Are We Safer?

thenation.com
The Daily Outrage
by Ari Berman

Are We Safer?

For two hours, truth once again became a virtue in Washington, DC. The second-annual Ron Ridenhour Awards--sponsored by the Fertel Foundation and The Nation Institute and named after the whistle-blower who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam--honored New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh, author Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and housewife-turned-activist Kristin Breitweiser for their achievements in "truth-telling."

Breitweiser found herself widowed at age thirty when her husband Ron died at Tower Two of the World Trade Center on September 11. Along with four other widows (nicknamed the "Jersey Girls"), Breitweiser fought tirelessly for the 9/11 Commission, in spite of initial opposition from President Bush, whom she voted for in 2000. Below is a transcript of her remarks on April 19, 2005, a clear-headed, compelling and scathing indictment of how the Bush Administration has changed our post-9/11 world for the worse.

"I am honored to accept the Ridenhour Truth Award and I accept it on behalf of all men, women and children who have sought Truth in their lives, including the four women---Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, and Monica Gabrielle--who fought along with me to seek the truth about 9/11. I am humbled by the ceremony of this award, and I accept it also in honor of my late husband, Ron Breitweiser.

In the past three years I have spent a lot of time talking about being a 9/11 widow and a victim's advocate for intelligence community reforms. I appeared frequently in the print and televised media discussing my transformation from a stay-at-home mom whose specialty it was to design children's gardens to a victim's rights advocate whose specialty has become national security. My transformation was urgent, drastic and not chosen by me. But, I no longer want to talk about my transformation. Instead, I want to talk about my country's post-9/11 transformation. A transformation unlike mine in that it was systematically and deliberately chosen.

Where are we today? Are the democratic principles that Osama Bin Laden tried to destroy on 9/11 still safely intact? Do nations around the world still respect and admire Americans? Are we still 'all Americans' like we were in the immediate wake of September 11th when almost every country in the world declared their solidarity with us? Or have we squandered that worldwide good will, faith and common purpose to fight terrorism? Have we learned any lessons since 9/11? And, most importantly, have our country's choices made us any safer than we were pre-9/11?

Isn't it true that instead of fixing airline security, port security, mass transportation, local response, and securing loose nukes and biological components, we spent billions on starting a war with Iraq---a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11? And, instead of capturing Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, we captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq with no weapons of mass destruction? Isn't it true that because of our invasion of Iraq terrorist recruitment for Al Qaeda has soared, making us even less safe than we were before the Iraq war? Remember that we were supposed to go to war in Iraq to eliminate a real threat. Isn't it true that now because of our foreign policy in Iraq, we have only created a real threat to the world's security and ours? Isn't it true that instead of successfully prosecuting Al Qaeda terrorists and bringing them to justice, all we hear about is torturing 'enemy combatants' and detaining them indefinitely--a concept far removed from the American ideal of justice? Isn't it true that instead of opening up government to restore trust and faith, we created the Patriot Act? And, isn't it true that instead of pursuing alternative energy resources to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, we invaded oil-rich countries and passed no alternative energy legislation in the meantime?

Why do we accept these choices? Why do we condone a government that uses over-classification to obfuscate such choices? We ask questions, and they give us answers and explanations that are just stylized sound bites and catch phrases (taking the fight to the enemy; tracking every terrorist down and bringing them to justice; being with us or against us)? How do such over-simplified answers adequately explain our very complex reality? None of these phrases are ever defined. We just repeat these mantras over and over again, not knowing what they really mean---not realizing that they fail to answer or justify any of our nation's drastic actions and decisions since 9/11--chosen actions and decisions that have actually made us less safe from terrorists.

We--the American public--find ourselves adrift and overwhelmed. Pre-occupied with fear, we fail to unearth the truth or understand what choices we should or can make to effectively make our world safer. We are simply told that this is our 'new norm.' Our government parodies our search for truth by churning out report upon report and conclusion after conclusion---none of which ever gets acted upon.

Alarmingly, we accept all of this in the name of our 'ongoing fight against the enemy.' But, with a timeless, faceless, nameless and stateless enemy, when will our 'fight' ever end so we can return to our sensibilities and the truth? How can we ever define what success or victory might ever mean? Don't we need the trust and cooperation of the world to effectively contain terrorism? How are we to really know if our government's choices taken since 9/11--in the name of 'national security'-- are truly worth it and, in fact, making us any safer? Simply because our government tells us to trust them?

How can we trust a Congress that holds hearings on steroids in baseball and yet does not want to find out why our FAA received 52 warnings about hijackings in the summer of 2001? How do we trust a Congress that is so reluctant to address immigration issues that we have exasperated vigilantes on the southern border taking matters into their own hands--too frustrated to wait for Congress to do its job? How do we trust a Congress willing to work through a Sunday night on the Shiavo debate yet unwilling to hold public hearings on the 'dead wrong' intelligence that brought us to war in Iraq?

If we can be on a red alert for a dirty-bomb, why can't we choose to be on a red-alert for our dire need to invest in alternative energy resources so as to become less dependent on foreign oil? Realistically, our dependence on foreign oil makes us less safe than any dirty bomb ever will.

Or why can't we choose to be on an orange alert about the serious human rights abuses that are being carried out by our military and intelligence officials against 'would be' terrorists? How is it possible that in our post-9/11 world, the average American citizen thinks that it is ok to torture 'enemy combatants' while throwing any modicum of our rule of law out the window? How is it feasible to 'track every terrorist down and bring them to justice' when we have yet to define who qualifies as a terrorist or what the definition of justice really is?

How did I get here today? I got here by asking questions. I got here by being an American citizen. Not by choice, widowed at 30 and finding myself frightened and with no faith in my government, I decided to seek the truth as to why my husband died. I wanted to know that my daughter and I were safe living in this country. Along with four other widows, I played a role in our democratic process by simply asking who, what, where, how, and most importantly, why 9/11 happened.

Recently, many people are wondering what the widows will be doing next. It is simple. We will continue to do what we do best. We will continue to ask questions and demand answers about our government's choices in the name of 'national security.' We will continue to work on issues that mean something to our children and to us. Issues that will make our future safer from terrorism like alternative energy resources, human rights abuses, congressional oversight and intelligence community reforms. We will continue to fight for the truth.

And, respectfully, our hope is that in future years this award might be rendered obsolete. Simply because there will be no need to bestow an award or any special status onto a truth-seeker because truth-seekers will have become our new norm."

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Activists Push to Recycle 'E-Waste'

ABC News
Activists Push to Recycle 'E-Waste'
Earth Day Activists Launch Campaign to Encourage Recycling of 'E-Waste'
By RACHEL KONRAD
The Associated Press

Apr. 21, 2005 - When Earth Day dawned in 1970, optimistic environmentalists predicted emerging technologies would help reduce the nation's reliance on coal, oil, insecticides and other pollutants.

