The Rooster
Friday, September 15, 2006
Little picture. Not so little concept. Sonar bouys can be placed in any shipping channel. Like the St. Lawrence Seaway traversing to The Great Lakes
Kongsberg. A world class Norweigen Maritime Electronics Firm. (click here)
One of their products are underwater cameras as well. (click here) Of course the water has to be clear enough to see.
Kongsberg specializes in Port Security Systems (click on)
There are many locations around the world which is controlled. The Panama Canal. The Suez Canal. The oceans are vast and it seems nearly impossible a task, but, it isn't. The shipping channels of the 'coastlines' of all countries are well known and charted. Maritime Law has been around a long, long time. This subject is being exploited to instill fear in Americans already traumatized by the incompetency of people in Washington, DC that never even attempted to stop the attacks that killed nearly 3000 people. Not all those people were Americans either.With international treaties, countries can cooperate in sharing information about 'any' suspicions at any port in the traverse of ships around the globe. That includes not only any doubts in products shipped but also ships in disrepair that are environmental hazards.
Research in better capacity through benign but invasive tools such as 'hull pentrating' sonar, similar to the doppler weather systems could give pictures of cargo as they approach ports. Early detection and cooperation among countries could absolutely thwart any exporting of weapons, munitions and questionable products that are used in war activities that are not authorized by sovereign countries. In other words, if arm shipments were never meant to be off loaded in Syria bound for Hezbollah, it could easily be detected and controlled by global cooperation.
It seems like an enormous task, I suppose, but, if the world economies want peace without empowering terrorist networks, there are ways to do it. A ships capacity can be noted with simple measures as well such as 'water displacement.' The weight of a ship displaces water in it's bouyance. If the ships manifest seems lighter than it's presenting in it's displacement it could be boarded and inspected at 'sonar gates' to any port. There is no eliminating human intervention. There will always be danger at some point as security personnel will have to intervene.
There are x-ray machines used currently in airports, neutron tomography. It is too strong for people to be exposed to so it's only used on luggage. In cases where tragedy has occurred such as airline crashes, in search of the cause, x-ray has been used to determine cracks in metal. The technology is available. To expose humans to such strong x-rays is wrong, but, it is used in spy planes all the time by the USA. Some of the favorite targets are trucks suspected of transporting illegals from Mexico. It's not appropriate to x-ray those people, but, they do it. I've seen some photos so strong that the bones can be seen in their body inside the truck.
The point is, any ship can be x-rayed with current technology. The issue is the human life and other life as well and how it will withstand such technology. Providing security for the people of a cargo ship while an x-ray scan occurs doesn't seem such a daughting task to me. There can be a secure room for a crew off the ship until the task is complete. Cargo of food, plants, animals would require different methods, but, I think everyone gets the idea.
Where there is a will, there is always a way. It would be better if the USA was considered a valuable partner by countries in cooperation to end networks of terrorists rather than a 'lone wolf' on a global hunt in countries primarily seen as oil wells.
Morning Papers
Ports
'Risk to dolphins' from Forth oil transfer plan
PLANS to carry out ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Forth have come under fresh attack from Green MSPs, who claim it will harm dolphins and whales.
Mark Ruskell MSP, the Greens' speaker on environment, said that Forth Ports had failed to fully consider the impact of ship-to-ship oil transfers on dolphins and whales in the Firth of Forth - despite a Government agency warning that such a failure could breach European law. Mr Ruskell said: "The Firth has very significant populations of dolphins and whales, and this sloppy, unconvincing work using outdated and irrelevant data is extremely irresponsible.
"In the absence of proper, current data, no 'assessment' of environmental impact can be competent. It is the duty of the Executive to uphold European law, so they had better get on ensuring that is exactly what happens.
"This plan is far too risky and Forth Ports' approach smacks of a company willing to put the environment, public health and people's livelihoods all on the line for the sake of profit."
The claims have been backed by whale and dolphin expert Erich Hoyt: "If the plans go ahead, there is a real danger that the EU habitats directive will be breached."
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1358442006
Michael Chertoff has 180 days to tighten security at the USA ports. With the inflammatory 'talk' before a Senate committee yesterday, I guess he's annoyed he has some work to do. The USA sets their own standards. By exporting the security of our ports to any country bidding on management of them we compromise our sovereignty as a country.
Senate passes bill to tighten security screening at ports
WASHINGTON The Senate voted without dissent tonight to tighten security at U-S seaports by scanning nearly all incoming cargo for nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs."
The bill was approved 98-to-nothing in a pre-election push on national defense. It would increase safeguards on the rail systems that pick up cargo from ports and authorize a thousand new agents to screen containers coming off ships.
Also under the bill, a federal law enforcement training center near Brusnwick would get ten (m) million dollar next year to begin taking its programs on the road to help rural law enforcement agencies.
The measure would authorize the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynn County to launch a traveling Rural Policing Institute. It would provide smaller law enforcement agencies that may not have the budget to send staffers to Georgia with more affordable and convenient access to the center's specialized training. That portion of the legislation was sponsored by Georgia's senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson.
http://www.wtvm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5411229&nav=8fap
Kean criticizes Menendez on ports
Friday, September 15, 2006
By GREGORY J. VOLPE
Gannett State Bureau
FORT LEE
Though both New Jersey U.S. Senate candidates want all the nation's imported cargo to be securely screened, state Sen. Thomas Kean Jr., R-Westfield, blamed not his fellow Republicans in Washington, but his opponent U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, for not getting an amendment passed that would require 100 percent screening.
The Senate passed a port security measure Thursday that would provide nearly $7 billion over six years -- a day after voting down an amendment, 43-55, that would have required the 11 million cargo containers that enter the country each year to be X-rayed and scanned for radiation.
That amendment was sponsored by Menendez.
"I support efforts by Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others to fully screen cargo coming into and leaving this country, but the issue here is just that fact the amendment failed," Kean said. "Bob Menendez has proven yet again that he's ineffective in getting the job done for the people of New Jersey."
Menendez issued a statement questioning why Kean would attack his efforts instead of lobbying his fellow Republicans to pass the amendment.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060915/NEWS01/609150378/1006
The Philippines Will Deploy X-Ray Technology To Protect Ports From Smugglers
September 14, 2006 9:40 p.m. EST
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent
Manila, Philippines (AHN) - The Philippines has purchased 10 sophisticated x-ray machines to scan cargo containers coming into port.
Bureau of Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales says the machines are capable of detecting smuggled cargo such as drugs, chemicals, explosives, and weapons of mass destruction that authorities fear are trying to gain entry through numerous ports in the island nation.
Morales says, "These scanning machines are part of the bureau's modernization efforts. We have started with the computerization of our system of transaction, now we want to shift from 'parcel-based' to 'container-based' scanning, which would improve the efficiency of inspection and monitoring operations of imported goods as they arrive."
According to the Customs chief, most of the members of the World Customs Organization use scanning equipment in determining the contents of imported cargoes.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004865175
Industry opposes full cargo screening
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Port industry executives said Tuesday they oppose Senate Democratic efforts to require screening of all seagoing cargo containers.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Sen. Robert Menendez -- both of New Jersey -- and New York. Sen. Charles Schumer announced Tuesday they would propose an amendment to the port security bill in front of the Senate requiring 100 percent of the containers that enter American ports to be inspected.
Currently, only 6 percent of cargo containers are inspected with x-rays or other scanners, and only 5 percent of those are hand inspected.
Other measures are taken to try to assure the integrity of cargo containers, but they are a known vulnerability for the shipment of terrorists, weapons, and nuclear materials.
Those concerns, however, are to be weighed against the economic impact that 100 percent cargo screening would have, both in possibly slowing the movement of containers and therefore the speed of ships, as well as the billions that would have to be invested in x-ray or gamma screeners and thousands more personnel to both conduct the searches and analyze the images.
The port in Hong Kong has conducted a pilot program to inspect 100 percent of cargo containers with gamma screeners. Program champions say the cargo has not been slowed by the inspections.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060912-030912-7261r
Rail line deal will help ports
L.A.: Settlement could bring in an extra $4 million.
By Rick Orlov and Kristopher Hanson, Staff reporters
LOS ANGELES - Ending a two-year dispute with rail lines, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a settlement over cargo payments that could bring in an extra $4 million at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Burlington Northern and Union Pacific will pay the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) additional money for cargo that is offloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and reloaded onto rail containers. The authority is a joint-powers agency of the two cities and their ports.
"This is a big deal for the authority and the Port of Los Angeles," said L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who chairs the authority this year. "What it means is the authority will be getting some extra money. More importantly, it means we will not have to tap into the Port of Los Angeles funds to make up any losses."
Hahn said the dispute involved payments for goods taken from ships and put into new containers for rail shipments.
http://www.presstelegram.com/business/ci_4340833
Super-city move may lead to Ports of Auckland sale
14 September 2006
By ANDREW JANES
Speculation is mounting that a move to a super-city for Auckland could lead to the sale of Ports of Auckland.
The port is wholly owned by Auckland Regional Holdings – accountable to Auckland Regional Council – but under a proposed three-city structure its ownership would be transferred to the planned Greater Auckland Council.
But Manukau City Mayor Sir Barry Curtis said speculation that the port might be sold was nonsense.
If the port was transferred to Greater Auckland Council the three planned cities – North Shore-Waitakere, Auckland and Counties-Manukau – would have no say in whether the port was sold or not, Sir Barry said.
It is believed Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard favours a sale of some or all of the port to redevelop Auckland's waterfront. Mr Hubbard is in Japan and couldn't be contacted.
Auckland Regional Holdings chairwoman Judith Bassett said she thought that the port would be "severely at risk" if its ownership was transferred to the Greater Auckland Council.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3796120a13,00.html
Senate Rejects Democratic Plan for Ports
09.13.2006, 03:38 PM
Senate Republicans on Wednesday rejected a Democratic attempt to attach dozens of national security programs to legislation intended to protect seaports.
The Democrats' proposal had threatened the overall ports security bill, which would install monitors at the 22 largest ports. These devices would screen for materials used to make radiological bombs or nuclear weapons.
The ports bill could come to a final vote on Thursday.
The plan by Democratic leader Harry Reid would have put Republicans in the awkward position of opposing security measures that many people in the United States believe are long overdue. Examples include improving safeguards on trains and buses and at chemical plants.
"Politics won't protect the American people," Reid, D-Nev., said after the GOP-controlled Senate defeated his plan.
Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted against Reid's proposal.
"It is an interesting hodgepodge of provisions that are irrelevant to the underlying bill," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "What it does not include are provisions that have to do with port security."
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/09/13/ap3014774.html
PNNL Making Ports Safer
Sep 13, 2006 09:18 PM EDT
RICHLAND, Wash.- A local group is making America safer.
A Pacific Northwest National Laboratory border training program is attracting security screeners from around the country.
Twice a month, PNNL puts on homeland security training at the HAMMER Center near Hanford. It's the only place in the world that this training is going on.
Border security agents from around the country are at HAMMER this week to learn how to better screen for radioactive materials at U.S. ports.
Unlike many other similar programs, they are actually using radioactive material.
"One thing we can do here that is not available anywhere else is we can bring out the real materials. We can bring out the weapons grade Plutonium, we can bring out the weapons grade Uranium," said PNNL's Bill Cliff.
They're testing cars like they would at real ports, and the world class facility is getting people out of the classroom.
Since September 11, border security officials have upped funding for the program, and now, the wait list for the training is at two years.
Training isn't all serious though.
Remember those terrorist playing cards during the Iraq war.
PNNL is giving participants these cards labeled with various radioactive materials to help them keep track of what they're dealing with.
http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=5405506&nav=menu484_2
Tripura keen on using Bangladesh ports for business
Posted by admin on 2006/9/14 4:14:37
Agartala, Sep 14 (IANS) Business in India's northeast would get a major boost if the region is allowed to use Bangladeshi ports for speedier transportation of goods, said Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
"Business between India's northeast and Southeast Asia would grow if we are allowed to use the Bangladeshi ports of Chittagong and Ashuganj for ferrying goods and other raw materials," the chief minister told IANS.
Chittagong port is just 75 km from south Tripura's border town of Sabroom, while the Ashuganj port is 25 km from state capital Agartala.
"It took about three months by road to transport four turbines for a thermal power plant from West Bengal's Haldia to Ramchandranagar in west Tripura. It would have taken about two days to transport the turbines from Haldia to Chittagong port and another week by road from there to west Tripura," a state industry and commerce department official said.
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13615
The Hunt for Deepwater Ports
The Port of Tacoma has undertaken an improvement program that includes widening waterways and dredging. Ports in Washington State are closer to Asia than those in California.
By KRISTINA SHEVORY
Published: August 23, 2006
A 10-day shutdown of the West Coast ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles four years ago had shipping companies and big retailers scrambling to fill orders for Christmas. Since then, congestion and labor shortages at the country’s busiest ports have prompted shippers to look for new ports to receive their merchandise.
It was an equally big problem for companies like AMB Property, a San Francisco-based real estate investment trust that specializes in distribution facilities and counts shippers and retailers as important clients.
“The problems in L.A. made it pretty clear to us that our customers wanted an alternative,” said Hamid R. Moghadam, chairman and chief executive of AMB, a publicly traded REIT.
Mr. Moghadam looked along the West Coast and found the port of Tacoma had plenty of empty space, good rail connections and room for container ships. In 2003, AMB started buying and developing industrial properties around Tacoma, and now owns 2.3 million square feet there. Within three years, the company expects to have up to 35 percent more property in Seattle and Tacoma.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/business/23tacoma.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1156514902-0XmL4+TjVjPIh6gWzMKsUA
Officials tout security of Georgetown's port
By Zane Wilson
The Sun News
GEORGETOWN - After the latest global terrorism scare, port security was again a hot topic, but people don't have to worry about the port of Georgetown, those responsible for its safety say.
"I think it's right for everyone to be concerned," said Cmdr. Tom Allan of the Charleston-based Coast Guard contingent that oversees port security.
The disclosure earlier this month that British agents had uncovered a plot to blow up airplanes that were flying between England and the U.S. brought the issue of travel security to the forefront again.
But the concern for ports is with the large containers of cargo that arrive at ports such as Charleston, Allan said. Georgetown does not handle container cargo.
"We've never had an incident in Georgetown from a port security standpoint," Allan said.
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/15338395.htm
Dubai World launches Dubai Trade CD for 2005
Dubai World, one of the world's leading holding companies, has launched a new CD containing comprehensive statistical data on Dubai's trade.
The CD, compiled by the Group's Statistics Department using state-of-the art designs and technology, is titled 'Dubai External Trade Statistics 2005' and is aimed at meeting the ever-increasing demand for details on the Emirate's highly successful commercial relations with the rest of the world.
Adel Al Ashram, Senior Manager of the Statistics Department, said,
'The new CD uses search engine based technology, which facilitates finding information on bi-lateral trade between Dubai and the rest of the world extremely easy and efficient. Users can obtain detailed information on things like traded volumes of various goods, international customs tariff codes, classification of goods, all trade figures, free zone trades, customs store trades, diamonds and gold and the movements at Dubai Ports World for the year 2005.'
He added: 'We believe this will help potential investors within and outside the UAE to become more aware of trading trends in Dubai and will also assist them in accessing all trade statistics in digital format, in addition to guidance on the usage of the international customs tariff code system.'
http://www.ameinfo.com/94416.html
For railways, ports, other projects for Cebu 2006-2010
By Rose O. Verzosa
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
President Arroyo has approved around P60.8 billion worth of infrastructure investments for Cebu for 2006 to 2010, mostly for railways and ports.
