Betty Williams, a 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of non-profit organization World Centers of Compassion for Children International (WCCCI), was honored with a Dreams of Africa™ pendant by Debi Wexler, Chief Executive Officer of online diamond retailer Whiteflash.com, during the largest-ever gathering of Nobel Laureates on US soil. Luminaries such as the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu attended the event to speak out against global conflicts and increased military spending at the expense of human health and welfare, especially children’s rights. 
The Times PicayuneFBI examining possible threat to La. teenager
'Ugly stuff' was sent, congressman says
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By Bill Walsh
WASHINGTON -- The FBI is investigating a possible threat against the north Louisiana teenager who was on the receiving end of suggestive e-mails from disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley, a Louisiana congressman said Tuesday.
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, said Tuesday that the young man's life wasn't threatened, "but close to it."
"There are people out there who feel like he is the one who (accused) Foley," Alexander said. "There are some bloggers out there who sent him some ugly stuff."
The teen served as a House page in 2005 and afterward received e-mails from Foley, a six-term Republican, asking for a picture of the then-16-year-old and what he wanted for his birthday.
The e-mails, first broadcast by ABC News, led to the disclosure of a highly salacious batch of instant messages that Foley sent to other House pages in 2002 and 2003. That disclosure triggered Foley's resignation late last week and raised questions about whether House Republican leaders acted fast enough to address the scandal, with the conservative Washington Times on Tuesday calling on House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to step down.
FBI looks at threat
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159942377135320.xml&coll=1
Health care 'redesign' could cost $200 million more
By Jan Moller
Capital bureau
A far-reaching plan by Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration to provide a “medical home” for uninsured people in the New Orleans area would cost about $200 million more than the state currently spends on indigent care in the region, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday.
The cost projections, developed for the Louisiana Health Care Redesign Collaborative, adds another hurdle for policymakers struggling to craft a redesign plan for a health-care system that was battered by Hurricane Katrina.
“There’s a huge gulf in terms of covering everyone with an insurance product,” said Health and Hospitals Secretary Fred Cerise, who leads the redesign group.
The 40-member panel group is supposed to have a plan ready for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt by Oct. 20 outlining broad changes to the Medicaid and Medicare programs that finance health-care for about half of Louisiana’s citizens.
Leavitt has said that any health-care plan the state comes up with must be revenue-neutral, meaning it won’t cost the federal government any more money than it currently sends to Louisiana. That means the state must either make up the shortfall with tax dollars or by charging co-payments and premiums to individuals and businesses.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_04.html
St. Bernard sued over rent limit
Group says new law upholds segregation
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By Paul Rioux
A New Orleans civil rights organization filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to overturn a St. Bernard Parish ordinance that prohibits many homes from being rented to anyone who is not a blood relative of the owner, a measure the suit condemns as an effort to "perpetuate segregation."
St. Bernard officials vowed to mount a vigorous defense, saying the new rental restrictions are designed to promote homeownership and preserve residents' quality of life as the flood-ravaged parish struggles to rebuild.
Filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, the suit targets an ordinance adopted two weeks ago that says renters of single-family homes that had not been rented before Hurricane Katrina must be blood relatives of the homeowner. Homes rented before the storm are not subject to the restrictions.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159943051135320.xml&coll=1
St. Rita's owners plead not guilty in hurricane deaths
The owners of a St. Bernard Parish nursing home where 35 residents died during flooding from Hurricane Katrina pleaded not guilty today to charges of negligent homicide and cruelty to the infirm.
Mabel and Salvador Mangano, who own St. Rita's nursing home near the community of Poydras, entered their pleas in state district court in Chalmette before Judge Jerome Winsberg, who is hearing the case.
Winsberg has not set a trial date, but did set Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 as a hearing date for any pre-trial motions that might be filed.
The Manganos declined to address the media outside the courthouse. Several relatives of St. Rita's residents who died during the hurricane gathered at the courthouse, some carrying signs with pictures of loved ones.
The Manganos remain free on bond.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_04.html
St. Rita's nursing home owners to be arraigned
The owners of a St. Bernard Parish nursing home where 35 residents died in flooding during Hurricane Katrina were expected in court this morning to be arraigned on charges of negligent homicide and cruelty to the infirm.
Salvador and Mabel Mangano, who own St. Rita's nurshing home, were to be arraigned in state district court in St. Bernard Parish at 11 a.m.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_04.html
Board: Let appointees run levee properties
Petition appears to circumvent amendment passed by voters
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By Frank Donze
In a last-ditch effort to retain local control over the Orleans Levee Board's vast property portfolio, the lame duck president of the agency has petitioned Gov. Kathleen Blanco to create a new nonprofit board of political appointees to handle the task.
The request appears to fly in the face of a constitutional amendment, which Louisiana voters approved by a 4-1 margin Saturday, that calls for all levee board land unrelated to flood protection to be handed over to the governor's office effective Jan. 1.
"Because of the diverse nature of the (real estate) holdings, the public's interest would be best served and protected through management comprised of local representatives," Levee Board President Michael McCrossen wrote to Blanco in a letter dated Sept. 19, more than a week before voters considered the constitutional amendment that clears the way for consolidation of several area levee boards.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159942873135320.xml&coll=1
Study says landfill isn't needed
It says west bank sites have plenty of space
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
Rebutting previous arguments by supporters of a controversial eastern New Orleans landfill, opponents have released a study that says there's more than enough space at existing landfills to handle debris from Hurricane Katrina.
The landfill remains closed after a round of environmental protests, but Waste Management Inc., operator of the shuttered site, has sued to reopen it in a pending case.
Waste Management and state Department of Environmental Quality officials have said the landfill served an indispensable hurricane recovery function because no other landfill had sufficient space for the debris from the thousands of homes in New Orleans. Closing the landfill would slow debris removal to a crawl, they said, leaving the city indefinitely in ruins.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159944317135320.xml&coll=1
State Police, National Guard to stay in city through 2006
But governor wants NOPD up to speed
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By Ed Anderson
BATON ROUGE -- State Police and National Guard troops will remain on duty in New Orleans through the end of the year, but the New Orleans Police Department must quickly assume a greater share of the burden of keeping the streets of the city safe, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Tuesday.
Blanco said the extra police forces were scheduled to be pulled out of the city or reduced in September, but she extended their tour of duty to Dec. 31. The forces were called in after a quintuple murder in Central City in June.
Blanco said city and state officials will assess the crime situation between now and the end of the year.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1159943313135320.xml&coll=1
Kenner police arrest man in online-sex sting
Last night, Kenner police arrested 32-year-old Eddy J. Salgado-Hurtardo, of Metairie, for computer-aided solicitation for sexual purposes.
According to a press release from Kenner Police Department Salgado-Hurtardo used the internet to contact a person he believed was a 15-year-old girl. Salgado-Hurtardo used the name "tony_aguilar85" to send the "girl" sexually explicit messages. Salgado-Hurtardo then allegedly arranged a sexual meeting with the "girl", who was actually member of the team operating the sting.
Officers arrested Salgado-Hurtardo at 10:15 when he showed up at the pre-arranged location with five condoms in his pocket.
If convicted, Salgado-Hurtardo must register as a sexual offender and crime mus serve a two-year prison sentence. Salgado-Hurtardo also faces possible deportation to his native country of Nicaragua.
To read the full text of the Kenner Police Department's press release, continue after the jump.
http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/
Holy Cross presses Kenner land deal
b>By Barri Bronston
East Jefferson bureau
Swamped by Katrina’s flooding at its New Orleans campus, Holy Cross School launched a final push Tuesday to persuade the Jefferson Parish School Board to sell it 20 vacant acres in north Kenner.
The 127-year-old independent Catholic boys school announced it had the backing of the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce, touted a list of politicians supporting the deal and released a portion of an appraisal report saying the land is worth no more than $2.6 million.
“Holy Cross would immediately become a major asset to Kenner’s physical, educational and social infrastructure,” chamber President Glenn Hayes said. “The school also would have a very positive impact on property values in Kenner.”
The Jefferson School Board will hold a public hearing on the proposed sale today at 4 p.m. at Alfred T. Bonnabel High School in Kenner. The board is scheduled to vote on the issue at its regular meeting beginning at 5 p.m.
Speakers on both sides of the issue are likely to attend: those who think a new school would raise property values in Kenner, create jobs and increase the parish’s and city’s tax base, and those who say the School Board should retain the land for its own use or hold out for a higher price.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_04.html
Four injured in oil leak at Norco refinery
An oil leak at the Motiva Norco refinery on Monday injured four contractors who were preparing to shut down a processing unit for maintenance, a company official said Wednesday.
The leak was confined to refinery property, and posed no danger to the community, said Kimberly Windon, the refinery’s director of external affairs. Two of the workers were still hospitalized on Wednesday.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_10_04.html
The Cheney Observer
White House lobbyist ties 'wider'
Mr Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe public officials
Disgraced US lobbyist Jack Abramoff had more extensive contacts with the White House than previously admitted, a Congressional inquiry is to report.
Mr Abramoff and his associates had as many as 480 contacts with the White House, according to draft copies of the report circulated to the media.
But administration officials say the report is based on records that are "widely regarded as fraudulent".
Mr Abramoff has admitted conspiracy to bribe public officials.
Correspondents say the Congressional inquiry findings could be embarrassing for the White House.
Mixed results
The report alleges that Mr Abramoff purchased expensive gifts and dinners for some White House officials and other Republicans in attempts to gain their influence for his clients.
The billing records that are the basis for this report are widely regarded as fraudulent
Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary
It is not clear whether these broke rules on lobbying.
Of 485 contacts listed in the report, 345 are described as meetings or other in-person contacts; 71 were telephone conversations and 69 were e-mail exchanges, the report says.
But it says that in many cases Mr Abramoff did not get the results he was seeking.
President George W Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove was among Mr Abramoff's lobbying targets, the House Government Reform Committee report says.
The White House has challenged the credibility of the report, which draws on 14,000 pages of e-mails and billing records spanning three years ending in 2003.
"The billing records that are the basis for this report are widely regarded as fraudulent in how they misrepresent Abramoff's activities and level of access," said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino.
"There is no reason why they should suddenly be viewed as credible."
Some of the contacts in the records could not be verified by the committee, the report said, according to the Associated Press news agency.
In his plea agreement, Mr Abramoff has admitted he defrauded clients.
Correspondents say the report, published in the run-up to congressional mid-term elections in November, will allow Democrats to renew their charges of a "culture of corruption" against the administration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5391142.stm
September 29th, 2006 2:35 am
Abramoff had more White House ties
By Joanne Kenen and Thomas Ferraro / Reuters
WASHINGTON - Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had hundreds more contacts with top White House officials than those Bush administration officials had previously acknowledged, according to a congressional report to be released on Friday.
