- Signs of the Times for Mon, 09 Oct 2006 -

NEW! Podcast: It's the End of the World as We Know It (Do you feel fine?)

• Signs Editorials
• Life In The USA - It Ain't Pretty
• War Without End - But Not For Some
• Israel - Bane of the Middle East
• Israel - Murdering Innocence
• Planet On The Edge
• Economy On The Edge
• The Foley Fandango
• Around The World
• New Dinosaur Bird Found Not Smoking In The Irish Sea

As I am sure you can understand, it took me a while to digest last week's stomach turning story of the perverted private life of 'upstanding' Republican Representative Mark Foley.

For those that missed out on the story;

In 2005, Foley sent five emails, some of them sexually suggestive, to a 16-year-old former page sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA). Among other things, Foley asked for a photo of the page, asked what he wanted for a birthday present, and expressed admiration for the physique of another young male page (to whom he had also written). The page forwarded the emails to a colleague in Alexander's office, saying "this really freaked me out," and repeating the word "sick" 13 times to describe the photo request. The page asked "if you can, please tell Rodney [Alexander] about this," and mentioned another page who had been warned about a Congressman who "hit on" interns.

On October 3, ABC News reported that it had come into possession of as many as "52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18." Another former page, Tyson Vivyan, has said that he received "sexually suggestive" messages from Foley in 1997, a month after he left the page program. Then on October 5 ABC News reported that, in 2002, Foley e-mailed one page with an invitation to stay at his home in exchange for oral sex. The page, who was 17 years old at the time, declined the offer. The same report stated that he emailed another with a request for a photograph of his erect penis. And that was just for starters.

Now, I can understand that in modern psychologically ill America, a politician might feel compelled to hide the fact that he or she is gay, but Foley isn't your run of the mill 'deviant' (according to Bush and his nutjob fundie Christian followers) homosexual, Foley is a paedophile, and in the case of the sexual abuse of children, it matters not your sexual orientation. How do we know Foley is a paedophile? We don't, all we know is that he sent lewd messages to several underage Washington interns, but since when did the public ever get the full story about corruption of any sort on Capitol Hill? Sure, in normal life, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but as Monicagate showed, sometimes a cigar is the means by which the public gets an peek at the tip of the iceberg and of just how big a gap there is between politicians' carefully crafted public image and their somewhat less than pious private reality. While most normal people would have expected Clinton, having been exposed as a lying filandered, to die a slow political death, thanks to the amazing power of the mainstream media, Clinton is today a noble 'elder statesman', commmading 6 figure sums for spouting a few paragraphs of paramoralistic claptrap.

Suffice to say that, at this stage of the game, we can, with self-righteous certainty, state that when a scandal erupts in American politics, especially in relation to sexual deviancy, and always in the case of the abuse of children, limited hangouts rule the day. Why? Because, as I said, such scandals are but a scratching of the surface of what I suspect is a putrid and shocking beyond your wildest dreams, American (or rather international) body politic.

Remember back in the 80's when Bush senior and Reagan was linked to midnight visits of the White House for underage call boys?

Click for larger image

Of course you don't, because even though it was spread across the front page of the Washington Times, it has somehow since been wiped from the pages of American history and while daddy Bush was rewarded with another term and today is a behind the scenes big time political mover and shaker, Reagan's tomb is visited with reverance by hundreds of thousands every year.

Dennis Hastert 'I swear I'm not a crook'

It should come as no surprise therefore that Foley's little secret was, for at least a year, an open one, both in terms of the file that the FBI had on him and the fact that two Florida newspapers, the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald, and the Fox News Channel had received copies of Foley's lewd emails as far back as November 2005. And as if that were not bad enough, Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham had complained in 2003 to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (yes the idiot with a hammer who stands behind Bush in congress) and other congressional leaders about Foley's "inappropriate behavior". Hastert, the paragon of virtue that he is, decided at that time to take no action to protect young male interns from predators like Foley, preferring instead to wait until someone else broke the story before he loudly condemned Foley. Some form of justice for the duplicitous Hastert now seems likely with calls being made for his resignation also, not that resignation is sufficient punishment for these creeps. Hastert, while accepting responsibility for the scandal, has refused to step down, declaring "I haven't done anything wrong", which, given that he is very likely a psychopath, is probably 'the truth' as sees it.

The speed with which Foley's lawyer came up with the plausible explanation that, as a teenager, Foley himself was abused by the local priest smacks of a cop out and is a little to easy, not to mention the fact that Foley, surely as a result of his continuing 'trauma', is having problems remembering the name or location of the alleged priest. Foley has also revealed that he has a drink problem, with his lawyer claiming that he petitioned the boys while drunk, an excuse that also stinks to high heaven, given that at least one steamy instant messaging session occurred during a sitting of congress, at which Foley was certainly not drunk. Basically, if you think Foley's transgressions were limited to one under 18 boy, you are not eligible for membership in the reality based community and I have a nice holiday camp in Cuba to sell you. It is high time that we all clued up on personal, and particularly political, power, those that seek it, and how it is, for the most part, the domain of predators, hypocrites and liars of all types.

Initial revelations about Foley's exploits at the end of September prompted many more "Congressional house boys" to come forward, alleging a history of inappropriate conduct by Foley dating back at least ten years. It is safe to say therefore that Foley's obsession with young boys is not a twisted version of the common 'mid-life crisis'. And this is where it gets really scary.

You see, during his 12 years in office, Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography, serving as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and spreaheading a bill in 2002 to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that "these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles."

Best man for the job?

Foley's legislation to change federal sex offender laws was supported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, America's Most Wanted host John Walsh, and a number of victims' rights groups. President George W. Bush signed it into law as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

Foley also succeeded in getting a law passed that allows volunteer youth-serving organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and Boys and Girls Clubs to have access to FBI fingerprint background checks to help protect children.

Now I know that the best person for any job is often one with previous experience in the specific field to which the job relates, but I don't think that this applies when selecting politicians to oversee civil and government child protection programs. It is, in fact, completely sick, and merely provides further evidence for a theory that we have for a long time taken as fact: politicians (in the US, the UK and Israel to name the biggest offenders) are deviant human beings and inveterate liars, they accuse others of what they themselves are guilty, and the truth is generally to be found 180 degrees from what their words would suggest. They are able to lie about the most horrible crimes in such a convincing and shameless way that normal, decent human beings ave left with no choice but to believe them. A quick check of this theory by way of cross-checking against world events over the past 5 years will immediately prove to you just how well it translates to reality:

For example:

The Bush government states that it does not sanction torture, yet the facts clearly show that torture is a firm part of Bush government policy in the so called "war on terror", but millions of Americans still believe the word of their commander in chief.

The Bush government says that it is spreading "freedom and democracy" to Iraq and the Middle East, when the facts show that they have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan and murdered 300,000 Iraqis and tens of thousands of Afghanis. Yet millions of ordinary Americans think that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan are better off than they were 6 years ago.

The American and British governments claim that "Islamic terrorists" attacked American and British citizens on 9/11 and 7/7, when independent analysis of the evidence shows that it is very unlikely that this is the case. Yet many Americans and people around the world still believe in the "Islamic terror" myth.

The Israeli government claims that is is defending itself against Islamic terrorists, when the facts show that the state of Israel is the agressor in the Middle East and is actively promoting terrorism. Yet most Israelis, and many Americans, believe that Israel is "the only Democracy in the Middle East".

There are many more examples that I am sure you can think of to more or less categorically prove that the members of these governments lie every time they open their mouths and are currently attempting to turn reality on its head - and all of it for the 'benefit' of the masses of humanity, (in this case 'benefit' translating to 'extreme detriment').

The plain and disturbing fact here is that individuals who repeatedly cheat, steal, abuse, torment and kill, while showing no empathy for their victims and no remorse when they are exposed (people like Foley, Hastert, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Olmert, Netanyahu, Rice, and probably thousands of other politicians) have long-since been scientifically studied and a core reason for their deviancy defined: it is called psychopathy, and the individuals are psychopaths - genetically different from the vast majority of normal human beings in such a way that they are incapable of true human emotion and, most importantly, empathy for another human being. As I mentioned elsewhere:

Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Martha Stout, who has worked extensively with victims of psychopaths, writes in her book The Sociopath Next Door :

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fool.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life?

What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population. [Stout - The Myth of Sanity]

Dr Robert Hare is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, has dedicated almost 40 years to the study of psychopathy and is the author of several books on the subject. Hare states:

the damage they [psychopaths] inflict on society is out of all proportion to their numbers, not least because they gravitate to high-profile professions that offer the promise of control over others, such as law, politics, business management .. and journalism

Hare called these people "snakes in suits".

Hare performed two now-famous studies which suggest that psychopaths really are different from normal human beings. In the first, subjects were told to watch a timer counting down to zero, at which point they felt a harmless but painful electric shock. Non-psychopaths showed mounting anxiety and fear.

Psychopaths didn't even sweat.

In the second, the two groups had their brain activity and response time measured when asked to react to groups of letters, some forming words, some not. Words such as "rape" and "cancer" triggered mental jolts in non psychopaths. In psychopaths they triggered precisely nothing.

In another study, Hare measured the brainwaves of psychopaths and others as they were shown both neutral and emotional words.

Non-psychopaths responded with more speed and brain activity to emotion-charged words such as rape or cancer than to neutral words such as tree. To psychopaths, there was no difference.

In perhaps the most telling study conducted by Hare, clear evidence for the argument that psychopaths are indeed fundamentally different in make up from the majority of normal people was revealed:

Several years ago two graduate students and I submitted a paper to a scientific journal. The paper described an experiment in which we had used a biomedical recorder to monitor electrical activity in the brains of several groups of adult men while they performed a language task. This activity was traced on chart paper as a series of waves, referred to as an electroencephalogram.

The editor returned our paper with his apologies. His reason, he told us: "Frankly, we found some of the brain wave patterns depicted in the paper very odd. Those EEGs couldn't have come from real people."

Some of the brain wave recordings were indeed odd, but we hadn't gathered them from aliens and we certainly hadn't made them up. We had obtained them from a class of individuals found in every race, culture, society, and walk of life. Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought. These often charming - but always deadly - individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths. [Hare, Without Conscience]

According to Professor Hare psychopaths are impulsive - they lack empathy and remorse. They crave power and prestige, and are extremely controlling. He described them as "knowing the words but not the music." "They can learn to use ordinary words and to reproduce the pantomime of feeling but the feeling itself does not come to pass."

No emotion; no ability to empathise with the suffering of another human being; an ability to mimic feeling and emotion, to 'talk the talk' because they understand that this is what is expected of them; gravitate to high-profile professions that offer the promise of control over others, such as law, politics, business management and journalism; radically different brain wave patterns from those of "real people".

For a more indepth study of lies and psychopathy, see see Laura Knight-Jadczyk's "The Cult of the Plausible Lie".
Comment on this Editorial

Gold closed at 578.00 dollars an ounce on Friday, down 4.4% from $603.60 at the close of the previous Friday. The dollar closed at 0.7941 euros Friday, up 0.6% from 0.7890 for the week. That put the euro at 1.2594 dollars compared to 1.2674 at the previous week's close. Gold in euros would be 458.95 euros an ounce, down 3.8% from 476.25 for the week. Oil closed at 59.91 dollars a barrel, down 5.0% from $62.91 at the end of the previous week. Oil in euros would be 47.57 euros a barrel, down 5.3% from 49.64 at the close of the previous Friday. The gold/oil ratio closed at 9.65 Friday, up 0.6% from 9.59 for the week. In the U.S. stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,850.21 Friday, up 1.5% from 11,679.07 at the close of the Friday before. The NASDAQ closed at 2,299.99, up 1.8% from 2,258.43 for the week. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.69% up three basis points from 4.63 at the close of the week before.

Oil and gold were down sharply and stocks were up, all seemingly good news. However, once again the drop in strategic commodities like oil and gold may have been driven by underlying weakness in the economy. And as for the stock gains, they too started to slip on Friday. The release on Friday of the September jobs numbers, a scant 51,000 jobs created, provided more evidence of weakness:

September jobs below expectations

By David Lawder
Fri Oct 6, 12:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added a scant 51,000 jobs in September, far fewer than expected, but the job count for prior months was revised up and earnings moved higher, dimming financial market hopes for interest rate cuts next year.

The Labor Department's closely watched jobs report on Friday, also showed the unemployment rate dipped unexpectedly to 4.6 percent from 4.7 percent in August, indicating labor market tightness is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on alert for inflationary pressures. The department also said it had sharply undercounted jobs growth in the year through March.

The 51,000 job gain in September was the weakest since October 2005, when only 37,000 jobs were added following an unusually severe Gulf Coast hurricane season.

However, financial markets took their cues from the payroll revisions and a gain to hourly earnings that pointed to a longer wait for Fed rate cuts.

U.S. Treasury debt prices dropped, while stocks fell and the dollar hit a six-month high against the yen as investors digested the report.

August payrolls were stronger than previously thought, as the Labor Department revised the month's job gain to 188,000 from an originally reported 128,000. It also revised July's gain to 123,000 from 121,000.

The department also said it believed it undercounted employment in the year through March by 810,000 jobs, as it offered an estimate of annual revisions it will make to the jobs data early next year. That would mark the largest such revision since the Labor Department began making them in 1991 and indicated the jobs picture for that period was significantly better than first thought.

Economists said the revisions and lower unemployment rate paint a stronger employment picture than the weak September payroll growth number would indicate.

"The slowdown hypothesis is still very much with us, but not as much as previously seemed to be the case," said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland.

"My view is that the Fed is going to continue to be biased in the direction of inflation concerns. We have more evidence that the Fed is unlikely to do anything any time soon."

After the Fed halted a two-year rate hike campaign in August, a weakening housing market had prompted financial markets to begin pricing in rate cuts for next year. But in recent speeches, Fed officials have made clear they are still more focused on stamping out inflation than on signs of slower growth.

Wall Street economists had forecast nonfarm payrolls to expand by 125,000 workers last month, according to a Reuters poll last week.

"Our conclusion is that the economy is actually stronger than these employment numbers actually suggest," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group, in Princeton Junction, New Jersey.

SPIN CONTROL

With congressional elections a month away, Democrats and Republicans both tried to spin the data into to their favor.

President Bush said the unemployment rate drop was "good news." for the economy. "Wages are going up and energy prices are falling, which means people are going to have more money in their pockets to save, invest or spend."

However, the Democrats took a different view.

"Slower economic growth is taking its toll on job creation," said Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee. "Too many American families have lost ground in the Bush economy and are working harder than ever just to keep up with rising living expenses."

EARNINGS UP, WORKWEEK FLAT

The report showed average hourly earnings rose by a lower-than-expected 0.2 percent, or 4 cents, last month, after an upwardly revised 0.2 percent gain in August. Analysts in the Reuters poll had expected a 0.3 percent rise in September.

In both September and August, average hourly earnings rose 4.0 percent from a year earlier, the highest since a 4.1 percent gain in March 2001. The August figure was revised up from a 3.9 percent year-on-year gain.

The Labor Department said the length of the average workweek was unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 33.8 hours in September. The manufacturing workweek fell 0.2 hour to 41.1 hours.

Among individual sectors, manufacturing lost 19,000 jobs in September, while retail trades lost 12,000 jobs. Construction added just 8,000 jobs, while all services put together added just 62,000 positions.

Which led to this:

Stocks slip after 3 days of gains

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks slipped on Friday, snapping the Dow's three-day run to record highs, as employment data renewed worries about slower economic growth, while shares of automaker General Motors Corp. sank on fears a major shareholder may begin selling his stake.

GM dropped 6.3 percent, making it the biggest drag on the Dow after Kirk Kerkorian's investment firm, Tracinda Corp., said it decided not to acquire additional shares of GM and Kerkorian's representative quit GM's board.

"The job growth is tepid at best, and the equity market is coming off a big run. It is warranted to take gains off the table, especially when you haven't had a September correction," said Matthew Smith, vice president and portfolio manager at Smith Affiliated Capital in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.48 points, or 0.14 percent, at 11,850.21. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 3.64 points, or 0.27 percent, at 1,349.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 6.35 points, or 0.28 percent, at 2,299.99.

For the week, the Dow rose 1.5 percent, the S&P gained 1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 1.8 percent.

On Thursday, the Dow closed at a record 11,866.69 and climbed to an all-time intraday high at 11,870.06. That marked the Dow's third day of setting highs that broke previous records set on January 14, 2000 -- two months before the Internet frenzy cooled and the stock market's tech bubble burst.

But on Friday, stocks opened lower and extended their modest decline as investors worried that an unexpectedly small rise in the number of jobs created by U.S. employers in September may signal that economic growth is stalling.

At the same time, upward revisions to job numbers in previous months triggered worries that the Federal Reserve would be unlikely to cut interest rates this year.

..."We've had a heck of a run here. We just need time to rest up a bit and gather steam to continue the rally," said David Straus, a fund manager at Johnston Lemon Inc. in Washington.

"Overall, we see this market as turning more choppy with an upward bias."

Analysts pointed to growing stocks of oil and the lack of an OPEC agreement as responsible for the dip in price:

Oil falls below $60, investors doubt OPEC

By Simon Webb

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell below $60 a barrel on Friday as investors doubted OPEC's resolve to carry out a planned supply cut and fuel inventories swelled in the United States, the world's top consumer.

U.S. crude settled 27 cents lower at $59.76 a barrel, off nearly $20 from its mid-July peak of $78.40. London Brent fell 17 cents to $59.83.

OPEC President Edmund Daukoru said on Friday he intended to secure a supply cut deal by Monday that would remove about 1 million barrels per day of crude from the market to slow the rapid decline in oil prices.

But investors were wary as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries group had yet to make an official statement on the planned cuts.

"It is a big surprise to the market that OPEC has not been prepared to formally announce the decision to cut," said Frederic Lasserre, head of commodity research at SG CIB Commodities.

"It looks like it may take some time for OPEC to decide how to allocate this cut -- and that is bearish, not bullish."

OPEC members have discussed but not yet decided whether to hold an emergency meeting October 18-19 in Vienna, Daukoru said.

A cut of a million bpd would remove about 3.4 percent of total OPEC supply from the market.

STOCK CUSHION

Investors turned their attention back to ample production and high stocks as they waited for official word from OPEC, which pumps over a third of global oil supplies.

"If OPEC is not able to get any credibility in reducing supply, then we are back to fundamentals," Lasserre said.

"And the fundamentals are that we have plenty of stocks around -- they are still building up -- which means that the market is oversupplied quite substantially."

U.S. distillate supplies, which include heating oil, rose by 200,000 barrels to their highest level since 1999 last week, according to a government report this week.

Crude oil and gasoline stocks were substantially higher than at the same time last year, the report said.

Despite the high stocks cushion, OPEC's plan to cut supply has disappointed the United States.

U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said he did not want OPEC to cut output and White House economic adviser Al Hubbard said President George W. Bush was not happy with oil prices near $59 a barrel.

That last statement was pretty funny! I am sure Bush is not happy with 59 dollars a barrel oil. His oil industry friends can't make obscene profits at that price. Just risque profits.

Max Fraad Wolf reminds us the current good news contains portents of bad news to come:

Autumn Chills the Goldilocks Economy

Max Fraad Wolff
October 5, 2006

Naturally, the passage of summer into autumn entails a chilling of the air. Less natural and more pronounced this year is the cooling of the macroeconomy. Profit and GDP growth, as well as, housing numbers and durable goods reports, point to falling temperatures. Fed rate hikes on pause and cooling commodity prices offer more evidence - if that were necessary. Thus far, the stock market's response has been to heat up to August-like temperatures. Renewed geo-political risk suggested by recent events in Shanghai, Mexico City, Budapest and Bangkok be damned, the Dow is in record breaking mode. Could this be a sign of agreement with my cautionary thesis? The Dow is populated by larger more global and defensive firms with higher credit ratings than the S&P. Thus, some of its rise may be rotation from even more dangerous positions elsewhere in the US equity orbit.

Sadly, it seems clear that most are driven by the goldilocks outlook. This "understanding" became popular in 2002. According to the goldilocks story, we will artfully and profitably dodge inflation and recession as we hop from sweet spot to sweet spot. It is a mutant form of the new economy/new era conception popularized and universalized in the heady days of the late 1990's. The US does not have to save; we can run huge external imbalances forever; the Fed can endlessly run expansionary monetary policy; there are no equity, bond, real estate bubbles; and we can have rapid growth without inflation. Goldilocks adherents believe this is being done as we thread the needle between various risks. How well does the macroeconomic data confirm this outlook?

Early winter would seem the correct analogy here. Housing starts, permits, mortgage applications, prices and housing company stock prices are down, foreclosures are up. Durable goods orders fell 0.5% in August, widely missing consensus forecast of a 0.5% increase. Bright spots were autos and defense spending, yet neither is likely to be a source of macroeconomic strength moving forward. Excluding transports, durable goods orders declined by 2.0%. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced on September 22, 2006 that its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications declined 5% on the week despite half-year lows in listed mortgage rates. The 5% one week decline masked a more worrisome 21% year-over-year slide. Home sales declines in August were sharp in several vital and once hot markets. The California Association of Realtors (CAR) reported a 30% drop in sales for August 2006. This is the largest decline since 1982. The Florida Association of Realtors reported a 50% August decline in sales in Palm Beach County and a 6% fall in median home price there. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors revealed a 20% decline in sales and an 8% decline in median price. It is possible some of this weak performance is related to the total lack of growth and dynamism in personal income and spending growth. The September 29, 2006 Personal Incomes and Outlays release form the BEA reveals that August was a low point for wage growth and personal consumption expenditure. Only core inflation stayed strong. Earnings and spending growth were anemic while prices stayed high. This is the mirror image of goldilocks. August 2006 marks another month with a negative private savings rate (-.5%). [1] This has caused little concern, likely because consumption is a relatively unimportant 70% of US GDP.

The September 28, 2006 release of Q2 2006 GDP and national economic data has confirmed more skeptical outlooks and spurred hardened optimists to new levels of creativity. Consensus estimates from private sector economists of 2.8% GDP growth and advanced estimates of 2.9% growth were disappointed as the Commerce Department announced actual growth of 2.6%. The Fed-preferred price index for personal consumption expenditure- excluding food and energy- increased 2.9% in Q2 down from 3.0% in Q1. Thus, our present goldilocks economy most recently displayed a 3% drop in the rate of price increase and a 53% decline- quarter over quarter- in GDP growth. This must be why indexes are soaring and the soft landing, benign inflation environment expectation has become dominant! What of corporate profits, long a bright spot in our economy?

Profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) increased $22.7 billion in the second quarter, compared with an increase of $175.6 billion in the first quarter. Current-production cash flow (net cash flow with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments)--the internal funds available to corporations for investment--increased $1.1 billion in the second quarter, compared with an increase of $125.3 billion in the first.[2]

It is fair to say that the corporate profit picture is defined by deceleration in Q2. This was particularly true for non-financial corporations that underwent a rather profound reversal of profit fortunes across the quarter. Reported domestic profits for non-financial corporations dropped by $32.8 billion in Q2 on the heels of a strong $94.5 billion increase in Q1. The profit picture, while still a relative strong spot in the economy, is less hot than it has been. The most recent data, like the first cold winds of autumn, are a reminder that winter is approaching. Stagnant earnings, pressured private consumption, decelerating profit growth and robust price inflation are showing up in the macro data.

So we are left to ponder a widely popular consensus on the economy that is influencing equity performance. It runs as follows: eureka! The Fed has stopped tightening and the economy is still growing well and highly profitably. Of course growth and profitability are still in respectable shape - particularly the latter. However, they have remarkably cooled of late. Much like rate increases. When rate increases slow we celebrate the end of inflation risk, despite the price change metrics reported. When GDP and profit numbers slow, we refocus on their strength in long run, global comparisons. Thus, the goldilocks consensus is sustained. The economy is not too hot, not too slow and just right!

Remember the Goldilocks story? Cool days and warm porridge lure Goldi into the bears' house. There are two endings to the fairly tale. In the friendly version she wakes and flees in terror. In the harsher version she is eaten by the bears. Either way, advocates of the goldilocks economy may have much to learn from the fable they have invoked. Cooler data may be driving them to follow in goldilocks' footsteps. It might be just right now, but there is trouble lurking in the near future! After all, the bears return in all the versions of the story.

The view looks a little better in Europe, however. Here is the neoliberal Economist:

Feeling fitter
The euro area's economy

Oct 5th 2006

This year the euro area's economic strength has been a source of surprise. Its longer-term prospects may be brightening too

A MONTH ago Jean-Claude Trichet gave what markets see as his standard nod and wink: the European Central Bank (ECB), said its president, would continue to exercise "vigilance" against inflationary pressures. Stand by, in other words, for another increase in interest rates at the bank's next rate-setting meeting on October 5th. ECB-watchers were therefore well prepared when rates duly rose, by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.25%.