But 35 years later, a big part of the problem appears to be technology itself.

Tons of computers, monitors, televisions and other electronic gizmos that contain hazardous chemicals, or "e-waste," may be poisoning people and ground water. Activists say the nation's biggest environmental problem may be the smallest devices, and this week they're launching campaigns to increase awareness about recycling cell phones, music players, handheld gaming consoles and other electronics.

Frequently, smaller portable gadgets have batteries that are prohibitively expensive to replace. So consumers in affluent countries simply toss them in the trash.

"They're small and lightweight, and the electronics industry markets them as disposable. Whenever you upgrade your (wireless) service, you can get a new flip phone for $50 and they never tell you to recycle the old one," said Kimberlee Dinn, campaign director for Washington, D.C.-based EARTHWORKS, a nonprofit that studies the environmental impact of mining, digging and drilling natural resources.

Environmentalists are particularly bothered by the recycling and reuse policies of cell phone manufacturers and distributors and of Apple Computer Inc., maker of the iPod digital music player.

The biggest offenders are cell phones, said Dinn, because they pose a hazardous "double whammy" to the environment.

To build them, gold and other metals must be extracted from mines in western states, in Peru, Turkey, Tanzania and other countries. The Environmental Protection Agency ranks hard-rock mining as the nation's leading toxic polluter.

Then, at the end of their life cycles, many phones end up in landfills, where they may leak lead and other heavy metals that could pollute nearby ground water.

Americans have about 500 million obsolete, broken or otherwise unused cell phones, and about 130 million more are added each year the equivalent of 65,000 tons of waste, according to the EPA.

Less than 2 percent are recycled usually refurbished and resold to consumers in Latin America and Asia, or disassembled for gold and other parts, according to EARTHWORKS.

It's unclear what happens to the remaining 98 percent or more of cell phones, said Dinn, whose organization is launching a recycling campaign to coincide with Friday's Earth Day activities in Washington, Philadelphia, Seattle, New Orleans and other cities. Activists are asking consumers to download and print postage-paid labels and send unused phones to the Atlanta-based recycling organization CollectiveGood. The goal is to collect at least 1 million cell phones this year.

"We think a majority of those phones are waiting around in people's desk drawers," said Dinn, who came up with 30 unused cell phones in a recent sweep of the group's eight-person office.

Environmentalists are encouraged by legislation passed by the European Union, which, starting in July 2006, will prohibit new cell phones sold in any EU country from containing lead and several other toxins. Also in July 2006, California will require all cell phone retailers to have an in-store recycling program.

But cell phone initiatives may not be enough to stem overall e-waste.

U.S. consumers retire or replace roughly 133,000 personal computers per day, according to research firm Gartner Inc. According to a study commissioned by San Jose-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, roughly half of all U.S. households have working but unused consumer electronics products.

After a campaign that resulted in significant improvements to the recycling program of Dell Inc., many e-waste activists are focusing on Apple.

Environmentalists planned a news conference Thursday near Apple's Cupertino headquarters to coincide with the company's annual shareholder meeting.

CEO Steve Jobs and Apple board members, including former Vice President Al Gore Jr., have each received at least 400 faxes about the company's contribution to e-waste, said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based Texas Campaign for the Environment. The group is asking Apple to reduce or eliminate recycling fees for consumers and build in-store recycling centers.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company would not comment on environmentalists' yearlong campaign.

Apple charges most American consumers $30 to recycle unused or broken computers and laptops. And though Apple doesn't have a specific iPod recycling program, a service promoted by its corporate Web site sells consumers shipping labels and packaging materials for sending equipment to recycling vendors.

In January, Apple agreed to help sponsor an industry initiative launched by eBay Inc. and Intel Corp., that created an informational Web site to help motivate Americans to resell, donate or recycle used gadgets. Gateway Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Ingram Micro Inc. are also participating, as well as the U.S. Postal Service, which in some cases will help deliver PCs to eBay drop-off locations or recycling centers.

The popularity of the iPod and iPod Mini as well as more affordable gadgets such as the pack-of-gum-sized $99 iPod Shuffle makes Apple an obvious target for environmentalists' scorn. Apple shipped 5.3 million iPods last quarter, a nearly sevenfold increase from the same period last year.

"We'd like nothing better for Earth Day than for Steve Jobs to say he's agreed to producer takeback recycling," Schneider said.

On the Net:

http://www.earthworksaction.org/ EARTHWORKS:

http://www.svtc.org/ Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition:

http://www.texasenvironment.org/ Texas Campaign for the Environment:

http://apple.com/environment Apple recycling:

http://www.recycleapc.com/apple/index.asp

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House Ethics Panel to Probe Tom DeLay

Yahoo! News
AP
House Ethics Panel to Probe Tom DeLay

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Republican chairman of the House ethics committee offered on Wednesday to begin an investigation of Majority Leader Tom DeLay to end a stalemate that has kept the panel from functioning this year.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., made the proposal at a news conference flanked by three of the four other Republicans on the ethics panel. The evenly divided committee also has five Democrats.

Senior committee Democrat Alan Mollohan of West Virginia quickly rejected the offer, saying his party would continue blocking the panel from operating unless investigative rules imposed by Republicans were changed.

This is the second time in two weeks that Republicans tried to break the deadlock, while Democrats have held their ground and criticized the GOP-written rules for investigating lawmakers, passed in January without Democratic support. Democrats have accused the majority party of writing the rules to protect DeLay.

"The first principle in doing it right is that it be bipartisan," said Mollohan. "That's a beginning point for me."

Mollohan would not say whether he supported an investigation of DeLay, commenting that his effort to change the rules — to prevent automatic dismissal of cases — is "totally independent from any specific case."

While Democrats have kept up a stream of accusations of unethical conduct against DeLay, they also have attempted to gain political mileage from the Republican rules. The primary objection is to a rule that would automatically dismiss cases in a tie vote — allowing either party on the evenly divided committee to stop an investigation.

DeLay has offered to appear before the committee to defend himself against allegations of misconduct, including his travel with a lobbyist whose clients may have paid for the Texas Republican's foreign travel on several occasions.

DeLay, in a statement, supported Hastings' proposal.

"I've sent letters to the committee asking to appear before the chairman and ranking member to discuss matters," he said. "And for more than a month I've said I hope for a fair process that will afford me the opportunity to get the facts out and set the record straight. I welcome the opportunity to address this with the committee."

Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., escalated the conflict by indicating that Republicans are ready to investigate allegations of Democratic wrongdoing.

In a radio interview with broadcaster Sean Hannity, Hastert said there were "four or five cases out there dealing with top level Democrats." He did not name them.

