Sections on today's Signs Page:
Signs Editorials
Editorial: Jeff Rense: A Reinvention of What?
by Lisa Guliani
WingTV.net
May 31, 2006
Patsy Smullin has run KOBI-TV for the last 30 years, and her father founded it. If anybody would have known Jeff Rense and the supposed 5,000 newscasts he claims to have made, it would be Patsy.
As it happens, Patsy Smullin does remember Jeff Rense, and in two different telephone conversations I had with her over the past few days, she confirmed that he did have a position at her television station for a brief time as a reporter and news anchor. Smullin stressed that Jeff Rense, or "a guy calling himself Jeff Rense" (her words), was employed at KOBI (an NBC affiliate) from June 1983 to May 1984, and she is not aware of him working at any other station in the state of Oregon either prior to his employment at KOBI-TV or afterward. [I would think if he'd worked at other stations previous to his KOBI position, these would be listed on his job application or resume when given to KOBI-TV.]
Patsy had more to say. She revealed that in her experience as Jeff Rense's employer (and this is a direct quote), "He was not known for his honesty." Think about it. Patsy Smullin was Rense's employer some twenty-odd years ago. After all this tiime, the characteristic that has remained clearly in her memory is that "he was not known for his honesty". What does that say to you? According to Ms. Smullin, at that time Jeff was also involved in several court battles with other people. One wonders if it has anything to do with him not being known for his honesty?
When asked if she could elaborate on the comment she'd made regarding Rense not being known for his honesty, her response was: "Sure. He was a compulsive liar." Also, when questioned as to the claim that Jeff anchored and produced "5000 newscasts," Patsy Smullin laughed heartily and stated, "This is absolutely false. He never did that here." Okay, if not at KOBI-TV, then where? Perhaps Jeff Rense will reveal this to us all at some point so we can check it out.
But on his own website, Jeff Rense claims to have been an award winning news director and TV news anchor for 10-12 years (accounts vary). If not at KOBI, then where?
An American Treasure
"...an award-winning television News Director and News Anchor for over ten years, Jeff continually pushed for higher standards of journalism and responsible, intelligent reporting and inquiry. Regrettably, those goals were often at odds with the irrevocable TV news obsession for tabloid exploitation of the trivial, the tragic and the sensational.
The situation became so dubious and distasteful that one day he walked away from his highly-successful news anchor/news director career (as high as a 53 Share of the audience - Nielsen) and moved to radio, recognizing it as the last viable approach to bringing reality to the American public...and now with the internet, to the world."
Interesting that Rense declares himself to have worked as a news director and TV news anchor. An online search to verify this claim will return only Jeff's words - repeated endlessly ad nauseum - as to the truthfulness of this assertion. There is literally no data to substantiate this claim anywhere on the Internet. The claim exists only on the Rense website and a few other websites that have copied and pasted the Rense claims onto their own pages.
Here's another variation on the same theme:
Jeff Rense Hosts Sightings
"During 12 years as an award-winning broadcast journalist, Jeff anchored and produced more than 5,000 television newscasts. This devoted single dad is also author of the book AIDS Exposed and passionately investigates ways to prevent diseases and extend life. His brother is Rip Rense, longtime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Jeff first did radio while an education major at the University of California Santa Barbara, and in 1994 he returned to this first love with the talk radio show "End of the Line." In 1997, by agreement with Henry ("the Fonz") Winkler and Paramount Pictures, this show transformed into the ratings star "Sightings."
________________________
Based on the following article he was a former news anchor at KOBI-TV. However, if one searches KOBI, there is no information on the former popular TV news anchor/news director Jeff Rense to be found.
The Truth Is Up There
"Presiding over this conspiratorial miasma is talk-radio host Jeff Rense, whose weeknight show, Sightings, is broadcast from a studio somewhere in Southern Oregon. (Citing threats to his life, Rense asked WW not to print his exact location.) Five nights a week, millions of Americans (including an estimated 21,000 Portlanders) in 120 cities tune in to Rense to catch up on the latest news on alien abduction, Bigfoot, paranormal phenomena--and chemtrails.
A former news anchor at KOBI-TV in Medford, Rense began to hear reports of chemtrails in 1999."
________________________
The above page also says:
"...By the late 1980s, Rense had worked for a handful of network affiliates in the West. He said his ratings were high, and he got 'lucrative offers' from several Oregon stations. But he had also become disillusioned with TV news and decided to quit the business...."
"...After walking away from his TV career path, Rense returned to Santa Barbara and opened three pet stores..."
"...By the early 1990s, he had sold his All About Pets outlets and in
1994 approached KTMS with his idea for a talk-radio show, or at least his
version of one..."
A Professional Broadcast Journalist
"As an award-winning broadcast journalist, Mr. Rense has anchored and
produced well over 5,000 live 30-and 60-minute television newscasts...
He began his End of the Line radio show which is now in its fourth highly successful year. Recently, the End of the Line was acquired by the Premiere Radio Networks, one of the top two radio syndicators in the U.S., and renamed Sightings On The Radio through an agreement with Paramount."
"As a journalist and private citizen, he became aware of the misinformation and propaganda surrounding the worldwide AIDS epidemic. Devoting three years of his life to researching, collecting, and compiling information, Mr. Rense authored the underground best-seller, AIDS Exposed, published in 1996. This 420-page book has been acclaimed as 'overwhelming,' 'invaluable' and 'the supreme public service' by broadcasters, medical professionals, and educators alike. Appearing on scores of radio and TV talk shows as an author, Mr. Rense has also been invited to lecture at such institutions as the University of California and USC. He has also written numerous articles, papers, and reports on a wide range of subjects and acts as a consultant on many different issues."
Rense's radio show "End of the Line" was renamed "Sightings on the Radio" with Paramount's backing.
An extensive online search for articles, journalistic reports and papers from Rense's purported pre-Rense.com prior journalism career yields nothing.
How can this possibly be if he has written 'numerous articles, papers and reports'? His book, AIDS Exposed, does not appear to be available anymore, with the exception of potential availability of a random used copy, if you're lucky.
A search on the publisher of this book, Bioalert Press, coughs up nothing as far as any listing for a company website. The top link on Google search for Bioalert Press says:
Bookstore-- Balaam's Ass Suggests you Read These Good Books-- Health
AIDS Exposed-- Jeffrey Rense-- BioAlert Press-- Order from Jeffrey Rense, Box 764, Goleta, CA 93116.
www.balaams-ass.com/bookstor/health.htm -
The above Google link would not come up for me in multiple attempts on different days. Regarding the Balaam's Ass link, one has to order the book directly from Jeff Rense. Is Bioalert Press really just Rense? Has anyone out there ever heard of BioAlert Press?
I find it very ironic that Rense claims to have become so disillusioned with the nature of the mainstream news broadcast business and its inclination to report tabloid style and sensationalistic material, when all anyone has to do is peruse the Rense.com website for 10 minutes to realize that this well-funded site - funded by the same mainstream businesses that Rense claims to detest - is full of nothing but a never-ending series of sensationalistic, tabloid-type, speculative, unsubstantiated or fabricated "news" articles. I have to ask: Is it only wrong, disillusioning and distasteful when "other" people do it, Jeff? Or are you doing it for them?
Furthermore, online searches for any evidence of Jeff Rense's longstanding claims regarding his extremely elusive broadcast journalism career path result in even more dead ends. There is an article on the Rense website entitled "The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio", authored by an alleged LA writer named Kennedy Grey.
In this article, Kennedy Grey tells us, "When Jeff Rense walked away from a #1 rated Oregon TV news anchor position, people suspected job burnout. But Rense wasn't burned out on his job - his dissatisfaction was with the entire news media mainstream itself. Grey also states that Jeff spent "Twelve years as on on-air news anchor and News Director "up and down the west coast". Grey further says, "Rense set out to re-invent himself into a liberator of truth from the confines of a corrupt and bloated news broadcast industry." He directly quotes Jeff Rense, who states that "Radio is theatre of the mind - a classroom of the mind."
Very interesting comments, aren't they? The news anchor/news director statement is impossible to verify via the Internet, and thus far Jeff Rense is not forthcoming with information in spite of email sent to him containing a link to our website inquiry dated Friday, May 26, 2006 entitled
Who is "Jeff Rense"?.
Does anyone have a copy of any of these 5,000 Jeff Rense newscasts? We'd sure like to see one. Thus far, we have not been able to locate anyone other than one person who remembers seeing Jeff Rense anchoring a TV newscast.
Only one TV news station's call letters has been identified thus far. KOBI-TV 5 out of Medford, Oregon, which is an NBC affiliate. Pretty slim pickings. Nevertheless, I made a few phone calls to Medford, Oregon. One would think that as popular as Jeff Rense supposedly was, surely someone would remember him from the 1980s - particularly if he had produced and anchored 5000 newscasts up and down the West Coast. I contacted the Mail Tribune and spoke with an employee in the newsroom there. She had never heard of Oregon's (former) #1 top rated news anchor, Jeff Rense. I'm awaiting a call back from Bob Hunter, editor of the Mail Tribune newspaper, to see if he has any recollections on this matter.
"5000 newscasts" is a lot of face-time, wouldn't you agree?
Three calls to Rense's former place of employment, KOBI-TV, speaking to four people who worked there didn't help Rense very much. The first three individuals I spoke to had never heard of Jeff Rense and have no idea who he is. The fourth person was the owner of KOBI-TV, Patsy Smullin.
Jeff claims to have left KOBI due to his disillusionment with the mainstream news business and the tendency of TV news to sensationalize and dip into tabloid reporting, as stated above. I read Jeff's published claims about this to Patsy Smullin. She responded, "That's not the reason he gave to us at all. He said he was leaving to join his wife in their pet store." (I am currently checking out the pet store information.)
Overall, Patsy Smullin did not give the impression that Jeff Rense had been a good employee while at KOBI-TV. In fact, her remarks lead one to believe that he was dishonest and untrustworthy. It was all I could do to restrain myself from asking if he conducted newscasts while wearing a wig.
The question we are entitled to ask is: why would Jeff Rense make so many claims about himself, and why would he twist the truth and make public assertions that are simply not true? Isn't the "reinvented Jeff Rense" supposed to be all about truth and realism as opposed to sensationalistic, tabloid-style garbage? If one looks through his massive website, is it conceivable that a person might have some difficulty trying to discern the difference between Rense shinola and honest-to-god truth? Where does one end and the other begin? Furthermore, is Jeff Rense the person we really want to ask? Maybe that's a little like asking the Bush Gang to investigate 911? (Oh, right! That's already been done. Vanity Fair called it a "whitewash.")
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"Jeff Rense" is a familiar name to countless political/conspiracy talk radio listeners and web surfers. In these circles, virtually everyone has heard of Rense.com. What very few people realize, or have even stopped to think about, is that very little is known about Jeff Rense himself. The available online biographical information is vague and deals in generalities, and has been copied and pasted from one web page to another over the years. The Rense legend has been dished out for public consumption in small, measured doses over time in word-bytes, with hardly anyone daring to openly question its veracity. Rense fans embrace, and often even vehemently defend the legend; those who don't end up being ridiculed and attacked. That's a curious feature of Rense's position as a "Don of Conspiracy Theory."
Jeff Rense is an interesting guy, wouldn't you say? He's almost a "legend," and is even listed on a government site as the number one purveyor of "misinformation." That's quite an accomplishment in a world where "conspiracy theories" are mostly ignored and/or ridiculed. You could even say that it's very good PR to get on such a list.
My curiosity about Jeff Rense began to grow when I realized that he has maintained a large Internet presence for over a decade, and despite this, there is virtually no information on him other than that which one finds on his website. How has Jeff Rense managed to keep information about himself off the world wide web all these years? That's an interesting question.
We live in a time that discourages curiosity about the 'wrong" topics - that's a hallmark of the Fascist Bushistas - and it seems that questioning Rense is definitely "off limits". We have to wonder why that is? Asking questions about the 'wrong" people is treated almost as sacrilege. We love to hold our heroes and gurus high, don't we? But we have learned the hard way that questions are only discouraged by those who have something to hide.
What could such a nice guy, such a great "patriot" as Jeff Rense possibly have to hide?
After spending some time combing through his claims and trying to find verification, I began to realize that "Jeff Rense" is little more than a reinvention. He has made some very interesting claims over the years, particularly with respect to his former stints in broadcasting and journalism; claims that served as building blocks in the creation of a legend, a legend constructed from the twisting of truth.
Well, let's look at "Jeff Rense" shall we?
Claim #1: On the Rense.com homepage, we see the following:
"7-time Peabody Award Nominee"
Rense Peabody Talkers claim
Peabody Awards
Truth: The Rense.com website claims 7 Peabody Award nominations. The Peabody Awards do not have nominees. Anyone can fill out an entry, and then later the winners are announced. The following is an email from the Peabody Awards Foundation:
"The Peabody Awards program receives between 1,000 and 1,200 entries each year. We have a 15 member judging panel that meets several times during the judging season, as well as listening to/watching entries alone in their homes. They discuss all entries as a group, usually awarding between 30 and 35 Peabodys each year. There are no set number of awards given, and the board does not choose winners according to categories. We do not have a list of finalists or "nominees" as other awards programs have.
Basically we have entrants and winners.
Danna L. Williams Senior Administrative Assistant, emailed Feb. 6th 2006 "
In other words, you could nominate me, I could nominate you, and we could all nominate Bozo the Clown. The Peabody panel will most likely be interested in these suggestions, but ultimately it is THEY who choose the winners - not the public. There are no official lists of "nominees". Rense's website claim to be a "7 Time Peabody Award Nominee" is not only misleading, it means essentially nothing. It is presented to create a false impression of Rense's achievements, basically it's deceptive bullshit.
Talkers Magazine
Claim # 2: The Rense website states: "Talkers magazine top 100 Host"
Talkers Magazine 'Heavy Hundred'
Truth: Please note that Jeff Rense isn't listed in the top 100, and he isn't even listed in the additional 250 names cited in the rest of Talkers Top Radio Show Host picks for 2006. Rense failed to make the cut for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, etc. Rense was on the list once about 6 or 7 years ago, according to a response to my inquiry from Talkers. In fact, they find it pretty interesting that Jeff Rense is continuing to present this claim on his website, creating the appearance of his inclusion on this popular list, when in fact he is currently not listed. Talkers characterized this misleading representation in one word: "deceptive", saying they will be keeping an eye on Rense and any Talkers-related claims from here on. Take a look at the list linked above. Call Talkers Magazine and ask them yourself if he is indeed on the Heavy Hundred list.
Claim #3: Rense's Myspace web page at:
Rense My Space Profile
lists his location as Ashland, Oregon - yet his
Rense.com fan page says he is in California. Which is it? Oregon or California? Does Rense have two residences? If so, how does one afford two residences on an Internet radio income?
Of course, the answer could be that one is his residence and the other is his business address, but again I ask: if he is just doing his thing because he is a "true patriot," knowing how hard it is for other true patriots to make ends meet, we have to ask who is paying for his office? What money is backing him? His MySpace page states an income of $100,000-$150,000 per year. That's a pretty good chunk of change for a guy who claims to be in the business out of the goodness of his heart and his interest in truth.
Claim #4: Jeff Rense From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Former television news anchorman Jeff Rense, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, is a popular conspiracy theorist and is the host of the Jeff Rense program which is broadcast on terrestrial radio and on the Internet. He originally became famous in the 90's with the program "Sightings". His radio program and website (See below) cover such subjects as UFO reports, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, reports of new diseases and a plethora of other material rarely covered by the mainstream media. Jeff Rense leans towards a populist approach regarding politics and media. Rense does not subscribe to any conventional political standpoint and many of his views are simultaneously left and right leaning. Rense has one brother: writer, Rip Rense. His step mother, New York socialite and editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest Magazine, is Paige Rense. His father, now deceased, was sports journalist, Arthur F. Rense (1917-1990). Jeff Rense is also a vegan."
Here we learn that Rense's views are simultaneously both left-leaning and right-leaning. Sounds like an impossible contortion to me. It is also established from more than one source that Jeff's father, Arthur Rense, formerly a sportswriter and sometime poet, also landed a job at Douglas Aircraft doing PR. How does a poet and sports writer qualify for work as a public relations director at Douglas Aircraft, one of the biggies of the Military Industrial Complex? Here is the NY Times obituary for Arthur Rense:
Arthur F. Rense, Public Relations Executive, 74
Published: January 5, 1991
"Arthur F. Rense, a retired public relations executive, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Las Vegas, Nev. He was 74 years old. He died of leukemia, said his wife, Paige Rense, editor in chief of Architectural Digest. Mr. Rense had been director of public relations for the Summa Corporation, owned by Howard R. Hughes, until he retired in 1985. He had been public relations director for the missiles and space systems division of Douglas Aircraft Company and director of public relations at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Besides his wife, Mr. Rense is survived by three sons from a former marriage, Kirk of Irvine, Calif., Jeff of Santa Barbara , Calif., and Rip of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; four brothers, Randy, Andy and Frank, all of Cleveland, and William of Denver; and two grandchildren."
Regarding Summa Corporation: The Washington Post for April 1, 1975, carried this information:
Summa Corp. is the financial umbrella under which most of (Howard)Hughes' worth is contained. . . .Most recently, another Summa "asset" hit the news: the $350 million Hughes Glomar Explorer vessel that Hughes built at the behest (and the expense of) the Central Intelligence Agency . . .
Mormons, Hughes, & CIA
Summa Corporation has been tied to CIA contracts on more than one occasion, to say the least. Douglas Aircraft Company is also well-known for its numerous government contracts, not to mention the starring role it is now playing in Bush's Endless War. So again I ask: how did "poet and sports writer" Arthur Rense end up as public relations director for Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corp? In bed with the Feds? More importantly, what kind of connections does his son Jeff have with these same gangs? After all, his views are "both left and right" which suggests that he could have "left" views to vacuum in his audience all the while subtly converting them to "right" views.
Douglas Aircraft also has ties with RAND Corporation:
RAND (Encyclopedia)
The RAND Corporation is an American think tank.
"A think tank is a group of individuals dedicated to high-level synergistic research on a variety of subjects, usually in military laboratories, corporations,... first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. The organization has since expanded to working with other government and commercial organizations
Project RAND was set up in 1945 by the USAAF, under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company.