A slide in consumer-price inflation to 1.8% last month, greased by weaker oil prices, raised no doubts, even though this is at last "below, but close to, 2%", the ECB's stated aim. Indeed, with real rates not much more than 1% even now, the ECB looks sure to put rates up again this year and is likely to carry on in 2007.

The euro area's economy has looked remarkably healthy this year, and keeps surprising forecasters. In The Economist's monthly poll, the average prediction for GDP growth in 2006 is now 2.5%, up by 0.2 percentage points since last month and by a full point since a year ago. Admittedly, the pace has probably slowed a little since the cracking second quarter, when GDP rose by 0.9%. But the third quarter, which has just ended, was probably more than decent - judging, for instance, by retail sales figures and purchasing managers' indices for both manufacturing and services, published this week.

The question now is whether this year, set to be the best since 2000, heralds a pick-up in the zone's long-term growth rate - limited in recent years, by most estimates, to 2% or so - or merely marks the top of the cycle. Though it is too soon to tell, there are reasons to be cheerful. For a long time, the euro area has needed two things: first, that more of its people work; second, that their productivity (ie, output per hour) rises faster. On both counts, there are signs of improvement.

Take the labour market. At 7.9%, the euro zone's unemployment rate is roughly where it was at the peak of the last cycle, in late 2000. By now, on past form, wage pressures should be starting to burst through. But although wage costs have picked up a bit this year, their growth rate is still subdued - maybe 2.3% or 2.4% in the year to the second quarter, depending on your measure. The thought that jobs may go to central and eastern Europe, or to China, is having an effect.

It seems plain that the zone's NAIRU, the unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation, has fallen. Economists at the European Commission now put it at around 8%, one percentage point less than in 1997 (though well above America's 5%). By that estimate, the jobless rate is at its limit. But it may be too conservative, given that wage growth is not exactly resurgent. The NAIRU is virtually unknowable unless wages start to take off, something that a watchful ECB is unlikely to allow.

Better still, as the commission pointed out this week in its quarterly report on the euro area, the unemployment rate has fallen even though labour supply has been increasing - by about 1% a year since the late 1990s. Perhaps most encouraging is the increase in the proportion of people aged 55 to 64 - a group that many European countries have been too eager to pension off - in work or seeking it, from 37.5% in 2000 to 43.7% last year.

On productivity, there are also encouraging early signs. Eric Chaney, an economist at Morgan Stanley, reckons that output per hour in the euro area grew at an annual rate of 2.6% in the first half of this year - twice the pace of 2000-05, the first six years of the single currency's life. He has to make estimates, because not all the official numbers are out, but his reasoning squares with French data showing hourly output rising at an annual rate of 3% .

Start with GDP, which rose at an annual rate of 3.4%. For GDP per worker, deduct employment growth of 1.1%, from data for France, Germany and Spain, three of the top four economies in the club. Then adjust for hours per worker, which have been declining, largely because of the recent rise of part-time employment. Because firms are probably trying to get more hours out of the existing workforce before hiring new staff, Mr Chaney supposes a slower decline than in recent years: 0.3%, against 0.9% in 2002 and 0.5% in 2004.

For the whole year, Mr Chaney forecasts that output per hour will grow by 2.1%. Is this purely cyclical, or will some of the extra growth endure? "You can't say for sure," he says, "but you get a feeling this is more than cyclical." Above all, he thinks, European firms are beginning to reap the benefits from investing in information technology, something that America has exploited to far greater effect than Europe has.

Despite all this, euro-area optimists may face a testing few months. It is not hard to see demand growth being dragged down at the start of next year by a planned rise in value-added tax in Germany and budgetary tightening in Italy.

That said, some other possible sources of trouble may be less threatening than they now seem. America's slowdown, though hardly welcome, is one such: Europe's main source of pulling power these days is domestic demand. Oil prices may climb again, but the euro area weathered the recent spike fairly well and should get back a good slice of any extra it spends on energy imports. According to the commission's report, in 2000-05 oil exporters spent a bigger share of each extra dollar of export revenues on imports from the euro zone than they did in 1973-81. The euro area's exports to oil producers rose by 17% last year, adding 0.3% to GDP. The commission expects a further increase in 2006.

A healthier euro zone, of course, should be food for thought for the ECB. In the long run, theory suggests that higher growth, other things equal, should mean higher interest rates for a given rate of inflation. In the shorter term, increased capacity, especially if demand slows, may lean against higher rates - but it is hard to see the central bank relaxing its vigilance just yet.

Even though the European economy now seems much healthier than the U.S.one, the Economist will never admit that European social democracy might have anything to do with it. No, that has to be "reformed" for the economy to "regain its economic vitality," which is a code phrase for allowing individuals to get richer at the expense of the average person:

Angela's ashes

The German chancellor needs to be bolder in pursuing reforms

Oct 5th 2006

It was never going to be easy for Angela Merkel to run a "grand coalition" government. After all, the coalition, between her centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, came about only because she and her party did unexpectedly badly in last September's election. And, although Germany is a consensus-loving country, it does not warm to left-right coalitions at the federal level: the previous one, between 1966 and 1969, was not a particularly happy affair.

Despite this, at the start of the year Ms Merkel looked surprisingly good. Her early foreign-policy forays, especially to Washington, DC, and Brussels, were glittering successes that drew a favourable contrast with her Social Democratic predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. The economy was at last picking up some momentum. Business confidence was high. Her party was even gaining ground with the electorate. For a brief moment, indeed, Ms Merkel was the most popular chancellor in history, scoring an 80% approval rating in the polls.

In the past few weeks, however, she has come down to earth with a bump. A fractious dispute over health-care reform, which was supposed to be a centrepiece of the government's domestic agenda, has brought home how hard it is for the two coalition partners to agree on anything. Ms Merkel seems unable even to make deals with her own party's powerful state premiers, some of whom seem more interested in replacing her than in settling policy differences. Opinion polls and recent state elections show that support for both main parties continues to ebb. One recent poll even puts the Christian Democrats behind the Social Democrats, for the first time since Ms Merkel became chancellor.

It is true that the economy is still doing quite well, and unemployment continues to fall - although only in Germany would this year's expected GDP growth of up to 2.5% be greeted with enthusiasm. But it is also true that Germany, like much of Europe, needs more substantial reforms to regain its economic vitality. The labour market is too regulated, taxes are too complex and too high, the public sector is bloated and unresponsive, the education and health systems need a shake-up. Yet because the two main parties disagree so much, the grand coalition has barely begun to tackle any of these.

This lady shouldn't be for turning

A good way forward would be for Ms Merkel herself to show some stronger leadership. She should start by exerting more discipline within her own party, as she is belatedly threatening to do by pulling her state premiers into line. But she might also have to consider other options. One is to prepare the ground for a different coalition, without the Social Democrats. The obvious one would combine the Christian Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Greens - a grouping known from the black, yellow and green party colours as a Jamaica coalition. However, even a Jamaica coalition would find it hard to agree on reforms, not least to health care. So she should also consider a second option: to plan for an early election. It is not straightforward to call one in Germany, but it might be possible to engineer an early poll in the second half of next year, after Germany's first-half presidency of the European Union and the G8 summit are both over.

Throughout her political career, Ms Merkel has always made it clear that her instincts are to make progress in small steps, not giant leaps. She is by nature cautious, not bold. The trouble is that just now there is little sign of her taking even small steps in the direction of significant reform in Germany. If she is to have a lasting political impact on her country, she must start soon.

Finally, the Mogambo Guru, referring to an Economist special report on debt, has finally explained the craziness of hedge funds in a way I can understand:

"Credit derivatives, which behave a bit like insurance contracts, allow investors to buy or sell cover against default by a borrower, and the price moves depending on perceptions about the borrower's credit worthiness", and that "the notional amount outstanding of credit derivatives rose by 52% in the first six months of the year to $26 trillion."

This is the part that kills me; they go on to write that although $26 trillion is a large number, "That number would be far smaller if banks' positions were netted out for offsetting exposures." Hahaha! I love that! What morons!

The fact is that these "offsetting exposures" did not disappear in some miraculous "netting out". In the aggregate, risk went up and the totals of the derivative bets went up because somebody else's risk exposure went up when they accepted the other side of the banks' "netting out"! And where do you get the money to finance all these new derivatives? Ultimately, by borrowing the money from another bank, or selling it to somebody who goes to the bank to get the money! And then they, in turn, contract for some derivative risk-transference to a fourth party to offset some of that risk!

And then that new guy decides to offset his increased risk by entering a fifth-party derivative contract with someone else, who in turn has to enter a sixth-party derivative contract with someone else to offset some of the risk, and then that person has to enter a seventh-party derivative contract with someone else to offset some of that risk, and then on and on and on, eighth, ninth, tenth, until I am hoarse from screaming at the idiocy of thinking that this is NOT a Ponzi scam! How can it NOT be?

I guess to add a little levity the article startlingly admits: "Such products, known as 'structured credit', encourage liquidity, partly because they can be created out of thin air." Hahahaha! Gosh! Ya think that the ability to create assets out of thin air would increase "liquidity"? Hahaha! Me, too! In fact, give me a chance to create money out of thin air and I will show you some REAL liquidity increases!

"The problem," the Economist says, "broadly identified by many regulators, is that not a lot is known about how structured-credit products behave in unusual conditions", and that "it is hard to know how they will react when hard times return."

If they had bothered to ask me, I would have told them that the answer is, unfortunately, that the whole freaking system will fall apart and the country will be plunged into utter bankruptcy, as the whole idea of eliminating risk by creating more risk, and then spreading it among a bigger group of people, financed with nothing but minimal margin and borrowing the rest, is insane! Insaaaaaaane! Absolutely insane!

And I am here as a guy who really knows this "insane" business, both by the fact that I have been tested for it so many, many times and passing it somewhat fewer times, and by the fact that I see it every freaking day of my life whenever I merely glance at the monstrous, monetary insanities of the Federal Reserve and the grotesque spending insanities of all the levels of government.

And anyone who thinks that now, for the first time in history, the umpteenth repetition of this stupidity will NOT be calamitous, is truly, truly, truly insane. Ugh.

  the government of Iraq was behind the attacks of 9/11. Since no such misinformation exists in other countries, this could only mean that public government officials, assisted by the Neocon media and government propagandists, have consciously spread and perpetuated the disinformation and are, therefore, mainly responsible for the abysmal and dangerous ignorance found in a large and probably decisive segment of the American electorate.

There is no area where general information is as profoundly at odds with what is known in the United States compared to what is known in the rest of the world as with questions dealing with the state of Israel and the Middle East. Thanks to the powerful pro-Israel Lobby and its propaganda (Hasbara) machine, Americans seem to live on a different planet than the rest of the world. -Americans, for example, are far more likely than Europeans to side with Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Pew Global Attitudes survey taken between March and May (2006) found that 48% of Americans said that their sympathies lay with the Israelis; only 13% were sympathetic towards the Palestinians. By contrast, in Spain for example, 9% sympathized with the Israelis and 32% with the Palestinians. The main reason for this cleavage is the fact that Americans do not receive the same news as the rest of the world. In the U.S., news directly or indirectly involving Israel is filtered, slanted and adjusted by spin organizations in usually order to present Israel as the innocent victim, even when it does the killing and the destruction, as its indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas in Lebanon, during the summer of 2006 amply demonstrated.

For this purpose, for example, the Lobby has its own propaganda coordinating organization, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). Its mission is to see that American media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) toe the line on Israel and on American policies toward Israel, not hesitating in the process to smear journalists or authors who dare criticizing the actions of the Israeli government or who offer more balanced viewpoints. It also takes the necessary political steps to make sure that the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] does not impede the move toward concentration of media ownership in the U.S.

What are the  conclusions to be drawn from all this?

First, there is the need for free societies to be aware when they are subjected to incessant and systematic campaigns of indoctrination and disinformation, the more so if it is to wage wars of aggression abroad. Second, the threat of excessive concentration of media ownership should always be a paramount preoccupation in a democracy, if freedom of information is to be preserved.

Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com.

He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'.

Visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author's Website:www.thenewamericanempire.com
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Life In The USA - It Ain't Pretty

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Be afraid, America. Be very afraid

Haaretz
09/10/2006

We have met the enemy, and, all too often, he looks like us.

The United States has spent breathtaking sums since September 11 to assure that people who look like Mohammed Atta don't walk onto airplanes, take thousands of innocent lives, and destroy embodiments of the nation's majesty.

But what if the terrorist you're looking for is not an Arab, not a Muslim, not swarthy and foreign-born and, yes, alien?

What if he looks and acts the way Americans used to believe that real Americans were supposed to look: cool, quiet, Christian and, yes, white?

What if he's the guy from the Norman Rockwell calendar, the knowing veteran at the hardware store, the serious, courteous, diffident rock on which the All-American empire was built?
After the vast resources sinkholed into Homeland Security, what if the most immediate, the most likely, the most realistic terrorist threat to America, is the white male who votes Bush, goes to church, mows and edges his lawn, and one clear morning gathers his firearms and ammunition and walks into a school.

We don't want to think about him. We prefer our terrorists wild-eyed and fanatic, turbaned and howling, bearded and masked and glaring and gowned.

We don't want to think about profiling Charles Whitman. We don't want to think that the gifted student, the accomplished pianist, the Eagle Scout who grows to become the Marine who wins the Good Conduct medal, married to his hardworking, supportive sweetheart, will one day climb a clock tower, shoot 14 passersby to death, and wound dozens more.

We have privacy issues, we Americans do.

We respect the privacy of our neighbors. So much so that we may live next to them for 20 years and know them not at all.

We respect the privacy of the quiet, the keep-to-himself kind of guy. Maybe a little scary. But that's his business, not ours.

Until he walks into a school.

Until he trains his handgun, his assault rifle, his shotgun, his deer rifle, on girls in the school, authority figures in the school, anyone who gets in his way.

Or until he walks into the workplace, opening fire on colleagues or former colleagues, bosses or former bosses. Anyone who gets in his way.

Be afraid, America. Be very afraid. And hire guards. Place them at the entrances to your schools. Keep that guy out. I'm not talking Mohammed Atta. I'm talking that guy who looks like you're supposed to look, if you live in America.

Keep him out. It's a gun-happy country. There must be a few weapons left over to bar his entry. If the guard sees he has a gun, the guard should be trained and ready to drop him before he drops a single child.

Keep him out, America. You'll never forgive yourself if you don't.



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Arrests made after anti-Bush protest in downtown Portland

Friday, October 6, 2006
kgw.com Staff

Police made several arrests in the streets of downtown Portland Thursday afternoon after an anti-Bush rally began spilling into traffic.

The protesters had gathered downtown Portland on Thursday to call for what they called a regime change in the United States.

Police began lining streets near SW 12th and Jefferson around 3 p.m. Cathe Kent of Portland Police said a splinter group of about 50 broke off from the protest, running south from the Park Blocks. Police said they thought the group was going to try and stop traffic on the I-405 freeway.

The group that had a permit for the gathering, said they hoped to be out of the way by rush hour.

But police on bicycles and on horseback lined the streets in the late afternoon.

As officers were making one arrest, someone in the group swung at the officer, Kent said. Officers sprayed a chemical agent after the group surged toward police and backup was called for, according to Kent.
Police clear the streets after a protest Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006.

Police fired beanbag rounds a two people who disappeared into the crowd, police said.

In all, 10 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and failing to obey police, according to Kent.

Protesters told KGW they were upset with the direction the Bush administration is taking the country.

"We're not able to control everybody, and people are free to do what they want. But as far as the organizers go, this is intended to be a free peaceful expression of what needs to happen in our country," Jim Oberg of the World Can't Wait organization said.

The protest was a part of several taking place around the nation Thursday.



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Jeb Bush gets rude welcome

Saturday, October 07, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Police disperse angry protesters in Downtown T-station

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in town for a fund-raiser for Sen. Rick Santorum, had a close encounter with a large group of anti-Republican protesters as he was making his way to the Duquesne Club, Downtown.

It was about 4:15 yesterday when Mr. Bush met up with the protesters near the corner of Liberty and Sixth avenues. The protesters were marching to join other pickets already gathered in front of the exclusive club, a little more than a block away at 325 Sixth Ave.

Protesters said Gov. Bush blew them a kiss, acknowledging the crowd of about 30 chanting pickets that was made up of United Steelworkers and members of Uprise Counter Recruitment, a tour traveling through 22 cities to support anti-war efforts.

The protesters came closer.

"Jeb, go home," they shouted.
Mr. Bush, accompanied by a security guard and a female aide, made a slow retreat toward the T-station at Wood Street.

"He was quickly getting out of the way and not wanting to engage us," said Jon Vandenburgh, one of the protesters, who also is a researcher for the United Steelworkers.

Once in the subway station, Mr. Bush scurried to the escalators and descended to the mezzanine level, Mr. Vandenburgh said.

By now, Mr. Bush was cornered. He was surrounded by signs that said "Pittsburgh is a Santorum Free Zone," "Honk if you're sick of Rick," and a crowd growing increasingly louder, according to Mr. Vandenburgh.

"We don't want you here," protesters chanted.

Port Authority spokesman Bob Grove said six or seven officers responded to the scene to control the crowds.

He said Mr. Bush had been walking in the area near the T-station and the incident happened spontaneously when about 50 pickets "tailed him and stayed with him and went into the Wood Street station."

About 75 protesters remained on the street, said Mr. Grove.

He said the crowd was asked repeatedly to disperse.

Mr. Grove said a Port Authority canine unit was called in to help with crowd control. Two officers used their tasers to stun two protesters who "were asked to leave, but did not go," Mr. Grove said.

The tasers he said were empty of the cartridges that supply a more powerful charge.

"It was a very tense situation. They were very close to the governor and shouting on top of him."

As a precaution, the governor was ushered into a T-station supply closet and stayed there until the crowd left.

No arrests were made and no citations were issued, Mr. Grove said. Mr. Bush was not injured.

The two men who were tasered were shaken and left the protest, said David Meieran, with the Thomas Merton Center and one of the protesters with Uprise Counter Recruitment.

Mr. Meieran said the Port Authority officers were fairly aggressive and pushed them aside.

Pittsburgh police said they monitored the protest in front of the Duquesne Club, which they called peaceful, but did not respond to the incident in the T-station.

The entire incident lasted about 5 minutes. After calm was restored, the smaller group of protesters inside the T-station made their way back to the Duquesne Club where they staked out the front of the building and an alley entrance.

Mr. Vandenburgh and Mr. Meieran said they later saw Mr. Bush escorted to the Duquesne Club, which he entered through a back door at about 5 p.m.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bush said she was unaware of the incident last night and had no immediate comment.

Comment: Notice how the protestors are characterised as "anti-Republican", when in all likihood they were anti-government protestors. Notice also that two protestors were tasers because "they were asked to leave and wouldn't leave". Totalitarianism is here folks!

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Bushes celebrate christening of carrier

AP
October 9, 2006

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president.



"I know you join me in saying to our father,
President Bush, your ship has come in," the current president said during a ceremony for the last of the Nimitz-class carriers, the CVN 77.

"She is unrelenting, she is unshakable, she is unyielding, she is unstoppable," Bush said, lauding the warship's state-of-the-art design before pausing for a punch line aimed at his mother's well-known steely constitution. "As a matter of fact, probably should have been named the Barbara Bush."
The elder Bush, a decorated Navy pilot in World War II, joined the armed forces on his 18th birthday, June 12, 1942. "After our nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor, you simply couldn't find anyone who wasn't anxious to sign up," he told the audience as a heavy rain fell.

"The point is that our nation was totally united against the insidious totalitarian threat against freedom," he said. He added, "In my humble view, we were no greater than the kids that serve today."

The current president said that in the 21st century, "freedom is again under attack and young Americans are volunteering to answer the call."

Doro Bush Koch, the elder Bush's daughter, handled the ritual smashing of a bottle of sparkling wine against the flattop's bow.

Bush father and son and several relatives joined hundreds of others, from government dignitaries to shipyard workers, at Northrop Grumman Newport News, where the $6 billion, 1,092-foot-long carrier is being built. It is not yet finished and is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in late 2008.

The christening ceremony was scheduled to be nearly two hours long, but deafening thunderclaps, lightning, wind and intermittent heavy rain left the speakers mostly abandoning their prepared remarks to merely introduce the next in line.

The elder Bush choked up during his informal and sentimental address, while talking about the men with whom he served in World War II.

Four Navy veterans who served with Bush during the war traveled to the ceremony, an event the former president called the "third happiest day of his life," after his wedding and the day when two of his sons were elected governors.

"This is every naval aviator's dream," he said

The 10th of the Nimitz-class carriers - the largest warships in the world - features technological advancements that make it a bridge to the next generation of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

On Sunday, the carrier was to be launched from its dry-dock into the James River and taken to an outfitting berth, where work on interior systems will continue.

The former president was the youngest pilot in the Navy when he joined, receiving his commission and naval aviator wings before age 19.

Bush flew torpedo bombers off the aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto. In 1944, he was on a mission over the Pacific when Japanese anti-aircraft fire hit his plane. Bush parachuted into the sea and was rescued by a Navy submarine. He later was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals for his Navy service in the Pacific theater.

Capt. Kevin O'Flaherty, the carrier's prospective commanding officer, is in charge of about 330 sailors now attached to the ship. He said he eventually will be responsible for about 3,000 crew members when the ship is put into service. It is not known where the carrier is to be stationed



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Olbermann news commentaries target Bush

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer
October 8, 2006

NEW YORK - Keith Olbermann's tipping point came on a tarmac in Los Angeles six weeks ago. While waiting for his plane to take off he read an account of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's speech before the American Legion equating
Iraq War opponents to pre-World War II appeasers.

The next night, on Aug. 30, Olbermann ended his MSNBC "Countdown" show with a blistering retort, questioning both the interpretation of history and Rumsfeld's very understanding of what it means to be an American.

It was the first of now five extraordinarily harsh anti-Bush commentaries that have made Olbermann the latest media point-person in the nation's political divide.
"As a critic of the administration, I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser," Olbermann told The Associated Press. "No one has the right to say that about any free-speaking American in this country."

Since that first commentary, Olbermann's nightly audience has increased 69 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research. This past Monday 834,000 people tuned in, virtually double his season average and more than CNN competitors Paula Zahn and Nancy Grace. Cable kingpin and Olbermann nemesis Bill O'Reilly (two million viewers that night) stands in his way.

Olbermann stood before Ground Zero on Sept. 11 and said Bush's conduct before the Iraq war was an impeachable offense. "Not once, in now five years, has this president ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space and to this, the current and curdled version of our beloved country," he said.

His latest verbal attack, this past Thursday, criticized the president's campaign attacks on Democrats.

"Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?" he asked.

Olbermann has become a hero to Bush opponents, who distribute video files and transcripts of his commentaries. One poster on the Daily Kos who's been trying to spread his own four-year boycott of cable news wondered: "Is it time to modify the boycott to allow for Keith's show 'Countdown' - and only his show?"

On the right, he's known as Krazy Keith and OlbyLoon, and the Olbermannwatch.com Web site is devoted to picking apart his words.

"Look in the mirror, Keith," an Olbermannwatch.com blogger wrote. "You have become that which you claim to despise - a demagogue."

Olbermann has never been a Bush fan. He's gone on crusades before, pounding on alleged voting irregularities in Ohio in 2004 when the story went dry elsewhere. He's also waged war against O'Reilly. None of these match his most recent campaign for ferocity.

Liberal activist Jeff Cohen is thrilled for Olbermann's success, but admits that it's bittersweet.

Cohen was a producer for Phil Donahue's failed talk show. Less than four years ago Donahue's show imploded primarily because MSNBC and its corporate owners were afraid to have a show seen as liberal or anti-Bush at a time those opinions were less popular, he said.

In his new book "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media," Cohen alleges that NBC News forced Donahue to book more conservatives than liberals and eventually wanted one of the nation's best-known liberal media figures to imitate O'Reilly.

Same time as Olbermann, same channel.

That Olbermann has been permitted to do what he's doing is evidence that "the political zeitgeist has changed dramatically in four years, and especially (at) MSNBC," Cohen said.

While it's true a different political atmosphere has helped Olbermann, NBC News senior vice president Phil Griffin disputed Cohen's interpretation that politics doomed Donahue. While MSNBC could be faulted for giving up on Donahue too fast, the show never caught its rhythm and was extremely expensive, he said.

"People try to ascribe motives to us, that somehow we're trying to keep liberals off the air and it's all about ideology," Griffin said. "If you get ratings, there's no issue."

