Book to explain why coup was 'necessary'
PRADIT RUANGDIT & ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT
The government will soon publish a ''white book'' to explain to the world why the Sept 19 military coup was necessary. Prime Minister's Office Minister Thirapat Serirangsan said Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont is to announce when the book will be published.
''The broad principles of the book will explain the reasons for the coup. I am not sure whether the planned publication of the book is prompted by His Majesty the King's advice or not,'' said Mr Thirapat.
The King, while addressing the 26 new ministers sworn in on Monday, called on the cabinet to give priority to correcting the international community's perception of Thailand following the Sept 19 coup.
Government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalarp said the Council for National Security will publish the book.
Gen Surayud is scheduled to make his first foreign visit to Cambodia on Sunday. That will be followed over the next two months by the China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Nanning, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Asean summit in the Philippines.
Meanwhile, a key task for new Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram and his deputy, Sawanit Kongsiri, will be to shore up international confidence in Thailand's commitment to democratic values and its economic stability.
Mr Nitya has not clearly said which initiatives of the previous government he will give priority, said Foreign Ministry officials.
The minister also needs to restore the credibility of both Thailand and Asean, tainted by the ill-conceived campaign to have former deputy prime minister Surakiart Sathirathai replace Kofi Annan as UN secretary general, they said.
Mr Nitya, who served under then foreign minister Surakiart from 2000-2001 as permanent secretary before retiring, said the government would steer foreign policy without concern for political parties or special interests.
''I will uphold the national interest, not the interests of parties or any particular group, in implementing foreign policy,'' Mr Nitya said.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news07.php
Surayud: Martial law to stay for now
Gen Sonthi denies law helps in assets probes
PRADIT RUANGDIT & ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT
The interim government will consider lifting martial law when the time is right, but not now, according to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Gen Surayud, emerging from the first cabinet meeting since the government was formed on Sunday, said cabinet ministers discussed the validity of the martial law currently in effect.
''I'd like to say that we recognise people's rights and freedom and never ignore them.
[We] need to wait a while longer for the situation to calm. We will consider lifting martial law as soon as possible,'' the prime minister told reporters at Government House.
The cabinet decided to discuss the possibility of ending martial law with the Council for National Security (CNS), he said.
CNS chairman Sonthi Boonyaratkalin said officials had to analyse the chances of any political undercurrents. He said it was better to be safe than sorry.
Martial law will be lifted when authorities are confident of security.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news05.php
Rights advocates seek end to death penalty
BHANRAVEE TANSUBHAPOL
The Justice Ministry believes more than half of all Thais back the death penalty, while human rights advocates are demanding that it be abolished. Amnesty International members yesterday rallied in front of Bang Kwang prison in Nonthaburi province and submitted a letter to the Corrections Department chief, calling on the agency to end capital punishment.
However, Thongthong Chandarangsu, justice deputy permanent secretary, said the public should have the final say on whether there should be an end to the death penalty.
''I believe more than half of the Thai population want to maintain this kind of punishment. Many people disagree with repealing the death penalty. We have to listen to the public consensus,'' said Mr Thongthong, also the ministry's spokesman.
He said each country had different contexts and attitudes on protecting human rights, and therefore, the types of penalty suitable for them were varied.
For example, caning was still practised in a modern country like Singapore. Foreign people might not agree with such a punishment, but Singaporeans prefer to maintain the practice.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news10.php
Wijit vows to get education reform rolling
SIRIKUL BUNNAG
Education Minister Wijit Srisa-arn has pledged to get the hamstrung education reform moving while deciding which policies of the past government to keep or review as the ministry drafts its one-year work plan. Warranting serious consideration are the controversial plan to put state-run schools under the care of grassroots administrative agencies, and the 12-year free education policy.
Mr Wijit said policy priorities will be tabled before the prime minister today.
He maintained that the transfer of state-run schools to the care of provincial, municipal or tambon administration organisations would not be scrapped but fine-tuned instead.
While the issue is controversial, the ministry will consult with the Interior Ministry's power decentralisation committee on how to shift state-run schools to the local bodies with the least fuss and trouble, he said.
Mr Wijit vowed to rethink the policy to provide 12 years of free education amid critics' fears the rush into free schooling could strain the country's resources.
The minister said free education appeared to work better on paper than in practice. It must be reviewed to see if the government can afford the policy viewed at times as going ''too far, too fast''.
Many parents have complained about the implementation of the free education scheme, saying only tuition is subsidised while other expenses for textbooks, school uniforms and extra-curricular activities, have to be paid for.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news06.php
Paiboon to review Ua Arthorn housing scheme
ANJIRA ASSAVANONDA & PENCHAN CHAROENSUTHIPAN
Housing for the poor will be high on the agenda of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security which is set to look into the Ua Arthorn low-cost housing scheme initiated during the Thaksin Shinawatra administration, said Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham on his first day at work yesterday. ''Baan Ua Aarthorn was initiated with good intentions, but we may have to consider whether the method of achieving the goal is the best one. We need to talk more on this,'' he said.
The ministers at the Labour and Culture ministries, meanwhile, pledged to pursue a code of morality, ethics and integrity, which has been given overriding priority by the new government.
Mr Paiboon was welcomed at the ministry yesterday by ministry officials and civic groups which have been working with him closely.
Representatives of the National Federation for Urban Poor Community Organisations Development gave him a bunch of flowers, telling him they were glad about his appointment and hoped he would help solve their problems.
As former president of the Community Organisations Development Institute (Codi) which oversees the state-run Baan Man Kong project, Mr Paiboon said he would ensure the progress of Baan Man Kong, the completion of the community development plan, and welfare promotion for civic sector.
However, he said more discussion is needed on the National Housing Authority's Baan Ua Arthorn project.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news08.php
Experts fear Thira might move too fast
PIYAPORN WONGRUANG
Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Thira Sutabutra hopes to see the development of value-added farm produce to help farmers before he completes his one-year term. ''Increasing the value of farm produce is not all about food preservation. It's about how to pick up the best produce and turn it into the best products, which in turn would create more value and income for farmers,'' said the former rector of Kasetsart University.
However, the newly appointed minister did not clarify how value-added farm produce would help correct farm problems from the past. Nor did he say how he would integrate sufficiency-economy principles into the ministry's work.Academics and ministry officials have welcomed Mr Thira's appointment to head the ministry but said his strong background in agricultural technology might be a problem.
Senior academics who had worked with him at the university said Mr Thira was known to be a master of compromise, and that would help him settle any conflicts that may arise as he carries out his administrative work.
However, his specialisation in agricultural technology and value-added production could prompt him to push too hard for adoption of modern farm technologies, including the genetic modification of farm crops, said one academic.
Biologist Rapee Sakrik, a former rector of Kasetsart University, described Mr Thira as ''somewhat technologically progressive''.
The ministry needed someone down to earth, so the new minister should try his best to meet that need, he said.
Officials praised Deputy Agriculture Minister Rungruang Isarangkul Na Ayutthaya, saying he had much experience in developing agricultural strategies as he had served as the ministry's deputy permanent secretary for years.
Mr Rungruang specialised in developing water-related infrastructure and would be valuable in efforts to solve water-related problems, they said.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news09.php 
The Bangkok Post
City hopes to avert flood crisis
Ayutthaya villagers oppose diversion plan
POST REPORTERS
the evening downpour which was blamed for the traffic gridlock lasting several hours yesterday. — PATTARACHAI PREECHAPANICH
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration remained hopeful yesterday that a flood crisis would be averted in the city after the King granted permission for the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) to divert excess water onto his 250-rai private property in Ayutthaya's Thung Makham Yong field, prompting villagers in Sena district to follow suit. However, some 100 other villagers yesterday called on the Ayutthaya governor to stop diverting the excess water into open fields in the province, and dispatched volunteers to guard and patrol flood gates.
The villagers, led by Chatree Yooprasert, a provincial councillor, were opposed to the water diversion initiative on the grounds that it would be catastrophic to the province's agricultural lands.
''We, the people of Ayutthaya, are not second-class citizens,'' said Mr Chatree.
In response to the villagers' call, governor Somchai Chumrat ordered RID officials not to divert overflow into fields other than those agreed to.
The RID and provincial officials tried in vain to come to a deal with the farmers who doubted the department would be able to get rid of the water for them afterwards, a source said.
''The issue is likely to intensify. We have a massive amount of water flowing down, and we need to make clear how we will compensate them,'' said the source.
The BMA and the RID were hoping to save the capital from a deluge by diverting overflow from the Chao Phraya river to open fields, particularly in Ayutthaya, but not without the consent of the farmers.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news01.php
Flood control, disaster relief top the list of new cabinet's priorities
APINYA WIPATAYOTIN & PIYAPORN WONGRUANG
Flood control and disaster relief were top priorities for the new cabinet yesterday on its first working day after the King urged ministers to solve the flood crisis. Instead of going to their new offices, some ministers made inspection trips to flood-hit areas of Ayutthaya and Ang Thong provinces to see for themselves and give local authorities moral support.
Natural Resources and Environment Minister Kasem Sanitwong Na Ayutthaya, meanwhile, stressed a need to tackle deforestation and environmental degradation, which he said are the major causes of flood disasters.
Mr Kasem said forest rehabilitation should be high on the agenda because it is a long-term solution to flood problems.
He said he plans to overhaul forest management along border areas where dense forests had been depleted by local communities, leading to flash floods.
The minister, however, expressed concern about the complexity of water management because there were too many agencies involved.
Mr Kasem said he would jointly work out long-term solutions to flood problems with the Agriculture and Cooperatives and Interior ministers, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Kosit Panpiemras who is in charge of water management.
The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry's draft national water management plan will be discussed with various experts before it is forwarded to the cabinet, he said.
Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Thira Sutabutra told the Irrigation Department to make a comprehensive report on this year's rain and water volumes to devise effective flood control measures.
His instruction came after His Majesty the King told the new cabinet ministers, during their swearing-in ceremony on Monday, to find the cause of this year's devastating floods, which occurred despite rainfall being no more than usual.Interior Minister Aree Wongarya yesterday inspected the floods in Ang Thong province and told provincial authorities to step up relief operations to help about 60,000 affected villagers.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news03.php
Clean technology for a clean future
This concept car is GM's third rendition of what is termed as the reinvention of the automobile. It incorporates drive-by-wire and brake-by-wire technology to complement its zero-pollution technology
ALFRED THA HLA
Hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles (FCV) represent the future of this world because they can help address major societal concerns, such as phasing out petroleum and greenhouse gases and eventually pave the way for zero road pollution.
That's huge. The future? But before we even dream about hydrogen-powered FCVs running on Bangkok roads we need to be realistic. This new technology entails high costs in terms of putting in place the required infrastructure and tax incentives needed to drive the point home.
You'd probably see a few of these gems as concepts at future motor shows in Bangkok but as for being available in the mainstream market, that's still a long way given that the North American market would get production versions from BMW and Chevrolet in 2007 and 2011 respectively.
Right now General Motors is deploying about 100 units of the Equinox FCV in the US to get a feel of how consumers react to it; in the meantime it is preparing the necessary infrastructure - hydrogen refuelling stations, thanks to Shell.
