AIDS leaves 9 mln African children without mothers Yahoo! NEWS
Some 9 million children in Africa have lost a mother to AIDS, British charity Save the Children said Monday, calling on donors to sharply increase aid to meet their needs. "Incredibly, the impact of HIV and AIDS on children is still being ignored," Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said in a statement. The charity said in a report that a lack of testing facilities meant that many mothers, especially in the poorest countries, did not know their HIV status until they were ill and unable to fight off even the simplest infections. "The AIDS pandemic robs millions of children of their childhoods as well as their mothers," Whitbread said. "Children are caring for their mothers, missing school, and having to work because their mothers are too sick to look after them." The charity called for a focus on children orphaned by AIDS as well as sick parents, adding red tape was slowing aid flows. "Donors must spend 12 percent of their AIDS funding on proper support for children," it said, adding this would amount to $6.4 billion over a three-year period. In 2006, if Britain, the United States and Ireland met all their pledges, there would be $412 million committed for children -- or about one quarter of the $2.1 billion needed per year. "This is best case scenario and it's not yet clear whether all of the donors will meet their commitments," a spokeswoman for Save the Children told Reuters by telephone from London. The charity addressed its appeal to the G8 wealthy nations, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank and the European Commission. Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10 percent of the world's population but 60 percent of the people living with HIV/AIDS. More than 3 million Africans were infected with HIV in 2005, representing 64 percent of all new infections globally and more than in any previous year for the impoverished continent, according to UNAIDS, the lead U.N. agency against AIDS. Across sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 4.6 percent of young women aged 15 to 24 are infected with HIV, compared to 1.7 percent of young men, according to U.N. data. Save the Children said most of the 19.2 million women living with HIV around the globe were already mothers. "To truly make a difference we must also support children whose mothers are HIV positive," it said. "In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than 12 million children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. By 2010, at current rates of HIV infection, this number is likely to increase to 18 million," Save the Children said.
By Manoah Esipisu

Ohio Couple Loses Custody of Adopted Kids Yahoo! NEWS
A couple accused of abusing their 11 adopted special-needs children by making them sleep in cages lost permanent custody of them Monday. Huron County Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell awarded custody to the county, which had placed the children in foster care last fall after a social worker discovered the enclosures. The judge ruled earlier that Michael and Sharen Gravelle had abused the children, and he said evidence showed there was a good chance they would repeat the behavior. The couple have pleaded not guilty to several charges, including child endangerment, in a separate criminal case. They deny abusing the children, ages 1 to 15, and say the beds were necessary to protect the youngsters, who suffered from psychological and behavioral problems. "They love their children. They want them back. They are truly devastated," the couple's attorney, Kenneth Myers, said outside the courthouse. He said they will appeal Monday's ruling. Sharen Gravelle testified at an earlier custody hearing that she and her husband built bunk beds and attached a wooden playhouse the family called a clubhouse for some of the children's toys. The other children then requested and got them. The couple eventually added wire enclosures and alarms to help corral what the mother described as uncontrollable wandering at night. The couple felt the cage-like, brightly painted enclosures helped keep the children from getting dangerous kitchen utensils and into other trouble, the mother testified. Prosecutors accuse the couple of locking the children in cages to discipline them. One child testified that he was forced to sleep in a bathtub as punishment for wetting the bed. Two of Michael Gravelle's biological children, Jenna and Jesse Gravelle, testified that their father inappropriately touched Jenna when she was a minor. Michael Gravelle denies that accusation. The couple said during the custody hearing that they love the children and can provide a proper, permanent home, which they argued the children are unlikely to find in the custody of the county. The children's guardian, Margaret Kern, said the youngsters are spread among several foster homes and are doing well. "They're really great kids. They're normal everyday kids but they didn't have a chance because of the isolation," Kern said. "They're ready to move on." Prosecutor Russ Leffler said the ruling was in the best interest of the children. "This allows the children to be placed with good adoptive families, which I know everyone wants for these children," Leffler said. The judge said that among the factors he considered was Sharen Gravelle's testimony during the custody hearing in which she acknowledged that some of the adoption paperwork she and her husband signed contained untrue information, though she said the couple never saw the documents that contained their signatures. Cardwell wrote that the testimony was "troubling to the court and certainly reflects adversely on Mrs. Gravelle's credibility." Cardwell ordered 10 of the children placed in the permanent custody of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services. The eleventh child, a 2-year-old girl, was placed in temporary custody with the department because the Illinois adoption agency that placed her with the Gravelles has asked that she be returned.
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up Yahoo! NEWS
Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday dismissed suggestions that the Bush White House, hampered by a weak response to Hurricane Katrina and stumbles on policy questions, needs a shake-up. "I don't think we can pay any attention to that kind of thing," Cheney said on CBS "Face the Nation." "The president has got a job to do. ... He ignores the background noise that's out there in the polls that are taken on a daily basis." Bush's job approval in March was at 37 percent, which tied for his lowest rating in the AP-Ipsos poll. Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood and ideas. Cheney, in a rare Sunday morning television interview, told CBS that he heard similar grumbling 30 years ago when he was chief of staff for President Ford. "Administrations go through peaks and valleys," he said. "When you're down in the polls you're going to take shots that you don't deserve, and when you're up in the polls you're probably going to get praise you don't deserve." Asked if he and Bush had a "good cop, bad cop" partnership in which Cheney took the heat for controversial policies, the vice president said: "It may look that way. It's not conscious." Added Cheney, who has said he will not seek the presidency: "My job is to do what I can to support him and to support the administration. My advice to him is untainted by any concern I might have on how the folks in Iowa look at me in connection with the 2008 Iowa caucuses." Cheney chuckled when asked if he himself had ever considered resigning amid low poll numbers and suggestions by commentators that he was a liability for the administration. "It's been a highlight of my career to be a part of this administration," he said. "I've now been elected to a second term, and I'll serve out my term." To political strategists who say that he should step aside with a year or so remaining in his term to give someone a jump on gaining the Republican nomination for president, Cheney said such a move wouldn't make sense to him. "Nobody has suggested it to me," he said. Cheney and the White House were criticized for not immediately notifying the national press corps after he accidentally shot a companion while hunting in Texas last month. On Sunday, the vice president said he still thought the situation had been handled appropriately. Calling the circumstances unusual, the vice president quipped, "It's probably the first time the Secret Service ever had to worry about a protectee shooting somebody else instead of being shot at."
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

To head off allergies, expose your kids to pets and dirt early Yahoo! NEWS
Here's the conventional wisdom: Pets promote allergy, kids shouldn't eat peanuts until they're at least 3, and intestinal worms are nothing more than an icky reminder of life before flush toilets. Here's the new wisdom: Early exposure to pets, peanuts and intestinal worms might actually be good for you, because they program the developing immune system to know the difference between real threats, such as germs, and Aunt Millie's cat. (Graphic: Short-circuiting a cat allergy) Evidence to support this view has been mounting for more than a decade. But now, for the first time, researchers are beginning to test remedies based on these theories in patients. Other doctors are trying to make use of novel approaches to retrain the immune system once it's too late and allergies set in. "What we've learned is that it may, in fact, be important to be exposed early on to a sufficient quantity of allergy-causing substances to train the immune system that they are not a threat," says Andy Saxon of the University of California-Los Angeles. "And, in people who already have allergies, we see for the first time where the problems lie, and we have new opportunities to tweak the system." Scientists base this radical new thinking about human allergies on a deeper understanding of how the immune system works. They have begun to exploit fresh insights to attack allergies and other immune diseases in unexpected ways. No longer content just to treat allergy symptoms, they hope to outwit the immune system and stop allergic responses before they start. "When you're born, Day Zero, your immune system is like a new computer. It's not programmed. You have to add software," says Joel Weinstock of Tufts New England Medical Center. "Between the ages of zero and 12, you're learning to read, you're learning to write, and your immune system is learning to react to things. Part of that is learning to limit reactivity." If the new approaches work, millions might benefit. More than 50 million people have allergic diseases, which are the sixth-leading cause of chronic illness in the USA, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), costing the health system $18 billion a year. Asthma alone accounts for 500,000 hospitalizations a year, including 2 million admissions to the emergency room, says a study in the May 2005 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Since 1980, adult asthma cases have risen by 75% and childhood asthma by 160%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. (Related: Asthmatic kids under a cloud) To test whether high-dose exposure breeds tolerance, researchers led by Gideon Lack at Imperial College in London are preparing to launch a counterintuitive - and some would say risky - seven-year, U.S.-financed study that will expose infants to peanuts. It's based on research showing that children who eat peanuts at an early age are less likely to develop peanut allergies. The study is risky because children with unrecognized peanut allergies might suffer anaphylactic shock, a deadly drop in blood pressure often combined with asthma, if they're exposed to peanuts. A second team of researchers, led by Patrick Holt of the University of Western Australia in Perth, will conduct a similar study in which children who are already allergic to other substances will be exposed to airborne allergens such as ragweed to see whether it will block the development of other allergies. Other studies suggest that short-lived infections with a benign parasite might relieve allergies and possibly autoimmune illnesses such as Crohn's disease and Type I diabetes by restoring the immune system's natural balance. Major human trials in the USA and Europe are set to begin this year. Although trying to link allergies to autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's might seem like a stretch, scientists say both types of ailments result from an immune system run amok. In allergies, the immune system goes on alert when ragweed or some other allergy-causing protein wafts through the air, settles on the skin or tickles the tongue. In autoimmune diseases, the immune system can no longer distinguish between the self and foreign proteins. Mistaking the self for those proteins, the immune system attacks the bowel in Crohn's disease or insulin-producing cells in Type 1 diabetes.

Early intervention
If educating the immune system is tough, re-educating it after allergies set in appears to be tougher. Allergy shots work, but they're costly and often must be continued for years, and the protection fades over time. Higher-tech approaches rely heavily on 21st-century molecular medicine to engineer proteins that block allergies. One strategy, pioneered by researchers at Dynavax Technologies in Berkeley, Calif., involves disguising a key ragweed protein with DNA from a bacterium. The goal: to create a new short course of allergy shots that tricks the immune system into permanently thinking that ragweed is a bacterium, so it will attack it like a germ and not mount an allergic response. The approach has appeared to work in early trials at Johns Hopkins University. A second strategy, now being developed by Saxon and his colleagues at UCLA and licensed to the biotech firm Biogen Idec, involves fusing a cat allergen with a snippet of a powerful antibody called IgG. This IgG snippet turns off cells that make histamine, the chemical responsible for scratchy throats, watery eyes, runny noses and asthma. Researchers hope the combo will lock histamine-producing cells in the off position, and, in time, retrain the immune system to accept that Aunt Millie's cat is harmless.

Hypothetically speaking
The new approach to allergy prevention and treatment arises from a paradox. Known as the hygiene hypothesis, it suggests that growing up in cities and suburbs, away from fields and farm animals, leaves people more susceptible to a host of immune disorders, including allergies and asthma. Weinstock says the divide between developed and undeveloped countries is still evident today. "Hay fever is the most common allergy in the developed world," he says. "Yet, there are some countries in the world where doctors don't know what hay fever is." What about urban life is triggering a rash of allergies and autoimmune diseases? It's a good question, and not an easy one to answer. The immune system isn't palpable as are the heart and lungs; you can't listen to it or feel its pulse. Yet the immune system is our most sensitive link to the environment, on alert for threats of all kinds, most of the time running in the background like computer anti-virus software. To accelerate the research, the National Institutes of Health and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in 1999 set up a seven-year, $144 million international consortium called the Immune Tolerance Network, says Marshall Plaut of NIAID. Already, research is turning up surprising results. Dennis Ownby of the Medical College of Georgia followed 474 infants in the Detroit area from birth to age 7, hoping to identify clues about why some would pick up allergies and others would not. Ownby, then at Henry Ford Hospital, says he was unprepared for what he found. Ownby's team compared 184 children who were exposed to two or more dogs or cats in their first year of life with 220 who didn't have pets. To their surprise, the scientists found that children raised with pets were 45% less likely to test positive for allergies than other kids. The study appeared in the Aug. 28, 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association. "We've been taught for at least a couple of decades that early exposure to an allergen increases the risk of becoming allergic later in life," Ownby says. "So when we first examined our data, we were very afraid that something had gone wrong. It's the opposite of what we would have predicted." The challenge now, Ownby says, is to figure out what's happening. One possible explanation is that dogs and cats shed a substance called endotoxin, from bacteria. A study by Andy Liu of National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver reported in 2000 that infants with the most endotoxin exposure were the least likely to have allergies, indicating that what researchers call the Pigpen Effect, the invisible cloud of dust and dirt surrounding us all, might not be a bad thing. Or consider the peanut paradox. In the past 10 years, peanut allergies have doubled in the USA, United Kingdom and other countries that advise against exposing unborn children to peanuts (through their mothers' diet) and during infancy, Imperial College's Lack says. He believes children become allergic to peanuts not by eating them but by coming into contact with peanut oil in their mothers' skin lotions, according to a study published in the March 2003 New England Journal of Medicine. Studies of rodents suggest eating peanuts conditions the immune system to tolerate them. Infants in regions of Africa and Asia who are exposed to peanuts rarely develop the allergy, Lack says, in contrast to countries such as the USA and UK, where the prevalence of peanut allergies might be more than 10 times higher. To test whether eating peanut products can protect children from peanut allergies, Lack plans to launch a dramatic seven-year study in which parents will regularly feed high doses of peanuts to about 200 children who have egg allergies or eczema, conditions that put them at high risk of developing other allergies. Parents of another 200 children will follow the government's advice and try to completely avoid peanuts. One key message, Lack says, is don't try this at home, without the safeguards of a carefully controlled trial. "Feeding babies peanuts can be extremely dangerous," he says. As high-risk as the trial is, it might be extremely rewarding, doctors say. Each year in the USA, about 15,000 people suffer severe allergic reactions from eating peanuts, and about 100 die. "It's the first large-scale trial of what we consider a very dangerous allergic food," Ownby says. To the squeamish, it might not matter that intestinal worms are less risky than foods that promote allergy. But some doctors say worms might do something that allergy-causing substances won't do - broadly reset the immune system so that it no longer reacts to allergy-causing substances or attacks the body's tissues, as it does in Crohn's disease and Type I diabetes. "This is an exciting new area with potential for opening new therapeutic avenues for diseases that are hard to control and treat," says Weinstock of Tufts New England Medical Center. Worms captured Weinstock's imagination and that of his collaborator, David Elliott of the University of Iowa, because worm infections appear to regulate the immune system so that it functions normally. The allergic response - itchy, watery eyes, a runny nose and constriction of smooth muscles - evolved to flush out intestinal worms. "The immune system didn't evolve for allergy," Weinstock says. "Why in a hundred billion years of evolution would we evolve a response for allergy?" In fact, says Robert Coffman, vice president of the biotech firm Dynavax Technologies, the immune system developed two sets of responses: one for bacteria and viruses and one for worms. Called Th1 for germs and Th2 for worms, they work in opposition. When Th1 is active, Th2 takes a break. When Th2 is active, it's Th1's turn. All of the symptoms people link with allergy are part of the Th2 response.

The worm turns
Weinstock, Elliott and other researchers believe that a low-grade infection with intestinal worms - pig whipworms because they can't reproduce in people - can restore the immune system's natural balance. A small-scale study in which 29 people with Crohn's disease drank whipworm eggs in Gatorade found that 23 responded to treatment and 21 of the 23 experienced complete remission. Although worms haven't been directly tested in allergic patients, researchers point to a study by Maria Yazdanbakhsh of Leiden University in the Netherlands, which found that treating schoolchildren in Gabon for worms, so that the worms were expelled from their bodies, doubled their risk of becoming allergic to house dust mites, a common allergen. Weinstock argues that it is exposure to the worms in the environment that confers protection against allergies. "That's one possibility," he says. "Whether it's due to worms, endotoxin, lifestyle, smoking or other factors that we haven't identified - that's the fun of it. But environment clearly plays a part."
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

Health Tip: Heart Attack or Indigestion? Yahoo! NEWS
As with a heart attack, indigestion can cause burning in the chest. But according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it's unlikely that pain from indigestion would spread to other parts of the body, as a typical heart attack does. Indigestion, frequently accompanied by nausea, often stems from eating too much, too quickly, or the wrong kinds of foods. If you have any of these symptoms, they could indicate something more serious than simple indigestion:

• Vomiting, weight loss, or appetite loss.
• Black, tarry stools or blood in vomit.
• What feels like indigestion accompanied by shortness of breath; pain radiating to the jaw, neck or arm; or sweating.

If you do have any of these symptoms, see a doctor immediately.

U.S. Ports Debate Spurs Ownership Talks Yahoo! NEWS
The furor over efforts by an Arab company to buy U.S. port operations has focused attention on a little noticed economic fact of life: America increasingly is foreign-owned. From the ritzy Essex House hotel in Manhattan, owned by the Dubai Investment Group, to the nationwide chains of Caribou Coffee and Church's Chicken, owned by another company serving Arab investors, foreigners are buying bigger and bigger chunks of the country. The U.S. must borrow more than $2 billion per day from foreigners to finance its huge trade deficits. In 2005, for example, there was a record deficit of $805 billion in the current account, the broadest measure of trade. Foreigners sell their televisions, cars and oil to Americans and hold dollars in return. Those dollars are invested in stocks, bonds and other assets, including real estate and factories. Foreigners already own half of the U.S. government's publicly traded debt. As of January, some $2.19 trillion in Treasury securities were in the hands of central banks, including China and Japan, and private investors abroad. At the end of 2004, the total foreign direct investment in this country — actual factories, office buildings and other tangible assets as opposed to stocks and bonds — came to $1.53 trillion, 8.2 percent more than in 2003. That investment shows up in all of the 50 states. In Oakland, Maine, it's a customer service center for T-Mobile USA Inc., which is a subsidiary of German-based Deutsche Telekom. In Glendale, Calif., it's the U.S. headquarters for Nestle, the Swiss-based food and beverage company. Arab investment has gotten the most scrutiny of late because of the now-withdrawn bid by a Dubai-based company to buy operations at six major U.S. ports. But statistics show that Arab investments represent only a a fraction of the total direct investment in the U.S. by foreigners. European nations accounted for $977 billion, or two-thirds, of the $1.53 trillion of foreign direct investment, according to figures compiled by the Commerce Department. By contrast, Arab countries in the Middle East accounted for $9.3 billion, led by $4.7 billion in investment from Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates was second among Middle East Arab countries with $1.8 billion in investments, according to the data. DP World of Dubai said last week it intends to sell its U.S. operations to an American-owned company. But that has not stopped some members of Congress from seeking to overhaul the way such deals are reviewed by a secretive government panel. A bill by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record) of California, would bar foreign ownership of U.S. infrastructure deemed critical to the national security. "To those who say this is protectionism, I say — America is worth protecting," Hunter said. Opponents say his proposal would mean the fire sale of billions of dollars of assets now in foreign hands and end up hurting the U.S. economy. Consider that for more than a decade, French tire maker Michelin has been the exclusive supplier of tires for NASA's space shuttles. DSM, a Dutch company, makes body armor for U.S. troops, while French-owned Sodexho provides meals for the troops at a number of military installations. Nearly one in five U.S. oil refineries is owned by foreign companies. Foreign companies also have a sizable presence in running power plants, chemical factories and water treatment facilities in the United States. "People don't understand how integrated the U.S. economy has become with the global economy, how dependent we have become on other nations," said Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute, a Washington think tank. Some analysts believe such realities are getting lost as politicians try to respond to growing anxiety about the trade deficits, the loss of nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs since mid-2000, immigration problems and the threat of more terrorist attacks. "We have to be very careful that we don't overreact in the legislative process and enact economic policy masquerading as national security policy," said Todd Malan, head of the Organization for International Investment. The Washington group represents foreign companies that do business in the United States. To the puzzlement of some economists, the current debate centers on direct foreign investment, the most stable type of investment. Yet the far larger share of foreign investment is in Treasury securities, corporate bonds and stocks. If foreigners suddenly decided to reduce their holdings of these assets, the dollar could plunge in value, interest rates could soar and stock prices could suffer a big blow. David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, cited the 51 percent share of foreign ownership of the federal government's debt — and that share is rising. "That strikes me as scary," Wyss said. "When you make yourself so dependent on inflows of capital from the rest of the world, the question is what happens if the inflows slow down." The amount of federal debt that must be financed each year is climbing because of the budget deficits. On Thursday, Congress acted to raise the debt ceiling — the amount the government can borrow — by $781 billion, to nearly $9 trillion. Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said last year he believed market forces would lower the current account deficit before there were serious disruptions to the economy. A decline in the value of the dollar against other currencies, including China's, would help by making U.S. goods more competitive on overseas markets and imports more expensive and thus less attractive for American consumers. Falling global energy prices and stronger overseas economic growth to boost demand for U.S. exports would also help. "A lot of things will have to come together" to reduce America's need for foreign capital, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

