Alec Baldwin 'Father of the Year' http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=042007_alec-baldwin-temporary-custody-ban-for-daugher-ireland-court-hearing-date-set.htm
Power lines link to cancer in new alert
The confidential study, obtained by the Evening Standard, urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high-voltage power cables because of possible health risks. The report was drawn up by scientists, electricity company bosses, the National Grid, government officials and campaigners over two years after the Health Protection Agency accepted there was a weak statistical "association" between prolonged exposure to power fields and childhood leukaemia. The report, to be signed off by panel members next week, has sparked conflict at a series of hearings, according to a Whitehall source. Two members of the panel, regulator Ofgem and Scottish & Southern Energy, are understood to have quit. Some members of the panel took the view - adopted by the Government's health advisers and the World Health Organisat ion - that childhood leukaemia is the only adverse health effect where evidence is strong enough for precautionary measures to be considered. A second group generally backed views highlighted by the California Department of Health Services which suggested electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic" in terms of childhood leukaemia and placed four other health effects in this risk category. They were adult leukaemia, adult brain tumours, miscarriages and a form of motor neurone disease, although some scientists believe there are links with more diseases.
Vermont Senate calls for impeachment of Bush, Cheney
http://vermontguardian.com/local/042007/ImpeachmentVote.shtml
The Vermont Senate this morning approved by a 16-9 margin a resolution calling on the U.S. House to launch impeachment proceedings of Pres. George W. Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. The Vermont Senate is the first state legislative body in the country to call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Impeachment resolutions are currently active in Hawaii, Missouri, New Jersey, and Washington. A measure in New Mexico was quashed earlier this year.The move comes just days after nearly 150 people from around Vermont converged on Montpelier to urge lawmakers to pass such a resolution out of the House and Senate. The emotionally-charged, 40-minute meeting left backers hopeful that something could happen this session. Impeachment backers were thrilled with the move, and now turn their attention to the House, where an impeachment resolution has been sitting in the House Judiciary Committee for weeks.
New York's baby whale dies http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/04/19/4068786.html
A young whale that swam aimlessly for two days in a small bay off an industrial section of Brooklyn beached itself at an oil depot dock Wednesday and died suddenly. Animal activists said the minke whale, about a year old, was too young to survive on its own. Earlier, experts had reported seeing nothing to indicate the mammal was sick, such as swimming erratically or in tight circles. With only the whale’s dorsal fin visible at times, observers could only guess whether it was injured. The whale died about 5 p.m. The end was witnessed by spectators who had been drawn to the dock area in Gowanus Bay by news accounts of the whale. The whale was first spotted on Tuesday in Gowanus Bay, a small estuary off industrial south Brooklyn that is the outlet from the Gowanus canal, a narrow 1.2-mile waterway once lined with coal yards, scrap yards and small industries.
High-level talks set amid US frustration at Indian nuclear deal http://rawstory.com/news/afp/High_level_talks_set_amid_US_frustr_04202007.html
Senior US and Indian officials will meet here next week amid US "frustration" at the pace of negotiations on a landmark deal to give India access to US nuclear technology, a US spokesman said Friday.The agreement, initially reached in July 2006, gives India unprecedented access to US nuclear fuel and technology for its civilian power sector without requiring New Delhi to sign a nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty as normally required by US law. The deal has been defended by President George W. Bush's administration as the centerpiece of a new relationship between the US and India following decades of Cold War tensions. But the negotiations have bogged down, notably over India's refusal to commit formally to its voluntary unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and its insistence the deal gives it the right to reprocess nuclear fuel. Both elements would contravene US laws. The US Congress passed a law in December paving the way for the Indian civil nuclear arrangement, and implementing the agreement now under negotiation will also have to be approved by the legislature.
Rice discusses missile defence with Czech counterpart http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/Rice_discusses_missile_defence_with_04202007.html
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met withCzech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg on Friday to discuss plans to install a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. The United States is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic to deploy missile defence in the two countries, plans that have angered Russia and sparked controversy in Europe. The United States wants 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic within five or six years to counter Iran's growing ballistic missile capability.NATO appeared to endorse the idea after determining Thursday that the system would not pose a threat to Russia. There have been concerns in Europe that a missile defence system would result in a Cold War-style arms race. The United States has already deployed a missile defence system in Alaska to addressed the threat posed by North Korean missile technology.
Russia, already annoyed by the expansion of NATO toward its borders, has strongly protested against the plans.