Even before this fall, Olbermann's ratings had been on a slow rise as viewers connected with his entertaining way of delivering the news, Griffin said.

Early in his second tenure at MSNBC, Olbermann said he wanted to do a segment on whether some of the more heroic elements of former POW Jessica Lynch's rescue were exaggerated. He was told by NBC News executives that he had to balance it with a commentary by conservative radio host Michael Savage, and he refused. He was prepared to walk, he said, but it never came to that.

Olbermann said he hasn't spoken to NBC Chairman Bob Wright or anyone at corporate owner General Electric Co. about his commentaries. No one's asked him to tone things down; in fact, "I've had to calm them down a little bit," he said.

Such is the almighty power of the Nielsen meter.

"As dangerous as it can sometimes be for news, it is also our great protector," Olbermann said. "Because as long as you make them money, they don't care. This is not Rupert Murdoch. And even Rupert Murdoch puts 'Family Guy' on the air and 'The Simpsons,' that regularly criticize Fox News. There is some safety in the corporate structure that we probably could never have anticipated."

What he's doing now is little different from what he did in sports, he said. "You see the events happening before you and you describe them to the audience."

As for his hero worship on the left, Olbermann said, "I'd love to say it's totally irrelevant. I'd say it's 99 percent irrelevant."

More important to him was when he was approached by a Republican media operative on Sept. 11, who complimented him on the commentaries despite utterly disagreeing with them.

"The purpose of this is to get people to think and supply the marketplace of ideas with something at every fruit stand, something of every variety," he said. "As an industry, only half the fruit stand has been open the last four years."



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Seattle, Washington: Man fatally shot in front of crowded mall

By April Zepeda
KOMO 1000 News
October 7, 2006

SEATTLE - A man who was assaulted by a stranger in front of Westlake Center in Seattle pulled out a gun and shot his attacker once, killing him.

It happened outside the busy mall about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday as hundreds of shoppers jammed the stores and sidewalks.
Plenty of people were already watching the two men in their mid 20's engaged in a loud argument.

"A guy chased another guy down, kicking him and beating him," said Linda Vu, who was just 20 feet away. "And I heard a gun shot and the guy who was doing the beating up was on the ground."

The gun shot sent most shoppers scrambling, but some moved in closer in to help.

"He looked kind of dazed that he'd shot somebody," said Ken Malmborg, who was shopping with his wife. "So I came out here to make sure he didn't get away, but I didn't accost him because he was standing there with a loaded weapon."

Witnesses said the shooter sat down after pulling the trigger.

"And he stayed there so other people could start helping the gentleman on the ground. So you could tell it wasn't a threat where he was going to start shooting people," said Annette Johnson of Silverdale.

The shooting shut down the city block in front of the Westlake Mall while police investigated and shoppers walked around the crime tape.

Seattle Police arrived at the scene within moments of the shooting.

"The officers, when they saw the person, he did not run. He said, 'I'm the one who did it,' and he handed over the gun to the officer," said Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.

The victim was rushed to Harborview Medical Center where he later died.

Police said the two men did not know each other and that the man who fired the shot was acting in self defense.

Investigators said the man who was killed approached the other and out of the blue started assaulting him. The man who was being hit fired one round from his own weapon, which police say was legally registered.

Police said the man will likely not face charges.

The name of the man who died has not been released.



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Lacey, Washington: Elderly woman kills husband, then herself at retirement home

By Denise Whitaker
KOMO 1000 News
October 2, 2006

LACEY, Washington - An 85-year-old man died Sunday morning at a Lacey nursing home, but an autopsy reveals he died from homicidal violence.

And when staff at the retirement center discovered his body, they also found his 90-year-old wife barely breathing.

Bessie Hess was rushed to the hospital, but she passed away Sunday night. Police believe her death was suicidal.
She and her husband, 85-year-old Robert Hess, lived at the Woodland Retirement Center in Lacey. Residents of the community live independently in apartments, yet enjoy the security of having a nursing staff that checks on them. It was that staff that discovered the body around 7 a.m.

Commander John Suessman says when investigators searched the apartment, they recovered a couple of kitchen-type knives.

They also found a suicide note.

"The only thing the note said was 'I'm sorry,' " Commander Suessman said. "The note had no indication of what the motive was, except it indicated that the female didn't want to live any longer." Police did not say how the woman died.

Robert and Bessie Hess were married 48 years. They are survived by a daughter who lives in Eastern Washington.

The staff at Woodland told KOMO 4 News that they do have counselors available for any of their residents, who may need a little extra help, during a time like this.

This is Lacey's first homicide this year.



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Crisis Escalates as Marines Land in Oaxaca, Mexico

By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
October 5, 2006

Oaxaca, Mexico - Governor's Departure Now a National Demand, as Political Figures Pledge to Travel to the State as "Human Shields" in the Event of an Attack

The events of this past week have left the population of Oaxaca in a state of fear, rage and uncertainty, with calls on all sides for human rights watchers, encampments, and marches.

In the most recent development, leaders of opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador's national movement pledged to mobilize their followers around the issue and to go to Oaxaca as "human shields" in the event of a military intervention.
On Saturday, October 1, two grey helicopters circled at 5:00pm, flying in circles around the city. On our short street three families ran out to look. One elderly woman was carrying a white pillowcase and waved it, as if men in the helicopter could see her. White is the color of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz' Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in its Spanish initials) - peace at any price, one might say. Afterward she looked at me fiercely and declaimed, "We are hostages in our own city!" Referring to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials): "they can clean out these people!" Across from us, another house displays a white banner. The houses flying the Mexican flag of red, green and white are the APPO supporters. Most house show no signs, pro or con. Most people sit tight, waiting.

They are navy helicopters. Many people took photos. On Radio 710 AM, the APPO broadcasts in a pleasant voice: keep calm, there are 3,000 people at each barricade, they are probably more afraid than we are, keep calm, maximum alert, this is not Atenco, we are on our own turf and they are strangers here.

A call in to radio APPO came from a man in the town of Ocotlán de Morelos. He was weeping. He said, he "never thought that Fox would ally with the PRI against Oaxaca, to attack our Oaxaqueńo people. We never thought there would be massacre of our people."

And the next call: "We are not afraid, we have only our bodies and our sticks and they have guns. We are brave, we are Mexicans...we have the force of justice...I will defend my country. If we die, we die with honor, but they die with shame." And then he began to weep also. The announcer replies, "Animo! Animo, compańero!" - "keep your spirits up, have courage." Well, by now I'm weeping myself.

The announcer remains calm. They are organized, they are ready. The helicopters are doing military reconnaissance, and are certainly trying to terrorize. A press conference at 6:30 in the zocalo by the APPO said pretty much the same. We're ready. Keep calm, don't give in to provocations.

From La Jornada I learned that the helicopters arrived at the Oaxaca airport with military units, and the armed forces were also moved to Salina Cruz and Bahía de Huatulco, along with other military equipment such as tanks, and troops. When they landed "ĄBienvenidos, cabrones!" "ĄBajen, aquí los esperamos!", were the shouts launched at them from people carrying sticks and pipes. "Welcome, bastards! Come on down, we're here waiting for you!"

At 9:00 PM Saturday night the APPO closed off the historic downtown area, telling people who were caught away from home to present themselves as rapidly as possible to pass through the barricades. The APPO was determined to fight off any attack, asking people to unite in support, and at the same time telling those outside the city and around the state to organize their defense.

Radio Ley continued calmly presenting a lawyer's account of what could happen next, as the barricades defended the city center, an island inside the highway roads.

Thousands gathered very quickly to defend the barricades. Among them, I was told, were some foreigners including Univision and CNN. The PRD was heavily represented. The radio voice asked for food, water, telephone lines. I went to sleep around 12:30 and could hear the people singing at the barricades, the basic revolutionary songs. It was kind of like being in a movie.

At 8:00 AM. On Sunday, October 1, I learned that a strong overnight mobilization of the popular teachers movement/APPO went unchallenged. No attack was launched by the federal government. The morning "shots" turned out to be rockets fired as the helicopters circled. Another strategy - is this high tech? - is to run out with mirrors to reflect back into the helicopters "to confuse them". Yet another "solution" was to burn green wood, setting up a smoke screen.

Daylight lets everyone relax. APPO instructed the guards to take down the barricades, except for those around the radio stations and outside the zocalo. In the normal APPO response to challenge, another march was scheduled of the national health service workers this morning from several points to the zocalo. About 2,000-3,000 marched. Another day.

The state is militarized, although Captain Unda Pomposo, chief of the guard in the 10th Naval Military Zone, based in that port, was quoted as saying they are only doing "one or two routine flights" in the state. Over the weekend, three trailers arrived in Bahias de Huatulco, each one carrying three amphibious tanks which were placed in the naval base. According to La Jornada, this makes the biggest military operation the nation has seen since the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994.

Another concentration of forces on the coast arrived by ship to Salina Cruz, where troops disembarked by sea, air and land. Usually, according to reports, the Army keeps 10,000 troops in the state, and there are 4,000 police from the different state units. Now, La Jornada calculates there are as many as 20,000 military and police. The state's population is about three and a half million.

From Salina Cruz also came the four Puma helicopters to circle the city of Oaxaca. One of them circled overhead Sunday night when a PRI squad attacked the barricade located in the neighborhood of Brenamiel. Thugs kidnapped, beat and tied up three youngsters who had been on the barricade, one of them twelve years old. Two of the three youngsters rescued required medical attention. The APPO people saved them after a broadcast which generated the mobilization of hundreds of Oaxaqueńos, by the middle of the night almost two thousand.

The flight was registered by the Institute of National Government Statistics; it was violating the rules of civil aviation.

Monday, October 2 after the commemorative march for the 1968 massacre, the PRI came out again like roaches. Two more abductions were reported, one of a law student and activist from the Benito Juarez Autonomous University, Pedro Garcia, also a member of the Revolutionary Front, who was walking on Sunday with a woman friend toward the university when he was snatched by occupants of a van. On October 3 he was located in the prison at Tlacolula, charged falsely with carrying explosives. It seems the police or thugs have reinitiated the use torture.

The other case is Alfredo Melchor Tirado Cruz, member of the Wide Front for Popular Struggle and of the APPO, who was grabbed at 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon, also in Tlacolula. His whereabouts are still unknown. These two abductions bring the total of arrests to eleven since the onset of the teachers' popular movement.

The National Education Workers' Union local Section 22 began intensifying the mobilization of the teachers in the Tehuantepec Isthmus region, occupying offices of the government and marching. In a press conference the union's auxiliary secretary of organization, Eleuterio López Ruiz said that the teachers are in agreement to stick together until Ulises Ruiz Ortiz falls. He insisted there will be no return to classes, although some teachers are indeed in the classroom in some zones, thinking to hold onto their teaching jobs, in a dissent that chips off fragments of the union.

By Tuesday, October 3, dozens of organizations from civil society who belong to the APPO demanded that the federal government "order the deactivation of all possible operations and the departure of military troops from the Oaxaca territory".

At the same time they rejected the "electoral reform" passed by the Oaxaca legislators (non-PRD members only) to lengthen the term of office for sitting legislators and other governing figures, to which in all the turmoil nobody gave much thought. If Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz ("URO") comes out on top, extended legislative terms will be only a minor annoyance in comparison to what many believe will be total repression.

Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal met with twelve National Action Party (PAN) members of the state legislature led by federal congressman Diódoro Carrasco, president of the Commission on Interior Governance the of the House of Deputies (Mexico's lower house of Congress). Invitations to the meeting were not received by PRD members.

Carrasco admitted that the conflict in Oaxaca changes every minute. He listed three new ingredients: "the invitation of the federal government to build an agreement to restore governability and tranquility to the state; the military flights over the city, and, he claimed, the fact that the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) guerrilla group is calling for continued popular struggle.

Interviewed at am Inter-American Press Society meeting, Abascal had exhorted the APPO to look for an agreement within the institutional means. Before, in a radio interview he again hinted that the government could carry out "a peaceful occupation of Oaxaca" so that the citizens can carry out their activities with security.

With 20,000 military and police personnel looking over your shoulder, you might not give credence to guarantees that there will be no repression on the part of the federal government. Abascal offers a package of reforms to convert the state legislature (those guys who just voted themselves extended terms) into a space for talking amiably with the people, and a refurbishing of the current legal government. The departure of URO won't be put on the table.

Neither the APPO nor the teachers attended the meeting scheduled with the Department of the Interior (known as Segob in its Spanish abbreviation) for October 4. In a live radio broadcast of an assembly of the Wide Progressive Front (FAP) from Mexico City on Wednesday October 4 it was averred that the problems of state ungovernability could be solved promptly after the removal of the powers from the three branches of government of Oaxaca. The departure of Ulises Ruiz is the only non-negotiable demand. The assembly was attended by the PRD politicians elected on July 2 as federal deputies, who are also members of the APPO. It was reaffirmed that the Mexican Senate has the constitutional right and obligation to remove state powers.

In a direct question posed by the Oaxaca radio contact, the secretary general of the PRD, Guadalupe Acosta, was asked if the National Democratic Convention - the opposition movement that "elected" Andrés Manuel López Obrador as "legitimate president of Mexico" on September 16 - would be willing to act as a human shield in Oaxaca. Acosta responded, "claro que sí" - "Yes, of course. We are inclined to participate. We had information that URO is planning a provocation today to bring in the federal intervention." He went on to say, "Today our senators asked the secretary of the Navy not participate in any attack on Oaxaca."

Tomorrow, Acosta said, there will be a national mobilization on the part of the National Democratic Convention to defend Oaxaca.





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Lawyer who sucessfully defended detainee forced out of Navy

10/08/2006
McClatchy Newspapers

NEWARK, N.J. - The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court - and won - has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word he had been denied a promotion to full-blown commander this summer, "about two weeks after" the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Under the military's "up-or-out" promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing a 20-year career of military service.

A Pentagon appointee, Swift embraced the alleged al-Qaida's sympathizer's defense with a classic defense lawyer's zeal, casting his captive client as an innocent victim in the dungeon of King George, a startling analogy for the attorney whose commander-in-chief is President (George) Bush.

"It was a pleasure to serve," said Swift, who added that he would defend Salim Hamdan again, even if he knew he would have to leave the Navy earlier than he wanted.

"All I ever wanted was to make a difference - and in that sense, I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams," he said.
Swift, a Seattle University Law School graduate, also said he will continue to defend Hamdan as a civilian. The Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie, which provided pro-bono legal work in Hamdan's habeas corpus petition, has agreed to support Swift's defense of Hamdan in civilian life, he said.

Hamdan, 36, who has only a fourth-grade education, was captured along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan while fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, launched in reprisal for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He admits working as bin Laden's $200-a-month driver on a Kandahar farm but said he never joined al-Qaida and never fought anyone.



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Convert seen winning disgraced U.S. congressman's seat

By Jane Sutton
Reuters
Sun Oct 8, 2006

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida - The Congressional cybersex scandal has transformed a recent Democratic convert with little chance of election into the candidate most likely to deliver one of the 15 seats his party needs to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democrat Tim Mahoney, a Republican himself until last year, was trailing Rep. Mark Foley by 13 points in his Florida district in the race for the November 7 election when the Republican resigned last week amid disclosures that he had sent lewd electronic messages to teenage male congressional aides.

Mahoney, an investment banker and cattle rancher, says he got fed up with the Republicans' handling of the war in
Iraq, the budget deficits and what he viewed as Washington cronyism, so he switched parties.

Now, "This is the most likely Democratic pickup in the country," said Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama, a Democrat mentoring Mahoney in his first run for elected office.

The Republicans recruited a state legislator, Joe Negron, to fill Foley's spot and are scrambling to help him assemble a campaign team. But it is too late to change the ballot for what had been considered a safe Republican seat, so Negron will get only the votes cast for the disgraced Foley.

Mahoney told voters last week he was "a little fatigued" talking about Foley's fall from grace and tried to turn the conversation to skyrocketing home insurance rates in storm-wracked Florida.

But the Foley scandal has pushed Mahoney into the national spotlight and boosted his fund raising from outside the state.

"We have seen an influx but we are not releasing numbers," said Mahoney campaign spokeswoman Jessica Santillo.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts campaigned with him before the scandal broke and Santillo said more "nationally known names" are coming down in the next few weeks.

"This wasn't on the most-competitive list. We were running a spirited campaign. Now it's certainly a winnable race," Santillo said.

Republicans aren't giving up and won't concede the seat just "because of one man's awful actions," said Florida Republican Party spokesman Jeff Sadosky. "They are shocked and horrified by what happened, but understand that's looking backward."

Negron will get some fund-raising help next week from Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, while the party and some congressional Republicans are loaning him staff. "I expect before it's over we'll have a good number of respectable field representatives here," Negron said. "I've got tens of thousands of dollars that are pouring in."

He will need it to keep up with Mahoney, who contributed $349,000 of his own money to raise more than $1.1 million before Foley dropped out.

Political analysts say a Negron victory is improbable at best, but not entirely impossible because Republicans outnumber Democrats 42-36 in the district.

"Partisanship still is the most important driving force for voters' choice, even in the face of a scandal," said Jim Kane, an independent pollster and editor of the nonpartisan Florida Voter newsletter.

"The distaste of having to push Foley's name is really what's going to be an important factor," Kane said. "What will happen is a lot of Republicans will stay home, or just skip the race."

Republicans could rally if the Foley scandal continues to dominate the news, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political scientist who expects Mahoney to win.

"If somehow this guy (Negron) can kind of whip the Republicans into that kind of angry frenzy about the one-sided coverage of moral indiscretion, for turnout to be high among Republicans that would have to happen," MacManus said. "It's a long shot but it's possible."



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Tech Gadgets Banned in the USA

Elizabeth Millard
newsfactor.com
Wed Oct 4, 2006

There's no doubt about it: foreign technology can whet your appetite. Super-lightweight laptops from Japan, feature-packed smartphones from Europe, and shiny, gotta-get-it devices designed in India, South Korea, and Taiwan are but a few of the items that currently reside on tech's cutting edge. But chances are you will never see those gadgets on store shelves here in the U.S.
A trip to the typical U.S. electronics store suggests many Americans would gladly shell out some extra cash for high-end lightweight products. Smaller, lighter, and more-expensive laptops are occupying an ever-increasing amount of shelf space. Even if a larger percentage of Japanese and European consumers reach for higher-end products than their U.S. counterparts, a small percentage of Americans could still spell big sales.

Why, then, do some innovative products never make it to our shores?

The Corporate Quarantine

Many manufacturers prefer to introduce new electronics in their own countries, to see what problems may arise before exporting the goods. There is a strong interest in catching and repairing previously unknown design defects before hitting the U.S. mass market, where the cost of a product recall could be disastrous.

Companies must also gauge consumer reaction locally before exporting. Manufacturers realize that despite extensive consumer testing, it is important to float a limited quantity of a product and see how well consumers react to it before opening the floodgates-only to find less demand than anticipated.

Some products are at a performance disadvantage in the U.S., like cutting-edge smartphones that do not mesh well with the current state of American telecom services, and videophones that operate much better in countries that have higher-speed wireless networks. The faster the network, the smoother the video will appear. In general, Japanese and Korean telecommunications companies have been quicker to provide faster connections than those offered in the U.S., so consumers in those countries are presented with more-advanced phones and more-advanced services.

Plus, according to a major player in this game, the U.S. tech market tends to take its cue from big business, not John Q. Public.

"In Japan, where a majority of the cutting-edge innovation occurs, they're driven by consumer demand. In the U.S., we're mainly driven by business needs. That's why you see more of an emphasis on cheap laptops than on lightweight machines," says Douglas Krone, chief executive of Dynamism.com, an online site that sells technology not found on the shelves of U.S. retail stores.

Smaller, Faster, Better?

In addition to corporate strategies driven by the bottom line, there are cultural preferences to consider.

Japanese consumers do not flinch at spending the equivalent of $3,000 or more on a laptop as long as it has the most up-to-date technology and weighs less than 2 pounds, Krone says. Consumers in Japan, and many in Europe, will spend more to enjoy the fruits of innovation rather than use a laptop or gadget that is just "good enough" for their purposes.

American consumers, on the other hand, are more interested in lower prices than lighter weights, which makes top-of-the-line electronics a difficult sell in this country, Krone says.

Yuni Sucippo, vice president of I-Cube, another Web site offering products from beyond U.S. borders, agrees. "Americans, in general, tend to like big, powerful notebooks," she says. "They want everything in there, as much storage as they can get, as fast as it can go, as big as possible. But they end up carrying around 10 pounds of computer."

Shoppers on I-Cube value lighter notebooks that may not offer as much performance or capacity as those preferred by the typical American consumer, but instead boast ultra portability. To be sold on the site as a light notebook, a computer must weigh less than 4 pounds, and most units meeting that requirement are not available in the United States.

The same holds true at Dynamism.com. For example, the lightest PC on the global market, the 1.2-pound Sony Vaio U50, is not sold in America. The U50 is smaller than a portable DVD player and has an external foldable keyboard. Although this laptop might appeal to people who crave the ultimate in mobility, most U.S. corporate users would pass on it, Krone says.

Too Much To Chew

Some companies in Europe and Japan do not enter the U.S. market because their profit margins are razor-thin. Even U.S. companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard have stepped away from certain kinds of equipment in favor of technology that produces more revenue. Foreign companies that decide to sell their most-innovative products to Americans would have to set up extensive customer-service operations, which could be cost-prohibitive given the massive size of the U.S. market. Dynamism.com tries to fill this gap by providing customer service and tech support for all the equipment it sells, acting as a go-between for consumers and companies like Sony, Nuvo, Xacti, and Fuji.

Even if sufficient demand for these products emerges, there are legal issues to consider. For example, patent law in Japan and Europe is different than in the U.S. Exporting a wealth of technology and then trying to protect valuable patents might be more trouble than many companies are willing to undertake-especially smaller manufacturers that might not yet have a corporate presence in America.

"Sometimes, it just doesn't make sense for a company to spend the time and effort to get patents here and do the enforcement necessary just to sell here," says Steve Kelber, an attorney at the law firm of Merchant & Gould.

That could change with the Patent Reform Act of 2005, which would make the U.S. law so similar to that in other countries that it would be much easier for companies to protect their rights. The bill was introduced in June of last year by Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and is still awaiting passage.

On the Horizon

Even if patent reform takes hold in the U.S., shoppers seeking niche items will likely continue to visit sites like Dynamism.com and I-Cube.

Some people may want the hard-to-find gadgets because no one else has them-kind of the geek equivalent of haute couture. But, Sucippo says, most customers are simply frustrated by the lack of truly portable options at their local computer retailers. I-Cube attracts tech aficionados who buy items as soon as they become available, she says, even if they have recently purchased a similar product on the site.

"The ones who buy like this are a smaller group, but they're growing," she says. "With the amount of people who travel and work now, there's more appreciation for lighter, more-portable notebooks."

I-Cube also features accessories, PDAs, and Tablet PCs. Gadget lovers who are disappointed that Sony stopped selling Clie handhelds in the U.S. need only surf over to I-Cube, which buys the PDAs directly from Japan and then converts most of the operating system into English. One downside: About 40 percent of the OS is still in Japanese.

Used in Japan, New to You

Kurns & Patrick also specializes in ultralight technology from Japan. One aspect of the site that sets it apart is its used section, which gives cash-strapped tech lovers the chance to buy a "previously loved" computer or gadget that is still in decent condition. Every used item comes with a three-month warranty.

In general, however, the question of a warranty is a potential deal-breaker for Kurns & Patrick and other imported-technology sites. If someone buys an item from Best Buy, it can be taken to the store for service or sent back to the manufacturer directly. But computers purchased on a site such as Kurns & Patrick come with a one-year Japanese domestic warranty, which means it must be returned to Japan-or to Kurns & Patrick-for repair.

The good news, according to the company, is that some manufacturers, like Panasonic and Sharp, honor their warranties globally. Others, like Toshiba, do not.

Even if U.S. buyers take it on faith that the item works perfectly, they should consider another potential drawback: Some of the machines have Japanese keyboards, which are very close in layout to English-language keyboards, but aren't a spot-on match. Kurns & Patrick offers English stickers for the keyboards on some models.

In general, though, such quirks are unlikely to put off folks who treasure a 2-pound notebook or a super-slim DVD drive.

Stock Answers

Despite the possible sales to be gained from these niche customers, large retailers in the U.S. get their marching orders not only from consumers, but also from shareholders. That's where the economics of mediocrity come into play.

High-end products command a high-end price. Most shoppers tend to make middle-of-the-road selections at middle-of-the-road prices. Catering to that mentality will produce the kind of returns stockholders demand. It's an economic reality that further diminishes the chances certain top-of-the-line tech goodies will reach U.S. shores anytime soon.

