Flooding in Coffeyville, Kansas (click here)
Floods that started with heavy rain on June 26, 2007, still surrounded parts of Coffeyville, Kansas, on July 9, when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) flying on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the top image. Coffeyville was flooded on July 1, when the swollen Verdigris River burst through a levee. Water swamped neighborhoods and businesses, including the Coffeyville Resources Refinery. Though the refinery had been shut down in anticipation of the flooding, it leaked more than 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the Verdigris River, reported the Environment News Service. The Environmental Protection Agency was coordinating with Coffeyville Resources to clean up the spill and to ensure that oil did not contaminate drinking water downstream.
Fires in Nevada (click here)
From NASA
HOT, DRY CONDITIONS SPARK WILDFIRES ACROSS WESTERN U.S.
A series of severe wildfires raged across the western United States on Sunday, July 8, 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. Actively burning fires are indicated with red pixels.
As this image shows, a number of states have been affected by fire activity, made worse by dry conditions, high temperatures and strong winds, according to fire officials.
California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana each reported wildfires of varying severity over the past few days. Many of these fires have forced evacuations and shut down highways.
One of the largest fires is currently burning in Utah, where winds fanned a massive blaze that has now burned more than 283,000 acres, according to fire officials. The wildfire is the largest in the history of the state.
Over the weekend, the National Incident Information Center received reports of 419 new fires, 56 of which are more than 500 acres large.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007070925355.html
New York Times
Overhaul Plan for Vote System Will Be Delayed
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: July 20, 2007
Under pressure from state and local officials, as well as from lobbyists for the disabled, House leaders now advocate putting off the most sweeping changes until 2012, four years later than planned.
Overhauling voting systems before next year’s presidential election had once been a top Democratic priority, primarily to allow greater accountability and be certain that all votes registered on computerized touch-screen systems were counted. But state and local elections officials told Congress they could not make the changes in time for the balloting in November 2008, particularly in light of the extra workload involved in preparing for next year’s much-earlier presidential primary season.
Confronted by similar concerns, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said she had already decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010.
“My sense is there’s no way to get this thing in place by the election of 2008,” Ms. Feinstein said. “Without adequate time, we could cause real problems in the election.”
Senate Democrats say that stretching out the timetable could increase their chances to win enough Republican support to put the changes into law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20vote.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1184929385-QOgGJsDJJKq1VuwVUvw1TA
The detention facility at Forward Operating Base Justice in Baghdad's Khadimiya neighborhood holds nearly a thousand men arrested in raids.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/07/19/world/middleeast/20070720_DETAIN_slideshow_1.html
Women Supportive but Skeptical of Clinton, Poll Says
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and DALIA SUSSMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
Women view Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more favorably than men do, but she still faces skepticism among some women, especially those who are older and those who are married, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Women hold more positive views than men of all the leading Democratic candidates. But winning the support of women, who made up 54 percent of voters in the last presidential election, is especially important to Mrs. Clinton, who has sought to rally them behind her quest to become the nation’s first female president.
The poll found that over all, women tend to agree with her on the issues and see her as a strong leader and as a positive role model.
All of those polled — both women and men — said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief, suggesting she has made headway in diminishing concerns that her sex would impede her from leading the nation in wartime. A majority of those polled also said they thought she would win the White House if she captured the Democratic nomination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/politics/20poll.html?hp
U.S. Generals Request Delay in Judging Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — The top commanders in Iraq and the American ambassador to Baghdad appealed for more time beyond their mid-September assessment to more fully judge if the new strategy was making gains.
Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, speaking by video link to lawmakers in Washington on Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that while he would provide the mid-September assessment of the new military strategy that Congress has required, it would take “at least until November” to judge with confidence whether the strategy was working.
But their appeals, in three videoconferences on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, were met by stern rebukes from lawmakers of both parties.
The sessions appeared aimed in part at conveying that the administration was not planning a major strategy shift in September that would begin reducing the American troop presence, even if benchmarks set by Congress to measure Iraq’s progress were not achieved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20policy.html?hp
New York Deal Tightens Limits on Election Cash
By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: July 20, 2007
ALBANY, July 19 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders agreed on Thursday to the broadest overhaul of New York’s notoriously lax campaign finance laws since they were enacted after Watergate, ending a stalemate that had halted action at the Capitol for nearly a month.
The agreement would ban contributions from registered lobbyists and substantially reduce the amount of money most donors can give, though it did not go as far as Mr. Spitzer and government watchdog groups had wanted. New York would still have individual contribution limits that are five times higher than federal campaign restrictions and are among the highest of any state that sets limits.
The amount a donor can give a statewide candidate would be reduced to $25,000 from as much as $55,900 per election cycle. Donation limits for State Senate candidates would fall to $11,500 from $15,500, and those for Assembly candidates would drop to $4,600 from $7,600.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20albany.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login
Alliances Shift as Turks Weigh a Political Turn
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: July 20, 2007
ISTANBUL, July 19 — For 84 years, modern Turkey has been defined by a holy trinity — the army, the republic and its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Each was linked inextricably to the others and all were beyond reproach.
But a deep transformation is under way in this nation of 73 million, and elections this Sunday may prove a watershed: liberal Turks, once supporters of the ruling secular elite and its main backer, the military, are turning their backs on them and pledging votes to religious politicians as well as a new array of independents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20turkey.html?hp
Israel Frees More Than 250 Prisoners
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Israel released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners Friday in a gesture to embattled President Mahmoud Abbas, who pledged not to rest until Israel's jails were emptied of its thousands of Palestinians.
The release was meant to bolster Abbas in his power struggle with the Islamic militant Hamas, which took control of Gaza by force last month.
Several thousand chanting, clapping Palestinians greeted the prisoners as their buses rolled into Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Prisoners were hoisted onto the shoulders of dancing supporters, before they performed noon prayers in a large, open-sided tent.
''This is the beginning,'' said Abbas, wearing a black-and-white checkered baseball cap, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. ''Efforts must continue. Our work must continue until every prisoner returns to the his home,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?hp
U.S. Will Allow Most Types of Lighters on Planes
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — Federal aviation authorities have decided to stop enforcing a two-year-old rule against taking cigarette lighters on airplanes, concluding that it was a waste of time to search for them before passengers boarded.
The ban was imposed at the insistence of Congress after a passenger, Richard Reed, tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe in 2001 on a flight from Paris to Miami.
Lawmakers said that if Mr. Reid had used a lighter, instead of matches, he might have been able to ignite the bomb, but Kip Hawley, assistant secretary for the Transportation Security Administration, said in an interview on Thursday that the ban had done little to improve aviation security because small batteries could be used to set off a bomb.
Matches have never been prohibited on flights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20tsa.html?hp
La Guardia Near-Crash Is One of a Rising Number
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — On the warm, muggy morning of July 5, a Delta 737 from Cincinnati was dropping fast toward Runway 22 at La Guardia Airport in New York. In the control tower below, a trainee was barking directions to a shifting mass of planes on the ground at one of the country’s busiest but most constricted airports.
