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2004 Miscellany News Archive

MISCELLANY NEWS ARCHIVE 2004 ARCHIVES
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20041201
- Robots - "Army to deploy robots that shoot: Next year, the U.S. Army will give robots machine guns, although humans will firmly be in control of them." ... "The Army next March will begin to deploy Talon robots from Waltham, Mass.-based Foster-Miller. The robots will be mounted with M240 or M249 machine guns, said a Foster-Miller spokesman. The units also can be mounted with a rocket launcher. Defense agencies have been testing an armed version of the Talon since 2003." -By Michael Kanellos -CNETNews via -ZDNetNews
20040721
- - "U.S. hostage head found in freezer: The head of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was kidnapped and beheaded in Saudi Arabia last month, has been found in a freezer [in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia], a Saudi Interior Ministry official said." ... "Two suspected al Qaeda militants were killed during raids, the official added Wednesday." ... "Security forces found the head and a cache of weapons in a raid on a villa Tuesday night and it was positively identified Wednesday morning." -CNN
20040720
- "Rights Group Says Sudan's Government Aided Militias." ... "Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, on Monday published excerpts of documents that it says implicate the Sudanese government in recruiting, equipping and guaranteeing impunity for the Arab militias accused of killing tens of thousands of Africans and driving more than 1 million from their homes in the Darfur region of Sudan." ... "The rights organization said the confidential government documents called on local Sudanese officials in February and March to recruit fighters for the militia known as the Janjaweed, to give them "provisions and ammunition," and to tolerate "minor" abuses of civilians." -By Colum Lynch-WashingtonPost
- - "Sudan: New Darfur Documents: Ties Between Government and Janjaweed Militias Confirmed." ... "In a series of official Arabic-language documents from government authorities in North and South Darfur dating from February and March 2004, officials call for recruitment and military support, including “provisions and ammunition” to be delivered to known Janjaweed militia leaders, camps and “loyalist tribes.” " ... "A particularly damning February directive orders “all security units” in the area to tolerate the activities of known Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal in North Darfur. The document “highlights the importance of non-interference so as not to question their authority” and authorizes security units in a North Darfur province to “overlook minor offenses by the fighters against civilians who are suspected members of the rebellion….”" ... "Another document calls for a plan for “resettlement operations of nomads in places from which the outlaws [rebels] withdrew.” This, along with recent government statements that displaced persons will be settled in 18 “settlements” rather than in their original villages, raises concerns that the ethnic cleansing that has occurred will be consolidated and that people will be unable to return to their villages and lands." ... "Human Rights Watch called for Sudan government officials implicated in the policy of militia support to be added to the U.N. sanctions list included as part of a pending U.N. resolution. It also called for international monitoring of the disarmament of the militia groups and the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into the abuses committed in Darfur by all parties to the conflict." -HRW.org
- - "Darfur Documents Confirm Government Policy of Militia Support: A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, July 20, 2004." ... "Since February 2003, the government of Sudan has used militias known as “Janjaweed”³ as its principal counter-insurgency ground force in Darfur against civilians from the Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit and other ethnic groups from which two rebel groups known as the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) are drawn. The government-backed Janjaweed militias are derived from the “Abala,” camel-herding nomads who migrated to Darfur from Chad and West Africa in the 1970s, and from Arab camel-herding tribes from North Darfur.⁴ With government aerial support, arms, communications, and other backing, and often alongside government troops, the Janjaweed militias have been a key component in the government’s military campaign in Darfur; a campaign that has resulted in the murder, rape and forced displacement of thousands of civilians.⁵" ... "If genuinely concerned with bringing peace and stability to Darfur and ending the cycle of violence and impunity in the region, the Sudanese government should suspend key government officials who bear responsibility for recruiting, arming or otherwise supporting the Janjaweed militias from official duties, pending official investigation of their responsibility for abuses." ... "In addition, the international community must recognize that the government-backed militias and government forces are clearly indivisible—they are utilized as one entity. Those officials for whom there is evidence of implication in the policy of militia support should be included in any forthcoming international measures, including international travel sanctions, arms embargoes, and investigation by any future international commission of inquiry." -HRW.org
20040718
- - - - - Osama bin Laden - "9/11 Panel's Report to Offer New Evidence of Iran-Qaeda Ties." ... "The final report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will offer new evidence of cooperative ties between Iran and Al Qaeda, including information drawn from intelligence reports suggesting that Iran provided several of the hijackers with safe passage in the year before the attacks, government officials said yesterday." ... "The officials emphasized that the commission had no evidence to suggest that Iranian officials knew of the Sept. 11 plot. But they said the evidence raised new questions about why the Bush administration focused on the possibility of Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden's terror network after Sept. 11, 2001, when there may have been far more extensive evidence of an Iranian connection." -By Philip Shenon -NYTimes
20040716
- - - - - "9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran: Senior U.S. officials have told TIME that the 9/11 Commission's report will cite evidence suggesting that the 9/11 hijackers had previously passed through Iran." ... "A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks." -By Adam Zagorin and Joe Klein -TIME
20040715
- - "The [diamond] cartel isn't for ever." ... "On July 13th in an Ohio court De Beers, the world's largest producer of rough stones, finally pleaded guilty to charges of price-fixing of industrial diamonds and agreed to pay a $10m fine, thereby ending a 60-year-long impasse. De Beers executives are at last free to visit and work directly in the largest diamond market, America." ... "A few days earlier, on July 9th, the first case of successful industry self-regulation against trade in so-called conflict diamonds took place when Congo-Brazzaville was punished for failing to prove the source of its diamond exports. And on June 28th Lev Leviev, an arch-rival of De Beers, opened Africa's biggest diamond-polishing factory in Namibia." ... "Behind all these events lies sweeping change in an industry that sells $60-billion-worth of jewellery alone each year. For generations it has been run by De Beers as a cartel. The South African firm dominated the digging and trading of diamonds for most of the 20th century. Yet the system for distributing stones established decades ago by De Beers is curious and anomalous—no other such market exists, nor would anything similar be tolerated in a serious industry." -Economist
20040506
- - "Cost of ads on 'Friends' finale at Super Bowl level." ... "Advertisers paid up to $2 million for 30 seconds on the "Friends" finale tonight, making it the Super Bowl of sitcoms." ... "That puts the one-hour finale, which NBC has estimated will draw an audience of at least 50 million people, second in price only to the Super Bowl this year. CBS took in $2.3 million for a half-minute of ad time on the Super Bowl." -AP via -TucsonCitizen.com
20040427
- - "Japanese hostages get $7,000 bills for expenses." ... "Three Japanese who were held hostage for a week in Iraq were billed about $7,000 each to cover their plane tickets home and other miscellaneous expenses, an official said Monday." -AP via -RegisterGuard
20040426
- - "Iowa lab marks century of testing." ... "The Iowa Hygienic Laboratory has been on the forefront diseases for 100 years and counting." ... "The state established the lab in April 1904. It wasn't until later that year, on Sept. 26, 1904, that the first disease sample was recorded - a tuberculosis test result for woman from Shell Rock. It turned out to be negative." -AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource
20040425
- - "Shell says signs Libya oil and gas partnership." -Reuters via -Forbes
20040424
- - "Future of Mitsubishi Motors in doubt as bailout is withheld: DaimlerChrysler insists it will still honor joint ventures." ... "The future of Mitsubishi Motors was thrown into question on Friday after DaimlerChrysler's surprise decision to cut off financial support to its partner. The Japanese automaker's stock collapsed, falling 25 percent before trading was halted." ... "DaimlerChrysler, which controls Mitsubishi Motors through a 37 percent stake, said late Thursday that it had decided "to cease further financial support" for Japan's fourth-largest carmaker. The announcement shocked investors, who had speculated that the German company would announce a cash injection of ¥200 billion, or $1.8 billion, or more. Mitsubishi Motors must now scramble for investments if it is to remain in business." -By Todd Zaun -NYTimes via -Google-News -IHT.com
- "U.S., Libyan Bankers Discuss Frozen Assets -Libya." ... "Libyan officials say assets worth about $1 billion are frozen in the United States, including equity holdings in banks." ... "Although assets remain blocked, a Libyan banking official said there would be no further freezing, which would previously have occurred if, for example, any Libyan dollar transactions were cleared through New York." (1, 2) -By Salah Sarrar -Reuters
- - - - "Bush eases years-long economic sanctions against Libya." ... "President Bush on Friday eased economic sanctions against Libya, ending its status as a pariah nation and clearing the way for the return of American oil companies." ... "Bush's order ending Libya's economic isolation gave Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi the reward that he wanted for agreeing in December to abandon his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction." -By Ron Hutcheson -Knight Ridder via -SLTrib.com
- - - - "NFL, Arizona Football Fans Mourn Death of Pat Tillman, Who Gave Up Career to Fight for Country." ... "Pat Tillman overachieved in football, and just about everything else. He worked his way from seventh-round draft pick to starting safety for the Arizona Cardinals, then walked away from millions of dollars to join the Army Rangers and serve his country. This week, he paid with his life. Tillman was killed in an ambush Thursday night in Afghanistan. He was 27." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- - "U.S. Soldiers Re-Enlist in Strong Numbers: Despite Violence in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Are Re-Enlisting at Rates Higher Than Pentagon Expected." ... "Despite the shrapnel wounds Staff Sgt. William Pinkley suffered during his tour in Iraq, the 26-year-old is joining other soldiers who are re-enlisting at rates that exceed the retention goals set by the Pentagon." ... "As of March 31 halfway through the Army's fiscal year 28,406 soldiers had signed on for another tour of duty, topping the six-month goal of 28,377. The Army's goal is to re-enlist 56,100 soldiers by the end of September." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20040423
"Panel Cites 'Virus of Fear' at USA Today: Report Says Warnings on Reporter Ignored; Another Editor Quits." ... "USA Today editors ignored repeated warnings about problems with Jack Kelley's reporting, including from government officials, while a newsroom "virus of fear" deterred many staffers from challenging what became the worst scandal in the Gannett paper's history, an investigative panel said yesterday." ... "Kelley, who has now apologized, made up parts of at least 20 stories stretching back to 1991, according to the report by three outside editors asked to investigate the former star correspondent's work. Kelley also billed the company for thousands of dollars in payments to translators and drivers who now say they never received the cash, the panel found." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Howard Kurtz -WashingtonPost
20040422
- - - Photo News - "Woman fired by military contractor for published photograph of flag-draped U.S. coffins." ... "A military contractor fired two cargo workers responsible for a photograph of flag-draped coffins of U.S. soldiers that appeared on a newspaper's front page." ... "Maytag Aircraft Corp. fired Tami Silicio, 50, and her husband, David Landry, because they "violated Department of Defense and company policies by working together" to take and publish the photograph, company president William Silva said in a news release Thursday." ... "The firing was first reported Thursday in The Seattle Times, which published the April 7 photo on Sunday." -By Gene Johnson -AP via -SFGate.com
"Tami Silicio's photo of 20 flag-draped coffins bearing the remains of U.S. soldiers appeared on the cover of the Sunday Seattle Times on April 18." -Photo by Tami Silicio -SeattleTimes.NWsource via -SFGate.com
