Military projects deep cuts in troops
By Michael Gordon
The New York Times
Published: Sunday, June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the U.S. military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, U.S. officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George Casey Jr., the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to five or six from the current 14 by December 2007.
Under the plan, the first reductions would involve two combat brigades that would rotate out of Iraq in September without being replaced. Combat brigades, which generally have about 3,500 troops, do not make up the bulk of the 127,000-member U.S. force in Iraq.
U.S. officials emphasized that any withdrawals would depend on continued progress, including the development of competent Iraqi security forces, a reduction in Sunni Arab hostility toward the new Iraqi government and the assumption that the insurgency will not expand beyond Iraq's six central provinces. Even so, the projected troop withdrawals in 2007 are more significant than many experts had expected.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/06/25/a1.iraqmilitary.0625.p1.php?section=nation_world
Mexico's economy booming
As U.S. politicians, media focus on poor immigrants, the country's financial outlook has never been brighter
By Alfonso Chardy
KNIGHT RIDDER
MEXICO CITY - A grainy 1957 photograph shows men in peasants' hats running to catch a dilapidated bus near the intersection of Insurgentes Avenue and Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City.
Today, that intersection is filled with young men and women who chat and send text messages on cell phones as they wait at subway-style stations for gleaming new buses that cruise past congested traffic in bus-only express lanes.
Blocks away, business executives with laptop bags slung across their chests hurry into the 55-story Torre Mayor, Latin America's tallest building, where they'll watch CNN en Espanol on digital screens as the elevators sweep them to their offices.
Lost in all the publicity about the rising tide of poor Mexican workers besieging the U.S. border in search of better-paying jobs is one fact: From Tijuana on the border with California to Merida in the Yucatan peninsula, oil-rich Mexico is booming. Inflation remains low, economic growth is steady, and salaries are rising. The Mexican government has more than $76 billion in foreign-currency reserves, the most in its history.
Mexico's annual per-capita income has more than doubled in the past decade, to more than $7,000, the highest in Latin America. The inflation rate is less than 3.5 percent per year, lower than the United States'.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/14899336.htm
Pre-1991 Iraqi weapons said a threat to U.S. troops
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Abandoned Iraqi chemical weapons dating from before the 1991 Gulf War could pose a deadly new threat to American forces if they fell into the hands of insurgents, U.S. officials warned on Thursday.
But intelligence officials denied Republican suggestions that 500 chemical munitions found since May 2004 are the elusive weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion.
"They are dangerous, and anyone ... in that country would be concerned if they got into the wrong hands," asserted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "It's dangerous to our forces and it's a concern."
Rumsfeld described the reclaimed munitions as "weapons of mass destruction" but intelligence officials said they predate the 1991 Gulf War and are too degraded to be used as originally intended.
Declassified excerpts of an April report by the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center said the 500 weapons contained mustard and sarin nerve agents and were found in small unmaintained caches rather than large stockpiles.
But the report, intended to warn soldiers in the field, said more of the pre-1991 weapons are believed lying unattended in Iraq and could be dangerous if discovered by insurgents highly skilled at improvising explosives.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/6/23/worldupdates/2006-06-23T040647Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-256276-1&sec=Worldupdates
Americans don't have as many close friends as they used to.
Latest national news
We're networking on myspace.com, sharing photos and text messaging on our cellphones, and blogging at all hours. But a major national survey being released today shows that the average number of people with whom Americans discuss important matters has dropped from three to two in just two decades, a steep falloff in confidants that startled the researchers.
The study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona provides powerful evidence for the argument that the country is becoming increasingly socially isolated even as cellphones, the Internet, and other technology make people more interconnected. The authors found that fully one-quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom to discuss their most important personal business.
The study is a vindication for the Harvard author of ``Bowling Alone," the provocative book published six years ago that portrayed an increasingly lonely society based on trends from the decline of dinner parties to lower voter turnout and falling participation in bowling leagues. The title became a catchphrase for modern alienation, fueling a passionate debate over whether the ``good old days" are really behind us.
The new work, carried out by researchers skeptical of author Robert Putnam's theory, found the isolationist trend extends to people's closest relationships.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/23/its_lonely_out_there/
UC official dies in fall
By Michelle Maitre, STAFF WRITER
University of California, Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Dee Denton apparently jumped to her death Saturday from a San Francisco apartment building, officials said.
She was 46.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner is investigating the death as a suicide, but revealed few details Saturday.
San Francisco police said they were called at 8:17 a.m. to The Paramount apartment building at 680 Mission St., a 43-story luxury apartment building near Yerba Buena Gardens. The San Jose Mercury News reported that Denton jumped from the top floor, but police and the medical examiner would not confirm that Saturday. The Paramount is advertised as the tallest apartment building for rent in San Francisco.
