Mail and Guardian
DRC official arrested over radioactive waste
Eddy Isango Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
10 November 2007 09:58
A government official in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) suspected of ordering up to 17 tonnes of radioactive waste dumped in a river in the south-east of the country has been arrested, authorities said on Friday.
Environment Minister Didace Pembe declined to identify the person who was arrested because investigations were ongoing. He said the waste belonged to a Chinese company called Magma-Lubumbashi, but that the company had not requested the waste be dumped in the Likasi River.
The mining minister for the DRC's Katanga province announced on a United Nations-backed radio station that 17 tonnes of "highly radioactive" minerals had been found in the river on Monday. He did not provide further details and could not be reached for comment.
Authorities have issued calls over local radio stations asking people to avoid using the river to drink or bathe, Pembe said.
The Likasi River runs through a town of the same name and is not far from the village of Shinkolobwe, which provided the uranium used by the United States in the atomic bombs it dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=324562
Doubts abound over Guinea leader's capabilities
Dakar, Senegal
10 November 2007 09:50
The enthusiasm that came with the storming to office of Guinea's latest prime minister has waned and there are doubts over his capability to lift the country out of misery, a global think tank said on Friday.
Lansana Kouyate, an ex-United Nations diplomat, was early this year named Prime Minister by ailing President Lansana Conte, who bowed to union demands after violent unrest and agreed to an independent head of government with broader powers than his predecessors.
But in its latest report, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) warns that Kouyate has to act fast to avoid losing credibility and prevent the country slipping back into the iron-fisted rule of Conte.
"Initial enthusiasm for Kouyate has been replaced by doubt over the capabilities and will of the new government to break with the Conte system and seriously tackle the daily economic difficulties," said Carolyn Norris, ICG chief in West Africa.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=324560
Masetlha 'had no political ambitions'
Pretoria, South Africa
10 November 2007 07:48
Former spy boss Billy Masetlha had no political ambitions and would have retired as National Intelligence Agency director general had he not been fired, the Hatfield Community Court heard on Friday.
Masetlha is charged with contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act by allegedly withholding information from Inspector General of Intelligence Zolile Ngcakani. He has denied guilt and is adamant that Ngcakani was furnished with all the information needed.
With the defence and state presenting their closing arguments to the court on Friday, Masetlha's attorney, Neil Tuchten, argued that a man of Masetlha's stature and high reputation would not lie.
This followed state prosecutor Matric Luphondo's submission that Masetlha's version of events was so improbable that it bordered on science fiction. He said Masetlha could not say he already gave enough information as it was not for him to decide which information was deemed necessary.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324540&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Masetlha accused of being inconsistent in testifying
Pretoria, South Africa
31 October 2007 06:12
Former spy boss Billy Masetlha was on Wednesday accused of not being consistent in testifying in the Hatfield Community Court.
Prosecutor Matric Luphondo said Masetlha gave different versions of when a report requested by Inspector General of Intelligence (IGI) Zolile Ngcakani was compiled.
Masetlha is charged with contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act by withholding evidence from Ngcakani.
Luphondo contended Masetlha testified earlier he could not explain when the report wanted by the IGI was created.
Testifying under cross-examination, the former spy boss said he had a good recollection of when the report was compiled, and that this happened on September 30 2005.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=323649&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
'All this, for one unarmed woman'
10 November 2007 08:37
Benazir Bhutto was going nowhere. A phalanx of riot police stood at the end of her leafy street, tapping their shields and manning a barbed-wire barricade. Armoured vehicles rolled in.
Officers even prowled the neighbours' gardens, just in case the opposition leader might vault her back wall. "All this, for one unarmed woman," said her spokesperson Sherry Rehman.
In nearby Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was due to hold a mass rally against President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule, the clampdown was even greater. A city of five million people had virtually shut down. Police roamed the deserted streets on motorbikes, horses and by foot.
A straggle of Bhutto loyalists who ventured outside were chased and, in some cases, thrashed. The party said that 5 000 had already been arrested.
The handful that made it to Bhutto's suburban house in Islamabad, 24km away, were bundled away by plain-clothed intelligence officials. All resisted arrest, waving V-signs to the media as they were carted off. A few took it personally.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324549&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
The pupil who declared war
10 November 2007 09:07
Waiting for their English lesson to start at 11.45am on Wednesday, Joni Aaltonen and Nurmi Sameli sat on a bench in a corridor at Jokela high school. Close friends and both 17, in their penultimate year at school, the boys chatted.
The school loudspeakers crackled. The voice of the head teacher, Helena Kalmi, sounded an unusual warning to the 500 pupils: get into your classrooms immediately, lock the doors and hide.
"We thought it was a joke. We didn't take it seriously. We ignored it," said Joni. "Then we saw him coming."
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, a student in the year above, came strolling along the corridor. The teenagers glanced at the familiar figure and carried on chatting.
"He walked towards us calmly and slowly. We didn't really pay him any attention. Then he stopped about 2m away from me and my friend. I looked up. He was watching us. He lifted his arm. He pointed the gun at me and started shooting. The dude just pointed it at me and fired."
Joni fled for his life through the corridors, making it to the staffroom, from where he and a teacher dashed out of the school to safety, away from a deranged teenager on a mission to write himself into European criminal history.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324554&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Call for cooperation between HIV, TB programmes
Cape Town, South Africa
10 November 2007 08:07
Lives are being lost in many countries through lack of cooperation between tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/Aids health programmes, a senior United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) official said in Cape Town on Friday.
Dr Alasdair Reid, the HIV/TB adviser to the international body, was speaking at a media briefing held alongside a major conference on lung health in the city.
He said all people with TB should be offered an HIV test and the chance to obtain life-saving antiretrovirals. All people living with HIV should be screened for TB regularly and given access to Isoniazid, a basic antibiotic used to prevent TB.
"These lifesaving activities can be achieved with greater cooperation between TB and HIV programmes," he said. "They are cheap, simple and readily available in most countries. However a lack of meaningful partnerships between TB and HIV programmes in many countries means that lives continue to be lost unnecessarily."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324541&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Late Captain America back from the dead?
Angela K Brown Dallas, Texas
10 November 2007 08:29
Comic-book hero Captain America may not be back from the dead, but he is back -- sort of.
After Marvel Comics unexpectedly killed off the champion of liberty and the American way earlier this year, he appears in a comic made exclusively for United States soldiers. He is seen on a videotape made before his death.
One million copies of The New Avengers: The Spirit of America, the fifth in Marvel's series for the military, will be available free starting on Saturday at military-base stores worldwide.
The star-spangled Avenger's appearance is expected to create a demand for the comic, once word spreads among collectors.
"If you really, really want one, you need to know someone in the military," said Jim Skibo, director of support for the Dallas-based Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), which is distributing the comic.
Captain America, whose secret identity was Steve Rogers, was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse in a March issue after 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull.
Captain America is not being resurrected in Spirit of America, said Bob Sabouni, Marvel's vice-president of business development.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324548&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Hirst's dove stretches wings in formaldehyde
10 November 2007 08:55
Dennis Hopper certainly seemed to like it. "This is his best piece of work I think I have ever seen," he extolled. "This to me covers surrealism, the history of art, the hanging of meat ... the whole thing is great."
The film star was salivating on Friday over the centrepiece of Damien Hirst's latest art-installation-cum-marketing-stunt: a 3,6m-high tank that contains 10 000 litres of formaldehyde. Inside the fluid a diminutive white dove is suspended, its wings outstretched in a metal cage. Flanking it are two brutal halves of a sliced cow, a long string of fat Italian sausages, a well-worn leather armchair and, with a nod to Magritte, an open black umbrella.
The work stands at the front of a Hirst installation that takes over the lobby of Lever House in Park Avenue, Manhattan. Hirst always likes to think big, but School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity and the Search for Knowledge, is on a grand scale even by his standards.
He uses the theme of a school of anatomy to draw together many of the strands that have run through his work in the past 15 years. "I've always wanted to do an anatomy school -- it has a lot of threads that come together for me, all in the one idea that you can learn something from art," he says.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324553&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/
Bye-bye abalone
Fiona Macleod
09 November 2007 11:59
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is optimistic that his controversial ban on abalone fishing will be as successful as the ivory ban has been in saving Africa’s elephants from extinction.
In his first interview since announcing the ban two weeks ago, he said there would be no abalone left in South African seas in a few years if drastic steps were not taken.
A similar fate faced Africa’s elephant populations in the late 1980s before an international ban was placed on trade in ivory.
“When ivory was banned there was the same outcry and huge public debate,” he said, “but now that decision has proved to be the correct one. And for the first time it has put Cites [the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species] in the position earlier this year to consider improving the legal quota of ivory trade, because the elephant population of the African continent has recovered.”
In June Cites approved the sale to Japan of 30 tons of ivory from South Africa, 20 tons from Botswana and 10 tons from Namibia.
Van Schalkwyk said pressures on abalone, which fetches huge prices on international markets as a marine delicacy, had forced several other countries, including Canada, Japan and Australia, to close down their fisheries. North American abalone fisheries have been closed for more than 10 years.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324475&area=/insight/insight__national/
African coastline threatened
Yolandi Groenewald
09 November 2007 11:59
Africa’s coastline is in trouble. Research shows that over the past three decades, the amount of fish in West African waters has declined by up to 50%. Pollution has also increased in the same waters, including South Africa’s west coast as more oil companies set up shop in Africa’s west coast waters. A damning report shows that sensitive wetlands (mangroves) and coastal forests have been lost forever, while the increased nutrient loads in fresh-water and coastal systems are causing coastal “dead zones”.
It is against this backdrop that South Africa hosted about 200 African experts, government officials and other stakeholders in Johannesburg this week to discuss how the different coastal countries could, together, tackle the rising environmental threats against the continent’s coastline. The African countries are part of two United Nations conventions that govern the way they deal with environmental issues along their coastlines.