Marlene CA Rodriguez, director of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) 7, said this amount is 32 percent of the P190-billion total infrastructure budget for Central Philippines.
Rodriguez made these revelations during yester-day’s Sun.Star Economic Forum at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel in Lahug.
Based on Arroyo’s super-region development strategy, Central Philippines covers the provinces of Palawan, Romblon and Camiguin, Dapitan City, Siargao island, the regions of Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas and Central Visayas.
Railways
Citing the Central Philippines Investment Program, which was approved by Arroyo last July 21, a P33-billion budget is allocated for Cebu’s railways, while P18.88 billion is for its ports.
The rest of the budget is distributed for roads and bridges (P6.3 billion), airports (P749 million) and tourism infrastructure ((P1.9 billion).
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2006/08/24/news/for.railways.ports.other.projects.for.cebu.2006.2010.html
Sarumi commends firm over port facility
• Wednesday, Aug 23, 2006
The demand for commercial port facility which stood at 25 to 30 million metric tones by the end of 1970s when the last port development programme was completed, has today risen to a whopping 50 to 60 million metric tones.
The managing director, of the Nigeria Ports Authority, Chief Adebayo Sarumi disclosed this at the commissioning of the $62 million multi-purpose terminal Port Tincan Island in Lagos.
He noted that the yawning gap between demand and supply of port infrastructural facility a gab which is being partly covered by the facility, commissioned today.
He further explained that the PTML Terminal is designed to make Lagos a hub for international ships traffic in West and Central Africa.
http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=08/23/2006&qrTitle=Sarumi%20commends%20firm%20over%20port%20facility&qrColumn=BUSINESS
Chemical leak sparks major alert
Grangemouth docks, where the chemical leak was reported
A major incident was declared after a chemical leak at Grangemouth docks.
White smoke was seen coming from a freight container at the docks, which is located close to Scotland's largest oil refinery.
The vapour had the potential to cause slight skin irritation, according to a spokesman for Forth Ports Authority.
Personnel were moved out and the night shift cancelled but no-one has been hurt and there was said to be no danger to the population.
Thirteen fire crews were in attendance at one stage.
The incident is not affecting the nearby oil refinery, run by Innovene, which was sold by BP to INEOS last year.
Central Scotland Police said
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/5280172.stm?ls
Probe launched into chemical leak
Emergency services were at the docks throughout the night
An investigation has been launched into how a chemical which causes irritation to eyes, nose and skin leaked out of a tank at Grangemouth port.
A major incident was declared on Wednesday when the vapour caused a large plume above the Forth.
The chemical, which was inside a storage tank on a quayside within the docks area, was Divinylbenzene.
No-one was injured in the incident, however some residents have expressed concern about a lack of information.
The chemical, understood to be delivered on a regular basis, had been unloaded from a cargo vessel and was due to be delivered to Rohm and Haas, which has a facility in Grangemouth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/5280720.stm
Toxic chemical plume spews out over port
EMERGENCY services were last night dealing with a serious incident at a major Scottish port after a chemical leaked from a container.
Fire crews and ambulances were called to Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, after toxic vapour escaped from a metal tank within the docks, and drifted in a large plume over the River Forth.
According to sources, the chemical was divinyl benzene which escaped after a crane moving the container set it down too quickly causing damage. The accident was reported around 4pm.
As a result, a major incident was declared and people were warned to stay indoors with windows closed after a large cloud of gas could be seen.
Last night police said the wind was blowing the vapour towards the river where it was dispersing.
A total of 13 fire crews and eight ambulances attended the scene but no-one was reported to have been injured.
Police were diverting containers and tankers in and out of the huge site but no exclusion zone outwith the site was set up.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/68684.html
Sarasota council thinking globally
Breakfast speakers to discuss business on worldwide scale
ROBIN ROGER
Herald Staff Writer
The International Business Council of Sarasota has set out to prove that it's a small world after all.
The organization, formed in February by the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, will encourage local business owners to think internationally at its breakfast forum at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Fred's in Sarasota.
"I absolutely believe it's time for Sarasota to be engaged in the international market," said Rhonda Cesario, International Business Council liaison. "What we do locally affects us, and what is done abroad affects us."
The organization harnesses international business talent to benefit commerce, the environment, the arts and human kind, she said.
Speakers at the breakfast event include Charlotte Starfire, vice president of international corporate banking for Fifth Third Bank in Tampa; Steve Tyndal, senior director of trade development for Port Manatee; Vanessa Opstal, owner of Box Furniture Boutique in Sarasota; and Felix Power, president of the Sarasota Association of Realtors.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/15344321.htm
Latvia matches its ports and transit capacities to China
The possibilities of Chinese goods transit via Latvia and the search for new transit partners – that was one of the key topics of the Latvian parliamentary delegation’s talks in China, the member of the delegation, the Secretary of the National Defense Commission of the Latvian Seimas Andrei Klementyev (from the “Accord Center” union) has told REGNUM. To remind, a delegation of Latvian MPs led by Seimas Speaker Igrida Udre (Union of “Greens” and Farmers) visited China on August 13-19 on the invitation of the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Assembly of People’s Deputies of the People’s Republic of China Wu Bangguo.
Klementyev says that among the delegates were both politicians and businessmen, who met with Chinese commerce chamber officials. “We were, first of all, interested in developing transit. Today, they are talking a lot about resuming the Silk Road and we are interested in attracting Chinese goods for direct transit via our ports. We discussed this also with the members of the China-Latvia Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation Group and representatives of local self-governments. We have visited three cities. China is also interested in this. They are also interested in transit cooperation with Kazakhstan and Russia.”
http://www.regnum.ru/english/692927.html
Outcry over lack of warning as port gas leak probe starts
JOANNA VALLELY ( jvallely@edinburghnews.com)
AN investigation was under way today into the cause of a major chemical leak in Grangemouth as concerns mounted that sirens failed to warn the public.
Politicians have now called for a review into the way local residents are informed when a major incident takes place at Grangemouth docks or nearby chemical plants.
Emergency crews stepped down a massive containment operation today and residents living around the town's port area were given the all-clear to leave their homes more than 12 hours after the alert began.
Residents had been warned to shut doors and windows as a white plume of vapour blew across the Forth last night after leaking from a container. Port bosses today confirmed the tank contained divinyl benzene, which can cause irritation to the eyes, nose and skin.
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1247932006
Growing Demands On U.S. Ports Make Them More Vulnerable to Hurricanes, Terrorism, Says KSU Professor
KENNESAW, Ga., Aug. 24, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- America's ports could be a weak link in America's economy, says a maritime ports expert at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University.
Michael Maloni, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and co-author of a 2005 container port capacity survey, says that port traffic is growing exponentially. While ports are handling current demand, container volume is expected to at least double in the next ten years, and signs of capacity problems are already emerging.
"Hurricane Katrina shut down the ports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Gulfport," Maloni says. "These ports represented only about 2% of total North American container volume, and Houston was mostly able to handle the diverted traffic, but next time it could be worse. If a major hurricane or terrorist attack hits a major port or worse, a region of ports, it would have a serious impact on the economy."
http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/news.html?d=104262
Syrian ports gain from Lebanon blockade
DAMASCUS: Thousands of shipping containers filled with vital imports have been turned away from Beirut Port by the Israeli blockade, causing commercial cargo bound for Lebanon to flow through Syrian ports. Containers destined for Lebanon have started arriving over the last few weeks at the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartous, where they are being loaded onto trucks and moved to Lebanon on roads bombed by Israel in the recent war, port officials told Reuters.
"We hope the Israeli blockade does not last but the number of containers for Lebanon is bound to rise if it does," said Bassam Fedda, head of traffic at Latakia, Syria's main port. "We have been under instructions from the prime minister to accelerate the clearing of cargo."
Fedda said around 2,000, 6-meter-long containers originally destined for Beirut had arrived in Latakia in the past weeks. A lesser number went through Tartous, which is not as well equipped to handle containers.
Latakia handled 42,573 containers in July and 30,927 containers so far this month.
Most of the cargo bound for Lebanon was diverted at the beginning of the war to Egypt, Malta and Cyprus. It has largely stayed there, with Beirut Port still closed to commercial traffic, although a cease-fire took effect on August 14.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=74990
Port Botany gets its fifth berth
Friday 25 August 2006
Port Botany’s fifth berth will be located next to the existing expansion, the New South Wales Government has confirmed.
A 60ha development off the wharf currently leased by Patrick will now include five berths, four of which were previously approved by the Government.
The Government conducted consultation on the best location for the fifth berth.
The decision backs Sydney Ports’ environmental impact statement, which recommended the fifth berth be positioned on the existing development to minimise environmental impacts.
Sydney Ports Corporation Chief Executive Greg Martin says the decision brings certainty to the project.
"This is an excellent decision," he says.
"The approved location is the optimum solution from an operational, economic and environmental perspective. This is the most cost effective location for the fifth berth, and will deliver value for money for port stakeholders."
http://www.supplychainreview.com.au/index.cfm?li=displaystory&StoryID=28229
Ports head apologizes, is reappointed
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Thursday, Sep. 14, 2006
CONCORD – State Ports Director Geno Marconi apologized for using a racial epithet and after a five-month delay unanimously won reappointment to a five-year term.
Past vendors and dock union leaders claimed Marconi made a remark toward a man of Middle Eastern dissent who wanted to create a container-shipping business between Canada and the Port of Portsmouth.
Marconi denied it was applied to a specific person.
“I write to express my sincere apology for my use of inappropriate language at the Pease Development Authority, Division of Ports and Harbors,’’ Marconi said in a letter released after the council vote Wednesday.
“I understand that such behavior is never appropriate. I will never use inappropriate language at the Port again, and I will work to ensure that all staff at the Port conduct themselves with the highest degree of professionalism.’’
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte released the results of a four-month investigation spurred by longshoremen union organizers and vendors who brought complaints after Gov. John Lynch renominated him in May.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060914/NEWS02/109140065
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'
U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking
By Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson / Washington Post
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
"The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone "stone cold."
But in the last three months, following a request from President Bush to "flood the zone," the CIA has sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden. The intelligence officers will team with the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and with more resources from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7833
25-million-dollar Coca-Cola plant opened in Afghanistan
KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai formally opened a 25-million-dollar Coca-Cola bottling plant, one of the most significant investments in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban five years ago.
Karzai said it was an endorsement of the government's efforts to push ahead with reconstruction of the war-damaged country.
The plant had its first products, which will compete with imports from Pakistan and Iran, on the streets of the capital in January.
Its initial formal opening was postponed in May after riots in which hordes of men rampaged through the city, setting fire to buildings and vehicles after a deadly traffic accident involving a US military vehicle.
The investment by a Dubai-based Afghan family is one of the biggest in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Mobile telecommunications network Roshan has spent about 180 million dollars setting up here.
The Afghan government is trying to attract foreign investment to spur an economy ruined by three decades of war.
But the country faces considerable odds, including a resurgent Taliban, widespread corruption and a shattered infrastructure, with even the capital only getting a sporadic supply of electricity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7831
U.S. strategy may be helping Taliban, expert says
By Andrew Maykuth / Philadelphia Inquirer
NEW YORK - A leading Afghanistan scholar says that America's military counterterrorism strategy has failed to eliminate the Taliban - and may actually be contributing to the growth of the insurgent Islamist group.
Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, said in a recent interview that a strategy devoted to destroying Taliban remnants has diverted resources from developing a strong central government in Kabul.
"There was from the beginning and still is a contradiction between the counter-terrorism or counterinsurgency mission and the mission of building a stable, sovereign Afghan national state," said Rubin, who served as an advisor to the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, in 2001.
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai's government is hampered by rampant corruption, growing insecurity, runaway opium production and widespread discontent over the slow arrival of prosperity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7834
With 'key allies' like this ...
By Selig S. Harrison / Los Angeles Times
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is supposedly a key U.S. ally in the "war on terror." But is he, in fact, more of a liability than an asset in combating al Qaeda and the increasingly menacing Taliban forces in Afghanistan?
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the U.S. and a U.S.-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion.
But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties in Pakistan to further U.S. interests, and whether he should be pressured to permit the return of two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who have formed an electoral alliance to challenge him in presidential elections next year.
Musharraf's most vocal defender is former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who has urged continued support for him "no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters from the Afghan border."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7835
Al Qaeda Finds Its Center of Gravity
By David Rohde / New York Times
Over the last year, as Iran, Iraq and Lebanon have dominated headlines, hopes of gaining firmer control of a largely forgotten corner of the war on terrorism — the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region — have quietly evaporated.
On Tuesday, the Pakistani government signed a “truce” with militants who have resisted Pakistani military efforts to gain control of the region, which is roughly the size of Delaware. The agreement, which lets militants remain in the area as long as they promised to halt attacks, immediately set off concern among American analysts.
Al Qaeda’s surviving leadership is suspected of using the border areas as a base of operation to support international terrorist attacks, including possibly the July 2005 London subway bombings. Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership is widely believed to be using another border area to direct spiraling attacks in Afghanistan.
“There’s a link with broader international terrorism,” said Robert Grenier, the former top counterterrorism official for the Central Intelligence Agency. “There’s a link with what is happening in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, such as it is now, really has its center of gravity in the area.”
Last week’s truce agreement covers North Waziristan, an area on the Pakistani side of the border. After the Taliban fell in 2001, senior Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to have fled there from Afghanistan and to other remote border areas in Pakistan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7836
Day 7 Camp Democracy
On September 5th, we launched a non-partisan camp for peace, democracy, and the restoration of the rule of law. Camp Casey moved from Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to create a larger camp focused not only on ending the war but also on righting injustices here at home and on holding accountable the Bush Administration and Congress. Here's the schedule of what's happening each day from now till September 21st. Here are free rooms and rides. If you can send a bus and need help paying for it, ask us. If you need help filling it, post it on the board. In Spanish: Campamento de la Democracia.
http://campdemocracy.org/blog
Insurance agent inspired to break silence, seek peace
By Diana Marcum / Fresno Bee
Before the towers fell and calls for war began, Dan Yaseen was an insurance agent, just a man with a workaday job who didn't spend time protesting anything.
"I was doing the regular things. I'd been an insurance agent for 32 years. I was trying to make a living, pay my taxes. Then all of the sudden this happened and I was right in the middle of it."
Yaseen, now 57, is a native of Pakistan, where he still has family. After the Sept. 11 attacks, there was talk that the United States would bomb Afghanistan, which shares a border with Pakistan. Bombing would change lives in the whole region.
He had never believed in war, had always quietly embraced nonviolence.
Further troubling to him were news reports of hate crimes against Saudis or Sikhs or Pakistanis, anyone who happened to look like the Arab terrorists who had attacked the U.S.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7838
There Is No War On Terror
Robert Dreyfuss
September 13, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and the entire Republican election team are scrambling to make their so-called war on terror the focus of the next seven weeks. As in 2002 and 2004, they’re counting on their ability to scare Americans with the al-Qaida bogeyman. And while the trauma of 9/11 has begun to dissipate and American voters seem less susceptible than ever to the scare tactics used by the White House, for the past five years the Democrats have been singularly unable to develop an effective counter to the Bush administration on terrorism. So, for that reason, here are 10 important facts about terrorism that opponents of President Bush should understand.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/09/13/there_is_no_war_on_terror.php
The Pentagon Five
http://campdemocracy.org/node/349
US vs. John Lennon
DOC WILL STIR UP THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
A note from Yoko Ono
From the very first moment John and I saw each other, we knew something was about to happen - something big. We just didn't know how big. When John and I sang "Give Peace A Chance" from our Bed-In in Montreal, we had no idea the song would become an anthem not only for our time but for generations to come. It went around the world, and made other songwriters realize that you can convey political messages with songs. Millions of people got together and joined in its chorus. Singing it together made us all realize that we were a power strong enough to change the world. Little did we know that that's when we, John and I, really made our beds for life.
