Was she or wasn't she...?
Fayed wins Diana legal challenge

By Paul Majendie 1 hour, 52 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The father of Princess Diana's lover won a significant legal battle on Friday when the High Court decided that the inquest into their deaths in a Paris car crash 10 years ago should be heard by a jury.

Mohamed al Fayed, who is convinced his son and Diana were murdered, had sought to overturn a ruling by Britain's former top woman judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to handle the official inquiries on her own.

Three senior judges ordered that the coroner hearing the inquest "shall do so sitting with a jury."

Speaking to reporters outside the court, Fayed said: "We want to be sure that the jury are an independent jury."

He said he hoped Diana's ex-husband Britain's
Prince Charles and ex-father-in-law the Duke of Edinburgh would be called as witnesses.

Appeal court judge Janet Smith, handing out the High Court ruling, said: "Mr Al Fayed has alleged that the Duke of Edinburgh and the Security Services conspired to kill the Princess and Dodi Al Fayed.

"The allegation must be inquired into," she said.

Diana, 36, Fayed's son Dodi, 42, and their chauffeur Henri Paul were killed when their Mercedes limousine smashed at high speed into a pillar in a Paris road tunnel as they sped away from the Ritz Hotel, pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes.

A three-year British police investigation ruled at the end of last year that the crash was an accident and not part of an elaborate murder plot as Fayed claims.

The British inquiry backed a French probe which concluded that the driver was to blame because he was drunk, under the influence of anti-depressants and driving too fast.

Diana's children, Princes William and Harry had expressed the hope that the long-awaited inquest would be "open, fair and transparent" and completed as fast as possible.

Hello Magazine's royal correspondent Judy Wade told Reuters: "This just prolongs the agony for William and Harry but Mohamed al Fayed is a grieving father who wants a small triumph like this which would help give him some closure."

Evening Standard royal reporter Robert Jobson said: "The princes wanted it to be cleared up as quickly as possible which it clearly won't be. But everybody wants it to be a transparent and fair hearing."

Under British law an inquest is needed to formally determine the cause of death when someone dies unnaturally.

"Let them die and be quick about it!" - Scrooge (paraphrase) in Dickens' "A Christmas Carrol"
Cairo Journal
In Mighty Arab Hub, the Poor Are Left to Their Fate
Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

On a busy street in Cairo recently, three men discussed the sheep they had for sale. The city is a collection of poor villages often cut off from the law.

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: March 1, 2007

CAIRO, Feb. 23 — Ali Mezar has spent his life fishing a narrow, muddy patch of the Nile in this, one of the most crowded cities in the world. But Mr. Mezar has little contact with urban civilization. He sleeps in his boat, makes tea from the dirty Nile water and on good days earns a few dollars.

Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

A fisherman at work on the Nile in Cairo. Men like him live by their wits and earn a few dollars on a good day. More Photos >

Not far away, on the shoulder of a busy avenue, Karim Sayed, 21, herds sheep and goats matted with urban filth. He spends his days staring into oncoming traffic, hoping to make a sale before the police move him or confiscate a sheep.

At the city’s edge, in a packed neighborhood built entirely by its residents, Mina Fathy and his neighbors fix sewerage, water and electricity problems on their own because they say the government offers them virtually no service in such functions.

Cairo is home to 15 million and often described as the center of the Arab world, an incubator of culture and ideas. But it is also a collection of villages, a ruralized metropolis where people live by their wits and devices, cut off from the authorities, the law and often each other.

That social reality does not just speak to the quality and style of life for millions of Egyptians. It also plays a role in the nation’s style of governance.

The fisherman on the Nile, the shepherd in the road and residents of so-called informal communities say their experiences navigating city life have taught them the same lessons: the government is not there to better their lives; advancement is based on connections and bribes; the central authority is at best a benign force to be avoided.

“Everything is from God,” said Mr. Mezar, the fisherman, who was speaking practically, not theologically. “There is no such thing as government. The government is one thing, and we are something else. What am I going to get from the government?”
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Cairo has been the capital of Egypt for more than 1,000 years, and sits where the dry sands of the desert lead to the fertile Nile Delta. Egyptian officials like to say that this is where modern bureaucracy was invented, where the mechanics of governance first took shape.

While the Egyptian government is the country’s largest employer, it is by all accounts an utterly unreliable source of help for the average citizen. That combination, social scientists say, helps create a system that has stifled political opposition and allowed a small group to remain in power for decades.

One brick in the foundation of single-party rule has been public resignation. There is no widespread expectation that the authorities will give the common man a voice, and so there is rarely any outrage when they do not. The fisherman, the shepherd and Mr. Fathy all said that the most they could hope for from the government was that it stay out of their lives.

“We hope God keeps the municipality away from us,” Mr. Sayed said as he sat in a wooden chair, surveying his fetid flock of goats and sheep with headlights streaming by.