The report by the House Government Reform Committee, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said the panel found about 485 contacts between Abramoff and his associations and the White House, including 10 with Karl Rove, who is President George W. Bush's top political adviser.
The committee based its findings on 14,000 pages of e-mails and billing records spanning three years ending in 2003, the committee report said.
The White House challenged the credibility of the report, saying it was based on material originally generated by Abramoff. Abramoff and associates have pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and related crimes in an influence-peddling scandal that reached into the U.S. Congress.
"The billing records that are the basis for this report are widely regarded as fraudulent in how they misrepresent Abramoff's activities and level of access. There is no reason why they should suddenly be viewed as credible," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
The committee findings, first reported by ABC TV, found "circumstantial" evidence that Abramoff got at least some of what he wanted for his lobbying clients.
SOME SUCCESSES
He failed to get many of the appointments he sought, but he did get appropriations of more than $16 million for a native American Indian jail and $3 million for school construction, and a favorable ruling on at least one Indian casino project, the report noted.
Committee Chairman Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, said in a statement prepared for release on Friday: "It was our job to examine whether and to what extent Jack Abramoff's extravagant claims of influence actually reached their intended targets in the executive branch, and what that might mean about the adequacy of current ethics and lobby disclosure laws."
Abramoff and his lobbying team had offered dinners, drinks and concert tickets to White House officials. It was not clear whether they violated lobbying laws or a ban on gifts.
According to the billing records and e-mails, Abramoff and his team had 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials between January 2001 and March 2004 -- 345 described as meetings or other in-person interactions, 71 described as phone conversations, and 69 e-mail exchanges.
The report found that more than half of the in-person contacts involved meals or drinks with White House officials.
One e-mail discusses how often Rove visited a downtown Washington restaurant then owned by Abramoff. "I am not kidding. Karl loves the restaurant (he's been there a lot) and we could do the back room," it said.
The report also quotes Abramoff about using Ralph Reed, former leader of the conservative Christian Coalition, to lobby Rove. Reed's recent bid to become lieutenant governor of Georgia failed, in part because of his Abramoff ties.
Abramoff and his team claimed to have lobbied the White House Office of Political Affairs in 17 instances, the report says.
In six of these instances, the documents describe a direct contact with Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican Party. At the time of the contacts, he was director of the office.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7983
Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week
By Bryan Bender / Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week -- nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year -- as the Pentagon spends more on establishing regional bases to support the extended deployment and scrambles to fix or replace equipment damaged in combat.
The upsurge occurs as the total cost of military operations at home and abroad since 2001, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will top half a trillion dollars, according to an internal assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service completed last week.
The spike in operating costs -- including a 20 percent increase over last year in Afghanistan, where the mission now costs about $370 million a week -- comes even though troop levels in both countries have remained stable. The reports attribute the rising costs in part to a higher pace of fighting in both countries, where insurgents and terrorists have increased their attacks on US and coalition troops and civilians.
Another major factor, however, is ``the building of more extensive infrastructure to support troops and equipment in and around Iraq and Afghanistan," according to the report. Based on Defense Department data, the report suggests that the construction of so-called semi-permanent support bases has picked up in recent months, making it increasingly clear that the US military will have a presence in both countries for years to come.
The United States maintains it is not building permanent military bases in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the local population distrusts America's long-term intentions.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7979
Heralded Iraq police academy a 'disaster'
$75 million project so mismanaged that campus poses huge health risks
By Amit R. Paley / Washington Post
BAGHDAD - A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."
"This is the most essential civil security project in the country -- and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster."
Bowen's office plans to release a 21-page report Thursday detailing the most alarming problems with the facility.
Even in a $21 billion reconstruction effort that has been marred by cases of corruption and fraud, failures in training and housing Iraq's security forces are particularly significant because of their effect on what the U.S. military has called its primary mission here: to prepare Iraqi police and soldiers so that Americans can depart.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7980
Attacks cost Iraq oil exports $16B
By Pauline Jelinek / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Iraq's most important moneymaker — its oil industry — lost $16 billion in potential foreign sales over two years to insurgent attacks, criminals and bad equipment, a secret U.S. audit says.
The Baghdad government "must take bold action" to protect its oil and electrical facilities, concludes an unclassified summary of the classified audit on Iraq's energy sector.
"Iraq cannot prosper without uninterrupted export of oil and the reliable delivery of electricity," Stuart W. Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in the summary released Thursday.
In another report, Bowen said sewage drips through the ceilings of a newly constructed building at the Baghdad Police College because of poor construction and the use of inferior plumbing materials.
Bowen released both reports as he prepared to testify Thursday before the House Government Reform Committee, which has been looking into waste and fraud in billions of dollars worth of Iraq reconstruction projects.
In addition to the estimated $16 billion loss of potential oil export revenue between January 2004 and March 2006, Bowen said Iraq also is paying billions of dollar to import refined petroleum products it needs.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7985
People walk past huge flames from a ruptured gas pipeline, in Beiji, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Tuesday Sept. 26, 2006. Insurgents blew up a gas pipeline, which connects the Beiji refinery and a gas field in the Al-Laglag area northeast of Beiji. No one was injured. (AP Photo/Bassim Daham) AP - Sep 26 8:44 AM
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=pipeline+baghdad&c=news_photos
Older troops taking the heat
But some say their age makes active duty tough
By SCOTT WILLIAMS
Posted: Sept. 24, 2006
The ribbing he takes from colleagues half his age is not really what bothers Kevin Graham about being 53 years old in the middle of a war.
What occasionally wears down the Wisconsin father of three is the strenuous labor required of him in suffocating desert heat. That, and the knowledge that he is not the soldier he was 30 years ago.
"A lot of people look at me and say, 'What the heck is this guy doing here?' " Graham said in an interview from his Kuwait base.
"It's kind of like I'm in a time machine," the 1971 Marine enlistee said. "I feel honored and privileged to be here - this could be my last great adventure."
Graham, of Elkhorn, is among active duty soldiers as the military mobilizes aging reserve troops for battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Age was in the spotlight this month when 52-year-old reservist Merideth Howard was killed in Afghanistan, making her the oldest U.S. soldier to die in the line of duty since the current military missions began nearly five years ago. Howard, who lived in Waukesha, also is the oldest Wisconsin soldier, man or woman, killed in combat since at least the Korean War.
Some family members have criticized the military, saying Howard was too old to be in a war zone. But some soldiers from Wisconsin who have been mobilized for combat in their 40s and 50s say that physical challenges notwithstanding, they have been proud to serve and make a contribution to the best of their abilities.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=502842
Iraqi Violence Is Growing, Author Says
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006
(09-28) 19:19 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) --
Violence in Iraq is greater than the White House has acknowledged, and the outlook is even bleaker for 2007, author and journalist Bob Woodward said in comments to air Sunday night on CBS television's "60 Minutes."
Woodward, the Washington Post reporter whose third book on the Bush administration, "State of Denial," comes out next week, said U.S. troops and their allies are being attacked, on average, every 15 minutes.
"It's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," Woodward said.
"The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better.'"
Known for his access to high-level officials, Woodward said President Bush is so sure of success in the Iraq war that he told some leading Republicans, "I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/09/28/national/a191938D76.DTL
Benefit denied for off duty 9/11 hero
By DAVID B. CARUSO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9/23/2006
Glenn Winuk is shown in his dress fire uniform in an undated photo.
NEW YORK - Glenn Winuk was found in the ashes of the World Trade Center with surgical gloves on his hands and a medic's bag at his side. A card in his wallet identified him as a volunteer firefighter.
The discovery confirmed what friends already knew. As the towers burned, the 40-year-old lawyer had rushed from his nearby office to offer help as a veteran EMT.
"He died a hero," said his brother, Jay.
Yet, in the eyes of the federal government, he did not die in the line of duty.
In a decision sent to Winuk's parents days before the fifth anniversary of his death, the Justice Department rejected their application for a $250,000 benefit for public safety officers killed on the job.
Its reasoning was apologetically bureaucratic; while Winuk was an associate member of the Jericho Fire Department on Long Island, he hadn't been on active duty since 1998.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060923/1034916.asp
GLENN WINUK
Sprinting Toward Danger
As a boy, his dream was to be a firefighter, a hero. As a man, Glenn Winuk became a prominent Manhattan lawyer, but he used his lifelong interest in fighting fires as a volunteer in his hometown, Jericho, N.Y. He was so committed, such a natural, the town named him fire commissioner.
So on Sept. 11, Mr. Winuk, 40, did what he, as a firefighter, had been trained to do. First, he escorted people from his law firm, Holland & Knight, a block and a half from the trade center. He was last seen headed for the towers. ''If I had been there with him that day, I wouldn't have been able to stop him from trying to help,'' said Mr. Winuk's older brother, Jay. ''Even though he became a lawyer, my brother always saw himself as a firefighter. It was a passion for him, the chance to help someone.''
When terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Mr. Winuk, still dressed in a suit, rushed to help, too. ''If it has to be that he did not survive this time,'' Jay Winuk said, ''then in our eyes, he went down being an American hero. We're proud of him.''
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30D11F73C5F0C738FDDA00894D9404482
Rep. Foley Quits In Page Scandal
Explicit Online Notes Sent to Boy, 16
By Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A01
Six-term Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) resigned yesterday amid reports that he had sent sexually explicit Internet messages to at least one underage male former page.
Foley, who was considered likely to win reelection this fall, said in a three-sentence letter of resignation: "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."
The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.
It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged online exchanges between Foley and the boy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901574.html
Aide Says He Reported Foley 3 Years Ago
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 4, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior congressional aide said Wednesday he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about worrisome conduct by Rep. Mark Foley toward teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue.
Kirk Fordham made his comments to The Associated Press in an interview as a Kentucky Republican canceled a campaign fundraising event with Hastert. Rep. Ron Lewis said he wants to know the facts behind a scandal that has roiled Republicans since last week.
''I'm taking the speaker's words at face value,'' Lewis said in an interview. ''I have no reason to doubt him. But until this is cleared up, I want to know the facts.
''If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong, then I will be the first in line to condemn it.''
Taken together, the comments by Fordham and the actions by Lewis added to the political uncertainty surrounding Hastert and fellow Republicans five weeks before midterm elections in which their control of the House will be tested.
Hastert's office did not immediately respond to either development.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Pages.html
Like Iraq, U.S. can use a leader
First published: Tuesday, October 3, 2006
While leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the summer of 2003, David Kay received a phone call from Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, who wanted a particular place searched: "The vice president wants to know if you've looked at this area. We have indications -- and here are the geocoordinates -- that something's buried there." Kay and his experts located the area on the map. It was in the middle of Lebanon.
This story from Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" would be hilarious were it not about war. The vignette is dismaying because it seems symptomatic of a blinkering monomania that may have prevented obsessed persons from facing facts.
