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HavenWorks.com/people/archive/2004 |
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- People Archive
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ARCHIVES NEWS People News History Archives People Archives 2003 Peoples Archive 2002 Peoples Archive 2001 Peoples Archive Peoples News |
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2004
ELECTION - "Unleashing
the Cheney factor: Joint 9/11 appearance with Bush
highlights debate about V.P.'s role." ... "When President Bush and Vice
President Cheney sit down together on Thursday for their long-anticipated
meeting with the 9/11 commission, it will cap a week that has, like no
other in Mr. Bush's presidency, been dominated by the White House's No.
2 man." ... "It was Mr. Cheney who used such red-meat language against
Democratic presidential contender John Kerry in a speech Monday that the
president of the host college publicly objected to "the content and tone"
of the vice president's remarks and offered Senator Kerry a similar speaking
engagement." ... "It is Cheney who is at the center of a long-anticipated
Supreme Court case, argued Tuesday, over his energy task force - and the
breadth of the zone of privacy in which the executive branch of government
may operate. Cheney has long advocated restoration of the White House's
powers to pre-Watergate levels." -By Linda Feldmann
-CSMonitor
- 
- "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
- 
- 
- 
- "Death
toll near 500 in Fallujah, Baghdad." ... "In the
first detailed accounting of Iraqi casualties in the fighting that erupted
across the country this month, officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Health
said yesterday that 264 have been killed and 791 wounded in the Fallujah
area since April 5, while in Baghdad another 235 have been killed and 832
wounded." ... "The health ministry's nationwide data also show that 12
percent of the Iraqis killed were women or children 15 years old or younger."
... "The health ministry's casualty toll for Fallujah was substantially
lower than the death counts reported since fighting broke out there at
the start of April. The data also show a nationwide death toll for April's
fighting that is much lower than the figures widely reported in the media,
some of them exceeding 1,100." -By Anne Barnard
-Boston/Globe
-
- 
- "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
-
- 
- "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
- "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
-
- 
- 
-
- "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
-
- "Russia
mulls pull-out after hostages seized." ... "Russia,
a strong critic of the U.S.-led military operation in Iraq, has confirmed
that eight of its nationals working for an energy company have been taken
hostage in Baghdad." ... "An unnamed Foreign Ministry source was quoted
on Tuesday as saying that Moscow was now considering evacuating all of
its 500 or so nationals, most of whom work in Iraq's energy and power sectors."
-By Oleg Shchedrov -Reuters
-
-
- "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
-
- 
- "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
- 
- "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
- "Calif.
Court Halts San Francisco Gay Weddings." ... "California's
Supreme Court on Thursday ordered San Francisco to halt the same-sex marriages
that have sparked a passionate nationwide debate on whether gay couples
can wed legally." ... "The decision, which will be reviewed again in May
or June, comes exactly one month after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
gave the green light to gay marriages, resulting in more than 4,000 homosexual
pairings since then." ... "In its order, the state's top court referred
to the California family code that defines marriage as a union of man and
woman and told San Francisco "to refrain from issuing marriage licenses
or certificates not authorized by such provisions."" (1, 2)
-By Adam Tanner -Reuters
Lesotho
- "Prince
Harry: Lesotho 'Needs Help'." ... "Britain's Prince
Harry, on a two-month working trip to Lesotho, said Wednesday the tiny
African kingdom needed help as it battles poverty, AIDS and a punishing
drought." ... ""It's not a place that everybody really knows about," Harry
told reporters at an orphanage about 62 miles south of the capital Maseru,
one of a series of charity projects Harry has taken on since arriving in
the landlocked country on February 13." -By By Joseph
Oesi -Reuters
-
- "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
2004
ELECTION - "Woman
denies Kerry relationship: Rumor wanes as Drudge
backs off earlier Internet report." ... "A rumor that was circulated widely
on the Internet and in the British press, purportedly linking Senator John
Kerry to a much younger woman, crumbled Monday as the wom- an issued a
strong denial and the Inter- net site that launched the report changed
its story." ... "The Massachusetts senator, who is married, denied Friday
that he had a re- lationship with the woman, later identi- fied as Alexandra
Polier, 27, a former Associated Press intern. ‘‘I just deny it categorically,’’
Kerry said." -By Brian Knowlton
-IHT.com
- "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
-
- 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
- 
- 
- 
-
- 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
- 
-
-
- "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
- 
- 
- "Freed
female prison officer 'exceptionally strong': 'They
would have killed me,' ex-hostage says." ... "The spirit of the female
corrections officer -- freed Sunday night by two inmates, who held her
for 15 days in a guard tower -- is "exceptionally strong," an Arizona official
said after the ordeal ended." ... "As the officer was being transported
to the hospital Sunday, she spoke to Gov. Janet Napolitano." ... ""She
said basically, 'Thank you for not leaving me. Thank you for not rushing
the tower. They would have killed me,' " Napolitano said."