Such a feeling of separation is one reason that the leadership has been able to clamp down on opposition political activities without incurring widespread public wrath, political analysts say.

“People see the government as something quite foreign or removed from their lives,” said Diane Singerman, a professor in government at American University in Washington who has written extensively about Cairo. “Commuters to the city, or poor peddlers and working people, do not see the government as particularly interested in their lives, and they also see politics as quite elite and risky and something to stay away from.”

Officials say part of the disillusionment comes from unrealistic expectations, a holdover from the heady days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s leader from 1954 to 1970, when government jobs were deemed a right and cradle-to-grave care a promise.

Mr. Mezar and his cousin Muhammad Hassan fish the Nile just as their parents and their grandparents did, living in the bottom of their small wooden boats. Dark from the sun, hands callused from their oars, they are the image of Egypt, and they often smile and wave dutifully as tour boats motor up the river, with tourists snapping their pictures.

They dock their boats beneath a busy overpass, waking each morning at 6, filling their glasses with tea made from water scooped directly from the Nile. They worry that despite their fishing licenses, the police will demand their fish or write a ticket for some invented infraction.

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Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.

Besides the usual suspects, in whose interest is such a deal?
Bogus medicines flood developing world

By Mark Heinrich Wed Feb 28, 7:23 PM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - Counterfeit medicines, some of them sold over the Internet, are swamping unregulated markets in developing nations with sometimes fatal results, the U.N. drug control watchdog said on Thursday.

Some 25 to 50 percent of the medicines used in developing countries were now believed to be fake, the International Narcotics Control Board said in its 2006 report, quoting
World Health Organization (WHO) findings. Providers ranged from makeshift village markets to Web sites.

"This market is believed to be increasing rapidly. (It) exposes patients to serious health risks by providing access to poorly or incorrectly labeled medicines that are ineffective, substandard and, in some cases, even lethal," it said.

The board spotlighted dangers inherent in graft-ridden, weakly-regulated markets, where bogus medicines had proliferated, and the widespread and growing misuse of prescription and weight-loss drugs.

The annual report also said Iranians had become the world's highest per capita abusers of opiates as they straddled export corridors from lawless
Afghanistan, source of more than 90 percent of the opium produced globally.

The Vienna-based board is an independent judicial body elected by
United Nations members to monitor the implementation of world drug control conventions.

Separately, the board denied accusations from rights groups that it was hampering efforts to prevent the spread of
AIDS. It said it supported exchanges of sterile syringes for drug addicts but not what it called poorly supervised "drug injection rooms" because these only encouraged trade in illegal narcotics.

INTERNET TRAFFICKING

In order to meet the growing demand for cheap medicines, drug traffickers have increasingly turned to the Internet, postal and courier services to distribute their ersatz wares.

"The abuse and trafficking of prescription drugs is set to exceed abuse of illicit drugs. Demand for these products is so high that it has given rise to a new problem -- counterfeit products ... Progress made over the last 40 years in the control of illicit drugs is now being undermined," the report said.

Board president Philip Emafo said governments needed to enforce existing laws and rethink how to tackle Web crime.

The report said the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and WHO should help member states that have little financial means and are overwhelmed by traffickers able to evade or buy off poorly-paid and equipped police forces.

Emafo, a Nigerian, said
Iran had developed the highest rate of opiate abuse because it was the "unfortunate" first conduit point for opium pouring out of Afghanistan toward Europe.

"In the process of being trans-shipped, drugs are deposited along the route," he said. "It is possible that because of the Iranian government's enforcement activity, the drugs come in, but (some) are not able to go out."

Human rights groups have accused the board of promoting policies that ignore AIDS prevention and other public health issues, for example by discrediting programs such as the use of methadone for treating addicts.

"Safe-injection facilities ... around the world ... reduce practices leading to
HIV and hepatitis transmission, steer people to treatment for their addictions, and prevent death from drug overdose," said Joanne Csete, the director of Canada's HIV/AIDS Legal Network on Thursday.

Emafo said the criticism was "misplaced and wrong."

Kirk and Spock, the early years...
BBC News


Last Updated: Thursday, 1 March 2007, 09:29 GMT

Star Trek film gets release date.

JJ Abrams said. "The new film would "chart its own course"
The 11th Star Trek film, to be directed by Lost creator JJ Abrams, will be released in the US on Christmas Day 2008, Paramount Pictures has announced.

The film, which will focus on the early lives of Captain James T Kirk and Mr Spock, will begin shooting this autumn.

No further details have been announced and the movie has yet to be cast.

But Abrams - who directed the third Mission: Impossible film last year - said he wanted "to make a picture for life-long fans and the uninitiated".

"Needless to say I am honoured and excited to be part of this next chapter of Star Trek," he added.

'Brilliance and optimism'

The original Star Trek TV series, created by Gene Roddenberry, ran from 1966 to 1969.