Some will regard "State of Denial" as Katrina between hard covers, a snapshot of dysfunctional government. But it is largely just a glimpse of government, disheartening as that fact may be to those who regard government as a scalpel for administering social transformation.
Once, when President William Howard Taft was listening to an aide talk about "the machinery of government," Taft murmured, "The young man really thinks it's a machine." Actually, government is people. Those at its pinnacle generally are strong-willed, ambitious, competitive, opinionated and have agendas about which they care deeply. That is why they are there.
And why almost any administration, carefully scrutinized, looks much like a teaspoon of pond water viewed under a microscope -- a maelstrom of sometimes rival life forms. That is especially true of an administration staffed with such canny Washington survivors as Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. A government of rookies or shrinking violets would be more harmonious. So, how much of a virtue is harmony?
"State of Denial" will take a toll on government collegiality and the candor of its deliberations. It is based on astonishing indiscretions -- current and past officials making private memos and conversations public for motives that cannot be pure.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=522142&category=GWILL&BCCode=&newsdate=10/3/2006&TextPage=1
The list was just too long to ignore.
Compendium of Republican Sex Scandals Involving Children
by Daily Kos Tuesday, Oct. 03, 2006 at 11:34 AM
[9-21-05] "President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers." - The Associated Press
There is a whole lot of hyperlinks peppering the text of what is provided below at my blog here:
http://justanotherblowback.blogspot.com/2006/10/compendium-of-republican-sex-scandals.html
Ted Bundy campaigned for the Republican Party. Infamous serial rapist who murdered 16 women. Source: BBC
Conspiracy of Silence - US Politicians Pedophile Ring
Adelphia Communications Corp.: Donated large sums of money to some of the most conservative members of Congress. They are also the first cable company to offer hard-core adult movies to subscribers. Daily Kos article
Another good list is to be found here (there may be some considerable overlap between the names in my list and this one): These Are the People Who Push Their Values on the Rest of Us
AND NOW...(DRUM ROLL)...THE LIST (SOURCE):
Edison Misla Aldarondo, Republican legislator from Puerto Rico, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for molestation of his daughter and her friend for eight-year period starting when they were 9. Full Article
Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist from Colorado, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces 6 charges related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. Source Also accused of sexually assaulting another girl. Denver ABC Article
Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner from Maine, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. Booth Bay Register Article
Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. Booth Bay Register Article
Robert Bauman, Republican congressman and anti-gay activist from Maryland, was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. Source: Washington Blade
Parker J. Bena, Republican activist and Bush Elector from Virginia, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography (including children as young as 3 years old) on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Conservative Babylon
Louis Beres, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. 3 of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were pre-teens. Editor and Publisher article
Howard L. Brooks, Republican legislative aide and advisor to a California assemblyman, was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. Sacramento Bee article
John Bolton: George W. Bush's latest Ambassador to United Nations. Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton’s first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department. Raw Story Article
Andrew Buhr, Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy. Source
John Allen Burt, Republican anti-abortion activist from Pensacola, Florida, convicted of sexually molesting a 15 year old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran. Source: Pensacola News Journal
Keola Childs, Republican County Councilman from Hawaii, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.Honolulu Star-Bulletin Article
Kevin Coan, Republican St. Louis Election Board official, arrested and charged with trying to buy sex from a 14-year-old girl whom he met on the Internet. Source: Newmax
Carey Lee Cramer Political consultant and anti-Kerry ad producer, tried for molesting two young girls, one of whom lived with him, and was 8 yrs old; the other starred in an anti-Kerry commercial. Diary Diary. The Monitor.
Dan Crane, Republican Congressman from Illinois, married, father of six. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. Salon.com article --Bkmeyers 08:36, 3 October 2006 (PDT)On July 14, 1983 the House Ethics Committee concluded that Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) had engaged in sexual relationships with minors, specifically 17-year-old congressional pages. In Crane's case, it was a 1980 relationship with a female page. wikipedia.org article
Richard A. Dasen Sr., Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, convicted of sexual abuse of children, promotion of prostitution and several counts of solicitation, enough to add up to a sentence of 126 years in prison. Investigators estimated that he spent up to $5,000,000 on prostitutes. Missoulian Article on the trial Missoulian Article
Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer, was found guilty of child porn charges. WBAL Channel article
Peter Dibble, Republican legislator from Connecticut pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. News Channel 8 Article
Brian J. Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary for U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On March 12, 2006, Doyle contacted a 14-year-old girl whose profile was posted on the Internet, and initiated a sexually explicit conversation with her. The girl was actually an undercover Polk County Sheriff s Computer Crimes detective. Doyle knew that the girl was 14 years old, and he told her who he was and that he worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. During future online chats, Doyle gave the undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl his office phone number and his government-issued cell phone number, so that they could have telephone conversations, in addition to their online chatting. Doyle used the Internet to send hard-core pornographic movie clips to the girl and used the AOL Instant Messenger chat service to have explicit sexual conversations with her. [7]
Nicholas Elizondo, Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. Halfway down this Bakersfield Californian article
Larry Dale Floyd, Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas Precinct Two. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8-year old child and was charged with 7 related offenses. Age 62 at time of arrest. Dallas News Article Atrios Article
Jack W. Gardner, Republican Councilman from Pennsylvania, had been convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl. when the Republican Party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot. Article with documents
Richard Gardner, a Nevada State Representative (R), admitted to molesting his two daughters. Review Journal Article
Philip Giordano, Republican mayor from Connecticut sentenced to 37 years for forcing two 8 and 10 year old girls to perform oral sex on him in his City Hall office. NBC Article Newsday Article
Marty Glickman, Republican activist, was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a juvenile and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
Mark A. Grethen, Republican activist from Virginia, convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children. Orlando Weekly article
Jon Grunseth, Republican businessman and candidate for Minnesota governor, withdrew his candidacy after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter, and tried to grope one. "I've made some mistakes" he said. USA Today article
Mark Harris, Republican city councilman from Wisconsin who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
John Hathaway, Republican Senate candidate from Maine, was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media. Source: Casco Bay weekly
Howard Scott Heldreth, anti-abortion activist who gained fame during the Schiavo media-circus, was convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002. page at Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Sexual Offender/Predator Unit
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor from Des Moines, Iowa, introduced by Bush on the campaign trail, and promoted his policies. Says he supports Bush's values. Two months later, this married father of four turned himself into police, charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. Article Commentary Also signed an ad (that called for criminally prosecuting business that sell porn), together with another pastor who was repeatedly busted for public masturbation.
Don Haidl, Assistant Sheriff of Orange Country, in violation of California's rape shield law, led a smear campaign against the child his son poisoned and then violently gang-raped on videotape, adding up to 24 felony counts. He said that his son "acted accordingly" because the child was a "slut". The full gruesome story, with many newspaper articles.
Paul Ingram, Republican Party leader of Thurston County, Washington, pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison. Source: The Olympian Article
Earl Kimmerling, from Indiana, sentenced to 40 years in prison after he confessed to molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her. Anderson, IN, Mayor Mark Lawler and Republican State Reps. Jack Lutz of Anderson, IN, and Woody Burton of Greenwood, IN, supported him.Source
I. Lewis Libby, former Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1996 published a novel containing bizarre sexual content, including bestiality and pedophilia.Full Details (Oh yeah, and he's also been indicted on obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements, charges adding up to 10 years in prison.)
Donald Lukens, Former Ohio Republican Congressman, was found guilty of having sex with a minor - a girl he was accused of sleeping with since she was 13. Also convicted of taking $15,000 in bribes from the operators of a trade school while he was a congressman. A U.S. District Court jury in Washington deliberated for just one hour before reaching the verdict. Time Article
Pat McPherson, Douglas County, Nebraska Election Commissioner. Arrested for fondling a 17-year-old girl. Article
Jon Matthews, Republican talk show host in Houston, was indicted for indecency with a child, including exposing his genitals to a girl under the age of 17. Source: ABC News
Nicholas Morency, Republican anti-abortion activist from Cape May County, NJ, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor The Dallas Morning News article.
Jeffrey Patti, Republican Committee Chairman from Sparta, NJ, was arrested for distributing what experts call "some of the most offensive material in the child pornography world" - a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped. Daily Record News Article
Mark Pazuhanich, Republican judge from Monroe County, PA, pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. Pocono Record article
Harvey Pitt, SEC Chief under George W. Bush until he was forced to resign in 2002. Worked for New Frontier Media, a firm which distributed teen sex videos.
Beverly Russell, County Chairman of the Christian Coalition as well as a member of the South Carolina Republican Party’s executive committee, sexually molested his step-daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her two children. Herald-Journal Article Commentary on Newsweek Article
Larry Jack Schwarz, Republican parole board officer and former Colorado State Representative, fired after child pornography was found in his possession. Rocky Mountain News article With his political career over, he went to work in the hard-core pornography industry for Platinum X Pictures, owned by his daughter, porn starlet Jewel De'Nyle (Stephany Schwarz). Wikipedia article
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican governor, had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28. Numerous allegations of gropings, harassment, in California.
Tom Shortridge. Republican campaign consultant and former head of the South Bay, CA, Republican Club, was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl. Los Angeles Times Article
Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr., Republican City Councilman from Wrightsville, PA, pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison. Sex Offender Registry page Article
Craig J. Spence, Republican lobbyist, organized orgies with child prostitutes in the White House during the 1980s. Full page including Washington Times article Discovery Channel documentary
David Swartz, Republican County Commissioner from Ohio, pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Rocky Mountain News Article
Strom Thurmond, Republican Senator from South Carolina and racist, impregnated a 15-year old African American maid. (BBC Article)
Robin Vanderwall, Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate, convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet. Virginian-Pilot Article
Keith Westmoreland, a Tennessee state representative (R), was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children). Tennessean Article
Stephen White, Republican preacher. Was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy in West Chester, PA, for permission to perform oral sex on him. Daily Pennsylvanian article Daily Yale News Article
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/1732583.php
A Scooter for Christmas? Libby Pardon in the Offing
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 04 October 2006
Via TomDispatch, Elizabeth de la Vega tells of a likely Christmas Surprise": the pardoning of Scooter Libby before his trial begins in January. Why? Mainly to prevent full exposure of the Cheney organization -- the real "secret government" that has lead the nation into so much crime, blood and ruin. Read it here: Scooter Libby's Trial Strategy. Some excerpts:
The seemingly unstoppable imminence of his trial isn't just a problem for Libby; it's an Excedrin Extra Strength-sized headache for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their entire senior staff, not to mention the Republican Party. Once the trial begins, the administration will have little or no control over the proceedings. Trials are not conducive to spin. Spin requires secrecy; trials, on the other hand, are decidedly public....Government officials who testify will actually have to identify themselves before speaking. Their statements will be transcribed and made available to the public almost immediately.
