Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery
Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery
05:10 PM CDT on Friday, June 23, 2006
Bill Capo / WWL-TV Eyewitness News Reporter
Two leaders of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights who have spent the last 18-months helping victims of last year’s Tsunami took a walk through the Lower Ninth Ward Friday.
Their reaction was one of shock, because they said they expected to see more signs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
“We think of America as being this fabulous, powerful superpower, and it’s exactly like Third World situations,” said Tom Kerr.
“In my personal opinion, I think you should have done much, much faster. It should be much better than what I have seen today,” said Samsook Boonyabancha.
For months, they have been exchanging emails on the recovery process with the New Orleans based National Policy and Advisory Council on Homelessness. Friday, they got to see Katrina’s devastation first hand, and heard residents talk about the long, hard road to recovery.
"The fact that the relief and the support for people who live here is so minimal even though there is so much money in this country, it's really shocking," said Kerr.
Their conclusion: hurricane victims face far more red tape from government and private industry than do the survivors of the tsunami.
"We just sit together and we decide what we like to do together, and we find funding supporting the people, then we start to do it right away. It is much easier that way. Here your lives depend on the government’s plan, depends on the insurance company, and you keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting," said Boonyabancha.
Later this summer, a group from New Orleans east and the Lower Ninth Ward will travel to Indonesia to see what they can learn about the recovery efforts from the tsunami in some of the world's poorest countries.
"So I think it is important that we look at those models, what's happened in Asia, and try to take those lessons of self help, mutual aid and volunteerism, and how that might apply back to New Orleans," said Brad Paul, with the National Council on Homelessness.
BAGHDAD, June 15 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office on Thursday accepted the resignation of an aide who had told a reporter that Maliki was considering a limited amnesty that would likely include guerrillas who had attacked U.S. troops, the aide said."
Significantly, 42% said that the people of our own country were worse off, with 26% saying better off and 31% 'the same.' Gallup called this 'a decidedly negative tilt in attitudes about the impact of the war on the home front.' While in this category, as in all others, Republicans had a more positive view, still only 48% would say that Americans were 'better off' because of the war.
Other results were more positive but still very much 'ambiguous,' as Gallup put it, with none of the views representing a majority.
For example, 48% said they felt the Iraqi people were better off today because of the war -- but the exact same number said they were no better off (19%) or worse off (29%)."
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions more than 150 times last summer when he was questioned about trading abuses on the exchange floor, according to a transcript of his testimony."
Okay, the human toll: U.S. military dead in Iraq, including suicides, 2,488; U.S. military amputeed, wounded, injured, mentally ill, all now out of Iraq, 58,950; Iraqi civilians dead, 126,990. "
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/12/06) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Pentagon and Congress to investigate a music video posted on the Internet that seems to show U.S. Marines cheering a song that glorifies the killing of Iraqi civilians.
CAIR said the four-minute video, called 'hadji girl,' purports to be a 'marine in iraq singing a song about hadji.' (A 'Hajji' is a person who has made the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, but the term has often been used as a pejorative by U.S. troops in Iraq.) The song, posted online in March, tells of a U.S. Marine's encounter with an Iraqi woman. It has been viewed by almost 50,000 people.
The song's lyrics include: 'I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me. As the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally. . .I blew those little f**kers to eternity . . .They should have known they were f**king with the Marines.' Members of the audience, not shown in the video, laughed and cheered wildly for these lyrics."
US military deaths in Iraq at 2,500 - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S. and allied forces locked in a struggle with a resilient insurgency. ADVERTISEMENT
In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein. Of the 2,500 deaths, the Pentagon said, 1,972 have come in combat and 528 in noncombat circumstances such as vehicle accidents or suicides.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed with some estimates of the toll reaching close to 40,000. Sectarian violence surged after February's bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, with hundreds of people killed every month in Baghdad alone."
When President Bush ordered Moazzam Begg's release last year from the Guantánamo prison camp, United States officials say, he did so over objections from the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. — all of which warned that Mr. Begg could still be a dangerous terrorist.
But American officials may not have imagined the sort of adversary Mr. Begg would become in the war of perception that is now a primary front in the American-led campaign against terrorism.
'The issue here is: Apply the law,' Mr. Begg told an audience earlier this spring at the Oxford Literary Festival in England, one of many stops on a continuing lecture tour. 'If I've committed a crime, we say, take this to court. After all of that, if they can't produce something in court, then shame on them!'"
U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Judicial Watch Obtains Documents from Army Related..."
U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Judicial Watch Obtains Documents from Army Related...": "WASHINGTON, June 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the Department of the Army, per order of U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, has released to Judicial Watch approximately 100 pages of documents which detail the multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract awarded in 2003 by the Army to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. One document uncovered by Judicial Watch suggests the United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President's office in awarding the contract.
In an email dated April 22, 2003, Carol Sanders of the USACE, writes, 'Mr. Robert Andersen, Chief Counsel, USACE, participated in a 60 Minutes interview today in New York regarding the sole source award of the oil response contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root….Mr. Andersen…was able to make many of the points we had planned.' Sanders subsequently provided sound bites from the interview, including, 'There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office).'
This directly contradicts another email uncovered by Judicial Watch in 2004. The email, dated March 5, 2003, sent by an official of the Army Corps of Engineers whose name was redacted, stated, 'We anticipate no issue (with the KBR deal) since the action has been coordinated w VP's office.'"
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Television audience tracker Nielsen Media Research on Wednesday unveiled wide ranging plans to expand its coverage to the Internet, mobile phones and other gadgets as it adapts to rapidly changing ways people view TV programs."