"There's a reason they don't want to go to the ethics process. As long as they can keep somebody dangling out there like they have with Tom DeLay, they take great glee in that," Hastert said.

The Republicans were "prepared to vote at the earliest opportunity to empanel an investigations subcommittee to review various allegations concerning travel and other actions" by DeLay, Hastings said.

The ethics committee has authority to start an investigation based on information it receives "through public and other sources," he added.

The officially named Committee on Standards of Official conduct was scheduled to meet on Thursday.

The ethics committee admonished DeLay last year on three separate issues but did not find that he violated House rules. A district attorney in Texas is investigating potentially illegal corporate contributions to a Texas political committee started by DeLay.

Hastings' comments went well beyond a proposed change in the rules, offering an immediate investigation into one of the most powerful lawmakers in Congress.

"Let me emphasize that this is an unusual and extraordinary step for the committee to take," he said.

He was joined at the news conference by Reps. Judy Biggert of Illinois, Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania and Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas did not attend. Hart would lead any investigation of DeLay, Hastings said.

DeLay and other Republicans have insisted in public comments in recent weeks that the charges against him were partisan, the efforts of a minority desperate to regain power.

At the same time, there has been growing restiveness among members of the GOP rank and file who were unhappy to be on the receiving end of questions about whether they were merely trying to shelter DeLay from harm.

Hastings would not comment on whether he had spoken to DeLay about the proposal — but he did say he could not speak with a member "about matters that may or may not come before the ethics committee."

The investigation cannot proceed unless Democrats end the stalemate over the rules. Hastings called the proposal "a means by which he (DeLay) can state his case."

Hastings said he would guarantee in writing that Democrats could have three months — and possibly longer — for a preliminary investigation of a lawmaker. Hastings promised that no case would be dismissed without a vote of the full committee.

Hastings made a similar offer last week, but not in writing. Mollohan on Wednesday repeated his earlier rejection of that offer, saying it would not prevent the automatic dismissal of cases __ allowing one party to run out the clock.

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Senators Want Officials' Take on Bolton

Yahoo! News
AP
Senators Want Officials' Take on Bolton

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - Senators considering the nomination of John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador sought information Wednesday from former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin and two current intelligence officials in their review of whether Bolton abused his authority and misled a Senate committee.

Separately, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is asking the National Security Agency for details of intelligence requests made by Bolton, said Rockefeller spokeswoman Wendy Morigi.

The White House vigorously defended Bolton on Wednesday, and predicted he will be confirmed as U.N. ambassador despite cracks in support from Republican senators concerned that Bolton has a short fuse and a pattern of mistreating co-workers.

The White House also offered to arrange private meetings between Bolton and any wavering Republicans. There is no indication so far that Bolton might withdraw.

Unsubstantiated allegations of abusive personal behavior and possible instances of misuse of his government power derailed a key vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Bolton's nomination on Tuesday. A new vote is probably three weeks off, giving Democrats time to investigate the new charges and the White House time to lobby disaffected Republicans.

There are also efforts to counter the stream of allegations. The Associated Press obtained a letter from a Virginia businessman disputing a former colleague's colorful description of an irate Bolton throwing things at her and pounding on her hotel room door.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., on behalf of the Foreign Relations Committee, sought information Wednesday about three meetings that were on Bolton's schedule in July 2002, with McLaughlin, a second CIA official and a National Intelligence Council official, his office said. At the time, Bolton was in the midst of a bureaucratic disagreement with a CIA analyst.

Dodd asked McLauglin and the two current officials, who were not identified, whether they met with Bolton and whether he discussed removing the analyst from his job.

Bolton told the committee last week that he never tried to get the analyst fired, and implied that he had dropped the matter quickly. The analyst was not fired.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said government records dispute Bolton's account of a visit to the CIA, and the new inquiries are partly an attempt to find out whether Bolton lobbied top officials to get rid of the analyst.

Democrats are also seeking more information on other personnel incidents involving Bolton, that led the committee — including several Republican members — to urge a delay a vote on his nomination because of growing questions about his temperament and what they say is a pattern of punishing or pressuring underlings.

"Senate Democrats on the committee continue to bring up these allegations that are unsubstantiated, that are unfounded, that John Bolton has addressed in his testimony," before the committee, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

"I think what you're seeing is the ugly side of Washington, D.C., that people are playing politics with his nomination," McClellan said.

McClellan also called the accusations against Bolton "trumped-up" and praised the nominee as "exactly the kind of person that we need at the United Nations during this time of reform.

Bolton could return for more testimony before the committee, and other witnessed might be called in.

"The White House has to decide whether this guy is damaged goods," said Dodd. "That's the assessment I'd be making right now."

Dodd became red-faced with outrage during Tuesday's meeting over what he called Bolton's near-criminal treatment of subordinates.

It was Dodd who first raised the issue of the NSA intelligence requests. Bolton acknowledged at his hearing that he had sought names of U.S. officials whose communications were secretly recorded by the spy agency, but Democrats want to know whether Bolton was fishing for information about political or ideological opponents.

Since Bolton's sometimes testy appearance before the committee, committee staffers have learned of about a dozen instances of alleged verbal abuse to subordinates while Bolton was a government employee and in the private sector, congressional aides said.

A few of those instances came to the committee since Tuesday's hearing, they said.

Some of the allegations have become public, including a Dallas businesswoman's description of an irate Bolton yelling and chasing her through the hallways in a Moscow hotel 10 years ago. Melody Townsel told committee Democrats in a letter that Bolton's behavior was "pathological."

Townsel did not allege that Bolton sexually harassed her, and none of the other public allegations have involved that kind of behavior.

Although Biden said that other witnesses corroborate Townsel's account, a former business associate wrote to committee Chairman Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind. on Monday to dispute it.

Jayant Kalotra, president of International Business & Technical Consultants Inc. described Townsel as a disgruntled former subcontractor whom he was forced to fire for poor performance on the contract that caused her alleged confrontation with Bolton. At the time, Bolton was a lawyer in private practice who was hired to represent the consulting firm.

"I certainly did not hear contemporaneously from any other employee in Moscow that anything occurred between Mr. Bolton and Ms. Townsel in Moscow," Kalotra wrote in a letter obtained by the AP.

"It is difficult to understand how Ms. Townsel could make such accusations with any veracity," he wrote.

___

Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor, Barry Schweid and Ken Guggenheim contributed to this report.

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House Votes for Oil Drilling in Alaska

Yahoo! News
AP
House Votes for Oil Drilling in Alaska

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The House voted late Wednesday to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge as part of a broad energy bill that Democrats said would funnel billions of dollars to highly profitable energy companies while doing little to promote conservation or ease gasoline prices.