The bottom line: If you want the newest, coolest show-stopping gadgets, you can click your way to the handful of online stores that will satisfy your lust for hard-to-get tech, right from the comfort of your home.

But for the true beyond-borders electronics experience, you'll need to pony up for a plane ticket to Tokyo. And if you bring your notebook computer, just make sure you have a sturdy shoulder strap.

"People understand the need for mobility the second they have to carry a heavy laptop through an airport," says Sucippo. "After that, they come to us."



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Moms and GOP - no longer happy together

By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press
Sun Oct 8, 2006

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - After winning over moms in back-to-back elections, Republicans have lost their advantage among married women with children this year.

The Republican Party has seen the support of people like Jeannette Hopkins evaporate.

A 30-year-old married mother of two and a Republican, Hopkins voted for President Bush in 2004. But she says she probably will support the Democrat in her congressional district this fall "because of the way that everything's been handled" with the GOP in charge of Congress and Bush in the White House.

"We're in a really scary place right now," Hopkins said recently.
She vented about what she called the gone-on-too-long
Iraq war, a sluggish economy, the bungled Hurricane Katrina response and a continuing terrorism threat.

She blamed Republicans as she hustled down an alley to the office she manages in this Louisville, Ky., suburb.

Votes like hers could decide which party controls the House and Senate after the Nov. 7 vote.

Poll results and interviews with political analysts indicate the GOP has lost ground with a voting group that helped the party keep hold of Congress and the White House in 2002 and 2004. Married moms have become a volatile swing group just as Democrats need to gain 15 GOP-held House seats and six in the Senate to win control of Capitol Hill.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found that support is now evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans among married women with children in the house. Republicans won this voting group by 18 percentage points in 2002 and Bush won it by 14 percentage points in 2004.

The shift among married moms was reflected in the anxiety-laden voices of several in the Ohio River Valley, a conservative region home to several competitive House races.

"People have no money. The economy is not going well," said Michele Huber, 29. A married mother of three, she gave the country a "poor to fair" rating as she speed-walked in a suburban Cincinnati park with one of her children, a niece and a nephew in tow.

A Republican, she voted for Bush in 2004. She said she was not sure whether she would again if she had the chance or whether she would vote with her party next month - a sentiment echoed by others.

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For years, the GOP has held a slight advantage with this group of voters. Republicans made additional gains leading up to and through the 2000 presidential election, in part because, according to analysts and exit polls, married moms were attracted to Bush's emphasis on social conservatism and had a general fondness for the man himself.

In the 2002 congressional elections, more than half of married moms sided with Republicans while only 35 percent voted with Democrats. Two years later, in a presidential election year, married moms preferred Bush over Democratic Sen. John Kerry by 56 percent to 42 percent.

That GOP advantage has evaporated.

In the AP-Ipsos poll, married women with children split evenly on the question of whether they would vote for or lean toward the Democratic or Republican candidate in their congressional district.

The frustration in this group of voters is a reflection of the broader population, now down on the president and Congress as the unpopular Iraq war drags on and economic growth has slowed.

"Married moms, like Americans in other demographic groups, are much more critical of President Bush, are angry at Washington, are concerned about Iraq and are worried about many other things," said Andrew Kohut. He is director of the Pew Research Center, an independent public opinion organization that also found married moms breaking even.

The AP-Ipsos poll showed that married moms care as much about health care and the economy as they do about terrorism. The situation in Iraq is a greater concern than taxes, Social Security and gas prices. They tend to believe that Democrats would handle Iraq and the economy better than Republicans, but they favor Republicans on dealing with terrorism.

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Outside a Wal-Mart in Fort Wright, Ky., two moms hauled their kids out of their minivans. One of the women voted for Bush. One did not. Neither was pleased with the direction of the country.

"We're not happy," said Christy Blaker, 32, as she loaded a McDonald's-munching Emily, 4, and Becca, 18 months, into a shopping cart. A self-described independent, the stay-at-home mom and her husband, who replaces the breaks on train wheels, did not back Bush in 2004. She says she probably will not support Republicans next month.

The war unnerves and conflicts her. She frets about "horrible" gas prices and bemoans an economy in which inflation seems to rise higher than wages. If life does not improve, she said she may have to get a part-time job.

Comment: Notice how the focus is not that tens of thousands of people are dying, but that gas prices are high and the economy is in bad shape!

Across the parking lot, another stay-at-home mom, Tina Wagner, 31, voiced similar fears while two of her three children, Grace, 4, and Faith, 15 months, fidgeted. Hope, 6, was in school.

A Republican, Wagner voted for Bush in 2004 but expressed disappointment about his job performance in the two years since.

"He's made some good decisions but I also think he's made some bad," she said, lamenting Bush's justification for going to war in Iraq. "I feel like he rushed into it."

She, too, complained about gas prices, job losses, health care costs and lack of coverage. "It keeps getting worse and worse," said Wagner, whose husband's textbook sales job supports the family.

This fall, Wagner said she would consider voting for a Democrat "if they fit my values."

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Despite the GOP's lost ground, all is not lost for Republicans.

Laura Hall of Pewee Valley, Ky., has three kids, including a high-school-aged son who is considering joining the military upon graduation. The owner of a child- and elder-care placement service, the 46-year-old Hall worries about immigration, border security and threats from
North Korea.

A Republican, she voted for Bush in 2004. She is uncertain if she will stick with the party this fall. But she is not hot on Democrats, either.

"I never see them explain how they could do it better," Hall said. "If somebody could explain how they could do it better, then I think I'd be more open to their ideas."



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War Without End - But Not For Some

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Israel denounces 'threat' as Assad says war possible

by Roueida Mabardi
AFP
Sun Oct 8, 2006

DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that a war with arch-enemy Israel cannot be ruled out as long as a lasting peace in the Middle East is not achieved, with the Jewish state denouncing his words as a "threat".

"In principle, we (always) expect that there will be an Israeli aggression at any time. We all know that Israel is militarily powerful and is backed directly by the United States," Assad said in an interview with Kuwait's Al-Anbaa daily published on Saturday.

"We can't debate whether to be prepared or unprepared. We must remain always prepared," Assad said, with a political advisor to Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz warning his country should think about the president's "menacing declarations".
"Assad's declarations must be taken seriously," Israeli Reserve General Amos Gilad told army radio in response to the article.

"It is necessary to carefully study such menacing declarations. In the long term the declarations of Assad are of great importance, but for the time being they change nothing. It is not a concrete threat."

The Syrian president said Israel had abandoned the Middle East peace process since then-premier Ariel Sharon came to power in 2001.

"This means that there will be no peace in the foreseeable future. If there is no peace, naturally you should expect that war may come. The no-war, no-peace situation means there will either be peace or war," the Syrian leader said.

Syria had been on alert for an Israeli attack during the Jewish state's 34-day offensive against the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon which ended in mid-August.

Israeli warplanes overflew one of Assad's presidential palaces in June because of what Israel said was Syria's support for the ruling Palestinian faction Hamas which it calls a terrorist organisation.

Peace talks between Syria and Israel have been frozen since 2000, with Damascus demanding that Israel hand over the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.

"One must defend one's country fiercely," Assad said, citing as an example Hezbollah's "resistance" to the Israeli offensive launched on July 12 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by the Shiite guerrillas.

"But in Syria, we have always believed that the peace process was an (ideal) solution which did not exact a heavy price."

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said his country had taken into account the possibility of an Israeli military attack.

"Syria has considered the possibility of Israeli military action," Bilal told Al-Jazeera television in an interview aired Sunday.

Syria "is ready for all options and for Israel's hostile plans following the failure of its aggression in Lebanon."

Bilal also described the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as "in crisis after its defeat in Lebanon and the victory of the Lebanese resistance."



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Iran warns of retaliation if sanctions imposed

by Stuart Williams
AFP
October 9, 2006

TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to impose retaliatory sanctions on world powers if the UN Security Council carries out threats to penalise Iran over its nuclear programme.

Ahmadinejad did not specify what kind of tit-for-tat measures might be imposed and Iran -- OPEC's second largest producer -- has always insisted it will not use oil as a weapon in the standoff.

However oil prices again spiked above 60 dollars a barrel in Asian trade as market players expressed fears the announced test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea would stiffen Iran's resolve in its standoff with the West.
"We will also impose sanctions on them," Ahmadinejad told reporters late Sunday in response to a question about a decision by the five Security Council permanent members plus Germany to discuss the prospect of sanctions.

"In the past 27 years they have always threatened us with sanctions and during this time they did everything they could," he said according to the student ISNA and semi-official ILNA agencies.

"They do their thing and in return we will do ours."

Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful energy needs, vehemently rejecting US allegations that it is seeking to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Its right to enrich uranium lies at the heart of the crisis. The process can be used to make nuclear fuel and, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

In a meeting late on Friday, representatives from Britain, China, Germany France, Russia and the United States agreed to discuss sanctions against Iran after it refused to heed a new deadline to halt uranium enrichment.

Senior US official Nicholas Burns has said the so-called "5+1" group will start drafting a sanctions resolution this week, although he has admitted finding a consensus on the extent of punitive measures will be difficult.

Whether Russia and China will support sanctions measures proposed by the United States and its chief ally Britain remains unclear. Moscow and Beijing have always insisted on a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Considerable momentum towards drafting a sanctions resolution appeared to have been generated by the meeting between top diplomats from the six world powers in London after weeks of talks with Iran failed to win a breakthrough.

But it remains to be seen whether this can be maintained amid the growing uproar over the announcement by North Korea early Monday it had conducted its first test of a nuclear weapon.

The UN Security Council was expected to hold an emergency meeting later Monday to weigh how to respond to North Korea's test, which came in brazen defiance of a previous UN resolution.

Such moves could take up precious time that was to be devoted to the Iranian nuclear issue and further stave off the threat of UN action. Tehran has yet to issue an official reaction to Pyongyang's move.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who attended the London meeting, has said the United States wants a graduated series of sanctions, to be implemented through multiple UN resolutions that would ramp up pressure on Iran.

The first set of measures is expected to focus on preventing the supply of material and funding for Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile programmes.

Other steps could include asset freezes and travel bans on officials linked to possible Iranian weapons programmes.



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North Korea announces first atom bomb test

by Simon Martin
AFP
Mon Oct 9, 2006

SEOUL - North Korea has announced it has carried out its first test of an atomic bomb, defying international efforts to keep the secretive regime from joining the world's nuclear powers.

News of the underground blast sent shudders through capitals across the globe and sparked immediate condemnations, crisis talks and calls for tough sanctions from the UN Security Council, expected to meet later in the day.

The blast also underlined North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's readiness to test the mettle of the international community, which warned just last week that Pyongyang would pay a heavy price if it tested a nuclear weapon.
One of the most isolated and impoverished nations in the world, North Korea called the blast a "historic event" that had been carried out safely for the betterment of security and peace.

But nations around the globe, from arch-foe the United States to North Korea's main ally China, reacted with worry and dismay. Stock markets in Asia plummeted amid fears the test would spark a new nuclear arms race.

"We expect the Security Council to take immediate action to respond to this unprovoked act," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. China said the test was "brazenly" in defiance of international demands.

Making good on last week's vow to carry out the test because of what it called the threat of war from the United States, North Korea said the test had been successfully carried out under secure conditions.

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (North Korean army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability," the official KCNA news agency said.

"It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the area around it," KCNA said.

Little is publicly known about the nuclear programme of the North, which first announced last year that it had developed a nuclear weapon. The CIA has said North Korea probably had several nuclear warheads.

Officials in neighbouring South Korea quoted by Yonhap news agency said the blast appeared to have been carried out at 0136 GMT at Hwadaeri near North Korea's northeast coast.

The South Korean presidential office said the state intelligence agency had detected a 3.58-magnitude seismic tremor at the time.

A South Korean lawmaker, citing intelligence officials, said it appeared to have been conducted in a horizontal tunnel in a 360-metre (1,200-foot) mountain near a missile base in the Stalinist country's northeast.

The test came just while new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a hawkish politician who rose to prominence at home by taking a hard line on the North Korean regime, was to hold his first summit with his South Korean counterpart.

Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun were meeting in Seoul for talks that had been expected to focus on finding a way to dissuade North Korea from going ahead with the test.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons test can never be pardonable. But we should collect and analyze more intelligence on the matter in a cool-headed manner," Abe said.

Roh called an emergency meeting of related ministers to discuss counter-measures, while Japan and South Korea launched crisis talks on the issue.

"Our government will sternly deal with this in accordance with the principle that it will not tolerate North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons," South Korean presidential spokesman Yoon Tae-Young said.

After years of dispute over the North, progress appeared in September last year, when Pyongyang said at six-nation talks it would abandon its programme in exchange for security and other guarantees.

But within two months it said it was boycotting further talks after the United States imposed unilateral financial sanctions on the North over alleged money laundering and counterfeiting of US currency.

Pyongyang was then slapped with limited sanctions by the Security Council after test-firing seven missiles in July this year -- one of them believed to be eventually able to reach US soil.

Comment: Just like Saddam ans his WMD's that he was ready and willing to use against the US, right??

On Monday, the United States quickly warned that it would come to the defence of Japan, which has been officially pacifist since World War II and falls under the US strategic defence umbrella.

"The United States is closely monitoring the situation and reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region," said Snow, the White House spokesman.

Bush has made the fight against nuclear proliferation a centrepiece of his foreign policy, especially since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Christopher Hill, the lead US envoy on North Korea, said last week: "We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea. We are not going to accept it."

But it was not immediately clear what options the United States had to deal with Pyongyang.

North Korea has repeatedly argued it needs nuclear weapons to deter any attack from the United States, which it fears will try to topple one of the last pure Communist regimes in the world.

In announcing plans for the test last week, North Korea said it was "at the crossroads of life and death."

There are about 29,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, alongside 650,000 South Korean troops that face off against 1.2 million North Korean troops across one of the most heavily militarised borders in the world.



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Security Council expected to hold emergency meeting on NKorea's nuclear test

by Gerard Aziakou
AFP
Mon Oct 9, 2006

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council was expected to hold an emergency meeting to weigh how to respond to North Korea's first-ever nuclear weapons test in brazen defiance of a UN resolution.

Hours after the communist state's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced a successful underground nuclear test, the White House Monday said that if confirmed the move would be a "provocative act" and called for immediate action by the UN Security Council.
Only Friday, the 15-member Council unanimously adopted a non-binding statement calling on Pyongyang not to go ahead with the test and warned of unspecified consequences if it did so.

The council has scheduled a formal vote for early Monday to nominate South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon as its choice to succeed Kofi Annan when the Ghanaian UN chief steps down at the end of December.

But the vote was bound to overshadowed by North Korea's defiant act. Diplomats had been expected the test this weekend and indicated that an council emergency meeting would be held in response.

A UN spokesmen said no meeting had been immediately scheduled but White House spokesman Tony Snow signaled a session was in the works. "We would expect the Security Council to meet (Monday)," he told reporters in Washington.

During negotiations over the council statement adopted Friday, Japan, which chairs the council for October, and the United States had pushed for inclusion of a threat to resort to mandatory sanctions, including an arms embargo and other trade and financial sanctions under Chapter Seven of the UN charter.

But in the face of opposition from China and Russia, the explicit mention of sanctions was removed although the text said a test "would represent a clear threat to international peace and security," which in UN parlance is often a trigger for mandatory sanctions under Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven authorizes wide-ranging sanctions or even as a last resort military action to ensure compliance with council resolutions.

Friday's statement also urged North Korea to return immediately to six-nation talks on its nuclear program and keep to a September 2005 pledge to abandon it in exchange for energy and security benefits.

The North has since November boycotted the talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States in response to US financial sanctions.

Last week, US Ambassador John Bolton urged the council to respond to a test with punitive action going beyond the missile-related sanctions imposed on the North in a Security Council resolution passed in July.

That resolution was passed after the North launched seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to be capable of striking US soil.

The North Korean test was announced just as Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun were meeting in Seoul for talks that had been expected to focus on finding a way to dissuade North Korea from going ahead with the test.

KCNA said the test "will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

Last week, in announcing plans to test a nuclear device, Pyongyang cited the threat of sanctions and nuclear war from the United States, which considers the North part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

It said the nuclear weapons were needed for self-defence.



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EU says will not suspend humanitarian aid to North Korea

AFP
October 9, 2006

KUALA LUMPUR - The European Union condemns North Korea's nuclear test but will not cut off humanitarian aid to the impoverished country, its External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has said.
"We are absolutely and resolutely opposed to this flagrant nuclear test and it is absolutely against the non-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Ferrero-Waldner told reporters during a visit to Malaysia on Monday.

"We do hope that the tests are being suspended. We do hope the North Koreans are coming back to the six-party talks," she added, adding it was the isolated state's only chance of engaging with the international community.

But Ferrero-Walder said the European Union would not suspend humanitarian aid to North Korea because the aid was "going to the poorest of the poor."

"For the time being we are not considering that," she said.

European Union aid to North Korea has already been slashed by 50 percent to 10 million euros (12.6 million dollars) in 2006 from 21 million euros last year, said the commissioner, who will travel to neighbouring Singapore later Monday.

Pyongyang said Monday it had carried out its first test of an atomic bomb in what the official Korean Central News Agency described as a "historic event" aimed at bettering peace and security.

The underground blast -- which was criticised around the world -- defied international pressure to keep the secretive regime from becoming one of the world's nuclear powers.



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Japan warns N. Korea of harsh sanctions as shots fired on S. Korean border

By HANS GREIMEL
Associated Press
October 7, 2006

SEOUL, South Korea - Tensions mounted over North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out Saturday along the border with South Korea and Japan warning of harsh sanctions if Pyongyang goes nuclear.

With a possible test expected as early as Sunday, the
U.N. Security Council issued a stern statement Friday urging the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions and warning of unspecified consequences if the isolated, communist regime doesn't comply.
Jittery nations have warned a test would unravel regional security and possibly trigger an arms race.

A midday incursion Saturday by North Korean troops into the southern side of the no-man's-land separating North and South Korea only stoked the unease.

South Korean soldiers rattled off 40 warning shots at the five communist troops who crossed the center line of the Demilitarized Zone, the inter-Korean buffer.

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was hurt, and the North Koreans retreated.

While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this year, the official said.

Meanwhile, world powers were stepping up diplomatic efforts to avert a nuclear test. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to visit Beijing on Sunday for talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and then proceed to Seoul for talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun the following day.

A State Department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, said Saturday the United States was concerned about North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb and that the department was closely monitoring the high tensions.

Also Saturday, South Korea's nuclear envoy announced he will visit Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese officials about the threatened nuclear test.

In a separate statement from Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was prepared to push for punitive measures at the
United Nations if the North goes ahead with the test.

"If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the concerns expressed by international society, the Security Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive measures," the ministry said.

Japan plans to step up economic sanctions against North Korea, tighten trade restrictions and freeze additional North Korea-linked bank accounts should a nuclear test be carried out, Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported.

The U.N. statement adopted Friday expressed "deep concern" over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it is planning a test.

The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997.

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told Japan's TV Asahi: "Based on the development so far, it would be best to view that a test is possible this weekend."

The U.N. statement also urged North Korea to return to six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for security guarantees and badly needed economic aid.

Those talks, which involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea, have been stalled since late last year, when North Korea boycotted the negotiations in response to American economic sanctions.

A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said only the removal of the sanctions could dissuade the North.

"North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test," said Li Dunqiu of China's State Council Development Research Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But "if the U.S. removes sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea."

The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering.

North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what it claimed was "the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war," but gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading North Korea.



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NATO chief warns of Afghan tipping point

By FISNIK ABRASHI
Associated Press
October 8, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO's top commander in Afghanistan warned on Sunday that a majority of Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if their lives show no visible improvements in the next six months.

Gen. David Richards, a British officer who commands NATO's 32,000 troops here, told The Associated Press that he would like to have about 2,500 additional troops to form a reserve battalion to help speed up reconstruction and development efforts.
He said the south of the country, where NATO troops have fought their most intense battles this year, has been "broadly stabilized," which gives the alliance an opportunity to launch projects there. If it doesn't, he estimates about 70 percent of Afghans could switch their allegiance from NATO to the Taliban.

"They will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,'" Richards said in an interview.

"We have created an opportunity," following the intense fighting that left over 500 militants dead in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, he said. "If we do not take advantage of this, then you can pour an additional 10,000 troops next year and we would not succeed because we would have lost by then the consent of the people."

NATO extended its security mission last week to all of Afghanistan, taking command of 12,000 U.S. troops in the war-battered country's east. The mission is the biggest ground combat operation in NATO history and gives Richards command of the largest number of U.S. troops under a foreign leader since World War II.

Some 8,000 U.S. troops will continue to function outside NATO, tracking al-Qaida terrorists, helping train Afghan security forces and doing reconstruction work.

Afghanistan is going through its worst bout of violence since the U.S.-led invasion removed the former Taliban regime from power five years ago. The Taliban has made a comeback in the south and east of the country and is seriously threatening Western attempts to stabilize the country after almost three decades of war.

Taliban militants have acknowledged adopting the suicide attacks commonly used by insurgents in
Iraq, launching 78 suicide bombings across Afghanistan this year which have killed close to 200 people, NATO said Sunday.

There were only two suicide attacks in 2003 and six in 2004, according to Seth Jones, an analyst for the U.S.-based RAND Corp. He said there were 21 in 2005.

Richards, who will lead the NATO forces in Afghanistan until U.S. Gen. Dan K. McNeil takes over in February, said the Taliban may lose support among Afghans if it continues the attacks.

"The very cowardly use of suicide bombers, the tragic use of suicide bombers, reveals weakness on the part of the Taliban, not strength," he said.

Richards said NATO troops have also seen an upsurge in violence along the eastern border with Pakistan since that country's government signed a deal with pro-Taliban militants last month to end fighting that broke out after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

U.S. military officials have said the number of attacks on coalition and Afghan troops has tripled in the tribal border region. Afghan and Western officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of not doing all it can to block the flow of insurgents over the border, but Pakistan has rejected the charge.

Richards, who will travel to Pakistan for meetings with military leaders on Monday, urged "partnership and cooperation rather than confrontation" in dealings with Pakistan.

The U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed five suspected insurgents in a clash in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense said. One suspected insurgent was detained following the gunfight in eastern Paktika province.



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Kuwait to take delivery of US attack helicopters

AFP
Mon Oct 9, 2006

KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait is to take delivery of 16 Apache attack helicopters from the United States in December, the emirate's Defense Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah said in published comments.

"We will take delivery of 16 Apache helicopters in December. They will beef up our modern security system," he said in remarks carried in the Kuwaiti press.

The 16 AH-64D Apache Longbow advanced attack helicopters are part of a 2.1-billion-dollar deal signed between the United States and Kuwait in 2002.
Delivery was supposed to have taken place last year.

The deal, which includes four spare engines and about 300 Hellfire missiles, also provides for maintenance, supply of necessary spare parts, and the training of 48 pilots and instructors as well as 200 Kuwaiti technicians.

At the time of the signing, the minister said the Apaches will be equipped with state-of-the-art systems that will allow them to operate under any conditions.

They will also be equipped with electronic protection systems, Longbow radars and anti-armor Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, the minister said.

Since its liberation by a US-led coalition from seven months of Iraqi occupation in 1991, the oil-rich emirate has spent billions of dollars on arms purchases, mainly from the United States.

It has also bought arms from Britain, France, Russia and China.

It has spent a 12-billion-dollar supplementary defense budget, launched after the liberation, mainly for arms purchases on top of its normal military budget.

Defense and security account for about 15 percent of public spending, which last fiscal year reached 23 billion dollars.

Kuwait is linked in a defense pact with the United States that runs until 2012 and around 15,000 US troops are stationed in the Gulf state.

It has also signed similar pacts with France and Britain.



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Hundreds of Iraqi police poisoned, officials say

CNN
08/10/206

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.

An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province -- where the poisoning took place -- denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports.

Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal, said Jassim al-Atwan, an inspector for the Environment Ministry, who was serving as a liaison in the investigation between the Health Ministry and the base, located in the town of Numaniyah. [...]

Al-Latif said food and water at the base are provided by an Australian contractor working through Iraqi subcontractors. He did not identify the Australian firm.
"Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned after taking food and water in the iftar," Wasit Gov. Hamad al-Latif told the Associated Press, referring to the meal that breaks the sunrise-to-sunset fast during the Islamic holy month. "Investigations are under way to determine the cause."

Samples of the food and water were being tested "to determine the substance in them" and will be sent to Baghdad for further tests, al-Latif said.

