Morning Papers - continued

The Moscow Times

Putin Clinches Reactor Deal
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
President Vladimir Putin sealed an agreement Thursday in New Delhi for Russia to build at least four more nuclear reactors in India, a project potentially worth up to 8 billion euros ($10.35 billion).
But Russia will only be able to pull it off if India is freed from international restrictions on nuclear cooperation. And if the restrictions are lifted, the United States and France are likely to compete with Russia for a share of the vast nuclear energy market in India's booming economy.
Putin met Thursday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The letter of intent was signed in their presence by Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko and his Indian counterpart, Anil Kakodka.
Under the agreement, Russia would build four reactors for the Kundankulam nuclear power station on the Indian Ocean where it is already building two similar 1,000-megawatt reactors, the Federal Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. The agreement also would give Russia an option to build more reactors at other sites, the agency said.
At a news conference after the talks, Singh thanked Russia for its assistance in developing the nuclear energy sector and support in the efforts to lift the international restrictions.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/001.html


Sting Nets Highly Enriched Uranium
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
Georgian and U.S. authorities have announced that Tbilisi had caught a Russian citizen in the act of selling weapons-grade uranium nearly one year ago, only for Russian energy officials Thursday to dismiss the claim as a "provocation."
One Russian citizen and three Georgian citizens were arrested for conspiring to sell 100 grams of enriched uranium in Georgia last February in a sting operation set up by Georgian police and aided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Georgian authorities identified the seller as Oleg Khinsagov, 50, a resident of Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia. Khinsagov boasted that if the deal came off he would be prepared to sell two to three kilograms of highly enriched uranium that was stored in his apartment, The New York Times reported.
Three to four kilograms of highly enriched uranium would be sufficient to create a small implosion bomb if the bombmakers possessed a sophisticated design and production capacity, said Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate who focuses on nuclear theft and terrorism at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/002.html


Snow Brings Hassles and Relief
By David Nowak
Staff Writer
Moscow ground to a halt Thursday as a major blizzard caused dozens of flights to be diverted and snarled traffic on the city's roads.
As much as 20 centimeters of snow was expected by the end of Thursday. The storm began at around 6 a.m., bringing the warmest winter weather on record to a dramatic end.
The daytime temperature on Thursday averaged minus 10 degrees Celsius, and the mercury is expected to dip to minus 20 C next week.
Muscovites stuck in rush-hour traffic jams may have despaired as winter arrived in force, but others regarded the sudden change in the weather as a godsend: Ski areas were open for business at last, and the bears at the zoo were finally getting some shut-eye.
For travelers, the news was all bad on Thursday. At least 31 flights into Moscow's busiest airport, Domodedovo, and the smaller Vnukovo Airport, had been diverted to Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg and other Moscow airports by mid-afternoon Thursday.
"This is Domodedovo," said Vera Bragina, an airport spokeswoman. "We're used to it."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/011.html


Registration Service Denies Chechen Legal Aid Group
Reuters
The government has refused for a second time to register the Moscow office of a Dutch-based human rights group that gives legal aid to Chechens who accuse the Russian military of torture and abuse, the group said Thursday.
In a letter dated Jan. 19, the Federal Registration Service informed the nongovernmental organization Russian Justice Initiative that its application had been rejected on technical grounds.
The day before, two Chechen brothers prevailed in a case before the European Court of Human Rights, the first conviction of torture against federal forces in the two wars the government has fought against rebels in Chechnya since 1994.
The brothers received legal aid and advice from Russian Justice Initiative, which helps Chechens with grievances against the Russian military.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/013.html


Governors Appointed for Loyalty and Votes
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer
Since acquiring the power to appoint and remove governors two years ago, President Vladimir Putin has avoided a major shake-up, allowing most regional leaders to hang on to their jobs.
The terms of 23 governors came to an end in 2005, and another 21 asked for the president's backing before their terms had expired. Putin reappointed the overwhelming majority of them. Last year, the president retained six regional leaders and replaced three.
Putin seems to have been guided in his personnel decisions by a desire to minimize the negative consequences of a change in leadership for the Kremlin. "When it comes to replacing governors, the most important thing for the Kremlin is not to make the situation any worse," said Rostislav Turovsky, a regional analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
The logic behind this policy is familiar from any large bureaucracy, where loyalty to superiors and the willingness to follow orders are the most important qualities for employees eager to keep their jobs.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/015.html


Chemical Plant Fined $128,000
The Associated Press
BEIJING -- A chemical plant in northeast China has been fined 1 million yuan ($128,000) in connection with one of the country's worst toxic spills that cut off water to millions of Chinese and Russians, state media said Thursday.
A Nov. 13, 2005, explosion at the plant in the city of Jilin discharged tons of benzene and other dangerous chemicals into the Songhua River, which flows downstream into the major city of Harbin in a neighboring province and the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk.
China's Cabinet "considers it a major pollution incident" and the State Environmental Protection Agency has fined the plant 1 million yuan, the official Xinhua News Agency said on its web site.
No other details were given but it is the highest fine possible under environmental protection laws, the report said.
The plant is operated by a subsidiary of China's biggest oil company, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.
A Cabinet investigation showed the explosion was caused by negligence and a failure to observe regulations on the plant's operations. It killed eight people and forced 10,000 more to flee their homes.



Putin Slams U.S. Space Weapons
The Associated Press
NEW DELHI -- President Vladimir Putin on Thursday criticized U.S. plans for space-based weapons, saying it was the reason behind a recent Chinese anti-satellite weapons test.
Asked about the Chinese test at a news conference in New Delhi after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Putin avoided directly criticizing China, saying only that Russia was against putting any weapons in space.
Instead, Putin chose to issue a warning to the United States on the dangers of the militarization of space.
"At the same time, I would like to note that China was not the first country to conduct such a test," Putin said.
The Jan. 11 test, first reported last week by the magazine Aviation Week, destroyed a defunct Chinese weather satellite by hitting it with a warhead deployed from a ballistic missile.
"The first such test was conducted back in the late 1980s and we also hear today about U.S. military circles considering plans of militarization of space. We must not let the genie out of the bottle," Putin said.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/018.html


Cheney Combative After Senate Ruling
Combined Reports
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the administration had achieved "enormous successes" in Iraq but complained that critics and the media "are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure" that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than U.S. President George W. Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before.
In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among some Bush supporters. "There's problems" in Iraq, he said, but it is not a "terrible situation." And congressional opposition "won't stop us" from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only "validate the terrorists' strategy."
On Tuesday night, the Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed plans for a troop buildup in Iraq as "not in the national interest" of the United States.
Chuck Hagel, the only one of 10 committee Republicans to support the nonbinding resolution, called the Iraq war a "pingpong game with American lives."
In his annual address, Bush acknowledged deep troubles in Iraq and made little effort to paint it a success.
Cheney rejected the idea that there had been any failure, however, and voiced the aggravation that many in the White House feel as Democrats step up their attacks on the Bush administration.
As leading Democrats lace their rhetoric with words such as "blunder" and "reckless," the White House has tried to calibrate how hard to push back.
Cheney, it seems, chose to push back hard, saying the administration would disregard the resolution opposing the troop increase, which he said undermined soldiers in a war zone. "It won't stop us," he added.
Cheney has been criticized in the past for presenting what some called an overly rosy view of the situation in Iraq, most notably in 2005 when he said the insurgency was in its "last throes." The view he expressed Wednesday seemed no less positive, and he sparred repeatedly with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, telling him "you're wrong" and suggesting that he was embracing defeat.
When Blitzer asked whether the administration's credibility had been hurt by "the blunders and the failures" in Iraq, Cheney interjected: "Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash."
In fact, Cheney said, the operation in Iraq has achieved its original mission. "What we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do," he said. "The world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. Saddam has been brought to justice and executed. His sons are dead. His government is gone."
Cheney was curt, as well, about leading Democrats. Asked whether he thought Senator Hillary Clinton would make a good president, Cheney said simply: "No, I don't."
And how did it feel to sit next to Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as House speaker, on Tuesday night?
"I prefer Dennis Hastert."



