No mention Detaines were kidnapped on Iran's sovereign soil, which is an act of War!
U.S. won't release 5 Iranians held in Iraq: report

1 hour, 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a move likely to irritate Tehran, the government has decided not to release five Iranians captured in
Iraq, a newspaper reported on Friday.

The Washington Post said that after intense internal debate, the Bush administration had decided to keep the Iranians in custody and make them go through a periodic six-month review process used for the other 250 foreign detainees held in Iraq.

The next review is not expected until July, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying.

Washington says the five, seized in a January 11 raid by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Arbil, are linked with Iranian Revolutionary Guard networks involved in providing explosive devices used to attack U.S. troops in Iraq.
Iran says they are diplomats and has demanded their release.

The Post said Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice had wanted to free the men because she judged them no longer useful but went along with the decision to retain them in custody that was strongly supported by Vice President
Dick Cheney.

Plese Stop Calling What Is Misrepresented By NEOCON Republicans and The Bush Administration, "The US Government!"
Florida manatees may lose endangered status

By Jim Loney Fri Apr 13, 10:57 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida manatees are dying in record numbers and the lumbering marine mammals face growing threats from speedboats, a toxic foe called red tide and the potential loss of their warm winter havens at power plants.

So why is the U.S. government talking about removing its protective "endangered" label, conservationists ask.

"It's a concern because the mortality numbers are still so high," said Dr. Maya Rodriguez, a veterinarian at the Miami Seaquarium who treats sick and injured manatees. "All it might take is a few power plants to close or a really bad red tide to really hurt the population."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that the slow-moving West Indian manatee, one of the first creatures put on the U.S. endangered species list in the 1960s, no longer qualifies as endangered. That follows a similar move by Florida officials last year.

Wildlife officials say the manatee is not in immediate danger of extinction and its status should be changed to "threatened."

"We're not proposing to take it off the list, just change its status," said Dave Hankla, an FWS field supervisor. Changing the status could take several years.

A change from endangered to threatened would not diminish the manatee's protection, but advocates say it could be hurt by public perception that it is no longer in danger.

An annual census found 2,812 manatees in Florida this year, down from 3,113 in 2006. Reported deaths numbered 417 last year, the highest on record, and 101 died in the first three months of this year.

The West Indian manatee, related to the West African and Amazon versions and to the dugong of Australia, is a giant that grows to an average of 10 feet and more than 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Its wrinkled and whiskered face, reproduced as a stuffed toy, has won the hearts of generations of children.

It has no natural predators. But its penchant for resting on the water's surface has made it a frequent victim of boat propellers.

Manatees are also routinely crushed or drowned in canal locks or hurt by stray fishing line and hooks. They are vulnerable to red tide algae blooms and to winter cold.

Their numbers have increased in the last 30 years, in part due to boat speed restrictions. Developers and boating groups argue for easing restrictions to allow more boat slip construction.

POWER PLANTS

But conservationists say the potential closure of aging electric plants is an unsolved problem for the survival of the species. Water temperatures below 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees C) put a manatee in danger and every winter hundreds gather at waterfront power stations to take advantage of warm discharge water.

Florida Power & Light, the state's largest electric company, has five plants that are refuges and as many as 1,500 manatees can be found at the plants on a chilly winter night.

"FPL has no plans to definitely close any of our power plants," said Winifred Perkins, FPL's manager of environmental relations. "But it's most people's opinion that most of these plants won't be around 50, 60, 70 years from now ... From the manatee's point of view, it's an acute issue."

A state task force is considering ways to create alternative warm-water winter homes for manatees.

Red tide, an algae bloom that scientists believe is toxic to manatees, has been blamed for large die-offs. One in 1996 killed about 150 manatees.

"Red tide is the big unknown right now," said Pat Rose, an aquatic biologist and executive director of the Save the Manatee Club. "We're still not sure how much of a risk red tide is. Is it getting worse or is it just killing more manatees?"

Rutgers Team Accepts Imus' Apology!
Rutgers Team Accepts Imus' Apology
They Say Radio Host Deserves a Chance to Move On
AP
NEW YORK (April 13) - The Rutgers women's basketball team accepted radio host Don Imus ' apology Friday for insulting them on the air, saying that he deserves a chance to move on but that they hope the furor his words caused will be a catalyst for change.

"We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept Mr. Imus' apology, and we are in the process of forgiving," coach C. Vivian Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife.

Epic Fall for Cantankerous Radio Host

Related: DeLay Calls for Rosie to Be Fired
Jason Whitlock: Sharpton, Jackson Should Step Down
News Bloggers: Join the Discussion on Imus
Black Voices Blog: Hip-Hop's Impact on Imus' Statements
"We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget," the statement read.