B Vitamin Case Reaches Supreme Court Yahoo! NEWS
B vitamin deficiencies can cause a range of serious health effects, including spinal defects in children born to women with below-normal levels of folic acid and anemia in people not getting enough B12. That's why a two-step method of diagnosing those deficiencies that three medical school doctors patented in 1990 has become so widely used. It's performed tens of millions of times a year, at a cost of just a dollar or two, by laboratory testing companies nationwide. Now, to the surprise of patent attorneys, a case involving one of those companies, sued after it stopped paying some royalties, has landed in the Supreme Court, where arguments will be heard Tuesday. Even more surprising is that the Supreme Court may dredge up a bombshell question not asked when the lower courts considered the case: Have inventors been busy patenting laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas? At stake, attorneys on both sides of the case say, are 25 years of patent law and literally tens of thousands of patents on drugs, medical devices, computer software and other inventions. If the court reins in what can be patented, they say, it could be among the most important patent law decisions ever made. The two-step method covered by patent No. 4,940,658 is straightforward: The level of an amino acid called homocysteine is measured in a patient's blood or urine and, if elevated, it can be correlated with a deficiency of folic acid, or B12. The question before the Supreme Court is whether a doctor could infringe the patent "merely by thinking about the relationship" between homocysteine levels and B vitamin deficiencies after looking at a test result. In 1998, testing company Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings stopped paying some royalties on the patent. The patent's holders, including Metabolite Laboratories Inc. and Competitive Technologies Inc., sued. LabCorp lost, was ordered to pay about $5 million and then lost again on appeal. It now wants the Supreme Court to reverse the previous judgments. LabCorp, its attorneys and supporters argue in court filings that the patent gives its owners an effective monopoly over a basic scientific principle or natural phenomenon: high levels of homocysteine suggest deficiencies in two B vitamins. "If someone observes a correlation between X and Y and then announces he is going to use that correlation in a lab test, is that a patentable process? I think the court is troubled that that sort of correlation would be possible," said Jack Bierig, a Chicago attorney who filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting LabCorp on behalf of the American Medical Association and five other medical groups. Metabolite Laboratories counters that the patent covers a practical application of the discovery made by the inventors when used as part of a diagnostic step. "The test itself is obvious when you have the correlation. It is the discovery of the correlation that is the real novelty here," said Mark Lemley, a Stanford University law professor who is helping represent Metabolite Laboratories. LabCorp originally argued that the patent was overly vague, and that allowed it to use tests, called assays, developed by other companies to measure homocysteine levels. Metabolite Laboratories disagreed. That sort of narrow dispute is the crux of many patent suits and normally wouldn't grab much attention. But the Supreme Court asked the federal government to weigh in on the case, specifically asking whether Metabolite Laboratories succeeded in patenting a law of nature, natural phenomenon or abstract idea — all no-no's under patent law. "They did pretty much shock everybody," said Chicago-Kent College of Law professor Lori Andrews, who submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting LabCorp. The Solicitor General's office replied to the Supreme Court that the question wasn't asked in the lower courts and thus LabCorp's isn't the case to decide it. It recommended the previous judgment be affirmed or the case be dismissed or sent back to the lower courts. Regardless of the outcome, that the Supreme Court even asked that question guarantees the case's lasting effect on patents and patent law, attorneys said. Glenn Beaton, an attorney for Metabolite Laboratories, suggested: "I think it's fair to say there will be a sudden surge in claiming unpatentable subject matter because defendants' lawyers out there are going to see someone on the Supreme Court has a question in their mind whether patents are getting granted on the type of thing when they shouldn't be." Since the original LabCorp ruling, there has been a rush to file patents on "scientific facts" or "mental processes," Andrews said. The case is Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories Inc. et al., No. 04-607.
On the Net: Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

Slowing home market to ripple through job market Yahoo! NEWS
With the allure of easy money, thousands of Americans flocked to jobs in the real estate industry during the boom years. "You saw it - there were dollar signs in their eyes," recalls Nick Vayonis, a former real estate agent in Los Angeles, where median home prices rose 145% in four years. (Graphic: Impact of housing-related jobs) He left the business a year ago, just in time, he says. Home sales have declined nationwide for the past five months, and sales in Southern California fell to their lowest level in five years in February, DataQuick reported Tuesday. "I could see the ebb and flow. It wasn't going to be like that forever," says Vayonis, 40, who just opened a coffee shop in Canton, Ga., near Atlanta with his wife Anne-Marie, also a former agent. As the housing market slows, there will likely be a lot of stories of people who are bailing out of their real estate jobs and other professions related to housing - appraisers, mortgage brokers and home construction workers - and many not by choice. This could send shock waves through the job market and the economy. That's because housing helped drive the economy out of the last recession. Almost four out of every 10 jobs created in the past four years were in housing-related fields. At the end of last year, a record 9.8% of U.S. workers were employed in the real estate industry, up from 8.2% a decade ago, according to Moody's Economy.com. Only the health care industry added more jobs. "Job growth is the main engine for consumer spending," says Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. "If we don't get the job creation that we need to sustain spending, the economy could be in trouble as we get into '07," he says. "If we don't get any help from these other (non-housing) sectors, longer-term the implications are slower job growth, which means slower consumer spending, which would eventually discourage businesses from spending. You'd have this downward spiral in growth."

Belt-tightening starts
While it's too early to tell how deeply the housing industry will contract, many companies are already seeing some business evaporate. Last month, Washington Mutual said it would close 10 mortgage processing centers and fire 2,500 employees. In November, mortgage company Ameriquest handed out 1,500 pink slips. The housing industry is braced for more belt-tightening. "At best, people should prepare for no pay increase and no bonus, something they have been getting a lot of. At worst, they should be thinking they may need to change occupations," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. While it's painful for those involved, Zandi calls the slowing in housing "a necessary adjustment." The economy had gotten so dependent on housing that it needed to come down a bit to make the economy more evenly balanced. "Housing has been flying high, and it's now coming back down to earth," he says. Existing home sales fell in January for the fifth month in a row, and home builders Toll Bros. and KB Home say more buyers are canceling their orders. In all, home sales are expected to fall 8% from last year's record, according to a group of economists surveyed by USA TODAY in January. That's going to make it harder, for example, for the nation's 2.6 million real estate agents to make a living. In a "normal" real estate market, the median income for an agent in business for two years or less is $12,852, according to the National Association of Realtors. (However, it picks up rapidly after that, with agents making about $47,187, after three to five years.) Your income "is very unpredictable," says Janice Hofferber, who left her job as a Wall Street stock analyst in 2003 and tried her hand as an agent in Bay Head, N.J. She quit last September and became an investment adviser for Smith Barney. "You're not really building a business, you're building a reputation," explains Hofferber, 41. "There's no recurring revenue. Every year, you start at zero again. That wasn't really attractive." It was no easier in the mortgage loan business, says Toney Goucher, who closed his restaurant in Arkansas and became a mortgage broker in 2002. When he joined Leader One Financial in Kansas, home sales were hot, interest rates were low, and anyone who wasn't buying was refinancing. Last summer, the market started drying up. "It seemed like every month, we had another interest rate hike, and it got harder and harder to find clients," recalls Goucher, 55. "I joined organizations and networking groups to find more business. I called on Realtors every day - cold calling - I just didn't enjoy what I was doing anymore." Goucher threw in the towel and put on an apron. After traveling to St. Louis for a conference, he opened Fat Toney's barbecue restaurant there in January.

Picking up the slack
So far, the economic impact of the downturn in housing has been soft. Other sectors of the economy are adding jobs. In February, employers added workers in a broad number of industries, such as retail, health care, restaurants and bars and state and local government. If that continues, those jobs will help take up some slack if people in housing-related fields find themselves out of work. Plus, many economists expect housing to slow, but not to slide dramatically. "We don't expect housing to completely collapse," says Anthony Chan, chief economist at JPMorgan Private Client Services, adding that the housing market might regain some momentum in 2007. There are also a few trends that could reduce the blow to the economy:

•Construction. Although residential construction is weakening, commercial building is picking up, thanks to demand for new roads, government office buildings and retail shops. More than 768,000 people had jobs in the non-residential construction industry in February, the most in more than three years. "The commercial market now seems to be on a pretty good upswing, and if housing loses ground, which I think is very likely, we will see some of those workers move into the non-residential side," says Dave Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders. Many of the skills used in home construction are transferable to commercial building. "A carpenter can just as easily work in a non-residential building as ... a residential building," says Michael Montgomery, an economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.

•Hurricanes. Hurricanes last year damaged or destroyed 700,000 homes on the Gulf Coast, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, based on the number of families receiving federal housing aid. Although it's unclear how many of those homes will be rebuilt, the process of rebuilding homes, businesses, roads and other infrastructure will likely create jobs for years to come.

•Refinancing. About 25% of outstanding mortgages in the fourth quarter were adjustable-rate mortgages, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. For those who got into the mortgage brokerage business, that's good news. Many homeowners will likely want to refinance their mortgages in the months and years ahead to lock in a fixed rate as interest rates are expected to rise, but not by a lot. "That will kind of prop things (up) for awhile in terms of activity," Montgomery says. And plenty of people who got into the real estate market are determined to ride out any downturn. One of them is Steve Wydler, 37, who left his job as a lawyer at AOL's headquarters in Virginia in December 2002 to join his brother, Hans, an entrepreneur with a Harvard MBA who is a real estate agent. The two are getting their brokers' licenses in Virginia and Maryland so they can operate throughout the Washington, D.C., area. They now employ three people and work with four other agents as a team. He makes more money now than he did at AOL. "Personally, I'm not scared," he says. "We're not in it for the next sale. We're in it for the long haul." But back in St. Louis, at Fat Toney's, Goucher says he has already gotten a couple of calls from mortgage brokers he knew in Kansas asking about possible franchise opportunities for his barbecue restaurant. "They say, 'You're lucky you got out.' "
By Barbara Hagenbaugh and Noelle Knox, USA TODAY

Grim find shows normalcy still eludes New Orleans Yahoo! NEWS
A backhoe gingerly lifted away twisted lumber, shingles and soiled household items in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward to reveal a decayed body. Before the remains could be moved onto a stretcher, bagged and loaded into a van, workers found a second corpse in the same small area of the tangle that was once a house and repeated the process as passing cars slowed. The scene on the 2400 block of Tupelo Street on quiet Sunday morning could have just as easily never played out. But it did, and two more of the estimated 400 people missing in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina's floods more than half a year ago would be stricken from the list. A successful Mardi Gras, the return of pro basketball and crescendoing sounds of construction and jazz music lull people into a sense that normalcy is returning after America's worst natural disaster and the botched early response. The scene on Tupelo Street shows it hasn't. It began early in this section of the Lower Ninth with two students working to clear the mounds of debris that still litter the ruined neighborhood, officials at the scene said. Walking by wreckage of a house that had just been bulldozed off the street where it sat since the water subsided, the students noticed a limb in the tangled mess and called police. Officers arrived, then officials with the coroner and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and then a search and rescue team with a red truck and a sniffer dog. It is a well-established procedure. Tim Campbell, a chaplain with Victim Relief Ministries, arrived to read a prayer for the dead. Coroner's investigator Orrin Duncan said more bodies are being found each week as the pace of home demolition picks up in the Lower Ninth Ward, a mainly African-American community that was hammered by a torrent when the levee that held back the city's Industrial Canal breached after the August 29 storm. He is still not used to it. "It affects me. It's my home," the 35-year-old said. "It definitely affects me, thinking that they didn't search." The bodies on Tupelo are too decomposed to immediately determine their gender, he said. They are darkened, stiff, vaguely human in form, anonymous. Hurricane Katrina killed an estimated 1,300 people along the Gulf Coast, and 80 percent of New Orleans flooded when the levees gave way. Spray-painted markings on the wrecked homes in this neighborhood suggest searchers went through them months and months ago. Henry Irvin, 69, who lived in the neighborhood for five decades, said he was angry rescue crews did not find the bodies earlier when they moved the debris off the street. "They did a lot of pushing homes around here. I'm just glad they're going through it the right way now," he said.
By Jeffrey Jones

Louisiana Faces an Exodus From the Coast Yahoo! NEWS
Once the salt water is in your veins, Louisiana's coastal folk say, it's hard to give up the lifestyle of moonlit shrimping trips, the town "fais do-do" dances and afternoons spent on the bayous angling for catfish. But since last year's catastrophic hurricanes, this swampy land defined by Cajuns, cypress and tupelo gum forests, bayou-side saloons and, more recently, subdivisions may have become too vulnerable for that lifestyle to continue. Even before the devastation caused by Katrina, Louisiana's swampy coast had been sinking by as much as 2 inches a year. Along with that subsidence, the area is even more susceptible to flooding because last year's hurricanes damaged vast tracts of wetlands — already shrinking because of man's activities — that used to buffer the area from storms blowing in off the Gulf of Mexico. All of those factors will be reflected in new Federal Emergency Management Agency flood-vulnerability maps due to be released soon that are the basis for flood insurance rates. The maps will likely make the insurance more costly, force residents to spend heavily to raise homes out of flood plains to qualify for coverage, make many other homes uninsurable and make lenders less willing to loan money for construction in flood-prone areas. That new reality may threaten the state's coastal population and its heritage of shrimp fishing, alligator hunting, fur trapping and oyster harvesting. Some of the roughhewn people down here won't leave willingly. "You've got earthquakes, you've got fires, you've got volcanoes, you've got tornadoes in tornado alley," said A.J. Fabre, an outspoken leader among shrimp fishermen in Lafitte, about 30 miles south of New Orleans. "Where are you going to have everybody? In Missouri?" Nearly every house in the area, most of them built on slabs, was flooded by Hurricane Rita. Now, families live in trailers as they rebuild. "It's a quiet community. Virtually no crime. Kids steal a couple of bicycles," Fabre says. But the future is gloomy. Fabre's place, a small brick house he inherited from his grandfather, has been condemned because of wind and flood damage. The only thing left of a shrimp processing plant there is a concrete slab, and the old family dock is barnacled, broken and useless. With no flood insurance, Fabre isn't sure if he'll be able to rebuild. He and his wife might have to demolish the place and buy a mobile home. He insists he is not defeated and lashes out at politicians, importers, the federal government. "The fight has just begun," he said. But many of his neighbors and friends aren't so sanguine. "We're doomed," said Jimmy Terrebonne, a 46-year-old boat builder. He tells his children to get an education and get out of the fishing trades. As for himself, he said, "I can't do anything else. I don't have an education. I ain't leaving until it's gone. When the land's gone, I'm leaving." Many coastal experts believe life along the coast is going to change dramatically with the new flood maps. "Where we had subdivisions in the marshes, they will not come back," said Shea Penland, a coastal scientist with the University of New Orleans. "I can't believe they're sustainable." "There are going to be some significant changes across the board," said Butch Kinerney, a FEMA spokesman. For one thing, much more is known since FEMA last calculated the area's flood vulnerability in 1984 about the area's rate of subsidence. Last year, the National Geodetic Survey issued a report saying the area was sinking by a half-inch to 2 inches a year, and that was as of 1995. "When they built the levees, it wasn't below sea level. It was dry land. Now it's dry land only because of the levees," said Roy Dokka, a Louisiana State University subsidence specialist. About 1,000 homes damaged by Rita's storm surge in the heavily Cajun region southwest of Lafayette called Vermilion Parish might need to be raised to be eligible for insurance, said Robert LeBlanc, the parish's emergency preparedness director. Younger people might leave, LeBlanc said. Many others, however, are determined to stay. "People like where they live, they're content," said Kimberly Chauvin, the wife of a shrimper who is thinking of raising their already-raised home up to 10 feet higher. "I wouldn't want to move to the city, not at all."
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

March 20, 2006
Bird Flu Likely in US This Year: Gov't Officials
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:18 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials said on Monday it was ``increasingly likely'' that bird flu could be detected in the United States this year, but added it may not mean the start of a human pandemic.

Speaking to reporters, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt unveiled a plan to increase monitoring of migratory birds that are likely to bring the bird flu virus to U.S. shores.

``It is increasingly likely that we will detect the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu in birds within the U.S. borders possibly as early as this year,'' Norton said.

As a result, the government is expanding its early warning system to deal with bird flu's eventual arrival.

``None of us can build a cage around the United States. We have to be prepared to deal with the virus here,'' Johanns said.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has spread across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia and killed at least 98 people worldwide since 2003. So far, it has a mortality rate of about 50 percent.

Although bird flu is hard to catch, people can contract the disease by coming into contact with infected birds, especially from bird droppings.

Scientists are concerned that the virus could develop the ability to transmit easily from person to person and trigger a worldwide pandemic which could kill millions.

Norton said the early detection plan would prioritize sampling in Alaska, where scientists believe the strain of highly pathogenic H5N1 virus currently affecting Southeast Asia would most likely spread to North America by migrating birds.

The government's expanded testing program will focus on Alaska, elsewhere in the Pacific Flyway for migrating birds and the Pacific islands, followed by the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic Flyways.

The Agriculture Department plans to collect between 75,000 and 100,000 samples from live and dead wild birds this year. Another 50,000 samples of water or feces from high-risk waterfowl habitats in the United States will also be taken.

Norton said she expected initial, so-called presumptive

H5N1 results could be announced some 20 to 100 times this year but those first tests would not tell whether the virus was the deadly strain or a weaker form.

Discovery of bird flu in the United States should not be reason to panic, Johanns said, noting that positive test results could turn out to be a harmless version of the virus.

The United States has dealt three times previously -- in 1924, 1983 and 2004 -- with outbreaks in domestic poultry of other forms of bird flu.

Should U.S. domestic poultry become infected with the high-pathogen H5N1, the Agriculture Department would act quickly to quarantine an affected area and destroy the infected flock, he said.

``Our producers have demonstrated that they will call us at the first sign of sick birds, knowing that with high-pathogen strains of bird flu we reimburse them for the birds that we destroy,'' Johanns said. ``This is a $29 billion industry in the U.S. and our producers are as eager as we are to protect the safety of our poultry.''

Poultry properly prepared would be safe to eat because cooking with high heat kills the virus, the officials said.

The U.S. poultry industry says it already has numerous safeguards in place to protect its flocks.

``Poultry in other parts of the world are in many cases allowed to run at large and are not protected from wild waterfowl or other birds that may be carrying viruses such as avian influenza,'' said Sherrill Davison, associate professor of avian medicine and pathology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Meanwhile, U.S. regulators on Monday proposed banning the use of two types of human flu-fighting drugs in poultry to preserve their effectiveness for people in case of a bird flu pandemic.

The proposal would prohibit use of neuraminidase inhibitors, Roche Holding Ag's Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza, and the older drugs, rimantadine and amantadine, in chickens, turkeys and ducks, the Food and Drug Administration said.

While the federal government is stockpiling medicines and making other preparations, it is important for state and local governments, hospitals, businesses and schools to formulate their own plans, Leavitt said.

``Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will at the last moment be able to come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong. There is no way in which 5,000 different communities can be responded to simultaneously,'' Leavitt said.