Denton's partner, Gretchen Kalonji, reportedly lived in the building.
"Those of us who worked closely with Denice valued her intelligence, humor and commitment to the ideals of diversity and higher education," UC Santa Cruz Provost David Kliger said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by her death."
Denton became UC Santa Cruz's ninth chancellor on Feb. 14, 2005, and also holds a position as professor of electrical engineering. She previously worked at the University of Washington.
Denton weathered some controversies during her time at Santa
Cruz. First, critics questioned the creation of a $192,000-a-year post for Kalonji as director of international strategy development, based at UC headquarters in Oakland. UC officials defended Kalonji's appointment and said it is not uncommon for administrators' partners to be offered academic posts, officials said.
More recently, Denton was criticized for $600,000 in renovations to her on-campus residence at UC Santa Cruz, including a $30,000 enclosure for her two dogs.
Denton did not attend university commencement exercises earlier this week, the Mercury News said, and some employees said she had not been at work for at least a week.
In a statement, UC President Robert Dynes called Denton "a person of enthusiasm, of big ideas, of tremendous energy, and of great promise
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3978952
Republicans Slate New Immigration Hearings
Thursday, June 22, 2006
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders on Thursday scheduled five new hearings on immigration and said they still hope to send a border security bill to President Bush before 2007.
"We want to make sure the Congress gets this done the right way and not be rushed just because its an election year,"said Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
For many Republicans as well as some Democrats sensitive about public opinion in an election year, the right way is without provisions in a Senate-passed bill that would bestow legal status on millions of illegal immigrants.
"We can send an immigration bill to the president this year,"Hastert said.
At a news conference, Hastert and other senior House Republicans referred to the Senate bill as the"Reid-Kennedy"bill, referencing Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and liberal Democrat Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Kennedy and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona were the chief architects of the Senate bill. It became known as the Hagel-Martinez bill, after Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla., developed a compromise that, while allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay, would make millions of others leave. Bush supports letting some illegal immigrants stay and eventually become citizens.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Jun22/0,4670,Immigration,00.html
US man wins penile malfunction lawsuit
Saturday Jun 24 09:47 AEST
AP - A former handyman has won more than $US400,000 ($A545,890) in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.
Charles "Chick" Lennon, 68, received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.
But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear a swimming costume because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren, his lawyer said.
In 2004, a jury awarded him $US750,000 ($A1.02 million). A judge called that excessive and reduced it to $US400,000 ($A545,890). The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed that award in a ruling that turned on a procedural matter.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=108441
Soldier's death may be linked to smallpox and flu vaccines
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, June 24, 2006
WASHINGTON — The military’s smallpox and influenza vaccines may have caused the death of a 26-year-old soldier in December, according to a defense department report released Thursday.
Pfc. Christopher “Justin” Abston died suddenly in his Fort Bragg, N.C., barracks 16 days after receiving the pair of injections, according to the report. Medical examiners at the time blamed his death on inflammation of his heart muscle, a side effect of the smallpox vaccine.
According to the release from the Pentagon, a panel of defense medical experts reported that even though neither the smallpox nor influenza injections can be confirmed as the cause of death, their research does suggest “the possibility that the vaccines may have caused Abston’s death.”
The panel found no evidence of the vaccinia virus, the main ingredient of smallpox vaccine, in Abston’s heart at the time of his death, according to the release.
They did, however, find another potentially fatal virus, the parvovirus B19, in his heart muscle, and could not determine if it was naturally occurring or the result of the vaccines, the report said.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=38159
Salmonella chocolate still on shelves
Cadbury’s reputation is on the line as it comes under fire for dragging its heels over a bug discovered months ago. Jenifer Johnston reports
Cadbury Schweppes insisted yesterday its products were safe despite waiting five months to inform health authorities it had discovered minute traces of salmonella at one of its chocolate factories.
The company announced on Friday it was recalling more than one million chocolate bars in Britain and Ireland in case they contained the bacterium, which can cause fever, stomach upsets and diarrhoea.
However, a Sunday Herald reporter was able to buy the recalled products easily in shops throughout Glasgow yesterday. A spokeswoman for the company defended the slow start to the recall, saying they were “working all hands on deck” to deal with the situation.
“We are currently contacting all kinds of retailers from the big ones like Tesco and Sainsbury’s to wholesalers and newsagents. The recall began mid-afternoon on Friday. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was contacted on Monday and we are taking action to remove these items from the shelves as soon as possible.”
