Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Facts Were Being Fixed
Strategy included blue paint, assassination
Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
By Don Van Natta Jr. / New York Times
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6327
...in a recent White House News Conference...
Helen. After that brilliant performance at the Grid Iron, I am -- (laughter.
Q You're going to be sorry. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let me take it back. (Laughter.)
Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise -- in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- is that -- I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --
Q Everything --
THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.
Q -- everything I've heard --
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --
Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.
THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --
Q I'm talking about Iraq --
THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences --
Q -- go to war --
THE PRESIDENT: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.
THE UNITED NATIONS INSPECTORS WERE NEVER 'THROWN OUT OF IRAQ.' GEORGE WALKER BUSH ACTED PRE-MATURELY BEFORE the United Nations Security Council voted regarding the findings of the UN Inspectors and against the legislature of the United States House and Senate which clearly stated invasion of Iraq was a last resort. Once the invasion was launched there was no turning back. Bush knew he would not be impeached because the Republicans had a clear majority in the House and the Senate could not act independently to impeach.
Saddam didn't have comprehensive records of his weapon history for the United Naitons. But the United Nations inspectors were finding absolutely NOTHING in the way of a trace of evidence of biolgoical, chemical or nuclear weapons. There was no reason for comprensive records that might have reflected errors anyway. WOULD YOU TRUST the records of Saddam Hussein OR the findings of UN Inspectors receiving payment from a neutral country? All the demands for Iraq's Records of WMD was the only 'pickable' point. Yesterday in a speech George Walker Bush stated the reason for the increasing civil war was Saddam Hussein's prior regime.
Bush Blames Saddam for Current Sectarian Division in Iraq
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-29-voa57.cfm
Previous to his diversion from his own failures he stated the Iraqi people would receive the invasion with open arms and welcoming applause. Who in the USA knew those statements and expectations were "W"rong all along. NOW, he expects the Ameican public to be fools again, as if this is a new revelation?
Bush is a criminal both domestically and internationally.
Q Thank you, sir. Secretary Rumsfeld -- (laughter.)
Q Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. (Laughter.) I didn't really regret it. I kind of semi-regretted it. (Laughter.)
Q -- have a debate.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right. Anyway, your performance at the Grid Iron was just brilliant -- unlike Holland's, was a little weak, but -- (laughter.)
Sorry.
Q Secretary Rumsfeld has said that if civil war should break out in Iraq, he's hopeful that Iraqi forces can handle it. If they can't, sir, are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?
THE PRESIDENT: I think the first step is to make sure a civil war doesn't break out.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060321-4.html
Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US
The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/
Four influential Latino peace activists will lead a 241 mile quest for peace!
Citizens for Pablo
Main Contacts:
Pablo Paredes (619) 857-4947
pablopare@gmail.com
Victor Paredes (917) 864-9179
vicparedes@msn.com
On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 241 mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.
Latinos represent nearly 15% of the US population, 11% of the US military and an estimated 20% of the fallen service members in the first months of the invasion of Iraq. The Latino population is a growing force in the US and their voice must be an active part of the more than 60% of US citizens that oppose the war in Iraq. That’s why on March 12th, 4 Latinos of different ages, nationalities and hometowns will come together to lead the Latino community in a loud and definitive call for an end to the war in Iraq. Because of their unique experiences with this war; Fernando, Pablo, Camilo and Aidan are dedicated to working to end the bloodshed in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5919
On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 240+ mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.
http://www.swiftsmartveterans.com/
'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?'
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them
Guardian
At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."
A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.
The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the US military.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6354
New York: Grandmothers Against the War
NYC Anti-War Organization Holds Weekly Vigils
Grandmothers Against the War Vigil in Front of Rockefeller Center (left to right: Judith Cartisano, lawyer; Joan Wile, founder; Margaret Taylor, retired judge; Joan Slomanson, writer; unknown 5th vigiler)
Grandmothers Against the War, founded in November 2003, holds a peace vigil every Wednesday in front of Rockefeller Center. The highly publicized group has been demanding an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Grandmothers Against the War also participates regularly in other anti-war activities and performs its original song material for Theatres Against the War.
Please contact Joan Wile to become involved:
E-Mail:
joan.wile@grandmothersagainstthewar.org
http://www.grandmothersforpeace.org/directory/chapters/us-ny-new.york.city/
GUARANTEE YOU, Barbara Bush is not a member !
Freeway Bloggers Impeachment Project
http://www.freewayblogger.com/impeachment_project2.htm
During the most demanding presidential moments in USA history, Bush was alerted to the attacks of 911 by Andy Card while he sat the front of a classroom reading "My Pet Goat." We all know the result of that.
Bush names Bolten chief of staff
Long-time aide replaces Card in White House shakeup
By Jeffry Bartash / MarketWatch
WASHINGTON - President Bush named long-time aide Joshua Bolten as his new chief of staff on Tuesday in the first major White House shakeup since Bush was re-elected.
Some Republicans have urged the president to bring in fresh blood after a series of political missteps that have weakened the White House and sent Bush's poll numbers to new lows.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6338
U.S. must act for Agent Orange victims, veterans say
By Ho Binh Minh / Reuters
HANOI - Vietnam War veterans and social activists from several countries demanded on Wednesday that Washington take responsibility for victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military.
The call for U.S. action came at the end of a two-day conference in Hanoi where deformed children were shown as dramatic evidence of the effects of 20 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, poured on the country.
"We demand that the United States government be held responsible for making contributions to overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals," the closing statement said.
Last March, a federal court dismissed a suit on behalf of millions of Vietnamese who charged the United States committed war crimes by its use of Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, to deny communist troops ground cover.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6360
THE REPUBLICANS have no comprehensive policy other than Bush's 'Guest Worker Program.' They never consider the issue with any brevity. On the other hand the Democrats in the Senate Judicary Committee have a five year plan that includes the anticipation of 1.5 million new citizens. Hello?
G.O.P. Risking Hispanic Votes on Immigration
By David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 29 — The battle among Republicans over immigration policy and border security is threatening to undercut a decade-long effort by President Bush and his party to court Hispanic voters, just as both parties are gearing up for the 2006 elections.
"I believe the Republican Party has hurt itself already," said the Rev. Luis Cortes, a Philadelphia pastor close to President Bush and the leader of a national organization of Hispanic Protestant clergy members, saying he delivered that message to the president last week in a meeting at the White House.
To underscore the contested allegiance of Hispanic voters, Mr. Cortes said, he also took a delegation of Hispanic ministers to meet with the leaders of both parties last week, including what he called a productive discussion with Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6361
Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Feinstein Measure Establishing a Pilot Earned Adjustment Program for
Agriculture Workers
March 27, 2006
Print version
Washington, DC – The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved an amendment sponsored byU.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)that would establish apilot earned adjustment program for agriculture workers.
“The thrust of this proposal is to create a legalized workforce for the agriculture industry,” Senator Feinstein said. “This is a pilot earned adjustment program. It would sunset after 5 years. It’s a workable program. It will provide the agriculture industry with a legal workforce and offer agriculture workers a path to citizenship. So I’m hopeful that this proposal will receive broad, bipartisan support.”
Following is a summary of the bill.
Pilot program to allow certain undocumented agricultural workers to legalize their immigration status in the United States and to modify the current H2A program.
The first step requires that undocumented agricultural workers apply for a “blue card” if they can demonstrate that they have worked in American agriculture for at least 150 work days within the previoustwo years before 12/31/05.
The second step requires that after a “blue card” holder can demonstrate that they have worked in American agriculture for an additional 150 work days per year for 3 years, or 100 work days per year for 5 years, they will then be eligible for a green card.
Employment will be verified through employer issued itemized statements, pay stubs, W-2 forms, employer letters, contracts or agreements, employer sponsored health care, time cards or payment of taxes.
This program will becapped at 1.5 million blue cards in fiveyears (without a per year cap) and sunset after five years.
Individuals may participate in employment other than agriculture so long as the worker satisfies the 100 or 150 workdays each year.
Blue card holders (including spouses and children) will be allowed to travel in and out of the United States.
Spouses of blue card workers will be eligible to apply for their own work permit and their employment will not be limited to agricultural employment.
Aliens participating in the program will be required to pay a fine of $500, show that they are current on their taxes, and that they have not been convicted of any crime that involves bodily injury, the threat of serious bodily injury, or harm to property in excess of $500.
The Department of Homeland Security will determine the adequate application fee necessary to offset the costs of this pilot program.
To avoid backlogs, aliens who receive a green card under this program will be exempt from the overall numerical limitations on visas (i.e., 675,000 visas) and the country numerical limitations for Mexico, India, China and the Philippines.
H2A modifications shall be those contained in the AgJOBS bill and shall include a study to determine an appropriate cap.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/06releases/r-agworker327.htm
Senator Feinstein's Website
http://feinstein.senate.gov/
She also co-authored an emergency measure regarding levees in California. Mr. Pombo is a Republican that needs reform and obviously with Senator Feinstein mentoring efforts might get it. He regularly attacks protection laws such as The Endangered Species Act. It is a personal vendetta for him. We are hoping he never returns to the House with elections pending. Senator Feinstein was smart to be involved in a plan that could have implicated devastation to the environment as well as protections for levees.
Feinstein, Pombo Request Coordinated
Emergency Response & Evacuation Plan for Bay Delta
March 29, 2006
Print version
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) sent a letter to government officials today requesting the design of a comprehensive, coordinated emergency response and evacuation plan to implement should disaster ever strike California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta. The Bay Delta levees are among the nation's most vital levees, protecting and providing water for 23 million Californians.
"The Bay Delta needs to be prepared with an emergency response and evacuation plan should a major levee breach imperil hundreds of thousands of people," Senator Feinstein said. "The lesson of Katrina has to be that we recognize potential threats to the lives of our citizens before they happen, and move aggressively to have a full plan in place to prevent panic and fatalities."
"We are doing everything humanly possible to identify and repair the weaknesses facing the Bay Delta levees," Chairman Pombo said. "However, an emergency response and evacuation plan must be put in place in case the unthinkable happens. We can not and will not let the devastation that occurred in New Orleans come to pass in the Bay Delta."
Chairman Pombo and Senator Feinstein directed their concerns and request of an emergency response and communications plan to Homeland Security Director, Michael Chertoff; Acting Director of FEMA, R. David Paulison; and the Director of California Office of Emergency Preparedness, Henry Renteria. The letter requests plans, capabilities, and preparations be made including: pre-positioning of materials during heavy rains, rapid response of government contractors and emergency personnel, immediate closure of levee breaks and coordinated evacuation routes for mass exodus.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/06releases/r-evacuation.htm
Send Me Your Health Care Horror Stories... an appeal from Michael Moore
Friends,
How would you like to be in my next movie? I know you've probably heard I'm making a documentary about the health care industry (but the HMOs don't know this, so don't tell them — they think I'm making a romantic comedy).
If you've followed my work over the years, you know that I keep a pretty low profile while I'm making my movies. I don't give interviews, I don't go on TV and I don't defrost my refrigerator. I do keep my website updated on a daily basis (there's been something like 4,000,000 visitors just this week alone) and the rest of the time I'm... well, I can't tell you what I'm doing, but you can pretty much guess. It gets harder and harder sneaking into corporate headquarters, but I've found that just dying my hair black and wearing a skort really helps.
Back to my invitation to be in my movie. Have you ever found yourself getting ready to file for bankruptcy because you can't pay your kid's hospital bill, and then you say to yourself, "Boy, I sure would like to be in Michael Moore's health care movie!"?
Or, after being turned down for the third time by your HMO for an operation they should be paying for, do you ever think to yourself, "Now THIS travesty should be in that 'Sicko' movie!"?
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=193
NO LONG TERM PRESENCE IN IRAQ. The USA cannot afford to 'sponsor' Iraq forever. The clash between cultures in a profoundly Fundamental Islamic Region will cause more problems than it can possibly prevent. We need to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.
BBC
Iraq bases spur questions over US plans
By Becky Branford
BBC News
The US is spending millions of dollars upgrading a select few air bases
The Pentagon has requested hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funds for military construction in Iraq, fanning the debate about US long-term intentions there.
The money will add to an existing bill of $1.3bn for military construction in the Middle East and South Asia - primarily Iraq and Afghanistan - in the last five years.
Much of the 2006 emergency funding is earmarked for beefing up security and facilities at just a handful of large airbases in Iraq.
This has prompted some to wonder whether the US has plans to maintain a permanent military presence - something the government has repeatedly denied.
But those concerned include the US House Appropriations Committee, which has demanded a "master plan" for base construction from the Pentagon before the money can be spent.
In a 13 March report accompanying the emergency spending legislation, it said the money was "of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases".
A week later, after top US General John Abizaid refused to rule out a long-term presence, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the bill stating its opposition to permanent bases.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm
NO MORE CONTAMINATED HALLIBURTON GARBAGE. The Iraqi people should be so lucky. Then USA generals ponder the reasons for attacks on military instillations. They should share their clean water and they might not be attacked.
Stars and Stripes
Six bases in Iraq to produce their own drinking water
Benefits include reducing truck travel over dangerous roadways
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, March 30, 2006
Jeff Schogol / S&S
Bottles speed by at the water plant at Camp Anaconda, which produces water for the camp and surrounding bases. Six major U.S. bases in Iraq are expected to be producing their own drinking water by summer, military officials said.
CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq — Six major U.S. bases in Iraq are expected to be producing their own drinking water by summer, cutting an estimated 20,000 trips by trucks from Iraq’s dangerous roads each year, according to the managers of the water distribution plant at Camp Anaconda.
Camp Anaconda is the first base to produce its own drinking water, with Camp Victory expected to produce its own water in April, followed in short order by camps Speicher, TQ, Q’-West and Al Asad, managers said.
The move is not intended to turn Camp Anaconda into a permanent base, said Maj. Michael Clancy, engineer for the 3rd Corps Support Command at Anaconda. The unit is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, and is the Army’s only forward-deployed corps support command.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=36119
The Australian
Glenda 'bigger than Larry'
March 30, 2006
THE cyclone bearing down on northern Western Australia is bigger than the storm that flattened Darwin in 1974 and about as powerful as the cyclone that devastated north Queensland last week.
Cyclone Glenda was today lashing the Pilbara coastline with destructive gales, as its eye threatens to cross the coast this evening just west of Karratha and Dampier, about 1540 km north of Perth.
Wind gusts of up to 280km/h had been recorded near the centre of category four Glenda, which could grow stronger before it crosses the coast, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Bruce Buckley said.
"It could intensify just a touch, and it could briefly reach category five, but it is more likely to cross the coast as a category four," Mr Buckley said.
Glenda is the third, and the biggest, cyclone to impact the Pilbara region this season, and is on a par with category five Larry which created disaster areas across north Queensland last week.
"The difference is minuscule. We've got Glenda as a very high category four and analysis shows Larry was a very high four or low category five when it crossed, so they are definitely in the same ballpark," he said.
"Glenda is probably a slightly larger cyclone in terms of the physical size of it."
Glenda is also bigger than cyclone Tracy which flattened Darwin in 1974.
"Tracy was an extremely small system, Glenda is a much larger system, affecting a much greater area, and it is a stronger cyclone than Tracy was as well."
Glenda was the sixth cyclone of the WA cyclone season, which runs between November and April.
It is among the strongest ever to hit WA, as powerful as Bobby and Orson, he said.
Category four cyclone Bobby passed near Onslow in 1995, damaging homes and causing widespread flooding.
Category five Orson passed near Dampier in 1989, causing widespread structural damage at Pannawonica.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18653994%255E12377,00.html
Olmert claims mandate for pullout
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
March 30, 2006
THE surge to power of the fledgling Kadima party has set Israel on course towards the most dramatic shift in its 58-year history, the pullout of up to 60,000 Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank.
