2005 NEWS HISTORY ARCHIVES

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- Secret - Government - Intelligence - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Politics - Media
"Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry Into Leak of Domestic Spying." ... "The Justice Department said today that it had opened a criminal investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a secret National Security Agency program under which President Bush authorized eavesdropping on people in the United States without a court warrant." ... "The investigation apparently began in recent days following a formal referral from the agency regarding the leak, federal officials said on condition of anonymity." ... "The program, whose existence was revealed in an article in The New York Times on Dec. 16, has provoked sharp criticism from civil liberties groups, some members of Congress and some former intelligence officials who believe it circumvents the law governing national security eavesdropping." -By Scott Shane -NYTimes

- Pakistan - Religious - Schools - Politics - Terrorism - London bombings - UK
"Pakistan's Islamic schools resist expulsion order: · Ban on foreign students followed London bombs · Leaders claim Musharraf ruling is discriminatory." ... "Leaders of Pakistan's 13,000 madrasas have vowed to defy a government deadline to expel foreign students by December 31, saying the regulations discriminate against religious schools." ... "President Pervez Musharraf required Pakistan's madrasas to expel about 1,800 foreign students after the July 7 bombings in London highlighted the extremist links of some schools. Three of the London bombers were of Pakistani descent, and the Aldgate bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, attended a Lahore madrasa that has since been linked to Islamist militants." -By Imtiaz Gul -Guardian.co.uk

- Indonesia - US- Business - Police
"Indonesian military admits being paid by US mining firm." ... "Indonesia's military admitted yesterday that officers received payments from a local subsidiary of the American mining giant Freeport-McMoRan to guard its huge Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua, the western, Indonesian, half of New Guinea island." ... "The admission comes after a report in the New York Times claimed that Freeport Indonesia paid military and police officers, and several army units £11.7m from 1998 to 2004. Some officers allegedly received tens of thousands of pounds. If they kept any of the money themselves, it would be a criminal offence." -By John Aglionby -Guardian.co.uk

- Ukraine - Russia - EU
"Ukraine rejects Moscow gas loan offer." ... "President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine last night rejected an offer of a $3.6bn (£2bn) loan from Russia to pay for a big increase in gas prices by Gazprom, the Russian energy company." ... "The move has provoked the biggest rift between the two neighbours since last year's "Orange Revolution" in Kiev. Mr Yushchenko has turned Ukraine towards the European Union and Nato and wrenched it out of Russia's orbit." ... "The dispute could cause shortages in western Europe if Russia carries out a threat to reduce the gas it pumps into the huge export pipeline that crosses Ukraine from January 1. By doing so, however, Russia would risk damaging its claim to be a reliable energy supplier, just as it takes over the presidency of the Group of Eight industrialised nations with energy security as a main theme." -By Neil Buckley -FT.com

- Ukraine
"Turkmenistan agrees to export 40 bln cu m gas to Ukraine in 2006."-AFXNews via -Forbes

- Hackers - Music - Entertainment - Computer - Business - Technology - Consumer - Privacy
"Sony BMG tentatively settles CD software suits." ... "Sony BMG Music Entertainment has reached a tentative settlement with consumers who filed a class action lawsuit over the music company's copy-protection software on CDs, court papers show." ... "Consumers complained that the technology -- known as XCP -- violated their rights by potentially leaving computers vulnerable to hackers and allowing the company to track listening habits." -Reuters

- Auto - Company - Retiree - History - Government
"How Bedrock Promises Of Security Have Fractured Across America: Companies are discarding traditional pensions -- or making government foot the bill. Delphi workers struggle with the changing landscape." ... "[Oct. 8,] That's when Delphi Chief Executive Robert S. "Steve" Miller, citing global competition and crippling "legacy costs," ushered the $28.6 billion-a-year company into one of the largest industrial bankruptcies in U.S. history. In short order, Miller called for slashing workers' compensation by almost two-thirds, threatened to void the company's union contracts, and hinted broadly that he would follow the playbook he had used elsewhere of pushing responsibility for paying the firm's pensions to the federal government and dumping its retiree health benefits altogether." ... "Delphi is at the cutting edge of a crisis that's engulfing the U.S. auto industry, much as it did steel and airlines. Its actions are adding to a gathering trend, a shift of economic risks once largely borne by business and government to the backs of working families." ... "Before the trouble is over, some believe, a corporate icon such as Ford Motor Co. or GM could be swept from the American landscape. So too could much of what remains of the already frayed relationship between millions of working people and their employers." -By Peter G. Gosselin -LAtimes

-Guantanamo Bay - Cuba - US - Military - Prisons - Food
"Guantanamo Hunger Strike More Than Doubles; 84 Inmates Involved." ... "The number of detainees on a hunger strike at the U.S. naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay has more than doubled in the past week, the U.S. military said." ... "Forty-six detainees joined existing hunger strikers on Dec. 25, to bring the total number of prisoners refusing food to 84, the military said yesterday on the Southern Command's Web site. That's about a sixth of the internment center's inmates." ... "The military said the detainees are trying to put pressure on the U.S. to release them. Detainees' lawyers have said the hunger strikers are protesting their continued detention without trial and conditions at the base." -By Alex Morales -Bloomberg

- Egypt - Sudan -UN - Politics
"10 dead in Cairo protest camp clearance." ... "Ten Sudanese refugees, including a young girl, were killed today when Egyptian police fired water cannon and beat migrants with clubs to break up a protest camp in Cairo." ... "Up to 2,000 refugees had lived in the camp for three months, demanding that the UN refugee agency resettle them." ... "The sit-in began in September after the UN high commissioner for refugees stopped hearing the cases of Sudanese asylum seekers, a decision which followed the signing in January of a peace accord that ended Sudan's 21-year civil war." -Guardian.co.uk

- EU - Global - Russia - US - Military - Technology
"Sky-High Ambitions: Europe attempts to find its own place in the world of satellite navigation with the launch of GIOVE-A." ... "Europe has moved one giant step closer to operating its own long-awaited global navigation satellite system, Galileo, designed to challenge the domination of the U.S. military's GPS, or Global Positioning System." ... "GIOVE-A (or Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element) will be testing new technologies — including atomic clocks, signal generators and user receivers — for what has been a dream of the European Union since the early 1990s: a wide-ranging navigation system that is faster and more precise than GPS, provides an uninterrupted service under civilian control, and offers a commercial alternative to the U.S. system and its Russian counterpart, GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System)." -By Maryann Bird -TIME.com

- EU - Global - Russia - US - Military - Politics
"EU sends up 1st of 30 satellites in GPS network." ... "The European Union on Wednesday launched the first satellite in its $4.5 billion Galileo global positioning system, a bid to enhance the world's growing reliance on satellite navigation and to break the U.S. monopoly on networks in space." ... "Many Europeans see political significance in the project too: The world's only civilian-controlled system will give Europe and its partner nations self-sufficiency from the United States, which has warned it could diminish or cut off GPS satellite coverage to countries considered enemies in times of national emergency." ... "The launch comes at a time when Russia is moving forward with a positioning system known as GLONASS. On Sunday it put into orbit three new satellites for the network, which is scheduled to be operational in 2010." -By Molly Moore-WashingtonPost via -ChicagoTribune

- Iraq
"Iraqi protests continue in Kirkuk." ... "About 350 Arab and Turkmen demonstrators took to the streets of Kirkuk on Thursday, protesting preliminary results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election and condemning what they claim are Kurdish attempts to control the city, according to Kirkuk Police Chief Torhan Abdul Rahman." ... "The protest is only the latest of widespread demonstrations across the country, including one on Wednesday in Samarra, north of Baghdad in the Sunni heartland." ... "There has also been uproar among Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites and others over what they say is fraud in the polling process." -Contributed to by Mohammed Tawfeeq -CNN

- Military - Auto - Airplane
"Corps pays $100K for retooled jeep." ... "The Marine Corps is paying $100,000 apiece for a revamped Vietnam-era jeep as part of its program to outfit the hybrid airplane-helicopter V-22 Osprey, Pentagon records show." ... "That's seven times what a deluxe commercial version of the vehicle costs. It's also three times what U.S. Export-Import Bank records show the Dominican Republic paid four years ago for a military version of the vehicle, called the Growler, a recycled version of the M151 jeep." -By Steven Komarow -USATODAY

- People - Government - Military - Terrorism - Civil Liberties - Politics - Illinois - Florida - Virginia
"U.S. Defends Conduct in Padilla Case: Supreme Court Asked To Overrule 4th Circuit." ... "A federal appeals court infringed on President Bush's authority to run the war on terror when it refused to let prosecutors take custody of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, the Justice Department said yesterday, as it urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene." ... "The sharply worded Justice Department filing was the latest salvo in an increasingly contentious battle over Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago [Illinois] in 2002 and initially accused of plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb." Padilla was held for more than three years by the military before he was indicted last month in Miami [Florida] on separate criminal terrorism charges." ... "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit refused last week to allow prosecutors to take custody of Padilla from the military and rebuked the Bush administration for its handling of the high-profile case. The Bush administration took strong issue yesterday with the Richmond-based [Virginia] court's decision and appealed it to the Supreme Court." -By Jerry Markon-WashingtonPost

- Russia -Political - Business
"Russia threatens to cut off Ukraine's gas." ... "Ukraine's natural gas company declared Thursday that it has enough gas in storage to see the country through the winter if Russia halts shipments in a standoff over prices." ... "Russia's state-run natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, which provides about a third of the gas used in Ukraine, says it will stop selling gas to the country on Jan. 1 unless it agrees to a fourfold price increase." ... "Ukraine currently pays $50 (U.S.) per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. Gazprom is demanding that the price in 2006 rise to $220 to $230, saying that is more in line with world markets." -By Henry Meyer -AP via -GlobeAndMail

- Russia - Business
"Russia to significantly up gas imports." ... "Russia on Thursday agreed to significantly increase its imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan in 2006, buying 30 billion cubic meters at US$65 (euro52) per 1,000 cubic meters, the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom said in a statement." -AP via -BusinessWeek

- Business - Accounting - Law
"SEC calls for clarity in executive pay." ... "Public companies in the US could have to provide investors with valuations of the pensions and stock options of senior executives as part of a far-reaching overhaul of the disclosure rules on executive pay by the Securities and Exchange Commission." ... "The chief US financial regulator is preparing the first update of its disclosure rules on executive pay in more than a decade, because of concerns that investors do not receive adequate information about compensation. An important requirement could focus on executives' pensions and options." ... "The median total pay of chief executives increased by 30 per cent in 2004, according to a survey of 1,522 chief executives by the Corporate Library, a corporate governance watchdog, published in October." -By Andrew Parker -FT.com via -MSNBC

- Labor
"Executive pay to be new year's hot topic." ... "Investors plan to make executive pay the number one issue at companies' annual meetings this spring." ... "New evidence suggesting that executive pay growth is accelerating, coupled with outrage at big severance packages for some bosses, has pushed the issue to the top of investors' concerns." ... "The AFSCME union, whose pension fund is worth $800m, is calling for UK-style votes by shareholders on executive pay at the 2006 annual meetings of US Bancorp, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Home Depot and Countrywide Financial." ... "The union claims to have identified excessive compensation at these companies and warns it may try to oust directors on their compensation committees if they do not take steps to align bosses' pay with company performance." -By Andrew Parker -FT.com via -MSNBC

- Hawaii - History - Museum
"Group hides native Hawaiian artifacts: Judge jails leader, holds three others in contempt of court." ... "Leaders of a Hawaiian group vowed not to divulge the location of a cache of native artifacts obtained from a museum and then buried, despite the jailing of their director." ... "One of the four, executive director Edward Halealoha Ayau, was taken into custody after refusing [Chief U.S. District Judge David] Ezra's order to reveal the exact location of the 83 artifacts from the Bishop Museum." -AP via -CNN

- Texas - Oklahoma - Homes - Disaster
"Five die in wildfires sweeping US: At least five people have died in the wildfires which have swept across parts of the US states of Texas and Oklahoma." ... "The fires, fanned by strong winds and dry weather, have destroyed nearly 200 homes and scorched thousands of acres of land in the past two days." ... "An estimated 124 homes were destroyed in Texas and 50 in the neighbouring state of Oklahoma." ... "Worst hit was the central Texan town of Cross Plains, where the fires forced its 1,000 inhabitants to leave."-BBC /News

-Massachusetts - Computer
"Massachusetts CIO quits amid OpenDocument furore." ... "The man responsible for bringing OpenDocument to Massachusetts has resigned following controversy and personal attacks over the initiative." ... "Peter Quinn has resigned from his post as chief information officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to avoid further mudslinging over the state's controversial move to OpenDocument." -By Ingrid Marson -ZDNet.co.uk

- NY - Internet - Messaging - Telecommunications -Patent - Search Engine - Business
"Google Talk faces patent lawsuit." ... "A New York company [Rates Technology (RTI)] is suing Google for patent infringement over the voice-over-Internet portion of its Google Talk instant messaging and voice chat program." ... "It alleges infringement on two of its patents for minimizing the cost of long-distance calls using the Internet."" ... "RTI President Jerry Weinberger returned a call seeking comment on Thursday and said his firm also has sued Vonage and Cablevision over patent infringement." ... ""When a VOIP call can be transferred to the regular PSTN (telephone network), the switching of that call infringes our patents," Weinberger said." -By Elinor Mills -CNET /News