The bill's sponsors said oil from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as much as a million barrels a day, will be needed to help curtail the country's growing dependence on oil imports. Opponents argued the oil wouldn't be available for a decade and even then at levels that would not significantly affect oil prices or imports.

The bill calls for $8.1 billion in tax breaks over 10 years, most of it going to promote coal, nuclear, oil and natural gas energy industries.

Development of the Alaska refuge has been a contentious issue for nearly a decade. Environmentalists fear a spider web of drilling platforms and pipelines would harm the area's polar bears, caribou, migrating birds and other wildlife.

Senate Democrats have pledged to filibuster any energy bill that would open the refuge to oil companies. An amendment to strip the Alaska refuge provision from the energy bill failed Wednesday night 231-200.

A final vote on the energy legislation is expected by the House on Thursday.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who offered the ANWR amendment, noted that the bill does nothing to improve the fuel economy of automobiles, which he said use 70 percent of the country's oil, and that it was wrong "to then turn to the wilderness areas and say we need energy."

An attempt to require automakers to increase fuel economy to a fleet average of 33 miles per gallon over the next decade was defeated 254-177.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the auto fuel economy proposal, said it would have reduced oil use by 2 million barrels a day — more than could be taken from ANWR — by 2020. He described as "a bunch of nonsense" claims by opponents that the increased fuel economy would cost the auto industry jobs, force consumers to buy smaller cars and reduce automobile safety.

"We don't need to micromanage our auto manufactures," countered Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., acknowledged that ANWR was "a very unique place" that deserves protection but argued that its oil can be developed using modern drilling techniques without harming the environment and wildlife.

"We don't have to choose between providing the energy resources ... and protecting our environment," he said.

President Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to give him an energy bill by summer, including a go-ahead for oil exploration in the Alaska refuge. He said the oil can be recovered "with almost no impact on land and local wildlife" and ANWR's production would amount to nearly half the oil the U.S. now gets from Venezuela.

Speaking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Bush said swift action on energy by Congress — where a succession of energy bills have languished for four years — would "send an important signal" that the country "is serious about solving America's energy problems."

Bush said he wished he "could wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow" but said the nation's energy problems took years to develop and are "not going to be solved overnight."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California accused Bush of trying to exploit people's anxiety over high gas prices to gain support for a bill that she said "was written by energy lobbyists for the benefit of the energy industry." She said it would neither lower energy prices nor curtail America's growing reliance on oil imports.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the legislation's floor leader, called the bill balanced and said if it becomes law it will provide for a more diversified array of domestic energy sources from coal, oil and gas to nuclear and renewable such energy from biomass, ethanol and wind.

"Midterm and long term, if the bill becomes law, we'll see prices stabilized," Barton said at a news conference with Majority Leader Tom DeLay, also of Texas, who accused Democrats of being "obstructionists."

"There are those that do not want a solution, they just want the bill to fail," DeLay said.

The House bill also would make it easier to build liquefied natural gas import terminals, even if states or local communities oppose the project, and require refiners to use more corn-based ethanol in gasoline.

It also would extend daylight-saving time by two months to reduce energy use and protect makers of the gasoline additive MTBE from product liability lawsuits stemming to the chemical's contamination of drinking water.

The bill gives MTBE makers "safe harbor" and will leave communities and water districts with billions of dollars in cleanup costs, said Rep. Lois Capps (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. It also provides $2 billion to help MTBE makers, including major oil companies and refiners, to shift away from MTBE production as the additive is phased out.

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Iraq Chief Says a Mass Killing, Under Dispute, Did Take Place

The New York Times
Iraq Chief Says a Mass Killing, Under Dispute, Did Take Place
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: April 21, 2005

Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
An American soldier passed Army vehicles destroyed on Wednesday by a car bomb in western Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 20 - The new Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said Wednesday that more than 50 bodies had been discovered in the Tigris River and suggested that they were victims of a mass kidnapping south of Baghdad that other Iraqi officials had insisted was a hoax just three days before.

Mr. Talabani, who made the assertion after a meeting with Shiite leaders about dividing up top jobs in the new government, offered no details about the crime, including when or precisely where the bodies were found.

It was the latest bizarre development in a succession of claims about whether any kidnappings had occurred. The president's report supported a version of events favored by Shiite politicians who are about to take office in the new government and ran contrary to denials by the departing prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

While Mr. Talabani said hostages had been killed and their bodies thrown into the Tigris, he offered no documentation that could help independently verify his statement, like a list of victims, photographs of the bodies or the names of witnesses.

But he said the government knew the names of victims and had such photographs, and several news agencies reported that the local police and other authorities in Suwaira - just downriver from Madaen, where the mass abduction was originally reported to have occurred - said they had recently recovered some 50 bodies from the river.

An American military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no information about the report.

The announcement was made on a day in which violence in Iraq continued to mount. Twenty Iraqi troops were taken from their trucks near the western city of Haditha, dragged to a soccer stadium and lined up against the wall and shot, according to an official in the Interior Ministry.

Nineteen of the soldiers died and one was taken to a hospital, the official said. American military officials said they had no information about these killings.

Dr. Allawi escaped a car-bomb assassination attempt that killed two policemen and wounded one, according to the Interior Ministry.

Regardless of whether Mr. Talabani's report is later verified, the surge of renewed insurgent attacks - which also included eight deaths and three other suicide car bombings on Wednesday in Baghdad - underscored the challenges facing the new government that is expected to take power in the coming days.

Violence has left dozens dead in Baghdad alone in the last week, calling into question suggestions that the tide in the war is clearly turning.

Mr. Talabani's comments are likely to have a significant political impact. If true, they will inflame Shiites who are already furious at attacks carried out by Sunni Arab insurgents. If they prove wrong, they are sure to enrage Sunni Arabs who feel shut out of the new government and do not trust the new leaders.

Political leaders continued negotiations late into the night over appointments to the cabinet, and several top political aides said a principal sticking point was demands made by Dr. Allawi's party for four cabinet-level jobs, including deputy prime minister.

Shiite leaders had hoped to announce a new cabinet on Thursday, a religious holiday, but that appeared unlikely late Wednesday because of continuing Shiite disagreement with Dr. Allawi, the two aides said.

Last weekend the kidnapping dispute threw the nation into turmoil as Shiite leaders asserted that Sunni terrorists had staged a large-scale abduction of Shiite men, women and children in the town of Madaen.

But on Sunday, after surrounding and searching the town, Iraqi troops found no bodies or hostages and suggested that the accusations had been fabricated. Dr. Allawi confirmed that no hostages had been found and said lurid accusations about violence there appeared to be false.

Yet some Shiite leaders remained angry that their assertions of a mass kidnapping were discredited.