Nato allies urge US to open missile shield plan
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=27628
NATO allies urged the United States yesterday to ensure its planned anti-missile shield could one day be broadened to cover the whole of Europe but did not commit themselves to joining the project. The call came during meetings at Nato headquarters in which Washington aimed to soothe Russian alarm and dispel European scepticism about a defence shield in eastern Europe it says is aimed at blocking potential threats from Iran and elsewhere. Nato has since the mid-1990s been studying creating its own shield against short-range missiles for 2010, and officials said one option was that such a system could ultimately be used to protect areas of southeast Europe _ Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania _ that the US system will not cover. President Vladimir Putin, who some analysts say is using the spat to divide the West, has said the US plan to deploy 10 interceptor rockets in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic by 2012 encroaches on Russia's security interests. But a Russian Air Force commander said yesterday that the missiles Washington planed to deploy posed no military threat. "We see no major threat coming from these systems," the Russian news agency Interfax quoted General Valery Mikhailov as saying. "It's more of a political issue than military." "They are stationary, we will easily and pretty definitely identify their location," Mikhailov added. "So we have no need to feel scared of these systems."
Study: Low-Salt Diet Good for Your Heart
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267348,00.html
In an extended follow-up of two rigorously designed trials, people who reduced their dietary sodium while participating in the studies saw 25 percent reductions in heart disease and stroke risk 10 to 15 years later, compared with people who ate their usual diets.
Campaign against alleged voter fraud fuels political tempest
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17102317.htm
Since President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, launched a "Ballot Access and Voter Integrity Initiative" in 2001, Justice Department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases, and the department's Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights. On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division's Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins. Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.
-Approved Georgia and Arizona laws that tightened voter ID requirements. A federal judge tossed out the Georgia law as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of poor voters, and a federal appeals court signaled its objections to the Arizona law on similar grounds last fall, but that litigation was delayed by the U.S. Supreme Court until after the election.
-Issued advisory opinions that overstated a 2002 federal election law by asserting that it required states to disqualify new voting registrants if their identification didn't match that in computer databases, prompting at least three states to reject tens of thousands of applicants mistakenly.
-Done little to enforce a provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that requires state public assistance agencies to register voters. The inaction has contributed to a 50 percent decline in annual registrations at those agencies, to 1 million from 2 million.
-Sued at least six states on grounds that they had too many people on their voter rolls. Some eligible voters were removed in the resulting purges.
-In Missouri, where Republican Sen. Jim Talent was fighting to hang onto his seat and hold the U.S. Senate for the GOP, a Republican-backed photo ID requirement cleared the state House of Representatives by one vote in May 2006 after an intense lobbying effort in which backers alleged voter fraud in heavily Democratic St. Louis and Kansas City.
-In late 2001, Ashcroft hired three Republican political operatives to work in a secretive new unit in the division's Voting Rights Section. The unit, headed by unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate Mark Metcalf of Kentucky, bird-dogged the progress of the administration's Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and reviewed voting legislation in the states. The Help America Vote Act directed states to create central, computerized voter registration lists, to make a "reasonable effort" to remove ineligible names and to match new applicants' driver's licenses and Social Security numbers to those in state databases.
A Breach in Nuclear Security
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1612912,00.html
TIME magazine has obtained the report of a task force set up by Energy Secretary Bodman to examine some of the security issues in his department. Given the stakes involved in protecting nuclear secrets in a post 9/11 world, the report makes uncomfortable reading: It details not only more extensive drug use among staff at Los Alamos, but describes a systematic lack of accountability and weaknesses in the safeguards surrounding nuclear secrets. Secretary Bodman's task force report shows, however, that security problems were not limited to Los Alamos. Investigators examined more than 450 security clearances issued over 12 months beginning in June 2001 and found two other cases in which clearances were granted to people with "indications of prior drug use within the month prior to the clearance being granted." A further 35 cases involved drug use within the year prior to requesting a security clearance. Following its internal investigation, the DOE is proposing sweeping changes in security procedures and the issuance of clearances — and not just at Los Alamos.