An interesting aside, Condoleezza Rice is a former RAND CorporationTrustee 1991-1997 and current Secretary of State for the United States, a war whore if ever there was one."
Okay, I think everybody knows that Summa, Douglas Aircraft, and RAND are all major players with DOD, military and intelligence agencies in the fascist government that Jeff Rense claims to oppose. Yet we find that his father, Arthur Rense, poet, sports writer, was "somehow" a public relations director for both Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corporation? I would very much like to hear Jeff Rense publicly discuss this curious fact one of these fine days and explain how he could live much of his life with alphabet soup guys swarming around and avoid being sucked into the game. Funny how this topic never seems to come up, isn't it? Perhaps he just keeps forgetting to mention it.
Now I want to come back to the fact that Jeff Rense has been "honored" by being listed on an official government website as a major purveyor of "disinformation." Among the conspiracy minded crowd, that is a high kudo indeed. But is it evidence that Jeff truly is a news source standing in opposition to the Bush Reich and their Endless Wars of Lies and Agression?
Maybe not. As Robin Ramsay, Editor of Lobster Magazine, wrote in the February issue of Fortean Times:
Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their first targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department![...]
[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking. [Fortean Times 206, February 2006, p. 19]
What a coup for Rense and Alex Jones! To be officially declared the primo disinfo sites!
Now, if you know anything about COINTELPRO, you expect that the real COINTELPRO operations will be attacked "officially" in order to legitimize them exactly as Robin Ramsay has described. That also means that those who are honest and sincere seekers of truth and who do their homework and expose the lies of the Bush Reich will most certainly NOT be martyred by the official government. It's way too dangerous and gives them legitimacy. Rather, they will be defamed by the "officially designated disinformation agents" - and dare we say it? - agents of COINTELPRO - such as Jeff Rense, Alex Jones and similar disinformation agents that have received the Bush Reich seal of approval. In fact, it seems that this is a well-orchestrated plan that is described in detail in that much maligned document, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." A really good way to keep your eye on the ball is to consider Protocol 12...
Now, it is important when reading the Protocols to not assign it's origin to any national, ethnic, or religious group. Rather, consider it to be a statement of any group that seeks to control and dominate and use the public for their own gain Then you will truly begin to understand who is who. (Excerpts of Protocol 12: Control of the Press are located at the end of this article):
Recently, Jeff Rense accused WING TV of engaging in deception, trickery, subterfuge, lying, slandering and libel, just to name a few of the charges. He has publicly called Victor Thorn and myself "dirtball scum" and together with Alex Jones and their groupies, charged us with being "cointelpro assets, government agents and un-American operatives." True to form and apparently attached to Rense at the hip and the lip, (and linked on the official government site, I should add), Alex Jones reinforces, endorses, and repeats Rense's vomitus, only louder. What's amusing about this is that Rense, Jones, nor any of their groupie parrots have yet to substantiate any of these bogus charges made against us.
Let me get this straight: nobody has to qualify with data anything they say, including (and particularly) veteran journalist Jeff Rense? Alex Jones has yet to qualify any of his ridiculous comments about us either, and he refuses to hold himself accountable for his own words.
Ask yourself: Why? Is it conceivable to anyone out there that they cannot PROVE the things they say about WING TV? Moreover, this begs the question, can they prove any and all of the other "gospel-truth" claims they've made over the years? That is another very good question.
You see, we are supposed to just believe what they say simply because they say it. Forget about facts, data or substantiation. Forget about showing evidence of their assertions; forget about journalistic ethics; just nod your head and agree. Don't ask questions. Gobble up the lies and twisted half-truths and get your fill of the fix du jour. After all, in the words of Jeff Rense, it is all a "theater of the mind".
What we observe is that both Rense and Jones pander to a "least common denominator" audience demographic, the people out there who don't bother to check things out for themselves and will just repeat what they hear and read over and over, like good little automatons. This is the ideal Rense-Jones target audience, one which will worship blindly, surrender critical thinking skills, believe without questioning or disagreement, and of course, shell out the bucks.
Incidentally, I did a search on Kennedy Grey, the LA writer who penned the article about Rense entitled "The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio". He (she) is supposedly the founder of a group called RAS, an acronym for 'Rock Against Suicide'. Unfortunately, a Google search for Kennedy Grey did not yield a website for the RAS group anywhere, but there is an interview with Kennedy Grey on this website: The Internet Nirvana Fan club.
Nirvana Fan Club. Oh boy, how impressive. A Curt Cobain suicide website.
I was not able to find any links online to Grey's organization, RAS, or to Kennedy Grey, other than the single article he wrote which is published on Rense.com. I would like to find Kennedy Grey and ask whether he/she even bothered to check out any of the claims Rense made to him in the interview. I'd like to learn if Kennedy Grey is a real person, for that matter, or just a construct of Rense. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't look like Grey checked out any of the statements Rense made in that interview. If some fact-checking had been done, Grey's article would probably be written a bit differently. At the very least, it should have been.
Rense and Alex Jones enjoy howling that "Honest-to-God patriots" NEVER attack other patriots. That sounds a lot like:
"For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy.... No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification." [Protocols]
The fact is, those who do the research know that the Founding Fathers engaged in a great deal of spirited, heated, sincere dispute with one another. Some of them hated one another with a passion, yet in spite of this animosity, worked together for the common good of all; as the cause was greater than themselves, and they all knew this to be true. So where do Rense and Jones come off bellowing such obnoxious bullshit, especially when we consider the fact that merely branding oneself a "patriot" does not necessarily make it so. I could call myself "Madonna", but that doesn't mean I AM Madonna.
Appearances can be very deceiving, especially when some so-called "patriots" choose to hide behind microphones in undisclosed locations, behind wigs and a couple of re-touched, photo-shopped cartoon pictures of themselves, and when all they choose to disclose is a limited amount of extremely vague babble about their alleged past accomplishments, achievements, or experience designed solely to "create a legend".
And then, when we discover, with a minimum of investigation, that their claims do not hold up, that it is all completely manipulated, twisted, exaggerated, amplified and contorted facts designed to present a false front, we are entitled to question everything else. Why do people tell lies, whether overtly or by omission? Some do it because of mental issues, some do it for profit, and some do it just because they can.
Bottom line: Jeff Rense has falsely accused WING TV of trading in lies, deception, duplicity, innuendo, disinformation and trickery. Jeff Rense better start looking in the mirror, because I see a so-called "patriot" that needs to come clean about a few things, someone who is "not known for his honesty".
Definitions of deception on the Web:
- misrepresentation: a misleading falsehood
- the act of deceiving
- magic trick: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
- Deception is providing intentionally misleading information to others.
- To practice deceit.
- To give a false impression: appearances can deceive.
- To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
- to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid intransitive verb : to practice deceit
- be false to; be dishonest with - 2: cause someone to believe an untruth
Stay tuned, because this investigation is not over. More to follow soon.
"The big print giveth and the small print taketh away."
~ Tom Waitts ~
Protocol 12: Control of the Press
1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows -
2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.
3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? ...
For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy.... No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification.
I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER.
WE CONTROL THE PRESS
4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.
5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent that they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ....
6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL BECOME AN EDUCATIVE MEANS ON THE HANDS OF OUR GOVERNMENT, WHICH WILL NO LONGER ALLOW THE MASS OF THE NATION TO BE LED ASTRAY IN BY-WAYS AND FANTASIES ABOUT THE BLESSINGS OF PROGRESS. Is there any one of us who does not know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations of men among themselves and towards authority, because progress, or rather the idea of progress, has introduced the conception of every kind of emancipation, but has failed to establish its limits .... All the so-called liberals are anarchists, if not in fact, at any rate in thought. Every one of them in hunting after phantoms of freedom, and falling exclusively into license, that is, into the anarchy of protest for the sake of protest....
FREE PRESS DESTROYED
7. We turn to the periodical press. ... if there should be any found who are desirous of writing against us, they will not find any person eager to print their productions. Before accepting any production for publication in print, the publisher or printer will have to apply to the authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall know beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the subject treated of.
8. Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be suspected by the public. For which reason all journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.
9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant.
10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.
11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.
12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.
13. In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we must take special and minute care in organizing this matter. Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.
14. THESE ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO SERVE ANOTHER PURPOSE, NAMELY, THAT OUR SUBJECTS WILL BE CONVINCED TO THE EXISTENCE OF FULL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND SO GIVE OUR AGENTS AN OCCASION TO AFFIRM THAT ALL ORGANS WHICH OPPOSE US ARE EMPTY BABBLERS, since they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our orders.
ONLY LIES PRINTED
15. Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it .... WE SHALL HAVE A SURE TRIUMPH OVER OUR OPPONENTS SINCE THEY WILL NOT HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSITION ORGANS OF THE PRESS IN WHICH THEY CAN GIVE FULL AND FINAL EXPRESSION TO THEIR VIEWS owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall not even need to refute them except very superficially.
16. Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in our semi-official organs.
17. Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press, there are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on the watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of their numbers will give away the secret of his sources of information unless it be resolved to make announcement of them. Not one journalist will venture to betray this secret, for not one of them is ever admitted to practice literature unless his whole past has some disgraceful sore or other .... These sores would be immediately revealed. So long as they remain the secret of a few the prestige of the journalist attacks the majority of the country - the mob follow after him with enthusiasm.
18. Our calculations are especially extended to the provinces. It is indispensable for us to inflame there those hopes and impulses with which we could at any moment fall upon the capital, and we shall represent to the capitals that these expressions are the independent hopes and impulses of the provinces. Naturally, the source of them will be always one and the same - ours. WHAT WE NEED IS THAT, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS WE ARE IN THE PLENITUDE POWER, THE CAPITALS SHOULD FIND THEMSELVES STIFLED BY THE PROVINCIAL OPINION OF THE NATIONS, I.E., OF A MAJORITY ARRANGED BY OUR AGENTUR. What we need is that at the psychological moment the capitals should not be in a position to discuss an accomplished fact for the simple reason, if for no other, that it has been accepted by the public opinion of a majority in the provinces.
19. WHEN WE ARE IN THE PERIOD OF THE NEW REGIME TRANSITIONAL TO THAT OF OUR ASSUMPTION OF FULL SOVEREIGNTY WE MUST NOT ADMIT ANY REVELATION BY THE PRESS OF ANY FORM OF PUBLIC DISHONESTY; IT IS NECESSARY THAT THE NEW REGIME SHOULD BE THOUGHT TO HAVE SO PERFECTLY CONTENDED EVERYBODY THAT EVEN CRIMINALITY HAS DISAPPEARED ... Cases of the manifestation of criminality should remain known only to their victims and to chance witnesses - no more.
I think that all of the above may sound very familiar to all of you reading this. The only difference is that now we work with the Internet and not printed materials. But the principles are the same.
Original
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Shake, Rattle, and Roll
Indonesia quake toll soars as hospitals strained
by Ian Timberlake
AFP
June 1, 2006
BANTUL, Indonesia - The number of casualties from the Indonesian quake soared as the United Nations said hospitals were overcrowded and still lacked basic supplies to treat the mass of injured.
The death toll rose to 6,234 while the number of those hurt in the quake more than doubled to some 46,000, with more than 33,000 suffering serious injuries, the social affairs ministry said.
Hospitals in the quake zone were still overwhelmed five days after Saturday's 6.3-magnitude temblor rocked Central Java, with patients spilling out from wards and badly in need of care, a UN official said.
"Most of the hospitals are functioning, but are overloaded. There is a lack of space in the hospitals," said Charlie Higgins, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Yogyakarta, the main city in the quake zone.
"It's getting out the basic medical supplies to the hospitals that is important," he told AFP.
Foreign rescue teams from China, the United States, Qatar, and Singapore among others have set up field hospitals and lent a hand to help overworked staff at area hospitals.
Higgins said most of those who needed life-saving emergency treatment had been cared for and that aid agencies were now concerned about the long term.
"They are trying to move people out from the wards and beds to their homes. But for some, the homes are ruined," he said. "So that is a problem."
More than 139,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in the quake, according to the social affairs ministry.
At the bustling Bantul General Hospital, the co-ordinating doctor, Hidayat, said the facility was treating about 50 patients, some of whom were lying on cots in the entrance.
"That's because they don't have a house to go home to," Hidayat said.
Sumartini, 33, lay on her side with her right leg in a temporary splint made of cardboard. She had been there since Saturday without surgery.
"I'm waiting for a doctor from Singapore," said Sumartini, whose husband was also at the hospital with eye and leg injuries.
Rescue teams were still looking for bodies under the rubble.
Six Spanish rescuers aided by sniffer dogs combed through the rubble of a village market in hard-hit Bantul district, looking for bodies or even possible survivors, the Detikcom online news service said.
Local traders were quoted by Detikcom as saying there were many people in the market when it collapsed and that some might have been trapped inside.
Amid complaints from residents that aid has been too slow to arrive, Indonesian officials have defended the relief effort while the UN's Higgins offered a relatively upbeat assessment of the situation.
"On the whole, there are enough resources to deal with the emergency," he said.
Wet weather in recent days and clogged roads have hampered distribution of needed supplies by trucks and some survivors have were bracing for a sixth night without shelter.
Military and rescue helicopters are delivering badly-needed food to isolated areas, and transporting the injured to hospital.
But hundreds of survivors converged on the governor's complex in Yogyakarta hoping to pick up extra rations for their devastated villages.
Villagers sat around a large pavilion where sacks of rice and parcels of instant noodles were being distributed.
"We need everything. Our village is the most destroyed in the area, so we want anything we can get," said Wakidgian, 42, from the flattened mountainous village of Dlingo in Bantul.
"We come from an isolated area close to the mountains, so not much help has reached us," said another survivor, Mardain, 32, who had waited for hours for his number to be called.
Meanwhile an Indonesian minister encouraged survivors to migrate to other islands in the sprawling archipelago nation, a report said.
"We have notified district chiefs to make lists of people who are interested in moving from earthquake-prone areas," Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno was quoted as saying by Detikcom.
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Indonesian Merapi Volcano Active Since Earthquake
1 June 2006 | 08:47 | FOCUS News Agency
Jakarta. The Merapi volcano in Indonesia has been active for almost a week erupting lava and hot gases, AFP reports.
Local volcanologists warned that there is danger for this activity to intensify.
After the volcano suddenly became active in mid May a few days later its activity died away. However, Merapi became active again after the 6,2 earthquake that hit the island of Java a week ago.
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Comores: Comoros volcano bubbles, residents wait
L'Express (Port Louis)
30 Mai 2006
Publié sur le web le 31 Mai 2006
Lava bubbled from a volcano in the Comoros yesterday, frightening thousands on the Indian Ocean archipelago's largest island who feared a full-blown eruption as they waited to see where the molten rock might flow.
An early-morning reconnaissance flight over the crater of 2,361-metre (7,750-ft) Mount Karthala - one of the world's largest active volcanoes which dominates the island of Grande Comore - gave no new clues.
"The information we have is that the lava is flowing. The crater is full of lava. We don't know which direction it will flow," Colonel Ismael Daho, head of the emergency management team for the Comoros archipelago, told Reuters. He said the lava was covering an area about 3 km square (1.2 miles).
Residents were nervous, but the volcano's periodic past eruptions, which have rarely have caused a major disaster, have tempered some on the island of 300,000 against panicking.
"Everyone is scared. No one could sleep the whole night," Jimmy Mohamed, from the village of Nvouni on Karthala's western slope, told Reuters. "But we all stayed and no one left. We're used to this."
Until the observation flights - flown by African Union troops still on the island after monitoring the May 14 presidential election - determine where the lava might flow, authorities urged people to wait for evacuation instructions.
The lush green slopes of Karthala, covered with vanilla and ylang ylang plantations, form most of the largest island of the three in the Comoros chain, 300 km (190 miles) off the coast of east Africa.
Karthala has rarely punished Grande Comore harshly. The worst disaster on record came in 1903 when 17 died from noxious fumes that seeped from cracks.
The last big eruption, in April 2005, sent thousands fleeing in fear of poisonous gas and lava. That was the first eruption in more than a decade, but the volcano has erupted on average every 11 years over the past two centuries.
In November, Mount Karthala fired clouds of ash and sparks across the island, blanketing the capital Moroni and other villages in grey dust. Moroni is about 15 km from Karthala's crater.
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Gaia Gone Wild
Arctic climate switched from greenhouse to icehouse, ice cores show
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 17:46:13 EDT
CBC News
A 400-metre-long ice core recovered near the North Pole shows the region was subtropical about 55 million years ago.
Scientists consider the Arctic to be a bellwether for climate change, but until recently, they've had to rely on samples collected thousands of kilometres away from the Pole.
In fall 2004, scientists explored the Arctic Ocean with two icebreakers and drilling rigs on the Lomonosov ridge on the Arctic seabed, about 250 kilometres from the North Pole.
The icebreaker allowed scientists to drill into a climatic time capsule - the multi-year ice is harder and thicker than ice accumulating in one Arctic winter.
"At times, the drill site was covered with ice two to three metres thick," recalled geologist Jan Blackman, a professor at Stockholm University and chief co-scientist on the expedition.
"It was like driving into a brick wall."
In three studies appearing in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, researchers document how the region went from greenhouse to icehouse conditions.
First, the Arctic Ocean went through a warm period with temperatures of 23 C, like a tepid bath.
Then, about 49 million years ago, freshwater was released into the Arctic, cooling it to about 10 C.
At the time, the salinity was dilute enough for freshwater ferns to cover much of the surface in the summer, the team said.
Cooldown
The fast-growing greenery likely absorbed carbon dioxide, helping to cool the Arctic, theorized Henk Brinkhuis of Utrecht University, a co-author of one of the papers.
Pebbles carried to the middle of the Arctic basin, dropped by icebergs, suggest ice started to form about 45 million years ago, the start of the region's current "icehouse" conditions.
The findings suggest the Northern Hemisphere cooled earlier than previously thought, coinciding with when the climate was also changing in the Antarctic.
The temperature swings show the rate of change in carbon dioxide levels and warming are similar to those forecast in coming centuries, a journal commentary notes.
"In one respect future warming will be different," wrote Heather Stoll, a geoscientist at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. "It will be amplified at high latitudes by the reduction in snow and sea ice cover."