"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture," the team's statement said Friday. "It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."

Imus was in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children's charities when he was dropped by CBS. On Friday, his wife took over and also talked about the meeting with the players, praising them as "beautiful and courageous."

Deirdre Imus briefly described the couple's meeting with team members Thursday night, after more than a week of uproar over her husband's on-air description of team members as "nappy-headed hos."

"They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they're hurting and how awful this is. And I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women," Deirdre Imus said as she co-hosted the fundraiser. It had been scheduled for her husband's show Friday long before his remarks set off a national debate about taste and tolerance.

CBS abruptly fired Imus on Thursday from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years; the decision came a day after MSNBC said it would no longer televise the show.

Rutgers Coach: Meeting "Very Productive"
"He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people," said CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves in a memo to his staff. "In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our company."

Imus made the remark on April 4, the day after the Rutgers team lost in the national championship game. He met with team members for about three hours at the governor's mansion in Princeton, N.J. Thursday night, but left without commenting to reporters.

C. Vivian Stringer, the team's coach, had spoken briefly on the mansion's steps, but at the time did not mention if the team would accept his apology.

"We had a very productive meeting," she said. "We were able to really dialogue. ... Hopefully, we can put all of this behind us."

For Imus' critics, his recent remarks were the latest in a line of objectionable statements by the ringmaster of a show that mixed high-minded talk about politics and culture with crude, locker-room humor.

Imus apologized, and tried to explain himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio audience, appearing alternately contrite and combative. But many of his advertisers bailed in disgust, particularly after the Rutgers women spoke of their hurt.

"He says he wants to be forgiven," Sharpton said. "I hope he continues in that process. But we cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism."

MSNBC and CBS suspended Imus for two weeks, and the heat only grew. He was then fired so swiftly that he had to awkwardly do his last show from an MSNBC studio - even though MSNBC wasn't televising it - then was cut loose in the middle of an annual two-day radiothon to raise money for children's charities. Imus' wife, Deirdre, and his longtime sidekick Charles McCord were called in to sub for him Friday.

Some Imus fans considered his punishment harsh.

"I'm embarrassed by this company," said WFAN DJ Mike Francesa, whose sports show with partner Chris Russo is considered a likely successor to Imus in the morning. "I'm embarrassed by their decision. It shows, really, the worst lack of taste I've ever seen."

The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio's original shock jocks. His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in.

He issued repeated apologies as protests intensified. But it wasn't enough as everyone from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama to Oprah Winfrey joined the criticism.

Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern departed for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus' home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally WFAN.

The radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he had lost his job. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990.

"This may be our last radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Volunteers were getting about 200 more pledges per hour Thursday than they did last year, with most callers expressing support for Imus, said phone bank supervisor Tony Gonzalez. The event benefited Tomorrows Children's Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch.

Imus' troubles have also affected his wife, whose book "Green This!" came out this week. Her promotional tour has been called off "because of the enormous pressure that Deirdre and her family are under," said Simon & Schuster publicist Victoria Meyer.

Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana, Karen Matthews, Warren Levinson, Seth Sutel, Tara Burghart, Colleen Long and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2007-04-11 18:38:18

The putrid stench of Big Brother just got significantly stronger!
Researchers explore scrapping Internet

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 2 hours, 56 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over.

The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

No longer constrained by slow connections and computer processors and high costs for storage, researchers say the time has come to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, a move that could mean replacing networking equipment and rewriting software on computers to better channel future traffic over the existing pipes.

Even Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers as co-developer of the key communications techniques, said the exercise was "generally healthy" because the current technology "does not satisfy all needs."

One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known.

There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, "a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. "They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue."

The
National Science Foundation wants to build an experimental research network known as the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI, and is funding several projects at universities and elsewhere through Future Internet Network Design, or FIND.

Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the universities pursuing individual projects. Other government agencies, including the Defense Department, have also been exploring the concept.

The
European Union has also backed research on such initiatives, through a program known as Future Internet Research and Experimentation, or FIRE. Government officials and researchers met last month in Zurich to discuss early findings and goals.

A new network could run parallel with the current Internet and eventually replace it, or perhaps aspects of the research could go into a major overhaul of the existing architecture.

These clean-slate efforts are still in their early stages, though, and aren't expected to bear fruit for another 10 or 15 years — assuming Congress comes through with funding.

Guru Parulkar, who will become executive director of Stanford's initiative after heading NSF's clean-slate programs, estimated that GENI alone could cost $350 million, while government, university and industry spending on the individual projects could collectively reach $300 million. Spending so far has been in the tens of millions of dollars.

And it could take billions of dollars to replace all the software and hardware deep in the legacy systems.

