The Rooster 

High energy biscuits airlifted to Kenya to feed 200,000 flood victims

Rains end, but problems continue for flooded refugees

The flooded Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, home to nearly 160,000 Somali refugees are now completely cut-off except by air.

Photo: CARE trucks struggle through mud on their way to Dadaab, Kenya. (© 2006 Thomas Schwarz/CARE)

According to Mohammed Qazilbash, Senior Programme Manager for Emergency & Refugee Operations for CARE International in Kenya, who is based in the camps, "The rains have stopped and the waters started to recede, but that has left deep mud. The roads are impassible."

"Our biggest concern is that we have only two weeks of fuel left. Unless the roads open up we will run out of fuel for the water pumps that supply the entire refugee and local population," continued Qazilbash. "Medical supplies and water pipes and taps are another big concern."

CARE is in the process of relocating up to 15,000 of the hardest hit refugees in Ifo camp to higher ground and setting up temporary water tanks, latrines and other essentials.

Morning Papers

All Africa.com

Zambia: Rainy Season and Cholera
The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
EDITORIALNovember 21, 2006Posted to the web November 21, 2006
EVERY rainy season, some parts of Zambia become constant victims of the embarrassing water-borne disease called cholera.
It is not difficult to pinpoint these areas. One simply needs to go to a library and check the stories we have been carrying about cholera outbreaks. They are not only similar but the attacks are in the same places.
The second clear point is that causes of cholera are the same - contaminated water, spewing sewer and other dirt consumed by human beings through contact.
These are the same people that end up getting sick and even die.
Looking at the profile of this preventable but killer scourge, at this stage we as a country have reached, we should have taken measures to eradicate the disease. There are countries in this world where cholera does not exist in their vocabulary.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611210589.html


Kenya: President to Declare Disaster If Rains Persist
The Nation (Nairobi)
November 21, 2006Posted to the web November 21, 2006
Nation TeamNairobi
President Kibaki will declare the floods a national disaster next week if the heavy rains do not subside.
Government officers were yesterday compiling data following deaths and disease outbreaks in the wake of the rains. Roads, houses and crops have also been destroyed.
"We need to do something very quickly, just like we did with the drought," Special Programmes minister John Munyes said by telephone.
The data will be given to President Kibaki for action, as it is only the President who can declare a national disaster, he said.
The minister said the Government was overstretched because it did not anticipate the situation. However, the meteorological department had warned of the floods.
Emergency appeal
Yesterday, the Kenya Red Cross Society welcomed the news, while the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an emergency appeal for Sh560 million to help respond to floods.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611210169.html


Kenya: Coping With Flood Havoc UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 21, 2006Posted to the web November 21, 2006
Kwale/Dadaab
Sindani Fuketi, a 66-year-old father of four, was woken up by the wetness of his mattress to find his house submerged in flood water.
The Ramisi River in the Kenyan coastal district of Kwale had breached its banks and Nikaphu village was under water. Fuketi and members of his family waded through the raging waist-high water, which kept rising.
"We decided to climb trees, but the water continued to follow us up the trees," he said. Marooned with his fellow villagers, Fuketi was eventually rescued by soldiers from the Kenya Navy, but a five-year-old girl drowned during the rescue effort.
"We have lost our homes and everything we had. I came here in my underwear," Fuketi told IRIN. He and his fellow inhabitants of Nikaphu are now housed in a crumbling building in the compound of the disused Ramisi Sugar Factory.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611210024.html


Kenya: Agencies Struggle to Deliver Aid to Marooned Refugees
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 21, 2006Posted to the web November 21, 2006
Dadaab
Bad weather is hampering efforts by aid agencies to evacuate tens of thousands of Somali refugees from their flooded camp in a remote region of northeastern Kenya, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which is airlifting emergency supplies to the rain-drenched Dadaab region, said.
"We are completely cut off from the world because the main road to Garissa has been completely washed out by these floods and therefore our capacity is very limited," said UNHCR senior emergency officer, Geoff Wordley, as dark rain clouds built up to the north.
Roads between the three camps have also been severely eroded by the fast-flowing floodwaters. Several Red Cross trucks carrying food rations became bogged down in knee-deep mud.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611210167.html


Kenya: "What is WSF? Something That Will Bring Me Medicine?"
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
November 22, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Joyce MulamaNairobi
In just two months time the World Social Forum (WSF) will get underway in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, marking the first instance in which Africa is acting as sole host of the event.
With the East African country also home to Kibera -- sometimes referred to as Africa's largest slum -- it could be argued that there is no more appropriate venue for the 2007 WSF. Where better to hold it than near one of the communities most affected by the social ills which the forum aims to combat?
Still, some in Kibera, which lies south-west of Nairobi, view preparations for next year's WSF with ambivalence.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240081.html


Egypt: Blogger's Detention Extended for Another 15 Days International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House (Toronto)
PRESS RELEASENovember 22, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
HRinfo condemns the extension of Abdel Karim Suliman Amer's detention for an additional 15 days. The blogger, also known as Kareem Amer, is in detention while being investigated only because he practiced the basic right to express his own thoughts on his blog.
On 22 November 2006, Mohram Bek Court considered the extension of Kareem's detention through to 6 December. This occurred despite the defense arguments provided by Kareem's HRinfo lawyer and the lack of justification for the detention. Kareem went to the Prosecutor's Office when he was called to be questioned on 7 November, and there is no evidence to suggest that Kareem might attempt to alter evidence in his case if he is released.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240083.html


Guinea: MFWA Calls for Reinstatement of Two Newspaper Journalists Media Foundation for West Africa (Accra)
PRESS RELEASENovember 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
MFWA urges the government of Guinea to immediately reinstate "Horoya" state-owned daily newspaper managing director Ibrahima Sory Dieng and editor-in-chief Alhassane Souare to their posts.
On 4 October 2006, Information Minister Aboubacar Sylla indefinitely suspended the two journalists for the failure of the newspaper to publish a photograph of President Lassana Conte alongside the text of his speech.
The minister ordered the printing of the 30 September edition of "Horoya" to be stopped, so that Souare could publish a belated speech by President Conte, to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the country's independence.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240086.html


Africa: People Smugglers Have Shipped More Than 22,000 Africans to Yemen This Year, UN Says
UN News Service (New York)
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
More than 22,000 people have risked their lives to cross the Gulf of Aden in rickety smugglers' boats from Somalia to Yemen this year, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.
"At least 355 died making the perilous voyage and more than 150 are missing," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva, noting that nearly 1,500 Somalis and Ethiopians arrived in 12 smugglers' boats over the past eight days alone.
At least 18 people aboard those boats died and 17 are missing, he added. The boats usually land along a remote, 300-kilometre stretch of tribal-ruled coastline. UNHCR, which has only limited access to the often insecure coast, was able over the past eight days to transport 853 Somalis and Ethiopians to its May'fa reception centre, providing them with food, water, medical care and other assistance, Mr. Redmond said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240072.html



South Africa: Calls for Probe of Top Cop
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Johannesburg
Allegations of links between South Africa's top cop and organised crime have prompted calls for an independent inquiry to restore "shaken" public confidence in the police services.
For the past few days, South African media have been flooded with reports about Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, and his relationship with Glen Agliotti, who is alleged to have links with the underworld and was arrested last week in connection with the murder of controversial businessman Brett Kebble. Selebi had earlier publicly declared that he and Agliotti were friends. The allegations have stirred heated debate on radio talk shows and readers have penned furious letters to newspapers. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, South Africa is "among the most crime-ridden and crime-concerned societies in the world". The public outcry led religious leaders to seek a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki this week to get to the bottom of the situation.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240071.html


Congo-Brazzaville: Transport Problems Halt Gun-Retrieval Scheme
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 23, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Brazzaville
A gun-retrieval effort launched in November 2005 in the Republic of Congo has been suspended because the agency involved has run into transport difficulties, an official of the government body said.
Daniel Gassiélé said on Wednesday the state-owned railway company had been unable to buy equipment for the smooth running of its trains. Heavy rains have also been battering the country, severely disrupting rail traffic. This has made it difficult for the agency to deliver money, farming and other tools to former civil-war combatants in the administrative department of the Pool where they live.
In its bid to soak up all illegal weapons of war, the government has set up a scheme whereby combatants willing to surrender them are given money and tools to start self-employment projects in exchange. Money for this is partly provided by external donors. Le Projet de collecte d'armes pour le développement, the gun-retrieval agency, had received two million euros (US$2.6 million) from the European Union.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240069.html


Rwanda: UN Trashes French Judge Allegations The New Times (Kigali)
November 23, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Edwin MusoniKigali
The Arusha, Tanzania-based United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), has trashed France's allegations accusing President Paul Kagame for having ordered to shoot down a plane carrying the then-Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana.
The ICTR has stated that it was at nobody's order to prosecute Kagame. "Magistrate Bruguiere (pictured) took instructions from nobody in the world to issue an arrest warrant; not even UN Secretary General Koffi Annan," the tribunal Deputy Registrar Lovemore Green Munlo said at a press conference in Arusha yesterday.
Munlo also said that the tribunal has evidence to the effect that the missiles which downed Habyarimana's plane were from the arms stock of the ex-FAR and had been purchased from Egypt.
It is also alleged that the missile, SA-16 that downed Habyarimana's plane was imported from Egypt by the then Rwandan government. Also, sources have it that the French had a link to the two missiles. Bruguiere is a French anti terrorism magistrate who said on Monday this week that Kagame should be prosecuted for 'suspected involvement' in the death of Habyarimana. Last month, under the order of UN, the ICTR denied a request to hear testimony from Bruguiere. Also under the same order, the tribunal refused to give a 1997 UN report to Bruguiere which allegedly discusses the spark of the 1994 Genocide.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240062.html



Rwanda: Anti-France Protests Rock Kigali
The New Times (Kigali)
November 23, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
James MunyanezaKigali
Business in Kigali city paralysed yesterday when thousands of infuriated Rwandans singing anti-France slogans and praising President Paul Kagame, staged a peaceful demonstration. The impromptu demo was a public reaction to Monday's call by a French magistrate, Jean Louis Bruguierre, for the arrest and trial of Kagame and
nine Rwandan top military officers, accusing them of downing the plane that was carrying former Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana. An estimated 15,000 demonstrators from all corners of the city took to the streets, many carrying placards and banners that described Kagame as a hero, and others condemning the French government over its alleged role in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240067.html



