- Signs of the Times Archive for Fri, 28 Sep 2007 -



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Remembering Sabra & Shatila

Robert Fisk
The Guardian
2007-09-26 22:36:00



Robert Fisk was one of the first journalists to be present at the scene of the horrific murders in Lebanon, September 17th, 1982. He has published a number of books and currently writes a column for The Independent newspaper. The following is extracted from his book, Pity the Nation.


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U.S. News
Shocking! Strip searching 13 year-old girl in school fine with court

Diane Saunders
Eastern Arizona Courier
2007-09-27 17:32:00

Safford Middle School officials did not violate the civil rights of a 13-year-old Safford girl when they forced her to disrobe and expose her breasts and pubic area four years ago while looking for a drug, according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

The justices voted 2-1 in favor of the Safford School District on Sept. 21. The decision upheld a federal district court's summary judgement that Safford Middle School Vice Principal Kerry Wilson, school nurse Peggy Schwallier and administrative assistant Helen Romero did not violate the girl's Fourth Amendment rights on Oct. 8, 2003, when they subjected her to a strip search in an effort to find Ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory drug sold over the counter and in prescription strengths.

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High school security guards in California use excessive force


KABC-TV
2007-09-27 17:23:00

Three teens and a mother are arrested after a scuffle with security guards at Knight High School in Palmdale. An investigation is underway as to whether excessive force was used by the guards.

©Fox11 News


One of the students arrested caught the whole thing on video. The incident was instigated over cake.

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Mel Gibson to move family of Costa Rica, ignores Government warnings of kidnapping


TransWorldNews
2007-09-25 16:17:00

The United State government has warned Mel Gibson of possible kidnapping if he moves to an isolated area of Costa Rica, but the actor is ignoring the safety warnings and plans to move his wife and seven kids to an estate in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica.

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Pentagon, Homeland Dept. flunk audit check


AP
2007-09-15 15:51:00

Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse.

An Associated Press review shows that the two departments' financial records are so disorganized and inconsistent that they have repeatedly earned "disclaimer" opinions, meaning that they simply cannot be fully audited.



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Flashback: Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds - $2.3 Trillion


CBS
2002-01-29 16:09:00

On Sept. 10, [2001] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.

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Judas Goat Obama Hopes the Kids Are All Right

Cora Currier
The Nation
2007-09-27 16:08:00

Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe released a memo this weekend making the case that Obama's lag in national polls is due to the exclusion of a "hidden vote"--namely, the ever-elusive youth vote. In the memo, Plouffe claims that traditional telephone polls miss young voters, because many of them don't have land-lines, only cell phones, and because they will be first-time primary voters.

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UK & Euro-Asian News
NeoSoviet: Kremlin turns new "Law Against Extremism" against its own political rivals

Peter Finn
Washington Post
2007-09-26 17:15:00

Prominent Political Commentator in Jeopardy Over Alleged 'Extremism' in His Books

Andrei Piontkovsky, one of Russia's most pungent political commentators and a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington, was accused in court Tuesday of inciting violence against Russians, Jews and Americans as well as insulting and stirring feelings of inferiority in all three groups.


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Russian newspaper threatened with closure over cartoon of Putin as Soviet spy in Nazi uniform


Reporters Without Borders
2007-09-28 17:03:00

Reporters Without Borders today called on the regional court of the southern city of Saratov to act judiciously and avoid being manipulated when it rules on 2 October on a bid by the pro-Putin United Russia party to get the Saratovsky Reporter newspaper closed for "insulting" President Putin in a cartoon on its front page.

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Notorious Golden Triangle loses sway in the opium trade

Thomas Fuller
International Herald Tribune
2007-09-28 17:35:00

BANNA SALA, Laos: Fields of brightly colored opium poppies, Corsican gangsters and the CIA's secret war: The mystique of the Golden Triangle clings to the jungle-covered mountains here like the morning mist.

But the prosaic reality is that after years of producing the lion's share of the world's opium, the Golden Triangle is now only a bit player in the business. Three decades ago, the northernmost reaches of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar produced more than 70 percent of all opium sold worldwide, most of it refined into heroin. Today the area averages about 5 percent of the world total, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

©Thomas Fuller/International Herald Tribune
Tongpoh Singya, 80, a farmer in Laos, now grows rice, sunflowers, pumpkins and other crops. But four years ago, before the authorities destroyed them, his land was full of poppy fields.