Kadima leader and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be sworn in as the Jewish state's 12th prime minister after the party he inherited from fallen leader Ariel Sharon in January picked up 28 seats in the new parliament.
The result fell short of Kadima's expectations, but gives it enough of a bloc to take a dominant role in the coalition that forms the next government.
Immediately after exit-poll figures were released, Mr Olmert claimed he had won a mandate to deliver on his key platform, the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank that would allow Israel to draw its final borders without consulting the Palestinians.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649723%255E601,00.html
Chinese leader backs uranium sales to India
Rowan Callick, China correspondent
March 30, 2006
CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao has given conditional backing for India's acquisition of uranium for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
"India is a friendly neighbour of China, which approves India's co-operating with other countries in nuclear power generation," Mr Wen told The Australian in an exclusive interview on the eve of his arrival in Australia on Saturday.
Australia is to send a delegation to New Delhi and Washington to seek out details of a nuclear technology-sharing agreement struck by US President George W.Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh three weeks ago which could pave the way for the eventual sale of uranium by Australia and other US allies to the subcontinental nuclear power.
Australia, with 40 per cent of the world's uranium reserves, is a potential leading partner in supplying uranium to India, as it will be to China when Mr Wen signs two ground-breaking agreements next week.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18650271%255E601,00.html
Baghdad signals end to trading impasse
Cath Hart
March 30, 2006
BAGHDAD has asked to buy 500,000 tonnes of Australian wheat from the newly formed consortium Wheat Australia, signalling an end to a trade impasse created by the AWB scandal.
Wheat Australia confirmed yesterday that the Iraq Grains Board had signed a contract but said the terms were still being considered by the consortium.
Wheat Australia, a consortium of the east coast's GrainCorp, Western Australia's Co-operative Bulk Handling and ABB, the former Australian Barley Board, was formed earlier this month after Baghdad banned imports of wheat from AWB until the Cole inquiry finishes.
After almost three weeks of negotiations Iraq Grains Board spokesman Khalil Assi told the Dow Jones news service significant progress had been made toward restoring wheat trade with Australia.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18650300%255E601,00.html
Revelations and betrayal
The contents of the Gospel of Judas promise to tantalise, reports religious affairs writer Jill Rowbotham
March 30, 2006
REVILED and despised Judas - history's least favourite disciple - could be on the verge of a moral makeover. Far-fetched? Sure, but with the release of the English version of an antique document called the Gospel of Judas imminent, its publisher, the National Geographic Society, is tantalisingly tight-lipped, so anything is possible.
All that secrecy will end next week when there will be a press conference in Washington to reveal all. Not about the gospel but about the society's plans for its roll-out. Only one thing is clear already: the society's television channel is airing promotional material about a documentary to be shown across the world on April 9.
It is a fair bet the society's magazine will be full of it and there will be at least one book, given the only profit out of the deal will be from those sources: the papyrus document will eventually be returned to Egypt, where it was discovered in about 1980. It is a third or fourth century Coptic-language copy of the Greek original version of the gospel written about AD 150.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18646661%255E28737,00.html>
Crowds hamper police after shootings
March 30, 2006
TWO people were arrested last night at the site of a fatal double-shooting after hundreds of neighbours flooded the street.
Two young men were gunned down on Blaxcell Street, in Granville, western Sydney, about 11.15pm (AEDT) yesterday.
One man died where he fell while the second was taken with several gunshot wounds to Westmead Hospital where he died a few hours later.
Their identities are yet to be released but both men were believed to be in their 20s, police said.
Granville police Inspector Gary Sims today said a crowd of about 200 people emerged on the street soon after the shooting, hampering police efforts to investigate.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652699%255E1702,00.html
US Army relaxes tattoo rules
From correspondents in Washington
March 30, 2006
THE US Army, which missed its recruiting goal last year, has relaxed its bans on certain types of tattoos in a bid to attract new soldiers who otherwise would have been barred from serving.
The Army will now allow new recruits and all its current soldiers to have tattoos on their hands and back of their necks as long as they are not "extremist, indecent, sexist or racist", Army officials said today.
The Army said it continues to prohibit tattoos anywhere on the head, face or throat area.
But it will allow women recruits and soldiers to sport "permanent makeup" in the form of indelible eye-liner, eyebrows and lip makeup.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652377%255E1702,00.html
US bans Hamas contact
From correspondents in Washington
March 30, 2006
THE United States has ordered its diplomats and contractors to cut off contacts with Palestinian ministries after a Hamas-led government was sworn in, the State Department said today.
A directive, distributed to diplomats and other officials in the region by email, instructed them with immediate effect not to have contacts with Hamas-appointed government ministers or those who work for them, whether they are members of the Islamic militant group or not, officials said.
Hamas is formally committed to the destruction of Israel and is classed by the US government as a terrorist organisation. It won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.
"We will not have contact with members of Hamas, no matter what title they may have," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652261%255E1702,00.html
Australia demands Iraq shooting probe
March 30, 2006
AUSTRALIA will insist on a prompt and appropriate investigation by Iraqi authorities into the shooting death of an Australian resident in Baghdad.
University of Baghdad Professor Kays Juma, 72, was killed by security guards who opened fire when the professor's vehicle got too close to a convoy of 4WDs ferrying private contractors, The Herald Sun reported today.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) confirmed only that an Iraqi man with Australian residency had been shot and killed on Saturday after an incident at a checkpoint in Baghdad. His identity was not revealed.
"The Australian embassy in Baghdad is seeking advice on who is responsible for conducting an investigation into the incident and will register our strong interest with the relevant authorities to ensure the matter is investigated appropriately and promptly," a DFAT spokesman said.
The spokesman said initial speculation that the security guard who fired the fatal shots was Australian were incorrect.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652257%255E1702,00.html
Storm brews over Britney sculpture
From correspondents in New York
March 30, 2006
A LIFE-SIZE nude sculpture of US pop singer Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug has attracted angry mail from both sides of the US abortion debate, ahead of its exhibit in New York next month.
The sculpture by artist Daniel Edwards, titled Monument to Pro-Life, will be shown at the Capla Kesting Fine Art Gallery in Brooklyn starting April 7.
"We've received hate mail. There's nothing we haven't got on this, and it continues," gallery owner Lincoln Capla said.
While pro-choice advocates have condemned the sculpture's anti-abortion message, the anti-abortion lobby has expressed some disquiet over the graphic nature of the work.
What the gallery termed an "idealised depiction" of Spears giving birth shows the pop star kneeling on her hands and knees, with widened hips and a posterior view that reveals the crowning of the baby's head.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652236%255E1702,00.html
Barry Rubin: Election seals triumph of Sharon's strategy
Kadima's mould-breaking victory is a consequence of the party's success in projecting pragmatism as the best option for Israel in dealing with the Palestinians
March 30, 2006
ACTING Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon's political heir, has won a strong mandate in Israel's election. The Labour Party, under populist Amir Peretz, has made a respectable second-place finish and will be his coalition partner. But this is not just another election. It is a revolution in Israeli politics, the most important change in the country's strategic and party system in 30 years.
To figure out Israel's election, or even to comprehend Israel, you have to understand my friends Gilad and Asher. On the surface, it would be hard to find two more different Israelis. Yet both of them voted for Kadima, and that is the key to that party's meaning and the reasons for its victory.
Gilad is a former chef and now reasonably successful real estate broker who is not particularly interested in politics despite his background. His father was an important left-wing politician and he grew up on a kibbutz, one of the co-operative farming communities that are a mainstay of the Israeli Left. Gilad's small and militantly secular family was part of the European-origin (Ashkenazic) elite, though they never had much money.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18646469%255E7583,00.html
Terrorist desperate to die as a martyr
March 30, 2006
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: In a last-minute twist to the Zacarias Moussaoui case, prosecutors have revealed the al-Qa'ida conspirator last month offered to testify against himself in his own death penalty trial as he did not want to rot in jail.
The bombshell is the firmest evidence yet that the only man charged in the US in connection with the 9/11 attacks hopes for martyrdom through execution.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema set today for closing arguments on whether Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty. The jury must decide whether the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent will be executed or imprisoned for life.
The jurors heard yesterday that on the eve of his death penalty trial last month, Moussaoui met with prosecutors and offered to testify for them in exchange for better jail conditions. The al-Qa'ida operative withdrew the offer when he realised he had the right to testify on his own behalf.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649818%255E2703,00.html
Warlord Taylor caught in Nigeria
March 30, 2006
ABUJA: Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who vanished in Nigeria after authorities reluctantly agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, has been arrested trying to cross into Cameroon.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the US, last night ordered Taylor's "immediate repatriation" to Liberia.
Information Minister Frank Nweke said Taylor was captured by security forces in the northeastern border town of Gamboru, nearly 1000km from the villa in southern Calabar state from which he disappeared on Monday night.
That was three days after Nigeria, which had granted asylum to the fast-talking, US-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war, reluctantly bowed to pressure to surrender Taylor to face justice before a UN-backed Sierra Leone tribunal.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649822%255E2703,00.html
The Times Picayune
Teachers earn bonuses for student performance
By Barri Bronston
East Jefferson bureau
Some Jefferson Parish public school teachers are almost $3,000 richer, an award for raising student achievement as part of an experimental program linking their pay to academic performance.
At most schools, teacher salaries are linked in their union contract to their longevity and their level of college education. But in the fall of 2004, the Louisiana Teacher Advancement Program began at Hazel Park/Hilda Knoff Elementary School in River Ridge and Frederick Douglass Elementary in Gretna, offering faculty bonuses based on their students’ scores on standardized tests, the entire school’s scores and peer reviews. Successful teachers received their pay-outs this month.
Both schools improved their student performance during the two-year trial, and indeed both exceeded the growth of the Jefferson school system as a whole, suggesting the program works. Hazel Park, however, fared substantially better than Douglass, said Joan Gremillion, Jefferson’s director of curriculum, instruction and professional learning.
“We had hoped for better results, but we are pleased with the experiment and will continue to support it at Hazel Park,” she said. Douglass has been closed since Hurricane Katrina and is scheduled to be turned into an adult education center later this year.
Hazel Park’s School Performance Score climbed from 93.2 in the spring of 2004 to 96.3 in the spring of 2005, on a scale topping out at a theoretical 250. The score is based on a formula recognizing the Iowa and LEAP standardized tests, attendance rates and dropout rates.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
Federal report says Charity, University hospitals too badly damaged to repair
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Charity and University hospitals in New Orleans were so badly damaged by the flooding from Hurricane Katrina — and in such poor condition before the storm — that spending money on repairs doesn’t make sense, a federal government report released this week concludes.
The finding by the Government Accountability Office would seem to bolster Louisiana State University’s contention that the Charity facility, the flagship of the state’s public hospital system run by the university, should be rebuilt from the ground up.
“Since the facilities were severely damaged and were already outdated, proceeding with federal funding for repairs may be wasting tens of millions of dollars,” the March 28 report says.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
Bills fail to change voting rules for New Orleans election
3/29/2006, 5:38 p.m. CT
By DOUG SIMPSON
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson went to the state Capitol on Wednesday with his campaign to make it easier for displaced New Orleans residents to vote in the April 22 mayor's race, but he got no help from a Senate committee.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-24/114367585162590.xml&storylist=louisiana
Three N.O. police officers indicted by grand jury
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Two fired New Orleans police officers and one current officer were indicted Wednesday in the videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter last fall.
The Oct. 8 beating of Robert Davis, 64, was caught on video by an Associated Press Television News crew covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The three officers were charged with battery and other offenses.
Davis spent more than an hour testifying about the beating, which left him lying on the street, hands cuffed and blood flowing from his head and face. Afterward, he told reporters that he still has headaches and back problems and even had to interrupt his testimony to take medicine.
The retired elementary school teacher said he was "a private citizen here on business returning to my home. There was no need for what happened."
Davis said he had returned to the storm-struck city to check on his property and was looking for a place to buy cigarettes in the French Quarter when police grabbed him.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaking/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_localbreakingnews/archives/2006_03_29.html
FBI investigating St. Bernard contracts
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
The FBI has launched a multi-faceted investigation into post-Hurricane Katrina spending in St. Bernard Parish, examining public contracts including a $370 million debris pick up deal that parish officials granted without bids five days after the storm and gave again to the same firm later last year despite receiving lower offers, according to interviews with competitors and a parish official who have been questioned by federal agents.
Agents are also probing into parish spending on temporary trailers, employee overtime, and a no-bid contract for removal of hazardous waste and sewage, the interviews indicate.
Contractor Lamont “Whip” Murphy, whose Murphy Construction Inc. was one of 11 firms that unsuccessfully sought the debris contract, said the FBI questioned him and a business partner a few weeks ago, seeking details on the way the debris contract was awarded.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
Tuition-free Catholic school to close
By Steve Ritea
Staff writer
Bishop Perry Catholic Middle School, the tuition-free campus serving primarily low-income African-American students, will permanently close July 21, officials announced Wednesday, saying 70 percent of its financial backers have disappeared since Hurricane Katrina.
School president Ken Ducote said the school's board arrived at the difficult decision after being faced with the stark reality that trying to stay open would be too much of a financial risk.
While the school received several one-time grants since the storm, "when you have to apply for grants just to stay open, then you run the risk of having to close midyear if those grants don't come through," Ducote said.
The school expected to have a shortfall of at least $150,000 next year. Ducote said most of the donors the school counted on to finance its $600,000 a year operating budget have left town since the storm
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
New Orleans City Park asking for state help to keep park open
3/29/2006, 10:09 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — New Orleans' hurricane ravaged City Park is asking state lawmakers for a short-term bailout — a $2.4 million infusion of cash — or park officials say they will have to close the largest urban park in Louisiana by September.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-24/114364918062780.xml&storylist=louisiana
State's car removal contract also raises question
By James Varney
Staff writer
The featured local company in a proposed $62 million state contract to remove abandoned cars from southern Louisiana lists a flood-ruined 9th Ward address as its headquarters and has a disconnected phone, according to public documents and a cursory investigation by a state senator.
The Department of Environmental Quality contract remains unsigned after negotiations between it and TruSource Facility Services of Georgia and L&L Steel Builders Inc. of 1939 Desire Street in New Orleans, state officials said. It is that contract that the City of New Orleans requested to join this week, following days of questions about its decision to not sell tens of thousands of hurricane-wrecked vehicles to crushers but instead pay a company $23 million to clear the cityscape of the blight.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
N.O. seeks inclusion in state car-removal contract - sort of
By James Varney
Staff writer
In a letter sent Tuesday to Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality, the city of New Orleans asked to be included in a state contract for the removal of flood-wrecked cars and boats.
At first blush, the letter from Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield appears to resolve a controversy that has bedeviled City Hall for more than a week, as questions swirled around the decision by Mayor Ray Nagin last year to award the vehicle removal contract to the highest bidder.
But in the second paragraph, Hatfield wrote the city would continue to use its own tow trucks and a privately contracted company to deal with cars left abandoned and waterlogged after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. What’s more, Hatfield expressed some doubt as to whether the state contract she was asking to join would even work.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
Former Lutcher police chief sentenced for crack distribution
The former police chief of Lutcher who pleaded guilty last year to distribution of crack cocaine has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, authorities said.
Corey Pittman, 30, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan on Wednesday to 92 months. After his release he'll be under federal supervision for three years.
Pittman pleaded guilty in December to three counts of distribution of 56.1 grams of crack cocaine. Pittman, at the time the elected police chief of Lutcher, was caught in a sting by federal agents and the St. James Parish Sheriff's Office. On three occasions, agents said, he sold crack to an undercover agent, authorities said.