Both of us experienced World War II from two opposite sides. We knew what it meant to be in the war. We knew how, suddenly, you could lose everything. We knew that people like us were the ones who really suffered, and the Generals and the politicians just kept dishing out lies to keep us pacified. That was an insult to kids like us. Two angry people. That's what we were. So when we met and hugged each other, our back bones literally relaxed. Let's change the world for the better together. YES! Never in a million years, did we think that promoting World Peace could be dangerous. Were we naive? Yes, on that account, we were. John sings on the CD: “Nobody told me there’d be days like these.” That was his true confession. "Gimme Some Truth," another song in this collection, is a song only John could write and sing. It's a John Lennon Special born out of that unmistakable Liverpool attitude. Nobody would ever write a song like this and sing it the way John did.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=732
Nixon was completely paranoid of Democrats as well and that is why 'The Watergate." This is abuse of power called "Executive Privilege." Mr. Lennon was a private citizen and a business man in the USA. He was dogged by Nixon at the cost of American Taxpayer Dollars.
Lennon's FBI files
John Lennon
248 pages
Investigation conducted when the FBI learned that John Lennon contributed $75,000 to a group planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention in 1972.
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/lennon.htm
John Lennon, Still a Security Threat
The Bush administration, obsessed with secrecy, is busy reclassifying government documents -- from 1971
By Jon Wiener, JON WIENER, a professor of history at UC Irvine, is the author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files" and was the historical consultant on the film "U.S. vs. John Lennon."
September 10, 2006
WE ALL know that a key to preventing future terrorist attacks is sharing intelligence with foreign governments. When Justice Department attorneys urge courts not to release national security information provided by a foreign government under a Freedom of Information Act suit, they argue that the courts should defer to the experts in the Department of Homeland Security and the White House.
But what if such intelligence isn't about today's terrorist threats? What if it's about the antiwar activities of a British rock star during the Vietnam War?
That's precisely what's at issue in a Freedom of Information Act suit pending before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case of John Lennon's FBI files illustrates the federal government's obsession with secrecy, which it justifies with appeals to national security.
Lennon's story, told in the documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," opening this week in Los Angeles, revolves around his plans to help register young people to vote in the 1972 presidential election, when President Nixon was running for reelection and the war in Vietnam was the issue of the day. Lennon wanted to organize a national concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar protests and voter registration. Nixon found out about the plan, and the White House began deportation proceedings against Lennon.
It worked: Lennon never did the tour, and Nixon was reelected.
Along the way, the FBI spied on and harassed Lennon — and kept detailed files of its work. The bulk of them were released in 1997 under the Freedom of Information Act after 15 years of litigation. I was the plaintiff.
But the agency continues to withhold 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file on grounds that they contain "national security information provided by a foreign government." The name of the foreign government remains classified, though it's probably not Afghanistan. The FBI has argued that "disclosure of this information could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security, as it would reveal a foreign government and information provided in confidence by that government."
U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi rejected this argument in 2004 and ordered the documents released. The FBI is appealing that decision.
The Lennon FBI files vividly illustrate the administration's problem. "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government" — those are the words of President Bush in his 2003 executive order on classified information. And he is right.
The Freedom of Information Act is necessary because Democrats and Republicans alike have secrets they want to keep — secrets about corruption and the abuse of power. But now the White House wants to shield information from with a new rationale for secrecy — protecting the homeland from terrorists.
The administration acknowledges that it has dramatically increased the number of documents classified "confidential," "secret" or "top secret." Between the time Bush took office in 2001 and 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, that number has nearly doubled. In 2004 alone, 80 federal agencies deemed 15.6 million documents off-limits. And that figure doesn't include documents withheld by Vice President Dick Cheney, who refuses to report to the National Archives the number of documents his office classifies even though Bush's executive order requires him to do so. Cheney claims his office is exempt.
The administration's frenzy on secrets has led to documents being reclassified after having been in the public domain for decades — for example, the number of bombers and missiles the U.S. had in 1971. The same year that the FBI began its surveillance of Lennon, Nixon's secretary of Defense testified before Congress and displayed a chart showing the U.S. had 30 strategic bomber squadrons and 54 Titan and 1,000 Minuteman nuclear missiles.
Thirty-five years later, Bush officials blacked out that information in the public version of the secretary of Defense's 1971 report, claiming it is now a national security secret. About 55,000 pages of previously declassified material in the National Archives were edited this way, mostly by the Air Force and CIA. (In response, the U.S. archivist announced last week that a declassification initiative would eventually return 85% of the withdrawn CIA materials to the shelves.)
The justifications for such decisions are often ridiculous. In the Lennon FBI files litigation, the government claims that our national security would be damaged if it discloses the sharing of intelligence between the U.S. and the unnamed foreign government. But Bush himself declared in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that "relations and cooperation between our intelligence services are essential to secure the people of our respective countries."
That makes me wonder: Could it be that the same British intelligence service provided Nixon with information about Lennon in 1972? All this suggests that the time has come to end what Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, calls "silly secrecy."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-weiner10sep10,1,7994589.story
Do something...
The FBI can be contacted twenty-four hours a day, every day. Here’s how:
http://www.fbi.gov/contactus.htm
War is Over if you Want it !
http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/blogger.html?1
How to reach 100,000 people for a $1.00. That is $1.00 US. As in USE YOUR RIGHTS. "Freedom of Speech"
http://freewayblogger28.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
The War is Over
http://www.johnlennon.com/video/realvid_11.html
Powell blasts Bush’s plan for interrogations
Letter comes as president visits Capitol Hill to seek anti-terror support
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed efforts to block President Bush’s plan to authorize harsh interrogations of terror suspects, even as Bush lobbied personally for it Thursday on Capitol Hill.
“I will resist any bill that does not enable this plan to go forward,” Bush told reporters back at the White House after his meeting with lawmakers.
The latest sign of GOP division over White House security policy came Thursday in a letter that Powell sent to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of three rebellious senators taking on the White House. Powell said Congress must not pass Bush’s proposal to redefine U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7866
Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Torture
http://www.alternet.org/story/41314/
2 U.S. soldiers killed by suicide bomber
25 others injured in Baghdad explosion, military says
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 25 others on Thursday, the U.S. military said.
The attack brought to five the number of Americans who have died in Iraq since Wednesday.
The suicide bomber struck just after noon west of Baghdad.
It said the wounded soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital. Of the 25 wounded, six have been returned to duty and 15 were listed as not serious.
Also in Baghdad, one soldier died from wounds early Thursday after his unit came under attack by small arms fire. Another soldier died after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7867
On the 33rd day of the Battle of Baghdad, Spc. Alexander Jordan is killed by a sniper.
The call came over Capt. Brad Velotta's radio with the audible clarity that only shocking news can bring. Shots fired, the voice said, with one soldier down, "shot in the head by a sniper." Velotta and his men jumped up from the chai-and-chat session in the home of a local sheik in Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood, just north of Sadr City. They had been discussing the role of Coalition forces, the purpose of the Stryker mission and even such concepts as war and peace. Now reality came crashing back in. "This is the kind of peace we were talking about," Velotta remarked ironically as he hurried out of the house.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14838064/site/newsweek/
Anti-war soldier awaits punishment for deserting US Army
By Emily Baker / AFP
KILLEEN, United States - US Army Specialist Mark Wilkerson went to Iraq hoping to avenge the deaths of those killed in the attacks of September 11 and to bring freedom to the Iraqi people.
He left Iraq with a sense of failure, betrayal and determination never to go to war again.
"Our mission was to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," he said recently. "When I got there, I feel as though we were doing the exact opposite, and not 'we' as in my unit, 'we' as in an international force... In a war, we tend to treat people as criminals until they are proven innocent."
When his unit was called up to go back to Iraq and his conscientious objector application was denied, Wilkerson went into hiding. Until being absent without leave for more than 18 months created a new paranoia.
Nearly two weeks after he turned himself in to his unit at Fort Hood in Texas, the baby-faced 22-year-old soldier is still awaiting word on his punishment.
Wilkerson is one of 4,653 soldiers who have gone "absent without leave" (AWOL) since the Iraq war began, a military spokesman said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7868
Death Toll Soars in Baghdad
As the day's body count nears 100, Democrats accuse Bush of committing to an unwinnable war and straining the Army.
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — On a day in which nearly 100 bodies attested to Iraq's unbridled violence, Democrats stepped up their response to President Bush's policies, with former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski calling the war "unwinnable."
Iraqi officials announced they had found the bodies of 60 men, some of whom had been shot in the head after being tortured, over the previous 24 hours. They said there was no single massacre or mass execution. Rather, the slaughter in two Baghdad neighborhoods was probably the result of multiple roving assassination teams, they said.
In addition to the apparent executions, a pair of car bombs and other violence took at least 35 lives and left scores injured Wednesday, officials said. U.S. authorities reported the deaths of two more American soldiers, one killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad and the other killed in action in Al Anbar province, the hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency in western Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7864
IAEA protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran
By Mark Heinrich / Reuters
VIENNA - U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.
The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.
Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.
The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7865
US denied causing 'disaster' by invading Iraq
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House begged to differ after UN chief Kofi Annan said Middle Eastern leaders had called the invasion of Iraq "a disaster" for the region.
"I'm not going to engage in a further disputation with the secretary general of the United Nations, but we disagree with the characterization," White House spokesman Tony Snow said, while acknowledging "sectarian violence" in Iraq.
Annan, who recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, made the comment earlier in New York.
Asked what Middle East leaders had told him about their views of the consequences of the US-led war in Iraq, he said: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt that the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath have been a real disaster for them ... They believe it has destabilized the region."
He added that many leaders wanted the Americans to stay in Iraq until the security situation improves, noting that "having created the problem they cannot walk away."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7863
GOP Leaders Back Bush on Wiretapping, Tribunals
By Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post
Congress's Republican leadership yesterday threw its weight behind two of President Bush's most controversial national security programs, warrantless wiretapping and extrajudicial military tribunals.
But the party leaders are having trouble getting all their members on board, including the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And by backing the president's legislative demands, the leadership risks being labeled by Democrats as a rubber stamp for an unpopular president.
With prodding from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10 to 8 along party lines to approve a bill negotiated with the White House to allow -- but not require -- Bush to submit the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program to a secret court for constitutional review.
That bill, which could come before the Senate next week, is considered by many to be a ratification of the administration's current surveillance program, which monitors the overseas phone calls and e-mails of some Americans when one party is suspected of links to terrorism. The program has been attacked by Democrats and civil liberties advocates as an excessive encroachment on Americans' privacy.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7856
Straight to the Heart
Battle Cries: For U.S. troops and their wives and children, the Iraq war's invisible costs just keep on piling up.
By Michael Hastings / Newsweek
Sept. 18, 2006 issue - Toward the end of July, Capt. Brad Velotta began daydreaming a lot. He thought about making the summer's last run of salmon in Alaska's Russian River, where bears lumber down from the woods and chase fishermen out of the water. He thought about getting a kitten for his 3-year-old daughter, Sophia. Most of all, Velotta hoped to see his 83-year-old grandmother Mary one last time before she died of cancer. "She thought she could hold on," says Velotta's father, Albert, at the family home in Alexandria, La. Her grandson was supposed to leave Iraq on Aug. 2. "She thought it would only be a few weeks more."
But it wasn't. On July 26, Velotta learned that he and his unit, the 172nd Stryker Brigade, were going not home but to the core of Iraq's sectarian blood feud: Baghdad. After a solid year of battling the insurgency, from Mosul to Tall Afar to the westernmost reaches of Al Anbar province, the 172nd has been extended until after Thanksgiving—if not later. Velotta, 29, Blackhawk Company commander in the 172nd's 4-23 infantry battalion, gave a tough talk to his squad leaders: "I know it f---ing sucks. But you don't have the option to not be motivated. You don't have the privilege to be worn out. This is Baghdad. This is graduate-level s--t."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7853
Expressing the Sense of Congress that the President should immediately replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.house.gov/list/press/pa12_murtha/PRrummyres06.html
S.Korea riot police clear U.S. base protesters
PYONGTAEK, South Korea (Reuters) - More than 10,000 South Korean riot policemen with shields and batons dislodged about 50 residents and activists from homes on Wednesday during a protest over the expansion of a U.S. military base.
The protesters painted "NO USA" on buildings and stood on rooftops in a brief attempt to stop construction crews from tearing down about 90 homes.
The homes were quickly demolished, ending months of arguments over the land in two rural townships.
The land will be used to expand one base in order to close the main U.S. site in Seoul and reduce the area used to house U.S. forces in South Korea.
"Today's move showed that the resistance had been quelled somewhat, in part because more residents took up the (government's) compensation offer and decided to move out," a defense official in Seoul said by telephone requesting anonymity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7861
Civilians Hit Hardest by Afghan Violence
By Paul Garwood / Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Suicide bombings have killed 173 people in Afghanistan this year, NATO announced Wednesday amid a sharp escalation of violence that saw at least 40 militants slain and an aid worker gunned down in the west.
A suicide attacker was the sole victim of a bombing inside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the city of Kandahar, while militants fired two rockets into the eastern city of Jalalabad ahead of a visit by President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Police said there were no casualties.
NATO spokesman Maj. Luke Knittig said 151 of the year's suicide attack victims were Afghan civilians, including children, while the remainder included NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan authorities.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7858
The China Daily
Beijing faces drought, again
By Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 06:46
Beijing is again facing drought despite two months of rainfall, and the situation is expected to get worse, Beijing Meteorological Bureau said yesterday.
After a survey of the latest satellite photos, the bureau said drought had returned to 44 per cent of the municipality, and the meteorologists say south-eastern Fangshan District and part of Daxing District are already experiencing serious drought.
"The parched capital had largely escaped the worst drought in 50 years that has hit some areas," meteorologist Tang Guang said.
"However, it returned immediately to drought conditions as rainfall over the past month is down by 80 per cent from the same period last year.
"Artificial rainfall facilities have been fully prepared and once there is natural rainfall, artificial rainfall will also be induced to generate extra water for the capital."
By mid-May, 70 per cent of Beijing municipality was suffering from moderate drought, bureau figures showed, and 6 per cent were hit by severe drought.
But frequent rainfall from June to August totalled 362.9 millimetres, about the same as for the corresponding period for the last 10 years.
"The rainfall brought relief to 96 per cent of Beijing, leaving 3 per cent with light drought. The remaining even had too much water and became waterlogged," Tang said.
Merely 50 to 90 millimetres of rain is forecast from September to November, less than the previous year, the bureau said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_688637.htm
Paulson: Prosperity of US and China tied together
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 11:17
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration will oppose efforts in Congress to penalize China for a trade surplus with the United States, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stressed on Wednesday.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson makes his first speech on the international economy since joining the Bush Cabinet in July at the Treasury Department in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006.[AP Photo]
"Protectionist policies do not work and the collateral damage from these policies is high," said Paulson while delivering his first speech on the international economy since he took up the post in July.
