Informed Minority

Flash Back ~ A Civil Rights Divide Over Obama

2008-02-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008

By Paige Bowers/Atlanta

Though just one of the 25 Super Tuesday states, Georgia Democrats are likely to be particularly conflicted by their choices on that primary day. The state is the historic heart of the civil rights movement and veterans of that struggle are finding themselves deeply divided over the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — a division complicated by the Illinois Senator's appeal among younger African Americans.

Prominent black leaders such as former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, both onetime associates of Martin Luther King Jr., have endorsed Clinton. But other civil rights movement veterans in Georgia like the Rev. Joseph Lowery and local leaders like Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin have come out for Obama because they believe he shares King's inclusive beliefs. It is a contentious divide. Young, for his part, has said Obama is too young to be President and should wait until 2016 to run, while Lowery has said that blacks who doubt Obama could do so because of a "slave mentality."

"No matter how much education they have, they never graduated from the slave mentality," Lowery told a largely black audience in mid-January. "The slave mentality compels us to say 'We can't win. We can't do.' Martin said the people who were saying 'later' were really saying 'never.' But the time to do right is always right now."

And while the division among the veterans is dramatic, the generational divide is even more stark. Just ask William Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College in Atlanta. Shortly after Obama's resounding victory in the South Carolina primary, he asked his African-American history class what it thought about the presidential election. Of the 26 students in his class, he said 25 supported Obama and one was undecided. "When I pointed out what the Clintons had done vis-a-vis black issues, one of my students said 'Oh, you do something nice for us and then your wife gets to have the presidency?'" Cobb said.

Six days before the South Carolina primary, Obama linked arms with Rev. Raphael G. Warnock — a representative of the younger cohort of African-American community leaders — and sang, "We Shall Overcome" before parishioners at Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. Warnock was careful not to issue an endorsement; nevertheless, he introduced Obama to congregants in a manner fit for a king: "Giants have stood here so we don't take this pulpit lightly, but we invited this brother because he's committed and brilliant," Warnock said. "We had to fight, bleed and die just to be able to vote," Warnock added. "Now we can select Presidents. And now with credibility and intelligence and power, we can run for President." A Jan. 25 Rasmussen Reports poll, taken before John Edwards dropped out of the race, shows Obama leading Clinton 41% to 35% statewide. According to Rasmussen, Obama leads 59% to 28% among African-American voters; Clinton leads 44% to 25% among white voters.

"I think we're reaching the point where [the old guard] will need Obama more than he needs them," says Cobb. "What happened in South Carolina was unprecedented because you had a vast majority of the Democratic establishment lining up behind [Hillary Clinton] and they still could not deliver the vote. It tilted radically in the opposite direction."

However, Cobb says that while race is "an important landmark [it is] not the determining one. We're not so hungry for a black President that we'll vote for anyone." He sees several calculations going on in the minds of the black electorate — and in each individual black political leader. "If Obama wins the nomination and wins in November, they will be in the position of being a black person who opposed the first black President," Cobb says. "If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination and then loses in November, then they will be in the position of having picked the wrong horse in the race. If Clinton wins the primaries and in November, then it will stave off the inevitable, that there will be a political cost for supporting her. Some people in the black community are looking at the black politicians who represent them right now and wondering whether they could lose their seat in Congress. The fact that that's on the table right now is interesting."

There remains substantial hesitation among older African-American voters. "People with high crossover appeal like Obama are viewed with great skepticism [by black voters], because people aren't sure whether a candidate like that would come through for them," says Andra Gillespie, an assistant professor of political science at Emory University. "If Obama were President of the U.S. and had to deal with a Jena 6 or Hurricane Katrina, people wouldn't be sure whether he could identify the 800-pound gorilla in the room. It's not a valid critique, but maybe they think he hasn't been as forceful an advocate for black issues as they'd like."

With Obama's chances at winning the Democratic nomination as yet uncertain, Gillespie says there will still be skepticism among black leaders. "If he had a 75 or 80% chance, I think more people would fall in line," she says.

~ News Flash ~

2008-02-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

Smoking Pot,May increase risk of gum disease

WASHINGTON – Smoking marijuana, much like smoking tobacco, may increase a person's risk for gum disease that can lead to tooth loss, researchers said on Tuesday. A study of 903 New Zealanders found that people who smoked marijuana frequently had triple the risk for severe gum disease and a 60 percent higher risk for a milder form of it compared to people who did not smoke the drug, also called cannabis.

Scientists create three-parent embryos

Advertisement LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists have created human embryos with three parents in a development they hope could lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases within five years. Researchers from Newcastle University, in northern England, presented their findings at a medical conference at the weekend, a university spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Japanese study clears mobiles of brain cancer risk

LONDON (Reuters) – Using a mobile phone does not increase your risk of brain cancer, according to a new Japanese study that is the first to consider the effects of radiation on different parts of the brain. The finding adds to the growing body of evidence that mobile phones are safe.

Chronic pain seen altering how brain works
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Brain scans of people in chronic pain show a state of constant activity in areas that should be at rest, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, a finding that could help explain why pain patients have higher rates of depression, anxiety and other disorders. They said chronic pain seems to alter the way people process information that is unrelated to pain.

Activists may have poisoned China dumplings:
TOKYO (Reuters) – Activists opposed to Chinese government ties with Japan may have contaminated Chinese-made dumplings that caused 10 people in Japan to fall ill, Japanese media quoted a senior Chinese food safety official as saying on Wednesday. The discovery of pesticide on the dumplings has received widespread media coverage in Japan, prompted health queries from nearly 4,000 people and led the importer of the dumplings, Japan Tobacco Inc (2914.T), and rival Nissin Food Products Co Ltd (2897.T) to call off the planned merger of their frozen food operations.

Study finds popular music awash in booze, drugs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – They have lyrics such as “Tequila makes her clothes fall off” and “Breakin down the good weed, rollin' the blunt/Ghetto pimp tight girls say I'm the man.” U.S. popular music is awash with lyrics about drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Medical researchers have reviewed the words of the 279 top songs of 2005 to estimate just how common they are.

MMR vaccine not seen causing autism

LONDON (Reuters) – A vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella does not cause autism, according to the largest study yet showing there is no evidence linking the childhood shot to the development disorder. The study, published on Tuesday in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, found no evidence of any abnormal biological response from the shot that could point to a link between the vaccine and autism.

Persistent depression after heart trouble harmful

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Persistent depression is associated with worse physical health a year after heart attack or severe chest pain – known by the umbrella term “acute coronary syndrome” (ACS), researchers from Canada report. Dr. Brett D. Thombs, from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, and colleagues investigated whether symptoms of depression during and after hospitalization for ACS predict physical health status 12 months after ACS in a study of 425 patients.

Bush seeks increase in funding for FDA food safety
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration on Monday proposed boosting funding to better protect the food supply, including opening an office in China. In its fiscal 2009 budget, the White House proposed raising expenditures for food programs at the Food and Drug Administration to $543 million from an estimated $510 million in the prior year.

Republicans Block stimulus bill

2008-02-07T00:39:00.000-08:00

By: JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
And ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

The fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Republicans blocked a bid by Democrats to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and businesses to the House-passed economic aid package.

GOP senators banded together Wednesday to thwart the $205 billion plan, leaving Democrats with a difficult choice either to quickly accept a House bill they have said is inadequate or risk being blamed for delaying a measure designed as a swift shot in the arm for the lagging economy.

The tally was 58-41 to end debate on the Senate measure, just short of the 60 votes Democrats would have needed to scale procedural hurdles and move the bill to a final vote. In a suspenseful showdown vote that capped days of partisan infighting and procedural jockeying, eight Republicans — four of them up for re-election this year — joined Democrats to back the plan, bucking GOP leaders and President Bush, who objected to the costly add-ons.

Democrats choreographed the vote for maximum political advantage, presenting their aid proposal as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition for Republicans and calling back their presidential candidates to make a show of party unity behind their stimulus plan. They calculated that Republicans would pay a steep price for opposing rebates for older Americans and disabled veterans, as well as heating aid for the poor, unemployment benefits and a much larger collection of business tax breaks than the House approved.

Even after their effort fell short Wednesday, Democrats seemed determined to keep the pressure on Republicans to accept the measure, threatening to hold more votes on it in the coming days.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is "going to give Republicans a chance to reconsider their vote against efforts to strengthen the economy by helping those who need it most," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said Wednesday night.

Republicans said they were ready to accept rebates for seniors and disabled veterans and accused Democrats of delaying the stimulus plan for political gain and loading it down with special-interest extras.

"Our constituents will look at us as the folks that slowed it down (and) added a bunch of spending to it," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, who called the measure "a Christmas tree package."

The White House, which has carefully avoided issuing threats about the package despite Bush's opposition to the add-ons, urged the Senate to move fast to approve a stimulus plan.

"To be effective, this economic growth package must be timely, so it is crucial that the Senate now move quickly to pass a bill that will deliver relief to our economy," press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement after the vote.

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois flew to Washington for the vote. GOP front-runner John McCain of Arizona did not vote.

Supporters actually had 59 votes in favor of the Democratic proposal, but Reid switched his vote to 'no' at the last moment, a parliamentary move that allows him to bring the measure up for a revote.

Republican leaders objected to add-ons such as a $14.5 billion unemployment extension for those whose benefits have run out, $1 billion in heating aid for the poor and tax breaks for renewable energy producers and coal companies.

The measure builds upon a $161 billion House-passed bill providing $600-$1,200 checks to most taxpayers and tax breaks to businesses investing in new plants and equipment.

The Senate version would provide checks of $500-$1,000 to a broader group that includes 20 million elderly people, 250,000 disabled veterans and taxpayers making up to $150,000 for singles — or $300,000 for couples.

It would extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks for those whose benefits have run out, with 13 more weeks available in states with the highest jobless rates. The bill also includes $10 billion in tax-free mortgage revenue bonds to help homeowners refinance subprime loans.

Reid denied Republicans an opportunity to offer changes to the measure, provoking the filibuster. The calculus was that enough Republicans would relent in the face of political pressure to support unemployment insurance and heating aid to join Democrats and force the measure through.

GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he wants to amend the measure to add rebates for disabled veterans and their widows and the elderly, and language — also included in the Democrats' package — making clear that illegal immigrants can't get rebate checks.

"We didn't block the proposal," McConnell said. "We just said there's a better way to go and there's an alternative."

Reid rejected the offer — at least for the time being — but Republicans seemed confident he would eventually agree to comparable changes since the alternative would be to approve the House bill and leave retirees living on Social Security and disabled veterans without rebate checks.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who backs a stimulus bill with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Minority John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House lawmakers are "very receptive to additions to our bill which ensure that disabled veterans and additional seniors are eligible" for rebate checks and want to make sure illegal immigrants are denied them.

A Pelosi spokesman said her statement did not represent a break with Reid, even though she seemed to praise McConnell's approach and was silent on Democratic add-ons such the provision benefiting coal companies. Pelosi prefers to try to extend unemployment benefits in a later bill.

The climactic Senate vote came after an intense lobbying effort by Democrats to convert wavering Republicans, including those facing tough re-election fights. Their efforts got a boost from outside groups leaning on senators to back the package, including home builders, manufacturers and the powerful seniors lobby.

Republicans were under enormous pressure from their own leaders not to support the Democrats' plan. Working to stem defections, GOP leaders assured their rank and file that they would have another chance to support adding senior citizens and disabled veterans to the aid plan even if they opposed the Democrats' bill.

That wasn't enough for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. who threw his support behind the measure.

"I'm hopeful that I have chosen the right path," he said just before the vote. "I made my decision on what was best for New Mexico and what's best for America."

Hamas: Attacks Will Stop When Palestinians Liberate “All of Palestine”

2008-01-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

By Amihai Zippor

(IHC News Analysis, 24 January 2008)

Hamas Political chief Khaled Mashaal told a conference of opposition Palestinian groups in Damascus that his organization will never give up its fight against Israel.

“The struggle must continue until the entire siege on the Strip is lifted and until the liberation of Palestine – all of Palestine,” said Mashaal on Wednesday, 23 January 2008.

“We stopped the missiles before, as well as all types of resistance in a tactical manner, but this did not bring the siege to an end. Therefore, the missiles are not the reason, and the siege did not begin with the fuel and electricity crisis,” he said.

Mashaal’s defiant remarks came as visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen met with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem and demanded Hamas cease all terrorist activity.

“I condemn the firing of Qassam rockets on Sderot,” Ynetnews.com quoted Verhagen as saying after having toured the damage incurred by Israelis living in Gaza periphery communities.

“I visited the city and saw the people living in fear...No government can afford a situation in which its citizens are living under fire,” Verhagen said.

He added, a way must be found to show the Palestinians the alternatives “in order to stop them from leaning towards the extreme.”

Verhagen is one of the only international officials to openly vindicate Israel in the midst of the Gaza crisis.

-------------------------------------------------

Source: Original text contributed by the author, IHC reporter.

Copyright © Israel Hasbara Committee, 24 January 2008.

Permission is granted to use this material on condition the Israel Hasbara Committee is properly credited and that it is not for commercial purposes.

Anger over girls' strip searches ...

2008-01-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

Katie and Gemma had all their own clothes taken away

Two British girls were sent to an orphanage for 30 hours and strip searched after their mother became ill during a holiday in the US.
Gemma Bray, 15, and her 13-year-old sister Katie also had their clothes taken off them and were asked if they had been abused or were suicidal.

Their mother Yvonne Bray of Appledore, Devon, says their human rights were infringed by the authorities.

She was hospitalised with pneumonia during a trip to New York.

The Administration for Children's Services in New York has declined to comment on the matter.

I'm not guilty of anything other than getting ill in a country without family or friends
Yvonne Bray

"What should have been the trip of a lifetime turned out to be a complete disaster from start to finish," Ms Bray told BBC News.

"I was going to give the girls money for their Christmas, but with the exchange rate being so good, I decided to book the trip to New York.

"This was their Christmas present and it was totally ruined."

The family flew out to New York on 27 December. When Ms Bray began coughing later that day, she initially put it down to her asthma and the air conditioning on the flight.

The following night, she became more unwell with laboured breathing and was admitted to the Queen's Medical Centre in Harlem.

But Ms Bray was told her daughters could not stay with her at the hospital as they were minors.

Yvonne Bray said she had now received a letter from social workers

"A doctor told me they would make the arrangements, then a few hours later a social worker arrived and said they'd try to find a foster family for the girls," she said.

"Instead of that they were taken to a orphanage and subjected to the kind of treatment you wouldn't even expect criminals to go through."

The frightened teenagers had their clothes, including their underwear, removed and were issued with a uniform of T-shirt and jeans before being spilt up and given a medical examination.

"Being away from Mum when you are alone in New York in an strange place with people you don't know - it's just scary," said Katie.

You didn't know how long you'd be there or if Mum would get better
Katie Bray

"At first it was so shocking - it was as if it wasn't happening but then it hits you.

"You didn't know how long you'd be there or if Mum would get better."

Photographs were taken and the girls were told they would not be allowed to visit their mother in hospital.

When the duty social worker told Ms Bray her daughters could not leave the orphanage, she discharged herself from the hospital against medical advice.

She said: "I was so cross. I didn't sign anything saying they could be examined or interrogated - they even asked them if they had been raped.

"They had to shower in front of strangers. What they went through would be a breach of anyone's human rights, let alone two girls on holiday."

'It's disgraceful'

Ms Bray has now received a letter from the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) to say she is now being investigated.

"It's disgraceful, but I'm trying to totally dismiss this," Ms Bray said.

"It seems like a standard letter because the children have been entered into the child care system.

"I'm not guilty of anything other than getting ill in a country without family or friends."

A spokeswoman from ACS told BBC News it was an "entirely confidential matter" and the department would not comment.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/7206570.stm

Attempts to eradicate the opium poppy fields in Afghanistan, A 'failure'

2008-01-26T21:56:00.000-08:00

Mr Holbrooke describes Mr Bush's policy as ineffective

A former US ambassador to the United Nations has criticised President George Bush's attempts to eradicate the opium poppy fields in Afghanistan.
Richard Holbrooke has described the US policy as "spectacularly unsuccessful".

The administration is "wasting" around $1bn annually on a programme which actually encourages farmers to support the Taleban, he says.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, only 13 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are "poppy free".

The problem is specially acute in the unstable south of the country.

'Ineffective'

Writing a column in The Washington Post newspaper, Mr Holbrooke says Mr Bush's vocal support in the last two years for aerial spraying of poppy fields highlighted what was wrong with the US policy.

Mr Bush's remarks "are part of the story behind the spectacularly unsuccessful US counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan", he says.

Mr Bush backed down from backing aerial spraying because the Afghan government and the international community argued it would "create a backlash against" Kabul and Washington.

"But even without aerial eradication, the programme, which costs $1bn a year, may be the single most ineffective programme in the history of American foreign policy," Mr Holbrooke writes.

"It's not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taleban and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan," he writes.

With the Taleban insurgency still raging, counter-narcotics teams in Afghanistan have been unable to make any impact on the poppy problem in the south.

Experts say stopping poppy production requires more than just laws.

The authorities have to also provide alternative livelihoods for the cultivators and build access to markets and education, among other things - things which are very difficult to deliver in an unstable environment.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7206205.stm

Published: 2008/01/24

American woman kidnapped in Afghanistan

2008-01-26T12:11:00.000-08:00

AP Photo: Afghan policemen search a vehicle after an American aid worker was kidnapped in Kandahar, Afghanistan

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Gunmen kidnapped a burqa-clad American aid worker and her driver in southern Afghanistan's largest city early Saturday, snatching the woman from a residential neighborhood as she was on her way to work.

Cyd Mizell worked in Kandahar for the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation. Jeff Palmer, the aid group's international director, said the group had not been contacted by the kidnappers and that he did not know their identity or demands.

Asadullah Khalid, the provincial governor, blamed the kidnappings on the "enemy of Islam and the enemy of Afghanistan." Khalid said the 49-year-old American was wearing a burqa when she was taken.

Several foreigners — including 23 South Koreans, two German construction workers and two Italian journalists — have been kidnapped in Afghanistan in the last year, but kidnappings of Americans are rare.

A professor at Kandahar University, Mohammad Gul, said Mizell taught English language lessons at the university and embroidery lessons at a girl's school.

Gul said she speaks the local language, Pashtu, well and that if Afghans asked about her background she would say she was from the Alakozai tribe — a well known Pashtun tribe in the Kandahar region.

"She is a very patient and calm woman," Gul said. "She was always thinking about Afghanistan's future."

Palmer said she has worked for ARLDF on income-generating women's projects in Kandahar for the last three years.

"It is our hope that our worker will be released safely and quickly and we are doing all that we can to resolve the situation," Palmer said. "This is a first for our organization and we're really praying for a quick resolution."

Traveling around Kandahar city has turned increasingly dangerous in the last year, as the Taliban insurgency has spread throughout southern Afghanistan. Western civilians who operate there often travel with armed guards and with extreme caution. The area is rife with Taliban militants and also with criminals linked to the country's booming opium poppy trade.

A Taliban spokesman said he had no immediate information that the Islamic militia was behind the kidnappings.

In a likely plea to the woman's captors, Khalid noted that Mizell respected Afghan traditions by wearing the burqa and speaking the local languages. She did not travel with armed guards, he said.

Projects run by the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation are located around the city of Kandahar and include food for work, irrigation rehabilitation, health care and restoration projects, according to the group's Web site. The group also has projects in Vietnam, China, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

___

Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso contributed to this report from Kabul.

Rogue French trader taken into custody

2008-01-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

Rogue trader Jerome Kerviel is
likely to face legal charges

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD, Associated Press

A rogue trader who cost France's Societe Generale bank more than $7 billion by making bad stock market bets was taken into custody on Saturday for questioning, judicial officials said.

Financial police in Paris were to question Jerome Kerviel as part of a probe into Societe Generale's announcement Thursday that the 31-year-old trader had put tens of billions of dollars at risk in one of history's biggest frauds, judicial officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Skeptics from Kerviel's neighbors to France's prime minister have questioned whether a single futures trader could have managed such large sums. Adding to the mystery, the bank said Kerviel may not have made any personal gain from his unauthorized trades.

The bank said it discovered the fraud last weekend and unwound the trader's losing bets starting Monday, when world markets tumbled. Some analysts have questioned whether Societe Generale exacerbated the fall and indirectly led to the U.S. Federal Reserve's subsequent decision to cut rates.

Judicial officials also confirmed police searched Kerviel's apartment in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. They said police also went Friday night to the bank's headquarters, where they were provided with documents relating to the investigation, officials said.

Paris prosecutors are conducting a preliminary investigation based on three complaints: one by the bank accusing Kerviel of fraud, and two by small shareholders.

In an interview published Saturday, Societe Generale's chief executive, Daniel Bouton, insisted the bank's actions after discovering the fraud did not fuel turmoil on world markets.

"It's absurd!" Bouton said of the suggestion, in an interview with Le Figaro daily. "Anyone could calculate our contribution to the market in recent days."

Bouton was quoted as saying the bank, in closing the trader's unauthorized positions, respected market rules that forbid any player from intervening with sums worth more than 10 percent of a given market. The bank says that is why it took three days to close the positions.

The bank maintains it was the biggest loser in the case, because of the timing of the discovery.

Kerviel had been investing the bank's money by hedging on European equity market indices. That means he made bets on how the markets would perform at a future date.

Bouton said the trader had been betting throughout 2007 that markets would fall. "He was therefore winning, virtually," he said.

But the bank says he had overstepped his authority and was wagering more money than he should have.

So at the beginning of January, Bouton said, the trader voluntarily created losing positions, to neutralize his earlier gains and cover his tracks.

But markets dropped this month, and fast. "This sad affair veered into a Greek tragedy: His virtual losing position became huge," Bouton was quoted as saying.

The bank's systems discovered an anomaly on Jan. 18, he said. On Sunday, the full scale of the problem was revealed to the bank's management — "enormous and totally abnormal," Bouton said.

"I decided ... to close the positions and alert the supervisory authorities," he said.

When Asian and European markets collapsed Monday, "that had a catastrophic effect. The losses of Societe Generale became even more enormous," he was quoted as saying.

Ultimately it took three days to close the positions, and the bank lost $7.2 billion.

Bouton said the overall health of the bank was not at risk, comparing the situation to arson at a factory of a big manufacturer — a devastating, but one-time, loss.

French presidential aide Raymond Soubie said the trader had been dealing with more than $73.3 billion. That figure outstrips the bank's market capitalization of $52.6 billion, and is close to the annual GDP of entire nations such Slovakia, Qatar or Libya.

It remains unclear whether Kerviel's actions, if proved, were out of malevolence, ambition or some other reason. Three union officials representing Societe Generale employees said managers at the bank who briefed them about the fraud told them Kerviel was having family problems.

The debacle generated buzz at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and raised questions sector-wide about risk management.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, speaking Saturday in Davos, said she has been asked to compile a report on the fraud, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Lagarde said her report will look at "the reality of facts based on real hard data," and "how and why the controls did not work" to prevent the fraud. Lagarde said the report, whose results are to be made public, will address "what additional controls should be put in place to stop it happening again," Dow Jones said.

Societe Generale's shares have lost nearly half their value over the past six months. After an up-and-down day Friday, the shares closed down 2.5 percent at $108.62.

The company, which also posted another $2.99 billion subprime-related loss, planned to raise $8.02 billion in new capital.

___

Associated Press writers Cecile Roux and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

EU seeks to collect more data on foreign travellers

2008-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

Agence France Presse.

EU ministers on Friday backed plans to collect data on air travellers coming to Europe, a move which could force visitors to provide information three times before entering.

The ministers, meeting in Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia, also discussed setting up a new exit-entry register on the European Union's outside borders to help stop foreigners over-staying their visas, the main cause of illegal immigration.

The EU hopes to have the so-called passenger name record (PNR) plan -- modelled along lines similar to the one agreed with the United States last year -- in operation early next year.

"PNR is necessary for an efficient fight against terrorism and organised crime," Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate said after chairing talks here with his EU counterparts.

The system would affect Europeans and foreigners when they enter the bloc, but it would provide a new layer of controls on non-Europeans, who would also give information via their visas and the planned entry-exit register.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said the register was a must to stop cases like those in Italy involving Ukrainians who arrived on a tourist visa and then stayed and picked up black market jobs.

"One of the main problems we are facing is over-stayers. That cannot be tolerated," he said. "Over-stayers are the factor number one of illegal immigration."

He said the electronic register would collect biometric data including photographs and fingerprints.

The US PNR scheme picks up far more information.

European air travellers surrender 19 categories of data about themselves to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which it can keep for 15 years and share with law enforcement agencies.

The agreement, which collects data like credit card and passport details, e-mail addresses and travel itineraries, has raised privacy concerns in Europe.

It is unclear exactly how much information would be retained by the EU's 27 nations, or which authorities would have access to it, but some countries did express concern about the amount of data changing hands.

"I'm not sure that a huge flow of information could be examined in any useful way by all the member states," said Luxembourg Justice Minister Luc Frieden.

He urged EU members to study the effects of the US system before pressing ahead. "I would first like to have more information about the efficiency of the system that we have agreed with the United States," he told reporters.

Mate did not rule out launching a study into the US agreement while Europe moves ahead with its own plan.

"We can do this in parallel," he said.

EU anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove underlined that the "system in the European Union should not be inferior" to the one agreed with the United States.

Frattini, who has been a strong supporter of the plan, said tests conducted on a similar, national scheme in Britain had shown that it works well.

"No ministers raised doubts about the usefulness," he said.

He said Denmark and France were considering such a plan -- Spain has already made preparations on a PNR register of its own -- and warned of the dangers of having a patchwork across the EU.

"Suspect people entering the territory of a state where there is not a PNR system, will be free to move to another state," he said.

Canada Removes U.S. And Israel From Torture Watch List

2008-01-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

The Canadian government has removed the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured after coming under pressure from U.S. and Israeli officials. The Canadian Foreign Minister is now claiming that the United States and Israel were wrongly placed on a list that also included Syria, China, Iran and Afghanistan. The original document cited the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and lists U.S. interrogation techniques including “forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation.” Amnesty International Canada said it was disappointed by the Canadian government"s reversal. Amnesty’s Alex Neve said: “When it comes to an issue like torture, the government’s main concern should not be embarrassing allies.”