Dudley Sees Gazprom Deal by This Summer
By Andrew McChesney
Staff Writer
DAVOS, Switzerland -- TNK-BP chief Robert Dudley said Thursday that he expected to reach a deal with Gazprom around the middle of this year under which his company would keep a "sufficient" stake in the giant Kovykta gas field and be actively involved in its operation.
Gazprom in turn would gain a potentially large stake in the $20 billion project in exchange for cash, assets or something else of value that reflected TNK-BP's investment into the field, Dudley said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Kovykta is caught in a high-profile licensing dispute that investors fear is an attempt to pressure TNK-BP into handing control of the east Siberian field to Gazprom, and Dudley said he was being deluged with questions from Davos participants wanting to hear his side of the story.
Dudley said government officials had asked him to offer "a very balanced view" of the dispute at the forum.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/003.html


First Budget Airline Takes to the Skies
By Max Delany
Staff Writer
When the inaugural Sky Express flight takes off from Moscow's Vnukovo Airport for Sochi on Monday afternoon, the low-cost airline phenomenon familiar in Europe and the United States will have finally come to Russia.
The brainchild of Boris Abramovich, general director of the country's third-largest carrier, KrasAir, Sky Express will be the first budget airline to start operating in the country. With a handful of competitors expected to follow, the airline looks set to change the face of domestic air travel by offering tickets for as little as 500 rubles ($19).
As the country's airlines have struggled to adapt to market conditions over the last 15 years, the number of passengers taking internal flights in the country has plummeted from over 130 million per year to fewer than 20 million.
Now Sky Express hopes to step into this breach.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/004.html


In the Spotlight
When it comes to celebrity breakups, there seems to be an inverse relationship between how interesting they are and the amount of coverage they get.
By Anna Malpas
Published: January 26, 2007
This week, it was hard to avoid a certain starry couple: singers Natalya Podolskaya and Vladimir Presnyakov. When they weren't skiing in France on two full pages of Hello! magazine, they were taking up four pages of the less glamorous Seven Days magazine with excessively nauseating scenes of coupledom.

She's a former Eurovision contestant (15th place) and, before that, a contestant on the television talent show Star Factory (third place). He's a luxuriantly locked popster who performs toe-tapping numbers on Saturday-evening music shows. Together, their star wattage is at least high enough to power their straightening irons.

Apparently, the Seven Days story was prompted by tabloid rumors that the couple had broken up. I somehow managed to miss this headline news, but I certainly appreciate P and P's thoughtfulness in letting the nation know that they're still snuggling up in a photogenic way. He calls her Tusya, she calls him Vova, and snarling singletons are already dreading the thought of their Valentine's Day interview.
The article said the two have been going out for almost a year. But I only found out last summer, when the magazine ran a photo shoot of them involving surf, white shirts and no underwear. This was just wrong, and surely had housewives across Russia choking on their mid-morning cake crumbs, just as their pens were poised to fill in the crosswords.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/110.html


The Beauty of Belief
Contemporary artists explore the theme of faith in an unusual project at Winzavod.
By Brian Droitcour
Published: January 26, 2007
In the months before it opened, "I Believe" was heralded as a turning point, an exhibition that would encourage its participants to eschew the irony and intellectual play that have become embedded in contemporary art, and to make new works with the sincerity and seriousness usually associated with icon painting. While the outcome falls short of meeting these lofty goals, the exhibition in the partially renovated cellars of Winzavod -- a pre-revolutionary winery currently being converted into a contemporary arts center -- succeeds in communicating the inquiry and discovery that went into its creation.

"I Believe" is the brainchild of Oleg Kulik, an artist who in recent years has recorded his own spiritual quest in projects like "Gobi Test," a travelogue of his 2004 journey to Mongolia. Kulik became a minor celebrity in the mid-1990s thanks to television news coverage of performances where he acted like a rabid dog, or collected signatures to establish a Party of Animals for the 1996 elections (when officials at the Central Electoral Commission saw the paw prints on his petitions, they refused to let him register). Before that, Kulik worked as a curator for Regina Gallery and established its reputation as Moscow's most radical and controversial exhibition space. "I Believe" signals his return to curating, and it has been just as successful in creating buzz as his earlier project.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/102.html


In the Beginning
"The Creation," Haydn's celebrated oratorio inspired by the Book of Genesis, gets a rare performance in Moscow.
By Raymond Stults
Published: January 26, 2007
Recent seasons have found the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra at the forefront of Moscow orchestral ensembles in unearthing forgotten or rarely heard masterpieces and in seeking to play them in the performance styles of their respective eras.

On Saturday evening, Musica Viva, joined by a chorus and vocal soloists from abroad, brings another such masterpiece to the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory: Joseph Haydn's magnificent oratorio "The Creation," a work hardly forgotten, but seldom heard live either here or anywhere else.

"It probably hasn't been done in Moscow for 20 years, and never before in a full and authentic version," Musica Viva music director Alexander Rudin said at a Wednesday news conference.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/107.html


Trafficking in Puzzlement and Wonder

Three cheers for nonverbal communication! Несловесный язык (nonverbal language) helps you figure out what's going on when you are still struggling to understand словесный язык (verbal language). It's particularly useful on Russian roadways. Even if you can't always understand what the Russian traffic cop is shouting at you, his facial expression, whistles, waves of the baton and hand gestures give you a good sense of what you should -- or should not -- do.
And how about communication between drivers? Amazing how just one hand gesture can contain such emotional and intellectual richness.
Дорожные знаки (road signs) are another good example of nonverbal communication. As someone who spends a lot of time sitting in traffic jams, I've had plenty of time to contemplate them and try to divine their meaning. The problem, it turns out, is that my skills at interpreting nonverbal messages appear to have grown a bit rusty.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/01/26/007.html




New York Times

Testimony by Former Cheney Aide Hurts Libby
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 – Vice President Dick Cheney’s spokeswoman told a jury today that she informed Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. , that a prominent war critic’s wife worked for the C.I.A. days before Mr. Libby contended he learned it from a reporter.
Cathie Martin, who was Mr. Cheney’s chief spokeswoman, was the fourth witness for the prosecution in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Mr. Libby, who is charged with lying during an investigation to determine who leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Unlike the previous three witnesses who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, Ms. Martin provided an insider’s perspective, one from within the Office of the Vice President.
Her testimony under questioning from a federal prosecutor was damaging to Mr. Libby. She testified that both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were intensely interested in Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had been sent on a mission to Africa by the C.I.A. to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger for his nuclear weapons program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/washington/25cnd-libby.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=63e179b421f77c54&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Secrecy Is at Issue in Suits Opposing Spy Program
The Bush administration has employed extraordinary secrecy in defending the National Security Agency’s highly classified domestic surveillance program from civil lawsuits. Plaintiffs and judges’ clerks cannot see its secret filings. Judges have to make appointments to review them and are not allowed to keep copies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/washington/26nsa.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=9044950dc6386d92&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Iraq Leader and Sunni Officials in Clash on Security

BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 — Iraq’s Shiite prime minister and Sunni lawmakers hurled insults at one another during a raucous session of Parliament on Thursday, with the prime minister threatening a Sunni lawmaker with arrest and the Sunni speaker of Parliament threatening to quit.

The Reach of War
The uproar revolved around the new Baghdad security plan, but it came as the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, is under increasing pressure to demonstrate evenhandedness. President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq hinges in large measure on the Iraqi government’s ability to rein in both Shiite and Sunni militants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=7d79f651441cca5c&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Colleges Regroup After Voters Ban Race Preferences

With Michigan’s new ban on affirmative action going into effect, and similar ballot initiatives looming in other states, many public universities are scrambling to find race-blind ways to attract more blacks and Hispanics.

At Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, a new admissions policy, without mentioning race, allows officials to consider factors like living on an Indian reservation or in mostly black Detroit, or overcoming discrimination or prejudice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/education/26affirm.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=ff8555b301a8c973&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Groups Head to Capital to Step Up Antiwar Drive

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — Tens of thousands of demonstrators are set to arrive in the capital this weekend for a major antiwar march, staging the first of several protests intended to persuade the new Democratic-controlled Congress to do more than simply speak against President Bush’s Iraq policy.