Shiite leaders, who hold a majority of parliamentary seats, are negotiating with other factions, including Kurdish officials led by Mr. Talabani, over how many cabinet posts each side will get.

Political leaders of the dominant Shiite alliance talked well into the night with Dr. Allawi's party, which according to political aides continued to seek the jobs of deputy prime minister, either interior minister or defense minister, at least one economy-focused minister, like oil or finance, and one service minister. But Shiites believe that is too much, the aides said.

A meeting between Dr. Allawi's party and Shiite leaders continued late Wednesday at the home of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a major Shiite leader, said Ali al-Dabagh, a senior aide in the Shiite alliance. Mr. Dabagh said Sunni officials - who are to get a comparatively small number of top government jobs - had complicated the negotiations by putting forward conflicting lists of Sunnis as candidates for the positions allocated to them.

"They don't have one side we can deal with," Mr. Dabagh complained. He added, "We see the demands of Dr. Allawi as too high."

In an interview on Wednesday evening, an aide to Mr. Talabani elaborated on the president's comments about the kidnapping, saying the government had names and pictures of the victims and names of the killers. "There were hostages who were killed and thrown into the Tigris, and we found 50 dead bodies," the aide said. He said details would be released soon.

In the continuing violence in Baghdad, two Iraqis, one of them a child, died after insurgents tried to attack an American military convoy in the restive western Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya with a car bomb, according to Iraqi officials.

Two car bombs exploded in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, one aimed at a police car rushing to the scene of the other car bombing, according to an Interior Ministry official. Together, the bombs destroyed 15 police vehicles and wounded three people, he said.

Before the attempt on Dr. Allawi's life, a Health Ministry official said a total of 6 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded by terrorist activities in Baghdad on Wednesday. Three civilians were also killed in the northern city of Mosul, he said.

Layla Istifan, Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidy and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.

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Fears of Rising Inflation Send Shares to New Lows for '05

The New York Times
April 21, 2005
Fears of Rising Inflation Send Shares to New Lows for '05
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER and LOUIS UCHITELLE

Fears of rising inflation sent stocks to new lows for the year yesterday after the government reported a sharp increase in consumer prices that all but guaranteed that the Federal Reserve would continue to push interest rates higher even as the economy may be slowing.

Last week investors were worried about the effect of slower economic growth on corporate earnings. The addition of inflation fears to the mix could put nerves on Wall Street even more on edge.

A 0.6 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index last month was the largest in five months, the government reported. The 0.4 percent jump in the core rate, which excludes food and energy, was twice the forecast from analysts and the biggest monthly increase in nearly four years.

While some economists predicted that inflation should moderate in coming months, higher energy costs have pushed consumer prices steadily higher so that they have been running at an annual rate of 3 percent or more for several months.

In the New York metropolitan region, inflation was considerably stronger than at the national level, rising 1.7 percent in March in the largest month-over-month increase in 23 years. [Page B4.]

Stocks fell further in the afternoon after the Federal Reserve reported its summary of economic activity around the country. The major theme of the report was that cost pressures have been rising and that businesses had been able to pass them on in higher prices.

With inflation moving to the top of the range that Fed policy makers consider acceptable, analysts said, they may have little choice but to push rates steadily higher even if such actions threaten to slow economic activity further.

"The disappointing inflation news suggests that the Fed will now have to see something more dramatic in economic weakness before they consider pausing" in raising rates, said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG/Hoenig, a brokerage firm in Rye Brook, N.Y.

Slow growth and rising prices were the hallmark of the 1970's and were called stagflation. While no one is saying the economy faces such an illness now, even a hint of stagflation makes the Fed's job more difficult.

"This will make it tough on them if they want to get more aggressive in raising interest rates because they could be accused of endangering the economic recovery," Mr. Barbera said.

Yesterday's stock decline quickly ended a pause after shares plunged three consecutive days last week, from Wednesday through Friday, in their worst week since August.

With a 1.1 percent decline yesterday, the Dow Jones industrial average has now given up all of the 9 percent rally it experienced from the day after the presidential election through March 4, when the Dow hit its 2005 high just 59 points shy of 11,000. After falling 115.05 points yesterday, to 10,012.36, it is now threatening to break below 10,000, and is down 7.2 percent for the year.

The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 15.28 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,137.50, putting it only 7 points above its Election Day level. It is now down 6.1 percent for the year.

The Nasdaq composite index dropped 18.60 points, or 1 percent, to 1,913.76, about 5 points from the 2005 low it hit Friday. That was the lowest level since mid-October, before the post-election rally. The Nasdaq is down 12 percent in 2005.

The afternoon sell-off was powerful enough to overwhelm the performance of stocks that reported surprisingly good earnings for the first quarter, including Intel and Caterpillar. Many investors were hoping that better-than-expected earnings from several bellwether companies would help the stock market rebound.

Intel, which reported after the market closed Tuesday that its profits jumped 25 percent, was up as much as 3.4 percent in early trading, but closed up just 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, at $22.66. Caterpillar, whose earnings swelled by 38 percent for the first quarter, was up as much as 6.1 percent, but finished up $3.09, or 3.6 percent, at $88.04.

After the market closed, eBay reported another strong quarterly earnings gain of 28 percent.

For millions of investors, the new inflation figures make sorting out the economy, stocks and interest rates even more difficult.

"I think it is very confusing," said Henry Herrmann, chief investment officer at Waddell & Reed in Overland Park, Kan. It appears that "the stock market believes that inflation is going to lead the Federal Reserve to overshoot," he added, by raising its short-term benchmark rate so aggressively that economic growth would suffer too much.

Federal Reserve policy makers are expected to increase the short-term rate they control to 3 percent at their May 4 meeting in what would be the eighth consecutive quarter- point increase in less than a year.

The bond market's reaction to the inflation news may also be confusing for investors, because inflation fears usually drive bond prices lower and yields higher. After falling early, prices of the Treasury's 10-year note rebounded to rise 6/32, to 9816/32. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction, fell to 4.19 percent, from 4.21 percent Tuesday.

"People are worried about stocks and the soft patch in the economy and you are having a flight to quality," said Scott Gewirtz, co-head of government bond trading at Deutsche Bank.

Indications of a slight weakening in the economy - auto sales off, retail sales slowing, wages still losing ground to inflation, job growth below par - have many forecasters marking down their expectations for economic growth to an annual rate of 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the second quarter from 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

"If anything is pinching family budgets right now, it is their experience every day at the gas station," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "That constrains their budgets more than interest rates. If they are spending more at the pump, they have to be spending less elsewhere."

Yesterday, the price of crude oil for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 46 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $54.03 a barrel, not far below its record high. While oil prices are not included in the core inflation rate, they appear to be a contributing factor in the rise in other prices.

"The underlying trend is up, and that is largely because of the oil pass-through," said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at Global Insight.