"By closing off competition and blocking the forces of change, protectionism reduces the losses of the present by sacrificing the opportunities of the future," he said. "We will not heed the siren songs of protectionism and isolationism."
Paulson said that the prosperity of the United States and China is tied together in the global economy, and "how we work together on a host of bilateral and multilateral issues will have a significant impact on the health of the global economy."
He said that the United States must take a strategic view of its relationship with China.
"Both in China and in the United States, we must not allow ourselves to be captured by harmful political rhetoric or those who engage in political demagoguery," Paulson stated.
"Instead, we must realize that the US-Chinese relationship is truly generational and demands a long-term strategic economic engagement on our common issues of interest," he concluded.
The United States is China's largest export market and the second-largest trade partner. Sino-US trade volume reached US$211.6 billion in 2005 with China registering a surplus of US$114.2 billion.
In his speech, Paulson also said that the United States has nothing to fear from China's emergence as a global economic power.
"The tasks faced by Beijing are so daunting that the biggest risk we face is not that China will overtake the US, but that China won't move ahead with the reforms necessary to sustain its growth and to address the very serious problems facing the nation," he said.
The secretary will visit China next week after attending the September 19-20 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Singapore.
During his stay in China, Paulson said that he will urge the Chinese Government to move more quickly to adopt economic reforms, including a more flexible currency.
Paulson, 60, was nominated in May to replace John Snow, who resigned on June 29. The former Goldman Sachs CEO, who was sworn in on July 10, has made more than 70 trips to China as head of the investment giant.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689666.htm
Japan's Abe may hold China summit
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 06:31
TOKYO, Sept 14 - Preparations are under way for Shinzo Abe to hold an ice-breaking summit meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao after he becomes Japan's prime minister, a senior Japanese lawmaker close to Abe said on Thursday.
[Related: Post-Koizumi leader urged not to visit war Shrine]
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, is expected to become the nation's next prime minister, raises his arm during a campaign tour for leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Atsugi, west of Tokyo September 14, 2006. [Reuters]
China had refused to hold such meetings with outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi because of his visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Beijing and by South Korea as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
"It's very possible," former foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura told Reuters, referring to a Japan-China summit after Abe's expected election as prime minister on September 26.
Machimura, a senior Abe campaign manager in his bid to succeed Koizumi, said that summits with South Korea would also resume, but a meeting with China was likely to come first.
Machimura said Japanese and Chinese officials had been meeting to discuss a summit. Media reports said senior diplomats from the two countries were likely to hold talks in Tokyo next week to pave the way for an Abe-Hu meeting.
Abe has defended Koizumi's Yasukuni visits but declined to say whether he too would pay his respects as prime minister at the shrine, which honours 14 wartime leaders convicted as war criminals along with Japan's millions of war dead.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689243.htm
Police say Montreal gunman killed self
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 06:52
MONTREAL, Sept 14 - The gunman who went on a shooting spree at a Montreal college, killing an 18-year-old female student and wounding 19 other people was obsessed with guns and death, according to his online journal.
An undated photo from the internet website vampirefreaks.com shows Montreal school killer Kimveer Gill.[Reuters]
Montreal's police chief, Yvan Delorme, confirmed on Thursday that the gunman, who died at the scene after a shootout with police on Wednesday afternoon, was Kimveer Gill, a 25-year-old man from a Montreal suburb.
On a Web site devoted to Goth culture, Gill said he was born July 9, 1981, in Montreal, was 6 feet, 1 inch tall and of East-Indian heritage.
Gill wrote in his blog on the site www.vampirefreaks.com that he liked guns and his trenchcoat and would prefer to die: "Like Romeo and Juliet -- or -- in a hail of gunfire."
Eyewitnesses at the shooting scene in downtown Montreal said the gunman wore a black trenchcoat and boots and his hair was cut in a military style -- close-cropped on the sides and back with a patch of hair on top.
Montreal health officials said that among the 19 people wounded, four remained in critical condition from gunshot wounds, while two had been moved from the intensive care ward. The victims' ages ranged from 17 to 48.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-09/15/content_689246.htm
Israel: UN observers deaths caused by map error
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 10:51
JERUSALEM - An Israeli air strike which killed four United Nations military observers at their base in Lebanon was due to an error with military maps of the area, an investigation by Israel said on Thursday.
Smoke rises from Khiam village after being hit by Israeli air strikes, one of which killed four U.N. military observers who were part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, July 25, 2006. An Israeli air strike which killed four United Nations military observers at their base in Lebanon was due to an error with military maps of the area, an investigation by Israel said on Thursday. [Reuters]
The air strike in July destroyed a U.N. post in southern Lebanon, killing four U.N. peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
Israel presented the findings of its investigation into the incident on Thursday to officials from the four countries, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
He said maps of the area had been duplicated due to the deployment of more troops in the area.
"There was a mishap on the Israeli side where in duplication of maps, the U.N. position on the maps was not marked as it should have been and that created the tragedy," Regev said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-09/15/content_689616.htm
China rejects US senators' criticism on currency
(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-15 19:15
BEIJING - Responding to a call by two key US senators for a vote on possible punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing warned Washington on Friday that linking a dispute over its currency to the US trade deficit would hurt both sides.
"The current friction in Sino-US trade is normal," Commerce Ministry spokesman Chong Quan said at a news conference, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Chong said linking China's currency policy and the US trade deficit is "adverse to both sides," Xinhua reported.
US Senators Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer appealed this week to lawmakers to schedule a vote on a bill that would raise tariffs on Chinese imports. They complained that Beijing has done too little to reform its exchange-rate policies.
Chong's reported comments didn't mention Graham and Schumer's bill but Xinhua said it was in response to their remarks.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_690151.htm
China reduces tariff rebates to rein in export
By Xiao Yu and William Bi (Bloomberg)
Updated: 2006-09-15 11:12
China cut export tariff rebates on products including steel, textiles and some non-ferrous minerals to rein in overseas sales of energy-intensive industries and potentially curb the country's record trade surplus.
The changes, effective Friday, include a reduction in tariff rebates on steel products to 8 percent from 11 percent, on textiles to 11 percent from 13 percent, and the removal of rebates on non-metal minerals such as coal and natural gas, a joint statement issued by five ministries said today. The rebate cuts will make exports more expensive.
China's trade surplus grew to US$18.8 billion in August, a fourth straight monthly record, as exports reached an all-time high. It also fueled tension with trading partners including the US and European Union. Premier Wen Jiabao is touring Europe and central Asia, partly to improve relations with the partners.
The move "is one of the measures taken this year in line with State Council's macro-economic controls," the ministries said, adding that it'll "help optimize industrial and export structure and maintain balanced export growth."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689660.htm
Language matters in Sino-Indian relations
By Zou Hanru (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 09:20
"By 2025, the number of English-speaking Chinese is likely to exceed the number of native English speakers in the rest of the world." This is what visiting UK finance minister Gordon Brown said last year.
Well, as Brown said, the Chinese are doing the heavy lifting and learning English. And rightly so, because language, it seems, is going to play a vital role in the future world.
But, unlike what Brown feared, the rest of the world is not content with lightweight lifting, even though gen tianshu yiyang is no longer considered that ethereal by the Chinese. The French saying, "C'est du chinois" literally "it's Chinese," but meaning "it's unintelligible" is a thing of the past for the rest of the world.
And of late, joining the increasing ranks of this "intelligible" brigade are the Indians. Indian students and professionals, even though late, have awakened to the needs of the "language."
The reason for that is there for the world to see: China could surpass the United States as India's largest trading partner. Bilateral trade between the two Asian giants has been growing at a healthy 35-40 per cent much ahead of the targets. It is projected to reach US$20 billion by next year, one year before the target of 2008.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2006-09/15/content_689439.htm
'Cultural deficit' is widening
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 08:16
From foreign movies and TV programmes to books and concerts, China is ringing up a huge cultural deficit, a senior official said yesterday.
The unfavourable balance of trade in the cultural sector will remain acute for a long time to come, Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng told China Daily on the sidelines of a press conference addressed by two other top officials.
Sun did not assign a monetary value for the deficit but the nation imported nearly seven times more movies than it produced last year. Similarly, it is estimated that the number of books imported was 10 times more than exports.
"It is rather difficult to reverse the trend for the time being, since we have adopted an opening-up policy, and foreign cultural products will continue to flow to China," the minister said.
The movie industry is one of the areas where the effects are most telling.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689290.htm
Chinese film triumphs at Venice fete
AFP
Sunday, September 10, 2006 01:15 IST
VENICE: A poetic film about the effects of China's Three Gorges Dam on the lives of ordinary people, "Still Life" by Jia Zhang-ke, has won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on Saturday, the jury announced at a gala finale.
Helen Mirren won the Best Actress award for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' "The Queen", while Ben Affleck won the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of cinema's first Superman, George Reeves, in "Hollywoodland".
"Still Life", also known by its Chinese title "Sanxia Haoren", was a last-minute "surprise film" added to the 11-day festival, and left more fancied high-budget movies in its wake.
"I want to thank all the people who helped me to make this film. Thank you to the jury too," said the 36-year-old director, whose movie recounts the story of people who come back to a rural village during the upheaval caused by the giant construction project.
A second film by Zhang-ke, "Dong", a documentary about workers building the giant project, featured in the festival's Horizons section.
"I am proud to bring two films to Venice, a city surrounded by water, while my two films are stories inspired by water," he told reporters, saying his films celebrated "the culture of the river."
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1052099
China leads vibrant Asia economies
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-14 16:16
Singapore - Led by China, emerging Asian economies will grow 8.3 percent in 2006, about half a percentage point more than previously thought, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on Thursday.
The strong outlook for Chinese mainland will bode especially well for Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand given their strong intraregional trade ties, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.
The IMF in April had forecast growth in emerging Asia this year at 7.9 percent.
"Growth continues to run above 8 percent in emerging Asia, with much of the momentum due to vibrant expansions in China and India," the IMF said.
The fund upgraded its growth forecast for China to 10 percent from 9.5 percent and for India to 8.3 percent from 7.3 percent.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_689121.htm
Latest data shows signs of a cool-down
By Zheng Lifei(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 07:02
China's industrial output grew 15.7 per cent in August from a year earlier, the slowest pace in 17 months, indicating the government's cooling measures are beginning to work.
Property market shows signs of cooling
The latest figure, 1 percentage point lower than the one recorded in July, gives further weight to the claim the macroeconomic control measures are starting to bite, economists said.
Meanwhile the country's urban fixed-assets investment, a closely watched economic indicator, also slowed in August to 21.5 per cent, slipping from July's 27.4 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
And China's money supply and lending growth are also showing signs of cooling down.
M2, the broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, slowed to 17.9 per cent in August, down from 18.4 per cent in July, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday, quoting unidentified sources.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2006-09/14/content_688374.htm
'We hope for peace, stability in Taiwan'
By Xing Zhigang (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 06:39
A mainland official expressed hope yesterday that Taiwan compatriots live in peace and contentment and enjoy social stability amid massive protests seeking to oust the island's leader Chen Shui-bian.
Protesters shout slogans and give thumbs down to Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian during the fourth day of a sit-in aimed to oust Chen in front of Chen's office in Taipei, September 12, 2006. In a reprieve from the heavy rains, protesters continue an open-ended sit-in campaign to oust Chen over corruption allegations against his family. [AP Photo]
"Taiwan compatriots are our flesh and blood," said Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
"We do not want to see any unfortunate events occur," Li said, without directly referring to the anti-Chen protests on the island.
Chinese people on mainland, together with Taiwan compatriots, will continue to strongly oppose "Taiwan independence" forces, while maintaining cross-Straits peace and stability and pushing for improved ties, Li told a news briefing.
The mass protest against Chen started on Saturday when more than 300,000 people took to the streets in Taipei to voice their contempt for Chen and his family members, who are accused of taking bribes and influence peddling.
At yesterday's briefing, Li warned of an intensified secessionist push by Chen during the rest of his term to woo diehard pro-independence forces.
The warning follows the island's failure in its bid to become a United Nations member for the 14th year.
The embattled Taiwan leader, under mounting pressure to resign amid a series of corruption scandals, has vowed to push for Taiwan's admission to the UN and write a new "constitution" for the island before his term ends in May 2008.
Li said Taiwan's latest application for UN membership is a "new and dangerous" step taken by Chen along the secessionist path.
"It further exposes his sinister motive to speed up secessionist activities."
The UN General Assembly's General Committee on Tuesday decided not to put the Taiwan issue on the meeting's agenda, turning down a request from some of the island's allies.
Since 1993, Taiwan has launched an annual bid to join the world body composed of sovereign states.
Li said the UN's rejection demonstrates that the majority of UN members believe there is only one China, and Taiwan, as part of China, is not qualified to join the UN in any name or through any means.
Li also denounced Chen's attempt to pursue "de jure independence" through so-called "constitutional reform."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also issued a statement yesterday, welcoming the UN's rejection of Taiwan's "representation" proposal.
Qin urged the Taiwan authorities and a small number of countries instigated by the island to follow the trend of history and stop all secessionist activities.
A resolution adopted in 1971 at the 26th UN General Assembly, granted the People's Republic of China full legal status in the United Nations.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_688437.htm
16-day Olympic break planned for Beijingers
By Kang Yi (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-09-15 15:28
Beijing residents may have a 16-day break during the 2008 summer Olympic Games, said legislators in an Olympic legislation session Thursday, wrote the Qianlong News September 15.
A woman passes a poster of the Beijing Olympic logo in Beijing. [AFP]
The session broke the pending 65 issues down into five major categories, and legislation for each of the five categories is on the way, including regulations on volunteer rights and security clearance.
The half-month recess provides a perfect chance for locals to enjoy the games and eases the commuter traffic jam accentuated by traffic restrictions, according to legislators.
The session didn't cover payroll during the break, and the holiday is still under discussion. However the service industry may have longer working hours, Qianlong.com cited the legislators as saying.
According to a report on Qianlong.com, enterprises may make their own holiday schedules based on the 16-day outline.
It is reported that athletes, journalists, volunteers and spectators will be able to ride city buses for free during the summer games.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689883.htm
Woman seeks man with money & sex capability on blog
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-09-14 17:45
Meining, a popular blog host based in Guangdong, posted a notice looking for a boyfriend, listing 11 rigid requirements, one of which is assets amounting to five million yuan (US$ 630,000), according to her bog on hexun.com on August 26.
Meining, a popular blog host based in Guangdong, posted a notice looking for a boyfriend, listing 11 rigid requirements, one of which is assets amounting to five million yuan (US$ 630,000).
Meining, a 31-year-old lecturer in Guangzhou, first wrote on the internet to look for her Mr. Right a year ago, and has drawn a total of 6,870 responses to her new husband-hunting notice.
Most of the response posts were doubtful of Meining's sincerity, believing she was using the post to get fame for herself. Some even wrote posts trying to humiliate her.
Among Meining's requirements, her boyfriend ought to be handsome, have good sexual performance, be more than 32 years old; know the methods to make money, need to have "big intelligence", do not have fixed girlfriends or fianc¨¦e, and can tell the difference of a wife and a house-keeper.
Some netizens wrote that Meining's love notice is meant for Ding Lei, CEO of 163.com, which is listed at the Nasdaq stock market in New York. Meining has previously made her adoration for Ding public.