But do not look for senators to be standing among the protesters on the Mall on Saturday. Despite a consensus building around a Senate resolution to oppose sending more troops to Iraq, even the most liberal Democratic senators do not appear eager to align themselves with a traditional antiwar protest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/washington/26left.html?ei=5094&en=e4fdb7cc0284b4c2&hp=&ex=1169874000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1169826389-Ey3d603So+Gb5J3aiMf31Q


Lebanon Army Lifts Beirut Curfew

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah held funeral processions on Friday for three of its members shot dead during sectarian clashes in Beirut and called for unity among the Lebanese to stop their country sliding to civil war.
The Lebanese army lifted a curfew in Beirut, but schools and universities were closed a day after Sunni-Shi'ite violence killed four people and injured some 200.
``We urge all religious figures, Christian and Muslim, and all sensible people in Lebanon to shoulder their responsibility before it's too late,'' senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbik told mourners at one of the funerals.
``This pure, precious blood was spilled for the sake of unity and it will leave its mark.''

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-lebanon.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=678f14109ee7b366&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Army Patrols Expand in Tense Beirut

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Soldiers reinforced patrols and checkpoints Friday following a rare nighttime curfew imposed by authorities seeking to quell escalating clashes between factions supporting the Western-backed government and Hezbollah protesters trying to bring it down.
The order to clear the streets -- lifted just before dawn -- came after rival groups turned a university campus into a battle zone on Thursday with at least three people killed when mobs faced off with homemade clubs and stones.
Army officers reported snipers opening fire during the melee, but there was no clear indication of whether the gunmen were acting on orders from any of the leaders locked in the deepening standoff or saboteurs seeking to inflame the situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Lebanon.html



Bombing at Hotel in Pakistani Capital
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A man set off a bomb outside the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital on Friday, killing himself and a guard and wounding at least seven other people in an apparent suicide attack, officials said.
Police cordoned off the scene in downtown Islamabad, near Parliament and the president's office. The blast badly damaged the hotel around a side entrance that leads to the nightclub.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Rana Najam, a Marriott housekeeping manager, said witnesses told him they saw a man running toward the side entrance, where he was stopped by a hotel guard. The man then detonated explosives, killing himself and the guard, he said.
Police said another hotel guard was in critical condition.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pakistan-Blast.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=a1eba7eee8c2d99e&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Ms. Rice seeks allies to carry more and more of the USA responsibility in Afghanistan because Bush is taking USA troops from that theater to replace attrition in Baghdad

Rice Seeks Allies' Help With Aghanistan
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed to allies Friday to do more to help Afghanistan, and placed a hefty U.S. aid increase on the table as an incentive. The Bush administration wants NATO allies to increase money, troops and other support for the unsteady democracy in Afghanistan, and is also working to dispel European suspicion that the United States is too busy in Iraq to pay attention to the older Afghan fight.
''Every one of us must take a hard look at what more we can do to help the Afghan people, and to support one another,'' Rice told a gathering of NATO foreign ministers that was arranged to commence planning for an expected Taliban military offensive in the spring.
Among other issues Rice raised Friday were the divisions within the alliance on sharing the burden in Afghanistan. Some NATO countries have shown a greater willingness than others to send troops to areas of conflict.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Afghanistan.html


Bush to Seek More Aid for Afghanistan as Taliban Regroups
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID S. CLOUD
BRUSSELS, Jan. 25 — President Bush plans to ask Congress for $10.6 billion in aid for Afghanistan, primarily to beef up the country’s security forces, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.
The aid request would come before what is expected to be another spring offensive by resurgent forces linked to the Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan. In Washington, the Pentagon announced Thursday that it was delaying the departure of a 3,200-soldier combat brigade from Afghanistan for as long as three months, increasing the American force level there to around 24,000. An additional 20,000 soldiers from other NATO countries are also deployed there.
The aid request would include $8.6 billion for training and equipping Afghan security forces and would go toward increasing the size of Afghanistan’s national army by 70,000 and its local police forces by 82,000, said a senior American official familiar with the issue.
An additional $2 billion would go to reconstruction projects like building roads, laying down electric power lines, development in rural areas, and counternarcotics efforts, administration officials said. The officials said that they planned to use some of the money to help Afghanistan and Pakistan battle the Taliban and other insurgents along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?pagewanted=print


14 Killed in Central Baghdad Bomb Attack
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A bomb hidden in a box holding pigeons tore through a crowded pet and livestock market Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens, police said, in a blast that left the carcasses of dead birds, dogs and other animals scattered on the blood-soaked ground.
The attack struck a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted there will be ''no safe place in Iraq for terrorists,'' and a suicide car bombing in the Shiite neighborhood of Karradah. Police raised the casualty toll in that attack to 30 killed and 61 wounded.
Al-Maliki's comments came Thursday during a raucous session of parliament, with a heated exchange between the Shiite leader and Sunni legislator and cleric Abdul-Nasser al-Janabi, who accused the Shiite-dominated government of carrying out purges against Sunnis, the minority sect in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html


Senate Confirms New U.S. Commander in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday voted unanimously to confirm the nomination of Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus to command U.S. troops in Iraq at a time when President Bush is building up American forces there.
Petraeus' 81-0 approval was in contrast to the widespread public and congressional opposition to Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. Congress is moving toward votes in coming weeks on nonbinding resolutions opposing the troop build up.
Public sentiment has turned strongly against a war that has dragged on for nearly four years with more than 3,000 American dead and violence unabated by insurgents and sectarian militias.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Iraq-General.html


Fearing Protectionism, in India
DAVOS, Switzerland
As India and China have grown rapidly in recent years, there has been no shortage of forecasts of protectionist backlashes in the developed world, although the actual effect of those complaints has been minor.
But now there is talk of a different threat.
“Backlash within India is a bigger problem,” said Kris Gopalakrishnan, a co-founder and president of Infosys, an Indian company that has become one of the biggest winners from the era of globalization. Its stock price has quintupled in less than four years, and over the last 12 months it has hired 22,000 people.
“There is one part of India which is rapidly growing and another part that is being left behind,” he said in an interview here. “In the last round of Indian elections,” both at the national and state levels, “any chief minister who was seen as pro-business lost.”
At the World Economic Forum here this week, business and government leaders have celebrated what they see as the success of globalization. Unemployment is low around the world, and growth is strong. Worries about a United States slowdown have faded, and even the self-appointed pessimist on one panel of economists here, Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics, saw the threat in the United States as being a “growth recession” rather than a real recession. In such a downturn, the American economy would see a few quarters of growth below 1 percent.
If a few years ago the big question about China was whether it would have a hard landing or a soft one, now no one sees any landing at all. Instead, there are questions about what it will do with all that money. Zhu Min, an official of the Bank of China, offered assurances that China would not have trouble managing another $200 billion in foreign currency reserves that it will add this year.
And Montek S. Ahluwalia, a member of the Indian government as deputy chairman of the state planning commission, can talk of being dissatisfied with an economic growth rate of over 8 percent, promising to raise it to 10 percent within five years. A few years ago, a growth rate of 8 percent would have seemed like a wonderful dream.
But the growth has come, and with it concern about unequal distribution. Mr. Gopalakrishnan said 37 percent of Indians are illiterate, and more than 30 percent live in poverty.
Infosys, which prospered from the outsourcing of technical work from companies in the developed world, played a role in India’s growth. But its direct benefits remain restricted to the most educated sectors of Indian society, even if it does reach further down the education hierarchy than it once did.
A decade ago, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, Infosys hired 90 percent of its new employees from the top tier of Indian universities. Now that proportion is down to about 10 percent, simply because there is a lot of competition for the graduates of those colleges.
Instead, it hires most of its new employees from 200 Indian colleges, and puts all new workers through a 16-week training program that leads to about 4 percent of them failing. It also hires workers from the countries where it seeks contracts, including 130 in the last year from American colleges. It is trying to become more of a strategic consultant to its clients, a plan that requires more local knowledge.
But even as Infosys and other Indian companies have prospered, they have contributed to rising inequality in India — in part by helping to bid up salaries for those who get top jobs — and Infosys now seeks workers willing to take less than it pays in India.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan said Infosys aimed at having about 30 percent of the work on its typical contract done in the country where the client is, and the rest done remotely. All of that remote work used to be done in India, but now Infosys has added locations in China, Mauritius and the Czech Republic, and is looking for a location in Latin America.
It is not hard to imagine an Indian politician denouncing that strategy in terms that would be familiar to Ross Perot. And that explains why it is not enough to say that globalization has produced unprecedented growth.
“Democratic societies,” said Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “need to have a population that feels the benefits from this process are shared by them.”
And that is no sure thing, even in India. “It is an amazing time,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, pointing to the rapid economic growth in much of the world. “How long it will last is anybody’s guess.”