Tanzania: Control Cholera Outbreak in Two Weeks or Lose Jobs, PM Says
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 22, 2006Posted to the web November 22, 2006
Dar es Salaam
Tanzanian Prime Minister Edward Lowassa has given Dar es Salaam regional administrative officials two weeks to eradicate cholera or lose their jobs.
"I give you up to December 3," he told the officials on Monday during a brief health inspection of the city's cholera-infected neighbourhoods of Temeke, Buguruni and Mburahati.
Over the past 12 months, the disease has killed 117 people in the city, the nation's commercial capital.
Cholera, a severe diarrhoeal disease caused by infection of the small intestine of humans with vibrio cholerae bacteria, has frequently broken out in the past three decades in Dar es Salaam and other parts of the country.
Health officials say cholera is transmitted via the faecal-oral route and blame its almost endemic prevalence in the country on poor public hygiene standards and the lack of individual precautions such as boiling drinking water.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611220061.html



Africa: EU-Africa Minsterial Conference on Migration and Development Issues African Union (Addis Ababa)
PRESS RELEASENovember 22, 2006Posted to the web November 22, 2006
Tripoli
Tripoli, capital of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will, on 22 to 23 November 2006, host the Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development in the presence, notably, of Ministers responsible for Migration and Development as well as African and European Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
The Conference, which will be devoted to the consideration of a number of issues of mutual interest relating to migration and development as a basis for enhanced partnership in this field, and founded, above all, on the African common position on migration and development, will be preceded by a one-day joint meeting of experts and AU Ministers.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611220012.html



Senegal: "Mankind is Like This - One Wants to Get Ahead"
United Nations (New York)
October 31, 2006Posted to the web October 31, 2006
Dakar
He tried two times to get to Spain's Canary Islands in a fishing boat - and failed. But Mansour, a soft-spoken 42-year-old father of two, has not yet relinquished his ambition to emigrate to Europe.
Like tens of thousands of illegal migrants in Senegal, Mansour stepped aboard a wooden fishing boat in April after he was offered free passage because of his navigating skills. He brought a sea map he had found on the Internet, and promised to steer the boat to the Canaries with a global positioning system (GPS).
Mansour still has the map he printed out in a cybercafe. And he doesn't hesitate to show the amulets a marabout made for him to guarantee safe passage.
Fetching three leather waistbands from a cupboard towering over the edge of his bed, he says, "You need protection, of course, and this is what I wore on the trip."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200610310564.html



Cameroon: Poverty And Culture Conspire to Deny Girls Schooling
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
November 22, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Sylvestre TetchiadaGaroua
Of the 71 pupils in Daouda Soulé's class, only 18 are girls. "Last year there were about 20 girls, but even some who were promoted to the next grade dropped out and are at home, although primary school is free," the teacher at the Central Public School in Garoua, northern Cameroon, told IPS.
Her experience is not unique. Two months into the new academic year, there is a noticeable lack of girls attending schools, especially in Cameroon's three northern provinces.
In part, this is a legacy of economic turmoil in the Central African country.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240082.html


South Africa: Open Borders for Child Traffickers
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Malelane
When the governments of Mozambique and South Africa decided to revive the transport route between Maputo and Johannesburg in the mid-1990s, child slaves were not the cargo envisaged for haulage.
Yet management at the Amazing Grace Children's Home (AGCH), a grassroots child welfare organisation in Malelane, near one of the main border-crossing points to Mozambique in South Africa's northeastern Mpumalanga Province, believe child traffickers are increasingly using the highway to deliver their human merchandise to local and overseas buyers.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240091.html
Kenya: Country's Ogiek Hunter-Gatherers Plead San's Case
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Gaborone
Kenya's Ogiek people, one of the last hunter-gatherer ethnic communities in East Africa, have joined a call by rights groups to the Botswana government to allow San families relocated from their ancestral land in a game reserve to return home.
The San, or Bushmen, were relocated to settlements outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in 1997 as a result of government plans to set aside the protected area for wildlife and tourism development. Rights groups have claimed that the San community was forcibly removed from their ancestral land to make way for diamond exploration in the CKGR. The government has maintained that the emphasis has always been on persuasion and voluntary relocation.
Addressing a press conference on their return from a fact-finding mission to New Xade, one of the settlements, Ogiek representatives Kiplangat Cheruyot and Mpoiko Kobei said the evicted San families were living in squalor and shame in the resettlement areas. "Their lives, culture and tradition have been disrupted through the evictions. Families have been torn apart and the conflict between the people and the government agencies has induced a state of permanent fear," Cheruyot said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240093.html



Chad: Chadians Displaced By Darfur Border Killings Are Too Afraid to Return Home -UN Agency
UN News Service (New York)
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
At least 15,000 Chadians who fled their homes over the past three weeks because of deadly violence close to the border with Darfur are still too afraid to return to their villages because armed groups remain in the area, where some who went back were shot to death, the United Nations refugee agency warned today.
Insecurity around the southeastern town of Goz Beida, where some 7,000 of these displaced people have gathered, also forced today's distribution of relief supplies to be put on hold, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, adding the agency plans to move this group to a temporary site south of the town.
"No new attacks have been reported this week in volatile southeastern Chad near the border with Sudan's Darfur region, but thousands of displaced people remain too frightened to return to their villages because armed groups are still moving in the region," UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240095.html



Chad: State of Emergency Extended
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
November 24, 2006Posted to the web November 24, 2006
Ndjamena
The Chadian government has extended a state of emergency to six months from an initial 12 days in the midst of continuing violence that has displaced tens of thousands of people.
"There is a kind of crisis of confidence between the communities in the areas and, in one way or another, between the communities and the administration," Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji told parliament on Thursday when requesting that it authorise the extension.
"More time is needed to restore the administration, to sensitise the population, to reconcile populations and create confidence," he said.
The prime minister also said that the government would have the power disarm civilians and put in place more civilian and military authorities.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611240087.html



The Times Picayune

Katrina spending target of auditReport looks N.O.'s overtime, contracts
...Among the most eye-popping cases laid out in the review of fiscal matters are claims that amid $39.2 million in overtime costs that the city asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse was an employee who earned $207 per hour after the storm; that employee normally was paid $23 per hour. Another worker earned overtime pay for 14 consecutive 24-hour days, the report says.

Though auditors deemed both "ineligible" for compensation, city officials said this week that all overtime requests were proper and blessed by FEMA.

The fiscal report also claims that city officials used "illegal contracting methodology" in inking agreements worth more than $92 million with two national firms, the Shaw Group and Montgomery Watson Harza. It says the deal with Montgomery Watson tied profits to costs, an arrangement that violates federal rules because it provides no incentive to keep costs low.

The report also claims both contracts were awarded without competition, which boosted the risk of "unreasonable prices," and that the city failed to monitor contractor performance. The Shaw contract, for home inspections and environmental mitigation, was written after the storm. Montgomery Watson already had a contract with the city that was amended to include storm-drain cleaning and construction management....

...Many were called
As for the claims that the contract was not competitively bid, Mendoza said that despite extraordinary circumstances in the weeks after Katrina, officials called known vendors to solicit bids for the deal. Montgomery Watson offered the lowest price, he said, adding that the new work was added to an existing contract for the sake of expediency.

Mendoza said the city's position has been laid out in a comprehensive appeal, which the city did not provide immediately.

Jack Lankford, the federal auditor who wrote the fiscal report, said he has not received an appeal, or any documents for that matter, from the city. "That does not mean that the city has not corrected some of the problems. That just means we have not received any of the information," he said.

In a recent letter to the federal government seeking reimbursement, the state defended the city's contracting practices related to the Montgomery Watson deal. Nevertheless, they have refused to release the $9.6 million as long as the Montgomery Watson contract is under review by FEMA.

"The state has held the line on how we handle our contracts," said George Schmidt, an auditor with the state's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "When the documentation comes through, we either pay the money, or if we find problems, we hold the money.

. . . If a contract doesn't seem to me to meet the muster, we're not paying the money."...

...More than 10 percent of the 56,000 homeowners whose houses were deemed beyond repair filed appeals, and city officials "lowered damage ratings for the overwhelming majority to less than 50 percent," the report says. In nearly every case, officials did not keep any documentation supporting their decision to change the initial damage assessment, the report says...

...As has been previously reported, the assessments were ballpark figures generally based on the height of the water mark on a house. Though FEMA guidelines say inspectors should examine a home's interior, inspectors in New Orleans lacked permission to enter homes. Consequently, inspectors spent an average of six to eight minutes on each house, the report says....

...Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the flood program, said that FEMA may require some of the appeals to be reviewed again. But generally, the point is to learn lessons for the future, he said.
"Our goal is not to kick people out of the program; it's to make safer, stronger communities," he said. "Quite frankly, the city government gets a little bit of a bye in this case. Taking punitive action isn't really going to . . . serve anyone's interest."

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/washington/index.ssf?/base/news-1/116435151331380.xml&coll=1&thispage=1


Grants may have IRS come calling
They're taxable if loss claimed in '05 Friday, November 24, 2006
By Bill Walsh
WASHINGTON -- Louisiana hurricane victims lining up for government Road Home grants to rebuild their homes might be surprised to discover that, for some at least, there is a toll booth on the road to recovery.
The grants, which are averaging about $60,000, are not directly taxable. But the Internal Revenue Service says Road Home recipients who claimed a storm loss on their taxes last year should count the grants as income on their federal tax returns this year. That means some people will be thrown into lofty tax brackets they never dreamed of -- and pay more taxes too.
Not everyone will be hit with a higher tax bill. But the extra "income" could erode tax exemptions long enjoyed by some filers, such as some of those on Social Security, and force them to pay a fee for the government's largesse.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-7/116435104531380.xml&coll=1


City passes first big convention test
By Greg ThomasReal estate writer
There were plenty of reasons for the National Association of Realtors to reverse its promise, made just four months after Hurricane Katrina, to bring a huge convention to town about 10 months later.
National media exposure made New Orleans seem ill-equipped to handle any of its own residents, much less take care of about 25,000 visitors. Then, just two weeks before NAR’s convention came the shooting of five people in a French Quarter bar.
“So many of our people had reservations about coming down, said Lens Ferber, president of the Pennsylvania Realtors Association. But NAR organized numerous trips for doubters like Ferber to prove that the city was ready. “Me going down (in August) helped break the ice. Many were apprehensive. The press outside your area is unbelievable” in painting a totally negative image of the city, Ferber said.
The show went on, and delegates learned that the national media was dead wrong about New Orleans.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_11_22.html#207603