But Meining denies these accusations, saying that she became famous for her articles among netizens long ago. She said in one of her blogs that her five million yuan requirement is a test of men's bravery, but if she finds a good man without the assets, she would choose him anyway.
"Though most of my friends don't understand me, I will keep on searching my right man," Meining told reporters.
Nowadays, it is a fashion in China that a growing number of people who have tried to seek fame by promoting themselves on the Web. Muzimei, who exposed her sex life with different men, also posted a notice looking for a husband. Director and actress Xu Jinglei has taken advantage of her love affairs to raise the number of hits on her blog in the popular Sina.com portal.
Sun Yuanming, Chongqing Social Science Academy psychological research center director told the Chongqing Commercial Daily on Monday that most people who post notices on the web looking for lovers are really only trying to promote themselves. He questioned people like Meining's sincerity, and doubted their efforts will eventually bear results.
Sun suggested people should pay attention to real life and that only more and deeper contacts in the real world will lead to true love.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_689193.htm
continued ….
'Risk to dolphins' from Forth oil transfer plan
PLANS to carry out ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Forth have come under fresh attack from Green MSPs, who claim it will harm dolphins and whales.
Mark Ruskell MSP, the Greens' speaker on environment, said that Forth Ports had failed to fully consider the impact of ship-to-ship oil transfers on dolphins and whales in the Firth of Forth - despite a Government agency warning that such a failure could breach European law. Mr Ruskell said: "The Firth has very significant populations of dolphins and whales, and this sloppy, unconvincing work using outdated and irrelevant data is extremely irresponsible.
"In the absence of proper, current data, no 'assessment' of environmental impact can be competent. It is the duty of the Executive to uphold European law, so they had better get on ensuring that is exactly what happens.
"This plan is far too risky and Forth Ports' approach smacks of a company willing to put the environment, public health and people's livelihoods all on the line for the sake of profit."
The claims have been backed by whale and dolphin expert Erich Hoyt: "If the plans go ahead, there is a real danger that the EU habitats directive will be breached."
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1358442006
Michael Chertoff has 180 days to tighten security at the USA ports. With the inflammatory 'talk' before a Senate committee yesterday, I guess he's annoyed he has some work to do. The USA sets their own standards. By exporting the security of our ports to any country bidding on management of them we compromise our sovereignty as a country.
Senate passes bill to tighten security screening at ports
WASHINGTON The Senate voted without dissent tonight to tighten security at U-S seaports by scanning nearly all incoming cargo for nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs."
The bill was approved 98-to-nothing in a pre-election push on national defense. It would increase safeguards on the rail systems that pick up cargo from ports and authorize a thousand new agents to screen containers coming off ships.
Also under the bill, a federal law enforcement training center near Brusnwick would get ten (m) million dollar next year to begin taking its programs on the road to help rural law enforcement agencies.
The measure would authorize the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynn County to launch a traveling Rural Policing Institute. It would provide smaller law enforcement agencies that may not have the budget to send staffers to Georgia with more affordable and convenient access to the center's specialized training. That portion of the legislation was sponsored by Georgia's senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson.
http://www.wtvm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5411229&nav=8fap
Kean criticizes Menendez on ports
Friday, September 15, 2006
By GREGORY J. VOLPE
Gannett State Bureau
FORT LEE
Though both New Jersey U.S. Senate candidates want all the nation's imported cargo to be securely screened, state Sen. Thomas Kean Jr., R-Westfield, blamed not his fellow Republicans in Washington, but his opponent U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, for not getting an amendment passed that would require 100 percent screening.
The Senate passed a port security measure Thursday that would provide nearly $7 billion over six years -- a day after voting down an amendment, 43-55, that would have required the 11 million cargo containers that enter the country each year to be X-rayed and scanned for radiation.
That amendment was sponsored by Menendez.
"I support efforts by Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others to fully screen cargo coming into and leaving this country, but the issue here is just that fact the amendment failed," Kean said. "Bob Menendez has proven yet again that he's ineffective in getting the job done for the people of New Jersey."
Menendez issued a statement questioning why Kean would attack his efforts instead of lobbying his fellow Republicans to pass the amendment.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060915/NEWS01/609150378/1006
The Philippines Will Deploy X-Ray Technology To Protect Ports From Smugglers
September 14, 2006 9:40 p.m. EST
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent
Manila, Philippines (AHN) - The Philippines has purchased 10 sophisticated x-ray machines to scan cargo containers coming into port.
Bureau of Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales says the machines are capable of detecting smuggled cargo such as drugs, chemicals, explosives, and weapons of mass destruction that authorities fear are trying to gain entry through numerous ports in the island nation.
Morales says, "These scanning machines are part of the bureau's modernization efforts. We have started with the computerization of our system of transaction, now we want to shift from 'parcel-based' to 'container-based' scanning, which would improve the efficiency of inspection and monitoring operations of imported goods as they arrive."
According to the Customs chief, most of the members of the World Customs Organization use scanning equipment in determining the contents of imported cargoes.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004865175
Industry opposes full cargo screening
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Port industry executives said Tuesday they oppose Senate Democratic efforts to require screening of all seagoing cargo containers.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Sen. Robert Menendez -- both of New Jersey -- and New York. Sen. Charles Schumer announced Tuesday they would propose an amendment to the port security bill in front of the Senate requiring 100 percent of the containers that enter American ports to be inspected.
Currently, only 6 percent of cargo containers are inspected with x-rays or other scanners, and only 5 percent of those are hand inspected.
Other measures are taken to try to assure the integrity of cargo containers, but they are a known vulnerability for the shipment of terrorists, weapons, and nuclear materials.
Those concerns, however, are to be weighed against the economic impact that 100 percent cargo screening would have, both in possibly slowing the movement of containers and therefore the speed of ships, as well as the billions that would have to be invested in x-ray or gamma screeners and thousands more personnel to both conduct the searches and analyze the images.
The port in Hong Kong has conducted a pilot program to inspect 100 percent of cargo containers with gamma screeners. Program champions say the cargo has not been slowed by the inspections.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060912-030912-7261r
Rail line deal will help ports
L.A.: Settlement could bring in an extra $4 million.
By Rick Orlov and Kristopher Hanson, Staff reporters
LOS ANGELES - Ending a two-year dispute with rail lines, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a settlement over cargo payments that could bring in an extra $4 million at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Burlington Northern and Union Pacific will pay the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) additional money for cargo that is offloaded at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and reloaded onto rail containers. The authority is a joint-powers agency of the two cities and their ports.
"This is a big deal for the authority and the Port of Los Angeles," said L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who chairs the authority this year. "What it means is the authority will be getting some extra money. More importantly, it means we will not have to tap into the Port of Los Angeles funds to make up any losses."
Hahn said the dispute involved payments for goods taken from ships and put into new containers for rail shipments.
http://www.presstelegram.com/business/ci_4340833
Super-city move may lead to Ports of Auckland sale
14 September 2006
By ANDREW JANES
Speculation is mounting that a move to a super-city for Auckland could lead to the sale of Ports of Auckland.
The port is wholly owned by Auckland Regional Holdings – accountable to Auckland Regional Council – but under a proposed three-city structure its ownership would be transferred to the planned Greater Auckland Council.
But Manukau City Mayor Sir Barry Curtis said speculation that the port might be sold was nonsense.
If the port was transferred to Greater Auckland Council the three planned cities – North Shore-Waitakere, Auckland and Counties-Manukau – would have no say in whether the port was sold or not, Sir Barry said.
It is believed Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard favours a sale of some or all of the port to redevelop Auckland's waterfront. Mr Hubbard is in Japan and couldn't be contacted.
Auckland Regional Holdings chairwoman Judith Bassett said she thought that the port would be "severely at risk" if its ownership was transferred to the Greater Auckland Council.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3796120a13,00.html
Senate Rejects Democratic Plan for Ports
09.13.2006, 03:38 PM
Senate Republicans on Wednesday rejected a Democratic attempt to attach dozens of national security programs to legislation intended to protect seaports.
The Democrats' proposal had threatened the overall ports security bill, which would install monitors at the 22 largest ports. These devices would screen for materials used to make radiological bombs or nuclear weapons.
The ports bill could come to a final vote on Thursday.
The plan by Democratic leader Harry Reid would have put Republicans in the awkward position of opposing security measures that many people in the United States believe are long overdue. Examples include improving safeguards on trains and buses and at chemical plants.
"Politics won't protect the American people," Reid, D-Nev., said after the GOP-controlled Senate defeated his plan.
Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted against Reid's proposal.
"It is an interesting hodgepodge of provisions that are irrelevant to the underlying bill," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "What it does not include are provisions that have to do with port security."
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/09/13/ap3014774.html
PNNL Making Ports Safer
Sep 13, 2006 09:18 PM EDT
RICHLAND, Wash.- A local group is making America safer.
A Pacific Northwest National Laboratory border training program is attracting security screeners from around the country.
Twice a month, PNNL puts on homeland security training at the HAMMER Center near Hanford. It's the only place in the world that this training is going on.
Border security agents from around the country are at HAMMER this week to learn how to better screen for radioactive materials at U.S. ports.
Unlike many other similar programs, they are actually using radioactive material.
"One thing we can do here that is not available anywhere else is we can bring out the real materials. We can bring out the weapons grade Plutonium, we can bring out the weapons grade Uranium," said PNNL's Bill Cliff.
They're testing cars like they would at real ports, and the world class facility is getting people out of the classroom.
Since September 11, border security officials have upped funding for the program, and now, the wait list for the training is at two years.
Training isn't all serious though.
Remember those terrorist playing cards during the Iraq war.
PNNL is giving participants these cards labeled with various radioactive materials to help them keep track of what they're dealing with.
http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=5405506&nav=menu484_2
Tripura keen on using Bangladesh ports for business
Posted by admin on 2006/9/14 4:14:37
Agartala, Sep 14 (IANS) Business in India's northeast would get a major boost if the region is allowed to use Bangladeshi ports for speedier transportation of goods, said Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
"Business between India's northeast and Southeast Asia would grow if we are allowed to use the Bangladeshi ports of Chittagong and Ashuganj for ferrying goods and other raw materials," the chief minister told IANS.
Chittagong port is just 75 km from south Tripura's border town of Sabroom, while the Ashuganj port is 25 km from state capital Agartala.
"It took about three months by road to transport four turbines for a thermal power plant from West Bengal's Haldia to Ramchandranagar in west Tripura. It would have taken about two days to transport the turbines from Haldia to Chittagong port and another week by road from there to west Tripura," a state industry and commerce department official said.
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13615
The Hunt for Deepwater Ports
The Port of Tacoma has undertaken an improvement program that includes widening waterways and dredging. Ports in Washington State are closer to Asia than those in California.
By KRISTINA SHEVORY
Published: August 23, 2006
A 10-day shutdown of the West Coast ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles four years ago had shipping companies and big retailers scrambling to fill orders for Christmas. Since then, congestion and labor shortages at the country’s busiest ports have prompted shippers to look for new ports to receive their merchandise.
It was an equally big problem for companies like AMB Property, a San Francisco-based real estate investment trust that specializes in distribution facilities and counts shippers and retailers as important clients.
“The problems in L.A. made it pretty clear to us that our customers wanted an alternative,” said Hamid R. Moghadam, chairman and chief executive of AMB, a publicly traded REIT.
Mr. Moghadam looked along the West Coast and found the port of Tacoma had plenty of empty space, good rail connections and room for container ships. In 2003, AMB started buying and developing industrial properties around Tacoma, and now owns 2.3 million square feet there. Within three years, the company expects to have up to 35 percent more property in Seattle and Tacoma.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/business/23tacoma.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1156514902-0XmL4+TjVjPIh6gWzMKsUA
Officials tout security of Georgetown's port
By Zane Wilson
The Sun News
GEORGETOWN - After the latest global terrorism scare, port security was again a hot topic, but people don't have to worry about the port of Georgetown, those responsible for its safety say.
"I think it's right for everyone to be concerned," said Cmdr. Tom Allan of the Charleston-based Coast Guard contingent that oversees port security.
The disclosure earlier this month that British agents had uncovered a plot to blow up airplanes that were flying between England and the U.S. brought the issue of travel security to the forefront again.
But the concern for ports is with the large containers of cargo that arrive at ports such as Charleston, Allan said. Georgetown does not handle container cargo.
"We've never had an incident in Georgetown from a port security standpoint," Allan said.
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/15338395.htm
Dubai World launches Dubai Trade CD for 2005
Dubai World, one of the world's leading holding companies, has launched a new CD containing comprehensive statistical data on Dubai's trade.
The CD, compiled by the Group's Statistics Department using state-of-the art designs and technology, is titled 'Dubai External Trade Statistics 2005' and is aimed at meeting the ever-increasing demand for details on the Emirate's highly successful commercial relations with the rest of the world.
Adel Al Ashram, Senior Manager of the Statistics Department, said,
'The new CD uses search engine based technology, which facilitates finding information on bi-lateral trade between Dubai and the rest of the world extremely easy and efficient. Users can obtain detailed information on things like traded volumes of various goods, international customs tariff codes, classification of goods, all trade figures, free zone trades, customs store trades, diamonds and gold and the movements at Dubai Ports World for the year 2005.'
He added: 'We believe this will help potential investors within and outside the UAE to become more aware of trading trends in Dubai and will also assist them in accessing all trade statistics in digital format, in addition to guidance on the usage of the international customs tariff code system.'
http://www.ameinfo.com/94416.html
For railways, ports, other projects for Cebu 2006-2010
By Rose O. Verzosa
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
President Arroyo has approved around P60.8 billion worth of infrastructure investments for Cebu for 2006 to 2010, mostly for railways and ports.
Marlene CA Rodriguez, director of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) 7, said this amount is 32 percent of the P190-billion total infrastructure budget for Central Philippines.
Rodriguez made these revelations during yester-day’s Sun.Star Economic Forum at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel in Lahug.
Based on Arroyo’s super-region development strategy, Central Philippines covers the provinces of Palawan, Romblon and Camiguin, Dapitan City, Siargao island, the regions of Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas and Central Visayas.
Railways
Citing the Central Philippines Investment Program, which was approved by Arroyo last July 21, a P33-billion budget is allocated for Cebu’s railways, while P18.88 billion is for its ports.
The rest of the budget is distributed for roads and bridges (P6.3 billion), airports (P749 million) and tourism infrastructure ((P1.9 billion).
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2006/08/24/news/for.railways.ports.other.projects.for.cebu.2006.2010.html
Sarumi commends firm over port facility
• Wednesday, Aug 23, 2006
The demand for commercial port facility which stood at 25 to 30 million metric tones by the end of 1970s when the last port development programme was completed, has today risen to a whopping 50 to 60 million metric tones.
The managing director, of the Nigeria Ports Authority, Chief Adebayo Sarumi disclosed this at the commissioning of the $62 million multi-purpose terminal Port Tincan Island in Lagos.
He noted that the yawning gap between demand and supply of port infrastructural facility a gab which is being partly covered by the facility, commissioned today.
He further explained that the PTML Terminal is designed to make Lagos a hub for international ships traffic in West and Central Africa.
http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=08/23/2006&qrTitle=Sarumi%20commends%20firm%20over%20port%20facility&qrColumn=BUSINESS
Chemical leak sparks major alert
Grangemouth docks, where the chemical leak was reported
A major incident was declared after a chemical leak at Grangemouth docks.
White smoke was seen coming from a freight container at the docks, which is located close to Scotland's largest oil refinery.