WASHINGTON, June 14 — Michael Gerson, the White House speechwriter and policy adviser who shaped nearly every major address of George W. Bush's presidency, said Wednesday that he was leaving the administration to pursue new career options.
Mr. Gerson has been one of Mr. Bush's closest aides and is credited with giving voice to both the 'compassionate conservatism' that Mr. Bush espouses and his more hawkish lines, like 'axis of evil.'
Mr. Gerson follows two other close Bush advisers who have left in recent weeks: Andrew H. Card Jr., the former White House chief of staff, and Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary."
A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.
The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.
This is the first time a federal judge has addressed the issue of discrimination in the treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks and held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported. The roundups drew intense criticism, not only from immigrant rights advocates, but also from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations. Lawyers in the suit, who vowed to appeal yesterday's decision, said parts of the ruling could potentially be used far more broadly, to detain any noncitizen in the United States for any reason.
'This decision is a green light to racial profiling and prolonged detention of noncitizens at the whim of the president,' said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the det"
A retired U.S. Army general Sunday called the suicides of three detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay an 'act of political warfare.' Speaking on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey said Guantanamo has become a political problem for the United States. 'I don't know how we get out of this,' said McCaffrey. 'Some of these people are extremely dangerous. This was an act of political warfare by the three people that committed suicide, the same as a suicide bomber in downtown Baghdad.' "
When I hear U.S. officials describe the suicides of three Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday as 'asymmetric warfare' and 'a good PR move,' I know it's time to close that camp -- not just because of what it's doing to the prisoners but because of how it is dehumanizing the American captors."
Iraq in Civil War for 82% of Americans: Angus Reid Consultants
Iraq in Civil War for 82% of Americans: Angus Reid Consultants: "(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the United States believe Iraq is still going through a period of enormous instability, according to a poll by CBS News. 82 per cent of respondents believe there is a civil war going on in the country among different groups.
The survey was conducted after Jun. 8, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—regarded as al-Qaeda’s top commander in Iraq—was killed in an air strike. In February, suspected insurgents placed two bombs inside Samarra’s Shiite Golden Mosque. The event led to weeks of sectarian violence in Iraq.
The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 2,497 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 18,400 troops have been wounded in action."
Its image has not recovered in Western European countries, the US-based Pew Research Center found.
In none of the 16 countries surveyed, the US included, does a majority of the public think the war leading to Saddam Hussein's removal made the world safer."
"...Galati said declarations of their guilt by politicians and some media had made a fair trial all but impossible.
'Discredited is the notion that the authorities are intent on conducting a fair criminal trial with an impartial process,' Galati said.
'Discredited is also the notion that this anything but a show trial for political ends, to manufacture denial of bail, to ensure a fair trial does not occur and to influence the vote in the House of Commons on extending the anti-terrorism provision and to influence the Supreme Court of Canada in its constitutional review of anti-terrorism provisions.'"
"'All these actions by police and politicians are completely unheard of in a real criminal case,' Mr. Galati said. Typically, he said, officials decline to comment on a case that is before a court.
'Discredited is the notion that this is anything but a show trial for political ends,' he said.
He said the accusations that the group had acquired explosive materials to attack Parliament and other unidentified targets in southern Ontario were intended to influence a Supreme Court case challenging the country's antiterror law adopted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States. In addition, he said it was to influence Parliament's decision on whether to renew the act, which will probably happen in the fall."
'We want to work for justice, but that can only happen by having a fair trial and, under the current circumstances, that doesn't seem possible,' Mr Doebbler said.
He added that it took the prosecution more than five months to present its case, while the defence is being 'rushed' to conclude within weeks.
'Our witnesses have been intimidated by the court and have been assaulted,' Mr Doebbler added.
Intimidation
The accused were all present at the court when the session got under way, relayed as usual to the outside world via video link with a short delay.
Saddam Hussein could face the death penalty if convicted
However, Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti was ordered out of the courtroom after repeatedly interrupting the chief judge, Rauf Abdel Rahman.
He accused the judge of being a "dictator" who had made two of his former bodyguards "frightened to testify".
"You are the frightening one," the judge retorted, before ordering him to be thrown out.
The defendant struggled with guards, who pushed him into a wall as he tried to free arms from their grip.
"They are beating him in front of your eyes, right at the door," defence lawyer Muhammad Munib shouted at the judge.
"How can we ask you to protect the defendant when they beat him right in front of you?"
LONDON (Reuters) - Europeans seized on the suicides of Guantanamo prisoners as more proof the U.S. camp should be closed, and a top U.S. official on Monday disowned a colleague's comment that the deaths were a 'good PR move.' ADVERTISEMENT
Two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets in their cells on Saturday, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo since the United States began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives there in 2002."
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Sen. Joe Simitian is trying a new tactic in his year-and-a-half-long campaign to control the use of tracking devices in government-issued identification cards.
Bills by the Palo Alto Democrat that would bar the use of radio-frequency identification devices in driver's licenses and school identification cards are up Tuesday in the Assembly Judiciary Committee."
The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists.
For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the 'U.S. Home Audience' as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.
Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist. Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain 'a very small part of the actual numbers,' Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.
In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, 'Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways.'
'The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types "
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A 'stench of despair' hangs over the Guantanamo Bay prison where three detainees committed suicide this weekend, a defense lawyer who recently visited the U.S. jail in Cuba said as calls increased Sunday to close the facility. ADVERTISEMENT
No other detainees had tried to commit suicide since U.S. military guards found two Saudis and one Yemeni prisoner hanging by nooses made from sheets and clothing early Saturday, Army Lt. Col. Lora Tucker told The Associated Press on Sunday.