The Legacy of George W Bush's Presidency

2008-01-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

THE LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH’S PRESIDENCY

The Country He Inherited, The Country He Leaves Behind

THE ECONOMY
TODAY UNDER BUSH

REAL GDP GROWTH
4.09% Over Prior 8 Years
2.65% Over Prior 7 Years (Bush)

NATIONAL DEBT
$5.7 Trillion
$9.2 Trillion (Bush)

BUDGET DEFICIT/SURPLUS
$431 Billion Surplus / Previous Three Budget Years
$734 Billion Deficit / Previous Three Budget's Years(Bush)

NEW PRIVATE SECTOR
JOBS CREATED4
1.76 Million Jobs Per Year Over Previous 8 Years
369,000 Jobs Per Year Over Previous 7 Years (Bush)

AMERICANS IN POVERTY
31.6 Million
36.5 Million (Bush)

QUALITY OF LIFE
AMERICANS UNINSURED

CHANGE IN UNINSURED LEVEL
38 Million Uninsured
4.5 Million Less in 2 Years
47 Million Uninsured
8.5 Million More in 6 Years (Bush)

ANNUAL TOTAL PREMIUM COST
$6,230 for Family Premium
$12,106 for Family Premium (Bush)

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME &
CHANGE IN MEDIAN INCOME
$49,163 / $6,000 Increase in 8 Years
$48,023 / $1,100 Decrease in 6 Years (Bush)

PRICE OF GAS
$1.39/Gallon
$3.07/Gallon (Bush)

COST OF COLLEGE
$3,164 per year
$5,192 per year (Bush)

PERSONAL SAVINGS RATE
+2.3%
-0.5% (Bush)

CONSUMER CREDIT DEBT
$7.65 Trillion
$12.8 Trillion (Bush)

UNITED STATES & THE WORLD

U.S. TRADE DEFICIT
$380 Billion
$759 Billion (Bush)

STRENGTH OF U.S. DOLLAR

1.07 Euros per Dollar
0.68 Euros Per Dollar (Bush)

COMBAT READINESS

~ All Active Duty Army Divisions Were Rated
At The Highest Readiness Levels

~ Not A Single Active Duty Or Reserve Brigade In The U.S. Considered “Fully Combat Ready.” (Bush)

FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCY
52.75% of U.S. Liquid Fuel Consumption is Imported
60.38% of U.S. Liquid Fuel Consumption is Imported (Bush)

VIEW OF AMERICA ABROAD

PEW POLL OF TEN NATIONS
58.3% Viewed

America Favorably
39.2% Viewed (Bush)

GREAT BRITAIN’S VIEW OF U.S.
83% Favorable
56% Favorable (Bush)

INDONESIA’S VIEW OF U.S.
75% Favorable
30% Favorable (Bush)

TURKEY’S VIEW OF U.S.
52% Favorable
12% Favorable (Bush)

GERMANY’S VIEW OF U.S.
78% Favorable
37% Favorable (Bush)

Tentative Deal Reached on Stimulus

2008-01-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

*Jamie Rose for The New York Times
President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson answered questions on the proposed stimulus package.

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and DAVID STOUT
Published: January 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — House leaders and the White House on Thursday announced a tentative agreement on an economic stimulus package of roughly $150 billion that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per household, and more for families with children, plus provide tax incentives for businesses to encourage spending.

The accord was announced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. at a Capitol news conference and hailed minutes afterward by President Bush as the fruit of “patience, determination and good will” in both parties.

The president and the speaker both described the accord as embracing the basic precepts of their respective parties. Mr. Bush called it “a powerful and effective way to help taxpayers and businesses” by letting people keep and spend more of their own money.

Ms. Pelosi said the package was aimed at the middle class “and to those who aspire to be in the middle class.” She described it as “timely, targeted and temporary — that was our standard.”

In addition to the tax rebates, or stipends, Ms. Pelosi said the package would offer some quick relief for those homeowners in danger of losing their houses.

Mr. Boehner called the package “simple, clean and neat.” Like Ms. Pelosi, he said none of the parties to the talks got everything they wanted. But in the end, he said, “This agreement is a big win for the American people.”

President Bush said the agreement was also a victory for the kind of bipartisanship that some politicians and political analysts say is in short supply in Washington of late. And as he has many times, the president said the American economy is “structurally sound” despite rising energy prices and problems in the housing industry.

Democrats released a summary estimating that the rebates would go to 117 million households. About two-thirds of the total package would go toward the rebates, with the remaining one-third going toward business tax breaks, like write-offs for equipment purchases.

Both leaders pledged quick action in the House, and both pointedly urged similar alacrity by the Senate, whose members operate “with their very senatorial rules,” as Ms. Pelosi put it.

“Speed is of the essence,” Mr. Paulson said.

President Bush underscored that message, as he offered warm praise for the negotiators in both parties. He also took the opportunity to urge once again the extension of tax cuts that were approved by the Republican-controlled Congress early in the decade and are to expire within a few years.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said minutes after the announcement that he was pleased an agreement had been reached, and that he wanted a package ready for Mr. Bush by the time Congress recesses around President’s Day. But he said senators would “work to improve the House package” through the addition of unemployment benefits and other items.

Late in the negotiations that preceded Thursday’s breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi agreed not to include two proposals that have broad support among Congressional Democrats: an extension of unemployment benefits and a temporary increase in food stamps.

In exchange for those concessions, the Bush administration and House Republicans agreed that the stipend of at least $300 would be paid to all workers who earned at least $3,000 last year, even those who did not earn enough to pay taxes.

As it was presented on Thursday afternoon, the package calls for workers who paid income taxes to receive $300 to $600, and couples to receive up to $1,200 — plus $300 more for each child. The stipend, which some lawmakers were calling a “tax rebate,” would be subject to income limits so that the wealthiest taxpayers would not receive it. Payments would go to individuals with adjusted gross incomes under $75,000 and couples with adjusted gross incomes under $150,000. (Late Thursday afternoon, the White House corrected an earlier statement that the $75,000 and $150,000 ceilings applied to taxable incomes.)Senators Reid and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, have yet to give their approval to the accord. But, while there may be some wrinkles to iron out between the House and Senate, there was nothing to suggest any disagreement so severe as to be a potential deal breaker.

Republicans immediately cheered the deal as “tilted toward taxpayers” and avoiding “extraneous spending” on unemployment benefits, food stamps, or infrastructure projects, which some Democrats had said should be included in a stimulus package.

But it was unclear how the package, without extended unemployment benefits or increased food stamps, would be received by Democrats in the Senate, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who have said that those proposals offered the best prospects for quickly injecting added spending into the economy.

Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee, reiterated his interest in extending unemployment benefits at a hearing on Thursday morning, where he said his committee would mark up a fiscal stimulus bill next week.

“There are reports that a deal may be close on the House side,” Mr. Baucus said. “The Senate will want to speak, as well.”

That announcement of potential action by the Finance Committee could jar Democratic leaders who have been striving for a carefully coordinated effort on the economy. Earlier this week, Mr. Reid announced that the House would take the lead in developing the stimulus package and would conduct the immediate negotiations with the White House and Congressional Republicans.

Noting that tax rebates were one potentially cost-effective method to spur new spending, Mr. Baucus said: “Another example would be expanding unemployment insurance benefits. In recent recessions, Congress has extended the number of weeks that unemployed workers could receive benefits. We could do that again. We could provide a further extension for recipients in high unemployment states. And we could also temporarily increase the dollar amount of benefits to help unemployed workers to pay their bills.”

“Unfortunately, under current law, fewer than 4 in 10 unemployed workers receive unemployment insurance benefits,” Mr. Baucus continued. “To address this problem, we could extend eligibility. For example, we could extend benefits to part-time workers.”

Mr. Schumer, at the same committee hearing, also lamented Ms. Pelosi’s concession on unemployment benefits, but said he hoped that cooperation on a quick stimulus plan would continue. “While I may not agree with every element of the package — such as the decision to leave out extended unemployment benefits, which economists say would give us the greatest bang for the buck — there are some very positive developments around the tax rebate for families,” he said. “I encourage everyone to keep working in a bipartisan way.”

Ms. Pelosi met three times on Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Mr. Boehner, who have served as chief architects of the plan in a rare show of bipartisanship.

On her way into a meeting Wednesday evening, Ms. Pelosi signaled that a deal might be close when she said there had been “tremendous” progress during the day.

Democratic leaders said that to speed the economic rescue package they would mostly bypass the usual committee process. Lawmakers said that they hoped the plan could be approved by mid-February and that it would be sufficient to soften an economic downturn and forestall a recession.

“One of the principal tenets of the administration and of ourselves is we have got to do this fast,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said Wednesday. “To go through the regular process and have hearings and have mark-ups and subcommittee mark-ups, obviously we would be to some degree twiddling our thumbs while the economy burns.”

The progress toward a stimulus plan came as the Congressional Budget Office revised its economic projections to give a gloomier assessment of the economy, including a widening budget deficit and the first decline in corporate tax revenue since 2003.

The grimmer outlook prompted Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee, to declare that a short-term stimulus package was insufficient.

“In addition to developing a bipartisan stimulus package,” Mr. Conrad said, “we also must work together to tackle the long-term fiscal challenges we face with the coming retirement of the baby boom generation. The American people rightly expect that we will come together to address these two significant challenges.”

House conservatives raised alarms about the emerging economic legislation, saying they feared it would focus too much on tax rebates and not enough on tax incentives to encourage businesses to create jobs.

They said any package should include provisions that would reduce the corporate tax rate, adjust capital gains for inflation and lower the capital gains rate for corporations.

“Giving temporary tax rebate checks to families, as important as that is, is not the same as economic growth,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “If you’re going to have an economic stimulus package, it ought to contain some economic stimulus.”

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.

~ Flash Back ~ Bill Clinton "America" willing To Role The Dice

2008-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

By: Marc Ambender

It depends on what the American people think is more important....[do they] have somebody who is very his very nature a compelling, very attractive, highly intelligent, visible symbol of transformation, or is it more ...[important] to have someone who would also symbolize change...but who has done a significant number of things to change other people's lives."
*Bill Clinton to Charlie Rose 12.14.2007

14 Dec 2007

In a hard-changing interview with Charlie Rose tonight, Bill Clinton said Americans who are prepared to choose someone with less experience, are prepared to "roll the dice" about the future of America."It's less predictable, isn't it? When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service before he's running?"

"What do you want to do -- whether you think it matters that, I mean, in theory, no experience matters," Clinton said. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentators and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics..."

And Clinton said the notion that experience led the politicians to sanction the Iraq War is "absurd."

"That's like saying that because 100% of the malpractice cases are committed by doctors, the next time I need surgery, I'll get a chef or a plumber to do it."

Towards the end of the interview, Rose indicated that Clinton's staff was asking producers in his show's control room to get them to have Rose end the interview.

And Clinton said: "Somebody will parse this interview..." to take his quotes out of context. "It is stupid... I think we are fortunate in having people..I think the relevant question from me is, who will be the best president who has a proven record of making change in the lives of other people."

They may parse his body language. Toward the end of the interview, his hands began to shake and his face reddened as he discussed the political thicket his wife finds herself in.

Please read this rough transcription of Clinton's take on why his wife isn't doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"Really, really interesting, that I've heard Sen. Obama a dozen times making some fairly derisive comment about Hillary...saying, you know, she had a decades old plan to be president...repeating this total canard that...totally fabricated account from an anti-Hillary book...as if it was something bad that he didn't have a decades-long president...so on their website they put reports that he had been planning to run for president...and they put this thing when he was in kindergarten that he planned to run for president..but the Obama people got the press on their side..."

Rose asked Clinton whether he was nervous about the state of the campaign.

"Well, no. Let me back up. In January, when on New Years Day, she said she was finally going to try and do this... I said I'll make you a prediction...allt he press will say you will coast to the nomination....I think you will have a difficult time getting nominated, and if you are nominated, you'll win the general election handily.....[HRC asked why]...you'll have to run in Iowa, which is the single most difficult state...but Sen. Edwards has a well-earned, huge cadre of support in Iowa because he's worked it for seven years...Sen. Obama is next door, that matters.

Rose: "You think that's the reason for the polls...""

Clinton: "On Edwards, there is no doubt...So, look I've done this before. When I lost in New Hampshire to Paul Tsongas, I lost the first 10 miles next to the Massachusetts border. I carried everything from 10 miles north up to the Canadian border. There are thousands of Illinois students in Iowa colleges...who have never caucused before...[insists he's not lowering expectations.]..he's been to 75 counties, she's been to 50..so my view of this is that I never thought she had a big lead in Iowa...the Iowa people have been really fair to her...they've listened to her and they've given her a chance, and she might win there...and it is astonishing...from the beginning of this race, she had a lead in 36 of 38 states...and not having good luck...what has really happened...what i have been frustrated about has nothing to do with her campaign...the challenges in the polls in the moments will be overcome..I can feel in Iowa, it depends on what people think the answer is...in New Hampshire...the Republicans have been attacking her in all the debates...those attacks affect independent voters...she is not in a position to answer back what the Republicans are doing in the primary...that has not been good..."

"In Iowa, nobody wants to go negative on television, so really it's a war underneath the radar screen and it has more to do with how the press interprets it than anything else...what broke her momentum there was the extraordinary attention given to her not very great answer on the driver's licenses....the press should have a common set of standards..."

"He is great, Edwards is really good..."

"It's a miracle she's got a chance to win."

Richardson, Biden, Dodd are ready to be president, Clinton says.

"Obama has got great skills. It depends on what the American people think is more important....[do they] have somebody who is very his very nature a compelling, very attractive, highly intelligent, visible symbol of transformation, or is it more ...[important] to have someone who would also symbolize change...but who has done a significant number of things to change other people's lives."

SEC probing Merrill on "front running":

2008-01-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

Mon Jan 14, 2008 NEW YORK (Reuters) -
Reporting by Ritsuko Ando, editing by Will Waterman

Regulators are investigating whether several current and former employees at Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research) improperly placed trades for the brokerage house's own account ahead of client orders, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

A Merrill Lynch representative was not immediately available for comment.

The report, quoting people familiar with the matter, said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would look into whether some employees improperly stepped in front of orders placed by mutual fund operator Fidelity Investments to gain an unfair advantage.

The practice, called "front-running", takes advantage of the big stock moves that follow orders from big investment houses, such as Fidelity, to make a profit.

The period under scrutiny covers 2002 through 2005, the report said.

The SEC last year began investigating Merrill's subprime mortgage portfolio following the company's report of a $2.3 billion loss for the third quarter.

Reuters World News Highlights: 01.24.2008

2008-01-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

JERUSALEM - Israel would like to sever its remaining connections with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory's border with Egypt, a top Israeli defence official said on Thursday.
- - - -
MOSCOW - Russia's Central Election Commission said on Thursday it had grounds to disqualify former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov from running as an independent in a March presidential election, news agencies reported.
- - - -
TEL AVIV - U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said on Thursday a new draft resolution against Iran agreed by major powers would be punitive, despite remarks to the contrary by Russia's foreign minister.
- - - -
PARIS - European stocks surged in early trade on Thursday, tracking a Wall Street recovery on hopes that a rescue for troubled bond insurers could prevent more writedowns, while investors digested the announcement of a huge fraud at Societe Generale.
- - - -
JERUSALEM - Hamas has exposed Israel's inability to rein in the Gaza Strip, proving it holds the power to blow open the border and turn a crippling Israeli blockade into a public relations nightmare for the Jewish state.
- - - -
DAVOS, Switzerland - Climate campaigner Al Gore challenged policymakers on Thursday to step up action against the "planetary emergency" of global warming by making new laws, saying action by individuals could help only at the margins.
- - - -
BEIJING - China on Thursday defended its policies in Tibet and its relations with the government of Sudan, saying it was wrong for activists to seize on the issues as a way to pressure Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games in August.
- - - -
BAGHDAD - The police chief of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was killed in a suicide bomb attack on Thursday as he toured the scene of a blast a day earlier in which at least 20 people died, police said.
- - - -
NAIROBI - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday to try to end a crisis over the nation's disputed election, after having persuaded the opposition to call off street protests.
- - - -
SYDNEY - Australian actor Heath Ledger, who was found dead in his New York apartment, was edgy and anxious during his Christmas holidays about not seeing his daughter Matilda, close friend and model Sophie Ward told local media.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians flood into Egypt to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade

2008-01-24T03:47:00.000-08:00

Mubarak tells Egyptian soldiers not to stop the human tide, Palestinians 'starving;'

MARK MACKINNON

RAFAH, EGYPT — Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians burst over the Egyptian border Wednesday for a chaotic but joyous shopping spree after masked gunmen broke Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip by destroying the rusty iron wall that marked Gaza's southern edge.

A series of predawn explosions destroyed most of the 11-kilometre-long barrier. Gaza residents and militants indicated that the barrier had been secretly cut weeks earlier so the detonations would bring it down. Crowds of Palestinians seized the opportunity to escape their isolation, flooding across to Egypt on foot and in taxis and donkey carts.

After months of deprivation, they bought everything and anything they could get their hands on and within hours store shelves on the Egyptian side of Rafah were almost completely cleared of goods. Palestinians with a bulldozer later cleared away some of the wreckage of the border wall, making it easier for cars to pass.

Israel worries that weapons could flow freely into Gaza, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had to tread carefully between his support for Fatah, and strong support in his country for the rival Hamas, which controls Gaza.

The opening of the border followed six days of escalating economic siege that saw Israel slash deliveries of fuel and other essentials to the Hamas-controlled strip. The blockade had left many of Gaza's 1.6 million residents with only occasional electricity, and caused shortages of food, medicines and other basic supplies.

For many Gazans, Wednesday was the first time in months they'd been able to buy household goods, such as dish and laundry soap. Goods had been prevented from entering Gaza by a partial blockade Israel imposed after Hamas seized control of the strip last June. The blockade was tightened last week in response to rocket fire targeting Israeli towns. Estimates of how many Palestinians crossed into Egypt Wednesday ranged from 200,000 to 500,000.

The influx continued Thursday morning, with thousands of Palestinians streaming into Egypt, where riot police began gathering at the border and directing traffic away from the downed wall.

Dozens of officers with search dogs used batons to beat the hoods of cars and pickup trucks that massed at the border to carry Palestinians further into Egyptian territory.

For some, it was the first time in their lives they'd been able to leave the crowded confines of Gaza, a tiny coastal territory that has been under some form of Israeli control for more than four decades.

“It's been very hard for us. There is no electricity in Gaza, the sewage is dangerous to your health, there's no flour and no bread,” said 23-year-old Nasreen Ayash, who crossed into Egypt with her husband Mohammed, 30, and their one-year-old son, Omar. They didn't have money to do much shopping, but wanted to see what life was like outside of Gaza for the first time in their lives. “Today is like a vacation for us. It's easier for us to go to [Sinai] than to go to the West Bank.”

Others came to replenish cupboards that were nearly bare. As Ms. Ayash spoke, masses of men, women and children surged jubilantly past, clutching bags of food, cartons of cigarettes and jugs of gasoline.

Others were more ambitious in their shopping, returning in vehicles laden with sheep, goats, refrigerators and motorcycles. Streetside money traders did a brisk business, buying Israeli shekels from Gazans and selling them the Egyptian pounds they'd need for their shopping trip.

Another popular item was cement, which Israel has barred from entering Gaza since Hamas took power last year. “I'm finally going to build my house!” shouted 29-year-old Radi Abu Salem as he drove a donkey cart stacked high with sacks marked “Egyptian Portland Cement” back into Gaza after an afternoon of shopping in Egypt. “I've been waiting six months to get cement.”

After years of boycotts and depression, Gaza's economy staged a mini-recovery in the first hours after the border opened. As long-missing goods reappeared on store shelves, prices fell sharply: The cost of a pack of cigarettes fell from 17 shekels (about $5) in the morning, to seven shekels by late afternoon. Prices on the Egyptian side, meanwhile, shot up as demand soon eclipsed supply.

Egyptian soldiers and riot police, who on Tuesday had repelled a Palestinian effort aimed at opening the Rafah crossing in a clash that injured dozens of people, stood amid the chaos, clutching wood batons and plastic shields but taking no action to stop the free-for-all. Realizing the military was standing aside, taxi drivers in Rafah began offering to drive Palestinians to other parts of Egypt.

Uniformed Hamas militiamen directed traffic returning to Gaza and occasionally stopped and searched cars in what Palestinian media reports said was an effort to prevent drug smuggling.

Citing the possibility that militants and weapons could now freely cross into Gaza, Israeli officials said the border breach was a “first-class security threat” and called on Egypt to take steps to restore order.

“Obviously, we are worried about the situation. It could potentially allow anybody to enter,” said Arye Mekel, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry.

But Mr. Mubarak, who before Wednesday had been accused of tacitly supporting the Israeli blockade by keeping the Rafah crossing closed, said he had ordered his soldiers not to stop the human tide because the Palestinians were “starving.”

“I told [the soldiers] to let them come in and eat and buy food and then return them later as long as they were not carrying weapons,” Mr. Mubarak told reporters in Cairo.

Israel, under international pressure, eased its blockade on Tuesday and allowed limited deliveries of fuel and other humanitarian goods. However, aid organizations said shipments of diesel fuel and other necessities were halted again Wednesday after Rafah was opened.

Any easing of the blockade is likely to stabilize Hamas's rule, something Egypt – which has allied itself with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the rival Fatah party – is not eager to see. Due to an understanding between Israel and Egypt, the Rafah crossing has been largely closed since Hamas took power in Gaza.

However, a crackdown at Rafah could have serious domestic repercussions for Mr. Mubarak. Hamas is an offshoot to the Muslim Brotherhood, the most powerful opposition movement in Egypt. Several hundred Brotherhood activists were arrested Wednesday after taking part in pro-Hamas demonstrations in Cairo.

The city of Rafah has been divided into Palestinian and Egyptian sectors since 1967, when Israel seized Gaza after the Six-Day War.

The border was breached in 2005, after Israel's unilateral withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from Gaza. Order was restored three days later by Egyptian forces who sealed the hole with barbed wire. But damage to the border wall in 2005 was far less severe than that done by Wednesday's explosions, which left little of the barrier standing.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Wednesday that he was willing to work with the Egyptian government, as well as Mr. Abbas, to restore order at the border. His one condition was that Israel no longer have a say in when Rafah opens and closes.

~ Associated Press

Obama pushes back against the Clintons

2008-01-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

By MURRAY CAMPBELL

Barack Obama hit back yesterday against his tag-team Clinton opponents in South Carolina's Democratic primary even as rival Hillary Clinton, trailing badly in a new poll, left the state.

Mr. Obama continued to counter the outspoken Bill Clinton, coming close to accusing the former president of lying. "The only thing I want to make sure of is that when he goes after me, that he goes after me on the basis of facts and policy differences and, you know, stuff isn't just made up," he said in a television interview. The comment showed that the Democratic race would likely continue to be bad tempered in the runup to Saturday's primary in South Carolina.

Bad blood between the Obama and Clinton campaigns spilled into the open at a Democratic debate on Monday when the two rivals traded accusations of dishonesty, policy reversals and campaign trickery.

John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, joined the fray yesterday by accusing Mr. Obama's opponents of resorting to smear tactics.

Mr. Kerry, whose presidential bid was wrecked by innuendo and lies about his Vietnam service, did not name the Clintons but they appeared to be the main target of his outburst. "The fight is just heating up. We won't let them steal this election with lies and distortions," he said.

The new poll, by Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby, gave Mr. Obama a double-digit lead over Ms. Clinton, with 43 per cent of Democratic voters, compared with 25 per cent for the New York senator.

John Edwards was a distant third with 15 per cent, despite being born in South Carolina. The majority of the polling in the three-day survey was done before Monday night's debate.

Mr. Obama, who was helped by a huge lead among the black voters expected to cast half the ballots in South Carolina, warned his supporters that good poll numbers are not enough.

"People can't take it for granted. Folks are saying, 'Well, Obama is leading in polls,' but that happened in New Hampshire, where people got complacent," he said in a radio interview.

Ms. Clinton said her team was fighting "a vigorous campaign" in South Carolina but she left her husband to speak on her behalf again yesterday as she travelled to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which holds its primary on Feb. 5. Earlier this week, she made a 20-hour swing through California and Arizona, which are also holding primaries on so-called Super Tuesday.

Ms. Clinton is expected to return to South Carolina today but that didn't stop Mr. Edwards from criticizing her for leaving in the days before the primary.

The former vice-presidential nominee, who is emphasizing his South Carolina background, said voters should question whether Ms. Clinton would return if she became president. "After the debate, she flew out and won't be back," he said.

Republican hopefuls converged yesterday in Florida to proclaim their economic credentials before the state's primaries on Tuesday.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has staked his candidacy largely on hopes of a good performance in Florida, said tax cuts and streamlined regulations are needed to fuel growth and ease fears that the United States is slipping into a recession.

Rival John McCain said that Florida needs to develop environmentally friendly "green technologies" and that lenders who caused the nation's mortgage crisis should be punished.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney emphasized his experience in the private sector while linking a strong economy to security issues.

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

2008-01-24T03:31:00.000-08:00

From The Sunday Times(London)
January 20, 2008
Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert and Joe Lauria

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: “You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.”

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public.

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Edmonds is the subject of a number of state secret gags preventing her from talking further about the investigation she witnessed.

“I cannot discuss the details considering the gag orders,” she said, “but I reported all these activities to the US Congress, the inspector general of the justice department and the 9/11 commission. I told them all about what was contained in this case file number, which the FBI is now denying exists.

“This gag was invoked not to protect sensitive diplomatic relations but criminal activities involving US officials who were endangering US national security.”

An FBI spokesman said he was not familiar with the case file but he added: "if the FBI says it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece

Bill expects blacks to vote for Barack Obama

2008-01-24T03:09:00.000-08:00

DILLON, S.C. (AP) — Bill Clinton said Wednesday he expects blacks to vote for Barack Obama and women to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the dynamic may cause his wife to lose the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary Saturday. The comments by the former president — who also lashed out at Obama and the news media — mark one of the starkest commentaries yet on the possible role of race, although it has been a subtext of the Obama-Clinton rivalry for months. The comments also furthered the Clintons' bid to play down Sen. Clinton's chances of winning in a state where Obama seems to be ahead.

~Democratic Poll~

Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in the polls in South Carolina, where Democrats hold their primary Saturday.

Democrats

Obama: 43%

Clinton: 25%

Other: 17%

Edwards: 15%

SOURCE: ZOGBY INTERNATIONAL

West’s deadly nuclear secrets ... For sale:

2008-01-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

Insight: Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert and Joe Lauria
~ London Times Online ~

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations.

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

“What I found was damning,” she said. “While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.”

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attach�s in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. “We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda,” a former CIA officer said last week. “There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end.”

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. “A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, ‘We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans’,” she said. “The official said that he would ‘take care of it’.”

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.

“The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information,” she said.

“The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their ‘hooking points’, which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to.”

One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

“He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,” she said.

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder.

Edmonds said: “Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers.”

In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She overheard the agent saying: “We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.”

Edmonds’s employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. “We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s,” the source said.

