The charges against a woman in Cleveland is an example the 'extremism' the laws in the USA are taking in regard to any 'religiously' influenced social issue.
The 'idea' that anyone would shoot themselves has to be met with an appalling reality that the individual was attempting suicide. Indeed, there are large vessels in the abdomin of any person that can cause a person to bleed to death. The placenta is an organ that is vascular rich and if punctured could have caused the death of the woman and the fetus. This was an insane moment for that woman no matter the reason it was triggered.
Then to realize the police come along and further victimize an already unstable woman for the sake of 'fetal rights' which doesn't even exist is appalling.
The circumstances of this Cleveland woman is more than worrisome. The police are more concerned about the death of an unborn child than the woman that attempted to kill herself.
Realizing 'the shift' in the priorities of police in regard to the issue of abortion, it is an excellant time to reflect on the fact the courts have not been a friend to woman and women's rights. They have not been a friend to minorities or minority rights. The 'face' of the USA has progressed in a direction that is detrimental to it's most vulnerable citizens.
A fetus is not a citizen until it is born.
Gays are citizens and are chronically met with discrimination in regard to the status of civil rights and marriage.
I hadn't realize how much we are all falling victim to the Right Wing and it's Christian Conservative network.
I'll look at these issues tomorrow evening. I think everyone knows how wrong this thinking is and how victimized the populous of the USA has become under this current President, Vice and former majority Republican Senate and House.
Time to put it on record. Women are beginning to show signs of distress in the face of reversal of their rights and this is only one example. The Robert's Court has pushed American Civil Rights back over a half decade. I find it appalling and anyone that cares about the 'trend' in social politics realizes this is an early warning shot we all need to pay attention to.
The USA is troubled and it has been less than a year since some astounding decisions facilitated by Justice Kennedy. I never expected this level of incompetency with him. Never.
...tomorrow then...
Saturday, October 06, 2007
It's getting scary in healthcare. NOW, people aren't even going to be seeing physicians, but, ONLY pharmacists. HELP !! "...allergic to anything..."
Now I can understand how storing personal health records on an I-Pod or a simple CD can 'insure' continuity in care, BUT, to provide global access to everyone's medical record is simply an invasion of privacy and increases the risks of errors and misidentification. What if you're unconscious and can't identify 'the file' the doctor just pulled off the internet as yours? What then? Bush's desperation for an economy is dangerous to American citizens. No doubt in my mind. It's expoitive. We need consumer protection and advocacy. There isn't a Republican government in sight that will provide it.
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
"Culture of Life"
American SiCKO Reggie Cervantes joins Oklahoma rally to save U.S. children
Bush Veto Decried At Oklahoma Rally
2 Dozen Protest Bill At Rep. Fallin's Office
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY -- About two-dozen people protested President George W. Bush's veto of a children's health care bill on Thursday outside the Oklahoma City office of U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Okla.
The protesters included Reggie Cervantes, a 9/11 emergency responder who was featured in Michael Moore's film, "Sicko."
Cervantes, who recently moved to Oklahoma City, and two other ground zero workers traveled with Moore to Cuba to get health care after having problems getting treatment in New York. sponsor
She said the president was hurting America's future by vetoing legislation to expand the number of children who qualify for Medicaid.
"If our children are not healthy enough to learn, then we can't thrive as a country," said Cervantes, who has two children, ages 8 and 10.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10350
California group launches campaign to put Gore's name on primary ballots
Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday October 3, 2007
Al Gore still hasn't definitively ruled out a bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president -- and until he does, one hopeful California group is assuming no news is good news.
California Draft Gore, a grassroots political action committee, has hatched a plan to get their reluctant candidate off of theoretical fantasy polls and onto a real-life primary ballot.
Capitalizing on a provision of the state election law which allows for any name to be placed on a ballot provided enough signatures in favor of that candidate are secured, volunteers will begin scrambling next week to get 26,500 registered Democrats -- 500 from each of California's 53 congressional districts -- to sign off on the former vice president before a Dec. 4 deadline.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/California_group_launches_campaign_to_put_1003.html
Welcome to the America for Gore Grassroots Coalition
America for Gore is pleased to bring you links, information and action alerts to many of the campaigns working to make
Al Gore the President of the United States in 2009. Use this site as a portal to the universe of Al Gore supporters.
We also have actions you can take to help bring him to the White House as our next president.
http://www.americaforgore.org/
"The health and development of many low and moderate income children will be compromised, with serious consequences for their individual futures."
October 4th, 2007 1:52 pm
Families Brace for SCHIP Demise
Many Poorer Families Fear Presidential Veto Threatens Their Chidren's Health Care
By Carla Williams / ABC News Medical Unit
Oct. 4, 2007 — Carolyn Taylor, a full-time nursing assistant and medical technician, works hard to ensure that she is able to provide for her 11-year-old son Keith. But on Monday, she — along with thousands of others — took time off to rally in support of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
"The rally was to let Bush know we need health insurance for our children," said Taylor, a Baltimore resident. "We wanted to let President Bush know we are real people. He said there would be no child left behind. Well, we're getting left behind unless he continues SCHIP."
Gathering on the White House lawn and the steps of Congress, the throngs were joined by children who pulled red wagons filled with over a million petitions, urging Congress to expand health insurance coverage for children.
Yet, it appears that the effort may be in vain after Bush vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have renewed and expanded SCHIP.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10338
Democrats Begin SCHIP Veto Override Campaign
With a presidential veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) now official, Congressional Democrats have formally embarked on a campaign to find the 15 to 20 votes from House Republicans they will need to override President Bush's veto pen.
Aides say because the $35 billion expansion of the program originated in the House, that chamber will go first in its attempt to override Bush's third veto ever as president (his veto of the Water Development Act today makes four). That vote is likely to come during the week of Oct. 15, leaving two more weeks for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to exert political pressure on any wavering Republicans. The Senate will follow suit, presumably only if the House secures the two-thirds majority of those present -- the voting ratio that is required by the Constitution to beat a presidential veto. The Senate already has enough votes, 67, to defeat Bush's veto, so all the drama is on the House side for this showdown.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/10/democrats_begin_schip_veto_ove.html?hpid=topnews
Hypocritical congressional Democrats should return $3,900,000 to
Dems who condemned MoveOn took its cash
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
October 1, 2007 08:54 PM EST
Forty-four congressional Democrats who voted to condemn MoveOn.org for its ad branding Army Gen. David Petraeus "General Betray Us" have accepted more than $3.9 million in contributions from the influential anti-war group and its members.
Among those who opposed resolutions specifically repudiating the full-page ad in The New York Times, only 17 Democrats and one independent took cash from the group and its members — contributions totaling almost $1.4 million.
The resolutions approved by the House, calling the ad an “unwarranted personal attack,” were only symbolic. But the split of MoveOn beneficiaries on the votes highlights something of a rift between Democrats and the anti-war activists who largely fuel MoveOn.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=571844E1-3048-5C12-001EA58BF7E09840
Health Care for All
http://www.moveon.org/
October 1st, 2007 3:00 pm
Hooley blasts Bush's "stonewalling" of Congress
By Jeff Kosseff / The Oregonian
WASHINGTON -- In an interview Friday afternoon, Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., described the frustration that caused her to introduce a resolution calling for "full cooperation" from the Bush administration with congressional investigations.
Hooley, who unlike some other Democrats has not ruled out the possibility of impeachment, said she was prompted by Bush administration statements that it would invoke executive privilege for congressional oversight attempts and oppose subpoenas of White House officials for congressional investigations.
"One of our constitutional responsibilities is oversight," Hooley said. "There's a reason we have a system of checks and balances. I feel very strongly that we need to be doing our job and we need the president not to be stonewalling us."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10315
The too-young-to-vote crowd marches to stop Bush health care veto
October 2nd, 2007 3:29 pm
Kids March to Stop Bush SCHIP Veto
By Matthew Jaffe / ABC News
Kids took health care into their own hands Monday, marching to the White House and pleading with the president not to fulfill his veto threat of the $35 billion children's health insurance expansion passed by both houses of Congress last week.
Twenty-five children, and at least as many adults, pulled nine red Radio Flyer wagons loaded with more than a million petitions to the White House gates chanting "Health care, not warfare," "Care for kids" and "Sign the bill!"
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., joined their rally and spoke out against the president's expected veto, calling the SCHIP bill "the test of greatness for a nation is how it cares for its children. On that issue, we put children first. That is why this legislation is so important."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10328
Most Americans want war funding cut,health care expanded
October 2nd, 2007 6:19 pm
Most Americans want Iraq war funding cut: poll
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans oppose fully funding President George W. Bush's $190 billion request to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while a majority supports expanding a children's health care program he has threatened to veto, a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.
The poll published on Tuesday also shows deep dissatisfaction with the president and with Congress, partly because of the stalemate between Democrats and the White House over Iraq policy, The Washington Post reported.
Bush's approval rating stands at 33 percent, equal to his all-time low in this poll and just 29 percent approve of the job Congress is doing -- a 14-point drop since Democrats took control in January, the newspaper said.
More than eight in 10 liberal Democrats said Congress has been too restrained in challenging Bush's Iraq policy; about the same percentage of conservative Republicans said it has been too aggressive and a narrow majority of independents, 53 percent, want Congress to do more, the Post reported.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10330
Host a Rally for Our Children's Health Care
Thanks for hosting a Rally for Children's Health Care. Here are a few things to think about when deciding where your event should be:
Congressional offices: If your representative has an office in your community, you should hold your event outside of it. The only exceptions are offices in out-of-the-way places, like office parks.
High visibility locations: If your representative doesn't have an office in your community, or it's in an out-of-the-way place, you should hold your event in a central location. Parks and town squares are often great bets. Just make sure that there is enough room for everyone to be on public property and it will have fairly high foot or vehicle traffic.
If there are multiple representative's nearby: Some of you have multiple members of Congress in your community. In that case, you should target the one who voted against children's health care recently. You can look that up here. If multiple representatives voted the wrong way, just choose one.
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/create.html?r=3023&action_id=97
H.R.676
Title: To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/24/2007) Cosponsors (84)
Latest Major Action: 2/2/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00676:@@@N
Make Sure Your Rep. Supports H.R. 676
"Which congressional district am I in?"
CLiCK here and enter your address to find out.
If there is already a green check next to your Representative's name, don't hesitate to thank them.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/what-can-i-do/boxscore/index.php?action=print
October 1st, 2007 3:00 pm
Hooley blasts Bush's "stonewalling" of Congress
By Jeff Kosseff / The Oregonian
WASHINGTON -- In an interview Friday afternoon, Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., described the frustration that caused her to introduce a resolution calling for "full cooperation" from the Bush administration with congressional investigations.
Hooley, who unlike some other Democrats has not ruled out the possibility of impeachment, said she was prompted by Bush administration statements that it would invoke executive privilege for congressional oversight attempts and oppose subpoenas of White House officials for congressional investigations.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10315
War protester bursts White House bubble, briefly
by Frank James
President Bush doesn't like to see protesters at his events. No president does really. The job is stressful enough without them. Plus most presidents enjoy being accorded great respect. It's something they get used to.