Pittman formally resigned from his post in February.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html
Nature
Something nasty in the water?
Fluoride leaching from rocks is turning kids' teeth brown.
Emma Marris
High levels of fluoride over many years doesn't exactly lead to sparkling white teeth.
Credit NAS
The maximum allowable limit of fluoride in US drinking water is too high, according to a report from the National Academies' research unit this week.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently enforces a limit of 4 milligrams of fluoride per litre of water, and advises a lower limit of 2 mg/l for children younger than nine years for aesthetic reasons.
But the Academy report says that these rules don't seem to be good enough. Children are drinking water in areas where fluoride is at about 4 mg/l, and some 10% of them have an ugly condition known as severe enamel fluorosis, where teeth are mottled brown and pitted. Most on the panel agreed that this affliction, which is found around the world, goes beyond the aesthetic and can be considered an "adverse health effect".
The 450-page report also noted that there are some conflicting data on whether or not high levels of fluoride can be correlated with bone cancers.
The EPA, which commissioned the Academy study, says it will now get down to the business of re-evaluating its maximum limit. At the moment, says report co-author Charles Poole, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the United States's maximum limits are higher than that of many other countries.
Not about fluoridation
The report only looked into high levels of fluoride, well above the 0.7-1.2 mg/l amount that is intentionally added to water in some communities to help prevent cavities. This practice, known as fluoridation, has long been a subject of controversy. The higher limits of 2-4 mg/l are usually only reached in areas where fluoride naturally leaks out from surrounding rocks into the water or where it is an industrial pollutant.
"We thought about calling our report 'Not About Fluoridation' and stamping NAF as a little acronym on every page," jokes Poole.
Some vocal groups claim the risk to teeth and bones outweigh the benefits of fluoridation. This is contrasted by the majority of scientific opinion, says John Stamm, a dentist and epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina. "Fluoridation is overwhelmingly supported by the dental profession and public health agencies," he says.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060320/full/060320-9.html
continued …
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Morning Papers - continued ...
The Moscow Times
Ivanov Calls Report 'Bull'
The Associated Press
Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Tuesday said a report that Moscow had provided information to Saddam Hussein's regime on U.S. troop movements was "total rubbish."
Ivanov joined a chorus of denials from Russian officials following a Pentagon report that said seized Iraqi documents indicate Moscow obtained information from sources inside the U.S. Central Command and passed battlefield intelligence to Iraqi officials.
"There is nothing to comment on here. ... I believe it is total rubbish. Thank you. Without using the proper American word starting with 'bull,'" Ivanov said at a news conference.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to discuss the matter directly with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, by telephone this week or in person Thursday, when they meet in Berlin for a gathering of the foreign ministers of the permanent UN Security Council members.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/017.html
President Puts Off His New Term
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
Belarussian election officials said Tuesday that President Alexander Lukashenko had delayed his inauguration from Friday until the first half of April, fueling speculation about his health after he was declared the landslide winner of a presidential election condemned by the West as fraudulent.
Lukashenko had not been seen in public since March 20, the day after the vote. He made his first appearance Tuesday on Belarussian television -- ordering officials to remove his portraits from their offices -- and he did not look well, an opposition official said.
It was unclear why Lukashenko had decided to put off his inauguration.
"The head of state determines the date of the inauguration. We expect it to be in the first half of April," said Nikolai Lozovik, secretary of the Central Elections Commission, Interfax reported.
Lozovik did not give a reason for the delay.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/001.html
Yushchenko Meets the 2 Big Winners
By Anna Melnichuk
The Associated Press
Yushchenko with Yanukovych, who later said they did not discuss a coalition.
KIEV -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met Tuesday with his estranged Orange Revolution ally Yulia Tymoshenko amid pressure to reunite their pro-Western team and keep the country on a reformist path.
Yushchenko also held talks with pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who won the most votes -- but not a majority -- in weekend parliamentary elections.
Tymoshenko has said only a united front can keep Yanukovych out of power and safeguard the reformist ideals championed in the Orange Revolution. The Orange parties won more votes combined, but it remains unclear whether they will be able to overcome personal animosity and forge a coalition.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/011.html
The Trick to Understanding Ukraine
By Anders Aslund
To Our Readers
The Moscow Times welcomes letters to the editor. Letters for publication should be signed and bear the signatory's address and telephone number.
Letters to the editor should be sent by fax to (7-495) 232-6529, by e-mail to oped@imedia.ru, or by post. The Moscow Times reserves the right to edit letters.
Ukraine has held its first elections after the Orange Revolution. Without any qualification, they were free and fair with a high participation of 67 percent, showing that Ukraine has matured as a democracy. At the same time, Ukraine has become a parliamentary system, which will reinforce democracy in the country. The Communists have been further marginalized, and party consolidation has proceeded well, with only five parties likely to make it into parliament.
The main results of the vote reflect an amazing constancy. In December 2004, Viktor Yushchenko defeated Viktor Yanukovych with a margin of 8 percentage points, which will probably be the balance between the orange and blue, or more accurately western and eastern, coalitions. The geographic dividing line runs exactly where it did in 2004, or where it has gone for most of the last 300 years.
International media have focused on Yanukovych's Party of the Regions becoming the largest single party, but what matters in proportional elections is which parties can form a ruling majority, and that is the Orange coalition.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/006.html
Russia Sees Kosovo as the Answer
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
Vladimir Mukagov / Itar-Tass
Ossetian leaders Mamsurov, left, and Kokoity attending last week's meeting.
Russian officials are floating the idea of making the world's largest country a little bit bigger by adding a new region called Alania -- an area that would consist of a merged North and South Ossetia.
The proposed expansion hinges on Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia voting for independence -- a vote that would mirror a similar plebiscite planned for Kosovo. Russia insists that Kosovo's vote could be copied to resolve conflicts in separatist regions across the former Soviet Union.
While talk of uniting the two regions into a single Russian subject might be a trial balloon, Russia would face potentially deep repercussions if it were to set the precedent of embracing the supremacy of a people's right to self-determination.
Gennady Bukayev, an assistant to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, told a joint session of the leaders of South and North Ossetia on March 22 that the federal government had agreed in principle to incorporate South Ossetia.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/002.html
Swedish Spy 'The Eagle' Dead at 99
Combined Reports
Wennerstrom, who was a Swedish air force general, entering a court in 1963.
STOCKHOLM -- Stig Wennerstrom, a Swedish air force brigadier general spied for the Soviet Union for 15 years has died. He was 99.
Wennerstrom, known to his Soviet spymasters by the code name "The Eagle," was arrested in Sweden in June 1963, on charges of providing the Soviet Union with military information on Sweden, the United States and NATO.
He was caught after a tip-off from a housemaid who had been recruited by suspicious Swedish counterintelligence agents and saw him hiding films in the attic of his Stockholm house.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/018.html
Yukos Is Put Under External Manager
By Mikhail Yenukov
Reuters
The Moscow Arbitration Court on Tuesday put Yukos under external supervision until June 27 in a move that could lead to its bankruptcy and nationalization.
Tuesday's ruling to put Yukos under external supervision means that the existing management and board will remain in place, but major decisions will have to go through Eduard Rebgun, a temporary manager appointed by the court on Tuesday.
Rebgun, who was proposed by Rosneft, will carry out a financial analysis, determine the amount of liabilities, draw up a list of creditors and organize the first meeting of the creditors' committee.
Based on the committee's recommendations, the court may choose from two possible fates for Yukos -- external management or bankruptcy administration and sale of assets.
Adam Landes, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, predicted a quick end.
"Given that Rosneft, and the state, appear to be holding all the cards, we foresee a fairly quick decision. Closure of the 'Yukos Affair' as quickly and cleanly as possible is needed to support Rosneft's planned IPO," he wrote Tuesday.
Landes said Rosneft was claiming about $10 billion from Yukos, roughly on a par with the state's remaining tax claim.
The market is watching to see whether Yukos will be broken up and sold off in pieces or fully taken over by Rosneft, thus leaving some value for its minority shareholders.
The bankruptcy suit was filed earlier this month by a group of Western banks, following their deal with Rosneft for Rosneft to buy back $482 million of Yukos debt that was secured on Yugansk oil and being chased by the banks.
Most of the banks that were lenders to Yukos are also creditors to Rosneft and have huge business interests at stake.
And the action by the 14 banks, which include Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, ING, BNP Paribas and Commerzbank, leaves Rosneft poised to reap most benefit from Yukos' winding up.
The bankruptcy is also likely to unite a bevy of international court proceedings brought against Yukos by creditors in places ranging from Amsterdam to New York.
"Now you have a situation where each creditor is going after Yukos in different courts around the world, suing it for debt. But now, all the other lawsuits are likely to be suspended until the Russian bankruptcy proceedings are settled," said Peter Clateman, a Moscow lawyer who heads the legal team of Russian investment group Sputnik.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/040.html
Court postpones verdict on Yukos official to April 12
RIA NOVOSTI. March 29, 2006, 4:47 PM
MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow City Court has postponed until April 12 appeal hearings in the case of a former manager of embattled oil giant Yukos convicted of money laundering, a defense lawyer said Wednesday.
"The session has been postponed since one of the prisoners [in the case] was not brought to the court," said Dmitry Yampolsky, a lawyer for Alexei Kurtsin.
Kurtsin, currently serving a 14-year sentence, was to appear in court via video link-up on March 15, but hearings were postponed until March 29 as the court said it needed more time to study the case.
On December 1, Moscow's Lefortovo court handed down a guilty verdict on all those involved in the Yukos-Moskva case, sentencing eight former managers to different prison terms.
Investigators said Kurtsin and Yukos-Moskva Senior Vice President Mikhail Trushin, who is still at large, laundered 342 million rubles ($11.9 million) through fictitious charities registered in several large Russian cities. Investigators claim the bulk of laundered funds went directly to Trushin and Kurtsin.
Elections in Israel create local sensations
RIA NOVOSTI. March 29, 2006, 4:44 PM
BEIRUT/TEL AVIV, (RIA Novosti's Marianna Belenkaya, Artur Gabdrakhmanov) -- The March 28 elections to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) created a local sensation, but will not influence the future of the region. Just as polls predicted and all parties to the Middle East peace process expected, the election victory went to Israel's governing party, Kadima, led by Ehud Olmert.
For the first time in Israel's history, its voters were not torn between the right- and the left-wing parties, the "hawks" and the "doves". The Israeli political scene is such a mishmash right now, that it is difficult to draw a line between the two sides. This mean many voters were left feeling indecisive. In general, Israelis have grown weary of politics, which is why only 63.2% of the country's eligible voters came to polling stations and quite a few voted for the third option.
The defeat of Likud , which had led either the ruling coalition or the opposition, came as a surprise, even more so because it actually came in fifth, after the biggest ultra-religious party Shas and Avigdor Lieberman's party Yisrael Beiteinu (Our Home Israel).
All the recent polls predicted that the Russian-speaking politician would surge ahead in the election race. The majority of the Russian-speaking population voted for him.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
No Break for Arts School for Disabled
By Natalya Krainova
Special to The Moscow Times
Michael Eckels / MT
Students with hearing impairments acting in a role-playing workshop at the State Specialized Institute of the Arts.
For most of the out-of-town students at the State Specialized Institute of the Arts -- one of a small number of art schools tailored to the needs of disabled students -- a typical day involves a five-hour commute from their hostel in the Moscow region to the school's campus, near the Studencheskaya metro station.
Painting classes for Rimma Hadiyeva, a third-year graphic arts student at the institute who suffers from cerebral palsy, require a special effort to start with. Instead of sitting in front of an easel, she finds it easier to sit or lie on the floor, holding the paper on her knees or putting it in front of her. Hadiyeva is one of the lucky few students who have lodgings near the institute, but she is still pressed for study time.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/015.html
Charitable Bowling for a Big Change
The Moscow Times
The Big Change Educational Center and Charitable Fund is holding a bowling competition on April 18 to raise money for its Moscow school.
Sixteen lanes are to be booked at the Samolyot entertainment complex on Presnensky Val, and teams of four are invited to enter.
Money raised at the bowling competition is to help fund an educational trip to the Pskov region this summer, following on a trip to St. Petersburg last year. It is also to be used to pay for additional lessons.
The entrance fee per four-person team is 15,000 rubles ($540).
Students at the Big Change school were all formerly at orphanages, and are between 17 and 30 years old.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/025.html
Even Cats Can Be Dangerous
By Yulia Latynina
As she was walking to her car from the office of the United Civil Front last Tuesday, Marina Litvinovich, a top aide to Garry Kasparov, was attacked from behind. Litvinovich, a 31-year-old political activist and public relations specialist, was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Her assailants then set to work on her face. When she came to about 40 minutes later, two men were standing over her. "You need to be more careful, Marina," one of them said. When Litvinovich asked how the man knew her name, he replied: "You told us yourself."
To Our Readers
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No, this isn't another article about the brutality of a bloodthirsty regime. During the terror of the late 1930s, they wouldn't have stopped at knocking out a couple of Litvinovich's teeth. I'm struck by something else. You attack someone from behind when you're afraid that your victim will either recognize you or turn out to be stronger than you. The first motive doesn't apply in Litvinovich's case, because her attackers waited around until she woke up to deliver their message.
The government has defeated an enormous number of enemies lately. It exposed those infamous British spies and their magic rock. It stuck it to all those nongovernmental organizations bankrolled by foreign powers that were spying on us. In the Khabarovsk region, counterintelligence agents rounded up -- count 'em -- 40 spies working for China, the very country President Vladimir Putin is working so hard to befriend.
When it comes to foreign enemies, the Kremlin is taking care of business. But it's enjoying less success in dealing with its domestic adversaries.
Putin wanted to reform the armed forces, so he put a civilian, Sergei Ivanov, in charge of the Defense Ministry and gave the green light for the trial of former Colonel Yury Budanov, who was convicted in 2003 of kidnapping and murdering a Chechen woman. Military reform is essential for the physical survival of the country, but it ran into stiff resistance from the top brass. The reform program was over before it had begun.
Early in his first term, Putin got together the top prosecutors and announced a sweeping reform of the Prosecutor General's Office as if it were a done deal. The idea was to provide independent supervision of criminal investigations, which was essential simply to prevent the appetites of the defenders of law and order from destroying the economy. By then the prosecutors had become a cross between janissaries and SS storm troopers, however. Even the Kremlin was afraid to cross them.
Putin launched a program of administrative reforms aimed at strengthening the checks and balances between agencies and ministries and reducing their number. The program was implemented. The number of agencies tripled.
We're not talking about incomprehensible concepts such as democratization of the country and liberalization of the economy. These reforms were essential for the country's survival, they were backed by the president himself, and they went absolutely nowhere.
The regime's decision-making process is no different from the approach taken by the thugs who beat up Litvinovich. Whenever the Kremlin finds an adversary blocking its path -- the military brass, the prosecutors or the bureaucracy -- it backs down. And you can't say these are fearsome foes. What does the Kremlin have to fear from a bunch of generals who steal by the trainload, drink by the gallon and lose one campaign after another?
The weaker people are, the more they need to beat up on someone who's even weaker. A fifth-grader who gets pummelled for squealing on his classmates needs nothing more than a cat he can torture.
But even cats can be dangerous. So you only attack in numbers, from behind, and only when the woman is alone. Not because you're afraid she'll see your face, but because she might scratch you.
Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/007.html
Moscow Market Not Yet Ripe for BlackBerry
By Conor Humphries
Staff Writer
BlackBerry terminals, which allow users to receive and reply to e-mails in real time, are still not available in Moscow.