Contract buoys Miss. firmVT Halter building 3 vessels for Egypt
Thursday, November 23, 2006By Jaquetta WhiteVT Halter Marine has been awarded a contract for $165.5 million in support of the design and construction of the Egyptian Navy's Fast Missile Craft.
The award modifies a contract the Pascagoula, Miss.-based company received in December to build three of the 203-foot vessels. Last year's contract, for $28.9 million, let VT Halter Marine begin design work on the vessels.
The new contract, announced by the Department of Defense on Tuesday, provides money for the firm to begin buying construction supplies. VT Halter Marine is building the vessels for the Egyptian government under the Foreign Military Construction Sales Program, which lets U.S. companies construct vessels, among other things, for foreign governments.

http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-0/116438912124070.xml&coll=1


Signs of recoveryEvidence of recovery can be seen all over the metro New Orleans area.
Those signs brighten our mood and show that we are on the mend. We'll be watching for these harbingers of rebirth and taking note of some of them every week. Friday, November 24, 2006-- Runners poured into City Park for the Turkey Day Race on Thanksgiving Day. The race, which is in its 99th year, is one of the oldest in the country. The race also is a fund-raiser, with proceeds benefiting the Spina Bifida Association and City Park.
-- Carousel Gardens amusement park reopens in City Park today. The miniature train also is rolling again, carrying kids and grownups through the heart of the park.
-- Performances of the Nutcracker are being staged across greater New Orleans this holiday season. All of the old venues are back, and the New Orleans Ballet Theatre and Schramel Conservatory of Dance are adding their version to the mix.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-3/116435059831380.xml&coll=1


EDITORIAL: Welcome back to the party
Friday, November 24, 2006New Orleans has changed since the last time the Grambling State Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars played in New Orleans. Bayou Classic fans who haven't been here since Thanksgiving 2004 will, if they drive around the city, discover that much of what they've heard is true: The devastation here is too mind-bogglingly vast to comprehend without seeing it.
But visitors also will discover something else: New Orleans is still alive. It's still open for business, and its people still know how to throw a party.
The fact that our ability to have a good time weathered the storm shouldn't lead anyone to conclude that we are free of worry or depression. Truth is, the fact that we have so many worries makes us anticipate traditional parties like the Bayou Classic that much more. The fact that the city's economy relies heavily on tourism means mega events like Saturday's game are necessary for recovery.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-3/116435015131380.xml&coll=1


Opinion Poll
Do you think it is important to buy from locally owned stores this holiday season?
Yes - 80.6%
No - 19.4%

Troopers report initial success with I-40 'police chain'
11/24/2006, 3:11 p.m. CTBy ANDREW DeMILLO The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK (AP) — An eight-state operation to put state troopers every few miles along Interstate 40 the day before Thanksgiving appeared to help cut down on fatalities along the major corridor, state police said Friday.
From California to North Carolina, state police were posted every 10 miles along the 2,547- mile east-west corridor Wednesday afternoon through early Thursday in the largest operation of its kind.
Troopers participating in the program — dubbed I-40 Care Across America — said they were waiting for final figures from the holiday weekend but initially praised the interstate patrol as a success.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-28/1164403192104970.xml&storylist=louisiana



The Daily Star - Lebanon

Siniora ignores opposition objection, schedules
Cabinet meet for Saturday
Sabaa returns in time for controversial session on hariri tribunal
BEIRUT: Lebanon's Cabinet is to meet Saturday to approve the UN statutes for the creation of an international court to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a move pro-Syrian parties say should not take place while they are not represented in the government.
The draft requires approval by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government and pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud before being forwarded to Parliament for a final vote.
Speaker Nabih Berri will now play a key role in the UN blueprint's progress as only he can put the related legislation on Parliament's agenda once the Cabinet has renewed its approval of it.
However, Berri has stated publicly that all decisions taken by Siniora's Cabinet since six pro-Syrian ministers resigned are "unconstitutional."
Down to just 17 ministers from the 24 it started with, the Cabinet barely had the two-thirds plus one required for the quorum necessary to pass decisions and remain in office.
However, Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa, who had quit Cabinet in February over an unrelated dispute, officially retracted his resignation and resumed his duties on Friday, bolstering the majority's control of the government. Ahmed Fatfat, who had served as acting interior minister, returned to the sports and youth portfolio.
Berri had also defined as "unconstitutional" Siniora's November 13 decision to submit the draft to the UN Security Council for endorsement.
"Any [Cabinet] session held now is unconstitutional because it would be in breach of Lebanon's national pact," he said last week, referring to the unwritten arrangement providing for all of the country's religious groups to be represented in government.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=77158


Hizbullah 'plans to start street protests next week'
BEIRUT: Hizbullah and its allies will take to the streets next week to force the government's resignation, political sources told the Reuters news agency on Friday, a move that will likely fuel already simmering tension. The protests, which had originally been planned for this week, were postponed following Tuesday's assassination of anti-Syrian Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel in a northern suburb of Beirut.
Hizbullah and its ally, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) have been demanding a bigger say in Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Cabinet, dominated by members of the March 14 Forces.
The anti-Syrian coalition has rejected the demand, claiming Hizbullah's real aim is to block the formation of an international court into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
"We are heading for a confrontation," a senior political source close to the opposition said. "The room for a political solution is very, very tight. There is no room other than going to the street," he added.
The source said the protests would take place in several parts of Lebanon, not just Beirut.
The opposition was considering adding other options to its campaign, including sit-ins, strikes by government workers and the resignation of opposition parliamentarians, he added.
The head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said Gemayel's assassination was a shock to all Lebanese and had forced the party to postpone its protests.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=77160



BEIRUT: Sports and Youth Minister Ahmad Fatfat said Friday he had warned late Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel three weeks ago that threats had been made against his life and asked him to take precautions. In an interview with the Saudi-based Elaph Web site to be published Saturday, Fatfat said several ministers have received death threats in recent weeks.
Fatfat, in his last comments as acting interior minister, added that due to these threats, several of the ministers were currently residing at the Grand Serail for protection.
Fatfat warned that the inquiry into Gemayel's murder risked being a complex one, amid varying accounts of the killing.
"The investigation is very complex because there are a large number of witnesses and closed circuit camera recordings that must be analyzed," he said.
"One of the camera recordings shows Mr. Gemayel's car and the vehicle that was following him," the minister said without elaborating.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=77157



Israelis rebuff Palestinian offer of mutual cease-fire
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya said Friday that militant factions had agreed to halt rocket fire if Israel reciprocates by stopping its military offensives but the Jewish state rejected the proposal. Later Israeli forces shot dead a 10-year old boy and two other Palestinians. On the political front, the Palestinian foreign minister accused President Mahmoud Abbas for delaying the formation of a national unity government as Hamas' political leader, Khaled Meshaal, held talks with Egyptian officials on the deadlock.
Haniyya said the armed factions reached the agreement a day earlier, adding that the "ball now is in the Israeli court."
"[Israel] must stop its aggression and escalation against the Palestinian people," he said. "Then there will be no problem according to what the factions agreed in their last meeting."
Haniyya was scheduled to meet faction leaders again later Friday, and the sides hoped to draw up a written truce proposal, officials said.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Ismail Radwan, watered down Haniyya's talk of a cease-fire, saying the factions had agreed to "alter their strategies of resistance" if Israel halted fire.
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, described the offer to trade a partial cease-fire for a suspension of all Israeli military operations in Palestinian territories as "ludicrous" and "a media stunt."

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=77162


Business 'strike' falls flat as most companies ignore call
Only banking sector was largely observant
BEIRUT: Most businesses in Lebanon's capital resumed regular operations on Friday, ignoring a joint call from major business groups for a two-day strike across all commercial sectors. Business leaders had hoped the move might break the political deadlock over Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Cabinet and discourage rival parties from continuing to threaten street protests.
Though supportive of the strike in principle, most merchants, industrialists, and traders were not in the financial position to adhere to such a demand, the head of the Hotel, Cafe, and Restaurant Syndicate said.
"The decision was taken at a bad time," Paul Ariss told The Daily Star. "It's the end of the month and restaurants need the extra cash to pay salaries. We requested by SMS and telephone last night that everyone comply with decision, but let's just say people were not enthusiastic about it, because they need to make some money."
On top of staggering indirect losses from the July-August war with Israel, many restaurants - particularly those in Christian communities - were closed for most of this week following the assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel.
Continued political instability has caused consumer confidence, and consequently spending habits, to dip even further, meaning people are buying fewer non-essential items.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=77152


Report downgrades estimate of direct war losses
BEIRUT: A government report said on Friday that total direct costs to Lebanon from the war of this past summer were $2.8 billion - $800 million less than an earlier estimate. Shortly after the August 14 cessation of hostilities, the Council for Development and Reconstruction estimated direct material losses at $3.6 billion.
The new government report, which was issued by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's office, said the Israeli bombardment likely would cause GDP growth to fall to close to zero - a drop of 4-5 percent - by the end of the year.
Lebanon was hoping to record GDP growth of 6 percent in 2006 based on a projected influx of tourists, surge in exports and increase in foreign direct investment.
The Tourism Ministry expected more than 1.6 million visitors to come to Lebanon in the summer season alone, generating revenues of $3 billion.
Treasury revenues during the conflict fell by $1.6 billion, the report said.
"For the first time in six years, the Treasury will suffer a deficit in the primary surplus of $778 million, although the ministry was expecting a surplus of $827 million at the end of 2006," the report said.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=77153



Moody's downgrades Lebanese bonds in light of accelerating political crisis
BEIRUT: Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook on Lebanon's B3 foreign-currency government bonds to negative from stable. The action reflects the ongoing deterioration in the country's domestic political environment following the resignations of six opposition ministers from the Cabinet on November 11 and 13 and the assassination of the minister of industry on Tuesday.
Moody's believes that the resignations by the ministers, most of whom were Shiite, has undermined the government's standing, further calling into question its ability to maintain political stability or implement much-needed economic reforms.
The assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel has emphasized the fragility of the current political situation.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=77129


Hotels report mass exodus in wake of Gemayel assassination
In many cases occupancy rates have dropped by at least halfBEIRUT: On a day when the streets of Beirut overflowed with people, the city's hotels stood nearly empty, as occupancy levels have dropped dramatically since Tuesday's assassination, hoteliers told The Daily Star Thursday. The prospects for the hospitality sector remain uncertain for the coming holiday season, with optimism more the exception than the norm.
At the popular Phoenicia InterContinental, a half-dozen doormen, parking valets and security guards stood idle outside the hotel entrance, with not a guest in sight.
"There's nothing today," said Leyla Kang, an employee in the hotel gift shop.
Occupancy fell from about 30 percent Tuesday to about 10 percent Thursday, said Claude Chami at the Avis Rent-A-Car and Kurban Tours office in the hotel lobby.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=77128



Bumper crop has Iranian pistachio exporters seeing green
Agence France Presse
TEHRAN: Almost 10 years after an EU ban rocked the industry, Iran's pistachio suppliers are looking forward to a bumper year and hoping to consolidate their position as the top exporter of one of the world's most popular nuts. The pistachio tree, which favors baking summers and cold winters, thrives in arid southeastern Iran. Along with carpets and saffron, the nut has established itself as one of the country's most iconic commodities.
The pistachio trade is a linchpin of the Iranian economy, accounting for at least half of Iran's total agricultural exports and ranking as the third-largest source of foreign revenue.
The sector is still reeling from a steep decline in demand in 1997, when relations between Iran and Europe were at a low and the European Union suspended imports of Iranian pistachios because of excessive levels of a possibly carcinogenic toxin.
Since the ban, the Iranian government has adopted internationally recognized food-safety standards, the head of the agriculture ministry's pistachio office said, adding that this year's crop was expected to top last year's 230,000 tons.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=77003



Amin Gemayel has lost a son, but Lebanon has gained a father
...The spree of assassinations in Lebanon has drawn international condemnation. Two state-affiliated Iranian newspapers weighed in on the matter of the most recent killing in front-page articles which accused the United States and Israel of assassinating Gemayel in order to destabilize Lebanon. If that is indeed the case, then Iran ought to be willing to give its full public support to the UN tribunal. The perpetrators of Gemayel's murder - whether American, Israeli, Syrian, Lebanese or otherwise - should be forced to stand trial and be prosecuted just like any other suspected assassins....