Looking back at our own alternative energy infrastructure, crisis rather, and it's a given that it could take a while before the merits of hydrogen economy sink in and Thai motorists actually find it feasible.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/061006_Motoring/06Oct2006_motor007.php
Three firms to build ethanol plant
A sugar producer, an oil refiner and a zinc mining company have jointly formed a new company called Maesod Clean Energy Co to build an ethanol plant in northern Thailand, the companies said yesterday.
Padaeng Industry Plc, Southeast Asia's only zinc smelter operator, Mitr Phol Sugar Group, the country's largest sugar producer and exporter, and Thai Oil Plc, the country's largest oil refiner, will build the 1.5-billion-baht facility in Mae Sot, Tak province.
Commercial operations for the factory, which will produce 100,000 litres of ethanol a day from sugarcane juice, are expected to begin in 2009. By then, demand for ethanol is forecast to increase due to government promotion of gasohol 95, a 10% ethanol blend that is scheduled to replace Octane 95 at the pumps early next year.
''The venture will lift Thaioil's total ethanol production capacity to 600,000 litres a day in 2009 and enhance our business opportunities in terms of having more options for raw materials,'' said Viroj Mavichak, Thaioil's managing director.
In addition to the latest factory, Thaioil is now constructing a US$150-million ethanol factory, scheduled to become operational in 2008, that produces 500,000 litres per day from cassava roots. The company, which is 49.54% owned by the state-run oil giant PTT, plans to buy all the ethanol from both projects.
The joint-venture company was established with capital of 100 million baht. Padaeng Industry holds a 35% stake in the company; Petrogreen Co, a subsidiary of Mitr Phol Sugar Group also holds 35%, while Thaioil's stake is 30%.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/11Oct2006_biz35.php
Ministry to reconsider phase-out of octane 95
POST REPORTERS
The Energy Ministry will reconsider the ousted government's policy of ending the sale of octane 95 gasoline and switching to gasohol, a 10% ethanol-blended gasoline, early next year.
"The necessity of phasing out octane 95 gasoline will be reconsidered due to the fact that some countries still provide various grades of petrol to motorists despite their alternative fuel promotion campaigns," newly-appointed Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand said yesterday.
Owners of older cars that will be affected by the policy are planning to protest against the phase-out of premium gasoline after finding that gasohol is incompatible with their vehicles. There are more than 500,000 cars that are over 10 years old in the country.
Many motorists who have had bad experiences with gasohol have posted their criticisms on automotive websites such as www.mazdaclub.net and other car-related webboards, complaining that their fuel systems leaked after they filled their cars with gasohol for one or two months.
Siam Subaru Society, a club of local Subaru owners, has also sent chain letters to members saying gasohol is not recommended for Subaru cars, particularly older ones, since the engines are not designed to accommodate its use.
Some Mazda car owners sent inquiries to the Mazda service centre about the compatibility of gasohol with their cars. They were told octane 91 gasoline was more compatible while it was suggested they not use gasohol 95.
Despite gasohol 95 costing less than gasoline, the fuel consumption rate of cars using gasohol is higher than those using gasoline. Many gasohol users have also said cars using gasohol need to be refuelled more often than those using gasoline.
Some comments on the webboards invite people who will be adversely affected by the phase-out of premium gasoline to join the protest in front of the Energy Ministry.
"If the government wants to decrease energy consumption, it had better encourage people to save and cut down energy use, instead of totally phasing out some petrol from the market," one owner of an older car said.
In the United States or Germany where alternative fuels, for instance, compressed natural gas (CNG) and gasohol, are widely utilised, various grades of petrol are still available, he said. Consumers would choose whether gasoline or gasohol was more appropriate to their lifestyles and incomes, he added.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/10Oct2006_news03.php
Sonthi: List of 250 legislators now complete
WASSANA NANUAM
Coup leader Gen Sonthi Boonyaratkalin has chosen 250 members of the National Legislative Assembly, which will act as the country's parliament. Meanwhile, at least three names have emerged as strong contenders for the post of president of the assembly.
Gen Sonthi, as chairman of the Council for National Security (CNS), said yesterday that the selection of the legislators was complete and the names would be announced after receiving royal approval.
He would submit the list to His Majesty the King in two days. The legislators were drawn from experts representing government offices, the private sector, state enterprises and academia, he added.
He considered the selection of the legislators in a meeting yesterday with CNS vice-chairman ACM Chalit Phukphasuk, Supreme Commander Gen Boonsang Niampradit, navy chief Adm Sathiraphan Keyanont and national police chief Pol Gen Kowit Wattana.
Gen Sonthi said he had also discussed the assembly line-up with Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont on Monday. The prime minister, however, had not proposed anyone and left the matter under the sole authority of the CNS.
Meanwhile, a source in the CNS said at least three names have emerged as strong contenders for the presidency of the National Legislative Assembly. The source mentioned former prime minister Anand Panyarachun, former attorney-general Khanit na Nakhon, and former Senate speaker Meechai Ruchuphan.
The source also said some key CNS members had nominated their aides to the assembly but the final say rested with Gen Sonthi.
Under the interim constitution, the assembly can grill cabinet members but has no power to remove them from office. Only the prime minister has the authority to do so after getting approval from the King. The premier can also be removed by the CNS with royal approval.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news02.php
Alternatives to Thaksinomics
Populist schemes reflected real needs of the poor but execution was flawed
WICHIT CHANTANUSORNSIRI
While the government has yet to detail its policy focus for the next 12 months, the overriding theme would appear to centre on ''sufficiency economics'', a concept championed by His Majesty the King that emphasises prudent spending and sustainable development.
The focus is a repudiation of sorts to the policies of the Thaksin Shinawatra governments, which focused on boosting domestic consumption through provision of easy credit and transfers from the state. Grassroots development programmes such as the People's Bank microfinance scheme, 30-baht universal health care and village investment funds proved wildly popular among lower-income groups but were attacked by critics as being thinly disguised vote-buying by the ruling Thai Rak Thai party.
But economists say that while the populist programmes of the past five years may have contained abuses, there remains a very real need to assist the rural poor in terms of financial and social services.
''Implementation of the populist policies was open to certain abuse and execution was skewed from the original concept. But I still believe that at their heart, these were good policies,'' said Kitti Limskul, an economist and founding member of the Thai Rak Thai Party.
The 30-baht health-care programme, for instance, should have focused on the 30 to 40 million people who are uninsured or lack coverage from the Social Security Fund.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/11Oct2006_biz33.php
Business leaders hopeful for 2007
PARISTA YUTHAMANOP & DARANA CHUDASRI
Leading businessmen have offered a vote of confidence in the new cabinet, but say political uncertainties would continue to cloud sentiment for the near future. Khunying Jada Wattanasiritham, the president of Siam Commercial Bank, said reconciliation within society would be crucial for future economic growth.
''In our country, people love to show off their different ideas. Hopefully, we can remain courteous towards one another,'' she said at an economics seminar held by Kasetsart University yesterday.
Khunying Jada, who also chairs the Thai Bankers' Association, said business confidence for 2007 had improved after the new government committed to maintaining new infrastructure megaproject investments.
Even so, deficit spending by the government would be needed to help boost growth in light of a global economic slowdown. M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakula, the new finance minister, indicated yesterday that the fiscal 2007 deficit could reach 100 billion baht on expenditures of 1.52 trillion.
Khunying Jada urged businesses to move forward with their expansion plans, given that capacity utilisation stands at a relatively high 74% to 76%.
''Businesses should be less worried about the political and economic outlook and not hesitate about their expansion plans,'' she said.''I believe the new cabinet ministers understands [businesses] well. We can expect to see more balanced economic growth in the future.''
Declining global oil prices and expectations of a US interest-rate cut would help boost domestic consumption in 2007, Khunying Jada said.
But Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, the chief executive officer of Asia Plus Securities, said that political uncertainties remained a key risk for the economy.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/11Oct2006_biz34.php
TAC plans to float 25% stake on SET
First dual listing for local stock market
SRISAMORN PHOOSUPHANUSORN & KRISSANA PARNSOONTHORN
The mobile-phone operator Total Access Communication (TAC), owner of the local telecom brand DTAC, has submitted regulatory filings to float a 25% stake on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, which would make it the first dual-listed company on the local market.
After the initial public offering, which may be completed by the end of the year, major shareholder United Communication Industry (Ucom) plans to delist from the SET.
The filing was the ''first step in a long process'' and it was uncertain if the IPO could be completed by the end of the year, said Sigve Brekke, the chief executive of both TAC and Ucom.
The timing for the listing depended on approval from securities regulators, market conditions and a ''solution for the delisting of Ucom'', he said.
TAC, which was listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange in October 1995, will become the first company on the SET that is also listed on another stock exchange. Both TAC and Ucom are controlled by the Norwegian company Telenor.
The country's second-ranked mobile operator plans to sell up to 44.4 million shares at 10 baht par value in its IPO, according to documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The offering will include 28 million shares from Ucom plus 16.4 million new shares.
The share sale will reduce Ucom's holdings in TAC to 37.02% from 43.13%. After the IPO, Ucom's stake will be reduced further to 35.74% due to dilution from the new shares. Ucom expects to book an investment gain of 3.92 billion baht and delist from the SET after the offering.
News of the announcement helped push both TAC and Ucom shares higher. Shares of TAC on the Singapore Stock Exchange closed yesterday at US$3.98, up 0.51%. Over the past 12 months, the stock has traded between a high of $4.44 and a low of $2.78.
Shares of Ucom on the SET yesterday rose 7.78% in anticipation of a tender offer prior to a delisting. The stock closed at 45 baht, up 3.25 baht, on trade worth 45 million baht.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/11Oct2006_biz01.php
French inferiority complex
France's top three carmakers - Renault, Peugeot and Citroen - are widely known for stylish mass-market cars, but have never ventured into the luxury segment due to mediocre images and lack of technological expertise and funds. But the trio wants to show the world that they can design hi-end cars. So, welcome to this handsome trio of concept cars that obviously won't appear in showrooms.
Name: Renault Nepta
What is it: an open 2+2 sports cars with gullwing-style doors powered by Nissan's 3. - litre V6 but tuned to 420hp thanks to twin turbos.
What it's trying to say: those doors could appear in a new compact sports car.
Name: Citroen C-Metisse
What is it: a gorgeous laid-back two-seater with scissor-styled doors and diesel-hybrid engine.
What it's trying to say: brid is coming to Citroen cars soon.
Name: Peugeot 908
What is it: an awesome, eye-catching four-door saloon equipped with a V12 turbo-diesel.
What it's trying to say: a decent preview of how the next 607 large family saloon should look like.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/061006_Motoring/06Oct2006_motor006.php
2006 PARIS SHOW STARS
Diet Big Mac
MOTORING
The leaner MercMc SLR may not be all-new. But the improvements are aimed at overshadowing the Audi R8 and Alfa 8C supercars that are obviously stealing the limelight at the French car show
Alfa Romeo
8C Competizione
Like the Audi R8, this stunning Italian thoroughbred evolved directly from concept car form. The 8C gets a 450hp 4.7-litre V8 engine which is also used by Maserati and Ferrari. Unlike the R8, the modern/retro-looking Alfa will be produced in only small numbers: about 500, each costing around B20m.