Staffers in the Bush White House and on the president's campaigns know this president especially doesn't want to spot protesters at his events, no more than he wants to hear a reporter's cell phone ring at a presidential press conference.
Bush aides and campaigns have well-deserved reputations for screening people who get into the president's events to make sure protesters don't get in. And when they've managed to slip into an event in the past, they usually were quickly ushered out.
All of which makes it remarkable that a woman named Sherry Wolfe was able to get into, and apparently allowed to stay in, a Bush appearance in Lancaster, Pa. today at which he spoke to the local chamber of commerce about fiscal discipline.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/war_protester_amazingly.html
Army Sgt. 1st Class Brent A. Adams
40, of West View, Pa.; assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, Washington, Pa.; killed Dec. 1 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military five-ton truck during combat operations in Ramadi, Iraq.
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/1394169.html
October 3rd, 2007 12:17 pm
Bush vetoes child health insurance plan
By Jennifer Loven / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush, in a sharp confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance.
It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections. The Senate approved the bill with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin in the House fell short of the required number.
Democrats unleashed a stream of harsh rhetoric, as they geared up for a battle to both improve their chances of winning a veto override and score political points against Republicans who oppose the expansion.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., decried Bush's action as a "heartless veto."
"Never has it been clearer how detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people," Reid said in a statement. "By vetoing a bipartisan bill to renew the successful Children's Health Insurance Program, President Bush is denying health care to millions of low-income kids in America."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10332
October 3rd, 2007 3:20 pm
Iraq follows Bush to Lancaster
By John L. Micek / The Morning Call
LANCASTER - Concerns about the Iraq war -- and its cost in lives and tax dollars -- followed President Bush today to an event hosted by the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce.
In this Republican-friendly heartland to warn congressional Democrats about overspending, Bush took audience questions. The first, from Gerry Beane, a Realtor from Manheim Township, targeted the war.
Citing polls, Beane told the president: "We've reached the point where the majority of the country doesn't want to see another $190 billion going to Iraq. I hope I can say to you man-to-man and taxpayer-to-taxpayer that we need to stop that spending and bring them [U.S. troops] home."
Emotion crept into the president's voice as he answered, starting by saying he wasn't going to debate polls. Bush noted planned troop withdrawals, and vowed that as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq the nation would spend whatever it takes on their behalf.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10336
October 3rd, 2007 4:07 am
In Oregon, 'Impeach' is not just a bumper sticker
Politics - More anti-Bush activists take up the chant, even as Democratic leaders call the demand unrealistic
By Harry Esteve and Charles Pope / The Oregonian
Every Thursday, they gather outside the congressman's office, a sign-waving brigade of activists with one word on their minds -- and their T-shirts:
"IMPEACH."
"It can happen," says John Bradach, one of the organizers of the weekly protest outside U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer's headquarters in Northeast Portland. "And it should, even in the limited time left."
Bradach joined the impeachment cause after losing a nephew in the Iraq war. But passion won't change political reality.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10331
October 5th, 2007 5:52 pm
Colorado Student Newspaper Editor Admonished But Will Keep Job in Bush F-Word Editorial Debacle
Associated Press
DENVER — The student editor of the Colorado State University newspaper was admonished Thursday for the paper's use of an obscenity in an editorial about President Bush but David McSwane will be allowed to keep his job.
The decision came after a closed door meeting by the board which oversees student media at the school.
The Board of Student Communications released a statement saying that they found that McSwane violated the Rocky Mountain Collegian's code of ethics, which bars "profane or vulgar words" in opinion writing. The board also had the power to fire him or demote him.
McSwane canceled a press conference he had scheduled to respond to the board's decision and declined comment. He has 20 days to appeal the board's decision.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10367
October 5th, 2007 8:32 pm
A redwood sanctuary
By Jennifer Wadsworth / Tracy Press
An anonymous millionaire donated a building near the Russian River so Nadia McCaffrey can create a retreat for troubled veterans who return from Iraq.
Nestled in the Redwoods, overlooking a vineyard on one side and the Russian River on the other, the four-story veterans retreat looks exactly like the restful getaway Tracy activist Nadia McCaffrey envisioned.
For three years since her son Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey died on a special mission in Iraq, McCaffrey has traveled cross-country to raise awareness and money to help veterans re-enter civilian life. Her mission is to help soldiers returning from combat with injuries – whether physical or mental, like post traumatic stress disorder — recover peacefully, instead of relying on limited treatment from government clinics.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10369
October 4th, 2007
"What on Earth makes you think a Democrat is going to be elected next year when they don't even have the spine to take the victory that's been handed to them and do something with it" -- Michael Moore
October 4th, 2007 2:52 pm
Moore lecture lives up to its billing
Controversial filmmaker takes on health care, education, political leaders
By Kevin Fryling / UB Reporter
Controversial award-winning documentarian Michael Moore lived up to his billing this weekend, delivering a nearly three-hour address in Alumni Arena that featured his trademark blend of humor and outspoken, incisive criticism against the American health care system, education system and leaders on both sides of the political aisle.
The appearance by Moore—the inaugural speaker in UB's 21st annual Distinguished Speakers Series—was his first before a college audience outside Michigan in three years.
A director who's taken on big business, gun violence, health care and the war in Iraq in such award-winning documentaries as "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit 9/11"—the highest grossing documentary of all time—Moore told his audience that all his most recent films have been asking the same central question: "Who are we as a people?"
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=10340
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
'Imagine Peace' ...by Cindy Sheehan
Imagine all the people, living life in peace.
John Winston Ono Lennon
October 9, 1940-December 8, 1980
A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.
Yoko Ono Lennon
On October 9th, on what would have been John Lennon's 67th birthday, his widow, Yoko Ono is dedicating a peace tower in Reykjavik, Iceland in the memory of her husband. There will also be almost a half a million peace wishes buried in capsules around the tower which is a blue tower of light extending up to the sky above us.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=925
continued…
Iraq is a genocidal war. It has already removed the religious practices of some of the most coveted Islamic land on Earth.
Iraqis stand near the wreckage of a damaged car, after a car bomb exploded in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007. The bomb went off next to a police patrol, injuring four policemen, police said. (AP Photo)
Chart available with links - click here
It is predicted by the year 2008, the number of Iraqi deaths will have reached over 1,300,000. According to this exponential growth in Iraqi death rate, by the year 2012 there will be nearly 4 million Iraqis dead.
Currently as we near the year 2008 there are nearly 4000 USA soldiers dead.
American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (click here)
October 4, 2007
The Pentagon has released the names of US service members killed recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an AP count, at least 3,809 members of the US military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003. At least 28,009 have been wounded, the military says. In Afghanistan, at least 438 US personnel have died and 1,607 have been wounded since the war began in October 2001....
There is nothing but corruption in Iraq. Why would any military mission be successful when it was begun under the ridicule of the world, objection by the UN Security Council and found to be corrupt by the men whom began the occupation?
In Iraq today, the people with the biggest guns, the most volitile explosives and most men in their militias rule 'the street.' There is no right, there is no wrong, there is simply surviving the day and whomever does is unpredictable. The corruption started by Bush and Cheney has propagated an internal struggle in Iraq that leads directly to justified insurgency and rebellion.
Now, today, in the fifth year of occupation, the Iraqi civilians there live and die by the sword. There is no government in Iraq. Iraq has no sovereignty. The sooner the country is divided into defendable provinces the sooner the daily mass killings will stop. It will be up to the provincial governments to bring about 'goverance' if that is possible, with the help of their Holy Men. There are no Iraq contracts to honor, to maitain their is proves a reason to war without end.
Iraq: Shiite Militia Leader Caught (click here)
By KIM CURTIS – 4 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — A Shiite militia leader accused of forcibly removing Sunnis from their homes north of Baghdad was captured in a raid, while another operation in the same area left 25 people dead, the U.S. military said Saturday.
The commander was detained Friday after U.S. forces raided Khalis, a Shiite enclave of 150,000 people in the volatile Diyala province some 50 miles north of Baghdad. The man led a group of 20 insurgents that was allegedly responsible for a July attack in which Sunnis were forcibly removed and their homes and farms were destroyed, the military said, adding no one was killed or wounded.
The commander, who was not identified, also was suspected of ambushing a Sunni van driver, shooting him and throwing his body in the Tigris River, the military said.
Another pre-dawn raid Friday in the same town killed at least 25 people after troops met a fierce barrage while hunting suspected arms smuggling links between Iran and Shiite militiamen. The military described those killed in airstrikes as fighters, but village leaders said the victims included children and men protecting their homes....
Iraq
Iraqi judge tells US of unchecked corruption
3:08PM Friday October 05, 2007
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON - Widespread corruption in Iraq stretches into the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, an Iraqi investigating judge told US lawmakers, and an American official said US efforts to combat the problem are inadequate.
Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who was named by the United States in 2004 to head the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, said his agency estimated corruption had cost the Iraqi government up to US$18 billion ($24.21 billion).
Maliki has shielded relatives from investigation and allowed government ministers to protect implicated employees, said the judge, who left Iraq in August after threats against him. He told a Capitol Hill hearing that 31 employees of his agency had been killed.
Radhi said he did not have evidence against Maliki personally, but the prime minister had "protected some of his relatives that were involved in corruption."
One of these was a former minister of transportation, Radhi told the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The US official who testified, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said he also saw a "rising tide of corruption in Iraq." He said US efforts to combat it were "disappointing," lacking funding and focus.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the panel, questioned whether the Maliki government was "too corrupt to succeed" and charged that US efforts to address the problem were in "complete disarray."
He criticised what he said was State Department resistance to the panel's investigation, saying the US government apparently was afraid the corruption revelations "might embarrass or hurt our relations with the Maliki government."
Larry Butler, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, declined to publicly answer questions about whether Maliki had obstructed corruption investigations, saying he could only respond in a closed session.
Waxman called the request "absurd," but the State Department defended Butler's position. Spokesman Sean McCormack said in corruption investigations it was best to handle matters privately at first to protect the rights of those under suspicion.
Radhi said he did not return to Iraq because of threats to his security, but he also suggested Maliki was behind efforts to prosecute him if he went back.
In his statement, he said 31 of his co-workers and 12 of their relatives had been killed because of their work.
"This includes my staff member Mohammed Abd Salif who was gunned down with his seven-month pregnant wife," he said. The body of the father of another worker was found on a meat hook, he said.
Radhi also said it had been impossible for the commission to adequately investigate oil corruption because Sunni and Shi'ite militias had control of the distribution of Iraqi oil.
- REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10468141
3 U.S. troops killed in Iraq bombings
BAGHDAD -- Roadside bombs killed three American soldiers Friday, and U.S. and Iraqi forces differed in their accounts of an overnight raid on a suspected hide-out for Shiite Muslim militiamen.
The U.S. military said American forces backed by attack aircraft killed 25 militiamen in the assault on the village of Jizan Imam, about 40 miles northwest of Baghdad. Some Iraqi officials, though, said most of the dead were civilians mistaken for hostile forces.