The blanket of reflective snow and sea ice over the poles reduces the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, helping to cool the planet.
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Marauding monkeys wreak havoc on Zanzibar isle
AFP
May 31, 2006
Zanzibar, Tanzania - Thousands of rampaging monkeys are wreaking havoc on an island in Tanzania's Zanzibar archipelago where locals have appealed for help to exterminate the simians, officials said Wednesday.
Increasingly brazen colobus monkeys are destroying farmers' crops, stealing food from inside houses and menacing young children on the islet of Tumbatu just north of Zanzibar's main island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean, they said.
"Some farmers have been spending nights in their fields to protect crops from being eaten or destroyed by the monkeys," said Zanzibar North Regional Commissioner Pembe Juma.
"We have been providing tools to kill the monkeys, but still there are many continuing to destroy farm produce," he told AFP.
Zanzibar Agriculture Minister Burhan Saadat Hajji last week gave 300 bullets to help Tumbatu's 10,000 inhabitants get rid of the aggressive monkeys, but residents said the donation was woefully inadequate.
At least 900 monkeys were killed in an extermination drive last week, they said, stressing that thousands more were still ravaging their banana, cassava and sweet potato fields and threatening their homes.
"We have intensified hunting, but our problem is a lack of tools," Tumbatu farmer Khamis Hassan told AFP. "One bullet costs about one cent but can kill only one monkey and we can't afford to buy thousands of bullets."
"We are afraid of monkey attacks, especially on children, and sometimes they reach our homes and grab our cooked food," he said. "It's just getting worse and worse."
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New Orleans sinking much faster than previously thought, scientists say
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 17:46:13 EDT
CBC News
The delta city of New Orleans is sinking into the Mississippi ooze much faster than was previously thought, averaging about six millimetres per year, researchers now say.
The scientists make the claim after using data from Canada's RADARSAT satellite to analyze radar images of structures on the ground three years before Katrina flooded the city in 2005.
The findings raise concerns about plans to rebuild levees, said the study's lead author, Tim Dixon, a geophysicist at the University of Miami.
"My concern is the very low-lying areas," Dixon told the Associated Press. "I think those areas are death traps. I don't think those areas should be rebuilt."
The worst shrinking of the ground - which scientists call subsidence - occurred in sections of the Mississippi flood plain where levees were breached by the hurricane's surging water, the study's authors report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Some parts of the city sank faster than others, the team said:
* The districts of Lakeview on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
* Kenner, near Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in the eastern part of the city.
* Regions bordering St. Bernard Parish, west of Lake Borgne.
Water levels after Katrina exceeded expected levels by between 90 centimetres and 1.7 metres, the scientists found.
Subsidence may have also led the base of the levees to fail, allowing the walls to be damaged by the surge, the team said.
The study's authors were divided on the cause of the subsidence.
Dixon blamed overdevelopment and drainage of wetlands, which could cause the highly organic soil to dry out and become compacted.
Study co-author Roy Dokka, director of the Louisiana Spatial Center at Louisiana State University, attributed the shrinking to natural seismic shifts in eastern New Orleans, not human interventions.
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Woman Hit By Lightning While Praying
wsbtv.com
May 30, 2006
DAPHNE, Ala. -- Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.
But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
She said 'Amen' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.
Firefighters said its likely she was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house yesterday afternoon. She was found lying on the floor by her 14-year-old granddaughter.
Fire officials think the lightning likely struck across the street from the couple's home and traveled into the house through a water line. The lightning continued into the couple's backyard and ripped open a small trench.
A family member said he will no longer assume it is safe to be indoors during a lightning strike.
Dime-sized hail and wind gusts of up to 45 miles-per-hour moved across coastal Baldwin County. As much as three inches of rain fell in some areas in three hours.
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Germ Warfare
Japan destroyed germ warfare evidence in 1945: report
www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-31 23:45:37
TOKYO, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Historical documents presented to the Japanese Defense Agency on Wednesday reveal that the Japanese Army destroyed evidence of biological weapons development in China upon surrender in 1945, Kyodo News reported.
The Niiduma documents, named after Seiichi Niiduma, a deceased former army officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, also show that at the end of World War II, the United States occupation authority had exempted Japan from liability of having conducted human experiments in China.
The documents included Niiduma's record of the Japanese Army ordering Unit 731 on Aug. 15, 1945 to have evidence of developing germ weaponry destroyed, as well as his records of the U.S. authority questioning himself and other Japanese officers, the report said.
According to his records, the U.S. authority told Niiduma and others "not to mix scientific research with war crimes," which practically exempted Japan from liability of conducting human experiments in China.
The bunch of documents, collected by Niiduma during the war, were given to a research institute of the Defense Agency on Wednesday by his second daughter Tomoe Obata.
The documents also included a letter from Tomosada Masuda, an army doctor of Unit 731, to Niiduma in November 1945, which recorded that another army doctor, Ryoichi Naito, had proposed concealing the fact that human experiments were conducted in China.
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Bird Flu Explodes in Indonesia
By MARGIE MASON
AP Medical Writer
May 31, 2006
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia averaged one human bird flu death every 2 1/2 days in May, putting it on pace to soon surpass Vietnam as the world's hardest-hit country.
The latest death, announced Wednesday, was a 15-year-old boy whose preliminary tests were positive for the H5N1 virus. It comes as international health officials express growing frustration that they must fight Indonesia's bureaucracy as well as the disease.
"We're tying to fix this leak in the roof, and there's a storm," World Health Organization spokesman Dick Thompson said. "The storm is that the virus is in animals almost everywhere and the lack of effective attention that's being addressed to the problem."
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands with a population of 220 million people, has a patchwork of local, regional and national bureaucracies that often send mixed messages. The impression, health officials said, is often that no one is truly at the helm.
"I don't think anyone can understand it unless you come here and see it for yourself," said Steven Bjorge, a WHO epidemiologist in Jakarta. "The amount of decentralization here is breathtaking."
He said Health Ministry officials often meet with outside experts to formulate plans to fight bird flu, but they are rarely implemented.
"Their power only extends to the walls of their office," Bjorge said, adding that the advice must reach nearly 450 districts, where local officials then decide whether to take action.
Indonesia has undergone a sometimes rocky transition to democracy since dictator Suharto was ousted in 1998, with many powers held by the central government being transferred to regional and community control.
But the process has been haphazard, and funding and policy decisions are often at the whim of inexperienced officials, mayors and village heads.
National government officials concede there is a problem.
"The local government has the money, thus the power to decide what to prioritize," said Hariyadi Wibisono, director of communicable disease control at the Ministry of Health. "If some district sees bird flu as not important, then we have a problem."
Indonesia has logged at least 36 human deaths in the past year - 25 since January - and is expected to soon eclipse Vietnam's 42 fatalities. The two countries make up the bulk of the world's 127 total deaths since the virus began spreading in Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.
Attention has been fixed on one village on Sumatra island where six of seven relatives died of bird flu. An eighth family member was buried before samples were collected, but the WHO considers her part of the cluster.
Experts have not been able to make a direct link between the relatives and infected birds, which has led them to suspect limited human-to-human transmission. But no one outside the family of blood relatives - no spouses - has fallen ill and experts say the virus has not mutated.
Scientists believe human-to-human transmission has occurred in a few other smaller family clusters, all involving blood relatives. Experts theorize that may mean some people have a genetic susceptibility to the disease.
On Wednesday, WHO said 54 uninfected relatives and contacts of the Indonesian family cluster are under quarantine and are taking the antiviral drug Tamiflu and being monitored by health workers. The quarantine is voluntary and the teams are also visiting all the homes in the 400-household village in North Sumatra to look for signs of illness. It said there are no signs the disease has spread since May 22.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. Experts fear the virus will mutate into a highly contagious form that passes easily among people, possible sparking a pandemic.
Experts say the best way to battle bird flu in Indonesia is to tackle it in poultry. But that message is not always getting through. Many local governments have refused to carry out mass poultry slaughters in infected areas, and vaccination has been sporadic at best.
Such measures helped other hard-hit countries like Vietnam and Thailand curb outbreaks. Both have strong central governments that have taken a leading role in the effort.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has been working with officials to improve poultry surveillance in Indonesia and quicken response times to outbreaks.
But public awareness and bio-security standards remain low in the densely populated countryside, home to hundreds of millions of backyard chickens.
"It's not quite so easy here, where you have to have the local authorities and provincial authorities and national all on board," said Jeff Mariner, an animal health expert from Tufts University working with the FAO in Jakarta.
"We find outbreaks every week scattered throughout Java. It's a diffusely endemic disease. In most districts, you can find it at any time," he said. "It's a staggering undertaking in a decentralized country."
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Indonesia slaughtering poultry in bird flu area; 1 death every 2 1/2 days
03:48:09 EDT Jun 1, 2006
MARGIE MASON
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Officials began slaughtering poultry Thursday in an Indonesian village where preliminary tests showed a 15-year-old boy had died from bird flu, as the country struggled with a sudden rise in deaths averaging one every 2 1/2 days.
All chickens will be killed within one kilometre of the boy's house in the Tasikmalaya district of West Java province, said Budi Utama, head of the local animal and fisheries agency. Indonesian tests on Wednesday found that the boy had contracted the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus, and officials were awaiting confirmation from a World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong.
At least 36 people have died in Indonesia from bird flu, out of a total world toll of 127, WHO said. The country averaged one human bird flu death every 2 1/2 days in May, putting it on pace to soon become the world's hardest-hit country, surpassing Vietnam's 42 deaths.
The boy's death is the third in the province from the H5N1 virus since last week. A 10-year-old girl and her 18-year-old brother earlier died within hours of each other in another village.
In North Sumatra province, six members of a single family in a tiny farm village recently died of bird flu and a seventh was sickened. An eighth family member was buried before samples were collected, but WHO considered her part of the family cluster of cases, the largest ever reported.
Experts have not found any link between the family and infected birds, which has led them to suspect human-to-human transmission. Only blood relatives - no spouses or in-laws - were sickened and no one outside the family has fallen ill.
Scientists suspect human-to-human transmission has also occurred in a few other smaller family clusters, all involving blood relatives. Experts theorize that could indicate that some people have a genetic susceptibility to the disease.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a highly contagious form that passes easily among people, possible sparking a pandemic. However, there is no sign that the virus has changed.
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Duck-And-Goose Lock-Up
by Julia Watson
UPI Food Correspondent
Jun 01, 2006
Le Bugue, France - The Périgord pastures are strangely empty this year. In this corner of South West France, devoted almost exclusively to the goose and duck liver trade, the view along the roadside fields usually presents a wing-to-wing waddle of earthbound birds.
This summer, though, they are hidden away in their vast winter-shelter sheds, protected from potential deadly contact with wild overhead flyers from somewhere the other side of the continent or the world that may be a source of avian flu.
This week a two-day conference all about birds has taken place in Rome, set up by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Experts from around 100 countries gathered to try and fathom whether the H5N1 strain of bird flu that has killed at least 127 people worldwide and ravaged poultry flocks in Asia, Africa and parts of Europe is caused by migrating birds or the commercial poultry business.
If avian flu reaches the Dordogne, it would decimate the economy of the 'département' -- one of France's largest counties -- and ruin the Périgord farmers dedicated to the art of making foie gras.
Yet the foie gras farmers seem particularly unconcerned about the possible threat. In familiar French fashion, they shrug their shoulders, let their muscled arms flap against their blue overalled thighs and make a dismissive popping sound.
They are following EU regulations over the indoor housing of all commercial fowl. But the foie gras farmers are far more anxious about the effect upon their business of California legislation last year banning the California trade from 2012 in breeding ducks and geese for their vastly expanded livers. And they are nervous that the other U.S. foie gras area of production, New York state, may follow suit. Will international legislation then force the French to do the same?
Animal-rights activists have been banging the drum for some time over the cruelty of the liver-fattening process. And the state of California caved.
In France called 'gavage,' the method involves pouring corn into the bird through a funnel set into its throat. It sounds a dreadful business.
Yet there are two facts that should give pause for consideration. One, these fowl apparently don't have the muscles in their throats that would cause us humans to gag at such an action. The other is the sight of the flocks when the old women, flapping in their black skirts in a manner not unlike their birds, enter their fields.
As soon as they appear with their three-legged stools, funnel and sack of grain, the birds come tottering across the grass, abandoning whatever activity had grabbed their interest till then. It doesn't seem the action of a creature in fear. Of course, this is foie gras production at its best: without machine intervention and with birds running free in the fields. Before avian flu, that is.
But whether or not it is a despicable way to treat any bird, given the small size of the foie gras market and limited number of people who can afford to buy it, it's a wonder that the force of the focus upon the practice has inspired the Californian administration to legislate for its shut down.
Why has it not focused first on the comfort of a bird we all eat, all the time -- cheap, mass-produced battery-farmed chicken? They live in excruciating circumstances pressed into cages with no room to move, standing in their own excrement. Some have their beaks removed to prevent them from attacking their fellow captives. Whatever they are fed, it certainly isn't fresh from the ground and can contain elements not produced in nature.
On the eve of the avian-flu conference, Samuel Jutzi, director of FAO's animal production and health division, said that so far, research had shown that wild birds were likely to introduce the virus in unaffected areas but that the disease became widespread "mostly through poor hygiene and through poultry trade."
Anti-foie gras campaigners may be crying 'foul' at the wrong bird.
Sautéed foie gras is often served with this onion marmalade, which is good with any cold cuts or with chicken liver pâté.
Makes just over 1 cup
-- 1 pound onions, thinly sliced
-- 2 tablespoons regular olive oil
-- 1 cup red wine
-- 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
-- 1 bay leaf
-- 2 tablespoons sugar
-- 1/2 teaspoon salt
-- freshly ground black pepper
-- Gently sauté the onions in the oil in a covered pan till wilted and loosing their shape, stirring regularly.
-- Remove lid to evaporate any remaining moisture and stir in salt.
-- Add the wine, bay leaf, sugar and pepper and keeping cooking over the lowest heat, stirring regularly, until it all becomes a glossy, syrupy shapeless mass.
-- Add the vinegar and stir, then cook it out, stirring regularly, until you are left with a syrup again.
-- Add a few grinds of black pepper, leave to cool, then pack in a sterilized jar and store in the refrigerator a few weeks maximum.
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Voodoo Economics
Enron's Schemes "The Very Nature of Profit-Based, Market Capitalism"
Friday, May 26, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
by Wallace Roberts
Despite the conviction of a couple of bad apples at Enron, its top management is not the real culprit in this case. The real culprit is a bad idea: deregulation of the natural gas and electric power industries.
Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the former chairman and CEO respectively, can be said to be just "sharp traders," businessmen who did what the free market demands of rational players: take advantage of every loophole they could find to make a profit.
Early in 2004, Jacqueline Lang Weaver, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, wrote, "In competitive electricity markets, participants can exploit legal loopholes or use market power to make millions of dollars in profits in a very short time period, and there is every reason to expect them to do so; it is the very nature of profit-based, market capitalism."
Enron played a unique role in deregulation, Weaver said, and the company's subsequent collapse was, in some important respects, a product of its genius in creating "a business model that tracked the opening of deregulated energy markets...and was accompanied by a powerful and well-financed political lobbying arm that worked to push government regulation out of the markets."
This point was echoed earlier this month when Robert McCullough, an independent analyst of the electric power industry who is a consultant to many of the agencies that were victims of Enron's trading schemes, testified before the U.S. Senate Policy Committee and described in detail the consequences of what he called "an unfortunate policy decision" made by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 1993.
"At the urging of Enron and other energy companies," he said, "CFTC relinquished control of energy-based forward transactions...The purpose of Enron's various market manipulation schemes was to promote an increase in long term prices-an increase that returned over a billion dollars in earnings on an enormous forward position that Enron accumulated just before the onset of the Western [California] Market Crisis."
McCullough did not mention that the CFTC's 1993 decision was made at the urging of its chairwoman, Wendy Gramm, who is an economist and the wife of then-Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. Almost immediately after the vote of the commission to forego regulating electricity trading, Mrs. Gramm resigned from the commission and joined the board of Enron where she remained until just after the bankruptcy in 2001.
Another key aspect of the Enron story described by both McCullough and Weaver is the role of EnronOnline, which handled nearly one-quarter of all gas and electric trades by the end of the 1990's, making it the largest e-commerce system in the world.
Weaver said EnronOnline did not match up buyer and seller for a fee like most commodity trading exchanges. Instead the company was a counterparty to each trade, meaning that it bought products for sale if the price was right and then re-sold them, a business strategy that requires billions of dollars in cash to handle the float.
This need for large amounts of cash for trading, she said, combined with some disastrous deals in hard assets like building a huge power plant in India and overpaying for a water utility in England, neither of which generated any cash flow, sent the company far into debt. It was Enron's use of the accounting gimmicks called Special Purpose Entities to keep this debt off its books that finally caused the bankruptcy.
Weaver concludes her report by saying that the darker side of the market system is that it is controlled by and primarily benefits two "power elites...the elected political elite and the managerial elite that control business enterprises. However, between the two, corporations have the upper hand, because they must be induced with incentives to produce and provide jobs and tax revenues to society. he corporate elite have a privileged position of power in the political system, and political leaders will act to provide business with whatever it says it needs to do its job."
The ultimate danger, she said, of this "enormous influence of the business elite on the legislative policies at all levels of government seriously distorts the democratic nature of our society."
And the ultimate irony is that Enron collapsed by choking on the apple of deregulation which it tried to swallow whole, and that Lay and Skilling, the corporate cheerleaders for deregulation, are victims of their own delusion.
Wallace Roberts is an independent journalist writing on public policy issues. His work on deregulation of the electric power industry was assisted by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
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Will Bush's Treasury Chief Swing the Budget Ax?
By DANIEL KADLEC
Time.com
Tuesday, May. 30, 2006
President Bush followed a well-worn path to the Goldman Sachs well when he tapped Hank Paulson, the firm's CEO since 1999, to succeed John Snow as Treasury Secretary. Across Wall Street, they are hoping that Paulson can bring a gravitas to the job that has been missing since the tenures of Larry Summers and another former Goldman executive, Robert Rubin, both of whom served under President Clinton.