- - - "Researchers: Worry affects female fertility." ... "Women worried about the medical aspects of the procedure had 20 percent fewer eggs retrieved and 19 percent fewer eggs fertilized than women who were less inclined to worry about it, the researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility." ... "Patients who were very concerned about missing work had 30 percent fewer eggs fertilized, Hillary Klonoff-Cohen and colleagues found." -Reuters via -CNN
- - - - "Fury over Diana crash photos: Princess Diana's family, British media and the prime minister have expressed outrage at a U.S. television network's decision to broadcast pictures of the princess as she lay dying." ... "CBS, which aired the images in its "48 Hours" program, said the photos were included in a 4,000-page confidential French investigators' file on the accident and that they were not graphic or exploitative." ... "But British newspapers and friends and family of Diana and Fayed strongly disagreed." -CNN
- - - - "UK court to review EU flight delay rule: Airline trade association IATA asked Britain's High Court to review pending EU rules that would force carriers to reimburse passengers for delays, even if caused by security measures or snowstorms." ... "The rules set a baseline of between two and four hours for permissible delays, depending on the length of journey, with anything above that forcing carriers to reimburse passengers."-Reuters via -CNN
- - - ELECTION 2004 - "Saudi envoy: Oil policy standard, not a deal: Calls U.S. politics: 'Your seasonal tribal warfare'." ... "Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States stood firm that his country made no secret deals with the White House to try to drive down gas prices to help re-elect President Bush and sought to reassure Democratic contender Sen. John Kerry." ... ""I really don't see what is the big deal," Prince Bandar bin Sultan told reporters Wednesday after a White House meeting with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." ... ""Unless somebody would like to see the oil prices stay high, then nobody should complain."" -By John King -CNN
- - - - - "High court mulls Mexican truck access." ... "A Bush administration lawyer told the Supreme Court yesterday that the president must be able to open America's roads to Mexico's trucks without delays for an environmental study." ... "But a lawyer for labor and environmental organizations cautioned justices that ''we're talking about tens of thousands of trucks" packing US roads after a two-decade moratorium ends." ... "Some of those trucks are older and may be pollution-causing safety hazards, said the organizations' lawyer, Jonathan Weissglass." -By Gina Holland -AP via -Boston/Globe
- - "UN backs oil for food inquiry." ... "The former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board yesterday began an independent investigation into allegations of corruption and kickbacks worth $10bn (?5.6bn) in the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq." ... "The United Nation's security council unanimously approved Paul Volcker's inquiry into the scheme that US legislators say allowed billions of dollars in illegal oil revenue to flow to Saddam Hussein." -By Gary Younge -Guardian.co.uk
20040421
- - - "Cubans Sentenced in Miami for Plane Hijacking."... "A U.S. judge sentenced six Cuban men to prison terms of 20 years or more on Wednesday for hijacking a Cuban airliner in the Communist Caribbean nation last year."... "The Cubans were convicted in December of air piracy for commandeering a 1940s-era Aerotaxi DC-3 after it took off from Cuba's Isle of Youth and forcing it to Key West on Florida's southern tip on March 19, 2003. The incident was the first in a series of hijackings in Cuba last year." -By Jim Loney -Reuters
- "NASA Spacecraft Ascends to Test Einstein's Theory." ... "Twenty-four hours after a previous launch attempt was stopped with just three minutes to go, NASA successfully sent its Gravity Probe B mission into space." ... "The $700 million spacecraft is designed to test two predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which he proposed in 1916." -By Sarah Graham -ScientificAmerican.com
"Greenspan's warning on inflation sends stock markets sharply lower." ... "Wall Street took the comments as a sign that a rate increase was likely to come before the November elections, perhaps as early as June. The yield on the two-year Treasury note rose to 2.16 per cent, the highest in 18 months." ... "The S&P 500, which had been idling before the testimony, fell 1.6 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite posted a 2.1 per cent decline." -By Andrew Balls and Stephen Schurr -FT.com
20040420
- - "Year-long space station trips rejected." ... "NASA has rebuffed a Russian proposal to extend the next mission aboard the International Space Station from six months to a year. Lengthening the mission would have allowed Russia's cash-strapped agency to sell two extra Soyuz spacecraft seats to space tourists, at about $20 million each." -By Will Knight -NewScientist.com
- - "Iron tablets can improve women's brainpower." ... "The brainpower of young women who are lacking in iron can be markedly boosted by taking supplements of the mineral, suggests a new study." ... "Even women who were just modestly iron deficient did much worse on attention, memory and learning tests than those with enough iron in their blood, found the study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US." -By Shaoni Bhattacharya -NewScientist.com
- - - - "Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Vanunu to Go Free." ... "Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu goes free on Wednesday after 18 years in jail for spilling secrets that publicly placed the Jewish state among the world's top atomic powers." ... "But the former nuclear technician -- whose revelations to a British newspaper led analysts to conclude Israel had an arsenal of more than 100 nuclear warheads -- will still be subject to a list of stringent security measures to keep him silent." ... "Vanunu was jailed in 1986 for treason after disclosing information to Britain's Sunday Times." (1, 2) -By Megan Goldin -Reuters
- - - - - - - "Powell urges coalition leaders to keep troops in Iraq." ... "Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq remains strong despite decisions by Spain and Honduras to pull out their troops. Later, the Dominican Republic announced that it also would withdraw its troops." ... "Powell told reporters that leaders of 13 coalition countries with whom he spoke by telephone Monday and Tuesday "all expressed steadfast support" for their respective troop commitments." ... "Among the leaders Powell spoke with was Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai." ... "In addition to Surakiart, Powell spoke with leaders of El Salvador, Dominica, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Holland, Romania, the Philippines and Ukraine." -By George Gedda -AP via -SFGate.com
20040419
- - - "Negroponte named Iraq ambassador: President George W Bush has named John Negroponte as the first US ambassador to Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein last year." ... "Mr Negroponte, currently the US envoy to the UN, is expected to take over in Baghdad when the US hands power to an interim Iraqi government by 30 June." ... "The top US official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, is expected to leave once the political transition is completed." -BBC/News
- - - "Profile: John Negroponte: John Negroponte was the man who spearheaded the US diplomatic effort in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq." ... "The soft-spoken diplomat will head the largest US embassy in the world, in charge of 3,000 staff." ... ""He'll hold the title of ambassador but he's really being appointed de facto governor-general of Iraq because the US is going to retain a lot of authority,'' Ted Galen Carpenter of the Washington-based Cato Institute think-tank told Bloomberg news service." -BBC/News
20040415
- - "Web inventor wins top technology prize." ... "The MIT scientist credited with inventing the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, was today awarded the first Millennium technology prize." ... "The award, a €1m (£670,000) cash prize, is among the largest of its kind." ... "Mr Berners-Lee is credited with creating the world wide web in the early 1990s while working for the Cern Laboratory, the European centre for nuclear research near Geneva, Switzerland. His graphical point-and-click browser, World Wide Web, was the first client that featured the core ideas included in today's web browsers." -AP via -Guardian.co.uk
- - - Osama bin Laden - "'Bin Laden' tape offers peace deal with Europe." ... "Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, sought to split the US-led coalition in Iraq by offering European countries a three-month respite from terrorist attacks if they withdrew their forces and left the US to fight alone." ... "The statement said: "I offer a truce to them (Europe), with a commitment to stop operations against any state which vows to stop attacking Muslims or interfere in their affairs, including (participating) in the American conspiracy against the wider Muslim world."" ... "It went on to say that the truce would start "with the withdrawal of the last soldier from our land," and said that the offer to implement it would last for three months from the date of Thursday's statement. "Whoever rejects this truce and wants war, we are its [war's] sons and whoever wants this truce, here we bring it," it said." -By Mark Huband -FT.com
- - Osama bin Laden - "C.I.A. Says Voice on Tape Likely bin Laden." ... "The CIA said Thursday that a tape of a man identifying himself as Osama bin Laden probably is an authentic recording of the al-Qaida leader." ... "The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tape was probably recorded in the past several weeks because of its reference to Israel's killing last month of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin. In the tape, the speaker vows revenge against the United States for the killing." -AP via -NYTimes via -AltaVista-News
- - "Iraq death toll reaches new high." ... "The last two weeks have been the bloodiest yet for US soldiers in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi deaths are much harder to track, but an Associated Press estimate puts the total since 1 April at 880." ... "April's casualty count for US soldiers has spiralled to 87, the highest for any month since the war began." ... "Nearly all the deaths have been in hostile incidents in two weeks which have seen major battles with both Sunni and Shia insurgents." ... "Most of the US soldiers have been killed in attacks on road convoys, firefights in the Sunni-dominated towns of Falluja and Ramadi and battles in and around Baghdad." ... "The total of American soldiers killed in Iraq is now 686. More than three-quarters of these have died since major hostilities ceased." ... "Just over a quarter of the casualties have died in "non-hostile" events such as accidents involving vehicles or munitions." -BBC/News
- "China's economy soars despite Beijing's curbs." ... "China's economy grew at an official 9.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year as ambitious local authorities went on an investment binge and banks continued to lend to a roaring property sector in spite of Beijing's orders to rein in credit." ... "The 9.7 per cent increase in gross domestic product to Rmb2,711bn ($328bn) was higher than last year's full-year 9.1 per cent increase. Some independent economists use a range of proxy indicators to suggest that the official figures understate reality and China is actually growing at around an annualised 11 or 12 per cent." -By James Kynge -FT.com
- "Broadcaster mutes liberal radio network in funds dispute: Plug pulled on Air America in L.A, Chicago." ... "Arthur Liu of Multicultural Broadcasting, owner of network affiliates WNTD/950 AM in Chicago and KBLA/1580 AM in Santa Monica, put Spanish-language broadcasts on those stations Wednesday because, he said, Air America had bounced a check and owed him more than $1 million." ... "Meanwhile, Air America attorney David Goodfriend said it had stopped payment on the checks because Multicultural was selling time on the California station it had already leased to the new network." -By Peter Goodman -Newsday.com via -SFGate.com
AirAmericaRadio.com
- - - "A primate primer: Boys will be boys, as girls ape mom: Chimps shed light on roots of sex-based learning differences in human youngsters." ... "The girls watch their mothers closely. The boys horse around. Researchers have found sex-based learning differences in chimpanzees that are similar to those observed in human children." ... "This means, the scientists said, that sex-based learning differences likely have a biological basis that dates back to the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees." ... "There is still debate, however, over whether biology or culture plays a larger role in the learning differences that have been observed between the sexes in humans." -By Anne McIlroy -TheGlobeAndMail.com
- - "Is this the oldest known piece of jewelry?." ... "Humans living in coastal South Africa about 75,000 years ago may have fashioned snail shells into the world's oldest jewelry, according to a new study. Critics, however, say the dramatic claim lacks the evidence to fully back it." ... "If the 41 snail shells described in today's issue of the journal Science are indeed beads, they would predate the oldest known pieces of jewelry by more than 30,000 years and add significant weight to the idea that symbolic thought and language flowered among modern humans long before their forays into Europe and Asia." ... "Reached by telephone at the South African excavation site known as Blombos Cave, lead author Christopher Henshilwood said storing information in the form of beads or words is a key element of symbolic behavior." -By Bryn Nelson -Newsday.com