BlackBerry, the device that brought mobile e-mail into mainstream U.S. corporate culture, remains something of a forbidden fruit in Moscow almost a year after its creator announced a deal to enter the Russian market.
The handheld terminals that allow users to effortlessly receive and reply to e-mail in real time are still not available in the city, and local operator Mobile TeleSystems refuses to give a firm date for introduction of the platform that supports them.
MTS originally planned to roll out the service in the third quarter of 2005, after signing a deal in May with Canada's Research in Motion, or RIM, which owns the technology.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/045.html
Russia Picks Site for New Nuclear Center
By Yuriy Humber
Staff Writer
Russia has picked the town of Angarsk as the site for its international nuclear fuel service center, part of an initiative to assume a greater role in the international nuclear processing industry, a government official said Monday.
The Federal Atomic Energy Agency will seek approval from the international nuclear watchdog to have an existing chemicals plant in Angarsk certified as an international service center, an agency spokesman said by telephone.
The Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Complex already houses uranium conversion and enrichment facilities.
The proposed location comes to light two months after President Vladimir Putin first pitched Russia as a site for one of a handful of international centers -- to be overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency -- to provide a full cycle of processing services on behalf of other countries.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/041.html
The Boston Globe
A March drought may yield April fires
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff March 29, 2006
After a particularly parched March, fire officials around Massachusetts fear that April will bring widespread brush fires and wildfires in grassy areas and fields around the state.
With three days left, this month is on track to be the second-driest March on record: Less than six-tenths of an inch of rain fell in the Boston area, compared with 3.33 inches on average. Forecasters say the first half of April is likely to be equally dry.
''As we move into April and weather conditions continue to be dry and we have sun and wind, we'll get more concerned," said Jim Dimaio, acting chief of the Bureau of Forest Fire Control and Forestry in the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. ''Hopefully, there'll be rains soon."
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2006/03/29/a_march_drought_may_yield_april_fires/
Pacific nation announces marine area
By Michael Astor, Associated Press Writer March 28, 2006
CURITIBA, Brazil --The Pacific island nation of Kiribati announced the creation of a vast protected area Tuesday at a U.N-sponsored environmental conference in Brazil, officials said.
The protected area at the Phoenix Islands, located about half way between Fiji and Hawaii, places some 73,800 sq. miles off limits for commercial fishing, protecting precious coral reefs and undersea mountains.
The restrictions, covering an area the size of Washington, were announced by Kiribati's environment minister at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity in Curitiba, 400 miles southwest of Rio de Janeiro.
"If the coral and reefs are protected, then the fish will thrive and grow and bring us benefit," Kiribati's President Anote Tong said in a statement.
The government of Kiribati would be compensated for the loss of fishing revenue with funds from a special endowment, conservation groups said.
At the same conference, the European Union called for a global moratorium on deep-sea trawling, labeling the random fishing practice harmful to the biodiversity of oceans.
Bottom trawling is blamed for depleting the world's deep-sea fish stocks, threatening many species with extinction and radically altering undersea habitats.
Environmentalists praised the two moves as indicative of a growing trend toward protecting the world's oceans.
"These are very positive signs," said Arlo Hemphill, Conservation International's manager of marine strategy.
"Bottom trawling is like trying to capture songbirds in the forest with bulldozers," he said.
Environmentalists said the European Union's support for a moratorium on bottom trawling was important, but it was too early to say whether the ban would be approved by the full convention, which acts by consensus and runs until Friday.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/pacific_nation_announces_marine_area/
Warlord Charles Taylor arrested in Nigeria
Liberian President Charles Taylor leaves Roberts International Airport by airplane in Monrovia, Liberia, in this August 11, 2003, file photo. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday, March 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
By Bashir Adigun, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
ABUJA, Nigeria --Former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who vanished in Nigeria after authorities reluctantly agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, has been arrested trying to cross the border into Cameroon, Nigerian police said Wednesday.
Taylor, who went missing Monday night, was captured by security forces in the far northeastern border town of Gamboru, in Borno State, nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar where Taylor had lived in exile, Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the United States, ordered Taylor's "immediate repatriation" to Liberia, the statement said.
Taylor disappeared just days after Nigeria, which had granted asylum to the fast-talking, U.S.-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war, reluctantly bowed to pressure to surrender Taylor to face justice.
The admission that Taylor had slipped away came an hour before Obasanjo left Nigeria on a presidential jet headed for Washington, where he was scheduled to meet with President Bush on Wednesday.
Nigeria had announced it would hand Taylor over to a U.N.-backed Sierra Leone tribunal to be tried for alleged war crimes related to Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war, but the government had made no moves to arrest him before he disappeared.
Taylor, a one-time warlord and rebel leader, is charged with backing Sierra Leone rebels, including child fighters, who terrorized victims by chopping off body parts. He would be the first African leader to face trial for crimes against humanity.
While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of starting civil war in Liberia and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.
Obasanjo initially resisted calls to surrender Taylor. But Saturday, after Liberia's new President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf asked that Taylor be handed over for trial, Obasanjo agreed.
The U.N. Security Council had expressed surprise and concern at Taylor's disappearance and Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said he planned to talk to the Nigerian authorities about it. He urged all countries to refuse to give Taylor refuge.
The U.N. tribunal's prosecutor, Desmond de Silva, warned that Taylor was "a threat to the peace and security of West Africa."
Many of Taylor's loyalist soldiers are believed to be roaming freely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and civil-war divided Ivory Coast, from where Taylor launched his rebel incursion into Liberia on Dec. 24, 1989.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/03/29/warlord_charles_taylor_arrested_in_nigeria/
Infant becomes a victim of ID theft
By Maria Cramer and Cristina Silva, Globe Staff March 29, 2006
BARRE -- When a mother decided to open a savings account for her 18-month-old son this month, she was stunned to learn that someone else had beaten her to it.
Police say that a man with a record of identity fraud had taken the toddler's Social Security number and opened two accounts with Citizens Bank in Worcester and tried to obtain a Registry of Motor Vehicles identification card. By the time the boy's mother learned about the scam, the thief had deposited $19,000 in fraudulent checks, police said.
Since then, the 32-year-old mother -- who asked that she be identified only by her first name, Tracy, because she fears for her safety -- said she has been calling credit agencies, state legislators, and police to try to understand how a major banking institution allowed the fraud to happen.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/infant_becomes_a_victim_of_id_theft/
Man dies after living for two months in car at camping area
March 29, 2006
PLEASANT RIDGE PLANTATION, Maine --Investigators were trying to determine what caused the death of a Massachusetts man who was believed to have been living alone since midwinter in his car in a camping area in this Somerset County community.
John Connolly, 59, died Monday while en route to a Skowhegan hospital after a state trooper was called to the area by a passerby who spotted him sprawled across the front seat of his 1990 Buick LeSabre, Maine State Police Lt. Dale Lancaster said Tuesday.
Connolly was alive but not responding well and his breathing was labored when Trooper Randall Keaten found him in the early afternoon, Lancaster said.
Connolly's body was transported to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy, Lancaster said. He said there was no indication of foul play.
Keaten determined through a sister in New Hampshire that Connolly had lost his job in Massachusetts and had fallen on difficult times, according to Lancaster, who said a recent death in the family had made him despondent.
Stanley Giguere, the road commissioner in this community of roughly 100 people outside Bingham, said Connolly had been living in his car at the camping site for about two months, eating meals from a cooler he had placed in the back of the vehicle.
"I have been watching the guy," Giguere said. "Every time I plowed the road, he'd move the car so I could plow. He was just living in his car."
Giguere said he didn't know of anyone who tried to talk to Connolly.
"I'd pull around and wave to him and keep on going, and he'd wave back," Giguere said.
Information from: Morning Sentinel, http://www.onlinesentinel.com/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/03/29/man_dies_after_living_for_two_months_in_car_at_camping_area/
Abramoff to be sentenced for wire fraud
Jack Abramoff, right, listens to his attorney Abbe Lowell on Capitol Hill in this Sept. 29, 2004 file photo. More than 260 people wrote letters asking a federal judge for leniency when Abramoff and a former partner are sentenced, which was scheduled for Wednesday March 29, 2006. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from the 2000 purchase of a gambling boat fleet. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, Files)
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
MIAMI --Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has let others lobby on his behalf in his Florida fraud case -- including rabbis, military officers and even a professional hockey referee.
More than 260 people wrote letters asking a federal judge for leniency when Abramoff and a former partner are sentenced, which was scheduled for Wednesday. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from the 2000 purchase of a gambling boat fleet.
The letters, obtained by The Associated Press, put a new spin on the foibles and crimes of a man who became the face of Washington's latest corruption scandal.
"Jack is a good person, who in his quest to be successful, lost sight of the rules," National Hockey League referee Dave Jackson wrote, describing the time Abramoff brought 14 kids to his dressing room before a game.
Abramoff and one-time partner Adam Kidan admitted concocting a fake $23 million wire transfer to make it appear they had made a large cash contribution to the $147.5 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos. Based on that fake transfer, lenders provided the pair with $60 million in financing.
Abramoff, 47, and Kidan, 41, each face a minimum of five years and 10 months in prison, and a maximum of seven years and three months under plea agreements with prosecutors.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/29/jack_abramoff_faces_nearly_6_year_sentence/
Judge tosses suit to halt pig kills
March 29, 2006
LOS ANGELES --A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop the killing of thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island as part of an effort to protect endangered island foxes.
U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian said in a ruling Tuesday he disagreed with a claim that the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy rushed to eradicate the animals before developing an environmental plan.
The organizations, which co-own the island, say the pigs are causing erosion, uprooting native plants and helping spread invasive species.
"The decision is a win for the island fox, and the nine plant species that are endangered because of the feral pigs," said Julie Benson, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/29/judge_tosses_suit_to_halt_pig_kills/
EU says had worries on Vista
Lawyers talk behind a Microsoft sign in the European Union's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg in this September 30, 2004 file photo. Microsoft has a last chance to convince EU regulators this week that the software giant should not be fined up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) daily for failing to carry out antitrust sanctions. (REUTERS/Francois Lenoir)
March 29, 2006
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it told Microsoft that it had competition worries about the firm's new operating system Vista, another antitrust concern that the software giant must answer in Europe.
Microsoft is already embroiled in a long-running battle with Europe's top anti-trust body after the Commission decided in 2004 that the company had abused the dominance of its Windows system and fined it half a billion euros.
"We are concerned about the possibility that the next Vista operating system will include various elements which are currently available separately from Microsoft or other companies," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/03/29/eu_told_microsoft_had_competition_concerns_on_vista/
Teens arrested in break-in at town water supply
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
BLACKSTONE, Mass. --Three teenagers are being held Wednesday in connection with a break-in at a water storage facility in this central Massachusetts town, where residents continued to stockpile water and many businesses and schools were closed.
Officials have told the 9,000 residents of Blackstone and about four dozen homes in neighboring North Smithfield, R.I., not to drink the water, let it contact their skin or use it for washing clothes or dishes. Tests on the water were pending.
"I took a shower this morning," 40-year-old Charlene Gignac, a clerk at the White Hen Pantry convenience store on Main Street, said Tuesday.
"I'm wondering, 'OK, how bad is it?' But I still have a pulse and I'm still kicking."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/terrorism_ruled_out_as_towns_probe_water_supply_break_in_1143613009/
U.S. must act for Agent Orange victims, veterans say
By Ho Binh Minh March 29, 2006
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam War veterans and social activists from several countries demanded on Wednesday that Washington take responsibility for victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military.
The call for U.S. action came at the end of a two-day conference in Hanoi where deformed children were shown as dramatic evidence of the effects of 20 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, poured on the country.
"We demand that the United States government be held responsible for making contributions to overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals," the closing statement said.
Last March, a federal court dismissed a suit on behalf of millions of Vietnamese who charged the United States committed war crimes by its use of Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, to deny communist troops ground cover.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/03/29/us_must_act_for_agent_orange_victims_veterans_say/
Miami students hold sit-in to support striking janitors
By Jennifer Kay, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
MIAMI --About 20 University of Miami students ended a more than 12-hour sit-in on the Coral Gables campus early Wednesday after university officials agreed to several demands regarding campus janitors striking over alleged unfair labor practices.
University officials said they will hold a meeting within 48 hours with representatives from different labor, student and faculty groups to discuss whether Unicco Service Co. employees want the option to have union representation.
"The University reiterates its position not to employ contractors who do not respect workers' rights to unionize and commits to encouraging Unicco and the SEIU (Service Employees' International Union) to adopt a process that will provide the employees of Unicco with the ability to determine whether or not they want union representation free of any coercion or intimidation," according to a statement released shortly after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday by university officials.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/miami_students_hold_sit_in_to_support_striking_janitors/
Saudi Arabia arrests 40 suspected militants
March 29, 2006
(Recasts, adds details, background
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had arrested 40 suspected militants, including eight who were linked to al Qaeda's attack on the world's largest oil processing plant last month.
Security forces also seized a cache of explosives and firearms in simultaneous raids in several parts of the kingdom, an interior ministry spokesman said.
There has been a spate of attacks in Saudi Arabia and last month the authorities foiled an al Qaeda attack on Abqaiq, the world's biggest oil processing plant, in which two militants were killed.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/29/saudi_arabia_arrests_40_suspected_militants/
Study: gaps between blacks, whites remain
By Erin Texeira, AP National Writer March 28, 2006
Even though the economy has picked up, stubborn gaps between blacks and whites remain -- a reality highlighted by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the National Urban League reports in a new study.
"Two years ago, we saw that things were tough, but there was a recession," Urban League President Marc H. Morial said. "Now that things are better, we're still suffering. The jobless recovery is a real thing for black Americans."
The Urban League's annual State of Black America report, released Tuesday, pulls together government data and academic analysis to measure black progress and problems. The nearly 300-page report includes charts, essays and suggested policy changes.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/03/28/study_gaps_between_blacks_whites_remain/
Venezuela says 14M to get measles shots
March 28, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela --Measles vaccinations will be given to 14 million Venezuelans this year to combat an outbreak of the viral infectious disease in the capital, officials announced Tuesday.
Adults under 39 years old and children are already receiving vaccinations, but the program will be expanded starting April 9, Health Minister Francisco Armada said in a statement.
Twelve people in Caracas and its suburbs have been diagnosed with the disease in the last month, the first reported cases of measles in this South American nation of 26 million since 2002. The last outbreak affected some 2,500 people.
Armada said this year's outbreak in Venezuela's crowded capital had been controlled. But authorities were taking preventive measures nationwide, he added, vaccinating roughly 67,000 people since February.
Health officials believe the outbreak began with the infection of a 33-year-old Caracas pilot and several members of his immediate family.
Measles can cause ear infections, pneumonia and swelling of the brain, and is potentially fatal. Symptoms include cold-like coughing, fever and rash.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/03/28/venezuela_says_14m_to_get_measles_shots/
Kindergarten student brings gun to school
March 29, 2006
FIRCREST, Wash. --A kindergarten student was expelled for 10 days after he brought a .22-caliber gun to school, officials said.
The 5-year-old boy climbed from a chair onto a washer-dryer and got an unloaded pistol out of a cupboard at home, police said. He showed a friend the gun on the Whittier Elementary School playground, then put it into a friend's backpack, Police Chief John Cheesman said.
The boy never made any threat and told the principal what he had done Monday but was expelled immediately, said Patti Holmgren, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma school system. Police confiscated the gun.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/03/29/kindergarten_student_brings_gun_to_school/
Transplanted mice cells ease rat paralysis
By Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer March 28, 2006
NEW YORK --Scientists eased the paralysis of rats with spinal cord injury by transplanting cells taken from the brains of adult mice, an encouraging sign for developing a human treatment, researchers reported.
