Signs of the Times Archive for Wed, 30 Apr 2008

- Signs of the Times Archive for Wed, 30 Apr 2008 -

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SOTT Focus

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Best of the Web

Cakewalk In Iran

Lawrence of Cyberia
2008-04-30 17:52:00

George Bush may have been intent upon invading Iraq long before 9/11 gave him the opportunity to do so, but the neoconservative ideologues who have been so influential in his administration always hoped that toppling Saddam would be merely the warm-up for regime change in Iran. Baghdad was attacked first because it was low-hanging fruit, but everyone knew that "Real men go to Tehran".

As time runs out on the Bush Presidency, the administration's rhetoric about why we must attack Iran is heating up. We seem to be witnessing a determined final push to squeeze in one more war before they leave.

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U.S. News

Missing primary votes? Don't worry, it's just a 'clerical error'

The Associated Press
2008-04-29 17:05:00

Harrisburg, Pa. blames missing primary votes on clerical error

Pennsylvania election officials revised their unofficial vote count Monday for the presidential primary after determining that a clerical error had kept about 26,000 votes out of the state tally.

The omitted votes were all from Northampton County in the Lehigh Valley.

Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said the problem was traced to a mistaken assumption that all of the county's votes had been recorded.

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Metal Dust Explosion Injures One, Sparks Fire In Chatsworth, California

KNBC
2008-04-28 16:32:00

A person was taken to a hospital following a "metal dust" explosion and small fire Monday at a business in Chatsworth, authorities said.

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Bill Moyers Interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright

Bill Moyers
PBS
2008-04-25 16:19:00

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.

Barack Obama's pastor was in the news again this week. North Carolina Republicans are preparing to run an ad tying Obama to some controversial sound bites lifted from Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons. And CBS and MSNBC led their broadcasts with reports about the ad.

DEAN REYNOLDS: In North Carolina the Republicans put their ad on the internet and say they're going to broadcast it as well.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Republican hit job the North Carolina GOP plans a Willie Horton style TV ad against Obama.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright will be in Washington Monday for a news conference at the National Press Club -- his first since the controversy erupted over those incendiary sound bites. You've heard them; who hasn't heard them: Wright suggesting the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were payback for American policy; Wright repeating the canard heard often in black communities that the u.s. government spread HIV in those communities; Wright seemingly calling on God to damn America.

But just who is this man? That's the question I asked when those sound bites began popping up. I'd heard the name Jeremiah Wright -- his church in Chicago belongs to the fellowship of the United Church of Christ. I joined a UCC church on Long Island 40 years ago and attend Riverside Church in New York City, which is affiliated with American Baptists and the UCC. But I couldn't remember ever having met Reverend Wright. So I wanted to know more about the man, the ministry, and the church.

BILL MOYERS NARRATION: In 1972, Jeremiah Wright became pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He inherited a struggling congregation of just 87 members.

REVEREND WRIGHT (FROM TAPE:) I have a friend who every time you greet him, every time you ask him how you doing, he answers, just trying to make it man, just trying to make it.

BILL MOYERS: But by the mid 1980s, when PBS' Frontline shot this film about Wright, he'd grown the congregation to several thousand.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In our homes! Help us to be your church! In our private lives, help us to be your church! In our dealings one with another, help us to be your church Though our minds wander, our souls love only you. Let the church say Amen. Say Amen again.

BILL MOYERS: Trinity Church is located in a largely black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago - a mixture of working class people and the poor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Unfortunately, most churches now are "status quo." And so that, to the extent that they're not trying to feed the poor, they're not trying to hook up jobs and people, they're not concerned about the lowest, the least, the left out. They're not concerned about the youth, they're concerned about "Let me come here on a Sunday, hear something that tells me I'm ok, and I'm going to back to where I've been going. Don't rock the boat..."

REVEREND WRIGHT: How about the fact that we have pledged to take what we've got as black people and put it back into the black community? That's what I want to ask you...

BILL MOYERS: He challenged his growing congregation not to lose sight of the needs of their neighbors.

YOUNG MAN: I want to be a vehicle designer.

BILL MOYERS: That meant soup kitchens, day care, drug and legal counseling, and mentoring for young people.

YOUNG MAN:I've watched TV and looked at lawyers in past years and I've basically like the feel of being a lawyer. It's like really exciting.

MENTOR: As a matter of fact, there are a couple lawyers here in the church that maybe we can just hook you up with

YOUNG MAN: I'd like to be a doctor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: You can't be whatcha ain't seen. And so many of our young boys haven't seen nothing but the gangs and the pimps and the brothers on the corner. They've never sat and talked to lawyers, they've never sat and talked to a man, a black man, with 2, 3 degrees! They've never had a chance, they've never had an option in terms of thinking I could do this? I can be this? They see a doctor when they're sick. They don't get to sit and talk-me go to med school? They don't talk to somebody who writes programs and analyzes systems and computers. A black guy? I can do this? I can-never have their horizons lifted.

BOYS: The commitment to the black community The commitment to the black family

BILL MOYERS: He spoke out about racism from segregation in America's cities to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa.

REVEREND WRIGHT: What the word says about racism comes through loud and clear! Botha is wrong! South Africa is wrong! Apartheid is wrong! Oppression is wrong! Anybody who feels white skin is superior to black skin is wrong!

BILL MOYERS: Around that time a young Barack Obama came to Chicago and went to work as a community organizer on the South Side. As he describes in his book, Obama was a religious skeptic at first, and sought out Pastor Wright for his knowledge of the neighborhood. But soon Obama began attending Sunday Services, and in 1988 was baptized there as a Christian.

Twenty years later, Trinity has built a new building for its burgeoning congregation: now over six thousand members. Its ministry has grown as well: including tutoring for kids, women's health programs, and a HIV/AIDS ministry.

Trinity has long had strong ties with the African roots of its faith. Parishoners are asked to respect what they call "the black value system:" to rededicate themselves to God, the black family and the black community. Reinforcing the motto that they are quote "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian."