While U.S. officials argue the suicides were political acts aimed at hurting American standing in the world, human rights activists and former detainees say prisoners are desperate after years in captivity and view suicide as the only way out even though Islam forbids it.
A European official urged that the widely criticized prison be closed, and two senior U.S. senators expressed concern that most of the prisoners have not been charged with any crimes. A Saudi Arabian human rights group called for an outside investigation of the deaths."
ScienCentral Video News: Super Battery: "But capacitors contain energy as an electric field of charged particles created by two metal electrodes. Capacitors charge faster and last longer than normal batteries. The problem is that storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery's electrodes, so even today's most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard chemical batteries.
The researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with millions of tiny filaments called nanotubes. Each nanotube is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. Similar to how a thick, fuzzy bath towel soaks up more water than a thin, flat bed sheet, the nanotube filaments on increase the surface area of the electrodes and allow the capacitor to store more energy. Schindall says this combines the strength of today's batteries with the longevity and speed of capacitors.
'It could be recharged many, many times perhaps hundreds of thousands of times, and ... it could be recharged very quickly, just in a matter of seconds rather than a matter of hours,' he says.
This technology has broad practical possibilities, affecting any device that requires a battery. Schindall says, 'Small devices such as hearing aids that could be more quickly recharged where the batteries wouldn't wear out; up to larger devices such as automobiles where you could regeneratively re-use the energy of motion and therefore improve the energy efficiency and fuel economy.'
Schindall thinks hybrid cars would be a particularly popular application for these batteries, especially because current hybrid batteries are expensive to replace."
A polling rematch of the 2004 Presidential Election shows that John Kerry leads George W. Bush 48% to 41% (see crosstabs). In the real election, Kerry never held a lead that big in any of the nightly polls we conducted from January 2 through Election Day.
This latest poll is another indication of how much support has fallen for the President since his re-election. The number of voters who call themselves Republicans is also down since Election Day 2004."
"As they dragged the wounded man (Zarqawi) from the ruins of the house, an ambulance and Iraqi forces turned up, taking the total number of people at the scene to about 14. The men had barely finished placing him in the ambulance when seven US helicopters landed by the house and four Humvees rumbled through the dust.
“They were shouting and screaming and in a very tense and agitated mood,” said Abbas. “They lined us up in a ditch and told us to turn our faces. We thought they were going to execute us. I started reciting koranic verses to myself.” The soldiers then took the wounded man from the back of the ambulance, placing his stretcher on the ground.
“The Americans tore his dishdasha and they kept on asking him through an interpreter, ‘What is your name, what is your name?’,” said Abbas. “They were tearing his dishdasha, not to wrap his head with it as they did later but because they were afraid he might be wearing a suicide belt. They kept shouting, ‘Keep your distance, he may be wearing a suicide belt’.”
He was not. “Under the dishdasha he was wearing only knee-length white undershorts,” said Abbas.
Once the soldiers had established the man was not a threat, they started to kick him in the chest, said Abbas and an Iraqi policeman also there. “They kept kicking him, shouting, ‘What’s your name?’, but the man only moaned and said nothing,” said Abbas.
As the small crowd of Iraqis looked on, the wounded man grew paler and blood oozed from his mouth and nose. It took about a quarter of an hour for him to die from the time when he was removed from the ambulance, Abbas estimated."
The London-based Sunday Times today quoted an eyewitness as saying he saw American soldiers take Zarqawi from an ambulance, tear his robe to check for explosives, then kick him repeatedly in the chest while demanding his name.
The soldiers were ``shouting and screaming and in a very tense and agitated mood,'' Ali Abbas, a 25-year-old laborer who was one of the first at the scene and had helped pull Zarqawi from the rubble of the house, told the Sunday Times.
``They kept kicking him with their boots, shouting `what's your name?', but the man only moaned and said nothing,'' Abbas told the newspaper. He estimated it took a quarter of an hour for Zarqawi to die from when he was removed from the ambulance.
Abbas recognized the injured man as Zarqawi when he saw pictures of the dead man on television, the Sunday Times said."
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Security Agency's domestic spying program faces its first legal challenge in a case that could decide if the White House is allowed to order eavesdropping without a court order.
Oral arguments are set for Monday at U.S. District Court in Detroit at which the American Civil Liberties Union will ask Judge Anna Diggs Taylor to declare the spying unconstitutional and order it halted."
BAGHDAD — Fears of an imminent offensive by the U.S. troops massed around the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi intensified Saturday, with residents pouring out of the city to escape what they describe as a mounting humanitarian crisis.
The image pieced together from interviews with tribal leaders and fleeing families in recent weeks is one of a desperate population of 400,000 people trapped in the crossfire between insurgents and U.S. forces. Food and medical supplies are running low, prices for gas have soared because of shortages and municipal services have ground to a stop."
Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho doesn't mind letting the state know when he's testing voting machines, but he doesn't think the Secretary of State's office should tell him how - or whether - he can do it.
Sancho said he will attend a public hearing in the R.A. Gray Building at 1:30 p.m. Monday to discuss a pending rule change. He said the new rule would require a representative of the Department of State to be present whenever a county runs a test on voting machines.
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'I don't, for the life of me, understand why they want to do something like this,' Sancho said Saturday. 'I have no problem with notifying them, but I don't think I need their approval.'
Sancho has had long-running disputes with big national companies that make elections equipment. He contends that county elections offices should be allowed to test their balloting machinery anytime they think there might be bugs."