How Pakistan got the bomb, then sold it to the highest bidders

1965 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s foreign minister, says: “If India builds the bomb we will eat grass . . . but we will get one of our own”

1974 Nuclear programme becomes increased priority as India tests a nuclear device

1976 Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist, steals secrets from Dutch uranium plant. Made head of his nation’s nuclear programme by Bhutto, now prime minister

1976 onwards Clandestine network established to obtain materials and technology for uranium enrichment from the West

1985 Pakistan produces weapons-grade uranium for the first time

1989-91 Khan’s network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and technology

1991-97 Khan sells weapons technology to North Korea and Libya

1998 India tests nuclear bomb and Pakistan follows with a series of nuclear tests. Khan says: “I never had any doubts I was building a bomb. We had to do it”

2001 CIA chief George Tenet gathers officials for crisis summit on the proliferation of nuclear technology from Pakistan to other countries

2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan’s aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss an Al-Qaeda nuclear device

2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan is seen as important ally in war on terror

2003 Libya abandons nuclear weapons programme and admits acquiring components through Pakistani nuclear scientists

2004 Khan placed under house arrest and confesses to supplying Iran, Libya and North Korea with weapons technology. He is pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf

2006 North Korea tests a nuclear bomb

2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil

Publish the secret document on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ministers are told

2008-01-23T20:49:00.000-08:00

Michael Crabtree~The Times(London)
The Foreign Office has been ordered to release a document written in 2002 by John Williams, then head of communications

Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Ministers were ordered yesterday to make public a secret document about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction that could shed light on the origins of the Government’s claim that Saddam Hussein needed just 45 minutes to launch non-conventional warheads at British troops.

The unpublished draft document was drawn up by John Williams, who in 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, was the head of information at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and one of the senior government spin-doctors.

Yesterday the Information Tribunal ruled that the Williams report should be made public so that people could make their own judgment as to whether its contents could have influenced the official dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including the 45-minute claim.

Although the Government, under Tony Blair, acknowledged that Mr Williams had written a draft report on Iraq’s WMDs, officials said that he had done so on his own initiative, and that it was dismissed.

Related Links
Blair: 'I believed in it then, I believe in it now'
The Government insisted that the official dossier on Iraq’s WMDs published in September 2002 was drawn up by the Joint Intelligence Committee, then headed by Sir John Scarlett, who is now the head of MI6, and that it was based on intelligence material.

Critics of the Iraq dossier, however, accused the Government of using Downing Street and Foreign Office spin-doctors to dramatise the contents to make the case for invading Iraq.

This has always been denied. But opponents of the war will want to see whether the 45-minute claim was included in the Williams draft.

The unprecedented ruling followed a request by the New Statesman under the Freedom of Information Act for the Williams dossier to be made public.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, ruled in favour of the magazine in May last year, but the Foreign Office appealed to the tribunal.

Last night the Foreign Office said that the tribunal ruling was being studied closely.

Sources at the Foreign Office said that a minister had to give authorisation for the release of the document, and would still be in a position to claim that publication would not be in the national interest.

Lawyers for the Foreign Office told the tribunal that disclosure of the contents written by Mr Williams, who no longer works for the Foreign Office, would compromise the confidentiality of advice given to ministers — known in Whitehall as “the chilling effect”.

However, the tribunal concluded that the chilling effect would have been quite limited because of the huge amount of material about Iraq’s WMDs that had been put into the public domain by Lord Hutton. He was the former judge who chaired the inquiry into the circumstances leading to the suicide of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence Iraq weapons expert.

Lord Hutton did not believe that the Williams draft formed a part of the process that led to the dossier on Iraq’s WMDs.

However, the tribunal raised questions about the Hutton inquiry and concluded: “We do not accept that we should, in effect, treat the Hutton report as the final word on the subject.

“Information has been placed before us which was not before Lord Hutton which may lead to questions as to whether the Williams draft in fact played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the \ dossier than has previously been supposed,” the tribunal said.

“We make no comment on whether it did so in fact. But we believe that the existence of those possible questions is a relevant factor in evaluating the public interest in disclosure.”

John Baron, the Conservative MP for Billericay, told the New Statesman: “This decision lifts the lid on government efforts to cover up the role played by spin-doctors in producing the Iraq dossier.”

The Foreign Office lawyers argued that, as the Hutton report was issued at the end of a detailed investigation into the drafting process, the public interest had been served.

The tribunal added: “We were also also invited to conclude that the disclosure of an early draft, developed by someone who was not an intelligence specialist and who was operating on his own initiative, might in fact mislead the public into believing that it represented government views which counsel for the [Foreign Office] said it did not.”

In his evidence to the Hutton inquiry, Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s director of communications, said that all papers and drafts on Iraq in existence before September 9, 2002, became “redundant”, and from that date, Sir John would “take all of this information, all of this material, and turn it into a new dossier”.

Obesity surgery seen as diabetes cure

2008-01-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press
CHICAGO - A new study gives the strongest evidence yet that obesity surgery can cure diabetes.

Patients who had surgery to reduce the size of their stomachs were five times more likely to see their diabetes disappear over the next two years than were patients who had standard diabetes care, according to Australian researchers.

Most of the surgery patients were able to stop taking diabetes drugs and achieve normal blood tests.

"It's the best therapy for diabetes that we have today, and it's very low risk," said the study's lead author, Dr. John Dixon of Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia.

The patients had stomach band surgery, a procedure more common in Australia than in the United States, where gastric bypass surgery, or stomach stapling, predominates.

Gastric bypass is even more effective against diabetes, achieving remission in a matter of days or a month, said Dr. David Cummings, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal but was not involved in the study.

"We have traditionally considered diabetes to be a chronic, progressive disease," said Cummings of the University of Washington in Seattle. "But these operations really do represent a realistic hope for curing most patients."

Diabetes experts who read the study said surgery should be considered for some obese patients, but more research is needed to see how long results last and which patients benefit most. Surgery risks should be weighed against diabetes drug side effects and the long-term risks of diabetes itself, they said.

Experts generally agree that weight-loss surgery would never be appropriate for diabetics who are not obese, and current federal guidelines restrict the surgery to obese people.

The diabetes benefits of weight-loss surgery were known, but the Australian study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association is the first of its kind to compare diabetes in patients randomly assigned to surgery or standard care. Scientists consider randomized studies to yield the highest-quality evidence.

The study involved 55 patients, so experts will be looking for results of larger experiments under way.

"Few studies really qualify as being a landmark study. This one is," said Dr. Philip Schauer, who was not involved in the Australian research but leads a Cleveland Clinic study that is recruiting 150 obese people with diabetes to compare two types of surgery and standard medical care.

"This opens an entirely new way of thinking about diabetes."

Obesity is a major risk factor for diabetes, and researchers are furiously pursuing reasons for the link as rates for both climb. What's known is that excess fat can cause the body's normal response to insulin to go haywire. Researchers are investigating insulin-regulating hormones released by fat and the role of fatty acids in the blood.

In the Australian study, all the patients were obese and had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the past two years. Their average age was 47. Half the patients underwent a type of surgery called laparoscopic gastric banding, where an adjustable silicone cuff is installed around the upper stomach, limiting how much a person can eat.

Both groups lost weight over two years; the surgery patients lost 46 pounds on average, while the standard-care patients lost an average of 3 pounds.

Blood tests showed diabetes remission in 22 of the 29 surgery patients after two years. In the standard-care group, only four of the 26 patients achieved that goal. The patients who lost the most weight were the most likely to eliminate their diabetes.

Both patient groups learned about low-fat, high-fiber diets and were encouraged to exercise. Both groups could meet with a health professional every six weeks for two years.

The death rate for stomach band surgery, which can cost $17,000 to $20,000, is about 1 in 1,000. There were only minor complications in the study. Stomach stapling has a 2 percent death rate and costs $20,000 to $30,000.

In the United States, surgeons perform more than 100,000 obesity surgeries each year.

The American Diabetes Association is interested in the findings. The group revises its recommendations each fall, taking new research into account.

"There is a growing body of evidence that bariatric surgery is an effective tool for managing diabetes," said Dr. John Buse of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, the association's president for medicine and science.

"It's just a question of how effective is it, for what spectrum of patients, over what period of time and at what cost? Not all those questions have been answered yet."

Medical devices used in the study were provided by the manufacturers, but the companies had no say over the study's design or its findings, Dixon said.

___

On the Net:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

Text of Bush's comments on economy

2008-01-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

By The Associated Press

~Text~ of President Bush's comments Friday on his economic stimulus plan, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.

BUSH: Over the past several months, I've held a series of meetings with my economic team on the outlook for the U.S. economy. And before I left for the Middle East, I directed them to conduct a thorough assessment of our economic condition, consult with members of Congress, and provide me with their recommendations about any actions we might need to take.

The economic team reports that our economy has a solid foundation, but that there are areas of real concern.

The economy's still creating jobs, though at a reduced pace. Consumer spending is still growing, but the housing market is declining. Business investment and exports are still rising, but the cost of imported oil has increased.

My administration has been watching our economy carefully. My advisers and many outside experts expect that our economy will continue to grow over the coming year, but at a slower rate than we have enjoyed for the past few years. And there is a risk of a downturn.

Continued instability in the housing and financial markets could cause additional harm to our overall economy and put our growth and job creation in jeopardy.

In recent months we've taken steps to shore up the housing market, including measures to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure and to keep their homes. I also have asked Congress to pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration and enable it to provide additional assistance to struggling homeowners.

The House passed a bill and the Senate passed a bill, and now they need to get together and get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.

After careful consideration, and after discussion with members of the Congress, I've concluded that additional action is needed. To keep our economy growing and creating jobs, Congress and the administration need to work to enact an economic growth package as soon as possible.

As Congress considers such a plan, there are certain principles that must guide its deliberations.

This growth package must be big enough to make a difference in an economy as large and dynamic as ours, which means it should be about 1 percent of GDP. This growth package must be built on broad-based tax relief that will directly affect economic growth, and not the kind of spending projects that would have little immediate impact on our economy.

This growth package must be temporary and take effect right away so we can get help to our economy when it needs it most.

And this growth package must not include any tax increases.

Specifically, this growth package should bolster both business investment and consumer spending, which are critical to economic growth. And this would require two key provisions.

To be effective, a growth package must include tax incentive for American businesses, including small businesses, to make major investments in their enterprises this year.

Giving them an incentive to invest now will encourage business owners to expand their operations, create new jobs and inject new energy into our economy in the process. To be effective, a growth package must also include direct and rapid income tax relief for the American people. Americans could use this money as they see fit: to help meet their monthly bills, cover higher costs at the gas pump, or pay for other basic necessities.

Letting Americans keep more of their own money should increase consumer spending and lift our economy at a time when people otherwise might spend less.

Yesterday I spoke to members of the congressional leadership from both political parties. They shared with me their thoughts on the best way forward. And I was encouraged by those discussions, and I believe there is enough broad consensus that we can come up with a package that can be approved with bipartisan support.

I've asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to lead my administration's efforts to forge an agreement with Congress so that we can deliver this needed boost to our economy as quickly as possible.

Passing a new growth package is our most pressing economic priority. When that is done, Congress must turn to the most important economic priority for our country, and that's making sure the tax relief that is now in place is not taken away.

A source of uncertainty in our economy is that this tax relief is set to expire at the end of 2010. Unless Congress acts, the American people will face massive tax increases in less than three years. The marriage penalty will make a comeback, the child tax credit will be cut in half, the death tax will come back to life, and tax rates will go up on regular income, capital gains and dividends.

This tax increase would put jobs and economic growth at risk, and Congress has the responsibility to keep that from happening. So it's critical that Congress make this tax relief permanent.

We're in the midst of a challenging period, and I know that Americans are concerned about their economic future. But our economy has seen challenging times before, and it is resilient.

In a vibrant economy, markets rise and decline. We cannot change that fundamental dynamic. As a matter of fact, eliminating risk altogether would also eliminate the innovation and productivity that drives the creations of jobs and wealth in America.

Yet there are also times when swift and temporary actions can help ensure that inevitable market adjustments do not undermine the health of the broader economy. This is such a moment.

By passing an effective growth package quickly, we can provide a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy. And it will help keep economic sectors that are going through adjustments, such as the housing market, from adversely affecting other parts of our economy.

I'm optimistic about our economic future, because Americans have shown time and again that they are the most industrious, creative and enterprising people in the world. That's what has made our economy strong. And that is what will make it stronger in the challenging times ahead.

Thank you.

Study: False statements By Bush and top administration officials preceded war

2008-01-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

___

On the Net:

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

Fund For Independence in Journalism: http://www.tfij.org/

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense ...

2008-01-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston joins us to talk about his new book, “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense
(And Stick You with the Bill).”

JUAN GONZALEZ: As voters head to the polls in Nevada and South Carolina Saturday, the economy remains one of the top issues for voters across party lines. Today, we’re going to spend the rest of the hour examining the growing income gap in the United States.

Economic figures show that in 2005, the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the country’s population had nearly as much income as all 150 million Americans who make up the lower economic half of the country. Of each dollar people earned in 2005, the top ten percent got 48.5 cents, the highest percentage since 1929, just before the Great Depression.

AMY GOODMAN: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston has been closely tracking the nation’s income gap in the pages of the New York Times. In 2004, he published the bestselling book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else. David Cay has just published a new book. It’s called Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill). He joins us now from the PBS station WXXI in Rochester.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, David.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Thank you for having me, Amy and Juan.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the wealth transfer.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, I was struck, listening to the program from Kenya, where they talked about the president and his power to give money to people, give land, and that’s why many people identify with it. We have created in the United States, largely in the last thirty years, a whole series of programs—a few of them explicit, many of them deeply hidden—that take money from the pockets of the poor and the middle class and upper middle class and funnel it to the wealthiest people in America. And among the biggest recipients of these subsidies are the wealthiest family America, the Waltons; George Steinbrenner; Donald Trump; a whole host of healthcare billionaires. And these are policies that either have not been reported on or the news reporting on them generally has not informed people about what they really are.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I was struck—you have numerous chapters in the book on the various aspects of this transfer, but I was especially struck by your material on the New York Yankees and Steinbrenner and Joyce Hogi, who you mention in the book, who I know well, and this whole issue of sports teams across America and how the public is subsidizing them. Could you elaborate on that part of it?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Sure. George Steinbrenner is getting over $600 million for the new Yankee Stadium in New York. The New York Mets are getting over $600 million. In fact, the City of New York gave them money to lobby against the taxpayers to get more money. Rudy Giuliani gave $50 million to the two teams for that purpose.

The new owners of the Washington Nationals baseball team in Washington, D.C., paid $450 million for the team. But, in fact, they got the team for free, because the subsidy they’re getting for the new stadium is worth $611 million. We actually paid these people to buy the team.

Now, in this country right now, we are spending $2 billion a year subsidizing the big four sports: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. It accounts for all of the profits of that industry and more. Now, there may be individual teams that make money, but the industry as a whole is not profitable. And that’s astonishing because the big four leagues are exempt from the laws of competition. By the way, irony is not dead, because here are people who are in the business of competition on the field who are exempted by law from the rules of economic competition.

If you go to England and you want to start a soccer team, they have to let you join the soccer league. There are thirteen commercial soccer teams in the London area. New York City, the biggest city in the country, there are two baseball teams, because there’s no free entry into the market. In Los Angeles, there’s no football team. And the owners use this power to prevent others from owning teams, to prevent municipal governments from owning teams, to prevent nonprofits from owning teams, to extract money from the taxpayers to build them new stadiums.

At the same time that we’re doing this, we are starving our public parks for money. And I show in Free Lunch how the rise of urban gangs and now suburban gangs is connected to this. We used to have all sorts of programs in this country after World War II for young men and young women on Saturdays and during the summer and school holidays, where even if you didn’t have any money—didn’t matter that your parents didn’t have any money, because—and I know this because I did it as a child—you could go to any one of a half-dozen different places, and there were organized activities to keep you out of trouble. After all, idle hands are the devil’s workshop is not exactly a radical new idea. Well, we’ve cut and cut and cut those programs to fund two different subsidies: one to sports teams’ owners, one that goes to Tyco, General Electric, Honeywell and some other big companies. And, lo and behold, we’ve had a big rise in urban violence because of the vacuum being filled by young people who no longer have these organized activities.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of sports teams, talk about President Bush and where you believe, really, ultimately, he got his wealth.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, it isn’t a function of belief, Amy. I’ve got the documents. President Bush, who will go down in history as the great tax cutter, owes almost all of his fortune to a tax increase that was funneled into his pocket. What happened is, an oil man named Eddie Chiles wanted to sell his money-losing Texas Rangers baseball team. They played in a little stadium, smaller than the one we have here in Rochester, New York, and of course couldn’t make any money. So George Bush put together a group of very wealthy investors to buy the team. He put up himself $600,000 of borrowed money. The partners then gave him a 10 percent stake as the managing partner. That’s a very common arrangement in business. Then they held a special election in January of the year in question to increase the sales tax in the town of Arlington, Texas, by one half-cent. That money was used to build a new baseball stadium. It’s an incredibly nice baseball stadium.

Then the power of government to seize land by eminent domain—and I go back to what was talked about in Kenya, the leader there can give you land, he can presumably therefore also take it away—the government used its power of eminent domain to seize land from people, not for a public purpose—not for a military base, for a school, for a highway, for a sewer plant—but because it was coveted by President Bush and his friends, and they were unwilling to go into the market and buy it through market economics. So the government seized this land. People were paid far less than they were owed, and we know that because one family fought back, and a jury, after being out just a matter of minutes, awarded them about six times what they had been offered by the government of Arlington.

The value of this subsidy, according to Ray Hutchison, who is the husband of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a prominent Republican insider in Texas and is the leading authority on municipal bond finance in Texas, was $202.5 million. The profit that President Bush and his partners made when they sold the team was $164 million. What does that tell you? Every single penny of additional money President Bush got from that investment, his gain, came from the taxpayers. He did not add one cent to the value of that team through his skill as an MBA manager. This gets repeated all over the country.

And then when President Bush filed his tax return, he should have reported that the 10 percent share he had, the one that was given to him as compensation for being general manager, was wage income. And, of course, we tax wages at a higher rate than we do capital income, like capital gains. President Bush therefore shorted the government $3.4 million. Under our system, you sign your tax return subject to audit. If you’re not audited and you don’t pay the government the right amount, if it’s too much, the government keeps it, if it’s too little, you short the government, but nothing happens to you.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. His new book is called Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill). We’ll come back to David Cay Johnston in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, has written the book Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill). Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, David Cay Johnston, the American home subprime crisis has been much in the news and the enormous impact it’s having on the economy. You’ve got a few chapters here where you talk about the home and home robbery, and you even delve on an issue that very few people have ever talked about: title insurance companies and the enormous wealth transfer that have gone on there. Could you talk about that?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Oh, sure. You know, when you buy a home—and I remember the first time I did it as a young man—you have this enormous sense of accomplishment, and you sit down in a room, and they throw all these papers at you—“Sign this, sign this, initial this page, OK, sign this.” So when you’re all done, you get a little sheet listing all the costs you have, and you get dinged for $15 here and $25 there. But there’s one big item called land title insurance. If you buy a $200,000 house, it will probably cost you close to $1,000. Well, it turns out that ninety cents out of every dollar you are forced to pay for this goes to pay commercial bribes. And this goes on all throughout the industry all across the United States, and nobody is prosecuted for it.

And here’s what happens. Well, you wrote the check for the $1,000, the land title insurance companies, who are insuring the risk that someone will come along and say, “That’s really my piece of land,” or “I have the right to put an oil well in your backyard. Here’s this document from 1848,” or your new outbuilding encroaches one inch onto the neighbor’s land, supposedly. That’s what you are insuring against. These companies’ real customers are the real-estate agent that you thought was representing you or the lawyer you paid to represent you or the mortgage broker who arranged to get you the mortgage, because they steer you to the title company. And in return, they get kickbacks.

The state insurance commissioners of California and Washington wrote very detailed reports about this, because one of the land title companies tried to spear the insurance commissioner of Colorado. And there’s emails and tape-recorded conversations about a very Machiavellian plot to use the news media to a plant a question that would smear this woman. And what did the insurance commissioners say should be done after they found that 90 percent of this money is paid in kickbacks? And by the way, one of the big title companies, in its report to shareholders, says that its customers aren’t you and me, when we buy a house; it says its customers are the bankers and the brokers and the lawyers. Well, the insurance commissioners said what we need is an education program. We need to make sure that the land title companies know that they can’t pay these kickbacks and referral fees, as they’re politely called. Well, if the education program worked, the cost of land title insurance would have dropped 90 percent. It hasn’t. So it’s another example of the kind of institutionalized corruption that I write about in Free Lunch that takes money from the many and concentrates it in the hands of the politically connected few.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Barack Obama’s comments, David Cay Johnston, who praised—

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, one thing, Amy, I don’t do, Amy, I don’t talk about the presidential campaign, because—

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, you don’t have to—you don’t have to talk about them—

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: —but just the substance of what he had to say, which was very interesting, as he talked about former President Ronald Reagan. He was in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, appearing to express admiration for what he called Reagan’s “clarity” and “optimism” and overcoming “excesses” of the ’60s and ’70s. This is what he said.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the ’60s and ’70s and, you know, government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. And I think people just tapped in—he tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.

AMY GOODMAN: In response, rival candidate John Edwards said Reagan “did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day.” He said, “I can promise you [this: I will] never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.” So, David Cay Johnston, without getting into presidential politics, you write extensively about Ronald Reagan in this book.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Yes. Well, Ronald Reagan, whether you love Ronald Reagan or you hate Ronald Reagan, was a great leader. He did, in fact, dramatically change the country.

Between 1945 and the election of Ronald Reagan, we had a government that was focused on creating and nurturing the middle class. When I was a young man, I was able to go to college only because it was free. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any money—my dad was a 100 percent disabled veteran, and I went to work when I was ten years old and full time since I was thirteen—because it was free.

Today, the cost of a college education, a state college education, is about $10,000 a year. The average income of the bottom half of taxpayers—that’s not families, that’s taxpayers—is about $15,000. Think you can go to college if two-thirds of your income would have to go to college? I don’t think so.

Well, Mr.—what Mr. Reagan did in 1980 was he asked a question that had a very powerful effect. He said, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” And Americans said no, they weren’t. And they elected him to office, and they set in motion a major change in government policy, a change that I think has been perverted. I do not believe Reagan intended all of the things that have been done since he started this happening.

But I’m asking the question in Free Lunch: Are you better off than you were in 1980? And on the surface, America is much better off. The country is more than twice as wealthy in real terms as it was in 1980. Per person, adjusted for inflation, the economy now puts out $1.70 for every dollar that it put out in 1980. Those are absolutely tremendous economic numbers.

So how come we’re not all really well-off? Why is it one-in-seven families has filed bankruptcy in the last twenty-five years? Why is it people are so mired in debt that television ads are just full of debt relief and take on more debt ads, sometimes at 99 percent interest? Why is it that so many people don’t have health insurance and so many people no longer have a retirement plan?

And by the way, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans, what I call the vast majority, is smaller today than it was in 1980. And since the year 2000, when we really got serious about this tax cut business, the average income of Americans every year—2001, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05—has been smaller than it was in 2000. There have been some gains in 2004 and ’05, but they haven’t gotten up to equal 2000. And of those gains in the year 2000—it’s either ’05 over ’04 or ’04 over ’03—half went to people who make over a million dollars a year. What’s happened is—

AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t that wealth transfer massively begin—I mean, accelerate with Reagan?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Oh, yes. No, that’s—I’m sorry, that’s exactly my point, Amy, is that what happened is that we put in place all sorts of new programs, many of which were never written about in the news media, that got no attention whatsoever. We created healthcare billionaires while making healthcare unavailable to one-in-seven Americans. And we did this with government money. We allowed people to buy public assets for, in some cases, a fraction of a penny on the dollar and then poured government money into them.

And, you know, our national myth that Ronald Reagan ran for office on was that there were all these welfare queen Cadillacs—welfare queens driving Cadillacs out there. I think there was, in fact, one scam artist who went to prison. But what’s really going on is welfare at the top, and way beyond what’s been reported in the news media as corporate welfare. We have built into the scaffolding of the new economy rules that funnel money to the top.

And that this has happened really shouldn’t surprise us, because under our campaign finance system, which has gotten worse and worse and worse with campaign finance reform that hasn’t worked, politicians running for high office spend a great deal of their time talking not to you and me and school teachers and police officers and firefighters and factory workers, but to rich people and their paid representatives. And they hear about their concerns and what they say they need to make things fair.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You also delve into this whole phenomena across America of the big box stores, the Targets and the Wal-Marts and the Kmarts. And obviously they’ve—to some, they at least offer cheaper goods, cheaper consumer goods. Your analysis of their impact?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, first of all, they say they offer cheaper goods. I don’t accept that that’s necessarily true.

But here’s what happens. And this is a good example of where the news media hasn’t done a good job. I have tons of news clips that say, oh, this new shopping mall is coming or a new Wal-Mart or a new Cabela’s store, and thanks to tax increment financing, this store is going to be built. Well, what is tax increment financing? I’ll tell you what it is. You go to the store with your goods, you pay for it at Wal-Mart, and there’s a very good chance that that store has made a deal with the government that the sales taxes you are required to pay, that government requires you to pay, never go to the government. Instead, those sales taxes are kept by Wal-Mart and used to pay the cost of the store. And typically in those deals, the store is tax exempt, just like a church.

Now, there are two ways that it’s important to think about this. One is, that means your kid’s schools, your police department, your library, your parks are not getting that money. And you’ll notice we keep saying we’re starved for money. We’re twice as wealthy as we were in 1980, but we’ve got to close hospitals, and we’ve got to close schools, and we don’t have money for all sorts of things like after-school programs, even though we’re twice as wealthy. The second thing to think about is, imagine that you own Amy Goodman’s or Juan’s department store across the street. You suddenly have to compete with people whom the government is giving a huge leg up on. You think you would go broke after a while? Well, in fact, you will.

And I tell about a man named Jim Weaknecht who owned a little store in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. He sold fishing tackle, hunting gear, stuff like that. And the way he made his living in his little tiny store, enough that he was able to have his wife stay at home and raise their three kids full time, was by charging less than a company called Cabela’s. Well, then Cabela’s came to town. This little city of 4,000 people made a deal to give Cabela’s $36 million to build a store. That’s more than the city budget for that town for ten years. It’s $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in that town to have this store. And even though he charged lower prices, he was pretty quickly run out of business.