Still, last month's 0.4 percent jump in the core rate may not be as threatening as it appeared at first glance because of seasonal aberrations. One major contributor was a sharp jump in hotel room rates, perhaps because the Easter week holiday fell in March; similarly a big jump in spring apparel prices may also have been affected by the timing of the holiday. Neither spike is likely to be repeated in April.

But the broader inflation rate shows no signs of diminishing. Half of the rise in the overall index was from rising gasoline prices, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. They averaged $2.09 a gallon, up from $1.91 in February, according to Energy Department surveys, and in the first half of April the average rose again, to $2.24 a gallon, foreshadowing still another sharp increase in the Consumer Price Index.

For the 12 months ended in March, the overall inflation rate for consumers was 3.1 percent compared with 2.5 percent last September and 1.7 percent in March 2004.

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Fears of Rising Inflation Send Shares to New Lows for '05

The New York Times
April 21, 2005
Fears of Rising Inflation Send Shares to New Lows for '05
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER and LOUIS UCHITELLE

Fears of rising inflation sent stocks to new lows for the year yesterday after the government reported a sharp increase in consumer prices that all but guaranteed that the Federal Reserve would continue to push interest rates higher even as the economy may be slowing.

Last week investors were worried about the effect of slower economic growth on corporate earnings. The addition of inflation fears to the mix could put nerves on Wall Street even more on edge.

A 0.6 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index last month was the largest in five months, the government reported. The 0.4 percent jump in the core rate, which excludes food and energy, was twice the forecast from analysts and the biggest monthly increase in nearly four years.

While some economists predicted that inflation should moderate in coming months, higher energy costs have pushed consumer prices steadily higher so that they have been running at an annual rate of 3 percent or more for several months.

In the New York metropolitan region, inflation was considerably stronger than at the national level, rising 1.7 percent in March in the largest month-over-month increase in 23 years. [Page B4.]

Stocks fell further in the afternoon after the Federal Reserve reported its summary of economic activity around the country. The major theme of the report was that cost pressures have been rising and that businesses had been able to pass them on in higher prices.

With inflation moving to the top of the range that Fed policy makers consider acceptable, analysts said, they may have little choice but to push rates steadily higher even if such actions threaten to slow economic activity further.

"The disappointing inflation news suggests that the Fed will now have to see something more dramatic in economic weakness before they consider pausing" in raising rates, said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG/Hoenig, a brokerage firm in Rye Brook, N.Y.

Slow growth and rising prices were the hallmark of the 1970's and were called stagflation. While no one is saying the economy faces such an illness now, even a hint of stagflation makes the Fed's job more difficult.

"This will make it tough on them if they want to get more aggressive in raising interest rates because they could be accused of endangering the economic recovery," Mr. Barbera said.

Yesterday's stock decline quickly ended a pause after shares plunged three consecutive days last week, from Wednesday through Friday, in their worst week since August.

With a 1.1 percent decline yesterday, the Dow Jones industrial average has now given up all of the 9 percent rally it experienced from the day after the presidential election through March 4, when the Dow hit its 2005 high just 59 points shy of 11,000. After falling 115.05 points yesterday, to 10,012.36, it is now threatening to break below 10,000, and is down 7.2 percent for the year.

The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 15.28 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,137.50, putting it only 7 points above its Election Day level. It is now down 6.1 percent for the year.

The Nasdaq composite index dropped 18.60 points, or 1 percent, to 1,913.76, about 5 points from the 2005 low it hit Friday. That was the lowest level since mid-October, before the post-election rally. The Nasdaq is down 12 percent in 2005.

The afternoon sell-off was powerful enough to overwhelm the performance of stocks that reported surprisingly good earnings for the first quarter, including Intel and Caterpillar. Many investors were hoping that better-than-expected earnings from several bellwether companies would help the stock market rebound.

Intel, which reported after the market closed Tuesday that its profits jumped 25 percent, was up as much as 3.4 percent in early trading, but closed up just 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, at $22.66. Caterpillar, whose earnings swelled by 38 percent for the first quarter, was up as much as 6.1 percent, but finished up $3.09, or 3.6 percent, at $88.04.

After the market closed, eBay reported another strong quarterly earnings gain of 28 percent.

For millions of investors, the new inflation figures make sorting out the economy, stocks and interest rates even more difficult.

"I think it is very confusing," said Henry Herrmann, chief investment officer at Waddell & Reed in Overland Park, Kan. It appears that "the stock market believes that inflation is going to lead the Federal Reserve to overshoot," he added, by raising its short-term benchmark rate so aggressively that economic growth would suffer too much.

Federal Reserve policy makers are expected to increase the short-term rate they control to 3 percent at their May 4 meeting in what would be the eighth consecutive quarter- point increase in less than a year.

The bond market's reaction to the inflation news may also be confusing for investors, because inflation fears usually drive bond prices lower and yields higher. After falling early, prices of the Treasury's 10-year note rebounded to rise 6/32, to 9816/32. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction, fell to 4.19 percent, from 4.21 percent Tuesday.

"People are worried about stocks and the soft patch in the economy and you are having a flight to quality," said Scott Gewirtz, co-head of government bond trading at Deutsche Bank.

Indications of a slight weakening in the economy - auto sales off, retail sales slowing, wages still losing ground to inflation, job growth below par - have many forecasters marking down their expectations for economic growth to an annual rate of 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the second quarter from 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

"If anything is pinching family budgets right now, it is their experience every day at the gas station," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "That constrains their budgets more than interest rates. If they are spending more at the pump, they have to be spending less elsewhere."

Yesterday, the price of crude oil for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 46 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $54.03 a barrel, not far below its record high. While oil prices are not included in the core inflation rate, they appear to be a contributing factor in the rise in other prices.

"The underlying trend is up, and that is largely because of the oil pass-through," said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at Global Insight.

Still, last month's 0.4 percent jump in the core rate may not be as threatening as it appeared at first glance because of seasonal aberrations. One major contributor was a sharp jump in hotel room rates, perhaps because the Easter week holiday fell in March; similarly a big jump in spring apparel prices may also have been affected by the timing of the holiday. Neither spike is likely to be repeated in April.

But the broader inflation rate shows no signs of diminishing. Half of the rise in the overall index was from rising gasoline prices, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. They averaged $2.09 a gallon, up from $1.91 in February, according to Energy Department surveys, and in the first half of April the average rose again, to $2.24 a gallon, foreshadowing still another sharp increase in the Consumer Price Index.

For the 12 months ended in March, the overall inflation rate for consumers was 3.1 percent compared with 2.5 percent last September and 1.7 percent in March 2004.