Zarqawi: Skimpy clothes found: "Hibhib - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was accompanied by women who wore skimpy clothes and read magazines on current affairs and militant propaganda, an inspection of the house he was killed in showed on Saturday.
The remains of Zarqawi's isolated 'safe house' also suggested that the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq and his companions - which an Iraqi army officer said included two women and an eight-year-old girl - lived with few luxuries."
.... The US military had said the air strike killed a total of six people, three males and three females.
Gathering Highlights Power of the Blog - New York Times
Gathering Highlights Power of the Blog - New York Times: "They may think of themselves as rebels, separate from mainstream politics and media. But by the end of a day on which the convention halls were shoulder to shoulder with bloggers, Democratic operatives, candidates and Washington reporters, it seemed that bloggers were well on the way to becoming — dare we say it? — part of the American political establishment. Indeed, the convention, the first of what organizers said would become an annual event, seems on the way to becoming as much a part of the Democratic political circuit as the Iowa State Fair."
OTTAWA, June 9 (Reuters) - Canada's government and main opposition party united on Friday to condemn 'completely uninformed and ignorant remarks' by a U.S. member of Congress who said Canada was a breeding ground for terrorists.
Last week police in and around Toronto arrested 17 Muslim men, five of whom are under the age of 18. Several of them are charged with plotting bombings in major Canadian cities and training militants.
John Hostettler, chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on immigration and border security, said on Thursday that Canada 'hosts an abundance of terrorists and as many as 50 terrorist organizations'."
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he was involved in an illegal scheme to hire political allies for merit-based state jobs.
Fletcher, the first Republican to lead Kentucky in more than three decades, entered the pleas through a lawyer in Franklin County District Court in Frankfort, court officials said.
He was indicted last month by a grand jury on three misdemeanor counts -- official misconduct, which carries a possible one-year sentence, and conspiracy and violating a prohibition against political discrimination, which each carry six-month penalties.
While two of the three charges also stipulate removal from state office upon conviction, most legal observers say that would not likely apply to the governor, whose removal is subject to impeachment proceedings spelled out in the state constitution."
JERUSALEM, June 10 — Hamas fired at least 15 Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel today, ending a tattered 15-month truce with Israel, a day after seven Palestinians were killed on a Gaza beach by an Israeli shell."
Graduates Get an Earful, From Left, Right and Center - New York Times
Graduates Get an Earful, From Left, Right and Center - New York Times: "'It makes you think of what Jay Leno said when this administration's forces in the Iraq war were drafting a constitution,' Ms. Aron said. 'He said, 'Give them ours. It was written by a lot of smart guys, worked well for 200 years — and we're not using it any more.' '"
Wounds Salved, Clinton Returns to Health Care - New York Times
Wounds Salved, Clinton Returns to Health Care - New York Times: "Today, her plans to expand coverage are tempered and incremental. Her first major goal appears to be universal health coverage for children, which she hopes to advance by expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or Schip, an existing federal program up for review in 2007.
'I have to do what the political reality permits me to do,' Mrs. Clinton said in a recent interview. She said that covering everyone remained her ultimate goal, but that Democrats would be fighting 'a lot of rear-guard actions' as long as Republicans controlled Congress."
Court backs government broadband wiretap access - Yahoo! News
Court backs government broadband wiretap access - Yahoo! News: "But the chief author of the 1994 wiretapping law, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), criticized the court's decision, saying Congress had deliberately excluded the Internet when it wrote the wiretap law.
'The court's expansion of (the wiretapping law) to cover the Internet is troubling, and it is not what Congress intended,' Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said in a statement.
The ruling comes at a time when some lawmakers have voiced concern that the Bush administration's communications surveillance program violates civil liberties."
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) - Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega told regional observers on Friday the U.S. and Nicaraguan governments were working together to try to disqualify him from November's presidential election.
Ortega, a former president and leader of Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista revolution, is seeking to return to power and has clashed in recent months with the U.S. envoy and the country's main right-wing parties.
'We see a coordinated action between the United States government and the government of President (Enrique) Bolanos, both of whom want to disqualify the Sandinistas,' Ortega said after a meeting with Organization of American States observers."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.
The $94.5 billion emergency spending bill, which includes $65.8 billion to continue waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to be approved by Congress next week and sent to President George W. Bush for signing into law."
Wired News: The Great No-ID Airport Challenge: "Harper told the identification checker he had no ID, and the attendant quickly wrote 'No ID' with a red marker on his ticket and shunted him off to an extra screening line -- generously allowing him to bypass the longer queue of card-carrying passengers.
There Harper was directed into the belly of a General Electric EntryScan puffer machine that shot bits of air at his suit in order to see if he had been handling explosives.
TSA employees wearing baby blue surgical gloves then swiped his Sidekick and his laptop for traces of explosives and searched through his carry-on, while a supervisor took his ticket, conferred with other employees and made a phone call.
Meanwhile, a TSA employee approached this reporter, who was watching the search through Plexiglas, and said, 'It's pretty awkward you are standing here taking notes,' but he did not ask for identification or call for a halt to the note-taking.
The TSA supervisor returned from her phone call and asked Harper why he didn't have identification and to where he was traveling. But she was satisfied enough with his answer -- that he had mailed his driver's license home to Washington D.C. -- that she allowed him to pass."
China has lifted its online blockade of Google.com after a two-week crackdown that had prevented direct access to the site and temporarily thwarted popular workarounds, a media watchdog group reported Friday."