You see the connection to Africa in the stained glass windows Wright installed in the new church. They depict many of the biblical stories that took place there.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: We wanted our stained-glass windows to tell the story of the centrality of Africans in the role of Christianity from its inception up until the present day. We play some interesting games educationally with the kids to help kids understand -- can you name the seven continents? As a kid, you learn that in school. All right, on what continent did everything in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi take place? And they'll give you an eighth continent: the Middle East. No, no, no, you just named seven continents. So, what continent do these things take place on in your Bible? It's that kind of biblical truth put in stain glass so kids can understand this is not something somebody made up. This is not something from black power "Oooh." This is actual biblical, historical fact that you have a central role in the Christian faith that is yours.

BILL MOYERS: Several years ago Jeremiah Wright and the church began the search for his successor, and after 36 years as pastor, he will be retiring at the end of next month.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In Genesis:2 it says God breathes into the nostrils of what God had formed from the dust. God donated some divinity to some dirt and we became living souls. That's God breath you have in you, that's God's breath that you just breathed. God is the giver of life. Let me tell you what that means. That means we have no right to take a life whether as a gang banger living the thug life, or as a President lying about leading a nation into war. We have no right to take a life! Whether through the immorality of a slave trade, or the immorality of refusing HIV/AIDS money to countries or agencies who do not tow your political line! We have no right to take a life! Turn to your neighbors and say we have no right to take a life!

BILL MOYERS: That was Jeremiah Wright three years ago, and he's with me here today.

Welcome to the JOURNAL.

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Police officer arraigned on charges that he sexually attacked boy

Associated Press
2008-04-30 16:15:00

ST. LOUIS - An Illinois police officer remains jailed in St. Louis after being arraigned on charges that accuse him of sexually abusing a 14-year-old Illinois boy.

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New Mexico police remove 4 children from church compound

Matt Mygatt
Associated Press
2008-04-30 13:58:00

State police have removed four children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers.

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How Dumb Are We? How long will women shoulder the blame for the pay gap?

Dahlia Lithwick
Slate
2008-04-26 12:58:00

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have overturned a Supreme Court ruling (PDF) that sharply limited pay-discrimination suits based on gender under Title VII. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear (2007), the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, held that the clock for the statute of limitations on wage discrimination begins running when the employer first makes the decision to discriminate, and does not run for all the subsequent months - or in this case, years - that the disparate paychecks are mailed. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, found that the plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, was time-barred from filing her discrimination suit because it took more than 180 days after she first got stiffed to discover that she was being stiffed on account of her gender. The court agreed her jury verdict should be overturned.

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Friend says S.C. teen slaying suspect spent day 4-wheeling

Pete Iacobelli
Associated Press
2008-04-30 08:01:00

A teen accused of killing his family spent the hours after the slayings riding four-wheelers with a friend and buying steaks for dinner, the friend said Tuesday.

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Female psychopath: Toes point to new LaBarre victim

Russ Choma
Union Leader
2008-04-30 05:54:00

Brentwood - The possibility that Sheila LaBarre may have killed at least one more man on her Epping farm has been raised after it was revealed yesterday that toes from an unidentified man were found on her property.

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Flashback: A woman, her men, and a mystery: Inside the strange world of Sheila LaBarre, where charges of murder are only part of the story

Sally Jacobs
The Boston Globe
2006-07-02 08:00:00

The snow had just stopped falling when the young man came stumbling forlornly down the dirt road.

Bruce Allen, a dairy farmer, had been approached by other young men in need of help over the years, but this one was in the worst shape he'd ever seen. His name was Michael and his face was gashed and dripping blood into the snow. His ear was ripped and his skin was a mottled olive.

As he passed Allen's place that winter morning two years ago, the slight man whispered a single hoarse word, the farmer recalled. ''Sheila," he said, glancing anxiously back up the road. ''Sheila."

©Unknown

Shiela LaBarre

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Flashback: Testimony describes LaBarre as manipulative, flirtatious

Russ Choma
Union Leader
2007-11-21 05:46:00

Brentwood - In the second day of a hearing on whether to suppress much of the evidence against accused killer Sheila LaBarre, a former friend nervously testified she was afraid of LaBarre and police officers described bizarre behavior, including an incident in which she flashed investigators.

©Kate Harper

Sheila LaBarre is surrounded by her attorneys yesterday during a hearing on whether police improperly interviewed her and seized evidence from her home.

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Homeland Security Worker Gets 3 Decades for Sex Abuse

Stephen Bartlett
The Press-Republican
2008-04-30 00:52:00

Plattsburgh, New York - Jason Beauharnois, an unremorseful sex predator, stole half a child's life, Assistant District Attorney Chantelle Schember said in requesting the maximum at his sentencing Monday.

©Unknown

Jason Beauharnois

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Half of Vets Suffering Brain and Mind Injuries Go Untreated, But Pentagon Pretends Nothing's Going on

Penny Coleman
AlterNet
2008-04-29 19:08:00

The silverbacks are grooming and posturing at the microphones.

Cammo and khaki, wall to wall. Bob Ireland, an Air Force psychiatrist and consultant to the Air Force Surgeon General, welcomes the audience to the Department of Defense's sixth annual Suicide Prevention Conference and makes jokes about how suicide prevention has been the DoD's bastard child, homeless and parentless.

In January 2008, the child nobody wanted finally managed to find a home. The Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury assumed responsibility for an issue and an injury that the military has hidden and denied for generations.

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Florida: Sharks Bite 3 Swimmers In 3 Days

Local6.com
2008-04-29 18:01:00

Number Of Bites Ahead Of Record 'Year Of Shark' Totals

Swimmers were again cleared from a New Smyrna Beach Monday after a third swimmer in three days was bitten by a shark and treated at a hospital.

Monday's bite happened when an 18-year-old was trying to get back on a surfboard near the Ponce De Leon Inlet's south jetty.