A spokeswoman for the FSA, an independent government health watchdog, said “the ultimate responsibility lies with the manufacturer”.
“We are advising local authorities to contact retailers and help with the recall, but basically there are going to be items still on sale. If customers see them on the shelf they should get in contact with their local authority or tell the retailer themselves,” she said. “However, Cadbury’s has responsibility to make sure the food it sells is safe.”
http://www.sundayherald.com/56405
National panel supports '98 global warming evidence
A section of the ice sheet covering much of Greenland, as it looked on Aug. 18, 2005. Scientists say the ice is thinning. (AP File Photo / 2005)
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 23, 2006
A signature piece of evidence for global warming -- a compilation of data showing that a sharp rise in temperatures made the late 20th century the warmest period in 1,000 years -- is probably true, a national panel of scientific specialists concluded yesterday.
A graph of the data has become an icon of global warming and is often referred to as ``the hockey stick" because of its shape: A shaft that shows a long period of relatively little change in Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures, and then a spike upward during the last 100 years or so that resembles the blade.
Since the first version of it was published in a scientific journal in 1998, environmentalists have seized on the graph as powerful evidence of human-induced climate change, while some critics have called it alarmist, questioning its methodology and the accuracy of its temperature data.
Last year, the dispute catapulted into the national political arena after Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy Committee, asked the three authors of the 1998 study -- including a University of Massachusetts professor -- for a detailed accounting of their government and private funding, data, and methods. A range of scientists and other legislators blasted the request as an intimidation tactic, contending that other researchers would be reluctant to embark on such studies if they knew they would be under such scrutiny by members of Congress.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/23/national_panel_supports_98_global_warming_evidence/
Dell Investigates Report Of Laptop Explosion
The explosion happened at a trade conference in Japan, and Dell is looking into it, a spokesman said.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.com
Jun 23, 2006 05:16 PM
Dell Inc. on Friday said it was investigating why one of its notebooks exploded into flames at a conference in Japan this week.
Pictures of the flaming laptop were published this week on the tech site The Inquirer. The computer was on a table and no one was hurt.
A spokesman for the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker confirmed that the computer was bought from Dell, but declined to give any further details.
"We're aware of it, and we're digging into the details," the spokesman said. "There's an investigation going on right now. When something like this happens, we want to know why."
The Inquirer, which is published by VNU Business Publications, quoted an eyewitness who said the computer produced "several explosions for more than five minutes." The fire was put out with fire extinguishers.
Defective notebook batteries are known to have the potential of overheating and even bursting into flames.
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189601155&subSection=
Spring melt up in Greenland
ILULISSAT, Greenland, June 24 (UPI) -- Scientists studying Greenland's glaciers say seasonal melting has increased, and was greater last year than at any time in almost three decades.
When the glaciers are in equilibrium, spring melting matches the added winter snow. But the glaciers have been shrinking with higher temperatures.
Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, observed from a plane as he headed home on his most recent research trip that six miles of the Jakobshavn Glacier had fallen into the fjord, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The glacier is the largest of the rivers of ice that flow out of the Greenland ice cap.
Studies of ice cores from Greenland have found a history of sudden climate shifts with average temperatures rising as much as 15 degrees in a decade.
Total melting of the Greenland ice cap would raise sea levels worldwide about 21 feet, although even with continued rising temperatures its total disappearance would take hundreds or even thousands of years, the newspaper said.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060624-102843-1817r
U.S. to test run X-band radar in Japan for Taepodong-2 surveillance+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) WASHINGTON, June 25_(Kyodo) _ The United States will start a test run of its military radar newly set up in northeastern Japan as early as Monday to monitor moves related to North Korea's possible launch of a Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile, a U.S. government official said Sunday.
Operation of the mobile X-band radar for an advanced early warning system against ballistic missiles, installed at the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Shariki base in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture, was initially scheduled to begin in the summer, but the plan will apparently be moved up as a measure to try to deter the missile launch.
Concerns over the possibility of a North Korean ballistic missile launch emerged after moves seen as preparations for such a launch have been reported since earlier this month.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which is promoting a missile defense system for intercepting ballistic missiles, is said to be considering intercepting the Taepodong-2 in the event North Korea were to actually launch it.
The official expressed confidence in the acquisition and tracking capabilities of the X-band radar and suggested that it would enable the United States to obtain data to counter a possible assertion by North Korea that the launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.
But the official did not make reference to the possibility that the missile defense system can actually intercept the Taepodong-2.
The official predicted that North Korea is likely to launch the missile during daytime in order to make a bigger impact and to collect flight data, but noted that the weather conditions may not be suitable for a launch from Monday on.