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Big Board to Acquire Leading Electronic Trading System

The New York Times
April 21, 2005
Big Board to Acquire Leading Electronic Trading System
By JENNY ANDERSON

The New York Stock Exchange, whose shouting traders and frenzied activity have become a global symbol of capitalism, announced yesterday that it would acquire a leading electronic trading system in a deal that allows the exchange to become a public company but casts doubts on its 213-year-old system of auction trading.

The exchange will merge operations with Archipelago, one of the biggest electronic trading operators, to form the NYSE Group. The deal will give the holders of the exchange's 1,366 seats $400 million in cash and 70 percent of the shares of the combined publicly traded company.

More important, it will enable the New York Stock Exchange to expand its ability to handle trades electronically, staving off challenges from its traditional rival Nasdaq and global competitors like Euronext and Deutsche Börse.

"This transaction, transforming the New York Stock Exchange into a public, for-profit entity, is an essential step to maintain our global competitiveness and leadership," said John A. Thain, the chief executive of the exchange, who will run the new entity. "We believe that our new combined company will be a world-class competitor in every respect."

The merger is the most significant acknowledgement yet that the Big Board's traditional market, driven by human traders, may not be able to survive in an era increasingly dominated by instantaneous trades.

On the storied trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, hundreds of men and women in blue and green jackets spend their days monitoring screens, handling multiple calls and yelling at each other in an effort to get the best prices for buyers and sellers of stock.

Defenders of the system say their human judgment is critical; critics say the system is overrun with conflicts and rife with a history of misdeeds. After a three-year investigation, seven firms on the floor paid more than $240 million in fines for trading violations. Last week, 15 traders were indicted on related charges.

Electronic exchanges, on the other hand, match trades in complete anonymity.

The deal answers the calls of members, investors and, indirectly, regulators, who have demanded that the New York exchange - the last major one in the world to have floor-based trading - become faster and more electronic, more diversified and public.

Mr. Thain hopes to create an exchange that can use its stock to do deals and offer trading in different financial instruments to attract big investors. While small individual investors are generally unaware of how or where their stocks are traded, the big institutions that manage trillions of dollars through mutual funds and pension funds, have long complained that New York was too slow and too conflicted.

"We will offer our customers choice," Mr. Thain said. The choice will be to trade N.Y.S.E.-listed stocks, which the exchange trades today, as well as Nasdaq stocks, bonds and derivatives.

Many members of the exchange have resisted moving to greater automation, fearing for their jobs and their wealth, which for many is tied up in the price of a seat. Seat prices have fluctuated as sentiment about the exchange's future has wavered. In August 1999, a seat sold for $2.7 million, falling in January 2005 to $975,000. The most recent sale was back up to $1.6 million.

With the move to make the exchange a public entity, Mr. Thain escapes the exchange's long infighting among customers, seat owners and members of the exchange. By converting to for-profit status, the NYSE Group will have to answer only to its shareholders.

The deal is "a home run," said Frank Christensen, a 40-year member who is a principal at Kelly Christensen, a trading firm that operates on the floor. "It brings the connectivity we need to maintain our position globally."

But looming over the deal is an unanswered question: Is it the beginning of the end of open-outcry trading or the salvation of a seemingly outdated system? While Mr. Thain contends that the deal complements his "hybrid" proposal of floor and electronic trading, others wonder whether the exchange in Lower Manhattan, where everyone from presidents to Sarah Jessica Parker have visited to ring the opening bell, will eventually be silent.

"It is the end of the floor, in spite of what John Thain says," said Junius W. Peake, a professor of finance at the University of Northern Colorado. "It's a life preserver."

The chief executive of Archipelago, Gerald D. Putnam Jr., who at times has been critical of a floor-based system as expensive and inefficient, defended yesterday's deal. "If the customers see value, they will continue to trade there," he said in an interview. "If they don't, they won't. Having us in the mix adds choice."

The exchange's acquisition of Archipelago comes as the Nasdaq Stock Market, the largest electronic marketplace, and a consortium of private investors are nearing a deal to buy Instinet, the institutional brokerage and electronic trading network controlled by the Reuters Group. Archipelago, too, had been looking at both Instinet and Nasdaq. The two deals would mean that in just days, the four major competitors will be down to two longtime rivals: the Big Board and Nasdaq.

The transaction requires approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission. If approved, the deal will close at the end of the year or early next year.

Markets like the exchange and Nasdaq fight to be the place where investors trade. They make money from listing stocks, from executing trades and from distributing market data. As the cost of trading stocks has fallen, exchanges have become more dependent on volume and have looked more aggressively to consolidate. The competition has led to a ferocious game of musical chairs in which every player fears being left out.

In recent years, the New York exchange has been roiled by controversy over the compensation package of Richard A. Grasso, its former chairman, as well as by investigations into improper trading by some specialists on the floor. Competitors have sought to profit from the exchange's scandals and setbacks. They have reiterated that the floor-based system of humans searching for buyers and sellers, rather than having a machine anonymously match the parties, was riddled with conflicts, errors and corruption.

And yet the business of trading stocks has become less profitable and more challenging for everyone. At the same time, competition from global players from Tokyo to Frankfurt is putting pressure on all American marketplaces to broaden their scope.

"As we look to the future and the challenge of competing globally in a high-speed electronically connected world, it is clear that we must do more," Mr. Thain said.

The deal should put to rest concern that Mr. Thain was slow to act. His deal with Mr. Putnam answers many criticisms of the exchange: that it is not public, that it has no currency to do deals, that it offers investors only stocks not derivatives, a wildly popular new instrument and that it does not offer investors choice.

The New York Stock Exchange will own 70 percent of the new entity. It will pay each member $300,000 for a seat and issue stock for the remaining 70 percent of th company. Mr. Thain will remain chief executive while Mr. Putnam becomes co-president with the exchange's other two co-presidents. Three independent Archipelago directors will join the exchange's board and a separate board, made up of independent members, will regulate the entity.

Based in Chicago, Archipelago became a publicly traded company in August. Since then, it has made a number of transactions, including a deal for the Pacific Exchange. In terms of volume, it ranks behind the Big Board and Nasdaq, trading about a half billion shares a day.

The Big Board is the dominant player among markets, with 80 percent market share trading stocks which are listed on the exchange. But it has no presence trading Nasdaq-listed stocks, nor does it compete in the lucrative arena of trading increasingly popular investments like exchange-traded funds, options and other derivatives.

The challenges, however, are significant. Merging two fundamentally different models will be painful and it is unclear what success, if any, the Big Board will have integrating its own plan for further automation.

And the dark cloud hanging over the already tremendous hurdle of integration is simply whether the humans will be needed as part of the combined system.

"The floor really does add value," Mr. Thain said on a conference call, pointing out that a few hundred stocks which trade huge volumes and are highly accessible trade better electronically while less popular stocks tend to benefit from a system where individuals create demand for stocks.