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=77118&categ_id=17


Hizbullah supporters fume over barbs at funeral'
This is not acceptable. do we ever insult patriarch sfeir?'
BEIRUT: It was business as usual Friday in the capital's southern suburbs, where angry Hizbullah supporters blocked off the airport road Thursday night with burning tires in response to speeches made by March 14 leaders during late Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel's funeral. Many of the slogans shouted by the hundreds of thousands of supporters gathered in Martyrs Square in Downtown Beirut Thursday were directed at the opposition and its leaders, including Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=77155

continued ...

Underwater pumpkin contest

Prize-winning underwater pumpkin contest carvers display their creations Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006, off Key Largo, Fla., in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The contest, staged by the Amoray Dive Resort, judges divers on their artistic originality, as well as the degree of difficulty to carve the entry in the sub sea environment. [Xinhua/AFP]

Alexei Goman and Lyudmila Chegrinets

Oksana Fedorova, Miss Universe 2002, and Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Pashutin, Merited Actor of Russia, and Svetlana Bogdanova during "Dancing with the Stars"

Morning Papers - continued ...

China Daily

Old antiar needs help in Haikou
(newsphoto)
Updated: 2006-11-24 16:56
A one-hundred-year old antiar falls down while a villager looks on in Haikou, South China's Hainan Province on November 23. The tree with over twenty-metres height was blew down by a typhoon last Sepetember. The villagers were voluntary to have protected it for one year, but can't make it stand again without heavy crane and money.[newsphoto]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_742387.htm


Hu in Pakistan to expand bilateral trade, friendship
(Agencies/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-11-24 07:02
Pakistan President Perves Musharraf (L) greets China's President Hu Jintao upon his arrival at a military base in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, November 23, 2006, as Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (2nd L) looks on. [Reuters] President Hu Jintao will seek to deepen China's decades-old friendship with Pakistan on Friday when the two neighbors are due to sign a broad range of economic agreements, including a free trade pact. Hu arrived in Pakistan on Thursday on the first visit by a Chinese president in a decade. His visit also marks the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations which analysts describe as Pakistan's most stable.
The agreements to be signed will include the fields of industry, agriculture, energy, as well as the trade deal, a senior Pakistani government official said.
Trade between the two countries rose 39 percent last year to US$4.26 billion and they hope to increase that substantially with the free trade agreement (FTA).
Salman Bashir, Pakistan's envoy to China, said a free trade agreement will be the most important document signed during Hu's four-day visit, the first by a Chinese leader to this Muslim nation in 10 years.
"We are expecting to take volume of bilateral trade to US$15 billion within the next five years with the implementation of the FTA (free trade agreement)," Bashir told the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_741607.htm


Iraq attack death toll rises to 202
(AP)Updated: 2006-11-24 16:27
Smoke rises from damaged vehicles after a car bombing in the Sadr City area of Baghdad in this image taken from TV Thursday Nov. 23, 2006. [AP]
Baghdad - Iraqi officials and police said Friday that 202 people were killed and 252 were wounded in the bombing attack by Sunni-Arab insurgents on the capital's Sadr City slum.
The death toll, released by Rahim Qassim, a Health Ministry official in Sadr City, and police Col. Hassen Chaloub, was far higher than the one officials had given on Thursday night, when they had said that 161 Iraqis were killed and 257 wounded when insurgents blew up five car bombs and fired mortars into Baghdad's largest Shiite district. The dramatic attack sent the US ambassador racing to meet with Iraqi leaders in an effort to contain the growing sectarian war. Shiite mortar teams quickly retaliated, firing 10 shells at Sunni Islam's most important shrine in Baghdad, badly damaging the Abu Hanifa mosque and killing one person. Eight more rounds slammed down near the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni Muslim organization in Iraq, setting nearby houses on fire.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-11/24/content_742353.htm



Poisoned former KGB spy dies in London
(AP)Updated: 2006-11-24 09:02
LONDON - A former Russian spy who said he had been poisoned died Thursday night at a London hospital, following a mysterious and rapid decline that left doctors unable to pinpoint the cause of death, officials said.
This photo released by the family of Alexander Litvinenko shows former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in his hospital bed, at the University College Hospital in central London in this Monday Nov. 20, 2006 file photo. [AP] Alexander Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, had suffered heart failure and was heavily sedated as medical staff struggled to determine what had made the 43-year-old critically ill.
"The matter is being investigated as an unexplained death," London's Metropolitan police said in a statement.
The former spy said he believed he had been poisoned on Nov. 1, while investigating the slaying of another Kremlin detractor - investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. His hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems were severely damaged, he said.
Just hours before he lost consciousness, Litvinenko said in an interview with The Times newspaper of London that he had been silenced.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-11/24/content_741789.htm



Verdict for HK spy journalist upheld
By Xinhua Updated: 2006-11-24 13:55
The Beijing Higher People's Court on Friday rejected Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong's appeal and upheld his original five-year sentence for espionage.
Singapore Straits Times journalist Ching Cheong speaks at an event in Singapore in this April 2, 2005 file photo. A Chinese court on November 24, 2006 upheld a guilty verdict against the Hong Kong-based Singapore newspaper reporter who was sentenced to prison for five years for spying. [Reuters] Ching Cheong, who worked for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, is also deprived of political rights for one year, and his personal property worth 300,000 yuan (about US$37,500) was confiscated.
The original verdict of the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court in August was "a correct application of the law and provided appropriate punishment," said a judge with the Beijing Higher People's Court. The court fully guaranteed Ching's right of appeal, the judge said.
According to the court, Ching had become acquainted with two people, surnamed Xue and Dai from a Taiwan foundation. The court learned the foundation was actually an espionage organization, and Xue and Dai were deputies, of which Ching was fully aware.
The court heard that between May 2004 and April 2005 Ching supplied Xue and Dai, through fax and email, with information involving state secrets and intelligence he had received from his contacts in Beijing. Ching accepted 300,000 HK dollars from the organization.
A document released by the court during the first trial said the penalty was a mitigated one considering that after Ching Cheong was detained, he voluntarily confessed more espionage activities than those the state security departments had known.
He also presented his notebook computer, which contained evidence of espionage, to the authorities, according to the document.
The court document showed that Ching was born on December 3, 1949.
After of the first trial of the case in August, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Donald Tsang said his government must respect the "One Country, Two Systems" principle and not interfere in the law enforcement and the judicial process of the mainland, just as the mainland authorities will not interfere in the cases that fall within the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong SAR.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_742162.htm

China sells first pools of bad loans

(AP)Updated: 2006-11-24 10:39
China Cinda Asset Management plans to securitise 4.75 billion yuan (US$604 million) in bad loans acquired from Bank of China, creating the first debt instruments formed from the country's non-performing bank assets. The move by Cinda, one of four state-owned firms created to take on bad debt from the country's biggest banks, represents an attempt to accelerate disposal of loans taken on over the past seven years.
Cinda's securities will be backed by about 21 billionn yuan of non-performing loans made in prosperous Guangdong province.
The securities will be made available through an intermediary trust vehicle and have a maturity of five years. Of the 4.75 billion yuan total, Cinda itself plans to buy back about one billion yuan.
A Cinda official said that as long as this initial sale proceeded smoothly, they would look to issue similar securities products in future.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_742015.htm

China to become net corn importer 'in a few years'

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)Updated: 2006-11-24 15:16
A farmer in Central China's Hunan Province holds a handful of newly harvested corn. [China Daily]
China is becoming a net corn importer as a result of robust domestic demand from the corn deep processing sector. The nation's corn exports stood at 2.27 million tons in the first three quarters of this year, down 68.3 per cent year-on-year, while imports hit 60,000 tons, up 43 times year-on-year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.
Boosted by rising oil prices, many grain enterprises have built processing facilities in China's major corn producing provinces. The growing capability will drive domestic demand even higher and is likely to turn China into a net corn importer in the coming years, insiders said.
"Corn stocks have fallen this year as a result of domestic demand," said an official from the Ministry of Commerce, who wished to remain anonymous. "We believe that China will become a net importer of corn in a few years."
He contributed the change largely to increasing industrial processing, but he did not expect the change to happen in 2007 because China's corn supply still exceeds demand.
Corn is largely used in producing fuel ethanol, sugar and animal feed.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_742266.htm

US$900m misused from pension fund

(China Daily)Updated: 2006-11-24 07:21
An audit report published Thursday found that about 7.1 billion yuan (US$900 million) of the country's 2 trillion yuan (US$253 billion) social security fund had been misappropriated. According to the National Audit Office, the funds were siphoned off for "overseas investment, commercial loans to companies, construction of government buildings and other purposes."
Of the total, 2.3 billion yuan (US$291 million) was stolen before 1999 and 4.8 billion yuan (US$607 million) after that, said the report.
"The social security funds, except for sums paid to beneficiaries, must be deposited in banks or used to purchase State treasury bonds," said the report.
The agency's investigation, which started in September, audited pension, unemployment and health insurance funds in provinces across the country, and discovered corruption and irregular management.
At a health insurance fund management centre in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the director and the finance chief transferred 31.9 million yuan (US$4 million) of medical insurance premiums to bank accounts of friends and relatives.
China provided pensions to 43.67 million retirees last year and granted living subsidies to 3.62 million laid-off people.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_741641.htm

