Our party believes that this declaration will highly respect the aspiration for the constituent assembly, a democratic republic and peace that is seen on the street."
The Maoists have been fighting to overthrow the monarchy since 1996 and at least 13,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379178
Book on Maasai tribe fuels debate on lost lands
27.04.06 1.40pm
NAIROBI - Kenya's Maasai lost their best land through British colonial swindling and their own political intrigues, a historian has written in a new account of the struggle by one of Africa's most emblematic tribes.
A century on, the Maasai still suffer from a colonial hangover they say was aggravated by post-independence government policies that keep them estranged from ancestral lands.
But slim knowledge about the signing of 1904 and 1911 treaties between Britain and illiterate Maasai tribesmen, and a 1913 lawsuit, have led to confusion about how the disastrous moves came about, author Lotte Hughes said.
"It is not a black and white issue, and I do not mean racially," Hughes, a historian at Britain's Open University, told Reuters at this week's launch in Kenya of her book.
"Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure" has already given new fodder to Maasai activists seeking to sue Kenya and Britain for the return of their lands.
Among Kenya's smallest but best-known tribes, Maasai, with their spears, bright red clothes and beads, represent an almost mythic image of Africa.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379195
Suspected US agent silenced
27.04.06
DERA ISMAIL KHAN - Officials said pro-Taleban militants beheaded a cab driver on suspicion of being an informer for the United States, the fourth such killing in Pakistan's restive Waziristan region this month.
The body was found by the roadside in Shavai Kainari, 25km south of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan that borders Afghanistan in an area where US-led forces are hunting al Qaeda militants and their allies.
An intelligence official said the driver was kidnapped by the Muslim militants last week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379057
Bush picks Fox News host as press secretary
26.04.06 4.20pm
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush has picked Fox News Radio host Tony Snow as his new White House press secretary and is expected to announce the choice as early as Wednesday, a Republican official said today.
Snow will replace Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week as part of a staff shake-up engineered by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten aimed at reviving Bush's presidency.
Sources familiar with the situation said Snow wrestled with the decision for several days on whether to take the gruelling job. A former speechwriter for former President George Bush, he was treated for colon cancer last year.
Fox News said on its website Snow was given a clean bill of health by his oncologist Tuesday, following a CAT scan and other tests that were undertaken last Thursday.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379031
Chinese trio get death for killing 9 prostitutes
27.04.06 4.20pm
BEIJING - A Chinese court has sentenced three men to death for robbing, raping and killing nine women, most of whom were prostitutes, and then skinning one of them.
Hong Kong's Beijing-funded Wen Wei Po newspaper said the Shaanxi province High Court upheld death sentences handed down by the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Xian to Yin Xiaomin, Cao Ying and Hu Yuelong.
They dismembered their first victim, a prostitute who had worked at a barber shop serving as a front for a brothel, in 1993 after raping and robbing her of 20 yuan ($4), according to Beijing's mouthpiece in Hong Kong.
The gang also kidnapped and skinned a nightclub hostess and made a vest out of her skin, the newspaper said.
Crime was virtually unheard of in China in the years after the Communists swept to power in 1949 but it has staged a comeback since economic reforms introduced in the late 1970s widened a wealth gap and left an ideological vacuum.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379204
Flowers and tears mark Chernobyl anniversary
27.04.06 8.00am
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -Mourners laid red carnations - symbols of grief - in the shadow of the ruined Chernobyl power station on Wednesday as they marked the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident.
Hundreds filed past a memorial wall engraved with the names of the local fire crew. They were among the first to perish when Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 blew up on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive dust across Europe.
One old woman in a headscarf made the sign of the cross as she stooped to lay a single carnation at the foot of the wall.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko said it was time to start healing the scars left by the disaster.
"After 20 years of pain and fear, this land must feel progress," he told mourners in Chernobyl - epicenter of a still-contaminated 30-km "exclusion zone" that straddles parts of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379147
King gets judges to sort out crisis
27.04.06
BANGKOK - Thailand's top judges are to meet tomorrow to find a solution to the country's political crisis in response to a rare intervention by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The ruling Thai Rak Thai party and the three main Opposition parties were separately holding talks.
The King summoned senior judges to tell them he could not produce a solution to the crisis. The Opposition's election boycott on April 2 had produced a undemocratic one-party Parliament.
The boycott has made it unlikely Parliament will be able to meet to begin the process of forming a new Government.
It was the King's first direct political intervention since 1992 when he stepped in to end a bloody confrontation between a military Government and a "people power" street protest.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379058
Solomons PM forced out after eight days
27.04.06
By Ainsley Thomson
HONIARA - "We need change, we need change," they yelled, waving palm branches and shouting with joy, as news filtered through to a jubilant crowd that their Prime Minister had stood down.
The same Solomon Islanders who eight days ago went on a violent rampage to protest against Snyder Rini's election, yesterday took to the streets in celebration after the Opposition pulled together the numbers to force his resignation.
Resident Luke Hoasi told the Herald people expected a change of government.
"We don't want any of the old ministers in the new government, we want a completely new government."
Rini was associated with the old guard of politics in the Solomon Islands and with the failed governments of the past, which led to the armed intervention in 2003 by New Zealand and Australia to end five years of civil strife.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379130
Antarctica
Protection sought for islands off Antarctica
11.03.06
The Government plans to seek United Nations protection in the Ross Sea equivalent to a marine reserve around the icy Balleny Islands, which may provide a foothold for wildlife dispersed by the effects of global warming.
A scientific expedition that returned from the islands on March 5 found there had been a surge in the population of chinstrap penguins.
Numbers were well up on the previously recorded population of about 30, said the expedition's scientific leader, Franz Smith.
"We did one shore landing and found 300 birds," he said. "One interpretation of that ... is that this could be something to do with climate change."
One island in the Balleny group, Sabrina Island, is already listed as a special protected area because its population of a few dozen chinstrap penguins was thought to be the only ones of that species for thousands of kilometres along the Antarctic coast.
The Ballenys are a 195km-long chain of volcanic ice-covered islands, 250km off the coast of Antarctica, which scientists describe as an "oasis".
They rise from a seafloor depth of nearly 2000m, directly in the path of circumpolar ocean currents, forcing an upwelling of nutrient-rich waters where the Ross Sea meets the Southern Ocean.
Because they are the only islands at this latitude for thousands of kilometres in both directions they also provide essential breeding and nesting habitat for land-dependent Antarctic seal and seabird populations.
Several whale species are known to feed in the area, some of them migrating long distances to get there.
Dr Smith said the diversity of marine life there was unique.
To obtain a high seas marine protected area around the Balleny Islands under the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, New Zealand will have to show ecological processes around the islands are critical to the healthy functioning of the larger Ross Sea ecosystem. It will also need permission under the Antarctic Treaty System.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&ObjectID=10372042
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