-CNN
-
- "Prison
hostage standoff ends; guard released." ... "The
longest U.S. prison hostage standoff in decades ended Sunday when a corrections
officer was released from the guard tower where two inmates had held her
for two weeks, a Corrections Department spokeswoman said." -By
Paul Davenport -AP
via -StarTribune.com
-
-
- "About
2 Million to Use Up Jobless Benefits." ... "Nearly
2 million people are expected to exhaust their state unemployment benefits
in the first half of the year without access to more government aid or
a regular paycheck, according to a study released Thursday." ... "Congress
has refused to approve another extension of federal unemployment benefits
for people who exhaust their state aid." -By Leigh
Strope -AP
via -AJC
-
- "9/11
panel hears crew member's call: Calm voice told how
hijackers terrorized flight." ... "The tape of Betty Ong's voice yesterday,
urgent yet amazingly calm, describing through the background buzz how a
group of hijackers had stabbed two of her fellow flight attendants and
taken over the first plane that slammed in the World Trade Center, silenced
the congressional hearing room." ... ""The cockpit is not answering the
phone. Someone's coming. Another one got stabbed. Our first class gal's
stabbed, our purser has been stabbed. We can't get inside the cockpit,"
Ong, 45, who lived in Andover, told an American reservations specialist
in a call from the rear phone aboard American Airlines Flight 11." -By
Laura Sullivan -BaltimoreSun
via -Boston/Globe
-
-
- 
-
- ELECTION
2004 - "Many
see Bush immigration proposals as non-starter." ...
"President Bush dived into a heated political debate on Wednesday by proposing
to create a class of legal "guest workers" in the United States, but analysts
said it was doubtful the blueprint could gain congressional approval in
this election year." ... "In a carefully balanced speech, Bush proposed
giving some of the estimated 8 million to 14 million illegal immigrants
in the country a way to gain three-year temporary work permits, but offered
them no clear path to becoming U.S. citizens." ... "The proposal seemed
calculated to win Bush Hispanic support ahead of the November presidential
election while pleasing employers looking for workers to fill mainly manual,
agricultural or low paid service jobs." -By Alan Elsner
-Reuters via -Forbes
- "9/11
Memorial Design Selected: Victims' Families, Others
Criticize Reflecting Pool Plan as Unfitting." ... "An elemental twinning
of submerged pools titled "Reflecting Absence" was announced Tuesday as
the design for the World Trade Center memorial. The choice follows an eight-month
international competition -- and intense criticism." ... "Created by city
designer Michael Arad, "Reflecting Absence" took perhaps the simplest and
most minimal approach of the eight design finalists, chosen from more than
5,200 submissions. Arad, an Israeli native who works for the New York City
housing authority and had previously designed two police precinct houses,
would situate his reflecting pools 30 feet below street level, in a large,
open plaza. The pools would be fed by water cascading down the walls that
enclose them." (1, 2)
-By Michael Powell -WashingtonPost
-
-
- "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