That’s not market capitalism, which is what Ronald Reagan said he was going to bring us. He said, you know, government’s the problem, we need markets as a solution. Well, that’s not the market. That’s corporate socialism. And what we’ve gotten is corporate socialism for the politically connected rich—not all the rich, the politically connected rich—and market capitalism for everybody else.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, many of those folks need lobbyists to be able to get these kinds of breaks from the government, and you talk about the explosion of lobbyists and their influence on government.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: There are twice as many registered lobbyists in Washington today as there were in 1980. If the lobbying community had grown in revenues since the ’70s at the same rate as the economy, there would be one-tenth as many lobbyists in Washington. And those people are not there doing the good of the public. You know, the Constitution’s Preamble talks about the—

JUAN GONZALEZ: They’re not just in Washington, right? They’re not just in Washington. They’re also at the state level.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: No, no, they’re in all the state capitals, they’re in city halls, they’re all over the country. The lobbying business is one of the fastest-growing businesses in America, because—you know why? It’s easier to mine gold from the government’s treasury than from the side of a mountain. Why wouldn’t you go do that if you could get the government to give you money? And Donald Trump—a tax that’s supposed to serve the poor, his company got $89 million for a tax designated for the poor. Somehow, Mr. Trump’s public image suggests to me that he does not think of himself as a poor person.

AMY GOODMAN: David Cay Johnston—we’ll leave it there—Free Lunch is his book, How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill), speaking to us from the PBS station WXXI in Rochester, New York.

DNA frees Colo. man convicted of murder

2008-01-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

By P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A judge on Tuesday ordered the release of a man convicted of murder after DNA evidence pointed to another suspect.

Timothy Masters, 35, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1999, was ordered freed on a personal recognizance bond. Prosecutors promised to decide quickly whether to try him again.

New tests announced last week showed DNA found on the victim's clothing was not from Masters but from someone else.

Applause broke out in the courtroom as the hearing ended, but Masters showed little emotion as he hugged members of his defense team.

In 1987, the manager at a woman's clothing store was found stabbed and sexually mutilated in a field south of Fort Collins, but police investigated for more than a decade before arresting Masters. He was 15 at the time the woman died and lived near the field where her body was found.

Masters' new attorneys have said detectives wrongly focused on Masters instead of other suspects.

During recent appeals, both the defense and special prosecutors assigned to the case said crucial information was withheld from Masters' trial lawyers.

About 50 people packed the small courtroom Tuesday morning.

"It's (like) saying there was a death, and all of a sudden, it turns out he is alive again," said Master's uncle, John Masters.

Anna Nicole "effect" Still alive

2008-01-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

~Flash Back~

The Mitchell Report

Obama calls Bill Clinton untruthful

2008-01-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press

Barack Obama challenged Bill Clinton's truthfulness Monday in a deepening feud with the husband of Obama's Democratic presidential rival.

Obama's rebuke of the former president, who is still extremely popular with Democrats, came on the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., when both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton focused on the civil rights leader.

In an interview on ABC, Obama twice questioned Bill Clinton's veracity.

"I have to say just broadly, you know, the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. You know, he continues to make statements that aren't supported by the facts, whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq, or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas," Obama said on "Good Morning America."

"You know, this has become a habit," he said. "And one of the things that I think we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's not making statements that are factually accurate."

The former president has accused Obama of exaggerating his anti-war record and handing out undeserved praise to Republicans. Clinton said he personally witnessed Obama's union forces intimidating Nevada caucus voters and said an Obama radio ad suggested how Democrats could keep votes from his wife.

During an event honoring King in his hometown, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, an Obama backer, made a not-so-subtle pitch for Obama at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church — right in front of the former president.

"We are at the cusp of turning the impossible into reality," Franklin said. "Yes, this is reality, not a fantasy, or a fairy tale."

While the largely black crowd erupted in applause, Bill Clinton sat with his hands clasped in front of him. He has been criticized in the black community for casting aspects of Obama's candidacy as "a fairy tale."

When Clinton spoke, he toned down his remarks about the campaign and never mentioned Obama by name when saying Democrats had "bad choices" in the party's nomination race.

In an interview that aired Monday on NBC's "Today" show, Bill Clinton agreed that King would be excited about Obama's candidacy.

"A great speaker, a smart man, someone who loves our country," the former president said of the Illinois senator.

Clinton said he and his daughter, Chelsea, witnessed voter intimidation in Nevada, prior to the caucuses that his wife won on Saturday. He said a representation of the Culinary Workers Union, which endorsed Obama, was "following along behind us going up to everybody ... saying, 'If you're not gonna vote for our guy we're gonna give you a schedule tomorrow so you can't be there.'"

The union denied engaging in any intimidation. The Las Vegas Sun concluded it depended on who was talking. Its column, by Michael Mishak, said Clinton's campaign and her supporters claim the union intimidated a member into caucusing for Obama while the member herself called the incident more of a misunderstanding.

Bill Clinton has criticized an Obama radio spot, saying: "There's a radio ad up in the northern part of Nevada telling Republicans that they ought to just register as Democrats for a day so they can beat Hillary and go out and be Republicans next week and vote in the primary. Doesn't sound like the new politics to me."

Obama's ad did say Nevada independents and Republicans could switch their registration, but it did not mention Hillary Clinton.

The former president also criticized Obama for his comments about Republicans. He contended that Obama said that "since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas. ... I can't imagine any Democrat seeking the presidency would say they were the party of new ideas for the last 15 years."

Obama did praise Republicans, but he criticized them in the same comment: "I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they're being debated among the presidential candidates and it's all tax cuts. Well, you know, we've done that, we tried it. That's not really going to solve our energy problems, for example. So, some of it's the times."

Role "The" Dice

2008-01-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

Politics ... can be so so ugly .. As it became clear Barack was viable, "despite" little to no support in the Black Community ... Clinton faced The reality that she would LOSE a large % of Black Votes as the Contest continued past New Hampshire ...
(That wasn't supposed to happen)

It was as Iowa "narrowed" that Bill "Let" loose with "ROLE The Dice" ...

That comment seems all but forgotten in MSM as well as
Progressive MSM ....Justified and Understandable
was The pronouncement on MLK and Fantasy .....
In Fact The Spin indicates Equal "blame" for The Race "Card" ....
In Totality ?
A "Trained" eye See's Bill Introduce Race to gain "more" white votes ,in The hopes of offsetting Those lost in The Black Community.
What is it about Power ?
The Clinton's say They know how to "Navigate" Washington ...
yet Clinton was impeached over a sexual innuendo?
Hillary failed to advance health Care ... Bill was prevented from "properly" addressing Bin Ladin by republicans "whispering" wag The Dog ...

Bill wanted to expand public school to 14 years via "civil service"

it didn't happen ...
Sadly once in The Senate Hillary played nice ...
In Fact her votes are nearly identical to Lieberman's ,
a man widely regarded "turncoat" in Democratic circles ..
She was "unapologetically" with Bush on Iraq ... with Bush on Iran ... and cant say troops out by 2013 ....

Yeah I'm disappointed in "The" Clinton's

Dennis the Menace?The Vegas debate, missing in…Vegas

2008-01-19T23:01:00.000-08:00

By Megan Garber
Columbia Journalism Review
It was a triumph of the First Amendment. Or of Corporate Media. Or, perhaps, of both. Regardless, yesterday’s pre-debate legal-battle-in-a-bottle between Dennis Kucinich and NBC Universal was worthy of a John Grisham novel: lower courts finding for the little guy, higher courts reversing that in favor of the big guy, emergency hearings with the Nevada State Supreme Court, an eleventh-hour flight from Cleveland to Vegas, three hours of nail-biting waiting—with a final decision not coming in until less than an hour before the nationally-televised MSNBC debate was scheduled to begin. Yep, a respectable Courtroom Drama if ever there was one: during all the craziness, you half expected to see a dress-uniformed Tom Cruise leap in front of the cameras, announcing to all, “I want the TRUTH!” (Alas, no such luck.) And, as if the above weren’t enough, drama-wise, in the middle of it all was a feisty, tea bag-totin’ vegan wanting and waiting to Have His Say.

What excitement! What a story!

But the Grisham-tastic melodrama, as reported by most major media outlets, either missed or ignored one of the key aspects of the story: that, as a result of all the legal scuffling, MSNBC’s (ridiculously nicknamed) “black-and-brown” debate didn’t air on local stations in Nevada.

It came down, as things often do, to a legal loophole. Yesterday’s final, late-day court decision upheld the FCC’s equal-time rule, which mandates (reasonably) equal air time for major political candidates. But that rule doesn’t apply as readily to cable TV networks…so the MSNBC debate—which, in excluding Kucinich, effectively broke the equal-time rule—could air on NBC’s cable channel, but not on its local affiliates.

So the very people who were its supposed audience—the people who will actually be voting in Saturday’s primary in Nevada—got to see the debate only if they had cable. (Cox Cable, the sole provider in the Vegas area, charges $45 per month for its expanded-basic cable package, which includes MSNBC. Not cheap.) In other words: the largely middle-class workers whose “issues” the debate was supposed to address—the very people who might not want or be able to spend over $500 a year on cable—got screwed.

Which seems, you know, worth at least a mention in the coverage of yesterday’s legal squabble. But several reports—from the AP, in particular—either missed or ignored that element of the story. And one of the few outlets that didn’t, The New York Times (its mention buried in its A19 piece), framed the debate’s lack of local airing as a loss for …the candidates:

An unintended consequence of the ruling was to restrict the debate from being broadcast on the local NBC affiliate here, KVBC-TV. Anchors on the local station said the ruling limited the broadcast to cable. The campaigns of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina were hoping for local exposure in advance of Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.
Fair enough. But what about the voters?
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/dennis_the_menace.php

Comment From The Editor ~ L. Mitchell

Megan ... Thank you
what an important piece of work ...historians will hold it up as The "tipping" point..
where do I begin ?
As much as I'd love to blame the media .. Bush .. Rove etc.. It's Become clear to me that Americans ... have become
The Frog in the boiling pot ..Unaware of the danger ...
"content" with our Lot's ...

It's like in The movie Syriana ... when The hapless younger Brother is asked ... Can you "tell me" what you want .. by "POWER" ...

Unlike The Democrats .. even The hapless younger brother
was able to "Indicate" what he wanted ... Americans ?
Out of Iraq ? the media says only 3 candidates are viable .. None of The 3 can say no more ... no more war as GDP

Our "choices" couldn't say we'd be out by 2013 ...
Think about it .... before WWII2 there was no msnbc aka Raythean... just g.e. aka msnbc making appliances ... We retro fitted the factories and made planes and tanks .... bombs ...riffles ...
and after the war we didn't stop ...

10 years later Korea (feed the beast) 10 years after That ?
Vietnam ... 10 years after That Iran Contra ... 10 years after that desert storm ...10 years after That Afghanistan/Iraq ....
see a pattern ?

Newspapers have become the only way to get information .. I mean of course there's the web BUT the bulk is Opinion on "generated" news .. The breakdown is occurring at (TV) level .. I Think most Americans are watching more News now Than Ever before ... but That only serves to mislead through OMISSION .. very few watch and Read ... I call it The informed minority and estimate it at 15% or so

Obviously The top 5% fiscally are informed the other 10 % split somewhat equally between Republicans and Democrats ...

For example ...
The Informed "minority" know's Iran Fought Along Side "us"
In Afghanistan vs The Taliban

Mr. Kucinich I'm assuming you'll read This as This link is prominently featured on your Dennis4president.com site
With all do respect........ The case for impeachment is
hidden in plain site ...2 Things..

First
RE/Examine Cheney's note ... entered into evidence by Fitzgerald ...

has to happen Today...
call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl...Not going to (PROTECT) one staffer & sacrifice the guy
(line drawn through the next two clearly visible words)
the pres. that was ASKED to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of The Incompetence of "Others"

2ND

I understand Bush/Cheney declassified Plame ... however
during testimony regarding the matter Plame indicated she was made Aware of the story ..days before it ran .. she indicated CIA "spoke" with Novack asking him not to run the story ...
he ran it anyway

If The CIA Say's NO ..
Who could say YES ?

For Democrats, Obama the pick

2008-01-19T17:10:00.001-08:00

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/20/08

According to a recent Gallup poll, almost three out of four Americans are dissatisfied with how things are going in our country, with just 24 percent believing we're headed in the right direction. The deep discontent reflected in those numbers have made Democrats optimistic about their party's chances of electing one of their own to the White House in November.

However, the situation represents more than a mere opportunity; it imposes an obligation on the Democratic Party to offer the country a candidate who can inspire the American people, a candidate capable of addressing the many critical challenges, foreign and domestic, that will confront our next president and commander in chief.

At times of crisis, this country has always been blessed with strong, even visionary, leadership. But that has not been true for the last seven years. To the contrary, on almost every front we are suffering the consequences of slapdash, divisive leadership.

Economically, the country appears to be sliding into a recession; internationally, our reputation on the world stage has perhaps never been lower. Militarily, our men and women in uniform have been burdened with responsibilities that they lack the manpower to carry out over the long term, and with the aging of the Baby Boom generation and a soaring national debt, our financial obligations likewise threaten to overwhelm the resources we have committed to meet them.

In Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, the Democrats offer Georgia voters three candidates with the experience, leadership and character to begin to turn this country around. However, only two of those candidates now harbor realistic hopes for the nomination.

Edwards, a former senator from neighboring North Carolina, has used his campaign to voice the growing anxiety and fear of many in America's working and middle classes. It's an important message, as recent days have confirmed, and with economic troubles ahead, the issues that Edwards has highlighted could prove central in determining the outcome of the general election.

However, judging from the reaction of primary voters, Edwards' impassioned, crusading style may be better suited to a House or Senate race than a race for the presidency. He remains a distant third in most polls, and his hopes for the nomination no longer seem realistic.

That leaves Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. On questions of policy, not much separates the two. Their approaches toward health care, tax policy, foreign relations and the suppression of Islamic terrorism vary only at the margins.

(In fact, that similarity probably accounts for the dismaying pettiness of the disputes between the Obama and Clinton camps in recent days. Campaigns have to argue, and with little of real import separating them, they are now arguing over the little things and in some cases the imaginary things.)

The question, then, is which of the two candidates would be more able to implement the policies they agree upon.

Throughout the campaign, Clinton has argued that she has the better grasp of official Washington, which is probably true. Through hard work and intelligence, she has built an admirable record of success as a senator that has impressed even some Republican colleagues.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well — official Washington also has a better grasp on Clinton.

Perhaps burned by her experience in her husband's administration, she has too often chosen to play within the Washington system rather than dare to challenge its assumptions. And that's not the kind of leadership needed at the moment.

The prime example of that instinct was probably Clinton's vote last year in favor of naming Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. While that stance kept her in good standing in certain Washington circles, it also fed what at the time was a rising push toward military confrontation with Iran that was unnecessary and dangerous. Even voters willing to set aside Clinton's earlier vote giving President Bush authority to invade Iraq were taken aback when she seemed to have repeated that mistake.

For reasons largely outside her control, Clinton is also one of the more reviled figures in American politics. That sentiment is unfair and irrational, and she has done little to deserve it. But it exists nonetheless, and it would limit the amount of public support she would be able to rally as president.

Obama, on the other hand, has demonstrated an appeal across many of the lines that have divided America. That is a critically important attribute, because the scale of changes that must be made to correct America's course cannot be accomplished with majorities of 50 percent plus one.

Different moments in history require different types of leaders, and part of the art of picking a president is matching the person to the challenge and to the time. So while both Clinton and Obama would make very good presidents, Obama is the person; this is his time.

— Jay Bookman and Cynthia Tucker for the editorial board

Bloomberg has harsh words for Washington

2008-01-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD,
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who says he's not a candidate for president, chose electoral vote-rich California Saturday from which to deliver a scorching assessment of Washington for failing to keep up with the need for new airports, roads, water systems and bridges across America.

While China and other nations are investing heavily in ports and high-speed trains "Washington doesn't have a plan" to address crumbling U.S. infrastructure, Bloomberg said.

In remarks clearly aimed at a national audience, the mayor said politics trumps common sense in Congress, where pork-barrel spending takes priority. Inevitably, the economy will be strangled if goods and people can't move easily, he warned.

"In politics, winning elections and protecting a party majority is more important than solving problems. And so short-term pork invariably wins over long-term investments," the mayor said.

Washington "spends money to win votes and collect campaign cash no matter what the real needs are," Bloomberg added. "It's hurting our country."

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor appeared with Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, to announce a coalition that would push for more investment in ports, highways and other infrastructure. Both governors are known for reaching across party lines to achieve compromise.

"We have an independent here, we have a Democrat here, a Republican. I mean, how much better can you get?" Schwarzenegger said.

The coalition, Building America's Future, will be a not-for-profit organization that will be made up of elected and other officials. It will work with presidential candidates and the platform committees of the national political parties to bring attention to infrastructure needs, which Schwarzenegger said exceed $1 trillion.

Bloomberg appearance came on the second day of a trip that also took him to Texas, another key state on the presidential election map where he met privately Friday with an expert in third-party ballot access who served as campaign manager for H. Ross Perot.

In an era when the public views government with suspicion and loathing, the billionaire mayor is honing an image as an innovative problem-solver working outside the partisan scrum of Washington politics.

Aides say Bloomberg will delay a decision until after the major parties produce clear front-runners.

Bloomberg has been quietly polling and analyzing voting trends in every state as he contemplates launching a campaign. On Tuesday, his supporters launched a 50-state petition drive in an attempt to "draft" him into the race.

As an independent candidate in California, Bloomberg would have to collect nearly 160,000 voter signatures between April 25 and August 8 to qualify for the ballot.

The billionaire mayor could fund the most lavish — and expensive — campaign in history, but the record of third-party candidates like Perot is not impressive.

"They usually show promise early on, and then voters go back to their partisan loyalties," said Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who's worked on presidential campaigns for Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt and Ted Kennedy.

Bloomberg met privately Friday with Clay Mulford, who is well-versed in third-party ballot access and served as campaign manager for Perot. The Texas businessman sought the presidency in 1992 and 1996.

Schwarzenegger was asked if he was staying neutral in the presidential race to see if Bloomberg would jump in, and he answered, "I respect all of the candidates in the Republican lineup. ... I will not endorse anybody."

Rendell, a prodigious fundraiser and former general chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is a political maverick who delivered most of his ambitious first-term agenda by building coalitions in a Legislature controlled by Republicans. He is in his second year of his second four-year term.

More Than 30 People Insist They Saw a UFO Flying Over Their Town

2008-01-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

Constable Leroy Gateman describes what he saw in the sky.

UFO Sightings in Stephenville,Tx
Jan. 16, 2008 — ABC News Internet Ventures

Dozens of people in a small Texas town are talking about an unexpected visitor, but the question is, where did it come from?

The residents of Stephenville, Texas, claim to have seen a UFO, described as a mile-wide, silent object with bright lights, flying low and fast. So what was it?

These are not headlines from a supermarket tabloid. This is actual front-page news.

More than 30 residents insist they saw the unthinkable a gigantic UFO.

"It was very intense, bright lights," said local newspaper reporter Angela Joyner.

"The lights were like going like this," said Constable Leroy Gateman making hand gestures to describe what he saw when he spotted the UFO."It was so fast I couldn't track it with my binoculars," said Gateman.

Rick Sorrells says he saw it while he was hunting deer in the woods.

"You look at the trees, and it was right here," Sorrells told ABC News correspondent Mike Von Fremd as he showed him the location in the woods where he spotted the UFO.

Steve Allen, a 50-year-old pilot, was at a campfire with friends and says the object was a mile long and half a mile wide. "I don't know if it was a biblical experience or somebody from a different universe or whatever but it was definitely not from around these parts," Allen said.

Allen drew a sketch of the object, which he said traveled at amazing speed without making a sound. While drawing, Allen told Von Fremd that he saw "an arch shape converted in a vertical shape, and then it split and made two of them, and then these turned into just fire and it was gone."

A spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing in Fort Worth says no aircraft from his base was in the area, and says the objects may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes. But those who saw the lights don't buy that explanation.

"It's an unidentified flying object," insisted a former Air Force technician.

Some in Stephenville are a bit embarrassed about all the attention. "It's crazy," said one teenage girl in town.

"A lot of folks aren't used to this kind of thing. They are not UFO nuts or anything like that around here," said City Councilman Mark Murphy.

Like it or not, all eyes are now trained on the sky over Stephenville to see whether any mysterious flying objects make a return.

Court allows MSNBC to bar Kucinich

2008-01-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS - The Nevada Supreme Court said Tuesday MSNBC can exclude Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich from a candidate debate.

Lawyers for NBC Universal Inc., had asked the high court to overturn a lower court order that the cable TV news network include the Ohio congressman or pull the plug on broadcasting the debate Tuesday night with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The state Supreme Court's unanimous order said that blocking the debate unless Kucinich got to participate would be "an unconstitutional prior restraint" on the news network's First Amendment rights. The justices also said the lower court exceeded its jurisdiction by ordering Kucinich's participation even though he first requested and was denied relief from the Federal Communications Commission.

"It's a matter of being on stage and answering questions. That's the issue," lawyer Bill McGaha argued for Kucinich during a hearing before four justices in Las Vegas. Three other justices participated by closed-circuit video conference from Carson City.

Donald Campbell, a Las Vegas lawyer representing NBC Universal, accused Kucinich of trying to make a jurisdictional "end run" around the FCC and federal courts by suing in Nevada state court to be added to the debate.

FCC broadcast rules do not apply to cable TV networks, Campbell said, adding that forcing MSNBC to add Kucinich or not broadcast the debate amounted to prior restraint and would be a "clear and unequivocal" violation of First Amendment press freedom.

"Mr. Kucinich's claim ... undermines the wide journalistic freedoms enjoyed by news organizations under the First Amendment," Campbell said in his appeal.

Kucinich emerged from the hearing saying he would make no comment until the justices ruled. He headed for a rally in front of the Las Vegas meeting hall where the debate was scheduled.

Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC, said the cable network also was awaiting a decision from the court. He declined further comment.

Campbell said MSNBC decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Kucinich drew less than 2 percent of the Democratic vote in the New Hampshire primary, after attracting little support in the Iowa caucuses.

Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel

2008-01-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

By Gareth Porter
Inter Press Service

Thursday 10 January 2008

Washington - Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a "battle at sea", new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.

The new information that appears to contradict the original version of the incident includes the revelation that U.S. officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident. That suggests that the threatening message may not have come in immediately after the initial warning to Iranian boats from a U.S. warship, as appears to do on the video.

Also unraveling the story is testimony from a former U.S. naval officer that non-official chatter is common on the channel used to communicate with the Iranian boats and testimony from the commander of the U.S. 5th fleet that the commanding officers of the U.S. warships involved in the incident never felt the need to warn the Iranians of a possible use of force against them.

Further undermining the U.S. version of the incident is a video released by Iran Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships.

The Iranian commander is heard to say, "Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat." He then requests the "side numbers" of the U.S. warships. A voice with a U.S. accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters."

The dramatic version of the incident reported by U.S. news media throughout Tuesday and Wednesday suggested that Iranian speedboats, apparently belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, had made moves to attack three U.S. warships entering the Strait and that the U.S. commander had been on the verge of firing at them when they broke off.

Typical of the network coverage was a story by ABC's Jonathan Karl quoting a Pentagon official as saying the Iranian boats "were a heartbeat from being blown up".

Bush administration officials seized on the incident to advance the portrayal of Iran as a threat and to strike a more threatening stance toward Iran. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley declared Wednesday that the incident "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces". President George W. Bush declared during his Mideast trip Wednesday that there would be "serious consequences" if Iran attacked U.S. ships and repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world peace".

Central to the depiction of the incident as involving a threat to U.S. warships is a mysterious pair of messages that the sailor who heard them onboard immediately interpreted as saying, "I am coming at you...", and "You will explode after a few minutes." But the voice in the audio clearly said "I am coming to you," and the second message was much less clear.

Furthermore, as the New York Times noted Thursday, the recording carries no ambient noise, such as the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind, which should have been audible if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small Iranian boats.

A veteran U.S. naval officer who had served as a surface warfare officer aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Gulf sent a message to the New York Times on-line column "The Lede" Wednesday pointing out that in the Persian Gulf, the "bridge-to-bridge" radio channel used to communicate between ships "is like a bad CB radio" with many people using it for "hurling racial slurs" and "threats". The former officer wrote that his "first thought" was that the message "might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft".

Pentagon officials admitted to the Times that they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from another source

The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three U.S. warships. Although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the Iranian boats as "highly maneuverable patrol craft" that were "visibly armed," he failed to note that these are tiny boats carrying only a two- or three-man crew and that they are normally armed only with machine guns that could do only surface damage to a U.S. ship.

The only boat that was close enough to be visible to the U.S. ships was unarmed, as an enlarged photo of the boat from the navy video clearly shows.

The U.S. warships were not concerned about the possibility that the Iranian boats were armed with heavier weapons capable of doing serious damage. Asked by a reporter whether any of the vessels had anti-ship missiles or torpedoes, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the 5th Fleet, answered that none of them had either of those two weapons.

"I didn't get the sense from the reports I was receiving that there was a sense of being afraid of these five boats," said Cosgriff.

The edited Navy video shows a crewman issuing an initial warning to approaching boats, but the footage of the boats maneuvering provides no visual evidence of Iranian boats "making a run on U.S. ships" as claimed by CBS news Wednesday in its report based on the new video.

Vice Adm. Cosgriff also failed to claim any run toward the U.S. ships following the initial warning. Cosgriff suggested that the Iranian boat's manoeuvres were "unduly provocative" only because of the "aggregate of their manoeuvres, the radio call and the dropping of objects in the water".

He described the objects dropped by the Iranian boat as being "white, box-like objects that floated". That description indicates that the objects were clearly not mines, which would have been dark and would have sunk immediately. Cosgriff indicated that the ships merely "passed by them safely" without bothering to investigate whether they were explosives of some kind.

The apparent absence of concern on the part of the U.S. ships' commanding officers about the floating objects suggests that they recognised that the Iranians were engaging in a symbolic gesture having to do with laying mines.

Cosgriff's answers to reporters' questions indicated that the story promoted earlier by Pentagon officials that one of the U.S . ships came very close to firing at the Iranian boats seriously distorted what actually happened. When Cosgriff was asked whether the crew ever gave warning to the Iranian boats that they "could come under fire", he said the commanding officers "did not believe they needed to fire warning shots".

As for the report circulated by at least one Pentagon official to the media that one of the commanders was "close to firing", Cosgriff explained that "close to" meant that the commander was "working through a series of procedures". He added, "[I]n his mind, he might have been closing in on that point."

Despite Cosgriff's account, which contradicted earlier Pentagon portrayals of the incident as a confrontation, not a single news outlet modified its earlier characterisation of the incident. After the Cosgriff briefing, Associated Press carried a story that said, " U.S. forces were taking steps toward firing on the Iranians to defend themselves, said the U.S. naval commander in the region. But the boats - believed to be from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's navy - turned and moved away, officials said."

That was quite different from what Cosgriff actually said.

In its story covering the Cosgriff briefing, Reuters cited "other Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity" as saying that "a U.S. captain was in the process of ordering sailors to open fire when the Iranian boats moved away" - a story that Cosgriff had specifically denied.

---------

Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.

NBC to appeal ? Who's Afraid Of Big Bad Dennis?