Someday, such cells might be taken from the brains of patients with spinal cord injuries for their own treatment, said researcher Dr. Michael Fehlings.
In addition, similar cells are found in the spinal cord, so perhaps researchers may find a way to activate them to improve a person's mobility, he said.
Fehlings, of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Western Research Institute in Canada, and colleagues report the rodent experiment in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/other/articles/2006/03/28/transplanted_mice_cells_ease_rat_paralysis/
Lice infestations plague Alaska wolf packs
A gray wolf is show in the Alaska wilderness in this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (AP Photo/US Fish and Wildlife Service, File)
March 28, 2006
FAIRBANKS, Alaska --Scientists working to eradicate infestations of lice in packs of interior wolves said it might be a losing battle.
"We already know lice is part of Interior Alaska now, but can it be managed? That's the question," said Craig Gardner, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks. "I think it's going to be tough."
Canine lice have been spreading in Alaska's wolf population since first being found on wolves on the Kenai Peninsula in the early 1980s. They were probably passed from sled dogs and don't infest human hair.
The lice showed up on wolves in the Matanuska Valley in the late 1990s and last year, biologists confirmed the first case in wolves north of the Alaska Range.
"It was speculated it wouldn't get past the Alaska Range because wolves wouldn't be able to survive because it would be too cold," said state wildlife veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen. "We've had some wolves with hair loss and you could see lice on them but they certainly aren't dying."
The resilient pests are ruining the quality of the animals' coats and hurting business for trappers. Wolves damage their own fur by rubbing and scratching the bites, bringing the value of their pelts down.
"Lousy wolves," are worthless to trappers because the fur is no good, said Alaska Trappers Association president Randy Zarnke. Most of the wolves caught on the Kenai Peninsula are unusable, Zarnke said.
When the Department of Fish and Game announced last year that lice had been found on a wolf trapped in the Alaska Range 50 miles south of Fairbanks, the association sent a letter to Gov. Frank Murkowski urging him to eradicate lice in Alaska wolves.
The Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks has had small-scale success treating lice-infested wolves in the Alaska Range.
Last April, biologists captured and treated the lice-ridden pack of five wolves by injecting them with a cattle dewormer commonly used in dogs.
The goal was to keep the wolves free of lice during denning so the pups would be clean, said Gardner. The biologists also put radio collars on the five wolves.
After a litter of seven pups was born in May, biologists continued treating the pack by dropping beaver and lynx meat treated with the medicine from planes. They repeated the drop three times over several weeks.
When biologists recaptured four of the pups in November, tests showed they were lice free. Two additional pups from the pack caught by trappers were also lice free.
"We know treatment has worked for at least a year now," Gardner said.
Gardner suspects at least one more pack in the Alaska Range has lice. He wants to fit radio collars on wolves in those packs so they can monitor and treat them with medicine-filled baits.
"We're just trying to see if we can manage lice and keep the wolves' pelts looking good going into winter so trappers will want to trap them," said Beckmen.
Cleansing lice from a pack of wolves doesn't mean it will stay louse free. Young wolves break off from their packs each year and join other groups of roving lupines.
"Let's say a wolf disperses and gets with a pack that was treated and is clean. Boom, you've got lice again," said Gardner.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/lice_infestations_plague_alaska_wolf_packs/
Study: Cruise ships distress harbor seals
In this 2000 file photo, a young harbor seal lounges on top of seaweed that covers partially submerged Cedar Ledge near Cundy's Harbor, Maine. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach, FILE)
March 28, 2006
ANCHORAGE, Alaska --When large cruise ships get too close to harbor seals, the animals become distressed, according to a new federal study.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report Monday on seal behavior in Disenchantment Bay, a Southeast fjord that cruise ships frequent for a view of the Hubbard Glacier.
The study, which was a cooperative effort involving NOAA, the cruise industry and the Yakutat Tlingits, found that when the large ships got closer than 1,600 feet, seals were more likely to jump off the ice floes they haul out on.
The closer the ships got, the more likely the seals were to dive into the water, according to the Anchorage Daily News. When a ship was about 300 feet away, a seal was 25 times more likely to jump into the water than when the ship was 1,600 feet way, the study found.
The researchers said one concern is that if seals are routinely disturbed, it will drain their energy reserves, possibly resulting in lower reproduction or reduced survival.
"It really confirms what has been known for some time: that as ships get closer to seals, the seals will get off the ice floes," said John Hansen, president of the North West CruiseShip Association. He said as a result the association has operating practices in place to minimize disturbance of the animals.
However, that's not always possible because of weather, navigational and other reasons, including not being able to see the seals, said John Jansen, the study's lead author.
During the study, biologists documented many times when the ships got within 300 feet of seals, he said.
The study also found that the more time ships spend in Disenchantment Bay, the closer the seals come to one another. Such huddling behavior is common among animals that feel threatened, said Jansen.
The research, which began in 2002, also compared harbor seal numbers in Disenchantment Bay with those of Icy Bay, a nearby glacial fjord with similar natural characteristics. The only major difference between the two bays is that cruise ships do not visit Icy Bay, Jansen said.
Icy and Disenchantment Bays started out with roughly the same number of seals in May, between 1,000 and 1,500, Jansen said. The study found that seal populations in Icy Bay increased from May to August, while in Disenchantment Bay, they peaked in June and then declined slightly. Icy Bay ended the summer with 5,400 seals while Disenchantment Bay had only 1,800.
Whether the seals are leaving Disenchantment Bay and heading to Icy Bay is unknown because scientists have yet to track the movements of individual seals with radio transmitters. Hopefully that will be the next phase of the research, Jansen said.
With the increase in cruise ships in Disenchantment Bay since the 1970s, the Tlingits have become concerned about whether ships are disturbing the seals, especially during pupping season in May and June.
"We feel strongly that they do affect the seals during those months," said tribal member Bert Adams Sr., a charter captain and former president of Yakutat's tribal council.
"The local people are saying that the seals are moving from Disenchantment Bay to Icy Bay because there is less disturbance there," Adams said.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/study_cruise_ships_distress_harbor_seals/
New Zealand Herald
Powerful cyclone threatens Western Australia coast
29.03.06 1.00pm
CANBERRA - A powerful cyclone with winds of up to 300 kph menaced northern parts of Western Australia today, less than two weeks after a cyclone devastated houses and farms on the other side of the country.
Some oil and gas operations were shut ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Glenda in an area known as "cyclone alley" because it is regularly swept by tropical storms at this time of year.
The storm, ranked in the most powerful grade for cyclones, category five, was about 380km north/northeast of the town of Port Hedland and moving slowly south along the coast, said forecaster Adam Conroy from the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
"Tomorrow's really the day where things could happen," he said.
The remote Pilbara region under threat is home to around 10,000 people and includes Woodside Petroleum's A$14 ($16.55) billion North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at Karratha, about 700km north of Perth.
Oil and gas producer Santos Ltd. shut its 40,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mutineer-Exeter oil field on Monday and BHP Billiton's 10,600 bpd Griffin oil field has been closed since Saturday, because of the threat from a smaller storm.
Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both have operations in the Pilbara, which is home to large deposits of iron ore.
Australia's northeastern coast was devastated by another category five storm, Cyclone Larry, last week.
It ripped roofs off houses, uprooted trees and decimated sugar and banana crops, causing damage worth up to A$1.5 billion.
BHP Billiton said its operations had not yet been affected by Cyclone Glenda.
Rio Tinto was not immediately available for comment, but said on Tuesday bad weather meant the company would fall 5 million tonnes short of its first-quarter iron ore output target.
It still expected 2006 output to rise 14 per cent on last year's 158 million tonnes.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375018
New Orleans to be emptied for next storm
29.03.06 1.20pm
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana - Everyone in New Orleans must evacuate the low-lying city the next time a hurricane threatens and no shelters will be offered for those who stay, officials said on Tuesday.
Hoping to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when thousands struggled to survive after ignoring evacuation orders, they said planes, trains and buses would be used to move people out and the Superdome football stadium would not be open for refuge.
"Today the population stands around 200,000 to 225,000 people in New Orleans," said Orleans Parish Homeland Security Advisor Terry Ebbert. "Our goal is to ensure that we create an environment where it makes more sense to leave than to stay,"
"We want all 225,000 people to get out of the city," he said. Before Katrina, New Orleans had nearly half a million residents, but many who fled the storm have not returned.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375026
NZ 'must play world role' on climate change
29.03.06 1.00pm
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said New Zealand has a significant role to play in persuading other governments to tackle global warming.
He said by video link from Auckland to a conference in Wellington today that the country could be an agent for change.
Mr Blair said: "There's a lot that can be done from countries like New Zealand to give a signal to the rest of the world."
It could persuade others to adopt reasonable policies for sustainability, he told the climate change and governance conference at Te Papa.
Mr Blair, who is in New Zealand on a 24-hour visit, said the pressure must be kept on governments to address climate change whether or not they are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol Agreement.
Ordinary people could also put the onus on governments to take action, he said.
"One of the things you and other people can do is keep up the pressure... there are going to be some difficult decisions for government".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10375034
Jury returns to ask judge question in police rape case
29.03.06 6.25pm
Two hours into deliberations the jury in the historic police rape case, came out of the jury room to ask whether police officers owned their own uniforms.
The jury of seven women and five men retired at 1pm today to decide verdicts on Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards, 45, and former policemen Brad Shipton, 47, and Bob Schollum, 53.
The men face twenty charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation against Louise Nicholas.
Judge Tony Randerson answered the jurors by directing them to sections of the 300 page transcript of evidence from the three week trial.
Mrs Nicholas alleges Rickards and Shipton visited her at her Corlett Street flat in Rotorua, between six to 12 times in the mid 1980s for sexual intercourse and oral sex without her consent.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10375060
US agrees to release Abu Ghraib pictures
29.03.06 5.20pm
NEW YORK - The Defence Department on Tuesday agreed to release 74 photos and three videos -- many that have already been published -- that depict prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib and were sought by civil rights groups.
The Defence Department had appealed an order by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that said the government must release photos provided by Sgt. Joseph Darby, whose photos set off the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
After initially arguing the publication of the images could incite more violence in Iraq, the government withdrew their appeal and promised to release the images within seven days of the court's approval.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375040
Bush wants Al-Jaafari to be replaced as Iraqi PM
29.03.06 1.00pm
By Patrick Cockburn
ARBIL - President George W Bush has made clear that he does not want Ibrahim al-Jaafari to remain prime minister of Iraq in a move likely to increase hostility between the US and the Shia community.
Mr Bush has written to the Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shi'ite Alliance asking him to nominate somebody else for the post.
"The Americans are very firm about this," said a senior official.
"They don't want Jaafari at any price."
Friction between the Americans and Shia, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq's 27 million population, escalated sharply after at least 16 Shi'ites were killed in the al-Mustafa mosque by Iraqi and American Special Forces on Sunday night.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375002
West softens UN draft on Iran
29.03.06 1.00pm
UNITED NATIONS - Western powers have watered down a draft UN Security Council on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions but still called on Tehran to suspend uranium-enrichment efforts that could be used to make a bomb.
The text was distributed to the full UN Security Council by Britain and France, who drafted the compromise document supported by the United States.
The three Western nations hope to convince Russia and China to agree on the document on Wednesday, a day before their foreign ministers meet in Berlin on strategy towards Iran.
But Russia, which has the toughest position, and China, have not signed on to all points in the new Security Council draft so the West's self-imposed deadline may not be met.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375033
Solar eclipse draws tourists to Libya
29.03.06 10.20am
TRIPOLI - Thousands of Western visitors are flooding into Libya to view a solar eclipse due on Wednesday in the largest tourist event ever held in the long-isolated north African country, officials said.
The big oil exporting country hopes the influx of foreigners to remote viewing stations in its spectacular desert outback will boost a fledgling tourist industry that is anticipating a boom as a thaw in ties with the West erodes years of isolation.
Deputy Tourism Minister Arebi Mazoz told Reuters Libya had issued visas to 7,000 tourists from 53 nationalities, as well as a number of scientists from the US National Aeronautics Space Administration who would help Libyan experts study the eclipse.
Ahmed Aziz, head of the tourism ministry's information department, said it would be the largest and biggest event in the history of Libyan tourism.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375007
Kenyan government tries to block corruption report
29.03.06 12.20pm
NAIROBI - The Kenyan government moved on Tuesday to block a report to parliament on a multimillion dollar corruption scandal that has forced two ministers to resign.
The scandal has damaged the ruling coalition government of President Mwai Kibaki, which swept to power in 2002 vowing to fight corruption plaguing east Africa's biggest economy.
The report on a scam in which state contracts worth some US$200 million went to a fictitious firm was to be presented on Tuesday to parliament by Uhuru Kenyatta, who is chairman of a parliamentary watchdog committee and the opposition leader.
But Internal Security Assistant Minister Mirugi Kariuki said a similar report had been presented last year and rejected by the assembly so the matter could not be debated.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10374988
Afghan Christian convert is released
29.03.06 8.30am
KABUL - An Afghan Christian convert who faced a possible death sentence for denying Islam has been freed after a chorus of Western pleas that his religious freedom be respected, the Afghan justice minister said today.
Abdur Rahman, 40, was jailed this month for abandoning his faith. Judicial officials said he could have faced trial under Islamic sharia law stipulating death as punishment for apostasy.
"I can confirm that he was released," said Justice Minister Sarwar Danish. "He is not in detention. I do not know if he is with his family or where, but he has been acquitted."
Danish said he could not comment on the legal grounds for Rahman's release.
Earlier a senior judicial official said that Rahman had been moved from Kabul's main prison to a medical facility but was still in the custody of judicial authorities and would undergo psychiatric tests.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374986
Schroeder to sell Russia to West, says report
29.03.06
MOSCOW - Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is offering to help the Kremlin set up a lobby firm to improve Russia's image in the West, the Kommersant newspaper said.
Schroeder, under fire at home for business ties with Russia that he established soon after leaving office, is visiting Moscow this week and plans to set out his idea at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
The former Chancellor will propose that Russian companies fund the lobby firm, which would be based in Germany. He has suggested that former German Defence Minister Volker Ruehe head the firm.
Kommersant did not reveal the source of its information. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374892
Greece busts Bulgarian baby trafficking ring
29.03.06 11.20am
ATHENS - Greek police have arrested 10 people in the act of selling a 20-day old Bulgarian girl to a Greek couple, the third such baby-trafficking ring busted this month, officials said on Tuesday.
Police detained six Bulgarians and four Greeks, including the couple, in a central Athens park, where the couple was about to pay around 15,000 euro ($30,229.74) for the infant.
The arrests come as Bulgaria, Greece's poor northern neighbour, struggles to prove it is ready to join the European Union next January by cracking down on human trafficking and other types of organised crime.
Among those detained was a Greek lawyer who would provide the Greek couple documents showing they had legally adopted the girl, police said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375005
Tasteless tourism threatens image of beautiful Barcelona
29.03.06
By Elizabeth Nash
MADRID - Catalonia is planning a summer crackdown on rowdy visitors from northern Europe, alarmed that Barcelona's architectural landmarks and Costa Brava resorts are gaining an unsavoury reputation as "booze and babes" playgrounds.
Barcelona, long a magnet for Europeans for its beauty, its cuisine and its free-and-easy Mediterranean lifestyle, has become a favourite destination for hard-drinking stag and hen-night crowds and graduation parties.