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New storm fear for battered coast CNN International
Australian weather forecasters warned on Tuesday that more wild weather was on its way, with a Category 2 cyclone brewing in the Coral Sea even as the country was taking stock of the damage caused by what officials said was the most powerful cyclone to hit the country in three decades. Cyclone Wati was churning slowly toward northeast Australia and was expected to be off the coast later in the week, several hundred kilometers south of the region hammered by Cyclone Larry, a Category 5 storm with winds up to 290 km/h (180 mph), Tropical Cyclone Warning Center senior forecaster Jeff Callahan said. Wati is expected to turn south in about a day or so, and then move parallel to the coast. If it stays out to sea, as expected, the likely impact could be high waves and maybe gale force winds at sea. The Weather Bureau said that at 10 am Tuesday (11 p.m. Monday GMT), Wati was located over the eastern Coral Sea about 475 nautical miles east north-east of Mackay and moving west at about 14 knots. The bureau said it was expected to maintain this movement until Wednesday morning, when it would slow down. Larry, which lashed Australia's eastern coast, left a path littered with debris and devastation. Hardest hit was Innisfail, a town of 8,500 people 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the tourist city of Cairns. "It looks like an atomic bomb hit the place," Innisfail mayor Neil Clarke told Australian television. "It is severe damage. This is more than a local disaster, this is a national disaster." Australian troops began moving aid to Innisfail Tuesday as residents picked through waterlogged streets littered with rubble and mangled roofs. A spokesman for Attorney General Philip Ruddock said troops were moving tarpaulins to cover houses that lost their roofs. "One of the most immediate needs is to get shelter over roofless homes, and there are many," the spokesman said. Reporters who flew into Innisfail on Tuesday saw scenes of devastation on the ground -- previously pristine rain forest shredded by the winds, hectares of sugar and banana plantations flattened, the trees and cane on the ground next to their stumps, pointing in the direction that the cyclone tore past. "It looks like it's just been napalmed," helicopter pilot Ian Harris said. "That's normally pristine rainforest." Stephen Young, deputy executive director of Queensland's Counter Disaster and Emergency Services, said relief was flowing to Innisfail from all over Australia. About 120 troops were helping deliver aid, while clean up and specialist urban search and rescue crews were heading to the town. Among supplies flowing into the town were nearly 40,000 liters (10,500 gallons) of water, 6,000 in-flight meals provided by national flag carrier Qantas, as well as gas and gasoline. "We've hit this as hard as we possibly could with every possible ounce of effort from the Queensland government and the commonwealth government," Young said. Officials estimated that Larry caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage but there were no fatalities and only 30 people suffered minor injuries. Ben Creagh, a spokesman for Queensland state Department of Emergency Services, said the human toll was low because people were warned about the cyclone's approach during the weekend and either boarded up their homes and fled or hunkered down or went to evacuation centers in town while the storm raged outside. "Good planning, a bit of luck -- we've dodged a bullet," Creagh said. Many of the people who left are expected to return Tuesday, many without knowing if their homes are standing. Queensland State Premier Peter Beattie said 55 percent of homes in Innisfail had been damaged, though rescue and assessment teams were yet to get full access to the swamped region as the tail end of the storm deluged it with rain. (Watch the power of the winds -- 1:02) "We haven't had a cyclone like this for decades, if we've ever had one like it before," he said. Farmers were expected to be among the hardest hit -- the region is a major growing region for bananas and sugar cane and vast tracts of the crops were flattened. "It looks like someone's gone in there with a slasher and slashed the top off everything," said Bill Horsford, an Innisfail cane farmer and member of the Cane Protection and Productivity Board. "Cane farmers were looking for good prices this year ... the first bright light for some time, and this has just turned that right around," he said. "You're probably looking at ... 40 to 50 percent losses in the cane industry." Larry is the third cyclone to hit Australia's east coast this year and the eighth in waters near Australia during this season, which ends April 30. It appeared to be the biggest storm ever to hit the country's Pacific coast, which generally sees fewer cyclones than the northern and western coasts. The worst Australian storm on record was Cyclone Tracy, which killed 65 people in the northern city of Darwin in 1974.
Thousands Feared Homeless in Australia ABC News
Thousands Feared Homeless in Australia San Francisco Chronicle
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Fewer Germans in the World says Report SpiegelOnline
DEMOGRAPHIC DOWNFALL
A new report indicates that German women had fewer children last year than in any year since World War II. The country's economy, say experts, may suffer long-term damage.
It's a bitter irony that the English word kindergarten comes directly from the German language. Because Germany these days is anything but. New data suggests that the German birth rate -- the lowest in the European Union -- may be plummeting faster than was thought. According to a report in the conservative daily Die Welt this week, only 676,000 children were born in the last quarter of 2004 and the first three quarters of 2005 -- the drop, the paper calculates, of 30,000 births or 4 percent from 2004, is the steepest in 15 years. In other words, fewer Germans came into the world last year than any time since the birth of the post-war German republic. As if that weren't bad enough, a new book released on Wednesday by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development takes a close look at what Germany's changing demographics mean for the country. A number of towns in Eastern Germany, the book -- entitled "The Demographic State of the Nation" -- concludes, may soon cease to exist altogether. The consequences are troubling. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has calculated that, given the current demographic trend, the best economic growth Germany can hope for in 2025 is half a percent. Even worse, Michael Hüther, the director of the Institute for the German Economy in Cologne, says that there is little politicians can do to fix the problem. Efforts to deregulate the labor market, push through budget reforms and invest in education -- reforms undertaken partly with Germany's looming demographic problems in mind -- have come too late. "There's not much that can be corrected now," Hüther told Die Welt. According to Hüther and other experts, the right time to combat the decline of the birth rate was several decades ago. Former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who held office during the years of Germany's post-war "economic miracle," was notoriously indifferent to demographic issues. "People always have children," he once famously remarked. In fact, the German birth rate began to fall during the 1970s, a time of economic crisis when production slowed, tax income fell, and unemployment rose. Of course, the development of oral contraceptives -- the "pill" -- also played an important role. But it alone cannot explain the declining birth rate. In East Germany, the number of births increased during some years despite the pill; in West Germany, it did not. Recent German history suggests that the birth rate changes in response not just to economic trends, but also to specific political events. The rise in the East German birthrate throughout the 1970s is often linked to an increased optimism following Honecker's assumption of power there in 1971. The reunification of Germany had the opposite effect. By 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany had the lowest birth rate ever measured in the world (0.77 children per woman); the number of births had plummeted to 79,000 from 220,000 in 1988. Despite the seeming inability of political policies to boost the birth rate, German politicians are not giving up. German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen -- a mother of seven herself -- said this week that Germans can no longer afford to treat children as a purely personal, rather than as an economic issue. "Germany has to become more parent-friendly," Von Der Leyen told the ddp news agency. "By international standards," she added, "we're an underdeveloped country." As Von Der Leyen has acknowledged, last year's dramatic decline in the overall German birth rate may have something to do with the government's inability to tackle problems such as the loss of job security and declining incomes. Most German women who have children do so around the age of 29. "At that age, women want to know what they can expect for their child and their career," Von Der Leyen told dpp, "and we have failed to answer those questions for them."

Nepalese rebels ambush patrol after lifting of blockade Taipei Times
Communist rebels ambushed an army patrol in central Nepal yesterday, sparking a clash that killed at least eight soldiers and one insurgent, officials said. The latest violence in the country's decade-old insurgency came one day after the rebels ended a highway blockade that had crippled life across the country for six days. Buses yesterday were transporting thousands of stranded travelers and trucks brought in much-needed fuel, food and supplies into Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, after the roads were cleared. The attack in central Nepal took place near an army camp at Bhakundebeshi, about 80km east of Katmandu. The soldiers were out on a patrol to investigate suspicions that rebels had blocked the camp's water supply when they were attacked, security officials said. The officials, who would not be identified because they are not authorized to speak to reporters, said rebels hiding on the side of a road detonated an explosion and then began firing on the army team, killing at least eight soldiers. One rebel was confirmed killed in the ensuing gunbattle, the officials said. Reinforcement were sent to the area and soldiers combed the mountain terrain to search for the attackers. At the Nagdhunga checkpoint onto the Prithvi highway, the main route out of Kathmandu, hundreds of vehicles passed through, taking passengers who had been stranded since the blockade began on March 14. Nepal has no railroads, and trucks haul virtually all fuel, food and other supplies. Trucks bringing in milk, flour, vegetables and fruits began to enter the capital yesterday morning, according to police officials at the checkpoint. The rebels had cut off major cities and towns as part of their campaign to topple Nepal's royalist government, but agreed on Sunday to heed pleas by the country's main political parties to end the blockade. At a meeting on Sunday, the rebels and the country's alliance of seven major political parties agreed to step up pressure on King Gyanendra, who dissolved the government and seized total control of the country in February last year. The rebels also called off plans for an indefinite general strike starting April 3 and said they would instead support a separate April 6-9 general strike.
Nepal fighting kills 23 communist rebels, 10 police Khaleej Times
Bloodbath in Nepal: at least 32 killed in Maoist attack Newindpress (subscription)
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Google launches financial news, data, blog site Yahoo! NEWS
Google Inc. is introducing a financial news, stock quote and chat service that seeks to shake up the online finance information market now dominated by Internet media rivals and online brokers. The Web search leader said late on Monday that it has begun offering a trial version of the service called Google Finance that uses a keyword search system to help consumers target information on public and private companies and mutual funds. Google Finance primarily provides financial news, stock quotes, charts and data. In its trial form, the site is far less comprehensive than established financial sites such as those from Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN America Online's Money & Finance and TheStreet.com. The new Google site relies on information from a variety of financial publishers and data providers including Reuters Group Plc, Hoover's Inc., Morningstar Inc., Interactive Data Corp. and Revere Data LLC. Google plans to introduce advertising eventually, Stanton said. Yahoo Finance, the king of online financial sites offers not only many of the features Google Finance does but also links to stock research, retirement planning, bonds, options and downloadable spreadsheets for making finance calculations. Peggy White, general manager of Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Finance, said the 10-year old finance site is aimed at everyone from entry-level investors to professional money managers.

FINANCIAL NEWS, QUOTES, BLOGS
Google Finance can be found at http://finance.google.com and links to it appear in a featured area at the top of general Google search results pages when users search for stock or corporate information that appear to be finance related. Beneath the finance-focused search box at the top of the Google Finance main page are sections that provide summaries of the market, stock quotes and links to news, blogs and moderated-finance group discussions. One of the more novel features of the site gives user the ability to view financial news alongside historical price charts over various time frames. As the user zooms back in time, the news results change with the date. The site identifies financial stories within Google News, the company's existing news search site that features articles from roughly 4,500 different sources. By contrast, Yahoo's financial news relies on three dozen top editorial brands. And while Yahoo was the first of the major Internet sites to incorporate blogging alongside news in its Yahoo News site, Google Finance is first to run blogs alongside financial news. Matthew Bienfang, a retail brokerage analyst at research firm TowerGroup, said the broad-based financial information sites such as Yahoo or TheStreet.com are chipping away at online brokers such as Charles Schwab Corp., which depend on their sites to attract their core customer base. Other Google features include the ability to set up stock portfolios, track mutual fund performance or connect to other online finance sites, including Yahoo, MSN, Dow Jones' MarketWatch and AOL and regulatory filings from EDGAR Online. Google will use human editors to help moderate a part of the site called Google Finance Groups. This service relies on the same group discussion technology as Google Groups, which features unedited discussion forums on a myriad of topics. Google Finance started out as a part-time project by Google engineers working in Bangalore, India, Stanton said. Financial terms of the deal between Google and Reuters were not disclosed. A Reuters spokesman said the company stands to benefit as customers of Google Finance click on links to Reuters sites seeking deeper information. Besides links to its news, Reuters supplies some stock quote data on publicly traded companies as well as background summaries, profiles of executives and directors and links to key historical developments that may have affected a stock.
By Eric Auchard

Bush Says Iraq Moving to Democracy as Terror Persists Bloomberg
President George W. Bush said Iraq is making progress toward democracy even as terrorist attacks persist. "We can see the outlines of a free and secure Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for,'' Bush said in a statement opening a White House press conference in Washington. Bush said Iraq clearly is wracked by sectarian violence but is not in a state of civil war. "The terrorists haven't given up,'' and "there's going to be more tough fighting ahead,'' he said. The U.S. has battled an insurgency in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime fell. Sectarian violence flared anew after a terrorist bomb destroyed a Shiite shrine in Samarra Feb. 22. With U.S. military deaths in Iraq surpassing 2,300, public support for the war dropping and the cost of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan rising to $9.8 billion a month, Bush is giving a series of speeches aimed at rallying Americans behind his policies. His next one is slated for tomorrow in West Virginia. Bush today said Iraq is "making progress'' toward forming "a council that gives each of the country's major factions a voice,'' and "Iraq's leaders must take advantage of the opportunity.'' "We're making progress and that's important for the American people to understand,'' he said.

Support Sagging
The president's job-approval ratings have sunk as a growing proportion of Americans say they believe the war was not worth fighting. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released March 16 showed 37 percent of those surveyed approved of Bush's job performance -- a low point of his presidency in that survey. Other national polls have shown similar results. The Journal/NBC survey indicates that Iraq is a crucial cause of dissatisfaction: 61 percent of adults said they disapprove of Bush's handling of the conflict, 51 percent said the overthrow of Hussein hasn't been worth the cost in human and financial terms and 50 percent said the war has weakened the U.S.'s standing in the world. Bush opened his hour-long news conference today with an optimistic assessment of the conflict, now in its fourth year, and the subject dominated his exchanges with the press. Ten of 22 questions asked concerned Iraq.

'I Understand'
Pressed by reporters to respond to the sagging support for the war, the president said, "I can understand how Americans are worried'' about whether the U.S. can win in Iraq. "I fully understand the consequences of this war; I understand people's lives are being lost,'' he said. "I'm optimistic we will succeed; if I were not I'd pull our troops out,'' Bush said. The U.S. has 133,000 troops in Iraq. The president has said these forces will withdraw only as Iraqis are able to provide for their own security and that assessment will be made by U.S. commanders in Iraq. He declined to say whether American troops would be completely out of Iraq by 2009, when his tenure as president ends. Iraq's parliament was elected on Dec. 15 and results were confirmed Feb. 10. Formation of a unity government has been delayed by infighting and sectarian violence. Bush said U.S. policy is "one, get a unity government formed, and two, support the Iraqi forces if need be to prevent'' sectarian war from breaking out. Iraqi forces "have proved themselves in the face of sectarian violence,'' he said.

Talks With Iran
Bush said he welcomes talks with Iran to warn this Iraqi neighbor against fomenting the sectarian violence between Iraq's Shiite majority and the Sunni minority that ruled the country under Hussein. Iran is dominated by Shiite Muslims. The U.S. plans to "make it clear to them that attempts to spread sectarian violence or to maybe move parts that could be used'' to make roadside bombs "is unacceptable to the United States,'' he said. Bush said he gave U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad permission "a couple of months ago'' to "explain to the Iranians what we didn't like about their involvement in Iraq.''
President says he sees progress, but explaining where is difficult San Francisco Chronicle
Bush defends Iraq strategy, answers questions on war abc13.com
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Perils of online dating prompt safety efforts Yahoo! NEWS
Josie Phyllis Brown never had a chance against her 6-foot-6-inch (2-meter) killer, although his stature was one of the few things she should have known from his Internet profile. John Christopher Gaumer, who confessed to the murder and led Baltimore County police to Brown's body on February 7, listed his height and other attributes in his quest for dates on MySpace.com, a free Internet social site owned by News Corp. where mostly young people connect for friendship and romance. Some personal profiles on the Web site are frighteningly revealing. People publish their birth dates, schools they attend, even clubs they will frequent on a given Saturday night, complete with a cellphone number for whomever might care to join them. "Think about, there are millions of people we're dealing with here and somehow people think they are all preachers," said Paul Falzone, chief executive of Together Dating service, a brick-and-mortar company that performs background checks on all members. Falzone says background checks result in 10 percent of applicants being rejected. For most of the 40 million people using Internet sites for dating and socializing each month, a disastrous 15 minutes over coffee at Starbucks is the worst they will suffer. But there is enough danger out there that some U.S. states are considering legislation to force Internet dating sites to police themselves, while companies that do background checks say business is booming.

SCREENING DATES
Only a small percentage of "intimate partner violence" -- nearly 700,000 such incidents were reported to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001 -- originate from Internet dating, according to Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals, which monitors the dating industry. For upstart online service True.com, even one assault is too much. The site performs background checks on every member, ferreting out sex offenders, felons and married people. About 11 percent of those who apply are rejected. "To think a felon could find a victim, especially for a heinous crime, gives me the heebie-jeebies. I do all I can do to prevent that," said Herb Vest, chief executive of True.com. Nevertheless, Robert Wells, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, passed the True.com screening and posted a profile on that site. The company is suing him, claiming he committed wire fraud. The small competitor is pressing for legislation to force big Web sites like Match.com and Yahoo! to perform background checks, or clearly state they don't. So far, California, Florida, Texas and Michigan have considered legislation. Yahoo! and Match.com, the industry leaders with 6 million and 15 million monthly visitors respectively, continually stress dating safety. Match.com forces the 60,000 people who sign up for the service each month to review its safety policies before they subscribe. On both sites, every profile is reviewed and approved by human eyes to screen out excess information or obscenity. Around 15 percent of postings are rejected, according to Kristin Kelly, spokesperson for Match.com. That is not enough for some.

DARK SIDE OF THE 'NET
"The Internet has its dark side and they are not doing everything they can to keep sexual predators and gold diggers off these sites. If you don't police yourselves, the government will come in and police you," said Michigan state Sen. Alan Cropsey. Cropsey has sponsored a bill that would force Web sites to do background checks, and it proposes posting a warning label on sites, much like those on cigarette packs. Cropsey's legislation met vigorous resistance from the online industry. "There are other ways to get to who that person is, rather than have the government ram a business model down your throat," said Abraham Smilowicz, chief executive of Webdate Inc. Webdate uses real-time video as a safety measure, allowing prospective dates to chat and get a look at each other via webcams. Daters themselves are also stepping forward to create their own safeguards. Companies like Safedate and Honestyonline are springing up to run background checks for individuals and grant their stamp of approval. Honestyonline will even come to a home, weigh prospective daters, take a picture and leave with bodily fluids to confirm disease-free status. William Bollinger, executive vice president of National Background Data, said his business had grown 600 percent in the past two years. Even a background check would not have saved Lori Leonard. The boyfriend she met via the Internet was convicted of her murder on January 27 in Hudson Falls, N.Y. His record showed only misdemeanors from assaults on former girlfriends, not the sort of information churned up in basic background checks. Leonard endured two assaults before her death. According to Dr. John Gray, author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," education is the solution. "The warning signs often come out right away. Beware of someone who can solve all your problems or who comes on really strong," said Gray.
By Verna Gates

Siemens, Nokia build faster T-Mobile network Yahoo! NEWS
Germany's Siemens and Finland's Nokia are equipping T-Mobile's mobile phone network to speed up third-generation services such as Internet surfing and downloading movies in Germany and Austria. Siemens said on Tuesday it was the main supplier to T-Mobile, the mobile phone unit of Deutsche Telekom, and a Siemens spokeswoman said that its part of the deal was worth an amount in the double-digit millions of euros. T-Mobile confirmed that Siemens was the main supplier for upgrading its network to HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) and said Nokia would also supply some parts. Siemens said in a statement: "Starting with Germany and Austria, T-Mobile customers can now use their notebook or mobile phone to surf in the Internet at DSL (digital subscriber line) speeds and download large volumes of data such as movies or large e-mail attachments faster than before." Telecoms operators hope that HSDPA, which promises to bring home broadband speeds to mobile devices, will encourage customers to access data while on the move. Current third-generation networks, with their slower speeds, have failed to create a mass market for such services. T-Mobile said its entire German third-generation network would be equipped with HSDPA by May at initial rates of up to 1.8 megabits per second, compared with 384 kilobits now. By the end of the year transmission will be speeded up to 3.6 megabits per second, and after that it will be doubled again to 7.2 megabits per second.