- - - "Oldest Jewelry? "Beads" Discovered in African Cave." ... "Humans may have been wearing jewelry as far back as 75,000 years ago, about 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, if 41 shells found at Blombos Cave in South Africa prove to have been used as beads." ... "Beads are considered definitive evidence of symbolic thinking, which many scientists don't think occurred in modern humans until about 45,000 years ago." ... "The presence of beads, whether used as trade items, to convey group status, or to identify group members or relationships within a group suggests some form of language existed, says [Blombos Cave Project director Christopher] Henshilwood, who is affiliated with the University of Bergen, Norway, and the State University of New York." ... "Recent studies have suggested that Khoisan, a southern African language that includes many clicks, could be as many as 100,000 years old. It's possible the people at Blombos were speaking in some form of click language, Henshilwood said." -By Hillary Mayell -NationalGeographic>News
- - - - - "Japanese Hostages Freed in Iraq; Iranian Killed." ... "Three Japanese hostages were freed Thursday, but the murders of an Iranian diplomat and an Italian captive were chilling proof of the risks foreigners face in Iraq, where rebels are battling the U.S.-led occupation." ... "America's top general said talks were under way to try to bring peace to the embattled Sunni Muslim city of Falluja and to avoid a bloodbath in the Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf." ... "The three [Japanese] seized last week are Noriaki Imai, 18, who wanted to research the effects of depleted uranium weapons, journalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, and aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34." (1, 2, 3) -By Fiona O'Brien -Reuters
20040414
- - "Insurgents Display New Sophistication: Campaign Leaves Bridges Heavily Damaged, Hampering Military's Push South." ... "Insurgents fighting the U.S.-led occupation force have sharply increased the sophistication, coordination and aggressiveness of their tactics over the past week, Army officers and soldiers involved in combat here said." ... "With occupation forces battling Sadr's Shiite militiamen south and east of Baghdad and Sunni Muslim insurgents to the north and west, the timing of the Iraqis' tactical development is nearly as troubling for U.S. forces as its effect. But the explanation for the change is not yet clear, military commanders said." ... "Here in southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, U.S. officers say the best guess is that former soldiers who served under President Saddam Hussein have decided to lend their expertise and coordinating abilities to the untrained Shiite militiamen." (1, 2) -By Thomas E. Ricks-WashingtonPost
- - - "Dead soldier's sisters excused duty in war zone." ... "Michelle Witmer, 20, died last Friday in an ambush of her Humvee, and her father's plea to the Pentagon to spare his two other daughters, who were also serving in Wisconsin national guard units in Iraq, received attention throughout the US." -By Suzanne Goldenberg -Guardian.co.uk
20040413
- - - - "Iran distances itself from Sadr." ... "Iran is dismissing attempts by Washington to link it to Moqtada al-Sadr, the young radical cleric whose militia has battled US forces in neighbouring Iraq." ... "US officials and administration ad visers have long alleged that Iran has secretly funded Mr Sadr's militia. On Monday, General John Abizaid, commander of US Central Command, told a press briefing "there are indications from intelligence folks that there are some Iranian activities going on that are unhelpful". Last week, Donald Rumsfeld, US secretary of defence, accused Iran of "meddling" in Iraq." -By Gareth Smyth -FT.com
- "Intel Says 1st-Qtr Profit Almost Doubled, Sales Rise (Update2)." ... "Intel Corp., the world's biggest semiconductor maker, said first-quarter net income almost doubled to $1.73 billion as customers accelerated purchases of new computers." ... "Net income was 26 cents a share, compared with 14 cents a year earlier, Santa Clara, California-based Intel said in a statement. Sales rose 20 percent to $8.1 billion." -By Jason Kelly and Ian King -Bloomberg.com
- - - "Chinese hostages 'released'." ... "China was anxiously awaiting confirmation last night that seven of its nationals kidnapped in Iraq had been released." ... "The Xinhua news agency, which broke the news of the kidnappings on Sunday, cited a Chinese merchant in Baghdad as saying that the seven had been handed over to a Muslim association involved with hostage release." ... "It was not clear what the seven latest victims of the hostage drama sweeping Iraq were doing in the country." -By Jonathan Watts -Guardian.co.uk
20040412
- - - - - "Seven Chinese Kidnapped in Iraq; China Urges Rescue." ... "Gunmen kidnapped seven Chinese citizens in Iraq in the latest spate of hostage-taking and Beijing on Monday appealed to Baghdad to rescue them." ... "China was regarded as a friend by Iraq's former Baathist government under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, and it opposed the military invasion of Iraq. Beijing pledged $24 million for rebuilding the country at a donor conference in Madrid last year." (1, 2) -By John Ruwitch -Reuters
- - - "Japan unsure of safety of hostages in Iraq as crisis drags into fourth day." ... "Optimism that three Japanese held hostage in Iraq would be quickly released evaporated Monday, as Tokyo's top government spokesman backtracked on an earlier statement and said authorities were no longer confident about their safety." ... "The hostages[,] two aid workers and a photojournalist[,] were being held by a previously unknown group calling itself the ''Muhahedeen Squadron,'' which demanded Japan pull its troops out of Iraq within three days or it would burn the three alive." -By Eric Talmadge -AP via -Boston/Globe
20040411
- - "Taiwan Riot Police Battle Election Protesters." ... "Riot police officers fought with demonstrators and used water cannons mounted on armored cars as a large rally turned unexpectedly violent here on Saturday night in front of the presidential palace." ... "A crowd estimated by organizers at 300,000 and by the police at 100,000 assembled peacefully on Saturday afternoon to call for a parliamentary investigation into a shooting incident that wounded President Chen Shui-bian on the eve of elections here last month, and may have helped him win re-election." ... "On March 20, President Chen won a second four-year term by fewer than 30,000 votes out of 13 million cast, defeating Mr. Lien of the Nationalist Party and his running mate, James Soong of the People First Party. The president had been grazed across the abdomen the day before by a bullet while standing in an open Jeep in a motorcade through his hometown, Tainan." ... "The Nationalists have suggested that presidential aides inside the Jeep may have staged the shooting, in a bid to bolster Mr. Chen's support." -By Keith Bradsher -NYTimes
20040407
- - - - "Japan court rules against shrine visits, PM unbowed." ... "A Japanese court ruled on Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had violated the constitution by visiting a shrine honouring Japan's military war dead, a landmark ruling on his annual pilgrimages that have angered China and other Asian neighbours." ... "But Koizumi vowed to keep visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are among those honoured and which critics at home and abroad regard as a symbol of Japan's past militarism." -By Masayuki Kitano -Reuters
20040402
- - - - "Attack on expectant mom a crime against 2: Relatives of Peterson, other victims attend bill signing." ... "President Bush signed legislation Thursday making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime against a pregnant woman, and he declared that, with the new law, the United States was "building a culture of life."" ... "The Unborn Victims of Violence Act protects a fetus at any stage of its development. The measure does not deal with abortion but at its foundation it deals with the central question in the abortion debate: At what point does an embryo or a fetus deserve full protection of the law as a living person?" ... "Advocates of abortion rights fear it will be used to establish precedent that could undercut those rights, established in 1973 by the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade." -By James Gerstenzang-LAtimes via -SFGate.com
20040401
- - - - "Three countries arrest 53 militants in coordinated crackdown." ... "Turkey, Italy, and Belgium arrested 53 militants in a coordinated crackdown Thursday on a Turkish Marxist group considered a terrorist organization by Washington, Turkey's Interior Ministry said." ... "Police in Istanbul arrested 37 suspects of the Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, or DHKP-C, while security forces Italy and Belgium detained 16, an Interior Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity." -AP via -USATODAY
20040331
2004 ELECTION - - - - "Political titles play an unusual role in this campaign." ... "The influential role that serious, issues-based books are playing is unusual, historians and political scientists say. "I can't think of anything close to this happening during a campaign, at least in the 20th century," says James Campbell, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo." ... "The hottest book is Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard Clarke. The counterterrorism expert served in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations. He says the current administration paid too little attention to the threat of terrorism before Sept. 11 and made terrorism more of a threat by going to war in Iraq." -By Mark Memmott -USATODAY

Search Google: <"Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" by Richard Clarke>
- - - "Pushing the limits of 'public use'." ... "Rene Corie installs drapes in Florida mansions. Her husband, David, builds the mansions' gates." ... "Eight years ago, the working-class couple finally found some waterfront real estate they could afford: a two-bedroom house for $70,000 in Riviera Beach, a poor town near the wealthy enclaves of Palm Beach and Jupiter." ... "But Riviera Beach now wants to bulldoze the Cories' home and 2,200 others to make way for one of the nation's grandest redevelopment plans: a collection of high-rise condos, bigger homes and upscale shops. The city plans to use eminent domain — its power to confiscate private property for projects that benefit the public — to take the homes of 5,100 people if the residents do not agree to move." -By Dennis Cauchon -USATODAY
20040324
Water - - "Scientists Report Evidence of Saltwater Pools on Mars." ... "Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place, with pools of saltwater that sometimes flowed across the surface, scientists reported Tuesday." ... "Analyzing findings from sedimentary rocks explored by the rover Opportunity, the scientists said the rocks now appeared to have formed under a shallow bed of softly flowing water near a shoreline — not, as formerly seemed possible, through seepage from underground." -By Warren E. Leary -NYTimes via -Google-News
- - - - Microsoft News - "EU orders Microsoft to pay $613 million fine: Software giant found guilty of abusing "near monopoly"." ... "The European Union declared Microsoft Corp. guilty Wednesday of abusing its "near monopoly" with Windows to squeeze competitors in other markets and levied a record fine of $613 million (497.2 million euros)." ... "The EU's antitrust authority said that "because the illegal behavior is still ongoing," it was also demanding changes in the way the U.S. software company operates." -AP via -MSNBC
20040320
- - - - "Mass Extinction Not Inevitable." ... "Two new studies published this week in Science that show steep declines in bird, butterfly and plant populations across Great Britain provide the strongest proof yet that we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life." ... "The British analyzed six surveys covering virtually all of their native species populations over the last 40 years. They discovered birds and native plants had declined 54 percent and 28 percent respectively while butterflies experienced a shocking 71 percent decrease." ... "According to scientists, there have been five prior mass extinctions in the past 450 million years. The last was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs and tens of thousands of species disappeared, likely as a result of a comet or large asteroid hitting the Earth." -By Stephen Leahy -Wired
20040319
- "'Small asteroid' bypasses Earth by just 26,500 miles." ... "A 100-foot-wide space rock yesterday missed Earth by only 26,500 miles, the closest asteroid ever detected by astronomers before it actually made its approach. The harmless flyby occurred at 2:08 p.m. Pacific time." ... ""We figure that on average something this size hits the Earth every two to three years," said astronomer Paul Chodas, of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program. "We've never detected them out in space, either approaching or receding. This is the closest."" -By Guy Gugliotta -WashingtonPost with the -AP via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
20040314
- - Free-Speech - "China Changes Constitution to Address Rights Issues." ... "China's Parliament formally approved today constitutional amendments that address private property and human rights, while the country's new prime minister promised to rein in the overheated economy." ... "Chinese legal experts and even lawmakers said the constitutional changes, which were decided in closed-door sessions of the ruling Communist Party last fall and formally approved today, would not lead to lifting restrictions on speech and political protest. China's constitution is subordinate to the party and is amended often to reflect changes in official ideology." -By Chris Buckley -NYTimes