In a moment of confusion, the trainee cleared one of them, a 50-seat Comair Delta Connection regional jet bound for Greensboro, N.C., to cross Runway 22.
As the 737, Flight 1238, rolled down the runway at more than 150 miles per hour, an alarm flashed on a radar screen in the tower and someone realized a dire mistake had been made, according to details provided by officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the pilots’ and controllers’ unions. “No delay, no delay,” a controller shouted to the pilots of the regional jet, urging them to hurry across.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20laguardia.html?hp
FEMA Faulted on Response to Risks in Trailers
By JACQUELINE PALANK
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — The chairman of the House oversight committee on Thursday accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of refusing to acknowledge high levels of formaldehyde in trailers it provided to hurricane evacuees on the Gulf Coast.
In testimony on Thursday, three people who had lived in the trailers said they believed that exposure to formaldehyde, which is found in many building materials, was the cause of health problems including sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems .
The administrator of FEMA, R. David Paulison, told the subcommittee he was not “100 percent sure that it was the trailers” that caused residents’ health problems. But Mr. Paulison also said that, in hindsight, the agency could have moved faster when problems were reported in some of the more than 120,000 mobile homes and travel trailers provided to evacuees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20fema.html?hp
18 South Koreans Abducted in Afghanistan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 7:03 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban gunmen abducted 18 members of a South Korean church group, and a purported spokesman for the Islamic militia said Friday that it will question the 15 women and three men about their activities in Afghanistan before deciding their fate.
The Koreans were seized Thursday in Ghazni province as they were traveling by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.
The driver, released late Thursday, said there were 18 women and five men on the bus, Ahmadzai said. The discrepancy in figures could not be immediately clarified.
A group of 35 to 40 armed Taliban stopped the bus and drove it into the dessert, then abandoned the vehicle and forced the group to walk on foot for about an hour, Ahmadzai said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Kidnappings.html
Human Rat Trap Knows His Enemy. They’re Winning.
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: July 20, 2007
MUMBAI, India, July 19 — Behram Harda was a dancer in the Bollywood films of the 1970s, gracing the screen with his twist and his cha-cha.
Then he became a rodent assassin.
Today, in the sprawling B Ward of this teeming, filthy, exhilarating city, Mr. Harda is admired by his colleagues as the last of the great Mumbai rat catchers. His is a dying breed in a city whose dreams of being rat-free recede year by year.
Mr. Harda, 55 years old with salt-and-pepper stubble, is a gentle, relentless executioner. He fumigates. He drops poison laced with garlic and chutney into burrows. He brings new traps to shopkeepers and collects the previous catch for killing. The rats are sometimes drowned in buckets. Other times they are seized by the tail and smashed onto the hot pavement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20rats.html
Compelled to Remember the Big One
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
We in New York are getting pretty good at assuming the worst when something out of the ordinary happens, like the steam pipe explosion that shot vapor and muck into the air on Wednesday.
For most of us, terrorism is as bad as it gets. When things go wrong, fear of terrorism is the city’s default position. It’s no wonder, given our recent history and given that federal officials and certain presidential candidates flash incessant warnings of doom. They are the opposite of F.D.R., those politicians, cautioning us that we have everything to fear, including fear itself.
Anything short of terrorism somehow becomes bearable. We saw the phenomenon on Wednesday: Yes, a woman died, and others suffered bodily harm, and life turned upside down for many thousands. But at least it wasn’t a terrorist act. Whew!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave voice to those feelings while trying to reassure the citizenry. “There is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20nyc.html
The Elusive Vick Takes His Hardest Hit
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Published: July 20, 2007
I’ve argued for a number of years that Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons is one of the most important players in the N.F.L. His approach to quarterback — with speed, quickness and a rifle arm — makes him, on some days, the most dangerous player on the field. Many of the arguments against the way he plays the game reflect a deeply rooted cultural bias against athleticism at one of the most hallowed positions in sports.
The debate has now moved beyond the playing field, and Vick is facing an unprecedented rush. The federal government is accusing him of not merely crossing the line between good and bad judgment, but of going completely out of bounds.
Earlier this week, Vick was indicted on federal felony charges alleging that he had sponsored dogfighting since 2001, that he frequently gambled on dogfighting and that he authorized acts of cruelty against animals on property that he owned.
An 18-page indictment suggested that Vick was not just a distant spectator sitting on the 50-yard line; he was the quarterback for Bad Newz Kennels.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/sports/football/20rhoden.html
Compelled to Remember the Big One
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
We in New York are getting pretty good at assuming the worst when something out of the ordinary happens, like the steam pipe explosion that shot vapor and muck into the air on Wednesday.
For most of us, terrorism is as bad as it gets. When things go wrong, fear of terrorism is the city’s default position. It’s no wonder, given our recent history and given that federal officials and certain presidential candidates flash incessant warnings of doom. They are the opposite of F.D.R., those politicians, cautioning us that we have everything to fear, including fear itself.
Anything short of terrorism somehow becomes bearable. We saw the phenomenon on Wednesday: Yes, a woman died, and others suffered bodily harm, and life turned upside down for many thousands. But at least it wasn’t a terrorist act. Whew!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave voice to those feelings while trying to reassure the citizenry. “There is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
Only an infrastructure failure. Why that should be a comfort is a mystery. It meant that death could reach up from below and grab hold of us at any time.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20nyc.html
Bombings in Pakistan Leave at Least 48 Dead
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and ISMAIL KHAN
Published: July 20, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 19 — Three suspected suicide bombings in far-flung corners of the country left at least 48 dead on Thursday, as the government sought to tame the disorder by resuscitating a widely criticized and now collapsed peace deal in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Tribal elders were scheduled to go to the tribal area of North Waziristan on Thursday for another attempt at persuading militants affiliated with the Taliban to resurrect a truce signed last September. The agreement was intended to curb the infiltration of fighters into neighboring Afghanistan and contain attacks against Pakistani security forces.
The Taliban renounced the truce last weekend in the aftermath of the government’s assault on Islamist militants holed up in the sprawling Red Mosque compound here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20pakistan.html
Russia Orders 4 British Diplomats Home in Poisoning Case
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: July 20, 2007
MOSCOW, July 19 — Russia expelled four British diplomats on Thursday in response to Britain’s expulsion of the same number of Russian diplomats earlier this week over Russia’s refusal to extradite a suspect in last year’s radiation poisoning of a former K.G.B. officer in London.
Russia will also tighten visa requirements on British government officials’ travel to Russia, in response to a similar move announced by Britain on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, said in a statement.
The symmetrical nature of the reply suggested that Russian authorities wanted to avoid any escalation in the poisoning case, which has unraveled into a bruising and drawn-out controversy for the Kremlin.