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UK & Euro-Asian News

Famine fears for North Korea

Jon Herskovitz and Robert Woodward
NewsDaily.com
2008-04-30 17:36:00

SEOUL - The chances of famine in North Korea have increased in line with the soaring price of rice on global markets, a Washington-based institute said on Wednesday.

"The country is in its most precarious situation since the end of the famine a decade ago," said a paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

A jump in prices for foodstuffs has hit many poor nations this year and sparked riots in parts of Africa and Asia. Export restrictions by leading suppliers have fuelled insecurity and market speculation has also pushed prices higher.

©REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won

North Koreans go to work on a field at the propaganda village of Gijungdong, in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, northwest of Seoul, April 30, 2008.

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Russia warned over Georgia move

BBC News
2008-04-30 17:19:00

©BBC

Nato has warned Russia that its recent troop build-up in Georgia's two breakaway regions undermines its neighbour's territorial integrity.

Russia's moves in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were raising tensions in the area, a Nato spokesman said.

Moscow has accused Georgia of preparing to invade Abkhazia, and says it is also boosting Russian peacekeeping forces there and in South Ossetia.

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Indian consulate says no role in 500 missing passports

The Hindu
2008-04-28 17:00:00

Five hundred blank passports bound for Dubai were found missing at the Delhi airport last year, the Indian Consulate General said here.

Venu Rajamony, the Indian Consul-General who denied a media report that the passports were lost from the mission here, said that five bags containing 500 passports were found missing in March 2007 by the Ministry of External Affairs which was to collect the bags forwarded by the India Security Press.

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Rémy on the run as rats plague Paris

Adam Sage
Times Online (UK)
2008-04-29 16:25:00

Parisians have been ordered to get rid of rats in their homes and businesses or face prosecution under an official campaign to fight a plague of rodents.

Less than a year after the animated cartoon Ratatouille turned Rémy the French rat into a loveable culinary hero, the city's residents have been ordered to eradicate his real-life counterparts. They are also being asked to denounce insalubrious neighbours responsible for the infestation.

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Ireland: Man dies following explosion at pharmaceutical plant

Irish News
2008-04-28 14:05:00

A man has died following an explosion at a chemical and pharmaceutical plant in Co Cork in the early hours of this morning.

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Physical toll of Austrian captivity

Martin Hutchinson
BBC News
2008-04-30 12:10:00

The three children who emerged from an Austrian cellar last week are showing clear physical signs of their years spent underground.

While the resilience of children cannot be underestimated, the effects of a sunless prison on their developing bodies could be long-lasting.

The actions of Josef Fritzl meant that neither his daughter, Elisabeth, or her imprisoned children, had any access to modern healthcare, or even sunlight.

Pregnancy and childbirth would have been the time of greatest risk.

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Austria 'sex captor' stays silent

BBC News
2008-04-30 12:05:00

Mr Fritzl will undergo a series of psychiatric and psychological tests.

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who is accused of keeping his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years, refuses to answer further questions, police say.

They said he had signed a statement admitting imprisoning and raping his daughter and fathering her seven children, but refuses to explain.

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Chinese children sold "like cabbages" into slavery

Reuters
2008-04-30 09:12:00

Beijing - Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like "cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

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Soviet politbureau members, Gorbachev included, signed an "informal" death sentence on John Paul II

David Dastych
Journalismus
2008-04-27 07:08:00

New, sensational documents concerning the attempt against the late pope, John Paul II, have been revealed in a new book by John O. Kohler, an American journalist and writer. The book, entitled "It's About the Pope. Spies in the Vatican", will be released in Poland on Monday, April 28, 2008 by ZNAK Publishing House, known for its publications about the late pope.

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Man charged in Jersey abuse probe

Ananova
2008-04-29 19:18:00

Police on Jersey have charged a 68-year-old man with raping and sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.

Claude Donnelly, of St Brelade, Jersey, was charged with assaulting the girl between 1971 and 1974 on the Channel Island.

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Around the World

Canada: Female borderline psychopath kills 13-year-old

Edmonton Sun
2008-04-28 14:18:00

A 20-year-old city woman convicted of manslaughter for her role in the chilling golf course sex slaying of 13-year-old Nina Courtepatte is a borderline psychopath.

The killer, who cannot be identified because she was 17 at the time of the April 3, 2005, slaying, also poses a high risk to re-offend and shows little remorse and little empathy for the victim, says a psychiatrist who assessed her.

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Australia to improve gay rights

Nick Bryant
BBC
2008-04-30 13:50:00

The Australian government has announced plans to remove about 100 laws it says discriminate against gay couples.

The laws include those preventing them from benefiting from financial and social entitlements.

But the government will not include any changes to the Marriage Law to pave the way for gay marriage.

Gay and lesbian groups have said there will not be true equality in Australia until people are allowed the right to marry their partner of choice.

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Shark attack in Mexico kills American surfer

Associated Press
2008-04-29 10:23:00

A U.S. surfer was killed in a shark attack off Mexico's southern Pacific coast, officials said Tuesday.

The San Francisco man bled to death on Monday after a gray shark bit his right thigh, leaving a 15-inch (38-centimeter) wound, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement.

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Power outage hits Venezuela

Associated Press
2008-04-29 18:37:00

A power outage left at least 40 percent of Venezuela without electricity on Tuesday, including much of the capital.

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Death toll from aircraft crash rises to six in Venezuela

China View
2008-04-30 00:00:00

Six people are now confirmed dead after a small aircraft crashed into a house in the coastal area of Catia La Mar, northern Venezuela, officials said Tuesday.

The bodies recovered Tuesday were those of a resident of the house and a passenger from the aircraft, said officials from CatiaLa Mar in the state of Vargas.

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Nigeria: Horror as Robbers Storm Wedding

Austin Ogwuda Asaba
allafrica.com
2008-04-27 03:54:00

A couple joined together as husband and wife at a church wedding yesterday narrowly escaped death barely three hours later as armed bandits stormed the reception hall and left behind tales of woe. No fewer than 10 guests were wounded during a stampede that ensued during the invasion.