Bush sees troops still in Iraq in 3 years Yahoo! NEWS
George W. Bush said on Tuesday that U.S. troops may be in Iraq after the end of his presidency in three years time but he insisted there was no civil war. Though Washington has long resisted setting a timetable for withdrawal, U.S. officials have held out the prospect it would start soon and many of Bush's Republican allies seemed keen to see progress before congressional elections in November. Yet with Iraqi leaders and the U.S. ambassador warning of the imminent risk of civil war, the 133,000 heavily armed U.S. troops are seen by many as having a vital role in stemming violence. Asked when U.S. forces would finally pull out of Iraq, Bush told a White House news conference: "That will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." Bush must step down when his term ends in January 2009. As he addressed Americans' concerns on Iraq three years after the U.S. invasion, however, Iraqis voiced new complaints about alleged killings of civilians by U.S. troops. The military announced a second investigation in the space of a few days into accusations soldiers shot women and children in their homes. A U.S. army dog handler was convicted of abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and faces more than eight years in jail. The U.S.-trained forces that Washington hopes will take on the bulk of security tasks, however, suffered one of their worst setbacks when suspected al Qaeda guerrillas killed at least 22 people, mostly policemen, and freed over 30 prisoners from jail. About 100 insurgents staged the dawn raid on two official buildings in Miqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, officials said. Ten of the attackers were also killed, one source said.

NO CIVIL WAR
Bush dismissed comments from former U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that sectarian violence constituted civil war, saying it was a good sign that an attack a month ago on a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra failed to spark all-out conflict: "The way I look at it, the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war," Bush said. A delegation of U.S. senators expressed American impatience with Iraqi leaders' failure, three months after an election, to form a government that could help contain the conflict. "The American people are of good heart ... but do not try in any way to deceive them or let this progress indicate to the world a less than sincere and prompt effort to bring about a new government," John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after meeting Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. "There has to be some pressure put on political leaders to reach a settlement," his opposition Democratic colleague Carl Levin said. "The American people are impatient." A U.S. soldier was shot dead in Baghdad on Tuesday, the 2,319th American serviceman to die in the three-year conflict. The U.S. military said it was investigating Iraqi police allegations that its troops shot dead a family of 11, among them five children, in their home at Ishaqi, north of Baghdad, last week. Soldiers said they killed four, including a militant. "Because of that discrepancy, we have opened an investigation," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson. Police Colonel Farouq Hussein said at the time the victims were all shot in the head: "It's a clear and perfect crime."

HADITHA "RAMPAGE"
The probe began after a magazine published allegations that U.S. Marines killed 15 civilians in another town last year. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. Townspeople interviewed by Reuters on Tuesday said troops went on a rampage after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, west of Baghdad, in November. The witnesses rejected an original U.S. account that the 15 also died in the bomb blast -- a version also now dismissed by U.S. commanders. "In this house, the whole family was killed, including children," said one resident, who declined to be named. Accusations that U.S. soldiers often kill civilians and that little disciplinary action has resulted in the few cases investigated have aroused Iraqi anger since the invasion. "The occupying forces have started to use savage methods," Sunni Arab politician Hussein al-Falluji said. "The Haditha incident tells us that U.S. patience has come to an end." Allawi, the former prime minister now tipped to be security supremo, called for Iraqi forces to be reinforced to prevent sectarian conflict exploding into all-out civil war: "We must strengthen the army, police, security and intelligence services," he told Reuters in an interview. "If not, the situation will be disastrous." After the attack on the police at Miqdadiya, the governor of Diyala province, which has a volatile ethnic and sectarian mix and has seen many al Qaeda attacks in recent months, had the police chief and other officers held on suspicion of complicity. The violence occurred as Shi'ite pilgrims, estimated by local officials at more than 2 million, concluded the rites of Arbain in the holy city of Kerbala and began to head home. The two-day mourning ceremony passed off with little incident, guarded by thousands of Iraqi police and troops.
By Tabassum Zakaria

China, Russia united on Iran Yahoo! NEWS
China and Russia are united in pushing for more diplomacy to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, China said on Tuesday, a day after the two deflected Western moves to authorize U.N. Security Council threats against Iran. After more than two weeks of discussions, the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council -- China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France -- have been unable to agree on a draft statement that tells Iran to stop enriching uranium. "China and Russia have common views on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference. "Our objectives are to solve the issue in a peaceful way through negotiations," he said, as Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Beijing. Iran insists it has the right to atomic research -- which it says is for peaceful purposes -- but the Western powers believe it is seeking the ability to make nuclear weapons. Qin said China supported a Russian compromise proposal that would allow Iran to use nuclear fuel enriched in an internationally monitored plant on Russian soil, easing fears that Tehran could divert atomic material to develop weapons. "Under current circumstances, Russia's proposal is a helpful way to break the impasse," Qin said. "We call on all parties concerned to step up their negotiations and demonstrate flexibility." Both Russia and China are wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut off contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Envoys close to the talks on the draft statement said Russia, backed by China, was toughest on its provisions, objecting to its setting a two-week deadline for the IAEA to report whether Tehran has complied, saying the time limit is too short. But underscoring the urgency to reach a resolution, U.S. President George W. Bush reiterated that Washington was ready to use military force against Iran if necessary. "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," he said in a speech to the City Club of Cleveland. "That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace... I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel." Bush also stressed the desire for a united message on Iran from the Security Council "in orde r to say loud and clear to the Iranians this is unacceptable behavior." The full 15-member council consults later on Tuesday. Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, negotiators for the European Union, Iran agreed to freeze uranium enrichment activities in return for economic and political rewards. That deal broke down last year, and Iran resumed uranium conversion in August.
By Lindsay Beck

America's Most Polluted Cities Forbes
Pollution
U.S. cities continue to pollute at a great rate. Still, to put this in perspective, they are all better than Chinese cities that hold the title of the world's worst. The Chinese wrested that title from Mexico City--since all ten in China are more polluted than Mexico's capital. China's dilemma is that it is caught between its response to outsourcing needs by Western nations (and their own industrial expansion) and its inability to contain the harmful emissions all this activity generates--from smokestacks to trucks, buses, construction equipment and, now, an increasing number of automobiles. There is no way to disassociate the state of air quality and the efficiency of transportation and its infrastructure. Trucks, buses and most particularly off-road vehicles contribute a large portion of the harmful pollutants. Their diesel emissions are a major source of both ozone and particle pollution. By 2010, in the U.S. these vehicles must by Environmental Protection Agency standards produce 95% less pollution than they do today. Smog reduces visibility and adds significantly to driving hazards and delay. Logistics costs as a measure against GDP are more than three times higher in China than in the U.S. Nor is there any sensible way to disassociate air pollution from health risks and death rates. In the U.S., the EPA has put out a series of timed regulations designed to improve air quality here. According to the EPA, an average person breathes in 3,400 gallons of air per day. Some 25% of Americans, according to the American Lung Association (ALA), are breathing air that is hazardous to their health. The EPA and other monitoring organizations have two major categories of emissions: particle pollution and ozone pollution. Particle pollution (traditionally known as soot in the air) is a mixture of solids and liquid droplets suspended in air. The solids are made up of nitric acid and sulfuric acid accompanied by traces of metals, dirt and organic chemicals. Ground-level ozone (often referred to as smog) is produced when sunlight combines with hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide. It is most apparent on sunny days near busy highways and in cities, and appears as a dirty yellow haze from a distance. For the EPA, the next big round involving the Clean Air Act is slated for 2007, and it calls for more stringent emissions reduction (basically sulfur emissions). For U.S. truckers, this will require specifically reducing sulfur emissions from the use of new diesel fuel down to 15 parts per million from levels typically as high as 500 parts per million. The ALA sees the need for action and cooperation around the EPA mandate. It cites dreadful life-threatening and life-taking consequences from the levels of pollution in U.S. cities. Heart attacks and asthma attacks lead the list. The ALA states that 152 million U.S. citizens, or 52% of the population, are at risk from ozone and particle pollutants. Children, the elderly and people with asthma, diabetes, chronic bronchitis or emphysema (16.9 million) are severely at risk. Others with heart conditions are also at risk. "The emissions from cars and trucks have been a big problem for the past 40 years," says Janice Nolen, ALA director of national policy. Some communities, according to Nolen, have thought that building more roads to reduce congestion would be a prime way to solve the problem, but in fact that hasn't solved anything. Some experts are now looking at alternatives to how communities themselves are built so that commutes and distances traveled by vehicles are shorter, making roads less congested. Polluting emissions are also generated from vehicles moving or idling on highways and city streets while engines and exhaust systems are operating at less than optimum levels. The ATA makes a point of singling out off-road vehicles as very heavy polluters. Their fuel is among the dirtiest. Diesel locomotives with inadequately designed engines generate pollutants as well. Of course, factories produce pollution along with electrical generation plants (often coal driven), and known carcinogenic emissions are even created by dry cleaners. Nolen notes one positive development: She sees an increase in the use of electrical plugs in facilities at truck rest stops. This maintains refrigeration for the load and air conditioning for the trucker while reducing idling time. The trucking world today is a mix of good business and difficulties that are not always within the control of a particular trucking company. The downside of more stringent regulations includes higher diesel-fuel costs, a lack of trained truckers, a continuing loss of experienced drivers and more complex security processes and costs. The 2007 EPA rules are another large hurdle. Glen Casey, spokesman for American Trucking Association, has a different set of concerns than the ALA does. He sees two sides that have to be considered: first, taking the sulfur out of the diesel fuel and, second, factors governing engine emissions that have required redesign of truck engines, exhaust systems and subsequent costs. "Will there be an adequate supply of the new ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel across the country in all locations?" he asks. "There may be contamination along the pipeline, and some fuel may not meet the 15 parts per million goal." There does not seem to be any clear idea as to how much this diesel fuel will increase in price. It will be significantly higher than the 1999 EPA prediction of 4 to 5 cents per gallon. The second side is the question of engines designed to meet the EPA standards. New engines are rolling out slowly into the fleets of trucks. The ATA had wanted two years' worth of testing and creation of data from fleets with, and fleets without, the new engines. There has been very limited testing to date of the fleets (around 250 trucks). Economic choices, of course, would best be made from reliable data about truck performance in a wide variety of conditions. The ATA does not feel this has been accomplished. More thorough testing would give an indication as to how many trucks to purchase and when, according to the ATA. Right now, many fleets are pre-buying 2006 trucks to avoid the 2007 EPA mandate. Some see increased time for testing as a delaying game, while others might agree with the ATA and see it as a prudent measure. Regardless of being pro-EPA mandate or not, many cities stand condemned, and they can take no comfort in being better than China. The list indicates that California and Texas have a great deal of work to do.

Ten Most Polluted U.S. Cities (Ozone Rated Only)
1. Los Angeles (Long Beach, Calif., Riverside, Calif.)
2. Bakersfield, Calif.
3. Fresno-Madera, Calif.
4. Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
5. Merced, Calif.
6. Houston (Baytown, Huntsville, Tex.)
7. Sacramento (Arden, Calif., Arcade, Calif., Truckee, Nev.)
8. Dallas/Forth Worth
9. New York (Newark, N.J., Bridgeport, Conn.)
10. Philadelphia (Camden, N.J., Vineland, N.J.)

Source: American Lung Association (for 2005)

Below are the most polluted cities in China (and the world), according to China’s Environmental Protection Administration. Most of these cities are west of Beijing in central China and in the mountainous regions of Shanxi Province. The dominant pollution source is coal burning and less than adequate emissions performance from trucks and other vehicles.

Most Polluted Cities In China (And The World)
1. Linfen, Shanxi Province
2. Yangquan, Shanxi Province
3. Datong, Shanxi Province
4. Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
5. Sanmanxia, Henan Province
6. Jincheng, Gansu Province
7. Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province
8. Xianyang, Shanxi Province
9. Zhuzhou, Hunan Province
10. Luoyang, Henan Province
Robert Malone

Microsoft to double Xbox 360 shipments this week Yahoo! NEWS
Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it plans to boost shipments of its
Xbox 360 video game console by "two to three times" this week to address shortages that have crimped game sales across the industry. The increase in shipments comes a week after rival Sony Corp. announced it would delay the launch of its much-anticipated PlayStation 3 game machine until November to finalize standards for the Blue-ray Disc drive, a next-generation DVD player that will be included in PS3. Microsoft said it can ramp up Xbox 360 shipments now that its supply of components is in full production and a third contract manufacturer, Celestica Inc., is now making consoles along with Wistron Corp. and Flextronics International Ltd. A Microsoft spokeswoman said Sony's six-month delay did not play a role in its decision to boost shipments. The software giant's game console is widely viewed as a crucial product that underscores its commitment to play a big role in delivering entertainment and media in the living room. Initially, Microsoft hoped to sell 2.75 million to 3 million consoles in the first 90 days after the product's U.S. launch in November. The company later reduced that target to 2.5 million consoles due to supply delays but said it still aimed to sell 4.5 million to 5.5 million units by the end of June. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is trying to turn the tables on Sony, which currently dominates the video game console market with a share of about 70 percent with its PlayStation 2. Sony used a head start on the original Xbox to carve out a leading position in the console market, prompting Microsoft executives to pledge not to get beat to market by Sony again. The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate plans a simultaneous global launch in November, pitting Xbox 360 against the PS3 during the holiday shopping season when the game industry earns most of its money. Microsoft also said on Tuesday that Xbox Live, the online download accessible by the console, has logged more than 10 million downloads, which it said was "faster than iTunes did when it launched." More than 85 percent of Xbox 360 consoles that are connected to the Internet have downloaded games, trailers and videos from the service. Shares of Microsoft gained a penny to $27.90 on the Nasdaq.

UN Council deadlocked on issuing Iran statement Yahoo! NEWS
The U.N. Security Council ran into new obstacles on Tuesday in trying to issue a statement on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions after Russia insisted on deleting key parts of the text. A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled for Tuesday was delayed until later in the week while diplomats talk in small groups, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. Members last week thought a deal was close. "The impact on the negotiations which we are trying to do here was not as positive as we would have wished," British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. "That is the basic problem." Council members have mulled a reaction to Iran's nuclear program, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making, since receiving a dossier from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 8. Russia, supported by China, has been wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut all contact with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. On the statement, Russia wants about half the text deleted, China said. A statement requires agreement from all 15 Security Council members while a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no veto from any of the permanent members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. The Western powers could turn the statement, drafted by France and Britain, into a resolution and dare Russia and China to take what would be a serious step and veto a text on Iran. Asked about a resolution, Britain's Jones Parry said everything was on the table "if it produces a satisfactory outcome, sends the right message to the government in Tehran." "I think what France and I both feel is that if this text is to be amended further, it should be amended in order to come to an agreed conclusion. And if there is no prospect of an agreed conclusion we won't be amending the text," Jones Parry said. Moscow would like to cut a provision that weapons of mass destruction constitute "a threat to international peace and security" because it could lead to a action under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which makes demands mandatory and can lead to sanctions or even military action, China said. "The Russian argument is that it has the implication of leading to Chapter 7 actions," China's U.N. ambassador Wang Guangya said. "I believe that the Russian concern has its logic," Wang said when asked if China agreed. Russia also wants a brief statement that does not reiterate all demands from the IAEA's 35-nation board, such as suspending all uranium enrichment activities. Instead it wants only to point to the number of the IAEA resolution, Wang said.

NEXT STEPS?
Senior officials from the five permanent council members and Germany met on Monday to discuss future action but came to no agreement, diplomats said. Before the meeting, Britain had floated the possibility of tougher Security Council measures against Tehran in exchange for a package of incentives, which had been offered by the Europeans earlier in talks that collapsed, diplomats said. Russia, Wang said, informally floated its own proposals -- talks with Iran, the IAEA's director general Mohamed ElBaradei and the six countries, similar to talks on North Korea, which are not part of Security Council measures. But he said neither the British proposals nor the Russian ones were discussed at the meeting. "They (the Russians) argued for two tracks. "On one hand you put pressure, on the other hand show a way out of this," Wang said without elaborating. Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, negotiators for the European Union, Iran agreed to freeze any uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities in return for economic and political rewards. That deal broke down last year and Iran restarted uranium conversion in August.
By Evelyn Leopold

Abu Ghraib dog handler guilty of prisoner abuse Yahoo! NEWS
A U.S. Army dog handler was found guilty on Tuesday of abusing detainees at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and faces up to eight years and nine months in prison, an Army spokeswoman said. The sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, was set to begin later in the day, Lt. Col. Shawn Jirik said. Smith was charged with using his dog to harass and threaten inmates at Abu Ghraib in order to make them urinate and defecate on themselves in 2003 and 2004. Disturbing photos of inmates being intimidated by dogs and sexually humiliated were broadcast around the world after the abuses became public in 2004, undermining Washington's efforts to win support for its war in Iraq. Several of these photos were introduced as evidence in Smith's trial. Smith's lawyers maintained that he was unfairly lumped in with others on the night shift who physically abused detainees or allowed their dogs to bite them, and was acting at the request of interrogators and prison authorities. Other soldiers who worked alongside Smith have already been sentenced for up to 10 years for abusing inmates. Smith was found guilty of maltreating one adult and two juvenile detainees. He was also found guilty of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and assault. He was found not guilty of three more maltreatment charges, one conspiracy charge, and four charges of aggravated assault. Smith was also found guilty of indecent acts for having his dog lick peanut butter off a male soldier's genitals and a female soldier's breasts. A Pentagon spokesman said the verdict proved that the military is holding lawbreakers accountable. "As we've seen over the past many months, these individual cases (are) coming to trial and being disposed of in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. One human rights activist who observed the trial said higher-ranking officials are not being held accountable. "There was more than enough blame to go around," said Avi Cover, a lawyer with the New York-based activist group Human Rights First. "I think we need to look all the way up the chain of command." Smith's trial featured testimony from the former top military intelligence officer at the prison, Army Col. Thomas Pappas, who was reprimanded and fined in part for authorizing the use of dogs for interrogation without approval. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who helped shape detention practices at Abu Ghraib, invoked his right to not incriminate himself earlier this year.
By Andy Sullivan

Bush raises possibility of years-long Iraq presence Yahoo! NEWS
President George W. Bush held out the possibility on Tuesday of a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for many years, saying a full withdrawal would depend on decisions by future U.S. presidents and Iraqi governments. Bush, struggling to rebound from low job approval ratings that he blamed largely on the war, was asked at a news conference if there would come a time when no U.S. troops are in Iraq. "That, of course, is an objective. And that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq," said Bush, who will be president until January 2009. Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there are 133,000 U.S. troops in the country. Bush has laid the groundwork for possible U.S. troop reductions by the end of the year, saying he aims to get Iraqi forces sufficiently trained to take over by then. But until now he had not given a prediction on how long there might be an American presence. Many Arabs are concerned that the United States might want a permanent presence in Iraq, and those concerns were likely to be heightened by Bush's comments. Opinion polls show Americans have become increasingly dissatisfied over a war in which more than 2,300 U.S. troops have died. Democrats have seized on this in a congressional election year to criticize the Republican president's handling of the war. Appearing for nearly an hour at his second formal solo news conference of the year, Bush mixed his prognosis of progress in Iraq with a realistic description of events, reflecting a recent White House pattern of admitting mistakes have been made in the war. He acknowledged errors in the Iraqi reconstruction effort had cost valuable time in rebuilding and said the U.S. military was adjusting to insurgent tactics. But he insisted that his bedrock belief remained that Iraq can become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. "I'm optimistic we'll succeed," he said. "If not, I'd pull our troops out. If I didn't believe we had a plan for victory, I wouldn't leave our people in harm's way." Bush said insurgent attacks that have killed hundreds of Iraqis in recent weeks were designed in part by the attackers to create horrific images for U.S. television screens and generate doubts about the mission among Americans. "Please don't take that as criticism," Bush told reporters. "But it also is a realistic assessment of the enemy's capability to affect the debate, and they know that." Bush also said he disagreed with those who said Iraq had fallen into a civil war. Asked whether he agreed with former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's comments that Iraq was already in civil war, Bush said: "I do not, there are other voices coming out of Iraq." "We all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence," Bush said. "The way I look at it the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war." A Newsweek magazine poll conducted last week showed Bush's approval rating fell to 36 percent, down 21 points from a year ago, amid discontent about Iraq. The survey said 65 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the war. "I fully understand the consequences of this war. I understand people's lives are being lost," Bush said. "But I also understand the consequences of not achieving our objective by leaving too early. Iraq would become a place of instability, a place from which the enemy can plot, plan and attack," he added.
By Steve Holland