Certainly, Paulson commands respect in financial circles. He engineered Goldman's initial public stock offering a few years ago and led the firm to record profits of $5.6 billion last year. Goldman's stock has been on a tear. He's just the kind of big-time name that Bush needs.
But there is no guarantee that Paulson can live up to his reputation as a get-it-done boss. "We'll have to see if he signed a pre-nup," says Ethan Harris, chief economist at Lehman Brothers. That's a pointed reference to the limited role that Snow was allowed to play in shaping economic policy under Bush, who has preferred to keep his own counsel and that of Vice President Cheney and top adviser Karl Rove. Snow was widely seen as a pitchman for policies that others wrote.
Would someone of Paulson's stature take the job with limits? It's possible, says Harris, who adds, "Treasury Secretary is a great way to cap a career under almost any circumstances." For the most part, though, economists agree that Paulson likely will be asked to shape policy, which should give him a stronger voice on all economic issues.
That's no small matter, given that the budget deficit is soaring and the economy appears to be slowing while the critical housing market clearly is weakening. With a new, untested team at the Federal Reserve, Paulson's credentials are more important than ever. He's also well-known in China, which holds massive stores of U.S. housing debt and could get spooked if the housing market takes a sharp turn down.
So what imprint will Paulson try to put on economic policy? He cannot tackle the big issues-Social Security and tax reform. The wind is gone from those sails and the Bush Presidency doesn't have the broad support it would need for any big new initiatives. Yet Paulson will need some kind of win to cement his authority. That likely will come in the area of spending cuts.
"This is still a President who hasn't vetoed a bill," says Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody's Economy.com. Bush wants to make his tax cuts permanent, which will be expensive, and the nation is fast approaching the retirement years of the Baby Boom generation, which will be costly as well. Paulson needs to start the nation down the road of deficit reduction-and Bush needs to give him a free hand.
If Paulson can rein in spending enough to turn the deficit around it will be clear that there was no pre-nup, and his words will carry the full weight of the U.S. government the first time he confronts an international or domestic crisis. He needs that, as do we all.
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Disaster funding cut for N.Y.C., Washington
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 11:00:38 EDT
CBC News
Federal grants for disaster prevention and responses will be sharply reduced for New York City and the U.S. capital region in 2006, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.
New York, the largest metropolitan area in the country, was awarded $124 million US, compared to $207 million last year.
"It's absolutely indefensible. It's disgraceful,"said Peter King, who represents New York City suburbs in the House of Representatives.
"It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision," said King, who also chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.
Forty-six cities on the Homeland Security list will share this year's pot of $740 million US in grants, which are intended to finance the prevention of and response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
Last year, $865 million US was available for the same purpose, leading critics of the Bush administration to complain that it is easing back on homeland security initiatives.
Municipalities around Washington, D.C. will get $46 million US, down from $77.5 million US in 2005.
The hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans, which received $9.3 million US in 2005 prior to the catastrophic flooding caused by hurricane Katrina, will get just $4.6 million US this year.
Population no longer sole factor
Population used to be the sole consideration for the grants, which began in the wake of the al-Qaeda attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Now, assessments are based on intelligence about terrorist threats and the risk of damage from natural disasters, as well as information from law enforcement agencies.
Three cities that didn't make the list in 2005 will get funding this year to train and equip emergency personnel.
They are Memphis, Tenn., and the Florida cities of Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
Comment: Another indication that Bush doesn't care at all about the people he is supposed to be defending, protecting, and representing.
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N.Y., D.C. to get less anti-terror funds
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press
Wed May 31, 2006
WASHINGTON - The two cities targeted in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will receive far less counterterrorism money this year in what the Homeland Security Department described Wednesday as an effort to spread funding to other communities facing threats.
Officials noted a $119 million cut in the total funds available for the 2006 fiscal year from last year. In all, 46 cities will share $710 million in Homeland Security grants to prevent and respond to terror attacks and, to a lesser extent, other catastrophic disasters like hurricanes. The department said the total does not reflect an additional $25 million for nonprofit groups, and other minor costs.
"At the end of the day our job is to make sure that we apply resources in an appropriate manner across the full breadth of this nation so that we get the maximum benefit out of those dollars," Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman told reporters in Washington.
State and local officials also need to budget for disaster preparations, Foresman said, calling the federal grants "designed to help us address the extraordinary, not the ordinary."
The money generally pays for training and equipment for emergency first responders.
But the cut was attacked by the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who represents the New York suburbs and vowed to hit back at the department.
"It's absolutely indefensible, it's disgraceful. As far as I'm concerned the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York," Republican Rep. Peter King told the Associated Press.
"It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision," King said.
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tracy A. Henke said the biggest share of the dollars still would go to the nation's largest cities, with New York City winning the largest share - $124 million, down from $207 million in 2005. The national capital region, which encompasses Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, will receive $46 million, compared to $77.5 last year.
Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans will receive half of what it got last year - $4.6 million, down from $9.3 million - although Homeland Security said the money was to help cities grapple with catastrophic disasters from Mother Nature and terrorists alike.
But several cities saw boosted bottom lines, including three that didn't get any money last year. Fort Lauderdale, Fla., won $9.9 million for 2006 after receiving what Rep. Rep. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., called a paltry share last year compared with Miami.
"I'd been telling Homeland Security, 'We want a divorce,'" said Shaw, who represents the Fort Lauderdale area. "And we got it. ... As far as grants go, I think this is a very good result."
The funding is part of an overall $1.7 billion Homeland Security grant program. Under the program, each state and U.S. territory gets some funding, this year totaling $550 million. Another $450 million will go to state public safety projects, medical responders and to help citizens prepare for disasters.
Until now, the grants largely have been awarded based on cities' populations. Homeland Security still is weighing population as a factor in the grants, but it is mostly awarding the money based on a city's threat risk and how effectively the city will use the funds.
The grants for cities make up the largest chunk of the funding, and has always been the subject of fierce lobbying by local leaders and members of Congress. The final awards often anger many officials who feel residents of their cities are slighted by not getting enough money - or none whatsoever.
Comment: 46 US cities will share $710 million in funding to "securitize" the nation, and yet hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars have been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. What's wrong with this picture??
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Sun to slash 4000-5000 jobs
By Dawn Kawamoto
CNET News.com
May 31, 2006
Sun Microsystems announced Wednesday plans to cut up to 13 percent of its work force, in its first major restructuring effort under new CEO Jonathan Schwartz.
The struggling workstation and server maker said it will cut between 4,000 to 5,000 employees over the next six months, which represents an 11 to 13 percent cut in its global work force of 37,500. Sun said the bulk of the layoffs are expected to occur in the current quarter.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company anticipates that the cuts will save it $480 million to $590 million annually by the fourth fiscal quarter in 2007.
"We've worked hard to reinvent the entirety of Sun's product line, from software to systems, storage and services," Schwartz said in a statement. "It's on that rebuilt foundation that we are reinventing our business model on a far simpler base, and focusing our energies on the automation, energy efficiency and network innovation at the heart of our technology leadership."
Schwartz, who was named Sun's chief executive last month, has wasted no time in paring down the company's headcount since taking the reins. As a result, he may avoid the criticism encountered by company founder and CEO predecessor Scott McNealy, who was faulted by many industry observers and some former Sun executives as having moved too slowly in bringing Sun's costs in line with its falling revenue.
Sun cut more than 13,000 jobs between 2001 and 2005, but it wasn't enough to keep costs in line with slumping sales. Revenue dropped 39.3 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2005, while operating expenses dropped only 26.5 percent, according to analysts.
The layoffs, in part, may not come as a surprise, given that Sun's former chief financial officer, Michael Lehman, was pulled out of retirement three months ago to rejoin the company.
Sun said Lehman would take a "fresh look at everything" upon his return and assemble a "leaner and more efficient business model."
Lehman and Schwartz began extensive reviews of the company's global operations about a month ago, Sun said.
As part of its efforts to save costs via consolidating its real estate holdings, Sun will sell its Newark, Calif., campus and also give up leased facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company noted, however, that it will continue operations at its two major Bay Area campuses in Menlo Park and Santa Clara, Calif.
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Heinz to cut 2700 jobs and raise dividend
Reuters
June 1, 2006
CHICAGO - Ketchup and packaged food maker H.J. Heinz Co. on Thursday posted lower quarterly earnings and announced plans to cut 8 percent of its work force as it looks to reduce costs to fund product development and spending on marketing.
The company, which is facing pressure from investor Nelson Peltz to return more money to shareholders and cut costs, also forecast a better-than-expected 10 percent increase in earnings per share for fiscal 2007 and said it would raise its dividend 16.7 percent.
The company's board of directors also approved $1 billion for share repurchases over the next two years. The company said it plans to cut $355 million in costs over the next two years.
Heinz shares rose to $42.46 on Thursday morning on the Inet electronic broker system from Wednesday's
New York Stock Exchange close of $42.35.
Heinz, whose products range from its namesake ketchup to Ore-Ida frozen potatoes, said net income fell to $167.9 million, or 50 cents a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended May 3, from $206.5 million, or 59 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding a gain on the sale of the company's European seafood business, its Tegel poultry business and other, smaller assets, as well as a writedown of its operations in Zimbabwe, earnings were 54 cents a share. Analysts on average forecast 49 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Still, earnings before items fell from 59 cents a year earlier as the company's tax rate jumped to 37.3 percent from 27 percent, and its interest costs rose.
Sales rose 7.6 percent to $2.40 billion, helped by acquisitions and double-digit increases in sales of Ore-Ida potatoes, Classico pasta sauces and Smart Ones frozen meals.
As part of the cost-cutting plan, Heinz said it expects to cut 2,700 jobs and exit 15 plants in 2007. The company said another five plants could be closed in 2008.
The forecast and two-year financial plan comes as Heinz battles a proxy fight from Peltz and his Trian Fund Management group. Trian is seeking to put five representatives on Heinz's 12-member board and has called on Heinz to divest more assets and cut selling and other costs by $575 million annually.
MORE PRODUCTS, LESS COSTS
Heinz said it plans to increase advertising and marketing spending by 18.7 percent to $317 million in fiscal year 2007 and to increase research and development spending.
Heinz said it plans to introduce more than 100 new products in fiscal 2007, including organic versions of its Classico sauces and larger ketchup bottles that fit more easily in a refrigerator door.
To help fund the increases in marketing spending and product development, Heinz said it plans $355 million in cost cuts, including the plant closings, and an additional reduction of about $145 million in the deals and allowances it gives to retailers in exchange for premium shelf space and other benefits.
Trian had called on Heinz to cut promotional spending to retailers by at least $300 million.
In recent years, Heinz has divested several businesses as it tries to focus on ketchup, condiments and sauces, baby food, and meals and snacks. Analysts have questioned how much more the company can divest and said Trian's proposed cuts might be unrealistic.
Trian has suggested Heinz could sell its Plasmon baby food business in Italy, but the company on Thursday named Plasmon as one of its strong brands.
Trian also said the company should stop spending money on emerging markets and instead focus on fixing its European operations.
Heinz on Thursday said it plans to get one quarter of its sales growth in 2007 from Russia, India, China, Poland and Indonesia.
A Trian spokeswoman could not be reached for comment on Heinz's plan on Thursday.
Heinz forecast 2007 earnings of $2.35 a share on a 3 percent to 4 percent sales increase and 2008 earnings of $2.54 a share on a 4 percent sales increase. Analysts on average forecast earnings per share of $2.25 in 2007 and $2.38 in 2008, according to Reuters Estimates.
The higher dividend rate, equal to $1.40 a share per year, will first be paid in a 35 cent quarterly dividend, payable July 10, to shareholders of record on June 24.
Though Wednesday, Heinz shares were up 15.4 percent since mid-February, when rumors first surfaced that Peltz could stage a proxy fight. That compares with a 4.5 percent increase for the Standard & Poor's Packaged Food Index .15GSPFOOD.
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Stock futures slip as rate concerns rise
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Reuters
June 1, 2006
NEW YORK - U.S. stock futures declined on Thursday, pointing to a slightly lower opening, pressured by renewed worries about higher interest rates and inflation.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve's May policy-setting meeting, in which policy makers said inflation pressures were somewhat greater than expected, caused stocks to slip from session highs on Wednesday.
"Everything is gearing off the reality that interest rates will be moving higher. The more I read through the FOMC statement, it reinforces the thinking that interest rates will continue to rise," said Peter Dunay, chief investment strategist at Leeb Index Trader in New York.
U.S. stocks ended higher on Wednesday as a drop in crude oil prices overshadowed the interest rate concerns.
S&P 500 futures were down 4.10 points, slightly below fair value, a mathematical formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.
Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 38 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 5.75 points.
On Thursday's economic agenda, the Institute for Supply Management will release its May manufacturing index at 10 a.m. EST. Economists in a Reuters survey expect a median reading of 55.5 versus 57.3 in April.
Also at 10 a.m., the Commerce Department will report April construction spending, and the National Association of Realtors will issue the pending home sales index for April.
Shares of Sun Microsystems Inc. could decline as analysts said a cost-cutting plan announced by the computer maker didn't seem aggressive enough. Its stock slipped by 0.2 percent to $4.62 after the closing bell on Wednesday.
In other corporate news, Motorola Inc., the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, said it had agreed to buy Britain's TTP Communications, which develops software for 3G applications, for 103 million pounds ($193.5 million).
Alcoa Inc. said it reached a tentative contract with its labor union, averting a strike.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, is considering selling ethanol-based fuel at its more than 380 gasoline stations, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 73.88 points, or 0.67 percent, to end at 11,168.31. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 10.25 points, or 0.81 percent, to finish at 1,270.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 14.14 points, or 0.65 percent, to close at 2,178.88.
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China, Arab states to hold first oil meeting
www.chinaview.cn 2006-06-01 13:00:07
BEIJING, June 1 (Xinhua) -- China and Arab states will hold their first meeting on oil issue at some time between the year of 2006 and 2008, according to an action plan issued here Thursday.
The action plan was signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and League of Arab States Secretary-general Amr Mahmoud Moussa during the second ministerial meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum.
The two sides vowed to establish a dialogue mechanism to further promote their energy cooperation. Under the mechanism, China and the Arab countries agree to increase visits and dialogue and coordinate in relevant activities of the United Nations and other international organizations.
"The two sides attach importance to energy cooperation, particularly the cooperation in the sectors of oil, natural gas and renewable energy," says the action plan.
The plan says China and the Arab countries will encourage their enterprises to enhance investment and set up joint ventures and conduct cooperation in exchanging experience and technology transfer in the energy sector.
The Arab countries have been China's largest crude oil supplier. China imported 55.36 million tons of crude oil from Arab countries in 2005, 43.7 percent of its total oil import.
Energy cooperation constitutes an important part of China-Arab cooperation, which complies with interests of both sides and contributes to the stability of international energy market, said Zhai Jun, the director general of Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian and African division.
The two-day meeting was attended by delegates from China and 22Arab countries, who also signed the meeting's communique, an environmental cooperation plan and a memorandum of understanding for a meeting between Chinese and Arab entrepreneurs.
According to these documents, Arab-China trade volume is expected to reach 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2010.
China's trade with the Arab world has grown tenfold in the past decade to hit 51.27 billion US dollars in 2005.
The third ministerial meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum will take place in Bahrain in 2008.
From 2006 to 2008, China will train 500 Arab professionals in various fields every year.
The second meeting between Chinese and Arab entrepreneurs will be held in Jordan. More activities include an Arab arts festival in Beijing, a China-Arab civilization dialogue seminar and a China-Arab friendship conference.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said that the China-Arab Cooperation Forum has been the channel for China and Arab states to exchange views on international and regional issues.
"The just concluded meeting has injected new vitality into China-Arab substantive cooperation," Li said.
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Bush's Amerika
NYC Mayor Advocates U.S. Worker Database
By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
May 24 6:49 PM US/Eastern
NEW YORK
Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg thrust himself into the national immigration debate Wednesday, advocating a plan that would establish a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers.
The mayor also said elements of the legislation moving through Congress are ridiculous and said lawmakers who want to deport all illegal immigrants are living in a "fantasy."
In an editorial for The Wall Street Journal and two nationally televised interviews, the mayor reiterated his long-standing belief that the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States should be given the opportunity for citizenship, saying that deporting them is impossible and would devastate the economy.
Aides said Bloomberg believes his views are relevant because he has a rare perspective as a former businessman who ran a company for two decades before he became mayor, in charge of enforcing the laws in a city with an estimated half-million illegal immigrants. They said that the editorial was his idea and that CNN and Fox News approached him to discuss his views on the air.
In the article and on air, Bloomberg slammed lawmakers who want to deport all illegal immigrants, saying on Fox News that "they are living in a fantasy world."
Asked in that interview whether his opinions put him at odds with his political party, the mayor, a former Democrat, shot back: "With which party?
"I'm not a partisan guy," Bloomberg said. "I am a mayor who has to deal with 500,000 people who are integral to our economy but are undocumented."
Bloomberg compared his proposed federal identification database to the Social Security card, insisting that such a system would not violate citizens' privacy and was not a civil liberties issue.
"You don't have to work _ but if you want to work for a company you have to have a Social Security card," he said. "The difference is, in the day and age when everybody's got a PC on their desk with Photoshop that can replicate anything, it's become a joke."
The mayor said DNA and fingerprint technology could be used to create a worker ID database that will "uniquely identify the person" applying for a job, ensuring that cards are not illegally transferred or forged.
Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said a DNA or fingerprint database "doesn't sound like the free society we think we're living in."
"It will inevitably be used not just by employers but by law enforcement, government agencies, schools and all over the private sector," she said.
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States setting up homeland security panel
By ROBERT TANNER
AP National Writer
Thu Jun 1, 2006
Seeking a bigger say in homeland security decisions, the nation's governors are creating a new, 50-state panel to give the states a single voice on national plans to prepare for threats from terrorists and natural disasters.
The Homeland Security Advisors Council will aim to resolve problems between the federal and state governments that predate the 2002 creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, from intelligence to funding to sharing National Guard resources.
"If we speak with one unified voice, it'll help," said Michael Campion, Minnesota's public safety commissioner and the top aide to Gov. Tim Pawlenty on homeland security. "Absent that, we're not going to do anything. We're a voice in the wilderness."