Sunni insurgents who have targeted police and military forces with bombings and shootings have not been known to use poisoning as a weapon. But the suddenness and severity of the sickness raised speculation that the incident could be a new attack. The division is mainly made up of Shiites.

Between 600-700 policemen were affected to varying degrees, and 11 who had the heaviest amount of the food had died, al-Atwan told The Associated Press.

Some of the soldiers collapsed as soon as they stood up from the meal, others fell "one after the other" as they headed out to the yard in the base to line up in formation, al-Atwan said.

Iraqi ambulances and helicopters sent by the U.S. military rushed the policemen to hospitals in Numaniyah and the nearby city of Kut.

The afflicted policemen belonged to the 4th Division of the National Police, nicknamed the "Karrar" Division, after a title of Imam Ali, the most revered Shiite saint.

The division normally operates around the town of Salman Pak on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad -- an area of intense Shiite-Sunni killings. The division was sent to the base in Numaniyah, 60 miles southeast of the capital, for further training.

Al-Latif said food and water at the base are provided by an Australian contractor working through Iraqi subcontractors. He did not identify the Australian firm.



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Three killed in Thailand's Muslim south

AFP
Monday October 9, 2006

Three people have been killed and one seriously injured in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, police have said, as separatist violence continued despite steps towards peace negotiations.
A Buddhist villager was shot dead by suspected Islamic militants Sunday evening as he sat in front of his house in Narathiwat, one of three southern provinces plagued by separatist violence and other unrest.

Also in Narathiwat, a married couple and their relative were shot at home early Monday. The couple died before arriving at hospital, while the relative was seriously injured.

Police said the shooting could be related to business rather than the ongoing insurgency, which has killed more than 1,500 people in the region bordering Malaysia since violence erupted in January 2004.

The attacks came despite moves by Thailand's coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin to hold talks with insurgents in the southern provinces, which were an ethnic Malay sultanate until Buddhist Thailand annexed them a century ago.

The move by Sonthi, the first Muslim to head mainly Buddhist Thailand's military, marked a stark policy change from the government of deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra, which refused to negotiate with the insurgents.



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Britain's Prince Harry banned from fighting in Afghanistan

AFP
08/10/2006

Britain's Prince Harry will not be allowed to fight on the front line in Afghanistan, The Mail on Sunday newspaper said, citing senior sources in the prince's regiment.

Harry, third in line to the throne, reportedly threatened to quit the British Army if he was blocked from active service due to safety fears and any such decision is likely to infuriate the 22-year-old.

Although a formal decision has yet to be made, sources in the Household Cavalry told the weekly tabloid that they thought it was too dangerous for him to deploy in Afghanistan.
The southern Helmand province, where the bulk of about 4,500 British troops in Afghanistan are operating, has seen fierce fighting this year as soldiers take on resurgent Taliban rebels loyal to the deposed Islamist regime.

Senior officers reckon the intensity of Taliban attacks is so severe that they could not risk a constitutional crisis by putting Harry's life on the line, The Mail on Sunday said.

As Second Lieutenant Wales, Harry is training to become a troop commander, in charge of 11 enlisted soldiers and four light tanks.

A senior cavalry source told the newspaper that it would boost morale if Harry were allowed to deploy. However, even if he was confined to headquarters, he would still be subject to rocket attacks.

"The fact is that his royal appointment could make him a target and put the lives of his soldiers in danger and while he will regret the decision I know he will appreciate and understand the thinking and evaluation behind it," the source said.

Harry is keen to get into combat zones.

In September 2005, Harry said: "There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst (training academy) and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country."

In The Mail on Sunday report, the Ministry of Defence said: "The intention is that Prince Harry will play as full a part as he can during his Army career, including participating in operations and exercises.

"The decision whether or not to deploy the prince on an operation would be made at the point when his unit were formally scheduled to deploy."

Clarence House, the offical residence of Harry's father
Prince Charles, said: "No formal recommendation has been made to us."

Comment: Understand, that the children of the Queen of England, like the children of senior politicians in the UK, America, Israel etc, are BETTER than your children. YOUR children can be sent off to die for the interests of the royalty and the politicians, because YOUR children are expendable (like you), but not theirs, and not them. Ok? As long as you are happy with that, we can continue.

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Israel - Bane of the Middle East

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Al-Qaeda affiliate burns coffee shop in Gaza Strip

Ynetnews
09/10/2006

After the Palestinian branch of al-Qaeda took responsibility for killing a senior Palestinian intelligence officer and four of his escorts three weeks ago, the group again took responsibility for violence in the Gaza Strip. Early Sunday morning, Gunmen shot and set fire to an internet coffee shop in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, causing massive damage.


Comment: So, "al-Qaeda in Palestine" are shooting Palestinians and setting fire to Palestinian businesses, or in other words, they are doing the work of the IDF. Hmm....

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Flashback: Israeli agents accused of creating fake al-Qaeda cell

Sophie Claudet in Gaza City
AFP
December 9 2002

A senior Palestinian security official says his services have uncovered an Israeli plot to create a fake al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip, a charge Israel has dismissed as absurd.

The head of preventive security in Gaza, Rashid Abu Shbak, said Israeli agents posing as operatives of al-Qaeda recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"Over the past nine months we've been investigating eight [such] cases," Mr Abu Shbak said.

His claims came after the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said al-Qaeda militants were operating in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, raising fears of an intensification of Israeli military occupations.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry branded the Palestinian claim as ridiculous and "some kind of propaganda campaign", adding that "the Palestinian territories have become a breeding ground for terrorism".

"There is no need for Israel to make up something like this because [the hardline Islamic movements] are all the same as al-Qaeda," the spokesman said.

Mr Abu Shbak said three Palestinians used by Israeli intelligence had been arrested, while another 11 were released "because they came and informed us of this Israeli plot".

Mr Abu Shbak said his services had traced back to Israel mobile phone calls and emails - purportedly from Germany and Lebanon - asking Palestinians to join al-Qaeda. One email had even been "signed" by the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.

"We investigated the origin of those calls and found out they all came from Israel."

The Palestinians recruited were then paired, unbeknown to them, with Israeli collaborators in Gaza, and received money and weapons, "although most of these weapons did not even work".

The money was provided by "Palestinian collaborators with Israel" directly to the recruits or "was transferred from bank accounts in Jerusalem or Israel", said Mr Abu Shbak, who did not dispute that as many as 11 Palestinians had welcomed the call to join al-Qaeda.

"Those who accepted were mostly members of the military wing of Palestinian organisations," he said, adding that although he could not say "there will never be al-Qaeda here, but at least not for now".

The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has called Mr Sharon's al-Qaeda claim "a big, big, big lie to cover [his] attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere".

The Lebanese Government and Hezbollah have also dismissed the accusations.

Mr Sharon's announcement marked the first time Israel has officially claimed that al-Qaeda was operating in the Palestinian territories, and came as a surprise because the Gaza Strip is virtually sealed off by Israeli troops.

Israel has came under heavy international criticism for a raid on a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday that left 10 Palestinians dead, including two United Nations employees. The European Union and Arab states joined the UN in condemning the incursion into the densely populated Al-Bureij camp.



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Olmert: Jerusalem is Jewish capital forever

ynetnews
09/10/2006

In a video address broadcast Sunday night to thousands of Christian tourists who came to Israel via the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), he emphasized the holiness of the "City of God" and said that he was committed that (OCCUPIED) Jerusalem "remain the united and undivided the capital for the Jewish people."


Comment: Clearly, the Palestinian people have no partner for peace in the Zionist Israeli government.

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The IDF Archive reveals secret files from Operation Kadesh / The Sinai Campaign - on the back of a cigarette box

By Yossi Melman
Mon., October 09, 2006

Ben-Gurion was particularly interested in the place names and how to say them in Hebrew. "We'll finish with all those Arab names," the prime minister said. Despite his fever, Ben-Gurion was almost euphoric. "If we had had an army like this in 1948 we could have conquered all the Arab countries," he said. "Things have changed. Sinai is in our hands."

Ben-Gurion said Sinai "must be under Israeli control, the mail must be Israeli."
"What you see is a copy - the original was on a cigarette box," Vice Premier Shimon Peres said this week of a document from the Israel Defense Force Archive relating to the Sinai Campaign. The document, a sketch by then chief of staff Moshe Dayan of the Sinai Peninsula, has three arrows indicating the advance of Israeli forces. It will be displayed this week on the Archive Web site (www.archives.mod.gov.il) to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Sinai Campaign.

The sketch bears the words: "The map, according to which planning was discussed at the next to last minute. Drawn by Moshe Dayan." Peres had then prime minister and defense minister David Ben-Gurion sign it, and then signed it himself. It is dated October 24, 1956, six days before the war, which began with the parachuting of Israeli troops into the Mitla Pass, some 60 kilometers from the Suez Canal.

The sketch was made on the third and last day of what became known as the Sevres Conference, named after the villa and the Paris suburb where representatives of France, Great Britain and Israel met secretly to plan the war.

"The day before, Ben-Gurion presented us with 10 questions," Peres, who was then director general of the defense ministry, recalled. "He did not want us to appear as mercenaries. He was willing to cooperate on timing with the French and the English but not for us to appear as their collaborators. He therefore hesitated and wanted answers to these questions."

Peres said he and Dayan left the villa and worked all night at their hotel to prepare answers. "When we came back to the villa, we wanted to show Ben-Gurion a map of Sinai but there was none, so I pulled out the pack of Kent I was smoking and took out the silver foil and Dayan drew the map and the arrows on the other side ... The central arrow is as far as the Mitla. The plan was to parachute into the Mitla and from there to move backward to the border," Peres explained.

Peres says he gave the original document to the IDF Museum. Neither he nor Archive curator Michal Tzur knows what happened to it. Tzur says the document was transferred from the defense minister's offices in 1982.

It is one of a number of recently declassified documents grouped under the heading "Meetings of Officers with the Defense Minister."

One document describes a meeting, which took place on the evening of November 5, 1956. Dayan, Colonel Ariel Sharon, commander of the Paratroop Brigade, Maj. Gen. Haim Laskov, and the deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry, Yaakov Herzog, arrived separately at Ben-Gurion's apartment on Keren Kayemeth Street (now Ben-Gurion street) in Tel Aviv. They came to report the successful conclusion of the war to Ben-Gurion, who had taken ill. A cease-fire was being discussed in the United Nations and, in Israel, they were trying to figure out how to delay it to allow British and French forces to take control of the Suez Canal, as was decided at Sevres. Ben-Gurion's military secretary Nehemia Argov was present, as well as his secretary, Yitzhak Navon. Sharon came with his first wife Margalit.

"At 9:30 A.M. all units entered Sharm al-Sheikh, thus completing the conquest of Sinai," Dayan told to Ben-Gurion. "Among the prisoners is one Egyptian officer whom everyone is amazed at. He was also in Faluja [a 1948 battle site in the Negev - Y.M.]. He said this time it was no big deal, we did it with the French and the English. He was in the know and he knew Arik [Sharon] had parachuted."

Ben-Gurion was particularly interested in the place names and how to say them in Hebrew. "We'll finish with all those Arab names," the prime minister said. Despite his fever, Ben-Gurion was almost euphoric. "If we had had an army like this in 1948 we could have conquered all the Arab countries," he said. "Things have changed. Sinai is in our hands."

Ben-Gurion said Sinai "must be under Israeli control, the mail must be Israeli."

He proposed opening a sailing route for tourists from Eilat to Sharm al-Sheikh. "Masses of people will want to tour and will pay the asking price," he said.

Ben-Gurion asked Laskov, who fought on the Gaza-Rafa-El Arish line: "Aren't you satisfied?" To which Laskov replied, "there are many aspects to this business. The matter of looting. That's not good."

Ben-Gurion answered him: "What did they loot?" Laskov: "Rags, boxes of Polaris cigarettes, cookies,"

The oil fields at a-Tur in Sinai also came up that evening. "We could send the oil in ships to Haifa. We would be free of foreign [countries.] We have oil," Ben-Gurion said.



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We did it! They're killing each other

10.08.06
Ynet

The second Lebanon war made many doubt the government's ability to think in advance about the results of its actions, analyze future implications, and act accordingly. However, the government's conduct in regards to the Palestinians no doubt attests to the strategic planning abilities of a distinguished chess master who patiently lays a trap for his opponent, step by step, until the king is defeated. Checkmate.

In fact, it won't be an exaggeration to say that those least surprised by the recent bloody clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the Territories were the same political figures who were quick to rule that "at this time, the Palestinian agenda is dead" - an effective "confirmed kill" that came to end prospects of talking with the other side. Israel can continue referring to the violent chaos as an "internal Palestinian matter" and present itself as uninvolved in it, but the roots of this dangerous confrontation stem from Israeli policy that made sure to weaken both sides - Fatah and Hamas - equally , so that none of them can effectively rule over the Territories.
From the day he was elected president, Israel referred to Mahmoud Abbas as an empty, weak, and impotent figure, thus laying the groundwork for his defeat in parliamentary elections and ascension of Hamas to power. The most blatant example of this policy is of course Israel's refusal to coordinate the Gaza Strip withdrawal with the Palestinian government, which did not include Hamas at the time, while opting for a unilateral move - a brilliant Israeli maneuver that exempted the government, in its own eyes, of the need to refer to the Palestinian side, which it viewed as virtual.

As we know, the "no partner" policy was not invented in honor of Hamas, yet with the rise of the Islamic movement to power, this policy took a grave active turn: Not only do we refuse to talk with this no-partner, we also use all means available in order to defeat it, including the abduction of its elected officials and starvation of its voters.

Carefully orchestrated play

Yet if it appears for a moment that Hamas is losing some of its status among Palestinians and Abbas' position may again be boosted, Israel makes sure to detain the Presidential Guard's commander, thus delivering yet another elbow to Abbas' ribs, and so on and so forth. At this stage, the fashionable discourse regarding "strengthening Abbas," which recently replaced the "no partner" mantra, is no more than a sad joke, as both in Jerusalem and Washington officials realize this is too little, and particularly too late.

This play Israel is carefully orchestrating also has a set, called the Gaza Strip. In the past year since the withdrawal, Israel made sure to turn the Strip into a pressure cooker with a particularly short fuse, awaiting the explosion to come. With unemployment skyrocketing, a naval, ground and aerial siege, and often sealed off crossings, along with an economic siege and a freeze on the transfer of tax monies belonging to the Palestinian Authority by law, the Israeli government knew with certainty that it will only be a matter of time before the Strip collapses into violent chaos -

as indeed happened - and now the government can post a satisfied checkmark next to the objective it formulated a while ago.

However, it's worthwhile reminding all those happy to see the Palestinians killing each other at this time that this play also has an epilogue. When the day comes, possibly sooner than expected, they will seek to end the bloodshed and unite around a common objective.

Then, no objective could unite around it the split Palestinian factions more than resistance to the occupation. This way, Israel is cooking up, with its own hands and through significant satisfaction, the third Intifada, even before the second one died down, in order to continue feeding the no-partner ethos.



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What Does it Take for a Palestinian to Get a US Visa?

Palestine Solidarity Campaign
07/10/2006

In order for a Palestinian to visit the US, they must acquire a visa. Visas can be obtained by making an appointment at the US Consulate in Jerusalem. The problem becomes apparent when you realize that a resident of the West Bank is not allowed to enter Jerusalem because Jerusalem was annexed by Israel (and hence they consider the whole city to be part of Israel, even though international law recognises East Jerusalem to be occupied territory) and is also on the other side of the apartheid wall which has been built to keep all Palestinians out.




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Christians Discriminated Against by Israel

By Donald Neff
Former Israel Bureau Chief for Time Magazine
Excerpted from Fifty Years of Israel

On Dec. 29, 1977, Christians in Israel and the occupied territories protested a new law passed by the Israeli parliament making it illegal for missionaries to proselytize Jews. Protestant churches charged that the law had been "hastily pushed through parliament during the Christmas period when Christians were busily engaged in preparing for and celebrating their major festival." The law made missionaries liable to five years' imprisonment for attempting to persuade people to change their religion, and three years' imprisonment for any Jew who converted. The United Christian Council complained that the law could be "misused in restricting religious freedom in Israel."
Nonetheless, it came into force on April 1, 1978, prohibiting the offering of "material inducement" for a person to change his religion. A material inducement could be something as minor as the giving of a Bible. Although the Likud government of Menachem Begin assured the Christian community that the law applied equally to all religions and did not specifically mention Christians, the United Christian Council of Israel charged that it was biased and aimed specifically at Christians since only Christians openly proselytized. Council representatives also cited anti-Christian speeches made in the parliament during debate on the law. Parliament member Binyamin Halevy had called missionaries "a cancer in the body of the nation."

The next year Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, considered a political moderate, issued a religious ruling that copies of the New Testament should be torn out of any edition of a Bible owned by a Jew. Israeli scholar Yehoshafat Harkabi wrote that he was disturbed by "these manifestations of hostility-the designation of Christians as idolaters, the demand to invoke the 'resident alien' ordinances, and the burning of the New Testament." Observed Harkabi: "Outside of the Land of Israel Jews never dared behave in this fashion. Has independence made the Jews take leave of their senses?"

Desecration of Christian property and churches-arson, window breaking, burning of the New Testament-had long marred relations between the two communities. A small but fanatical group of Jews wanted no Christians, whom they considered fallen Jews, in Israel. This virulent strain of prejudice had been present since before the Jewish state was founded.

For instance, after the capture by Jewish forces of Jaffa on May 13, 1948, two days before Israel's birth, there was desecration of Christian churches. Father Deleque, a Catholic priest, reported: "Jewish soldiers broke down the doors of my church and robbed many precious and sacred objects. Then they threw the statues of Christ down into a nearby garden." He added that Jewish leaders had reassured that religious buildings would be respected, "but their deeds do not correspond to their words."

On May 31, 1948, a group of Christian leaders comprising the Christian Union of Palestine publicly complained that Jewish forces had used 10 Christian churches and humanitarian institutions in Jerusalem as military bases and otherwise desecrated them. They added that a total of 14 churches had suffered shell damage, which killed three priests and made casualties of more than 100 women and children.

The group's statement said Arab forces had abided by their promise to respect Christian institutions, but that the Jews had forcefully occupied Christian structures and been indiscriminate in shelling churches. It said, among other charges, that "many children were killed or wounded" by Jewish shells on the Convent of Orthodox Copts on May 19, 23 and 24; that eight refugees were killed and about 120 wounded at the Orthodox Armenian Convent at some unstated date; and that Father Pierre Somi, secretary to the Bishop, had been killed and two wounded at the Orthodox Syrian Church of St. Mark on May 16.

Churches were again desecrated during the 1967 war when Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, completing the occupation of all of Palestine. On July 21, 1967, the Reverend James L. Kelso, a former moderator of the United Presbyterian Church and long-time resident in Palestine, complained of extensive damage to churches adding: "So significant was this third Jewish war against the Arabs that one of the finest missionaries of the Near East called it 'perhaps the most serious setback that Christendom has had since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.'"

Kelso continued: "How did Israel respect church property in the fighting...? They shot up the Episcopal Cathedral [in Jerusalem], just as they had done in 1948. They smashed down the Episcopal school for boys...The Israelis wrecked and looted the YMCA...They wrecked the big Lutheran hospital...The Lutheran center for cripples also suffered..."

Nancy Nolan, wife of a physician at the American University Hospital in Beirut, who was in Jerusalem during and after the fighting, charged that "while the Israeli authorities proclaim to the world that all religions will be respected and protected, and post notices identifying the Holy Places, Israeli soldiers and youths are throwing stink bombs in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

"The Church of St. Anne, who crypt marks the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, has been severely damaged and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem also was damaged. The wanton killing of the Warden of the Garden Tomb followed by the shooting into the tomb itself, in an attempt to kill the warden's wife, was another instance that we knew first-hand which illustrated the utter disregard shown by the occupation forces toward the Holy Places and the religious sensibilities of the people in Jordan and in the rest of the world."

"The desecration of churches...includes smoking in the churches, littering the churches, taking dogs inside and entering in inappropriate manner of dress. Behavior such as this cannot be construed other than as a direct insult to the whole Christian world."

Desecration has occurred not only in times of war. As recently as 1995, an Israeli soldier, Daniel Koren, 22, entered St. Anthony Catholic Church in Jaffa and went on a shooting rampage, firing more than 100 bullets in the altar and the cross above it but causing no injuries. Koren said his Judaic convictions forced him to destroy all physical images of God, and admitted that he had staged a prior attack in Jerusalem's Gethsemane Church.

Perhaps the worst outbreak of organized desecration of Christian institutions came on Sept. 10, 1963, when hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jews simultaneously attacked Christian missions in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. (One has to say "perhaps because reporting on this sensitive subject in the U.S. media has been so poor over the decades.) At any rate, the attacks were a concerted effort to intimidate Christians in Israel by a religious vigilante group called Hever Peelei Hamahane Hatorati, the Society of Activists of the Torah Camp. In an attack on the Church of Scotland school in Jaffa, Christian children were beaten and considerable damage was caused to the school by at least 200 rampaging Jews.

Other attacks occurred at two nearby church schools, the Greek Catholic missionary school of St. Joseph and a Christian Brothers school. In Jerusalem, attacks occurred at the St. Joseph convent and the Finnish Lutheran mission school. In Haifa, the American-European Beth El Messianic Mission Children's Hostel and School was attacked. No serious damage occurred in any of the attacks except at the Scotland school. More than 100 Jews were convicted in the attacks, none of them receiving more than small fines and suspended sentences.

The first half of the 1980s, with Likud governments in control, was a particularly active period for Jewish bigots. On Oct. 8, 1982, the Baptist Church in Jerusalem was burned down. Kerosene had been sprinkled on the church's wooden chapel, constructed in 1933. Although no one was ever charged in the arson, the Baptist Center's bookstore had been vandalized a dozen times in previous years, and Jews were suspected. When the Baptists sought to rebuild the church, Jews demonstrated against the project and the Jewish district planning commission refused to grant a building permit. In 1985, the Israeli Supreme Court advised the Baptists to leave the all-Jewish area.

On Christmas Day in 1983, a hotel in Tiberias where Christians held meetings was set afire, the latest in a series of attacks on a small group of about 50 Christians. Two Jews were arrested in the arson incident. Other attacks included stones thrown through windows at the hotel while the group was meeting and break-ins at the homes of members of the group. The anti-missionary group Yad Le'Achim complained that Christian missionaries were offering money, clothes, jewelry and tennis shoes to listen to Christian lectures.

Just over a fortnight later, on Jan. 11, 1984, suspected Jewish extremists stacked hymnals on a piano in a Christian prayer room in Jerusalem and set them afire. Also in the same week angry Jews protesting Christian proselytizing caused Beth Shalom, a Christian evangelical group, to withdraw its plans to build a multimillion-dollar hotel in Jerusalem. Beth Shalom took its action after about 150 Jews showed up at a city council meeting with placards reading "You can't buy me" and "I didn't immigrate to live next door to missionaries." A leader of the protest, Rabbi Moshe Berlinger, compared Christian missionaries to Trojan horses.

Jewish infringements on Christian rights became so bad by 1990 that on Dec. 20 the leaders of Christian churches in Jerusalem took the extraordinary decision to restrict Christmas celebrations to protest "the continuing sad state of affairs in our land," including encroachment by Israel on traditional Christian institutions. Among concerns expressed by the patriarchs and heads of churches were attempts by Jewish settlers to move into the Old City and an "erosion of the traditional rights and centuries-old privileges of the churches," including imposition by Israel of municipal and state taxes on the churches.

The statement added: "We express our deep concern over new problems confronting the local church. They interfere with the proper functioning of our religious institutions, and we call upon the civil authorities in the country to safeguard our historic rights and status honored by all governments."

Anti-Christian prejudice helps account for the fact that the number of Christian Palestinians in all of former Palestine had dwindled to only 50,000 in 1995. They no longer were a major presence in either Jerusalem or Ramallah, and they were fast losing their majority status in Bethlehem.

When Israel was established in 1948, the Palestinian Christian community had numbered 200,000, compared to roughly 600,000 Jews in Palestine at the time. Now the Christians are not even one percent of the population of Israel/Palestine. Of today's estimated total 400,000 Christian Palestinians, most now are living in their own diaspora, mainly in the Americas.



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In N.Y., Sparks Fly Over Israel Criticism

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006; A03

NEW YORK -- Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.

The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University's Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt's subject was the Israel lobby in the United States, and he planned to argue that this lobby has often stifled honest debate.

An hour before Judt was to arrive, the Polish Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk canceled the talk. He said the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee had called and he quickly concluded Judt was too controversial.
"The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure," Kasprzyk said. "That's obvious -- we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that."