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Lies Exposed: Physicists challenge US missile claims

Desmond Butler
Associated Press
2007-09-28 15:39:00

A number of top U.S-based physicists have concluded that the Bush administration used inaccurate claims to reassure NATO allies about U.S. missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

They say the planned Polish-based interceptors and a radar system in the Czech Republic could target and catch Russian missiles, thus threatening Russia's nuclear deterrent.

That view supports Russia's criticism of the system. Russia adamantly opposes the plan, and the dispute has helped escalate U.S.-Russian tensions to the highest point since the Cold War.

The Pentagon agency overseeing the missile program, the Missile Defense Agency, rejects the scientists' claims, saying their analyses are flawed. The United States says the missile system is intended to counter a threat from Iran and could not take out Russian missiles. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed Russia's concerns as "ludicrous."

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Nine die as China house collapses in cyanide


Reuters
2007-09-28 15:36:00

A house built on top of an abandoned pool of cyanide collapsed in a gold-mining area of central China, killing nine people, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

Villagers from Yangping in the city of Lingbao, Henan province, had gathered in the house on Thursday to discuss funeral arrangements for a young man who was found dead there at daybreak, a spokesman with the Lingbao city government told Xinhua.

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Saturday school in France to be scrapped


The Age
2007-09-28 15:33:00

Saturday morning classes at French infant and primary schools will be scrapped from the start of the 2008 school year, French Education Minister Xavier Darcos announced on Thursday.

Darcos told TF1 television he hoped to broaden the reform quickly to include the country's colleges - high schools that teach 11-15 year-olds.

The three hours freed up by removing Saturday classes would be used to give extra tuition during the school week to the 15 per cent of school pupils who experienced great difficulty learning, he said.

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Around the World
Mexico: American business jet crashes with 4 tons of cocaine

Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
2007-09-28 10:24:00

MEXICO CITY - U.S. authorities are assisting the Mexican government in the investigation of an American business jet that crashed in Cancun this week with four tons of cocaine on board, officials said Thursday.

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Ridiculous Propaganda effort! Cuba detains at least 21 dissidents: activists


AFP
2007-09-28 02:46:00

HAVANA - At least 21 Cuban dissidents were detained and prevented from joining a protest at the Justice Ministry Thursday led by prominent activist Martha Beatriz Roque, who police took home by force, Roque told AFP.

Roque and a five other protesters went to the ministry to deliver a letter to Justice Minister Maria Esther Reus demanding better treatment for political prisoners.

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Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia to boost LatAm-Iran ties


AFP
2007-09-28 02:16:00

LA PAZ - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Thursday for an official visit to Bolivia and a planned stop in Venezuela, shoring up his support in the backyard of his bitter rival the United States.

The Iranian leader arrived just two days after he insisted on his country's right to develop nuclear energy -- a position staunchly opposed by Washington and much of the West -- during a speech at the United Nations.

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New Japan PM Fukuda apologizes over fund reports


Reuters
2007-09-28 01:31:00

Japan's new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, apologized on Friday but denied wrongdoing after a newspaper reported that his office had altered the names of political support groups on receipts for donations, Kyodo news agency said.

Fukuda, 71, was chosen prime minister this week to succeed Shinzo Abe, who quit suddenly after a year in office marred by scandals over political funds and gaffes among his ministers that contributed to a July election rout.

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Nine die in Myanmar crackdown draws outrage

Aung Hla Tun
Reuters
2007-09-28 00:01:00

©REUTERS/Stringer
Military Officials release smoke canisters after firing upon a crowd of thousands, which took to the streets of Yangon's city centre to protest, September 27, 2007.


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Big Brother
Chicago Video Surveillance Gets Smarter, IBM joins Police State build-up

Don Babwin
AP
2007-09-27 10:43:00

A car circles a high-rise three times. Someone leaves a backpack in a park. Such things go unnoticed in big cities every day. But that could change in Chicago with a new video surveillance system that would recognize such anomalies and alert authorities to take a closer look.

On Thursday, the city and IBM Corp. are announcing the initial phase of what officials say could be the most advanced video security network in any U.S. city. The City of Broad Shoulders is getting eyes in the back of its head.