Insurgents Free 33 Inmates in Brazen Raid Yahoo! NEWS
Insurgents stormed a jail around dawn Tuesday in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad, killing 19 police and a courthouse guard in a prison break that freed dozens of prisoners and left 10 attackers dead, authorities said. As many as 100 insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the judicial compound in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. The assault began after the attackers fired a mortar round into the police and court complex, said police Brig. Ali al-Jabouri. At least 33 prisoners were freed in the jail break. After burning the police station, the insurgents detonated roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said. At least 13 policemen and civilians and 15 gunmen were wounded. Later Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded three in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities said. Five other police were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks targeting patrols in northern and southern Baghdad early Tuesday, police said. A U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire while patrolling western Baghdad, the military said. At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count. Also in the capital, gunmen killed an employee of the mayor's office while he was driving in the Dora neighborhood, and police discovered eight blindfolded corpses, some of them showing signs of torture, officials said. The execution-style killings have become an almost daily occurrence in a wave of sectarian violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine. On Monday, police found the bodies of at least 15 more people — including that of a 13-year-old girl — dumped in and near Baghdad. In Washington, President Bush said he did not agree with former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday, "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." Bush said others inside and outside Iraq believe the nation has stopped short of civil war. "We all recognized that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence. But the way I look at the situation is, the Iraqis looked and decided not to go into civil war," Bush said during a news conference. As night fell Monday, a bomb struck a coffee shop in northern Baghdad, killing at least three people and injuring 23 others. The bomb was left in a plastic bag inside the shop in a market area of the Azamiyah neighborhood, police Maj. Falah al-Mohammadewi said. At about the same time, gunmen killed two engineers leaving work at the Beiji oil refinery north of Baghdad, police Lt. Khalaf Ayed al-Janabi said. Separately, the owner of a small grocery in downtown Baghdad was shot and killed. In southeast Baghdad, a roadside bomb blew apart a minibus, killing four pilgrims returning from the holy city of Karbala, where millions of Shiites gathered to mark the 40th and final day of the annual mourning period for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Five pilgrims on their way to Karbala were wounded in a drive-by shooting earlier in the day, police said. Otherwise, the commemoration passed largely without incident and the bomb attacks of the past two years. Baghdad's international airport remained closed Tuesday by authorities who cited the need to protect the Karbala commemoration. Jordanian authorities closed their border with Iraq until further notice to "prevent those without valid travel documents from entering the country," said Maj. Bashir al-Da'ajah, spokesman of Jordan's Public Security Department. The New York Times reported the border was closed because Palestinians living in Iraq were trying to enter Jordan without proper documents. In Baghdad, a group of U.S. senators met with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to discuss prospects for forming a national unity government, a step viewed as important in working toward peace and a withdrawal of U.S. troops. Al-Jaafari predicted a new government would be ready in the coming weeks. "I hope that the formation of the new government does not last beyond April," al-Jaafari said. Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said such a commitment must be kept "in order for there to be continued support for the presence of American troops in Iraq." Committee chairman Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., said decisions on U.S. troops would be made not only by President Bush, Congress and other leaders, but also by the American people — a seeming allusion to declining U.S. popular support for the war. In show of Shiite support for al-Jaafari's bid for a second term as prime minister, Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said after meeting Iraq's top Shiite cleric that "Dr. al-Jaafari is still the (Shiite) alliance nominee. The alliance has not presented anyone else." The Shiite alliance is under pressure from Kurds and Sunni Muslims to drop al-Jaafari because they say he cannot unify the country. In the holy city of Najaf, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shiite bloc in parliament, met the top cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who told him to "speed the moves to form the new government," said al-Hakim aide Haitham al-Husseini.
By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer

Israel Foils Palestinian Bombing Plot Yahoo! NEWS
With sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, Israeli police chased a van with explosives on a main highway Tuesday and captured a group of Palestinians who defense officials say planned a major bombing ahead of national elections. Israel's parliamentary election is set for March 28; Palestinian attacks have altered the outcome of past balloting. After chasing down the bomber halfway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, jittery security forces extended a closure on the West Bank and Gaza through election day. AP Television News video showed the 10 Palestinians removed from the van at gunpoint, stripped to their underwear, and forced to lie face down in a field next to the highway, arms extended. Sappers took away a 15-pound bomb, concealed in a bag. Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco said the suspected bomber had ties to the militant group Islamic Jihad. Authorities said he planned to blow himself up in central Israel, without pinpointing the location. Islamic Jihad has been responsible for all seven such attacks during a yearlong cease-fire largely observed by others, including Hamas, the larger Islamic group. Hamas is forming a new government after sweeping Palestinian elections in January and has indicated it will continue the truce. At midday Tuesday, a police helicopter flew in ever-tightening circles above the four-lane Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, looking for the blue van with the bomb. Based on directions from the sky, police set up roadblocks on the heavily traveled highway, snarling traffic for miles. The van was first seen in the hills near the suburb of Mevasseret Zion, and police joined the pursuit. Elite police commandos with automatic weapons took part. Oz Eliasi, a police officer involved in the chase, said the van ran two roadblocks before it was stopped by police six miles past the Latrun junction, a main interchange. Eliasi told Channel 2 TV that police initially forced the driver out of the van. Police then saw a Palestinian peeking out the rear window and realized there were passengers, he added. "With guns drawn, we went to the back of the van and began removing everyone, laying them down on the ground," he said. Bomb experts searched the car and found a bag containing the explosives, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Police removed the bomb from the car, setting off a panic among nearby motorists. "We were traveling along the highway, on a beautiful spring day ... and suddenly we saw a helicopter swoop down and anti-terror forces speed by," witness Yonatan Danino told Israel Radio. "Suddenly we saw a car with security forces surrounding it. They even came out of the bushes." "People started to run away from the cars," Danino said. "Police were shouting into megaphones, 'live bomb, live bomb,' and people were running in every direction." Sappers detonated the explosives harmlessly. A successful attack could have had serious repercussions. The centrist Kadima Party, which holds a wide lead in opinion polls, has been accused by its hawkish rivals of being too soft on the Palestinians. A deadly bombing just before the 1984 election upset all predictions and handed victory to the hard-liners. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a Kadima candidate, told the Israeli Ynet Web site that Iran is pushing Islamic Jihad to carry out an attack before the balloting. "We know that Iran transferred in the last month $1.8 million to the Islamic Jihad organization in order to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel," he said. Coverage of the story topped radio and TV newscasts through the day, although the traffic jam kept reporters away from the scene for half an hour. There was no live coverage of the chase, because Israeli broadcasters do not have their own helicopters. Israel Radio relied on witnesses calling in with their descriptions, and Channel 10 TV bought a shaky amateur video from an Israeli motorist showing the drama unfolding. Reflecting pre-election jitters, Israel has banned Palestinians from entering the country until after the vote and greatly restricted movement through the Gaza Strip's main cargo crossing. With the closure causing shortages of bread and other essential items in Gaza, Israel allowed the crossing to temporarily reopen Tuesday. The crossing was opened Monday, but closed after about 30 minutes due to security concerns. Militants have attacked Karni in the past. Israel has closed the Karni crossing for most of the past 2 1/2 months, warning of more attacks. The closure has caused a shortage in Gaza of bread, dairy supplies and other essential goods. Palestinians have accused Israel of imposing the closure as punishment following the recent victory by Hamas. After previously denying such allegations, an Israeli official on Tuesday confirmed that the Karni closure was in part to send a message to Hamas, although he also said the security threats were real. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
By ARIEL SCHALIT, Associated Press Writer

Maligning McCain Washington Post
John McCain has always gotten great press, especially since he started riding around New Hampshire in a bus in 1999 and conducting rolling news conferences with reporters that would last for hours. McCain fell short in that election, of course, but he emerged as the media's favorite maverick. In the first Bush term, McCain won some battles in which he challenged his own party--on campaign finance reform and an anti-torture amendment--that further burnished his legend as an independent truth-teller. John Kerry, you may recall, even begged him to run on the Democratic ticket. During that whole time, McCain never presented himself as anything other than a rock-ribbed conservative, albeit one who took moderate stances on a few issues. I lost track of the number of liberals who told me privately that they would vote for McCain, even though they disagreed with him on a whole bunch of things, because they viewed him as a leader, war hero and straight talker. But now, in the early maneuvering for 2008, the Arizona senator (who has been going out of his way to back the battered Bush) is seen in many quarters as the front-runner. And, the ridiculously early CW goes, if he gets the GOP nomination, he would be a good bet to win the White House. The result: The left is trying to rough him up a bit. He is, some commentators are shocked to discover, not just a Republican but a conservative. Maybe it was easier to romanticize McCain when he was basically a protest candidate, but now that he's a potential president . . . well, I suspect that this is only the beginning. One columnist who's gone hard after Johnny Mac is the NYT's Paul Krugman: "It's time for some straight talk about John McCain. He isn't a moderate. He's much less of a maverick than you'd think. And he isn't the straight talker he claims to be. . . .

"But now -- at a time of huge budget deficits and an expensive war, when the case against tax cuts for the rich is even stronger -- Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes. "When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. McCain was never moderate. . . . Mr. McCain still thinks the war was a good idea, and he rejects any attempt to extricate ourselves from the quagmire. . . .

"When it comes to social issues, Mr. McCain, who once called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell 'agents of intolerance,' met with Mr. Falwell late last year. Perhaps as a result, he is now taking positions friendly to the religious right. Most notably, Mr. McCain's spokesperson says that he would have signed South Dakota's extremist new anti-abortion law." In American Prospect, Mark Schmitt strikes the same theme, saying potential McCainiacs should "have no illusions: McCain is a very conservative Republican who has now embarked on the project of reaffirming his position as the rightful heir to Barry Goldwater's politics as well as his Senate seat. Last month, for example, McCain voted to extend the very tax cuts that he had once voted against, a move that tax-cut strategist Larry Hunter correctly described to The Washington Times as 'a further morphing of McCain into George W. Bush.' "So, with this homecoming, we bring to an end one of the most fascinating eras in American politics: the five years during which McCain, with the help of an adoring press, essentially defined and controlled the concept of 'bipartisanship.' . . .

"If there had been no McCain, perhaps there would be no campaign-finance law, no torture amendment, no progress toward action on climate change. So for all that, we should be modestly grateful. But I suspect that the Bushies signing on to McCain's campaign understand exactly how helpful his monopoly on bipartisanship has been to their sustained control, and are grateful in their own way." John Hawkins at Right Wing News reminds us that some ardent conservatives don't trust McCain either--and resent his media profile: There is no Republican up on Capitol Hill more disliked by his own GOP brethren than John McCain. That's why, despite the size of his fan club in the mainstream media, McCain seems rather unlikely to capture the party's nomination for President in 2008. "Here's a short, but sweet primer that may help explain why so many conservatives believe John McCain would be a very poor choice as the Republican nominee in 2008. "John McCain will be 72 years old in 2008, which will make him 3 years older than Ronald Reagan was when he became the oldest man to ever be inaugurated as president back in 1981. In the Senate, where doddering fossils like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd can be elected over and over, McCain looks like a spring chicken in comparison. But, Reagan's age turned out to be a campaign issue and McCain, who would be 80 years old at the end of his 2nd term, would certainly have a lot of people questioning --with good reason -- whether he's up to the job. Were McCain to be the nominee, his age could be the deciding factor that puts a Democrat in office. "The mainstream media loves John McCain and they regularly write fawning articles referring to him as a 'maverick' and a 'straight-talker.' Because of this, McCain polls well among Democrats and Independents. "However, the reason McCain is so well liked by the media is because they're liberals and they love it when he trashes other Republicans. But, what would happen if John McCain actually became the Republican nominee? The same members of the mainstream media who gush over him today would turn on him in a Minnesota minute and once his great press ended, his poll numbers with Independents and Democrats would start to drop precipitously." A major question, it seems to me, is whether less ideological columnists defend McCain against some of these attacks, or at least point out why he is so popular (and not just with the press). The president, meanwhile, is still selling his Iraq policy: "President Bush on Monday held out the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar as an example of American success in the war," says the New York Times , "but he also acknowledged in remarks that were as grim as they were hopeful that the city's improvements were not matched in other parts of Iraq. . . .

"Over all, Mr. Bush's speech was a positive message that conceded some of the setbacks on the ground, a formulation meant to portray the president as not living in a fantasy world about the three-year-long war." Fred Barnes remains one of the most staunch Bush backers around, so if he's calling for a staff shakeup, as he does in the Wall Street Journal, it's rather telling: "It's time for President Bush to think about a third term. No, he doesn't need to overturn the Constitution. He can start the equivalent of his third term now, by filling his presidential staff and cabinet with new faces--or old faces in new positions--and by concentrating on new or forgotten initiatives. The goal: rejuvenation of his presidency by shocking the media and political community with a sweeping overhaul of his administration. The impact would be enormous because it's exactly what his foes have been demanding and exactly what he is not expected to do. And it would give him a chance to escape the political doldrums that may otherwise doom his presidency through its final 34 months. . . .

"A broad transformation, playing on the media's overreaction whenever surprised, would do more. Reporters would be forced to write stories about new officials, cover confirmation hearings, show up at press conferences they might have ignored, assess new policies, and--this is most important--take a fresh look at the president. It would be like the beginning of a new presidential term. Sure, the press and politicians would be cynical about Mr. Bush's bold moves, especially since he wouldn't be uprooting any policy or hiring Bush critics. In truth, there would be a large element of smoke and mirrors in his actions. The trade-off is that Mr. Bush might revitalize his presidency." Hey, a little smoke and mirrors never hurt anyone in politics. Kos is clearly disenchanted with Nancy Pelosi: "I think House Democrats in 2006 would be well served by casting about for a new leader, whether we win the House or not. And to think I was once a fan of Pelosi's. . . .

"These risk averse Dems think that by merely having a pulse, voters will gladly rush to them to save them from Republicans. But in reality, voters (including much of the Democratic base) are disillusioned. Why vote for Democrats who haven't shown an ounce of fight the last six years? What's the point? "The Alito filibuster was supposed to be a disaster for Democrats. Somehow, their numbers didn't suffer. Murtha was going to kill Dems by making them 'look weak on defense.' But somehow, people seem to agree with him. Now, Feingold's censure resolution is supposed to be a disaster for Democrats. Yet if that was the case, why are Republicans reacting so virulently against it? Bill Kristol admits the censure motion is hurting Bush." Roger L. Simon says Pajamas Media may deserve credit for the administration's decision to release a batch of Saddam Hussein documents. In the wake of the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, involving the defense contractor MZM, the San Diego Union-Tribune has this eye-opening piece on California Rep. John Doolittle, who is among the lawmakers who have "admitted assisting either [MZM's] Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions. "And at least one of the lawmakers, Doolittle, received a direct monetary benefit from those contributions through commissions paid to his wife, Julie. "Acting as her husband's campaign consultant, Julie Doolittle charged his campaign and his Superior California Political Action Committee a 15 percent commission on any contribution she helped bring in." His wife gets a commission ? How can that be kosher? Back-from-Iraq Post reporter Jackie Spinner is not that happy with management, according to the San Jose Mercury News: "I have to say, I don't think my editors at the paper have been as supportive of me coming home as I would like them to be. My fellow reporters have always been supportive. " Why haven't your editors been supportive ? "Because they don't know how to deal with somebody like me. They don't know how to deal with a reporter who has spent as much time as I've spent in a war zone. This war is unlike any we've known. " How have you changed ? "I'm jumpy. I'm angry. I'm unpredictable. I'm depressed. I have very serious post-traumatic stress disorder, which is common among people who spend 13 months in a war zone like Iraq. But unlike other reporters, I'm honest about it. A lot of journalists come back from that environment and want to seem tough, but inside they're not tough. This is not a profession that forgives people for breaking down, not that I'm breaking down." Vaughn Ververs of Public Eye, writing before Arianna's apology, is amazed that more bloggers didn't trash the Huffington Post for stitching together a couple of George Clooney interviews and passing that off as a blog posting: "If you replaced the words 'Huffington Report' with 'The New York Times' or any other MSM organization in context of the George Clooney flap of the last couple days, Arianna Huffington would be leading the charge to skewer and denounce that entity. Instead she, and the vocal bloggers always scouring news reports for the smallest mistake, have said, well, hardly anything. "What are we to take from this episode -- that bloggers operate under a separate set of rules than what they hold the MSM to? If CBS News had quoted someone by name and that person had later claimed it to be a false representation, we would have been scrambling to find out what exactly happened and would get no quarter from the bloggers until we did (that's basically what Clooney has said about a post that appeared under his name on Arianna's blog). Just a couple months ago, The Washington Post ombudsman made a factual mistake in a column which resulted in a huge controversy -- complete with cries of censorship, bias and hate speech." Several bloggers, including Eugene Volokh , have ripped this LAT op-ed by Erin Aubry Kaplan, who attempts to explain why ex-White House aide Claude Allen was allegedly ripping off Target: "Here is a man who, like most black conservatives, has had to do an awful lot of personal and political rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-North Carolina senator and habitual racist Jesse Helms and opposing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. . . .

"Loyalty has been the price of admission to this administration, and black conservatives have proved to be more loyal than most. That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to slave times, when the most loyal blacks were those who worked in closest proximity to their white masters -- house Negroes, as they were derisively known. . . . It's hard to imagine that such compromises and cognitive dissonance don't exact a psychological toll at some point, and Allen's alleged dabbling in crime might have been that point for him." This is not just psychobabble--how on earth does Kaplan know?--but babble that relies on racially charged stereotypes. Hey, can this be true? The airlines lost 30 million bags last year? Jeff Jarvis marvels once again at how the media take care of their own: "Retired WABC anchor Bill Beutel just died and the station is going overboard with coverage: Huge chunks of all its shows yesterday and again today are devoted to tributes. I'm sorry he's gone, but heads of state don't get this treatment. Then again, I always said that the only true fringe benefit of working on newspapers is that they'll run your obit. Now I have to wonder who'll die first: me or the papers that would carry my obit." I'll blog your obit if necessary, Jeff.
By Howard Kurtz

Mayor Says New Orleans Is Better Prepared Yahoo! NEWS
New Orleans is better prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of stronger flood walls and better evacuation plans since Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin said in an interview Tuesday. "We should be able to sustain another Katrina," the mayor said. "If a Category 5 hits us, probably the city will be gone and the levees will still be standing. The work they're doing is just incredible," Nagin said of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps, which designed and built the city's levees, has been heavily criticized by residents who note the city survived the worst of the Aug. 29 storm but then was swamped when flood walls broke, inundating 80 percent of the city with brackish water. Many have expressed fear about the condition of the levees as the June 1 start of hurricane season approaches. But Nagin told The Associated Press he's confident the Corps is using better materials and designs on the levees. He also said that evacuating the city in the event of another hurricane should be smoother. He said he would be in closer contact with forecasters at the National Hurricane Center so he'll know quickly whether a mandatory evacuation will be needed. The one ordered two days before Katrina hit was the city's first. Nagin said he is concerned about the large number of travel trailers in which people are living while they repair their homes. Because the trailers are not very secure in high wind, they may need to be evacuated faster than the rest of the city. "They could turn into little missiles," Nagin said. But he predicted residents would be more likely to comply with evacuation orders now. In the future, he said, they will be bused away from the city rather than to shelters like the Superdome, where residents were stranded in hot, dank conditions for days after Katrina hit in late August. "People are pretty attuned to leaving if I say you have to leave, so I don't see that as being as much of a challenge," he said. Nagin is up for re-election April 22 and facing a slate of two dozen candidates, including Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. The mayor said he believes the city can be mostly restored in the next five years. New Orleans officials estimate about 189,000 of the city's roughly 455,000 pre-storm residents have returned, and Nagin said he expects a significant jump in population after the end of the school year, when many families with children enrolled in schools elsewhere can return without disrupting their education. He said the pace of rebuilding will likely depend on federal and state aid, but too much bureaucracy could hobble hopes for restoration. "The worst-case scenario is the state creates an incredible bureaucracy to issue this money, everything gets bogged down and bottle-necked and lots of people get frustrated and we kind of limp along at half the population we had," he said. On Monday, Nagin endorsed a proposal that would allow all residents to rebuild homes in neighborhoods shattered by the hurricanes. An advisory commission had recommended flooded neighborhoods be replaced with parks and that the city go slow in rebuilding low-lying areas.
By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