It went on to spawn 10 feature films, numerous spin-offs and a billion-dollar industry of books, computer games and consumer products.


PREVIOUS TREK FILMS
The Motion Picture (1979)
The Wrath of Khan (1982)
The Search for Spock (1984)
The Voyage Home (1986)
The Final Frontier (1989)
The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Generations (1994)
First Contact (1996)
Insurrection (1998)
Nemesis (2002)

The last Trek film, Star Trek: Nemesis, was released in 2002 and featured the stars of the Next Generation TV series.

The most recent TV spin-off, Star Trek: Enterprise, came to an end in 2005.

The latest feature, which has yet to be named, will tell of Kirk and Spock's first meeting at Starfleet Academy and their first outer space mission.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who worked with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III, have written the screenplay.

"If there's something I'm dying to see, it's the brilliance and optimism of Roddenberry's world brought back to the big screen," said Abrams.

"Alex and Bob wrote an amazing script that embraces and respects Trek canon but charts its own course."

Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey said he "could not be more thrilled to be back in business with JJ Abrams".

As well as directing the film, Abrams will co-produce with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof.

Watch! Labor is targeted for continuing disembowelment from the Right, yet they dote on O'Reily and Limbagh!
White House threatens to veto 9/11 bill

By Thomas Ferraro Wed Feb 28, 3:48 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate began debating legislation to bolster America's security on Wednesday with the White House threatening a veto because one part would extend union protection to 45,000 airport workers.

President George W. Bush's administration charged that the Democratic-backed provision to provide workers limited collective bargaining rights would curb needed flexibility at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and diminish traveler safety.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), a Connecticut independent and a chief sponsor of the overall bill, disagreed. He said he would urge Bush to support the provision as a way to bolster spirits among a largely demoralized workforce.

Noting there has been a high rate of turnover and injuries among the U.S. agency's baggage screeners, Lieberman said: "When you give employees a right to join an employee organization you are likely to improve their morale."

Lieberman pointed out that most federal workers already have such rights. He also said the proposal would not allow screeners to strike and would still permit
TSA to assign them as needed in an emergency.

"We are going to make the case," Lieberman said.

The provision is an another effort by new Democratic-led Congress to advance a number of causes favored by the U.S. labor movement, such as raising the minimum wage and making it easier to unionize.

The overall bill would implement many of the stalled recommendations of the bipartisan commission created after the September 11 attacks.

The measure refines other recommendations and imposes new ones, such as the labor provision, and would let state and local governments share information with federal authorities, build better communication systems and provide grants to help high-risk areas prepare for disasters.

But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said if the labor provision remains in the legislation, "the president's senior advisers would recommend he veto the bill."

Thirty-six Republican senators sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday saying they would provide the needed votes to sustain a veto in the 100-member Senate.

Taxes can support religious programs when Religious instituions can be taxed (both property and income)!
Bush's faith-based program debated in court

By James Vicini Wed Feb 28, 4:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
U.S. Supreme Court debated on Wednesday whether taxpayers can contest the use of government funds for church-related activities, with examples about presidential travel to address religious groups and bagels served at prayer breakfasts.

The theoretical discussion came in a high-profile case related to the perennial issue of keeping faith out of state matters as mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

The administration was urging the top court to limit the right of taxpayers to sue over government funding of religious activities as a way to derail another larger question over whether
President George W. Bush's federal program to funnel federal dollars to religious groups is unconstitutional.

In considering the question, Justice
Antonin Scalia asked if a taxpayer could sue over a hypothetical trip by the president on Air Force One to speak to a religious group, with the U.S. government picking up the whole tab, including the cost of fuel and security guards.

"The whole trip is about religion," Scalia said during arguments in the case brought by a Wisconsin group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation and three of its members.

Chief Justice John Roberts made up his own example in questioning the attorney for a group that wants to proceed with its constitutional challenge to Bush's program to help religious groups get federal funds.

"I don't understand under your theory why any taxpayer couldn't sue our marshal for standing up and saying 'God save the United States and this honorable court.' Her salary comes from Congress," Roberts said.

Attorney Andrew Pincus replied that taxpayers could not sue in either example. He said the money must be essential or central to the violation of the separation of church and state.

He responded with his own example.

"If there's a prayer breakfast and the only (government) money that's spent is on the bagels, we don't believe the bagels are the basis for a taxpayer challenge to the prayer breakfast," he said.

In January 2001, soon after he became president, Bush issued an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and similar centers in various federal agencies.

One of the goals Bush set was to help religious and community groups better compete for federal funds to fight poverty, substance abuse and other social problems.

The lawsuit said administration officials violated the Constitution by organizing national and regional conferences at which religious groups received favored treatment over secular groups.

The Supreme Court at this time will rule on when taxpayers can bring such challenges, not on whether the program itself violates church-state separation.

Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement argued that a 1968 Supreme Court precedent allows taxpayer challenges to congressional spending, but not to executive branch actions.