- Language - Computer - Internet - Radio - Media
"`Podcast' is lexicon's Word of the Year." ... "The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have validated the sudden spread of podcasting by naming "podcast" the Word of the Year for 2005." ... ""Podcast," defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," will be added to the next edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary." ... "The word originated as a play on the word "broadcast" using the name of Apple's popular handheld digital music player, the iPod." -By Nathan Bierma -ChicagoTribune

- Terrorism - Business - Politics
"Sept. 11 loan recipients weren't hurt by attacks." ... "Most companies interviewed about the government-backed Sept. 11 loans they received have told investigators they weren't hurt by the suicide attacks and didn't know they were getting terrorism assistance, an internal government investigation found." ... "The Small Business Administration's inspector general also reported Wednesday that lenders who doled out billions of dollars in such loans failed — 85% of the time — to document that recipients were actually hurt by the terrorism attacks and therefore eligible for the federal aid." -AP via -USATODAY

- Texas - Enron - Accounting - Energy - Business
"Enron's Causey pleads guilty: Judge grants two-week delay to Lay, Skilling trial." ... "Rather than face trial next month, Enron's former chief accounting officer pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges stemming from the scandal that brought down the energy company in late 2001." ... "Richard Causey's plea bargain, made in U.S. District Court in Houston [Texas] before Judge Sim Lake, can't be welcome news for Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the two top ex-Enron executives federal investigators claim were kingpins in one of the biggest scandals ever to rock corporate America." ... "At the same time, the deal requires Causey to cooperate with federal prosecutors honing their case against his onetime bosses and raises the possibility of his taking the witness stand against them." -By Jim Jelter -MarketWatch

- Enron - Accounting - Business
"UPDATE 5-Ex-Enron chief accountant pleads guilty to fraud." ... "Enron's former chief accountant, Richard Causey, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to securities fraud in exchange for a maximum seven-year jail sentence for his role in the financial scandal that led to the 2001 collapse of the power-trading giant." ... "Causey, 45, had been scheduled to go on trial next month with former Enron chief executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, facing the possibility of more than 20 years behind bars, but now may cooperate with federal prosecutors against them in a switch legal experts said could hurt his former bosses." ... "Causey pleaded guilty to a single count of securities related to false filings and statements about Enron's financial performance. He also agreed to forfeit $1.25 million as part of a sentence that [U.S. District Judge Sim] Lake said would be set April 21." (1, 2, 3) -By Jeff Franks with contributions by Deborah Charles and Ben Berkowitz -Reuters

- Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Florida - Oregon - Ohio - Virginia
"Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts." ... "Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda." ... "The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out." ... "The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say." -By Eric Lichtblau and James Risen (1, 2) -NYTimes

- Government - Military - Psychology - Health
"A Political Debate On Stress Disorder: As Claims Rise, VA Takes Stock." ... "The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan." ... "A total of 215,871 veterans received PTSD benefit payments last year at a cost of $4.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 1999 -- a jump of more than 150 percent." ... "Experts say the sharp increase does not begin to factor in the potential impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the increase is largely the result of Vietnam War vets seeking treatment decades after their combat experiences." (1, 2) -By Shankar Vedantam -WashingtonPost

- Secret - Government - Law Enforcement - Law - Privacy
"U.S. secret surveillance up sharply since Sept. 11." ... "Federal applications for a special U.S. court to authorize secret surveillance rose sharply after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the panel required changes to the requests at a even greater rate, government documents show." ... "The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court received a total of 3,436." -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk

- US - Iraq - Police
"U.S. Seeks To Escape Brutal Cycle In Iraqi City: 3rd Try at Pullout Depends on Police." ... "On one of his last days in Iraq, Sgt. Dale Evans looked out over the turbulent city from a rooftop tower piled high with sandbags, manning a machine gun. Below him, rows of Bradley Fighting Vehicles stood at the ready. Dusty streets were lined with coiled barbed wire and abandoned houses pockmarked from gunfire -- a protective no-man's land around a base that U.S. commanders describe as their "battleship" in downtown Samarra." ... "This month, Evans and his company from the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, will leave Patrol Base Uvanni, beginning a third attempt in as many years by U.S. forces to hand this Sunni city over to Iraqi police. It's a major test for the U.S. military in Iraq, and one U.S. commanders here say they can't afford to fail." ... "Since 2003, Samarra has come to symbolize the trials and errors of U.S. strategy in Iraq -- a cycle of military offensives, lulls and new waves of lethal insurgent attacks." (1, 2) -By Ann Scott Tyson -WashingtonPost

- Russia - Economics
"Outspoken Putin aide set to quit: An outspoken aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his resignation in protest against what he called the end of political freedom." ... "Economic adviser Andrei Illarionov said Russia was no longer politically free but run by state corporations acting in their own interests." ... ""It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic," Mr Illarionov told reporters in Moscow."-BBC /News

- Japan - Business - Employment - Politics
"Japan backs gender equality plan." ... "Japanese Prime Minister Junichuro Koizumi's cabinet has approved a gender equality plan that aims to put more women in leadership positions." ... "It gave the green light to a series of measures to improve employment conditions for women and encourage their return to work after maternity." ... "The changes, known as the female re-challenge plan, have been pushed through by the prime minister himself." ... "They come in response to Japan's plunging birth rate." -By Leo Lewis-BBC /News

-Government - Military - Intelligence -Secret-Prisons - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Law - Media - Politics
"Fear destroys what bin Laden could not." ... "One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help." ... "If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled." ... "Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated." ... "If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them." ... "If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy." -By Robert Steinback -Miami/Herald

- US - Iran - Nuclear - Military - Politics - Bill Frist
"Reining in Iran." ... ""Iran's ruling mullahs have waged a 26-year campaign to suppress dissent, support terror and pursue a nuclear weapons program. In recent weeks, it has become clear that international efforts to stop Iran's atomic program have failed to bear fruit. Unless we act quickly, the United States will have a nuclear crisis on its hands." ... "If we let Tehran develop nuclear weapons covertly while IAEA negotiations slog forward, Iran's theocrats will have little reason to negotiate with anyone. The U.S. needs to act before a regime that has denied the real Holocaust unleashes another. " -By Bill Frist -LAtimes

- Iraq -Politics
"Iraq Contingent May Grow if Attacks Persist, Pace Says." ... "Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said Sunday that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase next year, not decrease, if the insurgency continued." ... "The four-star Marine general said that any decision to withdraw or deploy additional troops in Iraq would depend mostly on whether the insurgency continued to launch deadly attacks against U.S.-led forces and friendly elements of the fledgling Baghdad government." -By Josh Meyer -LAtimes

- Ocean - Animals
"Oregon Surfer Punches Shark in the Nose." ... "A surfer says he reacted on instinct when he punched a great white shark that grabbed his leg near the northern Oregon coast." ... "He said he learned from television shows including the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" that a shark's nose is its most sensitive area." -AP via -WashingtonPost

- Iraq - Terrorism - Police - Politics
"Gunmen kill Iraqi forces, bombs shake Baghdad." ... "Guerrillas killed 10 Iraqi policemen and soldiers in attacks north of Baghdad on Monday, while the capital itself was rocked by five major explosions that left at least eight dead." ... "It was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since the largely peaceful election on December 15, when rival ethnic and sectarian groups took part in a vote for a new parliament. By nightfall, at least 20 were killed and over 40 injured." -By Deepa Babington with contributions by Faris al-Mehdawi in Baquba, Aseel Kami and Gideon Long -Reuters.co.uk

-Iran - Russia
"Iran says it didn't get Kremlin nuclear plan: Deal would move enrichment to Russia." ... "Iran denied Sunday that it received a proposal to move its uranium-enrichment facilities to Russian soil, a compromise Europe is seeking to resolve a standoff over Iran's nuclear program." ... "Russia had announced Saturday that it sent the formal proposal to Tehran, which has insisted it would not agree to moving enrichment abroad." -By Nasser Karimi -AP via -ChicagoTribune

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- US - Iraq
"A look at U.S. military deaths in Iraq." ... "As of Sunday, Dec. 25, 2005, at least 2,168 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count." ... "Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 2,029 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count." -AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource

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- Christmas - Consumer
"Last-minute shoppers flock to stores on Christmas Eve." ... "Shoppers — some holding out for the best deals, others just not inspired to shop earlier — headed for the nation's malls and stores for last-minute gifts and gift cards on Saturday, the day before Christmas." ... "With shoppers delaying their holiday shopping even longer than last year, merchants are depending even more on the final hours before Christmas and post-holiday business to salvage the season. The exceptions have been online shopping, sellers of consumer electronics, and luxury stores, which have continued to generate strong gains." ... "The good news this year, analysts said, is that many retailers haven't reacted with a frenzy of bargains beyond what was in their strategy, recognizing that there is a second shopping season after Dec. 25." -By Anne D'Innocenzio  with contributions by Brian Witte -AP via -StarTribune

- US - Egypt - Law
"U.S. Protests Jailing of Egyptian Opposition Leader (Update2)." ... "The U.S. government protested the conviction of Egyptian opposition politician Ayman Nour on forgery charges and requested he be released from jail." ... "Nour's conviction ``calls into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom and the rule of law,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement. The U.S. calls on Egypt ``to release Mr. Nour from detention.''" -By Carlos Torres -Bloomberg

- Consumer - Food - Health
"Labels on food to list allergens more plainly: New federal law intended to help consumers find ingredients that could sicken them." ... "A federal law effective Jan. 1 requires food labels to list ingredients made from proteins derived from any of the eight major allergenic foods: milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, wheat, tree nuts, soybeans and peanuts. The Food and Drug Administration says they account for 90 percent of all food allergies." -AP via -HoustonChronicle.com

- Palestine - Israel - Religion - Christmas
"Christmas Spirit Returns to Bethlehem." ... "Holiday spirit returned to Bethlehem [West Bank] on Saturday for the first time in six years as hundreds of pilgrims from around the world packed the town of Jesus' birth for Christmas Eve celebrations." ... "More than 30,000 people were expected to flock to Bethlehem in what would be the largest turnout since fighting erupted in September 2000." ... "Israel's summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a sharp drop in violence this year contributed to the joyful atmosphere, which buoyed the spirits of Bethlehem residents and tourists visiting the festively decorated town." (1, 2) -By Sarah El Deeb -AP via -ABCNEWS.com

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- Samuel Alito - Women's -Abortion - Health - History - Law
"Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo: Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito Advocated Reversing Roe V. Wade in 1985 Memo." ... "In paperwork released earlier from Alito's time in the Justice Department's solicitor general's office, he recommended a legal strategy of dismantling abortion rights piece by piece. And as part of an application for a job as deputy assistant attorney general, Alito said the Constitution does not guarantee abortion rights." -By Donna Cassata -AP via -ABCNEWS.com

- Samuel Alito - Women's - Abortion - Health - History - Law
"Alito abortion memo drew cautionary response: Reagan administration official said '85 correspondence should be kept quiet." ... "A June 1985 memo by Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito arguing that the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion should be overturned set off alarms in the Reagan administration, prompting a senior official to caution that the correspondence should be kept quiet, a new document released Friday shows." ... "In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."" ... "The June 3, 1985 document was one of 45 released by the National Archives on Friday. A total of 744 pages were made public." -AP via -MSNBC

- Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Law -Privacy - History - Samuel Alito
"In 1984 memo, Alito defends domestic wiretaps." ... "As a Reagan administration lawyer, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito argued that federal officials can't be sued for damages for wiretapping Americans without warrants in national security cases, a document released Friday showed." ... "Alito's position may complicate his prospects for confirmation because its disclosure comes amid an uproar over a four-year-old Bush administration counterterrorism operation that's been eavesdropping on Americans without court approval." ... "President Bush's argument that he has the legal and constitutional authority to direct the National Security Agency to conduct the secret domestic surveillance operation is almost certain to end up before the Supreme Court." -By Jonathan S. Landay -Knight Ridder via -MercuryNews

- Washington - Microsoft - TV - Web - Business
"NBC Universal Buys Control of MSNBC From Microsoft (Update3)." ... "NBC Universal bought a controlling interest in the MSNBC cable news television channel it created with Microsoft Corp. in 1996, with an option of getting full ownership in two years." ... "NBC Universal increased its stake in MSNBC to 82 percent from 50 percent in a cash transaction, Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said today, declining to comment further. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal will continue to own equal parts in the MSNBC.com Web site." -By Alex Armitage -Bloomberg

-Palestine - Israel - Religion - Christmas
"Isolated Bethlehem struggles for its survival." ... "In a street below the Church of the Nativity this week, three Palestinians were wrestling with a gigantic blow-up Santa Claus as they attempted to add a touch of seasonal cheer to a town that feels itself increasingly cut off from the outside world." ... "Since Christmas 2004, Israel has completed an eight-metre high concrete separation barrier between Bethlehem and neighbouring Jerusalem and recently opened a $7.5m crossing point that resembles an international frontier." ... "Most residents of Bethlehem, which is just inside the West Bank, are no longer allowed to travel to Jerusalem, although the army is making an exception this Christmas for Christian Palestinians wishing to visit relatives in Israel." -By Harvey Morris -FT.com