Baton Rouge Adjusts to Population Boom Yahoo! NEWS
Mandina's restaurant used to be in an old pink house by New Orleans' streetcar tracks. Now, it is 80 miles north, surrounded by strip malls and traffic-clogged roads. The down-home eatery is the latest post-Katrina transplant from colorful New Orleans to Baton Rouge, the capital city long mocked by New Orleanians as full of bumpkins and bureaucrats, suburbs and shopping centers. Along with Mandina's and its oyster po-boys have come tens of thousands of new residents from areas hit by the storm. The influx has brought more business and more traffic to this quiet Mississippi River city. "In my opinion, there's going to be a boom here for the next five or 10 years," said Bobby Arnold, a retirement planner. "This is going to be the new center of Louisiana." Exactly how many people have moved here is anybody's guess. Baton Rouge's mayor's office said the population has increased by about 100,000 from its pre-storm 227,000. Other estimates are lower. Based on school enrollment, the state health department said the entire metropolitan area has jumped by about 30,000 people; a federal tally found about 60,000 new residents. "Nobody knows what the long-term population is, what the effects on the city will be," said Cpl. Don Kelly, a city police spokesman. "I hope by the end of the year we'll have a much better idea." Things have cooled down since the days immediately after Katrina hit Aug. 29. Evacuees streamed in via Interstate 10, grocery store shelves were stripped bare, hotel rooms were full and displaced New Orleanians rented and bought nearly all available homes and apartments. Kelly said the 623-member police department has hired 20 more officers to help cover the heavier workload. Calls to the police department — for everything from traffic wrecks to violent crime — have jumped from about 550 per day before Katrina to about 730, he said. Rumors persist that New Orleanians have brought more violence to Baton Rouge, but police say the crime rate has remained flat. Locals mainly complain about the traffic. "We used to talk about rush hour, but Baton Rouge doesn't have that any longer. We've got peak periods all day long," said Stephen Glascock, a technology specialist with the state highway department. Dr. Lynn Murphy gave up trying to get to her exercise class, a drive that used to take her 30 minutes. "If I ever get there, it takes an hour or more to get home," said Murphy, whose parents moved to her Baton Rouge neighborhood after floodwaters ruined their New Orleans home. Several New Orleans restaurants had eyed Baton Rouge for expansion before the storm. The group that owns Galatoire's, an elegant Creole restaurant in the French Quarter, recently opened its long-planned bistro in a setting that couldn't be more different from its New Orleans home: on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, just off I-10, where farmland has given way to strip malls and ranch homes. Jason Doyle, owner of several bars and restaurants in New Orleans, bought a restaurant in downtown Baton Rouge while he was staying in a nearby hotel as a Katrina evacuee. "We certainly see lots of opportunities here," said Doyle, who also opened a wine bar in Baton Rouge this month. "Overnight, it's become a much better, more robust opportunity." Mandina's move to Baton Rouge last month was a true surprise. Mandina's is a New Orleans institution dating to 1932, known for po-boys and turtle soup. Loclas would drink cold beers at the bar for an hour while waiting for a table. Floodwaters five feet deep ruined every piece of furniture and kitchen equipment. The owners plan to reopen in New Orleans this fall, and continue operating the Baton Rouge restaurant, too. Before Katrina, "we'd never even heard of Baton Rouge, as far as Mandina's was concerned," manager Martial Voitier said. "That changed after the storm. We're here to stay now."
By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer

Wad of Cash Found in New Orleans Home Yahoo! NEWS
Trista Wright was spending her spring break cleaning out hurricane-damaged homes when she discovered some unusual papers among the moldy plaster board and debris. "I started raking it out of the air conditioner vent. I thought it was garbage and I was going to shovel it up, but I bent down to pick it up, and it was a stack of $100 bills, and then more and more kept coming," the 19-year-old said Tuesday on CNN. By an unofficial count, it was more than $30,000. Wright and fellow students notified the organizers of their church mission, who told the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office. The woman who owned the house, who has asked that she not be identified, was as shocked as Wright. "She was speechless," said Wright, an Armstrong Atlantic State University student was among 175 Georgia college students spending their week off volunteering in the city's Arabi area. Deputy Gary Adams verified the identity of the woman who owned the home. Adams said it's not uncommon to find weapons or medications behind the walls of homes, but this was the biggest sum of hidden money he had heard of. "It's good to see someone find something like that and turn it over to proper authorities and the rightful owner," he said. The homeowner said she suspects the money belonged to her father, who was wary of banks. The home had been in the family for generations, she said. "I had my suspicions about the money at first, but once I met the family and talked to the woman, I have no doubt she's telling the truth," said Aaron Arledge, one of the organizers of the mission. "She said her father grew up during the Depression and must not have told anyone in the family about it before he died." The one-story house was flooded to the eaves by Katrina and, aside from the hidden money, none of its contents could be saved, church officials said. "To see that woman's face when we told her about the money, that's the kind of positive story that makes all the hard work worthwhile," said the Rev. Warren Jones Jr. of New Salem Baptist Church in the Ninth Ward, which has served as a base for church missions. "She said it was a miracle. And when you think about it, it was." Haley Barton, a fellow student who was in the house with Wright, said there was never a question of keeping the money. "I think that it's expected of us as young people, or people of any age this day, to go in and take it and not be faithful or trustworthy in turning it in, but that wasn't even an option for us," she said.

New Orleans Mayor Endorses Rebuilding Plan Yahoo! NEWS
Mayor Ray Nagin presented his plan for resuscitating this hurricane-battered city, saying residents should be allowed to rebuild anywhere — as long as they do so at their own risk. Nagin said the city will continue issuing building permits to all comers, but warned that low-lying neighborhoods like New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward could flood again if another hurricane hits. "I don't recommend you going in areas I'm not comfortable with," the mayor said Monday. "I'm confident that the citizens can decide intelligently for themselves." The report also recommended a host of other ideas, from revamping schools to consolidating some city offices. The wish-list of projects included new light-rail systems, more farmers' markets, new riverfront development, job-training sites and better flood protection. "We have worked tirelessly," Nagin told hundreds of residents Monday who attended a meeting to hear about the plan. "It has been controversial in some respects, but I am pleased by the results." The blueprint does not have the force of law, and many of its aims depend on federal funds that have not yet been allotted. A state agency, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also will have sway. The plan comes two months after the mayor's advisory commission, formed after Katrina struck Aug. 29, recommended that some flooded neighborhoods be replaced with parks and that the city take a go-slow attitude in rebuilding low-lying areas. But that suggestion was greeted with jeers and outrage at public meetings. Nagin, who is running for re-election April 22, distanced himself from that plan, which included a proposed moratorium on building permits in some areas. Residents lined up to speak against the latest proposal during a public-comment period. One of them, an activist named Chui Clark, called the commission "a rotten, racist committee," echoing criticism by many black residents who say they are being discouraged from returning. But the plan has been warmly received in many circles. Ron Forman, a strong mayoral candidate and prominent businessman, applauded the commission's work and the breadth of the report. But he said it is still short on specifics. "The only problem I see with the plan is that I don't see an implementation plan, an action plan, based on dates on when we can expect to be done," Forman said. The release of the report came hours after civil rights groups took aim at the state's plan for rebuilding, which includes spending billions of federal dollars to buy flood-damaged homes. Groups including the NAACP, the Advancement Project and the New Orleans-based People's Hurricane Relief Fund complained that the state plan gives short shrift to poor and low-income victims by focusing too much on bailing out homeowners and encouraging high-end development at the expense of low-income renters. In a letter to Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration, the groups cited government estimates showing that about 126,570 rental units without insurance were flooded last year. By contrast, they said, only about 25,180 uninsured homes were damaged, which is about 20 percent of all the ruined homes. "This is really like the opening salvo, if you will, of attempts to get a fair share of that money for low- and moderate-income people," said Bill Quigley, a lawyer and civil rights activist. The state plan still needs approval by the Legislature, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority. On the Net: http://www.bringneworleansback.org
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

Daytime TV tied to poorer mental scores in elderly Yahoo! NEWS
Older women who say talk shows and soap operas are their favorite TV programs tend to score more poorly on tests of memory, attention and other cognitive skills, researchers reported Monday. That doesn't mean that daytime television is a brain drain, they say, since it's not clear that there's a direct relationship between the two. But the findings do point to some association between TV choices and intellectual function, and that could prove useful in evaluating older people for cognitive decline, according lead investigator Dr. Joshua Fogel of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. A study of 289 older women without dementia found that those who rated talk shows and soaps as their favorite programs performed more poorly on tests of memory, attention and mental quickness than their peers who cited other types of shows. What's more, they were at greater risk of showing signs of clinical impairment. For example, compared with women who preferred to watch news programs, those who favored soaps were more than seven times more likely to show signs of impairment on one of the tests, while talk show fans were more than 13 times more likely to demonstrate impairment. "Those findings are quite robust," Fogel told Reuters Health He said it's not possible to tell whether the programs somehow contribute to cognitive decline or whether women in the early stages of decline gravitate toward those shows. Preferences for daytime TV could also be a marker of a sedentary, homebound lifestyle, and research suggests that staying physically and socially active can help stave off mental decline. But regardless of the reasons, a preference for talk shows and soaps "is a marker of something suspicious," Fogel said. He believes that doctors could ask older patients about their favorite TV shows as one way of spotting those who might need more screening for cognitive decline. "It's really a simple, friendly question to ask," Fogel said. The findings, which are published in the Southern Medical Journal, are based on questionnaires and standard cognitive tests completed by 289 women ages 70 to 79. None had dementia or physical disabilities and the researchers factored in variables such as education, race, depression and history of heart attack, high blood pressure or diabetes. Even with those factors considered, TV habits were related to cognitive performance. According to Fogel, a potential explanation rests in the fact that talk shows and soap operas involve so-called "parasocial relationships," where viewers feel a connection to a show's characters or host. Such shows may, for instance, be better able to hold the attention of older women with some cognitive impairment. "This doesn't mean 'Oprah' is bad for you," Fogel said. However, an older woman's fondness for the show could signal a possible problem, according to the researcher. Asking patients about TV viewing and other daily activities could be "very useful" in assessing their cognitive health, according to Dr. Joe Verghese of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. But it's not time to toss the remote control, he writes in an accompanying editorial. Some programs, Verghese notes, might actually benefit intellectual functioning, and TV watching can help some people manage their stress levels.
By Amy Norton

Child Bride Yahoo NEWS!
Married at the age of four, an Afghan girl was subjected to years of beatings and torture, finally escaping to discover that within all the world's cruelty, there is also some kindness. Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn't find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already. Enraged about the missing watch, Gulsoma's father-in-law had beaten her repeatedly with a stick. She was bleeding from wounds all over her body and her right arm and right foot had been broken. She knew at that moment that if she didn't get away, he would make good on his promise to kill her. When I meet her at the Ministry of Women's Affairs I'm surprised that the little girl, now 12, is the same one that had endured such horrible suffering. She is wearing a red baseball cap and an orange scarf. She has beautiful brown eyes and a full and animated smile. She takes one of my hands in both of hers and greets me warmly, without any hint of shyness. "She looks healthy," says Haroon, my friend and translator. I nod. But she looks older than her years, we both agree. In orphanages — first in Kandahar, then in Kabul — she has had a year to recover from a lifetime's worth of unimaginable imprisonment, deprivation and torture. In one of the ministry's offices she sits in a straight-backed wooden chair and tells us the story of her life so far. She is stoic for the most part, pausing only a few times to wipe her eyes and nose with her scarf. Her story begins in the village of Mullah Allam Akhound, near Kandahar. "When I was three years old my father died, and after a year my mother married again, but her second husband didn't want me," says Gulsoma. "So my mother gave me away in a promise of marriage to our neighbor's oldest son, who was thirty." "They had a ceremony in which I was placed on a horse [which is traditional in Afghanistan] and given to the man." Because she was still a child, the marriage was not expected to be sexually consummated. But within a year, Gulsoma learned that so much else would be required of her that she would become a virtual slave in the household. At the age of five, she was forced to take care of not only her "husband" but also his parents and all 12 of their other children as well. Though nearly the entire family participated in the abuse, her father-in-law, she says, was the cruelest. "My father-in-law asked me to do everything — laundry, the household chores — and the only time I was able to sleep in the house was when they had guests over," she says. "Other than that I would have to sleep outside on a piece of carpet without even any blankets. In the summer it was okay. But in the winter a neighbor would come over and give me a blanket, and sometimes some food." When she couldn't keep up with the workload, Gulsoma says, she was beaten constantly. "They beat me with electric wires," she says, "mostly on the legs. My father-in-law told his other children to do it that way so the injuries would be hidden. He said to them, 'break her bones, but don't hit her on the face.'" There were even times when the family's abuse of Gulsoma transcended the bounds of the most wanton, sadistic cruelty, as on the occasions when they used her as a human tabletop, forcing her to lie on her stomach then cutting their food on her bare back. Gulsoma says the family had one boy her age, named Atiqullah, who refused to take part in her torture. "He would sneak me food sometimes and when my mother-in-law told him to find a stick to beat me, he would come back say he couldn't find one," she says. "He would try to stop the others sometimes. He would say 'she is my sister, and this is sinful.' Sometimes I think about him and wish he could be here and I wish I could have him as my brother." One evening, Gulsoma says, when her father-in-law saw the neighbor giving her food and a blanket, he took them away and beat her mercilessly. Then, she says, he locked her in a shed for two months. "I would be kept there all day," she says, "then at night they would let me go the bathroom and I would be fed one time each day. Most of the time it was only bread and sometimes some beans." She says every day she was locked in the shed, she wished and prayed that her parents would come and take her away. Then she would remember that her father was dead and her mother was gone. But Gulsoma had an inner strength even her father-in-law couldn't comprehend. "When he came to the shed he kept asking me, 'Why don't you die? I imprisoned you, I give you less food, but still you don't die.'" But it wasn't for lack of trying. Gulsoma said when her father-in-law finally let her out of the shed, he bound her hands behind her back and beat her unconscious. She says he revived her by pouring a tea thermos filling with scalding water over her head and her back. "It was so painful," she says, dabbing her eyes with her scarf and sniffling for a moment. "I was crying and screaming the entire time." Five days later, she says, her father in law gave her a vicious beating when his daughter's wristwatch went missing. "He thought I stole it," she says, "and he beat me all over my body with his stick. He broke my arm and my foot. He said if I didn't find it by the next day, he would kill me." She crawled away that night and hid under a rickshaw. When the rickshaw driver found Gulsoma, broken and bleeding, he listened to her story and took her to the police. She was hospitalized immediately. "The doctor at the hospital who treated me said, 'I wish I could take you to the village square and show all the people what happened to you, so no one would ever do something like this again,'" Gulsoma says. It took her a full month to recover from her last beating. But the fear and psychological trauma may never go away. "I was happy to have a bed and food at the hospital," she says. "But I was thinking that when I get better they will give me back to the family." However, Gulsoma says when the police questioned the family, the father-in-law lied and tried to tell them she had epilepsy and had fallen down and hurt herself. But the neighbor who had helped Gulsoma confirmed the story of her beatings and torture. The police arrested her father-in-law and "husband." They told her, she says, they would keep them in jail unless she asked for their release. "Everyone was crying when they heard my story," Gulsoma says. Gulsoma says she stayed at an orphanage in Kandahar, but was the only girl in the facility. Eventually, her story was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Gulsoma was then brought to a Kabul orphanage, where she lives today. She takes off her baseball cap and shows us a bald spot, almost like a medieval monk's tonsure, on the crown of her head where she was scalded. She then turns her back and raises her shirt to reveal a sad map of scar tissue and keloids from cuts, bruises and the boiling water. Haroon and I look at each other with disbelief. Her life's tragic story is etched upon her back. Yet she continues to smile. She doesn't ask for pity. She seems more concerned about us as she reads the shock on our faces. "I feel better now," she says. "I have friends at the orphanage. But every night I'm still afraid the family will come here and pick me up." Gulsoma also says that when the sun goes down, she sometimes begins to shiver involuntarily — a reaction to the seven years of sleeping outdoors, sometimes in the bitter cold of the desert night. She says she believes there are other girls like her in Kandahar, maybe elsewhere in Afghanistan, and that she wants to study human rights and one day go back to help them. As we walk outside to take some pictures, I ask her if, after all she's been through, she thinks it will be harder to trust, to believe that there are actually good people in the world. "No," she says, quickly. "I didn't expect anyone would help me but God. I was really surprised that there were also nice people: the neighbor, the rickshaw driver, the police," she says. "I pray for those who helped release me." Looking directly into the camera, she smiles as if nothing bad had ever happened to her in her entire life. "I think that all people are good people," she says, "except for those that hurt me."

SEND YOUR SUPPORT
The Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone team has set up an email account so that messages of support can be retrieved and forwarded to Gulsoma via a local organization. Click here to email your message.
Posted by Kevin Sites

Spring Snow Storm Buries Ohio Valley Yahoo! NEWS
The spring snow storm that buried parts of Nebraska under more than 2 feet of snow swept through the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, shutting down schools and making travel tough for voters headed for the polls for the Illinois' primary election. As much as two inches of snow an hour fell in some areas of Illinois and Indiana, and wind gusted to 40 mph, weather officials said. "Our weather's terrible. The highways are terrible. It's not the highway department's fault, they just can't keep up with it," said Morgan County, Ill., Sheriff's Deputy Trevor Lahey. He answered more than 50 calls Tuesday morning about cars in ditches west of Springfield. In Colorado, Interstate 70 reopened early Tuesday after its eastbound lanes between Denver and the Kansas line were shut down for nearly 18 hours because of heavy snow. Interstate 80 remained closed across central Nebraska but was expected to reopen during the day. The storm dumped as much as 28 inches of snow on central Nebraska on Monday, 20 inches in parts of South Dakota and half a foot in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Wind piled the snow into drifts 7 feet high in parts of South Dakota and Nebraska. Farther south, heavy rain caused flooding in the Dallas area. By midmorning Tuesday, more than 7 inches of snow had fallen on parts of western Indiana, and wind up to 25 mph created whiteout conditions in some areas, the National Weather Service said. Indiana State Police reported dozens of accidents. School districts across central Illinois and western and central Indiana closed for the day. The weather was expected to contribute to low voter turnout for Illinois' primary election, which includes gubernatorial and congressional races. It hit after an unseasonably warm winter in which snowfall was 30 percent to 50 percent below normal in Indiana. Through mid-March, Indianapolis had used only about two-thirds of its $4.6 million snow-removal budget, officials said. Indiana state climatologist Dev Niyogi said the erratic weather will likely continue, in part because of the impact of La Nina, the mild cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that often coincides with stronger and more frequent hurricanes, a wetter Pacific Northwest and a drier South. "I think the important feature of the upcoming season is not just going to be a really cold or really warm season ahead, but the swings we are going have," he said. "Some days will really feel like winter again and some days we'll start thinking that maybe that summer is already here." Schools also remained closed for a second day Tuesday in parts of the Plains states. The Nebraska Legislature canceled its Tuesday meeting, and the South Dakota Legislature rescheduled Monday's meetings. At least five deaths were blamed on the storm in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas.
By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press Writer

Charges Dropped in Fla. Student Sex Case Yahoo! NEWS
Prosecutors in one Florida county decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student. The decision, announced hours after a judge rejected a plea deal for Debra Lafave, means the victim won't have to testify. Lafave's sentence in another county for having sex with the same boy still stands. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had urged the judge to accept the deal for the sake of the boy involved. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify. Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court," and he rejected it. Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway, in explaining the decision to drop the charges, said: "The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not." Lafave, 25, was already sentenced to three years of house arrest and seven years' probation in Hillsborough County, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there. In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle. Lafave said at a news conference later Tuesday that she was getting treatment for bipolar disorder. "I have a lot of things in my past that have unfortunately become public," Lafave said. "I pray with all my heart that the young man and his family will be able to move on with their lives," she said. "Again, I offer my deepest apologies." Hillsborough County prosecutor Mike Sinacore has said that the victim's family had anticipated a trial, but that the media attention prompted the boy's mother to push for a plea deal. "There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself," the boy's mother wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner over the weekend. But she said the welfare of her son was more important.
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer

Australian PM unveils relief for cyclone survivors SABC News
Thousands of Australians on the cyclone-devastated far northeast coast patched up homes with tarpaulin today as prime minister John Howard unveiled a multi-million dollar aid package. The damage bill from Cyclone Larry, which did not claim any lives when it hit on Monday but ripped roofs off homes, decimated sugar and banana crops and uprooted trees, has been reported by local media at up to A$1.5 billion. Bottled water, ready-made meals, generators, toilets and an army field kitchen have been delivered to towns and communities along a 300km stretch of coast south of the tourist centre of Cairns. In nearby Babinda, which has a population of about 1 200, emergency services said 80% of buildings had been damaged, while in Innisfail - which took a direct hit from Larry and is home to 8 500 people - half the homes had been structurally damaged. Emergency services said running water was due to be restored in Innisfail this evening , but power would take longer. Howard toured the area today to inspect the devastation after winds topping 290km/h destroyed homes and livelihoods, and unveiled a A$100 million relief package. Residents say this is worst cyclone they have seen in 56 years.