2008-01-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

If the candidate is excluded, judge threatens injunction stopping debate

The Associated Press Jan. 15, 2008

LAS VEGAS - NBC News said Monday it will appeal a judge's ruling rather than include Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich in a candidates' debate in Nevada.

"We disagree with the judge's decision and are filing an appeal," said a statement provided by Jeremy Gaines, a vice president for MSNBC, sponsor of Tuesday night's debate. Gaines said the parent network would seek an immediate hearing before the Nevada Supreme Court.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Hours earlier, Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson ruled that Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, must be allowed to participate. If he is excluded, Thompson said he would issue an injunction to stop the televised debate.

Kucinich's lawyer had argued that MSNBC at first invited him to participate, then last week reversed course and told him he could not.

A lawyer for the network said MSNBC decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

Thompson called it a matter of fairness and said Nevada voters will benefit if they hear from more than just Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The cable network and the Democratic Party have promoted the debate as a chance for the candidates to be questioned about issues from Nevada's minority communities. Tim Russert and Brian Williams are the scheduled moderators.

Kucinich learned of the judge's decision when he was handed a note during an interview with Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto.

"Holy smokes! I just found out. I have to get off the phone now. I have to make plans to go to Nevada," Kucinich said.

MSNBC and the Democratic Party are calling the 9 p.m. EST debate a chance to hear issues from Nevada's minority communities. NBC's Brian Williams and Tim Russert are moderating.

Hand Count In New Hampshire !

2008-01-15T10:48:00.000-08:00

(01-11) 13:57 PST Concord, N.H. (AP)

New Hampshire officials said Friday they will conduct a hand recount of the state's Democratic and Republican presidential primaries at the request of two minor candidates.

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who received less than 1.4 percent of the vote, and Republican Albert Howard of Michigan, who received about 44 votes statewide, are expected to pay a $2,000 fee to start the process, state officials said.

"Mr. Howard has satisfied the requirements for initiating a statewide recount of the Republican primary," Secretary of State William Gardner said in a statement. Officials said they expected a check from Kucinich to arrive late Friday, satisfying his requirements for the request.

Gardner is preparing an estimate of the recount's cost, which the requesting candidates must pay before it will begin. He said he expects to start the recount Wednesday, and will announce further details once the payments have been received.

Under state law, if a candidate finished more than 3 percentage points behind the winner, the candidate must pay the cost of a recount. The cost is refunded if the recount finds the requester won or finished within 1 percentage point of the winner.

The last time New Hampshire did a statewide recount of the results of the presidential primary was in 1980.

Kucinich sent a letter to Gardner Thursday requesting the recount, citing "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors" about the integrity of the primary results.

The top vote-getters in Tuesday's primary were Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, with 39 percent and Republican Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, with 37 percent.

Mikki & Yo Track Ancestral Origin

2008-01-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

Official Press Release from the PBS Pressroom:

In honor of Black History Month and in conjunction with the PBS series African American Lives 2, Sacramento Kings center Mikki Moore and Sacramento Monarchs forward / center Yolanda Griffith participated in maternal DNA testing today at the Kings/ Monarchs Practice Facility. Tune into KVIE (PBS) beginning February 6 for
African American Lives 2. Also be on the lookout for the feature story running in the Sacramento Bee in February.

The Genetic Genealogy test is done to help people trace their ancestral origins. The test sample was collected by each player scraping the inside of their mouth to collect buccal (cheek) cells.

Because DNA studies have shown people share a common ancestor with those who lived in Africa 50,000 to 200,000 years ago, both players thought it would be a great opportunity to learn more about their ancestral past.

-------------------------

AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
Wednesdays, February 6-13, 2008
9:00-11:00 p.m. ET
– Four-Part Series Explores Roots, Race and Identity Through Ancestry of Remarkable Individuals, Including Maya Angelou, Bliss Broyard, Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman, Peter Gomes, Kathleen Henderson, Linda Johnson Rice, Tom Joyner, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Chris Rock and Tina Turner –

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“These stories of adversity, sacrifice, achievement and
empowerment transcend the realm of color with a universal resonance.”
– Henry Louis Gates Jr., series host and participant
Building on the widespread acclaim of AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES (2006) and OPRAH’S ROOTS (2007), AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 will again journey deep into the African-American experience to reveal the triumphs and tragedies within the family histories of an all-new group of remarkable participants. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. returns as series host, guiding genealogical investigations down through the 20th century, Reconstruction, slavery and early U.S. history, and presenting cutting-edge genetic analysis that locates participants’ ancestors in Africa, Europe and America. AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 airs Wednesdays, February 6-13, 2008, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS.

“These discoveries about our ancestors are fascinating stories that everyone, regardless of race, can identify with and draw inspiration from,” said Gates, Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. “They’re stories that together offer a new understanding of not only the African-American experience, but also of race in America.”

Joining Professor Gates in the new broadcast are poet Maya Angelou, author Bliss Broyard, actor Don Cheadle, actor Morgan Freeman, theologian Peter Gomes, publisher Linda Johnson Rice, athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, radio personality Tom Joyner, comedian Chris Rock, rock ’n’ roll legend Tina Turner and college administrator Kathleen Henderson, who was selected from more than 2,000 applicants to have her family history researched and DNA tested alongside the series’ well-known guests.

“Through even greater depth of research and more powerful storytelling, all of the stories in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 share a common thread — they show the value of knowing who you are and where you come from,” added Gates. “And now, the inclusion of Kathleen’s story shows that viewers everywhere can take this same journey.”

Episode one, “The Road Home” (2/6, 9:00 p.m. ET), focuses on participants’ ancestors in the early 20th century. Stories include the tragic account of Tom Joyner’s great-uncles who, in 1915, were convicted by an all-white jury and executed in the electric chair for a crime that new evidence suggests they did not commit, and Bliss Broyard, who lived her life unaware that her father, renowned New York Times critic Anatole Broyard, was a light-skinned black man who chose to “pass” as white. She learned of her African-American roots upon her father’s death in 1990.

Episode two, “A Way Out of No Way” (2/6, 10:00 p.m. ET), continues tracing the guests’ lineages back through the late 1800s to the Civil War, featuring such stories as Chris Rock’s maternal great-great-grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, a black Civil War veteran who was twice elected to the South Carolina State Legislature; and Don Cheadle’s ancestors, who had been enslaved by Chickasaw Indians and brought to Oklahoma on the tail end of the “Trail of Tears,” the forced relocation of Native Americans during the 1830s.

Episode three, “We Come From People” (2/13, 9:00 p.m. ET), reveals stories of participants’ ancestors during the early years of the United States, such as a riveting account of life in slavery by Morgan Freeman’s great-grandmother, discovered within the records of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, and Peter Gomes’ ancestors, who were freed and supported by Quaker families in Virginia in the late 1700s.

DNA analysis leads to fascinating discoveries about participants’ lineages in episode four, “The Past Is Another Country” (2/13, 10:00 p.m. ET). A groundbreaking study links Professor Gates to a powerful ancient Irish warlord, while evidence suggests Peter Gomes’ direct paternal line traces back to a Portuguese Jew who fled the country in the early 1500s to escape the Inquisition.

A book by Professor Gates, In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past, will be published by Crown, a division of Random House, in spring 2008. Incorporating the family histories of all the participants from AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES, OPRAH’S ROOTS and AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, the book presents further discoveries not included in the broadcasts while weaving the narratives into an unprecedented tapestry of the African-American experience. In cooperation with seven public television stations across the country, a far-reaching educational outreach effort will guide K-through-12 teachers in the use of the broadcast program, Web site and educational print materials in standards-based classroom instruction.

Subject: Breaking News: MSNBC debate must include Kucinich

2008-01-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

Breaking News: Judge says MSNBC debate
must include Kucinich

-from the Los Angeles Times:

A judge in Nevada has just ordered MSNBC to include Rep. Dennis Kucinich in Tuesday's Democratic Party presidential debate in Las Vegas or he will cancel the forum.

Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson vowed to issue an injunction halting the nationally televised debate if MSNBC failed to comply. Kucinich had filed a lawsuit seeking to be included just this morning.

The judge ruled it was a matter of fairness and Nevada voters would benefit from hearing from more than just Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama. Kucinich had been invited to participate in the 6 p.m. Pacific debate Tuesday, but that invitation was rescinded last week ... So set up a fourth podium.

Andrew Malcolm, correspondent - The Los Angeles Times

Dear Kucinich Supporters,

FINALLY, the principle that we are a nation of laws and not of corporate media control has prevailed. And without your support, your phone calls and emails and letters, this issue might never have attracted the national attention it has.

BUT, while Dennis is preparing to go to Nevada - court order in hand - to represent your interests, expect that MSNBC, NBC, its parent company GE, and dozens of other alphabet-soup corporations in the nation will start filing appeals on top of appeals to keep Dennis out of the debate and try to deplete our limited financial resources. Multi-billion corporations don't want Dennis on that stage Tuesday night. And they will do everything; spend anything they need to make sure that his voice - your voice - is not heard. The law is on our side, but the dollars are on theirs.

NOW, more than ever, we need your continued financial support to stop megalomania-media from robbing you of your Constitutional rights, taking control of the American electoral process, and hand-picking the candidates they want you to choose from.

Defend your rights today. Make a contribution today to the only candidate who is willing to challenge the powerful interests that want to control you.

They will try to outspend us, but, with your help, they won't be able to out-fight us. Please, contribute whatever you can to defend your rights, and ask everyone you know to do the same.

We won today, but tomorrow is another battle.

Strength through Peace
Kucinich Campaign

Faraway Planets Collided, Study Suggests

2008-01-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

Jeanna Bryner
Staff Writer SPACE.com
Texas — An extrasolar planet about one-fourth the heft of Jupiter might have formed from the collision and merger of two planets, astronomers announced today.

Known as 2M1207B, the object orbits a brown-dwarf star called 2M1207A located 170 light-years from Earth and seen in the direction of the constellation Centaurus.

Astronomers have long puzzled over the mysterious object, which seems to fall outside the spectrum of physical possibility. Its temperature, age and brightness don't match up with what astrophysical theory would predict.

"This is a strange enough object that it needs a strange explanation," said Eric Mamajek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Mamajek presented the research here at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Researchers have debated since 2004 what exactly the object is, however — whether it's a planet or perhaps a brown dwarf, which is a failed star and not a planet. Past estimates put the object's mass at about five times that of Jupiter. However, the new study, if accurate, suggests the object weighs less than Jupiter. If the new model is correct, it would mean 2M1207B formed in a similar fashion to a planet. It would also means that a 2004 picture of the object would go down in history as the first photo of a planet outside our solar system.

Feverish

This titanic-collision theory would explain why 2M1207B is at a feverish 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (1,315 degrees Celsius) even though it's had possibly 8 million years or so since formation to cool off. It should have cooled to 1,300 degrees F (704 degrees C) by now.

A smashup between a Saturn-sized gas giant and a planet about three times the size of Earth could explain the extra heat.

From nudges to colossal crashes, such encounters are common.

"Most, if not all, planets in our solar system were hit early in their history," Mamajek said. Perhaps most notably, a collision created Earth's moon. And another knocked Uranus on its side. "It's quite likely that major collisions happen in other young planetary systems, too."

Dusty veil

In addition, 2M1207B is 10 times fainter than expected for its temperature. In 2006, astronomers suggested a dusty, edge-on disk curtained some of its light from view. Now, Mamajek and his colleague Michael Meyer of the University of Arizona propose 2M1207B is small, only about the size of Saturn, and so has less surface area radiating energy.

They estimate the object has a radius of 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) with a mass of about 80 times that of Earth. And the only way for such a small object to remain so hot so long after its birth is if it suffered a recent, titanic collision that heated it, they say.

Mamajek added, however, a planet collision may not be the correct explanation for the odd traits of 2M1207B. Still, he expects astronomers will find such examples of colliding planets by the next generation of ground-based telescopes.

"Hot, post-collision planets might be a whole new class of objects we will see with the Giant Magellan Telescope," he said.

US to send 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan

2008-01-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday.

The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion — together totaling more than 3,000 forces — to southern Afghanistan for a "one-time, seven-month deployment."

Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.

"He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it," said Morrell. "I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary."

He said Gates "has some more thinking to do on this matter because it's a serious allocation of forces."

Morrell added that Gates' thinking on the issue has "progressed a bit" over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.

"The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load," the spokesman said.

Morrell said the move was aimed at beating back "another Taliban offensive," that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.

When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.

Last year was the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults.

Currently there are about 26,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists.

Third Teacher This Year in Single Texas School District Accused of Student Sex Abuse

2008-01-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Third Time No Charm for School District

By DAVID SCHOETZ

For the third time this year, a Texas school district is assuring parents that their children are safe after a teacher was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a student.

In the latest incident, Shannon Hrozek, 42, of Houston, was charged with sexual abuse of a child after police say a co-worker caught her performing oral sex on a 16-year-old boy inside a dark, locked classroom at Westfield High School. Hrozek will be in court today.

Hrozek's arrest comes less than a month after Carlos Hector Valencia, another Westfield teacher, was accused by an 18-year-old girl of inappropriate touching inside a campus barn where the school houses livestock. The alleged incident took place in November. Valencia, a Spanish teacher, will be arraigned later this month.

In October, 33-year-old Alison Mosbeck, a teacher at Dueitt Middle School, was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual abuse of a child and having an improper teacher relationship with a student. Mosbeck allegedly began a relationship with a boy after initially asking him where she could buy some marijuana, according to a court affidavit. She brought him to a festival, where a sexual relationship began.

Both schools are part of the Spring Independent School District, which serves about 32,000 students in Harris County, a suburb of Houston. The school district, described as among the fastest growing in Texas, has about 5,000 employees, the majority of them teachers.

But the size of the district hardly justifies the spate of incidents, school officials said, even if they are isolated.

"It happening one time isn't acceptable," Regina Curry, a spokeswoman for the school district, told ABC News. "Certainly happening three times is not acceptable."

None of the three teachers have been convicted of the charges they face and each is out of the school system pending the outcome of their respective cases.

Curry pointed out that reporting measures in place in the school district helped expose at least one of the the suspected teachers. In Valencia's case, the student involved reported the inappropriate touching allegations Nov. 26 through an anonymous online system.

Valencia, according to the affidavit, allegedly began telling an 18-year-old honors student who regularly did chores for him in his classroom that she was "sexy" and "hot." On Nov. 1, he accompanied the student to the campus barn, where she helps raise livestock for a school group. There, the girl told investigators, he pulled her pants down and shirt up and assaulted her.

Valencia acknowledged to authorities that he had engaged in sexual conduct with the girl inside the barn twice, according to the affidavit.

A letter sent to parents of Westfield High School students celebrated the student's courage in coming forward and announced that the teacher had first been suspended and later fired.

In Mosbeck's case, a mother of one of the victim's friends reportedly contacted authorities after she saw text messages on the student's cell phone from Mosbeck, a mother of two. The teacher was looking for drugs, an affidavit alleged. It also stated that Mosbeck entered into a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old that prosecutors said lasted from fall 2006 to at least March 2007.

Mosbeck was initially put on paid leave, but has since resigned, according to Curry, who pointed to Mosbeck's case as an example of an alert parent taking action.

Hrozek's charge may be considered the most brazen alleged abuse by a Spring school district educator. The probable cause affidavit stated that a school janitor notified an assistant principal Jan. 3 about a teacher inside a classroom with a student and the lights off after the school day had ended.

The administrator used a master key to open the door and discovered Hrozek performing oral sex on a 16-year-old student from one of her English classes. Hrozek, for now, is on paid leave from her teaching position.

In Hrozek's case, Curry said, other school staff members took swift action to confront the teacher involved.

Despite reporting methods in these cases that the district may consider positive, Curry acknowledged that the school district shares in the responsibility for the incidents even if that means exposing teachers who are involved.

"When parents send their children to us, it's our job to protect their students," Curry said. "If a person needs to be exposed, the person needs to be exposed, so they can't just go down the road to their next employment." None of the three teachers had previous criminal records that would have made them a threat to students.

Curry emphasized the importance of students and staff members reporting abuse and said that the problems in the Spring school district are happening in Texas and across the country.

The Associated Press tallied reports of sex offenses by teachers in the fall and found that there were more than 2,500 cases nationwide over four years that had resulted in some form of punishment. Of course, there are nearly 3 million public school teachers nationwide, a statistic that enforces the adage "one bad apple doesn't spoil a bunch."

Experts reacted to the AP's finding, claiming that most abuse is never even reported in the first place.

Curry agreed.

"While it's very painful for us to deal with any one of these situations, we've got to confront it," Curry said. "We've got to deal with it so other people will come forward."

Settlement in Central Park Protest Case

2008-01-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press
The city settled a lawsuit brought by anti-war groups who were barred from staging a big rally in Central Park during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Lawyers for the National Council of Arab Americans and the Act Now to Stop War & End Racism Coalition said the settlement, announced Tuesday, raised the possibility that the park's Great Lawn could again be used for large public demonstrations.

While the city denied any wrongdoing, saying it was only trying to preserve the lawn when it barred the demonstration, the deal also requires it to pay $25,000 in damages to each of the groups and the costs of bringing the lawsuit.

"It's a hands-down total and complete victory," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, a Washington-based public interest law firm that brought the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit is not merely about the use of the Great Lawn of Central Park," she said. "It serves as an historic challenge to the privatization of public space."

The city had begun limiting access for large groups after spending $18.2 million in the mid-1990s to restore the Great Lawn.

The groups had accused the city of discrimination in its decisions about what organizations were entitled to use the lawn. The city has approved permits for events such as annual free performances by the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, as well as other concerts.

The city's law office said it wanted to avoid a long legal battle and believes "that the parks department properly denied a permit to the two plaintiff organizations in 2004."

The deal calls for the city to pay for an independent study to decide if the current 50,000-person limit can be modified so that larger events can be held on the lawn without damaging it.

The deal came after a federal judge last year said city regulations governing large park rallies addressed legitimate concerns, but there was evidence supporting the groups' claim that the city rejected requests for some permits but accepted others.

Noriega loses bid to block extradition

2008-01-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

By: Agence France Presse

A US federal judge rejected Wednesday a petition by Panamanian ex-strongman Manuel Noriega, and said his extradition to France to face money laundering charges can go forward.

Judge Paul Huck ruled there was no new evidence to suggest Noriega would be denied the benefits he has in the United States as a prisoner of war.

"There is a present commitment by France to give him not the level of POW but the benefits of a POW, and one of them is repatriation," Huck wrote.

Noriega, 73, in September completed a 17-year US prison term on drug charges. He was to be released and flown to France, but has remained in custody while appeals against his extradition were heard.

A French court sentenced Noriega to 10 years in prison in 1999 after his conviction in absentia on various charges, but authorities say he would be given a new trial on allegations that he deposited 3.15 million dollars in cocaine trafficking profits in French bank accounts in the 1980s.

Jon May, Noriega's attorney, insisted that: "France will not give Noriega treatment of prisoner of war and the general will not be given the benefits of the Geneva Conventions."

"One of these benefits is immediate repatriation," said another Noriega lawyer, Frank Rubino, arguing that the one-time strongman should be sent back to Panama City as he served his US prison sentence.

Also in September, another judge, William Hoeveler, ruled there was no reason to oppose Noriega's extradition to France but did not rule out the possibility the defense might file suit separately over what guarantees France may provide him.

Noriega, an army general, held sway in Panama from 1984 until he surrendered on January 3, 1990 to US troops who had invaded the country three weeks earlier.

A US Cold War ally and a one-time CIA informant whose involvement with drug trafficking eventually became an embarrassment for Washington, Noriega was flown on a military plane to Miami, where he was tried on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.

He was sentenced to 40 years but the sentence was later reduced.

Noriega's lawyers have sought to have him extradited not to France but instead to Panama, where he faces prosecution over the disappearances and murders of opposition members.

Panama has called for Noriega's repatriation, but did not take legal action to block the French extradition request.

9 US soldiers die in new Iraq offensive

2008-01-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

AP Photo:released by the U.S. military

By CHRISTOPHER CHESTER, Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Nine American soldiers were killed in the first two days of a new offensive to root out al-Qaida in Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of the capital, the U.S. military reported Wednesday.

The losses came as many militants fled U.S. and Iraqi forces massing in Diyala, a province of palm and citrus groves that has defied the trend toward lower violence. The campaign's scope is nationwide but is mainly focused on gaining control of Diyala and its most important city, Baqouba, which al-Qaida has declared the capital of its self-styled Islamic caliphate.

Six soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday in a booby-trapped house in Diyala, the U.S. command said. It also announced that three U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in an attack Tuesday in Salahuddin province, north of Diyala.

All indications are that al-Qaida fighters retreated north from Diyala, presumably to Salahuddin, before the offensive began Tuesday, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, told reporters in Baghdad.

"Operational security in Iraq is a problem," he said, noting that the Iraqi army uses unsecured cell phones and radios. "I'm sure there is active leaking of communication."

Hertling said his troops had killed 20 to 30 insurgents in the first two days of the operation.

Only Baghdad province has been deadlier than Diyala the past two years, according to an Associated Press count.

And while violence has declined over the past six months in Baghdad and many other places in Iraq, much of Diyala has remained a killing field. At least 273 civilians were slain in Diyala last month, compared to 213 in June. Over the same span, monthly civilian deaths in Baghdad dropped from 838 to 182.

The reason for the surge of bloodshed is that insurgents who were pushed out of the western province of Anbar and out of Baghdad shifted their operations into Diyala, U.S. commanders say.

The tree-lined farm region is more difficult terrain for fighting insurgents than the desert of Anbar, suggesting Diyala may not have seen the last of al-Qaida in Iraq. Compounding the difficulty for the military is the checkerboard pattern of Shiite and Sunni communities adjacent to one another.

The military will need a period of peace and stability to meet its goal of speeding up work on basic services and other civic projects that commanders believe will win more allies for the American effort.

Hertling said there would be three basic phases to the offensive:

First, U.S. and Iraqi forces will try to clear areas of insurgents. Iraqi police will then move in to establish some law and order. Finally, the "Awakening Groups" or "Concerned Local Citizens" — mostly Sunni fighters who have joined the Americans in battling al-Qaida — will be relied upon to maintain stability after troops move on.

It is these Awakening Groups that are al-Qaida's bulls-eye of the moment. The terror group, perhaps spurred by Osama bin Laden's audio message late last year, has been carrying out suicide strikes on civilians who have sided with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

There have been other types of attacks as well. Hertling showed a video taken by a U.S. drone showing militants in Diyala dragging a man from the trunk of a car, throwing him into a ditch and then shooting him.

Asked about the timing of the U.S. operation, Hertling said the answer was simple.

"Why now? Because we can. Baghdad is more secure. Anbar is more secure," he said. "Why now? Because ... the enemy has moved into these (northern) provinces."

Hertling said that in his area of control — Diyala, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces — 24,000 American soldiers, 50,000 members of the Iraq army and 80,000 Iraqi police are taking part in the offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq.

"There are more U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Diyala now than there ever has been," he said. "We're attempting to increase the tempo of operations in that specific province."

Meanwhile, in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, a pair of nearly simultaneous car bombings damaged two Christian churches and wounded two people, according to a senior police officer there. Brig. Sarhat Qadir said the bombings at the Chaldean church of the Heart of Jesus and the Assyrian church of Mar Afram took place within 10 minutes of each other.

The churches, about 700 yards apart, were empty at the time of the attacks, which followed a series of bombings Sunday targeting three churches in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. No one was hurt in those attacks.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, told the Vatican's ambassador to Iraq on Tuesday that his government was working to ensure the safety of Christians.

Christians, who make up about 3 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people, have been frequent targets of attacks by militants since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Many have fled to neighboring countries.

___

Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks in Baghdad and the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.

France is healthcare leader, US comes dead last:

2008-01-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective healthcare to its citizens, according to a survey Tuesday of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries.

The study by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs measured developed countries' effectiveness at providing timely and effective healthcare.

The study, entitled "Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis," was written by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It looked at death rates in subjects younger than 75 that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care.

The researchers found that while most countries surveyed saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States saw only a four percent dip.

The non-profit Commonwealth Fund, which financed the study, expressed alarm at the findings.

"It is startling to see the US falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen, who noted that "other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less."

The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Some countries showed dramatic improvement in the periods studied -- 1997 and 1998 and again between 2002 and 2003 -- outpacing the United States, which showed only slight improvement.

White the United States ranked 15th of 19 between 1997-98, by 2002-03 it had fallen to last place.

"It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the US," said Ellen Nolte, lead author of the study.

Had the United States performed as well as any of the top three industrialized countries, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths per year, the researchers said.

White House to provide e-mail info

2008-01-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

By PETE YOST, Associated Press

A federal magistrate ordered the White House on Tuesday to reveal whether copies of possibly millions of missing e-mails are stored on computer backup tapes.

The order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola comes amid an effort by the White House to scuttle two lawsuits that could force the Executive Office of the President to recover any e-mail that has disappeared from computer servers where electronic documents are automatically archived.

Two federal laws require the White House to preserve all records including e-mail.

Facciola gave the White House five business days to report whether computer backup tapes contain e-mails written between 2003 and 2005.

The time period covers the Valerie Plame affair in which at least three presidential aides were found to have leaked Plame's CIA identity to the news media.

"Do the back-ups contain the e-mails said to be missing?" Facciola asked.

In a four-page order, Facciola said he needs to know "if the missing e-mails are not on those back-ups."

Facciola noted the importance of acting quickly since e-mails that might be retrievable from individual computer workstations in the White House "are increasingly likely to be deleted or overwritten with the passage of time."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined comment while reviewing the magistrate's order. In the past, the White House has said there could have been some e-mails that were not automatically archived because of a technical issue.

In their lawsuits, the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington suggest the e-mails were improperly deleted from White House computer servers. Over 5 million White House e-mails are missing, CREW alleged. Recently, the group said it has been told by reliable sources that the actual figure of missing e-mail is over 10 million.

Facciola's court order "is going to force the White House to actually explain something about the situation and what they've done about the missing e-mails," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive.

In asking that the complaints be dismissed, the Bush administration says the president's record keeping practices under the Presidential Records Act are not reviewable by the courts. Also, the Federal Records Act does not allow the far-reaching action the two private groups are demanding, the administration contends.

Two months ago, CREW obtained a court order directing the White House to preserve the backup tapes.

The Bush administration had offered to have the government file a sworn declaration stating that the White House is safeguarding all backup materials. Instead, Facciola recommended that the judge in the case, Henry Kennedy, issue a court order because "a declaration is not punishable by contempt. In other words, without such an order, destruction of the backup media would be without consequence." Kennedy did as Facciola suggested.

The subject of missing White House e-mail arose early in 2006 when the prosecutor in the Plame investigation, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, disclosed that not all electronic message traffic of the EOP and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney "for certain time periods in 2003" was preserved through the normal archiving process.