Porsche
911 Targa
Porsche has revived the Targa tradition with a retractable glass-top body for its popular 911 range. The engine line-up isn't as serious as the other cars featured here and are more sensible instead: 325hp 3.6-litre and 355hp 3.8-litre flat-sixes priced at some B13-15m.
Mercedes-McLaren SLR 722 Edition
Treat this SLR has an updated model if you wish. The supercharged V8 engine has been tweaked to produce a higher 650hp. Weight has been shaved off by some 44kg by fitting more carbon-fibre parts, lighter 19-inch wheels and fuel tank. Thus, performance has improved in the 0-100kph run of 3.6sec (down 0.2), 0-200kph of 10.2sec (down 0.4) and 0-300kph of 28sec (down 0.8), while top speed is 3kph higher at 337kph. Chassis tweaks include bigger brakes, lower body and remapped ESP for easier drifting. Only 150 will be built, each priced over B80m.
Audi R8
The Ingolstadt carmaker wants to tell the market that it can build a supercar that's easy to live with. The R8 uses a similiar all-aluminium body construction of the Lamborghini Gallardo, but uses a smaller 420hp 4.2-litre V8. The mid-engined Audi is less powerful than would-be rivals, but carries a more attractive price of some B15m.
Mercedes-Benz CL
Merc's elite coupe enters its seventh generation and comes with a wrath of new technologies enhancing driving comfort and ease, notably the Pre-Safe systems revolving around active safety. There are three versions: CL500 (388hp V8), CL600 (512hp twin-turbo V12) and CL63 AMG (525hp V12) with an estimated price range of B17-22m.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/061006_Motoring/06Oct2006_motor005.php
Rain halts NSW and Royal Thai Navy date
EDWARD THANGARAJAH
Heavy rain with thunder and lightning ended the Rugby-80 match between defending champions New South Wales and the Royal Thai Navy at half-time last night at the Boonyachinda Stadium. But that did not affect the tournament. As the first half was completed, according to the organising secretary, Don McBain, New South Wales were awarded full points because they were leading 33-0.
But the other two matches were completed and the two Sri Lankan teams, the Defence Services and the Central Region XV gave good accounts.
Though beaten by Lloyd McDermott 24-18, the Sri Lankan Defence Forces team earned tremendous praise for their fighting brand of rugger at the Air Force School ground, where the match was played..
They battled till the last and in the final 20 minutes scored 10 points, via a try which was converted and put over a penalty.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Sports/11Oct2006_sport27.php
New tourism and sports minister must still convince sceptics
WANCHAI RUJAWONGSANTI
Suvit Yodmani is tourism and sports minister in the newly-formed government although he was not tipped by the press for the position. Sports journalists believed the top candidates, who have experience in sports, were Gen Vichit Yathip, president of the Swimming Association of Thailand; Gen Yutthasak Sasiprapha, president of the National Olympic Committee of Thailand; and Sakthip Krairiksh, permanent secretary of the Tourism and Sports Ministry.
Suvit is well-known internationally as an environmental management expert with his last position being director of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre.
He has not been involved much in sports, although he was a member of the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games organising committee supervising environmental issues.
Suvit, spokesman for the Chatichai Choonhavan government, was appointed tourism and sports minister apparently to help boost the tourism industry rather than pushing for sports development.
Fair enough. Tourism, one of Thailand's main sources of income, is far more important than sports in the current situation.
Whatever people in sports want from the new minister, they should not ask for too much. The government will stay in office for only one year and a number of ministers say one year is too short.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Sports/11Oct2006_sport24.php
BOATMEN WANT WATER LEVELS TO REMAIN HIGH
Deluge brings both misery and opportunity to Sena district
Story by TAWATCHAI KEMGUMNERD
Floods have created both misery and opportunity for people in Sena district of this former capital, as they have been having a hard time keeping their feet dry over the last two weeks. The rising floodwaters in the district have caused motorcycle taxis and operators of passenger buses to lose much of their income as roads have become impassable.
Most people now prefer to travel by boat, generating more income for boat owners who have turned into improvised shuttle ferry drivers.
''We don't want the floodwaters to recede,'' an owner of a passenger boat said jokingly.
He and the other boat owners are making a good income from running the ferry services for people getting to and from their houses or to a local market and downtown areas.
Boat fares range from 10-30 baht per trip depending on distance. More than 30 boats are involved in the brisk business, as passenger buses and other land transport vehicles have been forced to suspend their services as floodwaters continue to rise.
One noodle vendor has even abandoned his cart for a boat which he paddles along the flooded streets and communities to hawk food. He said the noodles are selling like hot cakes right now.
But the floods have done little to dampen the spirits of residents. It's business as usual as shops and banks have remained open.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/11Oct2006_news04.php
The New York Times
Word of Test Confirms Stances in 2 Nations
By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARTIN FACKLERPublished: October 11, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 10 — In the suburbs north of here, the thaw between the Koreas has led South Korea to dismantle highway barricades meant to slow down an invasion of North Korean tanks. Japan, meanwhile, has begun investing billions of dollars in erecting a high-tech shield against North Korean missiles.
South Korea and Japan, America’s two major allies in this region, have grown increasingly apart in their attitudes and policies toward North Korea, even though President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday that the North’s announcement of a nuclear test had put him on the same page as Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Still, despite the gravity of an reported nuclear test, the calculations and interests that have led each country on its respective path have changed little. What’s more, random interviews with South Koreans and Japanese on Tuesday suggested that the test, rather than changing public opinion, has merely reinforced it.
South Koreans interviewed, while expressing anger and disappointment, said they did not support the economic sanctions and other punitive measures sought by the United States and Japan, but called for continuing to engage the North, though with more sticks. Japanese were decisively hawkish.
“The North Koreans are so greedy,” said Moon Won-tae, 69, who like most South Koreans of his generation was once fiercely anti-Communist. “They want more and more from us. They keep transferring the aid we give them into weapons.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/asia/11korea.html?hp&ex=1160625600&en=af69a64030e63be0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Solving the Korean Stalemate, One Step at a Time
By JIMMY CARTER
Published: October 11, 2006
ATLANTA
IN 1994 the North Koreans expelled inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and were threatening to process spent nuclear fuel into plutonium, giving them the ability to produce nuclear weapons.
With the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula, there was a consensus that the forces of South Korea and the United States could overwhelmingly defeat North Korea. But it was also known that North Korea could quickly launch more than 20,000 shells and missiles into nearby Seoul. The American commander in South Korea, Gen. Gary Luck, estimated that total casualties would far exceed those of the Korean War.
Responding to an invitation from President Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and with the approval of President Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and negotiated an agreement under which North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit inspectors from the atomic agency to return to the site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. It was also agreed that direct talks would be held between the two Koreas.
The spent fuel (estimated to be adequate for a half-dozen bombs) continued to be monitored, and extensive bilateral discussions were held. The United States assured the North Koreans that there would be no military threat to them, that it would supply fuel oil to replace the lost nuclear power and that it would help build two modern atomic power plants, with their fuel rods and operation to be monitored by international inspectors. The summit talks resulted in South Korean President Kim Dae-jung earning the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his successful efforts to ease tensions on the peninsula.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/opinion/11carter.html
Test Byproduct: Quick Scramble to Point Fingers
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGPublished: October 11, 2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — North Korea’s claim that it detonated a nuclear device rippled through American politics on Tuesday, nowhere more so than at a Shriner’s hall in Michigan, where Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, sought to place the blame on former President Bill Clinton.
The North Korean Challenge
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Go to Timeline“I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration’s policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure,” Mr. McCain said, referring to his potential rival for the presidency in 2008, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Mr. McCain’s attack was part of an increasingly bitter partisan row over who was responsible for allowing North Korea to achieve nuclear ability.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11politics.html?hp&ex=1160625600&en=03358e3cb87f2744&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: October 11, 2006
BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.
The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.
But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.
It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It uses samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast/11casualties.html
3rd Iraq Death Has One Town Shaken to Core
By PETER APPLEBOMEPublished: October 11, 2006
HIGHLAND, N.Y.
Michael K. Oremus was killed on Oct. 2, at the age of 21.
Army Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, of Highland, N.Y. was killed when a man detonated the car he was driving at a checkpoint outside the city of Najaf in south-central Iraq Saturday, March 29, 2003.
Doron Chan, 20, died on 3/18/04 near Balad, in Iraq.
When Eugene Williams was killed by a suicide bomber north of Najaf, Iraq, on March 29, 2003, the grief was shadowed by what looked like a cruel accident of history. Only 11 days later, Baghdad fell. If he had lived a few more days, people thought, the war would have been over.
When Doron Chan died on March 18, 2004, after his vehicle turned over near Balad, it seemed too much to bear. This Hudson River town of 10,000 had accounted for three of the 58,000 servicemen lost in Vietnam. Now two of its sons were among what was then 600 lost in Iraq? How could that be?
But when Pfc. Michael K. Oremus — “Mikey O” to his friends — was killed by a sniper bullet in Baghdad on Oct. 2, the numbers lost all meaning, washed away by tears: Jimmy Ventriglia crying all 45 minutes of his drive to coach soccer at West Point, Kevin Brennie unable to pull himself together when he heard the news at the town hall, tears and more tears at the wake here yesterday.
Death is more tornado than hurricane, picking its spots with capricious malice, but a third soldier gone, Mikey O, in this close-knit throwback of a town, Grover’s Corners on the Hudson, seemed particularly beyond grief, beyond pain, beyond knowing.
“You have to understand, all the relationships here are so layered,” said Peter Harris, who coached Mr. Oremus on the high school soccer team and taught him English. “You know people, you know their brothers and their parents, you know them for generations. So I held Michael when he was a baby, I played with him when he was 2 or 3, I coached him in high school, I played soccer with him after he graduated, as a friend. You don’t experience that most places in the world. But you do here.”
In this Ulster County town of deep ties and long memories, where family and soccer are two of the most enduring threads, few family names mean more than Oremus. Michael’s older brothers, Eric and Richard, were soccer stalwarts. His parents, Madeline and Bruce, were universally admired. And when Bruce Oremus, who coached youth soccer teams in Highland and taught special education nearby in New Paltz, died of cancer in 1995, everyone in town shared the pain.
Many also shared the job of raising Michael, then 11 years old, a small, thin boy with a shock of blond hair. The Oremus family’s kid brother became something of the town’s kid brother as well. And if part of that meant developing a bit of moxie to be able to stand up to bigger brothers and bigger kids, he did it in spades. Despite his size, Michael was the kind of kid who would put on the goalie’s gloves in practice and dare teammates, dare them, to kick one by him. The one in any group who would be first to vote yes on whatever plan was in the offing.
After graduating from high school in 2002, and a short stint studying at Dutchess Community College and doing odd jobs, he had a surprise announcement for his soccer buddies. He would not be playing with them next year. He had joined the Army to become a military policeman, a job that almost certainly meant hazardous duty in Iraq.
Some were scared for him, but they were impressed as well. “When he told me, I was shocked,” said Mr. Brennie, who runs a pizza parlor where Mr. Oremus worked and who serves on the Town Council. “I thought, this kid has way more guts than anyone ever realized.”