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Flashback: New movie damns Monsanto's deadly sins

Greenpeace
2008-03-07 21:02:00

A new movie has dealt yet another severe blow to the credibility of US based Monsanto, one of the biggest chemical companies in the world and the provider of the seed technology for 90 percent of the world's genetically engineered (GE) crops.

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Big Brother

Lawyers Fear Monitoring in Cases on 'Terrorism'

Philip Shenon
The New York Times
2008-04-28 13:14:00

Portland, Oregon - Thomas Nelson, an Oregon lawyer, has lived in a state of perpetual jet lag for the last two years. Every few weeks, he boards a plane in Portland and flies to the Middle East to meet with a high-profile Saudi client who cannot enter the United States because he faces charges here of financing terrorism.

©Doug Mills/The New York Times

Asim Ghafoor, left, and Wendell Belew, lawyers for a Saudi charity, say United States officials illegally spied on them.

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Axis of Evil

The Military Option

Uri Avnery
Information Clearing House
2008-04-30 17:47:00

War with Syria? Peace with Syria?

A big military operation against Hamas in the Gaza strip? A cease-fire with Hamas?

Our media discuss these questions dispassionately, as if they were equivalent options. Like a person in a showroom making a choice between two cars. This one is good, and so is the other one. So which should one buy?

And nobody cries out: War is the height of stupidity!

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Hicks should never have been charged: former Guantanamo prosecutor

Leigh Sales
ABC News
2008-04-29 16:57:00

Australia's former Guantanamo Bay inmate, David Hicks, should never have been charged, according to the former Chief Prosecutor at the US military prison, Colonel Morris Davis.

In the latest twist in the long-running efforts by the Bush administration to get trials up and running at Guantanamo, the former prosecutor has been called as a defence witness at a pre-trial hearing for one of the detainees.

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Wolfowitz: Iraq occupation ended in 2004

Press TV
2008-04-30 15:31:00

Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has claimed that the occupation of Iraq by American forces 'ended in June 2004'.

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US military deaths in Iraq at 4,056

Associated Press
2008-04-29 13:44:00

As of Monday, April 28, 2008, at least 4,056 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,306 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

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Cheney lawyer claims Congress has no authority over vice-president

Elana Schor
Guardian
2008-04-29 10:35:00

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

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Gates says 2nd carrier in Gulf is 'reminder' to Iran that the US owns the world

Lolita C. Baldor
Associated Press
2008-04-30 07:22:00

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that sending a second U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf could serve as a "reminder" to Iran, but he said it's not an escalation of force.

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Disaster Capitalism in Action: Corporate Vultures Lurk Behind the World Food Crisis

Anuradha Mittal
AlterNet
2008-04-29 06:33:00

The IMF, WTO and the rest of the neoliberal world are still pushing more trade as a cure for what ails us.

UN agencies are meeting in Berne to tackle the world food price crisis. Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank (former U.S. trade representative) and Pascal Lamy, WTO's Director General, are among the attendees. Will the "battle plan" emerging from the Swiss capital, a charming city with splendid sandstone buildings and far removed from the grinding poverty and hunger which has reduced people to eating mud cakes in Haiti and scavenging garbage heaps, be more of the same -- promote free trade to deal with the food crisis?

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Obama, Hope for Corporate America

Chris Hedges
TruthDig
2008-04-28 06:08:00

©Flickr / Joe Crimmings

The corporate state is our shadow government. Candidates who aspire to higher office get corporate money if they promote corporate interests. They are shut out of the national debate - look at Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader - if they do not. Defy the corporate state and you get handed a ticket to oblivion. You become invisible. Work for it and you are showered with tens of millions of dollars and the possibility of political power.

Barack Obama's campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite. Pick up a copy of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope." The subtext is clear. It is a steady reminder to corporate America, a reminder bolstered by Obama's voting record, that corporations would have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.

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The RAND Corporation: America's University of Imperialism

Chalmers Johnson
TomDispatch.com
2008-04-29 03:25:00

This essay is a review of Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire by Alex Abella (Harcourt, 400 pp., $27)

The RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, California, was set up immediately after World War II by the U.S. Army Air Corps (soon to become the U.S. Air Force). The Air Force generals who had the idea were trying to perpetuate the wartime relationship that had developed between the scientific and intellectual communities and the American military, as exemplified by the Manhattan Project to develop and build the atomic bomb.

Soon enough, however, RAND became a key institutional building block of the Cold War American empire. As the premier think tank for the U.S.'s role as hegemon of the Western world, RAND was instrumental in giving that empire the militaristic cast it retains to this day and in hugely enlarging official demands for atomic bombs, nuclear submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers. Without RAND, our military-industrial complex, as well as our democracy, would look quite different.

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Countering Palestine Solidarity Work in Canada

Zac Smith
The Bullet
2008-04-25 01:17:00

"Words wreak havoc when they find a name for what had up to then been lived namelessly" - Jean Paul Sartre

Over the past several months of 2008, Israel advocacy organizations have entered a period of ongoing mobilization in an effort to decisively counter what they see as the growing influence and impact of the Palestine solidarity movement.

After spending years trying to find its footing in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, the Palestine solidarity movement has found a new strategic focus with the emergence of the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which has effectively shifted the terms of the Israel-Palestine debate and presented a clear analysis of the apartheid reality facing Palestinians.

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We must not abandon 9/11 until this 'crime of the century' is solved: The Israeli Military Aircraft Company Tied To 9-11

Facts not Fairies
2008-04-25 04:12:00

A little-known and privately-held aircraft leasing company created by the Israeli military intelligence is connected to the Mossad-run airport security and passenger screening company at the center of the "false flag" terror network of 9-11.

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Middle East Madness

Trial begins for soldier accused of Iraqi insurgent's death

Angela K. Brown
Associated Press
2008-04-29 13:50:00

FORT HOOD, Texas - An Army sergeant killed a severely wounded and unarmed Iraqi insurgent after ordering a medic to suffocate him and then tried to cover up the crime, a military prosecutor said as the soldier's court-martial began Monday.