The vapour had the potential to cause slight skin irritation, according to a spokesman for Forth Ports Authority.
Personnel were moved out and the night shift cancelled but no-one has been hurt and there was said to be no danger to the population.
Thirteen fire crews were in attendance at one stage.
The incident is not affecting the nearby oil refinery, run by Innovene, which was sold by BP to INEOS last year.
Central Scotland Police said
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/5280172.stm?ls
Probe launched into chemical leak
Emergency services were at the docks throughout the night
An investigation has been launched into how a chemical which causes irritation to eyes, nose and skin leaked out of a tank at Grangemouth port.
A major incident was declared on Wednesday when the vapour caused a large plume above the Forth.
The chemical, which was inside a storage tank on a quayside within the docks area, was Divinylbenzene.
No-one was injured in the incident, however some residents have expressed concern about a lack of information.
The chemical, understood to be delivered on a regular basis, had been unloaded from a cargo vessel and was due to be delivered to Rohm and Haas, which has a facility in Grangemouth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/5280720.stm
Toxic chemical plume spews out over port
EMERGENCY services were last night dealing with a serious incident at a major Scottish port after a chemical leaked from a container.
Fire crews and ambulances were called to Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, after toxic vapour escaped from a metal tank within the docks, and drifted in a large plume over the River Forth.
According to sources, the chemical was divinyl benzene which escaped after a crane moving the container set it down too quickly causing damage. The accident was reported around 4pm.
As a result, a major incident was declared and people were warned to stay indoors with windows closed after a large cloud of gas could be seen.
Last night police said the wind was blowing the vapour towards the river where it was dispersing.
A total of 13 fire crews and eight ambulances attended the scene but no-one was reported to have been injured.
Police were diverting containers and tankers in and out of the huge site but no exclusion zone outwith the site was set up.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/68684.html
Sarasota council thinking globally
Breakfast speakers to discuss business on worldwide scale
ROBIN ROGER
Herald Staff Writer
The International Business Council of Sarasota has set out to prove that it's a small world after all.
The organization, formed in February by the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, will encourage local business owners to think internationally at its breakfast forum at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Fred's in Sarasota.
"I absolutely believe it's time for Sarasota to be engaged in the international market," said Rhonda Cesario, International Business Council liaison. "What we do locally affects us, and what is done abroad affects us."
The organization harnesses international business talent to benefit commerce, the environment, the arts and human kind, she said.
Speakers at the breakfast event include Charlotte Starfire, vice president of international corporate banking for Fifth Third Bank in Tampa; Steve Tyndal, senior director of trade development for Port Manatee; Vanessa Opstal, owner of Box Furniture Boutique in Sarasota; and Felix Power, president of the Sarasota Association of Realtors.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/15344321.htm
Latvia matches its ports and transit capacities to China
The possibilities of Chinese goods transit via Latvia and the search for new transit partners – that was one of the key topics of the Latvian parliamentary delegation’s talks in China, the member of the delegation, the Secretary of the National Defense Commission of the Latvian Seimas Andrei Klementyev (from the “Accord Center” union) has told REGNUM. To remind, a delegation of Latvian MPs led by Seimas Speaker Igrida Udre (Union of “Greens” and Farmers) visited China on August 13-19 on the invitation of the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Assembly of People’s Deputies of the People’s Republic of China Wu Bangguo.
Klementyev says that among the delegates were both politicians and businessmen, who met with Chinese commerce chamber officials. “We were, first of all, interested in developing transit. Today, they are talking a lot about resuming the Silk Road and we are interested in attracting Chinese goods for direct transit via our ports. We discussed this also with the members of the China-Latvia Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation Group and representatives of local self-governments. We have visited three cities. China is also interested in this. They are also interested in transit cooperation with Kazakhstan and Russia.”
http://www.regnum.ru/english/692927.html
Outcry over lack of warning as port gas leak probe starts
JOANNA VALLELY ( jvallely@edinburghnews.com)
AN investigation was under way today into the cause of a major chemical leak in Grangemouth as concerns mounted that sirens failed to warn the public.
Politicians have now called for a review into the way local residents are informed when a major incident takes place at Grangemouth docks or nearby chemical plants.
Emergency crews stepped down a massive containment operation today and residents living around the town's port area were given the all-clear to leave their homes more than 12 hours after the alert began.
Residents had been warned to shut doors and windows as a white plume of vapour blew across the Forth last night after leaking from a container. Port bosses today confirmed the tank contained divinyl benzene, which can cause irritation to the eyes, nose and skin.
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1247932006
Growing Demands On U.S. Ports Make Them More Vulnerable to Hurricanes, Terrorism, Says KSU Professor
KENNESAW, Ga., Aug. 24, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- America's ports could be a weak link in America's economy, says a maritime ports expert at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University.
Michael Maloni, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and co-author of a 2005 container port capacity survey, says that port traffic is growing exponentially. While ports are handling current demand, container volume is expected to at least double in the next ten years, and signs of capacity problems are already emerging.
"Hurricane Katrina shut down the ports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Gulfport," Maloni says. "These ports represented only about 2% of total North American container volume, and Houston was mostly able to handle the diverted traffic, but next time it could be worse. If a major hurricane or terrorist attack hits a major port or worse, a region of ports, it would have a serious impact on the economy."
http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/news.html?d=104262
Syrian ports gain from Lebanon blockade
DAMASCUS: Thousands of shipping containers filled with vital imports have been turned away from Beirut Port by the Israeli blockade, causing commercial cargo bound for Lebanon to flow through Syrian ports. Containers destined for Lebanon have started arriving over the last few weeks at the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartous, where they are being loaded onto trucks and moved to Lebanon on roads bombed by Israel in the recent war, port officials told Reuters.
"We hope the Israeli blockade does not last but the number of containers for Lebanon is bound to rise if it does," said Bassam Fedda, head of traffic at Latakia, Syria's main port. "We have been under instructions from the prime minister to accelerate the clearing of cargo."
Fedda said around 2,000, 6-meter-long containers originally destined for Beirut had arrived in Latakia in the past weeks. A lesser number went through Tartous, which is not as well equipped to handle containers.
Latakia handled 42,573 containers in July and 30,927 containers so far this month.
Most of the cargo bound for Lebanon was diverted at the beginning of the war to Egypt, Malta and Cyprus. It has largely stayed there, with Beirut Port still closed to commercial traffic, although a cease-fire took effect on August 14.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=74990
Port Botany gets its fifth berth
Friday 25 August 2006
Port Botany’s fifth berth will be located next to the existing expansion, the New South Wales Government has confirmed.
A 60ha development off the wharf currently leased by Patrick will now include five berths, four of which were previously approved by the Government.
The Government conducted consultation on the best location for the fifth berth.
The decision backs Sydney Ports’ environmental impact statement, which recommended the fifth berth be positioned on the existing development to minimise environmental impacts.
Sydney Ports Corporation Chief Executive Greg Martin says the decision brings certainty to the project.
"This is an excellent decision," he says.
"The approved location is the optimum solution from an operational, economic and environmental perspective. This is the most cost effective location for the fifth berth, and will deliver value for money for port stakeholders."
http://www.supplychainreview.com.au/index.cfm?li=displaystory&StoryID=28229
Ports head apologizes, is reappointed
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Thursday, Sep. 14, 2006
CONCORD – State Ports Director Geno Marconi apologized for using a racial epithet and after a five-month delay unanimously won reappointment to a five-year term.
Past vendors and dock union leaders claimed Marconi made a remark toward a man of Middle Eastern dissent who wanted to create a container-shipping business between Canada and the Port of Portsmouth.
Marconi denied it was applied to a specific person.
“I write to express my sincere apology for my use of inappropriate language at the Pease Development Authority, Division of Ports and Harbors,’’ Marconi said in a letter released after the council vote Wednesday.
“I understand that such behavior is never appropriate. I will never use inappropriate language at the Port again, and I will work to ensure that all staff at the Port conduct themselves with the highest degree of professionalism.’’
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte released the results of a four-month investigation spurred by longshoremen union organizers and vendors who brought complaints after Gov. John Lynch renominated him in May.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060914/NEWS02/109140065
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'
U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking
By Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson / Washington Post
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
"The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone "stone cold."
But in the last three months, following a request from President Bush to "flood the zone," the CIA has sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden. The intelligence officers will team with the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and with more resources from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7833
25-million-dollar Coca-Cola plant opened in Afghanistan
KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai formally opened a 25-million-dollar Coca-Cola bottling plant, one of the most significant investments in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban five years ago.
Karzai said it was an endorsement of the government's efforts to push ahead with reconstruction of the war-damaged country.
The plant had its first products, which will compete with imports from Pakistan and Iran, on the streets of the capital in January.
Its initial formal opening was postponed in May after riots in which hordes of men rampaged through the city, setting fire to buildings and vehicles after a deadly traffic accident involving a US military vehicle.
The investment by a Dubai-based Afghan family is one of the biggest in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Mobile telecommunications network Roshan has spent about 180 million dollars setting up here.
The Afghan government is trying to attract foreign investment to spur an economy ruined by three decades of war.
But the country faces considerable odds, including a resurgent Taliban, widespread corruption and a shattered infrastructure, with even the capital only getting a sporadic supply of electricity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7831
U.S. strategy may be helping Taliban, expert says
By Andrew Maykuth / Philadelphia Inquirer
NEW YORK - A leading Afghanistan scholar says that America's military counterterrorism strategy has failed to eliminate the Taliban - and may actually be contributing to the growth of the insurgent Islamist group.
Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, said in a recent interview that a strategy devoted to destroying Taliban remnants has diverted resources from developing a strong central government in Kabul.
"There was from the beginning and still is a contradiction between the counter-terrorism or counterinsurgency mission and the mission of building a stable, sovereign Afghan national state," said Rubin, who served as an advisor to the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, in 2001.
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai's government is hampered by rampant corruption, growing insecurity, runaway opium production and widespread discontent over the slow arrival of prosperity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7834
With 'key allies' like this ...
By Selig S. Harrison / Los Angeles Times
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is supposedly a key U.S. ally in the "war on terror." But is he, in fact, more of a liability than an asset in combating al Qaeda and the increasingly menacing Taliban forces in Afghanistan?
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the U.S. and a U.S.-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion.
But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties in Pakistan to further U.S. interests, and whether he should be pressured to permit the return of two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who have formed an electoral alliance to challenge him in presidential elections next year.
Musharraf's most vocal defender is former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who has urged continued support for him "no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters from the Afghan border."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7835
Al Qaeda Finds Its Center of Gravity
By David Rohde / New York Times
Over the last year, as Iran, Iraq and Lebanon have dominated headlines, hopes of gaining firmer control of a largely forgotten corner of the war on terrorism — the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region — have quietly evaporated.
On Tuesday, the Pakistani government signed a “truce” with militants who have resisted Pakistani military efforts to gain control of the region, which is roughly the size of Delaware. The agreement, which lets militants remain in the area as long as they promised to halt attacks, immediately set off concern among American analysts.
Al Qaeda’s surviving leadership is suspected of using the border areas as a base of operation to support international terrorist attacks, including possibly the July 2005 London subway bombings. Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership is widely believed to be using another border area to direct spiraling attacks in Afghanistan.
“There’s a link with broader international terrorism,” said Robert Grenier, the former top counterterrorism official for the Central Intelligence Agency. “There’s a link with what is happening in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, such as it is now, really has its center of gravity in the area.”
Last week’s truce agreement covers North Waziristan, an area on the Pakistani side of the border. After the Taliban fell in 2001, senior Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to have fled there from Afghanistan and to other remote border areas in Pakistan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7836
Day 7 Camp Democracy
On September 5th, we launched a non-partisan camp for peace, democracy, and the restoration of the rule of law. Camp Casey moved from Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to create a larger camp focused not only on ending the war but also on righting injustices here at home and on holding accountable the Bush Administration and Congress. Here's the schedule of what's happening each day from now till September 21st. Here are free rooms and rides. If you can send a bus and need help paying for it, ask us. If you need help filling it, post it on the board. In Spanish: Campamento de la Democracia.
http://campdemocracy.org/blog
Insurance agent inspired to break silence, seek peace
By Diana Marcum / Fresno Bee
Before the towers fell and calls for war began, Dan Yaseen was an insurance agent, just a man with a workaday job who didn't spend time protesting anything.
"I was doing the regular things. I'd been an insurance agent for 32 years. I was trying to make a living, pay my taxes. Then all of the sudden this happened and I was right in the middle of it."
Yaseen, now 57, is a native of Pakistan, where he still has family. After the Sept. 11 attacks, there was talk that the United States would bomb Afghanistan, which shares a border with Pakistan. Bombing would change lives in the whole region.
He had never believed in war, had always quietly embraced nonviolence.
Further troubling to him were news reports of hate crimes against Saudis or Sikhs or Pakistanis, anyone who happened to look like the Arab terrorists who had attacked the U.S.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7838
There Is No War On Terror
Robert Dreyfuss
September 13, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and the entire Republican election team are scrambling to make their so-called war on terror the focus of the next seven weeks. As in 2002 and 2004, they’re counting on their ability to scare Americans with the al-Qaida bogeyman. And while the trauma of 9/11 has begun to dissipate and American voters seem less susceptible than ever to the scare tactics used by the White House, for the past five years the Democrats have been singularly unable to develop an effective counter to the Bush administration on terrorism. So, for that reason, here are 10 important facts about terrorism that opponents of President Bush should understand.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/09/13/there_is_no_war_on_terror.php
The Pentagon Five
http://campdemocracy.org/node/349
US vs. John Lennon
DOC WILL STIR UP THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
A note from Yoko Ono
From the very first moment John and I saw each other, we knew something was about to happen - something big. We just didn't know how big. When John and I sang "Give Peace A Chance" from our Bed-In in Montreal, we had no idea the song would become an anthem not only for our time but for generations to come. It went around the world, and made other songwriters realize that you can convey political messages with songs. Millions of people got together and joined in its chorus. Singing it together made us all realize that we were a power strong enough to change the world. Little did we know that that's when we, John and I, really made our beds for life.
Both of us experienced World War II from two opposite sides. We knew what it meant to be in the war. We knew how, suddenly, you could lose everything. We knew that people like us were the ones who really suffered, and the Generals and the politicians just kept dishing out lies to keep us pacified. That was an insult to kids like us. Two angry people. That's what we were. So when we met and hugged each other, our back bones literally relaxed. Let's change the world for the better together. YES! Never in a million years, did we think that promoting World Peace could be dangerous. Were we naive? Yes, on that account, we were. John sings on the CD: “Nobody told me there’d be days like these.” That was his true confession. "Gimme Some Truth," another song in this collection, is a song only John could write and sing. It's a John Lennon Special born out of that unmistakable Liverpool attitude. Nobody would ever write a song like this and sing it the way John did.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=732
Nixon was completely paranoid of Democrats as well and that is why 'The Watergate." This is abuse of power called "Executive Privilege." Mr. Lennon was a private citizen and a business man in the USA. He was dogged by Nixon at the cost of American Taxpayer Dollars.
The founders of the USA Constitution left behind a country where a King/Queen dominated their lives and religous beliefs. The Thirteen Original Colonies engaged in a Revolutionary War of which the impetus was high taxes. However, true to any war, the impetus was not the reason for the war. The freedom to live without tyranny was the reason for the war. If George Washington ever knew what modern day presidents were doing to the citizens of this country they would have abolished Executive Priviledge.