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US Video Shows Simulated Hacker Attack

Ted Bridis and Eileen Sullivan
AP
2007-09-27 08:47:00

©AP Photo/Dept. of Homeland Security
In this image from video released by the Department of Homeland Security, smoke pours from an expensive electrical turbine during a March 4, 2007, demonstration by the Idaho National Laboratory, which was simulating a hacker attack against the U.S. electrical grid.


A government video shows the potential destruction caused by hackers seizing control of a crucial part of the U.S. electrical grid: an industrial turbine spinning wildly out of control until it becomes a smoking hulk and power shuts down.

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Axis of Evil
International narcotics agenda behind Myanmar instability

Larry Chin
Global Research
2007-09-28 17:28:00

For the past month, the military government of Myanmar has been the focus of increasingly strident demonstrations, resulting in violent military crackdowns in recent days.

What must be noted is the Bush administration's open support for the dissidents, in conjunction with growing international (Western) support behind a coup attempt, and the likely parapolitical goals behind this agenda.

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Lost In Translation: Ahmadinejad And The Media

Ali Quli Qarai
Information Clearing House
2007-09-28 00:00:00

First I want to make some remarks about that now world-famous statement of President Ahmadinejad at Columbia: "We do not have homosexuals in Iran of the kind you have in your country." The American media conveniently ignored the second, and crucial, part of his sentence as something redundant.

Obviously he was not saying, We don't have any homosexuals whatsoever in Iran - something nobody in the world would believe, not even in Iran. And by implication, he was not telling his audience, I am a plain liar! - something which his audience at Columbia and the American media construed him to be saying.

What he was saying is that homosexuality in the US and homosexuality in Iran are issues which are as far apart from one another as two cultural universes possibly can be. They are so dissimilar that any attempt to relate them and bring them under a common caption would be misleading. "Homosexuality is not an issue in Iran as it is in present-day American society." This was, apparently what was saying in polite terms.

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Kucinich 'seriously thinking' about forcing vote on Cheney impeachment

Nick Juliano
Raw Story
2007-09-28 17:07:00

Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he is so concerned about what he sees as the Bush administration's push for a war with Iran that he is considering using a parliamentary measure to force the House of Representatives to vote on impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney.

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Protecting the Wiretappers: Bush Reich covering its tracks

Aziz Huq
The Nation
2007-09-27 15:27:00

Bowing to White House pressure, Congress passed the 2007 Protect America Act in August, eviscerating any meaningful checks and balances on a sweeping range of governmental surveillance. Now that it has protected telecommunications giants from all future liabilities, the Administration is demanding they be granted amnesty from legal liability for past complicity in spying on ordinary Americans.

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Cheney to address Left Behind crowd

Jason Rhyne
Raw Story
2007-09-28 13:57:00

An ultra-secret conservative group -- so secret that members don't even use the group's name in communications -- will feature Vice President Dick Cheney as a speaker at a meeting in Utah today.

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The Mega-Lie Called the "War on Terror": A Masterpiece of Propaganda

Richard W. Behan
Alternet
2007-09-28 12:54:00

The fraudulence of the "War on Terror" is clearly revealed by looking at the pattern of actions that preceded and followed its launch.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie ... The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state." --Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945


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Middle East Madness
Ahmadinejad: Bush can speak at a university if he should ever travel to Iran


AP
2007-09-28 14:51:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has extended an invitation to U.S. President George W. Bush to speak at an Iranian university if the American leader ever traveled to the Islamic Republic, state-run television reported Friday.

As part of his controversial trip to New York, the hardline Iranian leader spoke Monday at Columbia University, where he faced hostile questioning and a combative introduction by the university's president, who said Ahmadinejad exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

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Hamas says 50,000 gunmen ready to defend Gaza

Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters
2007-09-28 13:53:00

Fifty thousand Palestinian gunmen and hundreds of suicide bombers are ready to repel or at least impede any large-scale Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, an official from the ruling Hamas said on Friday.

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Israel will attack Syria soon Warns PFLP Leader


Jersualem Post
2007-09-28 13:39:00

Israel has already made a decision to attack Syria and was just mulling over where to land its first strike, Ahmad Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed in an interview published Friday by Arabic newspaper Al Hadat.

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Iran shelling targets deeper inside northern Iraq: mayor


AFP
2007-09-28 02:50:00

Iranian forces have shelled deeper into northern Iraq than previously, hitting targets in an area northeast of the city of Arbil, a local official said Thursday.