After he enlisted in February 2005, he came back from training beaming — buff, grown up, his post-graduation uncertainty washed away by the rigor and mission of military life. While many here worried over every casualty report on the radio, others felt oddly insulated. They figured Highland had already overpaid its bill to the god of war. “We had lost two people already,” said his best friend, Jacob Brett. “It seemed impossible to me we could lose anyone else.”
When the impossible happened, some could not separate one town’s tragedy from a nation’s. “Highland should not send another soldier to Iraq,” one woman told the local newspaper, The Mid-Hudson Post Pioneer. Mr. Brett said neither he nor Mr. Oremus had been political, but the death had changed him. “I hope this does make people look differently at the war,” Mr. Brett said. “I don’t want any other people to go through what we’re going through.”
But for most, for now, the grief has obliterated the larger debate over the war. For the people in Highland, like generations before them, it is about young people who died much too soon, about families having to cope with too much and, this time, about a burden no town should have to bear.
On the road into town, there are war memorials from the Civil War to Vietnam. The flagpole and monument in front of the Methodist church honors those who served and those who died “in the Great War of the Nations,” the quaint coinage before World War I merited a Roman numeral. And today, people say, the funeral for Mikey O, dead at 21, could be the biggest in town history.
“All three of them died so young,” said Mr. Brennie. “They had so much to offer, so much they wanted to achieve, and it was all ripped away.”
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/nyregion/11towns.html
Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims
By SCOTT SHANEPublished: October 11, 2006
Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.
“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.
Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.
About 2.6 million veterans were receiving disability compensation as of 2005, according to testimony to Congress by the V.A. The largest group of recipients is from the Vietnam era. Of the 1.1 million who served in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, 291,740 have been granted disability compensation.
The documents on the current conflicts provide no details on the type of disabilities claimed by veterans. Most were found to be 30 percent disabled or less, and one in 10 recipients was found to be 100 percent disabled. Payments run from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 a month depending on the severity of the disability.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/washington/11veterans.html
Union Disrupts Plan to Send Ailing Workers to India for Cheaper Medical Care
By SARITHA RAIPublished: October 11, 2006
BANGALORE, India, Oct. 10 — A few weeks ago, Carl Garrett, a 60-year-old North Carolina resident, was packing his bags to fly to New Delhi and check into the plush Indraprastha Apollo Hospital to have his gall bladder removed and the painful muscles in his left shoulder repaired. Mr. Garrett was to be a test case, the first company-sponsored worker in the United States to receive medical treatment in low-cost India.
But instead of making the 20-hour flight, Mr. Garrett was grounded by a stormy debate between his employer, which saw the benefits of using the less expensive hospitals in India, and his union, which raised questions about the quality of overseas health care and the issue of medical liability should anything go wrong.
“I was looking forward to the adventure of being treated in India,” Mr. Garrett said the other day. “But my company dropped the ball.”
The union, the United Steelworkers, stepped in after it heard about Mr. Garrett’s plans, saying it deplored a “shocking new approach” of sending workers to low-cost countries as a way to cut health care costs. Its officials insisted that Mr. Garrett be offered a health care option within the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11health.html
Far From Big City, Hidden Toll of Homelessness
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLDPublished: October 11, 2006
TRINIDAD, Colo. — As the Bush administration promotes a widely praised multibillion-dollar effort to end chronic homelessness in cities like Washington and San Francisco, a growing outcry is rising from rural areas that worsening problems far away from urban centers are being overlooked.
Rural homelessness has always taken a back seat to the more glaring problems in cities. Most studies estimate homeless people in small towns account for about 9 percent of the 600,000 or so homeless nationwide. But local officials and advocates for the homeless in small towns say that economic distress in recent years, including closing plants, failing farms, rising housing costs and other troubles, has left more people without homes and in greater need of help.
Real numbers are hard to come by because most rural areas, where homeless services often means ad-hoc help from church groups or volunteers, are far behind a parade of cities taking head counts.
“We are concerned that the focus on chronic homelessness may have the unintended consequence of shifting services away from families and rural communities,” said John Parvensky, executive director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, one of several groups pushing the federal government to turn more attention to rural areas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/11homeless.html?hp&ex=1160625600&en=d55e8b1a2e6fb620&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Copper Plant Illegally Burned Hazardous Waste, E.P.A. Says
By RALPH BLUMENTHALPublished: October 11, 2006
HOUSTON, Oct. 10 — A bankrupt copper giant facing billions of dollars in pollution claims across the nation pretended for years to recycle metals while illegally burning hazardous waste in a notorious El Paso smelter, according to a newly released Environmental Protection Agency document.
The agency, in a 1998 internal memorandum, said the company, Asarco, and its Corpus Christi subsidiary, Encycle, had a permit to extract metals from hazardous waste products but used that as a cover to burn the waste until the late 1990’s, saving the high costs of proper disposal.
Among the more than 5,000 tons the company was accused of misrepresenting as containing metals for reclamation were more than 300 tons of nonmetallic residues from the former Army chemical warfare depot at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal outside Denver. (It is not clear what the arsenal’s material contained.)
“This activity, plain and simple, was illegal treatment and disposal of hazardous waste,” the environmental agency said in the memorandum, long held confidential but recently obtained by two El Paso environmental groups opposed to the smelter. “Encycle’s own business records provide compelling evidence of sham recycling.”
There was no response to messages left for an Asarco spokeswoman at corporate offices in Tucson and for the El Paso plant manager. But a company history states, “Asarco is committed to responsible management of our natural resources.”
Asarco was founded as the American Smelting and Refining Company in 1899 and was bought by Mexican interests in 1999. It has long faced complaints of contaminating broad swaths of downtown El Paso and borderland areas of Mexico with lead and other dangerous metals, and it has been the target of federal, state and local complaints involving at least 94 sites in 21 states.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/11toxic.html
Cooking Defines Sephardic Jews at Sukkot
By JULIA MOSKINPublished: October 11, 2006
LIKE its trees, Brooklyn’s sukkahs sprout in unlikely places.
All over the borough, observant Jewish families spent the first week of October building sukkahs, outdoor rooms with open roofs, in preparation for the holiday of Sukkot, which began last Friday and ends this Friday. Perched on asphalt roofs and in concrete gardens, they will eat under the stars for a week to commemorate the Jews’ biblical wanderings in the desert.
For one food-loving community within Brooklyn’s sizable Jewish population, Sukkot has additional significance.
“We always cook a lot, but for Sukkot, we do even more,” said Aida Hasson, who grew up in Beirut and is part of Brooklyn’s tight-knit community of Middle Eastern Jews.
This network of a few hundred families shares roots in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, and also an extraordinary culinary tradition. They use the term Syrian Jews, to distinguish themselves within the larger world of the Sephardim, the Jews of the Mediterranean.
“We call ourselves Syrian, Sephardic, Middle Eastern, whatever,” said Giselle Habert, who was born in Cairo. “The important thing is that we all know each other, and we all cook the same things.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/dining/11sephardic.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You
By KIM SEVERSONPublished: October 11, 2006
Ithaca, N.Y.
PEOPLE almost always think they are too smart for Prof. Brian Wansink’s quirky experiments in the psychology of overindulgence.
When it comes to the slippery issues of snacking and portion control, no one thinks he or she is the schmo who digs deep into the snack bowl without thinking, or orders dessert just because a restaurant plays a certain kind of music.
“To a person, people will swear they aren’t influenced by the size of a package or how much variety there is on a buffet or the fancy name on a can of beans, but they are,” Dr. Wansink said. “Every time.”
He has the data to prove it. Dr. Wansink, who holds a doctorate in marketing from Stanford University and directs the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, probably knows more about why we put things in our mouths than anybody else. His experiments examine the cues that make us eat the way we do. The size of an ice cream scoop, the way something is packaged and whom we sit next to all influence how much we eat. His research doesn’t pave a clear path out of the obesity epidemic, but it does show the significant effect one’s eating environment has on slow and steady weight gain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/dining/11snac.html
Low-Sulfur Diesel Fuel Is Reaching Market
Like lead, sulfur generates air pollution that leads to severe health consequences. Like lead, it also gums up the works of fine-tuned pollution control devices, making it exceedingly difficult to produce cleaner-burning engines.
So the new fuel will pave the way for new generations of diesel engines that experts say will eventually cut lethal particulate pollution from diesel tailpipes an estimated 95 percent.
On Tuesday, the Bush administration embraced this signal accomplishment as its own, ignoring the origins of the underlying regulation in the 1990’s and the fact that it became effective in December 2000, before President Bush took office.
In a news conference in Columbus, Ind., the headquarters of Cummins Engine, a major manufacturer of diesel engines, the environmental protection administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said, “Under President Bush’s leadership, the pumps are primed to deliver clean diesel and a cleaner future for America.”
The new fuel contains 15 parts per million of sulfur, down from the standard of 500 parts per million, thanks to changes in the refining process. As of Sunday, at least 80 percent of the diesel available for trucks and buses has to meet the new standard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/washington/11diesel.html
Yahoo Feels Breath on Neck
By SAUL HANSELLPublished: October 11, 2006
As Google whips out its fat wallet to buy the video site YouTube, it is making Yahoo look even more out of step with the fast-changing Internet advertising market.
Yahoo itself tried to buy YouTube just a few weeks ago and got as close as negotiating price and terms, according to an executive briefed on the discussions. But the talks broke down, and Google swooped in and closed the deal quickly, just as it has in several recent partnership negotiations. Indeed, many Internet executives are noting just how often Yahoo appears to be late and slow, both in its own business and in negotiations with other companies.
Yahoo would seem to have a strong hand. It is the world’s most popular Web site, with more than 400 million monthly users and a major seller of advertising for its own and other sites. It has top Web properties in areas like e-mail messaging and music. And its management team, led by Terry S. Semel, a former Hollywood executive, is well regarded for its skill and financial rigor.
But in recent months the company has suffered some embarrassing setbacks in its sales of both display and Web search advertising. Many advertising industry executives say Yahoo’s lead in working with big marketers has eroded as other companies have built up popular Web sites, sales operations and advertising technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/technology/11yahoo.html?hp&ex=1160625600&en=2b60d0f8452222f8&ei=5094&partner=homepage
U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren
By JOHN MARKOFFPublished: October 11, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 10 — The government of Libya reached an agreement on Tuesday with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, with the goal of supplying machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008.
The project, which is intended to supply computers broadly to children in developing nations, was conceived in 2005 by a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nicholas Negroponte. His goal is to design a wireless-connected laptop that will cost about $100 after the machines go into mass production next year.
To date, Mr. Negroponte, the brother of the United States intelligence director, John D. Negroponte, has reached tentative purchase agreements with Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria and Thailand, and has struck a manufacturing deal with Quanta Computer Inc., a Taiwanese computer maker.
Mr. Negroponte, who was in Tripoli this week to meet with Libyan officials, said he discussed the project extensively with the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in August.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/africa/11laptop.html
Royal P.R.: People’s Princess Obliterates the Stiff Upper Lip
By CARYN JAMESPublished: October 11, 2006
“In the end her celebrity killed her,” Sarah Bradford writes in “Diana,” the latest echoey addition to the unstoppable line of biographies of the Princess of Wales. That conclusion is inane, but it has a certain lived-by-the-sword, died-by-the-sword neatness. No one understood or manipulated her own celebrity better than Diana, whose cultural legacy — transforming royals into pop stars — is the template for two new films, “The Queen” and “Marie Antoinette,” and a boomlet of lesser works about royals.