But Sgt. Leonardo Trevino's attorney Richard V. Stevens said soldiers' accounts of that June night in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, are inconsistent and contradict evidence from photos of the insurgent's body. Stevens said the insurgent still posed a threat, even though he was wounded.

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Jeff Carter's notes on his father's trip to the Middle East

Sami Joseph
The Citizen Online
2008-04-25 13:41:00

How about filling us in on your Middle East trip with the former President and First Lady? There has been a lot of press here about the trip. I would like to hear what happened from the horse's mouth.

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Barbaric 'honour killings' become the weapon to subjugate women in Iraq

Terri Judd
The Independent
2008-04-28 06:23:00

©Unknown

'Honour killings' in Iraq: victim Du'a Khalil Aswad

At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene.

The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her "honour killing" is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a "genocide" against women in the name of religion.

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Iran 'Looks East'

Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Asian Times
2008-04-29 05:06:00

This week, with his three-nation tour of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will fortify Iran's regional ties and thus achieve a milestone in his administration's "Look East" foreign policy orientation.

Accompanied by a high-ranking delegation, Ahmadinejad's trip transpires at a time of heightened US allegations of Iran's meddling in Iraq and serves as an antidote to the US policy of isolating Iran and castigating it as a rogue or pariah state.

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Militiamen ambush drives back US patrol in Sadr City

Kim Gamel
Associated Press
2008-04-29 22:25:00

BAGHDAD - Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.

U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

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The Loan Gunmen

Fed lowers rates, hints cuts may be at end

Mark Felsenthal, David Lawder and Alister Bull
NewsDaily.com
2008-04-30 17:45:00

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve lowered U.S. interest rates by a modest quarter percentage point on Wednesday and hinted the move could be the last in a series meant to buffer the economy from a credit crunch and housing downturn.

The Fed, however, kept its options open and nodded to ongoing financial market stress, tight credit and the deepening housing contraction, leaving some market participants guessing rates could still move lower.

The central bank's action takes the bellwether federal funds rate target, which banks charge each other for overnight loans, to 2 percent, the lowest since December 2004. It was the seventh cut in a campaign that has brought the key lending rate down by 3.25 percentage points since mid-September.

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U.N. Warns Of Riots: Civil War Due To Food Shortage In Various Countries

Preciosa Dumlao
AllHeadlineNews
2008-04-28 17:26:00

The United Nations Food Agency chief Jacques Diouf warned that civil war may erupt in some countries because of the global food shortages and soaring prices of fuel and other commodities.

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Economic Stresses, Biofuel Production Add to Food Crisis Pressures

Mil Arcega
VoaNews
2008-04-28 16:59:00

The World Food Program warns that rising food prices could turn into a global crisis unless the world acts quickly. The U.N. food agency has issued an urgent appeal to the international community for immediate aid to help developing countries unable to cope with food shortages and high prices. There also are calls to limit the increasing use of biofuels, which some believe is partly responsible for the developing crisis in food markets. VOA's Mil Arcega reports.

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Condoleezza Rice admits biofuel production contributing to food shortages

FoodWeekOnline
2008-04-29 15:55:00

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted that the decision to set aside American farmland for the production of corn for biofuels may in part be driving up world food prices.

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Iran dumps U.S. dollars in oil transactions

China View
2008-04-30 14:15:00

TEHRAN (Xinhua) -- Iran had totally removed U.S. dollars in the country's oil transactions, an Oil Ministry official said on Wednesday.

"The dollar has completely been removed from our oil trade....Crude oil customers have agreed with us to use other currencies (in the trade)," Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard was quoted as saying by the state television.

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Europeans See Inflation Penalizing the Poorest

Carter Dougherty
The New York Times
2008-04-29 13:59:00

Frankfurt - Europe is facing a "very strong inflationary shock" as a result of rising energy and food costs, the top European Union official for economic affairs said on Monday as the price of oil traded not far from $120 a barrel.

©Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Associated Press

The European economic chief, Joaquín Almunia, urged structural changes in national economies.

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Flashback: New bid, same result: KBR shares big Army contract

David Ivanovich
Houston Chronicle
2008-04-16 10:44:00

Washington - Houston-based KBR has again been selected to participate in a 10-year military logistical support contract valued at up to $150 billion, the U.S. Army announced today.

The Army Sustainment Command, at the insistence of the Government Accountability Office, had re-evaluated its decision last summer to award the massive contract to KBR, Fort Worth-based DynCorp International and Fluor Intercontinental of Greenville, S.C.

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The Living Planet

Wildfire burns toward Grand Canyon

NewsDaily.com
2008-04-30 17:00:00

PHOENIX - Firefighters are battling a forest fire burning out of control toward the Grand Canyon, fanned by strong winds and dry conditions, authorities said on Wednesday.

The so-called X Fire has burned 2,000 acres of the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona, and was burning toward the Grand Canyon National Park early on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the forest service said.

"The fire is not contained at this time. It's still windy and moisture levels are low so we are concerned," said Margaret Hangan, a spokeswoman for the Kaibab National Forest.

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Birds can 'see' the Earth's magnetic field

Catherine Brahic
NewScientist.com
2008-04-30 16:22:00

It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet been able to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests that birds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field.

Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois, proposed forty years ago that some animals - including migratory birds - must have molecules in their eyes or brains which respond to magnetism. The problem has been that no one has been able to find a chemical sensitive enough to be influenced by Earth's weak geomagnetic field.

Now Peter Hore and colleagues at the University of Oxford have found one.

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Scientists discover new ocean current

Georgia Tech
2008-04-30 14:50:00

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. This new pattern explains, for the first time, changes in the water that are important in helping commercial fishermen understand fluctuations in the fish stock. They're also finding that as the temperature of the Earth is warming, large fluctuations in these factors could help climatologists predict how the oceans will respond in a warmer world. The research appears in the April 30 edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"We've been able to explain, for the first time, the changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll that we see in the Northeast Pacific," said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

©Georgia Tech

The North Pacific Gyre Oscillation explains changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll seen in the Northeast Pacific.