The U.S. troop deaths brought to at least 3,813 the number of American forces killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to icasualties.org.
Two of the soldiers died when a bomb detonated near their vehicle in Baghdad, and the third was killed in a bombing in Salahuddin province, north of the capital.
Both attacks involved the lethal armor-piercing explosives that U.S. military officials say are often smuggled in from Iran, which they accuse of supplying, training and providing intelligence to Shiite militias. The Iranian government denies the allegations and rejects claims that members of its Quds Force, a secretive military unit, are operating in Iraq.
The U.S. military said the Friday raid was aimed at a militia commander they alleged had ties to Quds Force agents. A military statement said "an estimated 25 criminals" were killed in a fierce firefight that broke out when U.S. forces raided Jizan Imam.
According to the military account, men armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers opened fire on the U.S. troops. The Americans called in airstrikes and two buildings were destroyed, they said.
However, some Iraqi security forces in the area said the shooting erupted because of confusion over the arrival of the American forces at 1:30 a.m. They said some residents assumed that the troops were attackers and opened fire, sparking the gun battle.
An Iraqi army colonel said four houses were destroyed and that the dead were civilians. He said it was the fourth time the village had been hit by airstrikes.
It is common for U.S. and Iraqi officials to have conflicting accounts of military raids. U.S. military officials say they fire only on known or suspected threats, but Iraqis say the Americans often strafe buildings occupied by civilians, causing casualties.
In southern Iraq, an associate of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr was fatally shot in what appeared to be the latest assassination stemming from a bloody rivalry between Shiite militias. The cleric, Sheik Yaser Yasri, was killed Thursday night, said officials in Basra, where Sadr's Mahdi Army is vying for power with the Badr Organization, a militia affiliated with the rival Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
Several clerics on each side have been killed, and there are concerns that as British forces reduce their presence in Basra, the bloodshed will increase.
tina.susman@latimes.com
Special correspondents in Baqubah and Basra contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq6oct06,1,5787050.story?coll=la-news-a_section
Investigators: $18B lost over last 3 years to Iraqi government corruption
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, October 5, 2007
WASHINGTON — Rampant corruption in the Iraqi government is funding attacks against coalition forces and stalling reconstruction efforts across the country, U.S. and Iraqi investigators told Congress on Thursday.
The researchers estimate nearly $18 billion has been lost over the last three years through stolen funds, phony reconstruction projects and other illegal activities.
Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that government money has been funneled to sectarian militias and family of lawmakers while vital projects go unfunded.
“When you go to the field or you go to the ground, you don’t see signs of reconstruction,” he said. “You don’t find electricity, you don’t find water, you don’t find fuel.”
Radhi said in several instances he was blocked from prosecuting family and key political allies of top government officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49274
Maliki denounces Iraq's top anti-corruption judge
The prime minister responds after the official testifies in the U.S. Congress that Baghdad interfered in his attempts to investigate wrongdoing.
By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:20 AM PDT, October 6, 2007
BAGHDAD -- The prime minister's office today denounced testimony given in Washington by Iraq's top anti-corruption judge, who told U.S. lawmakers that the Iraqi government blocked his efforts to pursue corrupt officials.
In a statement, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki called Radhi Hamza Radhi's claims "false statements" aimed at tainting Maliki's reputation. The statement accused Radhi of a professional and ethical breach, saying he abandoned his job and left the country without Maliki's approval.
Maliki said Radhi had left Iraq after coming under suspicion for corrupt activities himself.
The statement was sparked by testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, has accused Bush administration officials of covering up corruption and wrongdoing in Iraq, both by the Iraqi government and by State Department contractors such as Blackwater USA.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq7oct07,0,3870397.story?coll=la-home-center
Judge Radhi Testifies on Iraqi Corruption; GOPers Attack
David Corn Fri Oct 5, 12:15 AM ET
The Nation -- On Thursday, former Judge Radhi al-Radhi, Iraq's top anticorruption official until he was recently forced out by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appeared before the House government oversight committee and described what had become of people who had worked for him at the Commission on Public Integrity as they investigated crime and fraud within the Iraqi government:
Thirty-one employees have been killed as well as at least twelve family members. In a number of cases, my staff and their relatives have been kidnapped or detained and tortured prior to being killed. Many of these people were gunned down at close range. This includes my staff member Mohammed Abd Salif, who was gunned down with his seven-month pregnant wife. In one case of targeted death and torture, the security chief on my staff was threatened with death many times. His father was recently kidnapped and killed because of his son's work at CPI. His body hung on a meat hook. One of my staff members who performed clerical duties was protected by my security staff, but his 80-year-old father was kidnapped because his son worked at CPI. When his dead body was found, a power drill had been used to drill his body with holes. Waleed Kashmoula was the head of CPI's Mosul branch. In March 2005, a suicide bomber met with Waleed in his office...and then set off his vest [bomb], killing Waleed....My family's home has been attacked by rockets. I have had a sniper bullet striking near me as I was outside my office. We have learned the hard way that the corrupt will stop at nothing.
Minutes later, Republicans members of the committee were suggesting there was nothing unusual or shocking about corruption in Iraq. "Corruption is not a new phenomenon," remarked Representative Tom Davis, the senior GOPer on the panel. Another committee Republican, Representative Darrell Issa, huffed, "We're not surprised a country that was run by a corrupt dictator...would have a pattern of corruption." And Republican Representative John Mica noted that corruption plagues many democratic countries, including the United States. Mica cited Watergate and the prosecution of Reagan administration officials, and he claimed that the Clinton administration had "the most number of witnesses to die suddenly."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20071005/cm_thenation/3240234
Panel told State Department lacks plan to fight Iraq corruption
By Dan Friedman CongressDaily October 4, 2007
The State Department lacks a functional plan to fight corruption in Iraq, despite increasing crime in the government that harms U.S. reconstruction efforts, according to a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee memorandum released Thursday.
Current and former State Department officials told the committee that many embassy officials are not "serious about going forward on" anti-corruption efforts, the memo says. State employees report that "almost no one shows up" at meetings of the U.S. Embassy's anti-corruption working group.
Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the department's attempts to stem corruption "are dysfunctional, underfunded and a low priority."
Government Accountability Office Comptroller General David Walker and Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen offered similar assessments, calling lack of coordination the key problem. Walker said U.S. efforts to build up the Iraqi government's capacity are characterized by "multiple U.S. agencies leading individual efforts without an overarching direction from a lead entity or a strategic approach."
"Congress, we believe, should consider conditioning future appropriations on the existence of such a strategy," Walker said, in a statement highlighted by Waxman.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1007/100407cdpm2.htm
Waxman: State Dept. Muzzling Evidence Of Iraqi Corruption To Avoid ‘Embarrassing’ Maliki
Last month, House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In the letter, Waxman objected to the State Department’s “instruction to its officials that they cannot communicate with the Committee about corruption in the Maliki government.” unless the Committee treat that information as classified and “withhold it from the public.”
In a hearing before the Committee on corruption within the Iraqi government, Government Accountability Office Comptroller David Walker criticized this lack of transparency, saying he knew of multiple “highly questionable” instances of “retroactive” classification:
Quite frankly, I’ve seen at least two circumstances within the last two months, where both the State Department, this being one, and the Defense Department attempted to retroactively classify something that had been made available publicly and in some cases, were on the World Wide Web, which is obviously, I think, highly questionable.
Waxman added that the State Department has prevented its employees from even mentioning corruption in the Iraqi government:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/04/waxman-corruption-hearing/
Displacing Iraqis in significant numbers from their homeland is considered a form of genocide. The war needs to end. The American war in Iraq is genocidal and this is more proof of it.
October 6, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Save the Gnostics
By NATHANIEL DEUTSCH
THE United States didn’t set out to eradicate the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. This extinction in the making has simply been another unfortunate and entirely unintended consequence of our invasion of Iraq — though that will be of little comfort to the Mandeans, whose 2,000-year-old culture is in grave danger of disappearing from the face of the earth.
The Mandeans are the only surviving Gnostics from antiquity, cousins of the people who produced the Nag Hammadi writings like the Gospel of Thomas, a work that sheds invaluable light on the many ways in which Jesus was perceived in the early Christian period. The Mandeans have their own language (Mandaic, a form of Aramaic close to the dialect of the Babylonian Talmud), an impressive body of literature, and a treasury of cultural and religious traditions amassed over two millennia of living in the southern marshes of present-day Iraq and Iran.
Practitioners of a religion at least as old as Christianity, the Mandeans have witnessed the rise of Islam; the Mongol invasion; the arrival of Europeans, who mistakenly identified them as “Christians of St. John,” because of their veneration of John the Baptist; and, most recently, the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, who drained the marshes after the first gulf war, an ecological catastrophe equivalent to destroying the Everglades. They have withstood everything — until now.
Like their ancestors, contemporary Mandeans were able to survive as a community because of the delicate balance achieved among Iraq’s many peoples over centuries of cohabitation. But our reckless prosecution of the war destroyed this balance, and the Mandeans, whose pacifist religion prohibits them from carrying weapons even for self-defense, found themselves victims of kidnappings, extortion, rapes, beatings, murders and forced conversions carried out by radical Islamic groups and common criminals.
When American forces invaded in 2003, there were probably 60,000 Mandeans in Iraq; today, fewer than 5,000 remain. Like millions of other Iraqis, those who managed to escape have become refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan, with smaller numbers in Australia, Indonesia, Sweden and Yemen.
Unlike Christian and Muslim refugees, the Mandeans do not belong to a larger religious community that can provide them with protection and aid. Fundamentally alone in the world, the Mandeans are even more vulnerable and fewer than the Yazidis, another Iraqi minority that has suffered tremendously, since the latter have their own villages in the generally safer north, while the Mandeans are scattered in pockets around the south. They are the only minority group in Iraq without a safe enclave.
When Mandeans do seek refuge in the Kurdish-dominated north, they report that they are typically viewed as southern, Arabic-speaking interlopers, or, if their Mandean identity is discovered, persecuted as religious infidels. In Syria and Jordan, Mandeans feel unable to practice their religion openly and, after years of severe deprivation, some have begun to convert simply in order to receive aid from Muslim and Christian relief agencies.
Mandean activists have told me that the best hope for their ancient culture to survive is if a critical mass of Mandeans is allowed to settle in the United States, where they could rebuild their community and practice their traditions without fear of persecution. If this does not happen, individual Mandeans may survive for another generation, isolated in countries around the world, but the community and its culture may disappear forever.
Of the mere 500 Iraqi refugees who were allowed into the United States from April 2003 to April 2007, only a few were Mandeans. And despite the Bush administration’s commitment to let in 7,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended last month, fewer than 2,000, including just three Iraqi Mandean families, entered the country.
In September, the Senate took a step in the right direction when it unanimously passed an amendment to a defense bill that grants privileged refugee status to members of a religious or minority community who are identified by the State Department as a persecuted group and have close relatives in the United States. But because so few Mandeans live here, this will do little for those seeking asylum. The legislation, however, also authorizes the State and Homeland Security Departments to grant privileged status to “other persecuted groups,” as they see fit.