Clean-slate advocates say the cozy world of researchers in the 1970s and 1980s doesn't necessarily mesh with the realities and needs of the commercial Internet.

"The network is now mission critical for too many people, when in the (early days) it was just experimental," Zittrain said.

The Internet's early architects built the system on the principle of trust. Researchers largely knew one another, so they kept the shared network open and flexible — qualities that proved key to its rapid growth.

But spammers and hackers arrived as the network expanded and could roam freely because the Internet doesn't have built-in mechanisms for knowing with certainty who sent what.

The network's designers also assumed that computers are in fixed locations and always connected. That's no longer the case with the proliferation of laptops, personal digital assistants and other mobile devices, all hopping from one wireless access point to another, losing their signals here and there.

Engineers tacked on improvements to support mobility and improved security, but researchers say all that adds complexity, reduces performance and, in the case of security, amounts at most to bandages in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.

Workarounds for mobile devices "can work quite well if a small fraction of the traffic is of that type," but could overwhelm computer processors and create security holes when 90 percent or more of the traffic is mobile, said Nick McKeown, co-director of Stanford's clean-slate program.

The Internet will continue to face new challenges as applications require guaranteed transmissions — not the "best effort" approach that works better for e-mail and other tasks with less time sensitivity.

Think of a doctor using teleconferencing to perform a surgery remotely, or a customer of an Internet-based phone service needing to make an emergency call. In such cases, even small delays in relaying data can be deadly.

And one day, sensors of all sorts will likely be Internet capable.

Rather than create workarounds each time, clean-slate researchers want to redesign the system to easily accommodate any future technologies, said Larry Peterson, chairman of computer science at Princeton and head of the planning group for the NSF's GENI.

Even if the original designers had the benefit of hindsight, they might not have been able to incorporate these features from the get-go. Computers, for instance, were much slower then, possibly too weak for the computations needed for robust authentication.

"We made decisions based on a very different technical landscape," said Bruce Davie, a fellow with network-equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc., which stands to gain from selling new products and incorporating research findings into its existing line.

"Now, we have the ability to do all sorts of things at very high speeds," he said. "Why don't we start thinking about how we take advantage of those things and not be constrained by the current legacy we have?"

Of course, a key question is how to make any transition — and researchers are largely punting for now.

"Let's try to define where we think we should end up, what we think the Internet should look like in 15 years' time, and only then would we decide the path," McKeown said. "We acknowledge it's going to be really hard but I think it will be a mistake to be deterred by that."

Kleinrock, the Internet pioneer at UCLA, questioned the need for a transition at all, but said such efforts are useful for their out-of-the-box thinking.

"A thing called GENI will almost surely not become the Internet, but pieces of it might fold into the Internet as it advances," he said.

Think evolution, not revolution.

Princeton already runs a smaller experimental network called PlanetLab, while Carnegie Mellon has a clean-slate project called 100 x 100.

These days, Carnegie Mellon professor Hui Zhang said he no longer feels like "the outcast of the community" as a champion of clean-slate designs.

Construction on GENI could start by 2010 and take about five years to complete. Once operational, it should have a decade-long lifespan.

FIND, meanwhile, funded about two dozen projects last year and is evaluating a second round of grants for research that could ultimately be tested on GENI.

These go beyond projects like Internet2 and National LambdaRail, both of which focus on next-generation needs for speed.

Any redesign may incorporate mechanisms, known as virtualization, for multiple networks to operate over the same pipes, making further transitions much easier. Also possible are new structures for data packets and a replacement of Cerf's TCP/IP communications protocols.

"Almost every assumption going into the current design of the Internet is open to reconsideration and challenge," said Parulkar, the NSF official heading to Stanford. "Researchers may come up with wild ideas and very innovative ideas that may not have a lot to do with the current Internet."

___

Associated Press Business Writer Aoife White in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Stanford program: http://cleanslate.stanford.edu

Carnegie Mellon program: http://100x100network.org

Rutgers program: http://orbit-lab.org

NSF's GENI: http://geni.net

Berezovsky, WHO? FREE SCOTLAND!!!
Berezovsky says planning Russian revolution: paper

Thu Apr 12, 9:14 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said he is planning a revolution in Russia to topple President
Vladimir Putin, in comments published on Friday.

"We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper.

"It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure."

Asked if he was fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct."

Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, said he was in contact with members of Russia's political elite.

He said these people -- who he did not name because, he said, that would endanger their lives -- shared his opinion that Putin was eroding democratic reforms, centralizing power and infringing Russia's constitution, according to the Guardian.

"There is no chance of regime change through democratic elections," Berezovsky said.

"If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite -- that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that."