The U.S. military based in Japan has stepped up surveillance in response to the development, such as by sending two Aegis-equipped destroyers capable of tracking ballistic missiles near North Korean coasts.
According to the Japanese Defense Agency, the radar at Shariki base will use a frequency called X-band to detect ballistic missiles immediately after launch, track them and identify projected landing points.
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/06/25/1694537.htm
Islamic militias imposing moral codes in Mogadishu
Craig Timberg
Washington Post
Jun. 25, 2006 12:00 AM
MOGADISHU, Somalia - That warm February morning felt so perfect that Abdirisack Noriftin, a 22-year-old movie buff whose friends nicknamed him "American," said he imagined himself in the kind of sandy, sexy Hollywood movie he had watched just the night before.
He had no surfboard or volleyball, as did the carefree stars of that film. But his girlfriend, Faisa Hassan, 18, cast aside her Islamic modesty by stripping off her head scarf and exposing her dark hair to the sun. Together, she and Noriftin walked on the beach. They kissed in the surf. Never before in their young lives, they recalled later, had they felt so exhilaratingly free.
Then, this being Somalia rather than a Southern California movie set, gunmen arrived and abruptly reminded the couple of the perils of being young and in love in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
One of the four gunmen reached for Hassan. She screamed. He screamed. Nearby villagers chased the attackers away.
Noriftin and Hassan have not gone back and, they figure, never will. Not only do criminals still prowl the beach, but most of Mogadishu has been taken over by Islamic militias that are curbing crime but also demanding adherence to strict moral codes in some neighborhoods. Coed beach trips are now strictly off-limits, the young couple has concluded.
Caught in this shifting mix of secular violence and rising Islamic fervor, Noriftin and Hassan say they want nothing more than to live as they imagine Americans do: without fear, without money troubles, without roving gunmen. But they are in Mogadishu, and Hassan thinks her boyfriend should start looking like it.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0625somalia-islam0625.html
Martin Luther King Archives on Sotheby's Auction Block
Three years, ago, the archives of Martine Luther King were exhibited at Sotheby's Auction House in New York. This week, they appear on the auction block again. The NewsHour presents an encore of Roger Rosenblatt's essay of King's words and papers from the first exhibition.
ROGER ROSENBLATT, NewsHour Essayist: The effect of all this was strange and moving. For sale at Sotheby's: The collected original papers and books of Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1946-1968.
On display until September and now offered for potential buyers are more than 7,000 documents, many written in King's hand: a diary kept while he was in jail; marginalia in books; sermons; notes for sermons; a eulogy for the four little girls killed in the Birmingham Church bombing; college blue books; letters from Steinbeck, from Nixon; the Nobel Prize acceptance speech of 1964; a typescript of an early draft of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Though that particular sentence was extemporized, the exhibit shows how that idea began and developed. A sermon found in his briefcase the night he was murdered called "Interruptions."
The ghosts of the events behind these documents have their presence, too: The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 marked King's arrival as a civil rights leader; Birmingham in 1963; and the image of Bull Connor and his hoses and dogs, the pictures that did a lot for civil rights by showing the unashamed bestiality of race hatred; the 1963 march on Washington; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Bloody Sunday in Selma in 1965.
And the assassinations still heard like rapid artillery fire: the Kennedy Brothers; Malcolm X; and King himself in 1968.
For sale: the history of a mind that shaped most of our lives.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june06/king_06-22.html
GM to shed quarter of workforce this year
By Bernard Simon in Toronto
Updated: 22 minutes ago General Motors will on Monday disclose details of one of most dramatic corporate downsizings in US history, exceeding a key target of its turnround plan and accelerating the demise of the privileged American car worker.
Rick Wagoner, chief executive, is expected to announce that about 30,000 workers – more than a quarter of GM's blue-collar US workforce – have taken up its offer of early retirement and severance packages.
Almost all will leave by the end of the year, achieving in a few months what the company had set out to accomplish over more than two years.
A total of 50,000 workers or more is set to leave the industry over the next few months.
Later this week, Delphi – the former GM subsidiary which is north America's biggest auto parts maker – is expected to disclose that at least 9,000 of its 31,000 unionised workers have accepted similar buy-outs.
Many Delphi workers not included in the original offer, have until late July to decide.
In addition, Ford, the second-biggest Detroit-based carmaker, has disclosed that more than 10,000 workers have taken packages. All three companies are also cutting salaried staff.
The GM buy-out "is really historic", said Gary Chaison, industrial relations professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. He said it marked "the end of the good jobs" in the auto industry, created when the Detroit carmakers held a dominant market share, or were willing to grant generous concessions in return for labour peace.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13541353/
By Michael Gordon
The New York Times
Published: Sunday, June 25, 2006
WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the U.S. military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, U.S. officials say.