If all Iraqi Mandeans are granted privileged status and allowed to enter the United States in significant numbers, it may just be enough to save them and their ancient culture from destruction. If not, after 2,000 years of history, of persecution and tenacious survival, the last Gnostics will finally disappear, victims of an extinction inadvertently set into motion by our nation’s negligence in Iraq.
Nathaniel Deutsch is a professor of religion at Swarthmore College.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06deutsch.html?ref=opinion
continued...
Suing God. Will it work? Perhaps Dobson and Conservative Talk Radio has that answer as well ?
In case you haven't heard, State Senator Ernie Chambers is suing God. Finally someone has decided to hold God accountable in the one patriotic, blue-blooded American way by filing legal action. The Senator is trying to file an injunction that, according to the KETV.com and the Associated Press, would order "God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats" It seems in America it takes a lawsuit for anyone to notice you, and now God is even is being punished for his lack of attention. I guess just one too many prayers went unanswered. I love the smell of justice in the morning.
You may ask what 'The Accused' is charged with. Well it appears our Plaintiff has a laundry list of charges including, "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like." Added to the litany of charges also includes, "calamitous catastrophes resulting in wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earths' inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy of distinction." It's a fairly damming list charges.
Senator Ernie Chambers claims that it not a ploy to try and bring God down a notch or two, but to make a point about frivolous lawsuits. Chambers claims that he objects to the door of the courthouses being open to all, making even God a possible target of the American judiciary system. While lawyers are expected to act in 'good faith' while in the process of deciding whether or not to file a lawsuit, I believe the majority of Goucher students wouldn't equate the words 'lawyer' and 'good faith' as two words that can belong truthfully in the same sentence.
Frivolous lawsuits are dangerous in my mind though. They clog up the court system faster than a cheeseburger in Dick Cheney's heart ...
By the way, I thought the 'conversion' of the USA to a Christian War Nation was supposed to change the fate of the world in God's eyes. Wait. That was Noah.
...there is going to come a point in time, when her children will want to know their mother...
No secret now to the tragic life Britney has been leading in the last year or so. She obviously never expected to lose each and every battle of her life. It is correct for Kevin to seek the best circumstances for the children, but, it is also the 'best' idea for a society to provide incentives to alienated/addicted parents to recover and redress the Family Courts for their rights as a parent.
I continue to hope Britney will find a way to recovery, return to her perfomances in a way that shows balance and dignity and a lifestyle that includes the ability to express abiding love for her children. I'd like to think everyone is pulling for her. She can do this if she surrounds herself with people that care and have already recovered from their social problems.
Morning Papers - continued...
Ria Novosti
Tajikistan to hold rotating presidency in Eurasec in 2008
DUSHANBE, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Tajikistan will hold a rotating chair in the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec) in 2008 and its leader will supervise the work of the organization, the Russian president said Saturday.
"At the meeting of heads of state in a narrow framework we decided to choose Tajikistan and President Emomali Rakhmon to chair Eurasec," President Putin said at the session of the Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasec in Tajikistan.
Earlier the leaders of the regional organization selected Tair Mansurov, a governor of North Kazakhstan Region and a former Kazakh ambassador to Russia, as a new secretary general of Eurasec. He will replace Grigory Rapota, from Belarus, who headed the organization since October 2001.
A document on the budget policy, signed Saturday by the leaders of the organization's member states, said that in 2008 Eurasec is set to focus on the formation of a Customs Union and a single economic and transport space as well as of a common energy market.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071006/82750326.html
Russian silkworms spin first 'space silk' in history
MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Silkworms on board the recent Russian Foton-M bio-satellite flight span the first space silk in history, a Moscow school teacher revealed Tuesday.
As part of the satellite's scientific program, Moscow school students, led by biology teacher Alexander Koloskov, carried out an experiment to study how weightlessness influences the life cycle of silkworms.
Experiments on board the satellite also revealed that worms are able to produce silk in microgravity conditions, but can not pupate, as they pass silk threads around the sticks they are sitting on rather than around their bodies. Disorientation was given as one possible reason for this.
Koloskov said that during the next stage of the research the students will send butterflies into space to study how insects adopt to microgravity.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20071002/82006905.html
Russia to carry out up to 20 space projects by 2015
MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti) - Under the Federal space program for 2006-2015 Russia plans to conduct over 20 scientific projects, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) head Anatoly Perminov told Thursday
"In particular, we have plans to build special-purpose spacecraft fitted with scientific equipment. The research will focus on fields like astrophysics, and planetary science," he said.
He said that planned flights included to Phobos, the Mars satellite, and to the Moon.
The Roskosmos head also said that the Russian biological satellite Foton-M, which landed on September 27, 2007, conducted over 70 experiments while in space.
"Space and science are mutually dependent and virtually inseparable today," he said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071004/82436462.html
"Dad of all Bombs" - Russia's new super-weapon. INFOgraphics
Russia tests the world's most powerful vacuum bomb, whose effect is comparable to a nuclear charge. It is more powerful than the U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), colloquially known as the Mother of All Bombs, a large-yield satellite-guided, air delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20070928/81566213.html
Asteroid could hit Earth in 2029 - Russian astronomer
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - An asteroid, discovered in 2004, could pose a threat to Earth in 2029, the director of the Institute of Astronomy said Monday.
Boris Shustov said at an international space forum in Moscow that the Apophis asteroid, which is due to cross earth's orbit in 2029 at a height of 27,000 km (17,000 miles), could under certain conditions hit Earth in 2029.
The explosion could surpass the famous Tunguska explosion of June 30, 1908, which affected a 2,150 square kilometer (830 sq miles) area of Russia felling over 80 million trees in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in Siberia.
The meteoroid's air blast was estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons in TNT equivalent or 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion caused a shockwave around 5.0 on the Richter scale.
However, the asteroid is not likely to repeat the plot of Hollywood blockbusters, as modern technology would allow the asteroid's orbit to be corrected using small satellites, Shustov said.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20071001/81860323.html
Look at falling stars!
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna) - The Earth will cross the Draconid meteor shower within a few days.
The encounter repeats every year in October's first ten days, with intensity varying on a 7-year cycle, which is now at its peak.
Our planet will enter the meteor swarm on October 8, to stay for the next two days among cosmic dust and tiny pebbles. In fact, a majority of meteors are not vagabond giants spelling apocalyptic disasters-each weighs from a tenth to a thousandth fraction of a gram.
Be that as it may, a sight of breathtaking beauty awaits us. Every night in good weather, we people of northern latitudes shall see a slow, reddish star shower near Draco, or the Dragon-a constellation shining above the North Pole.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82637401.html
Iran welcomes foreign investment in nuclear sector
TEHRAN, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Iran would welcome foreign investment in its nuclear industry, but will not abandon its uranium enrichment program, the Islamic Republic's president said Friday.
"We are ready for cooperation and joint investment [in the nuclear sphere], but that has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear fuel cycle," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
He said Iran's right to pursue nuclear energy programs is non-negotiable.
"We do not intend to discuss our rights in the nuclear energy sphere," he said.
The president said world powers have deliberately politicized Iran's nuclear problem in order to impede its scientific and technological advance.
Ahmadinejad said Thursday no force in the world can halt Iran's nuclear progress.
"Our enemies are in no position to harm the cause of the [Islamic] revolution," he said, adding that "some enemies" are trying to weaken the country's economy with trade and economic sanctions.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071005/82651532.html
From the New York Times
Questions About the India Deal, Finally
Published: October 6, 2007
The Bush administration and the American business community have been hoping for a swift, rubber-stamp approval of their ill-conceived nuclear trade deal with India. Luckily, some members of Congress, and some American allies, are finally asking questions.
Congress was far too uncritical when it gave preliminary approval to the agreement in December. As a next step, Washington must get a change in rules from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the main providers of so-called civilian nuclear technology around the world. All nuclear trade with India has been banned since it refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and tested nuclear weapons.
Now some members of Congress are beginning to raise doubts about the deal. The proposal introduced in the House this week by Howard Berman, a California Democrat, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, would be a sense of the House resolution. But by highlighting bipartisan concerns, it should bolster skeptics in the suppliers’ group who rightfully fear that the agreement could benefit New Delhi’s weapons program as much as its pursuit of nuclear power, while making it even harder to rein in the ambitions of nuclear wannabes, including Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06sat2.html?ref=opinion
Pro-West blocs gain advantage in Ukraine elections
(Recasts headline, lead, para 2; adds details, background in paras 4-9)
KIEV, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - The final votes in Ukraine's parliamentary elections were counted on Friday, with pro-West blocs gathering enough votes to form a coalition government.
Following elections on September 30, five blocs made it into the Supreme Rada, with the pro-Russian Party of Regions headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych leading with 34.32%.
Its arch-rival, the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, gained 30.71%, followed by the other Western-leaning bloc, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense bloc, with 14.15%.
Voter turnout was 62.38%.
Since none of the parties can claim a majority 226 seats in the new 450-member parliament, consultations are currently underway to form a coalition.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071005/82686149.html
Opinion & analysis
Is Ukraine more of a democracy than Russia?
MOSCOW. (Yevgeny Kozhokin for RIA Novosti) - Contrary to expectations, the political landscape of post-election Ukraine is not likely to be any smoother.
As soon as the votes are counted, Ukraine will have a hard time forming a government. The ruling coalition will not take shape quickly despite the Orange majority's efforts to unite and put a good face on things.
Given the state of personal relations between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, and her excessive demands, any alliance they manage to form is bound to be fragile and short-lived and, most probably, will not make Ukraine any more tranquil.
At the same time, there is a good chance that the Orange leaders will fail to strike a deal and that a future government will represent the same powerful economic and political forces as the former coalition did before the Rada's dissolution. Apart from the Party of Regions, the future coalition could include the Communists and the Socialists if they manage to overcome the 3% threshold.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071003/82143222.html
Rescuers find another body in Mi-2 crash in Russia's Far East
KHABAROVSK, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Rescuers in the Russian Far East found Saturday a body of a fourth passenger from a utility helicopter that crashed two days ago into the sea near the western coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia's Far East.
"The body was discovered on Saturday on the sea shore two kilometers from a village Ustyevoye," local emergencies department said.
The Mi-2 circled the village of Ustyevoye on Thursday and suddenly crashed into the sea about 100 meters (330 feet) off the coast.
The body of the pilot, Yury Khudrivy, was discovered at the scene by two towboats. Three hours later rescuers found the bodies of two passengers who had been washed ashore. The search for others who could have been on board the helicopter is continuing.
Earlier reports said the emergencies service had been alerted by villagers, who heard a rattle as the helicopter fell into the Sea of Okhotsk.
The Mi-2, an 8-passenger helicopter with a flight range
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071006/82755486.html
Pervez Musharraf leads Pakistani presidential election-1
(Adds details, background in paras 3-10)
ISLAMABAD, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Pakistan's current President General Pervez Musharraf leads in the country's presidential election, a spokesman for the Information Ministry said Saturday.