SIGNS of slower economic growth, paradoxically, would normally have been welcome news this week, bolstering the idea that the Federal Reserve would stop tightening the money supply and raising interest rates. But when signs of slow growth were accompanied by evidence of accelerating inflation, it was hard to see a bright side.
With the stock market falling, the deal-making machinery on Wall Street fell silent. There were a couple of takeovers involving foreign companies, both with significant interests in the United States.
FIRST THINGS FIRST Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and almost every other Fed member were meticulously on message: Make no mistake this time, rates are going up."
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Bloomberg News) — Comcast, Vonage and other companies that provide telecommunications services over the Internet must allow wiretapping of phone calls by law enforcement officials, a federal appeals court ruled Friday."
9/11 commissioner criticizes Coulter - Yahoo! News: "Former Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., a member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, called Coulter's 'hate-filled attack on the patriotic heroes of 9/12 — the widows of 9/11 — reprehensible and undignified.'
Roemer urged people not to buy her book. 'Americans shouldn't contribute to her profiting from these vicious remarks.'
Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill., said Thursday on the House floor that Coulter is a 'hatemonger' and called on Republicans to denounce her: 'I must ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Does Ann Coulter speak for you when she suggests poisoning not Supreme Court Justices or slanders the 9/11 ... widows? If not, speak now. Your silence allows her to be your spokesman.'
Among Coulter's previous statements, she advocated the invasion of non-Christian nations after Sept. 11 and the deportation from the U.S. of 'all aliens from Arabic countries.' She said American Taliban John Walker should be executed to show liberals what happens to traitors. And she said the only real question about President Clinton was 'whether to impeach or assassinate.'"
WASHINGTON - A member of the Sept. 11 commission on Friday lashed out at conservative pundit Ann Coulter for a 'hate-filled attack' in saying the widows whose husbands died in the World Trade Center used the deaths for their own political gain."
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Former Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., a member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, called Coulter's "hate-filled attack on the patriotic heroes of 9/12 — the widows of 9/11 — reprehensible and undignified."
Roemer urged people not to buy her book. "Americans shouldn't contribute to her profiting from these vicious remarks."
Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill., said Thursday on the House floor that Coulter is a "hatemonger" and called on Republicans to denounce her: "I must ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Does Ann Coulter speak for you when she suggests poisoning not Supreme Court Justices or slanders the 9/11 ... widows? If not, speak now. Your silence allows her to be your spokesman."
Among Coulter's previous statements, she advocated the invasion of non-Christian nations after Sept. 11 and the deportation from the U.S. of "all aliens from Arabic countries." She said American Taliban John Walker should be executed to show liberals what happens to traitors. And she said the only real question about
_"To expiate the pain of losing her first-born son in the
" type="hidden"> SEARCH News | News Photos | Images | Web" type="hidden"> Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush's Crawford ranch. ... After your third profile on 'Entertainment Tonight,' you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show," Coulter wrote in her TownHall.com column on Aug. 18, 2005.
_"Even if corners were cut, (
" type="hidden"> SEARCH News | News Photos | Images | Web" type="hidden"> Iran-Contra) was a brilliant scheme. There is no possibility that anyone in any Democratic administration would have gone to such lengths to fund anti-communist forces. When Democrats scheme from the White House, it's to cover up the president's affair with an intern. When Republicans scheme, it's to support embattled anti-communist freedom fighters sold out by the Democrats," she wrote in 2003's "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism."
_"My only regret with
" type="hidden"> SEARCH News | News Photos | Images | Web" type="hidden"> Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building," The New York Observer quoted her as saying on Aug. 20, 2002. She clarified those remarks with RightWingNews.com: "Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'"
_"After all other suitable office space in Manhattan had dried up — and also after spending the weekend golfing at an all-white club in Florida — Clinton announced he would take an office in Harlem. ... As one of my friends remarked, that should be nice: Having escaped a mugging on the way to work, Clinton's female employees will then have to face an accused rapist in the office," Coulter wrote on Feb. 19, 2001.
_"(Liberals) are always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. ... Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment," Coulter said during an Oct. 21, 2005, speech at the University of Florida.
_"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war," Coulter wrote in a column published by the National Review Online on Sept. 13, 2001.
_"The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't cowering in fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis," she wrote in "Treason."
_"Mostly the Witches of East Brunswick wanted
" type="hidden"> SEARCH News | News Photos | Images | Web" type="hidden"> George Bush to apologize for not being Bill Clinton," she wrote in "Godless." She was referring to the New Jersey town where two of the Sept. 11 widows live.
_"We need somebody to put rat poison in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said in a Jan. 27 appearance at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., regarding Supreme Court Justice
" type="hidden"> SEARCH News | News Photos | Images | Web" type="hidden"> John Paul Stevens. She later explained she was joking about the justice, whose votes have upheld Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion.
_"You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard," she said in The Washington Post on October 16, 1998.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday took a symbolic jab at Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of fueling religious extremism and violence, as it passed a $21.3 billion foreign aid bill. ADVERTISEMENT
The bill for next fiscal year, which is $600 million above the current level but $2.4 billion less than President George W. Bush sought, cleared the House easily on a 373-34 vote. The Senate has not yet taken up its version of the bill.
Decrying Saudi Arabia for teaching intolerance and financing terrorism, lawmakers voted 312-97 to cut the $420,000 the oil-rich kingdom receives to participate in U.S.-backed military and counter-terrorism training.
'I hope my colleagues send a strong signal symbolically that enough is enough,' said Rep. Joseph Crowley (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat."