“The degradation of coastal and marine environments are most evident in Africa,” said the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) executive director Achim Steiner.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324477&area=/insight/insight__national/
Green Scorpions set to sting
Sydney Masinga
09 November 2007 11:59
Companies that pollute face international sanctions as the Green Scorpions step up their campaign to root out guilty parties. Highveld Steel’s Vanchem plant in Mpumalanga may have its international certification revoked if an investigation finds that it lied about its environmental management.
Vanchem is one of 40 factories in South Africa accused by the Green Scorpions of illegally pumping dangerously high levels of toxic sulphur dioxide, ammonia and dust into the air, endangering its workers and residents in adjacent low-income communities.
Green Scorpions investigators also accuse Vanchem of ground and water pollution at the plant in Emalahleni (formerly Witbank).
The toxic pollutants include vanadium, which causes heart disease. Other pollutants include ammonia, which was up to 15 times above the legal limit and dust, which was up to 27 times above the limit. Ammonia can cause severe skin, eye and throat irritation, while dust can lead to tuberculosis (TB).
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324476&area=/insight/insight__national/
Hansie Cronje and the chamber of secrets
David Macfarlane
09 November 2007 11:59
Can we read it or can’t we? The centre of this bizarre mystery is a doctoral thesis on disgraced former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje submitted to Rhodes University in 2005. The thesis was passed last year and the PhD was awarded.
Yet there appears to be an embargo on the thesis, preventing anyone from getting access to it, according to several people involved in the saga. But the university has denied that anyone has been refused access.
Cronje captained the Proteas from 1994, but his glittering sporting career was sharply terminated in 2001 when he was banned for life from participation in the sport for match-fixing for financial gain. In June the following year he died in a plane crash.
The doctorate was written by Anne Warmenhoven, the research for it conducted in the Rhodes psychology department. Sociologist Ashwin Desai, who is writing a biography of Cronje, told the Mail & Guardian he came across a reference to the thesis during a brief research fellowship he held at Rhodes last year.
Given that it is standard practice for university libraries to stock open-access copies of all successful theses, Desai asked the Rhodes library for a copy. He was told that there was an embargo on it. This week he told the M&G that about a year of formal attempts to get a copy of the thesis had failed.
The supervisor of the thesis was Rhodes psychology lecturer Roelf van Niekerk. He told the M&G that to gain access to the Cronje family Warmenhoven had, with his approval, entered into a legal agreement of confidentiality with Rhodes.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=324474&area=/insight/insight__national/
Zimbabwe police question newspaper executives
Harare, Zimbabwe
09 November 2007 02:47
Zimbabwe police on Friday brought in for questioning an editor and two executives from two leading independent media houses, newspaper officials and a police spokesperson said.
Hama Saburi, editor of financial weekly the Financial Gazette, said he and the newspaper's chief executive were on their way to a police station for apparently violating government price controls.
"The police came in and said they need to talk to us about our business, so we are now on our way to the police station. I understand it is all about the newspaper price," Saburi told Reuters by telephone.
Staff at the privately owned weekly, the Zimbabwe Independent, said its chief executive had also been taken in.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=324503
Ugandan rebel hideout hit by cholera
Bogonko Bosire Nairobi, Kenya
09 November 2007 05:30
An outbreak of cholera has swept a hideout camp housing Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army, infecting its leader, Joseph Kony; his deputy, Vincent Otti; and scores of fighters, a spokesperson said on Friday.
The outbreak, caused by recent flooding and poor sanitation in the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo frontier hideout, was first reported in September, but details of fatalities remain unclear.
"They are in a healing process," LRA spokesperson Godfrey Ayoo told a press conference in Nairobi.
Scores of LRA fighters were seen on Thursday buying medicine in the border outpost of Nabanga, according to a top official from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which governs the semi-autonomous region of southern Sudan.
The United Nations has delivered medicine to the rebel hideouts, Ayoo said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=324530
Media independence: From whom?
It can be frustrating when, after speaking to a journalist for 20 minutes, they only use one line of your comments.
This happened to me last week after I was interviewed by the Sunday Times about the proposed takeover of Johncom, publisher of the Sunday Times, by a group involving senior government officials.
I don’t blame the reporter or the newspaper because I understand how these things work, but so often, in situations such as these, one’s comments can be taken out of context.
There are a few issues involved in the Johncom story:
One is the fact that prominent black people, who have already been empowered, are going to be empowered once again. Surely, it is now time to look beyond the usual suspects and start making sure that more and more people are becoming empowered, apart from the small click that seems to be benefiting from all BEE deals at the moment.
Two is the fact that it is not illegal for public servants, whether they be politicians or government officials, to engage in business (maybe it should be, but that is another issue). All they have to do is declare their business interests to their employer, but they don’t have to do it before the deal is done.
It was against this background that I questioned whether the president would have been consulted or would have known about the proposed Koni Media Holdings takeover of Johncom.
I also pointed out that there are so many BEE groups, almost all of them involving senior government officials or senior ANC members, who are all fighting each other for lucrative stakes in companies.
Three is the fact that the Sunday Times is probably the most influential newspaper in South Africa and anyone who wants to be influential in society would consider buying into the Sunday Times. No matter how many guarantees they give about media freedom and editorial independence, one can almost be certain that there will be attempts at interference. It is only human nature….
...I am all for editorial independence, but we need to know from what we want independence. It is not enough to shout about the need for independence from government interference when we appear to remain entirely comfortable with commercial interference.
Just a thought.
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/rylandfisher/2007/11/09/media-independence-from-whom/
Los Angeles Times
Emergency declared in Bay Area oil spill
By Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2007
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area as an oil spill continued to coat some of the state's most storied coastline and imperil marine wildlife.
The declaration commits state money and resources for what he vowed would be an exhaustive battle to clean up the 58,000-gallon spill from the container vessel Cosco Busan.
The 810-foot ship smacked the base of a San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge tower in dense fog Wednesday morning, breaching the vessel's hull and pouring bunker fuel into the bay.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said Friday that a full investigation of the accident was underway and apologized for delays in warning Bay Area officials and the public about the escalating scale of the spill.
The Coast Guard initially said that just 140 gallons of fuel had oozed out, and then failed to update local officials or the public for more than 12 hours as the extent of the spill grew.
Outraged by the delay, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom threatened legal action, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sent a testy letter to the Coast Guard commandant. On Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also demanded accountability.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bay10nov10,0,4417250.story?coll=la-home-center
LAPD defends Muslim mapping effort
By Richard Winton,, Teresa Watanabe and Greg Krikorian, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
November 10, 2007
The LAPD's plan to map Muslim communities in an effort to identify potential hotbeds of extremism departs from the way law enforcement has dealt with local anti-terrorism since 9/11 and prompted widespread skepticism Friday.
In a document reviewed Friday by The Times, the LAPD's Los Angeles Police Department's counter-terrorism bureau proposed using U.S. census data and other demographic information to pinpoint various Muslim communities and then reach out to them through social service agencies.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd10nov10,0,3960843.story?coll=la-home-center
Bhutto kept from rally
Pakistan opposition leader is held under virtual house arrest by police.
By Laura King and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
November 10, 2007
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- President Pervez Musharraf successfully thwarted a demonstration Friday by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, encircling her home for hours with riot police, barbed wire and metal barricades, but U.S. officials still held out hope the two could strike a power-sharing agreement.
The latest turn of events appear to have put Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party on a collision course with Musharraf, who suspended the constitution and imposed emergency rule a week ago, about two weeks after Bhutto returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan10nov10,0,3722078.story?coll=la-home-center
Police officer's 4th wife is missing; officials to exhume 3rd wife.
Kathleen Savio's family long suspected her husband in her death, which was ruled accidental; now the case is reopened.
By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2007
CHICAGO -- For years, the family of Kathleen Savio has insisted that her police officer ex-husband was involved in her 2004 death.
They refused to believe an inquest's finding that she had accidentally drowned. Her body had been found face down in an empty bathtub. They said Savio had feared her husband, a veteran police officer in the middle-class suburb of Bolingbrook.
It wasn't until Drew Peterson's next wife, Stacy Ann Peterson, mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago, that their claims were taken more seriously. Investigators launched a search for Stacy on Oct. 29. Days later, they reopened the case of Kathleen Savio.
On Friday, as search teams scoured nearby woods for 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, a judge granted a request by Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow to exhume Savio's body.
Police consider the 53-year-old police sergeant a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, a state law enforcement official said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wife10nov10,1,1104104.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
This explains your doughnut addiction
In a study, rats overwhelmingly prefer sweetened water to cocaine, even those already hooked on the drug.
By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2007
Researchers have learned that rats overwhelmingly prefer water sweetened with saccharin to cocaine, a finding that demonstrates the addictive potential of sweets.
Offering larger doses of cocaine did not alter the rats' preference for saccharin, according to the report.
Scientists said the study, presented this week in San Diego at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, might help explain the rise in human obesity, which has been driven in part by an overconsumption of sugary foods.
In the experiment, 43 rats were placed in cages with two levers, one of which delivered an intravenous dose of cocaine and the other a sip of highly sweetened water. At the end of the 15-day trial, 40 of the rats consistently chose saccharin instead of cocaine.
When sugar water was substituted for the saccharin solution, the results were the same, researchers said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-sweet10nov10,0,5568654.story?coll=la-home-center
Hugo Chavez's criminal paradise
Under the anti-globalization president, Venezuela has become a haven for global crime.
By Moises Naim
November 10, 2007
While President Hugo Chavez has been molding Venezuela into his personal socialist vision, other transformations -- less visible but equally profound -- have taken hold in the country.
Venezuela has become a major hub for international crime syndicates. What attracts them is not the local market; what they really love are the excellent conditions Venezuela offers to anyone in charge of managing a global criminal network.
A nation at the crossroads of South America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe, Venezuela's location is ideal. Borders? Long, scantly populated and porous. Financial system? Large and with easy-to-evade governmental controls. Telecommunications, ports and airports? The best that oil money can buy. U.S. influence? Nil. Corrupt politicians, cops, judges and military officers? Absolutely: Transparency International ranked Venezuela a shameful 162 out of 179 counties on its corruption perception index. Chavez's demonstrated interest in confronting criminal networks during his eight years in power? Not much.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-naim10nov10,0,7607104.story?coll=la-home-commentary
'Pandering' and porn
Once again, the Supreme Court will rule on Congress' effort to crack down on child pornography.