Fed Chairman to join China mission

(Reuters)Updated: 2006-11-24 10:15
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke speaks at the Opportunity Finance Network and the First Nations Oweesta meeting in Washington, November 1, 2006.[Reuters/file]
Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will accompany Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other cabinet officials to Beijing next month to try to persuade China to alter economic policies, senior US government officials said on Thursday.
The 1-1/2-day visit in mid-December has an ambitious agenda to push, from urging China to let its yuan currency to appreciate further to persuading it to reduce barriers to foreign investment and crack down on piracy.
Officially it is to be the opening round of talks under the "strategic economic dialogue" announced in mid-September when Paulson visited China for economic talks.
The common thread among the topics expected to be discussed is that each is an irritant for US lawmakers and industry.
US Congress has been blaming China's currency value for its record trade deficits, saying China is keeping the yuan at a low relative value through manipulation that is costing American jobs and competitiveness.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_741959.htm

China's Love of Cars not Waning
http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/slideshow/weekzine/Nov24/movie_3.htm

China breaks more than 1,300 organized crime gangs

(Xinhua)Updated: 2006-11-24 11:08
Chinese police have cracked more than 1,300 criminal gangs in the latest campaign against organized crime, authorities said.
Between March and October, Chinese prisons received 887 new inmates charged for gang crime, Hu Yiding, deputy director of prison administration under the Ministry of Justice said.
By the end of October, police had referred 196 cases of alleged organized crime for prosecution and 1,347 crime gangs had been broken, according to the office for national campaign against organized crime.
This shows that the campaign against organized crime has been effective, said a spokesman for the office.
In China, organized crime gangs are sometimes protected by officials through bribery, threat or other means.
Prosecutors had been exposing the "umbrellas" covering gangs, with 33 cases uncovered involving 47 official, said Huang Hailong, deputy director of the investigation and supervision department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/24/content_742071.htm

Mainland nominees not barred from Taiwan film festival

(Xinhua)Updated: 2006-11-24 08:51
The Film Bureau refuted Thursday a rumor that the "mainland film delegation should collectively drop out of Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards", saying that the bureau has never objected to people representing nominated films attending the ceremony.
Zhang Pimin, deputy director of the State Film Bureau, said that the bureau had sent delegations to attend the Golden Horse Awards ceremony in the past but it was not established practice.
Only mainland-Taiwan or mainland-Hong Kong co-productions qualify for the Golden Horse Awards. Mainland actors, directors and other film staff associated with nominated films can attend the ceremony in Taiwan after registering with the bureau.
The Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-speaking world's equivalent of the Oscars, will be held in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, on November 25.
Nominated co-production films include Peter Chan's musical movie "Perhaps Love" starring mainland actress Zhou Xun, who has been nominated for best actress; "The Postmodern Life of My Aunt", starring Chinese actress Siqin Gaowa, also nominated for best actress; "Crazy Stone"; and Chinese director Feng Xiaogang's Hamlet-inspired epic "The Banquet", which stars Zhang Ziyi.
Cast and crew from these films are all allowed to attend the awards ceremony in Taiwan, said Zhang, adding that -- as far as he knew -- some of them were already on the way.
Narcissism produces cyber celebritiesBy Li Qian (Chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2006-11-22 17:04
Another Sister Furong has made an appearance in cyberspace as narcissistic amateur celebrities continue to flood the cyber world. The Beijing Youth Daily took a look at these people on November 20.
Self-proclaimed 'Guoxue (national studies) Spice Girl' Bai Luming recently attracted attention from Internet users by posting her coquettish photos taken in front of the Confucius statue at Guo Zi Jian, the Imperial College of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, onto the web.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/22/content_740238.htm

10 airliners to cut fuel surcharge

(Shanghai Daily)Updated: 2006-11-24 14:17
Ten Hong Kong and domestic airliners will reduce fuel surcharges on international flights from December 1 as oil prices decline, Huaxia Times reported today. Cathay Pacific Airways said on its Website that it will cut the fuel surcharge on long-distant routes to HK$466 (US$60) from HK$481, including flights from Hong Kong to Southwest Pacific, North America, Europe, Middle East, India, Africa and Bangkok.
It will reduce the surcharge on short-distant routes to HK$113 from HK$117, including flights from Hong Kong to Japan, South Korea, New York and Vancouver
Other airliners, including Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and Dragon Air, will also reduce fuel surcharges to HK$113 on international routes, the report said.
The new levy standard will be valid until January 31.
But the fuel surcharges for domestic routes are the same at 60 yuan (US$7.63) for flights shorter than 800 kilometers and 100 yuan for flights longer than 800 kilometers.

Grandmother blows herself up in Gaza

(AP)Updated: 2006-11-24 09:01
JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip - A 64-year-old Palestinian grandmother blew herself up near Israeli troops sweeping through northern Gaza on Thursday, and eight other Palestinians were killed in a day of clashes and rocket fire.
The militant Hamas, which is in charge of the Palestinian government, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and identified the bomber as Fatma Omar An-Najar. Her relatives said she was 64 - by far the oldest of the more than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers who have targeted Israelis over the past six years.
Israeli forces were moving through the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on the second day of an operation to stem rocket fire from the coastal strip into southern Israel. They spotted a woman acting suspiciously, the military said. Soldiers threw a stun grenade, a weapon that makes a loud nose but causes no damage. The woman then set off explosives she was carrying, killing herself and slightly wounding two soldiers.
At the compound where her extended family lives near Jebaliya camp, her oldest daughter Fatheya explained the bomber's motives.
"They (Israelis) destroyed her house, they killed her grandson - my son. Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg," she said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-11/24/content_741786.htm

Palestinians offer Israel limited truce

(Reuters)Updated: 2006-11-24 10:07
GAZA - Palestinian militant groups offered to stop firing rockets into Israel in exchange for a cessation of all attacks on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, an official said on Thursday.
Palestinian relatives of Adham Sahabani, 17, who was killed by Israeli troops, at Odwan hospital in northern Gaza, November 23, 2006.[Reuters]
Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib said the main Palestinian factions including the governing Hamas group, the rival Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas and other smaller groups reached the understanding while meeting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
"For the good of the national Palestinian interest ... there is a position supporting calm (a ceasefire) by stopping rocket fire in return for an end to the aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank," Habib told Reuters.
Habib said a deal would only take effect after Israel agrees and actually ends military actions. The offer was limited only to rocket firing and did not include other forms of attacks by militants such as cross-border attacks and suicide bombings.
It was the first time that all Palestinian factions and militant groups had agreed on a common proposal.
He added that Haniyeh would take the proposal to Abbas in their meeting later on Thursday in the hope that the president would then put it to Israel.
"If the Israelis agree then the deal will be ratified by all parties. The implementation of the agreement will be pending on whether we will see an end to the aggression on the ground," Habib said.
On Wednesday, the Israeli government decided to press on with a five-month-old offensive which it launched after militants abducted a soldier in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip last June.
It stopped short of a massive assault to curb an upsurge in Palestinian militant rocket strikes on the Jewish state.
Israel has killed nearly 400 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, since it began the offensive, hospital officials and residents say. Three soldiers have been killed.
Throngs mourn slain Lebanese official(AP)Updated: 2006-11-24 09:07
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese flooded downtown Beirut on Thursday to mourn a slain Christian politician and vent anger at Syria, gearing up for a potentially explosive fight over power with the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah and other allies of Damascus.
Church bells tolled and women threw flowers and rice on Pierre Gemayel's coffin, draped in the flag of his Phalange Party, as it was passed hand to hand over the dense crowd of mourners outside St. Georges Cathedral.
Nearby in Martyrs' Square, a throng of supporters, estimated at 800,000 by police, turned the funeral into a mass show of force in support of the beleaguered U.S.-backed government, which is dominated by opponents of Syrian influence in its smaller neighbor.
Amid a sea of Lebanese flags, demonstrators chanted slogans against Syria, which they accuse of killing Gemayel, and burned pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his top ally in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud.
"We want revenge - from Lahoud and Bashar," the crowd chanted.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-11/24/content_741800.htm

Free Viagra spices up town life

(Reuters)Updated: 2006-11-21 14:46
A bottle of Viagra pills is seen in an undated file photo. The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners. [Reuters] Brasilia - The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners.
"Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They're much happier," said Joao de Souza Luz, the mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, a small town in the central state of Mato Grosso.
Souza Luz said 68 men over the age of 60 had already signed up for the program, which was approved by the town's legislature and has been dubbed "Happy Penis," or "Pinto Alegre" in Portuguese.
But the program has also had the unforeseen consequence of encouraging some extra-marital affairs, Souza Luz said.
"Some of the old men aren't seeking out their wives. They've got romances on the side," he said.
To discourage such illicit canoodling, Souza Luz said the city had decided to begin distributing the Viagra pills to the wives of the men who signed up for the program.
"That way, when the women are in the mood, they can give the pills to their husbands," he said.
90-year-old WWI U-boats discovered(AFP)Updated: 2006-11-23 16:28
LONDON - The wrecks of two German U-boats from World War I have been found off the coast of the Orkney Islands, north of mainland Scotland, one of which carried the German commander who killed the then British secretary of war, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said. They were initially found earlier this year by chance, during the MCA's ongoing process of conducting sonar surveys in British waters, and were recently identified as the wrecks of U102 and U92 after experts examined original plans of the boats.
The MCA said the two boats may have been sunk on the Northern Barrage - a series of mines laid in the area.
Intriguingly, one of the U-boats, U102, carried Commander Kurt Beitzen, who killed Lord Horatio Kitchener, then Secretary for War - best known for posters bearing his moustachioed likeness with arm pointing out, above the text "Your country needs you".
In May 1916, Beitzen's U-boat U-75 laid 22 mines along the west cost of Orkney. A month later, Kitchener was on the HMS Hampshire on a mission to Russia, when his ship ran into the mines, and Kitchener died along with most of the crew.
"One of the subs, it seems, was commanded by quite a famous commander - the man who sunk the ship that Lord Kitchener was on - so this is his watery grave so to speak," said Rob Spillard, Hydrograph Manager at the MCA.