EDiana is a very visible ghost throughout the director Stephen Frears’s “Queen,” appearing not in the guise of an actress but in actual snippets from the news. Her strong presence makes sense because this incisive film, set during the week after the princess’s death, is precisely about what Diana wrought, a new era of royals as accessible, media-ready personalities.
And although Diana is nowhere in “Marie Antoinette,” the writer and director Sofia Coppola smartly puts her lessons to use, viewing this 18th-century queen through the lens of pop culture. Kirsten Dunst plays Marie Antoinette as a contemporary woman plopped down in Versailles, her life set to bouncy 1980’s music despite her towering wigs. Diana’s blend of royalty and rock-star glitz has become so absorbed by the culture that it infuses the film, whether Ms. Coppola had her in mind or not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/movies/11roya.html
U.S. Says Blacks in Mississippi Suppress White Vote
The action represents a sharp shift, and it has raised eyebrows outside the state. The government is charging blacks with voting fraud in a state whose violent rejection of blacks’ right to vote, over generations, helped give birth to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet within Mississippi the case has provoked knowing nods rather than cries of outrage, even among liberal Democrats.
The Justice Department’s main focus is Ike Brown, a local power broker whose imaginative electoral tactics have for 20 years caused whisperings from here to the state capital in Jackson, 100 miles to the southwest. Mr. Brown, tall, thin, a twice-convicted felon, the chairman of the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee and its undisputed political boss, is accused by the federal government of orchestrating — with the help of others — “relentless voting-related racial discrimination” against whites, whom blacks outnumber by more than 3 to 1 in the county.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11voting.html
Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books
TAX BREAKS FOR THE CLERGY Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif. The church’s founder fought for tax breaks for clergy members, citing their service to society. Such breaks help both poorly and well-paid ministers, but are not available to low-paid teachers or secular charity workers.
But for tens of thousands of ministers — and their financial advisers — Pastor Warren will also be remembered as their champion in a fight over the most valuable tax break available to ordained clergy members of all faiths: an exemption from federal taxes for most of the money they spend on housing, which typically represents roughly a third of their compensation. Pastor Warren argued that the tax break is essential to poorly paid clergy members who serve society.
The tax break is not available to the staff at secular nonprofit organizations whose scale and charitable aims compare to those of religious ministries like Pastor Warren’s church, or to poorly paid inner-city teachers and day care workers who also serve their communities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religious.html?ei=5094&en=3e7ff24164bf9aae&hp=&ex=1160625600&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1160568872-B3jfWYKBBRsDlCl57mQB2g
Wesley Clark’s Firm Wars With Former AnalystThe Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group, a brokerage firm led by Gen. Wesley K. Clark, has sued a former analyst, accusing him of creating Web sites that use the firm’s trademarks and executives’ names to settle scores with his old employer.
Matthew Murray, the analyst, has said Rodman fired him in March after he resisted pressure not to downgrade a stock and complained to authorities. The suit contends that Mr. Murray set up Web sites resembling Rodman’s to disseminate defamatory statements about the firm.
The Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over whistle-blower cases, has been looking into the circumstances under which Mr. Murray was dismissed from the firm. Under the terms of the Wall Street research analyst settlement struck with regulators in 2002, brokerage firms are barred from punishing their analysts for issuing negative reports on companies they follow.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=8224
Religious Programs Expand, So Do Tax Breaks
By DIANA B. HENRIQUESPublished: October 10, 2006
The similarities between Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, on the north side of South Bend, Ind., and Hermitage Estates, south of town, are almost disorienting. The two retirement communities have the same simple gabled ranch houses, with the same touches of brick and stone, clustered around a pond with the same fountain funneling spray into the air and ducks waddling down the grassy bank.
In God's NamePart 3: Giving Exemptions
Articles in this four-part series examine how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government.
Other Articles in the Series
Part 1: Favors for the FaithfulPart 2: Limiting Workers' RightsBut the retired residents of Hermitage Estates pay an average of about $2,300 per unit in property taxes. The management of Holy Cross Village, the Brothers of Holy Cross, says that development should be exempt from property taxes, and it has taken that argument to court.
As the Brothers of Holy Cross, a Roman Catholic religious order, sees it, providing the elderly with the amenities of the village — a sense of security, social opportunities and various services to make independent living easier — is a charitable activity rooted in its pastoral mission to serve others.
Members of the St. Joseph County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, all but one of them lifelong Catholics, see it differently. To them, a charitable ministry does not consist of providing lovely retirement living to affluent people. The current residents of Holy Cross Village have an average net worth of $1 million. Those with deposits on the units under construction are even better off, averaging $1.6 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/business/10religious.html?em&ex=1160712000&en=037df5c4f10f6365&ei=5087%0A
New Zealand Herald
Landslip homeowner may strengthen cliff
1.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
The owner of a $1 million Auckland house in danger of collapsing into the sea after a landslip may try to strengthen the cliff in a bid to save the home.
The house in Awanui Street in the North Shore suburb of Birkenhead was left precariously perched when part of the cliff collapsed into Auckland's Waitemata Harbour 10 days ago.
It was evacuated and declared uninhabitable.
However, the owner is now considering having the cliff stabilised and strengthened to stop further collapse and the house retained on the site.
It was one of several options being considered, a spokesman for the North Shore City Council said.
Any decision would need council approval.
The house lost most if its back yard and two large pohutukawa trees which toppled about 40 metres into the harbour in the middle of a rain storm.
EQC engineers and geotech experts were due to meet the owner of the house to discuss its future.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405410
Asean ministers plan talks as haze lingers
6.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
KUALA LUMPUR - South-East Asian ministers will meet soon to discuss ways to help Indonesia extinguish forest and brush fires causing a thick smog blanketing the region, officials said yesterday.
Malaysia got a slight breather from the haze on Tuesday as air pollution levels fell, with environmental officials saying pollution was at unhealthy levels in just two areas after a sharp rise at the weekend.
Environment ministers from the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations could gather in Singapore as early as this week to try to help Indonesia put out the fires and prevent them recurring in future, a Malaysian government official said.
Forest fires are burning mainly in Indonesia's part of Borneo island and on Sumatra island, also in Indonesia. Most are deliberately lit. Each dry season, forest is illegally torched to clear land for agriculture, blanketing Southeast Asia in smog.
Malaysia fears the haze could hit tourism and businesses if Indonesia does not stamp out the fires soon.
Malaysia's largest opposition party, the mainly Chinese Democratic Action Party, handed a protest note to officials of the Indonesian embassy on Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, urging Jakarta to stop the burning.
Galvanised by the 1997-98 fires, Southeast Asian countries signed the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002, but Indonesia has yet to ratify the pact.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405329
Shipping giant Maersk reacts to ports merger plan
Wednesday October 11, 2006
Shipping giant Maersk New Zealand is weighing up the implications of today's news that Port of Tauranga and Ports of Auckland are considering a merger.
Maersk was expected to make a decision this week on what ports it would call on after expressing a wish in August for greater rationalisation among ports.
Today, Maersk NZ's managing director Tony Gibson said it was a complex proposal and Maersk was yet to form a view on its implications for shipping services or its customers.
He said it remained to be seen whether the proposal assisted or threatened its goals.
"Our goal remains to help our New Zealand customers create the most efficient supply chain possible to reach their international markets."
>> Background: Facts and figures about the two ports
>> Merger of Auckland and Tauranga ports 'logical'
However, fears that a merger will lessen competition and efficiencies were expressed by the Importers Institute's secretary Daniel Silva.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10405466
Australia's top cop criticises UN police
7.45pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA - Australia's top policeman has given a blunt assessment of United Nations police sent to world trouble spots and said a group of Bangladeshi police sent to East Timor could be more of a hindrance than a help.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the United Nations was increasingly relying on civilian police rather than troops for security deployments, but they were often poorly trained and more comfortable policing at home.
"Nor are we likely to see overnight any major successes with the arrival in recent days of 186 police from Bangladesh to serve in Timor Leste," Keelty told Australia's national press club.
"It's a familiar story for the UN. It's hard to get donations of police skills of comparable ability from all around the world, and we find ourselves increasingly trying to help those police who are sent to help."
The United Nations is increasingly relying on police in the aftermath of the Iraq war, arguing they are often better suited than soldiers for apprehending criminals and calming rioting mobs.
Australia has around 700 police deployed to Sudan, Jordan, the Solomon Islands and East Timor, where they were sent in May this year following an outbreak of ethnic violence fuelled by fighting within the security forces. At least 21 people died and more than 150,000 were displaced.
As part of its rebuilding, East Timor has asked the United Nations for at least 800 police to help stabilise the country for a period of five years.
Australia led a force of 3200 foreign peacekeepers to end the May fighting, which pitted East Timor's police and military against one another.
There are currently 130 Australian police in the fledgling nation, helping train and rebuild the East Timor police force, and assisting the United Nations to maintain security.
Keelty said the United Nations' multi-nation approach to training East Timor's police following the country's vote for independence from Indonesia had been a clear failure.
The world body is preparing a report into the May violence and the massacre of 12 unarmed police by soldiers outside UN police headquarters in Dili.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405469
National predicts $10b surplus
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Government's books are "healthy", says Prime Minister Helen Clark, but National says Labour has gone too far, and will today announce it has stockpiled a record $10 billion surplus.
The Crown accounts are to be revealed today and Helen Clark has said she expected them to contain a "pretty healthy" result.
As Parliament returned yesterday after a three-week recess, National finance spokesman John Key asked Finance Minister Michael Cullen if the Crown accounts would reveal a record $10 billion surplus.
"Having now produced surpluses of over $20 billion in the past three years alone, can he understand why the public of New Zealand are getting fed up with his excuses for not delivering tax cuts?"
Dr Cullen would only point to National's own change in tax policy. Leader Don Brash last week said the party was looking at incremental changes, rather than the immediate personal tax cuts it had promised during the 2005 election.
Treasury's latest estimates show the Government running an operating surplus of close to $9 billion.
The question came in the context of business tax, with Dr Cullen saying the total cost of business tax cuts brought into effect on April 1 this year was $1.1 billion over four years. "This represents the largest cut to business taxes since the late 1980s."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405347
Record surplus, but Cullen 'won't know about tax cuts until December'
UPDATED 6.05pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Ian Llewellyn
Finance Minister Michael Cullen today edged ever closer to confirming tax cuts in 2008 as Treasury reported another strong surplus for the last financial year.
The final Crown accounts recorded a headline operating surplus of $11.5 billion in the 2005/2006 financial year.
This was slightly misleading as $1.8 billion of this was due to a one-off change in the way the tax take was recorded.
The accounts showed that after adjustments for all accounting changes and revaluations, the Government recorded an $8.6 billion surplus with a cash surplus of $3 billion after capital expenditure and investments.
Dr Cullen said the operating balance after revaluations was the best measure and this was running at 5.5 per cent of GDP, which was slightly lower than last year's equivalent of $8.8 billion or 5.9 per cent of GDP.
He said those who had called for tax cuts from this money would have had to borrow to pay for contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and other investments.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405422
Local banks top in customer survey, HSBC trails
1.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
New Zealand-owned banks TSB and PSIS have topped the latest Consumers' Institute survey of customer satisfaction.