The businessman said he was offering his "experience and ideology" to his contacts, adding: "There are also practical steps which I am doing now, and mostly it is financial."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the comments as a criminal offence and hoped they would prompt questions about Berezovsky's refugee status in Britain, the Guardian said.

"In accordance with our legislation (his remarks are) being treated as a crime. It will cause some questions from the British authorities to Mr Berezovsky," Peskov was quoted as saying. "We want to believe that official London will never grant asylum to someone who wants to use force to change the regime in Russia."

Last month, Berezovsky met Russian investigators in London to answer questions over the killing of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. He has also launched a $500,000 foundation in honor of Litvinenko who was poisoned and died in London last November.

I swear to god, one eyelid opened a crack and his trigger finger quivered...

AP
TV report: Sharon slightly improved

Thu Apr 12, 5:14 PM ET

JERUSALEM - An Israeli TV station reported late Thursday that there has been a slight improvement in former Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's condition, but the hospital refused to comment.

Channel 10 TV reported the change, but Sharon remained comatose. He has been unconscious since suffering a massive stroke in January 2006. He is hospitalized in the long-term section of Sheba Medical Center, just outside Tel Aviv.

Spokesman David Weinberg said the medical center would not comment on the report, adding that the hospital's policy is to make public any changes in Sharon's condition.

Sharon turned 79 last month, the second birthday he has passed while unconscious. Doctors have said for months that Sharon is not expected to recover.

The rich get richer usually because they are amoral thieves!
UN wants Kuwait compensation returned

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago

LONDON - The
United Nations is seeking the return of millions of dollars in compensation to victims of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait after an investigation showed they were given more money than they were entitled to, officials said Thursday.

An audit revealed that several thousand victims had been overpaid by more than $80 million by the U.N. Compensation Commission, which was set up to compensate victims of the
Gulf War, a Foreign Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

Mojtaba Kazazi, chief of the commission's administrative office, confirmed it was trying to recover the overpayments, but said the exact amount of money and the number of claimants involved was still being worked out.

The commission has asked Britain — and other governments — to collect the money, the Foreign Office spokesman said. Britain has sent letters to 113 British claimants asking for the return of a total of about $391,000 within 30 days, although he could not say if any action would be taken against those who refused to comply.

The compensation commission draws on funds taken from Iraqi oil sales to pay victims of the conflict, including foreigners expelled from
Iraq and Kuwait during the war, those who lost family or were injured in the fighting, and those whose property was damaged or destroyed in the war. Many of the claims were filed through the governments of Kuwait and other Arab countries.

Kazazi said there were several reasons for the overpayments. In some cases, members of the same family filed claims separately even though they should have been part of the same claim, Kazazi said.

The Foreign Office spokesman suggested that the commission had been focused on helping the victims quickly.

"I think the reason is that at the time they really wanted to get the claims processed, awarded, and paid and quickly as possible," the spokesman said.

On its Web site, the compensation commission said it had received 2.7 million claims seeking approximately $352.5 billion in compensation, and that it had approved $52.4 billion in awards.

"The resolution of such a significant number of claims with such a large asserted value over such a short period has no precedent in the history of international claims resolution," the commission said.

___

Associated Press Writer Erica Bulman in Geneva contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

The United Nations Compensation Commission: http://www2.unog.ch/uncc/

Where he grew up, the Grassleys had pigs running free through their house. Not much has changed!
Senate panel approves Medicare drug price bill

By Kevin Drawbaugh Thu Apr 12, 9:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S.
Senate Finance Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would permit the government to negotiate for Medicare prescription drug prices, throwing down a challenge to the powerful drug industry.

Moved forward by the committee on a 13-8 vote, the bill is expected to go next week to the full Senate, where debate is likely to be intense, Senate aides said.

The House of Representatives in January passed a tougher version of the bill.
President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the House bill. It would require, not just permit, direct negotiation over prices by the government with drug companies.

Medicare is a national health insurance program that covers more than 40 million elderly and disabled Americans. It was expanded last year to add a prescription drug benefit. Coverage is managed for Medicare by dozens of private companies.

The legislation expanding Medicare -- passed when Republicans ran Congress -- prohibited the government from negotiating over drug prices with manufacturers, such as Pfizer, Merck or Eli Lilly.

Democrats now in charge on Capitol Hill want to eliminate the negotiation bar. They say government negotiation would save money both for the government and for older Americans by helping the private firms get the best drug prices possible.

The negotiation bar prevents "efforts to make the drug benefit work better for seniors. It should be eliminated," said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), a Montana Democrat and the bill's chief sponsor, at a committee meeting.

But many Republicans, drug makers and other opponents say such a move would limit patient choices, while achieving no cost savings. Medicare officials also say drug coverage is working fine now and is costing less than expected.