Justice
Anthony Kennedy, who often casts the decisive vote on the nine-member court closely divided between conservative and liberal factions, appeared sympathetic to the administration arguments.

"It seems to me unduly intrusive for the court to tell the president that (he) cannot talk to specific groups to see if they have certain talents that the government may use," Kennedy said. "We would be supervising the White House and what it can say, who it can talk to."

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

Whatever...one essential person Not present was Gerry Geen!
Crypt Held Bodies of Jesus and Family, Film Says
Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Boxes said to contain residue of the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdelene yesterday at a news conference in New York promoting a documentary.

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: February 27, 2007

A documentary by the Discovery Channel claims to provide evidence that a crypt unearthed 27 years ago in Jerusalem contained the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.
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"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" at the Discovery Channel
The Lede: Jesus Burial Site Claim Stirs Passions
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Discovery Channel

The ossuary filmmakers say is inscribed with "Jesus son of Joseph."

Moreover, it asserts that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, that the couple had a son, named Judah, and that all three were buried together.

The claims were met with skepticism by several archaeologists and New Testament scholars, as well as outrage by some Christian leaders. The contention that Jesus was married, had a child and left behind his bones — suggesting he was not bodily resurrected — contradicts core Christian doctrine.

Two limestone boxes said to contain residue from the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were unveiled yesterday at a news conference at the New York Public Library by the documentary’s producer, James Cameron, who made “Titanic” and “The Terminator.” His collaborators onstage included a journalist, a self-taught antiquities investigator, New Testament scholars, a statistician and an archaeologist. Several of them said they were excited by the findings but uncertain.

“I would like more information. I remain skeptical,” said the archaeologist, Shimon Gibson, a senior fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, in an interview after the news conference.

In recent years, audiences have demonstrated a voracious appetite for books, movies and magazines that reassess the life and times of Jesus, and there is already a book timed to coincide with this documentary, which will be on the air next Sunday.

“This is exploiting the whole trend that caught on with ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ ” said Lawrence E. Stager, the Dorot professor of archaeology of Israel at Harvard, in a telephone interview. “One of the problems is there are so many biblically illiterate people around the world that they don’t know what is real judicious assessment and what is what some of us in the field call ‘fantastic archaeology.’ ”

Professor Stager said he had not seen the film but was skeptical.

Mr. Cameron said he had been “trepidatious” about becoming involved in the project but got engaged out of “great passion for a good detective story,” not to offend and not to cash in.

“I think this is the biggest archaeological story of the century,” he said. “It’s absolutely not a publicity stunt. It’s part of a very well-considered plan to reveal this information to the world in a way that makes sense, with proper documentation.”

The documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” revisits a site discovered by archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority in the East Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980, when the area was being excavated for a building.

Ten burial boxes, or ossuaries, were found in the tomb, and six of them had inscriptions. The Discovery Channel filmmakers say, and archaeologists interviewed concur, there is no possibility the inscriptions were forged, because they were catalogued at the time by archaeologists and kept in storage in the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The documentary’s case rests in large part on the interpretation of the inscriptions, which they say are Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, Joseph and Judah.

In the first century, these names were as common as Tom, Dick and Harry. But the filmmakers commissioned a statistician, Andrey Feuerverger, a professor at the University of Toronto, who calculated that the odds that all six names would appear together in one tomb are one in 600, calculated conservatively — or as much as one in one million.

One box is said to be inscribed “Yeshua bar Yosef,” in Aramaic, an ancient dialect of Hebrew that is translated as “Jesus son of Joseph.” The second box is inscribed “Maria,” in Hebrew. Maria is the Latin version of “Miriam” — a name so common in first century ancient Israel that it was given to about 25 percent of all Jewish women. But the mother of Jesus has always been known as “Maria” (which in English is “Mary”). The documentary says that while thousands of ossuaries have been discovered, only eight have had the inscription “Maria” spelled phonetically in Hebrew letters.

The third box is labeled “Matia,” Hebrew for Matthew, and the filmmakers cite a reference in the New Testament to buttress their claim that Mary had many Matthews in her family and it would make sense to find one in the family tomb.

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Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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...to go where only those who wear diapers have gone before...
Virgin Galactic Spaceliner Steps Forward

By Leonard David
Special to Space News

A passenger-carrying suborbital spaceliner and the airplane that will serve as its first stage are starting to take shape on the factory floors at Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif.

Work on the SpaceShipTwo prototype is moving forward, as is the fabrication of the White Knight 2 mothership, and at this point spaceline operator Virgin Galactic is eyeing late 2009 as the beginning of commercial flights with paying customers.

Scaled Composites is the firm led by aerospace designer Burt Rutan, whose team designed and built SpaceShipOne, the vehicle that made a trio of piloted suborbital flights in 2004, snagging the $10 million Ansari X Prize by completing back-to-back suborbital hops within a two-week time period.