November 10, 2007
Michael Williams, a child pornographer whose appeal was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court last week, is not seeking exoneration. Indeed, he has acknowledged both possessing sexually explicit images of children and offering to provide such loathsome material to an undercover agent. The justices took Williams' case, however, not to establish his guilt or innocence but to answer two larger legal questions: Is the federal law against "pandering" child pornography so loosely worded that it could allow the government to prosecute speech protected by the 1st Amendment? And, if so, must the court strike down the law?
The answer to the first question is clearly yes. The pandering provision makes a criminal out of anyone who "advertises, promotes, presents or distributes" material that "is intended to cause another to believe" that it includes photographs of minors engaged in sexual activities or computer-generated images of children that meet the court's definition of obscenity. The term "presents" is particularly vague.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-porn10nov10,0,2434361.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
continued...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Never forget
Vietnam veteran Lyle Hurley is reflected in the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC, this week. Organisers commemorated the 25th anniversary of the wall with "The Reading of the Names", the four-day event during which the more than 58 000 names inscribed on the memorial are read aloud.
American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (click here)
November 7, 2007
According to an Associated Press count, at least 3,856 members of the US military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003. At least 28,385 have been wounded, the military says. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, at least 387 US personnel have died and 1,742 have been wounded since late 2001, according the Defense Department....
The Bush/Cheney Administration and their pandering media report violence in Iraq is down. There are current estimates of 1 million dead and now a report from inside Iraq to answer the 'Benchmarks' that a full 14% of Iraqis are displaced. There is a reason for the drop in violence and it has NOTHING to do with success in Iraq. Annihilating people, either through death or displacement is a real strategy to MAKE THE NUMBERS look good. I knew this was the reason and stated same many times on this blog, I was just waiting for the reports to manifest. My estimates were about 8 percent if I recall. It's about double of that, not including deaths.
Report: 14 percent of Iraqis now displaced (click here)
Posted on Tuesday, November 6, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction offered a generally optimistic picture of security developments in Iraq in his quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday, but noted that while violence was down, one of every seven Iraqis — 14 percent of Iraq's population — is now displaced by the war.
The report said that electricity production in Iraq reached its highest level since early 2003, in part because insurgent attacks on power-lines and repair crews have declined. Corruption, however, remains a major problem, the report said.
The deaths of 72 civilian contractors working on U.S.-funded projects in Iraq were reported to the U.S. Department of Labor during the third quarter of the year, a 22 percent increase over the average of previous quarters, the report said.
The deaths brought to 1,073 the number of civilians working on U.S.-funded projects who've died in Iraq since the war there began, the report said. The report did not say how the 72 died.
Private companies with U.S. contracts are required to report any deaths to the Department of Labor under U.S. regulations.
The report, which was released on the same day Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen testified before a congressional subcommittee, also said that the number of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad during the quarter had declined to the lowest levels in a year. But mortar and rocket attacks on Camp Victory, where the U.S. military is headquarters, increased during the same period. Attacks there killed one person on Sept. 11 and two people on October 11, the report said.
Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Iraq
http://www.sigir.mil/reports/quarterlyreports/Oct07/pdf/Report_-_October_2007.pdf
Seven killed in Iraq attacks (click here)
2 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) — At least seven people were killed on Saturday in Iraq, a day after a suicide bombing claimed the lives of four tribal leaders fighting Al-Qaeda, security officials said.
Four civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck their bus in the centre of the northern city of Mosul, police Brigadier General Abdel Karim al-Juburi said.
Another six people, including a woman and her daughter, were wounded in the morning attack in the city's Raas al-Jadha area, he said.
Two people were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, while a street vendor walking on a road in the city of Baquba was shot dead by unknown gunmen, security officials said.
The early morning bombing in Baghdad's eastern Al-Baladiyat neighbourhood that also wounded seven civilians was aimed at police but instead hit a minibus, an official said.
"The explosion missed a police patrol and ripped through a bus carrying civilians," he said.
Mass grave of 17 bodies found in Baghdad (click here)
Malaysia Sun
Wednesday 7th November, 2007 (IANS)
Baghdad, Nov 7 (Xinhua) Iraqi troops have discovered the remains of some 17 bodies dumped in an area in the volatile province of Diyala, a source from provincial and Iraq liaison office said Wednesday.The badly decomposed bodies were found Tuesday night in a small river near the village of Hashimiyat, west of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, said the source from the provincial joint coordination centre on condition of anonymity.'The security forces could not retrieve the bodies because we need some back up as the area was booby-trapped,' the source said.On Tuesday, the Iraqi security forces announced they had discovered the remains of 22 bodies in a mass grave in the western province of Anbar.Diyala in northeast of Baghdad has long been the hot-bed of insurgency led by Al Qaeda in Iraq network, and sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shiite communities.
Blackwater's impunity (click here)
Neither Iraqi nor U.S. laws apply to its contractors, so a controversial shooting may go unpunished.
November 9, 2007
'They can get away with murder" has been the cry of critics of hiring private companies such as Blackwater to provide security for the U.S. military and diplomats in Iraq and other war zones. Now it looks as though the critics may be right -- and in the worst way.
Legal experts say the Blackwater contractors accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding 24 others while guarding a State Department convoy in Baghdad in September cannot be prosecuted under either Iraqi or U.S. law -- even if an FBI investigation validates the Iraqi view that the contractors opened fire unprovoked. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, quizzed by a congressional committee last month, agreed that "there is a lacuna in our law about this. And even though this particular case . . . has been referred to the Department of Justice for further action, we believe that there is a hole." What Rice didn't say was that the State Department has been aware of that "hole" for at least two years and has rejected Pentagon suggestions to plug it by making security contractors subject to military law...
Iraq is now policing the USA. When is the war going to be DEFUNDED !?!?!?!
An Act of Terrorism? Blackwater Sniper Shot Dead Three Iraqi Guards At Iraqi Media Center in February (click here)
Legal and political woes continue for the private military firm Blackwater. Iraq's Interior Minister announced this week he would authorize raids against Western military firms to ensure compliance with Iraqi weaponry laws. Scrutiny of the private military industry in Iraq has peaked following the killing of seventeen Iraqis by Blackwater guards in September.
Meanwhile, here in the United States, the Bush administration has shown its first audible signs of distancing itself from Blackwater. On Tuesday, the White House quietly missed a deadline to weigh in on a wrongful death case brought by families of three American servicemembers who died when a Blackwater aircraft crashed in Afghanistan. Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, a major Republican donor, said: "After the President has said that as commander-in-chief he is ultimately responsible for contractors on the battlefield, it is disappointing that his administration has been unwilling to make that interest clear before the courts.”...
US Releases 9 Iranians in Iraq (click here)
By LAUREN FRAYER – 7 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — In a possible break in the U.S.-Iranian standoff in Iraq, the U.S. military on Friday released nine Iranians no longer deemed a threat, including two accused of membership in an elite force suspected of arming Shiite militias.
The handover — planned for several days — still leaves at least three high-profile Iranians in U.S. custody and doesn't significantly ease the many disputes between Washington and Tehran in Iraq. But it could open the door for another round of groundbreaking talks between the two nations, which have been without diplomatic relations for 28 years.
It also is seen as a possible gesture for Iran's pledge to block suspected cross-border weapons shipments to armed Shiite factions, whose attacks have been sharply reduced.
American soldiers delivered the nine men to the offices of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, where they were met by Iran's ambassador, according to Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. The former captives arrived in Tehran later Friday, Iranian state TV said.
The group included two men — identified by the military as Brujerd Chegini and Hamid Reza Asgari Shukuh — who were among five captured when U.S. forces stormed an Iranian government office in the northern city of Irbil in January....
2007 Is Deadliest Year for U.S. Troops in Iraq (click here)
BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 — Six American soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in Iraq on Monday, the military said Tuesday, taking the number of deaths this year to 852. The toll makes 2007 the deadliest year of the war for United States troops.
Military officials announced the discovery of a mass grave holding 22 bodies in a rural area north of Falluja. They also said that nine Iranians being held in Iraq would soon be released, including two of the five who were detained during a January raid of a consulate office in Erbil....
The entire region, from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Kashmir and Iraq remain unstable and to think Turkey wants more chaos in a place where the West can't even hold it's own anymore. Musharraf as a coup leader in Pakistan does little to nothing to improve the instability in the region. He simply has provided comfort to the enemy, namely the Taliban, while they have regrouped and redeployed against the West's forces.
Nine troops dead in Afghan ambush (click here)
This year has been one of the deadliest for coalition forcesSix US soldiers and three Afghan troops have been killed in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, Nato officials have said.
Militants ambushed a patrol of Afghan soldiers and US troops from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Nuristan province.
The ambush is one of the costliest for US forces this year, already the deadliest for the US since it helped overthrow the Taleban in 2001.
Eight US troops and 11 Afghans were also wounded, Isaf officials said.
The Taleban said they carried out the attack, which took place on Friday.
The rebels attacked from several positions simultaneously with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades as the patrol returned from a meeting with village elders, said Isaf spokesman Brig Gen Carlos Branco...
Iraq's Kurdish leaders walk fine line (click here)
Public's distrust of Turkey complicates regional government's tack on PKK crisis
By Bay Fang Tribune correspondent
November 11, 2007
ZAWITA, Iraq — Hamid Nabi remembers 1988 like it was yesterday. Stringing his plastic worry beads through wind-chapped hands, the retired Kurdish fighter recalls watching his village razed to the ground by Saddam Hussein's bulldozers. He remembers carrying his month-old son into the mountains with thousands of other Kurds to escape the government's chemical bombs.
But when asked who he considers his greatest enemy, the man who spent half his life fighting Hussein's army readily answered, "I hate Turkey more than Saddam. Turkey is more dangerous than Saddam was—if it could, it would destroy all the Kurdish villages in the country."
Nabi and his neighbors in this village 30 miles from the Turkish border say they are ready to take up arms if Turkey invades northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. "When Turkey said, 'We're on the border,' we also say, 'We're on the border,' " he said....