Both scored a 98 per cent approval rating, with ASB Bank, Kiwibank and National Bank all given ratings higher than 90 per cent.
HSBC was given the lowest satisfaction rating for the third year running, at 47 per cent.
BNZ, ANZ and Westpac were all below the average approval rating of 84 per cent.
The Consumer survey is the largest survey of its kind, with more than 8200 respondents from a random selection of 12,000 Consumer subscribers.
PSIS chief executive Girol Karacaoglu said personal service was "absolutely critical".
"We know all our customers by name or at least we try to. They are not numbers, they are people," he told National Radio.
"Whether you are a millionaire or earn $10,000 a year, you are treated exactly the same."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405398
Fault at Telecom causes call problems
11.40am Wednesday October 11, 2006
A software fault at Telecom affected call routing for some services, particularly 0800 and 0900 numbers this morning.
Telecom says the problem was sorted out in about half an hour, however there are still reports of glitches across the system.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10405401
Australians warned not to import NZ party pills
8.45am Wednesday October 11, 2006
Australians are being warned they face jail sentences if caught importing party pills from New Zealand.
The benzylpiperazine-based pills are widely available in New Zealand, both in shops and online, but are banned in some Australian states including New South Wales.
Sydney drug squad commander, Detective Superintendent David Laidlaw, said New South Wales residents found in possession of the synthetically produced drugs faced two years in jail.
"We have identified a number of New Zealand-based companies advertising on the internet, which are supplying residents across Australia with these products," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405375
Wrongly jailed women 'mistreated because young and brown', say lawyers [+audio]
Wednesday October 11, 2006
Lawyers claim three wrongly jailed women did not get higher compensation because of their age, race and social background.
Yesterday it was announced that Lucy Akatere, Tania Vini and McCushla Fuataha are to get payments ranging between $162,000 and $176,00.
Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb has said the compensation is not enough and he believed the girls had been "mucked around" because they were young and Polynesian.
Another lawyer, Peter Williams QC, who is also president of the Howard League for penal reform, said today there was "no doubt the colour of their skin" was a factor and if the women were people of high status their compensation would have been far greater.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405371
Victim shot in buttocks in suspected home invasion
10.00am Wednesday October 11, 2006
A Lower Hutt man shot in the buttocks on Monday night is likely to be interviewed by police today.
Police said the man was at his Naenae home when he was confronted by three men in what appeared to have been a home invasion.
The man was shot in the buttocks and thigh with a .22 rifle. He was treated in Hutt Hospital for injuries including a broken femur.
Sergeant Brent Murray said the man was in a delirious state after the incident and police had initially not been able to interview him.
They hoped to do so today as he recovered from surgery.
The three men were described as male Maori or Polynesians, one with long black hair to his shoulders and wearing a bold red coloured long-sleeved hooded sweatshirt.
Police were alerted to the incident when another occupant of the house ran to a service station and called them.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405385
Possum poison fire sends 18 to hospital
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Juliet Rowan
Eighteen people were taken to Rotorua Hospital yesterday after inhaling toxic fumes as possum bait burned.
Workers at a Lakeland Helicopters hangar in Murupara, southwest of Rotorua, were preparing the bait for a drop when it caught fire.
Fourteen workers and four firefighters were taken to hospital as a precaution after breathing in the brodifacoum fumes.
The Fire Service said one person showed signs of distress while a Rotorua Hospital spokeswoman said five of the 14 workers required a full medical examination but most were found to have had only minimal exposure to the chemical.
The cause of the fire is unknown but Rotorua's chief fire officer, Wayne Bedford, said it might have started when petrol was decanted.
The flames had spread quickly through 10 100kg bags of brodifacoum, a pesticide also used to kill rodents.
"It's basically a glorified rat poison," Mr Bedford said. "The fumes can be quite toxic."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405353
Let Iranian stay and cook, says National
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Ruth Berry
The National Party has thrown its weight behind calls for an Iranian chef in jail to be given residency instead of a deportation order.
National immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith said last week's decision by Associate Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove not to intervene against an expulsion order for Hossein Yadegary appeared illogical.
Mr Yadegary was a qualified chef - a job the Immigration Service had on list of skills shortages - and he had, on the face of it, made a good case to stay in the country.
He has been in Auckland Central Remand Prison since November 2004, waiting for Mr Cosgrove to decide his appeal against expulsion.
But he cannot be deported until he signs an application for an Iranian passport, which he refuses to do.
Mr Yadegary has converted to Christianity and fears persecution if he returns to Iran.
Successive attempts to gain refugee status have failed and it now appears he could remain in prison indefinitely.
His lawyer, Isabel Chorao, confirmed yesterday she now planned to take the matter to the High Court, arguing that his indefinite suspension was unlawful.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405350
Two paralysed after drinking infected carrot juice
2.20pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Jonathan Spicer
TORONTO - Two people are paralyzed after drinking botulism-contaminated carrot juice, some of which was still found on store shelves 10 days after a Canada-wide recall, Toronto health officials said today.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned consumers on September 30 not to drink Bolthouse Farms 100% Carrot Juice, Earthbound Farm Organic Carrot Juice and President's Choice Organics 100% Pure Carrot Juice, all of U.S. origin, "due to botulism concerns."
Canadian distributors had immediately recalled the contaminated products. But as of Monday night, Toronto officials found the juice in 11 of 788 stores checked during a four-day blitz, said Rishma Govani, spokeswoman for Toronto Public Health.
The two victims remain in hospital in serious condition, Govani said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405423
Walnuts help reduce risk of heart attacks
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Steve Connor
Walnuts are set to become the next great health food after a study showing they can boost the body's ability to withstand the effects of a fatty diet.
Raw walnuts can increase the flexibility of arteries, making heart attacks and coronary disease less likely.
Walnuts contain natural chemicals that help to prevent hardening of the arteries, making them less prone to becoming blocked, says Emilio Ros, of the Hospital Clinico in Barcelona.
"Each time we eat a high-fat meal, the fat molecules trigger an inflammatory reaction that, among other ill-effects, reduces the elasticity of the arteries. Over time, this repeated damage is thought to contribute to hardening of the arteries and, in turn, to heart disease. Our research shows that eating walnuts helps to maintain the elasticity of the arteries."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405283
Hospitalised Indonesian woman has bird flu, official says
7.20pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
JAKARTA - An Indonesian woman being treated in hospital has tested positive for bird flu, a health official said on Wednesday.
Indonesia has become one of the frontlines in the battle against the disease. So far, 52 people have died of bird flu, the highest of any country, with the majority of deaths occurring since the beginning of this year.
"A 67-year-old woman living in the Cisarua area of Bandung had contact with fowl," the official from the bird flu information centre said by telephone. The woman was admitted to the hospital on October 7 and was still alive, the official added.
The woman tested positive to the H5N1 virus after a test at a health ministry laboratory and one conducted by NAMRU, the US Naval Medical Research Unit based in Jakarta, the official added.
Hadi Yusuf, the director of the Hasan Sadikin hospital in Bandung, southeast of the capital Jakarta, said the woman was being treated with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu and antibiotics.
"Her condition is bad. For a second day, she has been on a respirator and her blood pressure is high."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405463
Turner Foundation delivers US$1bn to UN
1.20pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Foundation, created by media mogul Ted Turner, has donated US$1 billion to UN projects over the past nine years, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.
Turner, the founder of the CNN television network, himself donated US$1 billion ($1.53 billion) and his foundation raised millions from other corporations, governments and charities.
Some US$600 million of Turner's original US$1 billion has been spent and the remaining US$400 million would be used to leverage another US$1 billion in support of the United Nations in the coming years, the foundation said.
Projects have focused on the environment, women, children, health, peace, human rights and promoting the United Nations in the United States.
"Ted's act was perhaps most important for the message it sent to his fellow Americans, his fellow businessmen and women, and to the world," Annan said in remarks prepared for the annual UN Association-USA dinner where Turner nine years ago announced his $1 billion donation to UN causes.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405408
Woman tops list of China's richest for first time
2.25pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
SHANGHAI - A woman has topped a list of China's richest people for the first time, elbowing past two-time leader Huang Guangyu of GOME Electrical Appliances and a coterie of CEOs at old-economy government enterprises.
Newly minted billionaire Cheung Yan - the 49 year-old founder and chairwoman of top Chinese paper packager Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Ltd. - saw her fortune balloon nine-fold to US$3.4 billion (NZ$5.1bn) boosted by her firm's March initial public offering.
The entrepreneur, who controlled 72 per cent of Nine Dragons as of August 31, has lapped up a 165 per cent rally in the company's stock, according to an annual survey compiled by Rupert Hoogewerf, who pioneered a list for Forbes.
Cheung's stellar ascent is rare in a Communist country whose largest corporations are state-owned or run by well-connected male executives, and where "capitalism" is still a bad word in some circles.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405427
Runaway bride sues ex-fiance over kiss-and-tell
3.20pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
ATLANTA - A would-be bride who earned instant fame when she ran away from her fiance just before their wedding is suing him for half a million dollars for her share of the rights to their story.
Jennifer Wilbanks vanished from her home in Duluth, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, days before she was to marry John Mason in April, 2005, sparking a police hunt that only ended when she turned up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She said she had been abducted while jogging and sexually assaulted but later changed her story, telling police she ran away because she got cold feet about the wedding.
Wilbanks pleaded no contest to a felony charge of making a false statement to the police but the case earned the "couple" instant tabloid celebrity and they sold their story.
Now she is arguing that Mason failed to turn over her share of the payment, according to a filing on September 13 before the superior court of Gwinnett, Georgia.
"In or about July 2005 Regan Media agreed to pay US$500,000 to Mason and Wilbanks to purchase the rights to the story of plaintiff's disappearance ... and subsequent events involved in the 'Runaway Bride' incident," said the complaint.
The filing says Mason was "wilful and malicious" and demands US$250,000 as her share of the money and the same amount in punitive damages as compensation for his "bad faith." It also describes him as "stubbornly litigious."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405430
Angelina Jolie slams West for barring refugees
12.20pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
GENEVA - Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has accused the West of cold-heartedness and hypocrisy in trying to shut out migrants, including refugees, from Africa and other hotspots.
More than 7000 people have died trying to get into Europe over the past decade, according to Jolie, whose comments appeared in the magazine "Refugees", published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for whom she is a goodwill ambassador.
She expressed outrage at a photo which appeared recently in the quarterly magazine, taken on an unidentified Mediterranean beach in Spain in 2002, which showed a couple relaxing under an umbrella not far from the washed-up corpse of a black man.
"We'll never know who he was or why he ended up there and the couple on the beach apparently couldn't care less," Jolie wrote. "Someone's son, someone's brother, or someone's loved one. In fact, you or me, if we had been born at another time, or in another place."
Jolie, who has been to more than 20 countries since becoming a UNHCR goodwill ambassador five years ago, said it was a scandal that such a rich world was not feeding all people in refugee camps, especially in Africa.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10405378
Deal reached to end Mexico Oaxaca crisis
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Greg Brosnan and Noel Randewich
MEXICO CITY - Leaders of protests trying to bring down a Mexican state governor they say is corrupt tentatively have agreed to scale back a months-old occupation of the conflict-torn tourist city of Oaxaca.