FIFA suspends Iran from all international soccer

(Reuters)Updated: 2006-11-24 09:50
ZURICH, Nov 23 - Iran has been suspended from all international soccer activity because of government interference in running the game in the country, world ruling body FIFA said on Thursday.
The move comes just five months after Iran took part in the World Cup finals in Germany and a week after they secured a place in the 2008 Asian Cup finals, winning their qualifying group by beating South Korea 2-0 in Tehran.
An Iranian news agency said Iran did not accept the decision and decribed it as "completely illegitimate". Fans in the soccer-mad country were stunned.
"I am totally shocked because I love football and I always follow the Iranian national soccer squad with 100 percent enthusiasm," said Hassan Alizad, a 43-year-old driver, who had revelled in Iran's success at reaching the Asian Cup finals.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2006-11/24/content_741923.htm

After World Cup: Germany's economy up, but soccer down

(AP)Updated: 2006-11-23 11:09
More than four months after the World Cup, the German economy is rising, but the same can hardly be said for the country's soccer. The world's biggest sports event ended July 9 in Berlin, and now Germany is grappling with contradictions as it tries to assess the tournament's lasting impact.
The first-division Bundesliga is averaging a record 38,985 fans this season, although the quality of play leaves much to be desired. In the lower leagues, stadium violence has become alarming, and politicians and police are trying to regain control.
"The atmosphere in the stadiums is better than the performances," said Franz Beckenbauer, head of Germany's World Cup effort. "But the World Cup is still with us, even if the euphoria couldn't last."
Bayern Munich, off to its worst Bundesliga start in 32 years, is just one of the clubs booed for weeks by home fans because of uninspired play.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2006-11/23/content_741100.htm
Studies offer fresh hope for Sino-Japanese tiesBy Huang Qing (China Daily)Updated: 2006-11-24 07:06
At the ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation in mid-November, Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers reached a consensus on conducting joint research on history relevant to both countries.
To begin, the two parties decided on the principles on which the joint historical studies will be carried out. These are principles laid down by the China-Japan Joint Communique, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan and the China-Japan Joint Declaration, or "three political documents" as it's known in China.
Second, the two sides clarified the targets of the joint historical research promoting mutual understanding by studying the 2,000 years of Sino-Japanese exchanges, sorrows and sufferings brought by wars in more recent history and the journey of the Sino-Japanese relationship over the last six decades since the end of World War II.
The current China-Japan relationship is laden with factors that trigger conflicting morals and interests, or that have the potential to touch off clashes, including how to understand and interpret history. Disputes over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands and controversy over the East China Sea exclusive economic zone are also included.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2006-11/24/content_741702.htm

Chicago Tribune

Devastating tropical disease arrives on U.S. shores

Several states report mosquito-borne virus
By Amy Ellis NuttNewhouse News ServicePublished November 24, 2006
ATLANTA -- Chikungunya, a severe and sometimes deadly infectious disease that has devastated the islands of the Indian Ocean, has arrived in the United States.
Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota and at least a half-dozen other states have reported cases of travelers returning from Asia and East Africa sick with the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chikungunya is spread through an infected mosquito's bite. It is not spread directly by an infected person to someone else.
"This virus has exploded," said French scientist Philippe Parola before presenting his findings last week at the 55th annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference. "People must start to pay attention."
From the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, Reunion and the Seychelles, to 150 provinces of India, chikungunya has infected more than 1.3 million people in the last 20 months.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0611240195nov24,1,2244287.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Wintry cold blast to slash temps 40-plus degrees here in November's final hours
Published November 24, 2006
Enjoy Chicago's mild weather: Big changes are in store which could slash city temperatures 40-50 degrees between Tuesday's 62(degrees) maximum--highest of the coming seven days--and the arctic chill likely to grip the area and produce teens as lows by next Friday night. Fairbanks, Alaska, at the heart of an arctic air mass predicted to crash south into the Lower 48, marked a 14th consecutive day below 0(degrees) Thursday--and there's no break there until some warming arrives later next week. Fairbanks' November temperature has averaged -8.8(degrees), more than 12 degrees below normal. In Canada's nearby Yukon Territory, midday temperatures Thursday hovered at a heart-stopping 45 degrees below zero! Barometric pressures build over northwestern North America in coming days, a development expected to encourage the cold air to begin pouring south. Waves of snowfall in the upper Midwest this weekend into early next week will lead to a snowpack there likely to encourage the cold air's move into the Midwest. Snowfall isn't uncommon this time of year. The U.S. snowpack increased from 10 percent of the country on this date (Nov. 24) a year ago to 35 percent by November's close and 50 percent by Dec. 7, 2005.
Sources: Various computer model forecasts, Frank Wachowski
WGN-TV/Paul Dailey

`Always knew I was innocent'

Imprisoned in a 1992 sexual assault, Marlon Pendleton is told by his lawyer that new DNA tests show that he was not the assailant
By Maurice PossleyTribune staff reporterPublished November 24, 2006
Hands folded in his lap, Marlon Pendleton sat calmly in an interview room at the Dixon Correctional Center on Thursday, displaying little emotion at the news that DNA tests had excluded him from the rape that sent him to prison more than a decade ago.
"It was no surprise to me," Pendleton, 49, said. "I always knew I was innocent."
Pendleton has been in prison since the mid-1990s after being convicted of raping a woman on Chicago's South Side in 1992 and being convicted in a separate assault case.
On Wednesday, Pendleton's lawyers learned that DNA tests performed this month excluded him as the source of the genetic evidence left by the rapist in the 1992 case.
The Cook County state's attorney's office said, in light of the test results, it will review both cases.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0611240266nov24,1,1719772.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Water-pumping sites to get security boost
By Andrew SchroedterSpecial to the TribunePublished November 24, 2006
Police will soon have a new crime-fighting tool at six North Shore water-pumping stations that, along with the city of Chicago, provide drinking water for all of suburban Cook County.
Officials said high-tech video surveillance equipment will be installed by year's end, boosting security at stations in Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe and Northbrook.
Cameras currently are installed at the water plants, but a Cook County program dubbed Project Shield would change how the footage is monitored.
Law-enforcement officials said the technology upgrades will allow officers to view and control the high-resolution cameras from their squad cars or local police stations.
The real-time footage will be recorded by digital cameras that can pan and zoom and, in some cases, offer a 360-degree view of an area.
"It's great stuff," said Winnetka Police Chief Joseph DeLopez. "You read about it in books, and now it's here."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0611240182nov24,1,540121.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Bombs Kill 22 After Deadly Day in Iraq
By THOMAS WAGNER and QAIS Al-BASHIRAssociated Press WritersPublished November 24, 2006, 7:10 AM CST
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two bombs killed 22 people in northern Iraq on Friday as the government tried to tamp down violence and head off civil war a day after Sunni-Arab insurgents killed 215 people in an attack on Baghdad's Sadr City slum that intensified Shiite anger at the United States.
The blasts in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, involved explosives hidden in a parked car and in a suicide belt worn by a pedestrian that detonated simultaneously outside a car dealership at 11 a.m., said police Brig. Khalaf al-Jubouri. He said the casualties -- 22 dead, 26 wounded -- were expected to rise.
In Baghdad, followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meets with President Bush in Jordan next week, a member of parliament said. Bush and al-Maliki were scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday in Amman.
The al-Sadr bloc in parliament and government is the backbone of al-Maliki's political support, and its withdrawal, if only temporarily, would be a severe blow to the prime minister's already shaky hold on power.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-iraq,1,7982944.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Dying Russian Ex-Spy Implicated Putin
By TARIQ PANJAAssociated Press WriterPublished November 24, 2006, 6:47 AM CST
LONDON -- A former Russian spy who died in an apparent poisoning signed a statement in the waning hours of his life blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin and accusing him of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value," friends said Friday,
Putin's government strongly denied involvement, calling the allegation "nothing but nonsense."
Alexander Litvinenko's statement, read to reporters outside the hospital where he died late Thursday, addressed the Russian leader directly.
"You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women," Litvinenko said in a statement read by his friend Alex Goldfarb.
"You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life."
Goldfarb said Litvinenko had dictated the statement before he lost consciousness on Tuesday, and signed it in the presence of his wife, Marina.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/sns-ap-britain-poisoned-spy,1,3699312.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Shoppers Seek Black Friday Bargains
Tribune staff report and Associated PressPublished November 24, 2006, 7:07 AM CST
At the midnight hour, Chicago-area expressways looked more like rush hour today as shoppers descended on regional malls in search of bargains at stores opening their doors early to kick off the Christmas buying season.
And across, the nation, retailers offered expanded hours, generous discounts and free money in the form of gift cards to attract the hordes.
In a slowing but still steady economy, retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. were increasing the sales pitch to shoppers, hoping to grab customer dollars. A growing number of stores and malls threw open their doors at midnight to jump-start the season, and CompUSA Inc. and BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. even opened on Thanksgiving for the first time to grab customer dollars before the competition does.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which promised its most aggressive price strategy ever this holiday season, is using heavily discounted flat-screen TVs like Viore 42-inch plasma TVs for $988 to attract shoppers to its doors for its 5 a.m. opening on Black Friday, so named because it was traditionally when the surge of shopping made stores profitable.
Meanwhile, Sears Holdings Corp.'s Sears, Roebuck and Co., which opened at 5 a.m. Friday, one hour earlier than a year ago, will be giving out $10 reward cards for the first 200 shoppers that show up to the stores. Other early bird specials include Protron 37-inch LCD HDTVs for $949.99 and 50 percent discounts on many toys. At Sears Holdings' Kmart stores, shoppers will find 50 percent discounts on men's and women's outerwear as part of its early morning doorbusters.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-061124holiday-shopping,1,406111.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Welcome, ah, to the family
Published November 24, 2006
Generally speaking, calling someone a Neanderthal isn't taken as a compliment. It's taken as shorthand for "crude," "primitive," "reactionary" or "regressive." All those are listed as definitions under Neanderthal in the dictionary.
Neanderthals usually are depicted as stocky, heavy-browed brutes. Call someone a Neanderthal and the implication is he's living way back in the past--literally he's a caveman from the Stone Age--and he's not very smart.
So you'll pardon Homo sapiens' less than enthusiastic response to the recent scientific news that there may well have been some interbreeding between the primitives and the infinitely more refined model we see in the mirror every day. What's more, some Neanderthal genes related to brain size might have positively impacted human evolution.
It's like finding out that those crude distant relatives you would prefer not to invite to holiday gatherings have suddenly acquired cachet. Who knew?
The researchers are thrilled with the 38,000-year-old bone fragment from a male Neanderthal they discovered in Croatia because it still contained DNA. That is allowing them to decode the Neanderthal genome. More than 1 million building blocks of that DNA have been analyzed and all 3.3 billion should be mapped in a couple of years. This analysis should make it possible to determine precisely how we're all related and whether there was any interbreed hanky-panky over the eons.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0611240157nov24,0,1906081.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