When Scaled Composites developed SpaceShipOne, the company viewed it as Tier 1 of an effort whose next step, Tier 1b, would be manufacturing a fleet of space planes to carry commercial passengers on suborbital trips into space.

In July 2005, Rutan and U.K. billionaire Sir Richard Branson announced they had signed an agreement to form The Spaceship Co., to be jointly owned by Virgin and Scaled Composites. The new aerospace production group was created to manufacture launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment and market them to spaceline operators, including Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which placed orders for five spaceships and two launch aircraft with options on additional systems. Branson’s order secured the exclusive use of the systems for the initial 18 months of commercial passenger operations.

SpaceShip Two will be carried to launch altitude by the aircraft White Knight 2, which will release the space vehicle for launch at an altitude of 1,828.8 meters. The space vehicle is being built to seat six passengers and two pilots. The price to buy a ticket now is $200,000, which covers pre-training, the suborbital trip to an altitude of 109.4 kilometers and post-landing frivolity.

At present, Virgin Galactic has $20 million in deposits, said Will Whitehorn, the company’s president. “We just surpassed the 200-customer level in terms of people who have actually made a financial commitment, put their money down and signed their contracts,” Whitehorn said.

Space travel registrations on the Virgin Galactic Internet Web site, number about 82,000 expressions of interest, Whitehorn said. “Those registrations are genuine … with quite a number prepared to sign in the next three or four years. But they do want to see a finished spaceship before they are prepared to commit. I don’t blame them for that. We’re hoping to have a working spaceship that’s actually commencing spaceflight in its test mode by the middle of 2008.”

Whitehorn said more than 100 test flights are scheduled to give spaceliner operations a good shakeout. He estimated the first commercial flights will occur by the end of 2009 and possibly sooner if the planned trial runs prove to be trouble-free.

Whitehorn said that flight tests of the SpaceShipTwo/White Knight 2 will take place out of the inland spaceport at Mojave, Calif. “I imagine even the early flying program of commercial flights in late 2009 will be from Mojave,” he said.

After those initial flights, he said the company also plans to use New Mexico’s Spaceport America, especially as more facilities are added there around 2010. At least “that’s the scenario we’re working on at the moment,” Whitehorn said.

Mojave test program

In June 2004, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation granted the Mojave Airport a launch site operator license — making it the first inland spaceport on the books.

"The spaceport is ready when they are," said Stuart Witt, Mojave Airport and spaceport manager. "Our new 12,500 foot by 200 foot [3,810 meter by 61 meter] runway is complete. Security systems are complete or being installed. Our communication and access systems are complete. New construction is under way at several locations. Our new water system is scheduled for installation this year," he said.

For his part, Rutan is tight-lipped regarding Scaled Composites’ progress building SpaceShipTwo and the super-jumbo White Knight 2 carrier spacecraft. A few joint releases between Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic have been issued in the past, but no schedule information.

“Like our other research programs we generally do not provide information until the prototypes are ready to fly,” Rutan told Space News. “It is likely that when we roll out the prototype, SpaceShipTwo, we will provide an estimate for the schedule of the production spaceships so the public can have a general idea of when the commercial spaceline flights might begin,” he added.

“Have patience ... this is a very big program,” he said, adding that commercial systems for routine public flight are a lot more difficult than winning the X Prize.

“Everybody wants to know when we’re going to be flying … and details about the schedule. But I don’t want to put the pressure on Scaled to perform to an artificial schedule. We’ve asked them to deliver the best possible spaceship. I haven’t told him when he should deliver it,” said Alex Tai, Virgin Galactic’s chief operating officer.

“There’s a lot of testing built into the program at this stage. It is appropriate as a development program to say things are going ahead exceptionally well … and we’re proceeding along with the schedule. I’m very happy with the progress to date,” Tai said.

Spaceport America

Meanwhile, phased work on New Mexico’s Spaceport America has begun. The facilities will be located 48.3 kilometers east of Truth or Consequences, N.M. and 72.4 kilometers north of Las Cruces, N.M. This site was picked for its low-population density, uncongested airspace and high elevation.

In December 2005, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Branson, chairman of the Virgin Companies, announced that Virgin Galactic would locate its world headquarters and mission control operations in New Mexico.

Spaceport America’s construction is to progress in two phases. Phase 1 is the programming stage, which includes the construction of related infrastructure such as roads, utilities, etc. Phase 2 will involve the full-fledged design of the spaceport itself.

“The critical path here is the environmental impact statement and [spaceport] license from the Federal Aviation Administration,” said Rick Homans, chairman of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and the state’s Cabinet Secretary of Economic Development.

“All is going okay … taking a little longer than expected, as should be expected,” Homans said. Extra effort is being taken to work with state, county and private stakeholders in order to design and build the first “purpose built” spaceport.