"The Iranian forces began their bombardments again on Wednesday evening targeting far away from the border," said Abdul Wahid Koani, mayor of the Kurdish Iraqi border town of Joman.


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Report faults Blackwater over notorious Fallujah deaths


AFP
2007-09-28 02:46:00

US security contractor Blackwater sent personnel to Fallujah in 2004 without proper support on a mission that ended with their deaths and sparked a US military assault on the Iraqi city, a Congress panel said Thursday.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released its report as the embattled firm is under investigation into the September 16 killing of 10 Iraqis in Baghdad.

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Palestinian genocide continues!Israel kills 12 Palestinians in Gaza in 24 hours


AFP
2007-09-28 02:16:00

The Israeli military killed three Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, bringing to 12 the death toll in one of the bloodiest 24 hours in the Hamas-run territory in recent months.

The escalation, in which another 21 people were wounded, followed a warning by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak that the clock was ticking down to a widescale military operation in Gaza aimed at curbing near daily rocket fire.



Comment: Yahweh's needs for daily human sacrifices are increasing and the Zionists are only to happy to do the job.



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The Loan Gunmen
ECB emergency fund tapped for €3.9bn

Ralph Atkins
Financial Times
2007-09-27 14:58:00

The European Central Bank's emergency lending fund, which attracts a penal interest rate, was tapped on Wednesday for €3.9bn, the largest sum since October 2004, the Frankfurt-based institution has revealed.

The surge in demand for the ECB's "marginal lending facility" points to the difficulties still being faced by European banks as a result of the global credit squeeze.

The ECB revealed no details but it is possible that more than one borrower was involved.

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Dollar Slide! Hits Seventh Consecutive Low


AP
2007-09-28 14:53:00

The dollar hit another new low Friday as U.S. inflation data reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates again.

©Kitco


The 13-nation euro reached $1.4234 in late afternoon European trading -- exceeding its previous peak of $1.4189, reached Thursday. It was the seventh trading day in a row on which the euro broke the record from the previous day. The euro had bought $1.4160 in New York late Thursday.

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Oil tops $83, eyes new high as funds pile in

Damon Evans
Reuters
2007-09-27 22:38:00

SINGAPORE - Oil extended gains for a third day on Friday to above $83 a barrel, nearing its record high as a weak dollar and pre-winter supply worries fueled fund buying.

U.S. crude for November delivery rose 30 cents to $83.18 a barrel by 9:45 p.m. EDT, after gaining $2.58 or 3.24 percent in the previous session. Oil was recovering from a profit-taking dip earlier this week that pulled prices off their $83.90 peak.

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Mortgage meltdown: Vulture investors

Les Christie
CNNMoney.com
2007-09-27 23:25:00

NEW YORK - Real estate investor Matthew Martinez is the point man for a private equity group that plans to invest $200 million in Florida condo developments.

But recent forecasts show many housing markets in the Sunshine State are looking at double-digit drops in home prices. What is he thinking?


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Glut: 5.1 million homes for sale in US

Peter Viles
LA Times
2007-09-27 21:52:00

A major homebuilder warned this morning of the growing problem of "surplus inventory" as another month of weak sales of new homes left the inventory of unsold new homes at 529,000, and the total number of homes for sale in America at a staggering 5.1 million.

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Oil surges on supply, Iran worries

John Wilen
Associated Press
2007-09-27 18:08:00

NEW YORK - Oil and other petroleum futures surged Thursday amid supply concerns sparked by a decline in crude inventories at a key Oklahoma terminal and the confrontation between the West and Iran.


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The Living Planet
North America's Northernmost Lake, Ward Hunt Lake, Affected By Global Warming


Science Daily
2007-09-26 15:35:00

Analyses conducted by researchers from Université Laval's Center for Northern Studies reveal that the continent's northernmost lake is affected by climate change.

©BBC


In an article to be published in the September 28 edition of Geophysical Research Letters, the international research team led by Université Laval scientists Warwick Vincent and Reinhard Pienitz reports that aquatic life in Ward Hunt Lake, a body of water located on a small island north of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, has undergone major transformations within the last two centuries.

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2 Quakes Off Japan, No Tsunami


Associated Press
2007-09-28 15:29:00

Two earthquakes struck almost simultaneously off Japan's central coast late Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. No tsunami warning was issued and no damage was reported.

The first quake, with a magnitude of 6.6, struck at 10:41 p.m. and was centered in the Pacific Ocean off Iwo Jima, about 930 miles south of Tokyo.