2 schools keep early-admitU. of C., NU bucking trend to make change
By Jodi S. CohenTribune higher education reporterPublished November 24, 2006
Though some universities decided earlier this year to scrap their early-admissions programs, the two most selective universities in the Chicago area will continue admitting high school students during the first semester of their senior year.
Officials at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University said they will continue to allow seniors to apply in the fall and get a decision by mid-December because it doesn't disadvantage minority and low-income students, a criticism taken to heart by other universities

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0611240141nov24,1,6311885.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Dairy Owner Combats Mozzarella Monopoly
By PAUL ELIASAssociated Press WriterPublished November 24, 2006, 3:14 AM CST
BANGOR, Calif. -- Think fresh mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes are more likely to come to mind than water buffalos. But true mozzarella can only be made from the rich, fatty milk of the water buffalo. For years, chefs and gourmands in the United States would settle for nothing less than the smooth, white balls of mozzarella di bufala, airlifted from Italy.
Hanns Michael Heick is hoping to crack Italy's mozzarella monopoly in a quixotic quest to produce the finest mozzarella this side of Naples.
"There was a point in my life where I didn't even know water buffalo existed," said Heick, who was born in Vienna and spent much of his adult life as a wine exporter. "Now I'm an expert."
His water buffalo, about 200 head, roam a 50-acre spread in the remote foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains.
Fresh mozzarella has become a $48 billion specialty food trend in the United States. Heick and his Italian-born wife, Grazia Perrella, whose family has produced mozzarella for three generations, operate the larger of two mozzarella-producing water buffalo dairies in the country.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-farm-scene-buffalo-cheese,0,5986079.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Sexy duds make nurse group sick

Eatery's waitresses just dressed to thrill, defiant owner says
By Stephen KiehlTribune Newspapers: Baltimore SunPublished November 24, 2006
The specialty at the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz., is a Quadruple Bypass Burger that's stacked high with four half-pound beef patties, cheddar cheese, red onions, bacon, lettuce, tomato and a special sauce.
But it's not the burger's fat content or cholesterol payload that has raised the ire of Baltimore-based The Center for Nursing Advocacy. Rather, it's how the burger is served: by waitresses in revealing naughty-nurse uniforms.
The waitresses wear stethoscopes around their necks and crosses on their nurse hats. They also wear fishnet stockings and tight, cleavage-baring tops. On occasion, they jump into the arms of their customers.
Sexually available is not exactly the image Sandy Summers believes should be projected for those in the caring profession.
A former trauma center nurse, Summers is a founder and the executive director of The Center for Nursing Advocacy, which polices the portrayal of nurses around the world. The biggest violators, in the center's view, are those who connect nursing with titillation.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0611240263nov24,1,6948820.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Sperm quality declines with age

Biological clock may be ticking for men, new studies suggest
By Judith GrahamTribune staff reporterPublished November 24, 2006
Forget those famous old dads of yore, including Saul Bellow (who became a father at 84), Charlie Chaplin (71), Pablo Picasso (68) and Abraham (100), immortalized in the Bible.
Age does make a difference for men who want to have babies, just as it does for women.
A growing body of research suggests that late-in-life dads are more likely to have fertility problems and are at higher risk of fathering children with conditions such as schizophrenia, autism and dwarfism.
And for the first time, sophisticated new scientific tests are suggesting a reason for the phenomenon: As men get older, the DNA in their sperm and its supporting protein scaffolding are more likely to break and suffer damage.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0611240265nov24,1,1392317.story?coll=chi-news-hed

RIA Novosti

Putin urges Poland to start direct talks on meat exports

21:54 23/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's president said Thursday that Poland should stop defending illegally-shipped food products and start direct negotiations with Russia on meat exports.
Poland has vetoed talks on a Russia-EU cooperation deal over Russia's embargo on its meat products. Earlier in the day, EU officials failed to persuade Poland to end its veto.
Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Helsinki the day before a Russia-EU summit in the Finish capital at which talks on a new agreement were set to take place, said: "The problem is that Polish authorities fail to properly regulate supplies of meat products from other countries to our market, which are banned not only in Russia but also in the EU."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061123/55934144.html

Nuclear strikes from 'rogue states' possible - Russian Air Force

14:00 22/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Air Force commander said Wednesday he considers nuclear missile launches by terrorists or 'rogue states' to be a genuine threat.
"Increasingly probable and dangerous for the U.S., Russia and European countries are single or multiple missile strikes from third countries, known as rogue states, countries with unstable, non-democratic regimes, or terrorist organizations with access to missile technology," Vladimir Mikhailov said.
Mikhailov said accidental launches were also possible.
"Although accidental launches of missiles with nuclear warheads have not occurred in the history of nuclear missile technology, this does not mean they will not occur in the future, given the growing spread of nuclear missiles," he said.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061122/55888113.html

Russia-NATO - marriage of convenience

11:19 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military correspondent Viktor Litovkin) - A regular NATO summit will take place in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on November 28-29. NATO-Russia Council (NRC) meetings, which have recently been held on a regular basis, will not be held this time.
Military delegations from Ukraine and Georgia, and even from Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, the countries that have applied for NATO membership, will not attend the summit. Moreover, contrary to earlier statements, the latter three countries will not even be invited to join the alliance. In order to understand why this summit is so different, let's first analyze Russia-NATO relations.
Relations between the two sides are not cloudless, although judging by the recent meeting between NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, everything seems to be going quite well. Putin even remarked, "Our cooperation is developing successfully... We are conducting a high-level political dialogue on a regular basis."
Indeed, Russian and NATO leaders meet at least once a year, and sometimes even more often. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov takes part in all NATO summits, and often makes speeches to his European and American colleagues. NATO has a permanent military liaison mission and an information office in Moscow. In May, the latter held the two-week-long "NATO-Russia Rally 2006: What Binds Us Together." Participants in the rally toured nine Russian cities from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea, explaining NATO's positions on different global problems, and taking part in debates with young people. The NATO Information Office conducts interesting events every month.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061124/55944970.html

The IAEA mistrusts Iran

15:01 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) -The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) refused to provide Iran with technical assistance for its project to build a heavy-water reactor in Araq.
The UN nuclear watchdog fears that Iran plans to produce weapons-grade plutonium there.
This decision may influence the UN Security Council's resolution on Iran.
The IAEA Board, which met in Vienna on November 23, heard the report on Iran's nuclear program presented by Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. The report had been sent to the governors confidentially ahead of the meeting. It says that the agency cannot guarantee the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program unless the country ensures proper transparency.
The conclusions of the IAEA governors will be forwarded to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, which are to coordinate a new draft resolution on Iran.
The United States is pushing for harsh sanctions, whereas Russia and China are in favor of much softer measures. Britain, France and Germany are advocating moderate sanctions. All of them, however, are waiting for Tehran's reaction....
...Larijani hinted in Moscow that Iran might make considerable concessions, notably, that it may start cooperating with the IAEA and even resume talks with the Kremlin on the construction of a joint uranium enrichment facility in Russia....

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061124/55954282.html

Meeting of Iraqi, Iranian leaders will facilitate peace -

Moscow-1 12:40 23/ 11/ 2006
(Adds paragraph 2, 4-6)
MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia expects that a meeting between the Iraqi and Iranian presidents in Tehran November 25 will expedite Iraq's stabilization, a Russian diplomat said Thursday.
Following the U.S-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the consequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraq sank into sectarian violence, and ongoing international efforts to restore peace and stability in the Middle East country has so far proved futile.
"Moscow certainly expects positive results from this important contact in Tehran," said Mikhail Kamynin, official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He called on other countries in the region, particularly Iraq's neighbors, to join international efforts to restore peace in the country.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20061123/55915149.html

Saddam Hussein cannot be hanged or pardoned

21:19 23/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW. (Professor Mikhail Barshchevsky for RIA Novosti) - Under Iraqi law, the term for enforcing the death penalty for former President Saddam Hussein expires on December 5. A number of human rights and public organizations have sent requests to the Iraqi government to remit the death penalty.
Legally, only Iraqi President Jalal Talabani can pardon Saddam. But this would not be the right move because the former Iraqi leader does not deserve mercy. However, his execution may destabilize the situation in the Middle East. Moreover, the Iraqi court is not independent, and its sentence is dubious for this reason as well.
The media have often compared Saddam's case to the Nuremberg Trial of the Nazi war criminals. In both cases the leaders of states committed crimes against humanity, and were tried for them. But there is one important difference. The Nuremberg Trial was conducted by the victors, and was not manipulated by anyone. The judges who have sentenced Saddam to gallows are under pressure from the country that has occupied Iraq.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061123/55933450.html

Russian intelligence justifies Soviet annexation of Baltic states

20:48 23/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - The Soviet Union was justified in annexing the Baltic states in WWII, as their governments supported Nazi Germany, Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR) said Thursday.
The SVR has declassified documents relating to the situation in the three Baltic countries in early 1940s and during World War II, said the chief spokesman of the intelligence service, Sergei Ivanov.
"These materials show that German-oriented policies conducted by governments in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia threatened to turn these states into a staging ground for a German invasion of the Soviet Union," Ivanov said.
The issue of the Soviet Union's annexation of the Baltic states continues to be a source of contention between Russia and its EU Baltic neighbors, particularly Latvia and Estonia, which have denied citizenship to thousands of their ethnic Russian residents, over what they call the illegal Soviet "occupation".