Trying to Imagine a Woman in the White House
Categories: Politics
Is America ready to elect a woman president?
These days, the most frequent answer is an unambiguous yes. A Newsweek poll last month found that 86 percent of Americans said they would vote for a qualified woman for president. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll last week found that only 4 percent of registered voters said they would not vote for a woman for president.
Support for the idea appears to be near-unanimous. (A CBS/New York Times poll last year found that 92 percent of people were willing to vote for a qualified woman.) But there’s a curious thing: when the question about women is phrased differently – as in “Do you believe America is ready for a female president?” – this lovely consensus falls apart.
In Newsweek’s poll, only 55 percent of respondents said they believed that America was ready. Gallup and CNN – and the New York Times – found similar results: at most, 61 percent of their respondents said they thought their compatriots could accept a woman in the White House.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/


Tremors at the Door
By VIKAS BAJAJ and CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Wall Street’s big bet on risky mortgages may be souring a lot faster than had been previously thought.
The once booming market for home loans to people with weak credit — known as subprime mortgages and made largely to minorities, the poor and first-time buyers stretching to afford a home — is coming under greater pressure. The evidence can be seen in rising default rates, increasingly strained finances at mortgage lenders and growing doubts among investors.
Now, Wall Street firms, which had helped fuel the growth in the market by bankrolling and investing in subprime mortgage lenders, have begun to pinch off the money spigot.
Several mortgage lenders have recently collapsed. While the failures so far are small in number, some industry officials are concerned that they could be the first in a wave. The subprime sector, which produced loans worth more than $500 billion in the first nine months of last year, could shrink significantly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/business/26mortgage.html



In Clue to Addiction, a Brain Injury Halts Smoking
By BENEDICT CAREY
Scientists studying stroke patients are reporting today that an injury to a specific part of the brain, near the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit. People with the injury who stopped smoking found that their bodies, as one man put it, “forgot the urge to smoke.”
The finding, which appears in the journal Science, is based on a small study. But experts say it is likely to alter the course of addiction research, pointing researchers toward new ideas for treatment.
While no one is suggesting brain injury as a solution for addiction, the finding suggests that therapies might focus on the insula, a prune-size region under the frontal lobes that is thought to register gut feelings and is apparently a critical part of the network that sustains addictive behavior.
Previous research on addicts focused on regions of the cortex involved in thinking and decision making. But while those regions are involved in maintaining habits, the new study suggests that they are not as central as the insula is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/science/26brain.html?hp&ex=1169874000&en=36091ef2e541105c&ei=5094&partner=homepage



A Convenient Truth
Melbourne, Australia
CAN it be ethical for a young girl to be treated with hormones so she will remain below normal height and weight, to have her uterus removed and to have surgery on her breasts so they will not develop? Such treatment, applied to a profoundly intellectually disabled girl known only as Ashley, has led to criticism of Ashley’s parents, of the doctors who carried out the treatment, and of the ethics committee at Seattle Children’s Hospital, which approved it.
Ashley is 9, but her mental age has never progressed beyond that of a 3-month-old. She cannot walk, talk, hold a toy or change her position in bed. Her parents are not sure she recognizes them. She is expected to have a normal lifespan, but her mental condition will never improve.
In a blog, Ashley’s parents explain that her treatment is not for their convenience but to improve her quality of life. If she remains small and light, they will be able to continue to move her around frequently and take her along when they go out with their other two children. The hysterectomy will spare her the discomfort of menstrual cramps, and the surgery to prevent the development of breasts, which tend to be large in her family, will make her more comfortable whether lying down or strapped across the chest in her wheelchair.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/opinion/26singer.html


New Rocket Is Progressing, NASA Reports
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — The new rocket that will replace the space shuttle for carrying crews to the International Space Station is on schedule and within weight guidelines, NASA officials said Thursday.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s associate administrator for exploration, Scott Horowitz, said that the design of the rocket, the Ares I, was progressing well and that the rocket should be ready for its first test flight on schedule in 2009.
Mr. Horowitz acknowledged that the design had had an increase in weight, a subject of speculation in the aerospace industry, but said that was not unexpected in the early stages of rocket development.
Mr. Horowitz said the rocket, derived from the solid-rocket boosters that lift the shuttles at the starts of their flights, was well within performance limits to lift the 25-ton Orion crew exploration vehicle into orbit. The Orion is to carry crews of six to the space station starting in 2014 and also serve as a crew vehicle for later flights to the Moon under President Bush’s expanded exploration plans for NASA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/science/space/26rocket.html


Pork Producer Says It Plans to Give Pigs More Room
CHICAGO, Jan. 25 — The world’s largest pork processor said on Thursday that it would phase out confinement of pigs in individual gestation crates over the next decade, a move animal welfare advocates said would end one of the cruelest practices in the agriculture industry.
The processor, Smithfield Foods, which raises sows at 187 farms in eight states, said it would replace individual metal cages with pens where the sows would be housed in groups, allowing more mobility.
Animal welfare activists praised the move. “This is perhaps the most important moment in animal welfare in the agribusiness sector in 50 years,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/business/26pigs.html


HOUSES NEAR ICE BOATING
Fun When It Freezes
As told to BETHANY LYTTLE
WHO Doug Kolner, 47, owner of a biotech manufacturing company and commodore of the Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club
WHERE Monona, Wis.
WHAT 1-bedroom house
This cabin is less than 10 minutes from our house in Madison and it’s only about 700 square feet. But it’s right on the lake, and it has a detached garage. That was the real attraction for me, because up until then, I’d been trying to build a Renegade ice yacht in my basement. This required punching a hole in the wall, something that wasn’t very pleasing to my wife. This garage, on the other had, is already in borderline tear-down condition, so, you know, knocking out holes isn’t that big a deal.
I must have been 11 or 12 years old the first time I saw an ice boat. It was one of those years with beautiful black ice on the lake. I was skating with a group of friends, and this guy sailed by and offered to tow us across the lake. I knew I had to have one.
So, right after college, I started building and sailing. From the beginning, I had great help from the guys at the Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club. It’s been around for about 80 years, and the older guys have been real mentors to me. Nothing gets me out of bed like checking on the work I did on a boat the day before. I just grab a cup of coffee and go straight to the garage to take a look.
Ice boating is similar to sailing, but unlike regular sailing, the friction is minimal, you can sail upward of five times the speed of wind. Therein lies the thrill. Sitting low, so close to the ice, it feels like you’re going 100 miles an hour. For years, I was able to lie about things like that, but now with global positioning systems, I know it’s more like 60. As told to Bethany Lyttle