- - - "Spain Studies Alleged al-Qaida Tape Claim." ... "Investigators analyzed a videotape in which al-Qaida reportedly claimed responsibility for the deadly railway bombings earlier this week amid criticism Sunday that Spanish intelligence blundered in failing to foresee the attack." ... "With a mourning nation voting in general elections overshadowed by the attacks that killed 200 and wounded 1,500, officials said five suspects arrested Saturday can remain in police custody for 72 hours, after which police would need a court order for an extension." -By Daniel Woolls -AP via -Miami/Herald
20040312
- "A vote for democracy, Putin-style: Russia's president is expected to win reelection handily Sunday - with tactics that critics decry as 'Soviet.'" ... "President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to win reelection by a wide margin, came to power four years ago promising a "dictatorship of the law." Indeed, he has brought a new stability and economic growth, while playing it tough in Chechnya - as well as with political rivals, constricting the marketplace of ideas in favor of firm control from the top." ... "Critics and a handful of opposition candidates - who between them can't muster a fraction of Mr. Putin's over 70 percent popularity rating - charge that Sunday's vote is a "farce" that has been pre-engineered by the Kremlin, and marks the end of Russia's experiment with democracy." -By Scott Peterson -CSMonitor
20040311
- - "A Primer on the ETA." ... "Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna, translated from Euskara, the Basque language, means "freedom for the Basque country."" ... "And the organization bearing that name, ETA for short, has been fighting for freedom from Spain since the 1960s in an unrelenting campaign of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations." ... "In that respect, today's devastating attacks on commuter trains in Madrid were definitely in character. That may be one of the reasons why Spanish government officials so quickly blamed ETA, without offering concrete evidence or any claim of responsibility." ... "In another respect, however, the attack departed from ETA's pattern: Never before has the organization killed and injured so many people in a single blow." (1, 2) -By Fred Barbash -WashingtonPost
- - - "Alarm Raised Over Quality of Uranium Found in Iran." ... "United Nations nuclear inspectors have found traces of extremely highly enriched uranium in Iran, of a purity reserved for use in a nuclear bomb, European and American diplomats said Wednesday." ... "Among traces that inspectors detected last year are some refined to 90 percent of the rare 235 isotope, the diplomats said. While the International Atomic Energy Agency has previously reported finding "weapons grade" traces, it has not revealed that some reached such a high degree of enrichment." ... "The presence of such traces raises the stakes in the international debate over Iran's nuclear program and increases the urgency of determining the uranium's origin. If the enrichment took place in Iran, it means the country is much further along the road to becoming a nuclear weapons power than even the most aggressive intelligence estimates anticipated." -By Craig S. Smith with contributions by David E. Sanger -NYTimes
- - - - "Speaking in 'approved' tongues: Should the government be allowed more oversight of foreign language study?" ... "As in many college departments, intellectual independence is a theme at Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures." ... "An office door is decorated with a sticker that reads "Subvert the dominant paradigm," and the topics of faculty-authored books on display range from Iranian cinema to Israeli literature. But some academics worry this independence may be at risk as legislation increasing oversight of international studies programs makes its way through Congress." ... "The bill, called the International Studies Higher Education Act (HR 3077), reauthorizes about $80 million in funding for international and foreign language study, but with a twist - now the government would allocate more resources to programs that emphasize national security." -By Kimberly Chase -CSMonitor
20040310
- - "Mexico, Japan agree on trade deal." ... "Mexico and Japan have agreed on the substance of a free-trade agreement, Mexico's Economy Department says." ... "The department said in a statement Wednesday that the deal is expected to create annual growth of 10.6 percent in Mexican exports to Japan, creating about 277,000 new jobs over 10 years." -AP via -CNN
- - - "U.S. Confident IAEA to Put Iran on Sanctions Notice." ... "Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday he was confident the U.N. atomic watchdog, which is assessing Iran's nuclear programs, would warn Tehran it could face sanctions within months." ... "The resolution being discussed in Vienna will stop short of declaring Iran in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reporting it to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions but will signal that could be close, he said." -Reuters
20040309
- - "Prices at the pump vault toward all-time high: Early hikes in gas prices across the US could affect everything from flower delivery to vacation plans." ... "Later this month, gas prices will almost certainly eclipse the record for the highest average price-per-gallon in US history. Then, if analysts are right, they will go even higher." ... "Ominously, some experts suggest that the energy outlook hasn't looked so bleak since the last days of Mr. Carter. Not that the country would be as severely affected as it was in the 1970s. For one, today's prices are still well below 1970s levels, when adjusted for inflation. In addition, many US power plants have since shifted to natural gas and coal, and manufacturing is now a smaller share of the economy. As a result, America is less dependent on oil for its well-being." -By Mark Sappenfield -CSMonitor
- - - - "UCLA Denies Role in Cadaver Case: Probe Targets Director of Willed-Body Program, Suspected Middleman." ... "The University of California at Los Angeles denied involvement Monday in the sale of cadaver body parts for profit after the arrest of the head of its medical school's cadaver program and a second man over the weekend. Authorities are investigating whether about 800 bodies donated to the program over the past six years were illegally sawed into pieces and sold to medical research companies." ... "Henry Reid, 54, director of the university's program that makes donated bodies available for medical education, was arrested Saturday for investigation of grand theft for allegedly selling corpses and body parts. Ernest Nelson, the suspected middleman, was arrested at his home in Alta Loma, Calif., on Sunday night on suspicion of receiving stolen property." -By Kimberly Edds -WashingtonPost
20040305
- - - "IMF vacancy revives debate over top job." ... "Horst Köhler's decision to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund to become a candidate for president of Germany has rekindled a debate over whether a non-European should run the international lender for the first time." ... "Köhler, 61, who cuts short a term as managing director that would have expired in June 2005, will be replaced by Anne Krueger, the IMF's No. 2 official and an American, until a replacement is found." ... "The IMF, with 184 member countries, was created in 1945 to promote global economic health after World War II." -Bloomberg -Reuters -AFP.com via -IHT.com
20040302
- WorldCom News - "Ebbers indicted, ex-CFO pleads guilty: Sullivan is expected to cooperate with authorities as they prosecute ex-WorldCom CEO." ... "Ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was charged with securities fraud Tuesday for his role in the nation's biggest accounting scandal, while his former chief financial officer pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors." ... "The indictment says Ebbers and ex-WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan "knowingly and consistently" manipulated WorldCom's financial results to present the company in a better light to Wall Street, investors and regulators." -By Terry Frieden -CNN
- Water - "Life was viable on Mars: Rover digs up history of abundant briny water on Red Planet." ... "The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered powerful evidence that water once drenched the surface of Mars and made the planet habitable for life during some unknown epoch in the distant past, NASA scientists announced Tuesday." ... "For the first time since astronomers and planetary visionaries began speculating about water and life on the Red Planet centuries ago, the historic new findings from the Mars rover mission appear to have pinned down the long-cherished idea that Mars in fact once held a warm, wet environment where life could well have flourished." -By David Perlman -SFGate.com
20040225
- - - - Anthrax News - "Tenet Warns of Al Qaeda Threat: CIA Chief Says Group Is Fragmented but Still Dangerous." ... "Despite U.S. success in attacking al Qaeda's hierarchy, the network is still capable of "catastrophic attacks" against the United States, and acquiring chemical, biological and radiological weapons remains a "religious obligation" in Osama bin Laden's eyes, CIA Director George J. Tenet told the Senate intelligence committee yesterday." ... "The most immediate threats include the possibility of "poison attacks" and al Qaeda's ongoing effort to produce anthrax material, he said: "Extremists have widely disseminated assembly instructions for an improvised chemical weapon using common materials that could cause a large number of casualties in a crowded, enclosed area."" (1, 2) -By Dana Priest -WashingtonPost
20040220
- - "Scientist Is Watched for Signs of Ebola." ... "A scientist who works in a maximum containment laboratory at Fort Detrick has been placed in isolation after she accidentally stuck herself with a needle while working with mice infected with a weakened form of the Ebola virus." ... "The woman, whom officials at the Army base declined to identify, has shown no symptoms of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever during eight days of medical observation in a special isolation facility, said Army spokesman Chuck Dasey. He said she was exposed to the Zaire strain of Ebola, the deadliest of the three types of the virus." -By Avram Goldstein -WashingtonPost
20040219
- Enron News - "The hearing: 'I plead not guilty to all counts'." ... "Jeffrey Skilling, former Enron chief executive, surrendered to the FBI on Thursday to face a 42-count indictment, but he remained as defiant as ever that he was innocent." ... "Prosecutors outlined the charges against Mr Skilling, which range from conspiracy to insider trading, and said he faced up to 325 years in prison and more than $80m in fines if convicted." -By Sheila McNulty -FT.com
- - Enron News - "Enron's ex-CEO Skilling surrenders to FBI." ... "Skilling, 50, entered FBI headquarters in Houston accompanied by about six attorneys at 6:52 local time." -Reuters via -Forbes
- - "Scientists accuse Bush of twisting facts in his favor: White House says policy decisions based on sound data." ... "The Bush administration has deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weapons at home and abroad, a group of about 60 influential scientists said in a statement issued Wednesday." ... "The statement was released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. The organization also issued a 37-page report that it said detailed the accusations." -DallasNews.com
- - "As court mulls, gays wed: A judge may decide as soon as Friday whether to stop San Francisco's rush of gay marriages." ... "For the past week, the broad granite steps of San Francisco's City Hall have stood like a finish line to gay and lesbian couples from every corner of the United States." ... "They have come by the thousands to line up in the rain of a raw northern California winter - in a blocks-long gathering that is part street festival, part civic protest. All in the hope of exchanging wedding vows beneath the hall's gilded dome - and in defiance of state law." -By Mark Sappenfield -CSMonitor
20040218
- - "Arizona bishop convicted in hit-run death." ... "Bishop Thomas O'Brien, the former head of Arizona's largest Roman Catholic diocese, was convicted yesterday of leaving the scene of an accident in which the car he was driving struck and killed a pedestrian." ... "O'Brien, 68, is believed to be the first Catholic bishop in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony. He stepped down as head of the Phoenix diocese last summer after he was charged in the accident, which came two months after authorities agreed not to prosecute him for covering up allegations of sexual abuse by priests." -WashingtonPost and -AP via -Reuters via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
- - - - "Groundbreaking ruling in Peterson case Tracking device evidence can be presented." ... "The judge in Scott Peterson's double-murder trial broke new legal ground Tuesday and ruled that for the first time in a California courtroom, evidence gleaned from a high-tech tracking device can be presented to a jury." ... "From January to April of 2003, Modesto police secretly attached GPS devices to a number of Peterson's vehicles so the police could spy on his travels, including several trips to the Berkeley marina. The bodies of Peterson's 27-year-old wife, Laci, and the couple's fetus washed ashore not far away." -By Stacy Finz, Diana Walsh and Kelly St. John -SFGate.com
20040217
- - - "Japan's pride and joy gets a 'Made in China' label." ... "The qualms are gone. Now even Japan's pride and joy, its top-end electronics manufacturers, are coming to China with abandon." ... "They are building immense new plants and research centers here [in China] to take advantage of abundant Chinese labor up and down the value chain, doing nearly every kind of job their Japanese work force does. Cost pressures are driving them to forget old fears of having their best technology stolen or of harsh publicity at home over moving high-paying jobs overseas." -Ken Belson -NYTimes via -IHT.com