According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George Casey Jr., the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to five or six from the current 14 by December 2007.
Under the plan, the first reductions would involve two combat brigades that would rotate out of Iraq in September without being replaced. Combat brigades, which generally have about 3,500 troops, do not make up the bulk of the 127,000-member U.S. force in Iraq.
U.S. officials emphasized that any withdrawals would depend on continued progress, including the development of competent Iraqi security forces, a reduction in Sunni Arab hostility toward the new Iraqi government and the assumption that the insurgency will not expand beyond Iraq's six central provinces. Even so, the projected troop withdrawals in 2007 are more significant than many experts had expected.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/06/25/a1.iraqmilitary.0625.p1.php?section=nation_world
Mexico's economy booming
As U.S. politicians, media focus on poor immigrants, the country's financial outlook has never been brighter
By Alfonso Chardy
KNIGHT RIDDER
MEXICO CITY - A grainy 1957 photograph shows men in peasants' hats running to catch a dilapidated bus near the intersection of Insurgentes Avenue and Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City.
Today, that intersection is filled with young men and women who chat and send text messages on cell phones as they wait at subway-style stations for gleaming new buses that cruise past congested traffic in bus-only express lanes.
Blocks away, business executives with laptop bags slung across their chests hurry into the 55-story Torre Mayor, Latin America's tallest building, where they'll watch CNN en Espanol on digital screens as the elevators sweep them to their offices.
Lost in all the publicity about the rising tide of poor Mexican workers besieging the U.S. border in search of better-paying jobs is one fact: From Tijuana on the border with California to Merida in the Yucatan peninsula, oil-rich Mexico is booming. Inflation remains low, economic growth is steady, and salaries are rising. The Mexican government has more than $76 billion in foreign-currency reserves, the most in its history.
Mexico's annual per-capita income has more than doubled in the past decade, to more than $7,000, the highest in Latin America. The inflation rate is less than 3.5 percent per year, lower than the United States'.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/14899336.htm
Pre-1991 Iraqi weapons said a threat to U.S. troops
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Abandoned Iraqi chemical weapons dating from before the 1991 Gulf War could pose a deadly new threat to American forces if they fell into the hands of insurgents, U.S. officials warned on Thursday.
But intelligence officials denied Republican suggestions that 500 chemical munitions found since May 2004 are the elusive weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion.
"They are dangerous, and anyone ... in that country would be concerned if they got into the wrong hands," asserted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "It's dangerous to our forces and it's a concern."
Rumsfeld described the reclaimed munitions as "weapons of mass destruction" but intelligence officials said they predate the 1991 Gulf War and are too degraded to be used as originally intended.
Declassified excerpts of an April report by the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center said the 500 weapons contained mustard and sarin nerve agents and were found in small unmaintained caches rather than large stockpiles.
But the report, intended to warn soldiers in the field, said more of the pre-1991 weapons are believed lying unattended in Iraq and could be dangerous if discovered by insurgents highly skilled at improvising explosives.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/6/23/worldupdates/2006-06-23T040647Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-256276-1&sec=Worldupdates
Americans don't have as many close friends as they used to.
Latest national news
We're networking on myspace.com, sharing photos and text messaging on our cellphones, and blogging at all hours. But a major national survey being released today shows that the average number of people with whom Americans discuss important matters has dropped from three to two in just two decades, a steep falloff in confidants that startled the researchers.
The study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona provides powerful evidence for the argument that the country is becoming increasingly socially isolated even as cellphones, the Internet, and other technology make people more interconnected. The authors found that fully one-quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom to discuss their most important personal business.
The study is a vindication for the Harvard author of ``Bowling Alone," the provocative book published six years ago that portrayed an increasingly lonely society based on trends from the decline of dinner parties to lower voter turnout and falling participation in bowling leagues. The title became a catchphrase for modern alienation, fueling a passionate debate over whether the ``good old days" are really behind us.
The new work, carried out by researchers skeptical of author Robert Putnam's theory, found the isolationist trend extends to people's closest relationships.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/23/its_lonely_out_there/
UC official dies in fall
By Michelle Maitre, STAFF WRITER
University of California, Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Dee Denton apparently jumped to her death Saturday from a San Francisco apartment building, officials said.
She was 46.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner is investigating the death as a suicide, but revealed few details Saturday.
San Francisco police said they were called at 8:17 a.m. to The Paramount apartment building at 680 Mission St., a 43-story luxury apartment building near Yerba Buena Gardens. The San Jose Mercury News reported that Denton jumped from the top floor, but police and the medical examiner would not confirm that Saturday. The Paramount is advertised as the tallest apartment building for rent in San Francisco.