Another quake with a magnitude of 7.4 occurred off the Mariana Islands around the same time, according to the agency.

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'The Worst Thunderstorm in Memory' for West Virginia town

Karen Kiley
WBOY12
2007-09-27 10:37:00

The storm struck at about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday with intense 60-80 mile an hour winds, pouring rain and golf-ball-size hail. The storm only lasted 45 intense minutes, but early estimates suggest about a half million dollars in damage.

Robin Hobbs house was hit hard by the storm. It uprooted two trees in her backyard and ripped the power lines right out of her house.

©Danny Snyder / Times West Virginian
Strong thunderstorms packing hail and winds estimated at between 60-80 mph uprooted trees in a narrow swath of Marion County from Fairview to just north of Rivesville Wednesday night.


"It started as a normal thunderstorm, but then all of a sudden it hit all four sides of the house with hail and rain and lightning," she said.

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Tornado-Like Storm Ravages Northern Warren County, New York


North County Gazette
2007-09-28 10:33:00

A hot, humid, sunny fall day suddenly turned violent as residents of northern Warren County headed home from work Thursday afternoon.

About 5:30 p.m., a storm from the south brought sudden gusts of wind estimated at 50 to 60 mph, whipping trees, raining pine needles and leaves in Chestertown, snapping off trees, felling some onto power lines and uprooting others. Spurts of heavy rain fell but as suddenly as it came, the storm was over, leaving over 4,000 National Grid customers without power in the county.

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Calif. poisons lake to kill off pike


UPI
2007-09-27 23:38:00

PORTOLA, Calif.- California wildlife officials dumped 16,000 gallons of a fish poison into a northern Sierra reservoir to kill off the invasive northern pike.

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UK Bluetongue farm family 'hopeful'


BBC
2007-09-24 22:29:00

The family running a Suffolk farm hit by the UK's first case of bluetongue disease say they are "hopeful" about their future.

©AFP
Police have closed the road leading to the farm.


The insect-borne virus, which has killed livestock across Europe, was found in a Highland cow at the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich.

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Health & Wellness
Superbugs claim 427 lives over past five years in Northern Ireland

Claire Reagan
Belfast Telegraph
2007-09-27 15:46:00

Two of the deadliest hospital superbugs have helped cause the deaths of at least 427 patients in Northern Ireland over the past five years, it was revealed last night.

The serious threat of hospital- acquired infections was underlined by new Government figures which detail how many deaths have been officially registered as linked to MRSA and Clostridium Difficile since 2002.

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Avian flu, H7N3, confirmed in Saskatchewan


CBC News
2007-09-27 15:21:00

Avian influenza has been confirmed at a large chicken farm near Regina, officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Thursday.

The H7N3 strain of the virus found at Pedigree Poultry at Regina Beach is fatal to birds, but is not dangerous to humans, the agency said. All 50,000 birds at the farm will be destroyed with carbon dioxide gas over the next few days.

©CBC
Saskatchewan farmers produced about 23 million chickens in 2005, according to the provincial Agriculture Department.


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Arizona Boy Dies Of Rare Infection, Naegleria fowleri


AP
2007-09-27 21:34:00

A 14-year-old Lake Havasu boy has become the sixth victim to die nationwide this year of a microscopic organism that attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way to the brain.

Aaron Evans died Sept. 17 of Naegleria fowleri, an organism doctors said he probably picked up a week before while swimming in the balmy shallows of Lake Havasu.

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Science & Technology
Maneuver Puts New Horizons On A Straight Path To Pluto

Staff Writers
Space Daily
2007-09-28 17:26:00

Laurel MD - With a slight tweak of its trajectory this week, New Horizons is headed toward the heart of the distant Pluto system. Starting at 4:04 p.m. EDT on Sept. 25, New Horizons fired its thrusters for 15 minutes and 37 seconds, using less than a kilogram of fuel to change its velocity by 2.37 meters per second, or just more than 5 miles per hour. Monitored from the New Horizons Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., the maneuver was only the fourth trajectory correction for the spacecraft since launch in January 2006, and the first since it sped through the Jupiter system last February.

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Japan plans two more moon missions

Staff Writers
AFP
2007-09-28 17:14:00

Hyderabad, India - Japan plans to carry out two more missions to the moon and then collaborate internationally to put a man on the lunar surface, a Japanese space scientist said Thursday.