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Fruit bats at risk of extinction in Cyprus

Leo Leonidou
Cyprus Mail
2008-04-30 14:15:00

The Fruit Bat is under threat of extinction on the island, the Forestry Department said yesterday. Forestry Officer Harris Nicolaou told the Mail that numbers have been rapidly declining, with only an estimated 3,500 remaining.

©Unknown

Fruit Bat

"We can say that numbers were far greater in the past and it is now an endangered species," he said.

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Greece: Dead sea mammals mystery

eKathimerini
2008-04-30 14:11:00

An alarming number of dead sea mammals, apparently killed on purpose by humans rather than dying of natural causes, have washed up on Greek shores in the last few weeks, marine experts said yesterday.

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New shrew discovered in Ireland

Agence France Presse
2008-04-28 13:31:00

©Unknown

The white-toothed shrew has now moved to Ireland!

Dublin - Ireland, which has seen an immigration surge in recent years, has a new foreigner on its shores, scientists said Monday: the greater white-toothed shrew.

The mammal, Crocidura Russula, has been discovered in parts of the midlands and south-west of the republic. Its natural range is in parts of Africa, France and Germany.

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(Nevada) Quake swarm continues

rgj.com
2008-04-30 00:46:00

At least 52 earthquakes were recorded in Northern Nevada between midnight Monday and 8 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site.

The strongest was magnitude 4.2 recorded at 4:33 a.m. Most of the earthquakes registered below a 2.0. A 2.5 was recorded at 5:12 a.m. and a 2.0 was recorded at 2:34 p.m.

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Magnitude 5.2 - Northern California

usgs.gov
2008-04-30 00:41:00

Earthquake Details
Magnitude 5.2
Date-Time

* Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 03:03:06 UTC
* Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 08:03:06 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 40.837°N, 123.499°W
Depth 28.5 km (17.7 miles)
Region NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances

* 18 km (11 miles) ESE (114°) from Willow Creek, CA
* 41 km (26 miles) E (97°) from Blue Lake, CA
* 42 km (26 miles) NW (315°) from Hayfork, CA
* 56 km (35 miles) E (84°) from Eureka, CA
* 307 km (191 miles) NW (326°) from Sacramento, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal /- 0.4 km (0.2 miles); depth /- 1.4 km (0.9 miles)
Parameters NST=140, Nph=140, Dmin=20 km, Rmss=0.15 sec, Gp= 54°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6

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US: Lightning strike damages Dallas, North Carolina home

Amanda Millard
gaston gazette
2008-04-28 23:46:00

Tim Newton would have been working construction Monday if rain hadn't given him a day off.

"I was just sitting there watching TV and next thing I knew lightning stuck the house and the whole house shook," Newton said.

Newton had been sitting in the living room around 2:45 p.m. when lightning hit. He looked in the hallway and saw the smoke detector smoldering and called for help. His 1 ½-year-old son Nathan's bedroom is right by the spot where the smoke detector caught fire.

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US: Early morning house fire caused by lightning

KXAN.COM
2008-04-27 23:25:00

Austin, Texas - here is over a half a million dollars in damages after a weekend fire at Steiner Ranch on Country Trails Lane.

©KXAN

Lake Travis fire and rescue crews said two adults and a baby were in the two-story house when it was hit by lightning.

Emergency crews reached the house just before 7 a.m. Monday.

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US, West Virginia: Lightning strikes Southern Communications

Michelle James
Register Herald
2008-04-28 23:13:00

Beckley - A lightning strike during a thunderstorm late Sunday afternoon knocked out several computers and the computer network at Southern Communications, the parent company of WCIR, Groovy 94.1, WTNJ and several other radio stations.

Jay Quesenberry, general manager for Southern Communications, which is located in the old Appalachian Electric Power building on South Kanawha Street, said all of the stations went off air briefly until a backup system took over.

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Health & Wellness

Checking links between vaccines and autism

ABCLocal
2008-04-28 17:03:00

Nassau County officials are looking at a potential link between children vaccines and autism.

Legislator David Mejias and Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg are meeting today with parents of autistic children who claim the combination of vaccines given to young children can cause autism.

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Investigators unveil new drug discovery tool for Alzheimer's disease

EurekAlert
2008-04-28 13:54:00

An article published in the April issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease presents a detailed characterization of a new drug discovery tool for Alzheimer's disease. It demonstrates that an abnormal form of tau protein, as it occurs in Alzheimer's disease, can be produced in very simple cell models in an unambiguous way. Most importantly, it also shows an example of a chemical compound, found in nature, which is highly effective to completely suppress the abnormal changes of tau.

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Italy says its mozzarella is now safe

RIA Novosti
2008-04-29 13:47:00

All Italian dairy produce, including mozzarella, is safe for consumption, Italy's health and agriculture ministries said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

A temporary ban on buffalo mozzarella cheese, one of Italy's much-loved products and primary exports, was introduced in late March after high levels of dioxins - chemical contaminants which may cause cancer - were found in samples of buffalo milk.

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How Asthma Susceptibility Gene Causes Breathing Difficulties: New Study Explains

ScienceDaily
2008-04-28 13:35:00

Researchers at the University of Southampton's School of Medicine have discovered how a gene, which is linked to susceptibility to asthma, contributes to the development or the progression of the disease. The findings of this new study may lead to novel treatments for asthma, as well as other diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis or thickening of the arteries.

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Study shows promising new approach to thwart HIV

Will Dunham
Reuters
2008-04-28 13:24:00

Washington - Researchers have pinpointed a protein in a key human immune system cells needed for the AIDS virus to infect them, and found that turning it off can greatly slow down the deadly virus.