It would seem in a modern day world there have been these exacerbations of abuse of power, masterminded by men paranoid for one reason or another. Other than their own insecurity, that reason is linked with their own corruption. There was McCarthy. There was J. Edgar Hoover.
In my opinion, the media has served the public well. But, it has also served as a tool of abuse by powers within countries. At one time, we had only newspapers with the advent of the printing presss. Today, there is mass media, multi-media, personal space media. There is one thing for certain. It is empowering and with any luck there will be more and better expanses of balance so exploitation on a national level leading to war won't happen ever again.
Lennon's FBI files
John Lennon
248 pages
Investigation conducted when the FBI learned that John Lennon contributed $75,000 to a group planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention in 1972.
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/lennon.htm
John Lennon, Still a Security Threat
The Bush administration, obsessed with secrecy, is busy reclassifying government documents -- from 1971
By Jon Wiener, JON WIENER, a professor of history at UC Irvine, is the author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files" and was the historical consultant on the film "U.S. vs. John Lennon."
September 10, 2006
WE ALL know that a key to preventing future terrorist attacks is sharing intelligence with foreign governments. When Justice Department attorneys urge courts not to release national security information provided by a foreign government under a Freedom of Information Act suit, they argue that the courts should defer to the experts in the Department of Homeland Security and the White House.
But what if such intelligence isn't about today's terrorist threats? What if it's about the antiwar activities of a British rock star during the Vietnam War?
That's precisely what's at issue in a Freedom of Information Act suit pending before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case of John Lennon's FBI files illustrates the federal government's obsession with secrecy, which it justifies with appeals to national security.
Lennon's story, told in the documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," opening this week in Los Angeles, revolves around his plans to help register young people to vote in the 1972 presidential election, when President Nixon was running for reelection and the war in Vietnam was the issue of the day. Lennon wanted to organize a national concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar protests and voter registration. Nixon found out about the plan, and the White House began deportation proceedings against Lennon.
It worked: Lennon never did the tour, and Nixon was reelected.
Along the way, the FBI spied on and harassed Lennon — and kept detailed files of its work. The bulk of them were released in 1997 under the Freedom of Information Act after 15 years of litigation. I was the plaintiff.
But the agency continues to withhold 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file on grounds that they contain "national security information provided by a foreign government." The name of the foreign government remains classified, though it's probably not Afghanistan. The FBI has argued that "disclosure of this information could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security, as it would reveal a foreign government and information provided in confidence by that government."
U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi rejected this argument in 2004 and ordered the documents released. The FBI is appealing that decision.
The Lennon FBI files vividly illustrate the administration's problem. "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government" — those are the words of President Bush in his 2003 executive order on classified information. And he is right.
The Freedom of Information Act is necessary because Democrats and Republicans alike have secrets they want to keep — secrets about corruption and the abuse of power. But now the White House wants to shield information from with a new rationale for secrecy — protecting the homeland from terrorists.
The administration acknowledges that it has dramatically increased the number of documents classified "confidential," "secret" or "top secret." Between the time Bush took office in 2001 and 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, that number has nearly doubled. In 2004 alone, 80 federal agencies deemed 15.6 million documents off-limits. And that figure doesn't include documents withheld by Vice President Dick Cheney, who refuses to report to the National Archives the number of documents his office classifies even though Bush's executive order requires him to do so. Cheney claims his office is exempt.
The administration's frenzy on secrets has led to documents being reclassified after having been in the public domain for decades — for example, the number of bombers and missiles the U.S. had in 1971. The same year that the FBI began its surveillance of Lennon, Nixon's secretary of Defense testified before Congress and displayed a chart showing the U.S. had 30 strategic bomber squadrons and 54 Titan and 1,000 Minuteman nuclear missiles.
Thirty-five years later, Bush officials blacked out that information in the public version of the secretary of Defense's 1971 report, claiming it is now a national security secret. About 55,000 pages of previously declassified material in the National Archives were edited this way, mostly by the Air Force and CIA. (In response, the U.S. archivist announced last week that a declassification initiative would eventually return 85% of the withdrawn CIA materials to the shelves.)
The justifications for such decisions are often ridiculous. In the Lennon FBI files litigation, the government claims that our national security would be damaged if it discloses the sharing of intelligence between the U.S. and the unnamed foreign government. But Bush himself declared in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that "relations and cooperation between our intelligence services are essential to secure the people of our respective countries."
That makes me wonder: Could it be that the same British intelligence service provided Nixon with information about Lennon in 1972? All this suggests that the time has come to end what Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, calls "silly secrecy."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-weiner10sep10,1,7994589.story
Do something...
The FBI can be contacted twenty-four hours a day, every day. Here’s how:
http://www.fbi.gov/contactus.htm
War is Over if you Want it !
http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/blogger.html?1
How to reach 100,000 people for a $1.00. That is $1.00 US. As in USE YOUR RIGHTS. "Freedom of Speech"
http://freewayblogger28.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
The War is Over
http://www.johnlennon.com/video/realvid_11.html
Powell blasts Bush’s plan for interrogations
Letter comes as president visits Capitol Hill to seek anti-terror support
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed efforts to block President Bush’s plan to authorize harsh interrogations of terror suspects, even as Bush lobbied personally for it Thursday on Capitol Hill.
“I will resist any bill that does not enable this plan to go forward,” Bush told reporters back at the White House after his meeting with lawmakers.
The latest sign of GOP division over White House security policy came Thursday in a letter that Powell sent to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of three rebellious senators taking on the White House. Powell said Congress must not pass Bush’s proposal to redefine U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7866
Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Torture
http://www.alternet.org/story/41314/
2 U.S. soldiers killed by suicide bomber
25 others injured in Baghdad explosion, military says
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 25 others on Thursday, the U.S. military said.
The attack brought to five the number of Americans who have died in Iraq since Wednesday.
The suicide bomber struck just after noon west of Baghdad.
It said the wounded soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital. Of the 25 wounded, six have been returned to duty and 15 were listed as not serious.
Also in Baghdad, one soldier died from wounds early Thursday after his unit came under attack by small arms fire. Another soldier died after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7867
On the 33rd day of the Battle of Baghdad, Spc. Alexander Jordan is killed by a sniper.
The call came over Capt. Brad Velotta's radio with the audible clarity that only shocking news can bring. Shots fired, the voice said, with one soldier down, "shot in the head by a sniper." Velotta and his men jumped up from the chai-and-chat session in the home of a local sheik in Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood, just north of Sadr City. They had been discussing the role of Coalition forces, the purpose of the Stryker mission and even such concepts as war and peace. Now reality came crashing back in. "This is the kind of peace we were talking about," Velotta remarked ironically as he hurried out of the house.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14838064/site/newsweek/
Anti-war soldier awaits punishment for deserting US Army
By Emily Baker / AFP
KILLEEN, United States - US Army Specialist Mark Wilkerson went to Iraq hoping to avenge the deaths of those killed in the attacks of September 11 and to bring freedom to the Iraqi people.
He left Iraq with a sense of failure, betrayal and determination never to go to war again.
"Our mission was to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," he said recently. "When I got there, I feel as though we were doing the exact opposite, and not 'we' as in my unit, 'we' as in an international force... In a war, we tend to treat people as criminals until they are proven innocent."
When his unit was called up to go back to Iraq and his conscientious objector application was denied, Wilkerson went into hiding. Until being absent without leave for more than 18 months created a new paranoia.
Nearly two weeks after he turned himself in to his unit at Fort Hood in Texas, the baby-faced 22-year-old soldier is still awaiting word on his punishment.
Wilkerson is one of 4,653 soldiers who have gone "absent without leave" (AWOL) since the Iraq war began, a military spokesman said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7868
Death Toll Soars in Baghdad
As the day's body count nears 100, Democrats accuse Bush of committing to an unwinnable war and straining the Army.
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — On a day in which nearly 100 bodies attested to Iraq's unbridled violence, Democrats stepped up their response to President Bush's policies, with former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski calling the war "unwinnable."
Iraqi officials announced they had found the bodies of 60 men, some of whom had been shot in the head after being tortured, over the previous 24 hours. They said there was no single massacre or mass execution. Rather, the slaughter in two Baghdad neighborhoods was probably the result of multiple roving assassination teams, they said.
In addition to the apparent executions, a pair of car bombs and other violence took at least 35 lives and left scores injured Wednesday, officials said. U.S. authorities reported the deaths of two more American soldiers, one killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad and the other killed in action in Al Anbar province, the hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency in western Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7864
IAEA protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran
By Mark Heinrich / Reuters
VIENNA - U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.
The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.
Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.
The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7865
US denied causing 'disaster' by invading Iraq
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House begged to differ after UN chief Kofi Annan said Middle Eastern leaders had called the invasion of Iraq "a disaster" for the region.
"I'm not going to engage in a further disputation with the secretary general of the United Nations, but we disagree with the characterization," White House spokesman Tony Snow said, while acknowledging "sectarian violence" in Iraq.
Annan, who recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, made the comment earlier in New York.
Asked what Middle East leaders had told him about their views of the consequences of the US-led war in Iraq, he said: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt that the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath have been a real disaster for them ... They believe it has destabilized the region."
He added that many leaders wanted the Americans to stay in Iraq until the security situation improves, noting that "having created the problem they cannot walk away."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7863
GOP Leaders Back Bush on Wiretapping, Tribunals
By Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post
Congress's Republican leadership yesterday threw its weight behind two of President Bush's most controversial national security programs, warrantless wiretapping and extrajudicial military tribunals.
But the party leaders are having trouble getting all their members on board, including the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And by backing the president's legislative demands, the leadership risks being labeled by Democrats as a rubber stamp for an unpopular president.
With prodding from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10 to 8 along party lines to approve a bill negotiated with the White House to allow -- but not require -- Bush to submit the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program to a secret court for constitutional review.
That bill, which could come before the Senate next week, is considered by many to be a ratification of the administration's current surveillance program, which monitors the overseas phone calls and e-mails of some Americans when one party is suspected of links to terrorism. The program has been attacked by Democrats and civil liberties advocates as an excessive encroachment on Americans' privacy.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7856
Straight to the Heart
Battle Cries: For U.S. troops and their wives and children, the Iraq war's invisible costs just keep on piling up.
By Michael Hastings / Newsweek
Sept. 18, 2006 issue - Toward the end of July, Capt. Brad Velotta began daydreaming a lot. He thought about making the summer's last run of salmon in Alaska's Russian River, where bears lumber down from the woods and chase fishermen out of the water. He thought about getting a kitten for his 3-year-old daughter, Sophia. Most of all, Velotta hoped to see his 83-year-old grandmother Mary one last time before she died of cancer. "She thought she could hold on," says Velotta's father, Albert, at the family home in Alexandria, La. Her grandson was supposed to leave Iraq on Aug. 2. "She thought it would only be a few weeks more."
But it wasn't. On July 26, Velotta learned that he and his unit, the 172nd Stryker Brigade, were going not home but to the core of Iraq's sectarian blood feud: Baghdad. After a solid year of battling the insurgency, from Mosul to Tall Afar to the westernmost reaches of Al Anbar province, the 172nd has been extended until after Thanksgiving—if not later. Velotta, 29, Blackhawk Company commander in the 172nd's 4-23 infantry battalion, gave a tough talk to his squad leaders: "I know it f---ing sucks. But you don't have the option to not be motivated. You don't have the privilege to be worn out. This is Baghdad. This is graduate-level s--t."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7853
Expressing the Sense of Congress that the President should immediately replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.house.gov/list/press/pa12_murtha/PRrummyres06.html
S.Korea riot police clear U.S. base protesters
PYONGTAEK, South Korea (Reuters) - More than 10,000 South Korean riot policemen with shields and batons dislodged about 50 residents and activists from homes on Wednesday during a protest over the expansion of a U.S. military base.
The protesters painted "NO USA" on buildings and stood on rooftops in a brief attempt to stop construction crews from tearing down about 90 homes.
The homes were quickly demolished, ending months of arguments over the land in two rural townships.
The land will be used to expand one base in order to close the main U.S. site in Seoul and reduce the area used to house U.S. forces in South Korea.
"Today's move showed that the resistance had been quelled somewhat, in part because more residents took up the (government's) compensation offer and decided to move out," a defense official in Seoul said by telephone requesting anonymity.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7861
Civilians Hit Hardest by Afghan Violence
By Paul Garwood / Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Suicide bombings have killed 173 people in Afghanistan this year, NATO announced Wednesday amid a sharp escalation of violence that saw at least 40 militants slain and an aid worker gunned down in the west.
A suicide attacker was the sole victim of a bombing inside a Sunni Muslim mosque in the city of Kandahar, while militants fired two rockets into the eastern city of Jalalabad ahead of a visit by President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Police said there were no casualties.
NATO spokesman Maj. Luke Knittig said 151 of the year's suicide attack victims were Afghan civilians, including children, while the remainder included NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan authorities.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7858
The China Daily
Beijing faces drought, again
By Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 06:46
Beijing is again facing drought despite two months of rainfall, and the situation is expected to get worse, Beijing Meteorological Bureau said yesterday.
After a survey of the latest satellite photos, the bureau said drought had returned to 44 per cent of the municipality, and the meteorologists say south-eastern Fangshan District and part of Daxing District are already experiencing serious drought.
"The parched capital had largely escaped the worst drought in 50 years that has hit some areas," meteorologist Tang Guang said.
"However, it returned immediately to drought conditions as rainfall over the past month is down by 80 per cent from the same period last year.
"Artificial rainfall facilities have been fully prepared and once there is natural rainfall, artificial rainfall will also be induced to generate extra water for the capital."
By mid-May, 70 per cent of Beijing municipality was suffering from moderate drought, bureau figures showed, and 6 per cent were hit by severe drought.
But frequent rainfall from June to August totalled 362.9 millimetres, about the same as for the corresponding period for the last 10 years.
"The rainfall brought relief to 96 per cent of Beijing, leaving 3 per cent with light drought. The remaining even had too much water and became waterlogged," Tang said.
Merely 50 to 90 millimetres of rain is forecast from September to November, less than the previous year, the bureau said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_688637.htm
Paulson: Prosperity of US and China tied together
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 11:17
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration will oppose efforts in Congress to penalize China for a trade surplus with the United States, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stressed on Wednesday.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson makes his first speech on the international economy since joining the Bush Cabinet in July at the Treasury Department in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006.[AP Photo]
"Protectionist policies do not work and the collateral damage from these policies is high," said Paulson while delivering his first speech on the international economy since he took up the post in July.
"By closing off competition and blocking the forces of change, protectionism reduces the losses of the present by sacrificing the opportunities of the future," he said. "We will not heed the siren songs of protectionism and isolationism."
Paulson said that the prosperity of the United States and China is tied together in the global economy, and "how we work together on a host of bilateral and multilateral issues will have a significant impact on the health of the global economy."
He said that the United States must take a strategic view of its relationship with China.
"Both in China and in the United States, we must not allow ourselves to be captured by harmful political rhetoric or those who engage in political demagoguery," Paulson stated.
"Instead, we must realize that the US-Chinese relationship is truly generational and demands a long-term strategic economic engagement on our common issues of interest," he concluded.
The United States is China's largest export market and the second-largest trade partner. Sino-US trade volume reached US$211.6 billion in 2005 with China registering a surplus of US$114.2 billion.
In his speech, Paulson also said that the United States has nothing to fear from China's emergence as a global economic power.