Last summer British, German and Dutch tourists invaded Catalonia's beach resorts and handsome urban squares, and outraged locals with their noisy, all-night partying, promiscuity and vomiting in Gothic passageways and Art Nouveau doorsteps.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374886
Mammoth Vegas spread is world's larget buffet
29.03.06 2.20pm
LAS VEGAS - Even in this over-the-top town famed for all-you-can-eat spreads, nobody had ever seen one quite like this: Forty soups, 100 salads and 150 desserts perched upon a 152m maze of tables.
It was enough - 510 different dishes in all - to qualify on Tuesday for a Guinness record for the World's Largest Buffet.
"I'm interested in trying some of the desserts now," said tired and hungry Guinness official Nadine Causey, who flew in from London to certify that Las Vegas Hilton Executive Chef George Bargisen had assembled at least 500 unique offerings to create the new record buffet.
Bargisen spent 24 hours straight overseeing the mammoth spread, which included dishes from a dozen ethnic cuisines and offered everything from salmon Wellington to fried alligator, and from pumpkin pie to baklava and pistachio truffles.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375024
continued …
Ivanov Calls Report 'Bull'
The Associated Press
Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Tuesday said a report that Moscow had provided information to Saddam Hussein's regime on U.S. troop movements was "total rubbish."
Ivanov joined a chorus of denials from Russian officials following a Pentagon report that said seized Iraqi documents indicate Moscow obtained information from sources inside the U.S. Central Command and passed battlefield intelligence to Iraqi officials.
"There is nothing to comment on here. ... I believe it is total rubbish. Thank you. Without using the proper American word starting with 'bull,'" Ivanov said at a news conference.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to discuss the matter directly with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, by telephone this week or in person Thursday, when they meet in Berlin for a gathering of the foreign ministers of the permanent UN Security Council members.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/017.html
President Puts Off His New Term
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
Belarussian election officials said Tuesday that President Alexander Lukashenko had delayed his inauguration from Friday until the first half of April, fueling speculation about his health after he was declared the landslide winner of a presidential election condemned by the West as fraudulent.
Lukashenko had not been seen in public since March 20, the day after the vote. He made his first appearance Tuesday on Belarussian television -- ordering officials to remove his portraits from their offices -- and he did not look well, an opposition official said.
It was unclear why Lukashenko had decided to put off his inauguration.
"The head of state determines the date of the inauguration. We expect it to be in the first half of April," said Nikolai Lozovik, secretary of the Central Elections Commission, Interfax reported.
Lozovik did not give a reason for the delay.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/001.html
Yushchenko Meets the 2 Big Winners
By Anna Melnichuk
The Associated Press
Yushchenko with Yanukovych, who later said they did not discuss a coalition.
KIEV -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met Tuesday with his estranged Orange Revolution ally Yulia Tymoshenko amid pressure to reunite their pro-Western team and keep the country on a reformist path.
Yushchenko also held talks with pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who won the most votes -- but not a majority -- in weekend parliamentary elections.
Tymoshenko has said only a united front can keep Yanukovych out of power and safeguard the reformist ideals championed in the Orange Revolution. The Orange parties won more votes combined, but it remains unclear whether they will be able to overcome personal animosity and forge a coalition.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/011.html
The Trick to Understanding Ukraine
By Anders Aslund
To Our Readers
The Moscow Times welcomes letters to the editor. Letters for publication should be signed and bear the signatory's address and telephone number.
Letters to the editor should be sent by fax to (7-495) 232-6529, by e-mail to oped@imedia.ru, or by post. The Moscow Times reserves the right to edit letters.
Ukraine has held its first elections after the Orange Revolution. Without any qualification, they were free and fair with a high participation of 67 percent, showing that Ukraine has matured as a democracy. At the same time, Ukraine has become a parliamentary system, which will reinforce democracy in the country. The Communists have been further marginalized, and party consolidation has proceeded well, with only five parties likely to make it into parliament.
The main results of the vote reflect an amazing constancy. In December 2004, Viktor Yushchenko defeated Viktor Yanukovych with a margin of 8 percentage points, which will probably be the balance between the orange and blue, or more accurately western and eastern, coalitions. The geographic dividing line runs exactly where it did in 2004, or where it has gone for most of the last 300 years.
International media have focused on Yanukovych's Party of the Regions becoming the largest single party, but what matters in proportional elections is which parties can form a ruling majority, and that is the Orange coalition.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/006.html
Russia Sees Kosovo as the Answer
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
Vladimir Mukagov / Itar-Tass
Ossetian leaders Mamsurov, left, and Kokoity attending last week's meeting.
Russian officials are floating the idea of making the world's largest country a little bit bigger by adding a new region called Alania -- an area that would consist of a merged North and South Ossetia.
The proposed expansion hinges on Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia voting for independence -- a vote that would mirror a similar plebiscite planned for Kosovo. Russia insists that Kosovo's vote could be copied to resolve conflicts in separatist regions across the former Soviet Union.
While talk of uniting the two regions into a single Russian subject might be a trial balloon, Russia would face potentially deep repercussions if it were to set the precedent of embracing the supremacy of a people's right to self-determination.
Gennady Bukayev, an assistant to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, told a joint session of the leaders of South and North Ossetia on March 22 that the federal government had agreed in principle to incorporate South Ossetia.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/002.html
Swedish Spy 'The Eagle' Dead at 99
Combined Reports
Wennerstrom, who was a Swedish air force general, entering a court in 1963.
STOCKHOLM -- Stig Wennerstrom, a Swedish air force brigadier general spied for the Soviet Union for 15 years has died. He was 99.
Wennerstrom, known to his Soviet spymasters by the code name "The Eagle," was arrested in Sweden in June 1963, on charges of providing the Soviet Union with military information on Sweden, the United States and NATO.
He was caught after a tip-off from a housemaid who had been recruited by suspicious Swedish counterintelligence agents and saw him hiding films in the attic of his Stockholm house.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/018.html
Yukos Is Put Under External Manager
By Mikhail Yenukov
Reuters
The Moscow Arbitration Court on Tuesday put Yukos under external supervision until June 27 in a move that could lead to its bankruptcy and nationalization.
Tuesday's ruling to put Yukos under external supervision means that the existing management and board will remain in place, but major decisions will have to go through Eduard Rebgun, a temporary manager appointed by the court on Tuesday.
Rebgun, who was proposed by Rosneft, will carry out a financial analysis, determine the amount of liabilities, draw up a list of creditors and organize the first meeting of the creditors' committee.
Based on the committee's recommendations, the court may choose from two possible fates for Yukos -- external management or bankruptcy administration and sale of assets.
Adam Landes, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, predicted a quick end.
"Given that Rosneft, and the state, appear to be holding all the cards, we foresee a fairly quick decision. Closure of the 'Yukos Affair' as quickly and cleanly as possible is needed to support Rosneft's planned IPO," he wrote Tuesday.
Landes said Rosneft was claiming about $10 billion from Yukos, roughly on a par with the state's remaining tax claim.
The market is watching to see whether Yukos will be broken up and sold off in pieces or fully taken over by Rosneft, thus leaving some value for its minority shareholders.
The bankruptcy suit was filed earlier this month by a group of Western banks, following their deal with Rosneft for Rosneft to buy back $482 million of Yukos debt that was secured on Yugansk oil and being chased by the banks.
Most of the banks that were lenders to Yukos are also creditors to Rosneft and have huge business interests at stake.
And the action by the 14 banks, which include Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, ING, BNP Paribas and Commerzbank, leaves Rosneft poised to reap most benefit from Yukos' winding up.
The bankruptcy is also likely to unite a bevy of international court proceedings brought against Yukos by creditors in places ranging from Amsterdam to New York.
"Now you have a situation where each creditor is going after Yukos in different courts around the world, suing it for debt. But now, all the other lawsuits are likely to be suspended until the Russian bankruptcy proceedings are settled," said Peter Clateman, a Moscow lawyer who heads the legal team of Russian investment group Sputnik.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/040.html
Court postpones verdict on Yukos official to April 12
RIA NOVOSTI. March 29, 2006, 4:47 PM
MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow City Court has postponed until April 12 appeal hearings in the case of a former manager of embattled oil giant Yukos convicted of money laundering, a defense lawyer said Wednesday.
"The session has been postponed since one of the prisoners [in the case] was not brought to the court," said Dmitry Yampolsky, a lawyer for Alexei Kurtsin.
Kurtsin, currently serving a 14-year sentence, was to appear in court via video link-up on March 15, but hearings were postponed until March 29 as the court said it needed more time to study the case.
On December 1, Moscow's Lefortovo court handed down a guilty verdict on all those involved in the Yukos-Moskva case, sentencing eight former managers to different prison terms.
Investigators said Kurtsin and Yukos-Moskva Senior Vice President Mikhail Trushin, who is still at large, laundered 342 million rubles ($11.9 million) through fictitious charities registered in several large Russian cities. Investigators claim the bulk of laundered funds went directly to Trushin and Kurtsin.
Elections in Israel create local sensations
RIA NOVOSTI. March 29, 2006, 4:44 PM
BEIRUT/TEL AVIV, (RIA Novosti's Marianna Belenkaya, Artur Gabdrakhmanov) -- The March 28 elections to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) created a local sensation, but will not influence the future of the region. Just as polls predicted and all parties to the Middle East peace process expected, the election victory went to Israel's governing party, Kadima, led by Ehud Olmert.
For the first time in Israel's history, its voters were not torn between the right- and the left-wing parties, the "hawks" and the "doves". The Israeli political scene is such a mishmash right now, that it is difficult to draw a line between the two sides. This mean many voters were left feeling indecisive. In general, Israelis have grown weary of politics, which is why only 63.2% of the country's eligible voters came to polling stations and quite a few voted for the third option.
The defeat of Likud , which had led either the ruling coalition or the opposition, came as a surprise, even more so because it actually came in fifth, after the biggest ultra-religious party Shas and Avigdor Lieberman's party Yisrael Beiteinu (Our Home Israel).
All the recent polls predicted that the Russian-speaking politician would surge ahead in the election race. The majority of the Russian-speaking population voted for him.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
No Break for Arts School for Disabled
By Natalya Krainova
Special to The Moscow Times
Michael Eckels / MT
Students with hearing impairments acting in a role-playing workshop at the State Specialized Institute of the Arts.
For most of the out-of-town students at the State Specialized Institute of the Arts -- one of a small number of art schools tailored to the needs of disabled students -- a typical day involves a five-hour commute from their hostel in the Moscow region to the school's campus, near the Studencheskaya metro station.
Painting classes for Rimma Hadiyeva, a third-year graphic arts student at the institute who suffers from cerebral palsy, require a special effort to start with. Instead of sitting in front of an easel, she finds it easier to sit or lie on the floor, holding the paper on her knees or putting it in front of her. Hadiyeva is one of the lucky few students who have lodgings near the institute, but she is still pressed for study time.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/015.html
Charitable Bowling for a Big Change
The Moscow Times
The Big Change Educational Center and Charitable Fund is holding a bowling competition on April 18 to raise money for its Moscow school.
Sixteen lanes are to be booked at the Samolyot entertainment complex on Presnensky Val, and teams of four are invited to enter.
Money raised at the bowling competition is to help fund an educational trip to the Pskov region this summer, following on a trip to St. Petersburg last year. It is also to be used to pay for additional lessons.
The entrance fee per four-person team is 15,000 rubles ($540).
Students at the Big Change school were all formerly at orphanages, and are between 17 and 30 years old.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/025.html
Even Cats Can Be Dangerous
By Yulia Latynina
As she was walking to her car from the office of the United Civil Front last Tuesday, Marina Litvinovich, a top aide to Garry Kasparov, was attacked from behind. Litvinovich, a 31-year-old political activist and public relations specialist, was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Her assailants then set to work on her face. When she came to about 40 minutes later, two men were standing over her. "You need to be more careful, Marina," one of them said. When Litvinovich asked how the man knew her name, he replied: "You told us yourself."
To Our Readers
The Moscow Times welcomes letters to the editor. Letters for publication should be signed and bear the signatory's address and telephone number.
Letters to the editor should be sent by fax to (7-495) 232-6529, by e-mail to oped@imedia.ru, or by post. The Moscow Times reserves the right to edit letters.
No, this isn't another article about the brutality of a bloodthirsty regime. During the terror of the late 1930s, they wouldn't have stopped at knocking out a couple of Litvinovich's teeth. I'm struck by something else. You attack someone from behind when you're afraid that your victim will either recognize you or turn out to be stronger than you. The first motive doesn't apply in Litvinovich's case, because her attackers waited around until she woke up to deliver their message.
The government has defeated an enormous number of enemies lately. It exposed those infamous British spies and their magic rock. It stuck it to all those nongovernmental organizations bankrolled by foreign powers that were spying on us. In the Khabarovsk region, counterintelligence agents rounded up -- count 'em -- 40 spies working for China, the very country President Vladimir Putin is working so hard to befriend.
When it comes to foreign enemies, the Kremlin is taking care of business. But it's enjoying less success in dealing with its domestic adversaries.
Putin wanted to reform the armed forces, so he put a civilian, Sergei Ivanov, in charge of the Defense Ministry and gave the green light for the trial of former Colonel Yury Budanov, who was convicted in 2003 of kidnapping and murdering a Chechen woman. Military reform is essential for the physical survival of the country, but it ran into stiff resistance from the top brass. The reform program was over before it had begun.
Early in his first term, Putin got together the top prosecutors and announced a sweeping reform of the Prosecutor General's Office as if it were a done deal. The idea was to provide independent supervision of criminal investigations, which was essential simply to prevent the appetites of the defenders of law and order from destroying the economy. By then the prosecutors had become a cross between janissaries and SS storm troopers, however. Even the Kremlin was afraid to cross them.
Putin launched a program of administrative reforms aimed at strengthening the checks and balances between agencies and ministries and reducing their number. The program was implemented. The number of agencies tripled.
We're not talking about incomprehensible concepts such as democratization of the country and liberalization of the economy. These reforms were essential for the country's survival, they were backed by the president himself, and they went absolutely nowhere.
The regime's decision-making process is no different from the approach taken by the thugs who beat up Litvinovich. Whenever the Kremlin finds an adversary blocking its path -- the military brass, the prosecutors or the bureaucracy -- it backs down. And you can't say these are fearsome foes. What does the Kremlin have to fear from a bunch of generals who steal by the trainload, drink by the gallon and lose one campaign after another?
The weaker people are, the more they need to beat up on someone who's even weaker. A fifth-grader who gets pummelled for squealing on his classmates needs nothing more than a cat he can torture.
But even cats can be dangerous. So you only attack in numbers, from behind, and only when the woman is alone. Not because you're afraid she'll see your face, but because she might scratch you.
Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/007.html
Moscow Market Not Yet Ripe for BlackBerry
By Conor Humphries
Staff Writer
BlackBerry terminals, which allow users to receive and reply to e-mails in real time, are still not available in Moscow.
BlackBerry, the device that brought mobile e-mail into mainstream U.S. corporate culture, remains something of a forbidden fruit in Moscow almost a year after its creator announced a deal to enter the Russian market.
The handheld terminals that allow users to effortlessly receive and reply to e-mail in real time are still not available in the city, and local operator Mobile TeleSystems refuses to give a firm date for introduction of the platform that supports them.
MTS originally planned to roll out the service in the third quarter of 2005, after signing a deal in May with Canada's Research in Motion, or RIM, which owns the technology.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/045.html
Russia Picks Site for New Nuclear Center
By Yuriy Humber
Staff Writer
Russia has picked the town of Angarsk as the site for its international nuclear fuel service center, part of an initiative to assume a greater role in the international nuclear processing industry, a government official said Monday.
The Federal Atomic Energy Agency will seek approval from the international nuclear watchdog to have an existing chemicals plant in Angarsk certified as an international service center, an agency spokesman said by telephone.
The Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Complex already houses uranium conversion and enrichment facilities.
The proposed location comes to light two months after President Vladimir Putin first pitched Russia as a site for one of a handful of international centers -- to be overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency -- to provide a full cycle of processing services on behalf of other countries.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/29/041.html
The Boston Globe
A March drought may yield April fires
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff March 29, 2006
After a particularly parched March, fire officials around Massachusetts fear that April will bring widespread brush fires and wildfires in grassy areas and fields around the state.
With three days left, this month is on track to be the second-driest March on record: Less than six-tenths of an inch of rain fell in the Boston area, compared with 3.33 inches on average. Forecasters say the first half of April is likely to be equally dry.
''As we move into April and weather conditions continue to be dry and we have sun and wind, we'll get more concerned," said Jim Dimaio, acting chief of the Bureau of Forest Fire Control and Forestry in the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. ''Hopefully, there'll be rains soon."
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2006/03/29/a_march_drought_may_yield_april_fires/
Pacific nation announces marine area
By Michael Astor, Associated Press Writer March 28, 2006
CURITIBA, Brazil --The Pacific island nation of Kiribati announced the creation of a vast protected area Tuesday at a U.N-sponsored environmental conference in Brazil, officials said.
The protected area at the Phoenix Islands, located about half way between Fiji and Hawaii, places some 73,800 sq. miles off limits for commercial fishing, protecting precious coral reefs and undersea mountains.
The restrictions, covering an area the size of Washington, were announced by Kiribati's environment minister at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity in Curitiba, 400 miles southwest of Rio de Janeiro.
"If the coral and reefs are protected, then the fish will thrive and grow and bring us benefit," Kiribati's President Anote Tong said in a statement.
The government of Kiribati would be compensated for the loss of fishing revenue with funds from a special endowment, conservation groups said.
At the same conference, the European Union called for a global moratorium on deep-sea trawling, labeling the random fishing practice harmful to the biodiversity of oceans.
Bottom trawling is blamed for depleting the world's deep-sea fish stocks, threatening many species with extinction and radically altering undersea habitats.
Environmentalists praised the two moves as indicative of a growing trend toward protecting the world's oceans.
"These are very positive signs," said Arlo Hemphill, Conservation International's manager of marine strategy.
"Bottom trawling is like trying to capture songbirds in the forest with bulldozers," he said.
Environmentalists said the European Union's support for a moratorium on bottom trawling was important, but it was too early to say whether the ban would be approved by the full convention, which acts by consensus and runs until Friday.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/pacific_nation_announces_marine_area/
Warlord Charles Taylor arrested in Nigeria
Liberian President Charles Taylor leaves Roberts International Airport by airplane in Monrovia, Liberia, in this August 11, 2003, file photo. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday, March 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
By Bashir Adigun, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
ABUJA, Nigeria --Former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who vanished in Nigeria after authorities reluctantly agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, has been arrested trying to cross the border into Cameroon, Nigerian police said Wednesday.
Taylor, who went missing Monday night, was captured by security forces in the far northeastern border town of Gamboru, in Borno State, nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar where Taylor had lived in exile, Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the United States, ordered Taylor's "immediate repatriation" to Liberia, the statement said.
Taylor disappeared just days after Nigeria, which had granted asylum to the fast-talking, U.S.-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war, reluctantly bowed to pressure to surrender Taylor to face justice.
The admission that Taylor had slipped away came an hour before Obasanjo left Nigeria on a presidential jet headed for Washington, where he was scheduled to meet with President Bush on Wednesday.
Nigeria had announced it would hand Taylor over to a U.N.-backed Sierra Leone tribunal to be tried for alleged war crimes related to Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war, but the government had made no moves to arrest him before he disappeared.
Taylor, a one-time warlord and rebel leader, is charged with backing Sierra Leone rebels, including child fighters, who terrorized victims by chopping off body parts. He would be the first African leader to face trial for crimes against humanity.
While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of starting civil war in Liberia and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.
Obasanjo initially resisted calls to surrender Taylor. But Saturday, after Liberia's new President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf asked that Taylor be handed over for trial, Obasanjo agreed.
The U.N. Security Council had expressed surprise and concern at Taylor's disappearance and Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said he planned to talk to the Nigerian authorities about it. He urged all countries to refuse to give Taylor refuge.
The U.N. tribunal's prosecutor, Desmond de Silva, warned that Taylor was "a threat to the peace and security of West Africa."
Many of Taylor's loyalist soldiers are believed to be roaming freely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and civil-war divided Ivory Coast, from where Taylor launched his rebel incursion into Liberia on Dec. 24, 1989.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/03/29/warlord_charles_taylor_arrested_in_nigeria/
Infant becomes a victim of ID theft
By Maria Cramer and Cristina Silva, Globe Staff March 29, 2006
BARRE -- When a mother decided to open a savings account for her 18-month-old son this month, she was stunned to learn that someone else had beaten her to it.
Police say that a man with a record of identity fraud had taken the toddler's Social Security number and opened two accounts with Citizens Bank in Worcester and tried to obtain a Registry of Motor Vehicles identification card. By the time the boy's mother learned about the scam, the thief had deposited $19,000 in fraudulent checks, police said.
Since then, the 32-year-old mother -- who asked that she be identified only by her first name, Tracy, because she fears for her safety -- said she has been calling credit agencies, state legislators, and police to try to understand how a major banking institution allowed the fraud to happen.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/infant_becomes_a_victim_of_id_theft/
Man dies after living for two months in car at camping area
March 29, 2006
PLEASANT RIDGE PLANTATION, Maine --Investigators were trying to determine what caused the death of a Massachusetts man who was believed to have been living alone since midwinter in his car in a camping area in this Somerset County community.
John Connolly, 59, died Monday while en route to a Skowhegan hospital after a state trooper was called to the area by a passerby who spotted him sprawled across the front seat of his 1990 Buick LeSabre, Maine State Police Lt. Dale Lancaster said Tuesday.
Connolly was alive but not responding well and his breathing was labored when Trooper Randall Keaten found him in the early afternoon, Lancaster said.
Connolly's body was transported to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy, Lancaster said. He said there was no indication of foul play.
Keaten determined through a sister in New Hampshire that Connolly had lost his job in Massachusetts and had fallen on difficult times, according to Lancaster, who said a recent death in the family had made him despondent.
Stanley Giguere, the road commissioner in this community of roughly 100 people outside Bingham, said Connolly had been living in his car at the camping site for about two months, eating meals from a cooler he had placed in the back of the vehicle.
"I have been watching the guy," Giguere said. "Every time I plowed the road, he'd move the car so I could plow. He was just living in his car."
Giguere said he didn't know of anyone who tried to talk to Connolly.
"I'd pull around and wave to him and keep on going, and he'd wave back," Giguere said.
Information from: Morning Sentinel, http://www.onlinesentinel.com/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/03/29/man_dies_after_living_for_two_months_in_car_at_camping_area/
Abramoff to be sentenced for wire fraud
Jack Abramoff, right, listens to his attorney Abbe Lowell on Capitol Hill in this Sept. 29, 2004 file photo. More than 260 people wrote letters asking a federal judge for leniency when Abramoff and a former partner are sentenced, which was scheduled for Wednesday March 29, 2006. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from the 2000 purchase of a gambling boat fleet. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, Files)
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
MIAMI --Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has let others lobby on his behalf in his Florida fraud case -- including rabbis, military officers and even a professional hockey referee.
More than 260 people wrote letters asking a federal judge for leniency when Abramoff and a former partner are sentenced, which was scheduled for Wednesday. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from the 2000 purchase of a gambling boat fleet.
The letters, obtained by The Associated Press, put a new spin on the foibles and crimes of a man who became the face of Washington's latest corruption scandal.
"Jack is a good person, who in his quest to be successful, lost sight of the rules," National Hockey League referee Dave Jackson wrote, describing the time Abramoff brought 14 kids to his dressing room before a game.
Abramoff and one-time partner Adam Kidan admitted concocting a fake $23 million wire transfer to make it appear they had made a large cash contribution to the $147.5 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos. Based on that fake transfer, lenders provided the pair with $60 million in financing.
Abramoff, 47, and Kidan, 41, each face a minimum of five years and 10 months in prison, and a maximum of seven years and three months under plea agreements with prosecutors.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/29/jack_abramoff_faces_nearly_6_year_sentence/
Judge tosses suit to halt pig kills
March 29, 2006
LOS ANGELES --A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop the killing of thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island as part of an effort to protect endangered island foxes.
U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian said in a ruling Tuesday he disagreed with a claim that the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy rushed to eradicate the animals before developing an environmental plan.
The organizations, which co-own the island, say the pigs are causing erosion, uprooting native plants and helping spread invasive species.
"The decision is a win for the island fox, and the nine plant species that are endangered because of the feral pigs," said Julie Benson, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/29/judge_tosses_suit_to_halt_pig_kills/
EU says had worries on Vista
Lawyers talk behind a Microsoft sign in the European Union's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg in this September 30, 2004 file photo. Microsoft has a last chance to convince EU regulators this week that the software giant should not be fined up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) daily for failing to carry out antitrust sanctions. (REUTERS/Francois Lenoir)
March 29, 2006
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it told Microsoft that it had competition worries about the firm's new operating system Vista, another antitrust concern that the software giant must answer in Europe.
Microsoft is already embroiled in a long-running battle with Europe's top anti-trust body after the Commission decided in 2004 that the company had abused the dominance of its Windows system and fined it half a billion euros.
"We are concerned about the possibility that the next Vista operating system will include various elements which are currently available separately from Microsoft or other companies," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/03/29/eu_told_microsoft_had_competition_concerns_on_vista/
Teens arrested in break-in at town water supply
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
BLACKSTONE, Mass. --Three teenagers are being held Wednesday in connection with a break-in at a water storage facility in this central Massachusetts town, where residents continued to stockpile water and many businesses and schools were closed.
Officials have told the 9,000 residents of Blackstone and about four dozen homes in neighboring North Smithfield, R.I., not to drink the water, let it contact their skin or use it for washing clothes or dishes. Tests on the water were pending.
"I took a shower this morning," 40-year-old Charlene Gignac, a clerk at the White Hen Pantry convenience store on Main Street, said Tuesday.
"I'm wondering, 'OK, how bad is it?' But I still have a pulse and I'm still kicking."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/terrorism_ruled_out_as_towns_probe_water_supply_break_in_1143613009/
U.S. must act for Agent Orange victims, veterans say
By Ho Binh Minh March 29, 2006
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam War veterans and social activists from several countries demanded on Wednesday that Washington take responsibility for victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military.
The call for U.S. action came at the end of a two-day conference in Hanoi where deformed children were shown as dramatic evidence of the effects of 20 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, poured on the country.
"We demand that the United States government be held responsible for making contributions to overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals," the closing statement said.
Last March, a federal court dismissed a suit on behalf of millions of Vietnamese who charged the United States committed war crimes by its use of Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, to deny communist troops ground cover.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/03/29/us_must_act_for_agent_orange_victims_veterans_say/
Miami students hold sit-in to support striking janitors
By Jennifer Kay, Associated Press Writer March 29, 2006
MIAMI --About 20 University of Miami students ended a more than 12-hour sit-in on the Coral Gables campus early Wednesday after university officials agreed to several demands regarding campus janitors striking over alleged unfair labor practices.
University officials said they will hold a meeting within 48 hours with representatives from different labor, student and faculty groups to discuss whether Unicco Service Co. employees want the option to have union representation.
"The University reiterates its position not to employ contractors who do not respect workers' rights to unionize and commits to encouraging Unicco and the SEIU (Service Employees' International Union) to adopt a process that will provide the employees of Unicco with the ability to determine whether or not they want union representation free of any coercion or intimidation," according to a statement released shortly after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday by university officials.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/29/miami_students_hold_sit_in_to_support_striking_janitors/
Saudi Arabia arrests 40 suspected militants
March 29, 2006
(Recasts, adds details, background
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had arrested 40 suspected militants, including eight who were linked to al Qaeda's attack on the world's largest oil processing plant last month.
Security forces also seized a cache of explosives and firearms in simultaneous raids in several parts of the kingdom, an interior ministry spokesman said.
There has been a spate of attacks in Saudi Arabia and last month the authorities foiled an al Qaeda attack on Abqaiq, the world's biggest oil processing plant, in which two militants were killed.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/29/saudi_arabia_arrests_40_suspected_militants/
Study: gaps between blacks, whites remain
By Erin Texeira, AP National Writer March 28, 2006
Even though the economy has picked up, stubborn gaps between blacks and whites remain -- a reality highlighted by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the National Urban League reports in a new study.
"Two years ago, we saw that things were tough, but there was a recession," Urban League President Marc H. Morial said. "Now that things are better, we're still suffering. The jobless recovery is a real thing for black Americans."
The Urban League's annual State of Black America report, released Tuesday, pulls together government data and academic analysis to measure black progress and problems. The nearly 300-page report includes charts, essays and suggested policy changes.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/03/28/study_gaps_between_blacks_whites_remain/
Venezuela says 14M to get measles shots
March 28, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela --Measles vaccinations will be given to 14 million Venezuelans this year to combat an outbreak of the viral infectious disease in the capital, officials announced Tuesday.
Adults under 39 years old and children are already receiving vaccinations, but the program will be expanded starting April 9, Health Minister Francisco Armada said in a statement.
Twelve people in Caracas and its suburbs have been diagnosed with the disease in the last month, the first reported cases of measles in this South American nation of 26 million since 2002. The last outbreak affected some 2,500 people.
Armada said this year's outbreak in Venezuela's crowded capital had been controlled. But authorities were taking preventive measures nationwide, he added, vaccinating roughly 67,000 people since February.
Health officials believe the outbreak began with the infection of a 33-year-old Caracas pilot and several members of his immediate family.
Measles can cause ear infections, pneumonia and swelling of the brain, and is potentially fatal. Symptoms include cold-like coughing, fever and rash.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/03/28/venezuela_says_14m_to_get_measles_shots/
Kindergarten student brings gun to school
March 29, 2006
FIRCREST, Wash. --A kindergarten student was expelled for 10 days after he brought a .22-caliber gun to school, officials said.
The 5-year-old boy climbed from a chair onto a washer-dryer and got an unloaded pistol out of a cupboard at home, police said. He showed a friend the gun on the Whittier Elementary School playground, then put it into a friend's backpack, Police Chief John Cheesman said.
The boy never made any threat and told the principal what he had done Monday but was expelled immediately, said Patti Holmgren, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma school system. Police confiscated the gun.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/03/29/kindergarten_student_brings_gun_to_school/
Transplanted mice cells ease rat paralysis
By Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer March 28, 2006
NEW YORK --Scientists eased the paralysis of rats with spinal cord injury by transplanting cells taken from the brains of adult mice, an encouraging sign for developing a human treatment, researchers reported.
Someday, such cells might be taken from the brains of patients with spinal cord injuries for their own treatment, said researcher Dr. Michael Fehlings.
In addition, similar cells are found in the spinal cord, so perhaps researchers may find a way to activate them to improve a person's mobility, he said.
Fehlings, of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Western Research Institute in Canada, and colleagues report the rodent experiment in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/other/articles/2006/03/28/transplanted_mice_cells_ease_rat_paralysis/
Lice infestations plague Alaska wolf packs
A gray wolf is show in the Alaska wilderness in this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (AP Photo/US Fish and Wildlife Service, File)
March 28, 2006
FAIRBANKS, Alaska --Scientists working to eradicate infestations of lice in packs of interior wolves said it might be a losing battle.
"We already know lice is part of Interior Alaska now, but can it be managed? That's the question," said Craig Gardner, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks. "I think it's going to be tough."