“We’re looking at a 20-mile (32.2 kilometer) radius around the spaceport,” Homans said, and making the facility as environmentally sensitive to area interests is a top priority. A draft environmental impact statement for the spaceport should be completed in April or May, he said.

Tenants and lease holders

“We would like to have the [spaceport] license by the end of this year or the very beginning of 2008,” Homans added. Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic are also negotiating the details of a legally binding term sheet that will be developed into a formal and legal lease agreement, Homans said.

The term sheet begins to define the operational structure of Spaceport America, as well the relationship and responsibilities between the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and the facility’s tenants and lease holders.

“It also reflects a structure and a process to establish user fees … the beginning of a formula to do that. We want to develop something that sets a precedent and a template for other tenants in the future,” Homans said. The other thing it does, he said, is set prices for the exclusive facilities Virgin Galactic will be using, as well costs associated for them to utilize common Spaceport America amenities.

To prepare for the start of operations, Spaceport America is expected to spend between $150 million and $200 million, but enhancements would push the facility to becoming a $225 million site in the future, Homans said.

“It’s all uncharted territory,” Homans stated. “The space tourism piece is just the very beginning of where all this is headed … and driving this in a very large way is Virgin Galactic.”

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This is going to crimp Humane Society hopes and plans big time...damned dirty humans!
N.J. town to set time limit on barking

Sun Feb 25, 6:48 AM ET

CLIFTON, N.J. - The city of Clifton is not going to the dogs. At least not if the City Council has anything to do about it. Later this month, the council is expected to introduce an ordinance setting a limit on how long dogs can bark.

Noisy canines will be defined as those that bark for more than 30 minutes on two consecutive days.

The city already has nuisance and "noise laws that can be used to address annoying and disturbing noises such as constant barking." But officials said those laws are sometimes difficult to enforce.

Police have to investigate complaints, and the city Health Department sent 11 letters last year warning that a summons could be issued if the barking continued, health officer John Biegel said. Clifton has issued 3,756 dog licenses this year.

Getting a summons is rare, because the person who complained must go to court to sign a complaint.

Fines for the new ordinance could start at $250, Biegel said.

Posted on Oscar night! ...meanwhile, at The Razzies...
Sharon Stone big winner (loser?) at Razzies

By Arthur Spiegelman Sat Feb 24, 11:28 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pity actress
Sharon Stone -- she cannot return to the scene of the crime without getting whacked.

Stone and her failed film sequel, "Basic Instinct 2," swept the 27th annual Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, on Saturday night as they collected dubious-distinction honors in four categories -- worst film, worst actress, worst screenplay and worst prequel or sequel.

John Wilson, the head of the foundation that lampoons Hollywood on the eve of the
Oscars, said that while Razzie voters spread their loathing as best they could this year -- they kept returning to "Basic Instinct 2," the sequel to the sex-thriller that made Stone a star in 1992.

Making of the film was delayed for several years because of production problems and lawsuits. At one point, Stone sued the producers for $100 million claiming they had made it impossible for her to get other jobs. But eventually the film was made and it opened to nearly universal critical scorn.

"Little Man," a comedy made by the Wayans Brothers, picked up three Razzies, including worst remake or rip-off. Brothers Shawn and
Marlon Wayans were named worst screen couple and shared the prize for worst actor. Their comedy about a tiny thief who disguises himself as a baby, supposedly was based on a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Filmmaker
M. Night Shyamalan, who blew off a lucrative deal with Disney over the company's criticism of his movie "Lady in the Water," received two Razzies for that film: worst director and worst supporting actor for his own performance in it.

The Razzie for worst supporting actress went to former "Baywatch" beauty
Carmen Electra after a neck-and-neck fight with onetime Playboy Playmate
Jenny McCarthy. Electra won for two films -- "Date Movie" and "Scary Movie 4."

"RV," a comedy starring
Robin Williams, was the winner of the newest Razzie category, worst excuse for family entertainment.

The Razzies were created in 1980 by Wilson, a devoted film fan. They are decided by a vote of the Golden Raspberry Foundation's 757 members.

Winners receive a gold-painted, golf ball-sized raspberry atop a mangled super-8 film reel. The trophy has an estimated value of $4.97.

Milk and Honey ain't Cheap...Gringos are!
Citizenship requests soar before big changes

A stiffer test, higher fees and perhaps new laws are on the horizon.
By Anna Gorman and Jennifer Delson, Times Staff Writers
February 25, 2007

Citizenship applications are skyrocketing in Southern California and across the nation, as green card holders rush to avoid a proposed fee increase, a revised civics test and possible changes in immigration law.

Applications filed in Los Angeles and six surrounding counties shot to 18,024 in January from 7,334 in the same month last year, a 146% increase, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Nationwide, the number hit 95,622, up from 53,390, a 79% increase.

The jump — both locally and nationwide — is the largest in a decade, officials said. The numbers of applications first spiked last March with mass immigrant rights rallies and saw the most dramatic increase after the new year.