Comeback kids create chaos

2008-01-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In the land of comebacks, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain revived their sagging campaigns Tuesday night and catapulted the Democratic and Republican presidential races into a surprise state of chaos.

Neither could afford to lose New Hampshire. Suddenly, the fallen front-runners look like winners again.

Clinton defied campaign-closing polls and the expectations of her own advisers to pull out a narrow victory over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the self-styled agent of change bidding to be the nation's first black president. She won with a last-minute show of emotion and pointed criticism of Obama, the harshest attacks coming from her husband, Bill.

In 1992, Bill Clinton dubbed himself "the Comeback Kid" after finishing a surprising second in New Hampshire.

McCain claimed the title Tuesday night after riding a wave of support from independent voters to defeat Mitt Romney.

"My friends, I'm past the age when I can claim the noun 'kid,' no matter what adjective proceeds it, but tonight we sure showed them what a comeback looks like," he told supporters as they shouted, "Mac is back!"

Celebrating her stunning upset, Clinton told supporters, "Let's give America the kind of comeback New Hampshire has just given me."

Clinton and McCain started out as presumptive favorites. Both lost their luster — Clinton with her crushing loss to Obama in Iowa last week and McCain with the near-collapse of his campaign last summer.

And now they're back, almost on top, in the wildest and most unpredictable presidential race of a lifetime.

Against predictions of a second straight defeat to Obama, Clinton won because:

• Women rallied to her side. She won the female vote by more than 10 percentage points, according to exit polls, after losing among women in Iowa.

• The youth vote did not lift Obama as it did in Iowa. He won 51 percent of votes cast by people under 30, compared with 57 percent in Iowa.

• Clinton somehow stalled Obama's momentum. Nearly four of every 10 voters selected a candidate in the last three days of the campaign, splitting their votes between Obama and Clinton.

Exit polls don't pinpoint why these three things happened, but there are several possibilities.

First, New Hampshire has a history of putting the brakes on surging candidacies, and the Clintons spoke to that sense of prudence by suggesting that Obama was not ready for the White House.

They urged New Hampshire to give the nation a chance to give Obama a second look.

"Some of us are ready," Hillary Clinton said on the eve of the primary, "and some of us are not." She even dusted off a line Walter Mondale used against Gary Hart 24 years ago: "Where's the beef?"

Second, the Clintons went negative on Obama's record to say he has not been consistent on a host of issues, including the Iraq war. Obama constantly trumpets his early opposition to the war without informing voters that, like Clinton, he later voted to pay for it.

"There's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since," Bill Clinton said of Obama. "Give me a break! This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Third, aides had urged her to show more passion and emotion, and, coincidentally or not, she did so by nearly breaking down during a restaurant appearance. Eyes welling up and voice quavering, she declared the campaign "is very personal for me. It's not just political."

But make no mistake: The moment was a political masterstroke. "I listened to you," Clinton told supporters Tuesday night, "and in the process I found my own voice."

Finally, Obama and fellow Democrat John Edwards joined forces in a Saturday debate to portray Clinton as a hostage of the status quo. They scored debate points, but Clinton may have won voters' sympathy.

She showed a soft and self-deprecating side known only to friends when asked what she could say to voters who don't find her likable enough. "Well, that hurts my feelings," she said with a flirty smile, "but I'll try to go on."

Thanks to New Hampshire, she and McCain can go on.

The Democratic race moves to Nevada and South Carolina, two states that looked solidly Obama until Tuesday night.

The Republican race moves to Michigan, where McCain is strong, and South Carolina, a hotbed of social conservatives that destroyed his campaign in 2000. Waiting for him will be the winner of the Iowa GOP caucuses, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

By keeping McCain and Clinton afloat, New Hampshire ensured that both races will continue at least until Feb. 5, when voters in two dozen states will get their chance to end the chaos.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Ron Fournier has covered politics for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years. On Deadline is an occasional column.

Message, not gender, turns voters off Clinton

2008-01-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

By Matthew Bigg

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Voters are not turning their backs on Hillary Clinton because of doubts about a woman in the White House but rather turning on to the optimistic message of her rival Barack Obama, according to some experts on gender and leadership.

The 46-year-old senator with his wife and two young children makes Clinton, a 60-year-old political veteran, seem outdated to some voters, they said.

Clinton lost caucuses in Iowa last week to Obama and has seen her poll lead overturned going into Tuesday's Democratic primary in New Hampshire, part of a state-by-state process by which parties choose a candidate for president.

Victory in November's election to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush would make Clinton the first U.S. female president after 43 male heads of state.

But that possibility could be fading if primary voters opt for the promise of hope and change projected by Obama over Clinton's experience and readiness to lead.

Those issues rather than gender will determine whether the U.S. senator from New York and wife of former President Bill Clinton stands or falls, according to Naomi Wolf, author of the 1991 bestseller "The Beauty Myth" and other books.

"None of the polling or the focus groups indicate that people are ... (snubbing) her because she is a woman but because of a deficit in how she is projecting leadership," Wolf said.

"If anything, she is too entrenched, too competent a leader. She ... has been on the world stage and people (voters) are sick of people who are ... on the world stage," she said.

Obama captured overwhelming support among young voters in Iowa. Clinton, on the other hand, was flanked by politicians from years past on the night of the Iowa result, including her husband and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Clinton, a successful lawyer in Arkansas before Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, and Obama play down their symbolism as potential 'firsts' as presidents. But one surprise of the 2008 race is that Iowa and New Hampshire voters appear more enthused by the dream of a groundbreaking black president than a first female one.

"STANDARD BEARER"

Even if U.S. feminists can chew on many issues such as workplace constraints and lack of widely available cheap child care, few female voters view Clinton as a "standard bearer" for their cause because women span the spectrum of opinion and leaders already seek out their votes by responding to some of their concerns, Wolf said.

She cited the focus by politicians including Bush and Bill Clinton on middle-class "soccer moms" who care about education, health care and crime.

"What matters is to be comfortable and run the race that you believe in because you can't please everybody," said Victoria Budson, head of the Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program.

In an ideal world, Clinton would be judged on her merits rather than her gender but this was unlikely to happen, she added.

Clinton faced a struggle her rivals rarely confront to balance the appearance of toughness with a softer quality U.S. voters look for in female politicians, said academic Barbara Kellerman, who published "Women in Leadership" in 2007 and has written numerous other books on the subject.

Clinton's congressional vote in 2002 to authorize war in Iraq made her appear tougher on national security than some rivals. But she is also accused by critics of being cold and failing to show emotion, traits that in a male politician might be interpreted differently.

Debate over Clinton's style resurfaced at a campaign event on Monday when she became uncharacteristically emotional and teary-eyed as she described why she was running and the obstacles she faced.

Political comment ranged from sympathy to charges she was faking the emotion.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin suggested on her political blog "The Tears of a Clown" should be Clinton's new campaign song.

Kellerman said it would be a mistake to blame Clinton's style if she lost the nomination because until recently that same style had won her front-runner status among the Democratic candidates.

"If her candidacy does not succeed I hope that women will learn the right lessons from her defeat and not make overarching conclusions about how impossible it is (for women) to get to the top," she said.

(Editing by Frances Kerry)

Bush's Middle East peace mission gets off to a shaky start

2008-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor~Times Online

President Bush’s peace mission to the Middle East is in trouble even before the US leader sets off for Jerusalem today on his maiden visit to the Holy Land.

Violence has broken out between Israel and Islamic militants on two fronts, peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have faltered and there are real fears that the situation in the region could deteriorate sharply.

Speaking as Mr Bush prepared to leave on his three-day trip to Israel and the West Bank, Ron Prosor, the new Israeli Ambassador to London, predicted that 2008 would be decisive, but that it was not clear who would emerge victorious, moderates or militants. “I see the year 2008 as a crossroads: it is either [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas or Hamas [the militant group],” he told The Times.

Related Links
Irresistible urge to tweak tail of a superpower
Iranians threatened to blow up US warships
Iran boats 'threatened suicide attack on US'
The envoy gave warning that his country’s patience was running out after 138 rocket attacks this year, including one missile fired from Gaza last week that hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon ten miles away. Two Katyusha rockets were also fired into northern Israel from Lebanon early on Tuesday in what was seen as a clear signal to the American President.

Mr Prosor’s remarks cast fresh doubts on Washington’s hopes of a breakthrough in the peace process in the Administration’s final months in office. After a conference in Annapolis six weeks ago, Israel and the Palestinians were supposed to begin talks on final status issues. The Bush Administration is aiming for the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of this year.

But so far no progress has been made and Mr Bush will be hard-pressed to find any encouraging signs that his initiative is working, when Air Force Once touches down in Israel tomorrow.

Mr Prosor, a career diplomat who has previously served in London, said that Israel was very concerned about the safety of its citizens. He added that Western democracies had no idea of the pressure that Israel was under from Palestinian attacks, where on average last year one rocket or mortar was fired every three hours.

“A Grad missile - a large missile of Iranian origin - was fired last week at Ashkelon. No government in the world would allow this to happen,” he said. “If this continues then Israel, like any other government, will be compelled to act on a large scale.”

The Israeli envoy dismissed calls for his government to enter into negotiations with Hamas, which effectively runs a separate government in the Gaza Strip. “What do you suggest that we talk about? Arranging for my funeral? How big the hole for my coffin should be? What flowers to arrange? They want us dead,” he said.

Mr Prosor said that the realities on the ground in Israel were not being conveyed to the British public and that he intended to make public diplomacy a focus of his posting to London.

The two previous Israeli ambassadors, both political appointments, were criticised by British Jewish leaders for not defending Israel adequately in the media and public and not speaking good enough English.

Mr Prosor said that Britain was playing a crucial role in helping to bolster moderate Palestinians through the efforts of Tony Blair, who now co-ordinates Middle East peace efforts for the Quartet group of nations, Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who said that Britain was launching a “diplomatic surge” in the Middle East in 2008.

Mr Prosor said that Iran remained the biggest challenge to the stability of the region, but that for now Israel was prepared to allow diplomacy to take its course, even though Tehran had repeatedly called for his country to be wiped out.

“Iran is a global threat and hence there should be a global response to Iran,” the Israeli envoy said. “We still believe in diplomatic avenues and snactions."

Israel to brief George Bush on options for Iran strike

2008-01-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

By: Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
ISRAELI security officials are to brief President George W Bush on their latest intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme - and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week.

Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations. A range of military options has been prepared.

Last month it was revealed that the US National Intelligence Estimate report, drawing together information from 16 agencies, had concluded that Iran stopped a secret nuclear weapon programme in 2003.

Israeli intelligence is understood to agree that the project was halted around the time of America’s invasion of Iraq, but has “rock solid” information that it has since started up again.

While security officials are reluctant to reveal all their intelligence, fearing that leaks could jeopardise the element of surprise in any future attack, they are expected to present the president with fresh details of Iran’s enrichment of uranium - which could be used for civil or military purposes - and the development of missiles that could carry nuclear warheads.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot this weekend, Bush argued that in spite of the US intelligence assessment, Iran still posed a threat.

“I read the intelligence report carefully,” Bush said. “In essence, what the report said was that Iran had a secret plan to develop nuclear weapons.

“I’m saying that a state which adopted a nontransparent policy and had a secret plan for developing nuclear weapons could easily develop an alternative plan for the same purpose. So to conclude from the intelligence report that there is no Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons will be only a partial truth.”

Israeli security officials believe the only way to prevent uranium enrichment to military grade is to destroy Iranian installations. Many Israelis are eager to know whether America would give their country the green light to attack, as it did last September when Israel struck a mysterious nuclear site in Syria.

Bush refused to be drawn when asked whether he would support an Israeli attack. “My message to all countries in the region is that we are able to solve the problem in a diplomatic way,” he said, “but all options are on the table.”

Australia rejects Aborigine compensation claim

2008-01-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

AFP/File Photo: File photo shows a jogger passing a mural featuring Aboriginal children

by Lawrence Bartlett
Agence France Presse

The Australian government Monday rejected Aboriginal demands for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the "stolen generation" of indigenous children taken from their parents.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pledged to apologise to Aborigines for the widely-criticised policy, something his predecessor John Howard refused to do during his 11 years in power before being ousted in November elections.

But Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin Monday ruled out backing the apology with the establishment of a compensation fund of a billion dollars (870 million US), as demanded by some Aboriginal leaders.

"What we will be doing is putting the funding into health and education services, and providing additional support for services needed for counselling, to enable people to find their relatives," she told national radio.

"So we won't be creating a compensation fund."

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre legal director Michael Mansell had called on the government to establish a billion dollar fund to give to some 13,000 Aborigines taken from their parents as children over four decades up to the 1970s.

The children were put into institutions or foster care with white families as part of an attempt to force assimilation, and some of them never saw their families again.

"The prime minister is going to stand up in front of the world and say that on behalf of the nation we are genuinely sorry that this happened," Mansell said.

"If he then walks away and says but I'm not going to compensate you, it would give a hollow ring to the words he would be using."

Stolen Generations Victoria chairwoman Lyn Austin backed the establishment of such a fund.

"People get paid crimes compensation for victims of crime," she said. "You are looking at the gross violation and the act of genocide and all the inhuman things that have happened to our people."

Australia's original inhabitants were marginalised after the first British settlers arrived in 1788 and now number just 470,000 out of a population of 21 million.

They have much higher rates of infant mortality, health problems and suicide than other Australians, with many living in squalid camps where unemployment, alcoholism and lawlessness are rife.

Austin said she believed stolen generation victims should sue the government if it failed to set up a compensation fund.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told reporters people had the right to take legal action.

"It is up to people who are involved to make their own choices about how they want to pursue a particular issue," Tanner said.

In a landmark court case in August last year, an Aborigine removed from his family as a baby in 1958 won 525,000 dollars (452,000 US dollars) compensation, the first time such a case had succeeded.

The court heard that Bruce Trevorrow was taken to hospital with stomach pains on Christmas Day in 1957, when he was 13 months old. When he recovered he was put into foster care without his parents knowing.

Despite letters sent by his mother, it was a decade before he was reunited with her.

Former prime minister Howard's conservative Liberal Party warned last month that an apology for the stolen generation could lead to a flood of compensation claims.

"One of the issues is going to be trying to find a form of words that doesn't look like it's an admission of legal liability," said the party's spokesman for indigenous affairs, Tony Abbott.

The Australian Greens, however, said they were disappointed the government moved so quickly to rule out reparations.

"I would have expected it to be one of the issues on the table as the Rudd government begins a new dialogue with indigenous communities," Senator Rachel Siewert said in a statement.

US analyzing recordings of Iranians

2008-01-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

AFP/US NAVY Photo:
The USS Harry S. Truman
& The USNS Arctic

By SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press
The U.S. military has video and audio recordings of Iranian high-speed boats that threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. convoy in the Persian Gulf and plans to release them, the top U.S. Navy commander in the Mideast said Tuesday.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that its boats never threatened the U.S. vessels during the encounter early Sunday in the Hormuz Strait, insisting it only asked them to identify themselves then let them continue into the Gulf.

But U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff disputed that account, saying the incident was "provocative."

Cosgriff, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and is based in nearby Bahrain, said the identity of the American vessels was obvious, they were clearly marked and the incident took place during daylight when they could be seen.

"I can't help but conclude that it was provocative," Cosgriff told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Tuesday — the same day President Bush was scheduled to leave for his first major trip to the Middle East.

"There is video" of the incident, Cosgriff said. "We're using it as part of our assessment. That will be made available in due course, as well as the audio."

The White House echoed Cosgriff's characterization Tuesday, calling Iran's actions "reckless."

"It was not normal behavior," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "It's just another point of reference for people in the region who are concerned about the behavior of Iran."

The Pentagon said five small Iranian boats repeatedly "charged" three U.S. warships — cruiser USS Port Royal, destroyer USS Hopper and frigate USS Ingraham — on what the U.S. Navy called a routine passage in international waters.

Cosgriff said Monday that the Iranian boats dropped boxes into the water and radioed a message "to the effect that they were closing (on) our ships and that the ships would explode — the U.S. ships would explode."

On Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry called the incident a "normal" encounter between the two countries' ships and said it had been resolved.

"No threatening messages were exchanged," state television quoted an unidentified Iranian Revolutionary Guards official as saying Tuesday.

Senior Revolutionary Guards commander Ali Reza Tangsiri said Iran had the right to ask any ships to identify themselves upon entering or leaving the Persian Gulf.

"It is a basic responsibility of patrolling units of the Revolutionary Guards to take necessary interception measures toward any vessels entering into the waters of the Persian Gulf," Tangsiri said, according to the Mehr news agency.

"We are entitled to use our definite right in the Strait of Hormuz to take controlling measures in relation to the entry of any vessel into the Persian Gulf," he was quoted as saying.

U.S. Navy and Iranian officials have said in the past that vessels from the two rival nations frequently come into contact in the waters of the narrow, heavily trafficked Gulf. They often communicate by radio to avoid incidents.

But the latest incident was the first time U.S. officials have spoken of such a direct threat from Iranian boats.

___

Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this report from Tehran, Iran.

Want to be richer in 2008?

2008-01-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

Dubai-United Arab Emirates

By Sanjay Matai

Some wise people have made a smart new year's resolution for 2008: to manage money better. Are you one of them? We have a checklist of ideas to help you get started. So, whether you take a loan or are planning to invest, keep these thumb rules in mind.

Smart loan mantras

Borrow money to buy ONLY useful assets, such as a home, a car or to fund your education. It's a strict ‘no-no’ for personal loans, credit card loans and if you plan to take a holiday on equated monthly installments (EMI).Your EMI for all loans put together should not exceed more than 40 to 50 per cent of your take-home salary. Before opting for a loan, shop around for the cheapest interest rate.

Getting insured?

Buy insurance when you really want to be insured, not when you want to invest or save tax. Your insurance policy should provide financial security to your family, and here's why you must opt for one:

For protection against medical emergencies. Opt for a mediclaim policy. For protection of life or disability. Opt for a term or accident policy.For protection of home loan. Opt for a term or mortgage policy. To protect your home and valuables. Opt for a home insurance policy.

Insurance plans like endowment, money-back, whole-life or unit linked schemes are not mentioned in the above category, because these are complicated, not to mention rigid; hence they should be preferably avoided. Remember, we are looking for simple, cheap, yet effective insurance plans.

Where to invest your money

Though, investment is a vast area, it can be broadly divided into three main categories:debt, equity and real estate. Depending on your risk appetite and time horizon, divide your money suitably across these three categories.

1. Debt

These investments are safe, secure and give fairly assured returns. You can further divide your debt portion into three to four sub-categories and invest as follows:

Time horizon
Investment avenues

Extremely short-term (1 day to 1 month)
Savings account

Short-term (1 month to 1 year)
Bank fixed deposit or short term debt funds

Medium term (1 year to 3 to 5 years)
Bank fixed deposit or fixed monthly plans

Long term (more than 3 to 5 years)
Public provident fund or post office monthly income scheme
If you don't have to pay any tax or you fall under a low tax bracket, you could choose a bank deposit or mutual fund.

2. Equity

Stay away from direct equity exposure. Instead, invest in Mutual Funds (MFs). Currently, there are more than 350 equity funds on offer. To make things simple, invest as follows:
50 to 75 per cent of your corpus in one or two existing funds
25 to 50 per cent of your corpus in three to four existing diversified funds with a 3 to 5 year track record
Note: Keep away from new fund offers, sector or thematic funds.

3. Real estate

Other than your own house, you could also consider additional real estate investment. However, this investment has some cons, as follows:

Investment in property requires a large sum of money, which is not available to most. Even if you can raise the money, investments in debt and equity may suffer and your portfolio may become imbalanced.

These investments involve high transaction costs such as brokerage, registration, etc. Instances of unclear or undisputed title to land and property are fairly common instances. You would need to take care of the additional costs to maintain the property.

A better alternative is to choose Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) or Real Estate Mutual Funds (REMFs). These are expected to hit the market soon and you could invest a part of your portfolio in such funds.

We hope these simple rules will help you mange your money better in 2008. Good luck!

The author is a financial planner and promoter of www.wealtharchitects.in. He can be reached at sanjay.matai@moneycontrol.com.

ACLU rips plan to track R.I. students

2008-01-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

By MICHELLE R. SMITH,
Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 7

A tech company with ties to a school district plans to test a tracking system by putting computer chips on grade-schoolers' backpacks, an experiment the ACLU ripped Monday as invasive and unnecessary.

The pilot program set to start next week in the Middletown school district would have about 80 children put tags containing radio frequency identification chips, or RFID chips, on their schoolbags. It would also equip two buses with global positioning systems, or GPS devices.

The school and parents will be able to track students on the bus, and the district hopes the program will improve busing efficiency, Superintendent Rosemarie Kraeger said. The devices are intended to record only when students enter and exit the bus, and the GPS would show where the bus was on it's route.

Parents could opt out of the program, Kraeger said.

The pilot program, made by MAP Information Technology Corp., is to run for several months at the Aquidneck School, she said. The district, which serves about 2,500 students, is the company's only client, said Deborah Rapp, the company's director of marketing and communications.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, sent a letter to Kraeger and members of the school committee calling the plan "a solution in search of a problem" and saying the school district should already have procedures in place to track where its students are.

On Monday, he said the program raises enormous privacy and safety concerns.

"There's absolutely no need to be tagging children," he said. "We are not questioning the school district's ability to use GPS to monitor school buses. But it's a quantitative leap to monitor children themselves."

Rapp described the system as limited in scope.

"The program is solely designed to provide accountability when the children are in transit, from the moment they enter the bus to the moment they exit," she said. "It is limited to when they are on the bus. We in no way take it beyond that."

Brown also raised concerns that unauthorized people, perhaps using RFID readers that are easily bought online, could exploit information contained on the tags.

Ed Collins, the district's facilities manager, said that would not be possible. Collins and Rapp said the RFID tag would only contain an ID number, not a name, address or other personal information. Only the school administration would be able to match the ID number with the child, Rapp said.

Collins is the brother of Chris Collins, who founded MAP Information Technology last year. The district did not need clearance from the state ethics commission to set up the testing, however, because the program is free during the pilot, Kraeger said.

Officials with the district, which neighbors a naval station and the famed yachting community of Newport, said they didn't have an estimate on what it would cost to put the tracking system in place district-wide.

Kraeger said she was unaware of the controversy ignited three years ago when a Northern California school system planned to put in place an RFID system to track students at school. The proposal died after protests by parents and privacy and civil liberties advocates, including the ACLU.

The Middletown school board approved the pilot program in November. In a recent letter to parents, the company and the district explained the program and invited parents to get in touch with the school system if they had any questions, Rapp said. No one called.

The district was interested in trying out the program in the hopes that it would improve communication with parents, who will be able to check a Web site to see whether the buses are on time and their children are on them, Kraeger said.

Tracking students' movements will be no different from an existing system that allows parents to see what their child had for lunch or check their attendance record, Kraeger said.

"If a bus were delayed, they could look for their own student ID and see where the bus was," she said.

RNRL may buy overseas mines for AP mega project

2008-01-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

Hyderabad: The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s (ADAG) company Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) may buy out some mines in Indonesia and Australia for dedicated fuel supplies to support the Krishnapatnam ultra mega power plant (UMPP).

RNRL, which is the supplier of fuels for ADAG power plants, is also in the process of firming up joint ventures for imported coal supply to execute the UMPP.

Providing an overview of the Reliance Power plants including two UMPPs which were awarded to the group, the Director of Reliance Energy Ltd, Lalit Jalan, said that apart from the pit head Sasan UMPP project and the Krishnapatnam UMPP, the company was in the process of bidding for the Telia project too.

• Check out our Yearender Special

On the Krishnapatnam UMPP, Jalan said the company had signed up with four States for the supply of power generated from the project and expects the special purpose vehicle Coastal Power created for the project to hand over the possession of land by the end of January 2008.

The effective date of implementation of this 4,000 MW project would be between 68 and 93 months and based on supercritical technology, with each unit of 800 MW. The necessary support infrastructure for imported coal evacuation is being made near Krishnapatnam with a dedicated port. This port is being developed by the Navayuga Group

FEMA wins appeal in Katrina rental aid

2008-01-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency can end housing subsidies for many victims of Hurricane Katrina, an appeals court ruled.

Many storm victims now receive help through a different federal agency, and it wasn't clear how many people would be affected by the ruling.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Friday that storm victims who apply for rental assistance aren't legally entitled to a "continuing stream of payments."

"There is simply no indication that the regulations constrain FEMA's discretion to the point that it is bound to provide assistance to all eligible individuals," Judge Carolyn King wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit.

The ruling overturns a June decision that said FEMA should continue rental assistance payments to storm victims while they appeal the agency's decisions. U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan had issued a preliminary injunction that required FEMA to continue the payments during appeals.

It was unclear whether any storm victims still needed the FEMA aid. About 29,000 residents who had been getting rental assistance from FEMA have been shifted into a program run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Adam Strochak, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"A large portion of our class is getting the assistance they need and deserve," he said. The plaintiffs are weighing their legal options following Friday's ruling, Strochak said.

No Gulf Coast families have been receiving rental assistance from FEMA since the transition to HUD's program took effect Dec. 1, said FEMA spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin, adding that she couldn't comment further on the ruling because it involves pending litigation.

The 5th Circuit blocked the preliminary injunction in July, then vacated the court order Friday. The appeals court also sent the case back to Berrigan last week for further proceedings.

Clinton vs Lieberman

2008-01-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

An emotional Clinton vows to fight on

2008-01-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

By Ellen Wulfhorst

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A teary-eyed Hillary Clinton pushed for support on Monday as polls showed her poised for a huge New Hampshire loss to Democratic rival Barack Obama, but the former front-runner vowed to carry on with her presidential quest even if she loses.

Obama warned supporters against overconfidence as a flood of new polls gave him a double-digit lead over Clinton one day before the state casts the next votes in the race for the White House.

Polls will close in the state at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, with results expected to begin rolling in quickly.

At a campaign event in Portsmouth, Clinton choked up and grew uncharacteristically emotional when she talked about her reasons for seeking the presidency in the November election.

"Some of us put ourselves out there and do this," she said, her voice breaking and her eyes glistening with tears, "against some pretty difficult odds and we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country."

"But some of us are right and some of us are wrong," she said in a quaking voice. "Some of us are ready and some of us are not."

The incident resurrected memories of former Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie's tears during the 1972 New Hampshire campaign, credited with helping to bring down his front-running bid.

Clinton, who would be the first woman president, promised to stay in the fight until it was over, possibly on "Super Tuesday" on February 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests in the fight to be the party's nominee in November.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, we're going on," she told the CBS "Early Show."

"I've always felt that this is going to be a very tough, hard-fought election, and I'm ready for that," added Clinton, who finished third in the first contest in Iowa last week behind Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Obama rolled across New Hampshire in an effort to turn out supporters, warning there was still plenty of work needed before Tuesday's vote.