Denton's partner, Gretchen Kalonji, reportedly lived in the building.
"Those of us who worked closely with Denice valued her intelligence, humor and commitment to the ideals of diversity and higher education," UC Santa Cruz Provost David Kliger said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by her death."
Denton became UC Santa Cruz's ninth chancellor on Feb. 14, 2005, and also holds a position as professor of electrical engineering. She previously worked at the University of Washington.
Denton weathered some controversies during her time at Santa
Cruz. First, critics questioned the creation of a $192,000-a-year post for Kalonji as director of international strategy development, based at UC headquarters in Oakland. UC officials defended Kalonji's appointment and said it is not uncommon for administrators' partners to be offered academic posts, officials said.
More recently, Denton was criticized for $600,000 in renovations to her on-campus residence at UC Santa Cruz, including a $30,000 enclosure for her two dogs.
Denton did not attend university commencement exercises earlier this week, the Mercury News said, and some employees said she had not been at work for at least a week.
In a statement, UC President Robert Dynes called Denton "a person of enthusiasm, of big ideas, of tremendous energy, and of great promise
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3978952
Republicans Slate New Immigration Hearings
Thursday, June 22, 2006
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders on Thursday scheduled five new hearings on immigration and said they still hope to send a border security bill to President Bush before 2007.
"We want to make sure the Congress gets this done the right way and not be rushed just because its an election year,"said Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
For many Republicans as well as some Democrats sensitive about public opinion in an election year, the right way is without provisions in a Senate-passed bill that would bestow legal status on millions of illegal immigrants.
"We can send an immigration bill to the president this year,"Hastert said.
At a news conference, Hastert and other senior House Republicans referred to the Senate bill as the"Reid-Kennedy"bill, referencing Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and liberal Democrat Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Kennedy and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona were the chief architects of the Senate bill. It became known as the Hagel-Martinez bill, after Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla., developed a compromise that, while allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay, would make millions of others leave. Bush supports letting some illegal immigrants stay and eventually become citizens.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Jun22/0,4670,Immigration,00.html
US man wins penile malfunction lawsuit
Saturday Jun 24 09:47 AEST
AP - A former handyman has won more than $US400,000 ($A545,890) in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.
Charles "Chick" Lennon, 68, received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.
But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear a swimming costume because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren, his lawyer said.
In 2004, a jury awarded him $US750,000 ($A1.02 million). A judge called that excessive and reduced it to $US400,000 ($A545,890). The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed that award in a ruling that turned on a procedural matter.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=108441
Soldier's death may be linked to smallpox and flu vaccines
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, June 24, 2006
WASHINGTON — The military’s smallpox and influenza vaccines may have caused the death of a 26-year-old soldier in December, according to a defense department report released Thursday.
Pfc. Christopher “Justin” Abston died suddenly in his Fort Bragg, N.C., barracks 16 days after receiving the pair of injections, according to the report. Medical examiners at the time blamed his death on inflammation of his heart muscle, a side effect of the smallpox vaccine.
According to the release from the Pentagon, a panel of defense medical experts reported that even though neither the smallpox nor influenza injections can be confirmed as the cause of death, their research does suggest “the possibility that the vaccines may have caused Abston’s death.”
The panel found no evidence of the vaccinia virus, the main ingredient of smallpox vaccine, in Abston’s heart at the time of his death, according to the release.
They did, however, find another potentially fatal virus, the parvovirus B19, in his heart muscle, and could not determine if it was naturally occurring or the result of the vaccines, the report said.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=38159
Salmonella chocolate still on shelves
Cadbury’s reputation is on the line as it comes under fire for dragging its heels over a bug discovered months ago. Jenifer Johnston reports
Cadbury Schweppes insisted yesterday its products were safe despite waiting five months to inform health authorities it had discovered minute traces of salmonella at one of its chocolate factories.
The company announced on Friday it was recalling more than one million chocolate bars in Britain and Ireland in case they contained the bacterium, which can cause fever, stomach upsets and diarrhoea.
However, a Sunday Herald reporter was able to buy the recalled products easily in shops throughout Glasgow yesterday. A spokeswoman for the company defended the slow start to the recall, saying they were “working all hands on deck” to deal with the situation.
“We are currently contacting all kinds of retailers from the big ones like Tesco and Sainsbury’s to wholesalers and newsagents. The recall began mid-afternoon on Friday. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was contacted on Monday and we are taking action to remove these items from the shelves as soon as possible.”