20040216
- - "U.N. Nuclear Official to Visit Libya." ... "Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will visit next Monday and Tuesday, "to review progress in our work," said IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky." -AP via -Miami/Herald
20040213
- "Marriage: Addition or division? A new model for predicting divorce may help prevent split-ups." ... "Valentine's Day is Saturday, and we are all thinking about true love and heart-shaped chocolate candy. Well, maybe not all of us. Some of us, actually, are considering the quantifiable aspects of divorce." ... "In America today, some 50 percent of marriages are predicted to end in divorce. And at the University of Washington in Seattle they say they can tell you exactly - well, almost exactly - which ones those will be." ... "A psychologist, a mathematician, and a pathologist have devised what they call a proven mathematical formula for detecting which relationships will go sour - thereby holding out hope that such couples can overcome their problems, and avoid divorce." -By Danna Harman -CSMonitor
20040212
- - STEM CELL NEWS - CLONING NEWS - "Cloning of human embryos achieved." ... "South Korean scientists have succeeded in creating clones of human embryos, a major breakthrough for the promising field of stem-cell therapy — and for the far more controversial endeavor of cloning a human being." ... "The achievement, to be published this week in the journal Science, was hailed by many scientists because it brings closer the possibility that replacement tissues might one day be grown to treat medical conditions such as diabetes, spinal-cord injuries and Parkinson's disease." ... "The study was conducted by a team of scientists at the Seoul National University, Mizmedi Hospital, Hanyang University, Gachon Medical School and Sunchun National University." -LAtimes and -WashingtonPost via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
- - STEM CELL NEWS - CLONING NEWS - "Human cells cloned, South Korean researchers claim." ... "The researchers, who will publish their work today in the online edition of the journal Science, placed genetic material from a Korean volunteer into a human egg cell and coaxed it to develop into a blastocyst, a cluster of about 100 cells that is substantially more advanced than any embryo previously known to have been created in a human-cloning experiment." ... "In another first, the team also extracted embryonic stem cells, powerful cells with the ability to become any other kind of cell, from the cloned blastocyst." -By Gareth Cook -Boston/Globe via -StarTribune.com
- - STEM CELL NEWS - CLONING NEWS - "South Korean researchers cull stem cells from cloned human embryo." ... "Researchers in South Korea for the first time have cloned a human embryo and then culled stem cells from it, marking an important step toward one day growing patients' own replacement tissue to treat diseases." ... "This is not cloning to make babies. Instead it's called therapeutic cloning, in which embryos that are the genetic twins of a particular patient are grown in a test-tube to supply master stem cells that can grow into any tissue --without being rejected by that patient's immune system." -By Lauran Neergaard -AP via -SFGate.com
20040211
- - - - - - ELECTION 2004 - "White House releases Bush's Guard records." ... "Moving to squelch an election year controversy, the White House yesterday made public records showing that President Bush attended some Air National Guard training between mid-1972 and mid-1973 and was paid for it, and said the records refute reports that Bush did not fulfill his military obligation during the Vietnam War." ... "But the same records also show that Bush may not have met the minimum-service requirement expected of most Guard members, according to National Guard officials. And after releasing the records, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, could not explain why, if Bush appeared for duty on the days listed in the documents, Bush's superiors wrote on May 2, 1973, that he had not been seen at his Houston air base for the previous 12 months." -By Walter V. Robinson and Michael Rezendes -Boston/Globe
- - - - "Service Chiefs Challenge White House on the Budget." ... "In an unusual public display of differences with the White House, the top officers of the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force all raised questions on Tuesday about how the Bush administration plans to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after the current financing runs out at the end of September." ... "Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, three of the four chiefs of the armed services expressed concerns about a financing gap, perhaps of four months, for the two missions, whose combined cost is about $5 billion a month." -By Eric Schmitt -NYTimes
20040210
- - - - - "Pakistan's Nuclear Ali Baba." ... ""Nobody could touch him," says Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Pakistan's foreign minister. The regret in his voice is palpable. "Imagine an American government doing this to Charles Lindbergh, or Albert Einstein, at the height of his popularity. Dr. A.Q. Khan is that kind of national hero in Pakistan."" ... "Abdul Qadeer Khan, an accomplished scientist, is also by his own account a thief of Ali Baba proportions. He became a national hero by stealing the designs of a European nuclear centrifuge system that enabled Pakistan to explode several nuclear devices in 1998. Khan's original nuclear larceny, as Kasuri says, "gave us strategic balance."" -By Jim Hoagland -WashingtonPost
20040208
- - - - "Mercury damage 'irreversible'." ... "Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health have found that methyl mercury contamination of seafood can cause heart damage and irreversible impairment to brain function in children, both in the womb and as they grow." ... ""If something happens in the brain at development, you don't get a second chance," says lead researcher Philippe Grandjean." ... "Grandjean and his colleagues report in the Journal of Pediatrics that electrical signals in the brains of children exposed to mercury aren't transmitted as quickly as in unexposed children. They also found that mercury appears to weaken the heartbeat." -By Elizabeth Weise -USATODAY
20040206
- - - "CIA tries to staunch wounds opened by Kay." ... "Mr Tenet [the director of the Central Intelligence Agency] was disarmingly frank on Thursday, admitting that while more time was needed to reach definitive conclusions, the agency's judgments now looked suspect on all the key elements of Iraq's weapons programmes - its nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities. He acknowledged that CIA human intelligence was lacking in Iraq, forcing it to rely on what turned out to be less than accurate sources provided by other countries." ... ""Our record was mixed," he said. "While we had voluminous reporting, the major judgments reached were based on a narrower band of data." But he said that based on Saddam Hussein's history and on the technical and human intelligence gathered by the agency, "it would have been difficult for analysts to come to any different conclusions than the ones we reached"." -By Edward Alden and Mark Huband with contributions by Salamander Davoudi -FT.com
- "Mad Cow Quandary: Making Animal Feed." ... "In the month and a half since a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington State, Americans have been learning more than they wanted to know about what cattle in this country have been eating." ... "Though consumers may imagine bucolic scenes of nursing calves and cows munching on grass or hay, much of American agriculture no longer works that way. For years, calves have been fed cow's blood instead of milk, and cattle feed has been allowed to contain composted wastes from chicken coops, including feathers, spilled feed and even feces." ... "Though the United States banned the use of cow parts in cattle feed in the 1990's, it still permits rendered matter from cows to be fed to pigs and chickens, and rendered pigs and chickens to be fed back to cows. Critics say that in theory, that sequence could bring mad cow disease full circle, back to cows." -By Denise Grady-NYTimes via -Google-News
20040205
- - - - - - "Musharraf issues pardon to nuclear scientist." ... "A Pakistani nuclear scientist whose involvement in international WMD proliferation was described by the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog as "the tip of an iceberg" was today pardoned for his part in the trade." ... "Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that he had accepted a written apology from Abdul Qadeer Khan - known as the father of the country's nuclear bomb - for selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea." -Guardian.co.uk
- - 2004 ELECTION - "Pentagon scraps 2004 online voting." ... "The Pentagon has canceled plans to allow military personnel to vote online in the November 2004 presidential elections, a Defense Department spokeswoman said Thursday." ... "A group of four computer scientists criticized the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment in a Jan. 20 report. The scientists were invited by the Pentagon to critique the program, and they alleged that the SERVE system has numerous "security problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyberattacks."" -By David McGlinchey -GovExec.com
- "Mad cow panel urges testing: The experts also want stricter rules on animal feed." ... "An influential panel of international experts warned Wednesday that there are likely more cases of mad cow disease in the country and urged the Bush administration to further tighten safeguards on meat and animal feed." ... "The scientists, who reviewed the U.S. regulations at the request of the government, said the risk to public health was low but warned that one sick cow could spread the disease widely if its remains are used in animal feed." -By Philip Brasher -DesMoinesRegister/News
20040202
- - - "Bush to pick panel for WMD inquiry, official says: Independent probe of intelligence has bipartisan support." ... "The intelligence to be reviewed was used to justify the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the first under Bush's national security strategy calling for pre-emptive attacks against terrorist groups and nations that possess or are developing weapons of mass destruction." ... "David Kay, the former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, told a Senate panel last week that his group did not find such weapons and that he didn't believe stockpiles of banned weapons would turn up either." -CNN
- - - - - "Pakistani nuclear scientist confesses to sharing secrets: Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed Sunday to trading nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea." ... "Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has confessed to sharing nuclear technology with Iran, Libya, and North Korea in a 12-page document presented to President Pervez Musharraf, according to a briefing given by government officials in Islamabad." ... "News of the confession followed a decision to dismiss Mr. Khan from his government post on Saturday by the nuclear command authority, a grouping of top military and political officials supervising the probe." -By Owais Tohid -CSMonitor
- - - - - "Bush to Establish Panel to Examine U.S. Intelligence." ... "President Bush will establish a bipartisan commission in the next few days to examine American intelligence operations, including a study of possible misjudgments about Iraq's unconventional weapons, senior administration officials said Sunday. They said the panel would also investigate failures to penetrate secretive governments and stateless groups that could attempt new attacks on the United States." ... "The pressure to establish such a panel became irresistible after David A. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably," about the perceived Iraqi threat, which was the administration's basic justification for the war." ... "The commission will not report back until after the November elections. Some former officials who have been approached about taking part say they believe it may take 18 months or more to reach its conclusions." (1, 2) -By David E. Sanger -NYTimes
20040201
- - "Uut and Uup Add Their Atomic Mass to Periodic Table." ... "A team of Russian and American scientists are reporting today that they have created two new chemical elements, called superheavies because of their enormous atomic mass. The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond." ... "Scientists generally do not give permanent names to elements and write them into textbooks until the discoveries have been confirmed by another laboratory. By an international convention based on the numbers, element 113 will be given the temporary name Ununtrium (abbreviated Uut for the periodic table) and element 115 will be designated Ununpentium (Uup)." -By James Glanz -NYTimes
- - - "Senator: Flight cancellations necessary." ... " A key member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday the United States has no defense against threats to release biological weapons inside airplanes except to cancel suspect flights." ... "Asked about reports that a biological or chemical agent might be used in an attack on a U.S.-bound airline, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, said the United States would have no way to counter such moves." -CNN