Morning Papers - continued...
Michael Moore Today
www.michaelmoore.com
Capitol Hill Goes 'SiCKO'
'SiCKO' DVDs Delivered to All 535 Members of Congress
SiCKO Waiting Room
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/
I have my copy on Pre-Order at Amazon.
Mike Joins Conyers - SiCKO DVDs Delivered to Congressmembers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f47SPW-lVgU&eurl=http://www.michaelmoore.com/
KVMR and all the local Public Radio Stations need your support and BEST 'listening ear.' Thank you.
KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker speaks with Oscar winning director Michael Moore
Oscar winning director Michael Moore helped kick off KVMR’s "Autumn of Love" with an exclusive interview Oct. 29th, Mon. with KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker. Michael spoke passionately about the value and need for independent media like KVMR as well as his new film SiCKO and some of the 80 extra minutes in the DVD release.
Click here to listen to KVMR's exclusive interview
http://kvmr.org/programs/talkies.html
Podcast
http://audio.kvmr.org/mmoore29oct2007.mp3
November 14th Across the U.S.A.
Search for SiCKO House Parties
SiCKO House Parties
Welcome to Democracy for America. On November 14th, people across the country are going to be gathering in homes and classrooms to watch SiCKO and take the first step in building a people powered movement for Health Care for America.
The insurance companies and special interests, don't want you to see this movie. They know that people power can change the system. When you attend a SiCKO house party, you'll see the movie, take action, and call in to a very special conference call with film maker Michael Moore and DFA Chair Jim Dean.
That's why over 200 DFA groups around the country have already set-up SiCKO house parties. Search for the one near you below.
http://www.dfalink.com/search_sicko.php
Councilman supports investigating Giuliani's 9/11 failures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kzhiBudWRw
Charger Day Freeway Blog
The last week has been rough in some ways. My office was closed for the week because of the wildfires ravaging San Diego County. The fires have really affected everyone, and though I was fortunate enough that no members of my immediate family were evacuated or lost their homes, I do know several people who were evacuees. I work for a large company, and I'm sure that when I get back to work on Monday, there will be some bad news regarding co-workers, I know that many people I work with live in Encinitas, or Campo, or Poway.
http://sdpeaceguyblogger.blogspot.com/2007/10/charger-day-freeway-blog.html
October 29th, 2007 2:34 pm
'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.
By Joshua Partlow
BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don't worry much about those.
"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.
They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10497
FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA
By Al Kamen
Friday, October 26, 2007; Page A19
FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.
Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices.
They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News (see the Fox News video of the news conference carried on the Think Progress Web site), MSNBC and other outlets.
Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502488.html
October 29th, 2007 2:14 pm
Health Sector Puts Its Money on Democrats
By Raymond Hernandez and Robert Pear
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — In a reversal from past election cycles, Democratic candidates for president are outpacing Republicans in donations from the health care industry, even as the leading Democrats in the field offer proposals that have caused deep anxiety in some of its sectors.
Hospitals, drug makers, doctors and insurers gave candidates in both parties more than $11 million in the first nine months of this year, according to an analysis of campaign finance records done for The New York Times by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent group that tracks campaign finance.
In all, the Democratic presidential candidates have raised about $6.5 million from the industry, compared with nearly $4.8 million for the Republican candidates. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has amassed the most of any candidate, even as she calls for changes to the health care system that could pose serious financial challenges to private insurers, drug companies and other sectors.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10496
October 27th, 2007 3:38 pm
Friends Come To The Aid Of 9/11 First Responder
NBC10
BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- A fundraiser was held Friday night to help a man who used to make a living helping others.
The Jersey Shore resident was one of the first responders to the attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But as NBC 10’s Doug Shimell explained, these days, he's in need of a helping hand himself.
"This is not about me. This is about all the 9/11 first responders and rescue workers. Those of us that are sick and dying. We just want our dignity,” Charlie Giles said.
Giles, a former N.Y. EMT, can't work due to lung problems caused by the dust and debris at ground zero. The 9/11 Victims’ Fund hasn't paid his medical bills and his Barnegat Township, N.J., home is in foreclosure. For those reasons, colleagues and local officials went to work to help Giles out. It has become a rescue mission for the rescuer.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=10490
I'll go as so far as to say, the USA is not only spying on Average Americans, but, passing information onto 'favorite' media outlets to exploit for their listening audience.
Big Brother Spying on Americans' Internet Data?
AT&T Whistleblower Describes Secret Room That Sends Internet Data to Government
By Z. BYRON WOLF
Nov. 7, 2007 —
It would be difficult to say whose e-mail, text messages or Internet phone calls the government is monitoring at any given time, but according to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek.
As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
"An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room," he said.
Klein, who worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T, said that the highly secretive electronics-focused National Security Agency began working with telecom companies to gain wholesale access to vast amounts of data traveling over the Internet.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3833172
Click above to enter secret room
AT&T whistleblower: I was forced to connect 'big brother machine'
David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007
A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984.
Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.
"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," said Klein. "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet."
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Countdown_Telcom_whistleblower_describes_secret_room_1107.html
H. R. 676, “The United States National Health Insurance Act,”
Or “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All”
"Of all the forms of inequality,
injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 2003, Representative Conyers first introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI). This bill would establish a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. As a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program, it would be available to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories.
The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective health care services regardless of their employment, income or health care status. They would receive all medically necessary primary care, dental, mental health, prescription drugs, and long term care services by the physician of their choice, with no restrictions on what providers they could visit. With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are underinsured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care.
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm
Why are the top Democratic candidates speechless about real health care reform?
Al Gore, Noble Peace Prize winner and the man who won popular vote for U.S. President in 2000, has come out in support of single-payer national health insurance. Why are the top Democratic candidates scared to do so?
http://www.sickocure.org/speechless/
Make Sure Your Rep. Supports H.R. 676
"Which congressional district am I in?"
CLiCK here and enter your address to find out.
If there is already a green check next to your Representative's name, don't hesitate to thank them.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/what-can-i-do/boxscore/index.php?action=print
November 7th, 2007 3:46 pm
Moore: GOP bears number of the beast
The Examiner
The GOP isn’t just misguided, according to controversial liberal filmmaker Michael Moore — it’s downright satanic.
Moore appeared via satellite at the National Press Club on Tuesday to promote the DVD release of his documentary “Sicko” and push for Rep. John Conyers’ national health insurance bill, HR 676.
“Remember, it’s 676,” said Moore. “666 is the other people.” Snap!
He did soften the blow a bit later, adding, “I think most Republican candidates do care about sick children. I just think they care more about the money from their contributors” in the insurance industry.
“To those of you who sided against the children of America” on the recent votes to expand the SCHIP program, Moore said, “enjoy your last year in Congress.”
Immediately after the news conference, a group of nurses and doctors took a van up to Capitol Hill, where they distributed copies of the DVD to every congressional office.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10520
This is Bush's America
Flint, Michigan Sheds Foreclosed Properties
by Tracy Samilton
Listen Now [7 min 46 sec] add to playlist
Morning Edition, October 30, 2007 · Abandoned homes are a big problem in Flint, Mich., a former manufacturing stronghold that is losing jobs and residents.
In some neighborhoods five or more houses in a row are boarded up, as one owner after another packs up and leaves. Once they have sat vacant too long bulldozers come to demolish them.
But the county is stepping in and taking control of the city's tax-foreclosed properties, selling plots to neighbors for a dollar or paying churches to maintain them.
The Genesee County Land Bank is demolishing the abandoned homes in an attempt to end decay and help Flint downsize gracefully.
The lots are sold to the neighbor for a dollar, or turned into parks.
Dan Kildee is Genesee County's treasurer and the chairman of the Land Bank. He says the old system, where the county auctioned tax-foreclosed properties to the highest bidder, worked against the city's interests. The amount of money raised wasn't that much and the result was often a spiral from bad to worse.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15766619
November 6th, 2007 12:41 pm
Parents Upset Over Expulsions For Student Protest
25 Berwyn Students Disciplined For Participating In Anti-War Protest
BERWYN, Ill. (AP) ― Twenty-five students who staged an anti-war protest at Morton West High School in Berwyn last week have been punished, including 10-day suspensions and possible expulsions.
Parents of some suspended students are outraged, saying school officials went too far. They plan to meet at the high school today and demand the students be returned to class.
"This is about freedom of speech," said Adam Szwarek, father of a sophomore who was suspended after the sit-in last Thursday. Szwarek says his son now faces an expulsion hearing. "There has to be consequences, but 10-day [suspensions]?"
Szwarek and other parents insisted the protest against the Iraq war was peaceful. The kids say the sit-in was meant as an alternative to regular school visits by military recruiters.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10516
To: Morton West School District
In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students
We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.
(Written by Columbia College Chicago Students for a Democratic Society)
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
7443 Total Signatures
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?mortonw
November 4th, 2007 1:55 pm
Pentagon says declaration does not affect support
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- The Bush administration says it's deeply disturbed by the state of emergency in Pakistan and is urging a swift return to a democratic and civilian government.
At the same time, the Pentagon says General Pervez Musharraf's declaration does not impact U.S. military support of Pakistan.
A Pentagon spokesman says Defense Secretary Robert Gates is monitoring the situation while en route to China.
Geoff Morrell tells reporters, "Pakistan is a very important ally in the war on terror and he is closely following the developments there."
Morrell also says the emergency declaration "does not impact our military support of Pakistan" or its efforts in the war on terror.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10508
November 4th, 2007 1:56 pm
Musharraf declares state of emergency, suspends constitution
By Matthew Pennington / Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan's constitution and deployed troops in the capital Saturday, declaring that rising Islamic extremism had forced him to take emergency measures that included replacing the nation's chief justice and blacking out the independent media that refused to support him.
Authorities began rounding up opposition politicians despite calls from Washington and other Western allies not to take authoritarian measures.
The U.S. called for Musharraf to restore democracy. However, the Pentagon said the emergency declaration does not affect U.S. military support for Pakistan and its efforts in the war on terrorism. Britain said it was deeply concerned.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10509
"They dragged us out, including the women."