A spokeswoman for the FSA, an independent government health watchdog, said “the ultimate responsibility lies with the manufacturer”.
“We are advising local authorities to contact retailers and help with the recall, but basically there are going to be items still on sale. If customers see them on the shelf they should get in contact with their local authority or tell the retailer themselves,” she said. “However, Cadbury’s has responsibility to make sure the food it sells is safe.”
http://www.sundayherald.com/56405
National panel supports '98 global warming evidence
A section of the ice sheet covering much of Greenland, as it looked on Aug. 18, 2005. Scientists say the ice is thinning. (AP File Photo / 2005)
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 23, 2006
A signature piece of evidence for global warming -- a compilation of data showing that a sharp rise in temperatures made the late 20th century the warmest period in 1,000 years -- is probably true, a national panel of scientific specialists concluded yesterday.
A graph of the data has become an icon of global warming and is often referred to as ``the hockey stick" because of its shape: A shaft that shows a long period of relatively little change in Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures, and then a spike upward during the last 100 years or so that resembles the blade.
Since the first version of it was published in a scientific journal in 1998, environmentalists have seized on the graph as powerful evidence of human-induced climate change, while some critics have called it alarmist, questioning its methodology and the accuracy of its temperature data.
Last year, the dispute catapulted into the national political arena after Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy Committee, asked the three authors of the 1998 study -- including a University of Massachusetts professor -- for a detailed accounting of their government and private funding, data, and methods. A range of scientists and other legislators blasted the request as an intimidation tactic, contending that other researchers would be reluctant to embark on such studies if they knew they would be under such scrutiny by members of Congress.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/23/national_panel_supports_98_global_warming_evidence/
Dell Investigates Report Of Laptop Explosion
The explosion happened at a trade conference in Japan, and Dell is looking into it, a spokesman said.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.com
Jun 23, 2006 05:16 PM
Dell Inc. on Friday said it was investigating why one of its notebooks exploded into flames at a conference in Japan this week.
Pictures of the flaming laptop were published this week on the tech site The Inquirer. The computer was on a table and no one was hurt.
A spokesman for the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker confirmed that the computer was bought from Dell, but declined to give any further details.
"We're aware of it, and we're digging into the details," the spokesman said. "There's an investigation going on right now. When something like this happens, we want to know why."
The Inquirer, which is published by VNU Business Publications, quoted an eyewitness who said the computer produced "several explosions for more than five minutes." The fire was put out with fire extinguishers.
Defective notebook batteries are known to have the potential of overheating and even bursting into flames.
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189601155&subSection=
Spring melt up in Greenland
ILULISSAT, Greenland, June 24 (UPI) -- Scientists studying Greenland's glaciers say seasonal melting has increased, and was greater last year than at any time in almost three decades.
When the glaciers are in equilibrium, spring melting matches the added winter snow. But the glaciers have been shrinking with higher temperatures.
Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, observed from a plane as he headed home on his most recent research trip that six miles of the Jakobshavn Glacier had fallen into the fjord, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The glacier is the largest of the rivers of ice that flow out of the Greenland ice cap.
Studies of ice cores from Greenland have found a history of sudden climate shifts with average temperatures rising as much as 15 degrees in a decade.
Total melting of the Greenland ice cap would raise sea levels worldwide about 21 feet, although even with continued rising temperatures its total disappearance would take hundreds or even thousands of years, the newspaper said.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060624-102843-1817r
U.S. to test run X-band radar in Japan for Taepodong-2 surveillance+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) WASHINGTON, June 25_(Kyodo) _ The United States will start a test run of its military radar newly set up in northeastern Japan as early as Monday to monitor moves related to North Korea's possible launch of a Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile, a U.S. government official said Sunday.
Operation of the mobile X-band radar for an advanced early warning system against ballistic missiles, installed at the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Shariki base in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture, was initially scheduled to begin in the summer, but the plan will apparently be moved up as a measure to try to deter the missile launch.
Concerns over the possibility of a North Korean ballistic missile launch emerged after moves seen as preparations for such a launch have been reported since earlier this month.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which is promoting a missile defense system for intercepting ballistic missiles, is said to be considering intercepting the Taepodong-2 in the event North Korea were to actually launch it.
The official expressed confidence in the acquisition and tracking capabilities of the X-band radar and suggested that it would enable the United States to obtain data to counter a possible assertion by North Korea that the launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.
But the official did not make reference to the possibility that the missile defense system can actually intercept the Taepodong-2.
The official predicted that North Korea is likely to launch the missile during daytime in order to make a bigger impact and to collect flight data, but noted that the weather conditions may not be suitable for a launch from Monday on.
