New Hampshire Health News Digest

FOXNews.com - Brainroom: Saddam Hussein's Atrocities Chronicle of the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein: Hussein's regime killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and its neighbors for over two decades. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of Saddam's actions. Saddam had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered. 1980-88: Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead. 1983-1988: Documented chemical attacks by Iraqi regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths. 1988: Chemical attack on Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people. 1987-1988: Iraqi regime used chemical agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages. 1990-91: 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. 1991: Bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000. At least 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of ter...

deus ex machina � I’m a Resident of Second Life WUT? I’m a Resident of Second Life WUT? I was recently directed to an article by Clay Shirky blasting Second Life for its inaccuracy in reporting number of users. Second Life throws around a number that is actually only the number of avatars created in the world, NOT the number of unique human users. Their latest numbers report 2.2 million “Residents” (avatars), 833,000 logged in the last 60 days, and roughly 14,000 people currently online at the time I write this post (peak concurrency has been reported as high as 18,000 users at once). That’s 0.64% of their so-called “Residents” online at a time! Why so low? Maybe because they are all the same people? Compare this to WoW, where 7.5 million customers actively subscribe or play the game, with 660,000 concurrent users. 8.8% of the WoW player base is online together at a given time. Eve Online, which runs off of a single shard, has roughly 150,000 active subscribers and a peak user concurre...

LiveScience.com - Why We Have Sex: It's Cleansing Scientists have long wondered why organisms bother with sexual reproduction. It makes a whole lot more sense to just have a bunch of females that can clone themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Turns out sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into individual organisms so they could be easily weeded out by natural selection, a new computer model suggests. The classic explanation for the onset of whoopee, about 1 billion years ago, is that it provides a way for organisms to swap and shuffle genes and to create offspring with new gene combinations that might survive if the environment suddenly changes. But some scientists think this isn't enough of a justification to outweigh the many costs of getting together to make little ones. Just ask any single person—sexual organisms have to spend valuable time and resources finding and attracting mates. If all organisms were like starfishes a...

The Columbus Dispatch - Editorials : "‘Dispatch’ editorial on terrorism simplistic Wednesday, June 28, 2006 I respond to the June 20 Dispatch editorial 'Out of the frying pan.' What has happened in Somalia, for the majority of Somalis inside and those who are abroad, is a positive change. I truly suggest that we should not prejudge this change, or any change for that matter, based on the religious affiliation of those in power. It seems to me that there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to Muslims, Islam, Arabs and Palestinian issues. A view of the big picture seems to be missing. The assertion in the editorial, 'President Bush is right to be concerned about these developments. Regions of strict Muslim control and haters of Western culture tend to breed terrorists,' is overly simplistic. The line they hate us and our way of life has really become old. This is a ridiculous and simplistic response to a complex problem of major magnitude." This is a CAIR...

U.S. Is Detaining Iranians Caught in Raids in Iraq - New York Times U.S. Is Detaining Iranians Caught in Raids in Iraq By JAMES GLANZ and SABRINA TAVERNISE BAGHDAD, Dec. 24 — The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington. The Bush administration made no public announcement of the politically delicate seizure of the Iranians, though in response to specific questions the White House confirmed Sunday that the Iranians were in custody. Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said two Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids. The two had papers showing that they were accredited to work in Iraq, and he said they were turned over to the Iraqi authorities...

Ethiopia says forced into war with Somali Islamists---Top News---Reuters.com : "BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Sunday he was waging war against Somalia's Islamists to protect his country's sovereignty, intensifying a conflict that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa. It was Ethiopia's first public admission of military involvement in Somalia, where for the first time it sent warplanes on Sunday to pound the Islamist fighters now encircling the weak interim government. Ethiopian officials have said the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which now controls most of Somalia except for the government-held town of Baidoa, is a terrorist group backed by Ethiopia's enemy, Eritrea. Photo The top news, photos, and videos of 2006. Full Coverage 'Ethiopian defense forces were forced to enter into war to the protect the sovereignty of the nation and to blunt repeated attacks by Islamic courts terrorists and anti-Ethiopian e...