The
Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday in letters to lawmakers that allowing government price negotiation could achieve savings among some drugs, but "would have a negligible effect on federal spending."

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, senior committee Republican, said, "Having the government negotiate drug prices for Medicare might be a good sound bite, but it's not sound policy."

At present, he said, the private companies managing the drug benefit for Medicare compete among themselves and negotiate over prices with drug manufacturers.

"We have lower drug prices for beneficiaries, lower program costs for the government, and prescription drug choices ... Competition is working," Grassley said.

Some Senate Democrats endorsed a more forceful approach like the House-passed bill. But they praised Baucus for seeking a political middle ground by leaving price negotiation up to the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, whose department is in charge of the Medicare program.

No one ever expects the US Inquisition!
Swedish teen: U.S. troops led operation

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 12, 4:47 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish teenager who was imprisoned for weeks with alleged terror suspects in Ethiopia said in an interview published Thursday that Americans in military uniform directed the Kenyan soldiers who took her into custody on the Somali-Kenyan border.

The statements by 17-year-old Safia Benaouda were the first to describe a broader U.S. role in the detentions. Other detainees have said they were taken into custody by Kenyans and transferred to Ethiopia, a U.S. counterterrorism ally.

Benaouda said three men in U.S. uniforms led the Kenyan troops who detained her and other women and children fleeing Somalia on Jan. 18.

"After the American soldiers had detained us they kept in the background, but it was very clear that they were the ones in charge," Benaouda, who was freed from an Ethiopian prison March 27, was quoted as saying by the Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet.

Benaouda did not answer calls from The Associated Press on Thursday. But her mother, Helena Benaouda, told the AP her daughter believed they were U.S. soldiers because of insignia on their uniforms.

"They were American soldiers," said Helena Benaouda, who heads the Swedish Muslim Council.

Ethiopian officials initially denied any suspects were in custody, but the government later confirmed an AP report that dozens of foreigners were detained as part of an effort to stem terrorism.

U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the
CIA and
FBI, but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation. Ethiopian and Somali officials acknowledge cooperating.

U.S. special operations troops regularly train Kenyan security officers at Kenya's Manda Bay Naval Station near the Somali border, officials from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa have said. In a statement Thursday, a task force spokesman directed queries about Kenyan border activities to the Kenyan government. Kenyan officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

American, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces have long been allies in a U.S. counterterrorism effort in the region, whose lawlessness security experts fear al-Qaida and other groups could exploit to create a base. The cooperation appears to have been stepped up in the wake of the collapse of an Islamist regime in Somalia, amid fears al-Qaida suspects linked to the group would flee into Kenya.

In January, the U.S. launched an airstrike on Somalia's Ras Kamboni, a region near Kenya the U.S. has long suspected was the site of a training camp used by a Somali Islamic group linked to al-Qaida.

Benaouda said she had traveled to Somalia with her fiance, Munir Awad, a Swedish citizen of Lebanese descent. The couple was separated when they tried to leave the country after the Ethiopian military intervention in December.

Benaouda said she was captured along with a group of women and children as they tried to cross into Kenya. The soldiers shot a woman in the group, she told the paper, but didn't give details.

They were brought to Nairobi and then returned to Somalia, blindfolded and handcuffed, before being transferred to a prison in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, she said. There, she said, she saw her fiance for the first time in weeks.

Awad was among eight terror suspects shown on Ethiopia's state-run television Tuesday as the country came under mounting pressure over the detention program. Awad and the others said they were being treated humanely.

But Benaouda said she saw her fiance and two other Swedish citizens confined in what looked like "poultry cages with metal roofs" in Ethiopia, and that she was beaten by a prison guard with a stick at one point during her detention. In March, the guards started treating her better and on March 23, she said, she met an official from the Swedish Embassy. Four days later, Benaouda, who is pregnant, was put on a plane home.

The Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Ministry said 29 of the 41 suspects have been ordered released by the Ethiopian government, and that five have been freed. The ministry said only 12 foreign detainees would remain in custody after the next round of releases.

Human rights groups say the detentions are illegal; Ethiopia has denied that.

___

AP writer Anthony Mitchell in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

Surprise! Surprise! Electronic e-trail is lost...! Wonder who will be the annoying Pat Buchanan of the future...?
Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

CitizensForEthics.org is currently experiencing an unusually high volume of traffic. Please check back later to view our full website.
CREW RELEASES NEW REPORT - WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the PRA

Support CREW

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 12, 2007
CONTACT: NAOMI SELIGMAN STEINER 202.408.5565
Shocking New Disclosure - White House Lost over FIVE MILLION EMAILS in Two Year Period

Washington, DC - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal.