- Travel - Terrorism - Law Enforcement
"Airport security changes create little noise: Guidelines that now allow small scissors, sharp objects have little effect on travelers." ... "New airport security guidelines that allow passengers to carry small scissors and other sharp objects were implemented Thursday at airports nationwide, including Houston." ... "Security personnel will now focus on detecting explosives rather than confiscating small sharp objects." -By Armando Villafranca -HoustonChronicle.com

- Italy - EU - US - Egypt -Intelligence
"Italy court issues EU arrest warrant for CIA team." ... "A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Italy's financial capital in 2003, Prosecutor Armando Spataro said on Friday." ... "Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured." -Reuters

- South Korea - Stem Cell - Cloning - Animals
"S.Korean panel says stem-cell result fabricated." ... "South Korea's most famous scientist quit under a cloud on Friday and could face prosecution after investigators said results in a landmark 2005 paper on producing tailored embryonic stem cells were intentionally fabricated." ... "A panel from Seoul National University has been examining the work of Hwang Woo-suk, hitherto regarded in South Korea as a hero for bringing the country to the forefront of stem-cell and cloning studies -- and the world the first cloned dog." ... "Roe [Jung-hye, Seoul National University's research office chief,] said the panel would now also investigate the dog cloning and a 2004 academic paper on cloning the first human embryos for research that has also fallen under suspicion." (1, 2) -By Jon Herskovitz and Kim Yeon-hee -Reuters

- South Korea -Stem Cells - Cloning - Genetics - Health - US
"S. Korean's Stem Cell Data Fake, Panel Says." ... "A panel investigating the work of South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo Suk has concluded that he deliberately fabricated key data in a landmark paper this year, offering the first evidence of what is potentially one of the greatest frauds in modern science." ... "The expert panel at Seoul National University, where Hwang conducted his research, found that nine of 11 stem cell lines he claimed to have created did not exist." ... "Hwang's paper, published in May by the U.S. journal Science, purported to describe the creation of 11 human embryo clones using DNA from patients suffering from spinal cord injuries and genetic diseases. No other research group has succeeded in cloning human embryos, though many have been trying." ... "Hwang's team claimed it used the embryos to create individualized lines of stem cells that were perfect genetic matches to the 11 patients. The achievement, known as therapeutic cloning, was believed to be the first step toward creating personalized stem cell therapies for patients." (1, 2) -By Barbara Demick and Karen Kaplan with contribution by Jinna Park and -AP-LAtimes

- South Korea - People - Labor - Business
"Cloning allegations put spotlight on S. Korea's competitive culture." ... "Six-day work weeks from morning until night. Companies trumpeting bigger and bigger flat-screen TVs. A government that proclaims it wants to be a ''hub" for everything from finance to robots. South Korea is fiercely committed to being No. 1, and doing it yesterday." ... "As South Korea's top scientist Hwang Woo-suk falls from his lofty perch amid a wave of allegations questioning his research, the country's competitive culture of always hurrying -- coupled with a healthy sense of national pride and craving for international recognition -- could be partly to blame." ... "The dynamic culture has its upside, helping South Koreans build their country from the ruins of the Korean War into the world's 11th largest economy." -By Burt Herman -AP via -BostonGlobe

- US - Iraq
"Rumsfeld suggests some U.S. troops will be heading home from Iraq." ... "The reductions would bring U.S. troop levels down from about 158,000 to slightly under 130,000. But Rumsfeld warned that "until it's announced, the government's decision hasn't been announced. Therefore it's not final."" -By Richard Sisk -MercuryNews

-California - WalMart - Employees - Business - Food
"Wal-Mart hit with $172.3m lunch bill." ... "A jury in Oakland, California on Thursday ordered Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, to pay $172.3m to current and former employees, after finding that the company had failed to respect their right to a 30-minute unpaid lunch break." ... "The verdict is the largest penalty of its kind imposed by a court on the retailer in a range of lawsuits that have accused it of deliberately allowing its employees to work unpaid overtime, or to work during legally required breaks." ... "State law in California requires employers to grant its workers the 30 minute unpaid break, or to compensate them if they decline to take the time." -By Jonathan Birchall -FT.com via -MSNBC

- Government - Military - Terrorism - Civil Liberties - Politics - Florida
"Terror case challenges White House strategy: An appeals court refused the government's request to have Jose Padilla transferred to Florida for a criminal trial." ... "Suddenly, terror suspect Jose Padilla seems a lot more dangerous to the Bush administration." ... "It has nothing to do with his suspected involvement in Al Qaeda bomb plots, analysts say. Rather, the administration worries that the US Supreme Court might agree to hear Mr. Padilla's case and decide one of the most pressing constitutional issues in the war on terrorism. And by all appearances, government lawyers think they might lose." ... "The issue: Does President Bush have the power as commander in chief to order the open-ended military detention of US citizens that he deems enemy combatants?" -By Warren Richey -CSMonitor

- 

- Jack Abramoff - Florida - Political - Business
"Talk of Plea by Lobbyist Has Hill on Edge." ... "[Jack] Abramoff, a once-powerful lobbyist who is the subject of a federal influence-peddling investigation, is considering a deal to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors, according to sources familiar with the probe. That could open the prospect that Abramoff will implicate any number of lawmakers and aides who were part of his vast network of access." ... "Abramoff's former business associate, Michael P.S. Scanlon, last month pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials and to defraud tribes. He promised to cooperate with the investigation." ... "In separate federal proceedings in Florida, Abramoff has been indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with his purchase of the Florida-based SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet. His co-defendant, Adam R. Kidan, last week pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Abramoff. Abramoff's trial is set to begin Jan. 9." -By Janet Hook and Chuck Neubauer -LAtimes

- Oregon - Kansas - Religious - Science - Education
[satire alert!-]"Passion of the Spaghetti Monster." ... "Bobby Henderson is holed up in the boonies -- Corvallis, Oregon -- hard at work on his next entry into the fray over just what students should learn about the origin of species." ... "When the Kansas Board of Education proposed balancing evolution instruction by teaching intelligent design, said to be a scientific theory that supports an "intelligent creator" of all life, the decision outraged many, including 38 Nobel laureates (.pdf)." ... "Henderson responded with a satirical letter to the Kansas board demanding equal time for a different, "equally scientific" theory of intelligent design, in which a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world." -By Kathleen Craig -Wired

- Government - Military - Terrorism - Civil Liberties - Politics -Florida
"Court Bars Transfer of Padilla To Face New Terrorism Charges." ... "A federal appeals court yesterday refused to authorize the transfer of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla to face new criminal charges, issuing a strongly worded opinion rebuking the Bush administration and its handling of the high-profile terrorism case." ... "In issuing its denial, the court cited the government's changing rationale for Padilla's detention, questioning why it used one set of arguments before federal judges deciding whether it was legal for the military to hold Padilla and another set before the Miami [Florida] grand jury." ... "In requesting the transfer to Justice Department custody, the government suggested that the 4th Circuit vacate its ruling allowing Padilla to be held as an enemy combatant. But the 4th Circuit yesterday also refused to lift the earlier decision and suggested that the Justice Department request was made to avoid further judicial scrutiny." ... "The judges said prosecutors had left "an appearance that the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of our decision by the Supreme Court." They said they welcomed Supreme Court intervention because of the "enormous implications" of the Padilla case." -By Jerry Markon -WashingtonPost

- US- Arizona - Mexico - Drugs - Terrorism - Law - Intelligence
"Surprise - terror war aids drug war: One Arizona border unit sees marijuana haul triple." ... "As Congress and President Bush wrangle over the USA Patriot Act, the Border Security bill, and other tools of the war on terror, they may want to keep another law-enforcement group in mind - the nation's drug-fighters." ... "That's because the war on terror is proving to be a boon to the war on drugs. Drug seizures are up all along the US-Mexico border. Nowhere is the trend clearer than along a desolate 118-mile patch of Arizona desert across the border from the Mexican state of Sonora." ... "In what is rapidly becoming one of the highest drug-trafficking and people- smuggling sectors along the border, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers there have seized 13,000 pounds of marijuana since Oct. 1, triple the amount captured in the same period last year. That year, fiscal 2005, also set a record. The reasons for the success? Better intelligence-sharing, increased manpower, and improved technology that border officials have received in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks." -By Faye Bowers -CSMonitor

- Science - California - Los Angeles - Hawaii
"Man-Made "Star" Illuminates Milky Way's Mysterious Center." ... "[...] even on the clearest night, the earth's atmosphere obscures the true brilliance of our galaxy and astronomers have long struggled with images blurred by its mix of gases and turbulence. Now researchers have used a new laser-generated star to obtain the clearest pictures yet of the Milky Way's center. " ... "Astronomer Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues used the 10-meter Keck 2 telescope in Hawaii, which has a laser attached to it, to observe our galaxy. The skywatchers employed the 14-watt laser to generate a fake star. By continuously imaging this false star along with the real ones, they could correct any fuzziness or other distortions introduced by the earth's atmosphere." -By David Biello -ScientificAmerican

- People - Psychology - New Jersey
"Dancing advertises sexual quality: Study of Jamaicans shows symmetrical dancers shake it better." ... "Researchers led by William Brown of Rutgers University in New Jersey filmed more than 180 teenagers shaking it down, and converted the films into computer-animated, androgynous dancing figures. When shown the animated dancers, viewers gave higher ratings to dances performed by people who in reality had more symmetrical bodies and were generally more attractive." ... "The effect was stronger for women watching male dances than for men watching women. And the dances performed by men scored more highly overall than those by women, Brown and his colleagues report in Nature." -By Michael Hopkin -Nature

- Pennsylvania - Religious- Science - Law - Kansas
"Advocates of 'Intelligent Design' Vow to Continue Despite Ruling." ... "A federal judge's ruling in Pennsylvania that "intelligent design" is religious fundamentalism dressed in the raiment of science has wounded a politically influential movement." ... "Some politically influential backers of intelligent design warned that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who was appointed by President Bush, so overreached that his ruling will outrage and inflame millions of conservative and religiously observant Americans." ... "Jones's expansively written decision incorporated the scientific critique of intelligent design as pseudoscience in almost every detail. Legally, that decision is not binding in other states, such as Kansas, where the state school board is debating incorporating a critique of Darwinian evolution into its state standards." -By Michael Powell -WashingtonPost

-Russia - China - Environment -Health
"Toxic leak reaches Russian city: A slick of chemicals from a toxic river spill in China has reached the Russian city of Khabarovsk after weeks of anxious waiting for residents." ... "Officials say the levels of the deadly benzene toxins were at acceptable levels and water supplies, which are being filtered, will not be cut." ... "The benzene spill into the Amur river was caused by an explosion at a Chinese chemical factory last month." ... "The explosion occurred higher up the Songhua river, in Jilin. The Songhua flows into the Amur river on the Russian border."-BBC /News

- Iraq
"Objections to Iraq vote grow louder: Sunnis, secularists join forces in call." ... "Sunni Arab and secular political groups joined forces yesterday to decide whether to call for a repeat of parliamentary elections that gave the Shi'ite religious bloc a larger than expected lead." ... "The main Sunni coalition has said the elections were tainted by fraud, including voting centers failing to open, shortages in election materials, reports of multiple voting, and forgery." ... "The election commission, known as the IECI, has said it received 1,250 complaints about violations during the Dec. 15 elections, 25 of which it described as serious. But the commission says it does not expect the complaints will change the overall result, to be announced in January." -By Patrick Quinn -AP via -BostonGlobe

- Karl Rove - Dick Cheney - Military - Environmental - Political - Business
"Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start." ... "[Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom] Ridge, who had won a Bronze Star as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, knew he might be stepping into another quagmire at DHS. "Part of him was excited," said then-EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. "Part of him thought it was a no-win situation."" ... "Clearly, he could not count on unlimited financial support. And working in the White House, he was already learning he could not count on absolute political support, either." ... "One stark example was the White House's blockade of a Ridge-supported plan to secure large chemical plants. After Sept. 11, Whitman had worked with Ridge on a modest effort to require high-risk plants --especially the 123 factories where a toxic release could endanger at least 1 million people -- to enhance security. But industry groups warned Bush political adviser Karl Rove that giving new regulatory power to the Environmental Protection Agency would be a disaster." ... ""We have a similar set of concerns," Rove wrote to the president of BP Amoco Chemical Co." ... "In an interagency meeting shortly before DHS's birth, White House budget official Philip J. Perry, who also happens to be Cheney's son-in-law, declared the Ridge-Whitman plan dead." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Christopher Lee with contributions by Spencer S. Hsu and Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

- Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail -Privacy - Politics
"Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program." ... "The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources." ... "Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court." (1, 2) -By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

- Government - Law - Military - Terrorism -Alaska - Oil - Environment - Health - Education -Jobs - Money
"Senate Extends Patriot Act, Kills Alaska Drilling (Update1)." ... "The U.S. Senate broke a legislative logjam and cleared the way for its holiday departure last night with a series of short-term compromises that extended the Patriot Act and blocked drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." ... "Democrats prevailed in getting Senate Republican leaders to abandon the oil-drilling plan, which was attached to the defense budget." ... "[House] Lawmakers passed a $142.5 billion budget for health, education and jobs programs that cuts funding from last year's spending plan, sending the measure to Bush for his signature. The House approved the measure 215-213 on Dec. 14." ... "The health budget reduces funding for the No Child Left Behind education initiative, special education and job training. It freezes funding for the National Institutes of Health and low- income heating assistance." -By Catherine Dodge -Bloomberg