Worse yet, as the Bush administration surely knows, people (aka "voters") love trials. They may not pay attention to congressional debate -- to the extent that there is any -- and they certainly don't read proposed legislation (nor, sometimes, do our representatives in Congress), but they will pay close attention to the trial of I. "Scooter" Lewis Libby. And the day that a public airing of the machinations that led to Libby's indictment begins will be -- to paraphrase Judith Viorst's beloved children's book ... a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the White House....
How hard is this Republican chorus working [to denigrate the charges]? Take a look at the website of the Libby Legal Defense Trust, the fundraising group formed by Libby's powerful and wealthy Republican supporters -- President Bush's former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, business tycoon Steve Forbes, and Cheney's former aide and long-time confidant Mary Matalin, to name a few. Since late August, more than 35 editorials and articles favorable to Libby have appeared in right-wing and mainstream media....the White House and RNC propaganda machine [are] working overtime to denigrate Patrick Fitzgerald and the charges in the Libby case, using claims that have been largely rejected as without factual or legal basis by a federal judge whom President George W. Bush himself appointed in 2004...
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=869&Itemid=135
Day four of Libby closed-door hearing
Nine national security documents and Wilson/Niger trip reports at issue
By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 12:20 a.m. ET Oct 4, 2006
WASHINGTON - In what may be the most decisive pre-trial hearing in the CIA/Leak case against I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the parties involved are again facing off in courtroom arguments today over which, if any, classified documents Libby will be allowed to use to defend himself against charges of perjury and obstruction at his trial in January. Libby's attorney's, in a court filing, have identified nine national security matters they wish to present at trial. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is arguing to limit the classified materials allowed saying details in the documents will be a waste of time for a jury.
Libby's legal gambit - threatening to reveal sensitive national security details during the trial - has the potential of derailing the proceedings. It is a legal tactic called, "graymail."
Attorney's representing Vice President Cheney's former top aide, and Special Counsel Fitzgerald, are again before Judge Reggie Walton, in the fourth day of closed hearings dealing with which classified documents will be admitted. And again carts full of classified documents have been wheeled into the courtroom.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15129520/
Woodward's Book and the CIA/Plame Leak Case
David Corn Tue Oct 3, 2:24 PM ET
The Nation -- Here's an interesting scene from Bob Woodward's new book. It's the summer of 2004 and George Tenet has resigned as
CIA chief:
[White House chief of staff] Andy Card called [Deputy Secretary of State Richard] Armitage to see if he was interested in taking over the CIA.
No, Armitage replied emphatically.
"Can I ask the reason? We're disappointed."
Armitage replied that he could give the reason but he would prefer not to because it might hurt Cards feelings.
Card knew the problem for Armitage was Cheney and Rumsfeld. He nonetheless asked Powell if there was a way to persuade Armitage.
"You can ask him again," Powell replied, "but he doesn't fool around." An Armitage no is a no. "My personal view is he won't do it."
What's missing from Woodward's account? One significant fact disclosed by Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the
Iraq War (which I wrote with Michael Isikoff): that Armitage had leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity to conservative columnist Robert Novak and had been under investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. At the time he was offered the CIA job, Armitage, who had cooperated with the investigation, might have no longer been a primary target of Fitzgerald (though he would later be reinvestigated by Fitzgerald for having failed to disclose to the special prosecutor that he had also discussed Valerie Wilson's CIA employment with Woodward weeks before mentioning it to Novak), but his role in the leak was still a big secret.
He knew he had leaked classified information that had led to the outing of a CIA officer. Could he accept the CIA position and go through the confirmation process, knowing that at any moment the news could emerge that he had blown the cover of an undercover CIA employee? (And what if a senator asked him about the leak at the confirmation hearing?) There was no way he could place himself in such a possibly perilous position. It was dicey enough for him to remain at the State Department, realizing the Plame time bomb could detonate any time. And Woodward reports that months later--after the 2004 presidential election--the White House considered naming Armitage to the new position of national director of intelligence. Armitage was not interested. Woodward notes this was because, as Armitage told National Security Adviser
Stephen Hadley, "I just don't know how I can work in an administration that lets Secretary Powell walk and keeps Mr. Rumsfeld." But once again, he could not have accepted this position for the same reasons.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20061003/cm_thenation/3126933
Have Turkish Agents Penetrated Highest Echelons of US Government?
Publié le : 03-10-2006
Sassounian's column of Oct. 5, 2006
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
The Vanity Fair magazine published last year an investigative article alleging that the American Turkish Council (ATC) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) had conspired, among other things, to make illegal campaign contributions to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, in return for blocking a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide. The article also mentioned that Turkish agents had infiltrated the highest echelons of the U.S. government.
The main source for some of the Vanity Fair revelations was Sibel Edmonds who had worked as a Turkish translator for the FBI. Unfortunately, she could not disclose most of what she knew on this sensitive subject, as she is legally prohibited from making public the confidential FBI documents that she had translated in the course of her work. All attempts by U.S. courts or Members of Congress to get out the full facts have been quashed by the Bush Administration, using the cover of protecting national security.
There have been several disclosures in recent months, mostly from anonymous sources, which shed further light on this matter. A few days ago, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen posted a special report (WMR) on his website which included alarming allegations about the extent of illegal activities by Turkish groups in the United States. As the report is based on confidential intelligence sources, there is no way of independently verifying its content. Here are excerpts from that report:
In 2001, "the FBI counter-intelligence operation was investigating a weapons smuggling and influence-peddling ring that was centered on the activities of the American Turkish Council (ATC), a major Turkish lobbying organization in Washington, DC headed up by George H. W. Bush National Security Adviser, retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft. According to U.S. intelligence sources, a principal player in the ring was [Marc] Grossman, a career foreign service officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997 and then moved back to Washington where he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs." In June 2001, Grossman, by then-Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, made two phone calls to two foreign intelligence agents in Washington, DC. "The calls were intercepted by the FBI."
http://www.collectifvan.org/article.php?r=4&id=4414
In Foley coverage, scant mention of three other Republican congressmen embroiled in major scandals
Summary: In their coverage of the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, only a few major media outlets have noted that Foley is the third Republican congressman to leave office in scandal within the past year. A fourth Republican congressman, Rep. Bob Ney, has pleaded guilty to corruption charges but not resigned his seat.
In their coverage of the resignation of former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), only a few major media outlets have noted that Foley was the third Republican congressman to leave office in scandal within the past year, while a fourth has pleaded guilty to corruption charges and will not seek re-election. A Media Matters for America review* found that of the following major newspapers -- The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today -- the main wire services, the network newscasts, and the cable news channels, only Reuters, The Washington Post, and USA Today noted that Foley joined fellow Republicans Randy "Duke" Cunningham (CA), who served on the House Appropriations Committee and was chairman of the subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence, and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) in leaving or being forced out of the House of Representatives amid scandal. In addition, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) has agreed to plead guilty to corruption charges and recently stepped down from his chairmanships of the subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and of the Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards, better known as the Franking Commission. In January, while under pressure from the corruption investigation, Ney also gave up his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee. Ney has ended his bid for re-election but not resigned his seat in the House.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200610020004
Laesch Calls for Hastert's Resignation
by Lisa Bennett
Following is the text of John Laesch's remarks as prepared for his news conference in Chicago on October 2, 2006.
My Name is John Laesch and I am running for Congress, against Dennis Hastert in Illinois' 14th District.
I want to thank you for coming here today and I would like to thank the netroots for following this important story.
Let me be clear about why we are here today.
We already know that Mark Foley crossed the line and maybe even broke the law � nobody disagrees on this point.
We are here today to ask, why did Dennis Hastert and Republican leaders try to cover this story up when they are always politicizing family values on the campaign trail?
Let me give you an example with a few words from a very famous man:
"Even though our children may be at home with the doors locked that doesn't mean that they are safe. We must continue to be proactive in warding off pedophiles and other creeps who want to take advantage of our children...."
These are the words of Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert from a 1998 press release that announced the passage of the Child Protection & Sexual Predator Punishment Act, H.R. 3494.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_lisa_ben_061002_laesch_calls_for_has.htm
A culture of corruption, a culture of protection
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
This year, the Republican leadership of the U.S. House touted its "American Values Agenda." Apparently, those values don't include protecting underage male House pages from unwanted advances by Republican congressmen.
It has been just four days since Mark Foley's resignation, and already the all-male leadership of the House has been caught in what we will generously call two inconsistencies. On Friday, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., claimed that he hadn't heard until that moment of improper e-mails between Foley and at least one former page. Very quickly, however, Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., said they had informed Rep. Hastert months ago. Rep. Hastert, a former wrestling coach, offered this lame escape-move of a statement: "While the speaker does not explicitly recall" talking with Rep. Reynolds, "he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution."
More from Opinion
That's the second inconsistency. In fact, there was no "resolution." There was a coverup.
Late last year, the former page complained about inappropriate e-mails from the man who then represented Florida's 16th Congressional District. The complaint went to Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., in whose district the boy lives. Rep. Alexander first took the complaint not to Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who oversees the page program, but to Rep. Reynolds, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee. Eventually, Rep. Shimkus and a House staff member confronted Foley, who agreed to stop corresponding with the former page. But the Republican leadership didn't follow up, and allowed Foley to continue as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. The Democrat on the panel that oversees the page program says he never heard about the complaint.
In January, as the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal threatened Republican control of the House, Foley called reports of congressmen taking bribes in the form of trips and gifts "shocking, and it's scary. But I want to tell you that these things are not what normal hardworking members of Congress or their staffs are involved with." Add Foley's name, if in a different context, to the roll call of disgraced and departed Republican members of Congress since 2005: Randy "Duke" Cunningham; Tom DeLay; Robert Ney.
Since 1995, when Foley arrived in Washington and his party took power, Republicans have turned the House into an institution that serves its members and its patrons, not the public. Bad as those earlier cases involving money and election laws were, the deplorable revelations about Foley have House leaders scrambling as never before to contain damage and avoid blame. Rep. Reynolds faces a tough reelection campaign, and a House staffer told The Washington Post that Rep. Reynolds took on the speaker because "this is what happens when one member tries to throw another member under a bus."
In that spirit, Republicans competed with each other to demand criminal investigations of Foley. To investigate themselves, however, House Republicans prefer the Ethics Committee, which gave Tom DeLay pass after pass before public pressure finally forced the committee to strip Mr. DeLay of his majority leader post. Remembering that, it's no surprise that the House Republican leadership can't issue a good explanation for why it worked in secret to protect Mark Foley. The only plausible explanation is that political values mattered more than American values.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/10/03/m10a_foleygop_edit_1003.html
Sick, sick, sick
What do Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley, all good Republicans have in common other than being in the same party. They all have been driven from power within a year.