A$ 100 million earmarked
The package centres on helping farmers and small businesses, described by Howard as the lifeblood of the affected communities, with tax-free grants of A$10 000, unemployment benefits for six months and access to concessional loans of up to A$200 000. Cyclone Larry's winds were stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed the US city of New Orleans when it hit on August 29 with winds of 209km/h. Larry, a maximum category five cyclone, also devastated sugar cane and banana crops, with industry groups expecting raw sugar production for the world's third-largest exporter to be cut by 500 000 tonnes, or 10%. About 90% of Australia's banana production is believed to have been wiped out. The banana industry has said its losses could reach A$250 million, while sugarcane growers have said their losses could top A$200 million.

Second cyclone brewing
The Australian newspaper reported that A$300 million in insurance claims had already been lodged, A$15 million worth of avocado crops had been wiped out and that repairing roads and infrastructure in the area could cost up to A$600 million. Another storm, Cyclone Wati, is a category three and intensifying about 800km east of Cairns, but Australia's Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre said it would stay offshore until the end of the week. Larry was similar in size to Cyclone Tracy, which killed 71 people in the northern city of Darwin in 1974 and caused insured losses of A$837 million in today's dollars, the third largest insured loss from a natural disaster in Australia.
Australia cleans up after Larry Globe and Mail
Cyclone hits homes in north Australia London Free Press
Helena Independent Record - Telegraph.co.uk - ABC News - The Age - all 1,699 related »

Following Yahoo to a Wealth of Traffic Site-reference.com
Consider Yahoo the first major casualty of the search engine wars. Yahoo has admitted that they cannot reasonably expect to take away any significant amount of the search market share from Google, so they have chosen to be happy as the second most visited search engine on the Internet. On the surface, this may seem strange. Why would Yahoo ever publicly announce that they are 'throwing in the towel' in the search engine war? That would be similar to Pepsi recommending that people drink their product only if Coca-Cola is not available. From a business standpoint, it is absolutely ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense. But be careful to not read into this too far. Yahoo may have tipped their hat to Google as being dominant in the traditional search engine market, but this does not mean that they are giving up the fight for Internet user's attention. In fact, for some time now, Yahoo has been moving towards a market which is quickly emerging as being just as powerful as search engines currently are.

Yahoo Moves to Web 2.0 Style Websites
In a few of the articles published here at Site Reference we have mentioned Web 2.0 and how Yahoo seems to be following this development trend, but we have never looked into why Yahoo is so fascinated by Web 2.0. As most of you probably know, Yahoo launched My Web 2.0, a public bookmarking service, along with acquiring Del.icio.us, a well-established public bookmarking service. Yahoo also launched Yahoo Answers, a service which relies on a community of users to answer questions that the same community asks. There is a common trend with all of these services - they all rely on the input from a vast community. Del.icio.us works well because it relies on thousands people deciding which websites are important rather than relying on one person's (or one algorithm's) opinion. This is the entire idea behind a folksonomy driven website - that when enough votes are tallied, the general public will decide which websites are important to specific topics, and which websites are not worth taking the time to bookmark.

An Alternative to Search Engines
Search engines provide a very simple service: they unite web users with a website that matches their current interest. It just so happens, however, that services like My Web 2.0 and Del.icio.us (public bookmarking services) have the ability to do the exact same thing - and possibly in a more effective and timely manner. Suppose you want to find new resources for SEO. You could spend your time using the keyword "SEO" in Google in a regular web search, but the results for such a competitive term tend to remain fairly static over time. An alternative would be to look at what people are tagging as "SEO" at a service like Del.ico.us. Here you are presented with an entirely new list of pages that are (for the most part) relevant to what you are looking for, and are certainly filled with fresh, up-to-date information. The information at a public bookmarking service is not necessarily always going to be the most complete, but it is the information that web users, as a collective unit, have determined to be worth visiting. In this way, public bookmarking services are more effective than search engines in filtering out which content is important, and which content is not worth reading (or even outright spam). Add the fact that these results are available in RSS form and you suddenly can be presented with the hottest information on your topic that the web has to offer. I personally subscribe to feeds that look at "Google", "Yahoo", "SEO", and other topics that are relevant for my day to day life. Obviously public bookmarking is not evolved enough for every industry. As it stands now, most of the quality information that you can get through a service like Del.icio.us relates to more technical fields, such as programming or photography. But as more people bookmark their favorite sites, the more a service like Del.icio.us will grow useful.

What Does This Have To Do With Yahoo! - And How Does It Help Me?
Traditionally, when there is a market that is worth exploring for traffic, Yahoo! has been there. When Hotmail was released, Yahoo answered with their email program. When Monster.com became popular, Yahoo acquired HotJobs. With every major traffic generating innovation, Yahoo seems to get involved. This raises the question - if Yahoo is content with remaining in second place with the search market, and at the same time they are being active in the Web 2.0 market by buying social bookmarking sites, launching their own social bookmarking service, launching Google answers, etc., shouldn't we as website owners look to these services as a way to promote our businesses? Everyone knows that you should optimize your website for the search engines, but how many people take the time to optimize their websites for bookmarking services? Not very many people consider trying to work their way up to the top of these websites, but they are actually missing out on a significant source of traffic. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger talked about how much traffic he received from getting to the front page of Del.ico.us. In the end, he saw 8,000 visitors in one day from the front page exposure as well as the external links he received from that front page exposure. Imagine just how much traffic a person could receive for constantly being towards the top of a website like Del.ico.us. Getting to the top of public bookmarking sites is not easy (just as SEO is not easy), but the reward is significant. Unlike SEO, getting to the top of a public bookmarking service is truly a viral way of marketing your website. Not only will you receive the benefit of being exposed in a very public place, but those who have put you there will talk about your website on their sites, and grow your business virally.
Who knows - public bookmarking may just overtake traditional search as a source for your traffic.
By Mark Daoust

UN Council stymied on Iran Yahoo! NEWS
The U.N. Security Council failed to reach an accord on Tuesday on how to respond to Iran's nuclear programs even as President George W. Bush warned Tehran could blackmail the world if it had the bomb. Russia, backed by China, wants to delete large sections of a Franco-British draft statement the Security Council has been studying for nearly two weeks as a first reaction to Iran's nuclear research, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making. Russia is concerned about how deeply the 15-member Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, should get involved in the Iranian crisis. Until now it has been handled by the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna, and negotiators Germany, Britain and France. Bush, who has offered to talk to Iran on what he sees as Tehran's meddling in Iraq, made clear that does not include the nuclear issue. Those talks would be led by the three European Union powers. "Our negotiations with Iran on the nuclear weapons will be led by the EU-3," Bush said. "And that's important because the Iranians must hear there's a unified voice." "If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could blackmail the world" because "they're not heading toward the international accords, they're not welcoming the international inspections...," Bush added. A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled for Tuesday was delayed while diplomats negotiate in small groups. Last week members thought a deal was close. Britain's U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, told reporters his country and France would not amend the text, which calls for Iran to suspend all uranium-enrichment activities, unless it had a chance of success. "And if there is no prospect of an agreed conclusion we won't be amending the text," he said.

RUSSIA, CHINA TALKING
An alternative to a statement would be a Security Council resolution, which carries more weight, and would dare Russia and China to use their veto power. A statement needs agreement from all 15 members while a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no veto from any of the five permanent members. Both Jones Parry and French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said a resolution was not ruled out but they still hoped for agreement on a statement. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang emphasized that "China and Russia have common views on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue." "Our objectives are to solve the issue in a peaceful way through negotiations," he said, as Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Beijing. Moscow has offered to process uranium for Iran in an attempt to break a stalemate but Tehran has so far refused. Russia's objections to the draft statement are many. It wants a provision deleted that mentions "peace and security," fearing it could lead to a resolution that requires mandatory action and could lead to sanctions, China reported. And it wants individual points, mentioned in IAEA board resolutions, only referred to by document numbers. "I believe that the Russian concern has its logic," said China's U.N. ambassador Wang Guangya when asked if he agreed. Russia has also proposed North Korea-type talks with Iran among the five permanent council members, Germany and the IAEA's director general Mohamed ElBaradei. This would take the issue out of the Security Council. "They argued for two tracks," said Wang. "On one hand you put pressure, on the other hand show a way out of this." Senior foreign ministry officials from the five permanent members and Germany met in New York on Monday to discuss future strategy on Iran but came to no agreement, diplomats said. Before the meeting, Britain floated the possibility of tougher Security Council measures against Tehran in exchange for a package of incentives, which had been offered by the Europeans earlier in talks that collapsed, diplomats said. Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, Iran had agreed to freeze any uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities in return for economic and political rewards. Before any incentives materialized, Iran restarted uranium conversion in August. In February, Tehran began tests on enriching uranium. The IAEA board agreed to report the issue to the Security Council, which received the dossier on March 8.
By Evelyn Leopold

Iran leader sanctions Iraq talks with US Yahoo! NEWS
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday sanctioned talks with the United States on Iraq, saying Iranian officials would tell the U.S. to leave the country. "If Iranian officials can express Iran's opinion about Iraq to Americans and make them understand Iran's views, talks on this issue are not problematic," Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, said in the northeastern city of Mashhad. "But if (talks) mean opening up an arena for deceitful Americans to continue their bullying attitude, talks with America on Iraq are banned," he said in a televised speech. U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday Washington would make clear in the talks, expected this week, that it would not accept attempts to spread sectarian violence in Iraq. Tehran denies U.S. charges it is helping inflame sectarian violence in Iraq and that some components of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used by insurgents in Iraq have been traced to Iran. "Our clear opinion on Iraq is that the American government should leave Iraq and stop provoking ethnic tensions and creating insecurity so that (Iraq) has peace and security," Khamenei said. Iraqi political sources said they expected the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to meet with Iran's representatives this week. Bush has said he views Iran as a threat, and the United States is leading diplomatic efforts to isolate its longtime foe over Tehran's nuclear program. But the United States has said it is open to talks with Iran on what it sees as Tehran's meddling in Iraq, while the nuclear issue should be left for international negotiations.

Bush says Iraq pullout up to 'future presidents' Boston Globe
President Bush suggested yesterday that US troops might stay in Iraq beyond his presidency, which ends in 2009, saying at a press conference that the issue of removing troops from the country ''will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." The president, responding to aggressive questioning at the hastily arranged morning session, declined to give a timetable for pulling US soldiers out of the increasingly unpopular war. But he warned several times about the danger of a ''premature" withdrawal. ''There's no question that if we were to prematurely withdraw and the march to democracy were to fail, then Al Qaeda would be emboldened," Bush said. ''Terrorist groups would be emboldened. The Islamo-fascists would be emboldened." Asked whether his comments signaled that a complete pullout would not happen during the three remaining years of his presidency, Bush said the decision would be left up to the generals ''on the ground" in Iraq. Bush's comments -- widely seen as an attempt to shift public expectations away from the notion of a quick pullout -- dovetailed with comments yesterday by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the leading US ally in the war. ''This is not a clash between civilizations, it is a clash about civilization," Blair said, emphasizing that Iraq is just one piece of the larger war on terrorism. Faced with polls in both countries suggesting growing discontent with the war, British and American leaders have spent this week's third-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion defending their actions. In the United States, the series of speeches by Bush and key members of his administration has been met with impatience over the slow pace of progress and criticism of the administration's poor planning. Yesterday, the president appeared intense when he was asked to explain why he decided to attack Iraq. ''No president wants war -- everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true," Bush declared, bristling at a question from longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who writes for King Features Syndicate. He chided Thomas for interrupting him after he repeated his longstanding argument that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks justified aggressive action in Iraq. While some administration officials have sought to tie Hussein to the attacks, the White House has said the former Iraqi president had nothing to do with them. Bush did not blame Hussein for the attacks, but he said they led to his decision to ''use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people." ''I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people, that we will do everything in our power to protect our people," the president said. ''Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy, and that's why I went into Iraq." At another point in the press conference -- at almost an hour, one of the longest of Bush's presidency -- he ticked off a series of his legislative victories, including tax cuts, a sweeping energy bill, and the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. But increasingly, those wins on Capitol Hill have been overshadowed by the lingering war, leading some Republicans in this election year to separate themselves from Bush. A recent CNN-USA Today poll indicated that nearly two-thirds of Americans believed the war will define Bush's presidency, compared with 18 percent who said his tenure will be remembered by the larger war on terrorism. Just 2 percent believed tax cuts would be Bush's enduring legacy. Further, while 69 percent had said the United States would be ''certain" to win when the Iraq war began three years ago, four in 10 people earlier this month said the country is certain or likely to lose. Bush yesterday rejected suggestions that Iraq is nearing a civil war. The former interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, recently noted the scores of deaths every day and added, ''If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." But Bush -- while describing Allawi, once a strong supporter of the administration, as ''a good fellow" -- said he did not agree. ''Listen, we all recognize that there is violence, that there's sectarian violence," Bush said. ''But the way I look at the situation is that the Iraqis took a look and decided not to go to civil war." The president also said he would not stand for any efforts by neighboring Iran to inflame sectarian violence in Iraq. But he added that he was open to talks with Iran on the issue. Bush stood by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying he has ''done a fine job." The president also took a shot at a chief administration critic, Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who is seeking to censure Bush because of what Feingold said is illegal wiretapping of US citizens. The resolution -- which has no cosponsors -- is ''needless partisanship," Bush said. Democrats hope to capitalize on Bush's low poll numbers in this year's elections, tying GOP congressional candidates to the president. While some Democrats themselves voted to authorize the war in Iraq, many have since announced that they regret their votes and were misled by the administration. ''The American people are slowly coming behind the position that the vast majority of Democrats took in the first place," said Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat who opposed the war from the start. The war is ''symbolic" of the failures of Republican leadership, he said. Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Democrats would not succeed in defeating GOP candidates by tying them to Bush. ''Each of these individual members is going to articulate their position" on a range of issues, Forti said. ''The Democrats running [against Bush] -- that's not going to work."
Bush sees troops still in Iraq in 3 years Reuters.uk
Bush Sees No Speedy Iraq Pullout Los Angeles Times
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Google Considered Immune To Vista Threat Forbes
Market Scan
Will Microsoft's Vista be to Google as its Internet Explorer was to Netscape? Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland doesn't think so. "We believe the launch of Vista will not have a negative impact on the market share of Google," the analyst wrote in a Tuesday research note. "Google became the dominant global search engine without an ad campaign or a default position in the Windows OS." The company's success has instead been driven by the quality of its products, Friedland said, noting that despite "aggressive" investments by Microsoft in R&D, Google continues to gain share. The analyst believes that the only way MSN can reverse the trend is by developing a "vastly superior" search experience, and no major search upgrades are anticipated as part of the Vista OS launch. In addition, MSN Search is not guaranteed to be the default search engine on new Vista PCs, Friedland said. According to the analyst, OEMs such as Dell, will instead have control over what search providers are available in the drop-down menu and which one is the default. Microsoft is planning to launch the Vista operating system later this year. Vista will incorporate "Desktop Search" and "Web Search" features directly into the Vista Start menu and Internet Explorer 7. The last time Microsoft made a big move in the Internet was in 1995 when the company launched Internet Explorer and incorporated the browser into its Windows 95 operating system. As a result, Netscape's share of the browser market declined from a peak of 70% in 1996 to less than 12% within five years.
Maya Roney

France moves forward with law challenging Apple Yahoo! NEWS
France's lower house of parliament passed a law on Tuesday that could challenge Apple Computer Inc.'s dominance of the online digital music market by making it open its iTunes store to portable music players other than Apple iPods. French officials said the law is aimed at preventing any single media-playing operating system, such as Apple's iTunes or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Player, from building a grip on the digital online music retail market. "These clauses, which we hope will be taken up by other countries, notably at the European level, should prevent the emergence of a monopoly in the supply of online culture," Richard Cazenave and Bernard Carayon, National Assembly deputies from the ruling UMP party, said in a statement on Tuesday. The new legislation would require that online music retailers such as iTunes provide the software codes that protect copyrighted material -- known as digital rights management (DRM) -- to allow the conversion from one format to another. Apple responded on Tuesday night in California that if the law passes, it would only lead to increased piracy. "The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy," spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers." Shares of Apple fell more than 3 percent to close down $2.18 at $61.81 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. "Any interested party can ask the court ... to get a supplier (of content) ... to provide information that is essential for 'interoperability,"' France's new copyright law states, so that content can be read on any hardware support. It remains to be seen whether Apple would comply with the law, or just shut down the iTunes store in France, which would have a minimal effect on Apple's sales. Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research, estimates that less than 5 percent of Apple's overall revenue comes from sales of iPods and iTunes songs in France. The new legislation would also allow consumers to use software that circumvents DRMs only if it were done to convert digital content from one format to another. Using such software is currently illegal in much of the world. Currently, songs purchased from the market-leading iTunes service can only be played on iPods or Motorola Inc.'s iTunes mobile phone, and iPods are not compatible with music that uses DRM from rival companies such as Microsoft. "There's no doubt that the fact it's a closed system has been a reason for Apple's success with the iPod," Wu said. Consumers are prepared to pay twice as much for a song that can freely move between different devices, a recent study of the European Union project Indicare showed.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN
"The problem is that it may risk weakening systems that are used to protect against piracy," said Olivier Cousi, copyright lawyer at French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel of the law. "The impact on Apple is not clear yet," said Andrew Neff, an analyst at Bear Stearns in New York. "But the French are late; Microsoft and Apple are already dominating the market." For its part, Apple said the law would actually likely increase iPod sales "as users freely load their iPods with 'interoperable' music which cannot be adequately protected." Microsoft in France declined to comment. "The vote today by French lawmakers is a direct attack on Apple's ability to design its own products and on the company's intellectual property rights, which will have a chilling effect on future innovation," said Jim Prendergast, executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, a U.S. lobby group. "Apple could immediately pull its iTunes product from France, giving consumers less choice when it comes to popular digital music," he added. The law would affect other French online music stores as well, such as Fnac, part of retail group PPR; and Virgin, whose French retail operations are owned by media group Lagardere. The government says the new law is designed to boost the legal digital music market and adapt the country's copyright rules to the rapidly changing online content market. It was adopted by the National Assembly with 286 votes in favor and 193 against and will be examined in the upper house, the Senate, in May.
By Astrid Wendlandt