- Florida - Business - Disaster - Water - Divers
"Chalk's grounds fleet for inspection after fatal crash off Miami Beach." ... "An airline voluntarily grounded its fleet Wednesday for inspection after investigators said cracks in the support beam of a wing apparently caused it to fall off a seaplane that then crashed, killing all 20 people aboard." ... "Chalk's Ocean Airways operates four other seaplanes, all the same model that crashed. The grounding came the same day federal investigators said they were trying to determine why the airline had apparently not discovered the cracks." ... "Salvage crews and divers worked for a second day Wednesday to haul up the plane's wreckage from about 35 feet of water in a channel off the southern tip of Miami Beach [Florida], where it went down Monday." -By Curt Anderson -Sun-Sentinel via -Newsday.com

- Vietnam - Drugs
"Bird flu victims die after drug resistance." ... "In a development health experts are calling alarming, two bird flu patients in Vietnam died after developing resistance to Tamiflu, the key drug that governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak." ... "The experts said the deaths were disturbing because the two girls had received early and aggressive treatment with Tamiflu and had gotten the recommended doses." ... "The new report suggests that the doses doctors now consider ideal may be too little." -By Alicia Chang -AP via-Miami/Herald

- Iran - Secret - Nuclear - Military - Politics - EU - US - UN
"The West's patience wears thin with Iran's hard line." ... "When European nations resume talks with Iran in Vienna Wednesday over that country's nuclear ambitions, two dangerous new factors are in play. On the one hand, the patience of the Europeans and the United States with Iran is running thin. On the other hand, Iran's newly elected president has shocked a string of nations with some megalomanic pronouncements that if supported by his people would plunge Iran back into isolation. The stage is not set for compromise and consensus." ... "At issue is whether Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear technology for military purposes is purely for peaceful purposes, as it claims. The European nations and the US doubt that, pointing to a string of deceptive Iranian actions, including hiding from the International Atomic Energy Agency its secret installations to enrich uranium and produce plutonium." -By John Hughes -CSMonitor

- Dick Cheney - Seniors - Health - Education
"Senate passes budget cuts: Cheney passes tiebreaking vote." ... "The Senate Friday morning passed a $40 billion deficit reduction bill, but only after Vice President Cheney cast the tie-breaking vote." ... "Opponents and supporters of the measure in the Senate were deadlocked 50-50 on the bill, until Cheney cast the deciding vote." ... "For the first time in eight years, the spending measure cuts funding for several entitlement programs." ... "Programs affected include Medicaid and Medicare, and funding for student loans." -By Greg Robb -MarketWatch

- Secret - Government - Intelligence
"Surveillance-court judge quits in protest." ... "A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources." ... "U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation." ... "Two associates familiar with his decision said Tuesday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable." -By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer -WashingtonPost via -SeattleTimes.NWsource

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Telecommunications -

- Environment - Animals - Terrorism - Civil Rights - Law - Politics -Indiana
"F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show." ... "Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show." ... "But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest." ... "One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis [Indiana] planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." (1, 2) -By Eric Lichtblau -NYTimes

- Iraq - Religious
"Shiite Alliance Leads In Partial Iraq Count: Secular Parties Failing to Win Broad Support." ... "The first results from Iraq's national parliamentary election showed powerful support for the leading Shiite Muslim religious alliance, and suggested that the country's splintered politics have coalesced into a few large political groups divided along ethnic and religious lines." ... "Election officials announced unofficial results Monday from 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces and Baghdad, the largest city, showing the Shiite alliance leading overwhelmingly in central and southern Iraq. As expected, a coalition of Kurds dominated the north, while votes from the mainly Sunni Muslim western provinces have not been reported." ... "The results, which elections officials said were incomplete and subject to challenge, appeared to dash the hopes of secular parties that voters would reject the religious and ethnic-based groups." (1, 2) -By Doug Struck with contributions by Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki and K.I. Ibrahim -WashingtonPost

- Pennsylvania - Religious -Science - Education
"'Breathtaking Inanity': How Intelligent Design Flunked Its Test Case:A federal judge minces no words as he comes down against evolution's rival." ... "Intelligent design is a religious idea and a Pennsylvania school board may not introduce it into the classroom, a federal judge ruled today. Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the Dover Area School Board improperly introduced religion into the classroom when it required science teachers to read a brief statement during the 9th grade biology class telling students that evolution was “Just a theory” and inviting them to consider alternatives. The only alternative specifically mentioned was “intelligent design,” the notion that life is so complex that it could not possibly have been the work of natural selection alone and must have been the work of an unspecified creative intelligence. “We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom,” Jones wrote." (1, 2) -By Sean Scully -TIME.com

- Alaska - Gas - Business - Consumer
"Alaska sues BP, Exxon Mobil over natural gas: State claims oil giants conspired to keep prices high." ... "An antitrust lawsuit filed against Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC claims the two oil giants are restricting the nation's supply of natural gas and keeping prices at record highs." ... "The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, says the two companies acted together to eliminate competition for the exploration, development and marketing of natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to U.S. markets." ... ""The only reason for them to collusively not to sell is to try to continue the scarcity that has driven natural gas prices to historic highs," said David Boies, the attorney for the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, which filed the lawsuit." (1, 2) -AP via -MSNBC

- Government - Telecommunications - EMail - Intelligence - Law - West-Virginia - Cheney, Dick
"Democrats: Briefings weren't approvals for wiretapping." ... "Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings." ... ""I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. "As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney."" ... "Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaeda." -AP via -USATODAY

- Government - Military - Intelligence - Privacy - Law - Politics
"Bush's Snoopgate: The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times' eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper's editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn't just out of concern about national security." ... "The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists-in fact, all American Muslims, period-have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that "the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy." But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a "shameful act," it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab." ... "No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story-which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year-because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker." -By Jonathan Alter -MSNBC/Newsweek

- Afghanistan - US - Military
"Afghanistan Convenes Newly Elected Parliament." ... "An elected Afghan parliament was sworn in today for the first time in more than 35 years, and will face threats from drug lords, rampant corruption and a surge in suicide bombings." ... "President Hamid Karzai, his voice breaking with emotion, said Afghans had won the world's respect with their difficult struggle to build a democracy, but he cautioned that a lot of hard work still lay ahead." ... "Vice President Dick Cheney, and his wife, Lynne, had front-row seats to the opening of parliament, along with U.S. Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann and Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who commands about 20,000 U.S. troops here. Many of those soldiers are still battling Taliban and other insurgents four years after a U.S. and Afghan forces toppled the Islamic extremists' regime." -By Paul Watson -LAtimes

- Afghanistan
"Warlords and women take seats in Afghan parliament: First session of elected body for three decades · New MPs keen to make progress despite cynicism." ... "As part of the frantic last-minute preparations at Afghanistan's renovated parliament, officials were installing computers, workmen hanging paintings and, out in the garden, a team of de-miners was uprooting the flowerbeds. "We're checking for bombs," said a bearded man in a blastproof jacket, running a screeching metal detector over a pile of soil. "Just in case there's an unexploded one."" ... "The question is whether the leopards have grown new spots or just cloaked the old ones. Human Rights Watch estimates that 60% of MPs have links to warlordism. The organisation singled out Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful militia commander whose guns ravaged Kabul in the 1990s, and Marshall Fahim, a former defence minister accused of war crimes." -Declan Walsh -Guardian.co.uk

-Secret - Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail - Privacy - Law
"President Bush Defends Secret Wiretaps, Urges Patriot Act Renewal." ... "In his final news conference of the year, President Bush offered a stern defense of his ordering of secret wiretaps within the United States and made a spirited plea for the renewal of the Patriot Act." ... "The president's top priority was to quell the growing outrage over the revelation on Friday by The New York Times of a widespread, ongoing domestic eavesdropping program by the National Security Agency that has targeted phone conversations and e-mail exchanges within the U.S." ... "Though the disclosure of the covert domestic spying program has caused concern among both Democrats and Republicans, with some calling for hearings into whether it violates the Constitution, Bush vigorously defended his right to order the program, which he said he has renewed more than 30 times." -MTV.com /News

- Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Law
"Bush strongly defends eavesdropping program." ... "President Bush on Monday forcefully defended his administration's eavesdropping program for terror suspects living in the United States as an essential element of protecting Americans from a new enemy, and he said whoever unmasked the secret plan had committed a "shameful act."" ... "As Republicans joined Democrats in calling for a congressional inquiry into the domestic spying program, the president insisted he had the legal and constitutional authority to order surveillance. He said he was concerned about citizens' civil liberties but denied suggestions that he had abused the power of the presidency, and he vowed not to abandon the plan he approved after the 2001 terror attacks." ... ""To say `unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject," Bush said. "I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country.""  -ChicagoTribune via -MercuryNews

- Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Privacy - Law - Wisconsin
"Bush, under fire, defends spy program: President says eavesdropping policy is 'vital'." ... "President Bush acknowledged yesterday that he has repeatedly authorized secret eavesdropping within the United States without obtaining warrants, a policy that some critics called illegal. The admission came one day after the president refused to address the issue." ... "Bush yesterday said he reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and vowed to continue it despite criticism by some members of both political parties." ... "But Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, urged the president to suspend the program immediately. Feingold said the program violates a law that requires a court order for such surveillance." -By Michael Kranish -Boston/Globe

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- Intelligence - Politics
"Robert Novak Leaving CNN for Fox News." ... "Robert Novak, the gruff-voiced political pundit and occasional loose cannon in a three-piece suit, is leaving CNN and going to work for Fox News." ... "In the recent past, Novak has been making news more than commenting on it. In a controversial move, he printed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame in a 2003 newspaper column, which triggered a full-fledged, multilayered investigation into who leaked that information. In August he cursed at fellow analyst James Carville and abandoned the set of a CNN political talk show mid-broadcast. Just recently he suggested to a group in North Carolina that President Bush knows the source of the CIA leak. Asked if these incidents led to his departure, he laughed and said he doesn't think so." -By Linton Weeks-WashingtonPost

- 

- Iraq - US - Intelligence
"Official: Al-Zarqawi Caught, Freed." ... "Iraqi security forces caught terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Fallujah area last year but released him because they didn't realize who he was, the deputy interior minister said in an interview broadcast Friday." ... "CNN broadcast a similar report late Thursday, but it could not be confirmed. But a U.S. official said in Washington that American intelligence believed it was plausible." -AP via-CBSNews

- Turkey - Military - Law - Authors - History - Media - TV - Censorship
"'Terrorised' writers lament state's assault on free speech: Trial of Turkey's greatest living author is focusing attention on attempts to control public opinion." ... "Ertugrul Kurkcu has been hauled before the judges for saying the wrong thing so many times that he has almost lost count. "Six or seven trials, always acquitted, but I did get a 10-month jail sentence from a military court for translating a Human Rights Watch report," says the veteran leftwing Turkish dissident." ... "He took one case to the European Court of Human Rights last year. The case was annulled and the Turkish government paid him €5,000 compensation." ... "Mr Kurkcu's problem is that he keeps colliding with the country's notion of "Turkishness", and that spells danger for writers, historians and novelists, who bring the wrath of the establishment down on their heads every time they are deemed to have belittled it." ... "A raft of other regulations make it possible for Turkey to muzzle, fine and pressure the publishing industry, newspapers and television stations for stepping out of line. Censorship flourishes, too, through requirements that manuscripts be submitted to state authorities for approval and special licensing arrangements that oblige the books industry to get official stamps before a book can be published." -By Ian Traynor -Guardian.co.uk

-Turkey -Law - History - Switzerland
"Dilemma as Turkish writer’s trial is halted." ... "The trial of Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist accused of “insulting” his country, was halted on Friday after the justice ministry failed to indicate whether it wanted the trial to proceed." ... "Mr Pamuk is being prosecuted for remarks he made in an interview with a Swiss newspaper earlier this year. In it, he criticised Turkey for what he said was its denial of its historical responsibility in the massacre of Armenians and Kurds starting in 1915." ... "Mr Pamuk is being tried under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it a criminal offence to “insult Turkishness, the republic and state institutions” or otherwise “debase or denigrate” Turkish identity." -By Vincent Boland -FT.com

- Turkey - Law -Author - EU
"EU watches as trial of Turkish author adjourned." ... "The trial of best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was adjourned on Friday in a case that has raised concern in the European Union over freedom of expression in Turkey and its bid for EU membership." ... "Istanbul Judge Metin Aydin said the trial would restart on February 7, 2006, to give the Justice Ministry time to decide whether the case was in line with judicial procedures at the request of the state prosecutor." -By Ercan Ersoy with contributions by Daren Butler -Reuters

- Turkey - Law - Author - Journalists - Switzerland
"Judge Halts Trial of Turkish Novelist." ... "The presiding judge halted the trial of Turkey's best-known novelist Friday, saying the court would need the approval of the Justice Ministry for the trial to proceed." ... "Orhan Pamuk is accused of insulting Turkey's national identity, a free speech case that has divided the nation." ... "He faces up to three years in prison for saying to a Swiss newspaper in February that Turkey is unwilling to deal with painful episodes in its treatment of the country's Armenian minority or its continuing problems with its 12 million Kurdish citizens." ... "Turkey has for years come under criticism for jailing journalists, authors and activists for speaking their minds." -By Suzan Fraser -AP via -HoustonChronicle.com

- Turkey - Law - People - History
"Turk writer's insult trial halted: The trial of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, accused of insulting his nation, has been halted on its first day." ... "An Istanbul judge said the case needed approval by the ministry of justice." ... "The ministry's permission is being sought because of a dispute over whether Mr Pamuk is to be tried under Turkey's old penal code or a recent, revised version." ... "The charges relate to a magazine interview earlier this year in which Orhan Pamuk said: "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it."" ... "Turkey maintains the deaths of Armenians in conflicts accompanying the collapse of the Ottoman empire in the early 20th Century were not part of a genocidal campaign, arguing that many ethnic Turks were also killed in that period." ... "Turkey also denies its efforts to contain a separatist uprising in its Kurdish community in the 1980s and 1990s can be classed as genocide."-BBC /News

-Turkey - Law - Journalists - Books - EU
"Trial of Turkish author adjourned." ... "Mr Pamuk is on trial for "denigrating" Turkishness, and faces up to three years in jail if found guilty." ... "Mr Pamuk was charged under Article 301 of Turkey's revised penal code, which has been widely criticised within the EU." ... "The Independent Communications Network found 16 journalists had been put on trial in Turkey in the first nine months of this year, with 12 of them being found guilty." ... "The Publishers Association said that, in the 18 months until this summer, 37 authors were tried for criminal offences in connection with the publication of 47 books." -Guardian.co.uk

- Turkey -Free Speech - Journalism - Law - EU
"Free speech on trial in Turkey: The case of writer Orhan Pamuk is being watched as a test of political reforms." ... "Like one of his own characters, trapped between liberal yearnings and the reality of an unforgiving state, Turkey's most celebrated novelist, Orhan Pamuk, is slated to appear in court Friday to face charges of "insulting Turkish identity."" ... "The high-profile free speech trial pits the aims of European-driven reform in Turkey - which began EU membership talks last October - against a fiercely nationalistic tradition that permits little challenge. Mr. Pamuk's trial is one of more than 65 other free speech cases now under way in Turkey, which are being closely watched by European observers, as a test of the recent reforms." ... ""This is a tug of war in Turkey now, between those who favor democratic and EU values, [against] those who are afraid of such change - the hard-core nationalists who are willing to do anything to stop that trend," says Haluk Sahin, a journalism professor at Bilgi University and columnist for Radikal newspaper, who is also facing trial in February under the same statute." ... ""[Nationalists] have decided that the legal system is the soft underbelly," says Mr. Sahin. "And by using legal instruments and their ties [to the judiciary], they can harm Turkey's prospects in that big march toward the European goal."" -By Scott Peterson -CSMonitor

- Secret - Government - Military - Terrorism - EMail - Telecommunications - Law - Politics - History
"Bush Authorized Domestic Spying: Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court." ... "President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night." ... "For more than four years, the NSA tasked other military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official." ... "The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said." ... "It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said." -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Dafna Linzer and Peter Baker -WashingtonPost

- Government - Secrets - Civil Liberties - Privacy
"Official: Bush authorized spying multiple times: Senior intelligence officer says President personally gave NSA permission." ... "President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night." ... "The disclosure follows angry demands by lawmakers earlier in the day for a congressional inquiry into whether the monitoring by the highly secretive National Security Agency violated civil liberties." (1, 2) -AP via -MSNBC

- Secrecy - Politics
"Bush Issues Order to Ease Access to Government Information." ... "President Bush has issued an executive order directing federal agencies to improve public access to government information." ... "The order, signed by the president late Wednesday, follows five years of often bipartisan criticism of his administration on grounds of excessive secrecy, particularly since the 2001 terrorist attacks. It mandates some of the changes that have been proposed by members of Congress from both parties to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act." -By Scott Shane -NYTimes

- US -Mexico - US Immigration - Drugs -Law - California - New Mexico - Texas - Arizona
"House Votes for 698 Miles of Fences on Mexico Border." ... "House Republicans voted on Thursday night to toughen a border security bill by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to build five fences along 698 miles of the United States border with Mexico to block the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into this country." ... "The amendment to the bill would require the construction of the fences along stretches of land in California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona that have been deemed among the most porous corridors of the border." ... "The vote on the amendment was a victory for conservatives who had long sought to build such a fences along the Mexican border. But the vote was sharply assailed by Democrats, who compared the fences to the Berlin Wall in Germany. Twelve Republicans also voted against the amendment." -By Rachel L. Swarns -NYTimes

- Government - Terrorism - Law - Civil Liberties - Wisconsin - Idaho
"Senate may decide fate of Patriot Act's expiring provisions." ... "The Senate was still weighing a proposed accord with the House to extend the expiring 16 provisions of the law enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. But that compromise appeared to lack the necessary votes to succeed." ... "The White House and its congressional allies prefer to let the provisions expire and hold Democrats responsible in next year's midterm elections rather than let opponents whittle away at the law." ... "But the critics, who include senators with such wide-ranging views as Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Larry Craig of Idaho, say they don't want the Patriot Act to expire — they just want enough time to improve the bill to the point where it doesn't infringe on American liberties." -USATODAY

- US - World -Government - Secret - Telecommunications - Intelligence - Privacy -Terrorism - Law
"Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." ... "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials." ... "Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications." ... "The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau with contributions by Barclay Walsh -NYTimes

- 

- 

- IP - Microsoft - Wireless - EMail - Computer - Net - Business - Texas
"Microsoft Sued Over Mobile E-Mail Patents: Mobile E-mail vendor Visto has sued Microsoft, claiming Windows Mobile violates its patents. Visto also teamed with NTL, which sued RIM." ... "Mobile e-mail technology vendor Visto Thursday claimed that Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 platform violates its patents and has signed a licensing agreement with NTP, which has sued Research In Motion for alleged patent violations." ... "In addition, NTP has acquired an equity stake in Visto, the company said in a statement." ... "Visto said in a statement that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft in U.S. District Court in Texas that covers three specific patents owned by Visto. The complaint asks the court to prohibit Microsoft from improperly using Visto's intellectual property and asks for compensation." -MobilePipeline.com via -InformationWeek

- Books - Library - Languages
"Study: 1 In 20 Can't Read English." ... "An estimated in one in 20 U.S. adults is not literate in English, which means 11 million people lack the skills to perform everyday tasks, a federal study shows." ... "The 11 million adults who are not literate in English include people who may be fluent in another language, such as Spanish, but are unable to comprehend text in English." -AP via -CBSNews

- Lebanon - Syria - Political - Intelligence - Terrorism
"UN extends Lebanon murder probe, chastises Syria." ... "The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend for six months the international probe into the murder of a Lebanese leader and told Syria it was not co-operating fully with investigators." ... "The resolution also authorises the U.N. commission to provide technical assistance to the Beirut government investigating a string of other politically motivated murders or attempted killings in the last year." ... "Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who headed the U.N. inquiry, on Monday released a 25-page report saying new evidence had reinforced his earlier judgement that Syrian intelligence officials and their Lebanese allies, were involved in the killing." -By Evelyn Leopold -Reuters

- EU -Turkey - Author - Law -History
"Turkey, not author, on trial, EU exec says: Many see test of free speech in Istanbul today." ... "Orhan Pamuk, 53, was expected to appear in court in the Istanbul district of Sisli, charged with "public denigration of Turkish identity." The charge stems from an interview he gave to a Swiss magazine in February in which he said that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it."" ... "Pamuk, a prolific writer who has been compared to James Joyce and Salman Rushdie, was referring to two of the most profound issues in modern Turkey: The brutal repression of Kurdish separatists throughout the past two decades and the genocide campaign perpetrated by Ottoman Turkish forces from 1915 to 1918 that claimed the lives of about 1.2 million of the collapsing empire's Armenian subjects." -By Amberin Zaman -LAtimes via -HoustonChronicle.com

- Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Prisons- Law -Arizona
"Bush backs down on proposed torture ban." ... "President Bush on Thursday abandoned his opposition to an anti-torture amendment by Sen. John McCain in the face of overwhelming support for the measure in Congress." ... "Bush backed down from a veto threat after being unable to muster support from one-third of either the House or Senate, even though his own Republican Party controls both chambers. The measure by McCain, R-Ariz., is attached to the annual defense spending bill that funds the war on terrorism." ... "The amendment says no one in U.S. government custody, whether prisoner of war or terrorist," shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," regardless of where the prisoner is being held." -By John Diamond with contributions by David Jackson -USATODAY

- US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence
"Bush Admits Mistakes but Defends War: He accepts responsibility for acting on flawed intelligence but says the invasion was justified. Aides hope his candor will boost his ratings." ... "President Bush said Wednesday that he accepted responsibility for deciding to wage war in Iraq in part on the basis of faulty intelligence, but that he remained convinced history would conclude he had done the right thing." ... "Speaking hours before Iraqis began arriving at the polls to elect a new government, Bush acknowledged miscalculations and mistakes before and after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003." ... ""It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush told a group of political leaders and scholars at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center. "As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."" -By Warren Vieth -LAtimes

- US - World - Prisons -Florida -Georgia
"House Defies Bush and Backs McCain on Detainee Torture." ... "In an unusual bipartisan rebuke to the Bush administration, the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed Senator John McCain's measure to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world." ... "Although the vote was nonbinding, it put the Republican-controlled House on record in support of Mr. McCain's provision for the first time, at the very moment when the senator, a Republican, is at a crucial stage of tense negotiations with the White House, which strongly opposes his measure." ... "Representative C. W. Bill Young of Florida, head of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, was one of 121 Republicans who voted against Mr. McCain's language. One Democrat, Jim Marshall of Georgia, voted against it; 200 Democrats and one independent supported it." -By Eric Schmitt -NYTimes

- Iraq
"With delight and fervour, Iraqis cast ballots." ... "There may not be the same sense of history this time round, but the joy and determination of Iraqi voters emerging from dictatorship is still evident." ... "Young and old, able-bodied and infirm, they streamed to polls for the third time in 11 months on Thursday, this time to elect a four-year parliament." ... "While not as novel as the first post-Saddam Hussein election in January, participation was more widespread. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the earlier poll for an interim assembly, flocked to vote this time, determined not to miss out on power again." -By Luke Baker -Reuters via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk

- Military -Intelligence - Law - Secrets - Arizona
"New Army Rules May Snarl Talks With McCain on Detainee Issue." ... "The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by [Arizona Republican] Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday." ... "The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said." ... "The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations." -By Eric Schmitt with contributions by Joel Brinkley -NYTimes

- Canada - US - World - Drugs - Internet - Privacy
"Meth addicts' other habit: Online theft." ... "Hot on the trail of identity thieves, veteran [Alberta, Canada] Edmonton Police Service detectives Al Vonkeman and Bob Gauthier last winter hustled to a local motel, a cinder-block establishment where rooms rent by the hour." ... "Inside Room 24 the detectives found meth pipes, stolen credit cards, notebooks with handwritten notations about fraudulent transactions and printouts of stolen identity data." ... "Evidence in the motel room would ultimately lead them to a much bigger revelation: The Edmonton ring had gone global." ... "It no longer relied solely on dumpster-diving, mailbox-pilfering street addicts to supply stolen credit cards, checks and account statements, the grist for local thefts. Instead, it had advanced to complex joint ventures, conducted over the Internet, in partnership with organized cybercrime rings outside the country." ... "What's happening in Edmonton is happening to one degree or another in communities across the USA and Canada — anywhere meth addicts are engaging in identity theft and can get on the Internet, say police, federal law enforcement officials and Internet security experts." -By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz -USATODAY

- US - World - Oil
"Oil imports help push trade gap to record high." ... "The U.S. international trade deficit jumped to a record $68.9 billion in October, the government said Wednesday, prompting economists to warn that growth could be slower than forecast in the fourth quarter of 2005." ... "Still, stock markets rallied on a separate Labor Department report showing prices for imported goods fell 1.7% in November, as oil prices dropped from post-hurricane highs. Tamer inflation could relieve pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep raising interest rates. Also Wednesday, a group of top CEOs predicted strong growth ahead." -By Barbara Hagenbaugh -USATODAY

- US - World - Iraq - Death Penalty - UN
"Rice Scolds Holdouts on Iraq Trial: Nations not aiding the Hussein proceedings are ducking duty to law and human rights, she says." ... "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sharply criticized other nations Tuesday for failing to provide support for the trial of Saddam Hussein, saying that the world community's "effective boycott of Saddam's trial is only harming the Iraqi people."" ... "U.S. officials have differed with many other governments almost from the outset of the war on how to conduct trials of Hussein and top aides. The U.S. and its Iraqi allies wanted the trials to be overseen by national authorities in Iraq, whereas officials with the U.N. and from many other countries favored hybrid proceedings with a larger international component." ... "Officials of other governments, including many in Europe, have said they would avoid a proceeding they feared could be seen as an American-run show trial. They also have been put off by the possible death penalty, which is legal in Iraq and the United States but banned in much of the world." -By Paul Richter with contributions by Richard Boudreaux -LAtimes

-Privacy - Law - Terrorism
"An 11th-hour drive to amend Patriot Act: Congress is set to vote Friday on extending parts of the law, but some say privacy needs protecting." ... "An unusual coalition of lawmakers and activists opposed to parts of the USA Patriot Act is mounting a last push to persuade Congress to take more time before voting to extend some of the law's most controversial provisions." ... "At issue is whether Congress has been rigorous enough in assessing how the Patriot Act - which the White House calls vital to its war on terror - has been implemented. Many lawmakers were stunned by recent press reports, denied but not corrected by the Justice Department, that the FBI has issued as many as 30,000 "national security letters" since the law was passed nearly unanimously in 2001. The letters order private and public entities to turn over records and other private data about Americans - and remain silent about it." -By Gail Russell Chaddock -CSMonitor

- Iraq - TV
"Iraqis Grasp the Art of TV Debate, With Gloves On: The airwaves are rife with candidate forums featuring polite speech in a nation torn by war." ... "For the first time, the televised campaign debate has come to Iraq, and it has brought with it a level of civility and political discourse far different from that found on the nation's often bloody streets." ... "Across Iraq, politicians of all stripes moved with fear as they campaigned for Thursday's parliamentary election. On Tuesday, a Sunni Arab candidate was slain in Ramadi, the fourth office-seeker to be assassinated in recent weeks." ... "But in Iraqi TV studios, it's a different story." ... "Politicians are now free to use the medium of televised debates to expose voters to their styles, images and rhetorical flourishes. And here, the tone has been polite." (1, 2) -By Louise Roug with contributions by Shamil Aziz, Saif Rasheed and Asmaa Waguih -LAtimes

- Iraq - Prison
"Fatal Torture of Inmates Suspected: Security forces may have physically abused or starved two detainees, the head of an inquiry says. In Ramadi, a Sunni Arab candidate is slain." ... "Detainees told investigators that the two inmates were tortured or starved to death, but prison officials say the pair died of natural causes." ... "U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters Tuesday that in all, at least 120 prisoners had allegedly been abused by Iraqi security forces, more than previously disclosed by the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. As many as 18 may have died at a Baghdad detention center that was first identified last month in a Los Angeles Times report." -By Borzou Daragahi and Louise Roug with contributions by Richard Boudreaux -LAtimes

- Internet - Media
"AOL founder calls for breakup of Time Warner: Merger weighed online company down, Case says." ... "Steve Case, architect of the $112 billion merger of Time Warner Inc. and America Online, joined Carl Icahn this week in pressing for a breakup of the company." ... "Case, who holds about $250 million of Time Warner shares, wrote that he hasn't spoken with Icahn or his advisers." -Bloomberg via -SeattlePI.NWsource

- Water -US - Turkey - Police - Connecticut
"Congress turns attention to cruise safety." ... "George Allen Smith IV vanished from a Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ship in the Mediterranean 10 days after his wedding last summer. His family says he was a victim of foul play covered up by the cruise ship line to avoid bad publicity." ... "Smith's wife, Jennifer Hagel Smith, says ship officials forced her from the vessel after her husband's disappearance and abandoned her in Turkey, where she ended up at a police station and later a hospital with no food, money, clothing or ticket home." -AP via -USATODAY

- Microsoft - IM-Messaging - Telecom - Computer - Business
"Microsoft, MCI team on Net phone service: Initial offering to allow only outbound calls from PC." ... "The agreement, announced late Monday, gives the Redmond [Washington] company a bigger stake in the consumer segment of the burgeoning online phone business. But for now, at least, Microsoft says it will offer only outbound calls from PCs to regular phones -- unlike some rivals that will offer the ability to receive calls on a PC from a phone, as well." ... "The decision to partner with a telecom company could give Microsoft an important ally as it moves further into the online voice market. The company sees the service as a "natural extension" of the free PC-to-PC voice and video features already offered as part of its instant-messaging program, said Brian Arbogast, an MSN corporate vice president." -By Todd Bishop -SeattlePI.NWsource

- Web - Business - Microsoft
"Adobe merger may help it fend off Microsoft." ... "Adobe Systems and Macromedia spent more than a decade as fierce rivals in the software market. Now they are hoping that by banding together they can be better positioned to face increasingly aggressive competition from Microsoft." ... "Early this month, Adobe completed its $3.4 billion acquisition of Macromedia, giving it control of Flash, Macromedia's crown jewel, a software tool for developing multimedia applications for the Web. The move cements Adobe's dominant position in the market for electronic document management and helps round out its collection of software for art directors, Web designers and video producers." -By Laurie J. Flynn -NYTimes via -SeattlePI.NWsource

- Hurricane Katrina - Disaster - Government - Politics
"Battle brews over a bigger military role: The Pentagon tilts toward taking more authority in major disasters - worrying governors, lawmakers." ... "The lessons learned from hurricane Katrina appear to be putting the Pentagon on a collision course with governors and lawmakers worried about the expanding role of the military in disaster response." ... "Gaining currency at the highest levels of the Pentagon is the idea that during a catastrophic event - either natural or terrorist - the Department of Defense should replace the Department of Homeland Security as the agency in charge of the federal response." ... "In many ways, the notion is limited, affecting only how the federal government deploys its own resources. Yet in a nation founded on a distrust of military control, any suggestion of giving the armed forces greater authority on American soil faces centuries-old skepticism. Moreover, it comes at a time when governors are already feeling besieged by an administration that, they feel, is too eager to wrest power from them." -By Mark Sappenfield -CSMonitor

- US - Taiwan
"US diplomat had affair with spy: A former top US diplomat has pleaded guilty to not disclosing a relationship with a Taiwanese intelligence officer." ... "Donald Keyser, 62, also pleaded guilty to illegally removing classified documents from the US State Department where he was employed until 2004." -BBC /News

- Psychology - Drugs - Science - Alabama
"Parkinson's hope over 'implants': US scientists have moved a step closer to developing a brain implant therapy for Parkinson's disease symptoms." ... "The most common drug treatment for the brain condition is levodopa, but the pills can leave people susceptible to involuntary movements such as twitches." ... "The Alabama University team found in tests on six patients, eye cells which produce levodopa can be implanted safely and without the side effects." ... "The study was published in the Archives of Neurology journal."-BBC /News

- California - Los Angeles - History - Politics
"Stanley Tookie Williams executed: Crips gang co-founder put to death for 4 murders." ... "Stanley Tookie Williams -- the cofounder of the violent Crips street gang who became an anti-gang crusader while on death-row -- died by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 killings of four people in two Los Angles [California] robberies." ... "Williams' case set off intense debates over the death penalty and redemption, with celebrities, activists and anti-death penalty advocates saying his initiatives and anti-gang message from behind bars had proven his life was worth saving. He had even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature by an array of college professors, a Swiss lawmaker and others." ... "Before Williams went to the execution chamber, the stepmother of one of the men Williams was convicted of killing said she felt "justice is going to be done tonight."" ... "[...] Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and a prominent death penalty opponent, compared the death penalty to "gang justice."" ... ""Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you -- and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do," she said. "You kill, and we kill you. And that's what the United States of America is doing with this."" -With contributions by Ted Rowlands, Kareen Wynter, and Bill Mears -CNN

- Australia
"Racial Violence Erupts in Sydney for Second Successive Night." ... "Sydney erupted into a second night of racial violence as gangs of young men of Middle-Eastern appearance attacked people in streets and smashed cars and shop windows in the city's southern and western suburbs, police said." ... "Police tried to block bridges and roads to the beachside suburb of Cronulla when a convoy of about 70 cars carrying armed youths drove to the area to retaliate for the bashing of people of Middle-Eastern appearance during a riot by about 5,000 residents protesting an attack on two volunteer lifeguards a week ago." -By Miriam Steffens -Bloomberg

- 

- Money - Texas - California - Florida - Opinion
"Can Congress police its ethics? Criminal probes are exposing corrupt practices in Congress, prompting calls for reform of ethics standards." ... "With a flurry of corruption indictments and related plea agreements threatening to become a storm, Congress is feeling the heat on ethics reform." ... "Criminal investigations in Texas, California, and Florida are shining a bright light on standards of conduct in Congress, helping sink public confidence in the institution to its lowest point in more than a decade." ... "Since 1998, lobbyists report spending some $13 billion to influence Congress, the White House, and federal agencies, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Over the same period, more than 200 former members of Congress and 42 former agency heads have registered as federal lobbyists." ... "Nearly 90 percent of Americans say that political corruption is a serious problem, according to an AP-Ipsos poll." -By Gail Russell Chaddock -CSMonitor

- Telecommunications - Computer - Business
"Companies Embracing Skype—With Reservations." ... "With more than 13 million users worldwide [other sources cite 54 million users], Skype has quickly become the Internet's favorite free peer-to-peer voice-over-IP application." ... "Like most grass-roots Internet technologies, Skype (developed by Skype Technologies S.A., in Luxembourg), started as a hobbyist tool that soon began to take root in the business market. The company says that almost half of its customers are now using Skype for business communications." ... "Currently, PC-to-PC calls, aka Skype-to-Skype calls, are free. Skype calls that cross the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to reach a land-line or mobile phone must use the SkypeOut service. The company charges for SkypeOut: a few cents per minute in addition to the cost of terminating the call—a cost that can increase dramatically if the receiving party is international, on a mobile phone or both." (1, 2) -By David Spark -eWEEK

- Animals - Plants - Science
"Extinction alert for 800 species." ... "Researchers have compiled a global map of sites where animals and plants face imminent extinction." ... "The list, drawn up by a coalition of conservation groups, covers almost 800 species which they say will disappear soon unless urgent measures are taken." ... "Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers say protecting some of these sites would cost under $1,000 per year." ... "They come together under the umbrella of a relatively new organisation, the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), whose aim is exactly what the name implies." -By Richard Black -BBC /News

- Animals - Water - Science
"Study: Arctic Killer Whales High in Toxins." ... "Killer whales have the highest concentration of man-made toxins of all Arctic mammals tested in Europe because of the oceangoing predators' taste for fatty fish, according to a study released Monday." ... "Man-made toxins, such as PCBs, build up in animal fat and become more concentrated in moving up the food chain. Most toxins, often from household products, are carried to Arctic waters by ocean currents, winds, or in migratory fish and animals." -AP via -Forbes

- Norway - Animals - Science
"Arctic orcas highly contaminated: Killer whales have become the most contaminated mammals in the Arctic, new research indicates." ... "Norwegian scientists have found that killer whales - or orcas, as they are sometimes known - have overtaken polar bears at the head of the toxic table." ... "The Norwegian Polar Institute tested blubber samples taken from creatures in Tysfjord in the Norwegian Arctic." ... "The chemicals they found included pesticides, flame retardants and PCBs - which used to be used in many industrial processes." -By Paddy Clark -BBC /News

- US Immigration - History - Legal
"Study: Immigration grows, reaching record numbers." ... "Despite tougher border scrutiny after 9/11, a total of 7.9 million immigrants have come to the USA since 2000, more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history, figures released Monday show." ... "Almost half, or 3.7 million, entered illegally, according to an analysis of Census data by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates controlling the flow of legal and illegal immigrants." ... "An estimated 11 million immigrants live illegally in the USA." -By Haya El Nasser and Kathy Kiely -USATODAY

- US -Iraq - World - Intelligence - Politics
"Peace-making a core mission in new Pentagon policy." ... "After years of internal debate, the Pentagon has embraced a fundamental change in policy which calls for the U.S. armed forces to be equally adept at waging war and making peace." ... "The new course, announced in a Pentagon directive, follows widespread criticism of the conduct of the war in Iraq, where U.S. forces scored a swift, decisive victory over conventional opponents but found themselves ill-equipped to deal with post-combat chaos and an increasingly effective insurgency." ... "The directive says that establishing order and security, restoring essential services and meeting the humanitarian needs of the population of a vanquished country were a "core U.S. military mission.""" ... "The directive specifies the need for better language skills, more regional expertise, better intelligence and counterintelligence, more emphasis on studying foreign cultures and more coordination with foreign governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations." (1, 2) -By Bernd Debusmannn -Reuters

- Psychology - Labor
"Living Well: Years of boosting kids' self-esteem may have backfired." ... "Many child development researchers will argue that the "spoiled kids syndrome" stems directly from two decades of studying ways to elevate self-esteem of children." ... "The argument is simple. We have gone overboard on getting kids to feel good about themselves. The standards for competence have been lowered and false praise is passed out like cups of water at a marathon." ... "Fallout abounds. One result is kids seem less prepared for hardship. "There's a clear sense that things have come easier for this generation of kids," said Kevin Haggerty, director of the Raising Healthy Children Project at the University of Washington. "They feel down and depressed when they get older and confront failure."" ... "Corporate human relations executives report an intriguing offshoot. Younger workers with the heightened sense of entitlement and easier path are much less patient waiting for job promotions." -By Bob Condor -SeattlePI.NWsource

- Animals - Plants - Science
"Extinction "Hotspots" Revealed in New Study." ... "Extinct." ... "This moniker of doom is destined for 794 species of animals and trees currently eking out an existence in 595 sites around the world, conservationists warned today." ... ""All these are spots where extinction is likely to strike next if we don't do anything," said Taylor Ricketts, director of science for the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C." ... ""That 'if we dont do anything' is the big part of this idea," he added. "These places present the most clear opportunity to slow down and stem the extinction episode we are in now."" ... "Ricketts and colleagues with the recently formed conservation group Alliance for Zero Extinction will publish their findings in the December 20 issue of the research journal Proceedings of the National  Academy of Sciences." (1, 2) -By John Roach -NationalGeographic>News

- France - Terrorism - Intelligence
"French target 'Islamic network': Police investigating suspected plans for attacks in France have arrested at least 20 people during raids in and around Paris." ... "They described the arrests as a "major operation aimed at disbanding an Islamist network linked to terrorism"." ... "Agents of the domestic intelligence service, the DST, raided homes around Paris before dawn." -BBC /News

- UK - Oil -Disaster - Water - Environment
"UK oil depot fire 'largest of kind'." ... "Firefighters are battling blazes at three tanks still burning after Sunday's massive explosions at a fuel depot north of London while investigators search for clues as to what caused powerful explosions that started the blaze." ... "Using fire suppressant foam and water, the firefighters successfully put down fires in 10 other tanks at Buncefield Oil Depot near Hemel Hempstead and kept the flames away from seven more after the blasts, which injured 43 people and were felt 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in London." ... "The fire department said they were "making good progress" against the fire." ... "Fire and environmental officials spent much of the night discussing how to tackle the blaze without polluting local water supplies." -AP -CNN

- Iran - Religious - Nuclear - Military - Terrorism - Politics
"Iran's not-so-secret hatred." ... "Since taking office, Ahmadinejad has pushed Iran further into hatred, intolerance and theocratic tyranny--quite a feat in a repressive country that funds terrorists around the world. He has sacked many of the pragmatists in the government and replaced them with hard-liners. There are signs that even the despotic mullahs who run the country are getting nervous. They reportedly moved recently to strip him of some of his power." ... "If only the threat from Iran were limited to fierce rhetoric." ... "Just a few days ago, Mohamed ElBaradei, the ultra-cautious head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, hinted that Iran could be a lot closer to developing a bomb than was thought previously. He said the international community is "losing patience" with Iran. Robert Joseph, a top State Department official, said Friday that Iran is "very aggressive, very determined to develop nuclear weapons."" -ChicagoTribune

- Iran - Israel - Nuclear
"Iran's leader drawing fire: President Ahmadinejad is proving too radical even for some Iranian conservatives." ... "Courting confrontation both at home and abroad, Iran's hard-line president is inserting like-minded ideologues into key positions. He's holding strong to Iran's nuclear ambitions. And he's inviting ire in the West with more anti-Israel rhetoric." (1, 2) -By Scott Peterson -CSMonitor

- Children - Science - UK
"Colds 'may trigger child cancers': Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers." ... "The University of Newcastle-led team looked at 3,000 childhood cancers in 0 to 14-year-olds from 1954 to 1998, the European Journal of Cancer reported." ... "Researchers found unusual clusters of brain tumours and leukaemia which were typical of infection-related disease." ... "But children would need genetic factors to make them susceptible, they added. Experts said more evidence was needed." ... "It was even possible infections caught by mothers while pregnant could trigger the cancers, the report said." ... "But the researchers stressed the findings did not mean people could "catch cancer"."-BBC /News

- Alaska - Oil - Business - Environment - Law
"White House pushes Congress on Alaska drilling." ... "Bush administration officials on Monday urged Congress to include opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling in a broad budget-cutting bill that could see a vote this week." ... "The Senate included ANWR in its package of spending cuts. But the House-passed budget bill dropped the ANWR drilling provision after a group of moderate Republicans threatened to vote against the measure if the drilling language was included." ... "The Bush administration stepped up its lobbying efforts to give oil companies access to the refuge." (1, 2) -By Chris Baltimore with contributions by Richard Cowan -Reuters

- Samuel Alito - Bill Frist - Tennessee - West-Virginia - Law
"Fight looms if Republicans change Senate rules." ... "Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd warned on Monday that he would bring the U.S. Senate to a virtual standstill if Republicans carry out a threat to change its rules by outlawing filibusters on judicial nominations." ... "Byrd of West Virginia, a staunch defender of the Senate's often arcane rules and procedures, was responding to a comment by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [Republican, Tennessee], who said Sunday he might move to restrict filibusters if Democrats try to block the nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court." (1, 2) -By Richard Cowan -Reuters

- Woman - Food - Nutrition - Sweden
"Study: Tea may help fight ovarian cancer." ... "Swedish researchers have found tantalizing but far-from-conclusive evidence that drinking a couple of cups of tea every day might help reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer." ... "Those [women in the study] who reported drinking two or more cups of tea a day were 46 percent less likely to develop the disease than women who drank no tea. Drinking less than two cups also appeared to help, but not as much." -By Lindsey Tanner -AP via -MercuryNews

- US - Iraq -Military - Politics
"Bush Estimates 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War." ... "In a rare, unscripted moment, President Bush on Monday estimated 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war, the first time he has publicly acknowledged the high price Iraqis have paid in the push for democracy." ... "``I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,'' Bush said. ``We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.''" ... "The U.S. military does not release its tally of Iraqi dead, but there is some consensus from outside experts that roughly 30,000 is a credible number. White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush was not giving an official figure but simply repeating public estimates." -By Nedra Pickler -AP via -Guardian.co.uk

- Iraq - Law -US - Military
"Early Voting Begins in Iraq; Nine Killed." ... "Thousands of Iraqi forces will be protecting polling stations, with U.S. and other coalition troops ready to help in case of a major attack." ... "Most attention has focused on Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election to protest the continued U.S. military presence. That enabled the Shiites and Kurds to dominate parliament, a move that sharpened communal tensions and fueled the Sunni-dominated insurgency." ... "This time, more Sunni Arab candidates are in the race, and changes in the election law to allocate most seats by province instead of based on a party's nationwide total all but guaranteed a sizable Sunni bloc in the next assembly." -By Qassim Abdul-Zahra -AP via -Guardian.co.uk

- Texas - Tom DeLay - Political - Maps - 2004 Election
"Supreme Court to rule on Texas poll maps case." ... "The US Supreme Court said on Monday it would rule on controversial maps for electoral districts in Texas that were engineered by Tom DeLay, the former majority leader in the House of Representatives, to increase Republican strength in Congress." ... "The new maps, drawn in 2003, played a key role in the 2004 congressional elections, when five incumbent Democrats in Texas lost their seats in the House, boosting Republicans' majority on Capitol Hill and enhancing Mr DeLay's image as a powerful political force." ... "The high court review is also likely to draw fresh attention to recent disclosures that staff attorneys at the US Department of Justice objected to the Texas maps, arguing that they would disadvantage minority voters. Those criticisms were over-ruled by senior political appointees at the department." -By Holly Yeager -FT.com

- UN - Lebanon - Syria - Terrorism
"Update 7: U.N.: Evidence Solidifies Hariri Report." ... "New evidence has reinforced investigators' belief that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, a U.N. probe said Monday." ... "The report said Syria was moving at a "slow pace" in meeting council demands for cooperation. The document also cited evidence that Syrian authorities had arrested and threatened relatives of one witness, Husam Taher Husam, shortly before he recanted testimony that was central to the original findings, spelled out in an October report." ... ""Preliminary investigation leads to the conclusion that Mr. Husam is being manipulated by the Syrian authorities," the report said." -APvia -Forbes

- UN - Syria - Lebanon - Terrorism
"Hariri Murder Coordinated by Spy Services, UN Says (Update2)." ... "New witnesses confirmed that Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services plotted the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, the German prosecutor investigating the crime said, and he urged the Syrian government to cooperate more fully with his probe." ... "Investigator Detlev Mehlis cited additional information that ``points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals and planning of other criminal activities.''" ... "Syria, led by President Bashar al-Assad, has denied any involvement in the truck-bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others on Feb. 14 in Beirut." -By Bill Varner -Bloomberg

- Lebanon - Syria - France - UN - Media - Police
"Anti-Syrian legislator killed by Beirut car bomb." ... "A car bomb killed Lebanese newspaper magnate and anti-Syrian legislator Gebran Tueni in Beirut on Monday, less than 24 hours after he returned from Paris [France] where he lived for several months fearing assassination." ... "Several politicians blamed Syria and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he would ask the U.N. Security Council to investigate a series of attacks that have rocked Lebanon since the February 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri." ... "Syria denies any role in the attacks and said the latest killing was timed to smear it." ... "Police said Tueni, publisher of the An-Nahar daily newspaper, was among four people killed in the explosion that destroyed his armoured vehicle in the Mekalis area of mainly Christian east Beirut. More than 30 people were wounded." (1, 2, 3) -By Nadim Ladki and Lin Noueihed with contributions by Alaa Shahine and Ayat Basma -Reuters

- California - Los Angeles - Law - History
"Gov. Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency for Crips Co-Founder." ... "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today that he would not grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, whose bid to avoid being put to death shortly after midnight tonight has gained wide attention." ... "Governor Schwarzenegger's decision not to halt Mr. Williams' execution by injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday is his third rejection of a petition for a stay of execution or clemency since he took office in 2003. Clemency has not been granted to a death row inmate in California since 1967." ... "Mr. Williams, 51, is the co-founder of the Crips gang of Los Angeles and has been on death row since 1981, following his conviction for murdering four people in 1979." -By Sarah Kershaw and Shadi Rahimi .NYTimes

- Death Penalty -Law - California- Illinois
"Putting Tookie in Context." ... "While I have opposed the death penalty as long as I have been aware of it, the media attention generated by the Tookie Williams case has left me with more ambivalence than outrage, raising issues for me about the death penalty, the so-called criminal justice system, gang violence, and the peculiar manner by which Black leaders set priorities." ... "Stanley Tookie Williams is just one of the 3,415 people on death row in the United States, just one of nearly 650 on death row in California.  More than 40 percent of those awaiting execution are African American, even though we are less than 13 percent of the nation's population." ... "The death penalty isn't fair – too many death row inmates have been unrepresented or inadequately represented. Too many have been convicted on faulty circumstantial or eyewitness evidence.  Too many mistakes have been uncovered after conviction, so many that the state of Illinois has suspended executions indefinitely." -By Julianne Malveaux -BET.com

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Telecommunications - 

- 

- Japan
"Mizuho Says Trader Error to Cost It at Least $224 Mln (Update1)." ... "Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan's second-biggest bank, said a typing error at its brokerage arm, which triggered $3.5 billion of trades, has cost the bank at least 27 billion yen ($225 million)." ... "The error at Mizuho Securities Co. sparked trades in shares of J-Com Co., a company valued at $93 million. More than 700,000 J-Com shares changed hands in its stock market debut yesterday, following an erroneous sell order from Mizuho." ... "At 9:27 a.m. yesterday, Mizuho's brokerage wrongly put an order to sell 610,000 shares for 1 yen each, [Mizuho Securities' president, Makoto] Fukuda said. It had intended to sell 1 share for 610,000 yen for a client." -By Takahiko Hyuga -Bloomberg

- Illinois - Transportation - Disaster
"Southwest plane slides off Chicago runway, 1 dead." ... "A Southwest Airlines plane landing in a snowstorm in Chicago slid off a runway on Thursday and crashed through a fence and onto a busy road, colliding with two cars. A boy in one of them was killed." ... "The Boeing 737, which had flown to Midway Airport from Baltimore with 98 passengers and five crew, ended up in an intersection with its nose on the ground after the front gear collapsed, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said." (1, 2) -By Andrew Stern -Reuters

- UK - Auto - Transportation
"End of the road for the traditional London bus." ... "The "London bus" - the iconic, ever-popular double-decker with its half-cab, old-fashioned bell, conductor and open rear platform, the star of postcards, guide book covers and film - will run for the last time today on a mainstream route." ... "When the number 159 rolls into Brixton garage in south London, an era will have ended for the Routemaster, as it is known. It also marks the end of the road for the bus conductor in London." -By Simon Briscoe -FT.com

-

- US - Iraq
"A tale of 2 scarred cities: Najaf and Mosul." ... "Although President Bush said Wednesday that residents in Najaf and Mosul are "gaining a personal stake in a peaceful future," critics in the two Iraqi cities cite corruption, undemocratic institutions, persistent violence and stalled reconstruction." ... "Najaf is a largely peaceful Shiite city 100 miles south of Baghdad that has not suffered from the sectarian attacks ravaging other parts of the country. But rivalries between Shiite factions have occasionally become violent, and many complain that militant political parties and militias dominate city government and security forces." -By Alaa al-Morjani and Sindbad Ahmed -AP via -ChicagoTribune

- Iran - Israel - Saudi Arabia - Palestine -Germany - Austria -Military - History
"Update 2: Iranian President: Move Israel to Europe." ... "Iran's hard-liner president, who has called for Israel's destruction, said Thursday that the Jewish state should be moved to Europe if the West wants to make up for the Holocaust." ... "Speaking to reporters at an Islamic summit in the Muslim holy city of Mecca [Saudi Arabia], Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implied that European countries backed the founding of Israel in the Middle East in 1948 out of guilt over the Holocaust." ... ""Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps," Ahmadinejad said. "Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned."" ... ""Let's give some land to the Zionists in Europe or in Germany or Austria, so they can have their government there," he said. "They faced injustice in Europe, so why do the repercussions fall on the Palestinians? Offer a piece of land from Europe, and we will back this decision and will not attack this government."" -AP via -Forbes

- Iran - Israel - Saudi Arabia - Britain - Germany - History
"Iran's Ahmadinejad casts doubt on Holocaust." ... "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt the Holocaust took place and suggested the Jewish state of Israel be moved to Europe." ... "His comments, reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which sparked widespread international outrage." ... "The latest comments also provoked quick condemnation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called them "totally unacceptable" and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said "I condemn them unreservedly. They have no place in civilised political debate."" -By Paul Hughes with contributions by Jeffrey Heller -Reuters.co.uk

- Nebraska - Police
"Biker cleared after 128mph chase: A US motorcyclist who zoomed through Nebraska at over 128mph (205kph) has been cleared of reckless driving." ... "Judge John Steinheider reluctantly ruled that speed alone was not enough to prove reckless driving under Nebraska law." ... "Biker Jacob Carman accelerated away from a traffic policeman after he was clocked at 82mph (131km/h)." ... "State prosecutors admitted that they could have won a conviction for speeding, but had opted to pursue a charge of reckless driving." -BBC /News

- US - Iraq - Politics - Police
"Bus bombing kills 30 in Baghdad: A suicide attacker has detonated a bomb on a bus in Baghdad, killing at least 30 people, Iraqi police said." ... "The vehicle was leaving al-Nahda bus station heading south for the Shia town of Nasiriya when the attack occurred." ... "Witnesses said the bus was gutted and left in flames by the explosion. Another 25 people are reported injured." ... "Iraq has been bracing for an increase in violence by anti-US insurgents ahead of the election next Thursday for the first full-term post-Saddam parliament." ... "Police believe the attacker waited until the bus was pulling away slowly from the station and jumped on board to avoid security checks." -BBC /News

- Music - Entertainment - Business - Secret - Privacy - Computer - Web - Hacking
"New security flaw vexes Sony BMG piracy battle: Expert says patch makes problem worse." ... "Sony BMG Music Entertainment has acknowledged a new security problem affecting nearly 6 million of its CDs, and a Princeton University computer expert said yesterday that a patch the company designed to fix the problem may only make things worse." ... "The problems for the company began last month, when computer programmer Matt Russinovich found that Sony BMG was shipping many of its music discs with a program called XCP." ... "XCP was designed to limit the number of times a user could copy the tunes on the disc, and to ensure that these copies could not be played on other computers. But the software also concealed itself on users' computers and was extremely difficult to remove. In addition, XCP secretly sent information about users' listening habits over the Internet to Sony BMG." -By Hiawatha Bray -Boston/Globe

- Israel- nWorld - Law - History
"Crystal joins Cross and Crescent: A diamond-shaped red crystal on a white background is to join the Red Cross and the Red Crescent as an emblem for ambulances and relief workers." ... "Geneva Convention member states voted by a two-thirds majority for the symbol which ends a decades-old row and opens the way for Israel to join." ... "Israel had been denied entry because its Red Shield was not approved." ... "Relief workers and ambulances bearing the Red Cross or Red Crescent symbols are protected under international law." ... "The Red Shield of David - or Magen David Adom - was not recognised by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and Arab states had blocked attempts to find an alternative symbol."-BBC /News

- Government - Disaster - Hurricane Katrina
"FEMA Chief Was Warned In 2004." ... "FEMA's top official was told more than a year before Hurricane Katrina that the agency's emergency response teams were unprepared for a major disaster and were operating under outdated plans, documents show." ... "An 11-page memo to Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from June 2004 described teams of national response managers that were not prepared and were getting "zero funding for training, exercise or team equipment."" ... "Those responders "provide the only practical, expeditious option for the (FEMA) director to field a cohesive team of his best people to handle the next big one," wrote William Carwile, one of FEMA's federal coordinating officers." ... "Carwile told Senate aides in a meeting this week that his memo largely was ignored at FEMA's headquarters, as were four budget requests over an 18-month period for money for the teams." -AP via -CBSNews

- Animals - Pets - Genetics
"Genetic Secrets of Man's Best Friend Revealed." ... "Scientists have decoded the dog genome. A boxer named Tasha, selected for her high degree of inbreeding, has had her genetic secrets puzzled out and then compared to partial genetic pictures of other breeds of dog and other mammals. It has been a long wait for humanity's first companion, domesticated from grey wolves at least 15,000 years ago." ... "Researchers first broke up Tasha's genome into small sections of genetic material, deciphered the makeup of each of those bits, and then pieced them together into a complete genetic map--the so-called whole genome shotgun strategy. Tasha's high degree of inbreeding simplified the task of decoding her 2.4 billion-letter genetic code by reducing the differences between her 39 chromosome pairs. The fact that she is a female, however, left the team without a picture of the canine Y chromosome." -By David Biello -ScientificAmerican

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- Virginia - Religion - Politics - Seniors
"Mayor charged with defrauding charity." ... "The mayor of the south-central Virginia city of Lynchburg was indicted over allegations that he looted a church charity of more than $30,000 and defrauded two people of their Social Security disability benefits." ... "Mayor Carl B. Hutcherson Jr. was charged with fraud, making false statements to federal officials and bank representatives, and obstruction of justice." ... "The federal indictment, issued Dec. 1 and unsealed Wednesday, alleges that Hutcherson was struggling to pay the bills at a funeral home he runs as he took money from the disability recipients and a charity connected to Trinity United Methodist Church, where he is pastor." -By Sue Lindsey -AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource

- US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Opinion - Economy
"Poll: Bush's Ratings Bump Up." ... "The President’s overall approval rating has risen from 35 percent in October to 40 percent now, and his ratings on handling the economy and the war in Iraq have also improved." ... "The Bush Administration continues to face criticism from many Democrats and other war opponents about the way pre-war intelligence was handled, and whether there truly was a compelling connection between Iraq and the terror threat to the United States. Fifty-two percent of Americans think the Bush Administration deliberately misled the public in making the case for war, while 44 percent say it did not." ... "An overwhelming majority of Americans think this Congress should be asking questions about pre-war intelligence. Fifty-six percent call it a very important line of questioning, and another 24 percent call it somewhat important." -CBSNews

- Washington - Gay
"Spokane voters oust mayor embroiled in sex scandal: Recall vote - James West, accused of offering city jobs and other favors to entice dates, will leave office Dec. 16." ... "Mayor James West was recalled from office Tuesday in a special election prompted by news accounts that he offered City Hall jobs and perks to young men he met in a gay Internet chat room." ... "West, 54, a Republican and former state legislator who voted against gay-friendly bills, must leave office when the election results are certified Dec. 16." ... "The Spokesman-Review newspaper conducted an undercover investigation and reported in a series of articles beginning May 5 that West visited gay chat rooms on his city-owned computer and offered internships and other favors to young men he hoped to have sex with." -By John K. Wiley -OregonLive.com/Oregonian

- School - Military - Gay - Free Speech
"Military Recruiting Bans Seem Doomed: The high court frowns on law schools' claims that free speech and gay rights would be violated." ... "The Supreme Court justices signaled Tuesday that they would uphold the military's right to recruit on college campuses and at law schools, despite its policy of excluding openly gay people from its ranks. The justices gave a thoroughly skeptical hearing to the position of some law faculties that they have a free-speech right to bar military recruiters, a claim that was upheld by a lower court." ... "U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the justices to reverse that ruling and to enforce a measure passed by Congress that says colleges and universities that take federal funds must give the military the same right to recruit on campuses as other employers." -By David G. Savage -LAtimes

- California - US Immigration
"Campbell Defeats Anti-Immigration Candidate to Win House Seat." ... "California Republican State Senator John Campbell won election to the U.S. Congress representing the 48th District in Orange County, defeating Jim Gilchrist, one of the founders of the Minutemen border security group." ... "The campaign in the Republican-dominated district highlights a split within the party between those, such as Gilchrist, who demand tighter controls on immigration, and those who would match improved border enforcement with the creation of a new guest- worker program for immigrants, as President George W. Bush has endorsed." ... "Campbell backs allowing undocumented immigrants in the U.S. to apply for temporary-worker status if they first pay a fine and return for a time to their country of origin." -By Nicholas Johnston -Bloomberg

- Government - Education - Money- Seniors
"Court: Disabled Can't Escape Student Loans." ... "America's seniors and disabled cannot escape debts from old student loans, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, freeing the government to pursue Social Security benefits as part of an effort to collect billions in delinquent loans." ... "The Bush administration had argued that the ability to withhold Social Security benefits is an important tool in the pursuit of $5.7 billion in student loan debt that is over 10 years old. Overall, outstanding loans total about $33 billion." -By Gina Holland -AP via -SFGate.com

- US - South Korea - Microsoft - Computer - Business
"Microsoft To Appeal Korean Antitrust Ruling: The company said it will appeal the decision, a process that could take years, and added that it does not plan to leave the Korean market as it had previously threatened to do." ... "Microsoft said Wednesday that it plans to appeal a sweeping decision leveled against it by the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) and added that it does not plan to leave the Korean market as it had previously threatened." ... "The KFTC's six-page findings were replete with complaints of "tying" of various Microsoft products. The regulatory agency also leveled a $31 million fine against the firm." ... "A translated version of the findings said, "The KFTC found that the tying practices by Microsoft proved to have eliminated competition and exacerbated monopolization of tied product market including streaming media server, streaming media player and instant messenger."" (1, 2) -By W. David Gardner-InformationWeek

- Japan - Iraq
"Japan extends Iraq troops mission: Japan has extended its military deployment in Iraq for another year." ... "The decision, announced after a meeting of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet, means the troops can stay until 14 December 2006." ... "Japan has about 500 troops in Samawa in southern Iraq, training Iraqi security forces and helping with reconstruction, but not engaging in combat roles." ... "However, there was media speculation that the troops could be pulled out before their new mandate is fully up." ... "The Japanese troops could be pulled out before the new expiration date if conditions change, either on the ground, or in the make-up of the coalition forces, Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday."-BBC /News

- Egypt - Politics
"Update 9: Eight Killed in Egyptian Voting Violence." ... "Police barricaded polling stations and fired tear gas and rubber bullets Wednesday to keep supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood from voting in the final day of parliamentary elections. At least eight people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy." ... "Supporters of the banned Brotherhood fought back, hurling stones and molotov cocktails and cornering security forces in some towns." ... "The last day of the vote, which stretched over a month, was by far the most violent. A total of at least 10 people have been killed during the three rounds of balloting, which began Nov. 9 and are considered a key test of President Hosni Mubarak's pledge to open the autocratic political system." -AP via -Forbes

- China - Water - Environment
"Chinese toxic spill official found dead." ... "A vice mayor in charge of evacuating a Chinese city after a chemical plant exploded has been found dead at home, a city official said on Wednesday, as a toxic river flow resulting from the accident continued to spread." ... "Wang Wei, vice mayor in the northeastern city of Jilin, had been in charge of dealing with the aftermath of the November 13 blast, state media reports said at the time." ... "Wang was quoted as saying that the accident would not cause widespread pollution. In fact 100 tons of cancer-causing benzene compounds spilled into the Songhua river which provides drinking water for the 9 million people of the city of Harbin. Tap water supplies had to be shut off for nearly a week." (1, 2) -By Ben Blanchard and Vivi Lin -Reuters

- Bill Frist - Rick Santorum - Tom DeLay - Medical - Law
"Terri Schiavo's widower takes aim at politicians." ... "Terri Schiavo's widower launched a political action committee on Wednesday aimed at defeating elected officials he accused of exploiting a tragedy for political gain by trying to block court orders that allowed his brain-damaged wife to die." ... "Michael Schiavo said in a news release that the group, TerriPAC, would raise money to campaign against members of Congress, mostly Republicans, who drafted and voted for legislation to intervene in the case." ... "Among Republicans it is targeting are Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas." -By Jane Sutton-Reuters

- Global - Environment- US - Canada - EU - UN - Technology
"UPDATE 2-U.S. comes under pressure at climate talks." ... "The European Union and host Canada piled pressure on the United States on Wednesday to join an international pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit the predicted chaos from global warming." ... "But the United States defended its policy of investing billions of dollars in cleaner technology to reduce emissions, brushing aside calls for it to commit to long-term U.N. discussions on slowing climate change,." ... ""One size does not fit all," said Paula Dobriansky, the U.S. under secretary for global affairs, who leads the American delegation to the Nov.28-Dec.9 U.N. climate talks in Montreal [Canada]." -By David Fogarty and Timothy Gardner -Reuters

- Iraq
"Hussein Trial Resumes in Ousted Dictator's Absence (Update1)." ... "The Baghdad trial of Saddam Hussein resumed today without the ousted Iraqi dictator after a four-hour break caused by his refusal to attend." ... "``The court will continue the proceedings and will inform the defendant about procedures during his absence,'' Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin told the tribunal trying Hussein and seven codefendants." ... "The statutes of the court trying Hussein entitle defendants to be tried in their presence, while Iraq's 1971 law on criminal proceedings allows a trial to continue in a defendant's absence if the person violated court rules." ... "Amin cited the criminal proceedings law, saying it permitted the judges to continue the trial in Hussein's absence." -By Alex Morales -Bloomberg

- Florida - Airline - Terrorism