According to unofficial results, Musharraf gained 252 votes of the Senate and National Assembly deputies out of overall 442, the spokesman said.
Musharraf's presidential term ends on November 15. His nomination was filed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
On Tuesday Musharraf nominated Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani the new Army commander, as the current president had pledged earlier to give up his military title if he was reelected.
The opposition parties earlier vowed to boycott the election and promised to resign from parliament and assemblies of all four provinces if Musharraf is reelected.
General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999. After the 2002 parliamentary election, Musharraf retained his presidential and military titles, as well as the right to dissolve parliament and dismiss the government.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071006/82757178.html
At least 23 dead in Congo crash. Video
At least 23 people are dead after a cargo plane crashed in a busy neighbourhood of Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo.
http://en.rian.ru/video/20071005/82573153.html
Council of Europe displeased with Russia again
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yelena Shesternina) - Russia was criticized again at the Strasbourg session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) this week. Addressing the session, Patriarch Alexy II improved the situation somewhat but could not save the Russian delegation from the attacks of European MPs.
Tensions started building up even before the session opened. PACE refused to discuss the U.S. plans to deploy missile-defense elements on Polish and Czech territory on the grounds that missile defense had nothing to do with human rights and democracy which are the main directions of its activities.
It was clear before the session that the Mikhail Margelov-led Russian delegation would have to explain why Moscow was blocking the reform of the European Court of Human Rights. Russia was the only member of the Council of Europe, which failed to ratify Protocol 14 to the Human Rights Convention.
This protocol determines the gist of the reform. It has changed the procedure of controlling compliance with the convention; it has extended the powers of judges from six to nine years. In addition, it has introduced an additional criterion, which allows the European Court to reject a complaint based on the damage sustained by the applicant. The protocol has also upgraded the procedure for filtering patently unacceptable complaints.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82651141.html
VTB eager to take over Russian Standard
MOSCOW. (Financial analyst Anatoly Gorev for RIA Novosti) - VTB, Russia's second-largest state controlled banking group, is doing its best to buy Russian Standard, a leader of retail banking in Russia.
If Andrei Kostin's bank gets its way, VTB will rocket ahead in retail lending and score a major image-making victory over foreign financial giants.
France's BNP Paribas tried to buy Russian Standard, and in the past few weeks the market was abuzz with rumors that Germany's number one lending institution, Deutsche Bank, is also eyeing it.
So far, the transaction has not progressed past the negotiating stage. The Russian media cite investment bankers as saying, on condition of anonymity, that VTB has already made an offer for a 10% stake in Russian Standard. The bank's owner, Rustam Tariko, has allegedly rejected the offer despite a very good price.
VTB's management has apparently shrugged off Tariko's refusal as an intermediary result. Experts say that the state-controlled bank will not abandon its plan to take over part or all of Russian Standard.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071004/82460614.html
From the Moscow News
Russia Unveils New Superjet Plane
KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR (AFP, MN) - Russia on Wednesday rolled out a new regional passenger jet that it hopes will revive the country's civil aviation industry and rival similar models from Brazil and Canada.
The Superjet 100 is being developed by state-run jetmaker Sukhoi with Western partners at a factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia's Far East, some 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
"The first plane of the new Russia is of great importance, a priority project, because the domestic market is not enough for a world economy," First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the unveiling ceremony.
With the Superjet 100, Sukhoi hopes to succeed where Soviet-era jetmakers Ilyushin and Tupolev failed: in taking a large share of the world's booming passenger jet market.
The plane, which can fit up to 110 passengers, is due to undergo test flights later this year, and developers hope to be producing up to six planes a month for world markets by 2010.
http://mnweekly.ru/business/20070927/55279272.html
Brides’ Parade in Moscow
http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20071003/82140687_8.html
The Anti-Elite
By appointing new leaders from outside the current group of political elites, Vladimir Putin may be laying the ground for future conflicts.
These appointments are anti-elite per se; they reflect, above all, Putin's deep disappointment in the country's current political elite in general and in its ruling clique in particular. They also reflect his utmost unwillingness not only to consult with this elite on the matter of staff appointments, for example, but even to reckon with it and to display any signs of attention and respect for it.
Appointing these men, and Zubkov in particular, reveals that there is one thing of utmost importance to Putin - that they not be involved in any of the present elite groups. The fact that Zubkov is not known to be part of any presently active cliques or deals is crucial because deep down, Putin really doesn't trust anyone who is part of the competition for contracts and projects. He wants to trust people like Zubkov who seems to be, if not absolutely from outside the system, then at least from the system's periphery.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071004/82344776.html
Afghanistan - between war and truce?
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Afghanistan may go from a state of war to a process of national reconciliation.
If it does, this will be a dramatic shift - all President Hamid Karzai's previous attempts to talk to the Taliban were immediately cut short by both domestic opposition and the U.S.-led international sponsors of Afghanistan's recovery.
But sentiments seem to have changed. Both the informal international meeting on Afghanistan and the United Nations General Assembly have backed Kabul's plans to negotiate with the Taliban. The United Nations urged President Karzai and other Afghan leaders to promote political dialogue at home with a view to national reconciliation.
Nothing has changed in Afghanistan. But national reconciliation is becoming increasingly attractive. It is abundantly clear that Afghanistan's problems cannot be resolved by force. The Afghans have known this since the Soviet military occupation in the 1980s. They have learnt to resist force with guerilla warfare, whether as Mujahidin or Taliban.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071002/81984034.html
Unmanned aerial vehicles increase in numbers
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - On October 11, the Russian government will consider a state defense order for the next three years.
The program covering the period until 2015 is expected to replace 45% of the military inventory in the army and navy. In addition to re-equipping tank, motorized rifle and air landing units, it also plans to build up strategic weapons. The troops will take delivery of over 50 mobile Topol-M missile systems, while the fleet of strategic aviation will grow to 50 Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 MS Bear missile carrier aircraft.
But, as military experts note, there is one key area in the development and production of modern weapons that is not funded enough despite vast sums - something like 5 trillion rubles - allocated to be spent on armaments before the middle of the next decade. The reference is to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are today regarded as an essential element of an air force in many leading countries.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82619436.html
SI
Swarm of insects disrupt late innings
Posted: Friday October 5, 2007 8:18PM; Updated: Friday October 5, 2007 11:30PM
CLEVELAND (AP) -- This will forever be known as the Bug Game.
A swarm of insects descended on Jacobs Field in the eighth inning of the Cleveland Indians' 2-1 playoff victory over the New York Yankees on Friday night, leading to a bizarre scene featuring players waving their arms and gloves in an attempt to keep the pesky bugs away.
The teams kept playing into extra innings as millions of bugs nagged players on the field and in the dugouts.
"Every time you tried to focus on something, they're flying in your nose and your hair and your face," said Yankees first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was batting in the top of the eighth when the swarm invaded.
Ron Harrison, an entomologist who works for Orkin Inc., an Atlanta-based pest control company, said the annoying bugs were a type of midge, an insect related to mosquitoes. While some speculated they were Canadian Soldiers, they were much smaller than that type.
During warm fall weather, midges often breed on the outskirts of lakes.
"My feeling is that there has been some breeding around Lake Erie, and air currents are pushing them onto land in mass numbers," Harrison said.
The insects don't have piercing, sucking mouth parts, he said.
"They aren't really biters -- more of a nuisance," Harrison said.
Just ask the Yankees.
They were on the verge of tying the series when the insects arrived in a scenario only Alfred Hitchcock could imagine.
Asked to play amateur entomologist after the game, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm not an expert on what kind of bugs they are. They were small," he said.
The bugs subsided somewhat after the game went into extra innings. Travis Hafner ended it with an RBI single in the 11th inning, leading to a wild celebration by the Indians in the infield.
With the Yankees ahead 1-0, the bugs clearly affected reliever Joba Chamberlain and helped the Indians tie it. Bug spray did little good -- Chamberlain's neck, face and hat were covered with the tiny bugs, and he tried to spit them out of his mouth.
Chamberlain and the rest of the Yankees refused to use the bugs as an excuse.
"There's not much you can do about it," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He was having trouble seeing out there. I'll tell you one thing about the kid he never lost his composure. Unfortunately it was at a bad time."
Almost everyone was affected by the cloud, with players and the umpires trying in vain to brush them away.
"They're flying around in your face it's going to mess with your vision a little bit," Jeter said. "But it was like that for both teams."
Chamberlain was sprayed with insect repellant when he took the mound in the eighth and fans booed as a member of the Yankees staff sprayed him down again in between batters.
"Bugs are bugs," Chamberlain said. "It's something you've got to deal with."
Chamberlain, who was in command when he took over in the seventh, lost control. He walked two, hit a batter and threw a pair of wild pitches -- he had only one wild pitch during the season.
Chamberlain's second wild pitch let Grady Sizemore score the tying run from the third base.
Jeter and second baseman Robinson Cano swatted away the bugs with their hats between pitches. Alex Rodriguez used his glove and hat.
The bugs have plagued Jacobs Field in the past. During one memorable September 2004 game, play was stopped several times to allow players, who complained of swallowing the bugs while running the bases, were sprayed with repellant. The Indians lost to the Angels 6-1.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/specials/playoffs/2007/10/05/yankees.indians.bugs.ap/
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Indians in the Playoffs
Pluto: Scribbles in my playoff notebook
Posted by Terry Pluto October 06, 2007 00:30AM
Categories: Indians in the Playoffs
He had a triple, a single, a couple of walks and a diving catch. He was so hard to keep off bases, they couldn't even retire him on a strikeout. The nation is getting to see the Grady Sizemore that Tribe fans have loved since he came to Cleveland to stay in 2005. In the two divisional playoff games, the Tribe's leadoff man has been on base seven times! He is 3-for-8 with two walks, has been hit by a pitch and made it to first on a passed ball when he struck out. But Sizemore is so much more than numbers. His diving, belly-flop catch of a line drive off the bat of Jorge Posada saved at least a double. Then there was Sizemore roaring to home plate to score on a wild pitch in the eighth inning, sliding under a tag applied by Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. Or Sizemore striking out on a high fastball in the 10th, but sprinting to first base as the ball bounced off the glove of Posada. Or Sizemore slashing a hard grounder down the first-base line that should have been a double, but with legs pumping, dirt flying off his spikes -- he legged it into a triple. This was the Grady Sizemore who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated earlier this season, the Sizemore who hustles on every play because he knows that's how the game is meant to be played. He's the Sizemore who turned 25 in August and who is under contract by the Tribe through 2012. Once again, the Indians won the battle of the bullpens. Raffy Perez threw two more scoreless innings. That gives him four in the playoffs. Even more impressive, it's 12-up, 12-down for the 25-year-old lefty who has been immune to pressure since coming to the Tribe from Class AAA Buffalo on May 29.
http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/indians/
The Tenth Man: A fan blog by Chris Jung
Just Say No To Gnatgate
Posted by Chris Jung October 06, 2007 00:29AM
Categories: The Tenth Man: A fan blog by Chris Jung
It figures that on a night when the Indians finally collect that signature win, the sweet victory that seemingly pushes them one step closer to solidifying themselves as one of baseball's best teams, that mother nature would interject and give people the chance to say, "well, Chamberlain just couldn't see very well."
http://blog.cleveland.com/tribetracker/tenthman/
Cleveland, OH weather
82ºF
28ºC
Right Now
M/CLOUDY
Humidity: 57%
Wind: WSW, 6 mph
Barometer: 30.18 inches
Visibility: 10 miles
Cleveland leaders slow to embrace Apple center
Education center would train city students in digital media, but cost is a concern for officials
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Shaheen Samavati
Plain Dealer Reporter
Apple Inc. -- one of the hottest technology companies in the world -- wants to bring a flashy, high-tech education center to downtown Cleveland.