Judt, who was born and raised in England and lost much of his family in the Holocaust, took strong exception to the cancellation of his speech. He noted that he was forced to cancel another speech later this month at Manhattan College in the Bronx after a different Jewish group had complained. Other prominent academics have described encountering such problems, in some cases more severe, stretching over the past three decades.

The pattern, Judt says, is unmistakable and chilling.

"This is serious and frightening, and only in America -- not in Israel -- is this a problem," he said. "These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen."

The leaders of the Jewish organizations denied asking the consulate to block Judt's speech and accused the professor of retailing "wild conspiracy theories" about their roles. But they applauded the consulate for rescinding Judt's invitation.

"I think they made the right decision," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "He's taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist. That puts him on our radar."

David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, took a similar view. "I never asked for a particular action; I was calling as a friend of Poland," Harris said. "The message of that evening was going to be entirely contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy."

Judt has crossed rhetorical swords with the Jewish organizations on two key issues. Over the past few years he has written essays in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz arguing that power in Israel has shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, that woven into Zionism is a view of the Arab as the irreconcilable enemy, and that Israel might not survive as a communal Jewish state.

The solution, he argues, lies in a slow and tortuous walk toward a binational and secular state.

He has, of late, defended an academic paper -- co-authored by professor Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and John J. Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago -- which argues the American Israel lobby has pushed policies that are not in the United States' best interests and in fact often encourage Israel to engage in self-destructive behavior.

These are deeply controversial views -- Foxman of the ADL and writer Christopher Hitchens, among others, have attacked the Walt and Mearsheimer paper as anti-Semitic. And Judt's advocacy of a binational state has drawn a flock of critics, the more angry of whom accuse him of "pandering to genocide" as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America put it. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said Judt was pursuing "genocide liberalism."

Foxman has referred to Judt's views of Israel as "an offensive caricature."

The Mearsheimer and Walt paper, however, has drawn praise in some quarters in Israel, particularly on the left. So, too some Israeli writers, not least Israeli historian and social critic Amos Elon, have praised Judt's writings on Israel. Nor are Judt's arguments without historical precedent: Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky, who is Jewish, has advocated a binational solution in Israel, a view that three decades ago sparked such anger that police stood guard at his college talks. More recently, the ADL repeatedly accused DePaul University professor Norman G. Finkelstein, who is Jewish and strongly opposes Israeli policies, of being a "Holocaust denier." These charges have proved baseless.

"There is an often organized and often spontaneous attempt to marginalize anyone in the Jewish world who offers a critique of Israeli policy," said Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the liberal magazine Tikkun. "It's equated with anti-Semitism and Israel denial."

Foxman says such complaints are silly. "Nobody has called Judt an anti-Semite," Foxman said. "People who are critical of Israel and of the Jewish people often flaunt their Jewishness. Why isn't that an issue?"

Judt replies that he only reluctantly talks of his Jewishness, in no small part to inoculate himself against charges of anti-Semitism. "For many, the way to be Jewish in this country is to aggressively assert that the Holocaust is your identification tag," Judt said. "I know perfectly well my history, but it never occurred to me that my most prominent identity was as a Jew."



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Irish Pro-Palestinian protesters attack Israeli ambassador's car

Ynet
08/10/2006

Dozens of enraged demonstrators attack Zion Evrony's car after university lecture. Ambassador: I intend to continue to speak everywhere

Dozens of enraged pro-Palestinian protestors attacked Israel's ambassador to Ireland this weekend as he was leaving a university in the city of Galway.

Dr. Zion Evrony, speaking at an open lecture organized by the law school, was first greeted with dozens of shouting protestors waving

Palestinian flags. During the speech 20 students attempted to "blow up" the lecture by using an agreed signal and suddenly shouting and waving signs and flags. The protestors were asked to leave the hall.

After the speech and Q&A portion of the 90 minute lecture were over the ambassador exited the hall surrounded by police officers. However as he was leaving the campus grounds several dozen angry protestors attacked his vehicle, pounding their fists against the car and climbing onto the car. No one was arrested.

During the visit to Galway, the third largest city in Ireland, the ambassador met with the mayor and president of the university and was also interviewed at a local radio station.

On Saturday night, Dr. Evrony spoke with Yedioth Ahronoth, saying that "despite the incident I intend to continue to speak everywhere. It is important that Israel's voice be head and its position clarified."



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Israel - Murdering Innocence

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Israeli soldiers kill 14 year old boy in front of Christ's birthplace

15-Sep-06
HCEF
Jessica Rodgers

Bethlehem, West Bank - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 14 year old boy yesterday in front of Christ's birthplace during a raid to capture a Palestinian activist. Members of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation staff in Bethlehem were trapped by the fighting that escalated quickly outside of their office door.

Children had been released from school for the day and were playing in a park across the street when Israeli soldiers began their incursion. As the soldiers began operations in the area, the children saw what they were doing and began throwing stones to make them go away. The soldiers responded by firing poison gas canisters and rubber bullets at the children on the playground, which made it difficult for them to see and breathe. Israeli soldiers often use this tactic to obstruct an area so people will not be able to observe what they are doing, said HCEF staff.
After word of the attack spread, children and young men came into the streets and began throwing rocks at the soldiers. The soldiers shot back with gas bombs and rubber bullets, and fighting continued this way for several hours in the street.

At least three people were injured by their ammunition, including two boys and a mother who had come to rescue her children from the fighting. One fourteen year old boy died on the playground, which lies across the street from the Church of the Nativity. Hospital reports show that he was killed by live ammunition from Israeli soldiers. The mother and other young boy are being treated at an area hospital. Anyone in proximity to the event, even those in their homes in the area, would have felt the burning and stinging of the gas for hours as fighting went on in the street.

HCEF Bethlehem staff did their best to record the event with pictures and video footage, but doing so put them in extreme danger. At one point the HCEF Accountant reported being seen by an Israeli solider as she took pictures out of an office window. "The soldier saw me and pointed his gun at me, and began firing into the office. They even shot poison gas canisters, so we were crying, we couldn't breathe, and we felt like it was burning in our lungs," she said. HCEF staff were confined to their office for over four hours while the fighting continued right outside their door.

"It's not fair," they said. "It's like a game to them - they have guns while we can only throw rocks. It's like they think, what will happen if I shoot at them? They were just teasing the Palestinians here. They don't respect the humanity of the other side." Staff emphasized that the Israeli military can come and go whenever they please, although Bethlehem is governed by the Palestinian Authority.

HCEF Country Representative reported that he was unable to join the other staff members in the office, although he was only 100 feet away. "I kept calling them every ten or fifteen minutes to make sure they weren't choking on the poison gas," he said. "They were very close, and I was afraid for them."

After being trapped in the office for four hours, staff members decided to run for their cars. The Administrative Officer ran first. As our Accountant was preparing to follow her, she saw a gas bomb explode in the path. Although it was dangerous, she and the Project Coordinator did not leave abandon their colleague. They ran to join her and escaped safely away from the scene. The Coordinator said, "Those moments when I was closing the office felt like slow motion, because I was turned around and the Israeli soldiers could shoot me easily then." The staff stressed that anyone in close proximity to an Israeli action is in danger, not just the people who are engaged.

Bethlehem has not seen this level of violence in years. Staff reported their shock at violence in the area, but noted, "Now it is like nothing happened - everything is back to normal again." There are no expectations of further military action or other disturbances in the area.

"Thanks be to God that they are all right" said the Country Representative "We are from the Holy Land, we live there as any Palestinian does, Christian or Muslim - there is no protection for us. We are serving as witnesses to all Palestinians who are living under occupation."

For more information about the Holy Land Christians or to find out how you can support and encourage them, visit www.hcef.org, or call (866)871-4234.



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Israeli troops kills 2 Palestinians: witnesses

Reuters
Sun Oct 8, 2006

NABLUS, West Bank - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and a Palestinian civilian on Sunday near the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.

Palestinian witnesses said the gunman, from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was shot in Balata, a refugee camp near Nablus. Two other members of al-Aqsa, an armed wing of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, were wounded.
Al-Aqsa is among factions spearheading a six-year-old Palestinian revolt.

Israeli soldiers also shot dead a Palestinian civilian who tried to bypass a military checkpoint near Nablus, Palestinian witnesses and a Palestinian medical official said. An Israeli army spokesman said he was unaware of such an incident.



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Israeli air strike kills 1 in Gaza: witnesses

Reuters
October 9, 2006

GAZA - An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian civilian and wounded three others in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, witnesses and medical officials said.

The Israeli army said its forces had attacked a person around the town of Beit Hanoun who was collecting a rocket launcher used to fire a rocket into Israel over the weekend.
Palestinian witnesses said an Israeli drone had fired a missile at a group of people in an open area on the edge of Beit Hanoun.

A hospital doctor said the dead civilian was a 14-year-old boy, correcting medical officials who earlier said he was 17. The boy's father was among the wounded, medical officials said.

Israel launched an offensive against militants in Gaza after Palestinian gunmen seized a soldier in a cross-border raid from the strip on June 25.

Around 225 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have been killed in the offensive.

Israel has also been carrying out military strikes to try to stop gunmen firing homemade rockets at Israeli towns and villages near the border with Gaza.



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IDF Brutally Attacks Peaceful Protest - 6 Arrested, Many Injured

October 8, 2006
Palestine Solidarity

Today, Palestinian, international and Israeli activists joined together to demonstrate against land theft, road closures and economic isolation by bringing two tons of the surplus Palestinian grape harvest to an occupation checkpoint along Route 60. In a display of civil disobedience akin to the North American Boston Tea Party, the demonstrators hoped to dump the surplus harvest onto the road, but were viciously attacked by Israeli troops and policemen before they were able to reach the checkpoint. (with pictures).

October 8, 2006-Today, Palestinian, international and Israeli activists joined together to demonstrate against land theft, road closures and economic isolation by bringing two tons of the surplus Palestinian grape harvest to an occupation checkpoint along Route 60. In a display of civil disobedience akin to the North American Boston Tea Party, the demonstrators hoped to dump the surplus harvest onto the road, but were viciously attacked before they were able to reach the checkpoint.

Al-Khadr is a center for vineyards, as is the Bethlehem area in general. Every year its fertile lands yield 11,000 tons of grapes. Not long ago, these grapes were marketed to the entire West Bank, as well as Jordan, Gaza and Israel. Nowadays, with some roads blocked and others closed, and with new decrees restricting the delivery of grapes, the local produce has no market. The prices have dropped so low that the farmers can no longer earn their living. Many are forced to just leave the fruit to rot on the vines. Soon the Apartheid Wall will reach the site of the demonstration, and the Ghettoization of the area will be complete. Where grapes are the prime source of income and unemployment rates soar, this maneuver will effectively strangulate the already fragile local economy.

The wall in the Al-Khadr region will annex 20,000 dunums of Palestinian agricultural land, while the expansion of Betar Illit, Neve Daniel and Elazar colonial settlements will similarly steal additional lands. The Wall in the Al-Khadr and Bethlehem area will also imprison 19,000 Palestinians in between the concrete barrier and the 1967 West Bank border line, known as the "green line."

For these reasons, local Palestinians, Israeli activists with Anarchists Against the Wall and Tay'ush, as well as international activists with the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP), joined for a morning of civil disobedience with the intention of dumping a portion of the ample, though unmarketable, grape harvest onto Route 60 in protest. Approximately fifty demonstrators marched on Route 60, blocking northbound traffic, en route to Al-Khadr checkpoint, but were preemptively attacked by Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) police and soldiers. At the scene were numerous armored police jeeps, police transport vans and armored military jeeps. Also on hand was at least one agent with Shabak (Shin Bet), the occupation's covert intelligence agency, seen filming the IOF's brutality with a handheld video camera.

Despite the presence of Reuters cameramen and other international media, around thirty IOF soldiers and police quickly attacked the non-violent demonstrators who carried cardboard crates of grapes. With their hands unable to be used as shields, many were beaten causing the grapes to prematurely spill onto the road. As the demonstrators attempted to continue their march, IOF police and soldiers choked, kicked and punched the demonstrators. Some police used military-style 'pain compliance' maneuvers, such as applying immense pressure to wrists and other sensitive joints, as well as wrenching back fingers and hands. Activists were thrown, and dragged by their ears, noses, necks and hair, while other police and soldiers forced demonstrators to the ground by leaning their weighted knees onto demonstrators' heads and necks. Many activists were roughly thrown to the ground and dragged across the asphalt road, ripping their clothes. While attempting to stand up, many were pushed and kicked by the booted IOF police and soldiers.

During the assault, six people were arrested: two Palestinian males, one international female, and two Israeli males. The two Palestinian males, Mohammad Salah, 25, and Ahmed Salah, 30 were detained for carrying boxes of grapes, and while Ahmed was released at the end of the demonstration, Mohammad was not so lucky. Following the demonstration, Mohammad was taken by IOF soldiers to a wooded area near Betar Illit colonial settlement. When the soldiers reached this isolated area, they kicked and beat Mohammad in the head and shoulders. He is currently under care at a Bethlehem-area hospital. The international, an American woman, and the two Israeli men are currently still being held in Israeli custody at Gush Etzion police compound, housed within the colonial settlement of the same name.

Despite the unprovoked and extreme violence from the IOF, the demonstration was a great success. The primarily settler-used roadway of Route 60 was colored green and purple with the crushed remains of grapes and cardboard cartons. Passing settlers were able to witness the violence that their presence "necessitates," and many reacted by honking their horns, photographing the demonstration, and one man was even seen proudly waving a peace sign. Though the grapes never reached the mouths of consumers, they were purchased from the farmers and given a political purpose on the road-a stretch of route 60 bordering Al-Khadr checkpoint, as well as a currently under-construction terminal checkpoint, and a small length of the Apartheid Wall already built and waiting to be connected to the Bethlehem portion.

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IDF Murders Palestinian man near Nablus-area checkpoint, then lies about it

Haaretz09/10/2006

Relatives said Ahmed Yousef Tirawi, 25, was walking with his wife on a path off limits to Palestinians when soldiers fired a single bullet to his head, killing him. The Israel Defense Forces said it was unaware of any shooting incident in the area and its forces had not opened fire.




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Brother of slain Palestinian worker: "He was murdered in cold blood"

IMEMC
09/10/2006

"I was a few meters from the scene; at first the officers chased after my brother and his friend, took them into the bathroom of a building and beat them severely with clubs. A few minutes later they took him outside and shot him", stated the brother of Eyad Abu Raiya, who was killed Wednesday by a 19-year old Israeli officer in Jaffa. "We will sue the killing officer and we will not give up until he is put on trial, even if it costs me my life"




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IDF troops beat two handcuffed Palestinians at Nablus checkpoint

Haaretz
08/10/2006

The brother said they attempted to remove their blindfolds at which point two soldiers entered the cell and retied the blindfolds over their eyes. The soldiers then began to beat the two bound and blind-folded brothers with their assault rifles. An activist from Rabbis from Human Rights, Zakariya Asade, told Haaretz the two brothers were not able to get up after they were beaten. Asade called an ambulance which took the brothers to a Nablus hospital.




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Forced to climb over the apartheid wall for open heart surgery

Stopthewall.org
08/10/2006

Abed El-Fatah, a refugee living Qalqilya city, was forced to climb over the apartheid wall around Jerusalem after Occupation forces refused to allow him to enter in order to receive critical surgery. Since the isolation of Jerusalem behind the Apartheid Wall, entering the city is impossible without a permit from the occupation forces. Abed sent his medical file with the application for a permit through the Red Crescent. A week after applying for the permit he received a paper telling him that his application was refused for "security reasons."




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Planet On The Edge

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Planet enters 'ecological debt'

BBC News
09/10/2006

Rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October, a study suggests.

The date symbolised the day of the year when people's demands exceeded the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it.

The figures' authors said the world first "ecological debt day" fell on 19 December 1987, but economic growth had seen it fall earlier each year.

The data was produced by a US-based think-tank, Global Footprint Network.
The New Economics Foundation (Nef), a UK think-tank that helped compile the report, had published a study that said Britain's "ecological debt day" in 2006 fell on 16 April.

The authors said this year's global ecological debt day meant that it would take the Earth 15 months to regenerate what was consumed this year.

"By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts means we make two mistakes," said Andrew Simms, Nef's policy director.

"First, we deny millions globally who already lack access to sufficient land, food and clean water the chance to meet their needs. Secondly, we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril," he added.

'Eco-footprints'

The findings are based on the concept of "ecological footprints", a system of measuring how much land and water a human population needs to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the resulting waste.

Global Footprint Network's executive director, Mathis Wackernagel, said humanity was living off its "ecological credit card" and was "liquidating the planet's natural resources".

"While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources, such as forests, oceans and agricultural land, upon which our economy depends," Mr Wackernagel said.

Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (Ecipe), a Brussels-based think tank, said he applauded the authors on their innovative way of focusing attention to the issue of resource depletion.

But he added he found the concept of ecological debt to be "quite ludicrous".

"When it comes to using footprints as a way to follow the micro effects of various economic behaviours on the environment, it can be quite good," Mr Erixon said.

"But the way they are collecting and assessing information is wrong. We don't really get any serious information out of this."

He also questioned the use of the term "debt": "A debt is where you have over-savings in one area of the economy, and under-savings in another.

"Then you have a transfer of savings from one actor to another in the form of a loan. But who are we indebted to?" Mr Erixon asked.

"Perhaps 'ecological exuberance' is better than ecological debt."

He added that history had shown that technological advances had led to more efficient uses of natural resources, and had sustained economic growth.



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Marine Scientists Report Massive "Dead Zones"

IPS
09/10/2006

Rising tides of untreated sewage and plastic debris are seriously threatening marine life and habitat around the globe, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in a report Wednesday. The number of ocean "dead zones" has grown from 150 in 2004 to about 200 today, said Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesperson.

"These are becoming more common in developing countries," Nuttall told IPS from Nairobi, Kenya.

Dead zones can encompass areas of ocean 100,000 square kms in size where little can live because there is no oxygen left in the water. Nitrogen pollution, mainly from farm fertilisers and sewage, produces blooms of algae that absorb all of the oxygen in the water.
Growing global populations, mainly concentrated along coastlines, and the resulting increase in untreated sewage are endangering human health and wildlife, as well as livelihoods from fisheries to tourism, according to the "State of the Marine Environment" report.

"An estimated 80 percent of marine pollution originates from the land," said Achim Steiner, United Nations undersecretary-general and UNEP's executive director.

"And this could rise significantly by 2050 if, as expected, coastal populations double in just over 40 years time and action to combat pollution is not accelerated," Steiner said in a statement.

The report is compiled from a wide variety of government, academic and other sources by UNEP's Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Sources.

In many developing countries, between 80 percent and nearly 90 percent of sewage entering the coastal zones is estimated to be raw and untreated. These wastes contain bacteria and viruses that can contaminate marine species such as shellfish that are consumed by people, Nuttall said.

Studies in the Caribbean Sea have also shown that sewage encourages the spread of disease in corals, ultimately destroying them. Around 80 percent of Caribbean coral has been lost to disease in the past 20 years, report researchers at the University of North Carolina in the United States.

Some cities in the developed world also dump their sewage directly into waterways.

More than one half of wastewater entering the Mediterranean Sea is untreated, as is 60 percent of the wastewater discharged into the Caspian Sea, the UNEP report found.

Unlike the United States and countries in the European Union, Canada has no national standards for sewage treatment for cities. Montreal dumps billions of litres of untreated sewage into the St. Lawrence River, while the postcard-perfect tourist city of Victoria, British Columbia dumps all of its waste directly into the Pacific Ocean.

Such waste can contain high levels of toxic chemicals, heavy metals and excreted pharmaceuticals. The latter pose risks that are only beginning to be understood. Emerging research shows negative impacts on marine life from residues of birth control and antidepressant drugs like Prozac even at extremely low concentrations of less than one part per billion.

"The big unknown" is what effect these pharmaceutical residues might have on chronically exposed plants, animals and people, Christian Daughton, chief of the environmental chemistry branch at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has been reported as saying.

Expensive treatment plants are not the only solution to untreated sewages wastes -- coastal wetlands, salt marshes and mangroves can also do the job, Nuttall explained.

"It's important for governments to conserve and rehabilitate these natural features and take their value into consideration in their urban planning," he said.

Plastic is an even more visible environmental concern, killing more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year, according to previous U.N. reports.

Plastic bags, bottle tops and polystyrene foam coffee cups are often found in the stomachs of dead sea lions, dolphins, sea turtles and birds. Seagulls in the North Sea had an average of 30 pieces of plastic in their stomachs, according to a Dutch study in 2004.

The volume of plastic debris was estimated at eight million pieces a day in 1982 and is unquestionably much higher today, perhaps double or triple that number. About 20 percent of the plastic in the oceans comes from ships or offshore platforms; the rest is blown or washed off the land, according to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy.

Plastic debris is now found everywhere, even the remotest regions of Antarctica.

Truly pristine locales no longer exist, writes David K.A. Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey in a recent paper.

"Some surveys have involved the first known visit by man to very 'remote' shores, but our miracle material had long since beaten us there," he wrote.

In parts of the Southern Ocean, marine debris has tripled in volume in the past decade. Barnes has also shown that marine debris is transporting exotic species to locales they could never have reached normally, changing the ecology of some regions.

Most plastics do not biodegrade, they just break up into ever-smaller particles. British scientists have discovered that microscopic pieces of plastic can be found everywhere in the oceans, even inside plankton, the foundation of the marine food chain.

"The problem of marine litter has steadily grown worse, despite national and international efforts to control it," acknowledges the UNEP report.

The report's findings will be officially presented to governments attending a review of the decade-old Global Programme of Action initiative taking place in Beijing, China, from Oct. 16-20.

There have been some improvements, the report notes. Levels of oily waste discharged from industry and cities has, since the mid 1980s, been cut by close to 90 percent. Marine contamination from toxic persistent organic pollutants like DDT and discharges of radioactive waste has also been sharply reduced.

However, larger challenges lie ahead, such as global warming and sea level rise.

"So we have a long way to go politically, technically and financially if we are to hand over healthy and productive seas and oceans to the next generation," Steiner said.



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Rising seas could leave millions homeless in Asia

By Michael Perry
Reuters
Mon Oct 9, 2006

SYDNEY - Millions of people could become homeless in the Asia-Pacific region by 2070 due to rising sea levels, with Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, China and Pacific islands most at risk, says Australia's top scientific body.

A climate change report by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) found global warming in the Asia Pacific region could cause sea levels to rise by up to 16 cm (six inches) by 2030 and up to 50 cm (19 inches) by 2070.

Rising temperatures will also result in increased rainfall during the summer monsoon season in Asia and could cause more intense tropical storms, inundating low-lying coastal villages.
"The coastlines of Asia-Pacific nations are generally highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly sea-level rise caused by rising global temperatures," said the CSIRO report released on Monday.

"Vast areas of the Asia-Pacific are low lying, particularly the small-island states, as well as the large river deltas found in India and Bangladesh, Southeast Asia and China."

Sea level rise between 30 to 50 cm (11 to 19 inches) would affect more than 100,000 km (62,140 miles) of coast, particularly China's Pearl Delta and Bangladesh's delta, said the report.

"As sea level rise exceeds half a meter, the area affected in the Asia-Pacific region rises to over half a million square kilometres, affecting hundreds of millions of people," it said.

"Large areas of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam are inundated and Kiribati, Fiji and the Maldives are reduced to just a small fraction of their current land area."

ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES

The report also said rising sea levels and increased rainfall would spread infectious diseases in the region, leaving millions more at risk of dengue fever and malaria.

It said local and regional economies would be hard hit by chronic food and water insecurity, warning Sri Lanka's
GDP could fall by 2.4 percent with less than a two degree Celsius warming.

The report also warned of environmental refugees fleeing their flooded homelands, citing growing migration from some South Pacific island states already suffering rising sea levels.

Some 17,000 islanders applied for New Zealand residence in the last two years, compared with 4,000 in 2003, it said.

The low-lying South Pacific island nation of Micronesia has experienced an annual sea level rise of 21.4 mm since 2001.

The report, commissioned by Australian aid agencies, prompted calls for Canberra to do more to combat climate change and to be more open to environmental refugees.

Australia has not signed the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases, which cause global warming, and has rejected requests from Pacific islands to take environmental refugees.

World Vision Australia chief, Reverend Tim Costello, called on Australia to review immigration programs to consider people displaced by rising sea levels.

"This is enlightened self-interest, because there are going to be so many environmental refugees knocking on our door, flooding here with the sea levels rise as predicted and...the failure of economics and crops because of the rain changes in so many of these countries," Costello told local radio.