Ford Loses Record $12.7 Billion in ’06
DEARBORN, Mich., Jan. 25 — The Ford Motor Company had the worst year in its history in 2006, losing $12.7 billion and suffering sharp erosion of its share of the United States auto market.
Ford lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone, the company reported today. In the same period a year earlier, it lost a comparatively trivial $74 million.
The company took in $160.1 billion in revenue in 2006, 9 percent less than in 2005.
Ford’s full-year loss, equivalent to $6.79 per share, far exceeded the $7.39 billion it lost in 1992, the worst previous year in its 103-year history, and it even surpassed the $10.6 billion loss posted by General Motors in 2005. But it is still short of the $23.5 billion that G.M. lost in its worst year, 1992.
Most of Ford’s red ink in 2006 came from the cost of shrinking and reorganizing the company, buying out workers and writing down asset values. Those charges accounted for $9.9 billion of the full-year loss after taxes. But Ford’s day-to-day business did very poorly as well, with a loss of $2.8 billion on continuing operations, compared with a $1.9 billion loss in 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/business/25cnd-ford.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=0c1b2034be84b3a2&ei=5094&partner=homepage



Several Casualties Reported in Beirut Clashes
BEIRUT, Lebanon Jan. 25 — Violence erupted in Beirut today for the second time in three days, as a lunchroom altercation at a Beirut university escalated into rioting and gunfire.
The army declared a nighttime curfew in Beirut, amid fears that Lebanon’s political crisis had entered a decidedly violent phase.
At least three people were shot dead and 35 were wounded in street fighting today that began with a scuffle inside the student cafeteria of the Beirut Arab University in the Sunni neighborhood of Tariq Jadideh. It spilled over into street violence in the surrounding area.
As the violence worsened, opposition supporters appeared by the vanload at the school, smashing cars, setting them on fire and burning tires. The air filled with thick black smoke as young men hurled stones at one another.
Television stations run by each side of the political divide blamed the other for the violence, while leaders on both sides called for calm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/middleeast/25cnd-lebanon.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=a7b4666d75e404c7&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Donors Pledge $7.6 Billion for Lebanon

PARIS, Jan. 25 — Led by Saudi Arabia and the United States, more than 30 countries and agencies pledged $7.6 billion in aid for Lebanon today in a bold bid to try to prop up the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
But even as Mr. Siniora was shaking hands and thanking world leaders in Paris, chaos reigned back at home in Beirut, where at least three people were shot dead and dozens injured in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists. The Lebanese army declared a night curfew in Beirut, and leaders from both sides appealed for calm.
Today’s clashes, which came as Mr. Siniora sought to present his country to world donors as ripe for investment, were another embarrassment to the Prime Minister, who is fighting to keep his government afloat. In Lebanon, the political faction led by Hezbollah and backed by Iran and Syria has been calling for Mr. Siniora’s resignation for more than two months now. Beirut was brought to a virtual standstill on Tuesday by rioting and protests from the Hezbollah faction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/middleeast/25cnd-diplo.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=155ac4eef2a14156&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Big States’ Push for Earlier Vote Scrambles Race
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — As many as four big states — California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey — are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates of both parties to rethink their campaign strategies, party officials said Wednesday.
The changes, which seem all but certain to be enacted by state legislatures, mean that the presidential candidates face the prospect of going immediately from an ordered series of early contests in relatively small states in January to a single-day, coast-to-coast battlefield in February, encompassing some of the most expensive advertising markets in the nation.
The changes would appear to benefit well-financed and already familiar candidates and diminish the prospects of those with less money and name recognition going into such a highly compressed series of contests early next year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/us/politics/25vote.html?

ei=5094&en=d7c7f5f0aa7675dd&hp=&ex=1169787600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print



Scientists Tie Part of Brain to Urge to Smoke
By BENEDICT CAREY
Scientists studying stroke patients are reporting that an injury to a specific part of the brain, near the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit, effectively erasing the most stubborn of addictions. People with the injury who stopped smoking found that their bodies, as one man put it, “forgot the urge to smoke.”
The new finding, which is to appear in the journal Science on Friday, is likely to alter the course of addiction research, pointing researchers toward new ideas for treatment, experts say. While no one is suggesting brain injury as a solution for addiction, the findings suggest that therapies might focus on the insula, a prune-sized region under the frontal lobes that is thought to register gut feelings and is apparently a critical part of the network that sustains addictive behavior.
Previous research on addicts focused on regions of the cortex involved in thinking and decision-making. But while those regions are involved in maintaining habits, the new study suggests that they are not as central.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/science/25cnd-brain.html?ei=5094&en=4e508e8daffaae23&hp=&ex=1169787600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print



Afghan Gov't Won't Spray Poppy Crop
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Rebuffing months of U.S. pressure, Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided against a Colombia-style program to spray this country's heroin-producing poppies after the Cabinet worried herbicide would hurt legitimate crops, animals and humans, officials said Thursday.
The decision, reportedly made Sunday, dashes U.S. hopes for mounting a campaign using ground sprayers to poison poppy plants to help combat Afghanistan's opium trade after a record crop in 2006.
Karzai instead ''made a very strong commitment'' to lead other eradication efforts this year and said if that didn't cut production he would allow spraying in 2008, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Counternarcotics, Said Mohammad Azam, said this year's effort will rely on ''traditional techniques'' -- sending laborers into fields to trample or plow under opium poppies before they can be harvested. A similar campaign during 2006 failed.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Drugs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


U.S. to Seek $10.6 Billion for Afghan Aid
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- President Bush will ask Congress for $10.6 billion to help Afghanistan strengthen its security forces and rebuild from years of war, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.
The money would be on top of $14.2 billion in aid the United States has already given to Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the repressive Taliban.
The request, which Bush will make formally next month, comes after a year in which Taliban forces launched surprisingly fierce attacks across the country. U.S. and NATO forces are bracing for a renewed offensive by Taliban fighters in the spring
''The challenges of the last several months have demonstrated that we want to and we should redouble our efforts,'' Rice told reporters flying with her to Brussels for NATO meetings on Afghanistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Afghanistan.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=71fd7127dca4b3e4&ei=5094&partner=homepage



Angry Dispute Erupts Among Iraqi Lawmakers
BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s presentation of a new Baghdad security plan to the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday broke down in bitter sectarian recriminations, with Mr. Maliki threatening a Sunni Arab lawmaker with arrest and, in response, the Sunni speaker of Parliament threatening to quit.
Eventually, the tensions eased and lawmakers approved the security plan, which gives Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, more authority. But the episode provided the Iraqi public with a live televised view of the extent of raw anger dividing Shiite and Sunni politicians.
Outside of Parliament, bloody sectarian battles continued on the streets of Baghdad. Three hours after the confrontation between lawmakers, a huge car bomb killed at least 25 people in the Karrada district, less than a mile from Parliament in an area favored by leading Shiite politicians. Residents there reported a horrific scene, with two busloads of people trapped in their vehicles and burned alive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/middleeast/26iraqcnd.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=31af6d48b5f1d150&ei=5094&partner=homepage



Soldier Admits Murdering Iraqi Detainees
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- A 101st Airborne Division soldier pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering three detainees in Iraq last year, saying he went along with a plan to make it look like they were escaping.
Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, 21, was one of four soldiers from the division's 3rd Brigade ''Rakkasans'' who were accused in the detainees' deaths during a May 9 raid on the Muthana chemical complex in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Clagett, of Moncks Corner, S.C., pleaded guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Prosecutors dropped a second obstruction charge and charges of disrespecting an officer and threatening.
The military judge, Col. Theodore Dixon, accepted Clagett's plea and started the sentencing phase of the trial. Clagett faces life in prison, but should get a lighter sentence because of his plea.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Soldiers-Charged.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=c12c02c382e4e325&ei=5094&partner=homepage



Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism

By JULIA MOSKIN
ISA CHANDRA MOSKOWITZ, a vegan chef, does not particularly like to talk about tofu. Ditto seitan, tempeh and nutritional yeast.
“I think vegan cooks need to learn to cook vegetables first,” she said last week during a cupcake-baking marathon. “Then maybe they can be allowed to move on to meat substitutes.”
Ms. Moskowitz, 34, was born in Coney Island Hospital, lives in Brooklyn, and is a typically impatient and opinionated New Yorker. She can’t stand how slowly most cooks peel garlic, makes relentless fun of Rachael Ray and rolls her eyes at the mention of California hippies.
But as a vegan and a follower of punk music since age 14, she is also part of a culinary movement that helped turn the chaotic energy of punk culture of the 1970s and 1980s into a progressive political force.
“Punk taught me to question everything,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Of course, in my case that means questioning how to make a Hostess cupcake without eggs, butter or cream.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/dining/24vega.html?ei=5070&en=5ce52edf74826ead&ex=1170392400&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print