Download the executive summary 80K PDF
Download the exhibits 4.4MB PDF
Download the full report 2.4MB PDF

In a startling new revelation, CREW has also learned through two confidential sources that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel's office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said today, "It's clear that the White House has been willfully violating the law, the only question now is to what extent? The ever changing excuses offered by the administration ? that they didn't want to violate the Hatch Act, that staff wasn't clear on the law ? are patently ridiculous. Very convenient that embarrassing ? and potentially incriminating ? emails have gone missing. It's the Nixon White House all over again."

WITHOUT A TRACE covers the following areas:

Presidential Records Act (PRA): Enacted in 1978, requires the president to preserve all presidential records, which are defined as those records relating to the "activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of [the president's] constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties..."

Clinton Administration Policy: In 1993, then-Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary John Podesta sent a memo to all presidential staff explaining that the PRA required all staff members to maintain all records, including emails. Podesta stated that the use of external email networks was prohibited because records would not be saved as required. The 1997 White House Manual and a 2000 memo issued by Mark Lindsay, then Assistant to the President for Management and Administration echoed this policy, requiring staff to use only the White House email system for official communications.

Bush Administration Policy: The Bush Administration has refused to make public its record-keeping policy. A confidential source provided CREW with a 2002 document indicating the use of "non-EOP messaging-enabled mechanisms should not be used for official business."

Bush Administration Practice: In the wake of the scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff and the fired U.S. Attorneys, emails were released showing that top White House staffers routinely used Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts to conduct official business. For example, J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, used an RNC account to communicate with the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding the appointments of new U.S. Attorneys. Similarly, Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove, used RNC email accounts to communicate with Abramoff about appointments to the Department of the Interior.

PRA Violations: 1) The administration failed to implement adequate record-keeping systems to archive presidential email records; 2) two confidential sources independently informed CREW that the administration abandoned a plan to recover more than five million missing emails; 3) White House staff used outside email accounts to conduct presidential business, ensuring that emails were not adequately preserved. In fact, former Abramoff associate Kevin Ring said in an email to Abramoff that Ralston had told him not to send emails to her official White House account "because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc."

Hatch Act Excuse: The administration has claimed that Rove, Jennings and other staffers use RNC accounts to avoid violating the Hatch Act. This is untrue. The Hatch Act prohibits White House staff from using official resources for purely "political" purposes. "Political" refers to the president's role as either a candidate for office or as the leader of his party. Email communications regarding presidential appointments for U.S. Attorney and Interior Department positions clearly fall within the PRA as making appointment is an official presidential function and does not relate to the president's role as party leader.
Read the full WITHOUT A TRACE report at CREW's Website

It wasn't partisan until the damned fascist Republican Imperialists made it partisan!!!
Gore climate concert finds home in New Jersey
Some Republicans blocked his bid to have it on Capitol grounds


Slide shows
AP

• Warming signals
View images from around the world that show signs of global warming.
AP

• Above the ice
View images of Greenland, where warming and shrinking glaciers are worrying scientists.

Interactives

• The greenhouse effect
How the Earth maintains a temperature conducive to life

• Cooling the planet
Check out five far-out ideas on how to engineer a cooler Earth.

• Eyeing the ice
The National Science Foundation's Tom Wagner explains why climate experts are eyeing Antarctica.

• Capturing CO2
A look at carbon sequestration


WASHINGTON - Rebuffed in Washington, former Vice President Al Gore is taking his "Live Earth" rock concert to New Jersey.

The concert to raise awareness about global warming will be held July 7 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, organizers said Tuesday.

Gore had wanted to use the National Mall in Washington but two other groups had already obtained permits for that day. Then, an effort to stage the show on the nearby U.S. Capitol grounds was opposed by some Republicans in Congress.

"We had a number of cities all over the United States saying 'come here, come here,"' said Live Earth founder and executive producer Kevin Wall.

"New York and the state of New Jersey really wanted us to be there and went out of their way to accommodate us."

Artists at the Giants Stadium concert will include the Dave Matthews Band, the Police, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Ludacris, and close Gore friend and New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi, organizers said.

It will be one of several concerts held July 7 on each of the seven continents. The others are slated for Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Antarctica.

Organizers predict more than 1 million people will attend the shows, with millions more tuning in via the Internet, television, radio and wireless services.

Gore has embarked on a mission to warn that the world is facing a "planetary emergency" and has called for emissions of carbon dioxide by the United States, the largest source of the greenhouse gas, to be frozen at current levels.

Staging the concert on the Capitol grounds would require congressional approval and Gore ran into opposition from some Republicans, including Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who has referred to global warming as a "hoax."