Asia's biggest economy this month successfully launched Kaguya (or Selene), its first lunar orbiter, stealing a march over China and India which are planning unmanned missions of their own to the moon.

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India And Russia Discuss Space Cooperation

Staff Writers
Space Daily
2007-09-28 17:04:00

Hyderabad India - India and Russia held discussions here on possibility of cooperation in space exploration, including missions to the moon and Mars. General Anatoly Perminov, Head of the Federal Space Agency, Russia met Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair on the sidelines of the 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here. "Discussions are on for possible cooperation with ISRO on missions to the moon and Mars," Perminov said. He said a special meeting of officials of space agencies from the two countries will be held in November to take the discussions forward.

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A diversity of Worlds

Vikki Meadows
Space Daily
2007-09-28 16:33:00

Moffet Field CA - In May 2007, Victoria Meadows, Principal Investigator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology's Spitzer Science Center, presented a lecture at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In part four of this six-part edited series, she explains how different types of worlds, even ones not like the Earth, can still be potential havens for life.

"Not all life is going to look like life on Earth. There are so many different types of worlds out there, so many things that we never expected to see that we are now seeing. It behooves us to not assume we're going to see a spectrum that looks just like the Earth's. That would be nice, but it's probably not going to happen. We have to consider that there will be a huge diversity of different types of worlds.

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India to develop own technology for space travel

Staff Writers
AFP
2007-09-27 16:22:00

Hyderabad, India - India will develop its own technology to launch an astronaut into space rather than rely on outside support, the head of the country's space agency said Thursday.

India's space programme suffered in the past from sanctions imposed by the West, barring access to space material and technology transfers, after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and in 1998.

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NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Enroute To Shed Light On Asteroid Belt

Staff Writers
Space Daily
2007-09-28 15:52:00

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX)
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to study a pair of asteroids after lifting off Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:34 a.m. EDT (4:34 a.m. PDT). Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received telemetry on schedule at 9:44 a.m. EDT (6:44 a.m. PDT) indicating Dawn had achieved proper orientation in space and its massive solar array was generating power from the sun.

"Dawn has risen, and the spacecraft is healthy," said the mission's project manager Keyur Patel of JPL. "About this time tomorrow [Friday morning], we will have passed the moon's orbit."

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Our Haunted Planet
More on UK orange, red and green 'UFO' light show riddle

Miran Rahman
This is Bradford
2007-09-28 08:33:00

UNEXPLAINED lights, mysterious fireballs in the night sky - it seems Keighley has its very own case for the X-Files.

The Keighley News received a flurry of reports about bizarre lights after people in the west and south-west of the town spotted the phenomenon on Saturday evening.

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Mysteries remain over Peru meteorite impact

Jeff Hecht
New Scientist
2007-09-28 08:11:00

Conspiracy theorists will be disappointed. The object that exploded and formed a crater that emitted mysterious gases in Peru on 15 September was a meteorite that hit soil where the subsurface water table was high, according to the first official report from geologists who have returned from the scene.

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
US education system on display!


Local6.com
2007-09-28 17:40:00

©Local6.com


Seminole County officials are scrambling to fix a typo on a roadway after a motorist informed Local 6 that the word "school" was misspelled "scohol."

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The world's tiniest baby - meet the 10oz bundle of defiance


Daily Mail
2007-09-28 16:01:00

When she was born, 15 weeks premature and weighing ten and a half ounces, her father's confidence was about the only thing on Kimberly Mueller's side.

In the few snatched moments he was allowed before his daughter was whisked away by doctors, Andreas Mueller spoke from his heart.

"I whispered to her: 'Kimberly, you'll make it,'" he recalled.

©Bild Zeitung
The size of a mobile phone: Kimberley Mueller weighed just over 10 ounces when she was born in Hanover, Germany - making her the world's smallest surviving baby


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Tom Cruise building 'bunker to protect against alien attack'


This Is London
2007-09-28 15:37:00

Hollywood star Tom Cruise is planning to build a bunker at his Colorado home to protect his family in the event of an intergalactic alien attack, according to new reports.

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N.C. Man Charged With 'Coughing' Assault


Associated Press
2007-09-27 23:44:00

MORRISVILLE, N.C. - Morrisville police have charged a man with assault on a government official after an officer said the man coughed into his face during a traffic stop.

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