November 4th, 2007 2:20 pm
Pakistani police detain 500 activists
By Matthew Pennington / Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police rounded up hundreds of opposition leaders and rights activists Sunday after Pakistan's military ruler suspended the constitution, ousted the top judge and deployed troops to fight what he called rising Islamic extremism.
Increasingly concerned by the unfolding crisis, the Bush administration said Sunday that American aid to Pakistan would be reviewed. The U.S. has provided about $11 billion to Pakistan since 2001, when Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, allied with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Some of the aid that goes to Pakistan is directly related to the counterterrorism mission," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with her. "We just have to review the situation. But I would be very surprised if anyone wants the president to set aside or ignore" the responsibility to national security that can come through such cooperation, she said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10510
KUCINICH PUSHES IMPEACHMENT MEASURE
Posted: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 3:37 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: White House, Congress, Kucinich
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
Something interesting is happening in your US House.
Kucinich wants to impeach the vice president. We knew that. But today, using special procedures of the House, he put forward his resolution of impeachment.
Before Kucinich could get a debate and a vote, Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stood up and moved to "table" -- i.e., kill -- the resolution. He knew that Republicans would just as soon see the resolution debated and have Democrats put on the spot to vote for or against the Kucinich measure.
At first, a whole bunch of Republicans voted with Hoyer to kill the resolution. Then they came to their senses and are in the process of switching their votes before the gavel comes down.
*** Update *** Now we are being treated to the spectacle of Democrats who had voted to table/kill the measure changing THEIR votes. They don't want to be in a postion of defending Dick Cheney if they don't have to.
*** Update II *** The House has just voted to refer the Kucinich impeachment resolution to committee. That means it's dead.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/06/451550.aspx
continued...
www.michaelmoore.com
Capitol Hill Goes 'SiCKO'
'SiCKO' DVDs Delivered to All 535 Members of Congress
SiCKO Waiting Room
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/
I have my copy on Pre-Order at Amazon.
Mike Joins Conyers - SiCKO DVDs Delivered to Congressmembers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f47SPW-lVgU&eurl=http://www.michaelmoore.com/
KVMR and all the local Public Radio Stations need your support and BEST 'listening ear.' Thank you.
KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker speaks with Oscar winning director Michael Moore
Oscar winning director Michael Moore helped kick off KVMR’s "Autumn of Love" with an exclusive interview Oct. 29th, Mon. with KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker. Michael spoke passionately about the value and need for independent media like KVMR as well as his new film SiCKO and some of the 80 extra minutes in the DVD release.
Click here to listen to KVMR's exclusive interview
http://kvmr.org/programs/talkies.html
Podcast
http://audio.kvmr.org/mmoore29oct2007.mp3
November 14th Across the U.S.A.
Search for SiCKO House Parties
SiCKO House Parties
Welcome to Democracy for America. On November 14th, people across the country are going to be gathering in homes and classrooms to watch SiCKO and take the first step in building a people powered movement for Health Care for America.
The insurance companies and special interests, don't want you to see this movie. They know that people power can change the system. When you attend a SiCKO house party, you'll see the movie, take action, and call in to a very special conference call with film maker Michael Moore and DFA Chair Jim Dean.
That's why over 200 DFA groups around the country have already set-up SiCKO house parties. Search for the one near you below.
http://www.dfalink.com/search_sicko.php
Councilman supports investigating Giuliani's 9/11 failures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kzhiBudWRw
Charger Day Freeway Blog
The last week has been rough in some ways. My office was closed for the week because of the wildfires ravaging San Diego County. The fires have really affected everyone, and though I was fortunate enough that no members of my immediate family were evacuated or lost their homes, I do know several people who were evacuees. I work for a large company, and I'm sure that when I get back to work on Monday, there will be some bad news regarding co-workers, I know that many people I work with live in Encinitas, or Campo, or Poway.
http://sdpeaceguyblogger.blogspot.com/2007/10/charger-day-freeway-blog.html
October 29th, 2007 2:34 pm
'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.
By Joshua Partlow
BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don't worry much about those.
"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.
They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10497
FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA
By Al Kamen
Friday, October 26, 2007; Page A19
FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.
Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices.
They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News (see the Fox News video of the news conference carried on the Think Progress Web site), MSNBC and other outlets.
Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502488.html
October 29th, 2007 2:14 pm
Health Sector Puts Its Money on Democrats
By Raymond Hernandez and Robert Pear
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — In a reversal from past election cycles, Democratic candidates for president are outpacing Republicans in donations from the health care industry, even as the leading Democrats in the field offer proposals that have caused deep anxiety in some of its sectors.
Hospitals, drug makers, doctors and insurers gave candidates in both parties more than $11 million in the first nine months of this year, according to an analysis of campaign finance records done for The New York Times by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent group that tracks campaign finance.
In all, the Democratic presidential candidates have raised about $6.5 million from the industry, compared with nearly $4.8 million for the Republican candidates. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has amassed the most of any candidate, even as she calls for changes to the health care system that could pose serious financial challenges to private insurers, drug companies and other sectors.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10496
October 27th, 2007 3:38 pm
Friends Come To The Aid Of 9/11 First Responder
NBC10
BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- A fundraiser was held Friday night to help a man who used to make a living helping others.
The Jersey Shore resident was one of the first responders to the attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But as NBC 10’s Doug Shimell explained, these days, he's in need of a helping hand himself.
"This is not about me. This is about all the 9/11 first responders and rescue workers. Those of us that are sick and dying. We just want our dignity,” Charlie Giles said.
Giles, a former N.Y. EMT, can't work due to lung problems caused by the dust and debris at ground zero. The 9/11 Victims’ Fund hasn't paid his medical bills and his Barnegat Township, N.J., home is in foreclosure. For those reasons, colleagues and local officials went to work to help Giles out. It has become a rescue mission for the rescuer.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=10490
I'll go as so far as to say, the USA is not only spying on Average Americans, but, passing information onto 'favorite' media outlets to exploit for their listening audience.
Big Brother Spying on Americans' Internet Data?
AT&T Whistleblower Describes Secret Room That Sends Internet Data to Government
By Z. BYRON WOLF
Nov. 7, 2007 —
It would be difficult to say whose e-mail, text messages or Internet phone calls the government is monitoring at any given time, but according to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek.
As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
"An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room," he said.
Klein, who worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T, said that the highly secretive electronics-focused National Security Agency began working with telecom companies to gain wholesale access to vast amounts of data traveling over the Internet.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3833172
Click above to enter secret room
AT&T whistleblower: I was forced to connect 'big brother machine'
David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007
A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984.
Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.
"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," said Klein. "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet."
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Countdown_Telcom_whistleblower_describes_secret_room_1107.html
H. R. 676, “The United States National Health Insurance Act,”
Or “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All”
"Of all the forms of inequality,
injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 2003, Representative Conyers first introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI). This bill would establish a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. As a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program, it would be available to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories.
The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective health care services regardless of their employment, income or health care status. They would receive all medically necessary primary care, dental, mental health, prescription drugs, and long term care services by the physician of their choice, with no restrictions on what providers they could visit. With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are underinsured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care.
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm
Why are the top Democratic candidates speechless about real health care reform?
Al Gore, Noble Peace Prize winner and the man who won popular vote for U.S. President in 2000, has come out in support of single-payer national health insurance. Why are the top Democratic candidates scared to do so?
http://www.sickocure.org/speechless/
Make Sure Your Rep. Supports H.R. 676
"Which congressional district am I in?"
CLiCK here and enter your address to find out.
If there is already a green check next to your Representative's name, don't hesitate to thank them.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/what-can-i-do/boxscore/index.php?action=print
November 7th, 2007 3:46 pm
Moore: GOP bears number of the beast
The Examiner
The GOP isn’t just misguided, according to controversial liberal filmmaker Michael Moore — it’s downright satanic.
Moore appeared via satellite at the National Press Club on Tuesday to promote the DVD release of his documentary “Sicko” and push for Rep. John Conyers’ national health insurance bill, HR 676.
“Remember, it’s 676,” said Moore. “666 is the other people.” Snap!
He did soften the blow a bit later, adding, “I think most Republican candidates do care about sick children. I just think they care more about the money from their contributors” in the insurance industry.
“To those of you who sided against the children of America” on the recent votes to expand the SCHIP program, Moore said, “enjoy your last year in Congress.”
Immediately after the news conference, a group of nurses and doctors took a van up to Capitol Hill, where they distributed copies of the DVD to every congressional office.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10520
This is Bush's America
Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas (click here)
Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas
Monthly Rankings
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Sept. 2007
The lowest unemployment rates in the nation are ALL Red States until one comes to #50 and the first Blue State of Pennsylvania chimes in at 3.2%. There is something VERY, VERY "W"rong with this picture. The Republicans have SYSTEMATICALLY provided economic pressure to Blue State Voters to force the electorate to change their voting preference. Now in Flint, Michigan with an unemployment rate of 8.3% land is being sold for $1.00 to neighbors and churches to stop the real estate degradation of a planned assault by Republican legislators.
This is unconscionable.
When will America wake up to the fact the Republican Party is grossly corrupt, immoral and fiscal opportunist with complete disregard for the well being of the Constitution and nation?
When?
What does it take to have the country realize that Republicans are liars and manipulators?
A war?
An illegal war?
That didn't even do it !
Flint, Michigan Sheds Foreclosed Properties
by Tracy Samilton
Listen Now [7 min 46 sec] add to playlist
Morning Edition, October 30, 2007 · Abandoned homes are a big problem in Flint, Mich., a former manufacturing stronghold that is losing jobs and residents.
In some neighborhoods five or more houses in a row are boarded up, as one owner after another packs up and leaves. Once they have sat vacant too long bulldozers come to demolish them.
But the county is stepping in and taking control of the city's tax-foreclosed properties, selling plots to neighbors for a dollar or paying churches to maintain them.
The Genesee County Land Bank is demolishing the abandoned homes in an attempt to end decay and help Flint downsize gracefully.
The lots are sold to the neighbor for a dollar, or turned into parks.