What do Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley, all good Republicans have in common other than being in the same party. They all have been driven from power within a year.
Why were they driven out, because of a perfect storm of ethical and legal challenges. The party dependent on morality as defined by "America" has all of those guys exposed in ethical, sexual, or financial scandals.
Its ironic that the crime of sending off so many young Americans to be killed in Iraq, only two or three years older than the recipient of sexy emails, is too complicated to resonate with people. Its wrong in both cases. A sixteen year old boy has struck the biggest blow against the Bush Government.
Three words, SICK, SICK, SICK sum up the Republican record very well.
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5704&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
'Unknown' Abramoff sure got around a lot
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
For a guy the White House claims was a virtual stranger, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his pals sure got around a lot.
A bipartisan congressional report on the contacts between Abramoff and his lobbying team and the White House documented almost 500 occasions over three years in which the disgraced lobbyist, who was convicted in January of conspiring to bribe public officials, or one of his minions was in touch with either White House officials or Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser.
Abramoff directed "the K Street Project," a Republican strategy to monopolize special interest money. Abramoff and his team bilked their clients, especially Indian tribes, out of money to "represent their interests" in Congress even though those efforts ran deliberately counter to the tribes' concerns. Dozens of congressmen have been implicated in Abramoff's schemes, and the story is still unfolding.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1159908304204980.xml&coll=8
Moylan linked to Abramoff, too
While Governor Felix Camacho has maintained he has no ties to nation's former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, apparently there is a direct connection between his second in command. According to the recent release into a federal investigation into Abramoff's lobbying practices establishes a direct link between him and Lieutenant Governor Kaleo Moylan.
We've told you a lot about the influence and power Abramoff has had with the nation's leaders, profiling about the disparaging remarks, Abramoff made about Guam's newly-elected governor Felix Camacho sent in a November 2002 e-mail. The correspondence discussed a pre-inauguration meeting with a Camacho staffer, which the Governor has denied ever took place. We've told you about Abramoff's alleged influence with Guam's 1998 and 2002 elections. As we reported, during the '98 election Abramoff was allegedly was behind efforts to launch an investigation into the Carl Gutierrez administration requested by then-Majority Leader Congressman Tom Delay.
The relationship between Delay and Abramoff was described in an MSNBC report as one in which the two were traveling the world together and golfed the finest courses. Abramoff raised hundreds of thousands for delay's political causes and hired Delay's aides or kicked them business. One of those aides that got a job with Abramoff was Michael Scanlon, who drafted a message and media strategy for the Joe Ada/Felix Camacho gubernatorial team, a strategy of which the Governor told KUAM News previously he wasn't aware.
Fast forward to the Decision 2002 General Election - Abramoff wrote a letter that was later sent by Roger Slater to the U.S. House of Representatives alleging then delegate Robert Underwood had used congressional mailing privileges to send out flyers to Filipino constituents with a message from Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Slater admitted to KUAM in 2003 that he had been approached to file the complaint that then-speaker Ben Pangelinan confirmed had been drafted at Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig.
http://www.kuam.com/news/19255.aspx
Secret Service Arrests Protester in Casper During V.P. Cheney's Visit
Casper- Posted 10/3/06
Justin Joseph
Politics can get heated, and it's never a surprise to find protesters waiting when the Vice President comes to town.
Yesterday one man protested Cheney's visit to Casper. He stood on the street outside the events center as Cheney's motorcade drove by.
The secret service keeps a careful eye on these types of incidents. During a recent visit to aspen, one such protester got too close to Cheney and was arrested by secret service agents. The agents say he touched the Vice President, the protester maintains he simply told the V.P. that his policies were reprehensible.
The protester is now suing the Secret Service for attorney's fees, and damages including what is described as the loss of enjoyment of life.
http://www.kgwn.tv/home/headlines/4299622.html
Negotiating and Looking Tough: The Mirrored Policies of the U.S. and Iran
Farideh Farhi October 3, 2006
Editor: Erik Leaver, IPS
September was a hopeful month for those interested in the de-escalation of tensions between the Unites States and Iran. The extension of a U.S. visa by the Bush Administration to the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami despite vociferous conservative opposition was seen as a sign of possible change in U.S. foreign policy. In addition, a mixture of softer words employed by Iran's current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN and in his many media appearances in the U.S. regarding Iran's intentions in the region brought hope of possible movement in Tehran.
Meanwhile, since early September the prospects for jump-starting multilateral negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have looked better. Iran's chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, after meeting with the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, hinted at the possibility of temporary suspension of uranium enrichment while U.S. Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, indicated that Iran's temporary suspension might be enough for direct negotiation between the U.S. and Iran.
As Larijani and Solana continue their meetings in Berlin, both sides have cited progress. President Bush has been willing to "give the Europeans time to see whether or not the Iranians will make the proper choice about verifiably suspending."
Appearances, however, can be deceiving. While third parties, particularly in Europe, are working hard to avoid confrontation between Washington and Tehran, the main interlocutors have yet to develop coherent policies towards each other.
Both Tehran and Washington are pursuing multi-layered, complex, at times even contradictory policies that are intended to both influence the position of other countries and strike a balance among the contending players in their domestic arenas. Neither has yet developed the desire or the will to resolve the outstanding issues that exist between them. Nor have they been willing to consider the strategic choices that need to be made in order to improve relations.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3560
Bush imprint on education puts Crist, Davis to test
The race for governor could hinge on voters' views of school reforms.
Jason Garcia Tallahassee Bureau
Posted October 3, 2006
TALLAHASSEE -- When Gov. Jeb Bush walks out the door in January, he will leave behind a public-school system that looks little like the one he inherited eight years ago.
Students are tested more rigorously and more often. Schools earn grades and money based on how well they perform. Some parents can use public funds to send their children to private schools.
Now, the race to succeed Bush could hinge on whether Florida voters like what he has done.
Some of the starkest differences between Republican Charlie Crist and Democrat Jim Davis center on the changes Bush has wrought in education. At the center of it all is the FCAT, the incendiary exam that tests students for reading, writing, math and science.
Crist, who served two years as education commissioner during Bush's tenure, vows to carry on with the high-stakes test. But Davis accuses Bush of using the exam as a "political weapon" and pledges to reduce its influence.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-goved0306oct03,0,6635907.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Introducing the 'new informers'
Jon Donley, editor of NOLA.com, the New Orleans Time-Picayune's associated Web site, had no way of knowing that he would be praised an example of an emerging class of “first informers.” That's a provocative term used in a new report from the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society Program.
The report, written by George Washington University media expert Albert L. May, was drawn from a September conference of 24 leaders from traditional journalism, new media, homeland security and disaster response organizations.
As May tells the story, Donley's assignment was to publish his newspaper on the Internet if an approaching hurricane shut down print production. Last year, when Katrina did just that, Donley went into action.
In addition to publishing an electronic version of the newspaper, he posted reader messages on the site's public forums. As conditions worsened, he began to receive messages from people trapped in attics, along with photos taken from cell phones of rising water. Pleas for help flooded in.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/louv/20061003-9999-lz1e3louv.html
Profits of war
Congress and the White House seemingly are blind to poorly controlled but well-paid private contractors in the war zone
battle. The fog shouldn't extend to the Pentagon, which in the current case is a half a world away from Iraq's violence. Yet a deep confusion seems to have settled over military leaders regarding private companies acting as contractors for the U.S. military.
At a hearing last week, top brass told the House Government Reform Committee that Blackwater, a North Carolina-based company with millions of dollars in security contracts in Iraq, didn't have Pentagon authorization to carry weapons or to guard convoys when four of its guards were killed and their bodies mutilated in March 2004. The bodies of two were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah in an outrage beamed around the world.
The trouble here is twofold. If the military wasn't in charge, who was minding the paperwork, and who is holding contractors accountable? The Blackwater workers were guarding a convoy on its way to pick up kitchen equipment for a food supplier for the U.S. military. A contract uncovered by The N&O points to Blackwater being a subcontractor for Kellogg Brown & Root, the Army's main contractor in Iraq (and a subsidiary of Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Cheney).
Also troubling are the multiple layers of money that American taxpayers are shelling out for contractors. In the case of Blackwater, its guards received $600 a day for their dangerous work in 2004. But Blackwater itself collected $215 a day per guard that it fielded, and was reimbursed for the guards' expenses. Regency Hotel, a Kuwaiti company involved in feeding American soldiers, and ESS, a German food contractor, each was paid separately for overseeing each guard, plus a profit. Finally, Halliburton was paid, per guard, for overseeing the overall contract, plus a 2 percent profit. Multiply that by hundreds of contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
American taxpayers are financing these contracts, but the situation obviously isn't raising eyebrows at the Pentagon. To this day, the Army has ignored a November 2004 request by Rep. Henry Waxman of California for documents detailing Blackwater's contract, a brazen snub of Congress. Last year, the Government Accountability Office reported a serious lack of data collection on contractors and inadequate communication between them and the military. The study was requested by Rep. David Price of Chapel Hill, who has led efforts to better regulate contractors.
As always, the buck of responsibility stops in the Oval Office. At a time of record federal deficits, President Bush shouldn't idly watch as millions of tax dollars disappear into what seems to be a black hole. But Congress abets the administration. It cuts the war-time checks. Its oversight of war spending has been abysmal, especially as the majority party holds itself out as a protector of American taxpayers. As far as contractors are concerned, a better description would be that it is fiscally in a fog.
http://www.newsobserver.com/579/story/492987.html
Halliburton Plays Patriotism Card for Legal Immunity
by TortDeform com
Mon Oct 02, 2006 at 10:09:25 AM EST
By Laurie Beacham, Communications Director, Center for Justice and Democracy
Here at the Center for Justice & Democracy, it seems the efforts to strip injured citizens of their legal rights is unending, and comes in all shapes and sizes. But sometimes even we're shocked. This time it is courtesy of Halliburton.
Halliburton's subsidiary KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root) is reportedly the largest US military contractor in Iraq. Halliburton has been accused of overcharging the government for food, transportation, fuel and even recreational services. But it gets worse.
Former Halliburton employees told a Senate subcommittee hearing on September 18 that the company knowingly places unarmed civilian truck drivers into violent war zones in Iraq. The hearing addressed claims made in a lawsuit by families of Halliburton employees killed or injured in a 2004 ambush of its fuel convoy on a road near Abu Ghraib prison on April 9, 2004. The tragic event has come to be known as the "Good Friday Massacre." Six KBR drivers were killed, one is presumed dead, and 26 employees were injured.