DeLay Bids the House a Torrid Goodbye - New York Times
DeLay Bids the House a Torrid Goodbye - New York Times: "Leaving Congress on Friday under indictment in Texas and under a cloud in Washington for his relationships with a lobbyist and two former senior aides who have pleaded guilty to felony corruption, Mr. DeLay, the combative former Republican majority leader, was not about to distance himself from himself.
'I did a good job,' said Mr. DeLay, the linchpin of the House Republican majority for the last decade and the mastermind of a formidable political operation that melded legislating, fund-raising, conservatism and business advocacy as never before. 'I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years. The K Street project and the K Street strategy I am very proud of.'
To the Republicans he kept in power in defiance of the odds and a torrent of criticism, Mr. DeLay was a brilliant tactician, one they rewarded with standing ovations on Thursday as he took the floor one last time to deliver an ode to the bare-knuckles partisanship that has been his trademark."
: "COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A TV station and a cable network are refusing to run an ad sponsored by a liberal activist group that targets Republican U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce because of questions about material the group provided to back up the ad's claims.
The group MoveOn.org is spending $300,000 on ads targeting Pryce and other lawmakers. The ads say they accepted thousands of dollars in donations from defense contractors and then 'opposed penalties for contractors like Halliburton who overcharged the military in Iraq.'"
Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was found alive by Iraqi police and U.S. forces who arrived at the scene of the bombing raid near Baqouba, a U.S. official told FOX News on Friday.
'Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site,' Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said in a satellite interview from Iraq. 'The Iraqi police arrived first, they found him in the rubble, put him on a gurney of some type.'
Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said Zarqawi tried to roll off the gurney to escape once he became aware of the fact that he was being taken into custody by coalition troops Wednesday night after two 500-pound precision guided bombs blew up his safehouse near Baqouba."
House K.O.'s Net Neutrality: "WASHINGTON -- Legislative language to make the controversial concept of network neutrality the law of the land failed in the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday night.
In an amendment to an otherwise widely supported telecom reform act, lawmakers rejected by a vote of 269-152 a measure to require broadband providers such as AT&T and Comcast to treat all Internet traffic in a nondiscriminatory price manner.
Under the proposal by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the telecom and cable giants that control virtually every broadband connection in the United States would be unable to implement their proposed business models to create a two-tiered Internet based on bandwidth consumption."
HOUSTON, June 8 (Reuters) - A former employee of a Saudi company was indicted in Illinois for making kickbacks to a Halliburton manager to win U.S. military dining subcontracts in Iraq and Kuwait, the U.S. Attorney's Office said on Thursday.
Mohammad Shabbir Kahn was charged under the 16-count indictment with giving $133,000 to a former procurement manager at Halliburton's KBR unit, the Pentagon's largest private contractor in Iraq.
Khan, 49, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, paid the money to KBR's Stephen Seamans in 2002 and 2003 to win the subcontracts worth $21.8 million for Saudi Tamimi Global Co. to provide military dining services at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and a palace in Baghdad, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of Illinois.
Khan was arrested in Illinois on March 22 on charges of making a false statement and is being held pending trial. He faces 12 counts of wire fraud and four counts related to witness tampering and money laundering.
Seamans, 44, pleaded guilty in March to wire fraud and conspiracy for taking the kickbacks and awarding the KBR contracts to Tamimi. He is cooperating with prosecutors in the investigation.
Halliburton , formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has drawn attention for its work in Iraq from auditors and the Justice Department, which is investigating potential overcharges for fuel, dining and laundry services."
kutv.com - Concern Growing Over U.S. Troops' Ammo: "In a confidential report to Congress last year, active Marine commanders complained that: '5.56 was the most worthless round,' 'we were shooting them five times or so,' and 'torso shots were not lethal.'
In last week's Marine Corps Times, a squad leader said his Marines carried and used 'found' enemy AK-47s because that weapon's 7.62 mm bullets packed 'more stopping power.'
Bruce Jones is a mechanical engineer who helped design artillery, rifles and pistols for the Marines.
'I saw the tests that clearly showed how miserable the bullets really were in performance,' he says. 'But that's what we're arming our troops with. It's horrible, you know, it's unconscionable.'
To demonstrate to CBS News, Jones fired the larger-caliber 7.62 bullet fired by AK-47s used by insurgents in Iraq into a block of glycerin. The hole cavity is 50 percent or more larger than that of the 5.56. "
Estate Tax Showdown Is Splitting the G.O.P. - New York Times
Estate Tax Showdown Is Splitting the G.O.P. - New York Times: "But Senate leaders, vowing to schedule a vote for full repeal on Thursday, have yet to line up the 60 votes they need to prevent a Democratic filibuster. Indeed, with public approval ratings declining for Mr. Bush and the Republicans, party leaders face at least as much opposition from Democrats today as they did last summer.
In what is either a shrewd game of chicken or an effort to inflame the passions of crucial Republican constituencies, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, has made little effort to strike a compromise with conservative Democrats that would greatly reduce but not fully abolish the tax.
'Senator Frist is for full repeal, first and foremost,' a spokeswoman for Mr. Frist, Carolyn Weyforth, said. 'Until we've had the cloture vote, any talk of a compromise is premature.'
The strategy has divided Republicans. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters on Monday that the Senate could easily pass a bill that eliminated the estate tax for all but a tiny slice of the nation's richest families."
THE BLOKE who claimed that he was asked by a US elected official to build a program which would hack into electronic voting machines is standing for election.
Clint Curtis is a computer programmer who testified to Congress that he had been requested by Congressman Tom Feeney, to build software that could flip the votes in an electronic voting machine without detection.
The hack would favour the incumbent who had access to the machine.