- - - - "Twin Bombings in Northern Iraq Kill at Least 56." ... "The attack took place on the first day of Id al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, which commemorates the Koranic account of Ibrahim's willingness to slay his son for God, and God's mercy in the face of such devotion. American military officials have said they expect a surge in attacks during the four-day holiday. This morning, Kurdish party leaders were receiving hundreds of people in each building as part of the festivities." ... "The bombings today killed senior officials of both the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which separately govern two halves of the rugged region called Kurdistan." ... "The bomber at the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was a woman wearing a belt of explosives, he [Bakhtiyar Amin, a spokesman for Kurdish representative Mahmoud Othman of the Iraqi Governing Council] said, while the one at the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party was wearing the robes of a cleric." -By Edward Wong-NYTimes via -Google-News
Search Google:
<Eid al-Adha-[News]>
- "Stampede Kills 244 at Hajj Pilgrimage: Hajj Pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia Is Again Marred by Tragedy As 244 Die in Stampede." ... "At least 244 people were trampled to death and hundreds more hurt Sunday under the crush of worshippers in one of the deadliest disasters during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia." ... "The stampede occurred during the stoning of the devil, an emotional and notoriously perilous hajj ritual. Pilgrims frantically throw rocks, shout insults or hurl their shoes at three stone pillars acts that are supposed to demonstrate their deep disdain for Satan." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20040130
- - "Cost estimates rise to $540 billion for Medicare plan." ... "The new Medicare drug benefit will cost about 35 percent more than Congress anticipated, helping to kick the federal budget deficit up to a record $500 billion next year, according to officials familiar with the fiscal 2005 budget that President Bush is to release Monday." ... "The prescription drug plan, which will not be fully in effect until 2006, will cost about $540 billion over 10 years, instead of the $396 billion projected in the law that Congress approved late last year, said a government official and private-sector economists who have been briefed on the budget." -By Susan Milligan -Boston/Globe
- - - - "2 congressional panels echo Kay on Iraqi weaponry." ... "The House and Senate intelligence committees have unearthed a series of failures in the prewar intelligence on Iraq similar to those identified by former weapons inspector David Kay, leading them to believe that CIA analysts and their superiors did not seriously consider the possibility that Saddam Hussein no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction, according to congressional officials." ... "The committees, working separately for the past seven months, have determined that the CIA relied too heavily on circumstantial, outdated intelligence and became overly dependent on satellite and spy-plane imagery and communications intercepts." -By Dana Priest & Walter Pincus -WashingtonPostvia -SFGate.com
2004 ELECTION - - - "Politics as punch line: Young voters are turning to comics like... Jon Stewart, Dennis Miller, and Bill Maher as an alternative to the news anchors." ... "Philosophy major Joe Harper has never voted in a presidential election. He doesn't know yet whom he'll vote for this fall. He is clear on one thing, however." ... ""I'm not watching the evening news to figure it out, that's for sure," says the 21-year-old college student. His favorite sources of information about the candidates are the ones increasingly favored by the under-30 crowd, the comedy of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and "anything" from Bill Maher. "I trust these guys," says Mr. Harper. "Their stuff is funnier, but it's also truer."" -By Gloria Goodale -CSMonitor
20040129
ELECTION 2004 - - "Kerry turns to the 'band of brothers': Republicans are keen to portray John Kerry as a limp-wristed liberal, but this genuine war hero has already tapped into the Vietnam generation, says Philip James." ... "As headline grabbing as his surprise win was in Iowa, and his decisive victory in New Hampshire, together these two states add up to only 32 delegates for Kerry. He needs another 2,000 or so to be assured the nomination." ... "Traditionally March 2, aka Super Tuesday, is the date when contested nominations are decided. California, New York and eight other mostly big states put over 1,000 delegates in play." ... "But this year a change to the primary schedule has seven southern, mid-western and western states voting together on February 3. Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma have clustered with South Carolina, Delaware, North Dakota and Missouri, to give it the status and influence of a mini Super Tuesday- with 269 delegates up for grabs." -Guardian.co.uk
- - - - "Second BBC Exec Resigns Over Iraq Story: Second BBC Executive Resigns, Shaken Broadcaster Apologizes Over Report on Iraq Intelligence." ... "The chief of the BBC stepped down Thursday as the badly rattled broadcaster struggled to respond to harsh criticism from a judge who repudiated its report that the government "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq." ... "The resignation of British Broadcasting Corp. director-general Greg Dyke stunned BBC employees, and hundreds of them rallied outside the network's offices around Britain to show their support for him. One local BBC radio station briefly went off the air in protest." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20040128
- - - "Army given OK to temporarily increase its ranks." ... "The Army's top general said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, hoping to quiet critics in Congress, has given him the authority to temporarily increase the size of the Army by up to 30,000 troops until 2008." ... "Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that the temporary increase would ease strains caused by U.S.-led conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but not require the billions of dollars that a permanent troop increase would cost." -By Dave Moniz -USATODAY
"MyDoom is the worst virus ever." ... "The prolific MyDoom worm has outpaced Sobig-F to become the fastest spreading virus ever, according to email filtering outfit MessageLabs." ... "MessageLabs blocked 1.2 million copies of MyDoom (AKA Novarg) in the 24 hours after it first appeared on Monday. At its peak the virus accounted for one in 12 emails." -By John Leyden -TheRegister.co.uk
- - - - "Kay to Testify About Iraqi WMD Search: Kay to Testify About Search for Iraq's Weapons As Some in Bush Administration Shift Positions." ... "Senators want to speak with the former top U.S. weapons inspector who said he couldn't find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a primary justification by President Bush for the war in Iraq." ... "As special adviser to CIA Director George Tenet, Kay was chosen last year as the Iraq Survey Group leader in part because he was convinced weapons would be found. "My suspicions are that we'll find in the chemical and biological areas, in fact, I think there may be some surprises coming rather quickly in that area," he said on CNN in June." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- - - - - "BBC Chairman Resigns After Hutton Criticism." ... "The chairman of the BBC resigned on Wednesday and the broadcaster apologized for some of its reporting on the buildup to the war in Iraq after an inquiry by a senior judge lambasted the corporation." ... "The report by Lord Hutton criticized journalist Andrew Gilligan, the BBC's management and its supervisory board of governors, for a radio report saying the government "sexed up" intelligence in a dossier on Iraqi weapons." -By Adam Pasick -Reuters
- - - - - "Judicial Inquiry Clears Blair on Iraq Intelligence Claims: BBC Blamed for Broadcasting 'Unfounded' Allegations." ... "A judicial inquiry cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday of allegations aired by the BBC that he and his aides had exaggerated intelligence claims about Iraq's access to weapons of mass destruction and drove to suicide a British weapons expert who raised questions about those claims." ... "While exonerating Blair, Lord Brian Hutton blamed the BBC for broadcasting what he called "unfounded" allegations in May of 2003 that the government had published a "sexed-up" claim that Iraq could launch such weapons within 45 minutes of an order despite knowing it was probably wrong." -By Glenn Frankel -WashingtonPost
- 2004 ELECTION - "Kerry Appeal: Behind New Hampshire Win: Broad Base, Moderate Image, Electability." ... "A broad base on issues, a moderate image and a sense of electability powered John Kerry to a double-digit victory in the New Hampshire primary and being someone other than Howard Dean didn't hurt." ... "Kerry did best with voters who were looking mainly for a candidate who can beat George W. Bush (he won 62 percent of them), and for someone with the "right experience." But Kerry also won big in two other, larger groups: Those who viewed Dean unfavorably and those who didn't think Dean has the right temperament for the job." -By Gary Langer with David Morris, Dalia Sussman and Maureen Michaels -ABCNEWS.com
- - - "Tracking kids 24/7: Using high-tech products, parents can instantly find out where a child is or what he's doing on the computer. But what does this do to the parent-child relationship?" ... "Besides limiting children's access to certain websites, parents can now keep tabs on the Internet sites they surf, read the instant messages and e-mails they send, and even delegate the task of monitoring screen time with a device they install in Junior's computer." ... "But that's not all. The growing business of child surveillance now extends into the offline world, thanks to new GPS devices - including cellphones, wristwatches, and even a surgically implanted chip - that enable adults to track down kids almost anywhere." -By Jennifer Wolcott -CSMonitor
20040127
- - - "Libya Nuclear Components Arrive in U.S.: Plane Carrying Components of Libya's Nuclear Weapons Program Arrives in U.S., White House Says." ... "Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, following up a promise to end his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, has shipped some 55,000 pounds of nuclear and missile components to the United States in a bid to break out of diplomatic isolation." ... "Bush administration officials indicated Gadhafi could expect some easing of economic pressure in return if he continued on a cooperative track. But one official told The Associated Press that Libya had not proved it no longer supported terrorism." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- "U.S. says guards cheated in nuke plant terrorism drill." ... "Security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at a Tennessee nuclear weapons plant had been tipped in advance, undermining the encouraging results, the Energy Department's watchdog office said Monday." ... "The surprising successes by guards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant last summer in Oak Ridge, Tenn., spurred an internal investigation. It determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks. The plant processes parts for nuclear weapons and maintains vast supplies of bomb-grade uranium." -By Ted Bridis -AP via -AJC
20040126
- "Sept. 11 Panel Explores Border Security: Sept. 11 Commission Hearing Explores Lapses in Border Security, Including Fraudulent Visas." ... "Some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were allowed into the country despite carrying fraudulent visas and being questioned by customs agents, an independent commission investigating the terrorist attacks said Monday in releasing new details about the attack." ... "For example, hijacker Saeed al Ghamdi was referred to immigration inspection officials in June 2001 after he provided no address on his customs form and only had a one-way plane ticket and about $500. But Al Ghamdi was able to persuade the inspector that he was a tourist." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- - - "Iraqi council splitting under Shiite pressure: Many defer to cleric on election format." ... "A powerful cleric's demand for quick elections has delayed the drafting of an interim constitution and has created a serious new split in the Iraqi Governing Council, officials said, further undermining the Bush administration's troubled plan for a political transition in Iraq." ... "Without an interim constitution, which is supposed to be completed in less than five weeks, the entire timetable for a U.S. transfer of power to an Iraqi government by June 30 could be disrupted. And the divide in" -By Edward Wong -NYTimes via -IHT.com
20040125
- - - "Iraq's Path Hinges on Words of Enigmatic Cleric." ... "An austere home in a dusty alleyway here [Najaf, Iraq] has become a center of power rivaling the American occupation headquarters in Baghdad — and the scene of fierce inner struggles for one man's ear." ... "Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a reclusive 73-year-old cleric revered by many of Iraq's 15 million Shiites, hears arguments and requests here from the country's most senior politicians, occasionally issuing decrees through them that thwart the plans of the world's sole superpower." ... "The ayatollah's secular power is clear: his insistence on direct elections for a transitional national assembly before Iraqi sovereignty in June drew up to 100,000 supporters to Baghdad's streets on Monday and left the Bush administration scrambling to salvage plans for a caucus-style selection." (1, 2) -By Edward Wong -NYTimes via -Google-News
20040124