Inactivating a protein called ITK in immune system cells called T cells reduces HIV's ability to enter these cells and replicate itself, the researchers said on Monday.

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Predators

Lorin Roche
LorinRoche.com
2008-04-30 12:44:00

Lord of the Flies with Incense

In nature, predators are attracted by the presence of prey. Whenever there is a herd of beings, there will be predators watching with fascination, studying the prey very attentively. Predators pay special attention to anything wounded or young or vulnerable-seeming. When an animal is about to give birth and just after, they are vulnerable, and the newborn is easy pickings.

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China tries to calm fears over virus outbreak

Tania Branigan
The Guardian
2008-04-30 12:31:00

The Chinese government has dispatched medical experts to eastern Anhui province in a bid to curb a rapidly spreading outbreak of an intestinal virus that has killed at least 20 children.

©Unknown

Destruction of the spinal cord due to poliomyelitis-like EV71 disease

But officials sought to calm fears amid reports that almost 1,900 children have been taken ill with enterovirus 71, or EV71, which can cause hand, foot and mouth disease.

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2 beef processors are cited for humane violations

Frederic J. Frommer
Associated Press
2008-04-30 10:27:00

Washington - A government inspection of slaughterhouses found significant problems with the treatment of cattle and two of the nation's largest beef processors - both of which provide meat for the National School Lunch Program - were slapped with humane handling violations.

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Science & Technology

High-flying Electrons May Provide New Test Of Quantum Theory

ScienceDaily.com
2008-04-30 16:50:00

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Max Planck Institute for Physics in Germany believe they can achieve a significant increase in the accuracy of one of the fundamental constants of nature by boosting an electron to an orbit as far as possible from the atomic nucleus that binds it. The experiment, outlined in a new paper,* would not only mean more accurate identifications of elements in everything from stars to environmental pollutants but also could put the modern theory of the atom to the most stringent tests yet.

©NIST

(a) In a Rydberg atom, an electron (black dot) is far away from the atomic nucleus (red and grey core). (b) Probability map for an electron in a Rydberg atom shows that it has virtually no probability of being near the nucleus in the center. (c) An optical frequency comb for producing ultraprecise colors of light can trigger quantum energy jumps useful for accurately measuring the Rydberg constant.

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Oldest Known Celestial Objects Are Surprisingly Immature

Science Daily
2008-04-29 16:36:00

Some of the oldest objects in the Universe may still have a long way to go, according to a new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These new results indicate that globular clusters might be surprisingly less mature in their development than previously thought.

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New Findings Challenge Conventional Ideas On Evolution Of Human Diet, Natural Selection

ScienceDaily.com
2008-04-30 16:33:00

New findings suggest that the ancient human "cousin" known as the "Nutcracker Man" wasn't regularly eating anything like nuts after all.

A University of Arkansas professor and his colleagues used a combination of microscopy and fractal analysis to examine marks on the teeth of members of an ancient human ancestor species and found that what it actually ate does not correspond with the size and shape of its teeth. This finding suggests that structure alone is not enough to predict dietary preferences and that evolutionary adaptation for eating may have been based on scarcity rather than on an animal's regular diet.

Researchers examined the teeth of Paranthropus boisei, also called the "Nutcracker Man," an ancient hominin that lived between 2.3 and 1.2 million years ago. The "Nutcracker Man" had the biggest, flattest cheek teeth and the thickest enamel of any known human ancestor and was thought to have a regular diet of nuts and seeds or roots and tubers. But analysis of scratches on the teeth and other tooth wear reveal the pattern of eating for the "Nutcracker Man" was more consistent with modern-day fruit-eating animals.

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'Bouncing' sand grains explain Martian dust storms

New Scientist
2008-04-28 16:28:00

Sand dunes on Mars are monsters - around 10 times as big as the largest on Earth. That's because low gravity gives Martian sand grains a lot more bounce.

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Decoding the dictionary: Study suggests lexicon evolved to fit in the brain

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2008-04-30 15:06:00

The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary boasts 22,000 pages of definitions. While that may seem far from succinct, new research suggests the reference manual is meticulously organized to be as concise as possible - a format that mirrors the way our brains make sense of and categorize the countless words in our vast vocabulary.

"Dictionaries have often been thought of as a frustratingly tangled web of words where the definition of word A refers users to word B, which is defined using word C, which ends up referring users back to word A," said Mark Changizi, assistant professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "But this research suggests that all words are grounded in a small set of atomic words - and it's likely that the dictionary's large-scale organization has been driven over time by the way humans mentally systematize words and their meanings."

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Ancient Sunflower Fuels Debate About Agriculture In The Americas

sciencedaily.com
2008-04-30 15:11:00

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Florida State University have confirmed evidence of domesticated sunflower in Mexico - 4,000 years before what had been previously believed.

Wild sunflowers in Nuevo Leon in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains.

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Stem Cell Researchers Create Heart And Blood Cells From Reprogrammed Skin Cells

sciencedaily.com
2008-04-30 14:32:00

Stem cell researchers at UCLA were able to grow functioning cardiac cells using mouse skin cells that had been reprogrammed into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells.

The finding is the first to show that induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which don't involve the use of embryos or eggs, can be differentiated into the three types of cardiovascular cells needed to repair the heart and blood vessels.

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NASA Spacecraft Tracks Raging Saturn Storm

sciencedaily.com
2008-04-30 14:23:00

As a powerful electrical storm rages on Saturn with lightning bolts 10,000 times more powerful than those found on Earth, the Cassini spacecraft continues its five-month watch over the dramatic events.

Scientists with NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission have been tracking the visibly bright, lightning-generating storm--the longest continually observed electrical storm ever monitored by Cassini.

It is no Great Red Spot, but these two side-by-side views show the longest-lived electrical storm yet observed on Saturn by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The view at left was created by combining images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters, and shows Saturn in colors that approximate what the human eye would see. The storm stands out with greater clarity in the sharpened, enhanced color view at right.