After thousands of protesters marched for days to get to Mexico City, the government and leaders of a teachers union said they made a deal that could see the protesters cede control of most of downtown Oaxaca to local police under federal supervision.
Leftist activists and striking teachers have shut down the colonial centre of Oaxaca for four months, hoping to force the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz, who they accuse of corruption, heavy-handed tactics and ignoring widespread poverty.
Union leader Enrique Rueda told reporters he agreed to quickly consult the strikers about removing most street barricades in the city and returning to classes but said they would continue to push the Senate to make Ruiz step down.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405325
Jihad urged against Somalia's Ethiopian invaders
Wednesday October 11, 2006
MOGADISHU - Somalia's Islamists have declared war on Ethiopia and accused the country of launching an invasion after its troops attacked and briefly held a strategic hilltop.
Leading figures in the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a loose-knit alliance that now holds sway over much of the war-torn East African country, called for an uprising against forces from neighbouring Ethiopia after troops arrived in Bur Haqaba.
"Ethiopian troops have intentionally invaded our land," said a leading UIC figure, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Considered a moderate among the Islamists, he said in the capital, Mogadishu, that Islamic forces were on full alert. "I urge all the Somali people to wage holy war against the Ethiopians," he said.
Sheikh Yusuf Indahaadde, the national security chairman for the Islamic group, also called for military action, and claimed that 35,000 Ethiopian troops were on Somali soil. "This is a declaration of war," he said. "We will not wait any more. We will defend the integrity of our land."
Power in Somalia is split between the Islamic Courts, the interim Government and a number of warlords who hold a shrinking amount of territory.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405280
Man arrested after Heathrow terminal evacuated
8.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
LONDON - A man was arrested under the Terrorism Act after a terminal at Heathrow airport was evacuated today because of a suspicious bag, police said.
Passengers were allowed back into Terminal 2 after the bag was checked and cleared by specialist officers.
An airport source, who declined to be identified, said a police swab test for explosives on the bag had showed positive, but that it was not a viable bomb.
A police spokeswoman declined comment on whether explosive substances had been detected but said a man had been arrested under the Terrorism Act and was being questioned by officers.
She gave no further details.
A man was seen running in and dropping a bag at the check-in area, airport personnel had said earlier.
BAA said the terminal was evacuated in early afternoon after the suspect bag was found. It reopened at 5pm, it said.
"Some disruption to Terminal 2 operations should be expected for the remainder of the day," a BAA spokesman said.
Terminal 2 serves European destinations from Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405372
Four die after plane catches fire in Norway
10.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
OSLO - Four people died after a plane with 16 people on board burst into flames after landing at an airport in western Norway, police said today.
"Four persons have been found dead in the plane," police officer Svein Roald Vikse told Reuters.
"They have not been identified yet."
Police said the plane had problems during landing at 7:37am (6.37am NZT) in Stord, an island south of Bergen on Norway's west coast, and caught fire after sliding off the runway.
Six of 12 passengers who were rescued were flown to a severe burns centre in Bergen, about 60km away. The others were treated for lighter injuries in local hospitals.
The plane was chartered by oil services firm Aker Stord, part of offshore engineering group Aker Kvaerner .
The Atlantic Airways plane from Denmark's self-governing Faroe Islands in the North Sea was making a stopover between Norway's offshore oil capital of Stavanger and the town of Molde, further up the country's western coast, Aker Stord said.
Molde is the base for the huge Ormen Lange gas field, which will soon supply Britain with a fifth of its gas needs.
Witnesses speaking on public broadcaster NRK spoke of a loud boom, a fireball and billowing smoke. Pictures from the site on media websites showed a column of smoke above burning debris.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405376
Top al Qaeda leader urges fighters to hit White House
9.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
DUBAI - A man believed to be a top al Qaeda militant who escaped from a US jail near Kabul was shown in a new videotape broadcast on Tuesday exhorting followers in Afghanistan to fight on until they attack the White House.
"Allah will not be pleased until we reach the rooftop of the White House," Abu Yahya al-Libi was shown telling fighters in the tape aired by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television.
The channel said the tape was one-hour long, showing footage of Libi urging fighters to train hard and even to try to acquire nuclear technology.
"You have to get well prepared by starting with exercise, and then you have to learn how to use technology until you are capable of nuclear weapons," he said.
Libi was shown in the footage bearded and wearing a long grey Muslim robe while standing in front of a group of fighters.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405377
Democrats have big lead after sex scandal, polls suggest
Wednesday October 11, 2006
WASHINGTON - Democratic candidates have a big edge on Republicans one month before elections to decide control of Congress, a flurry of new polls said on Monday, with ratings for President George W. Bush and Congress dropping after the Capitol Hill sex scandal.
A USA Today/Gallup poll gave Democrats a 23-point edge on Republicans in the battle for Congress, while a CNN poll gave Democrats a 21-point lead.
A ABC News/Washington Post poll found Democrats held a 54-41 per cent lead in the congressional horse race among registered and likely voters, which ABC said was the biggest Democratic lead this close to election day in more than 20 years.
And a new CBS News/New York Times poll showed 79 per cent of respondents thought Republican leaders were more concerned with politics than the well-being of the teenage congressional assistants who received lewd messages from former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida.
Republicans, already battered by public doubts about the Iraq war and Bush's leadership, have been scrambling to contain the fallout from the unfolding sex scandal and keep it from sinking their chances on November 7.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405328
The next few links are background to the 'Time Line"
President Delivers State of the Union Address
The President's State of the Union Address
The United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html
Powell, Rice defend Bush's 'axis of evil' speech
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Bush administration officials Sunday defended the president's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil," urging international critics to redirect their ire.
"My European colleagues should be pounding on Iraq as quickly as they pound on us when the president makes a strong, principled speech," Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Bush's use of the "axis" term during his State of the Union address last month elicited international criticism from allies and the three countries named alike.
"There's a bit of a stir in Europe, but it's a stir I think we'll be able to manage ... [to] move forward and gather the support we need," Powell said.
On ABC's "This Week," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Iran, Iraq and North Korea share certain characteristics.
"They are repressive regimes that are opaque -- that are difficult to know what they are doing," she said. "They are regimes that have been very, very harsh on their people. They're also regimes that are aggressively seeking weapons of mass destruction."
Powell said that both "good things" and "not-so-good things" have been happening in Iran.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/02/17/bush.axis/
Who's who in the 'axis of evil'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1988810.stm
Timeline: North Korea nuclear crisis
5.15pm Monday October 9, 2006
2002
- October: Top State Department envoy James Kelly confronts Pyongyang with evidence Washington says points to a covert uranium-enrichment programme. North Korea says "it is entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but other types of weapons more powerful than them in defence of its sovereignty in face of the US threat".
- December 2002: North Korea says it plans to restart Yongbyon reactor, disables International Atomic Enegy Agency (IAEA) surveillance devices at Yongbyon and expels IAEA inspectors.
2003
- January: North Korea says it is quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with immediate effect.
At talks between US team led by Kelly and North Koreans and China in Beijing, American officials say North Korea told the United States that it has nuclear weapons and might test them or transfer them to other countries.
- August: First round of six-way talks between North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US on the nuclear issue takes place in Beijing. North Korea threatens to test nuclear bomb and test-fire new missile.
- October: North Korea says it has enhanced its "nuclear deterrent" with plutonium reprocessed from thousands of nuclear fuel rods. Pyongyang says it is willing to display the deterrent.
2004
- January: Pyongyang permits unofficial US delegation, including nuclear expert, to tour Yongbyon. US nuclear expert Sigfried Hecker says he is not convinced North Korea could turn its nuclear technology into a weapon or mount it on a missile.
- February: Father of Pakistani nuclear bomb, scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, admits he passed on uranium-linked technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Pyongyang calls the confession a lie.
- Second round of six-party talks held in Beijing.
- June: Third round of talks take place in Chinese capital. US proposes fuel aid and security guarantees to North Korea if it scraps nuclear programmes.
2005
- February 10: North Korea's Foreign Ministry issues statement saying country has manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defence and is quitting six-way talks indefinitely.
- June 17: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il tells senior South Korean envoy in Pyongyang that North Korea can return to talks as early as July, if United States meets certain conditions, such as treating North Korea with "respect".
- July 9: North Korea announces it has agreed to return to stalled talks in last week of July.
- July 22: North Korea calls for peace treaty to replace armistice that ended hostilities in 1950-53 Korean War, saying it would resolve nuclear crisis.
- July 26: Six-party envoys begin fourth round of talks.
Parties all push to issue joint statement, but talks deadlock as North Korea insists on having civilian nuclear energy.
- August 7: Marathon fourth round goes into recess after running 13 days, longer than all previous sessions.
- August 23: Top US negotiator Christopher Hill says issue of North having civilian nuclear plan would not break deal.
- September 13: Fourth-round talks resume in Beijing.
- September 19: Six parties issue long-awaited joint statement.
North Korea promises to give up its nuclear weapons and programmes. In exchange, other parties express willingness to provide oil, energy aid and security guarantees. Agreement says North Korea could have nuclear energy programme in future if it meets strict safeguards.
- November 9: Fifth round of talks in Beijing break off without progress. North Korea later protests the U.S.'s freezing of its funds in a Macau.
2006
- July 5: North Korea launches seven missiles from its east coast, including the long-range Taepodong-2.
- October 3: North Korea's Foreign Ministry says the country will conduct its first nuclear test but gives no date.
- October 9: State Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reports North Korea has conducted a successful underground test.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405089
World powers say North Korea should be punished
1.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - China, North Korea's most important ally, joined other world powers today in calling for a tough response to the reclusive communist state's announcement of a nuclear weapons test.
China and Russia, which both border North Korea, met with other veto-holding members of the UN Security Council to discuss a range of sanctions proposed by the United States and Japan to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
Beijing's UN Ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters: "I think that there has to be some punitive actions." But he did not say which of the US-proposed sanctions he would support.
"We need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate but prudent response to North Korea's nuclear threat," Wang added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin also urged the international community to act together to deter North Korea from its nuclear ambitions.
In a double interview with German ARD state television today, Merkel said the case of Iran had shown that the international community was more effective in coping with such problems when united than when riven with disagreement.
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'We'll arm our missiles' - N Korea hits back
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Jonathan Thatcher
SEOUL - North Korea is threatening to put nuclear warheads on missiles and conduct more atom bomb tests, raising the stakes in its stand-off with the United States and the world.
The threats were made by a North Korean official, who said his country would return to disarmament talks only if the US made concessions.
"We are still willing to abandon nuclear programmes and return to six-party talks," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a North Korean official as saying.
"We can do that only if the United States takes corresponding measures," the unidentified official said.
Analysts say North Korea's announcement that it had conducted an underground nuclear test may have been a ploy to end a US crackdown on its finance and start one-on-one negotiations.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405338
Japan urges robust response amid fears of second N Korea test
UPDATED 4.50pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Chisa Fujioka
TOKYO - A report of a second North Korean nuclear test spread fresh jitters on Wednesday as Japan, faced with Chinese and Russian reservations about the scope of UN sanctions, pressed for a robust response to Pyongyang's defiance.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso told a parliamentary panel that Japan had unconfirmed information that the communist state might conduct another test on Wednesday after broadcaster NHK said Tokyo was checking reports of a tremor in North Korea.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, told the same panel Japan had no information that a test had been carried out.