- - - - "Pakistan Chief Says It Appears Scientists Sold Nuclear Data." ... "Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, acknowledged Friday that scientists from his country appeared to have sold nuclear designs to other nations probably "for personal financial gain." He denied that the Pakistan government knew of any sales at the time but vowed that suspects would be dealt with "as antistate elements."" ... "General Musharraf's statement at a global economic forum here came after weeks of delicate efforts to force Pakistan to deal with the scientists, according to diplomats and American officials. Technical documents recently obtained from Libya on its nuclear program, as well as documents relating to Iran's nuclear activities, undercut years of Pakistani denials and appeared to force General Musharraf's hand, diplomats and American officials said." (1, 2) -By Mark Landler and David E. Sanger -NYTimes via -Google-News
20040123
- - "Libya Gives U.N. Inspectors Nuke Drawings." ... "Libya gave U.N. inspectors drawings of a nuclear weapon, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday, the clearest sign yet that Libya was at some point serious about building such arms." ... ""We have put those drawings under our seal, and they are secure," Mark Gwozdecky, chief spokesman for the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said without elaborating." -By George Jahn -AP via -Miami/Herald
- "Mars Rover Resumes Sending Data Back to Earth." ... "The Mars rover Spirit resumed sending [limited] data to Earth on Friday after the robot suffered from garbled communications and periods of intermittent silence, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Friday." -Reuters via -Reuters.co.uk
- "NASA Engineers Hope to Resume Communication With Rover After Two Days Without Receiving Any Data." ... "Anxious NASA engineers were trying to diagnose and possibly patch up their ailing robotic patient after the Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars." ... "NASA hoped communication with the six-wheeled rover would resume Friday morning after two days without receiving any significant data a potentially calamitous turn that project manager Pete Theisinger called "a very serious anomaly."" -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20040121
- "Arizona prison hostages enter fourth day in tower." ... "Negotiators got their first glimpse of the correctional officers Tuesday, and they appear to be OK, Hunter said. The guards were also allowed to briefly speak to law enforcement by radio." ... "The standoff began Sunday morning after an inmate attacked a guard in the prison kitchen. The prisoner and another inmate then got into an observation tower where the two guards, one male and one female, were stationed." -By Anabelle Garay -AP via -SFGate.com
20040119
- "Arizona Inmates Hold Prison Guards Hostage." ... "Negotiators trying to free two guards held by two inmates at a massive Arizona prison worked into a second day, buoyed by word the hostages apparently are not seriously injured, authorities said Monday." ... "Authorities reported that they were able to speak to the male and female corrections officers held hostage since early Sunday in a tower at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, about 45 miles southwest of Phoenix." -Reuters
20040118
- - - "U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground." ... "President Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to control the heavens for military, economic and strategic gain." ... "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long has pushed for technology that could be used to attack or defend orbiting satellites as well as a costly program, heavily reliant on space-based sensors, to thwart incoming warheads." ... "The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent, nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion reactor." (1, 2) -By Jim Wolf -Reuters
- - - - "Pakistan Expands Nuclear Investigation." ... "Pakistan has expanded an investigation of its premier nuclear weapons laboratory, detaining as many as seven scientists and administrators amid allegations sensitive technology may have spread to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Libya, officials said Sunday." ... "Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said over the past few days between five and seven personnel at the Khan Research Laboratories were taken in for questioning. But he said the detained men were not "necessarily involved in something or have allegations against them."" -By Matthew Pennington -AP via -Miami/Herald
20040117
- - - "Libya's black market deals shock nuclear inspectors." ... "Colonel Muammar Gadafy of Libya has been buying complete sets of uranium enrichment centrifuges on the international black market as the central element in his secret nuclear bomb programme, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors." ... "The ease with which the complex bomb-making equipment was acquired has stunned experienced international inspectors. The scale and the sophistication of the networks supplying so-called rogue states seeking nuclear weapons are considerably more extensive than previously believed." -By Ian Traynor -Guardian.co.uk
20040116
- - - "Japanese sends first troops out to war zone since 1945." ... "As an advanced team of Self-Defense Forces prepared to leave Friday for Iraq, the first Japanese troops to be deployed since World War II to a country with ongoing combat continued their training at their snow-covered base here in northern Japan [Asahikawa]." ... "The troops have taken Arabic lessons, and learned about the Koran and Ramadan. They have focused, above all, on mastering their rules of engagement, the way in which they would respond to a hostile situation in southern Iraq. While the details are kept secret, the rules are said to be more muscular than the guidelines under which the forces have operated in the past." -By Norimitsu Onishi-NYTimes via -IHT.com
20040115
- - "Libya Ratifies the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty." ... "Libya has ratified the nuclear test ban treaty, a United Nations agency said Wednesday, less than three weeks after Libya publicly renounced its plans to develop outlawed weapons." ... "Libya's nuclear program was nowhere near producing a weapon. Still, the announcement appeared to be a further sign of commitment by its leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, to give up the program." -AP via -NYTimes
- "Spirit probe rolls onto martian surface." ... "Twelve days after its bouncy arrival on the Red Planet, the robotic rover Spirit has rolled off its landing platform for its first spin on martian soil, steered by Earth-bound NASA engineers sitting 115 million miles away." ... "The 78-second outing took Spirit only about 10 feet (3 meters) straight ahead but was hailed by project managers at the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a flawless prelude to the six-wheeled craft's historic quest for signs of life-sustaining water." -Reuters via -Reuters.co.uk
- - "Bush's Space Vision Thing." ... "Critics will no doubt accuse President Bush of fiscal folly for proposing a grandiose plan for space exploration at a time when the nation faces onerous deficits and insufficient money to meet costly obligations on planet Earth. The critics would be right that money is short and there are many more important things to do than put astronauts on the Moon or Mars. But Mr. Bush is a canny enough politician to avoid committing much money to his new space vision. He calls for only $1 billion in new financing for NASA over five years and a reallocation of the current five-year budget of $86 billion. The cost will of course explode later on, when NASA tries to actually carry out the program. What Mr. Bush has really done is promise the moon (literally) while leaving future presidents and Congresses to figure out how to pay the potentially large future bills while they cope with the severe revenue losses caused by Mr. Bush's reckless tax cuts." -NYTimes via -Google-News
- "China's Web surfers rise to 79.5 million people." ... "The number of Internet surfers in China grew to 79.5 million people at the end of 2003, up an annual 34.5 percent, a semi-official research centre says." ... "China, which already had the world's second-largest Web population after the United States, added 20.4 million new online users during the year, the China Internet Network Information Centre said on its Web site www.cnnic.com.cn." -Reuters via -Reuters.co.uk
- - - - - "Kennedy Hits Bush On War." ... "President Bush marketed the war on Iraq as a "political product" to influence the 2002 elections and is doing so again this year, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged yesterday in a scathing speech accusing Bush of putting politics ahead of national security." ... ""No president of the United States should employ misguided ideology and distortion of the truth to take the nation to war," he said. "In doing so, the president broke the basic bond of trust between the government and the people. If Congress and the American people knew the whole truth, America would never have gone to war."" -By Helen Dewar -WashingtonPost
- - Enron News - "Ex-Enron executive, wife plead guilty: Andrew Fastow is the highest-ranking Enron executive to plead guilty in the scandal surrounding the energy company's dramatic disintegration." ... "Andrew Fastow, chief architect of the off-the-books deals that brought down Enron, pleaded guilty along with his wife Wednesday in a deal that could take prosecutors to the top of the corporate ladder at the scandal-ridden company." ... "The former finance chief agreed to a 10-year prison sentence and will help prosecutors build a case against the executives who once occupied the most opulent offices on the company's top floor: former Chairman Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling." -By Kristen Hays-Miami/Herald
20040114
- - "Polio on rise as Nigerian clerics block vaccinations." ... "The World Health Organization has confirmed new outbreaks of polio in two African countries that were polio-free -- just as the global effort to eradicate the disease was believed to be on the brink of success." ... "New cases have been confirmed in Cameroon and Benin, and both were caused by a strain from Nigeria that is spreading after Muslim leaders in the north of that country blocked vaccination efforts, saying they were part of a U.S. plot to make Muslim women infertile." -By Stephanie Nolen -GlobeAndMail
- - "Hamas uses woman suicide bomber: The Islamic militant group Hamas has used a female bomber for the first time in a suicide attack which killed four Israelis on the border with Gaza." ... "Hamas vowed to intensify attacks against Israel following the bombing at the main Erez crossing." ... "Until now, only secular Palestinian groups have deployed women in suicide attacks against Israeli targets." ... "Militants identified the bomber as Hamas member Reem Raiyshi, a mother-of-two in her early 20s, from Gaza." ... "Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, said the attack in Erez was a joint operation." -BBC/News
20040113
- - - - "U.S. to Send India Nuclear, Space Technology: New Delhi Pledges to Pursue Peaceful Purposes and Help Block Spread of Weapons." ... "President Bush pledged yesterday to help India with its nuclear energy and space technology in return for India's promise to use the assistance for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons." ... "U.S. officials asserted that India will receive no substantial technology until the New Delhi government enacts tougher export controls to prevent the spread of sophisticated science. The Bush administration said the principal goal is nonproliferation at a time when the administration is stepping up its efforts to deny weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups and pariah governments." -By Peter Slevin -WashingtonPost
"Kodak to stop selling some cameras in U.S." ... "Eastman Kodak (EK) said Tuesday that it will stop selling traditional film cameras in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, another move by the troubled photography company to cut lines with declining appeal in favor of fast-growing digital products." -Reuters via -USATODAY
- - - - "Pakistan may have supplied nuclear info." ... "Libya pledged to name its suppliers when it announced last month it was giving up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs." ... "Officials say many of the names probably will be Pakistani. They say evidence points to Pakistani nuclear experts as the source of at least some technology Libya used in its nuclear weapons program. Similar reports have arisen about probable Pakistani assistance to Iran and North Korea, countries President Bush said comprised an ``axis of evil'' with Saddam Hussein's Iraq." -By Matt Kelley -AP via -Salon/news/wire
- - - Civil Liberties - "Airport color-coding called 'illusory security': Privacy groups outraged at anti-terror move." ... "Travelers would be classified into one of three groups: green for good to go, yellow for investigate further and red for stop from flying." ... "The Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed a Washington Post report Monday that the data-mining plan will start this summer after a testing period within the next few months. While the government says the plan will improve screening for potential terrorists, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union denounced it as "dragnet profiling" that would discriminate against minorities and the poor." ... "The plan, called Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, would require all airline travelers to provide full names, home addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth when they book flights." -By Carolyn Said with contributions by Charlie Goodyear and Steve Rubenstein -SFGate.com
20040112