Yahoo launches instant message phone in US Yahoo! NEWS
Yahoo Inc. on Tuesday said it is launching a service in the United States that lets people make phone calls through the company's instant messaging software. Available in several other countries since December, the service allows people to make calls from their computers for 2 cents a minute or less to the top 30 national phone markets, including the United States. The "Phone Out" service also allows calls from computers to regular phones at varying rates to a total of 180 countries. Using instant messaging for phone calls is one of the latest ways that technology companies are finding cheaper ways to allow people to talk all over the world without relying on traditional phone networks. "Right now the competition is just about cheap voice calls," Forrester Research analyst Maribel Lopez said. The move also attempts to undercut rates offered by Skype, a similar service offered by eBay Inc.. Yahoo Messenger with Voice rates average between 20 percent and 30 percent lower than Skype to many major markets outside the United States, according to a comparison furnished by Yahoo. Tests in the initial five countries where the service launched proved more successful than anticipated, especially in France, said Yahoo Vice President of Communications Brad Garlinghouse, where strong demand for both Yahoo Phone In and Phone Out services occurred. Phone In allows customers to receive calls on their computers from regular and mobile phones for $2.99 a month, or $29.90 a year. Yahoo's service is one among a growing list of competitors, including Time Warner Inc.'s America Online as well as Microsoft Corp.. While initially the focus is on offering cheap phone calling for computer users, the battleground should quickly shift onto mobile and cordless phones, analysts said. Toward that end, Garlinghouse said Yahoo has struck phone partnerships with headset maker Plantronics, VTech, a maker of USB handsets, and Siemens AG, a big maker of cordless phones. Attracting and retaining mobile phone customers also is something Yahoo, with its ties to major U.S. and U.K. carriers, could use to distinguish itself from Skype. "Realistically, most of the IM services all look the same right now," Lopez said. "A lot of it has to do with who do you have the relationship with, whatever IM you may have." But Garlinghouse stopped short of saying when Yahoo Messenger might feature on mobile phones: "We have not yet announced any relationships to Yahoo Messenger with Voice onto a mobile (phone)," he said. In response to consumer complaints, Yahoo has dropped X10, the previous provider of software used to control sound quality and has signed up Global IP Sound as a supplier instead. The move brings Yahoo's audio quality exactly in line with rivals AOL, Google and Skype who rely on Global IP Sound themselves. Yahoo has also added an unobtrusive advertisement at the bottom of the Yahoo Messenger window. By contrast, America Online often features a blinking ad at the top of its AIM service.
By Robert MacMillan

Bored Canadian bureaucrat begs for escape, C$1 mln Yahoo! NEWS
A bored Canadian bureaucrat fed up with office drudgery is seeking C$1 million ($860,000) in donations so he can quit his job and "do something that makes a difference in my life and the lives of others." The unnamed man, who claims to have worked for a large civil service organization for over 10 years, has set up a Web site -- saveabureaucrat.com -- on which he explains he is desperate to escape his job. "After a while it starts to sap the energy and soul out of you and you realize that you have become a true bureaucrat ... I feel like an old curmudgeon frustrated by having to deal with paper being passed around at a snail's pace," he writes. "Retirement will free up my time for volunteer activities such as tutoring children and counseling people who are going through rough patches in their life. On a daily basis I will be a much more pleasant person to be around," he adds. Despite promising not to spend donations on "Rolls-Royce cars, 10 bedroom houses, airplanes," the bored civil servant has quite a way to go. As of Wednesday morning, five sympathetic souls had sent in a total of just C$59.26. ($1=$1.16 Canadian)

GM reaches early retirement deal Yahoo! NEWS
General Motors Corp. and bankrupt former subsidiary Delphi Corp. will offer buyouts to more than 125,000 factory workers, the companies said on Wednesday, after reaching a cost-cutting deal with the United Auto Workers union. The agreement, which capped a week of intensive negotiations in Detroit, moves the world's largest automaker toward its goal of cutting 30,000 jobs by 2008 and helps avert the threat of a strike at Delphi that could have crippled GM and cost the automaker $5 billion per month. Analysts said the deal, while positive, did not entirely remove the threat of a labor disruption at Delphi, which remains in talks aimed at slashing its own payroll costs. Another unknown is how much the early retirement incentives will cost GM, which plans to shut 12 plants to adjust to continuing loss of market share in the crucial U.S. market. "The deal still leaves a lot of questions, and is less than what people were looking for," Morningstar analyst John Novak said. "We would have liked to have seen a comprehensive deal at Delphi. The fact is, there is still the overhang of a potential strike out there." Shares of GM were up less than 1 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, off early an earlier high. The buyout offers range from $35,000 to $140,000, with the higher payments offered to workers at GM plants scheduled to be closed, one UAW local official said.

GM TO TAKE CHARGES
GM said it would recognize charges for the buyouts in 2006. The company, which posted a $10.6 billion loss in 2005, last week raised its estimated exposure to Delphi to a range of $5.5 billion to $12 billion. GM, which remains the world's No. 1 automaker by unit sales, has been hurt by the waning popularity of profitable sport utility vehicles, high commodity costs and the burden of its pension and health-care obligations. Delphi said about 13,000 of its 24,000 UAW-represented workers would be eligible for the early retirement incentives, including a one-time payment of $35,000. The Troy, Michigan-based company also said that about 5,000 of its workers would have the opportunity to return to factory jobs with GM, which spun off Delphi in 1999. GM will fund the lump-sum payments and provide retirement benefits for any Delphi workers that return to its payroll, said GM spokeswoman Katie McBride. Early retirement incentives will also be offered to all of GM's 113,000 factory workers, she said. Of that total, 36,000 are currently eligible to retire under the UAW contract, while another 27,000 are close to 30 years of experience and will be offered special incentives, McBride said. If too many workers in a particular plant opt to take the buyouts, the existing contract between GM and the union provides a seniority-based system to determine who would be eligible.

DELPHI STILL NEGOTIATING
Delphi, which filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. automotive history in October, has said it must slash wages, benefits and jobs to reorganize its struggling U.S. operations. The company is still negotiating with its unions over which of its factories will remain in operation and how its overall wage and benefit levels will be reduced after it emerges from bankruptcy. Delphi's participation in the GM-led buyout deal is subject to approval by federal bankruptcy court. The auto parts supplier said on Wednesday that it still planned to file a motion to have its existing labor contracts voided by a bankruptcy judge on March 31 if it did not get a comprehensive deal with its unions. Shares of GM were up 20 cents to $22.20. Shares of Delphi were down 6 cents to 82 cents.
By Jui Chakravorty and Poornima Gupta in Detroit

Bush urges Iraqis to form government Yahoo! NEWS
President George W. Bush urged Iraqi leaders on Wednesday to settle differences and form a unity government and for Iraqi troops to get ready to defend their country, in a reflection of U.S. impatience. Bush attempted to rally flagging American support for the Iraq war in a speech at the ornate Capitol Music Hall. Wednesday was the fifth consecutive day he has spoken in public about the increasingly unpopular conflict, which began with a U.S.-led invasion three years ago this week. A key objective of U.S. policy is for Iraqi leaders to form a coalition government that can steer the country's fledgling democracy and get Iraqi troops trained sufficiently to allow substantial reductions of U.S. troops this year and next. A delegation of U.S. senators in Baghdad on Tuesday expressed American impatience with Iraqi leaders' failure, three months after an election, to form a government that could help contain the conflict. Bush joined that chorus, saying Iraqis had turned out in the millions to vote and expect their leaders to act. "The people have spoken. And now it's time for a government to get stood up .... That's what the people want. Otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the polls, would they have?" he asked. He said he hammered home the message during a videoconference from the White House with U.S. Iraq Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George Casey. "We talked about the need to make it clear to the Iraqis it's time to get a government in place that can start leading this nation and listening to the will of the people," he said. Bush has set as a condition for a U.S. troop withdrawal making certain that Iraqi forces are sufficiently trained to fight the insurgency. "It's the Iraqis fight. Ultimately the Iraqis are going to have to determine their future. They made their decision politically -- they voted. And these troops that we're training, are going to have to stand up and defend their democracy," Bush said. The prospect of congressional elections in November has sharpened a debate over the war that ranges from whether the United States should shift strategy to whether it should pull out of Iraq. Bush said he would remain steady in his drive to foster a democracy in Iraq despite the threat of civil war and would not be pressured into a premature troop withdrawal. "I'll be making up my mind about the troop levels based upon recommendations of those who are on the ground. I'm going to make up my mind based upon achieving a victory, not based upon polls, focus groups or election-year politics," he said. A Newsweek magazine poll conducted last week showed Bush's approval rating fell to 36 percent, down 21 points from a year ago, amid discontent about Iraq. The survey said 65 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the war. A small group of protesters near his speech site demonstrated against him, holding signs such as, "Remember 2,315 soldiers who died." "Despite the latest White House sales campaign, the American people have rightly lost confidence in President Bush's disastrous handling of Iraq," said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record). "America doesn't need a salesman for a dangerously incompetent policy -- we need leadership and a policy that can succeed." While Bush recently has faced some critical questions from the public in recent appearances, this audience seemed largely supportive and gave him a standing ovation. It included many family members of U.S. troops. "Thank God you're our commander-in-chief," said a father with two sons in the military, one in Iraq and one in Hawaii. There are currently about 133,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
By Steve Holland

Iraqis tired of US-run show at criminal court Yahoo! NEWS
Baghdad's new courthouse is held up by U.S. officials as a symbol of the independent legal system three years of U.S. occupation has brought, but defense lawyers are angry at what they say is summary American justice. "During Saddam's time we couldn't say a word. Now we scream and scream and nobody listens," defense attorney Thabit Zubeidi told Reuters as he waited on standby for officials to appoint him to defend those accused who had no other representation. On Wednesday, an apparently typical day at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), Iraqi lawyers stood aside as U.S. troops escorted shackled prisoners, who were being made to carry heavy cases of bottled water into the building. Armed American soldiers are a visible presence throughout the low rise building, once Saddam Hussein's treasure store for official gifts he received. They are also on guard inside the courtrooms, where trials on "terrorism" charges are held. U.S. military lawyers insisted the court is an Iraqi operation and their only role is to help gather evidence and observe sessions: "The Iraqi judges are the ones making the decisions," said Lieutenant Colonel John Carroll, who is a judge back home in the United States. "This is an Iraqi process." It is a central part of a strategy to defeat an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis since 2003. But defense lawyers involved in the process, in which a typical trial may consist of a single, hour-long hearing, complained they had little practical access to clients who are swept up by U.S. troops and detained for months at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail or the remote Camp Bucca in the south. "We only learn what the charges are when they arrive here," said attorney Amer al-Kinnassy, who was in court to defend five men from one family accused of possessing weapons. "Even then, the Americans do not let us talk to our clients ... If I try to walk over there and talk to my clients they won't let me."

CONVICTIONS
U.S. officials present at the court, most of them wearing security badges turned inward to conceal their identities, declined comment on the procedures. In principle, detainees are entitled to visits but lawyers say it is difficult in practice. More than 40,000 Iraqis have been detained as suspected rebels over the past three years, most from the Sunni Arab minority dominant under Saddam. Over 14,000 are now in U.S. custody, a process that can last many months or even years. The CCCI has condemned 879 people to sentences up to 30 years in 964 trials, according to data published this week by Task Force 134, the U.S. military unit overseeing detentions. Lawyers said about 20 suspected insurgents are brought to trial every day from the Abu Ghraib prison, formerly the site of prisoner abuse under Saddam and more recently by U.S. guards. In principle the heavily guarded courthouse, next to the Green Zone government compound where Saddam himself is on trial in a special court, is open to the public. Few attend, however. Clutching M-16 rifles, U.S. soldiers escorted prisoners in bright yellow uniforms, chained hand and foot, into the building. Prisoners included a woman -- a rarity in the system -- who unlike the other detainees wore a helmet and body armor. Though Iraqi guards are stationed at the courthouse, the bulk of security duties appeared to fall to American troops. A U.S. officer overseeing the troops declined to say what role he played: "All I can say is have a nice day," he said.

PRAYERS
On Tuesday, the court convicted 21 people for charges that included possession of illegal weapons and sentenced them to 7 years in jail each, the U.S. military said in a statement. In court on Wednesday, Kinnassy watched his clients -- a 50-year-old man, his three sons and his brother-in-law -- as they sat on the floor of the courtroom with their faces close to the wall. U.S. soldiers stood guard behind them. Two of them prayed in anticipation of the verdict, aware they faced a maximum sentence of 30 years. One by one, the men entered a metal pen to hear the judge read testimony from two witnesses -- both U.S. soldiers. The father, Kathim Taher, could barely speak. His sons told the judge Sunni militants had badly beaten him during 14 months in U.S. custody and he had not recovered. The family are Shi'ite Muslims, their lawyer said -- not typical of insurgent suspects. Each of the younger men said U.S. troops came to their house to search for weapons and they were handed the AK-47 assault rifle that each Iraqi family is allowed to possess. The soldiers did find a cache of rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons in farmland 300 meters (yards) away, the court was told. They brought it back to the house, placed it beside the family and took photographs. After a brief recess, the judge acquitted all five men. Others had more mixed results. But Shakir Salman still walked free. Detained for having a forged identity card, he was sentenced to six months. But the judge let him go after noting he had already been held by the Americans for a year.
By Michael Georgy

Iraqi Shi'ite pilgrims ambushed, more bodies found Yahoo! NEWS
Gunmen in Baghdad killed at least 15 Shi'ite pilgrims and wounded dozens on Wednesday, raking vehicles with machinegun fire in the latest outbreak of sectarian violence that threatens Iraq with civil war. When several vehicles returning from a major Shi'ite Muslim festival to the south were ambushed in the Amriya district, a haven for Sunni insurgents in west Baghdad, 13 people were killed, either shot where they sat or gunned down as they tried to flee down sidestreets, an Interior Ministry source said. Earlier two people were killed and dozens wounded when a bus and a truck carrying pilgrims were attacked in two incidents. Police also reported the discovery of six more bodies on the streets of the capital, all apparent victims of the bloodshed between majority Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunnis which some Iraqi officials fear could expand into open warfare. Rebels blasted a police station with grenade and mortar fire before dawn, killing four policemen in Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, in the second such attack in two days. Police said they had detained about 70 people in raids on local homes afterwards. The pilgrims were driving home a day after celebrating a major Shi'ite festival in Kerbala, south of the capital. "We were on the highway when suddenly four cars stopped near us and began shooting," a man who gave his name as Allawi told Reuters from his hospital bed after one of the early attacks. "This shows we have to strike at terrorism with an iron fist and we must unite and form a government as quickly as possible because people in the street can see there is no government," Hazim al-Araji, a senior aide to Shi'ite radical cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, told state television.

BUSH
Public holidays this week have held up negotiations among the majority Shi'ite leaders, Sunnis and Kurds on forming a government of national unity that Washington says is key to averting civil war and letting U.S. troops come home. U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that troops might still be in Iraq when he steps down in three years. He said on Wednesday he would not yield to pressure to pull out forces before congressional elections in November. But he said: "Look, I'm an optimistic guy. I believe we'll succeed. Let me put it to you this way, if I didn't think we'd succeed I'd pull our troops out." Police said 22 pilgrims were wounded and one was killed in an attack on their open-back truck in western Baghdad. In a second incident in the same area, one Shi'ite was killed and 18 were wounded when their bus was hit by machinegun fire. A police patrol rushing to the scene of one attack was ambushed by gunmen who fired a rocket-propelled grenade, killing two policemen and wounding four, police said. The surge in sectarian violence since the bombing of a major Shi'ite mosque exactly a month ago has almost overshadowed a Sunni Arab insurgency, but two attacks in the past two days were a reminder that Iraq's authorities face war on two fronts. Police said the commander of a special police unit, Colonel Ahmed Jabar, was among the four policemen killed in Wednesday's attack on the Madaen police station. They said most of the 70 people detained in the crackdown by Interior Ministry forces after the blast lived locally. There was no word on any casualties among the insurgents. The insurgents are known to operate from bases concealed in farmland and seem able to strike at will. Police said the palm groves around Madaen made it a particular haven. On Tuesday, dozens of insurgents attacked a police post and jail at Miqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and freeing 30 prisoners.

IRANIAN ROLE
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday approved rare talks with Washington on Iraq, where Shi'ite Islamists with links to Tehran lead the interim government. Some Iraqi officials hope U.S.-Iranian contacts could ease the political logjam, which is due partly to rifts among Shi'ite parties as well as differences with Kurds and Sunni Arabs. Three months after elections, factions remain deadlocked over whether the government should be led by interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, backed by the main Shi'ite alliance. Iraqi political sources said they expected the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to meet Iran's representatives as early as this week in Baghdad. Tehran denies U.S. charges it is stirring communal bloodshed in Iraq or supplying material for insurgent roadside bombs.
By Ross Colvin

Frist Leads Informal GOP Poll for '08 Yahoo! NEWS
With home-field advantage, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist placed first in an informal poll of 2008 presidential hopefuls at a Republican conference Saturday night. The two-term Tennessee senator received 526 first-place votes, or 36.9 percent, in the Southern Republican Leadership Conference's "straw poll" sponsored by Hotline, a political digest. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 14.4 percent and Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia finished third, tied with President Bush — who cannot seek a third term. The results were not a surprise and were unlikely to impact the still-evolving 2008 presidential field. Frist was the only potential candidate who aggressively recruited delegates. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, among the most popular Republicans in national surveys, threw a wrench in the polling Friday night by asking delegates to vote for Bush as a show of support. He finished a distant fifth. During the conference, Republican activists and potential 2008 presidential candidates rallied behind Bush, mostly for his wartime leadership. After a full-throated defense of Bush's policies on Iraq, Iran and even port security, McCain shrugged his shoulders and explained why: "It's easy to be loyal when the guy is at 65 percent." "I'm not going to kick him while he's down." But a second theme was less forgiving, and it was aimed at the White House and the entire Republican leadership: Get your acts together. Several speakers accused their own party of drifting from conservative values, especially the promise to control government spending, and warned of defeats in November if dispirited GOP voters stay home. Outside the convention hall, several delegates said they were shaken by a string of White House mistakes and suggested Bush may need a new team. "I am sorry for letting you down when it comes to spending your money," Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record) of South Carolina told several hundred delegates Saturday. "We're going to turn it around and if we don't, we're going to be in trouble" in November. He apologized for the lobbyist scandal that has tarnished the Republican majorities in Congress. He apologized for Republican-run Washington failing to stand up to China and India on trade matters. And, finally, Graham urged activists to make sure the party returns to its roots before Election Day. "We're not going to win by being Democrats," he said. "Conservatism sells." Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, forced by state law to balance his budgets, chastised Congress for runaway spending at the federal level. "It's hard to tell which party is which," the potential 2008 candidate said. Even an architect of Congress' fiscal record denounced it. Frist said there was "no justification for a one-way ticket down a wayward path of wasteful Washington spending," which seemed to be an indictment of the institution he leads. McCain epitomized how Republican candidates are judiciously handling their approach to Bush. While praising the president for the fight against terrorism, the Arizona senator criticized the free-spending habits of Congress and noted that President Reagan vetoed a bill with 152 special spending projects. Without mentioning Bush or the president's unused veto pen, McCain told delegates in his Friday night address that a spending bill recently was signed into law with more than 6,000 such projects. "My friends, that's your money. We cannot do that with American tax dollars," McCain said, slashing the air with his finger as he raised his voice to a shout. "We cannot do that!" Delegates praised McCain on Saturday for being both fiscally conservative and loyal to Bush who, despite sagging poll numbers, is still supported by three-fourths of Republicans. McCain has been trying to curry favor with conservatives since his failed 2000 campaign against Bush. "You don't hear McCain defend the president very often and I found that very encouraging," said Adair Schippers, a delegate from Cheatam County, Tenn. Graham, who backed McCain in 2000 and would again in 2008, suggested that McCain wants Republican voters to view him as Bush's heir in fighting terrorism, but his own man on fiscal responsibility. "If you believe the party has drifted from fiscal conservatism, you'll have no greater advocate than John McCain," Graham told reporters. Though supportive of Bush, delegates here said they were shaken by a spate of White House miscues, culminating with the collapse of a vastly unpopular deal to allow a Dubai company to run six U.S. port terminals. Several delegates urged Bush to clean house at the White House. "The president is a good man," said Jim Frazier of Memphis. "But you've got to wonder how well served he is." Some ambitious party leaders wrapped themselves in the memory of another president. "I am Sam Brownback and I am a Ronald Reagan Republican," said the Kansas senator, perhaps the most conservative potential 2008 candidate. Allen repeatedly mentioned Reagan and echoed Bush's position on the war in Iraq. "The strategy is we win, they lose," Allen said. "There's no substitute for victory." The same could be said about November, when Republicans must defend their majorities in Congress and state capitals. Huckabee urged the delegates to knock off the "hand-wringing" and dismiss talk of "the ultimate and imminent decline" of the GOP. "If we think we are in trouble," Huckabee said, "then we are in trouble."
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer