Moscow summons N Korean ambassador over missile fears
By Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: June 22 2006 20:51 | Last updated: June 22 2006 20:51
Moscow on Thursday summoned the North Korean ambassador for talks as concerns mounted that Pyongyang was about to test an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Washington has warned North Korea not to launch the missile, and has called on Pyongyang to adhere to a self-imposed moratorium it announced in 1999. US spy satellites have been monitoring activity at the launch site in the north east of the country as the regime prepares to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile that could reach parts of the US.
“It was stressed any steps that could negatively impact regional stability and complicate the quest for a way to settle the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula were undesirable,” the Russian foreign ministry said.
Some US officials believe the Taepodong-2 on the launch pad has been fuelled, suggesting a test will happen because siphoning out the fuel would be difficult and dangerous. Other US and South Korean officials believe the evidence is less conclusive. They are also not sure how long the Taepodong-2 could remain fuelled before the fuel started to corrode the missile’s casing.
North Korea stunned the US and Japan in 1998 when it launched an intermediate range missile, which flew over Japan before falling into the Pacific Ocean.
The Pentagon has sent navy ships to the region to monitor and track any launch. The US has also reportedly activated its ground-based missile defence system, although many analysts believe it does not have the ability to shoot an incoming missile. The last successful test of the system was four years ago.
Stephen Hadley, White House national security adviser, on Thursday described the missile defence system as a “research development and testing capability that has some limited operational capability”.
North Korea this week said it wanted to negotiate directly with the US to resolve the crisis. But while the US has directly informed North Korean officials at the UN about its concerns, it has called on Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks aimed at resolving tensions on the Korean peninsula. The talks have been stalled since last year.
William Perry, former secretary of defence under President Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, a former senior defence official, wrote in the Washington Post yesterday that the US should destroy the Taepondong-2 with a cruise missile if North Korea continued its preparations. Additional reporting by agencies
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b4531244-0227-11db-a141-0000779e2340.html
FBI probes shootout that killed prison guard, agent
Jun. 22, 2006. 01:33 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — An FBI investigative team arrived at a federal prison Thursday to search for evidence following a deadly shootout between a guard and federal agents who were trying to arrest him and five others indicted in a sex-for-contraband scandal.
Corrections officer Ralph Hill, an Air Force veteran, had smuggled a gun into the prison and opened fire Wednesday morning as the FBI agents and Justice Department investigators arrived, officials and his attorney said.
Hill, 43, and Justice Department special agent William Sentner were killed in the exchange, and a prison employee helping with the arrests was wounded.
The FBI didn't plan to release any updates on its investigation Thursday, special agent Jeff Westcott said. The FBI shooting review team arrived late Thursday morning.
The five surviving guards pleaded not guilty and were scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing Thursday afternoon. The men were indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on charges alleging that five of them had sex with female inmates in exchange for contraband such as money, alcohol or drugs and another helped in the scheme.
Officials said the guard fired with a personal weapon — guards are prohibited from bringing personal weapons into prisons but are not screened the way visitors are. Agents from the Justice Department's inspector general's office returned fire, killing the guard. It was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed Sentner.
"These agents were out just trying to do their job, trying to do an arrest in a very controlled situation, and it just didn't come down exactly as planned," FBI agent Michael Folmar said.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1150974513091&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_Ontario&call_pageid=968256289824&call_
US Senate Rejects Proposals to Withdraw Troops from Iraq
By Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill
22 June 2006
The Republican-led U.S. Senate has rejected two Democrat-sponsored proposals to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq this year.
US Capitol, Washington DC
As expected, Republicans backing President Bush to stay the course in Iraq prevailed.
The Senate voted 86-13 to oppose a plan put forward by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by July 1 of next year.
The Senate then voted 60-39 to reject a proposal by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, to begin a troop pullout this year, but with no set date for completion of such a withdrawal.
Both plans were proposed as amendments to a defense bill.
John McCain (file photo)
Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, warned that withdrawing U.S. troops before the Iraqi army is fully prepared to defend the country against an intractable insurgency would lead to more violence and possible civil war.
"To abandon the fledgling Iraqi army police to the insurgents, the militias and the terrorists would risk chaos in Iraq, and chaos in Iraq would mean disaster," he said.
Kerry, who unsuccessfully challenged President Bush for the White House in 2004, defended his proposal, saying it would give Iraqis the true sovereignty they are seeking, and would redirect the efforts of U.S. troops where they are most needed in the war on terror.
"This plan honors the investment of our troops," he said. "In fact, what it does is provide a better way of not only empowering the Iraqis, but of empowering the United States of America to fight a more effective war on terror."
John Warner (file photo)
But the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, argued that both Kerry's and Levin's proposals would signal to the rest of the world that the United States was not serious about fulfilling its commitment in Iraq.
http://voanews.com/english/2006-06-22-voa50.cfm
Eastern governors win exemption from roadless area logging rules
The Associated Press
Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006
GRANTS PASS - The Bush administration approved requests Wednesday from three eastern governors to keep logging out of national forest roadless areas in their states, a decision one official said should reassure western governors that the administration will work with them.
The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres of national forest, were the first to come to the administration under its new rules to ease logging restrictions on the remote areas.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., that he hoped the decision would show governors around the country, including four in the West who have sued to overturn the rules, that the administration is willing to work with them on whether to open roadless areas to logging.
The petitions still must go through a formal public review.
The three governors asked to return roadless areas in their states to the protections under 2001 rules initiated by the Clinton administration, citing the value of the areas as sources of clean water, and fish and wildlife habitat when the rest of their states are being developed. The areas would remain open to logging for ecological reasons, such as controlling insect outbreaks.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/06/22/d3.wst.roadless.0622.p1.php?section=nation_world
30 Are Arrested in Breakup of Major Heroin Smuggling Ring
E-MailPrint Reprints Save
By SARAH GARLAND
Published: June 22, 2006
Law enforcement officials yesterday announced the arrests of 30 people in New York, Florida and Colombia accused of being members of a major heroin smuggling ring. It ended what the officials said was the biggest heroin trafficking investigation in New York history.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge this Image
United States Department of Justice
Ways to smuggle heroin into the United States include hiding it in the padding of chairs, in the soles of flip-flops and in the lining of golf bags.
Officials in the United States attorney general's office and the Drug Enforcement Administration said they had seized 257 pounds of heroin during a two-year joint investigation with Colombian law enforcement authorities into one of the city's top heroin suppliers.
Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, called the international teamwork a "new model for drug investigations."
"It's the only one I know of that has come together in this way," Mr. Garcia said at a news conference, adding that the drug operation had been effectively dismantled. "Arrests were made along every single step of this chain."
While American officials regularly share intelligence with their foreign counterparts in the course of drug investigations, yesterday's arrests were called the first successful collaboration on such a large scale, the investigators said.
The investigation into the ring began in 2004 with an anonymous tip to a heroin information telephone number set up by the Drug Enforcement Agency in Colombia. Yesterday, Colombian officials arrested nine people who the authorities say supplied two men in the Bronx who served as wholesalers. The two suspected wholesalers, Roberto Soto-Betran and Jaime Londono, were also arrested. A third person, Jose Rodriguez Nieves, who was already in custody, was accused of preparing the heroin in mills in the Bronx for retail distribution under different brand names, including Hypnotiq and Body Bag.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/nyregion/22heroin.html?_r=1&oref=login
Lawmakers Cite Weapons Found in Iraq
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Page A10
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.
"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Santorum said.
News From Iraq
Senate Rejects Troop Pullout
Rove's Risky Embrace
No Joe-Mentum?
Four Marines Killed in Iraq's Anbar Province
8 Troops Charged In Death Of Iraqi
More News
FULL REPORT: America at War
Special Report
Washington Post stories and multimedia reports about Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror and more.
• Faces of the Fallen
• Veterans: In Their Own Words
• Afghan Reconstruction
» FULL COVERAGE
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
Powerpundit
Gideon Starorzewski
Too Beautiful, the blog
Full List of Blogs (36 links) »
Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101837.html
GOP Rebellion Stops Voting Rights Act
Complaints Include Bilingual Ballots and Scope of Justice Dept. Role in South
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Page A07
House leaders abruptly canceled a vote to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act yesterday after rank-and-file Republicans revolted over provisions that require bilingual ballots in many places and continued federal oversight of voting practices in Southern states.
The intensity of the complaints, raised in a closed meeting of GOP lawmakers, surprised Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his lieutenants, who thought the path was clear to renew the act's key provisions for 25 years. The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box. Its renewal seemed assured when House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders embraced it in a May 2 kickoff on the Capitol steps.
But many Southerners feel the law has achieved its purpose and become more nuisance than necessity in several respects. They have aired those arguments for years, but yesterday they got a boost from Republicans scattered throughout the nation who are increasingly raising a different concern: They insist that immigrants learn and use English.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101910.html
Heart attacks linked to jobs loss
Losing a job late in life can be stressful, researchers said
Losing your job late in your career doubles the chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke, a study says.
Yale University researchers studied 4,301 people aged 51 to 61 who were working in 1992, the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal said.
Over 10 years, there were 23 heart attacks and 13 strokes among the group of 582 who were forced out of a job.
The team said stress was to blame for the findings, while campaigners said workers needed proper support.
Lead researcher Dr William Gallo said: "For many individuals, late career job loss is an exceptionally stressful experience, with the potential for provoking numerous undesirable outcomes.
I don't think it is necessarily because of the age, but rather related to the problems people over 50 have finding jobs of equivalent standard because of the ageism in the workplace
Hugh Robertson, of the Trade Union Congress
"Based on our results, the true costs of unemployment exceed the obvious economic costs and include substantial health consequences as well."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5098250.stm
Sudden cardiac arrest top killer of young athletes
By MEGGAN CLARK Science Writer, (609) 272-7209
Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006
Updated: Thursday, June 22, 2006
A young athlete, seemingly in perfect health, collapses on the playing field. As stunned teammates watch and coaches perform CPR, his life slips away.
It's a tragic scenario that has played out on athletic fields nationwide, experts say. Sudden cardiac arrest — which killed 16-year-old Michael Platt, according to Shore Memorial Hospital — is considered the No. 1 killer of young athletes.
The heart failure can be caused by a direct blow to the chest, but most frequently it's due to a congenital heart defect that has gone undetected, experts say. Platt's parents say preliminary results of an autopsy revealed no signs of heart trouble, but most other sudden cardiac arrests in athletes in recent years have been linked to a structural defect of the heart.
“Unfortunately, this is not a very rare thing,” said Lisa Salberg, president of the New Jersey-based Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association, or HCMA. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, is the most common heart defect to kill young athletes, causing about 40 percent of the sudden cardiac arrests, Salberg said.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6454361p-6309659c.html
Heath Roundup: Job loss linked to stroke risk
By Kate Walker Jun 22, 2006, 19:08 GMT
printer email RSS Talkback
OXFORD, England (UPI) -- Job losses late in one`s working life increase the chances of heart attacks and strokes, a study in the online journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine has found.
'For many individuals, late career job loss is an exceptionally stressful experience with the potential for provoking numerous undesirable outcomes, including (heart attacks and stroke),' the Yale University team of researchers, led by William Gallo, reported.
'Results suggest that the true costs of late career unemployment exceed financial deprivation, and include substantial health consequences,' they write. 'Physicians who treat individuals who lose jobs as they near retirement should consider the loss of employment a potential risk factor for adverse vascular health changes. Policy makers and program planners should also be aware of the risks of job loss, so that programmatic interventions can be designed and implemented to ease the multiple burdens of joblessness.'
The study involved using data collected on 12,600 people who took part in the U.S. Health and Retirement Survey. The first set of surveys, conducted in 1992, included 4,300 people ages 51 to 61, all of whom were employed.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/article_1174944.php/Heath_Roundup_Job_loss_linked_to_stroke_risk
Metropolitan’s AIDS scenarios for 2025 include a ‘winter of discontent’
Tamar Kahn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail article Print-Friendly
Science and Health Editor
DESPITE major advances in diagnosis and treatment, there is still no vaccine and no cure for AIDS. An estimated 38,6-million people are now infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, says the latest United Nations (UN) report.
Faced with a disease that threatens businesses from within and without, no executive would turn down a glimpse 20 years into the future to see what effect the pandemic had wrought on society. Since that’s not possible, many are turning to the next best thing — scenario planning.
“You can explore the outer envelope of possible futures — the best of all possible futures if things go right and the worst if things go wrong,” says SA’s most famous scenario planner, Clem Sunter, who also heads the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund.
According to the UN joint agency on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, SA is home to 5,5-million people infected with HIV.
AIDS-related deaths are climbing and there is no evidence that its spread is slowing. Against this backdrop, financial services group Metropolitan has completed a year-long scenario planning exercise exploring the possible impact of HIV on economic growth and development in SA.
“We want to inspire new thinking and stimulate discussion and action with our scenarios,” says Metropolitan AIDS risk consultant Nathea Nicolay.
Metropolitan has produced four scenarios for 2025. These are based on different combinations of possible economic growth and “social collaboration”, a measure of how South Africans tackle the disease.
In the worst-case “winter of discontent” scenario, based on economic contraction and low social collaboration, leadership is weak and self-serving; stigma and blame are rife; there is no behaviour change; and fake cures proliferate in a society filled with contradictory beliefs about the disease. Crime rates are high, with rampant sexual violence and drug abuse.
In this scenario, by 2025 there have been 8,9-million new HIV infections since 2005 and prevalence in the economically active adult population (aged 20-64) sits at 18%.
Life expectancy has dropped from 62 in 1995 to 50, there is falling gross domestic product (GDP), high unemployment, a shortage of skilled labour and reduced foreign investment. The domestic market has shrunk to basic goods and services.
In the “spring of hope” scenario, based on low economic growth but high social collaboration, there is idealistic but uncoordinated leadership, and powerful groups within civil society take the initiative. People infected with HIV are accepted and cared for, there is greater equality between the sexes, less gender-based violence and AIDS is a chronic, manageable disease.
In this scenario, 3,5-million new HIV infections have been averted and adult prevalence is about 11%. There is low GDP growth, reduced foreign investment, skilled people emigrate and government revenues fall. Demand for luxury goods is low, and the Human Development Index, life-expectancy and education hover at 2005 levels.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A219204
By Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: June 22 2006 20:51 | Last updated: June 22 2006 20:51
Moscow on Thursday summoned the North Korean ambassador for talks as concerns mounted that Pyongyang was about to test an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Washington has warned North Korea not to launch the missile, and has called on Pyongyang to adhere to a self-imposed moratorium it announced in 1999. US spy satellites have been monitoring activity at the launch site in the north east of the country as the regime prepares to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile that could reach parts of the US.
“It was stressed any steps that could negatively impact regional stability and complicate the quest for a way to settle the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula were undesirable,” the Russian foreign ministry said.
Some US officials believe the Taepodong-2 on the launch pad has been fuelled, suggesting a test will happen because siphoning out the fuel would be difficult and dangerous. Other US and South Korean officials believe the evidence is less conclusive. They are also not sure how long the Taepodong-2 could remain fuelled before the fuel started to corrode the missile’s casing.
North Korea stunned the US and Japan in 1998 when it launched an intermediate range missile, which flew over Japan before falling into the Pacific Ocean.
The Pentagon has sent navy ships to the region to monitor and track any launch. The US has also reportedly activated its ground-based missile defence system, although many analysts believe it does not have the ability to shoot an incoming missile. The last successful test of the system was four years ago.
Stephen Hadley, White House national security adviser, on Thursday described the missile defence system as a “research development and testing capability that has some limited operational capability”.
North Korea this week said it wanted to negotiate directly with the US to resolve the crisis. But while the US has directly informed North Korean officials at the UN about its concerns, it has called on Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks aimed at resolving tensions on the Korean peninsula. The talks have been stalled since last year.
William Perry, former secretary of defence under President Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, a former senior defence official, wrote in the Washington Post yesterday that the US should destroy the Taepondong-2 with a cruise missile if North Korea continued its preparations. Additional reporting by agencies
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b4531244-0227-11db-a141-0000779e2340.html
FBI probes shootout that killed prison guard, agent
Jun. 22, 2006. 01:33 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — An FBI investigative team arrived at a federal prison Thursday to search for evidence following a deadly shootout between a guard and federal agents who were trying to arrest him and five others indicted in a sex-for-contraband scandal.
Corrections officer Ralph Hill, an Air Force veteran, had smuggled a gun into the prison and opened fire Wednesday morning as the FBI agents and Justice Department investigators arrived, officials and his attorney said.
Hill, 43, and Justice Department special agent William Sentner were killed in the exchange, and a prison employee helping with the arrests was wounded.
The FBI didn't plan to release any updates on its investigation Thursday, special agent Jeff Westcott said. The FBI shooting review team arrived late Thursday morning.
The five surviving guards pleaded not guilty and were scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing Thursday afternoon. The men were indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on charges alleging that five of them had sex with female inmates in exchange for contraband such as money, alcohol or drugs and another helped in the scheme.
Officials said the guard fired with a personal weapon — guards are prohibited from bringing personal weapons into prisons but are not screened the way visitors are. Agents from the Justice Department's inspector general's office returned fire, killing the guard. It was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed Sentner.
"These agents were out just trying to do their job, trying to do an arrest in a very controlled situation, and it just didn't come down exactly as planned," FBI agent Michael Folmar said.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1150974513091&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_Ontario&call_pageid=968256289824&call_
US Senate Rejects Proposals to Withdraw Troops from Iraq
By Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill
22 June 2006
The Republican-led U.S. Senate has rejected two Democrat-sponsored proposals to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq this year.
US Capitol, Washington DC
As expected, Republicans backing President Bush to stay the course in Iraq prevailed.
The Senate voted 86-13 to oppose a plan put forward by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by July 1 of next year.
The Senate then voted 60-39 to reject a proposal by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, to begin a troop pullout this year, but with no set date for completion of such a withdrawal.
Both plans were proposed as amendments to a defense bill.
John McCain (file photo)
Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, warned that withdrawing U.S. troops before the Iraqi army is fully prepared to defend the country against an intractable insurgency would lead to more violence and possible civil war.
"To abandon the fledgling Iraqi army police to the insurgents, the militias and the terrorists would risk chaos in Iraq, and chaos in Iraq would mean disaster," he said.
Kerry, who unsuccessfully challenged President Bush for the White House in 2004, defended his proposal, saying it would give Iraqis the true sovereignty they are seeking, and would redirect the efforts of U.S. troops where they are most needed in the war on terror.
"This plan honors the investment of our troops," he said. "In fact, what it does is provide a better way of not only empowering the Iraqis, but of empowering the United States of America to fight a more effective war on terror."
John Warner (file photo)
But the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, argued that both Kerry's and Levin's proposals would signal to the rest of the world that the United States was not serious about fulfilling its commitment in Iraq.
http://voanews.com/english/2006-06-22-voa50.cfm
Eastern governors win exemption from roadless area logging rules
The Associated Press
Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006
GRANTS PASS - The Bush administration approved requests Wednesday from three eastern governors to keep logging out of national forest roadless areas in their states, a decision one official said should reassure western governors that the administration will work with them.
The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres of national forest, were the first to come to the administration under its new rules to ease logging restrictions on the remote areas.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., that he hoped the decision would show governors around the country, including four in the West who have sued to overturn the rules, that the administration is willing to work with them on whether to open roadless areas to logging.
The petitions still must go through a formal public review.
The three governors asked to return roadless areas in their states to the protections under 2001 rules initiated by the Clinton administration, citing the value of the areas as sources of clean water, and fish and wildlife habitat when the rest of their states are being developed. The areas would remain open to logging for ecological reasons, such as controlling insect outbreaks.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/06/22/d3.wst.roadless.0622.p1.php?section=nation_world
30 Are Arrested in Breakup of Major Heroin Smuggling Ring
E-MailPrint Reprints Save
By SARAH GARLAND
Published: June 22, 2006
Law enforcement officials yesterday announced the arrests of 30 people in New York, Florida and Colombia accused of being members of a major heroin smuggling ring. It ended what the officials said was the biggest heroin trafficking investigation in New York history.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge this Image
United States Department of Justice
Ways to smuggle heroin into the United States include hiding it in the padding of chairs, in the soles of flip-flops and in the lining of golf bags.
Officials in the United States attorney general's office and the Drug Enforcement Administration said they had seized 257 pounds of heroin during a two-year joint investigation with Colombian law enforcement authorities into one of the city's top heroin suppliers.
Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, called the international teamwork a "new model for drug investigations."
"It's the only one I know of that has come together in this way," Mr. Garcia said at a news conference, adding that the drug operation had been effectively dismantled. "Arrests were made along every single step of this chain."
While American officials regularly share intelligence with their foreign counterparts in the course of drug investigations, yesterday's arrests were called the first successful collaboration on such a large scale, the investigators said.
The investigation into the ring began in 2004 with an anonymous tip to a heroin information telephone number set up by the Drug Enforcement Agency in Colombia. Yesterday, Colombian officials arrested nine people who the authorities say supplied two men in the Bronx who served as wholesalers. The two suspected wholesalers, Roberto Soto-Betran and Jaime Londono, were also arrested. A third person, Jose Rodriguez Nieves, who was already in custody, was accused of preparing the heroin in mills in the Bronx for retail distribution under different brand names, including Hypnotiq and Body Bag.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/nyregion/22heroin.html?_r=1&oref=login
Lawmakers Cite Weapons Found in Iraq
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Page A10
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.
"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Santorum said.
News From Iraq
Senate Rejects Troop Pullout
Rove's Risky Embrace
No Joe-Mentum?
Four Marines Killed in Iraq's Anbar Province
8 Troops Charged In Death Of Iraqi
More News
FULL REPORT: America at War
Special Report
Washington Post stories and multimedia reports about Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror and more.
• Faces of the Fallen
• Veterans: In Their Own Words
• Afghan Reconstruction
» FULL COVERAGE
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
Powerpundit
Gideon Starorzewski
Too Beautiful, the blog
Full List of Blogs (36 links) »
Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101837.html
GOP Rebellion Stops Voting Rights Act
Complaints Include Bilingual Ballots and Scope of Justice Dept. Role in South
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Page A07
House leaders abruptly canceled a vote to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act yesterday after rank-and-file Republicans revolted over provisions that require bilingual ballots in many places and continued federal oversight of voting practices in Southern states.
The intensity of the complaints, raised in a closed meeting of GOP lawmakers, surprised Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his lieutenants, who thought the path was clear to renew the act's key provisions for 25 years. The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box. Its renewal seemed assured when House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders embraced it in a May 2 kickoff on the Capitol steps.
But many Southerners feel the law has achieved its purpose and become more nuisance than necessity in several respects. They have aired those arguments for years, but yesterday they got a boost from Republicans scattered throughout the nation who are increasingly raising a different concern: They insist that immigrants learn and use English.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101910.html
Heart attacks linked to jobs loss
Losing a job late in life can be stressful, researchers said
Losing your job late in your career doubles the chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke, a study says.
Yale University researchers studied 4,301 people aged 51 to 61 who were working in 1992, the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal said.
Over 10 years, there were 23 heart attacks and 13 strokes among the group of 582 who were forced out of a job.
The team said stress was to blame for the findings, while campaigners said workers needed proper support.
Lead researcher Dr William Gallo said: "For many individuals, late career job loss is an exceptionally stressful experience, with the potential for provoking numerous undesirable outcomes.
I don't think it is necessarily because of the age, but rather related to the problems people over 50 have finding jobs of equivalent standard because of the ageism in the workplace
Hugh Robertson, of the Trade Union Congress
"Based on our results, the true costs of unemployment exceed the obvious economic costs and include substantial health consequences as well."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5098250.stm
Sudden cardiac arrest top killer of young athletes
By MEGGAN CLARK Science Writer, (609) 272-7209
Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006
Updated: Thursday, June 22, 2006
A young athlete, seemingly in perfect health, collapses on the playing field. As stunned teammates watch and coaches perform CPR, his life slips away.
It's a tragic scenario that has played out on athletic fields nationwide, experts say. Sudden cardiac arrest — which killed 16-year-old Michael Platt, according to Shore Memorial Hospital — is considered the No. 1 killer of young athletes.
The heart failure can be caused by a direct blow to the chest, but most frequently it's due to a congenital heart defect that has gone undetected, experts say. Platt's parents say preliminary results of an autopsy revealed no signs of heart trouble, but most other sudden cardiac arrests in athletes in recent years have been linked to a structural defect of the heart.
“Unfortunately, this is not a very rare thing,” said Lisa Salberg, president of the New Jersey-based Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association, or HCMA. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, is the most common heart defect to kill young athletes, causing about 40 percent of the sudden cardiac arrests, Salberg said.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6454361p-6309659c.html
Heath Roundup: Job loss linked to stroke risk
By Kate Walker Jun 22, 2006, 19:08 GMT
printer email RSS Talkback
OXFORD, England (UPI) -- Job losses late in one`s working life increase the chances of heart attacks and strokes, a study in the online journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine has found.
'For many individuals, late career job loss is an exceptionally stressful experience with the potential for provoking numerous undesirable outcomes, including (heart attacks and stroke),' the Yale University team of researchers, led by William Gallo, reported.
'Results suggest that the true costs of late career unemployment exceed financial deprivation, and include substantial health consequences,' they write. 'Physicians who treat individuals who lose jobs as they near retirement should consider the loss of employment a potential risk factor for adverse vascular health changes. Policy makers and program planners should also be aware of the risks of job loss, so that programmatic interventions can be designed and implemented to ease the multiple burdens of joblessness.'
The study involved using data collected on 12,600 people who took part in the U.S. Health and Retirement Survey. The first set of surveys, conducted in 1992, included 4,300 people ages 51 to 61, all of whom were employed.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/article_1174944.php/Heath_Roundup_Job_loss_linked_to_stroke_risk
Metropolitan’s AIDS scenarios for 2025 include a ‘winter of discontent’
Tamar Kahn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail article Print-Friendly
Science and Health Editor
DESPITE major advances in diagnosis and treatment, there is still no vaccine and no cure for AIDS. An estimated 38,6-million people are now infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, says the latest United Nations (UN) report.
Faced with a disease that threatens businesses from within and without, no executive would turn down a glimpse 20 years into the future to see what effect the pandemic had wrought on society. Since that’s not possible, many are turning to the next best thing — scenario planning.
“You can explore the outer envelope of possible futures — the best of all possible futures if things go right and the worst if things go wrong,” says SA’s most famous scenario planner, Clem Sunter, who also heads the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund.
According to the UN joint agency on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, SA is home to 5,5-million people infected with HIV.
AIDS-related deaths are climbing and there is no evidence that its spread is slowing. Against this backdrop, financial services group Metropolitan has completed a year-long scenario planning exercise exploring the possible impact of HIV on economic growth and development in SA.
“We want to inspire new thinking and stimulate discussion and action with our scenarios,” says Metropolitan AIDS risk consultant Nathea Nicolay.
Metropolitan has produced four scenarios for 2025. These are based on different combinations of possible economic growth and “social collaboration”, a measure of how South Africans tackle the disease.
In the worst-case “winter of discontent” scenario, based on economic contraction and low social collaboration, leadership is weak and self-serving; stigma and blame are rife; there is no behaviour change; and fake cures proliferate in a society filled with contradictory beliefs about the disease. Crime rates are high, with rampant sexual violence and drug abuse.
In this scenario, by 2025 there have been 8,9-million new HIV infections since 2005 and prevalence in the economically active adult population (aged 20-64) sits at 18%.
Life expectancy has dropped from 62 in 1995 to 50, there is falling gross domestic product (GDP), high unemployment, a shortage of skilled labour and reduced foreign investment. The domestic market has shrunk to basic goods and services.
In the “spring of hope” scenario, based on low economic growth but high social collaboration, there is idealistic but uncoordinated leadership, and powerful groups within civil society take the initiative. People infected with HIV are accepted and cared for, there is greater equality between the sexes, less gender-based violence and AIDS is a chronic, manageable disease.
In this scenario, 3,5-million new HIV infections have been averted and adult prevalence is about 11%. There is low GDP growth, reduced foreign investment, skilled people emigrate and government revenues fall. Demand for luxury goods is low, and the Human Development Index, life-expectancy and education hover at 2005 levels.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A219204
Comments