- - - - - "In first visit by outsiders in a year, U.S. experts tour Korea nuclear site." ... "North Korea declared Saturday that it had shown what it called a "nuclear deterrent" to the unofficial delegation, but officials familiar with their visit to the North's main nuclear site said they had seen the facilities to produce bomb fuel rather than an actual weapon." ... "The members of the delegation declined to give a description of the facilities they inspected until they had a chance to brief the Bush administration. But officials who have received sketchy reports say the tour was clearly intended to signal to the United States that President George W. Bush's efforts to dissuade North Korea from moving forward with its nuclear program had failed, and that officials in Washington should accept that North Korea is an undeclared nuclear power, much as it accepts that Pakistan and Israel are nuclear-weapons nations." -AP, -Reuters, & -NYTimes via -IHT.com
- "Liberal candidates are barred in Iran: Khatami vows to fight 'senseless' ruling." ... "Dozens of reformist lawmakers held a sit-in protest at the Parliament building Sunday after a watchdog group barred thousands of liberal candidates — including more than 80 members of the current Parliament — from running in parliamentary elections next month." ... "The Guardian Council disqualified nearly half of 8,200 candidates who had registered to run for 290 seats in the elections on Feb. 20." ... "The supreme religious leader [Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei] appoints six members of the Guardian Council and six other members are appointed by the judiciary. The head of the judiciary is also appointed by Khamenei. The council is responsible for vetting electoral candidates and approving laws to make sure they are compatible with Islamic law and the constitution." -By Nazila Fathi -NYTimes via -IHT.com
20040111
- - ELECTION 2004 - Des-Moines - QC - Davenport - "Des Moines Register Endorses Edwards." ... "Iowa's largest newspaper endorsed North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for the Democratic presidential nomination while three other Iowa newspapers went for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in weekend editions[.]" ... "The Des Moines Register backed Edwards and called him a cut above several well-qualified candidates despite the fact that he doesn't have as much experience as other Democrats." ... "The Quad-City Times in Davenport, the Iowa City Press-Citizen and the Hawk Eye in Burlington endorsed Kerry, saying his foreign policy experience makes him the best candidate to face President Bush in the fall election." -Contributions by David Tirrell-Wysocki, Kate McDann, and Nedra Pickler -AP via -Guardian.co.uk
- - "Cuba cracks down on internet use: A new law has been passed in Cuba which will make access to the internet more difficult for Cubans." ... "Only those authorised to use the internet from home like civil servants, party officials and doctors will be able to do so on a regular phone line." ... "The bill says the state telephone company Etecsa will use technical means to detect and impede access." -BBC/News
20040109
- "U.S. Lowers National Terror Threat Level." ... "Three weeks after warning of possible attack on the United States, the U.S. government on Friday lowered the terror threat level, saying the danger over the holiday season had passed but airlines were still at risk" ... "Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the reduction in the color-coded threat level to "elevated" or "yellow" from "high" or "orange." But he said airlines, other sectors and some unspecified parts of the country would be asked to remain on a heightened state of alert to guard against possible terror attacks." (1, 2) -By Deborah Charles -Reuters
20040108
- - - "U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq." ... "The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team [the Joint Captured Matériel Exploitation Group] whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials." ... "The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March." ... "A separate military team that specializes in disposing of chemical and biological weapons remains part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which has been searching Iraq for more that seven months at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars." (1, 2) -By Douglas Jehl -NYTimes via -Google-News
- - Microsoft News - "Microsoft reaches out beyond the PC." ... "Bill Gates on Wednesday unveiled a series of initiatives to extend Microsoft's reach beyond the personal computer to deliver digital entertainment, including a portable video player and an internet-enabled wristwatch." ... "He also outlined a key piece of technology that forms an important link in Microsoft's efforts to promote its PC-centric view of home entertainment. The technology, which makes it possible to send music or video from a computer to other devices such as televisions or music players, could eventually help to turn the PC into the main engine of home entertainment." -By Richard Waters -FT.com
20040107
"Rose gambles with confession." ... "In his "coming-clean" interview with ABC's Primetime, Pete Rose tells Charles Gibson that he no longer gambles." ... "Whether one chooses to believe that or not, his admission he bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds is a huge gamble in itself." ... "Rose and Major League Baseball say there is no deal in place assuring the banished superstar reinstatement if he makes a public confession. "I can be sitting out on a limb for the next 20 years," he told Primetime." -By Mike Dodd -USATODAY
- - - - "Music Pirates Going Clean." ... "For whatever reason, the number of Internet users who download music free of charge took a dive over just six months last year." ... "A couple of things happened that may explain the decline." ... "Last September, the Recording Industry Association of America began suing individuals for downloading music files -more than 340 cases so far. That might have pricked the conscience of many digital freeloaders, or at least scared them off." ... "The other change was Apple Computer's promotion of its iPod listening device and iTunes website, which allows many popular songs to be downloaded for 99 cents each. Other websites, including the one that once offered free downloading, Napster, also began to offer paid service." -CSMonitor
20040106
- - - - "The recording industry gets silly." ... "Just before the holidays, a United States appeals court ruled against the recording industry, which had been trying to wrest the names of suspected pirates from Internet Service Providers. The court said that the industry's strong-arm tactic "borders upon the silly." No joke." ... "This in important step to preserving privacy amid the hysteria over piracy. The ruckus started when the Recording Industry Association of America attempted to force Verizon, one of the country's largest Internet Service Providers, to turn over the names of subscribers suspected of swapping pirated tunes. The new ruling reverses an earlier decision that allowed the RIAA to subpoena companies such as Verizon to get user names." -By David Kushner -RollingStone.com/news
- Egypt - Water - "Crews Find 'Black Box' From Egypt Plane Crash, Says Item Is Too Deep for Immediate Retrieval." ... "[French] Rear Adm. Jacques Mazars told reporters at the popular resort [city of Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt] that more advanced equipment was needed to retrieve the box, which was believed to be 1,970 to 2,620 feet below the sea's surface." ... "A robot submarine sent by the French can operate no deeper than 1,320 feet. The seabed in the area drops at one point to about 3,300 feet." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- - "Labor Dept. offers ways not to pay overtime: While touting the benefits of new overtime rules for poor workers, the Labor Department offers pointers on how to avoid paying the extra wages." ... "The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year." ... "Among the options for employers: cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible." -By Leigh Strope -AP via-Miami/Herald
"Taking us all to Mars." ... "The slightest variable might have doomed Spirit, but its landing in the Gusev Crater, believed to be a dried lake bed, was just about perfect, with no winds taking the equipment off course, no boulders waiting to smash it, no small craters there to entrap it, and with a violent dust storm luckily on the other side of the planet." -Boston/Globe via -IHT.com
20040105
- Osama bin Laden - "CIA: Voice on tape "likely" bin Laden's: Early analysis indicates al-Qaida leader is alive." ... "CIA analysts have concluded that the voice on an audiotape sent to an Arab television network is "likely" that of Osama bin Laden, sources told NBC News on Monday. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told an interviewer that it is safe to assume that the fugitive al-Qaida leader is alive." ... "If authenticated, the tape would appear to indicate that bin Laden was alive at least as late as last month, because itÂ includes references to the capture of topped [sic] Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein." -Contributed to by Tammy Kupperman, Mike Brunker and the -AP via -MSNBC
- - - - - - "U.S. today starts digital inventory of foreign visitors." ... "The system — United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, or US-VISIT — will be formally inaugurated today at 113 airports and 14 seaports." ... "Critics note the program has a giant loophole because it doesn't apply to citizens of 27 countries where a U.S. visa is not needed for entry — mostly Western European nations, plus Canada, Australia and Japan. (A complete list and more detailed information on US-VISIT are available on the Internet at www.dhs.gov/us-visit.)" -LAtimesand New York Daily News via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
20040104
- - - "FBI Checked Las Vegas Hotel Lists in Terror Alert." ... "The FBI demanded Las Vegas hotels turn over their guest lists leading up to New Year's Eve to check against a U.S. master list of suspected terrorists, a law enforcement official said on Sunday." ... "The demand for "patron information" went to all major hotels in the Nevada casino and entertainment city, said the official who declined to be named." -By Jim Wolf -Reuters via -Wired
Egypt - "148 die as plane crashes in Red Sea: Terrorism discounted; mechanical failure cited." ... "An Egyptian charter plane carrying French tourists plunged into the Red Sea yesterday, killing all 148 people on board, in a crash officials in Cairo attributed to a mechanical failure." ... "The Boeing 737 took off from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheik at 5 a.m. in clear weather and went down a few minutes later. Egyptian officials said the pilot tried to turn the plane around when he sensed something was wrong but did not send a distress signal." -By Dan Ephron -Boston/Globe
"U.S. Rover Lands on Mars After Daring Plunge." ... "The U.S. spacecraft carrying a robotic explorer designed to search for signs of life on Mars arrived safely on Saturday, capping seven months of space travel and "six minutes of hell" while plunging through the Martian atmosphere." ... "A lander carrying the Spirit rover made what NASA officials called a textbook touch-down in a huge impact crater, bouncing and rolling across the bleak landscape while cushioned by giant airbags." -By Dan Whitcomb and Gina Keating -Reuters via -Reuters.co.uk
20040102
- - - - "Evidence found of Siberian hunters living 30,000 years ago." ... "A people who may have been ancestors of the first Americans lived in Arctic Siberia, enduring one of the most unforgiving environments on Earth at the height of the Ice Age, according to researchers who discovered the oldest evidence yet of the ancient hunters." ... "Russian scientists uncovered a 30,000-year-old site where the hunters lived on the Yana River in Siberia, some 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and not far from the Bering land bridge that then connected Asia with North America." -By Paul Recer -AP via -StarTribune.com
20040101
- - "U.S. plans boost in security during Iraq troop rotation: More than 250,000 to be flown in and out over the next 4 months." ... "Even with the recent reduction in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, war planners are eyeing stepped-up air patrols and other security measures to safely rotate fresh troops into the country early next year out of fear the massive turnover will give guerrillas a new set of potential targets, according to defense officials." ... "More than 250,000 troops will take to the roads in convoys and be flown in and out of the country in the first four months of 2004, along with an estimated 600,000 tons of equipment, the Pentagon predicts. The movement increases the chances for a spike in attacks from insurgents armed with missiles, rockets, and roadside bombs, the officials said." -By Bryan Bender -Boston/Globe via -SFGate.com
- ELECTION 2004 - "FEC to divide $15.4 million among six presidential candidates." ... "The government will give six presidential candidates $15.4 million combined in federal matching funds on Friday, less than half of the amount it divided among presidential candidates during the same period in 2000." ... "The Federal Election Commission certified the first checks on Wednesday for those participating in the presidential public financing system in 2004. The FEC's first checks in 2000 totaled $34 million for eight candidates. In 1996, the amount was $37.4 million for 10 hopefuls." -AP via -DallasNews.com
- - ELECTION 2004 - "Democrats: Caucus poll reports risk inaccuracy: Iowa Democratic Party officials warn entrance polls could result in 'a firestorm of confusion.'" ... "The Iowa Democratic Party says the nation's largest news organizations run the risk of offering a skewed picture of the Democratic presidential candidates' performance by reporting entrance polls on caucus night." ... "Officials of the polling firm hired by the big five national news networks and the Associated Press defended their survey's validity and said it will supplement the party's official results with information about who participates Jan. 19." -By Thomas Beaumont -DesMoinesRegister/News
2003 MISCELLANY NEWS ARCHIVE

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