While one of New Jersey's other famous rock musicians, Bruce Springsteen, was not on the lineup Tuesday, Wall hinted that he could be added.

"You think we've announced everything?" he said.
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Reigning Champ of the Ignorant bites the dust! As for Vivian Stringer, former champion Iowa Coach, you go girl!
Updated:2007-04-12 17:33:48
Under Pressure, CBS Cuts Ties With Host
AP
NEW YORK (April 12) - CBS fired shock jock Don Imus from his radio show Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus initially was given a two-week suspension, to start Monday, for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week, but outrage continued to grow and advertisers bolted from his programs.

CBS Dumps Imus


News Bloggers: Join the Discussion on Imus
"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Rutgers women's basketball team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team did not have an immediate comment on Imus' firing but would be issuing a statement later Thursday evening.

Time Magazine once named the cantankerous broadcaster as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was a member of the National Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

But Imus found himself at the center of a storm after his comments. Protests ensued, and one by one, sponsors pulled their ads from Imus' show. On Wednesday, MSNBC dropped the simulcast of Imus' show.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Moonves to advocate Imus' removal, promising a rally outside CBS headquarters Saturday and an effort to persuade more advertisers to abandon Imus.

Sumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corp. board and its chief stockholder, told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to "do the right thing," although it wasn't clear what he thought that was.

The news came down in the middle of Imus' Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990 for good causes. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.

"This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Savy broadcaster Imus outsmarted himself!
Imus hints career may be ending

By Matthew Robinson 33 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Radio host Don Imus hinted on Thursday his days on the airwaves may be numbered after a 30-year career that erupted in controversy over racist and sexist comments about a women's college basketball team.

MSNBC dumped its simultaneous cable television broadcast of his "Imus in the Morning" radio show on Wednesday, and several major advertisers have backed out a week after he called the mostly black Rutgers University team "nappy-headed hos."

The word "nappy" is viewed as a vile slur describing the tightly curled natural hair texture of many African-Americans, while "ho" is slang for "whore," usage of which has exploded in hip-hop music and popular culture in recent years.

On Imus' broadcast on Thursday -- his annual drive to raise money for children with cancer -- the radio host who trades on a curmudgeonly persona called the media "hypocritical" in its coverage of the flap. But he acknowledged it will be hard to continue broadcasting.

"I don't know if this will be my last radiothon, my suspicion is it will be," Imus said, adding the situation had become "insane" and "out of control."

The 66-year old Imus holds an annual drive on his show to raise money for his ranch for sick children and to fight diseases such as sudden infant death syndrome.

"I don't want this to turn into a memorial service for me," Imus said, repeating that he planned to meet with the Rutgers team for what he called "idiotic" remarks.

CBS Corp. unit CBS Radio, which has suspended Imus for two weeks and makes millions of dollars annually from the show, said on Wednesday it had not made a final decision on Imus's fate even as black leaders and others press the radio station to fire him.

Activist
Al Sharpton, a leader in the calls for Imus to be fired, plans to hold a rally outside CBS's Manhattan studios on Thursday.

Even if he remains on radio, Imus may have a hard time drawing the celebrities and leading politicians who were once a staple. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), an Illinois Democrat running for president, said on Wednesday he would never again appear on the program.

Major advertisers -- General Motors Corp., GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Ditech.com, a unit of GMAC Financial Services -- on Wednesday pulled their advertising. They joined Procter & Gamble Co. and Staples Inc., which previously pulled out.

MSNBC television is a joint ventures of Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal News.

http://underground.yahoo.com/feature/7/aq:fandom/jc:id-13/pm:id-11/rp:id-17/ss:id-12/sb:id-16/vi:id-15/pl:23788/
Posted by Brad Miskell at Tue, Apr 3 2007, 5:45 PM ET
EmailComment

Something like twelve gazillion souls travel to Anaheim, Calif., every year to enter a world of wonder and walk among people clad in furry costumes and pirate regalia. That I was doing the same would have been unremarkable—had I been at Disneyland. But I wasn't. I was in a parallel magic kingdom created by pink monkeys.

The attractions of this parallel kingdom—which had suddenly appeared in the shadow of Disneyland—were decidedly DIY in comparison. Here were homemade fabric stargates and plywood lunar modules, meeting room screenings of Dr. Who and panels entitled Paranormal Romances and I Was Promised Flying Cars!

The con fairly reeked of fandom tradition.

I was inside the world of the 64th Annual World Science Fiction Convention (AKA: L.A. Con IV), a fleeting construct of SF Fandom, a long-suffering subculture so inured to oddball status that at least one member compared Trekkies like herself to pink monkeys.

I felt like I'd come home. I'm a lifelong SF fan.