US court releases Cuban exile wanted for terrorism in Cuba
http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/US_court_releases_Cuban_exile_wante_04192007.html
A US court in Texas Thursday released a Cuban exile sought by Cuba and Venezuela on terrorism charges, a person connected to the case said. Luis Posada Carriles, 78, is wanted in Cuba for the 1976 bombing of a passenger plane and has been charged in the US with seven counts of naturalization violations. But the US has refused to expel him, and has turned down extradition requests for the one-time CIA operative because he could face torture in Venezuela or Cuba, a US judge ruled in 2005. Cuban President Fidel Castro has charged that the US is protecting a terrorist by limiting his legal case to a minor immigration violation. Posada's prospective release triggered hundreds of scattered protest demonstrations in Cuba last week. Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada - who has long-standing ties with the Central Intelligence Agency and has led several attacks against Cuba - of carrying out acts of terrorism, including the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion passenger plane with 73 people on board. Posada was convicted in Venezuela for being one of the masterminds of the airliner bombing, but he escaped from prison after eight years and joined US-directed covert counterinsurgency operations in Central America. He was also convicted in Panama in 2000 for attempting to murder Cuban President Fidel Castro, but was pardoned four years later by a Panamanian president closely allied with the US. Cuba has also accused Posada of masterminding the bombing attacks at Cuban tourist sites in 1997, which claimed the life of one Italian tourist.
Buddhist monks clash in Cambodia amid anti-Vietnam protest
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070420/kyodo/d8oka4e81.html
At least two Buddhist monks were injured Friday in a street clash in Cambodia's capital between two opposing groups of monks during a protest against Vietnam, which some monks accuse of suppressing religious freedom. The demonstration march was made by some 40 monks, most of whom identified themselves as Khmer Krom, an ethnic Khmer minority people of Vietnam who inhabited the Mekong Delta area prior to the colonization of that area by Vietnamese settlers. The marchers were demanding relief from alleged religious suppression of Khmer Krom by Vietnamese authorities, and had hoped to deliver a protest letter to the Vietnamese Embassy but were dispersed by some 150 riot police. They then walked to the Royal Palace, where the clash occurred, and to the U.S. Embassy. Marcher Lim Yuth, 23, his face bloody from a cut above his eye, said he was injured by an object thrown by a small group of Buddhist monks, still unidentified, during his group's peaceful march. It was unclear whether the Buddhist monks who clashed with the marchers acted on their own or under orders from above. Khmers are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the country's 14 million people. The area of southern Vietnam where as many as 1 million ethnic Khmer reside is known in Cambodia as Kampuchea Krom. It was once part of Cambodia's territory but was made part of Vietnam by French colonial authorities in 1949. Kampuchea Krom organizations and communities based in the region and abroad have long accused Vietnam of mistreating its ethnic Khmer minority.
Romanian President suspended
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=27626
ROMANIA'S parliament suspended President Traian Basescu yesterday on charges of unconstitutional conduct, deepening the country's political woes and raising the prospect of new presidential elections. The move deepened political strife in the Balkan European Union newcomer, which analysts say may struggle to meet the bloc's requirements on structural reforms and prepare to absorb billions of euros in aid. Basescu has faced numerous accusations of abusing power from the ruling centrists as well as the leftist opposition in recent months as politicians across party lines jostle for influence following EU accession in January. The suspension was proposed by the leftist opposition party PSD, in what analysts said was an attempt by the Social Democrats to regain power and boost public support badly damaged by corruption scandals. In a last minute attempt to sway deputies to vote against Basescu, the PSD also accused him last Wednesday of blackmailing constitutional court judges to clear him. The straight-talking Basescu, Romania's most popular politician, denies the accusations.Some say political instability has already dented Romania's chances for reaping quick benefits from its new EU membership. Romania may see the EU refuse to accept the decisions of its courts if anti-corruption reforms do not continue, or it could lose export markets if food safety standards are not met.
Nina left US$4b to fortune-teller
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=27649
ASIA'S richest woman left her wealth to her fortune-teller in her last known will which is all but certain to spark a huge legal battle with relatives, Hong Kong media reported yesterday. Nina Wang, who died aged 69 earlier this month and had no children, left a legacy estimated as worth at least US$4.2 billion after transforming her company Chinachem into a real estate empire. A day after her lavish funeral on Wednesday, two wills she allegedly wrote in 2002 and last year were published separately in Next Magazine and its sister Apple Daily publication. The 2002 document said Wang's fortune would go to her charitable trust. But the later version named her personal fortune teller, Chan Chun Chuen, as the beneficiary. Citing unnamed sources close to the family, Apple Daily said Wang's family was set to take the issue to court. If true, the 2006 document would have been penned two years after Wang was diagnosed with cancer and after she won an eight-year court battle against her father-in-law for control of her late husband Teddy Wang's estate. He disappeared in 1990 after being kidnapped. His body was never found, and he was declared dead nine years later.Under her control Chinachem developed into a multi-billion dollar empire with over 200 office towers and 400 companies around the world.
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