Canine lice have been spreading in Alaska's wolf population since first being found on wolves on the Kenai Peninsula in the early 1980s. They were probably passed from sled dogs and don't infest human hair.
The lice showed up on wolves in the Matanuska Valley in the late 1990s and last year, biologists confirmed the first case in wolves north of the Alaska Range.
"It was speculated it wouldn't get past the Alaska Range because wolves wouldn't be able to survive because it would be too cold," said state wildlife veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen. "We've had some wolves with hair loss and you could see lice on them but they certainly aren't dying."
The resilient pests are ruining the quality of the animals' coats and hurting business for trappers. Wolves damage their own fur by rubbing and scratching the bites, bringing the value of their pelts down.
"Lousy wolves," are worthless to trappers because the fur is no good, said Alaska Trappers Association president Randy Zarnke. Most of the wolves caught on the Kenai Peninsula are unusable, Zarnke said.
When the Department of Fish and Game announced last year that lice had been found on a wolf trapped in the Alaska Range 50 miles south of Fairbanks, the association sent a letter to Gov. Frank Murkowski urging him to eradicate lice in Alaska wolves.
The Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks has had small-scale success treating lice-infested wolves in the Alaska Range.
Last April, biologists captured and treated the lice-ridden pack of five wolves by injecting them with a cattle dewormer commonly used in dogs.
The goal was to keep the wolves free of lice during denning so the pups would be clean, said Gardner. The biologists also put radio collars on the five wolves.
After a litter of seven pups was born in May, biologists continued treating the pack by dropping beaver and lynx meat treated with the medicine from planes. They repeated the drop three times over several weeks.
When biologists recaptured four of the pups in November, tests showed they were lice free. Two additional pups from the pack caught by trappers were also lice free.
"We know treatment has worked for at least a year now," Gardner said.
Gardner suspects at least one more pack in the Alaska Range has lice. He wants to fit radio collars on wolves in those packs so they can monitor and treat them with medicine-filled baits.
"We're just trying to see if we can manage lice and keep the wolves' pelts looking good going into winter so trappers will want to trap them," said Beckmen.
Cleansing lice from a pack of wolves doesn't mean it will stay louse free. Young wolves break off from their packs each year and join other groups of roving lupines.
"Let's say a wolf disperses and gets with a pack that was treated and is clean. Boom, you've got lice again," said Gardner.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/lice_infestations_plague_alaska_wolf_packs/
Study: Cruise ships distress harbor seals
In this 2000 file photo, a young harbor seal lounges on top of seaweed that covers partially submerged Cedar Ledge near Cundy's Harbor, Maine. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach, FILE)
March 28, 2006
ANCHORAGE, Alaska --When large cruise ships get too close to harbor seals, the animals become distressed, according to a new federal study.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report Monday on seal behavior in Disenchantment Bay, a Southeast fjord that cruise ships frequent for a view of the Hubbard Glacier.
The study, which was a cooperative effort involving NOAA, the cruise industry and the Yakutat Tlingits, found that when the large ships got closer than 1,600 feet, seals were more likely to jump off the ice floes they haul out on.
The closer the ships got, the more likely the seals were to dive into the water, according to the Anchorage Daily News. When a ship was about 300 feet away, a seal was 25 times more likely to jump into the water than when the ship was 1,600 feet way, the study found.
The researchers said one concern is that if seals are routinely disturbed, it will drain their energy reserves, possibly resulting in lower reproduction or reduced survival.
"It really confirms what has been known for some time: that as ships get closer to seals, the seals will get off the ice floes," said John Hansen, president of the North West CruiseShip Association. He said as a result the association has operating practices in place to minimize disturbance of the animals.
However, that's not always possible because of weather, navigational and other reasons, including not being able to see the seals, said John Jansen, the study's lead author.
During the study, biologists documented many times when the ships got within 300 feet of seals, he said.
The study also found that the more time ships spend in Disenchantment Bay, the closer the seals come to one another. Such huddling behavior is common among animals that feel threatened, said Jansen.
The research, which began in 2002, also compared harbor seal numbers in Disenchantment Bay with those of Icy Bay, a nearby glacial fjord with similar natural characteristics. The only major difference between the two bays is that cruise ships do not visit Icy Bay, Jansen said.
Icy and Disenchantment Bays started out with roughly the same number of seals in May, between 1,000 and 1,500, Jansen said. The study found that seal populations in Icy Bay increased from May to August, while in Disenchantment Bay, they peaked in June and then declined slightly. Icy Bay ended the summer with 5,400 seals while Disenchantment Bay had only 1,800.
Whether the seals are leaving Disenchantment Bay and heading to Icy Bay is unknown because scientists have yet to track the movements of individual seals with radio transmitters. Hopefully that will be the next phase of the research, Jansen said.
With the increase in cruise ships in Disenchantment Bay since the 1970s, the Tlingits have become concerned about whether ships are disturbing the seals, especially during pupping season in May and June.
"We feel strongly that they do affect the seals during those months," said tribal member Bert Adams Sr., a charter captain and former president of Yakutat's tribal council.
"The local people are saying that the seals are moving from Disenchantment Bay to Icy Bay because there is less disturbance there," Adams said.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/28/study_cruise_ships_distress_harbor_seals/
New Zealand Herald
Powerful cyclone threatens Western Australia coast
29.03.06 1.00pm
CANBERRA - A powerful cyclone with winds of up to 300 kph menaced northern parts of Western Australia today, less than two weeks after a cyclone devastated houses and farms on the other side of the country.
Some oil and gas operations were shut ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Glenda in an area known as "cyclone alley" because it is regularly swept by tropical storms at this time of year.
The storm, ranked in the most powerful grade for cyclones, category five, was about 380km north/northeast of the town of Port Hedland and moving slowly south along the coast, said forecaster Adam Conroy from the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
"Tomorrow's really the day where things could happen," he said.
The remote Pilbara region under threat is home to around 10,000 people and includes Woodside Petroleum's A$14 ($16.55) billion North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at Karratha, about 700km north of Perth.
Oil and gas producer Santos Ltd. shut its 40,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mutineer-Exeter oil field on Monday and BHP Billiton's 10,600 bpd Griffin oil field has been closed since Saturday, because of the threat from a smaller storm.
Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both have operations in the Pilbara, which is home to large deposits of iron ore.
Australia's northeastern coast was devastated by another category five storm, Cyclone Larry, last week.
It ripped roofs off houses, uprooted trees and decimated sugar and banana crops, causing damage worth up to A$1.5 billion.
BHP Billiton said its operations had not yet been affected by Cyclone Glenda.
Rio Tinto was not immediately available for comment, but said on Tuesday bad weather meant the company would fall 5 million tonnes short of its first-quarter iron ore output target.
It still expected 2006 output to rise 14 per cent on last year's 158 million tonnes.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375018
New Orleans to be emptied for next storm
29.03.06 1.20pm
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana - Everyone in New Orleans must evacuate the low-lying city the next time a hurricane threatens and no shelters will be offered for those who stay, officials said on Tuesday.
Hoping to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when thousands struggled to survive after ignoring evacuation orders, they said planes, trains and buses would be used to move people out and the Superdome football stadium would not be open for refuge.
"Today the population stands around 200,000 to 225,000 people in New Orleans," said Orleans Parish Homeland Security Advisor Terry Ebbert. "Our goal is to ensure that we create an environment where it makes more sense to leave than to stay,"
"We want all 225,000 people to get out of the city," he said. Before Katrina, New Orleans had nearly half a million residents, but many who fled the storm have not returned.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375026
NZ 'must play world role' on climate change
29.03.06 1.00pm
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said New Zealand has a significant role to play in persuading other governments to tackle global warming.
He said by video link from Auckland to a conference in Wellington today that the country could be an agent for change.
Mr Blair said: "There's a lot that can be done from countries like New Zealand to give a signal to the rest of the world."
It could persuade others to adopt reasonable policies for sustainability, he told the climate change and governance conference at Te Papa.
Mr Blair, who is in New Zealand on a 24-hour visit, said the pressure must be kept on governments to address climate change whether or not they are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol Agreement.
Ordinary people could also put the onus on governments to take action, he said.
"One of the things you and other people can do is keep up the pressure... there are going to be some difficult decisions for government".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10375034
Jury returns to ask judge question in police rape case
29.03.06 6.25pm
Two hours into deliberations the jury in the historic police rape case, came out of the jury room to ask whether police officers owned their own uniforms.
The jury of seven women and five men retired at 1pm today to decide verdicts on Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards, 45, and former policemen Brad Shipton, 47, and Bob Schollum, 53.
The men face twenty charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation against Louise Nicholas.
Judge Tony Randerson answered the jurors by directing them to sections of the 300 page transcript of evidence from the three week trial.
Mrs Nicholas alleges Rickards and Shipton visited her at her Corlett Street flat in Rotorua, between six to 12 times in the mid 1980s for sexual intercourse and oral sex without her consent.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10375060
US agrees to release Abu Ghraib pictures
29.03.06 5.20pm
NEW YORK - The Defence Department on Tuesday agreed to release 74 photos and three videos -- many that have already been published -- that depict prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib and were sought by civil rights groups.
The Defence Department had appealed an order by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that said the government must release photos provided by Sgt. Joseph Darby, whose photos set off the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
After initially arguing the publication of the images could incite more violence in Iraq, the government withdrew their appeal and promised to release the images within seven days of the court's approval.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375040
Bush wants Al-Jaafari to be replaced as Iraqi PM
29.03.06 1.00pm
By Patrick Cockburn
ARBIL - President George W Bush has made clear that he does not want Ibrahim al-Jaafari to remain prime minister of Iraq in a move likely to increase hostility between the US and the Shia community.
Mr Bush has written to the Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shi'ite Alliance asking him to nominate somebody else for the post.
"The Americans are very firm about this," said a senior official.
"They don't want Jaafari at any price."
Friction between the Americans and Shia, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq's 27 million population, escalated sharply after at least 16 Shi'ites were killed in the al-Mustafa mosque by Iraqi and American Special Forces on Sunday night.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375002
West softens UN draft on Iran
29.03.06 1.00pm
UNITED NATIONS - Western powers have watered down a draft UN Security Council on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions but still called on Tehran to suspend uranium-enrichment efforts that could be used to make a bomb.
The text was distributed to the full UN Security Council by Britain and France, who drafted the compromise document supported by the United States.
The three Western nations hope to convince Russia and China to agree on the document on Wednesday, a day before their foreign ministers meet in Berlin on strategy towards Iran.
But Russia, which has the toughest position, and China, have not signed on to all points in the new Security Council draft so the West's self-imposed deadline may not be met.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375033
Solar eclipse draws tourists to Libya
29.03.06 10.20am
TRIPOLI - Thousands of Western visitors are flooding into Libya to view a solar eclipse due on Wednesday in the largest tourist event ever held in the long-isolated north African country, officials said.
The big oil exporting country hopes the influx of foreigners to remote viewing stations in its spectacular desert outback will boost a fledgling tourist industry that is anticipating a boom as a thaw in ties with the West erodes years of isolation.
Deputy Tourism Minister Arebi Mazoz told Reuters Libya had issued visas to 7,000 tourists from 53 nationalities, as well as a number of scientists from the US National Aeronautics Space Administration who would help Libyan experts study the eclipse.
Ahmed Aziz, head of the tourism ministry's information department, said it would be the largest and biggest event in the history of Libyan tourism.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375007
Kenyan government tries to block corruption report
29.03.06 12.20pm
NAIROBI - The Kenyan government moved on Tuesday to block a report to parliament on a multimillion dollar corruption scandal that has forced two ministers to resign.
The scandal has damaged the ruling coalition government of President Mwai Kibaki, which swept to power in 2002 vowing to fight corruption plaguing east Africa's biggest economy.
The report on a scam in which state contracts worth some US$200 million went to a fictitious firm was to be presented on Tuesday to parliament by Uhuru Kenyatta, who is chairman of a parliamentary watchdog committee and the opposition leader.
But Internal Security Assistant Minister Mirugi Kariuki said a similar report had been presented last year and rejected by the assembly so the matter could not be debated.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10374988
Afghan Christian convert is released
29.03.06 8.30am
KABUL - An Afghan Christian convert who faced a possible death sentence for denying Islam has been freed after a chorus of Western pleas that his religious freedom be respected, the Afghan justice minister said today.
Abdur Rahman, 40, was jailed this month for abandoning his faith. Judicial officials said he could have faced trial under Islamic sharia law stipulating death as punishment for apostasy.
"I can confirm that he was released," said Justice Minister Sarwar Danish. "He is not in detention. I do not know if he is with his family or where, but he has been acquitted."
Danish said he could not comment on the legal grounds for Rahman's release.
Earlier a senior judicial official said that Rahman had been moved from Kabul's main prison to a medical facility but was still in the custody of judicial authorities and would undergo psychiatric tests.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374986
Schroeder to sell Russia to West, says report
29.03.06
MOSCOW - Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is offering to help the Kremlin set up a lobby firm to improve Russia's image in the West, the Kommersant newspaper said.
Schroeder, under fire at home for business ties with Russia that he established soon after leaving office, is visiting Moscow this week and plans to set out his idea at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
The former Chancellor will propose that Russian companies fund the lobby firm, which would be based in Germany. He has suggested that former German Defence Minister Volker Ruehe head the firm.
Kommersant did not reveal the source of its information. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374892
Greece busts Bulgarian baby trafficking ring
29.03.06 11.20am
ATHENS - Greek police have arrested 10 people in the act of selling a 20-day old Bulgarian girl to a Greek couple, the third such baby-trafficking ring busted this month, officials said on Tuesday.
Police detained six Bulgarians and four Greeks, including the couple, in a central Athens park, where the couple was about to pay around 15,000 euro ($30,229.74) for the infant.
The arrests come as Bulgaria, Greece's poor northern neighbour, struggles to prove it is ready to join the European Union next January by cracking down on human trafficking and other types of organised crime.
Among those detained was a Greek lawyer who would provide the Greek couple documents showing they had legally adopted the girl, police said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10375005
Tasteless tourism threatens image of beautiful Barcelona
29.03.06
By Elizabeth Nash
MADRID - Catalonia is planning a summer crackdown on rowdy visitors from northern Europe, alarmed that Barcelona's architectural landmarks and Costa Brava resorts are gaining an unsavoury reputation as "booze and babes" playgrounds.
Barcelona, long a magnet for Europeans for its beauty, its cuisine and its free-and-easy Mediterranean lifestyle, has become a favourite destination for hard-drinking stag and hen-night crowds and graduation parties.
Last summer British, German and Dutch tourists invaded Catalonia's beach resorts and handsome urban squares, and outraged locals with their noisy, all-night partying, promiscuity and vomiting in Gothic passageways and Art Nouveau doorsteps.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10374886
Mammoth Vegas spread is world's larget buffet
29.03.06 2.20pm
LAS VEGAS - Even in this over-the-top town famed for all-you-can-eat spreads, nobody had ever seen one quite like this: Forty soups, 100 salads and 150 desserts perched upon a 152m maze of tables.
It was enough - 510 different dishes in all - to qualify on Tuesday for a Guinness record for the World's Largest Buffet.
"I'm interested in trying some of the desserts now," said tired and hungry Guinness official Nadine Causey, who flew in from London to certify that Las Vegas Hilton Executive Chef George Bargisen had assembled at least 500 unique offerings to create the new record buffet.
Bargisen spent 24 hours straight overseeing the mammoth spread, which included dishes from a dozen ethnic cuisines and offered everything from salmon Wellington to fried alligator, and from pumpkin pie to baklava and pistachio truffles.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10375024
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