Dan Kildee is Genesee County's treasurer and the chairman of the Land Bank. He says the old system, where the county auctioned tax-foreclosed properties to the highest bidder, worked against the city's interests. The amount of money raised wasn't that much and the result was often a spiral from bad to worse.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15766619
November 6th, 2007 12:41 pm
Parents Upset Over Expulsions For Student Protest
25 Berwyn Students Disciplined For Participating In Anti-War Protest
BERWYN, Ill. (AP) ― Twenty-five students who staged an anti-war protest at Morton West High School in Berwyn last week have been punished, including 10-day suspensions and possible expulsions.
Parents of some suspended students are outraged, saying school officials went too far. They plan to meet at the high school today and demand the students be returned to class.
"This is about freedom of speech," said Adam Szwarek, father of a sophomore who was suspended after the sit-in last Thursday. Szwarek says his son now faces an expulsion hearing. "There has to be consequences, but 10-day [suspensions]?"
Szwarek and other parents insisted the protest against the Iraq war was peaceful. The kids say the sit-in was meant as an alternative to regular school visits by military recruiters.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10516
To: Morton West School District
In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students
We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.
(Written by Columbia College Chicago Students for a Democratic Society)
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
7443 Total Signatures
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?mortonw
November 4th, 2007 1:55 pm
Pentagon says declaration does not affect support
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- The Bush administration says it's deeply disturbed by the state of emergency in Pakistan and is urging a swift return to a democratic and civilian government.
At the same time, the Pentagon says General Pervez Musharraf's declaration does not impact U.S. military support of Pakistan.
A Pentagon spokesman says Defense Secretary Robert Gates is monitoring the situation while en route to China.
Geoff Morrell tells reporters, "Pakistan is a very important ally in the war on terror and he is closely following the developments there."
Morrell also says the emergency declaration "does not impact our military support of Pakistan" or its efforts in the war on terror.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10508
November 4th, 2007 1:56 pm
Musharraf declares state of emergency, suspends constitution
By Matthew Pennington / Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan's constitution and deployed troops in the capital Saturday, declaring that rising Islamic extremism had forced him to take emergency measures that included replacing the nation's chief justice and blacking out the independent media that refused to support him.
Authorities began rounding up opposition politicians despite calls from Washington and other Western allies not to take authoritarian measures.
The U.S. called for Musharraf to restore democracy. However, the Pentagon said the emergency declaration does not affect U.S. military support for Pakistan and its efforts in the war on terrorism. Britain said it was deeply concerned.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10509
"They dragged us out, including the women."
November 4th, 2007 2:20 pm
Pakistani police detain 500 activists
By Matthew Pennington / Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police rounded up hundreds of opposition leaders and rights activists Sunday after Pakistan's military ruler suspended the constitution, ousted the top judge and deployed troops to fight what he called rising Islamic extremism.
Increasingly concerned by the unfolding crisis, the Bush administration said Sunday that American aid to Pakistan would be reviewed. The U.S. has provided about $11 billion to Pakistan since 2001, when Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, allied with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Some of the aid that goes to Pakistan is directly related to the counterterrorism mission," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with her. "We just have to review the situation. But I would be very surprised if anyone wants the president to set aside or ignore" the responsibility to national security that can come through such cooperation, she said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10510
KUCINICH PUSHES IMPEACHMENT MEASURE
Posted: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 3:37 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: White House, Congress, Kucinich
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
Something interesting is happening in your US House.
Kucinich wants to impeach the vice president. We knew that. But today, using special procedures of the House, he put forward his resolution of impeachment.
Before Kucinich could get a debate and a vote, Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stood up and moved to "table" -- i.e., kill -- the resolution. He knew that Republicans would just as soon see the resolution debated and have Democrats put on the spot to vote for or against the Kucinich measure.
At first, a whole bunch of Republicans voted with Hoyer to kill the resolution. Then they came to their senses and are in the process of switching their votes before the gavel comes down.
*** Update *** Now we are being treated to the spectacle of Democrats who had voted to table/kill the measure changing THEIR votes. They don't want to be in a postion of defending Dick Cheney if they don't have to.
*** Update II *** The House has just voted to refer the Kucinich impeachment resolution to committee. That means it's dead.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/06/451550.aspx
continued...
Tidal surge hits parts of Europe (Video)
November 10, 2007
0134 gmt
North Pole Satellite
The storms over Europe are coming right off the Greenland Ice sheet.
North Sea surge threatens east coast flood defences (click here)
Mark Tran and agencies
Thursday November 8, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Residents along the east coast of England, from Yorkshire to Kent, have been warned of an "extreme danger to life and property" as six severe flood warnings were issued by the Environment Agency (EA).
The Dartford Creek and Thames barriers were set to close tonight to defend against the surge, the agency said.
Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, told MPs that a tidal surge coming down the North Sea could "overtop" flood defences in the region....
November 8, 2007
United Kingdom
Photographer states :: I didn't take this picture, but this shows the effects of the highest storm surge across large swathes of Eastern England this morning.. the largest and potentially most dangerous since 1953.
Morning Papers - continued...
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto waves to her supporters and media from behind the barbed wire outside her residence in Islamabad.Photo: AFP
Sydney Morning Herald
Bhutto released from house arrest
November 10, 2007 - 11:51AM
Pakistan freed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto from house arrest, a senior interior ministry official said, after she was earlier blocked from leading a rally against emergency rule.
"It has been withdrawn," interior secretary Kamal Shah told AFP, referring to the house arrest order.
Speaking via a megaphone from behind coils of barbed wire earlier, Bhutto called in vain on officers stationed outside her Islamabad compound to let her lead the planned protest against President Pervez Musharraf's state of emergency.
"I am your sister fighting for democracy," she told them as police blocked her route with armoured personnel carriers.
Speaking with AFP by telephone from inside her bulletproof car, she said: "I am not afraid of these tactics. My struggle is for the people of Pakistan, for their rights and for an end to dictatorship."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bhutto-released-from-house-arrest/2007/11/10/1194329551252.html
Passengers up, but no extra buses for them
Linton Besser Transport Reporter
November 10, 2007
Advertisement
THE number of new buses bought for Sydney has been an achievement of some pride for the Transport Minister, John Watkins.
But the number has been steadily shrinking.
Figures obtained by the Herald show the number the Government provided last financial year was 158 fewer than he told the public in May.
In contrast to the picture he paints of a rapidly expanding fleet, State Transit has not received one additional bus in the past three years.
"It is tantamount to misleading the community," said the Opposition transport spokeswoman, Gladys Berejiklian. "No wonder there is severe overcrowding."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/passengers-up-but-no-extra-buses-for-them/2007/11/09/1194329513075.html
Up your street: crime zones plotted
Catharine Munro Urban Affairs Editor
November 10, 2007
Advertisement
STRIKE zones of pickpockets, car thieves and assailants can be pinpointed on a map as part of a new service that details the precise location of crime in any council area.
Previously, criminologists could not point to particular locations to help police and councils to boost patrols, improve lighting or put up warning signs to prevent crime.
It is now clear that parts of Sydney are more prone to some crimes than others. The City of Sydney, which extends from Glebe to Elizabeth Bay and south to Rosebery, is the first to be closely examined by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/up-your-street-crime-zones-plotted/2007/11/09/1194329512801.html
When medication harms, not heals
November 10, 2007
Antidepressants have saved countless lives, writes Kate Benson, but for a minority the side effects can be debilitating - or even fatal.
Shocking death … Charmaine Dragun with Simon Struthers.
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IT IS hard to fathom why the Channel Ten newsreader Charmaine Dragun killed herself last week. Hours before the 29-year-old jumped to her death at The Gap, she bought tickets to see Bjork perform on the Opera House steps in January. A day earlier she was chatting excitedly about her plans to show her adored nephew, Ayden, the sights of Sydney and Canberra when he visited at Christmas, swapping shifts to spend time with him.
She was planning to marry her longtime boyfriend, Simon Struthers, when they both turned 30 in March, and they had talked about having children. She was heading a prime-time news bulletin in her home city of Perth and was admired by viewers.
But Dragun, described by her family as "a beautiful ray of sunshine", had been quietly battling major depression for years, and had changed her antidepressant medication only a fortnight before her death. Days before she died, she had reportedly been feeling anxious and stressed, expressing concerns about how the medication was making her feel.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/when-medication-harms/2007/11/09/1194329512867.html
Back pain therapy is ineffective - study
Bellinda Kontominas Medical Reporter
November 10, 2007
GOING to a chiropractor or a physiotherapist to treat lower back pain may be a waste of time, according to research that shows having your spine manipulated does not speed recovery.
A study by the University of Sydney has shown that expensive and potentially risky treatments, such as spinal manipulation and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as diclofenac or ibuprofen, are no more effective than paracetamol.
Current guidelines for acute lower back pain recommend as the first line of care that GPs advise patients to remain active and avoid bed rest, and that paracetamol be prescribed. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and spinal manipulative therapy are recommended as a second-tier option to speed recovery.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/back-pain-therapy-is-ineffective--study/2007/11/09/1194329512807.html
Europe still struggles to face up to reality
November 10, 2007
Despite the flare-ups migrants are essential to Europe's future, writes James Button in London.
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GIOVANNA REGGIANI, the 47-year-old wife of a naval captain, was coming home from shopping in central Rome last week when a man attacked her near the Tor di Quinto train station on the city's edge. He took her purse, raped her, beat her so savagely that she fell into a coma, and left her body in a ditch. As she lay dying in hospital, Italy erupted.
The suspected killer, Romulus Nicolae Mailat, 24, is Romanian. He is also Roma, a Gypsy, and part of probably the most despised ethnic group in Italy. While a group of young men attacked three Romanians with sticks and knives in a car park, police bulldozed the Gypsy camp near the Tor di Quinto station, where Mailat lived.