Halliburton, claiming pride in the patriotic service of its employees, sent one worker injured in the Massacre a letter announcing that he qualified to apply for the "Secretary of Defense for the Defense of Freedom Medal," the civilian equivalent of a soldier's Purple Heart. The employee was asked to fill out a seemingly boilerplate form giving permission for his medical records to be transferred to the Department of Defense for the application - boilerplate, except for Paragraph 9:
...I agree that in consideration for the application for a Defense of Freedom Medal on my behalf that ... I hereby release, acquit and discharge KBR, all KBR employees, the Military, and any of their representatives ...with respect to and from any and all claims and any and all causes of action, of any kind or character, whether now known or unknown, I may have against any of them which exist as of the date of this authorization ... This release also applies to any claims brought by any person or agency or class action under which I may have a right or benefit.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) characterized this waiver: "We'll give you a medal if you promise not to sue us." (read more on the hearing, listen to the hearing, and/or see the letter and form). The employee who received the litigation waiver reportedly refused to sign it, but received the Medal and sued, along with other families, anyway.
Halliburton/KBR makes a big deal out of this Medal, which was started after September 11. It is inscribed, "On Behalf of a Grateful Nation" and is presented by military Generals. According to KBR's monthly "Mirror" publication, the most recent ceremony lasted over four days. But, apparently, all this appreciation by the company of the men and women it sends to Iraq ends at its purse strings and its accountability - at least if you go by its attempt to gain legal immunity in exchange for the Medal.
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2006/10/2/10925/4035
The New York Times
Dispute With Russia Threatens Georgia
By DARIA VAISMAN
International Herald Tribune
Published: October 5, 2006
TBILISI, Georgia, Oct. 4 — Marina Tutberidze’s husband works in Moscow, illegally, at a construction site, sending home much of the money he earns. Now an escalating confrontation between Georgia and Russia has left that support in doubt, along with much of Georgia’s economy.
Russia’s decision to sever transportation links — including flights, trains and ferries between the countries — has left Georgians and their businesses scrambling to cope with the disappearance of their country’s biggest and closest market. Millions of dollars in Georgian goods are languishing at customs terminals, even as Moscow-bound travelers seek ways around the transportation disruptions.
“Nothing has changed yet,” said Gia Bolkvadze, general director of A. P. Moller-Maersk Group, the Danish shipping giant. “We have to wait for a few days to talk to anyone.”
In Russia, Georgians faced investigations that have already closed several businesses, including a second Georgian-owned casino on Wednesday. The Russian news media have been almost universally hostile to Georgia in their reports, comparing Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, to Hitler or to Lavrenti P. Beria, the secret police chief in the Stalin era. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia also made the Beria comparison this week.
Russian newspapers reported that the authorities were checking lists of Georgian migrants and would soon raid dozens of businesses.
Ms. Tutberidze, speaking through an interpreter, said her husband feared arrest and deportation if he left his living quarters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/world/europe/05georgia.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=84fe9806f48d75e2&ei=5094&partner=homepage
New Questions When U.S. Leaders Told of Sex Scandal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top House Republican, under fire for his handling of a Capitol Hill sex scandal, gained support on Wednesday but new questions arose about when he was told of a former congressman's troubling behavior toward teenage boys.
A senior party aide said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who oversees the congressional intern program at the center of the scandal, could be forced out after the November 7 elections, instead of immediately, as has been urged by some critics. Hastert has said he intends to stay on the job.
``Looks like right now he will keep his job for a maximum of one and one-half months,'' said a top party aide, adding that in the meantime Hastert may fire some staffers. Other aides said it remained unclear how long he would stay.
Kirk Fordham resigned under pressure on Wednesday as a top congressional aide to another House Republican and was quoted by ABC News as saying he told Hastert's chief of staff three years ago of inappropriate conduct by former Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley with interns.
Hastert has said he first learned of some of Foley's most overtly sexually Internet messages to male congressional pages when they were disclosed last Friday by ABC, prompting Foley to resign and triggering a federal investigation.
Fordham told ABC that Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with Foley regarding the situation and that Hastert knew about that meeting. Palmer denied the assertion.
``What Kirk Fordham said did not happen,'' he said in a brief statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-hastert.html
47 Years After Father, Son Wins a Nobel, Too
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: October 5, 2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 — Following a kind of family tradition, Dr. Roger D. Kornberg of Stanford University School of Medicine won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for showing how genes convey their messages in cells to copy functions like making proteins.
The Nobel Prize committee cited Dr. Kornberg, 59, for visually showing how information encoded in a cell’s DNA blueprint is read and duplicated into what is called messenger RNA. This messenger RNA, in turn, takes the information out of the nucleus to outer areas of the cell where it is used to construct proteins that control cell functions.
This is the second time this week the Nobel Prizes have recognized the growing importance of RNA, which is swiftly emerging from the shadows of its better-known cousin DNA. On Monday, the prize in medicine was awarded to two American biologists for discoveries that opened the field known as RNA interference, or gene silencing.
It was also the first time since 1983 that Americans had swept all three scientific Nobels, in medicine, physics and chemistry.
Dr. Kornberg, who said he was “simply stunned” by the award, is the son of Dr. Arthur Kornberg, who shared the Nobel in medicine in 1959 for his work in DNA information transfer. The Kornbergs are the sixth father and son to win Nobel Prizes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/science/05nobel.html
A Complex and Hidden Life Behind Foley’s Public Persona
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and KATE ZERNIKE
Published: October 5, 2006
PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 3 — Mark Foley, until last week a fixture on this town’s lofty social circuit, once recounted a party at “Miss Germany was my date,” he told a writer at Washingtonian magazine for an article about “How to Date a Congressman.”
It was one of the many hints Mr. Foley dropped to mask the realities of a deeply compartmentalized life. Over 12 years in Congress, he became extraordinarily adept at projecting a magnetic public persona — helped along by loyal aides and a sister he breezily called his surrogate wife — while conducting a private life fraught with more secrets than anyone imagined.
Whatever whispers there might have been about his sexuality — friends in South Florida and Washington knew Mr. Foley was gay but never discussed it with him — no one fathomed that he was sending sexually explicit e-mail messages to Congressional pages as young as 16, news of which led him to resign last week.
Mr. Foley’s subsequent confessions that he is an alcoholic and was molested by a clergyman as a teenager left friends even more stunned, and skeptical.
Here in Florida, where people knew him longest and best, friends said he kept his sexuality quiet because the most influential forces in his life, his parents and the political world he thrived in, would not accept him otherwise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/washington/05foley.html
The Earth Is the Finishing Touch
By MARIAN BURROS
Published: October 4, 2006
BY going underground, Mary and David Falk have stayed on top of most artisanal cheesemakers in this country.
For 10 years, at their Love Tree Farmstead in Grantsburg, Wis., they have been aging cheeses in caves dug into a hillside, their concrete walls painted with pictographs. The Falks say it’s the only way to produce deeply flavored, nuanced, natural-rind tommes and wheels like those of European cheesemakers.
“We believe in fresh-air aging, pollens, molds, humidity,” Ms. Falk said. “And we’ve positioned our cave so that it is surrounded by a wildlife refuge. It’s really a head trip to see semis pull up in the woods to get the cheese. It’s like from ‘The Twilight Zone.’ We wanted something that worked on the natural rhythm of the area. We took the microflora from what was there; we get humidity from the springs.”
Over the past few years, the Falks have been joined by a number of other cheesemakers, particularly on the East Coast, who want a more natural way of aging to give each cheese its own character. Stepping away from above-ground hermetic aging rooms with artificially controlled temperature and humidity and from ripening cheese wrapped in Cryovac or sealed in wax, these cheesemakers have started a little construction boom in caves and cellars, getting a bit closer to the way cheese was aged for centuries.
Jeff Roberts, a co-founder of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese, who is just finishing the first “Atlas of American Artisan Cheese,” to be published by Chelsea Green next June, said there are at least 35 caves and cellars in the United States, with seven more under construction. As cheesemaking and the appreciation of good cheese have matured in the United States in the past few years, American cheesemakers have begun to better understand the place of microflora — bacteria, yeast, molds — in the process of aging cheese. In these new caves and cellars, cheeses are exposed to an array of the tiny organisms local to the area.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/dining/04cave.html?em&ex=1160193600&en=a2bce2573caa0cf2&ei=5087%0A
Judges Zero In on Treatment of a Detainee
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: October 5, 2006
In sharp questioning, a three-judge panel yesterday challenged arguments by federal officials seeking dismissal of a Pakistani man’s suit charging that because of his religion, race or national origin, he, like others, was held for months after 9/11 in abusive solitary confinement before being cleared of links to terrorism and deported.
In the mahogany and marble splendor of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Lower Manhattan, lawyers for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government officials argued that the officials were entitled to immunity from the lawsuit filed by the man, Javaid Iqbal, who had been known as “the cable guy” to his Long Island customers before he was swept into a federal detention center in Brooklyn as were hundreds of other Muslim immigrants in the New York area.
From the start of yesterday’s two-hour hearing, one of the judges, Jon O. Newman, showed particular impatience with the narrow legal defenses offered by the defendants in the case, which lawyers for Mr. Iqbal say seeks accountability for what they call serious constitutional violations by the nation’s highest law enforcement officials. It is the first case of its kind to reach the appellate level.
Judge Newman was especially scathing in questioning the lawyer for Dennis Hasty, formerly the warden of the Metropolitan Detention Center, where Mr. Iqbal and 184 others designated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as “of high interest” were confined in a special unit where a 2003 Justice Department Inspector General’s report found widespread abuse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05immigrant.html
Adults on Welfare With H.I.V. or AIDS Hit With Rent Increase
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: October 5, 2006
In a move that has alarmed local officials and advocates for people with AIDS, the state ordered New York City’s welfare agency to sharply increase the rent contribution it requires from about 2,200 poor adults who live in government-subsidized buildings and have H.I.V. or AIDS.
The change, which city officials disclosed yesterday at a meeting with advocacy groups, means that most of the people in the program will be paying more than half their income — which comes entirely from federal assistance — toward rent.
“I am very concerned,” said Verna Eggleston, the commissioner of the city’s Human Resources Administration, who recalled how hard it was to find housing for poor people with AIDS in the early years of the epidemic, in the 1980’s.
The roughly 2,200 people who will be affected by the increase make up about one-third of those who receive housing services through the H.I.V./AIDS Services Administration, part of Ms. Eggleston’s agency.
Nearly all of the 2,200 adults receive either Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance, federal programs that help disabled people. Most of them used to be homeless and now live in buildings that offer medical services.
Until now, the adults have been paying 30 percent of their income in rent. The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has directed the city to change that formula. Now, the adults will be allowed to keep only $330 of their monthly income for food and other personal items, with the rest going for rent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05aids.html
For the Biggest Yachts, More Than a Dock
By ANNE KALOSH
Published: October 4, 2006
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, V.I. — The $200 million Yacht Haven Grande development being built in the United States Virgin Islands is not just a parking lot for supersized boats and the site of 12 luxury condominiums with views of one of the Caribbean’s prettiest harbors.