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061123/55932837.html

Putin says won't ratify EU energy deal in Finland

source 15:34 24/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin said Friday Russia will not ratify an energy charter with the EU at a summit in Finland, reaffirming Moscow's long-standing position, a source in the Russian delegation said.
"We back the main principles of the charter and are prepared to discuss them when considering their possible inclusion into the basic partnership agreement," the source said on the sidelines of the Russia-European Union summit underway in Helsinki.
The Energy Charter has become the focus of the summit following Poland's veto of talks on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the 25-member alliance and Russia, which were to be launched in Helsinki.
Poland demanded this week that Russia ratify the Energy Charter and lift its embargo on Polish meat and vegetable exports before embarking on talks on the new PCA, as the current pact expires in 2007.
Although the former Communist-bloc country reportedly agreed to drop charter-related demands later, it is still resolved to have the Russian meat embargo, which it calls political, lifted. Russia imposed the ban on Polish meat last year after uncovering counterfeit veterinary certificates.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20061124/55955862.html

Putin says won't ratify EU energy deal in Finland

source 15:34 24/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin said Friday Russia will not ratify an energy charter with the EU at a summit in Finland, reaffirming Moscow's long-standing position, a source in the Russian delegation said.
"We back the main principles of the charter and are prepared to discuss them when considering their possible inclusion into the basic partnership agreement," the source said on the sidelines of the Russia-European Union summit underway in Helsinki.
The Energy Charter has become the focus of the summit following Poland's veto of talks on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the 25-member alliance and Russia, which were to be launched in Helsinki.
Poland demanded this week that Russia ratify the Energy Charter and lift its embargo on Polish meat and vegetable exports before embarking on talks on the new PCA, as the current pact expires in 2007.
Although the former Communist-bloc country reportedly agreed to drop charter-related demands later, it is still resolved to have the Russian meat embargo, which it calls political, lifted. Russia imposed the ban on Polish meat last year after uncovering counterfeit veterinary certificates.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20061124/55955862.html

Putin urges Poland to start direct talks on meat exports

21:54 23/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's president said Thursday that Poland should stop defending illegally-shipped food products and start direct negotiations with Russia on meat exports.
Poland has vetoed talks on a Russia-EU cooperation deal over Russia's embargo on its meat products. Earlier in the day, EU officials failed to persuade Poland to end its veto.
Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Helsinki the day before a Russia-EU summit in the Finish capital at which talks on a new agreement were set to take place, said: "The problem is that Polish authorities fail to properly regulate supplies of meat products from other countries to our market, which are banned not only in Russia but also in the EU."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061123/55934144.html

Update: Gorbachev could be discharged from Munich clinic next week

19:06 23/ 11/ 2006
(recasts, updates, adds details)
MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who underwent surgery to prevent a stroke in a Munich clinic earlier in the week, could be discharged next week, the Gorbachev Foundation said Thursday.
"A patient usually spends a few days in such a clinic after such an operation, and is then discharged," Vladimir Polyakov, a spokesman for the foundation, said.
The Gorbachev Foundation is an independent socioeconomic and political think-tank that the Soviet Union's first and last president set up following his resignation.
A source from the Ludwig Maximilian University's Grosshadern neurological hospital said earlier in the day: "The 75-year-old patient, admitted to the clinic with pre-stroke symptoms Sunday, had a surgical operation on his right internal carotid artery."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061123/55930815.html

Kaluga Region can accommodate 3,500 immigrants next year: governor

11:19 23/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 22 - (RIA Novosti). The Kaluga Region in Central Russia has vouched to accommodate 3,500 repatriates on a federal program to promote re-settlement of ethnic Russians from other countries, regional governor Anatoly Artamonov says.
"We came out with the initiative on the federal repatriation program, and it received approval and support," he told the media Wednesday.
The region expects to seriously be affected by workforce shortages quite soon, and the program can help us deal with the problem, he added.
The regional administration will do everything it can to offer new settlers the best possible conditions, Artamonov reassured.
"We will try to offer them the most beneficial terms we can. The regional housing program includes a special clause to accommodate them," he said.
The federal target program of voluntary ethnic Russian repatriation envisages all-round support and encouragement of new settlers. Approximately 300,000 repatriates are expected to come to Russia in 2007-09. Next year's draft federal budget earmarks 4.5 billion rubles (more than $150 million) for their readjustment. Host regions will also make target allocations.
EU to facilitate Russia's WTO accession - delegate 15:36 24/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - The European Union has assured the Russian delegation to the Russia-EU ongoing summit in Helsinki that it will back Russia's earliest possible accession to the global trade organization, a delegate said Friday.
Russia has announced it has completed bilateral talks with all of the 58 members of the Working Party of the World Trade Organization, but has still to sign bilateral protocols with some of them. It is also to complete multinational talks afterwards, which is expected to take six months.
"We are glad to be assured by the EU that the European Commission will facilitate the completion of these [multilateral] talks," the Russian delegate said.
Russia signed a bilateral WTO deal with its main trading partner, the United States, in Hanoi last weekend, but it must still close bilateral protocols with Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Moscow has yet to secure approval for its accession from Georgia and Moldova, energy-dependent former Soviet allies with whom it is locked in an ongoing diplomatic feud over breakaway regions.
"The parties highly estimated the bilateral talks on Russia's joining the World Trade Organization that Moscow and the United States have completed, and expressed the hope that Moscow will manage to complete the multilateral stage as soon as possible," the source said.

Russia-EU talks on new treaty may fail at Helsinki summit

aide 15:03 22/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti) - The European Commission may fail to get a mandate to start talks on a new basic Russia-EU agreement before the Finland summit, but the current treaty can be prolonged beyond 2007, the Russian president's top aide said Wednesday.
Russian and EU diplomats failed last week to coordinate the start of talks to replace the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which expires in 2007, over Poland's demand that Moscow first ratify the Energy Charter with Europe and lift an embargo on Polish agricultural exports to Russia.
"We expected an announcement to be made at the [Russia-EU] summit [in Helsinki on November 24] that the European Commission has received a mandate. The Russian side has such a mandate, the delegation has already been formed, and we expected the same from the EU. But one of its member states instigated problems," Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061122/55891440.html

ISS crew to play golf during spacewalk

17:06 22/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti) - Astronauts currently working at the International Space Station will play the first-ever extraterrestrial golf match when they perform a spacewalk later on Wednesday.
Russia's Federal Space Agency said ISS Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin will step out of the orbital station at 11 p.m. GMT.
Their almost six-hour-long extravehicular activity will include routine repairs, specifically to an antenna of the Progress M58 cargo spacecraft, and a round of golf, to be played under a contract with an American sports equipment company.
"Two golf clubs and four balls, of a well-known U.S. make, are now sitting on board the ISS," agency spokesman Igor Panarin said. "As he emerges into open space in an Orlan spacesuit, the Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin will swing one of the balls away from the ISS in a well-directed stroke."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061122/55896454.html

Ex-FSB officer Litvinenko's death in London a tragedy

Kremlin 12:19 24/ 11/ 2006
HELSINKI, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Kremlin official said Friday the death of an ex-FSB officer in a London hospital is a tragedy and urged an investigation into his alleged poisoning.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy and defector allegedly poisoned three weeks ago in London, died early Friday.
"Death is always a tragedy," said Dmitry Peskov, first deputy presidential press secretary. "It is up to law enforcement bodies in Britain, where he has lived in recent years, to look into the death."
A close associate of Russia's fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Litvinenko was a strong critic of the Russian government who defected in 2000 and recently received British citizenship. He said in an interview with The Sunday Times newspaper he believed the poisoning was a murder plot to avenge his defection.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061124/55947190.html

Budget shortfall if crude price stays below $61 per barrel

12:36 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's 2007 budget may lack additional revenues if crude price remains below $60 per barrel, the Russian finance minister said Friday.
On Friday, the Russian parliament's lower house, the State Duma, approved the 2007 budget, which forecast crude price at $61 per barrel.
With 226 votes required, 348 parliamentarians backed the document, and 91 voted against it.
Under the new budget, revenues are expected at 6,965.3 billion rubles ($262 billion), and spending is set at 5,463.5 billion rubles ($206 billion).
Alexei Kudrin also said that in April 2007 the government will introduce to the State Duma a draft budget for three years.
"In April we will introduce a draft budget for 2008-2010," he said.
The minister called on parliamentarians to start working on the three year budget in February or March 2007.

Hiddink says less foreigners should play in Russian soccer clubs

17:53 17/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia should reduce the number of foreign players in its soccer clubs, as they obstruct the development of the national game, the Russian team coach, Guus Hiddink, said Friday.
The Dutchman told RIA Novosti that only exceptional foreign players should be admitted to the country's Premier League.
"[Foreign players] must have extra quality. But if they are of average quality, and they stop development because they are occupying, for whatever the reasons might be, positions of upcoming young players, this is bad for Russian football."
The problem of foreign players in Russian soccer was highlighted by President Vladimir Putin in his annual televised question-and-answer session at the end of October.

http://en.rian.ru/sports/20061117/55742773.html

Russian women's volleyball team world champion

11:39 16/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian women's volleyball team has won the world championship title for the first time ever, seizing the victory from Brazil 3:2 in the final match of the women's world championships in Japan.
Yekaterina Gamova, a leading volleyball player, told RIA Novosti by phone: "We started the game determined to win, but we still have not fully grasped that we really won."
Until now, the Russian team only reached third place - in 1994, 1998 and 2002.
During the tournament, Russia's team lost only one match - to Brazil in the second round November 12 - and won the remaining 10 matches.
The women's team of the U.S.S.R. won volleyball world championships five times - in 1952, 1956, 1960, 1970 and 1990.

Bank of Moscow posts 47% increase in assets' value in 10M06

13:24 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Bank of Moscow said Friday the value of its assets rose 47% between January and October 2006, to 380.7 billion rubles ($14.33 billion).
The bank's shareholder equity increased 25.3% since the start of the year, to 34.7 billion rubles ($1.31 billion) as of November 1.
Net profits reached 5.2 billion rubles ($195.78 million) over the period, a 36% increase on the 2005 year-end figure.
Deposits grew 48% between January and October, to 293 billion rubles ($11.03 billion) as of November 1. Deposits by private individuals reached 75.6 billion rubles ($2.85 billion).
The bank's credit portfolio grew 41% in the first 10 months of the year, to 228.2 billion rubles ($8.59 billion), with loans to private individuals doubling to 29 billion rubles ($1.09 billion).

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061124/55950188.html

Euro rises 3.34 kopeks on MICEX

12:01 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - The average weighted euro rate for contracts with "today" settlements was 34.3880 rubles during Friday morning's unified trading session on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), up 3.34 kopeks from Thursday.
The MICEX press service said Friday that 135 euro deals, worth 17.018 million euros, were closed during the session.

Dollar slips 3.61 kopeks on MICEX

11:57 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - The average weighted dollar rate for contracts with "tomorrow" settlements was 26.5199 rubles during Friday morning's unified trading session on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), down 3.61 kopeks from Thursday.
The MICEX press service said Friday that 154 dollar deals, worth $407.676 million, were closed during the session.

Russia's lower house passes 2007 budget

11:51 24/ 11/ 2006
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's lower house has passed the 2007 budget in the final, fourth reading.
With 226 votes required, 348 parliamentarians backed the document, and 91 voted against it.
Under the new budget, revenues are expected at 6,965.3 billion rubles ($262 billion), and spending is set at 5,463.5 billion rubles ($206 billion). That will put the budget surplus at 1,502 billion rubles ($56.54 billion).
GDP will be 31.22 trillion rubles ($1.17 trillion), and inflation is expected to be 6.5-8%. The average annual ruble rate against the dollar is expected to be 26.50 rubles to the dollar, and the oil price is forecast at $61 per barrel.
The government also intends to allocate extra resources to the Federal targeted program for Russian civil aviation development until 2015.
A total of 2.8 million ($105,000) rubles has been earmarked from the budget to support former president Boris Yeltsin, who resigned in 2000.

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