Next little thing 2007 - An ATM for books - December 1, 2006 (FSB Magazine) -- Buying a book could become as easy as buying a pack of gum. After several years in development, the Espresso - a $50,000 vending machine with a conceivably infinite library - is nearly consumer-ready and will debut in ten to 25 libraries and bookstores in 2007. The New York Public Library is scheduled to receive its machine in February. The company behind the Espresso is called On Demand Books, founded by legendary book editor Jason Epstein, 78, and Dane Neller, 56, but the technology was developed six years ago by Jeff Marsh, who is a technology advisor for New York City-based ODB (ondemandbooks.com). The machine can print, align, mill, glue and bind two books simultaneously in less than seven minutes, including full-color laminated covers. It prints in any language and will even accommodate right-to-left texts by putting the spine on the right. The upper page limit is 550 pages, though by tweaking the page...

Stressed Out? Grab Hubby's Hand In happy marriages, hand-holding calms nerves, study finds If you're a woman stressed out from work, holiday shopping, the kids or even too much traffic, grab your husband's hand for instant relief. And if you're spouse-less? Holding any male's hand is better than none. That's the conclusion of a study published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science. "Hand-holding is second nature for kids" when they're under stress, said James A. Coan, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Virginia, who led the study. "This can also work for adults." The happier the marriage, the greater the stress-reducing benefit, Coan found. But even a stranger's hand can help reduce stress, he said.

Stressed Out? Grab Hubby's Hand In happy marriages, hand-holding calms nerves, study finds If you're a woman stressed out from work, holiday shopping, the kids or even too much traffic, grab your husband's hand for instant relief. And if you're spouse-less? Holding any male's hand is better than none. That's the conclusion of a study published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science. "Hand-holding is second nature for kids" when they're under stress, said James A. Coan, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Virginia, who led the study. "This can also work for adults." The happier the marriage, the greater the stress-reducing benefit, Coan found. But even a stranger's hand can help reduce stress, he said.nds-have-hidden-medicine/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthday.com%2FArticle.asp%3FAID%3D600407&frame=true">

Newsvine - Raul Castro Speaks About Cuba Food Woes HAVANA — Acting president Raul Castro complained to lawmakers about inefficiencies in the island's economy, telling them in comments made public Saturday that there is no excuse for the transportation and food production problems that anger many Cubans. "In this Revolution we are tired of excuses," he said, giving the strongest sense yet of the frank and demanding leadership style he will likely adopt if his ailing older brother Fidel Castro does not return as president. After almost five months in power, it has become clear that the 75-year-old Raul Castro will call officials to account for their actions and demand they produce real results, rather than offer mere political platitudes. He also has shown a willingness to criticize aspects of the communist system that are not working. "The Revolution cannot lie," he said in comments published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma. "This isn't saying th...

Don Justo's Self Built Cathedral - Mejorada del Campo, Spain : citynoise.org Justo Gallego Martínez is building his very own Cathedral in Mejorada del Campo near Madrid, Spain image 86 This is no "model" cathedral and he is neither a qualified architect, nor engineer, nor bricklayer -- he is a farmer. "The plans have only ever existed in my head" and have evolved over time in response to opportunity and inspiration. Nor does he have formal planning permission from the authorities of Mejorada del Campo -- the town in which it is located (20 km from Madrid under the flight-path to the Barajas airport). image 90 Nor does he have the benediction or support of the Catholic Church. After eight years in a Trappist order -- and just prior to taking his vows -- he was obliged to leave, considerably weakened by tuberculosis and the monastic regime. His cathedral is dedicated to Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Madre de Jesús. He explains: "It's an act of faith." Th...