"The tasks faced by Beijing are so daunting that the biggest risk we face is not that China will overtake the US, but that China won't move ahead with the reforms necessary to sustain its growth and to address the very serious problems facing the nation," he said.
The secretary will visit China next week after attending the September 19-20 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Singapore.
During his stay in China, Paulson said that he will urge the Chinese Government to move more quickly to adopt economic reforms, including a more flexible currency.
Paulson, 60, was nominated in May to replace John Snow, who resigned on June 29. The former Goldman Sachs CEO, who was sworn in on July 10, has made more than 70 trips to China as head of the investment giant.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689666.htm
Japan's Abe may hold China summit
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 06:31
TOKYO, Sept 14 - Preparations are under way for Shinzo Abe to hold an ice-breaking summit meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao after he becomes Japan's prime minister, a senior Japanese lawmaker close to Abe said on Thursday.
[Related: Post-Koizumi leader urged not to visit war Shrine]
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, is expected to become the nation's next prime minister, raises his arm during a campaign tour for leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Atsugi, west of Tokyo September 14, 2006. [Reuters]
China had refused to hold such meetings with outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi because of his visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Beijing and by South Korea as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
"It's very possible," former foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura told Reuters, referring to a Japan-China summit after Abe's expected election as prime minister on September 26.
Machimura, a senior Abe campaign manager in his bid to succeed Koizumi, said that summits with South Korea would also resume, but a meeting with China was likely to come first.
Machimura said Japanese and Chinese officials had been meeting to discuss a summit. Media reports said senior diplomats from the two countries were likely to hold talks in Tokyo next week to pave the way for an Abe-Hu meeting.
Abe has defended Koizumi's Yasukuni visits but declined to say whether he too would pay his respects as prime minister at the shrine, which honours 14 wartime leaders convicted as war criminals along with Japan's millions of war dead.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689243.htm
Police say Montreal gunman killed self
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 06:52
MONTREAL, Sept 14 - The gunman who went on a shooting spree at a Montreal college, killing an 18-year-old female student and wounding 19 other people was obsessed with guns and death, according to his online journal.
An undated photo from the internet website vampirefreaks.com shows Montreal school killer Kimveer Gill.[Reuters]
Montreal's police chief, Yvan Delorme, confirmed on Thursday that the gunman, who died at the scene after a shootout with police on Wednesday afternoon, was Kimveer Gill, a 25-year-old man from a Montreal suburb.
On a Web site devoted to Goth culture, Gill said he was born July 9, 1981, in Montreal, was 6 feet, 1 inch tall and of East-Indian heritage.
Gill wrote in his blog on the site www.vampirefreaks.com that he liked guns and his trenchcoat and would prefer to die: "Like Romeo and Juliet -- or -- in a hail of gunfire."
Eyewitnesses at the shooting scene in downtown Montreal said the gunman wore a black trenchcoat and boots and his hair was cut in a military style -- close-cropped on the sides and back with a patch of hair on top.
Montreal health officials said that among the 19 people wounded, four remained in critical condition from gunshot wounds, while two had been moved from the intensive care ward. The victims' ages ranged from 17 to 48.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-09/15/content_689246.htm
Israel: UN observers deaths caused by map error
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 10:51
JERUSALEM - An Israeli air strike which killed four United Nations military observers at their base in Lebanon was due to an error with military maps of the area, an investigation by Israel said on Thursday.
Smoke rises from Khiam village after being hit by Israeli air strikes, one of which killed four U.N. military observers who were part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, July 25, 2006. An Israeli air strike which killed four United Nations military observers at their base in Lebanon was due to an error with military maps of the area, an investigation by Israel said on Thursday. [Reuters]
The air strike in July destroyed a U.N. post in southern Lebanon, killing four U.N. peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
Israel presented the findings of its investigation into the incident on Thursday to officials from the four countries, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
He said maps of the area had been duplicated due to the deployment of more troops in the area.
"There was a mishap on the Israeli side where in duplication of maps, the U.N. position on the maps was not marked as it should have been and that created the tragedy," Regev said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-09/15/content_689616.htm
China rejects US senators' criticism on currency
(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-15 19:15
BEIJING - Responding to a call by two key US senators for a vote on possible punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing warned Washington on Friday that linking a dispute over its currency to the US trade deficit would hurt both sides.
"The current friction in Sino-US trade is normal," Commerce Ministry spokesman Chong Quan said at a news conference, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Chong said linking China's currency policy and the US trade deficit is "adverse to both sides," Xinhua reported.
US Senators Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer appealed this week to lawmakers to schedule a vote on a bill that would raise tariffs on Chinese imports. They complained that Beijing has done too little to reform its exchange-rate policies.
Chong's reported comments didn't mention Graham and Schumer's bill but Xinhua said it was in response to their remarks.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_690151.htm
China reduces tariff rebates to rein in export
By Xiao Yu and William Bi (Bloomberg)
Updated: 2006-09-15 11:12
China cut export tariff rebates on products including steel, textiles and some non-ferrous minerals to rein in overseas sales of energy-intensive industries and potentially curb the country's record trade surplus.
The changes, effective Friday, include a reduction in tariff rebates on steel products to 8 percent from 11 percent, on textiles to 11 percent from 13 percent, and the removal of rebates on non-metal minerals such as coal and natural gas, a joint statement issued by five ministries said today. The rebate cuts will make exports more expensive.
China's trade surplus grew to US$18.8 billion in August, a fourth straight monthly record, as exports reached an all-time high. It also fueled tension with trading partners including the US and European Union. Premier Wen Jiabao is touring Europe and central Asia, partly to improve relations with the partners.
The move "is one of the measures taken this year in line with State Council's macro-economic controls," the ministries said, adding that it'll "help optimize industrial and export structure and maintain balanced export growth."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689660.htm
Language matters in Sino-Indian relations
By Zou Hanru (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 09:20
"By 2025, the number of English-speaking Chinese is likely to exceed the number of native English speakers in the rest of the world." This is what visiting UK finance minister Gordon Brown said last year.
Well, as Brown said, the Chinese are doing the heavy lifting and learning English. And rightly so, because language, it seems, is going to play a vital role in the future world.
But, unlike what Brown feared, the rest of the world is not content with lightweight lifting, even though gen tianshu yiyang is no longer considered that ethereal by the Chinese. The French saying, "C'est du chinois" literally "it's Chinese," but meaning "it's unintelligible" is a thing of the past for the rest of the world.
And of late, joining the increasing ranks of this "intelligible" brigade are the Indians. Indian students and professionals, even though late, have awakened to the needs of the "language."
The reason for that is there for the world to see: China could surpass the United States as India's largest trading partner. Bilateral trade between the two Asian giants has been growing at a healthy 35-40 per cent much ahead of the targets. It is projected to reach US$20 billion by next year, one year before the target of 2008.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2006-09/15/content_689439.htm
'Cultural deficit' is widening
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-15 08:16
From foreign movies and TV programmes to books and concerts, China is ringing up a huge cultural deficit, a senior official said yesterday.
The unfavourable balance of trade in the cultural sector will remain acute for a long time to come, Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng told China Daily on the sidelines of a press conference addressed by two other top officials.
Sun did not assign a monetary value for the deficit but the nation imported nearly seven times more movies than it produced last year. Similarly, it is estimated that the number of books imported was 10 times more than exports.
"It is rather difficult to reverse the trend for the time being, since we have adopted an opening-up policy, and foreign cultural products will continue to flow to China," the minister said.
The movie industry is one of the areas where the effects are most telling.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689290.htm
Chinese film triumphs at Venice fete
AFP
Sunday, September 10, 2006 01:15 IST
VENICE: A poetic film about the effects of China's Three Gorges Dam on the lives of ordinary people, "Still Life" by Jia Zhang-ke, has won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on Saturday, the jury announced at a gala finale.
Helen Mirren won the Best Actress award for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' "The Queen", while Ben Affleck won the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of cinema's first Superman, George Reeves, in "Hollywoodland".
"Still Life", also known by its Chinese title "Sanxia Haoren", was a last-minute "surprise film" added to the 11-day festival, and left more fancied high-budget movies in its wake.
"I want to thank all the people who helped me to make this film. Thank you to the jury too," said the 36-year-old director, whose movie recounts the story of people who come back to a rural village during the upheaval caused by the giant construction project.
A second film by Zhang-ke, "Dong", a documentary about workers building the giant project, featured in the festival's Horizons section.
"I am proud to bring two films to Venice, a city surrounded by water, while my two films are stories inspired by water," he told reporters, saying his films celebrated "the culture of the river."
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1052099
China leads vibrant Asia economies
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-14 16:16
Singapore - Led by China, emerging Asian economies will grow 8.3 percent in 2006, about half a percentage point more than previously thought, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on Thursday.
The strong outlook for Chinese mainland will bode especially well for Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand given their strong intraregional trade ties, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.
The IMF in April had forecast growth in emerging Asia this year at 7.9 percent.
"Growth continues to run above 8 percent in emerging Asia, with much of the momentum due to vibrant expansions in China and India," the IMF said.
The fund upgraded its growth forecast for China to 10 percent from 9.5 percent and for India to 8.3 percent from 7.3 percent.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_689121.htm
Latest data shows signs of a cool-down
By Zheng Lifei(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 07:02
China's industrial output grew 15.7 per cent in August from a year earlier, the slowest pace in 17 months, indicating the government's cooling measures are beginning to work.
Property market shows signs of cooling
The latest figure, 1 percentage point lower than the one recorded in July, gives further weight to the claim the macroeconomic control measures are starting to bite, economists said.
Meanwhile the country's urban fixed-assets investment, a closely watched economic indicator, also slowed in August to 21.5 per cent, slipping from July's 27.4 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
And China's money supply and lending growth are also showing signs of cooling down.
M2, the broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, slowed to 17.9 per cent in August, down from 18.4 per cent in July, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday, quoting unidentified sources.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2006-09/14/content_688374.htm
'We hope for peace, stability in Taiwan'
By Xing Zhigang (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-14 06:39
A mainland official expressed hope yesterday that Taiwan compatriots live in peace and contentment and enjoy social stability amid massive protests seeking to oust the island's leader Chen Shui-bian.
Protesters shout slogans and give thumbs down to Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian during the fourth day of a sit-in aimed to oust Chen in front of Chen's office in Taipei, September 12, 2006. In a reprieve from the heavy rains, protesters continue an open-ended sit-in campaign to oust Chen over corruption allegations against his family. [AP Photo]
"Taiwan compatriots are our flesh and blood," said Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
"We do not want to see any unfortunate events occur," Li said, without directly referring to the anti-Chen protests on the island.
Chinese people on mainland, together with Taiwan compatriots, will continue to strongly oppose "Taiwan independence" forces, while maintaining cross-Straits peace and stability and pushing for improved ties, Li told a news briefing.
The mass protest against Chen started on Saturday when more than 300,000 people took to the streets in Taipei to voice their contempt for Chen and his family members, who are accused of taking bribes and influence peddling.
At yesterday's briefing, Li warned of an intensified secessionist push by Chen during the rest of his term to woo diehard pro-independence forces.
The warning follows the island's failure in its bid to become a United Nations member for the 14th year.
The embattled Taiwan leader, under mounting pressure to resign amid a series of corruption scandals, has vowed to push for Taiwan's admission to the UN and write a new "constitution" for the island before his term ends in May 2008.
Li said Taiwan's latest application for UN membership is a "new and dangerous" step taken by Chen along the secessionist path.
"It further exposes his sinister motive to speed up secessionist activities."
The UN General Assembly's General Committee on Tuesday decided not to put the Taiwan issue on the meeting's agenda, turning down a request from some of the island's allies.
Since 1993, Taiwan has launched an annual bid to join the world body composed of sovereign states.
Li said the UN's rejection demonstrates that the majority of UN members believe there is only one China, and Taiwan, as part of China, is not qualified to join the UN in any name or through any means.
Li also denounced Chen's attempt to pursue "de jure independence" through so-called "constitutional reform."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also issued a statement yesterday, welcoming the UN's rejection of Taiwan's "representation" proposal.
Qin urged the Taiwan authorities and a small number of countries instigated by the island to follow the trend of history and stop all secessionist activities.
A resolution adopted in 1971 at the 26th UN General Assembly, granted the People's Republic of China full legal status in the United Nations.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_688437.htm
16-day Olympic break planned for Beijingers
By Kang Yi (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-09-15 15:28
Beijing residents may have a 16-day break during the 2008 summer Olympic Games, said legislators in an Olympic legislation session Thursday, wrote the Qianlong News September 15.
A woman passes a poster of the Beijing Olympic logo in Beijing. [AFP]
The session broke the pending 65 issues down into five major categories, and legislation for each of the five categories is on the way, including regulations on volunteer rights and security clearance.
The half-month recess provides a perfect chance for locals to enjoy the games and eases the commuter traffic jam accentuated by traffic restrictions, according to legislators.
The session didn't cover payroll during the break, and the holiday is still under discussion. However the service industry may have longer working hours, Qianlong.com cited the legislators as saying.
According to a report on Qianlong.com, enterprises may make their own holiday schedules based on the 16-day outline.
It is reported that athletes, journalists, volunteers and spectators will be able to ride city buses for free during the summer games.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/15/content_689883.htm
Woman seeks man with money & sex capability on blog
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-09-14 17:45
Meining, a popular blog host based in Guangdong, posted a notice looking for a boyfriend, listing 11 rigid requirements, one of which is assets amounting to five million yuan (US$ 630,000), according to her bog on hexun.com on August 26.
Meining, a popular blog host based in Guangdong, posted a notice looking for a boyfriend, listing 11 rigid requirements, one of which is assets amounting to five million yuan (US$ 630,000).
Meining, a 31-year-old lecturer in Guangzhou, first wrote on the internet to look for her Mr. Right a year ago, and has drawn a total of 6,870 responses to her new husband-hunting notice.
Most of the response posts were doubtful of Meining's sincerity, believing she was using the post to get fame for herself. Some even wrote posts trying to humiliate her.
Among Meining's requirements, her boyfriend ought to be handsome, have good sexual performance, be more than 32 years old; know the methods to make money, need to have "big intelligence", do not have fixed girlfriends or fianc¨¦e, and can tell the difference of a wife and a house-keeper.
Some netizens wrote that Meining's love notice is meant for Ding Lei, CEO of 163.com, which is listed at the Nasdaq stock market in New York. Meining has previously made her adoration for Ding public.
But Meining denies these accusations, saying that she became famous for her articles among netizens long ago. She said in one of her blogs that her five million yuan requirement is a test of men's bravery, but if she finds a good man without the assets, she would choose him anyway.
"Though most of my friends don't understand me, I will keep on searching my right man," Meining told reporters.
Nowadays, it is a fashion in China that a growing number of people who have tried to seek fame by promoting themselves on the Web. Muzimei, who exposed her sex life with different men, also posted a notice looking for a husband. Director and actress Xu Jinglei has taken advantage of her love affairs to raise the number of hits on her blog in the popular Sina.com portal.
Sun Yuanming, Chongqing Social Science Academy psychological research center director told the Chongqing Commercial Daily on Monday that most people who post notices on the web looking for lovers are really only trying to promote themselves. He questioned people like Meining's sincerity, and doubted their efforts will eventually bear results.
Sun suggested people should pay attention to real life and that only more and deeper contacts in the real world will lead to true love.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-09/14/content_689193.htm
continued ….
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