The council will work through the National Governors Association, with each governor appointing a top security official, the governors' group expected to announce Thursday. The council plans to meet at least twice a year to share best practices and improve interstate communications.
The formation of the council comes a month after a survey of state homeland security directors found widespread dissatisfaction with the way the federal government works with states.
Among the top complaints: limited sharing of intelligence on possible terrorist threats; multiple burdens placed on National Guard troops; and, insufficient preparations for natural disasters and other emergencies.
The council will help inform governors, and will stress to the federal government that states want to be included in planning efforts, said Maj. Gen. Tim Lowenberg, head of the Washington National Guard and director of the state's emergency management division.
Currently, there's no consistent, in-depth communication between the federal DHS and its state counterparts, said Lowenberg, like Campion a member of the council.
"We do have periodic conference calls hosted by the Department of Homeland Security," he said. "Those conference calls rarely last more than 30, 45 minutes."
DHS spokesman Jarrod Agen said coordination with states has been improving, and that the agency has especially stepped up those efforts in advance of hurricane season.
The top challenges facing the states are the same ones that officials were talking about in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks: improving communications so all agencies responding to a disaster can talk to each other; sharing intelligence information quickly and effectively; building medical capacity to respond to a mass catastrophe.
"People are still feeling their way through this," Campion said. "We don't have the same history as we do in fighting fires, or fighting organized crime. We've got decades of experience with that (while) we've only got five years of this whole terrorism, homeland security thing."
"There's some real challenge to this," he said. "That's why it's important to get these people together."
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Calif. man pleads guilty in terror case
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
June 1, 2006
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - An ice cream vendor charged with lying to the FBI about his son's attendance at a terrorist training camp pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, closing another chapter in a terror probe focused on a town inhabited by hundreds of people of Pakistani origin.
Umer Hayat, 48, of Lodi pleaded guilty Wednesday of trying to smuggle $28,000 in cash to Pakistan three years ago rather than face a retrial that was set to begin Monday. Prosecutors agreed to drop charges that he lied to the FBI and to recommend he serve no more jail time after spending nearly a year in custody.
"This outcome was not, of course, the one most desired by the government," U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said. "However, what is for certain is that our region is safer today than it was one year ago."
Hayat likely would have faced only a few additional months behind bars if convicted of the two lying charges, Scott said.
Hayat smiled as he left the federal courthouse, but would not comment.
"He's happy. It's over. Obviously he wants to move on with his life at this point," said defense lawyer Johnny Griffin III. "From day one we've maintained that Umer Hayat is not a terrorist, he had no involvement with terrorist related conduct or activities."
Hayat's son, Hamid Hayat, 23, faces at least 30 years in prison for supporting terrorism by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and lying to the FBI. His sentencing was postponed indefinitely.
Umer Hayat's first trial ended in April in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked in his case. He remains under house arrest until his Aug. 18 sentencing.
The government's investigation into Lodi's 2,500-member Pakistani community began after agents received a tip in 2001 that local businesses were sending money to terrorist groups abroad.
That probe produced no results, but it eventually led to the Hayats after an informant who had targeted a pair of local imams befriended Hamid Hayat.
In recorded phone calls from the younger Hayat in Pakistan, the informant urged him to attend a terrorist camp, though defense lawyers claimed there was no evidence he ever went to such a camp.
The government presented no evidence of a terrorism network during the nine-week trial, but centered its case on videotaped confessions the two Hayats gave to FBI agents.
Their lawyers claimed the confessions came after hours of leading questioning, and that their clients merely told the FBI what they thought the agents wanted to hear.
The investigation became public a year ago when authorities arrested the Hayats and detained two local clerics. The religious leaders and one of their sons were later deported for immigration violations.
Hayat admitted in court that he lied in April 2003 when he denied his family was carrying more than $10,000 in cash when he was detained on a jetway at Washington-Dulles International Airport.
Federal agents found two white envelopes containing $5,000 each in his pants, two similar envelopes in his son's pockets and $8,053 being carried by Umer Hayat's wife, Oma Salma Hayat.
Most of the money was eventually returned, minus a penalty for the legal violation of failing to declare the cash. Umer Hayat gave several explanations, including that his family was bringing cash from several families to relatives and that he planned to give cash as wedding gifts for his son and daughter.
Prosecutors said it was on that trip to Pakistan that Hamid Hayat attended the terrorist training camp, though Scott said there is no indication the money was to be used for any terrorist activity.
The Hayats were the only people criminally charged in the terror probe, though Scott would not rule out the possibility of additional charges against other Lodi residents.
Asked if the investigation was important in the so-called war on terror, Scott said it had disrupted a potential problem in Lodi.
"Do I think defeating the insurgency in Iraq was on the same scale? Obviously, those are of two different magnitudes," he said.
Comment: Compare the following statement from US Attorney McGregor Scott:"However, what is for certain is that our region is safer today than it was one year ago."
With this one from later in the article:"The government presented no evidence of a terrorism network during the nine-week trial..."
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U.S. not ready to implement new travel law: report
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 21:10:37 EDT
CBC News
The Bush administration is not ready to implement a travel law that would require everyone entering the U.S. to have a passport or some other form of national identification by Jan. 2008, according to a new report.
"[Department of Homeland Security] and State have a long way to go to implement their proposed plans for the Travel Initiative, and the time to get the job done is slipping by," according to study conducted by the GAO (Government Accountability Office) - a non-partisan investigative arm of Congress.
Among concerns raised by the GAO, the Department of Homeland Security has not decided what documents will be acceptable as an alternative to a passport and what technologies might be used, such as an electronic "pass card."
The GAO also tells the agencies to complete a cost-benefit analysis of their final plan, including an examination of how tourism and commerce might be discouraged by the new law.
The release of the study comes as Canada's premiers wrapped up a meeting in Manitoba, attended by some U.S. governors and ambassadors.
The premiers are calling for a delay of the border-crossing legislation and warned that the new law will hurt Canadian-American relations.
The western premiers say the cost of obtaining passports for every family member will be prohibitive and will affect the numbers of people crossing the Canada-U.S. border.
On Thursday, New York Congresswoman Louise Slaugher will announce she's introducing a bill in the House of Representatives that would include delaying the travel-law deadline to 2009. Slaughter has concerns about how the law will affect travel and commerce in her border state.
Legislation that would delay the deadline to June 2009 has already been passed in the US Senate.
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The DLC and Israel: Zionist Democrats
By MICHAEL CARMICHAEL
May 30, 2006
CounterPunch
Last week the newly elected Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, visited Washington to meet with George Bush in order to endorse America's plan to attack Iran in his address to Congress. In his strident appeal to Congress, Olmert sought nothing less than to incite war between America and Iran. Prior to his stroke, Ariel Sharon was engaged in fomenting wars between America and Iraq, and he had promised his circle of admirers that he would move Iran into the cross hairs of America at the first opportunity. Olmert is Sharon's political heir, and he has inherited a legacy of incitement and fomentation of wars in the Middle East between America and Islamic nations that are militarily weak and rich in oil.
To coincide with Olmert's visit, the Democratic Leadership Council published a statement celebrating "Zionism" and condemning Islam. If their publication had not come from a man who purports to be a leader of the political opposition to the deeply unpopular right-wing Republican regime one might be inclined to surmise that it had been issued by the so-called Israel Lobby.
In what was meant to be a moving personal account of his fifth trip to Israel, Al From, the founding father and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), defined Zionism as, "a good idea filled with hope." On his journey, Mr. From visited the summit of Mount Hadar where he experienced a moving vision of Israeli 'hope' locked in conflict with Palestinian 'anger.'
Inspired by this romanticized contrast of a black and white rendering of good versus evil, Mr. From witnessed what he described as the, "booms of Palestinian rockets and the Israeli retaliation." From his lofty summit, Mr. From failed to see the mounds of corpses mounting upwards in Israel and Palestine, where four Palestinians are killed for every one Israeli.
Mr. From's account is nothing more nor less than a paean to the Zionist faith that he sees as the force driving the engine of politics and shaping the culture of Israel. Nowhere does Mr. From pretend to deliver a balanced or objective analysis of the state of Israel or its lengthy and violent conflict with the Palestinian people. Quite the contrary, his account is dripping with disdain for Palestine and its people whom he describes as motivated by anger, dispirited and habitually driven to horrific acts of terror and suicide bombing.
Mr. From's reverie on his faith in Zionism occurs against a stark backdrop. The organization that Mr. From leads, the DLC, is clearly on the wane, and the current issue of their magazine carries an appeal for an "entry level Development Assistant" to help them raise much needed funds. That said, to borrow a phrase from cricket, the DLC did have one long and grotesque inning characterized by the consistent loss of elections by its major patron: the Democratic Party which kept following Mr. From's advice to move relentlessly to the right to conform to the demands of his blatantly Zionist agenda: security for Israel as a means of providing security for America or conversely security for America predicated on security for Israel.
For a decade and a half, the DLC dominated the Democratic Party more thoroughly than any pressure group had ever controlled any political party in American history. After ten years of failure to regain the majority in Congress and abject failures in the two previous presidential elections, Governor Howard Dean led a grassroots movement of party activists to reclaim the levers of power for traditional Democratic policies: constitutional democracy, the open society, multilateralism, social welfare, a national health service, national security and homeland security realized through diplomacy rather than by military confrontation and many more substantive and socially progressive policies besides.
While Governor Dean faced a broad field of DLC-backed opponents parroting Mr. From's mantras redolent of neoconservative cant, each one crumbled like a rag doll before him. Today, Governor Dean is leading a through-going reorganization of the Democratic Party that relies on the energy provided by grassroots activists. At the same time, Governor Dean has de-emphasized the right-leaning consultancies and pressure groups preferred by the DLC.
In order to succeed with his plan for the reform of the Democratic Party, Governor Dean faces the stalwart opposition of Mr. From and his neoconservative cronies at the DLC and many powerful Democratic office holders as well, who are still under their sway. These neoconservative Democrats include: Governor Tom Vilsack, Senator Evan Bayh, Senator Joe Biden and Senator Hillary Clinton. These Democrats are committed to the DLC vision of America's future as defined by Mr. From, most recently in his glowing account of Zionism and its Manichean conflict with Islam.
Inspired by Mr. From's Zionist reverie and Prime Minister Olmert's visit to the Bush White House, the DLC is in the midst of heralding and hyping the publication of a book titled, With All Our Might, which is little more than a collection of essays advocating a radically Zionist agenda. In their vision of America and its role in the world, it is ironic that Mr. From and his DLC differ very little if at all from the neoconservatives propping up the sinking framework the Bush White House.
For example, With All Our Might, advocates a plan of action that seriously proposes that the Democratic Party should support a swift and decisive increase in the militarization of American society. Another policy objective advocated by the authors of With All Our Might is the long-term, ongoing and open-ended continuance of the counterproductive US occupation of Iraq. Even though the latest polls indicate that the American people and most especially the Democratic grassroots would prefer a timely exit from Iraq, the authors of With All Our Might advocate that the Democratic Party, "should rally the American people for an extended and robust security and reconstruction presence (in Iraq)."
The timing of this proposal for extending the US occupation of Iraq could not be worse. Last week, Tony Blair went to Baghdad where he informed the Iraqis that he and George Bush will commence the withdrawal of 35,000 troops from Iraq by the end of this year. If the policy outlined in With All Our Might were adopted, Democrats would be far to the right of the Republicans. That is correct. Mr. From and his staff are actually advocating that the Democrats move to a more hawkish, more right-wing, more neoconservative position on Iraq than that occupied by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice. Is that any way to run a political opposition? Is that anyway to win an election in 2006?
Throughout the DLC's massive list of publications, there is no serious deconstruction of Bush's failed policy in Iraq. Neither is there any substantive critique of Bush's appalling conduct of his war in Iraq to be found in the pages of With All Our Might. What is provided is an explanation of how Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney could have waged a more intelligent occupation by sending more troops and charging them to be more brutal and more aggressive in their attacks, but there is no critical and sustained argument decrying the casus belli itself no lament for the fact that America went to pre-emptive war because we were led to believe that we were on the verge of a sneak nuclear attack. Nothing, nil, less than zero about the launch of the war for one simple reason: the DLC endorsed it wholeheartedly, and so did their obedient membership.
However, With All Our Might is saturated with prolific references to the dangers of Islam, its people and its culture as the sole and unique fountainhead of America's problems with terrorism. No critique of Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, military attacks on civilian populations or the killing of innocent civilians can be found in its pages. Do not look for any criticism of the Israeli policy that led to the tragic death of Rachel Corrie, an American aid worker who was crushed to death under the fearsome treads of a John Deere bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier. Like a protester in Tiananmen Square, Rachel Corrie placed herself between oppression and the oppressed, and she suffered the consequences when the bulldozer rolled over her. You simply will not find anything about Rachel Corrie on the DLC website. Not one syllable. Neither is there any reference to Tom Hurndall, a young British volunteer who was assassinated by an Israeli sniper. These atrocious events and others equally horrifying occur in a half-lit parallel universe, and the DLC appears to be blissfully unaware of their existence.
Worse. With All Our Might staunchly advocates the neoconservative doctrine of unilateralism the central policy of the Bush administration. At the same time, the DLC textbook repudiates multilateralism, the leading foreign policy doctrine of every previous Democratic administration up to and including those of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. "We must have no illusions that multilateralism can be a substitute for vigorous U.S. leadership," we are assured by the DLC textbook.
Worse still, there is a frontal assault on the United Nations. The DLC is blatantly adopting the policies of the neocons populating the right-wing think tanks in Washington that produce such human anomalies as John Bolton, Richard Perle and Daniel Pipes, all rabidly Zionist neoconservatives who advocate a much more aggressive US military agenda aimed directly at Islamic nations and peoples everywhere.
It is obvious that the DLC offers not a dime's worth of difference from the right-wing neoconservatives in the Bush White House. In defining America's foreign policy objectives solely by its commitment to eradicate Islamist terror, the DLC and its Zionist collaborators would commit America to an endless cycle of war and terror, repression and suicide bombings ad nauseum and ad infinitum all predicated on Islamophobia.
As of today with the publication of his essay "Hope beats anger," the political agenda of the DLC and its founder, Mr. From, are perfectly clear. Mr. From wishes to transform America into a unilateral system of government with both political parties equally committed to a radical Zionist interpretation of neoconservativism, i.e. holy war against Islam and Arabic peoples everywhere. This tactic is well known to many people in Israel and a growing number in the United States.
Noam Chomsky has recently drawn attention to the fact that the people of both Israel and the United States are far ahead of their leadership in coming to terms for a peace agreement in the Middle East. Chomsky states that 70% of Americans and Israelis are in favor of a two state settlement and direct negotiations to achieve that end. In contrast to Chomsky's diagnosis, From's vision would transform America into an Israeli-style battle zone of barriers, barricades, ramparts, roadblocks and checkpoints littered with tanks and jeeps, manned by machine-gun wielding flack-jacketed soldiers who would dominate our landscape.
An Israeli nuclear physicist was recently interviewed by The Hindustan Times. Professor Zeev Alfassi stated, "If the Iranians fire even one bomb, the United States will annihilate them. If we don't create panic, the Americans won't deal with it."
Mr. From's ringing testament to Zionism straight from the hinterlands of Israel confirms that the DLC is deeply and intimately involved in the manufacture of panic in America - a parallel project to that of the so-called Israel Lobby that curiously panders to and supports the policies and the political campaigns of George Bush and the right-wing Republicans.
While the Zionist ideals of the DLC will appeal to a narrowly limited band of followers, progressive Democrats who are seriously committed to regime change in Washington should oppose the DLC with all their might.
Michael Carmichael has been a professional public affairs consultant, author and broadcaster since 1968. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC's Today Programme, Hardtalk, PM, as well as numerous appearances on ITN, NPR and many European broadcasts examining politics and culture. He can be reached through his website: www.planetarymovement.org
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Block the Vote
New York Times May 30, 2006
In a country that spends so much time extolling the glories of democracy, it's amazing how many elected officials go out of their way to discourage voting. States are adopting rules that make it hard, and financially perilous, for nonpartisan groups to register new voters. They have adopted new rules for maintaining voter rolls that are likely to throw off many eligible voters, and they are imposing unnecessarily tough ID requirements.
Florida recently reached a new low when it actually bullied the League of Women Voters into stopping its voter registration efforts in the state. The Legislature did this by adopting a law that seems intended to scare away anyone who wants to run a voter registration drive. Since registration drives are particularly important for bringing poor people, minority groups and less educated voters into the process, the law appears to be designed to keep such people from voting.
It imposes fines of $250 for every voter registration form that a group files more than 10 days after it is collected, and $5,000 for every form that is not submitted - even if it is because of events beyond anyone's control, like a hurricane. The Florida League of Women Voters, which is suing to block the new rules, has decided it cannot afford to keep registering new voters in the state as it has done for 67 years. If a volunteer lost just 16 forms in a flood, or handed in a stack of forms a day late, the group's entire annual budget could be put at risk.
In Washington, a new law prevents people from voting if the secretary of state fails to match the information on their registration form with government databases. There are many reasons that names, Social Security numbers and other data may not match, including typing mistakes. The state is supposed to contact people whose data does not match, but the process is too tilted against voters.
Congress is considering a terrible voter ID requirement as part of the immigration reform bill. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, introduced an amendment to require all voters to present a federally mandated photo ID. Even people who have been voting for years would need to get a new ID to vote in 2008. Millions of people without drivers' licenses, including many elderly people and city residents, might fail to do so, and be ineligible to vote. The amendment has been blocked so far, but voting-rights advocates worry that it could reappear.
These three techniques - discouraging registration drives, purging eligible voters and imposing unreasonable ID requirements - keep showing up. Colorado recently imposed criminal penalties on volunteers who slip up in registration drives. Georgia, one of several states to adopt harsh new voter ID laws, had its law struck down by a federal court.
Protecting the integrity of voting is important, but many of these rules seem motivated by a partisan desire to suppress the vote, and particular kinds of voters, rather than to make sure that those who are entitled to vote - and only those who are entitled - do so. The right to vote is fundamental, and Congress and state legislatures should not pass laws that put an unnecessary burden on it. If they do, courts should strike them down.