Can Polyester Save the World?
JOSEPHINE COPELAND and her 20-year-old daughter, Jo Jo, visited Primark at the Peacock Center mall here, in the London suburbs, to buy presents for friends, but ended up loaded with clothes for themselves: boots, a cardigan, a festive blouse, and a long silver coat with faux fur trim, which cost £12 but looks like a million bucks. “If it falls apart, you just toss it away!” said Jo Jo, proudly wearing her purchase.
Environmentally, that is more and more of a problem.
With rainbow piles of sweaters and T-shirts that often cost less than a sandwich, stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast fashion” industry, selling cheap garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like H&M internationally and by Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/fashion/25pollute.html?em&ex=1169874000&en=566c698ee205fe2e&ei=5087%0A


Davos Diary

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/category/davos-2007/


Rarely Seen Sea Monster Captured, Then, Following Script, Dies
Yet another rare-freaky sea creature has made a rare-freaky video appearance — courtesy Japanese marine researchers — before being promptly declared dead.
At the end of last month, we wrote about video images of a live giant squid — the almost mythic creature that is occasionally found dead but almost never alive. The squid was videotaped off the Ogawawara Islands after Japanese researchers snagged it on a hook, and it fought off being reeled toward the side of the boat.
Now it seems that a rarely-seen, prehistoric-looking goblin of the deep — the frilled shark — was pulled from shallow waters by researchers at the Awashima Marine Park in Shizuoka, south of Tokyo, after they were tipped off by a fisherman at a nearby port, who reported “an odd-looking eel-like creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth,” according to Reuters.”
Frilled sharks are sometimes called “living fossils,” according to one report, because they appear to have changed little since prehistoric times.
Researchers captured and brought the beast to the marine park, where widely distributed images of the ghoulish, 5-foot long creature were taken — before it went belly up.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/rarely-seen-sea-monster-captured-then-following-script-dies/


Senior State Department Official Resigns
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Joseph, the State Department's senior arms control and security official, has submitted his resignation to President Bush.
Joseph resigned amid uncertainty about the future of negotiations to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. Talks on both fronts have moved slowly, with U.N. sanctions against both countries showing limited results.
His departure follows that of several other top diplomatic officials, including Philip Zelikow, who was a close adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick, and John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations;
Joseph joined the State Department in 2005 after working on Bush's national security council staff.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Arms-Chief-Quits.html?_r=1&oref=login


Energy Research on a Shoestring
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
GOLDEN, Colo. — Thirty years after it was founded by President Jimmy Carter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the edge of the Rockies here still does not have a cafeteria.
Evaporation chambers for new solar energy systems look like they belong in an H. G. Wells movie. Technicians had to knock out a giant door from a testing facility to fit modern wind turbine blades, which now stick out like a bare toe from an old sock.
The hopes for this neglected lab brightened a bit just over a year ago when President Bush made the first presidential call on the lab since Mr. Carter and spelled out a vision for the not-too-distant future in which solar and wind power would help run every American home and cars would operate on biofuels made from residues of plants.
But one year after the president’s visit, the money flowing into the nation’s primary laboratory for developing renewable fuels is actually less than it was at the beginning of the Bush administration. The lab’s fitful history reflects a basic truth: Americans may have a growing love affair with renewables and the idea of cutting oil imports and conserving energy, but it is a fickle one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/business/25lab.html?pagewanted=print


The State of Our Energy Policy
This is what I wish President Bush would say about energy in his State of the Union message:
In 2001 I said we needed to increase energy supplies, and in my State of the Union speech in 2002 I said we needed to increase energy production at home to make America less dependent on foreign oil. That was wrong. I’m sorry. The United States has only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, so it’s obvious that we need to reduce demand at home. On my watch, we’ve become more dependent on imports. Six years ago, when I came into office, we were importing 11 million barrels of oil a day; last week we brought in 14 million barrels a day. Meanwhile, federal funding for energy efficiency programs has fallen by a third.
In 2003 I promised that a child born that year would have a hydrogen car as his or her first car. I’m sorry — it’s just not clear that hydrogen fuel, fueling stations and cars will be ready by that date. Or ever, for that matter.
http://pipeline.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/the-state-of-our-energy-policy/#comments


Police Won’t Use $140 Million Radio System
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
For more than 10 years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been working to correct a major hindrance to police work in the subway system: a radio network that keeps transit officers underground from talking with officers patrolling the streets above.
The goal was simple but potentially revolutionary: replace an antiquated radio system with a network that would make it possible, for instance, for an officer chasing a suspect down a subway stairway to radio ahead to other officers.
Last October, after spending $140 million, the authority completed the installation of the system citywide.
But it has not been turned on.
That is because the Police Department refuses to use it, saying the new system is hobbled by widespread interference that garbles communication and creates areas where radios cannot receive properly. “What you get is distorted audio,” said Joseph Yurman, a communications engineer for New York City Transit. “You can hear it, but it sounds as if you’re talking through a glass of water.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/nyregion/25radio.html


Senate Panel Rejects Bush’s Plan for Iraq
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — One day after President Bush implored Congress to give his Iraq strategy a chance to succeed, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution on Wednesday denouncing the plan to send more troops to Baghdad, setting up the most direct confrontation over the war since it began nearly four years ago.
The full Senate is poised to consider the nonbinding, yet strongly symbolic, repudiation of Mr. Bush as early as Wednesday. Democratic leaders agreed to tone down the language in the resolution, hoping to make it more acceptable to Republicans in an effort to send a strong, bipartisan rebuke to the White House.
“This is not designed to say, ‘Mr. President, ah-ha, you’re wrong,’ ” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the committee. “This is designed to say, ‘Mr. President, please don’t go do this.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/washington/25capital.html?pagewanted=print


Smuggler’s Plot Highlights Fear Over Uranium
TBILISI, Georgia, Jan. 24 — Last January, a Russian man with sunken cheeks and a wispy mustache crossed into Georgia and traveled to Tbilisi by car along a high mountain road. In two plastic bags in his leather jacket, Georgian authorities say, he carried 100 grams of uranium so refined that it could help fuel an atom bomb.
The Russian, Oleg Khinsagov, had come to meet a buyer who he believed would pay him $1 million and deliver the material to a Muslim man from “a serious organization,” the authorities say.
The uranium was a sample, just under four ounces, and the deal a test: If all went smoothly, he boasted, he would sell a far larger cache stored in his apartment back in Vladikavkaz, two to three kilograms of the rare material, four and a half to six and a half pounds, which in expert hands is enough to make a small bomb.
The buyer, it turned out, was a Georgian agent. Alerted to Mr. Khinsagov’s ambitions by spies in South Ossetia, Georgian officials arrested him and confiscated his merchandise. After a secret trial, the smuggler was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/europe/25nuke.html


Home Sales Figures Signal a Slowing Market
Sales of existing homes declined 0.8 percent in December, according to the National Association of Realtors, a sign of further slowing in the nation’s once-effervescent housing market.
For the full year, sales fell 8.4 percent, the largest decline in 24 years, after five years of boom times.
Despite the falling sales volume, prices have largely held their ground. The median price of a house sold in 2006 rose 1.1 percent, far short of the double-digit increases of the five previous years. The median price rose 12.4 percent in 2005.
Homes sold in December at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, down from 6.27 million in November. The December figure was down 7.9 percent from the previous December.
The sales decline in 2006 was the biggest since 1982, when sales dropped 17.7 percent during an economic recession.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/business/25cnd-home.html


Budget Office Forecasts Drop in U.S. Deficit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted on Wednesday that the federal budget deficit would shrink again this year and could actually swing into a surplus in 2012 — but only if President Bush’s tax cuts expire in 2010.
The agency predicted that the deficit for 2007 would decline to about $200 billion. It would be the third big annual decline in a row, and it would come even though spending on the war in Iraq is expected to remain high this year.
The decline of the deficit comes on the heels of unexpectedly large increases in tax revenue over the last two years and slower-than-expected increases in spending on Medicare.
Much of that increased revenue came from taxes on sharply higher corporate profits and big gains in the stock market, even though Congress reduced the tax rate on capital gains and stock dividends in 2003.
The agency’s “baseline” estimate — one that assumes current law does not change — is that the deficit will decline to $172 billion this year, from $248 billion in the past fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2006. As a practical matter, officials said, the actual deficit will probably be about $200 billion because of outlays for the war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/washington/25budget.html?pagewanted=print


Bush Proposes Broadening the No Child Left Behind Act
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24—The Bush administration called on Wednesday for an array of changes to the president’s signature education law. The proposals would give local school officials new powers to override both teachers’ contracts and state limits on charter schools in the case of persistently failing schools.
The proposals are part of the administration’s blueprint for revising the No Child Left Behind Act, which Congress is scheduled to renew this year. Margaret Spellings, the education secretary, said the goal was to provide students in failing schools with other options and “to make sure we have our best personnel in the neediest places.”
President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002. It requires schools to test students in reading and math annually in grades three to eight, and establishes progressively more severe penalties for schools that fail to make adequate progress, including shutting the schools altogether.
Administration officials said there were currently about 1,800 of these schools across the country, where students have failed to meet state targets for reading and math for more than five years. But they said that loopholes in the current law allowed them to avoid serious action indefinitely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/us/25child.html?pagewanted=print


At Sundance, Art and Journalistic Ethics on Trial
By DAVID CARR
Amir Bar-Lev sat on a bench at The Art Is In, a gallery in Park City, Utah, looking at a series of very energetic acrylic abstract paintings with titles like “Ocean” and “Lollipop House.” Mr. Bar-Lev, who knows and likes the artist, chatted with Mark Weiler about their respective favorites in the showing of six pieces that was held during the Sundance Film Festival.
But underlying the exchange about aesthetics was one about process, a continuation of a discussion that dominates “My Kid Could Paint That,” a documentary directed by Mr. Bar-Lev that had its premiere at the festival to immediate acclaim and was bought by Sony Pictures Classics for $2 million.
The painter, Marla Olmstead, was 4 years old when her work, with its vivid swirls of colors and dynamic brush strokes, began selling for thousands of dollars. She became a news media cat toy, with writers and camera crews parachuting into Binghamton, N.Y., from all over to cover the prodigy, a term her parents, Mark and Laura Olmstead, have never used. As often happens, the coverage crested, then curdled, and it was alleged by Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes” that her father, a night shift manager at a Frito-Lay plant and an amateur painter, was helping her with the work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/movies/25kid.html


White Doctors, Black Subjects: Abuse Disguised as Research
By DENISE GRADY
The most notorious medical experiment in American history was surely the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which 400 black men with syphilis were left untreated for 40 years, from 1932 until 1972, so government doctors could study the course of the disease. The experiment ended only because a journalist exposed it, igniting a firestorm of public outrage over its racism and cruelty. By then, as many as 100 of the men had already died of syphilis.
Tuskegee was just part of a pattern of experimental abuse, one of many shameful chapters in what Harriet A. Washington calls “the long, unhappy history of medical research with black Americans.”
Ms. Washington, a journalist and research scholar in ethics, writes in “Medical Apartheid” that this history has left blacks with an ugly legacy of distrust for research and even treatment, and that it is a lingering stain on the history of medicine.
She does not oppose medical research or blacks’ inclusion in it. On the contrary, she calls research “utterly essential,” and blacks’ participation necessary. “African-Americans,” she writes, “desperately need the medical advantages and revelations that only ethical, essentially therapeutic research initiatives can give them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/health/23book.html?ref=science


New Zealand Herald

NZ Government tapes whale slaughter
The Government has released Defence surveillance footage of a Japanese whaling fleet in the Ross Sea, in an attempt to sway Japanese public opinion over their Government's whaling programme.

The footage, taken in the past three days, was released yesterday at a press conference in Auckland by Conservation Minister Chris Carter.

Mr Carter said a Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion undertaking surveillance against illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean had "come across" the Japanese whaling vessels.

The footage shows three whaling vessels harpooning, hauling and processing whales.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10421149



Howard turns on waterworks
CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard has moved dramatically to shore up his environmental credentials with a massive A$10 billion ($11.1 billion) plan to develop and manage water resources in the planet's driest inhabited continent.
Smarting under increasing criticism of his policies on climate change and water supplies, Howard yesterday unveiled a vision for "radical and permanent" change to the nation's present, unsustainable, overuse of water.
But a central plank of the policy - announced as the Government prepares to seek a fifth term later in the year - may thrust him into an election-year constitutional battle with Labor-controlled states.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420928


Daggers taken on plane reveal gap in security
A group of Sikh priests has exposed a gaping loophole in airport security after they boarded an Air New Zealand plane carrying ceremonial daggers under their robes.
The pilot confiscated the daggers after they managed to board the flight without having to pass through any form of security at Auckland's domestic terminal.
The men, who are understood to be priests visiting from India, were walking on to the Napier-bound flight on Sunday when alarmed passengers noticed the daggers poking out from under their traditional dress.
They told the cabin crew, who alerted the pilot before the daggers were seized and locked in the cockpit for the flight.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10420958


Demotion by banknote for Nepal's king
New 7:15AM Friday January 26, 2007
Nepal's humbled King Gyanendra is likely to have his picture removed from the Himalayan nation's currency notes, a Cabinet minister said, another blow to the unpopular monarch.
Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said the central Nepal Rastra Bank had proposed that the picture of the King be replaced by that of Lord Buddha.
King Gyanendra has lost most of his powers, including his control over the Army, after being forced to end his absolute rule last year.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420931


Cancer risk for long-time mobile users
People who use mobile phones over more than a decade are far more likely to grow brain tumours on the side of their head, new research shows.
Results from a European study of almost 5000 people showed that long-term mobile users were 40 per cent more likely to develop a type of nervous system tumour near their phone ear.
But the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) has warned the overall results showed no increased risk and should "not be taken too far".
The unpublished study, reported in a US newsletter Microwave News, adds to the mixed bag of findings on the dangers of mobile phone use.
Another recent study also suggested increased risks of head tumours, but several others have found no links.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420957


Beirut funds overshadowed by clashes
BEIRUT - Four people were shot dead in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists in Lebanon on Thursday, casting a shadow over donor pledges of US$7.6 billion ($10.8 billion) to the US-backed government facing a Hezbollah-led challenge.
Two opposition students and two other people were shot dead and 35 were injured, many by gunfire, at Beirut's Arab University, security sources said.
Fighting started between students with sticks and stones on the university campus then spilt into nearby streets. It developed into exchanges of gunfire from assault rifles and pistols involving students and residents from both sides.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420961


Litvinenko murderer will die from poison, ex-spy says
MOSCOW - The shadowy figure who poisoned former Russian counter-intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko in London will pay the ultimate price for his crime and die of radiation poisoning within three years, it has been claimed.
Litvinenko died in a London hospital last November after being poisoned with polonium-210, a rare and expensive radioactive chemical, in a Cold war-style plot reminiscent of a John Le Carre thriller.
But according to Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB spy to have ever defected to Britain, the extraordinary story is not yet over.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420964


Iraq court delays ruling on ex-vice president
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi court put off a decision on Thursday on whether to accept an appeal court recommendation that former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan be executed, adjourning until February 12.
The court had been expected to decide whether to accept the recommendation to toughen Ramadan's sentence from life imprisonment to the death penalty for crimes against humanity.
Ramadan was convicted in November after being tried with Saddam Hussein and several other defendants for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.
Saddam and two other defendants have already been hanged.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420947


North Korea shows flexibility on nuclear talks
SEOUL - North Korea appears more open to US and South Korean incentives to scrap its nuclear weapons programme, Seoul said today, providing further hope for progress in talks on the communist state's atomic ambitions.
North Korea's chief envoy to the six-country negotiations hinted on Tuesday there could be a change to his country's demand for an end to a US crackdown on its finances before returning to the talks.
"South Korea and the United States have put forward, through close consultations, an aggressive proposal for the implementation of the Sept. 19 joint statement," South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420861


300 passengers on luxury liner struck down by contagious virus
SAN FRANCISCO - More than 300 passengers and crew aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, which is heading for Auckland next month, have been struck down by a highly contagious form of stomach virus.
Some 276 of the 1652 travellers on board or 16.7 per cent - contracted a suspected stomach flu in recent days, US health officials said on Wednesday after the world famous cruise ship docked in San Francisco.
The others affected were crew members.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was notified by Cunard Line, owner of the Queen Elizabeth 2, on Jan. 11 that some passengers had fallen ill with symptoms associated with norovirus, a virus responsible for gastroenteritis marked by stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea that last two to three days.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420867


Singapore's crime-free image goes down the drain
SINGAPORE - It is considered one of Asia's safest cities, but authorities in Singapore have a theft problem -- spurred by a surge in metals prices.
Thefts of drain covers, prayer urns, copper cables and other metal items doubled in Singapore last year, police said today.
While the overall crime rate in Singapore dropped 10 per cent last year, metal-related thefts jumped, with 1092 cases in 2006 compared with 526 cases in the previous year.
"Most of the stolen metal items are sold to Karung Guni men," said Tan Puay Kern, the senior assistant commissioner of police, referring to Singapore's rag-and-bone men. He added that thieves had made off with lightning conductors, street signs, and the housings for cable-television equipment.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420854


US eyes heat-beaming weapon to control mobs by 2010
Email this storyPrint this story 10:50AM Thursday January 25, 2007
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Georgia - The US Defence Department today unveiled what it called a revolutionary heat-beaming weapon that could be used to control mobs or repel foes in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The so-called Active Denial System causes an intense burning sensation causing people to run for cover, but no lasting harm, officials said.
"This is a breakthrough technology that's going to give our forces a capability they don't now have," Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of Defence for advanced systems and concepts, told Reuters. "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010."
The weapon, mounted on a Humvee, uses a large rectangular dish antenna to direct an invisible beam toward a target. It includes a high-voltage power unit and beam-generating equipment and is effective at more than 500 meters.
Existing counter-personnel systems designed not to kill -- including bean bag munitions and rubber bullets -- work at little more than "rock-throwing distances," said Marine Col. Kirk Hymes, director of the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

US eyes heat-beaming weapon to control mobs by 2010

10:50AM Thursday January 25, 2007
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Georgia - The US Defence Department today unveiled what it called a revolutionary heat-beaming weapon that could be used to control mobs or repel foes in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The so-called Active Denial System causes an intense burning sensation causing people to run for cover, but no lasting harm, officials said.
"This is a breakthrough technology that's going to give our forces a capability they don't now have," Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of Defence for advanced systems and concepts, told Reuters. "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010."
The weapon, mounted on a Humvee, uses a large rectangular dish antenna to direct an invisible beam toward a target. It includes a high-voltage power unit and beam-generating equipment and is effective at more than 500 meters.
Existing counter-personnel systems designed not to kill -- including bean bag munitions and rubber bullets -- work at little more than "rock-throwing distances," said Marine Col. Kirk Hymes, director of the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420834


International aid worker raped in Darfur
PARIS/KHARTOUM - An international aid worker was raped in Darfur, a French aid agency said today of the first such reported assault in Sudan's west and the latest in a wave of attacks against the world's largest humanitarian operation.
Action Contre La Faim, which fights malnutrition in the vast region, said one employee was raped, others were sexually assaulted and there was a mock execution during an attack on their compound in December in rebel-controlled Gereida town.
"There were sexual assaults including one rape," an ACF spokeswoman said in Paris.
"They ... looted everything, stole vehicles, communication equipment, beat employees, local and international staff," she added.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420793


Lenin statue found out in the cold
Email this storyPrint this story 6:15AM Friday January 26, 2007
At the geographic centre of Antarctica - one of the world's most inhospitable spots - Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin stares out over a frozen wasteland.
A British and Canadian team who last month became the first to reach the Pole of Inaccessibility on foot were surprised to find a bust of Lenin still visible at a Soviet base that was abandoned almost 50 years ago.
"It was slightly yellow, but not a bit of snow on him," Henry Cookson, a British member of the team, told Associated Press radio.



Mega-beasts once roamed Australia
Marsupial lions, kangaroos as tall as trucks and wombats the size of a rhinoceros roamed Australia's outback before being killed off by fires lit by invading humans, scientists said.
The giant animals lived in the arid Nullarbor Desert around 400,000 years ago, but died out around 50,000 years ago, relatively shortly after the arrival of human settlers, according to new fossil skeletons found in caves.
Fossilised remains were uncovered almost intact in a series of three deep caves in the centre of the Nullarbor Desert - east of the west coast city of Perth - in October 2002. "Three subsequent expeditions produced hundreds of fossils so well-preserved that they constitute a veritable "Rosetta Stone for Ice-Age Australia", expedition leader Gavin Prideaux said of the find, detailed in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10420903


Shanghai - City of the super-rich
The last time the Chinese police really captured the world's attention was in 1989 when they appeared on the TV hitting Chinese students over the head with big sticks.

They still have the sticks and the ability to look impassive in the face of a large and determined crowd. But outside the Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, they just look a bit confused. There are people waving thick white invitations at them and bunches of flowers.

Read any human-rights report on China and sooner or later you'll see the word "policeman" coupled with words such as "torture" and "brutality".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10421131


$1 million riding on colt's breeding
There's a saying in racing that you breed the best to the best and hope for the best.

Trevor McKee did the first when he mated his champion mare, Sunline, to outstanding stallion Zabeel.

Around 4pm on Tuesday, Mr McKee will be waiting in the wings, watching and hoping. when the resulting handsome colt goes through New Zealand Bloodstock's Karaka sale ring.

This is the first of Sunline's progeny to be offered for sale and, actually, there's more expectation than hope.

Under an auction system, it is impossible to predict yearling prices but the safest bet this week is that this will be a million-dollar colt.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10421178


Freeze-framing history
Outside in the dark, the cold will freeze tears on your cheeks, turn your fingers black, harden your clothes into bread-boards.

Inside these wooden walls, the air is warm, the acetylene lamps blaze, there's a cloud of cocoa-laden milky steam, puffing up from the stove. Men are talking, whistling. Someone snores in his bunk. The shelves are lined with tins of food; Moir's Minced Steak, Aberdeen Marrow Fat, Bird's Egg Powder.

A century later, the men are gone, but their traces remain. The shelves are still stacked with tins. Rowntree's Elect Cocoa, announces one bluntly, in the frill-free advertising language of Edwardian England. Spratt's Wholemeal Biscuits. Tripe and Onions. The labels are peeling a little from Mutton Cutlets and Boiled Fowl.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10421071


Howard turns on waterworks

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard has moved dramatically to shore up his environmental credentials with a massive A$10 billion ($11.1 billion) plan to develop and manage water resources in the planet's driest inhabited continent.

Smarting under increasing criticism of his policies on climate change and water supplies, Howard yesterday unveiled a vision for "radical and permanent" change to the nation's present, unsustainable, overuse of water.

But a central plank of the policy - announced as the Government prepares to seek a fifth term later in the year - may thrust him into an election-year constitutional battle with Labor-controlled states


Marine life bears brunt of ship beaching

BRANSCOMBE BEACH, East Devon - Hundreds of birds have been covered in the oil leaking from the MSC Napoli which is beached off the Devon coast.

Crowds who had excitedly scavenged for washed-up cargo of motorbikes, carpets, women's shoes and nappies have been accused of adding to the environmental damage and described as "despicable" by officials.

But the impact on wildlife is causing greater concern. The 200 tonnes of leaked oil has formed an 8km slick is and environmentalists have warned the breeding population of the guillemot will be threatened.


continued …