Moving along the Tiber River, they demolished more of the squalid camps, made up of flimsy huts and discarded furniture, as Gypsy families sat forlornly and watched. At the same time, the normally sclerotic Italian political system sprang into action.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/europe-still-struggles-to-face-up-to-reality/2007/11/09/1194329509963.html
Zuma's leadership bid hits another obstacle
Chris McGreal in Johannesburg
November 10, 2007
THE bitter power struggle between the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, for control of the ruling African National Congress intensified when a court opened the way for Mr Zuma to be charged with corruption over a multibillion-dollar weapons deal.
The court of appeal's ruling on Thursday that the police seizure of allegedly incriminating documents from Mr Zuma's home and office was legal was expected to undermine his campaign to unseat Mr Mbeki as party leader at an ANC meeting next month and so become the country's president in 2009.
The court also said investigators could have access to papers about a meeting between Mr Zuma and a French arms company, Thint, at which the payment of a substantial bribe was allegedly discussed.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/zumas-leadership-bid-hits-another-obstacle/2007/11/09/1194329510055.html
Bhutto under house arrest in bid to halt rally
Augustine Anthony in Islamabad
November 10, 2007
PAKISTANI police have placed the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest to stop her from holding her first rally since the President, Pervez Musharraf, imposed emergency rule.
A senior official in Islamabad said police had cordoned off Bhutto's home in the city yesterday, but claimed it was only for her protection. However, other officials said she would be stopped if she tried to attend the scheduled rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
"She's free to go anywhere but if she tries to go to the rally she'll be stopped," the official said.
Sherry Rehman, spokeswoman for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, said police were blocking all movement in and out. "It's virtual house arrest," she said.
Police have banned all rallies and thousands of Bhutto's party activists have been detained over the past few days.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bhutto-under-house-arrest-in-bid-to-halt-rally/2007/11/09/1194329509947.html
The $400 billion Australian
November 10, 2007
Big numbers, big passions … a decade ago BHP and Rio Tinto were talking friendly merger, now they're heading for the ring and a bloody bout between two of mining's heaviest hitters. Jamie Freed reports.
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Just over a week ago, the Rio Tinto chairman, Paul Skinner, was told a very important letter was about to land on his desk.
The sender wanted to ensure he was available to open the document in person. Once confirmation was made, a messenger was dispatched to Rio's head office in the posh Mayfair neighbourhood of London's West End with the precious parcel in hand.
What he found inside was formal notification from his BHP Billiton counterpart, Don Argus, that the Big Australian wanted his company. It was offering three BHP shares for each Rio share.
Although the letter served as a massive bombshell to the global financial market, it's fair to say Skinner wasn't exactly shocked. In fact, he was more than prepared.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/the-400-billion-australian/2007/11/09/1194329506801.html
US Presidential Primaries
http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/2007/world/us-presidential-elections-south-carolina/index.html
Scandal of $60m wasted on Tcard
Alexandra Smith
November 10, 2007
TAXPAYERS will be left with a bill of more than $60 million after the Iemma Government admitted it would have to dump the troubled Tcard. Sydney must now start from scratch to create an integrated transport ticketing system.
The smart card was meant to be delivered in time for the Sydney Olympics in 2000, but is now so unlikely to materialise that the Government has told ERG, the company responsible for introducing it, that it intends to terminate its contract.
ERG has until December 3 to implement Tcard for the entire rail network but it almost certainly will not meet that deadline.
An embarrassed Transport Minister, John Watkins, would not speculate on the future of smart cards - a system that dozens of cities around the world have managed to implement - but said his Government was still determined to introduce integrated ticketing in Sydney.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/scandal-of-60m-wasted-on-tcard/2007/11/09/1194329512980.html
Russian model tops Kate Moss
Russian model Natalia Vodianova tops Harper's Bazaar's Best Dressed list while supermodel Kate Moss drops down to number 10.(00:39)
http://media.smh.com.au/?category=Breaking%20News&rid=33120
Cousins' LA cocaine binge
Gerard Wright in Los Angeles
November 10, 2007
Ben Cousins.
Photo: Steve Ferrier
Advertisement
THE emergency early morning call to the Hermosa Beach Police Department last week described a 29-year-old man "on cocaine not acting right". Later, the caller added, the man "has been on cocaine for the past five days".
The caller was Susie Ela, a computer software sales manager. The man on the cocaine binge was Ben Cousins, the wayward former West Coast Eagles captain and star player, accused by his coach of sabotaging the reigning AFL premiers' season, and the centre of an unprecedented judicial inquiry into the troubled club.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/ben-cousins-in-fiveday-la-cocaine-binge/2007/11/09/1194329512789.html
Lyrical terrorist whose grisly poem glorified beheading
Owen Bowcott in London
November 10, 2007
Samina Malik … burst into tears on hearing the verdict.
Photo: AP
Advertisement
A YOUNG Muslim worker at London's Heathrow Airport who wrote poems about beheading non-believers has become the first woman to be convicted in Britain under new anti-terrorism laws.
Samina Malik, a 23-year-old from Southall, west London, who worked at an airport branch of the bookseller WH Smith, burst into tears in the dock at the Old Bailey criminal court in London when the jury returned its verdict.
By a majority of 10 to one they found Malik, who called herself the "lyrical terrorist", guilty under the Britain's Terrorism Act 2000 of possessing records likely to be useful in terrorism.
Poems discovered at her home included two entitled How to Behead and The Living Martyrs.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/lyrical-terrorist-whose-grisly-poem-glorified-beheading/2007/11/09/1194329509950.html
Oil up again over fear of supply breaks
Christian Schmollinger and Gavin Evans
November 10, 2007
Advertisement
CRUDE oil rose for the first time in three days in New York on concern supply disruptions may hamper US efforts to store fuel for peak winter demand.
A fire at Valero Energy Corporation's refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, the company's largest, left processing rates "somewhat reduced", a company spokesman said. Strong currents in the Gulf of Mexico are delaying the restart of the 150,000 barrel-a-day Mars platform, shut for maintenance since November 3, Royal Dutch Shell said.
"The supply situation seems serious so people are seeing this as a buying opportunity," said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager with Astmax Futures Ltd in Tokyo. "For the bullish players it's a good time to take a fresh long position."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/oil-up-again-over-fear-of-supply-breaks/2007/11/09/1194329506831.html
Jungle boys up to monkey business
Alan Ramsey
November 10, 2007
Advertisement
The Government's Tarzan and Jane election routine isn't working. John Howard's vines aren't what they used to be and Peter Costello's pout is still a smirk. We are now all 11 months older since the accursed Kevin Rudd rudely bounded into the Prime Minister's election year miscalculations.
It has been a stressful time ever since for Howard and the deputy now fated never to make it. Two days ago, when they fronted up in Melbourne for their fourth joint press conference of the campaign, the strain was obvious.
Neither seemed comfortable, both were niggly with reporters and each continued to deliberately misunderstand plain English.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/government-monkey-business/2007/11/09/1194329506193.html
Greens push the yellow peril button, leaving farmers in the red
Michael Duffy
November 10, 2007
This week academics at the University of Melbourne released news of the latest victory in the environmental movement's war on Australia. The ban on growing genetically modified canola is costing our struggling farmers a whopping $157 million a year.
No green group has yet claimed credit for this triumph of economic terrorism, but no doubt one will soon. On its website, Greenpeace lists among its main achievements the decision by five states to impose moratoriums on the commercial release of the first proposed GM crop. The greens applied pressure on the states after both Australia's independent regulators, Food Standards Australia New Zealand and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, approved the general release of two types of GM canola in 2003.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/greens-push-the-yellow-peril-button-leaving-farmers-in-the-red/2007/11/09/1194329506200.html
Site not found: the failed online search for Steve Fossett
Stephen Hutcheon
November 9, 2007 - 9:50AM
Two months after adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared over the Nevada desert, the plug has been pulled on an experimental online search mission that harnessed the collective efforts of some 50,000 volunteers around the world.
Last week, without warning, online retailer Amazon.com shut down the collaborative search it began hosting just days after the 63-year-old aviator failed to return from a routine flight on September 3.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) site enabled volunteers to pore over high-resolution photographs covering parts of the 44,000 square kilometres of uninhabited wilderness where the physical search mission has been taking place.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/fossett-search-misses-the-mark/2007/11/09/1194329456167.html
Worm gives uni students a wriggle on in lectures
Harriet Alexander
November 9, 2007
THE artful worm has slithered off the TV screen and into universities, where academics are evaluating its performance in making lectures more interactive.
As the number of students in lectures increases, universities are adopting hand-held devices that work in a similar fashion to Channel Nine's election worm, to ensure every student actively participates.
The University of Western Sydney is about to conclude an 18-month trial of the technology - known as a "student response units" - in select disciplines, which will likely result in it being rolled out to the rest of the university.
Roy Tasker, a chemistry lecturer in the school of natural sciences, said the devices were particularly useful in boosting participation among international students who were shy speaking English. Each student is given a machine like a calculator with numbered keys that allow them to punch in their answers to his multiple choice questions. Their responses are then transmitted to his laptop.
"It's very simple but extremely powerful," Associate Professor Tasker said. "When everybody's voted, I click on a button and up comes a bar graph showing the distribution of figures. The beauty about it is it's confidential, because a big problem with putting hands up is they turn around and see what the smartest student in the class is doing."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/worm-gives-uni-students-a-wriggle-on-in-lectures/2007/11/08/1194329471859.html
Lightning strikes Qantas flight
Craig Platt
November 8, 2007 - 4:54PM
Lightning struck a Qantas plane en route from Sydney to Melbourne this morning, causing flight cancellations.
Flight number QF409 arrived as scheduled at Melbourne Airport this morning but was unable to take off again until safety checks had been carried out after the lightning strike.
Qantas executive general manager of engineering David Cox said lightning occasionally strikes during flights and that aircraft are designed to withstand them.
He said the aircraft underwent a thorough inspection after landing in Melbourne and was back in service this afternoon. Two services on the Melbourne-Sydney route were cancelled as a result of the strike, with passengers accommodated on other flights.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/news/lightning-strikes-qantas-flight/2007/11/08/1194329397064.html
UK flood threat worst in decades
November 9, 2007 - 2:10PM
The Netherlands and Britain, facing the worst flood threat in decades, closed surge barriers and evacuated people from homes as a North Sea storm threatened to inundate low-lying areas.