Sound too good to be true?
Some civic leaders think so. While it would offer about 100 Cleveland public high school students a media-rich education, it would cost millions. And Apple wouldn't contribute any cash or equipment, only professional services.
http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1191660231271830.xml&coll=2
ArcelorMittal burns up State Patrol's contraband guns, drugs
ArcelorMittal burns patrol's contraband
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Mark Puente
Plain Dealer Reporter A heavily armed team of state troopers brought a $6 million package from Columbus to Cleveland early Thursday. Then, they incinerated it in a 3,500-degree furnace.
Troopers escorted 4,000 pounds of marijuana, cocaine and heroin and 59 guns to the ArcelorMittal steel plant along the Cuyahoga River.
The State Highway Patrol burns drugs and guns four times a year at different mills across Ohio. It keeps the contraband in a room in Columbus until criminal cases are resolved and the evidence is no longer needed.
The 40-foot-long room was filled with steel racks containing pallets of drugs seized on the interstates before the last burn. About 40 file cabinets lined the walls, stuffed with evidence from smaller seizures.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191659722271830.xml&coll=2
Detectives who fatally shot teen can sue State Sen. Shirley Smith for critical letter
Lawmaker faulted killing of teen
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- Two Cleveland police detectives who fatally shot a 15-year-old boy can pursue their lawsuit against a state lawmaker who they say unfairly ridiculed them in a letter calling the officers "hit men."
State Sen. Shirley Smith, who at the time of the shooting on Sept. 1, 2005, was a member of the Ohio House, was not acting in her official capacity and therefore is not entitled to immunity, the Ohio Court of Claims ruled this week.
That means Detectives Philip Habeeb and John Kraynik can seek civil damages from Smith for the scathing letter she delivered to city leaders just days after Brandon McCloud was killed in his bedroom as the officers executed a search warrant.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191660420271830.xml&coll=2
Grass-roots coalition seeks equal medical coverage for everyone in Ohio
Grass-roots effort pursues plan through petition drive
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Sarah Jane Tribble
Plain Dealer Reporter
When Joeletta Akemon sifts through her family's medical bills, a tone of hopelessness enters her voice.
Her husband pays about $550 a month for family health insurance through work, but each doctor visit and prescription also has out-of-pocket costs, and the family is falling behind. Bill collectors have begun calling.
"The middle class like me and my husband, we're just struggling," Akemon said. "We still can't go to the doctor when we really need to."
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191659805271830.xml&coll=2
Portage judge John Plough won't release public record
Saturday, October 06, 2007
James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter
A Portage County Municipal judge already under state scrutiny for his courtroom conduct is now refusing to surrender a public record.
The Plain Dealer repeatedly requested the record of John Plough's sentencing of a woman who pleaded guilty to assault and disorderly conduct in late July.
Plough placed Angela Porter on probation then and hired her a month later. She now works as his assignment commissioner and deputy bailiff for $12.75 an hour.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/portage/1191659842271830.xml&coll=2
Find your bag on the carousel?
Airlines' problems with luggage getting worse
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Jonathan Mummolo and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
After the crammed parking lot, the amusement park-length check-in lines, security procedures that require all but a striptease, flights that are jampacked, if they're not delayed or canceled -- after all that comes baggage claim, where the maddening odyssey of modern air travel is supposed to end but often just gets worse.
More than 1 million pieces of luggage were lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered by U.S. airlines from May to July, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. June and July ranked among the 20 worst months for mishandled baggage in 20 years.
The shoddy service is the crest of five years of steady deterioration in the ability of major airlines to deliver a checked bag. In 2002, some 3.84 reports of mishandled bags were filed per 1,000 passengers. In July, the figure was 7.93.
http://www.cleveland.com/travel/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/other/119131448328890.xml&coll=2
Amber Hill arraignment
Bond is set at $2 million for Amber Hill on charges accusing her of drowning her two young daughters in a bathtub.
David I. Andersen / The Plain Dealer
http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdvideo/flash/index.ssf?100307_amberhill_video
This is a tragic event, but, is law enforcement getting carried away in a political posturing to defeat abortion rights? Unless there is 'Depression Screening' for pregnant women there is no way to prevent death of a fetus when the mother dies of her own demise. There just isn't. If women are screened for depression while pregnant, then do they have the right to refuse medication and if they do will they be imprisoned to prevent their deaths and therefore the death of an infant?
Depression does not always equate to death. Only when under a doctor's care and noted to be harmful to self or others will any court 'commit' a woman for treatment in a facility. At what point does treatment for depression (when one can get it) become a prison sentence until the fetal rights of the unborn are satisfied? No one should be allowed to hurt themselves or maim themselves, but, in a country where mental health is placed on the back burner along with good quality health insurance what then becomes the issue in regard to the unborn? Does the unborn have more rights than the mother?
This type of Pro-Life charge is highly questionable in it's rational. If a pregnant woman is murdered while pregnant, it is understandable the DEATH OF THE WOMAN when it comes to sentencing the murderer has to be weighted considering the infant died as well. HOWEVER, the fetus/infant is not an independant life and does not carry it's own rights in regard to court proceedings. This 'charge' against the woman that caused the death of the fetus is absurd and it needs to be resinded. This is a venue of 'Fetus Rights' not recognized under law and is very poor police work. It leads to oppression of women.
Death of fetus whose mother shot herself is ruled a homicide
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Elyria -- Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller ruled the death of Samantha Stoner, a 22-week-old fetus, a homicide on Friday.
"The baby died because it was extremely premature," Miller said.
Samantha had to be delivered by Caesarian section several days after her mother, Deborah Stoner, 36, shot herself Sept. 1 in the abdomen with .380-caliber handgun.
"I have ruled it a homicide because homicide to us means the actions of another person caused the death," Miller said.
Stoner, of Elyria, decided to shoot herself in the abdomen after a fight with her boyfriend, John George, Miller said, citing Elyria police reports.
Stoner was taken to EMH Regional Medical Center and later flown to MetroHealth Medical Center, where the fetus was delivered.
Police do not know what Stoner's intention was by shooting herself, Lt. Andy Eichenlaub said.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1191660205271830.xml&coll=2
continued...
Tajikistan to hold rotating presidency in Eurasec in 2008
DUSHANBE, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Tajikistan will hold a rotating chair in the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec) in 2008 and its leader will supervise the work of the organization, the Russian president said Saturday.
"At the meeting of heads of state in a narrow framework we decided to choose Tajikistan and President Emomali Rakhmon to chair Eurasec," President Putin said at the session of the Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasec in Tajikistan.
Earlier the leaders of the regional organization selected Tair Mansurov, a governor of North Kazakhstan Region and a former Kazakh ambassador to Russia, as a new secretary general of Eurasec. He will replace Grigory Rapota, from Belarus, who headed the organization since October 2001.
A document on the budget policy, signed Saturday by the leaders of the organization's member states, said that in 2008 Eurasec is set to focus on the formation of a Customs Union and a single economic and transport space as well as of a common energy market.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071006/82750326.html
Russian silkworms spin first 'space silk' in history
MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Silkworms on board the recent Russian Foton-M bio-satellite flight span the first space silk in history, a Moscow school teacher revealed Tuesday.
As part of the satellite's scientific program, Moscow school students, led by biology teacher Alexander Koloskov, carried out an experiment to study how weightlessness influences the life cycle of silkworms.
Experiments on board the satellite also revealed that worms are able to produce silk in microgravity conditions, but can not pupate, as they pass silk threads around the sticks they are sitting on rather than around their bodies. Disorientation was given as one possible reason for this.
Koloskov said that during the next stage of the research the students will send butterflies into space to study how insects adopt to microgravity.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20071002/82006905.html
Russia to carry out up to 20 space projects by 2015
MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti) - Under the Federal space program for 2006-2015 Russia plans to conduct over 20 scientific projects, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) head Anatoly Perminov told Thursday
"In particular, we have plans to build special-purpose spacecraft fitted with scientific equipment. The research will focus on fields like astrophysics, and planetary science," he said.
He said that planned flights included to Phobos, the Mars satellite, and to the Moon.
The Roskosmos head also said that the Russian biological satellite Foton-M, which landed on September 27, 2007, conducted over 70 experiments while in space.
"Space and science are mutually dependent and virtually inseparable today," he said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071004/82436462.html
"Dad of all Bombs" - Russia's new super-weapon. INFOgraphics
Russia tests the world's most powerful vacuum bomb, whose effect is comparable to a nuclear charge. It is more powerful than the U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), colloquially known as the Mother of All Bombs, a large-yield satellite-guided, air delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20070928/81566213.html
Asteroid could hit Earth in 2029 - Russian astronomer
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - An asteroid, discovered in 2004, could pose a threat to Earth in 2029, the director of the Institute of Astronomy said Monday.
Boris Shustov said at an international space forum in Moscow that the Apophis asteroid, which is due to cross earth's orbit in 2029 at a height of 27,000 km (17,000 miles), could under certain conditions hit Earth in 2029.
The explosion could surpass the famous Tunguska explosion of June 30, 1908, which affected a 2,150 square kilometer (830 sq miles) area of Russia felling over 80 million trees in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in Siberia.
The meteoroid's air blast was estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons in TNT equivalent or 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion caused a shockwave around 5.0 on the Richter scale.
However, the asteroid is not likely to repeat the plot of Hollywood blockbusters, as modern technology would allow the asteroid's orbit to be corrected using small satellites, Shustov said.
http://en.rian.ru/science/20071001/81860323.html
Look at falling stars!
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna) - The Earth will cross the Draconid meteor shower within a few days.
The encounter repeats every year in October's first ten days, with intensity varying on a 7-year cycle, which is now at its peak.
Our planet will enter the meteor swarm on October 8, to stay for the next two days among cosmic dust and tiny pebbles. In fact, a majority of meteors are not vagabond giants spelling apocalyptic disasters-each weighs from a tenth to a thousandth fraction of a gram.
Be that as it may, a sight of breathtaking beauty awaits us. Every night in good weather, we people of northern latitudes shall see a slow, reddish star shower near Draco, or the Dragon-a constellation shining above the North Pole.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82637401.html
Iran welcomes foreign investment in nuclear sector
TEHRAN, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Iran would welcome foreign investment in its nuclear industry, but will not abandon its uranium enrichment program, the Islamic Republic's president said Friday.