In his first public comments on the tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, President Vladimir V. Putin said he believed that relations with Britain would now develop normally.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20russia.html
Doctor Born in Saudi Arabia Is 4th Charged in Bomb Plot
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: July 20, 2007
LONDON, July 19 — A Jordanian-trained doctor was charged Thursday with a terrorism offense in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, making him the fourth among eight people arrested in Britain and Australia to be charged in the attacks.
Three people detained by the British police right after the attacks have been released without charge. A fourth is in critical condition from injuries sustained when he drove a gasoline-laden Jeep Cherokee into a terminal at the Glasgow airport.
The man charged Thursday, Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, is to appear Friday in magistrates’ court here on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions, the police said. He was born in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20britain.html
In a World on the Move, a Tiny Land Strains to Cope
By JASON DePARLE
Published: June 24, 2007
MINDELO, Cape Verde — Virtually every aspect of global migration can be seen in this tiny West African nation, where the number of people who have left approaches the number who remain and almost everyone has a close relative in Europe or America.
Border Crossings
The View From Cape Verde
This is the first in a series of articles examining global migration and its consequences.
LEFT BEHIND Steven Ramos, 11, with one of his nieces in Mindelo, Cape Verde. His mother works in Portugal, his father in the Netherlands.
Migrant money buoys the economy. Migrant votes sway politics. Migrant departures split parents from children, and the most famous song by the most famous Cape Verdean venerates the national emotion, “Sodade,” or longing. Lofty talk of opportunity abroad mixes at cafe tables here with accounts of false documents and sham marriages.
The intensity of the national experience makes this barren archipelago the Galapagos of migration, a microcosm of the forces straining American politics and remaking societies across the globe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/africa/24verde.html?ex=1185076800&en=dda73987f6c2cecc&ei=5070
Audio/Video
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20070624_VERDE_FEATURE/blocker.html
North Korean Nuclear Talks Fail to Set Disarmament Timetable, but Yield Agreement on Goals
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: July 20, 2007
BEIJING, July 19 — Delegates to the six-nation talks aimed at disarming North Korea of its nuclear weapons said they had failed to set a timetable for disarmament during meetings that were scheduled to end on Friday.
The chief United States envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, tried to put a positive face on the disappointing result, saying that substantial progress had been made during the talks, but that “working groups” of experts from the participating countries would need to devise plans for the timing and sequencing of further steps.
“The consensus was that given our not very successful effort with dates in the spring that we would want to have the working groups” help devise modalities to achieve the objectives of the second round of the talks. Mr. Hill said of the outstanding goals, “I feel it is quite feasible by the end of the year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20korea.html
Truck Bomb Hits Baghdad Mosque, and 61 Are Killed
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: June 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, June 19 — A suicide bomber barreled a truck filled with cooking gas and explosives into a square bordered by a large Shiite mosque in the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday, just as worshipers were finishing midday prayers. The Interior Ministry said at least 61 people were killed and 130 wounded.
The attack took place as American forces continued a large-scale assault on strongholds of Al Qaeda outside the capital where, they say, many of the vehicle bombs are manufactured. The timing seemed intended to demonstrate that the insurgents could still strike with near impunity, blindsiding the American security crackdown in Baghdad.
The powerful explosion destroyed a part of the Khalani Mosque and engulfed a line of minivans and an adjacent parking area in flames. The toll was expected to climb as bodies were counted and some of the wounded died.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?ex=1185076800&en=e4a30360981d7dee&ei=5070
Audio/Video
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20070620_IRAQ_FEATURE/blocker.html
Victory for Brown as Labor Holds 2 Seats in Britain
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 3:32 a.m. ET
LONDON (Reuters) - British voters handed a first electoral victory to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday, when his Labour Party retained two parliamentary seats in by-elections, albeit with reduced majorities.
The results were a blow for the opposition Conservative party, which came third to the Liberal Democrats in both the west London constituency of Ealing Southall and former Prime Minister Tony Blair's old seat in Sedgefield, county Durham.
Brown has enjoyed a bounce in opinion polls since taking over as prime minister last month and promising sweeping changes in style and policy to restore public trust in his government damaged by the Iraq war.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-britain-byelection.html
Denmark Airlifts Abouts 200 Iraqis
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 4:41 a.m. ET
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark said on Friday it secretly airlifted out of Iraq about 200 translators and other Iraqi employees of its troops in Iraq and their relatives this week and most were expected to seek asylum in the Nordic nation.
"Out of concern for the interpreters and their families' security as well as the security of the Danish base in Iraq, the Defence Ministry has chosen to inform the public after the interpreters and others had left Iraq," the Denmark Defence Ministry said in a statement.
It said the airlift involved "about 200" people. A ministry spokesman reached by telephone could not provide an exact number but said most of the Iraqis brought to Denmark were translators and their families.
Danish Ambassador to Iraq Bo Eric Weber said the moved followed the killing in December of an Iraqi who had worked with the Danes as an interpreter. Around 80 of those flown out of the country were employed and the rest were family members, he said.
"They had been working for us for about four years, and those who felt their security in Iraq was threatened have been granted visas to go to Denmark" where they can apply for asylum, Weber told Reuters.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-denmark-iraq-translators.html
China’s Growth Accelerates to 11.9%, and Food Prices Spur Inflation
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: July 20, 2007
SHANGHAI, July 19 — China said Thursday that its economy grew 11.9 percent at an annual pace in the second quarter, the fastest pace in more than a decade, and that inflation rose sharply last month, stoking fears that the nation’s economy was overheating.
The quarter’s explosive growth, compared with the period a year earlier, was fueled by a huge trade surplus, booming retail sales and heavy investments in new factories, roads, bridges and real estate projects.
Analysts say that the authorities in Beijing are under mounting pressure to curb the trade surplus and ease pressure on the economy by increasing interest rates or allowing the currency, the yuan, to further appreciate against other currencies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20yuan.html
Greece: Damaging Wildfires Burn
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
Wildfires burned homes and forced the evacuations of villages, a convent and a children’s camp in southern Greece, as a heat wave swept across southeastern Europe. The national fire service reported 115 fires in a 24-hour period as temperatures reached 102 degrees in some spots. In southern Greece, villages near Corinth, 52 miles southwest of Athens, were evacuated after a fire destroyed at least 10 homes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20briefs-fires.html
Britain: Unions Denounce Call to Boycott Israel
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 20, 2007
Twenty-nine American labor leaders issued a statement denouncing the call by several British unions to boycott Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories. Asserting that “there are victims and victimizers on all sides,” the union leaders said, “We have to question the motives of those resolutions that single out one country.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20briefs-unions.html
Philippines: Kidnapped Priest Is Released
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
An Italian missionary priest kidnapped more than a month ago has been released after negotiations with a rogue faction of a Muslim separatist group, the Philippine police said. The priest, the Rev. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was kidnapped June 10 in the nation’s volatile south. On July 10, a Philippine marine convoy searching for him was ambushed by Muslim insurgents, and 14 marines were killed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20briefs-priest.html
Chad: President Agrees to Admit European Force
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
President Idriss Déby said he had agreed in principle to let a European Union force into the east of his country to contain violence that has spread from neighboring Sudan’s Darfur region. The United Nations says that eastern Chad has about 230,000 refugees from Sudan, and that more than 170,000 of Chad’s own citizens have also been displaced as a result of the conflict.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/africa/20briefs-chad.html
An Epic Showdown as Harry Potter Is Initiated Into Adulthood
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: July 19, 2007
So, here it is at last: The final confrontation between Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the “symbol of hope” for both the Wizard and Muggle worlds, and Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the nefarious leader of the Death Eaters and would-be ruler of all. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. The Seeker versus the Dark Lord.