Authorities compared the approaching conditions to those in 1953 when floods killed more than 2,000 people in both countries.
The massive storm surge barrier near the Dutch port city of Rotterdam was closed for the first time since its construction in the 1990s.
At 11pm last night (0900 AEDT Friday), the two arc-shaped steel doors of the Maeslant barrier edged into the waterway that connects Rotterdam to the North Sea.
As spectators braved rain and wind to watch from a narrow headland, it took about half an hour for the two doors to meet in the Nieuwe Waterweg, about 360 metres wide.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/11/09/1194329501429.html?s_rid=smh:top5
Solar power -- worth it or not?
Of course it is. (Video)
Could installing solar power in a home be an expensive load of hot (greenhouse-free) air?
With generous federal government rebates of up to $8000 for householders to install solar panels (sometimes called solar PV or a solar array), converting may seem attractive.
Yet the average solar power system still costs between $7000 to $12,000 -- even with the generous rebates -- which is something only a gold-plated Greenie could afford. And though solar power is free, renewable and can supply power back to the grid, EnergyAustralia says it is unlikely the installation cost of solar would pay back within 24 years.
What's more, experts are divided on the value in household solar panels reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/renovationnation/archives/2007/11/solar_power_gre.html?s_rid=smh:top5
Evicted suicide service goes on road
Michael Leidig in Vienna and Henry Samuel in Paris
November 10, 2007
A CONTROVERSIAL Swiss suicide charity is now helping people to die in car parks after being forced out of its premises.
Two German men aged 50 and 65 have used the "death on wheels" service of the Dignitas charity, which handed them lethal barbiturates last week in a car park near Zurich.
The deaths were only reported on Thursday, with a prosecutor confirming that both men had driven to a woodland parking area and overdosed in their cars.
The charity was forced to leave the flat in a Zurich suburb which had been its headquarters for the eight years - where the Australian John Elliott went to die in January - after residents campaigned to have it evicted. Locals complained of being traumatised by passing people going up in the lift, only to come across them hours later in body bags.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/evicted-suicide-service-goes-on-road/2007/11/09/1194329509959.html
Nic helps sister through tough times
November 10, 2007 - 2:45PM
Antonia Kidman and Angus Hawley in happier times.
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Antonia Kidman has had her famous big sister's shoulder to cry on during her high-profile split with husband Angus Hawley.
Nicole Kidman said she has been at Antonia's side and helped raise her nieces and nephews through the break-up, which has been littered with tell-all stories in Australian gossip magazines from Hawley's alleged lovers.
"She has been through a tough time recently, so I've been really blessed to be able to be there and help raise her kids, help with her children," Nicole told today's USA Today newspaper.
"I'm godparent to all of them.
"I'm Auntie DeeDee.
"Don't ask how I've gotten that name, either. I bought them a trampoline. I'm very popular at the moment."
Hawley and Antonia have four children, two boys and two girls, with the youngest, daughter Sybella, born in March.
Ironically, it was Antonia who comforted her Oscar winning sister when she split from husband Tom Cruise in 2001.
"She's my best friend," Nicole told the newspaper.
"My sister and I are just - I always say to her that I'm always there for her.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/people/nic-helps-sister-through-tough-times/2007/11/10/1194329555433.html
New hope for Vioxx claimants
November 10, 2007 - 3:27PM
Advertisement
Australian victims of the anti-arthritis drug Vioxx have welcomed a breakthrough in the United States where American claimants who suffered heart attacks and strokes after using the drug have been offered a $US4.85 billion ($5.24 billion) settlement.
More than 1000 Australian former Vioxx users, in a class action spearheaded by law firm Slater & Gordon, say the breakthrough should expedite Australian settlement talks.
Lawyer James Higgins said the Australian class action was probably the most advanced Vioxx litigation outside the US, and the company also would rely on its expertise in settling the world-first settlement package for 3000 Australian women who used Dow Corning breast implants.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-hope-for-vioxx-claimants/2007/11/10/1194329556445.html
US Treasury Secretary backs $US, economy
November 10, 2007 - 3:04PM
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has defended the US dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, saying the American economy's strength, openness and competitiveness would "shine through" the current market turmoil.
"The dollar has been the world's reserve currency since World War II and it's been that for a reason. We are the biggest economy in the world, we are as open as any economy to investment, to trade, and we've had stable economic policies ... we've had good productivity," Paulson told reporters at an impromptu news briefing.
Paulson repeated the administration's oft-stated mantra that a strong dollar is in US interests and that currency values should be set in a competitive marketplace.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/US-Treasury-Secretary-backs-US-economy/2007/11/10/1194329555953.html
New ways to whet the appetite
November 10, 2007
A change in drinking laws won't necessarily mean the transformation of a city's cultural make-up, writes Elizabeth Farrelly.
It's not just about alcohol. That would be complicated enough, in a booze-soaked society such as ours. No, the argument over liquor licensing in NSW takes in gambling, music, planning, health, competition and the creation, or not, of that mysterious nature-grappling device we call culture.
And although - this is the good news - there are three major liquor reforms under way in NSW, none seems likely to go the whole hog and line our streets with funky neighbourhood drinking holes a la Melbourne.
This sheets back to government, and the old, vexed question of whether we can trust it: not just to be honest, but to have our best interests at heart. The liquor issue is looking like an instructive microcosm of why democracy, Sussex Street-style, is unable to deliver even what we want - like a lively, interesting city - much less what we don't want, like any deviation from the climate-change lemming-walk.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/change-in-drinking-laws-wont-make-sydney-less-dull/2007/11/09/1194329512870.html
continued...
Friday, November 09, 2007
Response to fuel spill under Bay Bridge called 'unusually slow' (Video)
Waterfowl fouled: birds glided across the rainbow-hued surface of the bay Thursday as wildlife workers attempted to rescue as many oil-soaked birds as possible while emergency crews blocked off beaches and attempted to contain the growing fuel oil leak from the Cosco Busan. Duration: 1:05. File size: 9.2 MB. Camera and editing: Frederic Larson, Chronicle Staff
Jonathan Curiel, Kevin Fagan, Peter Fimrite,Pat Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
(11-08) 22:14 PST San Francisco --
Emergency officials were pressured Thursday to explain why it took them hours to announce that 58,000 gallons of oil had leaked from a container ship that rammed the Bay Bridge on Wednesday - creating a slick that has contaminated beaches and injured hundreds of birds from Hunters Point to the Marin Headlands and out to the Farallon Islands.
San Francisco officials, frustrated that they weren't told immediately about the severity of the spill, threatened legal action against the company or agency responsible for the disaster. Sen. Barbara Boxer has called for scrutiny of the Coast Guard's response. Residents and environmental groups have become increasingly alarmed at the sprawling contamination - and what they called an anemic cleanup response taking place as late as Thursday night.
"Why did it take them so long to respond?" complained Mike Herz, founder of the San Francisco Baykeeper organization and chairman of U.S. Friends of the Earth. "Every oil spill I've ever seen has screwups of one kind or another.
"But it looks like they've been unusually slow in responding in this one."...
Emergency officials were pressured Thursday to explain why it took them hours to announce that 58,000 gallons of oil had leaked from a container ship that rammed the Bay Bridge on Wednesday - creating a slick that has contaminated beaches and injured hundreds of birds from Hunters Point to the Marin Headlands and out to the Farallon Islands.
San Francisco officials, frustrated that they weren't told immediately about the severity of the spill, threatened legal action against the company or agency responsible for the disaster. Sen. Barbara Boxer has called for scrutiny of the Coast Guard's response. Residents and environmental groups have become increasingly alarmed at the sprawling contamination - and what they called an anemic cleanup response taking place as late as Thursday night.
"Why did it take them so long to respond?" complained Mike Herz, founder of the San Francisco Baykeeper organization and chairman of U.S. Friends of the Earth. "Every oil spill I've ever seen has screwups of one kind or another.
"But it looks like they've been unusually slow in responding in this one."...
Canisius students’ zoo leads way to Amazon rain forest in Buffalo
Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News
Kelly Fischbach, a Canisius College biology student, visits a bird in the classroom mini-zoo.
Kelly Fischbach, a Canisius College biology student, visits a bird in the classroom mini-zoo.
Before the semester closes on Michael Noonan’s zoo biology class at Canisius College, his students are tasked with creating their own mini-zoo.
So the 18 students transformed Room 316 of the Health Science Building, at the corner of Jefferson and East Delavan avenues, into a South American rain forest exhibit, right down to the canopy of leaves on the ceiling and the trail of bark leading to the douroucouli night monkey.
The public is invited to check out “Tropical Trek: From Dusk ’til Dawn in the Amazon,” from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays until Nov. 16.
For the first part of the semester, Noonan’s students studied the principles of exhibitry and husbandry, and then visited several zoos as far away as Detroit and Chicago to scope out exhibits and best practices.
“It’s very much like the real world,” said Noonan, professor of psychology and biology, and director of Canisius’ animal behavior program. “It’s a simulation of what real zoos have to go through.” The students decided to cre-
ate a South American rain forest exhibit, borrowing 10 species from the Buffalo Zoo, thanks to Noonan’s long working relationship with the cultural institution.
In less than three weeks, the students turned an ordinary classroom into an elaborate natural habitat, even hauling in and erecting fallen trees, and keeping the room temperature at a humid 82 degrees.
The exhibits include a sixbanded armadillo, a prehensiletailed porcupine, a dwarf caiman, a douroucouli night monkey, and green and black poison dart frogs.
The zoo is glad to be part of the project, said Kevin Murphy, animal curator at the zoo and a Canisius graduate.
“The best way to educate the public is having good exhibits,” Murphy said. “It’s amazing [the students] do this in the time frame they do.”
It was a lot of work, said Alicia DuBrava, a senior in the class.
“It was so much planning for the species’ needs. There was a lot to think about,” she said, “But it was worth it. I loved it.”
Noonan gives the students high marks.
“These are the most wonderful students I’ve ever worked with,” Noonan said. “These exhibits are as good as I’ve seen anywhere.”
jrey@buffnews.com
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