Newsvine - Iraqi Insurgent Snipers Gaining Skill A problem since the start of the war, soldiers and senior officers say the threat from snipers has intensified in recent months. Insurgent gunmen have honed their skills and acquired better equipment, notably night-vision rifle scopes to target U.S. troops after the sun goes down. For Marines and soldiers targeted by the gunmen, the shots chip away at their morale, one crack of a rifle at a time. "People are just tired of this. They're frustrated," said Sgt. Benjamin Iobst, who lives at Sword. "It's like trying to find a fly in a forest." Iobst said the problem in Anbar Province has become so serious that military experts recently visited Sword to study snipers in the area, in hopes of developing ways to counter the threat. Lt. Gerard Dow, the highest-ranking soldier at Sword, said Americans usually move through Ramadi at night to minimize the risk. But now some gunmen use night-vision scopes so they can strik...

The art of conversation | Chattering classes | Economist.com For those of more modest accomplishments, but attached to conversation as one of life's pleasures and necessary skills, there is a lively market in manuals and tip-sheets going back almost 500 years, and a legacy of wisdom with an even longer history. One striking thing about the advice is how consistent it remains over time, suggesting that there are real rights and wrongs in conversation, not just local conventions. The principle that it is rude to interrupt another speaker goes back at least to Cicero, writing in 44BC, who said that good conversation required “alternation” among participants. In his essay “On Duties”, Cicero remarked that nobody, to his knowledge, had yet set down the rules for ordinary conversation, though many had done so for public speaking. He had a shot at it himself, and quickly arrived at the sort of list that self-help authors have been echoing ever since. The rules we learn from Cicero are the...

Shotgun sequencing finds nanoorganisms - Probe of acid mine drainage turns up unsuspected virus-sized Archaea | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference Berkeley -- For 11 years, Jill Banfield at the University of California, Berkeley, has collected and studied the microbes that slime the floors of mines and convert iron to acid, a common source of stream pollution around the world. Imagine her surprise, then, when research scientist Brett Baker discovered three new microbes living amidst the bacteria she thought she knew well. All three were so small - the size of large viruses - as to be virtually invisible under a microscope, and belonged to a totally new phylum of Archaea, microorganisms that have been around for billions of years. What made Baker's find possible was shotgun sequencing, a technique developed and made famous by Celera Corp., which used it to sequence the human genome in record time. "It was amazing," said Banfield, a professor of earth and planetary science and...

NASA - NASA Names New Crew Exploration Vehicle Orion NASA announced Tuesday that its new crew exploration vehicle will be named Orion. Orion is the vehicle NASA’s Constellation Program is developing to carry a new generation of explorers back to the moon and later to Mars. Orion will succeed the space shuttle as NASA's primary vehicle for human space exploration. JSC2006-E-21813 : Artist's rendering of concept of CEV and service moduleOrion's first flight with astronauts onboard is planned for no later than 2014 to the International Space Station. Its first flight to the moon is planned for no later than 2020.

Judge: Iran owes $254M in terror attack - Yahoo! News WASHINGTON - The Iranian government financed a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia and must pay $254 million to the victims' families, a federal judge ruled Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek their compensation from assets that have been seized from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran. On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded in a military housing area known as the Khobar Towers dormitory near Dhahran. U.S. authorities have long alleged that the bombing was carried out by a Saudi wing of the militant group Hezbollah, which receives support from Iran and Syria. Though Lamberth has previously ruled that a survivor of the blast could seek payment from Iran, Friday's ruling was the first time Tehran has been blamed for the deaths of the Americans in the bombing. "The defendants also prov...

Daily Kos: State of the Nation The third thing I wish to talk about is a message to the Democrats in America. I tell them: you must realize two facts. The first is that you aren’t the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost: rather, the Mujahideen – the Muslim Ummah’s vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq – are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost. The second fact is that the Mujahideen are still – by the grace of Allah – in the field, their weapons with which they fell the Democrats are still ready and aimed, and the Mujahideen won’t stop inflicting losses on you until you leave our lands, stop plundering our treasures, and stop backing the corrupt rulers in our countries. And if you don’t refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam, and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate. You must realize that a new period of world history has...

Death penalty: Saudi court spares Keralite - NDTV.com - News on Death penalty: Saudi court spares Keralite A Keralite, who was reportedly facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia, has been set free due to timely intervention of Indian authorities. Jojo Joseph of Edathua in the district was on Monday ordered to be beheaded for entering the holy place of Medina despite a bar on non-Muslims. According to Jojo’s family members in Edathua, the Saudi authorities later took a lenient view of the case after they were convinced that he did not deliberately commit the mistake. Jojo, employed in an electronic shop in Jeddah, ran into trouble while rushing in a cab to a hospital where his wife had given birth to a child. The taxi driver took a wrong route and strayed into the prohibited area, his family members said. The Indian was then spotted by religious volunteers, who handed him to police.

Ex-cop's 'Never Get Busted Again' video - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com TYLER, Texas - A one-time Texas drug agent described by his former boss as perhaps the best narcotics officer in the country plans to market a how-to video on concealing drugs and fooling police. Barry Cooper, who has worked for small police departments in East Texas, plans to launch a Web site next week where he will sell his video, “Never Get Busted Again,” the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its online edition Thursday. A promotional video says Cooper will show viewers how to “conceal their stash,” “avoid narcotics profiling” and “fool canines every time.” Cooper, who said he favors the legalization of marijuana, made the video in part because he believes the nation’s fight against drugs is a waste of resources. Busting marijuana users fills up prisons with nonviolent offenders, he said. “My main motivation in all of this is to teach Americans their civil liberties and what drives me in this...

no surrender-ne pasaran: The Irish Jihadi Cells Exposed : "Prime Time estalished five central and troubling issues. Firstly, there is a Jihadi propaganda operation active in Ireland. Secondly, there is, within the Muslim community in Ireland, high-level sympathy for Jihad. Thirdly, there is a small [15%-19%] element in this community, which supports such terror. Fourthly, several active Jihadi terrorists have been identified with Irish links. Fifthly, a significant Al-Qaida figure is based in Dublin for some 25 years, and has acquired Irish citizenship."

Gut Microbes Give Us Clues To Obesity Cause And Treatment Gut Microbes Give Us Clues To Obesity Cause And Treatment US scientists have discovered that "gut microbes" - bacteria that live in our digestive tract - could be powerful clues to the cause and treatment of obesity. This remarkable news was published in Nature this week and conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The clue lies in the relative abundance of two major families of intestinal bacteria: Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. These make up 90 per cent of the bacteria in the gut of humans, and, coincidentally, white mice. Researchers in the first of two parallel studies found that as obese people lose weight, the balance between the Firmicutes and the Bacteroidetes changes - the latter increasing in abundance as an overweight person gets slimmer. (It would seem that the microbes ending in "cute" are perhaps not as lovable as their name implies!). The second study was conducted in ...

BBC NEWS | Africa | Somalis 'at war' with Ethiopia : "The leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls the capital and much of southern Somalia, says they are in a state of war with Ethiopia. 'All Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia,' Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said from Mogadishu. Fresh heavy fighting is reported near the weak Somali government's Baidoa base, amid fears conflict could plunge the entire Horn of Africa into crisis. Local residents say Ethiopian troops are clashing with Islamist militias. Ethiopia denies its forces are battling the advancing Islamist militias. The two countries have a long history of troubled relations, and Islamists have long called for a holy war against Ethiopian troops in Baidoa. Both the Islamist and interim government agreed to a ceasefire and to unconditional talks on Wednesday after meetings with a visiting European Union envoy." Muslims killing non muslims. Must be Bush's fault, s...

French film raises fresh fears over airport safety-|-Top News-|-Reuters.com PARIS (Reuters) - A French television reporter managed to smuggle explosive material and knives onto American and French passenger planes apparently revealing serious flaws in security at French airports. Appearing in a documentary made for state television due to be aired on Friday, the reporter has raised fresh questions about French air safety after accusations last month that it was too easy to gain access to aircraft at Paris' main airport. Reporter Laurent Richard, aided by security expert Christophe Naudin, used hidden cameras to show themselves carrying "de-activated" Semtex explosive and a detonator in their hand luggage aboard an Air France flight to Nice. On another occasion, the pair carried two box cutters aboard a Delta airlines flight from Paris to New York, with security staff not looking at their screens as the weapons passed through the x-ray machines. Box cutters were used by th...

My Way News - Report Says Berger Hid Archive Documents : "WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton's national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency's internal watchdog said Wednesday. The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents. Berger took the documents in the fall of 2003 while working to prepare himself and Clinton administration witnesses for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. Berger was authorized as the Clinton administration's representative to make sure the commission got the correct classified materials. Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement that the contents of all the documents exist today and were made available to the commi"

FrontPage magazine.com :: Jimmy Carter and the Arab Lobby by Jacob Laksin Nothing demonstrates more clearly the defects of Jimmy Carter’s latest brief against Israel, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, than the ex-president’s reluctance to defend the book on its merits. Rather than take up that unenviable task, Carter has sought to shift the focus away from the criticism -- especially as it concerns the book’s serial distortions and outright falsehoods -- and onto the critics. In particular, Carter claims that critics are compromised by their support for Israel, their ties to pro-Israel lobbying organizations, and -- a more pernicious charge -- their Jewish background. In interviews about his book, Carter has seldom missed an opportunity to invoke what he calls the “powerful influence of AIPAC,” with the subtext that it is the lobbying group, and not his slanderous charges about Israel, that is mainly responsible for mobilizing popular outrage over Palestine. In a related line of defense,...

Federal Subsidies Turn Farms Into Big Business - washingtonpost.com The cornerstone of the multibillion-dollar system of federal farm subsidies is an iconic image of the struggling family farmer: small, powerless against Mother Nature, tied to the land by blood. Without generous government help, farm-state politicians say, thousands of these hardworking families would fail, threatening the nation's abundant food supply. Special Report Harvesting Cash Working a Farm Subsidy As Congress prepares to debate a farm bill next year, The Washington Post is examining federal agriculture subsidies that grew to more than $25 billion last year, despite near-record farm revenue. • Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm, July 2 • Growers Reap Benefits Even in Good Year, July 3 • No Drought Required For Federal Drought Aid, July 18 • Benefit for Ranchers Was Created to Help GOP Candidate, July 18 • When Feed Was Cheap, Catfish Farmers Got Help Buying It, July 18 • Aid to Ran...

U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25 - New York Times At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government’s first automatic declassification of records. Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret. Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted. And every year from now on, millions of additional documents will be a...

Independent Online Edition > This Britain The world's largest lizard has astonished biologists by being able to produce offspring by an "immaculate" conception without the help of a male. Two captive female Komodo dragons have had virgin births by a process called parthenogenesis, when an unfertilised egg develops into a normal embryo without being fertilised by a sperm. The eggs of one of the lizards - a female called Flora at Chester Zoo - are due to hatch early in the new year, said Kevin Buley, one of the zoo's curators. "Although other lizard species are known to be able to self-fertilise, this is the first time this has ever been reported in Komodo dragons," Mr Buley said. "Essentially what we have here is an immaculate conception ... and it is a possibility that the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas time," he said. "We will be on the look out for shepherds, wise men and an unusually bright star over Chester Zoo." The...

Telegraph | News | Stewardess 'banned from taking bible on plane' An air stewardess is claiming religious discrimination against an airline which she says banned her from taking the Bible to Saudi Arabia. The stewardess has been told by BMI that it is against the law of the insular Middle Eastern country to bring in religious books other than the Koran. The woman, who is understood to be a committed Christian, takes her bible everywhere she goes and is now set to take the airline to an industrial tribunal claiming discrimination on religious grounds. advertisement BMI, formerly British Midland Airways, said today it was merely following the Foreign Office advice that no non-Islamic materials or artefacts are allowed into the country. A spokesman from the airline said: "We issue advice to all our staff and passengers that these are the guidelines. Gee, aren't christians being singled out by the muslims (profiling) for special descrimination based on their religion? Is ...

Independent Online Edition > Africa France yesterday defended recent fighter jet raids on towns bordering Sudan's Darfur region by claiming the aggressive action was aimed at preventing regional chaos. In the past two weeks, with minimal publicity, Mirage F1 jets have attacked and scattered a rebellion in north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR). But reports from the ground say the operation has had a devastating impact on civilians. A French Defence Ministry spokesman said the action - which included regular Mirage sorties in neighbouring Chad where tens of thousands of refugees from Darfur are living - was in line with international calls to stabilise the region. He claimed that without action there was a danger of a "Somalisation" of the region."We want to ensure that the Darfur crisis does not take on a further dimension. The region is crucial if we want to put a peace force in Darfur," he said. After opposition from the Sudanese President Omar El Be...

France to pull troops from Afghanistan - Yahoo! News : "PARIS - France is to withdraw its 200-strong special forces from Afghanistan, all of its ground troops engaged in the U.S anti-terror operation there, authorities announced Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT The decision to pull the elite troops, based in the southeastern city of Jalalabad, comes as the Taliban militia are gaining strength despite the strong engagement — some 32,800 troops — in NATO's International Security Assistance Force. France has balked at sending its 1,100-strong NATO contingent outside the relatively safe Afghan capital, Kabul. 'There is a general reorganization of our (troops),' Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said during a visit to Afghanistan. The minister's remarks were aired on France-Info radio."

Researchers reverse diabetes in mice - Yahoo! News OTTAWA (Reuters) - Nerve cells in the pancreas may be a cause of type-1 diabetes in mice -- a finding that could provide new ways to treat the disease in humans, Canadian and U.S. scientists said on Friday. Defective nerve endings may attract immune system proteins that mistakenly attack the pancreas, destroying its ability to make insulin, the researchers said. This destruction is what causes diabetes. Injecting a piece of protein, or peptide, to repair the defect cured diabetic mice "overnight," Dr. Hans Michael Dosch of the University of Toronto said in a telephone interview. "It is very effective in reversing diabetes," said Dosch, principal investigator for the study. Writing in the journal Cell, Dosch and colleagues said the faulty nerve endings did not secrete enough of the peptides to keep enough insulin flowing. Type-1 diabetes, once called juvenile diabetes, affects two million Americans and 200,000 Canadi...

Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric - New York Times BAGHDAD, Dec. 11 — After discussions with the Bush administration, several of Iraq’s major political parties are in talks to form a coalition whose aim is to break the powerful influence of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr within the government, senior Iraqi officials say. The talks are taking place among the two main Kurdish groups, the most influential Sunni Arab party and an Iranian-backed Shiite party that has long sought to lead the government. They have invited Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to join them. But Mr. Maliki, a conservative Shiite who has close ties to Mr. Sadr, has held back for fear that the parties might be seeking to oust him, a Shiite legislator close to Mr. Maliki said. Officials involved in the talks say their aim is not to undermine Mr. Maliki, but to isolate Mr. Sadr as well as firebrand Sunni Arab politicians inside the government. Mr. Sadr controls a militia with an estimated 60,0...

Iraq PM calls on Saddam officers to return to army�|�Top News�|�Reuters.com BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite prime minister called on Saturday for the return of all officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army in a political overture to disaffected Sunni Arabs aimed at reducing sectarian violence. Nuri al-Maliki made the call at a national reconciliation conference of Shi'ites, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians meant to halt communal bloodshed that has raised the specter of civil war and was a major reason for U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to review his Iraq strategy. A senior politician from the powerful Shi'ite Alliance said representatives of some Sunni Arab insurgent groups were in attendance, but delegates said participants' names would remain undisclosed. Photo The top news, photos, and videos of 2006. Full Coverage "The new Iraqi army is opening the door to former Iraqi army officers. Those who do not come back will be given pension...

Wired News: Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel NASA's planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry. Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment. Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon. As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels. "After four-and-half-billion years, there should be large amounts of helium-3 on the moon," said Gerald Kulcinski, a professor who leads the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Last year NASA admini...

ShoutWire - GOP is Losing Its Libertarian Voters Libertarian Party candidates may have cost Senators Jim Talent (R.-Mo.) and Conrad Burns (R.-Mont.) their seats, tipping the Senate to Democratic control. In Montana, the Libertarian candidate got more than 10,000 votes, or 3%, while Democrat Jon Tester edged Burns by fewer than 3,000 votes. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill defeated Talent by 41,000 votes, a bit less than the 47,000 Libertarian votes. This isn’t the first time Republicans have had to worry about losing votes to Libertarian Party candidates. Senators Harry Reid (Nev.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), and Tim Johnson (S.D.) all won races in which Libertarian candidates got more votes than their winning margin. But a narrow focus on the Libertarian Party significantly underestimates the role libertarian voters played in 2006. Most voters who hold libertarian views don’t vote for the Libertarian Party. Libertarian voters likely cost Republicans the House and the Senate—also dealing blo...

Iraq needs a Pinochet - Los Angeles Times I THINK ALL intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro. Both propositions strike me as so self-evident as to require no explanation. But as I have discovered in recent days, many otherwise rational people can't think straight when the names Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet come up. ADVERTISEMENT Let's put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) "worse." Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet. The Cuba Archive estimates that Castro is responsible for the deaths of at least 9,240 people, though the real number could be many times that, particularly if you include the estimate of nearly...

Diabetes breakthrough : "In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians. Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas. 'I couldn't believe it,' said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. 'Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more.' The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market."

Obese should have health warnings on their clothes | the Daily Mail He and his colleagues say food manufacturers should also display energy content of all meals and snacks at retail and catering outlets. The saturated fat content of all ready meals and snacks should also be clearly labelled. New urban roads should only be built if they have safe cycle lanes and new housing complexes should be constructed only if they have sports facilities and green park areas, he says. He also wants to see adviceline numbers attached to all clothes sold with waists above 102 cm for men, 94 cm for boys, 88 cm or size 16 for women and 80 cm for girls. Such measures would affect comedian Dawn French who runs her own clothes shop Sixteen 47, catering for women up to a size 47. Prof Sattar also wants ads for slimming services without independent evaluation banned, TV ads for sweets and snacks stopped before 9 pm, higher tax on high fat and high sugar foods and tax breaks for genuine corporate social respon...

lgf: New UN Chief - Not a Progressive? UNITED NATIONS - Incoming United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Iran on Thursday it was unacceptable to deny that the Holocaust took place or to call for Israel to be wiped off the map. Ban was responding to a question asked at a news conference about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since coming to power in August last year has caused an outcry by terming the Holocaust a “myth” and calling Israel a “tumor” in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad just ended a two-day international conference on the Holocaust that was dominated by speakers who questioned the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in World War Two. “Denying historical facts especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust is just not acceptable,” Ban said. “Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of states or people,” Ban said. “I would like to see this fundamental principle respected in both rhetoric and practice by all the m...

TIME.com: The Big Lie About the Middle East -- Dec. 18, 2006 -- Page 1 Yes, it was a great disturbance in the Arab world in the 1940s when a Jewish state was born through a U.N. vote and a war that made refugees of many Palestinians. Then the 1967 war left Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and thus the Palestinians who lived there. But the pan-Arabism that once made the Palestinian cause the region’s cause is long dead, and the Arab countries have their own worries aplenty. In a decade of reporting in the region, I found it rarely took more than the arching of an eyebrow to get the most candid of Arab thinkers to acknowledge that the tears shed for the Palestinians today outside the West Bank and Gaza are of the crocodile variety. Palestinians know this best of all. To promote the canard that the troubles of the Arab world are rooted in the Palestinians’ misfortune does great harm. It encourages the Arabs to continue to avoid addressing their colossal societal ...

Security cameras raise rights worry in NY: report|US News|Reuters.com NEW YORK (Reuters) - The security cameras are watching, a New York rights group warned on Wednesday. Security cameras have increased fivefold in parts of New York City and have become so pervasive that they threaten the rights of privacy, speech and association, the New York Civil Liberties Union, or NYCLU, said in a report. Moreover, there was no evidence the cameras deterred crime, the group said. In 2005 there were 4,176 cameras in three districts of southern Manhattan, up from 769 cameras in a 1998 survey, the report said. "Unregulated video surveillance technology has already led to abuses in New York City, including the police department's creation of visual dossiers on people engaged in lawful street demonstrations and the voyeuristic videotaping of individuals' private and intimate conduct," the group said. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A 1998 study conducted b...

Katherine Kersten: Suspicion about imams grows as terror links pile up The grounded imams incident at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has been a public relations coup for the imams, their supporters and their claims that the group's only suspicious activity was saying evening prayers. US Airways continues to defend its crew's decision to pull the imams off a plane last month, saying they took the seating configuration used by 9/11 hijackers, requested seat-belt extensions that could be used as weapons and otherwise raised concerns. Who are the parties involved here, who seem so interested in linking airport security with racial bigotry? The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the imams' legal representative, is an organization that "we know has ties to terrorism," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in 2003. And the Muslim American Society, which is also supporting the imams? It's the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Ch...

Features : Radar Online : "Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist The decadent whims of the world's wackiest despots "

newswire: Stories of Jordan peacekeeper rape in Timor hushed : Stories of Jordan peacekeeper rape in Timor hushed By Mark Dodd It caused outrage among East Timorese and Australian troops sent to protect them, raised tensions among UN peacekeepers to a deadly new level and caused senior UN staff to resign in disgust. The deployment of Jordanian peacekeepers to East Timor was probably one of the most contentious UN decisions to follow the bloody independence ballot. It was eclipsed only by the cover-up and inaction that followed when the world body learned of their involvement in a series of horrific sex crimes involving children living in the war-battered Oecussi enclave. Children were not the only victims - in early 2001, two Jordanians were evacuated home with injured penises after attempting sexual intercourse with goats. The UN mission in East Timor led by Sergio Vieira de Mello (who was later killed in Baghdad) did its best to keep the matter hushed up. The UN military command at t...

AEGiS-LT: Congo Sex Scandal Prompts Efforts for Reform in U.N. Congo Sex Scandal Prompts Efforts for Reform in U.N. Los Angeles Times - December 18, 2004 Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer -- Peacekeeping missions may be restructured after more than 150 reported cases of abuse. BUKAVU, Congo - One evening four months ago, a soft-spoken 18-year-old named Aziza was selling bananas in the market here when some U.N. peacekeepers summoned her to their car. Aziza went over thinking they wanted to buy fruit, but was persuaded to engage in a different kind of transaction. "They offered me love," she said, in the colloquial French spoken in this former Belgian colony. And they offered her money - just $5, but more than she would make in a month at the market. "It was done in the car, in the dark," she said. "I didn't have the strength to refuse." Those words became a refrain in her story, one of many that now dog the U.N. mission here. The next time Aziza met wi...