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A Build-a-Protest Approach to Immigration
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times
May 31, 2006
WASHINGTON - Talk about constructive criticism.
Advocates of tougher border security have sent thousands of bricks to Senate and House offices in recent weeks to make a none-too-subtle point with lawmakers about where many of their constituents come down on emerging immigration bills.
Leaders of the campaign, which has delivered an estimated 10,000 bricks since it began in April, said they had hit on the idea as a way to emphasize the benefits of a fence along the border with Mexico.
In an age when professionally planned lobbying campaigns have long since overwhelmed spontaneous grass-roots pressure, organizers of the brick brigade said they also saw an opportunity to deliver a missive not easily discarded.
"E-mails are so common now," said Kirsten Heffron, a Virginian who is helping coordinate the effort. "It is really easy for the office to say duly noted, hit delete and never think about it again."
If the impact was notable, so were the logistical difficulties, particularly given the mail screening and other protective measures put into effect at the Capitol after the anthrax attacks of 2001.
Initially, organizers of the Send-a-Brick Project encouraged people to send bricks on their own, and Ms. Heffron said things had gone relatively smoothly.
But many people, she said, preferred that the organization itself send the bricks and an accompanying letter to selected lawmakers.
The project will do it for an $11.95 fee. So when 2,000 individually boxed bricks showed up at once, Senate officials balked, threatening to force the group to pay postage to have each delivered to its intended recipient. The dispute left the bricks stacked up until an agreement to distribute them was worked out.
"We received them and we delivered them to all the addressees," said a spokeswoman for the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms.
As the bricks landed in Congressional mailrooms and cramped offices, the effort was applauded in some offices but drew a bemused response elsewhere.
"Given the approval ratings of Congress these days, I guess we should all be grateful the bricks are coming through the mail, not the window," said Dan Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana.
The senders of the bricks were encouraged to add a letter telling lawmakers that the brick represented a start on building a border wall.
Many could not resist putting their own message on the bricks. "No Amnesty," said a typical one, referring to a contested Senate plan to allow some illegal immigrants to qualify eventually for citizenship. "Stop the Invasion, Build a Wall," said another brick painted like a flag and shown on the group's Web site at www.send-a-brick.com.
Besides the border fence, the group supports technology improvements for border security, added money and personnel for the Border Patrol and an enhanced security presence in general on the southern border.
The brick effort was scheduled to wind down this week, though the organization encouraged people to continue if they desired.
On Tuesday, representatives of the architect of the Capitol collected bricks from lawmakers' offices and stacked them on loading docks with plans to donate them to a nonprofit group.
In a letter he circulated on Tuesday, Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey, encouraged his colleagues to donate their bricks to a Habitat for Humanity resale store in Virginia, so the proceeds could go to that organization's projects.
"Through the Send-a-Brick Project, our constituents have found a solid way to communicate their feelings about illegal immigration," Mr. Garrett wrote in a draft of his letter. "Whether you agree with their message or not, we think that this campaign has given Capitol Hill a positive opportunity to turn bricks into buildings."
Ms. Heffron, who has been active in political campaigns and public affairs, said her organization was comfortable with the bricks being put to other uses after they had made their point.
She said the campaign had grown out of frustration expressed in an online forum on immigration issues over resistance by some lawmakers to erecting a wall. Another impetus was a desire for a counterpoint to large rallies by advocates of immigrants' rights.
Given the success of the initiative, she said, the group may turn its attention to lobbying lawmakers in their home districts this summer and may have a role in a demonstration in Washington. She said she hoped that the brick barrage showed lawmakers that when it comes to immigration, the weight of public opinion is on the side of border security.
"I think they don't realize the passion of it," she said of some lawmakers. "Maybe it is going to take a little protest in the streets to get our voices heard as well."
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Iraq veteran sues Moore over 9/11 film
DENISE LAVOIE
Associated Press
Wed, May 31, 2006
BOSTON - A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week.
Damon, 33, claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon did with NBC's "Nightly News."
He lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the aircraft on the ground. Another reservist was killed in the explosion.
In his interview with NBC, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military was using on wounded veterans. He claims in his lawsuit that the way Moore used the film clip in "Fahrenheit 9/11" - Moore's scathing 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - makes him appear to "voice a complaint about the war effort" when he was actually complaining about "the excruciating type of pain" that comes with the injury he suffered.
In the movie, Damon is shown lying on a gurney, with his wounds bandaged. He says he feels likes he's "being crushed in a vise."
"But they (the painkillers) do a lot to help it," he says. "And they take a lot of the edge off of it."
Damon is shown shortly after U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is speaking about the Bush administration and says, "You know, they say they're not leaving any veterans behind, but they're leaving all kinds of veterans behind."
Damon contends that Moore's positioning of the clip just after the congressman's comments makes him appear as if he feels like he was "left behind" by the Bush administration and the military.
In his lawsuit, Damon says he "agrees with and supports the President and the United States' war effort, and he was not left behind."
He said that, while at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center recovering from his wounds, he had surgery and physical therapy, learned to use prosthetics and live independently. He also said that Homes For Our Troops, a not-for-profit group, built him a house with handicapped accessibility.
"The work creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication as a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the President, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community," Damon says in his lawsuit.
Moore did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. A message was left for Moore at a personal number in New York and with HarperCollins, publisher of Moore's 2002 book, "Stupid White Men...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!"
A spokesman for Miramax Film Corp., also named as a defendant, did not immediately return a call.
Damon did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.
"It's upsetting to him because he's lived his life supportive of his government, he's been a patriot, he's been a soldier, and he's now being portrayed in a movie that is the antithesis of all of that," Damon's lawyer, Dennis Lynch, said.
Damon is seeking $75 million in damages for emotional distress and loss of reputation. His wife is suing for an additional $10 million in damages because of the mental distress caused to her husband, Lynch said.
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Middle East Madness
Iran rebuffs latest U.S. offer
Last Updated Thu, 01 Jun 2006 05:08:51 EDT
CBC News
Tehran would welcome the opportunity to talk directly with the United States regarding Iran's nuclear programs, but not if it has to stop enriching uranium first, the Iranian foreign minister said on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was responding to remarks made on Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, suggesting Washington would join multilateral talks once Iran shut down its enrichment programs.
"If they want a change in the current status, they should change their mind and apply a logical behaviour toward the issues," Mottaki said, according to Iran state-run television.
The comments by Rice, echoed later by U.S. President George W. Bush, were hailed as a major shift in U.S. policy toward Iran, which had so far insisted on holding direct talks with Iran on its own.
"Our message to the Iranians is that, one, you won't have a weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs, at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward," President George W. Bush said Wednesday in responding to a reporter's question.
"I thought it was important for the United States to take the lead - along with our partners," Bush said. "And that's what you're seeing. You're seeing robust diplomacy. I believe this problem can be solved diplomatically and I'm going to give it every effort to do so."
The White House said Britain, France and Germany would be part of the multilateral talks.
Rice is to meet with representatives from those countries on Thursday in Vienna to finalize a package of incentives and threats to be presented to Iran.
Rice said at the State Department that the U.S. will begin negotiations with Iran as soon as it "fully and verifiably" suspends its enrichment activities.
"We urge Iran to make this choice for peace, to abandon its ambition for nuclear weapons," she said.
Iran maintains it is developing nuclear technology for power generation and insists it has the right to enrich uranium for those purposes.
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Rice says U.S. to join EU in nuclear talks with Iran
www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-31 23:50:37
WASHINGTON, May 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the United States will join the European Union in talks with Iran as soon as Iran suspends uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.
"To underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our EU colleagues and meet with Iran's representative," Rice said at a press conference held at the State Department.
Rice said that the United States has agreed with the EU over the "essential elements of a package" on Iran's nuclear issue. "Wehope that in the coming days the Iranian government will thoroughly consider this proposal," Rice said.
The EU has put forward a package of both incentives, including providing a light-water reactor to Iran, and possible penalties ifIran fails to cooperate.
Rice challenged the Iranian regime to make a fundamental choiceby either maintaining the current course, pursuing nuclear weapons,or altering the present course and cooperating in resolving the nuclear issue beginning by immediately resuming suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.
Iran will "incur great costs" if it pursues nuclear weapons, Rice warned.
The Swiss ambassador to the United States has been asked to convey a copy of Rice's remarks to the Iranian side as the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran.
However, White House spokesman Tony Snow said earlier Wednesdaythat the United States will not engage in one-on-one talks with Iran.
Nonetheless, this is seen as a clear policy shift by the Bush administration as it has repeatedly rejected calls to negotiate with Iran.
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Iraqi PM mounts first security crackdown in Basra
By Aref Mohammed
Reuters
June 1, 2006
BASRA, Iraq - Police and soldiers set up checkpoints and searched cars in Iraq's second city on Thursday in a first test of new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ability to restore stability with an "iron fist" security crackdown.
A day after he declared a one-month state of emergency in key oil hub Basra, the tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist said in Baghdad he planned to present his candidates for the interior and defense ministers to parliament on Sunday.
He named his cabinet on May 20 without the two key security posts after failing to reach a consensus deal among the main blocs -- the Shi'ites, minority Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular parties -- who form his national unity government.
"We have reached a semi-closed road so I will go to the parliament with names of the candidates," said Maliki, who has vowed to rein in guerrilla and sectarian violence.
Maliki ordered the army onto Basra's streets on Wednesday, vowing to use an "iron fist" to show Iraqis he means business about tackling insecurity.
Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, should be an early indication of whether he can back his words with action after previous Iraqi leaders failed to ease a raging Sunni insurgency and sectarian violence threatening vital oil exports.
Also on Thursday, a top U.S. commander ordered combat troops to be trained to abide by moral and ethical standards on the battlefield, an apparent response to allegations U.S. Marines killed civilians in a western Iraqi town last year.
In a case making waves in the United States, U.S. defense officials have said charges including murder may be brought against Marines following a U.S. investigation into the deaths of 24 civilian deaths in Haditha in November.
The training over the next 30 days in "core warrior values" would highlight "the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield," a statement said.
Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli said that of nearly 150,000 U.S.-led troops in the country "99.9 percent of them perform their jobs magnificently" every day.
"Unfortunately, there are a few individuals who sometimes choose the wrong path," he said in the statement.
It did not mention events in Haditha, which some commentators are comparing to the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam that helped turn many Americans against that war.
BASRA CRACKDOWN
In Basra some residents said security forces faced a complex network of gangs and assassins that includes Saddam Hussein loyalists and warring Shi'ite militias who thrive in the bloody chaos of an oil city that provides much of Iraq's income.
"There are Baathist looting gangs. There are militias. There are even some tribes who come and occupy police stations," said Saleem Abdullah, 27, a graduate student.
Checkpoints have popped up across Basra, with the police in the city center and army units on the outskirts inspecting every car that passes by, witnesses said.
"There will be constant patrols. We have orders to pull over cars with shaded windows. Unauthorized weapons will be taken," said police captain Ali Jassem.
Although the southern mainly Shi'ite region where British forces are based has been much quieter than Sunni Arab areas patrolled by Americans further north, Basra has become far more dangerous in recent months.
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Top U.S. general in Iraq orders core values training on battlefield standards
05:28:31 EDT Jun 1, 2006
BAGHDAD (AP) - In the wake of the Haditha investigation, the top U.S. general in Iraq ordered American commanders Thursday to conduct core values training on moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.
The order by Gen. George Casey came as the U.S. military investigated whether U.S. Marines might have intentionally killed unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha on Nov. 19. The killings, in which victims included women and children, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy and killed a Marine.
Lt.-Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, said in a statement that the training would emphasize "professional military values and the importance of disciplined, professional conduct in combat" as well as Iraqi cultural expectations.
"As military professionals, it is important that we take time to reflect on the values that separate us from our enemies," Chiarelli said. "The challenge for us is to make sure the actions of a few do not tarnish the good work of the many."
The training will be conducted in units over the next 30 days and was aimed at reinforcing training service members received prior to their deployment, according to the statement.
It order was issued about a week after the U.S. Marine Commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, travelled to Iraq and cautioned troops on the danger of becoming "indifferent to the loss of a human life," following allegations that Marines in Iraq murdered civilians.
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UN seeks 80 percent increase in aid to Palestinians
Reuters
Wed May 31, 2006
JERUSALEM - The United Nations called for an 80 percent increase in emergency humanitarian aid to Palestinians on Wednesday, citing a deepening crisis that follows a freeze in Western assistance to the government.
The United Nations and aid groups said in a statement they had revised an emergency aid appeal for 2006 to $385 million from an original estimate of $215 million. The money would help pay for employment programs, food aid and health care.
Western countries cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after the militant Islamist group Hamas, which is sworn to destroy Israel but has largely abided by a truce for over a year, took over the government following elections in January.
The aid freeze has left the Palestinian Authority unable to pay salaries of 165,000 government workers, and has resulted in shortages of basic necessities including medical supplies.
"We have been compelled to revise our original appeal in the face of desperate need. It is particularly aimed at assisting the most vulnerable Palestinians, including children who make up half the population," said David Shearer, head of the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, cited a 600 percent increase in applications for short-term, U.N.-sponsored jobs in the West Bank. The program's Gaza waiting-list now tops 100,000 people.
Shearer said the World Food Program had also warned the international community that more Palestinians were unable to meet their daily food needs.
Western powers have called on Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing peace agreements if it wants contacts or aid to resume. Hamas has so far refused.
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Hamas offers Israel conditional long-term truce: spokesman
www.chinaview.cn
2006-05-31 21:54:10
RAMALLAH, May 31 (Xinhua) -- The Hamas-led Palestinian government said on Wednesday that it decides to offer Israel along-term truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders.
"We seek solution and political vision and Israel seeks security for its people, so this makes the Israelis suggest the truce always," government spokesman Ghazi Hamad was quoted by local radio Voice of Palestine as saying.
Hamad also clarified that the truce would be from five to 10 years, if Israel withdraws from territories it captured in the 1967 War, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Hamad's remarks came as Hamas is facing an ultimatum issued by President Mahmoud Abbas, who would order a referendum within 40 days if Hamas and other factions fail to agree to a proposal made by Palestinian prisoners earlier this month.
Abbas announced on May 25 that he would give Hamas 10 days to decide whether to agree to the proposal, which calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.
The proposal was widely seen as an implicit recognition of Israel, a stance against Hamas' political charter. Commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank, Hamad did not oppose. "If Israel wants to withdraw from the West Bank, then it can," said Hamad.
Yasser Abed Rabou, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committees, slammed Hamad for supporting the West Bank withdrawal.
"Leaving West Bank means redrawing its map in a way that allows isolating its cities from each others and annexing Jerusalem and other parts to Israel," Abed Rabou told Voice of Palestine.
Abed Rabou called for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through negotiations based on relevant International resolutions. Hamas is now under pressure to moderate its stance toward Israel so as to survive the current economic and diplomatic crisis plaguing the Palestinians.
Israel has pulled out from the Gaza Strip last September, ending 38 years occupation there.
Olmert, who vowed to set Israel's final border in 2010, plans to carry out further unilateral withdrawal from isolated West Bank settlements but to hold onto larger ones even without talks with the Palestinian side.
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Israeli PM favors rapid W.Bank withdrawals: report
www.chinaview.cn 2006-06-01 17:15:09
JERUSALEM, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opposes to the implementation of his so-called convergence plan, which sees more withdrawals from the West Bank, in a step-by-step way but prefers a one broad swoop, local daily Ha'aretz reported on Thursday.
Olmert favors a concentrated, single internal crisis rather than drawn-out crises, since the plan involves significant political, economic and social costs, said the report.
According to Olmert's assessment, the international support and recognition that Israel is likely to receive in return for a major move will be greater than what can be expected from a series of smaller steps, it added.
Under the plan, Olmert intends to demarcate Israel's final borders with the Palestinians by 2010 by evacuating isolated settlements in the West Bank while keeping the major ones with or without peace talks with the Palestinian side.
Prior to his visit to the United States in late May, Olmert rejected a detailed proposal put forward by Vice Premier Shimon Peres, in which the convergence plan will be carried out in six stages.
According to Peres' proposal, the first stage includes the evacuation of two small settlements with small populations in the northern West Bank.
This will allow Israel to leave a relatively large area to Palestinian control but at the same time enjoy significant international support, said Peres.
The Israeli government has not formally discussed the speed of the withdrawals, but the issue is at the center of planning in the cabinet, Ha'aretz reported.
Olmert has been a staunch supporter to the Israeli pullout of the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank last summer, an unprecedented move that won world applause.
Olmert is scheduled to meet with leaders of Egypt, Jordan,Britain, France and Germany later this month in an effort to win support to his convergence plan.
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"Near miss" for Israeli defence minister in rocket attack
by Jean-Luc Renaudie
AFP
Wed May 31, 2006
JERUSALEM - Israel carried out a fresh air strike and threatened more ground operations in the Gaza Strip in a bid to halt Palestinian rockets, as a missile narrowly missed the defence minister's home.
The hardline Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for firing three missiles at daybreak Wednesday towards the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which lies just over the border from the Gaza Strip.
Although no one was injured in the attacks, one of the makeshift Qassam rockets struck a residential building a few dozen meters (yards) from Amir Peretz's own home, causing extensive damage.
The army has been pounding northern Gaza with artillery and has carried out a series of air raids in recent weeks in order to put a permanent end to the firing of the notoriously inaccurate missiles.
Several missiles were fired in the latest air strike on Wednesday over a disused training base for another militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, although there were no reports of casualties in an area to the south of Gaza City.
On Tuesday, the army confirmed for the first time since it left Gaza last September after a 38-year occupation that ground troops had been sent into the territory.
Four Palestinians, including three members of Jihad, were killed when they were ambushed by the undercover unit as they prepared to launch rockets towards the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Army chiefs have previously expressed reservations about re-entering Gaza but the continuing rocket attacks have led to a hardening of attitudes in the defence establishment.
Speaking on a tour of his home town after the missile attacks, Peretz said he was determined to bring the militant groups to heel as he described how he was awakened by the sound of the town's early warning alarm system.
"The sirens went off 10 minutes before I woke up, followed by the sound of a large explosion," said Peretz.
"We will find the ways and means to make it impossible for these organisations to fire towards Sderot and other communities.
"I very much hope that the (Palestinian) population understands that these organisations are provoking a catastrophe for them."
General Yoav Galant, head of the army's southern commmand, said recent ground operations had yielded results and would continue.
"IDF operations have reduced the level of attacks," he said while accompanying Peretz on the tour of Sderot.
"We have seen in the last few days the targeting (of militants) from the air and contacts on the ground.
"I can assure you that all these kinds of operations will continue."
A report in Tuesday's Haaretz daily, which quoted senior officers, said more ground operations involving special forces would be carried out to stop the rocket attacks.
The officers said the effectiveness of such operations had been proven and that international reaction to the return of troops on the ground in Gaza had been fairly understanding.
Haaretz said small units of special forces had been operating in Gaza for the past two months but the army only decided to go public with Tuesday's operation as the death of the four Jihad militants made it impossible to hide.
For his part, chief of staff Dan Halutz said the campaign against the militants behind the rocket attacks would intensify.
"We are going to find ways to hit even harder against those who fire rockets," General Halutz told army radio.
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Psychopathy
Marines will be punished if found guilty of revenge killings: Bush
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 22:14:15 EDT
CBC News
U.S. President George W. Bush vowed Wednesday to punish any marines found guilty of killing Iraqi civilians.
"If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment," Bush said in his first comments about the alleged incident.
At least 24 Iraqi civilians of all ages were shot to death in Haditha shortly after a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas on Nov. 19, 2005.
The U.S. military is conducting an investigation into claims, first made public in a Time magazine article in March, that the furious marines of Kilo Company killed unarmed Iraqis in a taxi and two nearby homes in retaliation for the loss of their comrade.
Bush said he had discussed the incident with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"He's a proud marine. And nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is full of honourable people who understand the rules of war," Bush said.
"If in fact these allegations are true, the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture - that proud culture - will be reinforced. And that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."
Bush said he was troubled by the initial news stories.
"I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on. If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."
Sons traumatized
Meanwhile, the parents of two U.S. marines say their sons were traumatized by the aftermath of Haditha.
"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," said Susie Briones, whose 21-year-old son was told to clean up the bodies and take photographs with his personal digital camera. "The biggest thing that comes to his mind is the children."
Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones now suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, his mother said in an interview from her home in California. The memory of one Iraqi girl particularly haunts him, she said.
"That's what affects him the most is that he had to pick up this child's body, to put it in a body bag."
Military seized cameras
In an earlier interview with the Los Angeles Times, Briones said he and Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, did not take part in the shootings but had to deal with the aftermath.
"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," Briones said. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood. This left something in my head and heart."
Briones said he provided the digital photos he took to his supervisors, then erased them from his camera. Military investigators later seized the photographic equipment.
Wright's father, Frederick, said his son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
''He is the Forrest Gump of the military,'' he said. ''He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own.''
Wright's camera was also seized.
Deaths 'not justifiable,' says Iraqi PM
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Tuesday that his government will investigate the Haditha allegations.
"It is not justifiable that a family is killed because someone is fighting terrorists," the Associated Press quoted al-Maliki as saying. "We have to be more specific and more careful."
The Bush administration has promised to make public all the details of the alleged killings after the U.S. military investigation is complete.
In the meantime, marines from the company involved have been confined to barracks at Camp Pendleton in California or are being held in the brig.
A separate probe is looking into whether the U.S. military tried to cover up the Haditha incident. Initially, officials said many of the dead civilians were "combatants" and the others were caught in crossfire between militants and American troops.
Comment: Just remember, this is the same guy saying the guilty will be punished who has handled Abu Ghraib and the Valerie Plame leak. We saw how active Bush was in punishing there.
Is it just us, or does anyone else notice that W's nose gets a little longer every day?
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US president 'troubled' by Haditha shootings
AFP
Wed May 31, 2006
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush said he was "troubled" by allegations that US Marines killed unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and vowed that if crimes were committed, the guilty would be punished.
"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said at the White House after a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was visiting Washington on Wednesday.
"If, in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment," the US president said, adding: "Those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."
The Bush administration has promised full public disclosure of the findings of military probes into the alleged killing of at least 24 civilians by US Marines in Iraq.
Two separate probes are currently underway by the US Defense Department into the killings, and officials have said those investigations were near completion.
The investigations aim to learn what happened on November 19, 2005 in Haditha and how the incident was handled by commanding officers in the military hierarchy.
Whatever the outcome of the Pentagon investigations, the allegations could hamper US military operations that require cooperation with Iraqi security forces and citizens, a US general said on Wednesday.
"Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are born out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of US forces to continue to operate," said General Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We do rely very heavily and the Iraqi security forces rely heavily on the support from the Iraqi people, and anything that tends to diminish that obviously is not helpful to what we're trying to do," Ham told a press conference in Washington.
A prominent US lawmaker and others have accused the military of trying to cover up the November incident, which has become the most serious scandal to dog US-led coalition forces in Iraq since revelations of abuse at the
Abu Ghraib prison.
Bush recently referred to the Abu Ghraib scandal, which triggered outrage in the Middle East and across the Islamic world, as the biggest mistake committed by Americans in Iraq.
Marine Corporal James Crossman, who was deployed in Haditha the day the killings occurred and was injured in a bomb attack there, told CNN television in an interview that some of his fellow marines "might have got scared".
"Like, after seeing so much death and destruction, pretty soon you just become numb and really don't think about it anymore," Crossman, who suffered a broken back and pelvis, said.
Marines went on a house-to-house search after the bomb exploded injuring Crossman and killing another marine.
The allegations of indiscriminate killing in Haditha threaten to damage the difficult US mission in Iraq as well as Bush's attempts to rally flagging public support for the war.
The case has already been compared with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war. The killing of hundreds of civilians by US soldiers on March 16, 1968 helped bolster opposition to that war.
Bush said, however, that rather than try to conceal the alleged crimes, the marines are compelled to seek justice in the case.
"Nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps," Bush said.
The president said he had discussed the matter with General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The shooting came to light in a Time magazine report in late March which cited an Iraqi human rights group and Haditha residents.
According to the reports, after the bomb detonated, killing one marine, marines barged into a home in the Iraqi village, throwing grenades and shooting several people, including women and children, in cold blood.
The official version of events had insisted the civilians were killed in a roadside bomb.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that death certificates show all the Iraqi victims in Haditha had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest.
Comment: Prosecuting the Bush gang for war crimes would be a good start.
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Iraqi women killed at US checkpoint
by Paul Schemm
AFP
Thu Jun 1, 2006
BAGHDAD - Two women, one pregnant, were killed by US troops on the way to the hospital in the central Iraqi city of Samarra when their car mistakenly took a road restricted to military traffic, police said.
Nabiha Mohammed Jassim, 35, was being rushed to the central Samarra hospital to give birth in the company of her cousin Saliha Hamad Hassan al-Aswadi, and driven by her brother when the two women were shot dead by US soldiers.
"They took a wrong road just behind the hospital which is now closed because it is next to a military road used by the Americans," police told AFP.
"A local national sedan entered a clearly marked prohibited area near coalition troops at an observation post," said US military statement. "As the vehicle neared the troop location and failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory signals, disabling shots were fired into the vehicle."
"The loss of life in these incidents is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to avoid them," the statement added.
Known as "escalation of force incidents", these events happen often in the tense atmosphere of Iraq, especially in areas characterized by heavy insurgent activity, such as Samarra.
The military reported a second non-fatal incident early in the morning on Wednesday just north of Samarra in the violent oil refining town of Baiji when a car approached a joint Iraq-US checkpoint without stopping.
"A soldier fired a single disabling shot at the vehicle resulting in the passenger being wounded," said the US military, adding that the woman was then treated at a US medical facility.
On Tuesday, Ibn al-Nafis hospital in Baghdad reported that a woman was killed by coalition forces when a US patrol fired on her car, though the US military said it had only one escalation of force incident that day which did not result in casualties.
With the rise in suicide attacks using explosives against US forces over the last year, Iraqis are ordered to keep strict distance from US convoys and checkpoints.
Signs displayed on vehicles warn other cars to stay 100 meters away and that "deadly force is authorized", but in the crowded traffic of Iraq's cities, these rules are often hard to obey.
US soldiers have told AFP how in many cases civilian cars will be completely oblivious of a US army convoy bearing down on them until the rules of engagement necessitate the firing of a warning shot.
Many army units have evolved alternative methods to get the attention of civilian vehicles, such as car sirens, laser pointers and harmless flash grenades.
The incidents continue however, with one of the worst happening in November 2005 when a minibus filled with a family members returning home from a funeral in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad ran afoul of newly established US military checkpoint near an army base.
Soldiers opened fire and five family members, including three children, were shot dead.
The sudden focus on such incidents comes amid the furor over an alleged marine rampage in November in the western Iraqi town of Haditha in which 24 civilians died.
President George W. Bush has described himself as "troubled" by the Haditha events and twin probes by the US military are currently underway.
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New factional fighting erupts on Mogadishu outskirts
by Ali Musa Abdi
AFP
June 1, 2006
MOGADISHU - Fresh fighting erupted between Islamic militia and a US-backed warlord alliance on the outskirts of the lawless Somali capital, killing at least three as the clashes spread.
Stung by the loss on Wednesday of a key position in northeast Mogadishu, the alliance attacked the Islamists at the nearby village of El Arfid, north of the city, sparking a fierce exchange in which three were killed and seven wounded.
"The fighting between Islamic courts and warlords has started in the El Arfid and Dermoley areas," said Moalim Ashi, an elder in the nearby town of Balad, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the capital.
More than 500 heavily armed fighters on both sides backed by scores of machine gun-mounted pick-ups were involved in the clashes that sent hundreds of villagers fleeing in terror, witnesses said.
"At least three people were killed in today's fighting and seven more others were wounded," Abdi Ibrahim, a doctor at the Al-Hikma Hospital, told AFP.
The alliance had been regrouping in Balad with reinforcements from the town of Jowhar, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Mogadishu, with an eye to attacking the Islamists.
Witnesses said the fighting had cut road between the capital and Jowhar.
In Mogadishu itself, sporadic gunfire could be heard around the northeastern neighborhood of Sukahola, where the Islamists seized alliance positions in well-coordinated attacks on Wednesday, residents said.
A day after the two sides pounded each other with heavy machine gun, rocket and artillery fire, the area was tense but generally violence free, although the death toll from Wednesday's clashes rose by three to 10, they said.
"Apart from the sporadic gunfire, Sukahola is relatively calm," said resident Abdulahmed Noor, who like others expressed deep concern about a resumption in battles.
"We fear fighting could erupt at anytime because the gunmen have not moved from the frontlines," said Sukahola resident Amina Mohamed.
In addition to three people who succumbed to wounds overnight, doctors at Al-Hakma hospital, citing militia sources, said another three fighters had been killed on Wednesday, bringing that death toll to 13.
"They told us that they had buried three of their fighters on the scene," Ashi said.
The latest fatalities brought to at least 78 the number of people killed in the most recent round of clashes that began last Wednesday, worsened Thursday and exploded on Saturday, when 30 people died.
More than 316 people have been killed and more than 1,500 wounded, many of them civilians, since the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and the Islamic courts began battling in February.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 and the country's largely powerless transitional government, based in Baidoa about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, has blamed both the alliance and the United States for the fighting.
The United States denies responsibility for the clashes although it has refused to confirm or deny its support for the ARPCT.
But US officials and informed Somali sources have told AFP that Washington has given money to the ARPCT, one of several groups it is working with to curb what it says is a growing threat from radical Islamists in Somalia.
Comment: Isn't it interesting that the "US-backed warlord alliance" is being blamed by the official Somalian government for the violence?
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Portrait Emerges of a Baffling Pair
By Paul Pringle and Hemmy So
LA Times
May 31, 2006
In early April, the two women dropped by a Sunday lunch for the homeless at Hollywood Presbyterian Church.
They fit the picture of the charity-minded, a pair of kind souls happy to spend the afternoon helping the less fortunate.
They chatted with church volunteers and found themselves being introduced to Pastor Charles Suhayda.
"They seemed like nice ladies," he recalled. "They were like grandmothers."
The memory of the encounter now chills him.
The women, Olga Rutterschmidt and Helen Golay, are the septuagenarian odd couple charged in an alleged life insurance scam involving the hit-and-run deaths of two homeless men.
Rutterschmidt is a feisty music lover from Hungary. She has an expired electrolysis license and little visible means of support but hinted to her Hollywood neighbors that she knew of ways to make easy money.
Golay is an outwardly prosperous Santa Monica landlord. Her penchants are for pantsuits and big bouffants, as well as for siccing lawyers on those who cross her, including her own daughter.
And although their backgrounds could scarcely be more different, they have shared a tendency over the years to alienate, sue and ultimately baffle the people around them, according to court records and interviews.
The women filed nearly 40 lawsuits between them over the last two decades, usually demanding money for alleged wrongs.
Golay sought damages from a woman she claimed stole leather skirts from her. She also sued a health club, saying she was hurt on an exercise machine.
Rutterschmidt sued the Ralphs supermarket chain, contending that stacked boxes fell on her, and she later took a Hollywood coffee shop to court, claiming that a fellow diner - a woman trained as a minister - kicked her and zapped her with a stun gun.
On Tuesday a federal grand jury indicted Golay, 75, and Rutterschmidt, 72, on 10 counts of fraud in connection with more than $2 million in life insurance policies that they took out on Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid, who were struck and killed by cars in 1999 and 2005.
Authorities say the women, who were arrested May 18, are also under investigation in the deaths.
"What a piece of work," said Kevin Rea, a neighbor who has known Rutterschmidt three years. "She's alternatively reclusive and then really in your face. She has this bombastic manner about her, this operatic presence."
Rea and others who live in the slightly worn apartment building off Hollywood Boulevard where Rutterschmidt has resided since the 1970s said she often expressed disdain for conventional work, while suggesting that quick riches could be found.
"She kind of intimated that there were avenues to extra money," said Rea, a probation officer.
State records show that Rutterschmidt held a license to perform electrolysis from 1975 to 1997, although neighbors said she gave no indication of having worked in the hair removal field.
Dwight Emile, another resident of the Sycamore Avenue building, said he has known Rutterschmidt casually about 20 years but never learned what she did for a living, if anything.
Emile, a composer, said she would visit his apartment to play his keyboard and borrow his CDs.
"She'd say, 'You want to make a little extra money?' I'd say, 'No.' "
He said he did not ask her what she had in mind.
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At the building, Emile said, Rutterschmidt acted as "the enforcer" - scolding residents for playing their stereos too loud or talking in the hallways late at night.
"She was aggressive," he said.
Across town, Yonni Afman, who rented a Santa Monica apartment from Golay for four years, described his landlady in similar terms. He said she seemed to harbor an unreasoning contempt for her tenants.
She called the police on them over minor parking and noise complaints, and refused to discuss any problems they had with their apartments, he said.
"She would yell at you, 'You can call my lawyer,' " Afman said.
Golay sheltered an apparently homeless woman in an attic room on the property for a number of weeks, then abruptly kicked her out, he said.
"She would lock herself up and cry all day in that little room," Afman said of the woman.
Rutterschmidt and Golay were not related to Vados and McDavid, but allegedly put the homeless men up in apartments and kept track of them for two years. That is the period after which the insurances policies generally could not be voided for misrepresentations, according to court documents.
The women are accused of collecting the insurance money after claiming to be the men's aunts, cousins, business partners or, in Golay's case, a fiancee. They were arrested after being spotted in the company of other indigent men, authorities say.
Much about Rutterschmidt and Golay is still unknown, including precisely when and where they met. One person familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they bumped into each other more than 20 years ago in the Los Angeles area.
Their lawyers and relatives either could not be reached or did not return phone calls.
Rutterschmidt appears to be a loner with no family in this country. Neighbors say that she had been married to an Endre Rutterschmidt but that they never saw him.
Voter records show that Endre Rutterschmidt listed Olga's apartment as his address and cast an absentee ballot in last November's election.
But one longtime tenant said Rutterschmidt had told him her husband died several years ago.
The tenant, who other residents said was closest to Rutterschmidt, asked not to be identified because he feared being drawn into the investigation.
He said Rutterschmidt confided in him that she had been quarreling with Golay over money.
She said she worked with Golay as a "scout" for real estate purchases, he added.
Rutterschmidt had a passion for classical music and daily hikes in Runyon Canyon, the tenant and other neighbors said. She drove a Honda Civic and sued a motorist and an insurance company over two accidents.
By contrast, Golay owned a Mercedes SUV, which remained parked outside her Ocean Park Boulevard home last week, her granddaughter's leopard-print car seat strapped in the back.
Golay, who was born Helen Salisbury in Eastland County, Texas, is a former real estate agent and mother of three daughters, according to court and licensing documents. Her complete marital history could not be verified, but records show she wed a David J. Wells in 1970. He could not be located.
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A man identified as Golay's boyfriend in a 2003 lawsuit, Santa Monica resident Gary Hilaiel, declined to discuss their relationship except to say she was "just a friend."
"I don't believe the charges against Helen," he said.
Apart from her three rental properties in Santa Monica, Golay owns land in Playa del Rey, the Antelope Valley and Madera County.
She obtained title to acreage in Playa del Rey and the Antelope Valley after another court battle over her right to the property. Golay had secured power of attorney for the president of a company that owned the land. She asked a court to affirm that she later became the owner, and a judge ruled in her favor.
Attorneys in the matter did not return phone calls.
The day after Golay's arrest, her daughter, Kecia Golay, said her mother had done nothing wrong. "We have a regular life," she said.
But it has been a litigious and sometimes tumultuous one.
Helen Golay filed the bulk of the lawsuits - more than 30 since the 1980s - against tenants, real estate partners, banks, health clubs, restaurants and neighbors.
Her complaints included failure to pay rent and deceitful practices in land deals. She won some and lost others, and the rest were dismissed.
In 2003, as part of a family dispute, she sued Kecia Golay and her daughter's then-boyfriend, Steve Taracevicz of Santa Monica, seeking more than $275,000 in damages.
She accused her daughter of assaulting her and trespassing on her property.
Kecia Golay and Taracevicz denied all the allegations. They said in court papers that Helen Golay had threatened to kill him, scraped his car with a key and hired a security guard to keep him from visiting her daughter. They also said Helen had exhibited "30 years of psychopathic behavior."
In 2004, Kecia Golay filed a suit against her mother, claiming Helen falsely acted as the daughter's "attorney in fact" and engaged in other deceitful conduct to cheat her out of ownership stakes in four properties.
The mother and daughter appear to have reconciled. Kecia Golay pleaded no contest last year to charges of stalking Taracevicz and is scheduled to begin serving a 200-day jail sentence next month, according to the district attorney's office.
A lawyer for Kecia Golay declined to comment, as did Taracevicz.
In the meantime, Helen Golay and Rutterschmidt have half a dozen suits pending against insurance companies that balked at paying the policies taken out on Vados and McDavid.
Even those who had little good to say about Rutterschmidt and Golay found it hard to believe that they could have carried out the cold-blooded scheme alleged in the Vados and McDavid cases.
"Mean behavior didn't make me think automatically she was a murderer," said David Rodwin, a Santa Monica tenant of Golay's.
He said Golay erected a fence across his patio to prevent him from having barbecues, painted the curb red to keep anyone from parking near the gate and often lurked around the 3rd Street property.
"I felt she was spying on us," said Rodwin, a film writer and producer. "I would honestly hide from her when she was prowling around the grounds. I didn't want to talk to her."
Rea, the neighbor, said he also tried to avoid Rutterschmidt.
"What a shocker," he said of her arrest. "That's what living in a big city is all about. You have Olgas."
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Police: Couple Offered Hit Man $100 To Kill Grandkids
local6.com
June 1, 2006
Two grandparents in Lake County, Fla., were arrested for allegedly offering a hit man $100 to kill their three grandchildren, daughter-in-law and the family's pet dog, according to Local 6 News.
Lake County deputies said Robert Jackson, 60, and his wife, Versie, 59, traveled to a Best Western hotel Tuesday to meet a hit man -- who was an undercover law enforcement officer.
"(The couple) met with the so-called hit man, where they paid the hit man $100 in cash as a down payment for the murder of the wife and her three children," Lake County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Christie Mysinger said.
"According to an arrest affidavit, Versie Jackson made contact with the undercover agent while her husband stayed in the car because he was reportedly too afraid the meet the person who would kill his grandchildren and daughter-in-law," Local 6 reporter Louis Bolden said.
The couple was taken into custody after the money was exchanged.
After an investigation, authorities said the couple's son, Jason Jackson, 31, concocted the alleged murder-for-hire plan from jail and asked his parents to seal the deal, Bolden said.
The 31-year-old is awaiting trial in a sexual molestation case, and his wife and children were scheduled to testify against him.
Investigators said the rest of the money was to be paid to the hit man after the family members were killed Tuesday night.
The daughter-in-law, Karen Jackson, was shocked to hear about the plan to kill her, her children and pet dog, according to Local 6 News.
"I never saw this coming," Jackson said. "I loved (him) with all my heart. (He) was good to me and good to the kids. (He) was a nice guy, everybody's friend. (He was) like a Ted Bundy charmer. He has to be a psychopath."
Jackson said after her husband's arrest last year, her in-laws stopped speaking with her.
She said she plans to testify against her husband and both in-laws.
Both grandparents remain in the Lake County Jail without bond.
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1-year-old 'left for dead' in Calif. house
By DAISY NGUYEN
Associated Press
June 1, 2006
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. - Police searched for suspects and a motive in the stabbing deaths of a couple and their 6-year-old son, while an injured infant girl apparently left for dead at the scene was recovering in protective custody.
Police found the bodies of Phuong Hung Le, 30, his wife, Trish Dawn Lam, 25, and Lam's 6-year-old son, Tommy, on Monday when they conducted a welfare check at the family's home on a street lined with two-story stucco houses about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Orange County.
Because of the girl's dehydrated state, detectives believe the killings may have happened Friday night - the last time the family was heard from. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and placed in protective custody. She was not immediately identified.
"It's one of the most horrific crimes that we have investigated in many years," police Lt. Dennis Ellsworth said.
He said there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting the couple might have known their attacker. "It looks like they took some time in the house, it wasn't like they went in and left right away," Ellsworth said.
Investigators did not know the motive for the attack, and no arrests had been made. They ruled out a murder-suicide.
Police would not say whether a security camera nestled on the eaves recorded anything or even if it was functional.
People left flowers, a teddy bear and burning incense sticks near the crime scene in a cul-de-sac lined with new tract homes Wednesday.
Among those who came by was Huong Nguyen of Westminster, who said she was a friend of the slain woman.
Nguyen, speaking in Vietnamese, said she last spoke to Lam on Friday night and wondered why there had been no communication over the Memorial Day weekend until she learned of the crime in a newscast. She had expected Lam to come by with her children.
Nguyen said that during visits Lam told her that she loved her husband but that he gambled.
"I really love her because she reminds me of my daughter," said Nguyen, her eyes teary.
Lam's older brother, Philip, said his family was struggling to understand how the killings could happen.
"I'm trying to figure this all out," Philip Lam said in a telephone interview from the family home in Escondido. "So far there are a lot of broken hearts around here."
Philip Lam said the family emigrated from Vietnam a decade ago, and that his sister was the kind of person who was always willing to help out.
According to police, Trish Lam worked for a small casino in San Bernardino County and Le was unemployed. Le had a criminal history, but police said they were not sure whether that had any bearing on the case.
State prison records showed a Phong Hung Le was sentenced to four years on a robbery conviction and more than two years for destruction of jail property. The couple, who had been dating for several years, married in 2005, according to Trish Lam's brother.
"I don't know about enemies and I don't know how my brother-in-law was doing. He was always home. He didn't really go out much," Philip Lam said.
As for the baby girl, he said his parents would like to raise her if they can.
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Around the World
North Korea invites US envoy, issues "strongest" threat
AFP
Thursday June 1, 2006
North Korea has invited US envoy Christopher Hill to Pyongyang in an apparent bid to renew stalled talks over its nuclear weapons programme.
But it also threatened to take the "strongest" but unspecified measure if Washington maintained a "hostile policy" towards the Stalinist state.
It said Hill, a US assistant secretary of state, would be welcome in Pyongyang if Washington sincerely wanted to uphold a joint statement agreed last September at six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
"If the United States has sincerely made a political decision to implement the joint statement, we again invite the US chief delegate to six-way talks to visit Pyongyang and explain it directly to us," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea, meeting with six-party delegates from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in September in return for aid and diplomatic concessions.
But in November it launched a boycott of the talks after Washington imposed sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang's alleged illicit financial activities, including money laundering.
In the KCNA report, monitored in South Korea by Yonhap news agency, Pyongyang threatened retaliation if Washington stepped up pressure against the communist regime.
"If the United States keeps a hostile policy and steps up pressure on us we have no other choice but to take our strongest measure to defend our sovereignty and the rights for our own survival."
Pyongyang said last year that it had nuclear weapons. Recent reports that North Korea could be preparing to test fire a ballistic missile have triggered unease in South Korea and Japan.
North Korea invited Hill to Pyongyang for unconditional talks last September but nothing came of the approach to the US envoy who has in the past said he was prepared to go to the communist country.
Since then the six-party peace process has stalled and North Korea has been preoccupied by US financial restrictions including a ban on a Macau bank which the US accused of assisting Pyongyang's in money-laundering.
North Korea has said it will stay away from further talks until Washington lift that ban which has blocked some 24 million dollars in North Korean funds, according to the US government.
The foreign ministry spokesman accused Washington of stealing the money.
"We will surely get back the money stolen by the United States," he was quoted as saying.
Hill was in Beijing and Seoul last week for talks on the nuclear standoff, during which he stressed that Washington was not prepared to make concessions to bring Pyongyang back to talks.
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Paris suburbs seemingly back to slow simmer
PARIS, June 1, 2006 (AFP)
Riot police had Thursday brought two unruly Paris suburbs back under control after an outbreak of street violence there had raised fears of a repeat of last November's nationwide riots.
Montfermeil and neighbouring Clichy-sous-Bois in the northeast of the capital remained under tight security following two nights of unrest which saw up to 100 youths battle riot police and attack public buildings, injuring a dozen police officers.
Some 300 riot police patrolled Montfermeil - a town of 24,000 inhabitants - overnight Wednesday, along with several firefighter units. But there was no repeat of the violence of the previous two nights.
Early in the evening, police climbed onto the roofs of public housing estates in the area, to remove potentially dangerous objects such as car tyres or stones that could be hurled at them from above.
Run-down housing estates in both suburbs were the epicentre of the riots that spread to some 300 high-immigration French towns last autumn, and relations between police and local youths remains extremely tense.
Montfermeil has been on edge since the centre-right mayor - whose home was attacked Monday - passed a tough anti-crime decree banning public gatherings of more than three youths. The measure was later blocked in the courts.
Young people from local housing estates told AFP that the trouble began Monday after police used tear gas on a woman whose son had been arrested in connection with a robbery.
The police union Alliance said the woman had "rebelled" when officers came to search her son's home and that, feeling threatened as a group of youths started climbing the stairs, they had "used tear gas to escape."
Last year's nationwide riots were fuelled by anger at racial discrimination, a lack of educational and employment prospects and police harassment.
Some 10,000 vehicles were torched and more than 3,200 people arrested in three weeks of unrest, which prompted the government to declare a national state of emergency.
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Reporter walks undetected onto bridge of UK warship
By ALEX PEAKE
The Sun
May 31, 2006
THE Sun yesterday exposed security at Britain's biggest naval base as a shambles after strolling unchallenged on to the bridge of a WARSHIP.
Our reporter walked through two checkpoints at Plymouth's HM Devonport - brandishing a worker's lost photo ID - before spending an hour on board the Navy's 21,578-ton flagship HMS Ocean.
Posing as a cleaner, he strolled around the deck of the giant vessel - even pausing to flick through its log books and sip tea in the galley.
Furious Royal Navy chiefs launched TWO probes last night as it emerged most of the ship's 500-strong company were on board.
The base is surrounded by a 9ft perimeter fence and guarded by security staff and scores of military police officers with alsatians.
But yesterday, armed with just workmen's overalls and the lost pass - handed to us by a concerned reader - our man gained entry after flashing the ID card over 20 yards from guards.
They waved him through and even wished him "good morning". Yet had we been terrorists, we could have caused carnage.
Within minutes our man found the quay where HMS Ocean, the Navy's largest ship, is moored for maintenance.
As ship workers and sailors filed up the gangplank, we followed them on to the warship, designed to hold 18 attack helicopters and an army of highly-trained commandos.
Two machine gun-carrying marines were checking passes. But again our man held his finger over the real workman's picture and marched in.
Once at the heart of the ship - which is on 24 hours' notice to sail anywhere in the world if a crisis breaks - he was directed by one unwitting worker to the bridge and nerve centre.
He toured the area with video gear for 15 minutes before moving to a walkway, where photographer Marc Giddings snapped him from a road.
Our reporter also saw the engine room, living quarters and anchor room. Only one sailor asked what he was doing, but he returned to hoisting a flag when told our man was a cleaner.
We finally left the ship, praised for leading the Marines' 2003 invasion of southern Iraq, and left the base as easily as we walked in.
A Navy spokesman said: "We take all breaches of security very seriously. A full investigation by the ship and the naval base has commenced."
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Blast rocks eastern Istanbul, casualties caused
www.chinaview.cn 2006-06-01 18:29:37
ANKARA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- A big explosion rocked the eastern side of Turkey's largest city of Istanbul on Thursday, causing some casualties, local TV reported.
The blast occurred in a basement of a building in eastern Istanbul and some casualties were caused, the TV reported.
Footage showed that ambulances rushed to the scene. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.
Istanbul has witnessed deadly bomb attacks in the past and the Turkish authorities have blamed Kurdish rebel groups.
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Gas leak sparks explosion in Istanbul: police
Reuters
June 1, 2006
ISTANBUL - A gas leak triggered an explosion in a five-story building in Istanbul on Thursday, injuring a number of people, police sources said.
Separately, NTV private television blamed a fire for the blast, which occurred at lunchtime in the Uskudar district on the Asian side of Turkey's largest city. NTV said 14 people had been hurt in the blast.
Television showed people covered in blood being treated outside the building or being carried to ambulances.
CNN Turk television said the explosion occurred at a firing range located in the basement of the building.
Blasts are not uncommon in Turkey and are often the work of diverse militant groups operating in the country.
Kurdish separatists and ultra-leftist groups have claimed responsibility for past explosions, especially in Istanbul, a city of more than 12 million people straddling Europe and Asia.
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WHO warns against water pipes, 'organic' cigarettes
Last Updated Wed, 31 May 2006 12:46:37 EDT
CBC News
The World Health Organization issued a warning Wednesday against the use of harmful non-cigarette tobacco products such as water pipes, so-called "organic" cigarettes and snuff.
"Given the high rates of non-cigarette tobacco use among the young, especially girls, previous estimates of 10 million deaths a year by 2020 could be conservative," Dr. Charles Warren, a researcher with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement released by the Geneva-based United Nations organization.
Increasing numbers of young people are being drawn to these products, which are often sold with appealing fruit flavours, the agency warned.
That's partly because they are seen as sexy and partly because they are marketed as being safer than traditional cigarettes, said Douglas Bettcher, the tobacco control coordinator for the WHO.
"The idea that somehow bubbling smoke through water is going to reduce the toxins is completely false," he said.
"I mean, you put a chunk of coal at the top of the water pipe, which in itself has a number of different carcinogens and toxic products."
Products sold in health food stores
Water pipes, also known as shishas, narghiles or hubble-bubbles, and new types of "organic" or "natural" roll-your-own cigarettes are often sold in health food stores, said Bettcher.
That could lead consumers to believe they are less dangerous than conventional cigarettes.
The agency says all tobacco products are addictive, harmful and can cause death, regardless of how they are packaged and presented to the public.
The World Health Organization called for strict regulations to control the growing list of new products in a statement released on World No Tobacco Day.
It cited statistics from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey that suggested non-cigarette tobacco products are used by 11.2 per cent of adolescents in many countries, compared to 8.9 per cent for conventional smoked products.
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Spaced Out
Red rain caused by disintegration of comet: study
Kottayam, May 31 (PTI)
The "red rains" in Kerala five years ago was the result of the atmospheric disintegration of a comet, according to a study.
The study conducted at the School of Pure and Applied Physics of the MG University here by Dr Godfrey Louis and his student Santosh Kumar shows that red rain cells were devoid of DNA which suggests their extra-terrestrial origin.
The findings published in the international journal 'Astrophysics and Space Science' state that the cometery fragment contained dense collection of red cells.
Commenting on the study at a press conference here, Dr N Chandra Wikramesinghe, Director of Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, UK, said "what makes this study most important is the similarity of the red particles with living cells."
"If the red rain cells are finally proved to be of extra-terrestrial origin then that would be one of the most important discoveries in human history. It will change our concept about the universe and life," he added.
The red-coloured rains were reported in different parts of Kerala from July to September 2001.
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Space Capsule Returns Comet Dust To Earth
The Chief Engineer
DUGWAY PROVING GROUNDS, UT (AP) - After a seven-year journey, a NASA space capsule returned safely to Earth in January 2006 with the first dust ever fetched from a comet, a cosmic bounty that scientists hope will yield clues to how the solar system formed.
The capsule's blazing plunge through the atmosphere lit up parts of the western sky as it capped a mission in which the Stardust spacecraft swooped past a comet known as Wild 2.
"This is not the finish line. This is just the intermediate pit stop," said project manager Tom Duxbury of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, which managed the $212 million mission.
About a million comet and interstellar dust particles - most smaller than the width of a human hair - are believed to be inside a sealed canister.
The particles, captured in 2004, are thought to be pristine leftovers from the birth of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Some samples could be even older than the sun.
The next stop for the capsule was the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where scientists unlocked the canister. After a preliminary examination, they shipped the particles to laboratories all over the world for further study to analyze their composition.
"Inside this thing is our treasure," said principal mission scientists Don Brownlee of the University of Washington.
Stardust's successful return was welcome news to the space agency, which suffered a setback in 2004 when its Genesis space probe carrying solar wind atoms crashed into the same Utah salt flats and cracked open after its parachutes failed to deploy.
After the Genesis mishap, engineers rechecked Stardust's systems. Duxbury said its return home went "like clockwork".
The Stardust mothership released the shuttlecock-shaped capsule, which plunged through the atmosphere at 29,000 mph.
The first parachute unfurled at 100,000 feet, followed by a larger chute, which guided the capsule to a 10-mph landing at Dugway Proving Ground. There was a tense moment in mission control when engineers could not immediately confirm the first parachute had opened.
Before coming to rest on its side, the capsule bounced three times but didn't crack, said Joe Vellinga of Lockheed Martin, who helped lead the recovery.
Scientists in white protective suits spent the day cleaning the capsule and its canister of dust samples before the trip to Johnson Space Center.
The Stardust mothership remained in orbit around the sun and NASA is considering sending it to another comet or asteroid to snap photos. There won't be another chance for a sample return, however, because the craft carried only one capsule.
Stardust and Genesis were the first robotic retrievals of extraterrestrial material since the unmanned Soviet Luna 24 in 1976, which brought back lunar rocks and soil.
The Stardust spacecraft was launched in 1999 and has traveled nearly 3 billion miles, including three loops around the sun.
In 2004, it survived a hazardous trip through the comet's coma, a fuzzy halo of gas and dust, to snatch the cosmic dust with a tennis racket-sized collector mitt. Along the way, it also scooped up interstellar dust - tiny particles thought to have been thrown out by stars that long ago exploded and died.
During the comet flyby, the spacecraft also beamed back 72 black-and-white pictures showing broad mesas, craters, pinnacles and canyons on the surface of Wild 2.
Six months ago, NASA sent the Deep Impact probe into the path of another comet. The probe's high-speed collision with comet Tempel 1 set off a celestial fireworks display and bared the comet's primordial interior.
Scientists have been analyzing the voluminous debris hurled from the comet and are trying to figure out the size of the crater caused by the debris-shrouded impact.
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Ark's Quantum Quirks
Ark
Signs of the Times
June 1, 2006
Multipurpose Knife
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