It is a prototype for marinas that Andrew Farkas, a New York developer, hopes to build in the Caribbean and around the world. In addition to slips big enough for 450-foot yachts, the development along the St. Thomas waterfront will include residential, commercial and entertainment components.
“We look at marinas as more than a dock. We look at marinas as a five-star hotel,” said Kristen Fritz, marina services manager for Island Global Yachting, the developer behind Yacht Haven Grande, the first phase of which is expected to open in November. “Our strategy is to be the premier brand in megayachts. Period. We think the service level is low. We want to make the experience a little bit different.”
Mr. Farkas, an avid yachtsman, is the chairman of Island Capital Group, a merchant banking firm that specializes in real estate. Its Island Global Yachting subsidiary was chosen to develop and manage 40,000 yacht slips in Dubai, 300 of which are under construction now, and is working on marina projects in St. Martin, St. Lucia, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Mexico and Greece. Mr. Farkas said that one of the biggest headaches for owners of large yachts is finding berths in desirable locations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/realestate/greathomes/04GH-thomas.html
City Considers Plan to Let Outsiders Run Schools
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: October 5, 2006
In what would be the biggest change yet to the way New York City’s school system is administered, officials are considering plans to hire private groups at taxpayer expense to manage scores of public schools.
The money paid to the private groups would replace millions of dollars in grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which supported dozens of these groups in opening more than 180 small schools in the city since 2003.
The four-year grants, typically worth $100,000 a year per school, will run out for more than 50 schools in June.
The move would further Chancellor Joel I. Klein’s earlier efforts to tear apart the traditional bureaucracy of the nation’s largest school system, giving principals greater autonomy and increasing the role of the private sector. It could put private entities like the College Board, the Urban Assembly and Expeditionary Learning-Outward Bound on contract to manage networks of schools as soon as the 2007-8 school year.
Although city officials stress that the plans are preliminary, they have been talking to the outside groups to gauge their interest. The proposal is already generating vigorous debate within the Education Department and among the outside groups over where to draw the line between public and private control of schools.
It is also certain to draw opposition from critics already questioning the school system’s reliance on private consultants as well as the educational credentials of outside groups. State law will also pose heavy obstacles to such contracts, officials in Albany said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05private.html?ei=5094&en=7d715afda89d0c56&hp=&ex=1160107200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1160038831-yyuE4lFby7aQePxikBLpNg
U.S. Opens Criminal Inquiry in Spinach Scare
By GARDINER HARRIS and LIBBY SANDER
Published: October 5, 2006
Federal investigators have opened a criminal investigation into accusations that some California spinach growers and distributors failed to take adequate measures to ensure that their spinach was safe before selling it.
Yesterday, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Criminal Investigations in the Food and Drug Administration carried out search warrants at Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista and Growers Express of Salinas.
Natural Selection, a large distributor of fresh produce, had previously recalled its packages of fresh spinach. Its chief operating officer, Charles Sweat, said in a statement that all tests at the Natural Selection plant showed no contamination.
“We continue to believe that the source of the contamination was in the fields from which we buy our spinach,” Mr. Sweat said.
A person who answered the phone at Growers Express said the company would not comment.
The criminal investigation is surprising in a scare that sickened 193 people in 26 states and Canada, resulting in the death of a Wisconsin woman and 98 being people hospitalized, the food and drug agency said.
All the victims had a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria, O157:H7.
With the focus of the investigation narrowing to spinach grown in the Salinas Valley, the agency told consumers last week that they could again eat fresh spinach.
Eleven bags of fresh spinach have tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, the agency reported yesterday. The United States attorney for the Northern District of California, Kevin V. Ryan, said investigators had no evidence that the contamination was deliberate or that it continued.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05spinach.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=5151fa6278a24e6f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Afghanistan Triangle
Published: October 1, 2006
SOMEWHERE along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Taliban leadership and their Qaeda allies must be pleased.
When the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan visited the United States last week, they got into an ugly public spat over who was to blame for a Taliban resurgence that has killed hundreds of Afghans this year and shaken confidence in Afghanistan’s new government.
There was Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, accusing Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan of failing to crack down on the Taliban. Mr. Musharraf struck back, saying Mr. Karzai was behaving like “an ostrich” and ignoring problems in his own land. Finally, President Bush played host at an unusual White House dinner for the two, trying to soothe tensions and promote a united front against the Taliban.
“We’ve got a lot of challenges facing us,” President Bush said as the two leaders stood silently at his side. “All of us must protect our countries, but at the same time, we all must work to make the world a more hopeful place.”
The two leaders’ public feud increases already growing pressure on the Bush administration to deal with criticism of the American-led effort to stabilize Afghanistan, which until recent months was seen in bright contrast to the problems in Iraq. Members of Congress, former administration officials and experts argue that missteps by the United States and its allies squandered an early opportunity to bring order to Afghanistan so it could be more completely rebuilt. Stabilizing the country remains possible, they say, but it will now be far more difficult.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/weekinreview/01rohde.html
A Portrait of the President as the Victim of His Own Certitude
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: September 30, 2006
In Bob Woodward’s highly anticipated new book, “State of Denial,” President Bush emerges as a passive, impatient, sophomoric and intellectually incurious leader, presiding over a grossly dysfunctional war cabinet and given to an almost religious certainty that makes him disinclined to rethink or re-evaluate decisions he has made about the war. It’s a portrait that stands in stark contrast to the laudatory one Mr. Woodward drew in “Bush at War,” his 2002 book, which depicted the president — in terms that the White House press office itself has purveyed — as a judicious, resolute leader, blessed with the “vision thing” his father was accused of lacking and firmly in control of the ship of state.
As this new book’s title indicates, Mr. Woodward now sees Mr. Bush as a president who lives in a state of willful denial about the worsening situation in Iraq, a president who insists he won’t withdraw troops, even “if Laura and Barney are the only ones who support me.” (Barney is Mr. Bush’s Scottish terrier.) Mr. Woodward draws an equally scathing portrait of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who comes off as a bully and control freak who is reluctant to assume responsibility for his department’s failures, and who has surrounded himself with yes men and created a system that bleached out “strong, forceful military advice.” Mr. Rumsfeld remains wedded to his plan to conduct the war in Iraq with a lighter, faster force (reflecting his idée fixe of “transforming” the military), even as the situation there continues to deteriorate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/books/30book.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
New Woodward Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.
The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.
As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29account.html?ex=1159761600&en=4455ad371b44870e&ei=5087%0A
California to Indict Former Leader of H.P.
By DAMON DARLIN
Published: October 4, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 4 — Patricia C. Dunn, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, and four other people will be named in indictments expected to be filed by California’s attorney general today in the spying case at the company, according to lawyers involved in the case.
In addition to Ms. Dunn, Attorney General Bill Lockyer intends to indict Kevin T. Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at H.P.; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Joseph DePante, owner of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Fla., information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colo., man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Mr. DePante.
All of those named face four charges: using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/business/04hewlettcnd.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=d11ffe4a8eccde9e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Ex-Leader Among 5 Charged in Hewlett Case
By DAMON DARLIN
Published: October 5, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 4 — Hewlett-Packard’s former chairwoman was among five people charged Wednesday with illegally gathering phone records of board members, journalists and others in an effort to find the source of news leaks.
Documents From the Congressional Hearings
A collection of documents compiled by the House Energy and Commerce Committee - originating within the company and elsewhere - before the Sept. 26 hearing on the Hewlett-Packard spying case.
The felony charges, filed by the California attorney general’s office, are the first stemming from a spying operation that ended last spring but came to light a month ago in disclosures by a disgruntled former director.
The case has rocked the company, forcing out the chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, along with the general counsel, a second director and two other senior officers. A House subcommittee held hearings on the case last week, and federal prosecutors have also been considering charges.
It was Ms. Dunn who authorized the operation, aimed at tracing leaks from the board, and put it into the hands of outside investigators. Those charged with her Wednesday included the company lawyer who supervised one phase of the operation and three detectives.
The charges stem from the use of pretexting, a form of deception, to obtain private calling records from phone company employees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/technology/05hewlett.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=21c8b8c9df58eba3&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Commission Says I.R.A. Is Committed to Peace
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- The Irish Republican Army has disbanded units for weapons making, arms smuggling, recruiting and training, an expert panel reported Wednesday in dramatic findings that could boost chances for reviving a Catholic-Protestant administration in Northern Ireland.
The leaders of Britain and Ireland warmly embraced the conclusions of the Independent Monitoring Commission, a panel that includes former chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch.
In its 60-page report, the panel listed statistics and trends demonstrating the IRA has embraced nonviolent politics and is determined to consign its terrorist capability to history.
''The IRA has done what we asked it to do,'' British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared at his Downing Street office in London. He said ''the door is now open for a final settlement.''
Unusually, hard-line Protestant leader Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland also welcomed the report for what he called signs that the IRA ''is progressively abandoning its terrorist structures.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ireland-IRA.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=7254a29e41a05bc4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Police to Start Inspecting Bags on Boston Subway
By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: October 5, 2006
BOSTON, Oct. 4 — The police will begin inspecting passengers’ bags on the Boston subway system in the next few days, Gov. Mitt Romney said on Wednesday.
Threats & Responses
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The inspections will be random for the most part, but could be mandatory at some stations, Mr. Romney said in an interview. The program was not in response to a specific threat against the transit system here, he said, but to the general threat of terrorism.
“I think we recognize globally that transit systems, airport systems and the like have been targets,” Mr. Romney said, “and therefore we have to adjust our security parameters to no longer focus on just crime, but to add the additional threat of terror.”
Boston was the first American city to randomly inspect bags on its subways. At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, police officers inspected bags on the subway and searched the bags of people standing in lines near the convention site. Both practices were stopped after the inspections, which were compulsory, were challenged in federal court.
The decision to resume inspections comes nearly two months after a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of random visual inspection of bags on the New York City subway system, which started in July 2005 in response to the London train bombings.
Rather than conduct visual searches, Boston police officers will swab a bag, its seams and its handles with an electronic device that checks for traces of explosives. They will search a bag if they think there is probable cause.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05boston.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=e2aff2846542f530&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Detainee Bill Shifts Power to President
By SCOTT SHANE and ADAM LIPTAK
Published: September 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — With the final passage through Congress of the detainee treatment bill, President Bush on Friday achieved a signal victory, shoring up with legislation his determined conduct of the campaign against terrorism in the face of challenges from critics and the courts.
Rather than reining in the formidable presidential powers Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have asserted since Sept. 11, 2001, the law gives some of those powers a solid statutory foundation. In effect it allows the president to identify enemies, imprison them indefinitely and interrogate them — albeit with a ban on the harshest treatment — beyond the reach of the full court reviews traditionally afforded criminal defendants and ordinary prisoners.