"Do not take this race for granted. I know we had a nice boost over the last couple of days but elections are funny things," Obama, an Illinois senator vying to become the first black U.S. president, told supporters in Claremont.

In the state's hard-fought Republican race, Sen. John McCain of Arizona held a more narrow lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in new polls. He scrambled across the state to urge supporters to get out and vote -- and asked them to bring a friend.

'I'M GOING TO WIN'

"I need you to get out the vote tomorrow, this could be a very close election and it will depend on voter turnout," McCain said in Keene. "I'm proud to say I'm going to win tomorrow."

New Hampshire is the next battleground in the state-by-state process of picking Democratic and Republican candidates for November's presidential election to succeed President George W. Bush.

A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Obama with a 10-point edge on Clinton in the state, 39 percent to 29 percent, as he gained a wave of momentum from his win in Iowa.

McCain was relegated to the political scrap heap last summer after sinking polls and poor fundraising forced him to shake up his staff and recalibrate his campaign, but he now leads Romney by 5 points in New Hampshire.

Clinton and Romney are both under pressure to revive their campaigns after disappointing showings in Iowa, and a second consecutive loss for either could be devastating.

Romney, who at one time led polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, finished second in Iowa to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

A wealthy former venture capitalist who has pumped tens of millions of his own money into the race, Romney said he was buoyed by a Sunday night debate where he tangled with McCain and Huckabee over their records on taxes and immigration.

"Right now it's a neck-and-neck race. But with the debate last night and the support I received from that debate I anticipate winning tomorrow," Romney said in Stratham.

Edwards, on a 36-hour campaign marathon around the state ahead of Tuesday's vote, did not respond directly when asked by reporters about Clinton emotional response.

"I don't have anything to say about that. I think what we need in a commander in chief is strength and resolve," Edwards said. "Presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also a very tough business."

The final day of campaigning in New Hampshire coincided with a bipartisan gathering of political moderates in Oklahoma attended by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen as a possible independent candidate for president.

But Bloomberg kept a low profile and repeated his frequent denials that he intended to be a candidate.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, Ed Stoddard, Jason Szep in New Hampshire; Jeff Franks in Oklahoma; Writing by John Whitesides; editing by David Wiessler)

Pentagon says ships harassed by Iran

2008-01-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - An Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters, then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, the top U.S. Navy commander in the area said Monday.

No shots were fired an an Iranian official in Tehran said the incident amounted to "something normal."

Bush administration officials complained that the Iranian actions amounted to a dangerous provocation, but one private analyst said the Iranians may have believed they were acting defensively in a narrow waterway that is heavily trafficked by commercial ships, including oil vessels.

The incident raised new tensions between Washington and Tehran as President Bush prepared to depart Tuesday on his first major trip to the Middle East.

The three U.S. warships — cruiser USS Port Royal, destroyer USS Hopper and frigate USS Ingraham — were headed into the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz on what the U.S. Navy called a routine passage inside international waters when they were approached by five small high-speed vessels believed to be from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.

The Iranians "maneuvered aggressively" in the direction of the U.S. ships, said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and is based at nearby Bahrain. The U.S. ship commanders took a series of steps toward firing on the boats, which approached to within 500 yards, but the Iranians suddenly fled back toward their shore, Cosgriff said.

Cosgriff was not precise about the U.S. ships' location but indicated they were about three miles outside Iran's territorial waters, which extend 12 miles from its shores, headed in a westerly direction after having passed the narrowest point in the straits.

At one point the U.S. ships received a threatening radio call from the Iranians, "to the effect that they were closing (on) our ships and that the ships would explode — the U.S. ships would explode," Cosgriff said.

"Subsequently, two of these boats were observed dropping objects in the water, generally in the path of the final ship in the formation, the USS Ingraham," he added. "These objects were white, box-like objects that floated. And, obviously, the ship passed by them safely."

The boxes were not retrieved, so U.S. officials do not know whether they posed an actual threat. Cosgriff the U.S. ship commanders were moving through a standard series of actions — including radio calls to the Iranians that went unheeded — but did not reach the point of firing warning shots.

"We take this deadly seriously," Cosgriff told a Pentagon news conference via video link from Bahrain.

He recalled the October 2000 terrorist attack on a U.S. warship, the USS Cole, in Yemen's Aden harbor by a small boat laden with explosives; 17 sailors died in that attack, which nearly sank the Cole.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking aboard the USS New Orleans pierside in San Diego, told reporters on Monday "it would be nice to see the Iranian government disavow this action and say that it won't happen again."

Gates said there had been two or three similar incidents — "maybe not quite as dramatic" — over the past year. He offered no details, but one Navy official said there have been several similar incidents that involved "aggressive maneuvering" by small boats in the Gulf. In one instance, a U.S. Navy vessel fired warning shots across the bow of the small boat, said the official, who requested anonymity because details of the earlier encounters have not been made public.

The official said that while at least one of the small boats in the Sunday confrontation was flying an Iranian flag, that was not the case in the earlier incidents. Thus, while there is suspicion that they may have been Iranian boats, it is not certain.

The latest incident began Sunday about 8 a.m. local time and lasted about 30 minutes, Cosgriff said. It was followed on Monday by an unusual but apparently unrelated incident in which two U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets were destroyed in an aerial collision over the northern Gulf. The three aviators involved were plucked safely from Gulf waters and returned to their ship, the USS Harry Truman.

In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. Spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident, saying it was "similar to past ones."

"That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party, and it (the problem) is settled after identification of the two parties," he told the state news agency IRNA.

In his remarks to Pentagon reporters, Cosgriff said U.S. Navy ships routinely have contact with Iranian naval vessels and that usually the correct procedures are followed without confrontation. In fact he said the three-ship Navy convoy involved in Sunday's incident had earlier exchanged normal communications with some Iran shore stations and with a passing Iranian Navy ship.

Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, said in a telephone interview that in the absence of hard information about Iranian intentions, it is possible that they viewed the presence of the American ships as a potential threat and were warning them away.

On the other hand, it may have been a deliberate Iranian provocation, Cirincione said.

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would "confront" hostile Iranian actions against U.S. interests and those of its allies in the region and called on Iran to halt "any provocative actions."

"We are going to confront Iran's behavior where it threatens us, where it threatens our allies, where it threatens the integrity of the international systems that have been set up to facilitate international commerce and finance," McCormack told reporters.

Historical tensions between the United States and Iran have grown in recent years over Washington's charge that Tehran has been secretly seeking to develop nuclear weapons and supplying and training Iraqi insurgents using roadside bombs — the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

At about this time last year, Bush announced he was sending a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf region in a show of force against Iran. The U.S. Navy quietly scaled back to one carrier group several months later. But while the two were there, they staged two major exercises off Iran's coast.

___

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

What to follow, the head or the heart?

2008-01-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

Scot Lehigh | WEB EXCLUSIVE
January 6, 2008

New Hampshire was the place that Team Clinton hoped would sustain them even if they lost Iowa. Clinton has led here for months, has the support of many key players in the power structure, and benefits from a reservoir of good will for her husband.

Still, in the wake of Barack Obama's surprisingly strong victory in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton's advantage has crumbled -- and her campaign hasn't found an effective way to respond.

In Saturday night's debate, her attempts to draw a legitimate difference concerning the boldness of their respective healthcare plans misfired when Clinton overreached and tried to portray her chief rival as a man of many shifting positions. That brought a calm and dignified explanation from Obama, as well as a scolding from a forceful John Edwards, who styled himself as Obama's ally in pursuit of change -- and Clinton as the voice of the status quo.

All in all, it wasn't a night that helped her cause. With Obama outperforming her on the stump, she needed to demonstrate in no uncertain terms why she is the best choice for Democrats.

She didn't.

And that was probably her last best chance to reverse a tide of momentum flowing Obama's way.

Going negative on TV would have looked desperate -- and besides, with only five days separating Iowa and New Hampshire, there's simply no time for that kind of message to sink in.

Instead, the Clinton camp is stressing a two-pronged political argument.

Hillary and Bill are emphasizing that with the world situation dangerous and the national economy seemingly nosing toward recession, the country needs a candidate ready to be president from day one. The second part of their pitch: Given the ruthless efficiency of the Republican attack machine, the Democrats need a battle-tested candidate who is able to overcome anything that can be thrown at her.

That's an argument that says, vote your head and not your heart. It's one that voters here largely followed in 2004, with many switching from Dean to Kerry after the former's implosion in Iowa.

But this time around, it isn't working nearly as well with voters, and for good reasons: There are equally strong countervailing arguments.

Clinton is more experienced? Well, yes, but that doesn't mean she has better judgment. Witness Iraq.

Clinton is more battle-tested? Perhaps, but she is also more polarizing, which leads many to worry that she will never be able to persuade a majority to vote for her.

What's also clear is that in appraising Obama, voters aren't trying to decide if he has as much relevant experience as Clinton. Rather, they are judging whether he passes their minimum threshold for the presidency -- and increasingly they are concluding that he does, in no small part because of the serious, thoughtful way in which he conducts himself.

Clinton, meanwhile, lacks that excitement that's so important in the closing days of campaigns.

Clinton is treating the campaign as a job interview -- indeed, she called it exactly that in Penacook -- and trying to persuade voters that she has the best qualifications for the post.

Obama is treating it as a crusade -- and asking voters to join him in his quest for change.

Trust my experience and nominate me to make things better for you, she says.

Trust your heart and come with me and we'll change change our country together, he urges.

There's simply no comparison in the relative pull of those arguments.

Clinton's matter-of-fact approach had heads nodding in agreement and voters responding with occasional ovations on Saturday, as she answered questions for the better part of two hours, delving into the intricacies of policy in her effort to prove her readiness for the job. Still, though she was impressive in her knowledge, it was a bloodless performance, one devoid of the emotional energy that powers successful candidates in the final days.

Obama, by contrast, was far less specific about issues in his Friday speech to a large crowd at Concord High School.

But his soaring sense of shared cause, and his paean to hope and purpose, had the crowd cheering and clapping and stomping its feet in excitement.

She is playing precise but muted chamber music, something one listens appreciatively to.

He is offering Mozart's 39th, with uplifting crescendos that carry the audience away.

No one here will admit that they are influenced outright by Obama's Iowa victory, but a goodly portion of those I talked to were buzzing about the powerful speech he delivered after his caucus victory. For others, the Iowa victory has persuaded them that Obama could become a formidable general election candidate.

Bill Clinton made an effective appeal for his wife in Amherst on Saturday, and clearly scored points with a crowd of about 1,000. And yet, the former president is a double-edged sword. Even as he offers extravagant praise for his wife and her qualifications for the job, witnessing his witty and charismatic performance, one can't helped but be reminded yet again of just how plodding the candidate herself can be.

What to follow, the head or the heart?

Despite lingering nostalgia for the Clinton era, don't be surprised to see Granite State Democratic primary voters conclude that the time has come to embrace someone -- and something -- new and exciting.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
1 2 more stories like this

Who ran the United States before George Washington became president?

2008-01-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

The United States declared its independence on July 4, 1776. George Washington didn't become president until 1789.

The Journals of Congress clearly indicate that there were six Presidents of the Continental Congress and ten Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled before George Washington's Inauguration in 1789. Two of the Presidents, John Hancock and Samuel Huntington served in both offices.

These fourteen Presidents, aside from Secretary Charles Thomson, were the only members of the confederation freely elected by Congress to represent the United Colonies/States in their entirety.

The First State to ratify The "Perpetual Union" of the United States was Virginia (not Delaware) on December 16 1777. However, it wasn't until March 1, 1781 when Maryland agreed to the mandatory unanimous ratification of the Articles of Confederation, that first “Constitution” of the United States legally bound the 13 States into one united country.

The President of the United States in Congress Assembled on March 1, 1781 was Samuel Huntington of Connecticut who by virtue of the Articles' ratification became the 1st President of the United States in Congress Assembled.

Nine more Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled under the Articles of Confederation were duly elected after Samuel Huntington. The Presidents on many occasions used their office to exercise much influence on United States public affairs and legislation.

These 10 US Presidents in Congress Assembled presided over the unicameral government of the United States of America from 1781 to 1788 under the Articles of Confederation. The word “President” is derived from “to preside” which was just one function of the US Presidency under the Articles of the Confederation.

The Presidents signed congressional laws, treaties, and military orders. They called for Congressional assembly and adjournment. Presidents signed military commissions including George Washington’s commander-in-chief appointment, received foreign dignitaries, received, read, answered, and at their own discretion held or disseminated the official mail addressed to Congress and the President of the United States in Congress Assembled. The Presidents each had one vote in the Unicameral Congress. The Presidents presided, much like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, over judicial Congressional Cases. The current US President conducts many of the same duties today but is not permitted, under the 1787 Constitution, to vote, act as a presiding judge or to receive, open, and hold Congress' mail or serve as a judiciary official of the United States.

The government of the United States provided for the President’s expenses, servants, clerks, housing, and transportation. Their home state was expected to provide for their salary.

In 1788 the President of the United States in Congress Assembled official duties were replaced by President George Washington (executive branch), Chief Justice John Jay (judicial branch), President of the US Senate John Adams and Speaker of the US House of Representatives Frederick A.C. Muhlenberg (legislative branch) under the new US Constitution.

In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln refused to recognize the secession of South Carolina and the other Southern States claiming they were legally bound to the United States not by the US Constitution but by the "Perpetual Union" they ratified under the Articles of Confederation in 1781.

"The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive." – (Abraham Lincoln's Address to Congress in Special Session 4 July 1861.)

A "Perpetual Union" of the United States that was first governed by President Samuel Huntington.

Source(s):
http://www.george-washington.org/uspresi...

Does Obama's win show US is colorblind?

2008-01-05T17:15:00.000-08:00

By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer

Ray Ballentine was waiting for a sign to throw his support to Barack Obama. And when Obama coasted to victory in Iowa's caucuses, there it was — evidence that the senator had the broad racial appeal to get to the White House.

"I did have some reservations before, but he certainly got my vote now," Ballentine said, eating a brisket and roast turkey salad with hush puppies at The Q Shack, a barbecue joint in Raleigh, N.C. "I was sort of undecided, but I feel like he can win the presidency."

Obama's convincing win in Thursday's caucuses in Iowa — a state with just a smattering of minority voters — demonstrated the Illinois senator's support crosses racial lines and bolstered the notion that America is receptive to electing its first black president.

Whether Obama's appeal stretches beyond the farm fields of Iowa will become clear over the next month as the freshman senator faces a series of tests on different political terrain — beginning with Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire, another overwhelmingly white state.

But for Ballentine, who had been wavering between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama, Iowa was a tipping point. Like many black voters, he says, he was looking for proof that Obama could garner white support. Yet he wonders if the rest of the nation is as willing as Iowa to embrace the idea of a black president.

"I'm not really sure if they're ready, you know," he said. "I think it's time. He's speaking about change, and certainly that would be a change for this country. A change for the world."

Polls have indicated the vast majority of Americans say they would support a black candidate seeking the White House. A Gallup survey conducted in early 2007 found only 6 percent of men and 5 percent of women said they would not vote for a black presidential candidate — a seismic political shift from 50 years ago when more than half those surveyed felt that way.

Though Obama's win captured headlines and gave his campaign fresh credibility, he is not the first black candidate to triumph in a Democratic presidential contest.

In 1988, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, making his second bid for the White House, piled up Democratic primary wins in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia and the District of Columbia along with caucus victories in South Carolina and Michigan.

But Obama's roots and resume — as well as his campaign — are unlike other black candidates who've run for president. The son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, Obama was just a child during the dawn of the civil rights movement, grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and has not made race the centerpiece of his candidacy.

"Obama is running in a way that a lot of white voters feel very sympathetic," said Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist. "He doesn't make them feel guilty. He's not running a Jesse Jackson campaign or an Al Sharpton campaign. He's positioned himself to be a candidate who happens to be black, rather than a black candidate."

In a far different way, the Republicans have their own presidential candidate with an unusual back story: Mike Huckabee, who won the GOP caucuses in Iowa with heavy support from Christian evangelicals, is an ordained Baptist preacher.

But it's Huckabee's years as an Arkansas governor, not his time in the pulpit that have taken him this far, said David Bositis, an analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank. "If he had been a minister and never a governor, especially a governor who was re-elected ... he wouldn't be in this situation," he says.

For some voters watching Obama, his campaign — and his Iowa success — are simply reflections of changing times.

"America's becoming more open-minded," said Mark Jambretz, a 36-year-old sales director at an Internet company in San Francisco. "I as a Republican can say that, and we need to open our eyes to people representing all ethnicities."

Still, he said he could envision some "radical groups" taking violent steps against a black candidate or president.

That also worries Ballentine, the 53-year-old North Carolina electric utility field technician.

"I think he will certainly need to beef up his security, because I think there's these wackos that will go to any extent to make sure he doesn't win," he said. "It's sad to say that, but I think it's a possibility. Some people just don't want to see that happen."

Obama received Secret Service protection last spring — the earliest ever for any presidential candidate. He acknowledged at the time that some of the threats against him were racially motivated.

Some voters, though, say Obama's race may not even be that much of a factor in his campaign.

"I think that America wants a lot of change. I don't necessarily know if it matters that he's black or not — just that they want something different," said John Beckner, while waiting for a table with his daughters outside Matt's Big Breakfast, a diner in the shadow of downtown Phoenix.

Beckner, a 34-year-old systems engineer who is white and married to a black woman, said he knows not all Americans will be able to look beyond Obama's race. "I'm sure he's going to alienate some people that just aren't ready for that, or think he has special interests or a minority agenda," he said. "... But the thirst for change is so strong ... that would probably be enough to get him elected."

Standing nearby with her husband and son, Nancy Bergkamp said it's experience that counts and Obama doesn't have it.

"He's out there, `Oh yeah, let's change, let's do something different and all that.' But I think he's kind of a flash in the pan at this point. I think he's very unproven," said Bergkamp, 51, a registered Republican. "The fact that he's black is somewhat of an afterthought. Maybe I'm naive, but I would like to think we're beyond that."

Maxine Siegler, a 54-year-old flight attendant from Miami, also said while Obama's victory is a good sign that the nation is ready to elect a black president, "I don't think this particular African-American is up for the job. I think we have a mess, somebody has got to fix it but I don't think he's the right person."

Collette Lease, 32, an education assistant from Minneapolis, has reservations, too. While she said she's excited a black candidate has the chance to take the White House, she's not sold on Obama.

"He gives a great speech, but just because you can give a great speech doesn't mean you can run the country," she said.

Others, though, say Obama's candidacy is groundbreaking and a sign that America is changing — even in the South.

"We can all go back to our history books and a couple of years ago something like this would never have happened," said JaQuinda Harkness, a 20-year-old College of Charleston student strolling during lunch hour in the South Carolina city's historic district. "For this to be happening this year, this century and for me to living in it is amazing."

Sivi Bobbitt, a 35-year-old graduate student at Clark Atlanta University, is enthused too and believes Obama "wants the country to be the melting pot it's supposed to be."

She also thinks Obama's biracial background may make him more palatable to white voters — especially younger ones who tend to be more open-minded.

"How our society is now, the younger generation doesn't see color anymore," she said. "It's not a white thing. It's not a black thing. We don't think like that anymore."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — National writers Pauline Arrillaga in Phoenix and Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C., Elizabeth Dunbar in Minneapolis, Errin Haines in Atlanta, Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco and Bruce Smith in Charleston, S.C., contributed to this report.

Kucinich files complaint on ABC debate

2008-01-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich filed a complaint with the FCC on Friday after ABC News excluded him, fellow Democrat Mike Gravel and Republican Duncan Hunter from its prime-time debates on Saturday.
Kucinich argued that ABC is violating equal-time provisions by keeping him out of the debate and noted that ABC's parent Walt Disney Co. had contributed to campaigns involving the four Democrats who were invited.
"ABC should not be the first primary," the Ohio congressman said in papers filed at the Federal Communications Commission.
ABC said the candidates left out of the debates failed to meet benchmarks for their support that were outlined to each campaign prior to the Iowa caucus. Kucinich did not complain about these rules ahead of time, said spokeswoman Cathie Levine, who had no further comment since she hasn't seen the FCC filing.
ABC said it hoped to encourage more conversation and interaction among the candidates during the debates, which will both be moderated by Charles Gibson. The stakes are high as candidates take the stage three days before the New Hampshire primary.
The Republican debate will include Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. It starts at 7 p.m. EST.
Shortly after that 90-minute forum, Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson will take the stage at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.
The network set rules to narrow the field. Candidates had to meet at least one of three criteria: place first through fourth in Iowa, poll 5 percent or higher in one of the last four major New Hampshire surveys, or poll 5 percent or higher in one of the last four major national surveys.
Democrats Joe Biden and Chris Dodd took some of the pressure off ABC by quitting the race Thursday night.
"In previous debates where the stage was more crowded you had to make sure all of the candidates got fair time," said David Chalian, ABC News political director. "Here you will have more time to go in depth on the issues."
ABC said it believed its rules were inclusive, while also ensuring viewers get a thorough look at the probable next president.
"We're regretful that we're not going to be in it," said Roy Tyler, a spokesman for Hunter. "We're just going to keep working. I think it's a mistake on their part to exclude any viable candidate at this point."
Fox News Channel is sponsoring a debate in its mobile studio Sunday that excludes Paul and Hunter. Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney, Thompson and McCain have been invited.
Each debate will be divided into two parts. During the first 45 minutes, Gibson will select three prominent issues to promote a dialogue. The candidates will be seated and encouraged to talk to each other, and not just to the cameras, Gibson said.
"If I have any personal prejudice against these debates, it's that you see too much of the moderator," Gibson said. "I want to see less of the moderator and more of the candidates."
There won't be any buzzers or lights on the stage to mark time limits for talking, putting the pressure on Gibson to limit filibusters and promote fairness.
The second half of the debate will be a more traditional format, with Gibson and WMUR-TV political director Scott Spradling asking questions on a variety of topics. Candidates will be asked to keep their answers to a minute, Chalian said.
Gibson said he hoped to have a few minutes where both Republican and Democratic candidates are on the same stage, to promote the idea that despite differences, all are Americans hoping for the best for their country. The auditorium will be quickly emptied between debates and a new audience brought in.
Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos will lead ABC's coverage. Three hours of live debate with both Republican and Democratic candidates represents a grueling on-air test for Gibson, ABC's chief news anchor.
"I didn't volunteer," he said. "It's something new, it's something different. I can fail miserably at this and may well do so but we're looking for some ways to do something different."
___
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. Fox is a unit of News Corp.

The New Math Of Credit Scores

2008-01-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

by Jane J. Kim
Thursday, December 20, 2007

The company that cooks up credit scores for millions of Americans is changing its recipe -- and that could affect how easily you get credit in the future.

Fair Isaac Corp., maker of the popular FICO credit score used by most lenders, says its new scoring model will do a better job predicting the likelihood of a borrower defaulting on a loan. For one thing, the new model, dubbed FICO 08, will be more forgiving of occasional slips by consumers, but will take a harder line on repeat offenders. Fair Isaac predicts its new system will help lenders reduce default rates on their consumer credit by between 5% and 15%.

The rollout of the new credit-scoring system comes at a time when lenders say they are eager for more-accurate measures of credit risk, in part because of rising loan defaults as subprime mortgages go bad and housing prices fall. And there are signs that delinquencies are creeping into other types of consumer debt, including auto loans, further prompting lenders to tighten up on credit.

The FICO score, which Fair Isaac says is used by 90% of the 100 largest banks, and other similar scores hold sway over the lives of millions of people. Financial institutions use them to determine the granting and pricing of credit, insurance, cellphone usage and, in some cases, employment and utility services. Some consumer groups have raised concerns about whether credit scores are being used properly and whether they are valid measures of credit risk for some groups of consumers, especially minorities and lower-income individuals, says Travis Plunkett, the legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America.

Credit scores, which are calculated using proprietary models, also are criticized for a lack of transparency. "This is a product, per se, but it's a product that has inordinate influence on the financial lives of hundreds of millions of Americans," says Mr. Plunkett. Fair Isaac, based in Minneapolis, says it believes it does a good job of explaining the factors that go into calculating the FICO score and in guiding consumers on how to manage their scores.

Consumers could start seeing the new FICO scores by the spring, though some lenders may take additional time to test the system to see how it works with their business and loan portfolios. Fair Isaac, which last revamped its scoring model earlier this decade, says it is accelerating its FICO 08 rollout, partly in response to lenders' demand for better risk-management tools.

The latest version of the FICO score will largely look and feel the same to consumers and lenders. Scores will still range from 300 to 850 -- the higher the better -- and the model will continue to look at the same factors, including consumers' level of credit indebtedness and payment histories, length of credit histories, number of recent credit openings and inquiries, and the type of credit used, to determine scores.

But the new model will more finely slice and dice the information in consumers' credit files to do a better job of separating the "good risks" from the "bad risks," particularly for subprime borrowers; those with "thin," or young, credit files; or consumers who are actively seeking new credit. "Those are the communities that lenders are most interested in" to determine credit risk, says Craig Watts, spokesman for Fair Isaac.

"Consumers who are low risk will score better with the new FICO version, and consumers who are high risk will score lower," says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com, a personal-finance Web site. Higher-risk borrowers may find it tougher to get credit, while those with less-risky profiles -- though they may have gotten approved for credit accounts in the past -- will start to get better deals from lenders, he says.

Two people with the same FICO score currently could see their scores diverge under the new system. One possible reason: FICO 08 gives more points to consumers who maintain a variety of credit types, such as credit cards, a mortgage and auto loan, because it shows they can manage payments on different kinds of loans. On the other hand, the new scoring system penalizes to a greater degree borrowers who use a high percentage of their available credit.

FICO 08 also will draw greater distinctions among different borrowers who are at least 90 days late in making a loan payment, known as a serious delinquency. Traditionally, many credit-scoring models grouped subprime consumers into one general category. But Fair Isaac says its new model will give a higher score to a borrower in arrears if they also have a number of other credit accounts in good standing. Conversely, a person's score could drop if he or she has multiple delinquent accounts.

"Overall, more consumers will see their FICO scores go up slightly than will see their scores drop," says Tom Quinn, vice president of global scoring solutions for Fair Isaac.

Despite the new scoring model, consumers still have to make sure the information in their credit reports, which Fair Isaac relies on to come up with its score, is accurate. If consumers feel their FICO score is unfair, they would have to go to the individual credit bureaus, Experian Group Ltd., TransUnion LLC and Equifax Inc., for a copy of their credit report on file and look for any errors or missing information. If there are any, they would have to contact the credit bureau or the financial institutions to dispute those errors.

FICO 08 also aims to curtail the growing business of allowing people to polish their credit by "piggybacking" on someone else's good credit history. In recent years, credit-repair Web sites have sprung up that arrange for subprime consumers to boost their scores by becoming authorized users on accounts held by strangers with better credit. When scoring a consumer, FICO 08 won't take into consideration credit-card accounts for which that person is an authorized user. But the move also will hurt legitimate users: People who give a credit card to a child or a spouse as an authorized user to help boost their credit score.