In a letter to the INQ, Curtis said that there was more than a single Florida House seat at stake.
'Until credibility in our elections is restored, we cannot begin to forge solutions to such issues as the War in Iraq, providing healthcare for all Americans, investing in energy independence, instituting an educational system that allows teacher to teach students rather than tests, and above all, being confident that our government is being run by officials who have been elected by the people', he wrote.
He is actually running against the man he testified against, Republican Tom Feeney.
Curtis said that he wanted to make sure that elections were no longer manipulated through non-secure electronic voting machines. µ"
"A Populus opinion poll in The Times indicates that fewer than half the public believe that America is a force for good in the world, and nearly two thirds believe that Britain’s future lies more with Europe than with the US."
U.S. tax dollars tied to human trafficking, report alleges
WASHINGTON -- For the first time since Congress mandated its annual publication, a State Department report cataloging human trafficking across the globe includes allegations that American taxpayers financed such abuses.
...
Yet this year's report includes a special section on reforms the Defense Department instituted after an investigation prompted by "Pipeline to Peril," a series published by the Tribune in October that detailed human trafficking into Iraq for privatized U.S. military support operations.
Brokers and subcontractors from Asia to the Middle East have worked in concert to import thousands of laborers into Iraq from impoverished countries, often employing fraud or coercion along the way, seizing workers' passports and charging recruitment "fees" that make it difficult for workers to escape employment in the war zone.
U.S. military leaders in Iraq have acknowledged confirming widespread abuses against such workers, who are brought to Iraq to do menial labor on U.S. bases for contractors and subcontractors. Those businesses ultimately receive their checks from the U.S. government. The abuses corroborated by military investigators included violations of U.S. human-trafficking laws."
Gay-marriage amendment fails - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A constitutional ban on same-sex marriage failed to pass the Senate on Wednesday but Republican leaders planned to take it up in the House, keeping a national spotlight on the divisive issue. ADVERTISEMENT
The 49 to 48 vote basically ensures the measure won't get anywhere in the full Congress,"
SAN DIEGO, June 7 — A Republican former congressman slipped to victory in a special election here Tuesday, staving off what would have been a highly embarrassing Democratic victory in a solidly Republican district. National Republicans poured in nearly $5 million and nearly 200 campaign workers to help hold the seat for their party.
The winner, Brian P. Bilbray, defeated Francine Busby, a Democrat, in the contest to fill the seat left vacant by Representative Randy Cunningham, a Republican who resigned earlier this year after pleading guilty to corruption charges.
With 97 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Bilbray had 49 percent of the vote and Ms. Busby 45 percent, raising the prospect that he would fail to win more than half the vote in what should be one of the safest Republican districts in the country. An independent candidate running on an anti-immiration platform, William Griffith, drew just under four percent"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Republican congressman won a bitter U.S. House of Representatives race in California on Tuesday, giving President George W. Bush's Republican Party its first dose of good political news in months. ADVERTISEMENT
On a day when eight states held primaries, Republican Brian Bilbray narrowly beat back a challenge by Democrat Francine Busby in a conservative district north of San Diego. The two were vying to replace Randy Cunningham, a former Republican congressman who was imprisoned for taking bribes.
The race had been watched closely for clues about whether Bush's dismal approval ratings and issues like corruption and immigration were taking a toll on Republicans five months before elections that will decide control of Congress."
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- They are the backbone of post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction: Workers who converge at dawn and wait to be picked up for 14-hour shifts of hauling debris, ripping out drywall and nailing walls.
But because many are in the country illegally, immigrant workers rebuilding New Orleans are especially vulnerable to exploitation, according to a study released Tuesday by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.
The illegal immigrants often work in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earn far less than their legal counterparts, the study said. Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment.
Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less -- if at al"
Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota also held primaries on Tuesday to select candidates for November, when all 435 seats in the House, 33 Senate seats and 36 governorships will be up for grabs.
Democrats have been encouraged by Busby's strong showing in the solidly Republican district and believe it could be a sign of potential trouble for Bush's Republicans.
Both parties poured millions of dollars into what became a rough campaign, with the candidates battling over immigration and Busby hammering Bilbray, a former congressman, for his work as a lobbyist.
The winner will serve only to the end of Cunningham's term and, and there will be a Bilbray-Busby rematch in November.
Democrats need to pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats in November to regain control in each chamber, giving them the power to set the legislative agenda and more effectively challenge Bush.
INCUMBENTS WIN IN ALABAMA
In Alabama, Gov. Bob Riley easily vanquished a Republican primary challenge by former state chief justice Roy Moore, who had been removed from office in a dispute over a monument to the Ten Commandments.
In the Democratic primary for the right to face Riley, Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley, whose campaign slogan was "We Love Lucy," beat former Gov. Don Siegelman, who spent election day at his corruption trial.
"We have almost transformed Alabama in the last four years," Riley told cheering supporters. "Our economy is as strong as any, our test scores are up, we have a surplus and gave the first tax cut in 70 years."
Moore, whose Christian conservative campaign never caught fire in Alabama, told supporters, "When it is in the hands of God, you never lose."
Alabama voters also gave overwhelming approval to a state constitutional ban on gay marriage.
In Montana, state Senate President Jon Tester rolled to a surprisingly easy Democratic primary win over state Auditor John Morrison for the right to face embattled Republican Sen. Conrad Burns (news, bio, voting record) in November.
Burns, whose popularity has sagged after being drawn into a scandal involving disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, beat back a challenge by state Sen. Bob Keenan in the Republican primary.
California State Treasurer Phil Angelides and state Controller Steve Westly were locked in a close Democratic primary battle for the right to challenge Republican Gov.
In Iowa, Secretary of State Chet Culver won a three-way battle for the Democratic nomination to square off against Republican Rep. Jim Nussle (news, bio, voting record) for governor in November. The winner will succeed retiring Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is pondering a run for the White House.
Tom Kean Jr., son of a popular former governor, won the Republican nomination to face Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey in November.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Personal data on more than 2.2 million active-duty military personnel - not just 50,000 as initially believed - were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Tuesday.
VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel - and no other active-duty personnel - were affected by the May 3 burglary.
In fact, names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of as many as 1.1 million active-duty personnel from all the armed forces, along with 430,000 members of the National Guard, and 645,000 members of the Reserves, may have been included.
'VA remains committed to providing updates on this incident as new information is learned,' Nicholson said in a statement, explaining that it discovered the larger numbers after the VA and Pentagon compared their electronic files more closely.
His announcement came shortly after the Pentagon distributed a briefing memo to Congress - obtained by The Associated Press - that said the 50,000 figure cited over the weekend was understated.
The disclosure is the latest in a series of revisions by the government as to who was affected since publicizing the burglary on May 22. At the time, the VA said the stolen data involved up to 26.5 million veterans discharged since 1975, as well as some of their spouses."
Lieberman faces showdown over Iraq - Yahoo! News: "After years of ardent support for the Iraq war, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) could become that conflict's first big political casualty in a Democratic primary race fueled by rising anti-war anger. ADVERTISEMENT
Lieberman, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000, faces a growing challenge from a political neophyte who has rallied Democrats angered by the senator's enthusiastic backing of the war and willingness to support Republican President George W. Bush on other issues.
Challenger Ned Lamont's underdog bid to unseat Lieberman in Democratic-leaning Connecticut could offer an early gauge of the intensity of anti-war sentiment ahead of November's midterm elections, along with a measure of the influence of the Internet activists and bloggers who have flocked to his cause."
WASHINGTON, June 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency took no action after learning the pseudonym and whereabouts of the fugitive Holocaust overseer Adolf Eichmann in 1958, according to C.I.A. documents that shed new light on the spy agency's use of former Nazis as informers after World War II.
The C.I.A. was told by West German intelligence that Eichmann was living in Argentina under the name 'Clemens' — a slight variation on his actual alias, Klement — but kept the information from Israel because of German concerns about exposure of former Nazis in the Bonn government, according to Timothy Naftali, a historian who examined the documents. Two years later, Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Argentina and took him to Israel, where he was tried and executed in 1962.
The Eichmann papers are among 27,000 newly declassified pages released by the C.I.A. to the National Archives under Congressional pressure to make public files about former officials of Hitler's regime later used as American agents. The material reinforces the view that most former Nazis gave American intelligence little of value and in some cases proved to be damaging double agents for the Soviet K.G.B., according to historians and members of the government panel that has worked to open the long-secret files.
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and member of the panel, the Interagency Working Group on records concerning Nazi and Japanese war crimes, said at a press briefing at the National Archives today that the documents show the C.I.A 'failed to lift a finger' to hunt Eichmann and 'forced us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm' of relying on intelligence from ex-Nazis.
She said information from the former Nazis was often tainted both by their 'personal agendas' and their vulnerability to blackmail. "Using bad people can have very bad consequences," Ms. Holtzman said. She and other group members suggested that the findings should be a cautionary tale for intelligence agencies today."
* California - Key race is a special election to fill the U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated by Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to bribery charges. Democrats hope to pick up the seat in the Republican district north of San Diego and start a trend that will allow them to take over the House in the November elections. Democrat Francine Busby, who lost badly to Cunningham in 2004, was running even with Republican former Rep. Brian Bilbray.
Democrats are also choosing between state Treasurer Phil Angelides and state Controller Steve Westly to challenge Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, who has been battered in the polls but may be bouncing back.
* Alabama - Both parties have contested races for governor with some of the most colorful candidates on the ballot anywhere on Tuesday. Democratic Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley faces former Gov. Don Siegelman, who has been running his race from a Montgomery courtroom during his racketeering trial. The winner is likely to face Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who first must put aside a challenge from former state Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore lost his state Supreme Court seat in a fight over a monument to the Ten Commandments.
* Montana - State Auditor John Morrison and state Senate President Jon Tester face off in the Democratic primary to take on Republican Sen. Conrad Burns. Burns' popularity has gone down after being drawn into the scandal involving disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and is considered one of the most vulnerable Republican senators in November.
* Iowa - Three Democrats are battling to win the nomination to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is eyeing a run for president in 2008. The winner"
'We certainly could handle it for a while,' Bodman told reporters.
Iran is the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter and holds 10 percent of proven global oil reserves.
Oil swept to a record $75.35 a barrel in April as the dispute between Iran and the United States over uranium enrichment rumbled on. On Sunday, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said oil flows from the Gulf would be endangered if Washington made a 'wrong move.'"
Pentagon endorses force-feeding hunger strikers - Yahoo! News: "A Pentagon document setting rules for medical professionals in detainee operations endorses force-feeding hunger strikers, a practice criticized by rights activists, U.S. officials said on Monday. ADVERTISEMENT
The policy decree, set to be unveiled on Tuesday, is one of three long-awaited documents on detainee operations being formulated by the Pentagon, along with the still-pending Army Field Manual and a directive guiding interrogation practices.
Human rights activists have said U.S. medical personnel have been complicit in detainee abuse, and have denounced force-feeding of prisoners as a violation of international codes of medical ethics."