The filings are expected to continue as Congress prepares to restart the debate on immigration reform.

"Every time we have this much talk of immigration in the news and on the Hill, we get a lot more interest," said CIS spokeswoman Marie Sebrechts. "We tend to see a surge in applications."

After last year's marches, immigrant rights advocates launched a campaign to produce 1 million new citizens and registered voters. They fell far short of their goal by the November election, but advocates said they were pleased with the number of immigrants applying for naturalization.

"People are really invested in the entire debate," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. She said many immigrants have asked themselves, "How am I going to protect myself in this country if I am not a U.S. citizen?"

There are an estimated 8 million permanent legal residents who are eligible to apply for citizenship. An additional 12 million illegal immigrants are thought to reside in the United States.

This month, community groups and faith-based organizations are gearing up for another citizenship drive before the proposed new fees and exam would take effect.

The new effort is called, "Ya Es Hora. !Ciudadania!" (It's time. Citizenship!) and features media blitzes and workshops to help educate immigrants about the process.

Citizenship application and fingerprint fees would increase from $400 to $675 in June under the CIS proposal, Sebrechts said. And a new test, which would require a better understanding of the nation's history and democratic principles, is set to take effect next year.

"There is a new urgency in the community," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "Folks are saying, 'I'd better apply now.' "

William Ramirez, a legal resident from El Salvador, has been eligible to apply for citizenship since last February. When he heard about the fee increase proposal, he immediately sought help from Hermandad Mexicana, an immigrant rights organization in Los Angeles, to complete his application.

"If I can do it now, why wait?" said Ramirez, 44, of La Puente. "It's going to save me a lot of money."

Ramirez said he planned to seek legal residency for his wife and young child, now in the country on tourist visas, and is eager to cast his first ballot. "I can do better for my people," he said. "I can help with my vote."

Rancho Cucamonga resident Irene Gonzalez, 32, emigrated with her parents from Mexico when she was 6. After two decades as a green card holder, she filed her application for citizenship last week.

When she was younger, Gonzalez said, she felt as though becoming a U.S. citizen would be a betrayal of her native Mexico. Now, she says, "I want to have that peace of mind that I am a citizen and I have every right to be in this country."

Who may apply

Green card holders — legal permanent residents — can apply for citizenship after living five years in the United States, or three years if they are married to a U.S. citizen. They must pass civics and English tests, be of "good moral character" and take an oath of allegiance.

CIS must raise application fees because it does not have a regular allocation, Sebrechts said. Rather, it relies almost entirely on fees to support itself and is facing a budget shortfall. The agency plans to switch from paper to electronic filing, which she said would make the application process more efficient and secure.


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Oooooo! Presure! Presure!
Report: Israel wants to fly over Iraq

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 24, 6:56 AM ET

LONDON -
Israel opened negotiations to fly through U.S. controlled airspace in
Iraq to carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a British newspaper reported Saturday. Israel's deputy defense minister denied the claim.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli defense official as saying the talks were aimed at planning for all scenarios, including any future decision to target
Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli bombers would need a corridor through U.S.-administered airspace in Iraq to carry out any strikes, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Ephraim Sneh, Israel's Deputy Defense Minister, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the report was incorrect. "This is baseless information," Sneh said. "Maybe people like to divert (attention from) the need for immediate economic sanctions (with) stories about imminent Israeli action, which is not on the agenda."

The international community's focus should be on imposing economic sanctions on Iran for defying
U.N. Security Council resolutions, he said.

Senior officials of the five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council — Britain, the U.S., France, China and Russia — and Germany are meeting Monday for an emergency summit in London to discuss measures against Tehran.

The U.S. and its Western allies insist Iran must suspend uranium enrichment before any negotiations over its nuclear program take place and accused Tehran of using a civilian program as a cover to develop weapons.

Iran, has rejected the condition to suspend enrichment and insists that its nuclear program is peaceful.

___

Associated Press Writer Amy Tiebel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

"Last time I saw that monkey, he was trying to put the cork back in!" Famous punch-line
Indonesia drops balls into mud volcano

59 minutes ago

SURABAYA, Indonesia - Indonesian engineers temporarily halted an attempt to plug a fissure that has been gushing mud for nine months, after a steel cable hoisting cement balls into the crater broke Saturday, officials said.

The hot, noxious mud has displaced 13,000 people and covered dozens of factories and thousands of homes. The mud has blocked major roads into the country's second largest city, Surabaya.

Over the next few weeks, authorities plan to drop nearly 1,500 concrete balls, weighing up to 500 pounds each, into the geyser. A string of four balls was successfully lowered into the hole Saturday in heavy rain and wind, said Rudi Novrianto, a spokesman for a government task force handling the disaster.

"Thank God, we have managed to drop one chain, equipped with sensors to monitor pressure and depth," he said. "We had to halt the process because of the broken steel cable. We will continue tomorrow after repairing it."