J. K. Rowling’s monumental, spellbinding epic, 10 years in the making, is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to “Star Wars.” And true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, “Soprano”-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters’ story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html
Sunni Legislators Return to Work in Iraq After Reaching Deal on Speaker
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL RAZZAQ AL-SAIEDI
Published: July 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, July 19 — Dozens of Sunni Arab legislators ended their five-week boycott of Parliament on Thursday, returning after what appeared to be a deal with Shiite lawmakers allowing Mahmoud Mashhadani, the volatile Sunni Parliament speaker, to return to his job and then resign, potentially with a sizable pension and retirement benefits.
The political developments came as two American soldiers from an Army scout platoon were charged with premeditated murder in the killing of a middle-aged Iraqi man near the northern city of Kirkuk on June 23. Their battalion commander was also dismissed, though military officials emphasized that he was not suspected of any crimes and described his removal as an “administrative action” after senior commanders had lost confidence in him.
Four American soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, the military announced on Thursday. Another American soldier, from the Third Infantry Division, was shot and killed Thursday south of the capital. So far, 49 American service members have died in Iraq during July.
In theory, the return to Parliament of 44 members of the main Sunni political bloc, coming days after lawmakers loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr ended their own boycott, will make it easier for lawmakers to reach a quorum and pass legislation. But lawmakers remain deeply divided over every major legislative question, including whether to allow former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to hold positions of power and the distribution of wealth from Iraq’s vast oil fields. Lawmakers also plan to take a monthlong holiday in August.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html
Norman Mailer, Unbound and on Film: Revisiting His Bigger-Than-Life Selves
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: July 20, 2007
Who was Norman T. Kingsley? No Wikipedia entry exists to provide a full biography, but in his day Kingsley — or N. T. K., as he was sometimes called — was a figure of considerable world historical significance. A filmmaker who invited comparison to Buñuel, Dreyer, Fellini and Antonioni, he was also a formidable potential candidate for president of the United States, an object of relentless media fascination and the target of far-reaching conspiracies of the rich and powerful. Backed up by an entourage of hoodlums and street fighters known as the Cash Box, he was, in equal parts, artist, outlaw, pornographer and saint.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/movies/20norm.html
As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel
By MARK LANDLER
Published: July 19, 2007
HEIDELBERG, Germany, July 17 — A day after Michael Kingsley arrived in this romantic university town, he was in no mood to savor the cobblestone streets, the half-timbered houses or the flower-bedecked windows — to say nothing of the camera-ready castle on the hill.
Mr. Kingsley had left his camera battery and charger in a hotel room in London, and he knew that as an American tourist, buying replacements here was going to sting. The damage: $143. Back home in Falls Church, Va., he said, the same purchase would have set him back no more than $100.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/business/worldbusiness/19dollar.html?em&ex=1185076800&en=1a3f13077eb2d9e7&ei=5087%0A
Russia’s Trademark Gun, but Others Grab Profits
WEAPON OF CHOICE An Afghan soldier on patrol with a Kalashnikov. The United States supplies the weapons to Afghanistan and Iraq, and gets them from sources outside Russia.
THE automatic Kalashnikov, the world’s most abundant firearm and a martial symbol with a multiplicity of meanings, turns 60 this year. In some places this is cause to shudder. In Russia it is treated as a milestone to celebrate, and a chance to cry foul.
Once strictly Communist products, the AK-47 and its offspring are killing tools so durable and easy to use that they were heralded as achievements of state socialism and industrial might. Uncoupled from the laws of supply and demand by their origins in planned economies, they flowed from arms plants in the tens of millions, becoming national defense and foreign policy instruments for the Soviet Union and allied states.
But the 60th birthday party has displayed the rifle’s evolving place in both the market and the Kremlin’s mind. These days the Kalashnikov is seen through capitalist lenses, and argued about in ways that could not possibly have been envisioned by its Communist creators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15chivers.html
How a Clash Helped Pakistan’s Leader — and Didn’t
By DAVID ROHDE
Published: July 15, 2007
A NIGHTMARE seemed to be unfolding last week when commandos stormed a hardline Islamic mosque in Pakistan’s capital. With at least 87 dead, it looked as if the clash could set off an Islamic uprising in the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim nation.
Instead, few people attended protests organized by religious parties on Friday. What the battle at the mosque seemed to reveal was how complex Pakistani politics is, and how far Islamist radicals are from gaining widespread popular support, Pakistani and American analysts said.
“There was no uprising because the society is not radical and is more opposed to extremism than most commentators think,” said Frederic Grare, a Pakistan analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “The clash demonstrates that the majority of the people will back a policy aimed at reducing radicals’ influence.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15rohde.html
Exxon Mobil Cleanup Effort Continues on Brooklyn Spill
By DALTON WALKER
Published: July 19, 2007
Inside the walls and barbed wire fence that largely hides the nondescript facility beside Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, a handful of trailers sit in a cluster surrounded by smaller buildings that belong to Exxon Mobil.
It is not much to look at, but Exxon Mobil officials say the operation is slowly eliminating the contamination that has been deep underground in the Greenpoint neighborhood for decades. The operation, and the contamination, stem from an oil spill that occurred more than half a century ago and has been described as more than twice as large as the Exxon Valdez disaster, which released 11 million gallons of crude oil off the Alaskan coast.
The Brooklyn spill, which resulted from an industrial explosion in 1950, released an estimated 17 million gallons of oil and oil products, polluted the soil, left traces of toxic chemicals in Newtown Creek, led to years of community and environmental outcry and became the basis of several continuing lawsuits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/nyregion/19clean.html
A Landscape That the Glaciers Overlooked
But tucked into Ohio’s southeast corner, near where it touches West Virginia and Kentucky, lies a protected pocket the glaciers never bullied, a densely wooded but thinly populated region of rugged slopes and cool hollows, of spring-fed creeks and cascading waterfalls, known as the Hocking Hills. For years, city dwellers from Columbus, only an hour away, have sought refuge there in retreats hidden among oak, cherry, walnut and hickory forests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/realestate/greathomes/20havens.html
Victorian Baths, Unrepressed
By ALEXIA BRUE
Published: July 19, 2007
NANCY EPSTEIN’S master bathroom started with a 1930’s Lalique chandelier. “I fell in love with this chandelier 12 years ago” at the Paul Stamati Gallery in Manhattan, she said recently. “Finally, 5 years ago, I said: ‘Kids, we’re not going on vacation this summer. Mom’s buying the chandelier.’ ”
Once she owned it, she wasn’t sure where it should go, until her decorator suggested that it was the perfect size for the master bath.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/garden/19bath.html
continued...
HOT, DRY CONDITIONS SPARK WILDFIRES ACROSS WESTERN U.S.
A series of severe wildfires raged across the western United States on Sunday, July 8, 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. Actively burning fires are indicated with red pixels.
As this image shows, a number of states have been affected by fire activity, made worse by dry conditions, high temperatures and strong winds, according to fire officials.
California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana each reported wildfires of varying severity over the past few days. Many of these fires have forced evacuations and shut down highways.
One of the largest fires is currently burning in Utah, where winds fanned a massive blaze that has now burned more than 283,000 acres, according to fire officials. The wildfire is the largest in the history of the state.
Over the weekend, the National Incident Information Center received reports of 419 new fires, 56 of which are more than 500 acres large.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007070925355.html
New York Times
Overhaul Plan for Vote System Will Be Delayed
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: July 20, 2007
Under pressure from state and local officials, as well as from lobbyists for the disabled, House leaders now advocate putting off the most sweeping changes until 2012, four years later than planned.
Overhauling voting systems before next year’s presidential election had once been a top Democratic priority, primarily to allow greater accountability and be certain that all votes registered on computerized touch-screen systems were counted. But state and local elections officials told Congress they could not make the changes in time for the balloting in November 2008, particularly in light of the extra workload involved in preparing for next year’s much-earlier presidential primary season.
Confronted by similar concerns, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said she had already decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010.
“My sense is there’s no way to get this thing in place by the election of 2008,” Ms. Feinstein said. “Without adequate time, we could cause real problems in the election.”
Senate Democrats say that stretching out the timetable could increase their chances to win enough Republican support to put the changes into law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20vote.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1184929385-QOgGJsDJJKq1VuwVUvw1TA
The detention facility at Forward Operating Base Justice in Baghdad's Khadimiya neighborhood holds nearly a thousand men arrested in raids.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/07/19/world/middleeast/20070720_DETAIN_slideshow_1.html
Women Supportive but Skeptical of Clinton, Poll Says
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and DALIA SUSSMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
Women view Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more favorably than men do, but she still faces skepticism among some women, especially those who are older and those who are married, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Women hold more positive views than men of all the leading Democratic candidates. But winning the support of women, who made up 54 percent of voters in the last presidential election, is especially important to Mrs. Clinton, who has sought to rally them behind her quest to become the nation’s first female president.
The poll found that over all, women tend to agree with her on the issues and see her as a strong leader and as a positive role model.
All of those polled — both women and men — said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief, suggesting she has made headway in diminishing concerns that her sex would impede her from leading the nation in wartime. A majority of those polled also said they thought she would win the White House if she captured the Democratic nomination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/politics/20poll.html?hp
U.S. Generals Request Delay in Judging Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — The top commanders in Iraq and the American ambassador to Baghdad appealed for more time beyond their mid-September assessment to more fully judge if the new strategy was making gains.
Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, speaking by video link to lawmakers in Washington on Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that while he would provide the mid-September assessment of the new military strategy that Congress has required, it would take “at least until November” to judge with confidence whether the strategy was working.
But their appeals, in three videoconferences on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, were met by stern rebukes from lawmakers of both parties.
The sessions appeared aimed in part at conveying that the administration was not planning a major strategy shift in September that would begin reducing the American troop presence, even if benchmarks set by Congress to measure Iraq’s progress were not achieved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20policy.html?hp
New York Deal Tightens Limits on Election Cash
By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: July 20, 2007
ALBANY, July 19 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders agreed on Thursday to the broadest overhaul of New York’s notoriously lax campaign finance laws since they were enacted after Watergate, ending a stalemate that had halted action at the Capitol for nearly a month.
The agreement would ban contributions from registered lobbyists and substantially reduce the amount of money most donors can give, though it did not go as far as Mr. Spitzer and government watchdog groups had wanted. New York would still have individual contribution limits that are five times higher than federal campaign restrictions and are among the highest of any state that sets limits.
The amount a donor can give a statewide candidate would be reduced to $25,000 from as much as $55,900 per election cycle. Donation limits for State Senate candidates would fall to $11,500 from $15,500, and those for Assembly candidates would drop to $4,600 from $7,600.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20albany.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login
Alliances Shift as Turks Weigh a Political Turn
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: July 20, 2007
ISTANBUL, July 19 — For 84 years, modern Turkey has been defined by a holy trinity — the army, the republic and its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Each was linked inextricably to the others and all were beyond reproach.
But a deep transformation is under way in this nation of 73 million, and elections this Sunday may prove a watershed: liberal Turks, once supporters of the ruling secular elite and its main backer, the military, are turning their backs on them and pledging votes to religious politicians as well as a new array of independents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20turkey.html?hp
Israel Frees More Than 250 Prisoners
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Israel released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners Friday in a gesture to embattled President Mahmoud Abbas, who pledged not to rest until Israel's jails were emptied of its thousands of Palestinians.
The release was meant to bolster Abbas in his power struggle with the Islamic militant Hamas, which took control of Gaza by force last month.
Several thousand chanting, clapping Palestinians greeted the prisoners as their buses rolled into Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Prisoners were hoisted onto the shoulders of dancing supporters, before they performed noon prayers in a large, open-sided tent.
''This is the beginning,'' said Abbas, wearing a black-and-white checkered baseball cap, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. ''Efforts must continue. Our work must continue until every prisoner returns to the his home,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?hp
U.S. Will Allow Most Types of Lighters on Planes
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — Federal aviation authorities have decided to stop enforcing a two-year-old rule against taking cigarette lighters on airplanes, concluding that it was a waste of time to search for them before passengers boarded.
The ban was imposed at the insistence of Congress after a passenger, Richard Reed, tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe in 2001 on a flight from Paris to Miami.
Lawmakers said that if Mr. Reid had used a lighter, instead of matches, he might have been able to ignite the bomb, but Kip Hawley, assistant secretary for the Transportation Security Administration, said in an interview on Thursday that the ban had done little to improve aviation security because small batteries could be used to set off a bomb.
Matches have never been prohibited on flights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20tsa.html?hp
La Guardia Near-Crash Is One of a Rising Number
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — On the warm, muggy morning of July 5, a Delta 737 from Cincinnati was dropping fast toward Runway 22 at La Guardia Airport in New York. In the control tower below, a trainee was barking directions to a shifting mass of planes on the ground at one of the country’s busiest but most constricted airports.
In a moment of confusion, the trainee cleared one of them, a 50-seat Comair Delta Connection regional jet bound for Greensboro, N.C., to cross Runway 22.
As the 737, Flight 1238, rolled down the runway at more than 150 miles per hour, an alarm flashed on a radar screen in the tower and someone realized a dire mistake had been made, according to details provided by officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the pilots’ and controllers’ unions. “No delay, no delay,” a controller shouted to the pilots of the regional jet, urging them to hurry across.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20laguardia.html?hp
FEMA Faulted on Response to Risks in Trailers
By JACQUELINE PALANK
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 — The chairman of the House oversight committee on Thursday accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of refusing to acknowledge high levels of formaldehyde in trailers it provided to hurricane evacuees on the Gulf Coast.
In testimony on Thursday, three people who had lived in the trailers said they believed that exposure to formaldehyde, which is found in many building materials, was the cause of health problems including sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems .
The administrator of FEMA, R. David Paulison, told the subcommittee he was not “100 percent sure that it was the trailers” that caused residents’ health problems. But Mr. Paulison also said that, in hindsight, the agency could have moved faster when problems were reported in some of the more than 120,000 mobile homes and travel trailers provided to evacuees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20fema.html?hp
18 South Koreans Abducted in Afghanistan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 7:03 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban gunmen abducted 18 members of a South Korean church group, and a purported spokesman for the Islamic militia said Friday that it will question the 15 women and three men about their activities in Afghanistan before deciding their fate.
The Koreans were seized Thursday in Ghazni province as they were traveling by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.
The driver, released late Thursday, said there were 18 women and five men on the bus, Ahmadzai said. The discrepancy in figures could not be immediately clarified.
A group of 35 to 40 armed Taliban stopped the bus and drove it into the dessert, then abandoned the vehicle and forced the group to walk on foot for about an hour, Ahmadzai said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Kidnappings.html
Human Rat Trap Knows His Enemy. They’re Winning.
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: July 20, 2007
MUMBAI, India, July 19 — Behram Harda was a dancer in the Bollywood films of the 1970s, gracing the screen with his twist and his cha-cha.
Then he became a rodent assassin.
Today, in the sprawling B Ward of this teeming, filthy, exhilarating city, Mr. Harda is admired by his colleagues as the last of the great Mumbai rat catchers. His is a dying breed in a city whose dreams of being rat-free recede year by year.
Mr. Harda, 55 years old with salt-and-pepper stubble, is a gentle, relentless executioner. He fumigates. He drops poison laced with garlic and chutney into burrows. He brings new traps to shopkeepers and collects the previous catch for killing. The rats are sometimes drowned in buckets. Other times they are seized by the tail and smashed onto the hot pavement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20rats.html
Compelled to Remember the Big One
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
We in New York are getting pretty good at assuming the worst when something out of the ordinary happens, like the steam pipe explosion that shot vapor and muck into the air on Wednesday.
For most of us, terrorism is as bad as it gets. When things go wrong, fear of terrorism is the city’s default position. It’s no wonder, given our recent history and given that federal officials and certain presidential candidates flash incessant warnings of doom. They are the opposite of F.D.R., those politicians, cautioning us that we have everything to fear, including fear itself.
Anything short of terrorism somehow becomes bearable. We saw the phenomenon on Wednesday: Yes, a woman died, and others suffered bodily harm, and life turned upside down for many thousands. But at least it wasn’t a terrorist act. Whew!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave voice to those feelings while trying to reassure the citizenry. “There is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20nyc.html
The Elusive Vick Takes His Hardest Hit
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Published: July 20, 2007
I’ve argued for a number of years that Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons is one of the most important players in the N.F.L. His approach to quarterback — with speed, quickness and a rifle arm — makes him, on some days, the most dangerous player on the field. Many of the arguments against the way he plays the game reflect a deeply rooted cultural bias against athleticism at one of the most hallowed positions in sports.
The debate has now moved beyond the playing field, and Vick is facing an unprecedented rush. The federal government is accusing him of not merely crossing the line between good and bad judgment, but of going completely out of bounds.
Earlier this week, Vick was indicted on federal felony charges alleging that he had sponsored dogfighting since 2001, that he frequently gambled on dogfighting and that he authorized acts of cruelty against animals on property that he owned.
An 18-page indictment suggested that Vick was not just a distant spectator sitting on the 50-yard line; he was the quarterback for Bad Newz Kennels.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/sports/football/20rhoden.html
Compelled to Remember the Big One
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: July 20, 2007
We in New York are getting pretty good at assuming the worst when something out of the ordinary happens, like the steam pipe explosion that shot vapor and muck into the air on Wednesday.
For most of us, terrorism is as bad as it gets. When things go wrong, fear of terrorism is the city’s default position. It’s no wonder, given our recent history and given that federal officials and certain presidential candidates flash incessant warnings of doom. They are the opposite of F.D.R., those politicians, cautioning us that we have everything to fear, including fear itself.
Anything short of terrorism somehow becomes bearable. We saw the phenomenon on Wednesday: Yes, a woman died, and others suffered bodily harm, and life turned upside down for many thousands. But at least it wasn’t a terrorist act. Whew!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave voice to those feelings while trying to reassure the citizenry. “There is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
Only an infrastructure failure. Why that should be a comfort is a mystery. It meant that death could reach up from below and grab hold of us at any time.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20nyc.html
Bombings in Pakistan Leave at Least 48 Dead
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and ISMAIL KHAN
Published: July 20, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 19 — Three suspected suicide bombings in far-flung corners of the country left at least 48 dead on Thursday, as the government sought to tame the disorder by resuscitating a widely criticized and now collapsed peace deal in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Tribal elders were scheduled to go to the tribal area of North Waziristan on Thursday for another attempt at persuading militants affiliated with the Taliban to resurrect a truce signed last September. The agreement was intended to curb the infiltration of fighters into neighboring Afghanistan and contain attacks against Pakistani security forces.
The Taliban renounced the truce last weekend in the aftermath of the government’s assault on Islamist militants holed up in the sprawling Red Mosque compound here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20pakistan.html
Russia Orders 4 British Diplomats Home in Poisoning Case
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: July 20, 2007
MOSCOW, July 19 — Russia expelled four British diplomats on Thursday in response to Britain’s expulsion of the same number of Russian diplomats earlier this week over Russia’s refusal to extradite a suspect in last year’s radiation poisoning of a former K.G.B. officer in London.
Russia will also tighten visa requirements on British government officials’ travel to Russia, in response to a similar move announced by Britain on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, said in a statement.
The symmetrical nature of the reply suggested that Russian authorities wanted to avoid any escalation in the poisoning case, which has unraveled into a bruising and drawn-out controversy for the Kremlin.
In his first public comments on the tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, President Vladimir V. Putin said he believed that relations with Britain would now develop normally.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20russia.html
Doctor Born in Saudi Arabia Is 4th Charged in Bomb Plot
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: July 20, 2007
LONDON, July 19 — A Jordanian-trained doctor was charged Thursday with a terrorism offense in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, making him the fourth among eight people arrested in Britain and Australia to be charged in the attacks.
Three people detained by the British police right after the attacks have been released without charge. A fourth is in critical condition from injuries sustained when he drove a gasoline-laden Jeep Cherokee into a terminal at the Glasgow airport.
The man charged Thursday, Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, is to appear Friday in magistrates’ court here on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions, the police said. He was born in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20britain.html
In a World on the Move, a Tiny Land Strains to Cope
By JASON DePARLE
Published: June 24, 2007
MINDELO, Cape Verde — Virtually every aspect of global migration can be seen in this tiny West African nation, where the number of people who have left approaches the number who remain and almost everyone has a close relative in Europe or America.
Border Crossings
The View From Cape Verde
This is the first in a series of articles examining global migration and its consequences.
LEFT BEHIND Steven Ramos, 11, with one of his nieces in Mindelo, Cape Verde. His mother works in Portugal, his father in the Netherlands.
Migrant money buoys the economy. Migrant votes sway politics. Migrant departures split parents from children, and the most famous song by the most famous Cape Verdean venerates the national emotion, “Sodade,” or longing. Lofty talk of opportunity abroad mixes at cafe tables here with accounts of false documents and sham marriages.
The intensity of the national experience makes this barren archipelago the Galapagos of migration, a microcosm of the forces straining American politics and remaking societies across the globe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/africa/24verde.html?ex=1185076800&en=dda73987f6c2cecc&ei=5070
Audio/Video
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20070624_VERDE_FEATURE/blocker.html
North Korean Nuclear Talks Fail to Set Disarmament Timetable, but Yield Agreement on Goals
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: July 20, 2007
BEIJING, July 19 — Delegates to the six-nation talks aimed at disarming North Korea of its nuclear weapons said they had failed to set a timetable for disarmament during meetings that were scheduled to end on Friday.
The chief United States envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, tried to put a positive face on the disappointing result, saying that substantial progress had been made during the talks, but that “working groups” of experts from the participating countries would need to devise plans for the timing and sequencing of further steps.
“The consensus was that given our not very successful effort with dates in the spring that we would want to have the working groups” help devise modalities to achieve the objectives of the second round of the talks. Mr. Hill said of the outstanding goals, “I feel it is quite feasible by the end of the year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20korea.html
Truck Bomb Hits Baghdad Mosque, and 61 Are Killed
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: June 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, June 19 — A suicide bomber barreled a truck filled with cooking gas and explosives into a square bordered by a large Shiite mosque in the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday, just as worshipers were finishing midday prayers. The Interior Ministry said at least 61 people were killed and 130 wounded.
The attack took place as American forces continued a large-scale assault on strongholds of Al Qaeda outside the capital where, they say, many of the vehicle bombs are manufactured. The timing seemed intended to demonstrate that the insurgents could still strike with near impunity, blindsiding the American security crackdown in Baghdad.
The powerful explosion destroyed a part of the Khalani Mosque and engulfed a line of minivans and an adjacent parking area in flames. The toll was expected to climb as bodies were counted and some of the wounded died.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?ex=1185076800&en=e4a30360981d7dee&ei=5070
Audio/Video
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20070620_IRAQ_FEATURE/blocker.html
Victory for Brown as Labor Holds 2 Seats in Britain
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 3:32 a.m. ET
LONDON (Reuters) - British voters handed a first electoral victory to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday, when his Labour Party retained two parliamentary seats in by-elections, albeit with reduced majorities.
The results were a blow for the opposition Conservative party, which came third to the Liberal Democrats in both the west London constituency of Ealing Southall and former Prime Minister Tony Blair's old seat in Sedgefield, county Durham.
Brown has enjoyed a bounce in opinion polls since taking over as prime minister last month and promising sweeping changes in style and policy to restore public trust in his government damaged by the Iraq war.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-britain-byelection.html
Denmark Airlifts Abouts 200 Iraqis
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
Filed at 4:41 a.m. ET
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark said on Friday it secretly airlifted out of Iraq about 200 translators and other Iraqi employees of its troops in Iraq and their relatives this week and most were expected to seek asylum in the Nordic nation.
"Out of concern for the interpreters and their families' security as well as the security of the Danish base in Iraq, the Defence Ministry has chosen to inform the public after the interpreters and others had left Iraq," the Denmark Defence Ministry said in a statement.
It said the airlift involved "about 200" people. A ministry spokesman reached by telephone could not provide an exact number but said most of the Iraqis brought to Denmark were translators and their families.
Danish Ambassador to Iraq Bo Eric Weber said the moved followed the killing in December of an Iraqi who had worked with the Danes as an interpreter. Around 80 of those flown out of the country were employed and the rest were family members, he said.
"They had been working for us for about four years, and those who felt their security in Iraq was threatened have been granted visas to go to Denmark" where they can apply for asylum, Weber told Reuters.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-denmark-iraq-translators.html
China’s Growth Accelerates to 11.9%, and Food Prices Spur Inflation
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: July 20, 2007
SHANGHAI, July 19 — China said Thursday that its economy grew 11.9 percent at an annual pace in the second quarter, the fastest pace in more than a decade, and that inflation rose sharply last month, stoking fears that the nation’s economy was overheating.
The quarter’s explosive growth, compared with the period a year earlier, was fueled by a huge trade surplus, booming retail sales and heavy investments in new factories, roads, bridges and real estate projects.
Analysts say that the authorities in Beijing are under mounting pressure to curb the trade surplus and ease pressure on the economy by increasing interest rates or allowing the currency, the yuan, to further appreciate against other currencies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20yuan.html
Greece: Damaging Wildfires Burn
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
Wildfires burned homes and forced the evacuations of villages, a convent and a children’s camp in southern Greece, as a heat wave swept across southeastern Europe. The national fire service reported 115 fires in a 24-hour period as temperatures reached 102 degrees in some spots. In southern Greece, villages near Corinth, 52 miles southwest of Athens, were evacuated after a fire destroyed at least 10 homes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20briefs-fires.html
Britain: Unions Denounce Call to Boycott Israel
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 20, 2007
Twenty-nine American labor leaders issued a statement denouncing the call by several British unions to boycott Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories. Asserting that “there are victims and victimizers on all sides,” the union leaders said, “We have to question the motives of those resolutions that single out one country.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/europe/20briefs-unions.html
Philippines: Kidnapped Priest Is Released
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2007
An Italian missionary priest kidnapped more than a month ago has been released after negotiations with a rogue faction of a Muslim separatist group, the Philippine police said. The priest, the Rev. Giancarlo Bossi, 57, was kidnapped June 10 in the nation’s volatile south. On July 10, a Philippine marine convoy searching for him was ambushed by Muslim insurgents, and 14 marines were killed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20briefs-priest.html
Chad: President Agrees to Admit European Force
By REUTERS
Published: July 20, 2007
President Idriss Déby said he had agreed in principle to let a European Union force into the east of his country to contain violence that has spread from neighboring Sudan’s Darfur region. The United Nations says that eastern Chad has about 230,000 refugees from Sudan, and that more than 170,000 of Chad’s own citizens have also been displaced as a result of the conflict.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/africa/20briefs-chad.html
An Epic Showdown as Harry Potter Is Initiated Into Adulthood
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: July 19, 2007
So, here it is at last: The final confrontation between Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the “symbol of hope” for both the Wizard and Muggle worlds, and Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the nefarious leader of the Death Eaters and would-be ruler of all. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. The Seeker versus the Dark Lord.