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Strong 6.2 earthquake strikes near Tonga

AP
Sun Oct 8, 2006

SYDNEY, Australia - A strong earthquake struck under the sea floor near the South Pacific nation of Tonga on Monday, the
U.S. Geological Survey said. No damage or tsunami threat was reported.

The magnitude-6.2 temblor hit shortly before 2 a.m. six miles under the sear floor about 170 miles south of Nuku'alofa, Tonga's capital, the USGS said.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which maintains an ocean-wide wave warning system, did not issue a tsunami warning bulletin.




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Volcano erupts in Papua New Guinea

10/8/2006 9:25:00 PM -0400

RABAUL, Papua New Guinea, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- The small village of Rabaul on Papua New Guinea's New Britain Island has been spared extensive damage from a potentially devastating volcanic eruption.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that Mount Tavurvur, on the outskirts of Rabaul, erupted Saturday with a violent blast, shattering windows as far as seven miles away.

ABC reported that boats evacuated about 200 people in Rabaul and nearby towns as the peak spewed ash, rock and billows of smoke high into the air.

Local hotel owner Bruce Alexander told ABC that if it were not for favorable winds, the damage could have exceeded that of the 1994 eruption that devastated Rabaul so extensively that the government was forced to construct a new capital, Kokopo, 12 miles away.



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Rains forces Va. evacuations; 2 dead

By STEVE SZKOTAK
Associated Press
October 7, 2006

RICHMOND, Va. - A storm that dropped as much as 9 inches of rain forced the evacuation Saturday of about 100 people in a six-block section of the capital, caused scattered flooding in the southeastern part of the state and likely contributed to the death of two fishermen.

Ferry service across the James River was temporarily suspended because of high waters; one ferry returned to service Saturday afternoon. In southeast Virginia's Isle of Wight, officials evacuated about three dozen people and reported widespread flooding after at least 8 inches of rain since Friday.

"We have more roads out than we can keep track of," said Don Robertson, a spokesman for the county. "We have some bridges that are out (and) a lot of flash flood conditions."
The bodies of cousins David F. Dryen, 70, and John W. Dryen, 59, were found Saturday in the Poquoson River where it empties into Chesapeake Bay, the Coast Guard said. Their boat was found capsized Friday night in seas of up to 5 feet and 50 mph wind gusts, Petty Officer Kip Wadlow said.

The National Weather Service said rainfall since Friday ranged from 4 to 9 inches as a storm stalled over the state and a band of rain drenched central Virginia to Hampton Roads. Rain was forecast to taper off later Saturday.

In Richmond's Battery Park, police went door-to-door to more than 40 homes and apartment buildings to enforce the city-ordered evacuation. A month ago, the area was flooded during Tropical Depression Ernesto, causing $9 million in property damage and the condemnation of 68 properties. More than 250 homes were evacuated then.

The latest evacuation involved approximately 100 residents, said Britt Drewes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works. An emergency shelter was opened.

"These residents are so sad to see this again," Drewes said. "When the rain started, everybody cringed. There's just frustration."

The flooding is partly the result of a broken sewer main that fouled the flood waters and brought vermin and snakes into some residents homes during Ernesto. Forty million gallons of water a day is being pumped from the neighborhood, but that doesn't keep up with the rain, Drewes said.

"At this point, the water is still very high," she reported before noon Saturday.

Repairs to the sewer pipe are complicated because it is under a former landfill about a mile from the urban neighborhood.



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Humpback whale washed ashore on Long Beach

By Associated Press
October 6, 2006

LONG BEACH - State parks officials have hired a contractor to bury a 50-foot humpback whale that washed up on the Long Beach Peninsula.

Cape Disappointment State Park says a crew will bury it on the beach Friday after it's examined by scientists from Cascadia Research.

Long Beach residents have been stopping at the beach to look at the carcass since it washed ashore Wednesday about a half mile south of Klipsan beach.

Humpbacks usually swim 10 to 20 miles off the coast.




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Economy On The Edge

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Is $10 trillion bubble ready to burst?

Milt Neidenberg
Workers World
Published Oct 5, 2006

Is the biggest real estate bubble in history about to burst? Wall Street pundits and commentators are concerned that the industry's downward spiral could exacerbate the slowing down of the general capitalist economy.

The $10 trillion housing market is on the skids. Sales of new homes have plummeted, and now prices are following.

According to an article posted Sept. 25 on MarketWatch.com, a Dow Jones Web site, "The collapsing U.S. housing market crossed another milestone in August, as the median sales price of existing homes fell for the first time in 11 years and for just the sixth time in the past 38 years, the National Association of Realtors said Monday."
On Sept. 2 it reported that new home sales had "plunged 21.6 percent in July from the year earlier, inventories of unsold homes soared and prices fell-there is little debate that the housing market is stumbling much faster than most expected."

This is another way of saying that the real estate market may be in for a crash, not merely a "soft landing," as market optimists have hoped.

The National Association of Realtors covers a wide array of real-estate investors, speculators and banks heavily invested in all types of mortgages.

Over the last five years, housing prices had been rising at a hectic rate. Now the day of reckoning has come. "The deceleration has been the fastest in the history of the [Realtors] survey," says MarketWatch.

Developers have cut back on construction as overproduction in residential housing has led to big-time inventories of unsold new homes. However, plummeting prices may bring buyers back into the market, temporarily relieving the glut.

Mortgages that allow homeowners to take out equity based on the assessed valuation of their homes have been a key driver of continued strong consumer spending-accounting for two-thirds of the Gross Domestic Product. The GDP is the total value of a country's goods and services. But declining home prices will cut into this, meaning bad news for the overall capitalist economy.

Current consumer debt has reached record-breaking numbers. Spending levels of consumers can no longer be sustained. Homeowners will spend less and tighten belts to save the homes they have.

An Aug. 10 Wall Street Journal survey was headlined: "Outlooks for GDP and Employment Are Cut, While Concerns About Recession Edge Up." The newspaper's economists have raised to 26 percent "the probability of a recession over the next 12 months."

Wall Street economists who predict an impending recession are behind the times. The recession is already here for a large part of the multinational workforce.

Plants are closing, wages relative to inflation are dropping, benefits are disappearing, and layoffs are spreading throughout the industrial and service sectors.

The capitalist economy is drowning in debt, deficits and the virus of hyper-speculation in non-traditional mortgage lending. These dire developments were only worsened by a recent announcement of the Federal Reserve Board that the economy needs to slow down to contain inflation.

Not true. A slowdown will develop into stagflation-stagnation on top of inflation. The workers and oppressed nationalities now face a slowing economy, soaring prices for food, health care and other necessities of life, and a housing bubble about to burst.

The tycoons of Wall Street, however, prefer a slowing economy to inflation. They reacted favorably to the Fed's announcement, sending the stock market up to new highs during the week of Sept. 25.
Lenders run wild

In a revealing Sept. 1 Wall Street Journal article headlined, "Housing Chill Begins to Pinch Nation's Banks," Robin Sidel wrote that "[B]anks have begun to warn investors that the housing slowdown is starting to hurt their business."

The article explains that financial institutions are already grappling with "a difficult interest-rate environment, competition for traditional banking customers, a saturated credit-card market, and expectations that strong consumer-credit quality will soon show signs of weakening. ... As a result real estate, including mortgages, home-equity loans, and commercial loans, represented a record 33.5 percent of the U.S. banking industry's $9,298 trillion in assets in July, according to the Federal Reserve. The numbers represent the highest level in the Fed's database going back to 1973."

Since then, this dependence on real estate assets has continued to rise.

Sandra Thompson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, speaking on Sept. 20 at the opening session of the Senate Banking Committee on Banking, warned of the dangers of nontraditional mortgage loans: "According to the publication Inside Mortgage Finance, an estimated $432 billion interest-only loans and payments-option ARMs were originated during the first half of 2006," she said. ARMs are adjustable rate mortgages.
Dreams turn into nightmares

In a frenzy of real estate loans, bankers and financial institutions have created mortgage portfolios that include ARMs. They feature no down payment, no interest, and what is called negative amortization: the buyer pays less than the interest due and the unpaid principal and the interest rates will grow exponentially. Down the road, the increase in mortgage payments will force homeowners to ante up big bucks far exceeding their incomes. This likely will lead to record levels of mortgage defaults and foreclosures, which are now beginning to rise. Homeowners are helplessly trapped as their home values fall.

The banks and financial institutions have spread the risk to the secondary mortgage markets-Fannie May and Freddie Mac-which are government-sponsored enterprises and big-time speculators. Hedge funds, pension funds and insurance companies are big players in this market.

Will there be a rerun of the 1987 stock market crash? That's when many savings and loans banks-primary lenders in mortgage financing-went belly up. It cost the worker/taxpayers $ 150 billion to bail out those banks and financial institutions. Will the current housing bubble throw the economy into another such crisis?

The warning signs are there.

Housing is a multiplier industry. The impact of the growing housing crisis affects a wide range of industries and workers. Steel, lumber, home furnishings, financial institutions, construction and other related industries are dependent on this bubble, which has reached an unprecedented size.

According to the June 16, 2005, Economist, the housing bubble has become a global phenomenon. "The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. ... Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stock market bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust? ... It is larger than the global stock market bubble in the late 1990s ... or America's stock market bubble in the late 1920s."

That bubble led to the 1929 crash, which triggered the greatest depression in U.S. history.

"The housing market has played such a big role in propping up America's economy that a sharp slowdown in house prices is likely to have severe consequences. Over the past four years, consumer spending and residential construction have together accounted for 90 percent of the total growth in GDP."

Interest rates for those years were the lowest in history and cheap money saturated the monetary system. "And over two-fifths of all private sector jobs created since 2001 have been in housing-related sectors...."

The U.S. $10 trillion housing bubble contains the potential for class struggle. There is brewing within it a clash of class interests. Within the housing industry is a multinational workforce in conflict with construction bosses and a myriad of related companies. At the first signs of a downturn in the industry, layoffs will spiral. Homeowners will struggle with banks and financial institutions, which will strip them of ownership as soon as they falter on mortgage loans. Their dreams of home ownership can turn into nightmares.

As the institutions of high finance face bankruptcy-victims of their own greed and hyper-speculation-the government will bail them out at the expense of the worker/taxpayers, leading to a conflict between the people and the government.

On the other hand, real estate institutions and investors like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-government-sponsored enterprises that package billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities-will have the backing of the government when they fail.

Ultimately, as recession and further social convulsions ignited by "preemptive" wars engulf the imperialist government, the predatory interests of the billionaire class will be pitted against the entire multinational working class. Organized and unorganized, immigrant and native, poor and middle class, they will be swept into the raging sea of class struggle, with great consequences for the whole world.



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Dow's rally may fade, earnings next

By Vivianne Rodrigues
Reuters
Sat Oct 7, 2006

NEW YORK - A rally in U.S. stocks that pushed the Dow industrials to a record may stall next week as signs of an economic slowdown curb the appetite for equities just as the third quarter's earnings season gets under way.
This week, the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average hit a record closing high and an all-time intraday high for three days in a row in a rally driven by a sharp drop in oil prices and expectations that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates in the near future.

The rally also propelled the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to fresh 5-1/2-year highs more than once.

But on Friday, weaker-than-expected September employment data, following a White House forecast for slower
GDP growth late on Thursday, brought the rally to a halt and may drag stocks lower in the week ahead, analysts said.

"We had a long run in equities and we're probably due for a sell no matter what the news is," said Elliot Spar, market strategist at Ryan Beck & Co., in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. "If the economy is going to go down, then you have to worry about earnings momentum."

Investors will scrutinize corporate profits next week, Spar said, as the earnings season heats up, with Alcoa Inc., Costco Wholesale Corp. PepsiCo Inc. and General Electric Co., slated to report.

Trading may be lighter than usual on Monday as the U.S. bond market will be closed in observance of the Columbus Day holiday. The U.S. stock market will remain open.

BEWARE OF THE JINX MONTH

For the week, stocks rose -- with the Dow up 1.5 percent, the S&P 500 up 1 percent and the Nasdaq up 1.8 percent.

The Dow average closed at record highs three times in the week, with an intraday high on Thursday at 11,870.06, its highest level since January 14, 2000. On Thursday, the S&P 500 closed at 1,353.22 and peaked intraday at 1,353.79 -- with those levels marking the highest since February 5, 2001.

For the year to date, the Dow is up 10.6 percent, the S&P 500 is up 8.1 percent and the Nasdaq is up 4.3 percent.

After stocks broke new ground last week, some investors may be more cautious during the rest of October, known as "the jinx month," according to the Stock Trader's Almanac, because of stock market crashes in 1929 and 1987.

Volatility may increase early this week, traders said, with the possibility of a nuclear weapon test by
North Korea over the weekend.

"If they do go ahead with the test, the stock market may get a bit more skittish," said Tim Smalls, head of U.S. stock trading at brokerage firm Execution LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut. "It's just one thing we don't need right now."

The White House said on Friday that it had no new information to disclose about whether a nuclear test was being planned, but said North Korea should not carry out the test.

On Friday, U.S. crude oil for November delivery settled at $59.76 per barrel -- down 5 percent for the week. NYMEX crude is down 24 percent from its record set in July.

EARNINGS ON FRONT BURNER

On Tuesday, the third-quarter earnings season kicks off for blue chips with Alcoa reporting results, followed by General Electric on Friday.

Other companies reporting results next week include PepsiCo, M&T Bank Corp., Yum! Brands Inc., Monsanto Co. and Safeway Inc.

"Earnings have been on the back burner, and they move to the front very soon," said Michael Panzner, vice president of sales trading at Collins Stewart in New York. "I have a funny feeling things haven't been particularly great."

S&P 500 companies are expected to achieve third-quarter earnings growth of 14.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Reuters Estimates. Meanwhile, pre-announcement activity for U.S. companies stayed negative for the week ended September 29.

FOMC MINUTES, RETAIL SALES AHEAD

Next week's economic data could help investors assess the likely magnitude of consumer spending before the start of the holiday season as well as the Fed's view of the economy.

On Tuesday, the government releases its report on wholesale inventories for August. Economists polled by Reuters expect inventories to rise 0.7 percent, down from a 0.8 percent gain in the previous month.

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's September 20 meeting will be released on Wednesday and the Fed's Beige Book -- a survey of economic conditions in the Fed's 12 districts -- will follow on Thursday.

The international trade deficit for August, also due on Thursday, is forecast at $66.70 billion, down from $68 billion in July, according to the Reuters poll.

A slew of data is due on Friday, including import prices, retail sales and the University of Michigan's reading on consumer confidence.

Import prices likely shrank 1.2 percent in September, after a 0.8 percent gain in the previous month, according to the estimates of economists surveyed by Reuters.

Retail sales for September are forecast to rise 0.2 percent, matching a 0.2 percent gain in August, according to economists polled by Reuters. Excluding auto sales, September's retail sales are seen unchanged, compared with a 0.2 percent gain the previous month.

The preliminary October reading of the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index probably will show a rise to 86.5 from 85.4 in September, according to the Reuters poll.



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Oil prices rise above $60 a barrel

AP
October 9, 2006

LONDON - Oil prices rose Monday in a market more concerned about possible OPEC production cuts than over North Korea's nuclear test.

The market was awaiting a possible formal decision by OPEC states about its output policy. Over the weekend, reports from services including Algerie Presse Service quoted OPEC officials as saying the 11-member cartel would reduce output by about 4 percent to stem a 24 percent decline in prices since mid-July.
Oil prices have been range-bound in the past week as traders weighed tough rhetoric from some OPEC members calling for output cuts against comments by Saudi Arabia denying there was a deal to reduce production.

Still, recent posturing "may be enough to discourage aggressive near-term selling," noted Mike Fitzpatrick at Fimat USA.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 56 cents to $60.32 a barrel in electronic trading by midafternoon in Europe.

Following a dip below $60 a barrel last week, prices rose as high as $60.50 Monday after North Korea said it had carried out its first-ever nuclear weapons test.

In London, November Brent gained 78 cents to trade at $60.61 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Heating oil futures gained 2.57 cents to $1.7197 a gallon while gasoline prices rose 0.95 cent to $1.5137 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 7.3 cents to $6.500 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Reports have said a majority of OPEC states back a voluntary reduction, and the deal could be ratified as early as mid-December at a meeting in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Some agencies reported the cartel would decide by Monday whether to cut production.

The reports came about a week after OPEC members Nigeria and Venezuela voluntarily began reducing their oil production by a combined 170,000 barrels per day. Official figures released in August put total OPEC production at just under 30 million barrels a day.

Analysts said the longer-term view is that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would likely act before the end of the year to trim its output as global inventories rise and economic growth slows.

Meanwhile, the current rise in oil prices was not only because of concern about a possible decline in supply amid robust demand, but also a reflection of a strong global economy, analysts said.

"The market's been toying for a while with whether OPEC will or will not cut production," said Joseph Capurso, an analyst with Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "But whether or not it happens, the world economy is strong, so that will put a floor under prices - there isn't a concern that U.S. oil consumption is going to fall into a hole."



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China's Emerging Labor Movement

Global Labor Strategies
October 04, 2006

Trade unionists in the US and elsewhere have long argued that there is no labor movement in China.  They rightly point out that Chinese workers lack even the most basic human rights protections, including the rights to strike and join an independent union.

But there's more to the story: Ten years ago, according to the China's Minister of Public Security, there were on average 10,000 large-scale collective protests each year.  By 2004, the government recorded 74,000 large-scale protests. Late last year, the Minister of Police announced protests had increased to 87,000 last year, involving well over four million workers.
Four million workers!   In the US we celebrated the birth of a new global social movement when 60,000 people showed up for the "Battle of Seattle" in 1999.  In China there is now more than enough evidence of continual worker self-organization outside of official trade union channels to put to rest notions that "there is no labor movement in China".

According to Robin Munro, research director of China Labour Bulletin,

"[W]hereas 10 years ago I think you could have said China did not have a labor movement, that is no longer really the case...there is no freedom of association for workers, but hitherto, people have tended to think that, therefore, there is no Chinese labor movement. I think the scale of worker unrest nowadays is so great, you can go to almost any city in the country now and there will be several major collective worker protests going on at the same time.

So China now has a labor movement. This is an important point to just put there on the table and recognize. It is not organized. It is spontaneous, it is relatively inchoate. But then so were labor movements in most Western countries before trade unions were permitted.  We have basically a pre-union phase of labor movement development in China today. It also has great potential, I think, for becoming a proper labor movement."

In the years before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act - known as the Wagner Act or "Labor's Magna Carta" - there was no legally enforced right to organize, bargain collectively, or strike in the United States.  But US workers who were denied these rights responded with their own "pre-union" phase of struggle. Thousands of workers were arrested or beaten and scores shot dead for trying to exercise these rights.  For example, in 1934 alone there were three general strikes and a huge national textile strike - all marked by substantial violence."

Largely in response to this upsurge, in 1935 the Federal government passed the Wagner Act hoping to legalize the labor movement and divert it into more moderate channels.  According to a recent study by labor law historian James Gray Pope, the massive sit-down strikes and factory occupations of the following year cajoled the Supreme Court into reversing its own precedents and accepting the Wagner Act as constitutional.

American workers did not get their rights by waiting for the government to provide them; rather, they began asserting rights they believe they were entitled to, and thereby forced the Congress and the courts to acquiesce. 

One innovative labor strategy that is being encouraged by CLB as a way to relate to the new emerging Chinese labor movement is the CC-2005 Campaign or Collective Contract 2005. (According to CLB staff, the Campaign's name is "a slightly cheeky designation, thinking in terms of SA-8000" and other Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards.)

Under existing Chinese labor law, where there is no union presence in a factory, workers are allowed to elect their own representatives to negotiate and sign a collective contract.  With the ACFTU holding only 30% representation outside the government sector, CLB is trying to take advantage of this legal "loop-hole" by urging multi-national corporations that operate in China "to pressure their supplier factories into allowing the workers to negotiate a proper collective contract in the workplace."  The innovation of this approach is the use of existing Corporate Codes of Conducts to negotiate binding collective agreements with enforceable rights.  CLB views the CC-2005 campaign an opportunity to create a basic organizing space that is legally protected in the private sector.

As Han Dongfang, Director of CLB, explains,

"What we want to do is get this collective contract regulation connected, with a code of conduct, a corporate social responsibility kind of thing, which they have been trying to work out for more than 10 years but have never worked out. Now we try to put it together as a new program. We make the corporate social responsibility, the Code of Conduct document, which has no teeth, and make them, together with Chinese law, have teeth, in particular with the workers' participation, workers' representation."

CC-2005 has three major strategic objectives:

• To mobilize workers to participate in collective bargaining, so that they can play an active role in protecting their own rights;



• To achieve real implementation of China's labor laws, trade union legislation and the relevant standards of the International Labour Organization;



• To provide a new and effective means by which multinational buyers can realize their commitment to the principle of social accountability.

The massive number of wildcat strikes occurring in China shows that Chinese workers are not waiting for official unions to reform themselves. Instead, they are fashioning new ways to improve their lot. So the challenge is for the US and the other labor movements to find ways to reach out and encourage new independent workers organizations in China. We might want to start by supporting CC-2005 campaign.



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The Foley Fandango

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FBI caught lying to reporters about Foley child sex predator scandal

America Blog
10/05/2006

FBI Lied to Reporters

Washington, DC - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General's (I.G.) office today to ask for an investigation into why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has fabricated and disseminated a cover-up story as to why it never investigated the Foley emails sent to it by CREW.

CBS News has reported that according to the FBI when CREW gave the Bureau the original set of emails from Rep. Mark Foley to a former House page, they were "heavily redacted." The FBI is also claiming that it came back to CREW and asked for more information so that it could follow up, but that CREW refused to provide anything further. Reporters from several other news organizations have repeated this allegation. The FBI is lying.

On Monday, October 2, CREW sent a letter to the DOJ I.G.'s office, attaching exact copies of the emails CREW had sent to the FBI on July 21, 2006. Both the former page's name and the person to whom the page forwarded Rep. Foley's emails were clearly visible. Moreover, after CREW sent the emails to the FBI, CREW's only subsequent contact with the Bureau was one telephone call from the special agent to whom CREW had sent the material confirming that the emails were from Rep. Foley. CREW had no further contact with the FBI.

In contrast with this new explanation for failing to investigate the Foley matter, The Washington Post has reported that an unnamed FBI official stated that the Bureau decided not to investigate after concluding that the emails "did not rise to the level of criminal activity."

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director said today, "the FBI cannot have it both ways; either it failed to investigate the Foley emails because they did not rise to a level of criminal activity or because it did not have adequate information to do so. Pick one.
"Attorney General Gonzales has told the public repeatedly that the investigation and prosecution of those who sexually exploit children is a top priority. We are outraged that the FBI failed to investigate Rep. Foley and is now blaming others for its inaction.

"It is time for all of those who had knowledge about Rep. Foley's conduct to step up and take responsibility for leaving a sexual predator on the loose."

CREW's letters and Rep. Foley's e-mails are available at www.citizensforethics.org.



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House's Foley investigation is wide open

07/10/2006
AP

WASHINGTON - The House's investigation of a page sex scandal has only one certainty: Former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) will escape punishment by his peers.

It is the Florida Republican's sexually explicit electronic messages to teenage former male pages that have ignited what has become a pre-election firestorm.

Congress only can punish current members, officers and employees. Foley resigned on Sept. 29, but is under investigation by federal and Florida authorities.

If the House ethics committee finds evidence of a Republican cover-up, many people could be in jeopardy, facing consequences that range from a mild rebuke in a committee report to a House vote of censure or expulsion.
Unlike the committee's usual practice of identifying the investigative target at the outset, this probe is wide open. Anyone who knew of Foley's salacious messages before the story broke at the end of September has reason for concern.

"At this point, what we're launching is an investigation into this whole affair, without a specific target," said California Rep. Howard Berman (news, bio, voting record), the senior Democrat on the 10-member committee divided evenly among Republicans and Democrats.

"But because Mark Foley has left the Congress, we don't have the authority to discipline him in any way. The reason what happened is relevant is because there are people now who have responsibilities, and we're gathering the facts which are related to his conduct to make judgments," Berman said.

A second committee member, Rep. Judy Biggert (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., said House Speaker
Dennis Hastert's prominence in questioning about who knew what and when about Foley's conduct toward pages and Hastert's closeness to her will not be problematic.

Hastert's leadership political committee gave Biggert $6,000 for her 2002 campaign and his re-election committee gave her $1,000. Her district also adjoins Hastert's.

"We're looking at a great number of people, not just one specific person," Biggert said. "The facts will lead to us to who, if there is someone, who perhaps did a cover-up."

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that monitors congressional ethics, wondered whether the committee can conduct an impartial investigation without an outside counsel. The committee rejected that idea, as it has done occasionally in other high-profile cases involving House leaders.