Officials had hoped to drop between 5 and 10 strands of balls into the mud volcano on Saturday.

If successful, the project will decrease by up to 70 percent the volume of mud now being channeled by a system of dams into a nearby river and out to sea. The mud has been surging at a rate that could fill 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools a day.

Critics, however, doubt it will succeed and warn it could be dangerous or that deep underground pressure could push the mud up elsewhere.

Mud fissures occur naturally along volatile tectonic belts like the one running below Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago. But opinions differ about the cause of the latest rupture.

Independent geological studies suggest it was triggered by faulty gas exploration techniques by operator PT Lapindo Brantas, which created fissures in a bed of porous limestone.

Other research supports the company's assertion that it was a natural disaster resulting from increased seismic activity following a major earthquake two days before the mud began flowing.

WHY must these persons be NOT FREE!?
Thousands protest separatist's jail term

Sat Feb 24, 11:33 PM ET

MADRID, Spain - Thousands of people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid Saturday against a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of the Basque separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.

The crowd screamed "murderer, murderer, murderer" and accused the Socialist government of being soft on ETA.

Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos has been in prison since 1987 for the deaths of 25 in a series of ETA attacks. With time off for good behavior and other benefits, he was on the verge of release last year when he was charged anew over newspaper articles he wrote from prison that were deemed as threats of new attacks.

De Juana Chaos was convicted and got 13 years, and he resumed a hunger strike that had begun months earlier. But on Feb. 12 the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to three years, saying the articles could be considered apologies for terrorism but not terrorism threats in themselves.

As he has already been in jail 17 months since the new charges were filed — more than half the sentence ordered — he is eligible for a furlough program. It is up to the government to decide whether to grant it.

His case has become a lightning rod for deep political divisions in Spain over the Socialist government's dealings with ETA. The group ended a nine-month cease-fire with a Dec. 30 bombing that killed two people at Madrid airport.

That caused the government to ditch plans for negotiations with ETA, but it refuses to rule out trying again at some point in the future. ETA and its political supporters have cited De Juana Chaos' case as an example of the kind of judicial harassment they say derailed the peace process.

ETA has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in its bid for an independent Basque state.

Hey, how is living under the curse of Texas Neo-Cons any better?
Leader: Russia's grasp on Ukraine rising

By MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 24, 5:35 PM ET

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's main opposition leader, on the eve of a trip to the U.S., warned Saturday that the former Soviet republic is at risk of sliding back under the influence of Russia.

Yulia Tymoshenko said she will reassure U.S. leaders on her visit starting Sunday that the Orange Revolution team which set Ukraine on its pro-Western path has reunited and will provide tough opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Russian-leaning government.

"Our union today is not due to circumstances, it is not a spontaneous decision," Tymoshenko told The Associated Press after signing an agreement Saturday to rejoin forces with President Viktor Yushchenko's party.

"It is a decision dictated by those Ukrainians who want to see Ukraine European."

Tymoshenko was one of the driving forces behind the 2004 Orange Revolution, which helped bring the pro-Western Yushchenko to power. The Kremlin had backed Yanukovych, and his defeat was a major blow to Moscow's efforts to keep Ukraine under its sway.

But Yushchenko's hesitant governing style proved to be a disappointment for many Ukrainians who expected quick change and a strong embrace from Europe. He also split with Tymoshenko, a widely popular politician in Ukraine. Last year, Yanukovych's party triumphed in parliamentary elections and he returned to power as prime minister, governing jointly with Yushchenko.

Yushchenko has since become sidelined, and Tymoshenko said that under Yanukovych, Russia's influence was growing.

"I don't want to be silent about this," she said, noting that Moscow's pressure was particularly strong in the energy sector.

"Really, there is energy pressure on Ukraine which ... is used today for political control of the country," she said. "All this forces us to confront a new challenge: to protect the independence of our country."

Russia temporarily cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine last year, a shut-off was widely seen as punishment for Ukraine's pro-Western policies. This year, both sides agreed to a price widely seen as a gift to Yanukovych's government — nearly half the price Russia is demanding from Georgia, another West-leaning ex-Soviet republic.

Russia has increasingly used its huge energy supplies to wield influence in other former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. Last month, Russia stopped pumping oil to Belarus in a trade dispute. The stoppage affected Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — all of which are dependent on Russian oil.

Russia is also trying to exert pressure on Poland and the Czech Republic to turn down requests by the Washington to host parts of a U.S. missile defense system. Both countries have expressed interest in the system, which Moscow says could disturb the balance of power in the region and fuel a new arms race.

Tymoshenko's visit to the U.S. comes after Russian President
Vladimir Putin gave a speech in Germany earlier this month blasting U.S. foreign policy — his harshest criticism of the Bush administration since he came to power in 2000.

Tymoshenko is scheduled to meet with Vice President
Dick Cheney and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice in Washington.