The U.S. military based in Japan has stepped up surveillance in response to the development, such as by sending two Aegis-equipped destroyers capable of tracking ballistic missiles near North Korean coasts.
According to the Japanese Defense Agency, the radar at Shariki base will use a frequency called X-band to detect ballistic missiles immediately after launch, track them and identify projected landing points.
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/06/25/1694537.htm
Islamic militias imposing moral codes in Mogadishu
Craig Timberg
Washington Post
Jun. 25, 2006 12:00 AM
MOGADISHU, Somalia - That warm February morning felt so perfect that Abdirisack Noriftin, a 22-year-old movie buff whose friends nicknamed him "American," said he imagined himself in the kind of sandy, sexy Hollywood movie he had watched just the night before.
He had no surfboard or volleyball, as did the carefree stars of that film. But his girlfriend, Faisa Hassan, 18, cast aside her Islamic modesty by stripping off her head scarf and exposing her dark hair to the sun. Together, she and Noriftin walked on the beach. They kissed in the surf. Never before in their young lives, they recalled later, had they felt so exhilaratingly free.
Then, this being Somalia rather than a Southern California movie set, gunmen arrived and abruptly reminded the couple of the perils of being young and in love in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
One of the four gunmen reached for Hassan. She screamed. He screamed. Nearby villagers chased the attackers away.
Noriftin and Hassan have not gone back and, they figure, never will. Not only do criminals still prowl the beach, but most of Mogadishu has been taken over by Islamic militias that are curbing crime but also demanding adherence to strict moral codes in some neighborhoods. Coed beach trips are now strictly off-limits, the young couple has concluded.
Caught in this shifting mix of secular violence and rising Islamic fervor, Noriftin and Hassan say they want nothing more than to live as they imagine Americans do: without fear, without money troubles, without roving gunmen. But they are in Mogadishu, and Hassan thinks her boyfriend should start looking like it.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0625somalia-islam0625.html
Martin Luther King Archives on Sotheby's Auction Block
Three years, ago, the archives of Martine Luther King were exhibited at Sotheby's Auction House in New York. This week, they appear on the auction block again. The NewsHour presents an encore of Roger Rosenblatt's essay of King's words and papers from the first exhibition.
ROGER ROSENBLATT, NewsHour Essayist: The effect of all this was strange and moving. For sale at Sotheby's: The collected original papers and books of Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1946-1968.
On display until September and now offered for potential buyers are more than 7,000 documents, many written in King's hand: a diary kept while he was in jail; marginalia in books; sermons; notes for sermons; a eulogy for the four little girls killed in the Birmingham Church bombing; college blue books; letters from Steinbeck, from Nixon; the Nobel Prize acceptance speech of 1964; a typescript of an early draft of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Though that particular sentence was extemporized, the exhibit shows how that idea began and developed. A sermon found in his briefcase the night he was murdered called "Interruptions."
The ghosts of the events behind these documents have their presence, too: The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 marked King's arrival as a civil rights leader; Birmingham in 1963; and the image of Bull Connor and his hoses and dogs, the pictures that did a lot for civil rights by showing the unashamed bestiality of race hatred; the 1963 march on Washington; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Bloody Sunday in Selma in 1965.
And the assassinations still heard like rapid artillery fire: the Kennedy Brothers; Malcolm X; and King himself in 1968.
For sale: the history of a mind that shaped most of our lives.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june06/king_06-22.html
GM to shed quarter of workforce this year
By Bernard Simon in Toronto
Updated: 22 minutes ago General Motors will on Monday disclose details of one of most dramatic corporate downsizings in US history, exceeding a key target of its turnround plan and accelerating the demise of the privileged American car worker.
Rick Wagoner, chief executive, is expected to announce that about 30,000 workers – more than a quarter of GM's blue-collar US workforce – have taken up its offer of early retirement and severance packages.
Almost all will leave by the end of the year, achieving in a few months what the company had set out to accomplish over more than two years.
A total of 50,000 workers or more is set to leave the industry over the next few months.
Later this week, Delphi – the former GM subsidiary which is north America's biggest auto parts maker – is expected to disclose that at least 9,000 of its 31,000 unionised workers have accepted similar buy-outs.
Many Delphi workers not included in the original offer, have until late July to decide.
In addition, Ford, the second-biggest Detroit-based carmaker, has disclosed that more than 10,000 workers have taken packages. All three companies are also cutting salaried staff.
The GM buy-out "is really historic", said Gary Chaison, industrial relations professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. He said it marked "the end of the good jobs" in the auto industry, created when the Detroit carmakers held a dominant market share, or were willing to grant generous concessions in return for labour peace.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13541353/
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