"Published reports have clearly indicated a number of House members were aware of the incident with the House page," Wertheimer said, referring to less suggestive e-mails Foley sent to a former page from Louisiana. "You would expect the committee to make clear they would be looking at those members. That doesn't mean they would reach any conclusion."

He noted the committee did not specify who it will interview. Hastert has said he was not aware of Foley's inappropriate conduct until the story broke publicly late last month.

"The House ethics committee process is a secret process so we don't know what's going to go on," Wertheimer said.

The committee was in turmoil from the start of the current Congress in January 2005 through last May, when it finally announced a number of investigations.

Bitter partisan arguments broke out in early 2005 when Hastert, at the request of former Majority Leader
Tom DeLay, replaced Republicans on the committee who had voted for reports critical of DeLay's conduct.

Then Hastert's hand-picked chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (news, bio, voting record), R-Wash., and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, argued to a stalemate over staff and rules for investigations.

It was only after Mollohan - under his own ethics cloud involving business deals - stepped down from the committee that the partisan squabbles ended. Berman took over as ranking Democrat and established a good working relationship with Hastings.

In a burst of activity last May, the two leaders announced a flurry of investigations - focusing on Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, with links to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and on the Democrat at the center of a separate bribery probe, Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) of Louisiana.

Ney agreed in September to plead guilty to two criminal charges in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Jefferson, also the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, has denied any wrongdoing.



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Bang, Bang! Kiss, Kiss! - Wargasms and Orgasms

Counterpunch
09/10/2006

Sex scandals, at least in societies dominated by guilt-sodden Protestants, fulfill the therapeutic function usually attributed to pleasant or exciting sex: exploration of intimate areas of political life, surfacing "issues" normally repressed. America can't talk about Iraq, where Americans boys are raping 14-year-old girls and shooting families at close range, can't talk about torture, so instead we focus on what former Republican Representative Mark Foley wrote to a page about boxer shorts and their contents. What's the other option? Pack a tube of sex lubricant, holster up, grab a box of ammo and head for the Amish schoolhouse.

Here's Foley (code-named Maf54)
in instant message mode in April, 2003:

Maf54: I miss you

Teen: ya me too

Maf54: we are still voting

Maf54: you miss me too.

The two of them then-so say
the transcribers at ABC News-"appear to describe having
sexual orgasms."

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did
you know you would have this effect on me

Teen: lol I guessed

Teen: ya go voteI don't want
to keep you from doing your job

Maf54: can I have a good kiss
goodnight ...

Teen: :-*

Teen: kiss

What was Foley off to vote
for? That evening the House voted on HR 1559, Emergency War Time
supplemental appropriations. Just another wargasm in the life
of Empire.

Did Foley actually lay his
filthy paws on gilded youth? There are gay guys who like to hang
around teens, not necessarily with an overpowering urge for immediate
sexual contact but more for the overall homoerotic buzz and the
hope that one day one of the lads might say, You're the one.
It's like the pilot in that great 1980 movie Airplane:

Captain Oveur: You ever been
in a cockpit before?

Joey: No sir, I've never been
up in a plane before.

Captain Oveur: You ever seen
a grown man naked?

Captain Oveur: Joey, have you
ever been in a-a Turkish prison?

Captain Oveur: Joey, do you
like movies about gladiators?

This sounds like Foley to me.
When in doubt, head for the Betty Ford Center. Although no one
seems to be buying it, Foley is trying to bring booze into disrepute,
saying that he was drunk all those times he whacked out the instant
messages on his laptop or Blackberry. He also says he was abused
by a priest as a lad and now suffers from mental illness. A trifecta!
Foley probably spent a lot of time studying the human pyramid
and dog photos from Abu Ghraib before rushing off to draft the
strong language he inserted into the Child Protection and Safety
Act earlier this year. People cry angrily that this is hypocrisy.
I'm not sure why. If you, as a human, know what you are capable
of, surely it's sound moral conduct for you, as a legislator,
to try to guard society from the Beast Within.

What gives a scandal legs is
always the cover-up, or the appearance of a cover-up. Republicans
in tight races are panicking because Hastert and other senior
Republicans sat on the scandal. "I don't think it would
pass the sniff test," says West Virginia Representative
Shelley Moore Capito, referring to claims that the first set
of e-mails between Foley and the pages on the topic of boxer
shorts did not seem to be conclusive evidence of anything really
bad. Sniff test? What can Shelley have been thinking of?

Beyond their inherently uplifting
aspect-bringing powerful people into ridicule and disrepute-political
sex scandals can be very educational about sex and political
economy. (This one has already dealt a few knocks to the myth
of teen innocence, beloved by prosecutors.) Who does not recall
that tryst in the White House-unearthed by special prosecutor
Ken Starr-between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in 1996, when
Bill, receiving satisfaction from Monica in his nether regions,
gave satisfaction over the phone to Alfonso Fanjul, the Florida
sugar baron who was complaining that Al Gore had just proposed
a sugar tax and had vowed to clean up the Everglades.

The bluenoses try to ban sex
ed and then provoke scandal which duly engenders sex ed in glorious
Technicolor. Bill Clinton fired his first Surgeon General, Joycelyn
Elders, asked at a 1994 conference at the United Nations whether
adults should promote masturbation among youth as a way to discourage
dangerous sexual behavior. "I think that is part of human
sexuality," she answered, "and perhaps it should be
taught." Maybe Foley should volunteer to be a teacher, as
part of a plea bargain.

I often tell people they shouldn't
worry too much about the evangelical Christians. People who spend
so much time lecturing others about sin are likely to go sinning
themselves, and in the end, like Jimmy Swaggart, they get caught
heading into the whorehouse. Republicans are a repressed lot,
unless they become libertarians like Justin Raimondo. He can
flaunt his own trifecta: gay, antiwar and pro-capitalism. Back
in Reagan time, when I was on the campaign trail, the motels
were always filled with Republicans stitched into their squeaky-clean
suits who were obvious closet cases.

Most certainly the country
has been ripe for a political sex scandal. Given the paralysis
at the straightforward political level, it's pretty much the
only safety valve we've got. Let's hope the Foley scandal will
give us at least a hundredth as much educational uplift and fun
as did the great Lewinsky scandal of immortal memory. This doesn't
mean Bush won't bomb Iran. He might do it to change the subject,
and all those Republicans will interrupt their instant messaging
to the page boys to go vote the President all appropriate powers.

Here's Foley (code-named Maf54) in instant message mode in April, 2003:

Maf54: I miss you

Teen: ya me too

Maf54: we are still voting

Maf54: you miss me too.

The two of them then-so say the transcribers at ABC News-"appear to describe having sexual orgasms."

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me

Teen: lol I guessed

Teen: ya go voteI don't want to keep you from doing your job

Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight ...

Teen: :-*

Teen: kiss

What was Foley off to vote for? That evening the House voted on HR 1559, Emergency War Time supplemental appropriations. Just another wargasm in the life of Empire.

Did Foley actually lay his filthy paws on gilded youth? There are gay guys who like to hang around teens, not necessarily with an overpowering urge for immediate sexual contact but more for the overall homoerotic buzz and the hope that one day one of the lads might say, You're the one. It's like the pilot in that great 1980 movie Airplane:

Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?

Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.

Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

Captain Oveur: Joey, have you ever been in a-a Turkish prison?

Captain Oveur: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

This sounds like Foley to me. When in doubt, head for the Betty Ford Center. Although no one seems to be buying it, Foley is trying to bring booze into disrepute, saying that he was drunk all those times he whacked out the instant messages on his laptop or Blackberry. He also says he was abused by a priest as a lad and now suffers from mental illness. A trifecta! Foley probably spent a lot of time studying the human pyramid and dog photos from Abu Ghraib before rushing off to draft the strong language he inserted into the Child Protection and Safety Act earlier this year. People cry angrily that this is hypocrisy. I'm not sure why. If you, as a human, know what you are capable of, surely it's sound moral conduct for you, as a legislator, to try to guard society from the Beast Within.

What gives a scandal legs is always the cover-up, or the appearance of a cover-up. Republicans in tight races are panicking because Hastert and other senior Republicans sat on the scandal. "I don't think it would pass the sniff test," says West Virginia Representative Shelley Moore Capito, referring to claims that the first set of e-mails between Foley and the pages on the topic of boxer shorts did not seem to be conclusive evidence of anything really bad. Sniff test? What can Shelley have been thinking of?

Beyond their inherently uplifting aspect-bringing powerful people into ridicule and disrepute-political sex scandals can be very educational about sex and political economy. (This one has already dealt a few knocks to the myth of teen innocence, beloved by prosecutors.) Who does not recall that tryst in the White House-unearthed by special prosecutor Ken Starr-between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in 1996, when Bill, receiving satisfaction from Monica in his nether regions, gave satisfaction over the phone to Alfonso Fanjul, the Florida sugar baron who was complaining that Al Gore had just proposed a sugar tax and had vowed to clean up the Everglades.

The bluenoses try to ban sex ed and then provoke scandal which duly engenders sex ed in glorious Technicolor. Bill Clinton fired his first Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, asked at a 1994 conference at the United Nations whether adults should promote masturbation among youth as a way to discourage dangerous sexual behavior. "I think that is part of human sexuality," she answered, "and perhaps it should be taught." Maybe Foley should volunteer to be a teacher, as part of a plea bargain.

I often tell people they shouldn't worry too much about the evangelical Christians. People who spend so much time lecturing others about sin are likely to go sinning themselves, and in the end, like Jimmy Swaggart, they get caught heading into the whorehouse. Republicans are a repressed lot, unless they become libertarians like Justin Raimondo. He can flaunt his own trifecta: gay, antiwar and pro-capitalism. Back in Reagan time, when I was on the campaign trail, the motels were always filled with Republicans stitched into their squeaky-clean suits who were obvious closet cases.

Most certainly the country has been ripe for a political sex scandal. Given the paralysis at the straightforward political level, it's pretty much the only safety valve we've got. Let's hope the Foley scandal will give us at least a hundredth as much educational uplift and fun as did the great Lewinsky scandal of immortal memory. This doesn't mean Bush won't bomb Iran. He might do it to change the subject, and all those Republicans will interrupt their instant messaging to the page boys to go vote the President all appropriate powers.

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Around The World

---

Prominent Russian reporter shot to death

By MARIA DANILOVA
Associated Press
October 7, 2006

MOSCOW - A journalist who chronicled Russian military abuses against civilians in Chechnya, garnering awards and accolades from around the world, was found shot to death Saturday in her apartment building. Prosecutors suspect her killing could be connected to her investigative reporting.

Anna Politkovskaya, 48, was found dead in an elevator in the building in central Moscow, police, prosecutors and a colleague said.
Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Moscow prosecutor's office. Investigators suspect the killing could be linked to her work, Vyacheslav Rosinsky, Moscow's first deputy prosecutor, said on state-run Rossiya television.

Rosinsky said a pistol and bullets were found at the site of the crime. The RIA-Novosti news agency, citing police officials, reported that Politkovskaya was shot twice, the second time in the head.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that work was under way on a composite sketch of the attacker based on footage recorded by a security camera at the building. The assailant, believed to have acted alone, wore black.

Politkovskaya, who wrote for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, chronicled the killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen in Chechnya in reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities but won her numerous international awards.

"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think. People can even get killed just for giving me information," Reporters Without Borders quoted her as saying at a press freedom conference in Vienna in December.

She also wrote a book critical of Russian President
Vladimir Putin and his military campaign in Chechnya, documenting widespread abuse of civilians by government troops. And she was a persistent critic of Chechnya's Moscow-backed Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, accusing his security forces of kidnapping and torturing civilians.

In "Putin's Russia," Politkovskaya wrote of more than a million soldiers and officers who have passed through the Chechnya experience.

"Poisoned by a war on their own territory, they have become a serious factor affecting civilian life. They can no longer simply be left out of the social equation," she wrote.

Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia's second military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the human side of the war. She wrote about the Chechen inhabitants of refugee camps and wounded Russian soldiers - until she was banned from visiting the hospitals, said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

"Whenever the question arose whether there is honest journalism in Russia, almost every time the first name that came to mind was Politkovskaya," he said.

Politkovskaya had frequently received threats, Panfilov said. A few months ago, unknown assailants had tried unsuccessfully to break into a car her daughter, Vera, was driving, he said.

In 2001, she fled to Vienna, Austria, for several months after receiving e-mail threats alleging that a Russian police officer she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was intent on revenge. The officer, Sergei Lapin, was detained in 2002 but the case against him was closed the following year.

"There are journalists who have this fate hanging over them. I always thought something would happen to Anya, first of all because of Chechnya," Panfilov said, referring to Politkovskaya by her nickname.

In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.

She was one of the few people to enter the Moscow theater where Chechen militants seized hundreds of hostages in October 2002 to try negotiating with the rebels. She later devoted much of her investigative reporting to that crisis, in which 129 victims died, the overwhelming majority succumbing to the gas used by special forces to knock out the hostage-takers.

"Anna was a hero to so many of us, and we'll miss her personally, but we'll also miss the information that she and only she was brave enough and dedicated enough to dig out and make public," said Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 46-nation Council of Europe, a leading human rights watchdog whose executive body is currently led by Russia, called for her death to be investigated quickly and convincingly.

"We have all lost a strong voice of the kind which is indispensable in any genuine democracy," said the council's secretary general, Terry Davis.

Politkovskaya's murder is the highest-profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Twenty-three journalists were killed in Russia between 1996 and 2005, many in Chechnya, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 12 have been murdered in contract-style killings since Putin came to power, Simon said.

"None of those have been adequately investigated," he said. "We do know that record creates an environment where those who might seek to carry out this murder would feel that there would be few likely consequences."

In addition to her daughter, Politkovskaya is survived by a son, Ilya, Panfilov said.

During her career, Politkovskaya received more than 10 awards and prizes, including an award for human rights reporting from the London-based Amnesty International; a freedom of speech award from the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders; and a journalism and democracy award from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.



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Is this the killer of Russian journalist?

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
The Telegraph
09/10/2006

Russia's best known investigative journalist was murdered two days before she was due to publish a scathing report on torture by Russian agents in Chechnya, it emerged yesterday, as outrage spread around the world.

As messages poured in for Anna Politkovskaya, who became famous for her withering criticism of President Vladimir Putin's war in Chechnya, Russian activists struggled to assess the disturbing implications of her killing for the future of their country.
The US State Department said it was "shocked and profoundly saddened" by what appeared to be at least the 13th contract killing of a journalist since Mr Putin took power in 2000. European governments expressed similar sentiments.

But from the Kremlin there was silence. Not even speculation on websites that Politkovskaya's death was a birthday present for Mr Putin, who was 54 on Saturday, the day she was killed, could provoke a government reaction.

Among the thousand or so protesters at vigils in Moscow and St Petersburg, there was no doubt that someone in the Kremlin knew something about the reporter's death.

The words scrawled across the giant photograph of Politkovskaya in Pushkin Square, Moscow, said it all: "The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech."

A portrait of Mr Putin bore the words: "You are responsible for everything."

Politkovskaya's newspaper, the bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta, which is partly owned by the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, was due to run her latest Chechnyan expose.

Although she had not filed her article, the deputy chief editor, Vitaly Yaroshevsky, said it lifted the lid on torture and kidnapping of civilians by officers loyal to Chechnya's Moscow-backed prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov.

Mr Kadyrov, 30, a protégé of Mr Putin, was one of Politkovskaya's foremost enemies. She was to testify against him in a case over the kidnapping and killing of two civilians. Politkovskaya, 48, was shot twice at close range as she returned to her flat from shopping. The mother of two was found in the lift, with a 9mm Makarov pistol by her side.

CCTV showed a man, in black and with a baseball cap, hurrying from the building.

Politkovskaya made many powerful enemies in the FSB, the spy agency that succeeded the KGB, over scores of trips to Chechnya that exposed Russian brutality in the province and detailed the horrific conditions of ordinary Russian soldiers there.

She received many threats and survived an alleged attempt to poison her tea on a flight in 2004.

Her son regularly checked her car for bombs and she knew death was a possibility. "If it happens, it happens," she told The Daily Telegraph this summer. Last December, she told a conference on press freedom: "People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think."

Few are confident a police investigation will uncover the truth. No other journalist's murder in the past six years has been solved.

But the killing of so famous a figure, two weeks after the murder of the reforming deputy head of the central bank, Andrei Kozlov, has convinced some that hard-liners in the Kremlin have begun to act with impunity as 2008 presidential elections draw closer.

"Those who killed her were absolutely convinced that it is now possible in Russia to do such things openly, without even bothering to camouflage it as an accident," said a former dissident, Sergey Grigoryants.



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Mass Venezuela opposition rally

By Greg Morsbach
BBC News, Caracas
October 8, 2006

Tens of thousands of people have marched through the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in support of the main opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales.

Mr Rosales will face President Hugo Chavez in December's presidential poll.

The march, which filled the main avenues of the city centre, was the biggest opposition rally Venezuela has seen since early 2004.

Then, protesters made an unsuccessful bid to oust Mr Chavez from power in a recall referendum.
Chance to unite

Young and old took to the streets to throw their weight behind the campaign of Mr Rosales, a middle-class Social Democrat who governs the state of Zulia, on the Colombian border.

Many claimed that they were seeking liberty and democracy and that made Mr Rosales their only option:

"The problem of the opposition is that before we had a lot of candidates and people couldn't make up their minds whom to support," one woman said.

"Right now we have just one candidate and I believe that we have a better shot if we have just one candidate against Chavez."

For some it was simply a day out to enjoy the sunshine, but for most it was a chance to listen to a speech by Mr Rosales, who declared that Venezuela was "at a crossroads".

Mr Rosales condemned what he called the cheque book diplomacy of Mr Chavez, accusing him of giving away Venezuela's oil wealth to foreign powers.

If Mr Rosales can keep up this kind of pressure against his rival, the election results may not necessarily be a foregone conclusion.

But for now, Mr Chavez still enjoys a clear lead in opinion polls because of a sense of loyalty that poor and working-class voters feel towards him.

Comment:

"Mr Rosales condemned what he called the cheque book diplomacy of Mr Chavez, accusing him of giving away Venezuela's oil wealth to foreign powers."

Oh no! Chavez is helping people! We can't have that, now can we??

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Nepal Political Leaders Hopeful of Success of Govt-Maoist Summit Talks

nepalhumanrightsnews.com

Kathmandu, October 8: Top notch leaders of the seven-party ruling alliance and the rebel force CPN (Maoist) are having summit-level talks since this morning in an attempt to reach consensus on resolving the decade-long armed conflict and restore peace in the country.
A large number of people, including political party activists, professionals and civic society representatives, have gathered around the official residence of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala in Baluwatar--the venue of the talks--exerting pressure for reaching tangible decisions to end the political conflict for good. State-run Nepal Television said 32 leaders, four each from the seven Alliance parties and the Maoists are taking part in the parley and the venue is entirely closed for others except a few civic society representatives and talks facilitators.

Leaders coming out of the summit venue during lunch break expressed optimism about the possibility of some breakthrough in the ongoing talks but none has yet disclosed the exact content of the talks.

UML general secretary Madhav Nepal has claimed that Sunday's summit talks would come to a concrete conclusion. "Our party has been actively working on how the summit talks can be made a success," he said during a tea reception hosted by Nepali Congress on Saturday.

Finance minister and Nepali Congress leader Dr Ram Saran Mahat also said, "Sunday's summit talks will contribute to achieving sustainable democracy and permanent peace in the country." United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Kul Chandra Gautam, who also joined the NC's tea reception pn Saturday, said that the Nepalese were able to take decisions on major issues and that the UN would extend all possible help in the peace process here.

He described the latest political developments in Nepal as "very positive" and expressed the hope that the political leaders, who have been working hard for the success of the summit talks, would be able to find a solution to the problems facing the country.

It is likely that the summit meeting would prolong for few days.



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New Dinosaur Bird Found Not Smoking In The Irish Sea

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T Rex was born in the Irish Sea, say scientists

The Sunday Times
October 08, 2006
Roger Dobson

A HUGE meteorite that hit the Irish Sea and left a crater the size of Surrey may have helped giant dinosaurs come to dominate the planet, scientists have claimed.

The researchers, who have analysed rock formations in the British Isles and France, believe the impact caused a tsunami that swamped large parts of Europe.

They argue the meteor strike 200m years ago and others like it may have led to changes in the Earth's climate that caused some species to die out and others to dominate.
It has long been argued that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago was caused by a massive asteroid strike.

But scientists have wondered why dinosaurs, which had previously been relatively puny, began to develop into giants such as Tyrannosaurus rex about 200m years ago.

One theory is that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to bigger plants, which encouraged the development of bigger herbivores and then a growth in the size of predators.

Other scientists claim an impact by a meteor may account for the relative suddenness of the change.

"There was a relatively sudden increase in the size of dinosaurs around the time we have dated this impact," said Michael Simms, curator of paleontology at the Ulster Museum in Belfast who led the research. "This impact may well have been a factor in the changes that were going on."

Simms's team found evidence of the shock probably caused by a meteorite, which may have been up to two miles wide and hit at 18,000mph, in data from boreholes and rock formations covering 100,000 square miles.

They have not found the crater itself, but they believe the meteor may have hit what is now St George's Channel, between Pembrokeshire and the Irish coast. Much of western Britain and Ireland was under water at the time.

The crater may have been more than 30 miles wide but would now be deeply buried beneath the sea floor.

In the research, published in an academic journal, Simms looked for signs of impact rippling out from the crater in sediment that would have been affected by the shockwave. He analysed rock and borehole data and found the same unique pattern at every site he looked at, from Northern Ireland to Yorkshire and Dorset.

Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said Simms's theory was "an interesting idea".

"This is the first geological suggestion that there was an impact at this time. What we really want to back this up is a crater of the right age."



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Striking new bird discovered in South America

The Daily Mail
8th October 2006

A brightly coloured bird has been discovered on a remote mountain range in South America. The previously unknown species, the Yariguies Brush Finch, has striking black, yellow and red plumage.

A British expert co-led the team which made the find during the first biological expedition to the Yariguies mountains in northern Colombia.
Ms Blanca Huertas, a curator at the Natural History Museum in London, said: "The description of a new bird is a rare event in modern times."

The bird, which has the Latin name Atlapetes latinuchus yariguierum, differs from its closest relatives by having a black back and no white markings on its wings.

Thomas Donegan, from the Colombian bird conservation organisation Fundacion ProAves, said: "Before we began this study, no-one knew what species lived in the Yariguies mountains and whether they needed protecting.

"Now, we are beginning to describe new taxa (types) and a national park was established in the region. It is surprising that this new brush finch and the forests of the Yariguies mountains could remain unstudied, undescribed and unprotected for so long."

Two birds were caught by the team, one of which was used to provide a DNA sample and photographs before being released unharmed. This is the first time a live specimen has been used for a description of a new bird species.

Ms Huertas said more discoveries would be made public later. "This is just the first of several new species that we will be describing from the Yariguies mountains," she said.

"In my own specialist group, butterflies, we have found several new taxa that will be described soon."

The find was announced by Conservation International which helped to fund the expedition.



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France to impose smoking ban from 2007

Reuters
Sun Oct 8, 2006

PARIS - France will ban smoking in most public places from February 1, 2007 and in bars, restaurants, hotels and discotheques less than a year later, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Sunday.

"We have decided to ban smoking in public places from February 1, 2007," he told RTL radio and LCI television.

He added that bar-tabacs, discos and other such places would have until January 1, 2008 at the latest to comply with the rules.
Public places include stations, museums, government offices and shops but not in the streets or private places such as houses or hotel rooms.

Villepin added the state would take charge of one-third of the costs of anti-smoking treatments, such as a patch.

"That would represent the first month of treatment," he said.

In a report presented on Wednesday, several parliamentarians called for a total ban from September 1, 2007 at the latest, without exception. But a smoking ban will cause problems for the many tobacco shops in France.

Villepin declined to comment on the impact it would have on government tax revenues, saying that public health considerations outweighed any such fiscal impact.

In the report, the parliamentarians said that each year between 2,500 and 5,800 people died of the consequences of passive smoking -- inhaling the smoke of smokers. Some 66,000 smokers die each year.

Polls regularly show that a majority of French people support a ban on smoking in public places.

Weakened by a battle with trade unions and students over a controversial youth jobs contract, the government backed away in April from a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants to avoid a clash with France's many smokers and tobacconists.

Ireland imposed the world's first nationwide public smoking ban in 2004. Italy, Sweden, Scotland, Norway and Spain have followed suit to varying degrees.

Belgium, Britain, Northern Ireland and Portugal are expected to put new tighter rules in place next year.



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