Taken as a whole, the law will give the president more power over terrorism suspects than he had before the Supreme Court decision this summer in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that undercut more than four years of White House policy. It does, however, grant detainees brought before military commissions limited protections initially opposed by the White House. The bill, which cleared a final procedural hurdle in the House on Friday and is likely to be signed into law next week by Mr. Bush, does not just allow the president to determine the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions; it also strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges to his interpretation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30detain.html?hp&ex=1159675200&en=4b0651b4401c1962&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Detainee Memo Created Divide in White House
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: October 1, 2006
In June 2005, two senior national security officials in the Bush administration came together to propose a sweeping new approach to the growing problems the United States was facing with the detention, interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects.
In a nine-page memorandum, the two officials, Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, and Philip D. Zelikow, the counselor of the State Department, urged the administration to seek Congressional approval for its detention policies.
They called for a return to the minimum standards of treatment in the Geneva Conventions and for eventually closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The time had come, they said, for suspects in the 9/11 plot to be taken out of their secret prison cells and tried before military tribunals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01detain.html?hp&ex=1159761600&en=b6308a474a8f0599&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Congressional Aid
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior congressional aide said Wednesday he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about worrisome conduct by his former boss, Rep. Mark Foley, toward teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue.
Kirk Fordham made his comments to The Associated Press in an interview as a Kentucky Republican canceled a campaign fundraising event with Hastert. Rep. Ron Lewis said he wants to know the facts behind a scandal that has roiled Republicans since last week.
''I'm taking the speaker's words at face value,'' Lewis said in an interview. ''I have no reason to doubt him. But until this is cleared up, I want to know the facts.
''If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong, then I will be the first in line to condemn it.''
Taken together, the comments by Fordham and the actions by Lewis added to the political uncertainty surrounding Hastert and fellow Republicans five weeks before midterm elections in which their control of the House will be tested.
Hastert's office did not immediately respond to either development.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Pages.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=89a8df813bad929f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Key Neighbors Try to Dissuade North Korea
By CHOE SANG-HUN and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 4, 2006
SEOUL — South Korea and China warned North Korea today that a nuclear test would lead to a chill in relations with the two nations friendliest to it, while Japan’s new prime minister sought to rally the international community behind efforts to prevent the test.
But analysts in the region warned that Pyongyang could feel compelled to go ahead if Washington does not relax the sanctions against counterfeiting and money-laundering that have led to a financial crackdown.
The United Nations Security Council is expected to take up the matter today, at the urging of the United States. Bush administration officials on Tuesday condemned the announcement, but took a generally muted tone in responding to what Pyongyang called a move to develop “self-defense” measures against American hostility.
Officials said the American caution in part was a result of doubts over whether North Korea was actually preparing a test or just making a threat as a negotiating ploy, and in part reflected widespread uncertainty over how to respond to a move that could undermine the security balance in Asia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/world/asia/04cnd-korea.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=a3a7272ef3be4302&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Diplomat Sees Dead End in Iran Talks
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and JOHN O’NEIL
Published: October 4, 2006
PARIS, Oct. 4 — Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, suggested today that talks with Iran over its nuclear program have all but reached a dead end, saying the matter would be referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions unless Tehran agreed quickly to suspend uranium enrichment work.
Underscoring the divide, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repeated his position today that Tehran is willing to continue to talk but not to consider halting nuclear enrichment work for even one day.
Mr. Solana told the European Parliament, according to a statement released by his office, that despite negotiating for “endless hours,” Iran has still not made a commitment to suspend its nuclear enrichment work, the “key point” in the talks.
“Dialogue could not last forever,” Mr. Solana said. Referring to the possibility of sanctions, he said, “It is up to them to decide whether the time has come to follow the second track.”
Mr. Solana said “the door to negotiations is always open,” and he has said before that there has been no breakthrough on suspending enrichment work, as the United Nations Security Council has called for.
But the tone of his remarks today was more negative than earlier statements, which have rankled other European officials who have seen him as grasping for straws of progress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/world/middleeast/05irancnd.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=aa0a9d366b419535&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Aide Says He Reported Foley 3 Years Ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior congressional aide said Wednesday he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about worrisome conduct by Rep. Mark Foley toward teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue.
Kirk Fordham made his comments to The Associated Press in an interview as a Kentucky Republican canceled a campaign fundraising event with Hastert. Rep. Ron Lewis said he wants to know the facts behind a scandal that has roiled Republicans since last week.
''I'm taking the speaker's words at face value,'' Lewis said in an interview. ''I have no reason to doubt him. But until this is cleared up, I want to know the facts.
''If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong, then I will be the first in line to condemn it.''
Taken together, the comments by Fordham and the actions by Lewis added to the political uncertainty surrounding Hastert and fellow Republicans five weeks before midterm elections in which their control of the House will be tested.
Hastert's office did not immediately respond to either development.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Pages.html
So the Torah Is a Parenting Guide?
By EMILY BAZELON
Published: October 1, 2006
In the third century, the rabbis who put together the Talmud instructed fathers to teach their sons to swim. It’s safe to say that most American Jews aren’t familiar with this directive, whether or not they take their kids to the lake or the pool. But one morning this past summer, a group of mostly non-Jewish parents puzzled over its meaning in a classroom at the Carolina Day School, a nonsectarian private school in Asheville, N.C.
These mothers and fathers were accidental students of Judaism. They had come together because they often felt flattened by achieving the modern ideal of successful children. They were seeking relief in a weeklong course based on the book “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children,” by a Los Angeles clinical psychologist named Wendy Mogel.
Genevieve Fortuna, a 58-year-old former preschool teacher who has been teaching classes on raising children for 30 years, wrote the Talmudic quote about swimming in blue marker on the classroom’s white board. The half-dozen or so parents, dressed in summer-casual shorts and sandals, looked up at her from their seats around two child’s-height tables. Fortuna opened her copy of Mogel’s book. “Jewish wisdom holds that our children don’t belong to us,” she read. “They are both a loan and a gift from God, and the gift has strings attached. Our job is to raise our children to leave us. The children’s job is to find their own path in life. If they stay carefully protected in the nest of the family, children will become weak and fearful or feel too comfortable to want to leave.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01parenting.html?em&ex=1160107200&en=2d73ca97f7b1abe1&ei=5087%0A
Ten Days With Oblomov: A Journey in My Bed
By GARY SHTEYNGART
Published: October 1, 2006
DAY 1: At 11 in the morning, while I am still savoring the last moments of a fruitful sleep, a messenger brings to my doorstep a new translation of “Oblomov,” the famous 19th-century slacker novel by Ivan Goncharov, whose eponymous hero, a member of Russia’s lazy landed gentry, spends most of his time luxuriating in bed. “Looks like I came at the wrong time,” the courier says with a wink, mistaking my usual dishabille for interrupted coitus. I return to my bed and gaze unhappily at the thick tome in my hands. Right away I’m feeling sleepy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/Shteyngart.t.html
Iraqi Police Cited in Abuses May Lose Aid
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: September 30, 2006
BAGHDAD, Sept. 29 — American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might have to curtail aid to the Interior Ministry police because of a United States law that prohibits the financing of foreign security forces that commit “gross violations of human rights” and are not brought to justice.
The Interior Ministry, dominated by Shiites, has long been accused by Sunni Arabs of complicity in torture and killings.
The American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an interview on Friday that “at this point” Iraq had not been formally notified that its national police were in violation of the legislation, known as the Leahy Law. He said he remained optimistic that Iraqi officials would “do the right thing” and resolve the matter. Nonetheless, he said American officials had begun reviewing programs that might have to be ended.
The issue centers on one of the most sensitive subjects within the Iraqi government: the joint Iraqi-American inspection in May and subsequent investigation of a prison in eastern Baghdad known as Site 4.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?hp&ex=1159675200&en=4778bdd74a3db34f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
India trying to destabilise Pakistan: FO
ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: Foreign Office on Monday accused India of trying to destabilise Pakistan. Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said that Afghan territory was being used for such activities. However, she said that the Afghan government was not involved in “any destabilising” activity.
Terming Indian allegations against Pakistan about cross-border activities false, she said that Pakistan did not support terrorism. “Pakistan is a victim of terrorism,” she said.
It had a record of fighting terrorism in collaboration with the international community, she added.
The spokesperson said a neutral expert was likely to decide about the Baglihar dam issue by the end of 2006.
President Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh might meet in Havana during the Non-Aligned Movement summit this month, Ms Aslam said.
“Since both leaders will be there, it has become possible that they may meet. They may discuss the peace process and all related issues,” she added.
EXTRADITION REQUEST: She said that the ministry of interior was processing a request of the United Kingdom for extradition of Raashid Rauf.
She said that the two countries were also negotiating an extradition treaty.
KABUL VISIT: She also said President Pervez Musharraf would visit Afghanistan at the invitation of President Hamid Karzai, the spokesperson said.
“Currently arrangements are being made and while I cannot talk about the exact date of president’s visit, I can confirm to you that yes, the visit is taking place,” Ms Aslam said.
Ms Aslam rejected suggestions that President Musharraf was visiting Afghanistan only to curry favour with Washington ahead of a meeting next month with US President George W. Bush.
“Good relations, strong relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are too important for both countries to be fostered or strengthened for the sake of any third party,” she said.
IRAQ SHOOTINGS: The spokesperson said that 14 women and a child, who survived the recent shootings by Iraqi insurgents, would return to Pakistan via Dubai on Sept 11, adding that they were currently staying in Karbala.
She said that there was no change in Pakistan’s position about not contributing troops to Iraq.—Agencies
http://www.dawn.com/2006/09/05/top6.htm
The Irony of NASA’s Nobel
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Published: October 5, 2006
NASA is basking in the glow of a Nobel Prize awarded to one of its scientists and to a Berkeley astronomer for research performed on a satellite built by NASA. The award is richly deserved, and the agency deserves great credit for making the work possible. Too bad the program that yielded these pioneering discoveries was reined in not long ago so that NASA could pour billions of dollars into resuming shuttle flights, finishing the international space station, and developing spacecraft to pursue the Bush administration’s ambitious space exploration program.
The research that won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was performed using instruments aboard the Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE satellite, which was launched in 1989. Huge teams of government and academic researchers measured and analyzed the cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates the universe. Their findings provided strong support for the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe, and turned cosmology, previously rather speculative, into a precise science. The discoveries have been hailed as one of the greatest scientific advances of the past century.
The COBE satellite was part of NASA’s Explorers Program, which uses small satellites to conduct important studies that don’t need gigantic, costly space platforms. Yet these and similar small-scale missions were disproportionately cut to free up money for more grandiose programs. The Nobel award suggests that NASA needs to rebalance its portfolio, a task the agency says is in progress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05thu3.html?_r=1&oref=slogincontinued ...