J. K. Rowling’s monumental, spellbinding epic, 10 years in the making, is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to “Star Wars.” And true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, “Soprano”-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters’ story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html
Sunni Legislators Return to Work in Iraq After Reaching Deal on Speaker
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL RAZZAQ AL-SAIEDI
Published: July 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, July 19 — Dozens of Sunni Arab legislators ended their five-week boycott of Parliament on Thursday, returning after what appeared to be a deal with Shiite lawmakers allowing Mahmoud Mashhadani, the volatile Sunni Parliament speaker, to return to his job and then resign, potentially with a sizable pension and retirement benefits.
The political developments came as two American soldiers from an Army scout platoon were charged with premeditated murder in the killing of a middle-aged Iraqi man near the northern city of Kirkuk on June 23. Their battalion commander was also dismissed, though military officials emphasized that he was not suspected of any crimes and described his removal as an “administrative action” after senior commanders had lost confidence in him.
Four American soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, the military announced on Thursday. Another American soldier, from the Third Infantry Division, was shot and killed Thursday south of the capital. So far, 49 American service members have died in Iraq during July.
In theory, the return to Parliament of 44 members of the main Sunni political bloc, coming days after lawmakers loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr ended their own boycott, will make it easier for lawmakers to reach a quorum and pass legislation. But lawmakers remain deeply divided over every major legislative question, including whether to allow former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to hold positions of power and the distribution of wealth from Iraq’s vast oil fields. Lawmakers also plan to take a monthlong holiday in August.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html
Norman Mailer, Unbound and on Film: Revisiting His Bigger-Than-Life Selves
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: July 20, 2007
Who was Norman T. Kingsley? No Wikipedia entry exists to provide a full biography, but in his day Kingsley — or N. T. K., as he was sometimes called — was a figure of considerable world historical significance. A filmmaker who invited comparison to Buñuel, Dreyer, Fellini and Antonioni, he was also a formidable potential candidate for president of the United States, an object of relentless media fascination and the target of far-reaching conspiracies of the rich and powerful. Backed up by an entourage of hoodlums and street fighters known as the Cash Box, he was, in equal parts, artist, outlaw, pornographer and saint.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/movies/20norm.html
As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel
By MARK LANDLER
Published: July 19, 2007
HEIDELBERG, Germany, July 17 — A day after Michael Kingsley arrived in this romantic university town, he was in no mood to savor the cobblestone streets, the half-timbered houses or the flower-bedecked windows — to say nothing of the camera-ready castle on the hill.
Mr. Kingsley had left his camera battery and charger in a hotel room in London, and he knew that as an American tourist, buying replacements here was going to sting. The damage: $143. Back home in Falls Church, Va., he said, the same purchase would have set him back no more than $100.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/business/worldbusiness/19dollar.html?em&ex=1185076800&en=1a3f13077eb2d9e7&ei=5087%0A
Russia’s Trademark Gun, but Others Grab Profits
WEAPON OF CHOICE An Afghan soldier on patrol with a Kalashnikov. The United States supplies the weapons to Afghanistan and Iraq, and gets them from sources outside Russia.
THE automatic Kalashnikov, the world’s most abundant firearm and a martial symbol with a multiplicity of meanings, turns 60 this year. In some places this is cause to shudder. In Russia it is treated as a milestone to celebrate, and a chance to cry foul.
Once strictly Communist products, the AK-47 and its offspring are killing tools so durable and easy to use that they were heralded as achievements of state socialism and industrial might. Uncoupled from the laws of supply and demand by their origins in planned economies, they flowed from arms plants in the tens of millions, becoming national defense and foreign policy instruments for the Soviet Union and allied states.
But the 60th birthday party has displayed the rifle’s evolving place in both the market and the Kremlin’s mind. These days the Kalashnikov is seen through capitalist lenses, and argued about in ways that could not possibly have been envisioned by its Communist creators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15chivers.html
How a Clash Helped Pakistan’s Leader — and Didn’t
By DAVID ROHDE
Published: July 15, 2007
A NIGHTMARE seemed to be unfolding last week when commandos stormed a hardline Islamic mosque in Pakistan’s capital. With at least 87 dead, it looked as if the clash could set off an Islamic uprising in the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim nation.
Instead, few people attended protests organized by religious parties on Friday. What the battle at the mosque seemed to reveal was how complex Pakistani politics is, and how far Islamist radicals are from gaining widespread popular support, Pakistani and American analysts said.
“There was no uprising because the society is not radical and is more opposed to extremism than most commentators think,” said Frederic Grare, a Pakistan analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “The clash demonstrates that the majority of the people will back a policy aimed at reducing radicals’ influence.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15rohde.html
Exxon Mobil Cleanup Effort Continues on Brooklyn Spill
By DALTON WALKER
Published: July 19, 2007
Inside the walls and barbed wire fence that largely hides the nondescript facility beside Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, a handful of trailers sit in a cluster surrounded by smaller buildings that belong to Exxon Mobil.
It is not much to look at, but Exxon Mobil officials say the operation is slowly eliminating the contamination that has been deep underground in the Greenpoint neighborhood for decades. The operation, and the contamination, stem from an oil spill that occurred more than half a century ago and has been described as more than twice as large as the Exxon Valdez disaster, which released 11 million gallons of crude oil off the Alaskan coast.
The Brooklyn spill, which resulted from an industrial explosion in 1950, released an estimated 17 million gallons of oil and oil products, polluted the soil, left traces of toxic chemicals in Newtown Creek, led to years of community and environmental outcry and became the basis of several continuing lawsuits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/nyregion/19clean.html
A Landscape That the Glaciers Overlooked
But tucked into Ohio’s southeast corner, near where it touches West Virginia and Kentucky, lies a protected pocket the glaciers never bullied, a densely wooded but thinly populated region of rugged slopes and cool hollows, of spring-fed creeks and cascading waterfalls, known as the Hocking Hills. For years, city dwellers from Columbus, only an hour away, have sought refuge there in retreats hidden among oak, cherry, walnut and hickory forests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/realestate/greathomes/20havens.html
Victorian Baths, Unrepressed
By ALEXIA BRUE
Published: July 19, 2007
NANCY EPSTEIN’S master bathroom started with a 1930’s Lalique chandelier. “I fell in love with this chandelier 12 years ago” at the Paul Stamati Gallery in Manhattan, she said recently. “Finally, 5 years ago, I said: ‘Kids, we’re not going on vacation this summer. Mom’s buying the chandelier.’ ”
Once she owned it, she wasn’t sure where it should go, until her decorator suggested that it was the perfect size for the master bath.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/garden/19bath.html
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