SF fandom, or just plain fandom as the community often refers to itself, has been around something like six Jovian years (around 70 Earth years). Fandom is both a subculture in its own right and a constellation in which a galaxy of mutant subcultures cluster. Fandom includes fans of fantasy, mythology, science fiction, science fantasy, hard science fiction and I imagine several categories beyond my human comprehension.

There are costumers of all kinds—pirates, furries, even the odd CosPlayer (anime costumer). There are Trekkies and Tolkien devotees, filkers and gamers—many of whom play actual board games.

WorldCons hark back to an earlier SF era, when fandom factions instinctively gravitated toward one another, before the big-fandom boom when such groups grew large enough to rate cons of their own. Despite the explosion of nichier cons in recent decades—there are now dragon cons, costume cons, fur cons and on and on—it was clear from the variety of fans at L.A. Con IV that this mothership continues to hold a hallowed place in the con-theon.

L.A. Con IV radiated SF history, from its Space Cadet theme to its fandom wall plastered in covers of SF pulps from the '30s, '40s and '50s, pulps like Amazing Stories that paid measly sums for stories by young SF legends-to-be including Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury (who was in attendance). There were actually many elder SF buffs in attendance, fans who probably pored over the same pulps when they were first published.

Star Trek's 40th anniversary was celebrated. And SF's annual Hugo Awards were awarded (as they've always been at WorldCons—the 2006 Best Novel Hugo went to Robert Charles Wilson for Spin). The con fairly reeked of fandom tradition.

And a big part of that tradition is participation. WorldCons are created by fans, not faceless corporations. When SF fans went to Anaheim, they went to masquerade as aliens and otherkin (vampyres, werewolves, and the like), not to watch theme park thespians mincing in Mouseketeer ears. They went for role-playing games, not thrill rides; went to sing and play folky filk tunes, not to be assaulted by perky pre-recorded pop; they went to take part in panels on Harry Potter; to have "fantiques" appraised; to get tips on SF prose (from SF pros); to search for rare books and build their own 'bots.

OK, a lot of them probably went to Disneyland, too. But mostly, they went to Anaheim to be deliriously fannish... and to construct a parallel magic kingdom of their own.

Strip them of all assets and throw them naked into the street, damnit! Their people will be far better off!
Judge orders external audit for church

By ALLISON HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 11, 11:20 PM ET

SAN DIEGO - A federal bankruptcy judge Wednesday ordered an external audit of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego amid accusations church leaders are trying to hide assessts to avoid payment to sex abuse victims.

Judge Louise DeCarl Adler had earlier threatened the diocese with contempt for misrepresenting facts and possibly violating bankruptcy laws. She criticized church attorneys for failing to include 770 parish accounts in bankruptcy documents.

"This is the most Byzantine accounting system I've ever seen," Adler said. "I am mystified."

The contempt threat Monday came six weeks after the diocese sought bankruptcy protection amid lawsuits by more than 140 people who accuse priests of sexual abuse.

Adler had cited a March 29 letter sent by a diocese parish organization to pastors urging them to get new taxpayer identification numbers and transfer funds to new accounts.

The judge had said any post-bankruptcy transfers between the diocese and parishes outside of normal cash operations violate laws against shifting the diocese's assets while the bankruptcy case is pending — rules designed to protect assets that may eventually be used to compensate clergy sexual abuse victims.

She said any transfers require court approval.

In a sternly worded order, Adler had said attorneys Susan Boswell, Jeffry Davis and Victor Vilaplana appear to have "conspired with parishes" to create new bank accounts separate from the diocese.

On Wednesday, Adler grilled attorneys representing the diocese and the parish organization, as well as two pastors who had sent letters the judge said misrepresented her comments during an earlier hearing.

Boswell apologized and said she had misinterpreted the judge's comments at a March 1 hearing concerning how the parishes should go about protecting their cash flow through the bankruptcy process.

"We are not dealing with a commercial enterprise — we are dealing with a church," said Boswell. "What it does is give money to the parishes. This is not a nefarious function."

Boswell agreed to file amended statements with the court reflecting parish accounts operating under the diocese's taxpayer identification number and to cooperate with an independent audit.

Attorneys for the alleged victims have repeatedly accused the church of trying to hide assets to reduce the overall sum available for potential settlements. They estimate that a fair settlement would total about $200 million.

In March, the diocese proposed a $95 million settlement schedule for victims that would offer plaintiffs anywhere from $10,000 to $800,000.

San Diego was the fifth U.S. diocese to file for bankruptcy. The other dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection are Davenport, Iowa; Portland, Ore.; Spokane, Wash.; and Tucson, Ariz. Tucson has emerged from bankruptcy protection, while proposed settlements are awaiting final approval in Portland and Spokane.