FICO 08 is likely to face some competition from VantageScore Solutions LLC of Stamford, Conn., a joint venture of the three credit bureaus that was rolled out in 2006. Fair Isaac has sued VantageScore and the three bureaus, accusing them of using unfair and anticompetitive practices to harm the FICO brand. Recently, Equifax linked the suit with the launch of FICO 08. The company has said it wouldn't move forward with FICO 08 and that its relationship with Fair Isaac remains "strained" until the lawsuit is resolved, says David Rubinger, Equifax spokesman. The new FICO model has already been distributed to Experian, which is in the process of implementing it, while TransUnion expects to have the scoring model available for lenders to test during the second quarter of 2008. Fair Isaac says its intention is to provide the formula to all three credit-reporting agencies.

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/104062/Default-Lines-The-New-Math-of-Credit-Scores

Obama and Huckabee win first 2008 vote

2008-01-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

Barack Obama took a big step on Thursday toward becoming the first black U.S. president as his campaign for change caught fire in Iowa and swept him past Hillary Clinton in the opening Democratic nominating contest.

Republican underdog Mike Huckabee capped a stunning political rise to beat rival Mitt Romney in Iowa, despite being dramatically outspent by the wealthy former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist.

Obama, an Illinois senator, captured the first Democratic prize on the road to the White House with a comeback triumph over former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who edged out one-time front-runner Clinton for second.

"We are choosing hope over fear, we are choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America," Obama, 46, told thousands of cheering, chanting and foot-stamping supporters.

Both Obama and Huckabee, 52, a former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister, once trailed better-known rivals Clinton and Romney in their race to be on the November election ballot.

But they rode a wave of grass-roots enthusiasm to victories by touting an outsider's message of change in Washington.

"Tonight what we have seen is a new day in American politics," Huckabee, with actor and supporter Chuck Norris nearby, told cheering backers in Des Moines. "Tonight we proved that American politics is still in the hands of people like you."

The 2008 campaign is the most open presidential race in more than 50 years, with no sitting president or vice president seeking their party's nomination, and the Iowa contest was the most hotly contested in the state's history.

Turnout among Democrats topped 220,000, smashing the previous record of 124,000 in 2004 -- testament to the high enthusiasm among Democrats heading into November's election.

For the winner in Iowa, the prize is valuable momentum and at least a temporary claim to the front-runner's slot in the battle to win the party's presidential nomination in the November election.

All eyes now turn to New Hampshire, which holds the next contest on Tuesday and where Romney and Clinton will face high-pressure bids to revive their candidacies.

The third-place finish was a huge blow for Clinton, 60, the former first lady who a few months ago was considered in some quarters the almost certain Democratic nominee. She now faces immense pressure to turn around her campaign in New Hampshire over the next five days.

"Today we are sending a clear message that we are going to have change, and that change will be a Democratic president in the White House," Clinton, with husband and former President Bill Clinton at her shoulder, said in Des Moines.

Edwards, 54, who at one time led polls in Iowa and finished a strong second here during a failed 2004 presidential bid, also faces questions about the viability of his candidacy as he goes forward.

DODD, BIDEN DROP OUT

The big casualties of the evening were Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, who both finished well out of the Democratic race and dropped out afterward. Dodd had moved his family to Iowa to concentrate on the campaign.

Obama's win effectively makes him the candidate to beat among Democrats, and a win next week in New Hampshire could put him in prime position to capture the nomination. After Nevada on January 19, the next big contest would be in South Carolina, where more than half of the voters in the Democratic primary are likely to be black.

Obama finished with 38 percent of the vote, easily beating Edwards at 30 percent and Clinton at 29 percent. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson finished fourth at 2 percent.

Huckabee finished with 34 percent of the vote, ahead of Romney's 26 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson were tied at 13 percent, with Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 10 percent.

Entrance polls showed Obama won big among young voters and even beat Clinton among women voters as his message of change resonated with voters.

Iowa voters filled gathering spots in more than 1,700 precincts around the state to declare a presidential preference in Iowa's caucuses, which open the state-by-state battle to choose candidates in the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush.

For Republicans, Huckabee's upset reshaped a race where no candidate has been able to claim front-runner status. Iowa, where a sizable bloc of religious conservatives had fueled Huckabee's rapid rise, represented the best chance for the former Arkansas governor to break through with a win.

He will face tougher going in New Hampshire, where there are fewer evangelicals, and he has lingered well behind Romney and McCain in polls.

Romney, 60, a former governor of Massachusetts who has faced questions about his Mormon faith during the campaign, launched aggressive advertising campaigns against Huckabee and McCain in recent weeks.

(Additional reporting by Matthew Bigg, Andy Sullivan, Ellen Wulhorst, Deborah Charles and Ed Stoddard; Editing by David Wiessler

DNA tests get man freed after 26 years

2008-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

A man who contended throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped a woman who lived five houses down from him was freed Thursday after a judge recommended overturning his conviction.

Charles Chatman, 47, was released on his recognizance as several of his eight siblings cheered. He was freed on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I'm bitter. I'm angry," Chatman told The Associated Press during his last night in jail Wednesday. "But I'm not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge."

He became the 15th inmate from Dallas County since 2001 to be freed by DNA testing.

Dallas has freed more inmates after DNA testing than any other county nationwide, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas. Texas leads the country in prisoners freed by DNA testing, with at least 30 wrongfully convicted inmates since 2001.

Mike Ware, who heads the Conviction Integrity Unit in the Dallas County District Attorney's office, said he expects that number to increase.

One of the biggest reasons for the large number of exonerations in Texas is the crime lab used by Dallas County, which accounts for about half the state's DNA cases. Unlike many jurisdictions, the lab used by police and prosecutors retains biological evidence, meaning DNA testing is a viable option for decades-old crimes.

District Attorney Craig Watkins also attributes the exonerations to a past culture of overly aggressive prosecutors seeking convictions at any cost. Watkins has started a program in which law students, supervised by the Innocence Project of Texas, are reviewing about 450 cases in which convicts have requested DNA testing.

Chatman was 20 when the victim, a young woman in her 20s, picked him from a lineup. Chatman said he lived five houses down from the victim for 13 years but never knew her. At the time the woman was assaulted, Chatman said he didn't have any front teeth; he had been certain that feature would set him apart from the real assailant.

"I'm not sure why he ended up on that photo spread to begin with," Ware said.

Chatman, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault in 1981 and sentenced to 99 years in prison, said his faith kept him from giving up.

___

Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.

Obama grabs Iowa lead from Edwards

2008-01-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

Democrat Barack Obama surged to a four-point lead over John Edwards in Iowa, with Hillary Clinton fading to third just hours before the first presidential nominating contest, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

Obama and Edwards gained ground overnight in the tracking poll, and Clinton fell four points to third place -- a finish that, if it held, would deal a dramatic setback to the one-time Democratic front-runner.

Obama was at 31 percent among likely Democratic caucus-goers, Edwards at 27 percent and Clinton 24 percent. No other Democrat was in double digits.

In the Republican race, Mike Huckabee expanded his lead to six points, 31 to 25 percent, over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the one-time leader in Iowa who has attacked Huckabee for his record as Arkansas governor.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is in third place in the Republican race at 11 percent and Arizona Sen. John McCain slipped two points to 10 percent. Texas Rep. Ron Paul also registered 10 percent.

"There is a clear Clinton fade," pollster John Zogby said. "None of it has been dramatic, but it has been steady."

He said Clinton, a New York senator, was losing ground to Obama, an Illinois senator, among Democrats -- as opposed to independents -- and self-described liberals.

"Under any circumstance, a 31-27-24 spread is still very close," he said of the margins for the top three Democratic contenders. "Edwards is right in the mix and he has made gains too."

About 6 percent of Republicans and 5 percent of Democrats remain undecided, leaving room for late swings.

The rolling poll of 905 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 914 likely Republican caucus-goers was taken Sunday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points for each party.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was fourth with 7 percent and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden was at 5 percent. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd was at 1 percent and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich was under 1 percent.
Iowa opens the process of choosing the next U.S. president on Thursday night, kicking off a state-by-state battle to choose Republican and Democratic candidates for the November election to replace President George W. Bush.

Obama, Clinton and Edwards have battled for the lead in Iowa for months. Clinton, who would be the first woman president, holds a slight lead among women and is still strong among older voters. Obama leads among men and younger voters.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, remained the top second choice of Democrats. A candidate must have 15 percent support in each precinct to be viable or their supporters can switch to another candidate.

In the Republican race, Huckabee gained three points on Romney. The gains followed Monday's news conference where he said he would not air an ad attacking Romney because he wanted to keep the race positive -- and then showed it to reporters.

The move was heavily criticized in the media -- but his numbers have climbed since, Zogby said.

"Everyone outside of Iowa laughed at what appeared to be a Huckabee gambit, but Iowa Republicans seem to think it was genuine," he said.

"Huckabee is not pulling away, but it's now a six-point lead and he has moved above 30 percent."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has largely bypassed Iowa to focus on later voting states, is at 6 percent. California Rep. Duncan Hunter is at 1 percent.

The rolling tracking poll concludes with these results. In a rolling poll, the most recent day's results are added while the oldest day's results are dropped in order to track changing momentum.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Durham will serve as acting U.S. attorney in CIA probe

2008-01-03T05:16:00.000-08:00

Veteran prosecutor takes over CIA probe
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

For the high-profile, politically charged investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, the Justice Department is turning to a low-profile, politically independent prosecutor.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee a full criminal investigation that could further challenge the Bush administration's handling of terrorism suspects.

The CIA acknowledged last month that in 2005 it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods on two al-Qaida suspects. The revelation touched off a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by the Justice Department into whether the CIA violated any laws or obstructed congressional inquiries such as the one led by the Sept. 11 Commission.

Durham, who has served with the Justice Department for 25 years, has a reputation as one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors. He was appointed to investigate the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston, a probe that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison.

"Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise," Durham said in 2002 after Connolly's conviction, a rare public statement for a prosecutor who usually avoids reporters.

Prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., had removed themselves from the case. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry, also removed himself.

"The CIA will of course cooperate fully with this investigation as it has with the others into this matter," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

Durham will serve as acting U.S. attorney on the case, a designation the Justice Department frequently makes when top prosecutors take themselves off a case. He will not serve as a special prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who acted autonomously while investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.

"The Justice Department went out and got somebody with complete independence and integrity," said former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, who worked with Durham. "No politics whatsoever. It's going to be completely by the book and he's going to let the chips fall where they may."

Durham gained national prominence following the 1989 murder of Mafia underboss William Grasso, which led to one of the biggest mob takedowns in U.S history. He then turned to Connecticut street gangs, winning dozens of convictions and putting some gang leaders in jail for life. Former Attorney General Janet Reno hand-picked Durham to lead the investigation into the FBI's use of mob informants in Boston.

Durham, a Republican, has shown no tolerance for corruption in either party. He supervised the corruption investigation that sent former Republican Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and several members of his administration to prison.

"He'll suck the political air right out of the investigation and just go after the facts," said Mike Clark, a retired FBI agent who investigated Rowland. "He's going to do it his way and just keep digging."

The CIA already had agreed to open its files to congressional investigators, who have begun reviewing documents at the agency's Virginia headquarters. The House Intelligence Committee has ordered Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed the tapes be destroyed, to appear at a hearing Jan. 16.

In June 2005, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay." Kennedy was overseeing a case in which U.S.-held terror suspects challenged their detention.

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department has argued to Kennedy that the videos weren't covered by his order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas.

In an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Times, Sept. 11 commission chairmen Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton accused the CIA of obstruction for failing to respond to requests for information about the 9/11 plot. The CIA has asserted that the panel had not been specific enough in its requests.

base gives Kucinich third major win in nationwide poll

2008-01-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has won another major poll among grassroots Party activists most likely to vote in caucuses and primaries, capturing 41% of the vote from Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), which has more than 80,000 members across the nation.
In the field of eight candidates, the Ohio Congressman was the overwhelming winner, easily out-pacing second-place finisher former Senator John Edwards, who received 26% of the vote. Senator Barack Obama came in third with 13%, followed by Senator Hillary Clinton with 9%, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson with 5%. The other Democratic candidates were in the low single digits. Kucinich was also the top vote-getter among PDA members in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It is the third exceptionally strong finish by Kucinich in polls among active, grassroots Democrats. Last month, he topped all other candidates in 47 of 50 states in a poll sponsored by Democracy for America (DFA). Also, a poll conducted by the progressive The Nation magazine showed Kucinich with 35% of the vote, Obama second with 24% and Edwards third with 13%. In last month’s DFA poll, Kucinich received almost 32% of the 150,000-plus votes cast, more than Edwards and Obama combined. There, too, he won both Iowa and New Hampshire. In announcing today’s results, PDA said, “The Congressman's showing indicates that Progressive Democrats are still in sync with the Kucinich agenda: Out of Iraq; no attack on Iran, single-payer healthcare, fair trade, etc.” The poll was open only to PDA members, and the organization said it added “extra layers of security” to protect the integrity of the survey.
In an analysis of the recent polls in The Nation today, Washington correspondent John Nichols wrote that Kucinich’s “pointed opposition to the war in Iraq and outspoken advocacy of impeachment of Vice President Cheney has echoed the sentiments of the Democratic base” and “party activists who do the heavy lifting.”
Nichols also noted, “The DFA and PDA poll results give Kucinich an additional measure of credibility as he reaches out to key activists, including Democrats who are currently leaning toward other contenders...”
Kucinich’s national and state-by-state poll numbers have risen noticeably in the past several weeks. Not only is he the only Democratic candidate who voted against the Iraq war authorization in 2002 and every supplemental funding measure since, he also is the only Democratic candidate who voted against the Patriot Act. And, his early opposition to hostile moves by the Administration towards Iran was validated earlier this week when the National Intelligence Estimate revealed that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program four years ago. Kucinich, sponsor of a resolution calling for impeachment proceedings against Cheney, has called for a Congressional investigation of the handling of the NIE findings by the Administration. He said that such an investigation “will further build the case for the impeachment of both the President and the Vice President.”

http://www.dennis4president.com/go/newsroom/democratic-base-gives-kucinich-third-major-win-in-nationwide-poll/Democratic

~ Flash Back ~ Lawmakers Warn FBI Over Spy Power Abuse

2008-01-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Republicans and Democrats alike sternly warned the FBI on Tuesday that it risks losing its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists because of rampant abuses of the authority.

The threats were the latest blow to the embattled Justice Department and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is already on the defensive and fighting to keep his job over the firings of federal prosecutors.

The warnings came as the department's chief watchdog, inspector general Glenn A. Fine, told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue national security letters, which resulted in illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners.

If the FBI doesn't move swiftly to correct the mistakes and problems revealed last week in Fine's 130-page report, "you probably won't have NSL authority," said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., a supporter of the power, referring to the data requests by their initials.

"I hope that this would be a lesson to the FBI that they can't get away with this and expect to maintain public support for the tools that they need to combat terrorism," said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the former Judiciary chairman, who called the abuses "a gross overreach."

"Let this be a warning," Sensenbrenner said.

Fine, who called the problems he uncovered inexcusable, said he did not believe they were intentional. Most involved information that could have been legally obtained if proper procedures had been followed, he said.

"We believe the misuses and the problems we found generally were the product of mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance, and lack of adequate oversight," Fine said.

Still, the FBI's failure to control and monitor how it collected the information constituted "serious and unacceptable" lapses, Fine told the committee. He was to appear Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary panel.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called the abuses part of a disturbing pattern of misconduct at the Justice Department.

"This was a serious breach of trust," Conyers said. "The department had converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Congress should revise the USA Patriot Act, which substantially loosened controls over the letters.

"We do not trust government always to be run by angels, especially not this administration," Nadler said. "It is not enough to mandate that the FBI fix internal management problems and record keeping, because the statute itself authorizes the unchecked collection of information on innocent Americans."

Valerie Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, testified that steps were already being taken to rectify the problems, which she called "a colossal failure on our part."

"We're going to have to work to get the trust of this committee back, and we know that's what we have to do, and we're going to do it," Caproni said.

That did little to appease lawmakers who said they had fought hard to give the Justice Department wide latitude to chase terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"From the attorney general on down, you should be ashamed of yourself," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "We stretched to try to give you the tools necessary to make America safe, and it is very, very clear that you've abused that trust."

Some Republicans, however, said the FBI's expanded spying powers were vital to tracking terrorists.

"The problem is enforcement of the law, not the law itself," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel's senior GOP member. "We need to be vigilant to make sure these problems are fixed."

Both Caproni and Fine said national security letters were an indispensable tool in terrorism investigations.

In a review of headquarters files and a sampling of just four of the FBI's 56 field offices, Fine found 48 violations of law or presidential directives from 2003 through 2005, including failure to get proper authorization, making improper requests and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records. He estimated that many violations hadn't been found or reported.

The bureau has launched an audit of all 56 field offices to determine the full extent of the problem. Members of the Senate panel will likely demand answers about the matter from FBI Director Robert Mueller at a broader hearing next week.

In 1986, Congress first authorized FBI agents to obtain electronic records without approval from a judge using national security letters. In 2001, the Patriot Act eliminated any requirement that the records belong to someone under suspicion. Now an innocent person's records can be obtained if FBI agents consider them merely relevant to an ongoing terrorism or spying investigation.

Fine's review, authorized by Congress over Bush administration objections, found that the number of national security letters requested by the FBI skyrocketed after the Patriot Act became law.

He also found more than 700 cases in which FBI agents obtained telephone records through "exigent letters" which asserted that grand jury subpoenas had been requested for the data, when in fact such subpoenas never been sought. He called those instances "the most troubling aspect of this."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032100225.html

Tenn. judge resigns over fantasies tape

2008-01-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

AP Photo: Former Circuit Judge John B. Hagler

By BILL POOVEY, Associated Press Writer
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A Tennessee judge resigned last month after making a recording of fantasies so lurid that when the tape fell into the hands of the police and FBI, they thought they were listening to a torture session and believed it might be linked to a murder case.

Ultimately, investigators brought no charges against Circuit Judge John B. Hagler, and police said Wednesday he is not a suspect in any investigation.

But the sensational case has led to allegations of professional retaliation, interdepartmental intrigue and strategic news leaks.

The recording was investigated by authorities more than two years ago, but its existence did not come to light publicly until just a few weeks ago, and details on the contents are only now coming out, at a hearing that began Wednesday on whether police must release the tape.

During those two years, the judge remained on the bench, hearing mostly family court cases like divorces and child custody.

Among the mysteries: Why did he make such a recording? Why is it coming to light just now? And what, exactly, is on the tape?

The tape was briefly examined by Chattanooga police and the FBI in late 2005 after a secretary who had just been fired by Hagler turned it over, authorities said. She told them she found the recording of the judge's voice on a tape that also contained legal dictation.

"It sounded like someone being tortured," Chattanooga police Sgt. Alan Franks testified Wednesday, offering the first details of what is on the tape.

Franks said the recording was investigated in relation to a still-unsolved 1997 murder. He gave no other details on the murder case.

"The content was so shocking. I have been a police officer for 24 years," Franks said before his testimony was cut off by an objection.

Investigators ultimately concluded the recording consisted only of fantasies.

Two years later, the tape made its way to the prosecutor in Hagler's Tennessee district, District Attorney Steve Bebb. Then, last month, the Chattanooga Times Free Press learned about the recording from an unidentified source, and Hagler confirmed it and resigned.

Hagler said that he had done nothing wrong but that the recording had caused great embarrassment to friends, family and the courts. Hagler, who is 65 and married, has been a circuit judge in Cleveland, Tenn., since 1990 and served three terms as president of the Tennessee Trial Judges Association.

"The description of it as containing 'graphic fantasies' ... is an accurate and sufficient description and all any decent person would want to hear of it," the judge said in a statement.

Bebb, the district attorney, said he, too, concluded the recording was not connected to any crime, but what he heard led him to persuade Hagler, whom he describes as a longtime friend, to resign.

"This would disturb any human being who heard it," Bebb said.

The judge strongly suggested the leak was committed by someone with a grudge against him, perhaps someone he ruled against.

"In my opinion, the real story here, so strongly expressed by an alert and outraged public, is not about me or my sins, but about whether one of our essential public institutions, the judiciary, has been the victim of a retaliatory attack," Hagler said in his statement. He did not elaborate but alluded to a dispute within the local bar association.

The district attorney has disputed speculation the leak was related to the judge's recent ruling against a local sheriff's department's request for more funding.

Bebb said in December that he sent a copy of the tape to the state Court of the Judiciary, which handles complaints against judges. A court spokeswman said the panel would not act because the judge has resigned and it no longer has jurisdiction.

Members of the local bar have asked federal prosecutors to investigate how the existence of the tape became public. Police said FBI agents are asking them questions about the leak.

The judge is fighting a request by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Associated Press and other news organizations that the tape be released. The hearing resumes on Thursday.

Hagler was relaxed and smiling at times during Wednesday's hearing. He said during a break that he had not heard the tape in the hands of police and could not be sure it was the one he recorded. "I hope it's my voice," he said.

U.S. launches criminal probe of CIA tapes

2008-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

By Randall Mikkelsen ~ Reuters

The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had launched a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

"There is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Attorney General Michael Mukasey said in a statement issued by the department.

The CIA last month disclosed that it had destroyed in 2005 hundreds of hours of tapes from the interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects, prompting an outcry from Democrats, human rights activists and some legal experts.

The interrogations, which took place in 2002, were believed to have included a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, condemned internationally as torture.

President George W. Bush has said the United States does not torture but has declined to be specific about interrogation methods.

The Justice Department and the CIA's inspector general last month launched an initial inquiry into the tapes. Congress is also investigating the tapes' destruction.

The CIA said it would "cooperate fully with this investigation, as it has with others into this matter."

But the agency's inspector general, John Helgerson, said he would step aside from the full investigation.

Helgerson said the inspector general's office had reviewed the tapes "some years ago" as part of a review into agency interrogations and that he had helped prepare a report on the issue, so it would be inappropriate to be involved in the probe.

Mukasey said he had asked a federal prosecutor from Connecticut, John Durham, to lead the probe.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080102/us_nm/security_cia_dc

Researchers work on cocaine vaccine

2008-01-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

The antibodies bind to the cocaine and
prevent it from reaching the brain

Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston are working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever medication to treat people hooked on the drug. "For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful," said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. "At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get high and will lose interest."

The vaccine, currently in clinical trials, stimulates the immune system to attack the real thing when it's taken.

The immune system — unable to recognize cocaine and other drug molecules because they are so small — can't make antibodies to attack them.

To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.

In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.

"It's a very clever idea," says David Eagleman, a Baylor neuroscientist. "Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack the system. It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that."

Kosten asked the Food and Drug Administration in December to green-light a multi-institutional trial to begin in the spring and is awaiting a response.

Approval would mark a breakthrough in the treatment of cocaine addiction, which now mostly involves psychiatric counseling and 12-step programs. It presumably would be the final clinical hurdle before the vaccine — more than a decade in the making — might be approved for treatment. But one expert warns against expecting too much.

"Addiction vaccines are a promising advance, but it's unlikely any treatment in this field will work for everyone," said Dr. David Gorelick, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Still, if they prove successful, they will give those working in drug addiction an important option."

___

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com

9/11 commission leaders blast CIA on interrogation tapes

2008-01-02T02:06:00.000-08:00

Agence France Presse.

The leaders of a US commission that examined the September 11, 2001 terror attacks accused the CIA Wednesday of having obstructed their investigation by withholding information about videotaped interrogations of terror suspects.

The goal of the blue ribbon 9/11 Commission, wrote chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton in The New York Times, was "to provide the American people with the fullest possible account" of what led to Al-Qaeda's attacks more than six years ago on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

But Kean and Hamilton wrote that although US President George W. Bush had ordered all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the probe, "recent revelations that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot."

"Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation."

They continued: "There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the CIA -- or the White House -- of the commissionÂs interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot.

"Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations," Kean and Hamilton wrote.

They said the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the Islamic extremist network but were never notified about the existence of the tapes.

The CIA revealed last month that in 2005 it destroyed videotapes that showed harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080102/pl_afp/usattackstorturecia

Americans frustrated by influence wielded by Iowa, New Hampshire

2008-01-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

All eyes may be on Iowa and New Hampshire,
but many of them are rolling

By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer

Despite efforts to evict the two states from the front of the presidential calendar, both managed to hang on for another election cycle that culminates with the Iowa caucuses on Thursday and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8. As a year of media attention reaches its crescendo, voters in other states are saying enough is enough.

According to national survey conducted for The Associated Press and Yahoo News, just over half of all voters said New Hampshire and Iowa have an extraordinary amount of influence over who wins the two nominations.

"They have way too much — WAY too much — say," said Kevin Thomas of Tacoma, Wash. "California's a big state and they don't have any say, and Iowa's not even half the size of California. It really makes me as a voter wonder what's going on."

Fewer than one in five voters said they favor the current system that allows Iowa and New Hampshire to hold the first contests, while nearly 80 percent would rather see other states get their chance at the front of the line.

"I think they should take turns, maybe take it to a small state like Rhode Island that doesn't have a whole lot of voting power," Thomas said.

Both states have been criticized as unrepresentative of the country given their size and lack of racial diversity. Iowa — population 3 million — is 95 percent white; New Hampshire — population 1.3 million — is 96 percent white. Democrats tried to inject more diversity into the process by adding early contests in Nevada and South Carolina, but Iowa and New Hampshire moved even earlier.

The system became so scrambled last year that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner was prepared to move the primary into December to keep ahead of other states that scheduled their own early primaries and caucuses. If anything, the front-loaded calendar made Iowa and New Hampshire more important.

Gardner and other defenders of New Hampshire say the country — and the candidates — are well-served because the primary requires close contact with voters, not just a big advertising budget and name recognition.

"It gives the little guy a chance," said Gardner.

He wasn't surprised by the poll results and negative reaction toward the early states given that most of the country knows nothing about the primary's history or the state's uniquely inquisitive and democratic culture.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat who has not endorsed any candidate, argues that New Hampshire's retail politics cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the country.

"We have made it possible for the so-called unknown candidates to make their case without having millions of dollars in the bank. And in turn, we demand that candidates move beyond the rope line and scripted town hall meetings, and directly answer the hard questions from voters," he said. "As a result, the voters, the candidates and the political process all benefit from the New Hampshire primary."

Unsurprisingly, every one of the 21 Iowans who participated in the AP-Yahoo survey think their state and New Hampshire have just the right amount of influence over the presidential selection process. Not so in New Hampshire.

There, two of the five participants said the two states don't have enough power.