"We are ready for cooperation and joint investment [in the nuclear sphere], but that has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear fuel cycle," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
He said Iran's right to pursue nuclear energy programs is non-negotiable.
"We do not intend to discuss our rights in the nuclear energy sphere," he said.
The president said world powers have deliberately politicized Iran's nuclear problem in order to impede its scientific and technological advance.
Ahmadinejad said Thursday no force in the world can halt Iran's nuclear progress.
"Our enemies are in no position to harm the cause of the [Islamic] revolution," he said, adding that "some enemies" are trying to weaken the country's economy with trade and economic sanctions.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071005/82651532.html
From the New York Times
Questions About the India Deal, Finally
Published: October 6, 2007
The Bush administration and the American business community have been hoping for a swift, rubber-stamp approval of their ill-conceived nuclear trade deal with India. Luckily, some members of Congress, and some American allies, are finally asking questions.
Congress was far too uncritical when it gave preliminary approval to the agreement in December. As a next step, Washington must get a change in rules from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the main providers of so-called civilian nuclear technology around the world. All nuclear trade with India has been banned since it refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and tested nuclear weapons.
Now some members of Congress are beginning to raise doubts about the deal. The proposal introduced in the House this week by Howard Berman, a California Democrat, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, would be a sense of the House resolution. But by highlighting bipartisan concerns, it should bolster skeptics in the suppliers’ group who rightfully fear that the agreement could benefit New Delhi’s weapons program as much as its pursuit of nuclear power, while making it even harder to rein in the ambitions of nuclear wannabes, including Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06sat2.html?ref=opinion
Pro-West blocs gain advantage in Ukraine elections
(Recasts headline, lead, para 2; adds details, background in paras 4-9)
KIEV, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - The final votes in Ukraine's parliamentary elections were counted on Friday, with pro-West blocs gathering enough votes to form a coalition government.
Following elections on September 30, five blocs made it into the Supreme Rada, with the pro-Russian Party of Regions headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych leading with 34.32%.
Its arch-rival, the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, gained 30.71%, followed by the other Western-leaning bloc, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense bloc, with 14.15%.
Voter turnout was 62.38%.
Since none of the parties can claim a majority 226 seats in the new 450-member parliament, consultations are currently underway to form a coalition.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071005/82686149.html
Opinion & analysis
Is Ukraine more of a democracy than Russia?
MOSCOW. (Yevgeny Kozhokin for RIA Novosti) - Contrary to expectations, the political landscape of post-election Ukraine is not likely to be any smoother.
As soon as the votes are counted, Ukraine will have a hard time forming a government. The ruling coalition will not take shape quickly despite the Orange majority's efforts to unite and put a good face on things.
Given the state of personal relations between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, and her excessive demands, any alliance they manage to form is bound to be fragile and short-lived and, most probably, will not make Ukraine any more tranquil.
At the same time, there is a good chance that the Orange leaders will fail to strike a deal and that a future government will represent the same powerful economic and political forces as the former coalition did before the Rada's dissolution. Apart from the Party of Regions, the future coalition could include the Communists and the Socialists if they manage to overcome the 3% threshold.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071003/82143222.html
Rescuers find another body in Mi-2 crash in Russia's Far East
KHABAROVSK, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Rescuers in the Russian Far East found Saturday a body of a fourth passenger from a utility helicopter that crashed two days ago into the sea near the western coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia's Far East.
"The body was discovered on Saturday on the sea shore two kilometers from a village Ustyevoye," local emergencies department said.
The Mi-2 circled the village of Ustyevoye on Thursday and suddenly crashed into the sea about 100 meters (330 feet) off the coast.
The body of the pilot, Yury Khudrivy, was discovered at the scene by two towboats. Three hours later rescuers found the bodies of two passengers who had been washed ashore. The search for others who could have been on board the helicopter is continuing.
Earlier reports said the emergencies service had been alerted by villagers, who heard a rattle as the helicopter fell into the Sea of Okhotsk.
The Mi-2, an 8-passenger helicopter with a flight range
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071006/82755486.html
Pervez Musharraf leads Pakistani presidential election-1
(Adds details, background in paras 3-10)
ISLAMABAD, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Pakistan's current President General Pervez Musharraf leads in the country's presidential election, a spokesman for the Information Ministry said Saturday.
According to unofficial results, Musharraf gained 252 votes of the Senate and National Assembly deputies out of overall 442, the spokesman said.
Musharraf's presidential term ends on November 15. His nomination was filed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
On Tuesday Musharraf nominated Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani the new Army commander, as the current president had pledged earlier to give up his military title if he was reelected.
The opposition parties earlier vowed to boycott the election and promised to resign from parliament and assemblies of all four provinces if Musharraf is reelected.
General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999. After the 2002 parliamentary election, Musharraf retained his presidential and military titles, as well as the right to dissolve parliament and dismiss the government.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20071006/82757178.html
At least 23 dead in Congo crash. Video
At least 23 people are dead after a cargo plane crashed in a busy neighbourhood of Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo.
http://en.rian.ru/video/20071005/82573153.html
Council of Europe displeased with Russia again
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yelena Shesternina) - Russia was criticized again at the Strasbourg session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) this week. Addressing the session, Patriarch Alexy II improved the situation somewhat but could not save the Russian delegation from the attacks of European MPs.
Tensions started building up even before the session opened. PACE refused to discuss the U.S. plans to deploy missile-defense elements on Polish and Czech territory on the grounds that missile defense had nothing to do with human rights and democracy which are the main directions of its activities.
It was clear before the session that the Mikhail Margelov-led Russian delegation would have to explain why Moscow was blocking the reform of the European Court of Human Rights. Russia was the only member of the Council of Europe, which failed to ratify Protocol 14 to the Human Rights Convention.
This protocol determines the gist of the reform. It has changed the procedure of controlling compliance with the convention; it has extended the powers of judges from six to nine years. In addition, it has introduced an additional criterion, which allows the European Court to reject a complaint based on the damage sustained by the applicant. The protocol has also upgraded the procedure for filtering patently unacceptable complaints.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82651141.html
VTB eager to take over Russian Standard
MOSCOW. (Financial analyst Anatoly Gorev for RIA Novosti) - VTB, Russia's second-largest state controlled banking group, is doing its best to buy Russian Standard, a leader of retail banking in Russia.
If Andrei Kostin's bank gets its way, VTB will rocket ahead in retail lending and score a major image-making victory over foreign financial giants.
France's BNP Paribas tried to buy Russian Standard, and in the past few weeks the market was abuzz with rumors that Germany's number one lending institution, Deutsche Bank, is also eyeing it.
So far, the transaction has not progressed past the negotiating stage. The Russian media cite investment bankers as saying, on condition of anonymity, that VTB has already made an offer for a 10% stake in Russian Standard. The bank's owner, Rustam Tariko, has allegedly rejected the offer despite a very good price.
VTB's management has apparently shrugged off Tariko's refusal as an intermediary result. Experts say that the state-controlled bank will not abandon its plan to take over part or all of Russian Standard.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071004/82460614.html
From the Moscow News
Russia Unveils New Superjet Plane
KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR (AFP, MN) - Russia on Wednesday rolled out a new regional passenger jet that it hopes will revive the country's civil aviation industry and rival similar models from Brazil and Canada.
The Superjet 100 is being developed by state-run jetmaker Sukhoi with Western partners at a factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia's Far East, some 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
"The first plane of the new Russia is of great importance, a priority project, because the domestic market is not enough for a world economy," First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the unveiling ceremony.
With the Superjet 100, Sukhoi hopes to succeed where Soviet-era jetmakers Ilyushin and Tupolev failed: in taking a large share of the world's booming passenger jet market.
The plane, which can fit up to 110 passengers, is due to undergo test flights later this year, and developers hope to be producing up to six planes a month for world markets by 2010.
http://mnweekly.ru/business/20070927/55279272.html
Brides’ Parade in Moscow
http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20071003/82140687_8.html
The Anti-Elite
By appointing new leaders from outside the current group of political elites, Vladimir Putin may be laying the ground for future conflicts.
These appointments are anti-elite per se; they reflect, above all, Putin's deep disappointment in the country's current political elite in general and in its ruling clique in particular. They also reflect his utmost unwillingness not only to consult with this elite on the matter of staff appointments, for example, but even to reckon with it and to display any signs of attention and respect for it.
Appointing these men, and Zubkov in particular, reveals that there is one thing of utmost importance to Putin - that they not be involved in any of the present elite groups. The fact that Zubkov is not known to be part of any presently active cliques or deals is crucial because deep down, Putin really doesn't trust anyone who is part of the competition for contracts and projects. He wants to trust people like Zubkov who seems to be, if not absolutely from outside the system, then at least from the system's periphery.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071004/82344776.html
Afghanistan - between war and truce?
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Afghanistan may go from a state of war to a process of national reconciliation.
If it does, this will be a dramatic shift - all President Hamid Karzai's previous attempts to talk to the Taliban were immediately cut short by both domestic opposition and the U.S.-led international sponsors of Afghanistan's recovery.
But sentiments seem to have changed. Both the informal international meeting on Afghanistan and the United Nations General Assembly have backed Kabul's plans to negotiate with the Taliban. The United Nations urged President Karzai and other Afghan leaders to promote political dialogue at home with a view to national reconciliation.
Nothing has changed in Afghanistan. But national reconciliation is becoming increasingly attractive. It is abundantly clear that Afghanistan's problems cannot be resolved by force. The Afghans have known this since the Soviet military occupation in the 1980s. They have learnt to resist force with guerilla warfare, whether as Mujahidin or Taliban.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071002/81984034.html
Unmanned aerial vehicles increase in numbers
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - On October 11, the Russian government will consider a state defense order for the next three years.
The program covering the period until 2015 is expected to replace 45% of the military inventory in the army and navy. In addition to re-equipping tank, motorized rifle and air landing units, it also plans to build up strategic weapons. The troops will take delivery of over 50 mobile Topol-M missile systems, while the fleet of strategic aviation will grow to 50 Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 MS Bear missile carrier aircraft.
But, as military experts note, there is one key area in the development and production of modern weapons that is not funded enough despite vast sums - something like 5 trillion rubles - allocated to be spent on armaments before the middle of the next decade. The reference is to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are today regarded as an essential element of an air force in many leading countries.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071005/82619436.html
SI
Swarm of insects disrupt late innings
Posted: Friday October 5, 2007 8:18PM; Updated: Friday October 5, 2007 11:30PM
CLEVELAND (AP) -- This will forever be known as the Bug Game.
A swarm of insects descended on Jacobs Field in the eighth inning of the Cleveland Indians' 2-1 playoff victory over the New York Yankees on Friday night, leading to a bizarre scene featuring players waving their arms and gloves in an attempt to keep the pesky bugs away.
The teams kept playing into extra innings as millions of bugs nagged players on the field and in the dugouts.
"Every time you tried to focus on something, they're flying in your nose and your hair and your face," said Yankees first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was batting in the top of the eighth when the swarm invaded.