Ignoring UN warnings, North Korea announced on Monday that it had conducted its first-ever nuclear test. It says a US "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" forced its hand.
The yen slipped slightly against the dollar on fears that another test had been carried out, but Japanese stocks shrugged them off, with the Nikkei stock average rising about 0.5 per cent.
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White House casts doubt on North Korea's nuclear arms
8.30am Wednesday October 11, 2006
WASHINGTON - The White House today tried to raise doubts about the strength of North Korea's nuclear programme and sought to play down the significance of its reported test of an atomic weapon.
Two days after North Korea reported detonating a nuclear weapon, US intelligence experts still were unable to conclude whether this in fact happened given the relatively small yield of the underground blast.
North Korea has suddenly emerged as an issue in the November 7 congressional elections, with Democrats seeking to blame President George W. Bush for a failure of international diplomacy. They are calling for a shift in strategy to include direct engagement with North Korea, which the White House has ruled out.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said it would take more time, possibly days, to come to a conclusion on whether a nuclear device had been detonated. He said there was a "remote possibility that we'll never know."
Last week, after Pyongyang said it planned to test a nuclear weapon, the Bush administration was adamant it would view such a move as unacceptable.
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Iran condemns atomic arms after N Korean test
Wednesday October 11, 2006
TEHRAN - Iran, accused by the West of seeking to make atomic bombs, has said it is against any country possessing such weapons after North Korea announced it had conducted its first underground nuclear test.
As world powers condemned North Korea's announcement on Monday, Washington called for harsh UN sanctions that could further isolate the communist state.
"Iran is against the use and production of nuclear weapons. No country is competent to use nuclear weapons," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told a weekly news conference, when asked about North Korea's nuclear test.
The West accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons under a civilian programme. Iran insists it needs nuclear energy to satisfy its booming electricity demand.
Although US President George W. Bush has named Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil", Western officials, including the United States, on Monday stressed that Iran and North Korea were different cases needing different solutions.
Elham reiterated that Iran had no intention of building nuclear weapons.
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NZ part of high-level efforts to curb N Korea
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Mike Houlahan
New Zealand is "in the loop" in high-level efforts to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to Foreign Minister Winston Peters just hours after Pyongyang said on Monday it had carried out a nuclear test.
"She called to ensure that we, being part of the five-plus-five talks in Malaysia, that we were in the loop as to what possible measures should be, any suggestions we might have," Mr Peters said yesterday.
" New Zealand will do its best to support all calls to deter North Korea going down this path."
New Zealand became part of the "five-plus-five" group in July at an Asean regional forum in Kuala Lumpur that included South Korea, the US, Russia, Japan and China (five of the countries in the stalled six-nation talks with North Korea on the nuclear issue) plus Australia, Canada and Malaysia. Indonesia and New Zealand were reportedly added at China's invitation.
Mr Peters said he had written to the North Korean and Chinese Foreign Ministers at the weekend, urging the North Koreans not to develop nuclear weapons and calling on China to dissuade its neighbour from doing so.
New Zealand established diplomatic relations with North Korea in 2001 and has given the impoverished nation almost $8 million in humanitarian aid.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said a nuclearised North Korea was incredibly destabilising for the region.
"It is a huge issue," she said, adding she believed the UN Security Council would act and any such package it came up with New Zealand would support.
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Secrets for sale at Pakistani's nuclear supermarket
Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Anne Penketh
When North Korea decided it wanted to develop nuclear weapons, it had no trouble finding willing assistants in other countries.
In 1975, young Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan returned home, after working at a Dutch uranium enrichment facility.
Khan, who developed the world's first Islamic nuclear bomb for Pakistan in a top-secret programme, in the mid-1980s opened his own private "supermarket", which sold secrets to anyone who would pay.
One branch was in his Pakistan laboratories, where four or six scientists were - perhaps unwittingly - involved. But the hub was in Dubai, which took care of procurement and distribution, with the help of European businessmen.
One flight from Pakistan to North Korea carrying conventional weapons was intercepted by the Pakistani Government, acting on a tip-off that sensitive material was on board.
They found nothing - apparently because Khan's people were told in advance.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405285
Overseas convicts will be paid to leave UK
5.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
LONDON - Foreign criminals are to be offered financial incentives worth up to £2500 ($7081) to return home as part of a package of emergency measures to tackle a prison overcrowding crisis in Britain.
Police cells will also be used for newly sentenced offenders from tomorrow, a disused Army barracks will be rapidly converted into prison accommodation and hundreds of inmates will be transferred to immigration detention centres.
John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced the drastic plans as the prison population in England and Wales reached 79,819, just 234 below capacity. On current trends, the country's jails could officially be full by the end of the week.
The British government believes slashing the numbers of foreigners in jail is the key to easing the pressure on the prison system.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405281
Police find 60 bodies in Baghdad
Wednesday October 11, 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found 60 bodies dumped across Baghdad in the 24 hours until Tuesday morning, the apparent victims of sectarian death squads blamed for escalating violence that threatens to pitch the country into civil war.
A bomb placed under a car outside a bakery in the mostly Sunni southern Baghdad district of Doura exploded at midday, reducing the shop to rubble and killing 10 people, many who had been queuing outside to buy bread, police said.
Iraq has been gripped by Sunni-Shi'ite bloodletting since the bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in February. The United Nations estimates 100 Iraqis die violently every day.
In the most high-profile killing in recent weeks, gunmen in camouflage uniform on Monday shot dead the brother of Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi. He was the third of Hashemi's siblings to be killed since April.
The violence continues largely unchecked despite US efforts to build up Iraq's fledgling security forces, a major security crackdown in the capital and a series of peace plans by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's four-month-old government.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405394
Liberia's Taylor ordered mass execution, panel hears
1.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
MONROVIA - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor ordered the execution of 250 mercenaries who fought in Ivory Coast's civil war, an ex-fighter from Liberia's war testified to a truth panel on Tuesday.
Mohammed Sheriff told Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission how his comrades beat Sierra Leonean warlord Sam "Maskita" Bockarie to death and executed 250 of his fighters.
Taylor, who fled Liberia in 2003, is currently in a cell in the Hague awaiting trial for alleged war crimes committed during Sierra Leone's civil war - though not directly for any crimes in Liberia or Ivory Coast.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, elected late last year, has ordered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the hope of laying the ghosts of Liberia's bloody 1989-2003 civil war, although some fear the exercise may open up old wounds.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405405
Fresh blast as Philippines blames rebels for bombs
7.05pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Manny Mogato
MANILA - Philippine officials blamed a group of Muslim rebels for two explosions that killed six people on the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday, as another bomb went off on Wednesday without causing any casualties.
Late on Tuesday, six people were killed and about 30 wounded in Makilala town, with four wounded earlier in the day by an explosion at a public market in Tacurong city.
Police said a bomb went off on Wednesday around midday near a bank and a shopping mall in central Cotabato city, while the army found a second device in Makilala that failed to explode.
Emmanuel Pinol, governor of North Cotabato province, put the blame on members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group in the mainly Roman Catholic country that is in protracted peace talks with the government.
He said the bomb used in Makilala "had all the signatures of the MILF", citing similarities to past attacks in the south.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405461
Abbas may call early Palestinian polls, aides say
1.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
GAZA - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may appoint an emergency government or call early elections after the latest efforts to form a unity coalition with Hamas failed, his aides said today.
A stalemate between Abbas and the Hamas-led government over agreeing a unity cabinet has triggered the worst internal fighting in a decade and stirred fears of civil war.
The Hamas Islamist movement denied talks were at a dead end, but said the latest initiative, presented in Gaza by Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, was unacceptable because it included recognition of Israel.
Abbas media adviser Nabil Amr said the options open to Abbas to break the deadlock were sacking the government and appointing an emergency cabinet, calling for new elections or holding a referendum to let the Palestinian people decide what to do.
"The president will study them and pick which is best," Amr told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
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Bahamas orders man lashed with cat-o'-nine-tails
10.00am Wednesday October 11, 2006
NASSAU, Bahamas - A man convicted of trying to rape an 83-year-old woman was sentenced to eight lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails, a punishment used by the British Navy in the 18th century and reinstated in the Bahamas 15 years ago.
Altulus Newbold, 34, was sentenced on Friday to 16 years in prison after being found guilty of burglary, attempted rape and causing harm. Justice Jon Isaacs ordered that he receive four lashes of the whip at the start of his sentence and four upon his release, but suspended the punishment for three weeks pending a possible appeal.
The cat, a whip made of knotted cords, leaves flesh wounds and is used on the offender's back by a prison guard. It was outlawed in the Bahamas many years ago, but reinstated in the former British colony in 1991 in the face of rising crime.
Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson supported the use of the cat and said it was retained only for the most "egregious" cases.
"I think the public is pleased to see the determination of our courts to see punishment meted out swiftly," she said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405386
Gym fined $2000 after man crushed
8.00pm Wednesday October 11, 2006
A Wellington gym has been convicted and fined $2000 after failing to fix a weights machine that crushed a gym member.
The Department of Labour said the case highlighted the obligation businesses have to protect clients and customers from harm.
Sports-Wide Ltd pleaded guilty in Wellington District Court to a charge of failing to take all practicable steps to protect clients from workplace hazards at its Atrium gym on The Terrace.
In December 2005, a gym member became trapped beneath around 300kg of weights after the weights cradle on the leg press machine he was using detached from its rails and fell on him, fracturing his vertebrae in the process.
It took six men to lift the weights carriage to free him.
The leg press was reassembled after the accident, but no fault was found.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10405473
Myanmar resumes constitution drafting talks
8.20am Wednesday October 11, 2006
By Darren Schuettler
NYAUNG HNA PIN, Myanmar - Myanmar's military rulers resumed long drawn out talks on a new constitution on Tuesday, their government under increasing international pressure and cynicism rife about their aims.
A constitution is the first step on Myanmar's seven-step "road map to democracy" and one Western diplomat expected the National Convention forging it to wrap up after its fourth session since 2004.
But the junta, which picked most of the 1000 or more delegates to the National Convention, refuses to set a timetable for the "road map" announced in 2003.
"A timeframe is not important to us. What is important is implementation," Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told reporters as the convention got under way at the tightly guarded Nyaung Hna Pin camp 40km north of Yangon.
But with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and her National League for Democracy boycotting the talks, critics dismiss the convention as a smokescreen for the military to entrench its more than four decades of rule.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10405333
Picture: Diamond sold for $18.7m [+video]
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Lesotho Promise, one of the world's largest diamonds, has been sold in Antwerp, Belgium, for $18.7 million.
The diamond, an uncut, 603-carat white gem weighing 120g, was found in the Letseng mine in Lesotho in August.
The South African Diamond Corporation has bought the golf-ball-sized diamond from the mine's joint owners the Gem Diamond Mining Company of Africa and the Lesotho Government.
The gem will be cut into one large and several smaller stones.
The largest diamond recorded is the Cullinan, found in 1905 in South Africa, which weighed 3106 carats.
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