Saturn's electrical storms resemble terrestrial thunderstorms, but on a much larger scale. Storms on Saturn have diameters of several thousand kilometers (thousands of miles), and radio signals produced by their lightning are thousands of times more powerful than those produced by terrestrial thunderstorms.

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NASA Satellite Pins Down Timer In Stellar Ticking Time Bomb

sciencedaily.com
2008-04-30 14:17:00

Using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, a team of four astronomers has discovered a timing mechanism that tells them exactly when a superdense star will let loose incredibly powerful explosions.

"We found a clock that ticks slower and slower, and when it slows down too much, boom! The bomb explodes," says team leader Diego Altamirano of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

©NASA

A thermonuclear explosion as it engulfs an entire neutron star.

The explosions occur on a neutron star, which is a city-sized remnant of a giant star that exploded in a supernova. But despite the neutron star's small size, it contains more material than our sun. The neutron star is not alone in space. It has a companion star, and the two objects orbit each other every 3.8 hours. This double-star system is known as 4U 1636-53 for its sky coordinates in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Epigenetic Research Uncovers New Targets For Modification Enzymes

ScienceDaily
2008-04-28 13:39:00

Enzymes regulating genetic expression can be just as important as the genome itself, increasing evidence shows. The expanding field of epigenetics focuses on the multiple influences on DNA and surrounding molecules that determine whether genes are turned on or off during development and disease processes.

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Scientists Ask: "Will Jupiter's Gravity Throw the Solar System Into Chaos"?

Rebecca Sato
The Daily Galaxy
2008-04-28 05:39:00

©Walter Meyers

Mercury Sunrise

There been a lot of media attention over the possibility of asteroids and meteors striking Earth and causing cataclysmic damage, but now some scientists are saying that the planet Mercury (sunrise image above) could also possibly smash into our planet. Huh? That sounds bad.

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Ancient rock drawings unearthed in northern China

Thaindian News
2008-04-28 00:17:00

New Dehli - With the help of local herdsmen , a huge cluster of ancient rock drawings has been unearthed in northern China's Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.

Over one thousand drawings from the Bronze Era were discovered about 55 kilometers west of Hailiutu county, reports CCTV International.

Most of the pictures are carved on black granite along the mountainsides and they stretch about five kilometers into a valley near the Bayinhudu mountain.

The pictures are based mainly on daily life and involve a wide variety of subjects such as goats, longhorn-deer and dogs.

Some drawings depict hunting scenes and mysterious symbols while some single pieces contain dozens of patterns.

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Our Haunted Planet

Fireball in the sky: Image captured over Canada?

Bob Johnson
blackholesandastrostuff
2008-04-29 15:07:00

So I was out trying to image another Sunset when out of the blue a fireball appeared. To give you some idea of how rare these fireballs are, a trained observer, such as moi, can expect to be treated to one, once every 200 observing hours, factor in that it was a daytime fireball, more rare, also factor in the fact it was close to the Sun, more rare again and....catch breath... the fact that I had a focused camera ready to go, and that I would actually capture an image just after the break up with an image of the fragments, the chances of this happening, well, it boggles the mind just thinking of it, well it boggles my mind, mind you I'm easily boggled.

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Update: Mystery flashes and booms in Maryland Solved

Derek Valcourt
WJZ.com
2008-04-30 11:30:00

Mystery solved. Police say they've made an arrest in the case of the loud bang and bright flash of light disturbing a neighborhood in Pikesville.

Derek Valcourt explains he never thought he'd be reporting that the mystery is solved a day after it first aired on Eyewitness News.

Police say the cause of the disturbance was a frustrated neighbor. But even more surprising is what police found inside his home.

The man behind this mystery is now behind bars. Police blame 59-year-old Fred Mackler for the flashes of bright light and loud bangs that bothered neighbors in Pikesville for years.

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

Ancient meteorite goes unsold in New York as dung sells

Timothy Gardner
NewsDaily.com
2008-04-30 17:27:00

Some dinosaur dung was snapped up at auction in New York even as a 4.5 billion year old meteorite which was supposed to top the sale went unsold.

The two chunks of 130-million-year-old coprolite, otherwise known as fossilized dinosaur dung, fetched $960 at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday, the auction house said.

The Jurassic-era rocks were sold for more than double their maximum estimate, said spokeswoman Staci Smith.

Marvin Kilgore, owner of the Fukang meteorite poses for photographs with the meteorite at Bonham's Auction house in New York, April 30, 2008.

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Swiss discoverer of LSD dies, aged 102

Sam Cage
NewsDaily.com
2008-04-30 16:44:00

ZURICH - Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died aged 102, the organization that republished his book on the mind-altering substance said.

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-bending drug LSD, talks to the audience during the opening of the symposium "LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug" at the Congress Centre in Basel, Switzerland in this January 13, 2006 file photo. Hofmann has died aged 102, the organization that republished his book on the mind-altering substance said.

Hofmann, who advocated the medicinal properties of the drug he termed his "problem child," died from a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday, the California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) said on its website.

Born January 11, 1906, Hofmann discovered LSD -- lysergic acid diethylamide, which later became the favored drug of the 1960s counter-culture -- when a tiny quantity leaked on to his hand during a laboratory experiment in 1943.

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David Blaine sets breathtaking record

BBC News
2008-04-30 13:35:00

Blaine failed in an earlier breath-holding record attempt in New York

Magician David Blaine has set a world record by holding his breath for 17 minutes and four seconds on Oprah Winfrey's US TV show in Chicago.

The star was pulled from a water-filled sphere, and then said he had begun to doubt if he would achieve his goal as he considered his heart rate too high.

The previous record, which was 32 seconds shorter, was set in February.

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Iran official slams smuggling of Barbie, Harry Potter toys

The Economic Times
2008-04-28 04:27:00

Tehran: Iran's Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi has issued a dire warning about the culturally "destructive" consequences of importing Barbies, Harry Potter toys and more from the West.

©Unknown

Forget all about Barbie, and welcome Fulla!

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