Ron Harrison, an entomologist who works for Orkin Inc., an Atlanta-based pest control company, said the annoying bugs were a type of midge, an insect related to mosquitoes. While some speculated they were Canadian Soldiers, they were much smaller than that type.
During warm fall weather, midges often breed on the outskirts of lakes.
"My feeling is that there has been some breeding around Lake Erie, and air currents are pushing them onto land in mass numbers," Harrison said.
The insects don't have piercing, sucking mouth parts, he said.
"They aren't really biters -- more of a nuisance," Harrison said.
Just ask the Yankees.
They were on the verge of tying the series when the insects arrived in a scenario only Alfred Hitchcock could imagine.
Asked to play amateur entomologist after the game, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm not an expert on what kind of bugs they are. They were small," he said.
The bugs subsided somewhat after the game went into extra innings. Travis Hafner ended it with an RBI single in the 11th inning, leading to a wild celebration by the Indians in the infield.
With the Yankees ahead 1-0, the bugs clearly affected reliever Joba Chamberlain and helped the Indians tie it. Bug spray did little good -- Chamberlain's neck, face and hat were covered with the tiny bugs, and he tried to spit them out of his mouth.
Chamberlain and the rest of the Yankees refused to use the bugs as an excuse.
"There's not much you can do about it," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He was having trouble seeing out there. I'll tell you one thing about the kid he never lost his composure. Unfortunately it was at a bad time."
Almost everyone was affected by the cloud, with players and the umpires trying in vain to brush them away.
"They're flying around in your face it's going to mess with your vision a little bit," Jeter said. "But it was like that for both teams."
Chamberlain was sprayed with insect repellant when he took the mound in the eighth and fans booed as a member of the Yankees staff sprayed him down again in between batters.
"Bugs are bugs," Chamberlain said. "It's something you've got to deal with."
Chamberlain, who was in command when he took over in the seventh, lost control. He walked two, hit a batter and threw a pair of wild pitches -- he had only one wild pitch during the season.
Chamberlain's second wild pitch let Grady Sizemore score the tying run from the third base.
Jeter and second baseman Robinson Cano swatted away the bugs with their hats between pitches. Alex Rodriguez used his glove and hat.
The bugs have plagued Jacobs Field in the past. During one memorable September 2004 game, play was stopped several times to allow players, who complained of swallowing the bugs while running the bases, were sprayed with repellant. The Indians lost to the Angels 6-1.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/specials/playoffs/2007/10/05/yankees.indians.bugs.ap/
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Indians in the Playoffs
Pluto: Scribbles in my playoff notebook
Posted by Terry Pluto October 06, 2007 00:30AM
Categories: Indians in the Playoffs
He had a triple, a single, a couple of walks and a diving catch. He was so hard to keep off bases, they couldn't even retire him on a strikeout. The nation is getting to see the Grady Sizemore that Tribe fans have loved since he came to Cleveland to stay in 2005. In the two divisional playoff games, the Tribe's leadoff man has been on base seven times! He is 3-for-8 with two walks, has been hit by a pitch and made it to first on a passed ball when he struck out. But Sizemore is so much more than numbers. His diving, belly-flop catch of a line drive off the bat of Jorge Posada saved at least a double. Then there was Sizemore roaring to home plate to score on a wild pitch in the eighth inning, sliding under a tag applied by Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. Or Sizemore striking out on a high fastball in the 10th, but sprinting to first base as the ball bounced off the glove of Posada. Or Sizemore slashing a hard grounder down the first-base line that should have been a double, but with legs pumping, dirt flying off his spikes -- he legged it into a triple. This was the Grady Sizemore who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated earlier this season, the Sizemore who hustles on every play because he knows that's how the game is meant to be played. He's the Sizemore who turned 25 in August and who is under contract by the Tribe through 2012. Once again, the Indians won the battle of the bullpens. Raffy Perez threw two more scoreless innings. That gives him four in the playoffs. Even more impressive, it's 12-up, 12-down for the 25-year-old lefty who has been immune to pressure since coming to the Tribe from Class AAA Buffalo on May 29.
http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/indians/
The Tenth Man: A fan blog by Chris Jung
Just Say No To Gnatgate
Posted by Chris Jung October 06, 2007 00:29AM
Categories: The Tenth Man: A fan blog by Chris Jung
It figures that on a night when the Indians finally collect that signature win, the sweet victory that seemingly pushes them one step closer to solidifying themselves as one of baseball's best teams, that mother nature would interject and give people the chance to say, "well, Chamberlain just couldn't see very well."
http://blog.cleveland.com/tribetracker/tenthman/
Cleveland, OH weather
82ºF
28ºC
Right Now
M/CLOUDY
Humidity: 57%
Wind: WSW, 6 mph
Barometer: 30.18 inches
Visibility: 10 miles
Cleveland leaders slow to embrace Apple center
Education center would train city students in digital media, but cost is a concern for officials
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Shaheen Samavati
Plain Dealer Reporter
Apple Inc. -- one of the hottest technology companies in the world -- wants to bring a flashy, high-tech education center to downtown Cleveland.
Sound too good to be true?
Some civic leaders think so. While it would offer about 100 Cleveland public high school students a media-rich education, it would cost millions. And Apple wouldn't contribute any cash or equipment, only professional services.
http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1191660231271830.xml&coll=2
ArcelorMittal burns up State Patrol's contraband guns, drugs
ArcelorMittal burns patrol's contraband
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Mark Puente
Plain Dealer Reporter A heavily armed team of state troopers brought a $6 million package from Columbus to Cleveland early Thursday. Then, they incinerated it in a 3,500-degree furnace.
Troopers escorted 4,000 pounds of marijuana, cocaine and heroin and 59 guns to the ArcelorMittal steel plant along the Cuyahoga River.
The State Highway Patrol burns drugs and guns four times a year at different mills across Ohio. It keeps the contraband in a room in Columbus until criminal cases are resolved and the evidence is no longer needed.
The 40-foot-long room was filled with steel racks containing pallets of drugs seized on the interstates before the last burn. About 40 file cabinets lined the walls, stuffed with evidence from smaller seizures.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191659722271830.xml&coll=2
Detectives who fatally shot teen can sue State Sen. Shirley Smith for critical letter
Lawmaker faulted killing of teen
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- Two Cleveland police detectives who fatally shot a 15-year-old boy can pursue their lawsuit against a state lawmaker who they say unfairly ridiculed them in a letter calling the officers "hit men."
State Sen. Shirley Smith, who at the time of the shooting on Sept. 1, 2005, was a member of the Ohio House, was not acting in her official capacity and therefore is not entitled to immunity, the Ohio Court of Claims ruled this week.
That means Detectives Philip Habeeb and John Kraynik can seek civil damages from Smith for the scathing letter she delivered to city leaders just days after Brandon McCloud was killed in his bedroom as the officers executed a search warrant.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191660420271830.xml&coll=2
Grass-roots coalition seeks equal medical coverage for everyone in Ohio
Grass-roots effort pursues plan through petition drive
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Sarah Jane Tribble
Plain Dealer Reporter
When Joeletta Akemon sifts through her family's medical bills, a tone of hopelessness enters her voice.
Her husband pays about $550 a month for family health insurance through work, but each doctor visit and prescription also has out-of-pocket costs, and the family is falling behind. Bill collectors have begun calling.
"The middle class like me and my husband, we're just struggling," Akemon said. "We still can't go to the doctor when we really need to."
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1191659805271830.xml&coll=2
Portage judge John Plough won't release public record
Saturday, October 06, 2007
James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter
A Portage County Municipal judge already under state scrutiny for his courtroom conduct is now refusing to surrender a public record.
The Plain Dealer repeatedly requested the record of John Plough's sentencing of a woman who pleaded guilty to assault and disorderly conduct in late July.
Plough placed Angela Porter on probation then and hired her a month later. She now works as his assignment commissioner and deputy bailiff for $12.75 an hour.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/portage/1191659842271830.xml&coll=2
Find your bag on the carousel?
Airlines' problems with luggage getting worse
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Jonathan Mummolo and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
After the crammed parking lot, the amusement park-length check-in lines, security procedures that require all but a striptease, flights that are jampacked, if they're not delayed or canceled -- after all that comes baggage claim, where the maddening odyssey of modern air travel is supposed to end but often just gets worse.
More than 1 million pieces of luggage were lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered by U.S. airlines from May to July, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. June and July ranked among the 20 worst months for mishandled baggage in 20 years.
The shoddy service is the crest of five years of steady deterioration in the ability of major airlines to deliver a checked bag. In 2002, some 3.84 reports of mishandled bags were filed per 1,000 passengers. In July, the figure was 7.93.
http://www.cleveland.com/travel/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/other/119131448328890.xml&coll=2
Amber Hill arraignment
Bond is set at $2 million for Amber Hill on charges accusing her of drowning her two young daughters in a bathtub.
David I. Andersen / The Plain Dealer
http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdvideo/flash/index.ssf?100307_amberhill_video
This is a tragic event, but, is law enforcement getting carried away in a political posturing to defeat abortion rights? Unless there is 'Depression Screening' for pregnant women there is no way to prevent death of a fetus when the mother dies of her own demise. There just isn't. If women are screened for depression while pregnant, then do they have the right to refuse medication and if they do will they be imprisoned to prevent their deaths and therefore the death of an infant?
Depression does not always equate to death. Only when under a doctor's care and noted to be harmful to self or others will any court 'commit' a woman for treatment in a facility. At what point does treatment for depression (when one can get it) become a prison sentence until the fetal rights of the unborn are satisfied? No one should be allowed to hurt themselves or maim themselves, but, in a country where mental health is placed on the back burner along with good quality health insurance what then becomes the issue in regard to the unborn? Does the unborn have more rights than the mother?
This type of Pro-Life charge is highly questionable in it's rational. If a pregnant woman is murdered while pregnant, it is understandable the DEATH OF THE WOMAN when it comes to sentencing the murderer has to be weighted considering the infant died as well. HOWEVER, the fetus/infant is not an independant life and does not carry it's own rights in regard to court proceedings. This 'charge' against the woman that caused the death of the fetus is absurd and it needs to be resinded. This is a venue of 'Fetus Rights' not recognized under law and is very poor police work. It leads to oppression of women.
Death of fetus whose mother shot herself is ruled a homicide
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Elyria -- Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller ruled the death of Samantha Stoner, a 22-week-old fetus, a homicide on Friday.
"The baby died because it was extremely premature," Miller said.
Samantha had to be delivered by Caesarian section several days after her mother, Deborah Stoner, 36, shot herself Sept. 1 in the abdomen with .380-caliber handgun.
"I have ruled it a homicide because homicide to us means the actions of another person caused the death," Miller said.
Stoner, of Elyria, decided to shoot herself in the abdomen after a fight with her boyfriend, John George, Miller said, citing Elyria police reports.
Stoner was taken to EMH Regional Medical Center and later flown to MetroHealth Medical Center, where the fetus was delivered.
Police do not know what Stoner's intention was by shooting herself, Lt. Andy Eichenlaub said.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1191660205271830.xml&coll=2
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