Traders filed out of the exchange wearily yesterday, most ducking questions. "The world is changing and so are we," said one specialist.

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"LET'S STOP THE "FREE TRADE" NUTBALLS"

jimhightower.com

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

"LET'S STOP THE "FREE TRADE" NUTBALLS"

Where are all those "free-trade" ideologues now that their theories have turned out to be bunkum, devastating American working families?

"Trust us," they shouted, as they shoved NAFTA, the WTO, and other globs of globaloney down our throats, promising us an economic paradise if only all quotas and tariffs were eliminated, letting the magic of the global free market create a bonanza of new export jobs for us. But their schemes turn out to be scams, and America's chief export under their laissez-faire ideology turns out to be our middle-class jobs.

One of their brainflares was to eliminate all of the world's quotas on clothing, which took effect in January. This has been disastrous for folks in the real world, which the theorists apparently never visited. In only three months, their policy has resulted in the closing of 17 American textile and clothing factories and the loss of 17,000 American jobs.

This is because––duh––if you just throw open the doors to our market and say, "y'all come," such retailers as Wal-Mart, Nike, and Gap are going to get all of their stuff made in low-wage hell holes in China. Since January, imports of Chinese-made knit shirts, trousers, and underwear (products that were still mostly being made in America) were up by as much as 2000 percent! Shouldn't America at least make its own undies?

The honcho of Warnaco, one of the biggest clothing makers in the world, bluntly says: "We will always go to the least expensive place. There will be a shift to China over time." Experts expect that 70 percent of U.S. clothing will soon come from China and that the 665,000 remaining textile and clothing jobs in America will vanish in the next few years.

Yet the theorists want to feed us even more of their globaloney in the form of a new Central American trade scam called CAFTA. To start taking policy back from these ideological nutballs, call Global Trade Watch: 202-546-4996.

Sources:
"Stream of Chinese Textile Imports Is Becoming a Flood." The New York Times, April 4, 2005.
"U.S. Begins Steps to Limit Import Surge From China." The New York Times, April 5, 2005.

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Congress OKs Bill to Strip Movie Smut

ABC News

Congress OKs Bill to Strip Movie Smut

Congress Approves Bill to Support DVD Technology to Allow Parents to Eliminate Smut From Movies

By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press

Apr. 19, 2005 - Fledgling technology that helps parents prevent children from watching movie scenes depicting sex, violence or foul language won new legal protections Tuesday under a bill Congress is sending to President Bush.

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act would assure manufacturers of DVD players and other devices using such technology they would not be violating copyrights of the Hollywood producers of movies.

The House passed it Tuesday on a voice vote. The Senate passed it in February.

The bill also would make it a federal crime to use video cameras to record films in movie theaters, and it would set tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release.

Moviegoers caught using video cameras in theaters would face up to three years in prison for a first offense and up to six years for later arrests.

The bill's most controversial provision focused on new filtering technology that lets parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movies that contain foul language, violence or nudity.

The author of the provision, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, compared a parent's freedom to skip violent movie scenes to skipping offensive passages in a book. That section of the bill was rewritten to ban filtering companies from selling copies of the edited movies.

"It lets parents decide for themselves what children see and hear on television," Smith said. "Raising children may be the toughest job in the world. Parents need all the help they can get."

Some lawmakers said they objected to the filtering provision but voted to approve the bill because of the crackdown on copyright infringement in other parts of the legislation.

"The intent of the movie-filtering technology is to sanitize movies to protect children," said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif. "While I support family-friendly entertainment, I believe this method is not only a violation of filmmakers' copyright protections but also an infringement of their artistic vision."

Critics of the bill have argued it was aimed at helping one company, Utah-based ClearPlay Inc., whose technology is used in some DVD players to help parents filter inappropriate material by muting dialogue or skipping scenes. ClearPlay sells filters for hundreds of movies that can be added to such DVD players for $4.95 each month.

Hollywood executives have complained that ClearPlay's technology represents unauthorized editing of their movies. They maintain that ClearPlay should pay them licensing fees for altering their creative efforts.

The Directors Guild of America sued ClearPlay in federal court in Colorado alleging copyright violations. The company's chief executive, Bill Aho, said he expects the lawsuit will be dismissed after Bush signs the bill into law.

The bill is Senate 167.

On the Net:

ClearPlay: www.clearplay.com

Directors Guild of America: www.dga.org

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Columbine Community Marks School Shooting

ABC News

Columbine Community Marks School Shooting

'I Will Never Be the Person I Was' - Healing Comes, Slowly for Some, to Columbine Teachers

By CATHERINE TSAI
The Associated Press

Apr. 18, 2005 - Joe Higgins remembers walking back into Columbine High School, weeks after two teenage gunmen slaughtered 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

His math lessons were still on the chalkboard. His calendar was on the same page, April 20, and his students' calculators and books were still on the desks, left behind during what they thought was a fire drill.

"It was like time had frozen," Higgins said.

The memories of that day remain crystal clear for Higgins and dozens of other teachers who survived the nation's deadliest school shooting six years ago this Wednesday. Many have moved on, and one is writing a book about it. Others, including Higgins, have had trouble putting the attack behind them.

Higgins says he was once unemotional and strict. Last year, he wept upon hearing a student he had never met died of cancer. Fire alarms make him jumpy to this day.

"I would like to be unemotional again, but I don't have control over that anymore," says Higgins, who teaches part-time at another Denver-area high school. "I don't have total control over my emotions anymore."

For years, the anniversary of Columbine has brought media attention to relatives of the slain, student survivors and authorities, still blamed by some for failing to notice problems with Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris before their killing spree.

Teachers, meanwhile, have fiercely protected each other as they sought healing in private, while school officials have refused to release details of their investigation.

Scores of teachers stayed at Columbine until that year's freshmen class graduated. Roughly 30 teachers who were at the school on April 20, 1999, still work there.

Paula Reed returned part-time to Columbine this spring after a two-year leave during which she became a novelist. Every story she wrote had a happy ending.

She stayed at Columbine until students who remembered the shootings first-hand graduated, though the pain of coming to work was making it harder to walk in the door.

"There was such a sense as a teacher, you could not abandon those kids," Reed says. "I didn't want to go back in a lot of ways, but to actually not go back was unthinkable."

She finally left to get away from the constant media attention and what she describes as the ripping of a scab that came with other deaths within the Columbine community, including suicides and two students killed at a nearby sandwich shop in 2000.

After a shooting last month at a high school on a Minnesota Indian reservation, officials blocked outsiders. But Columbine became became virtually a tour-bus attraction, with tourists leaning out windows to take pictures.

"If we had been able to shut the world out the way they had done that, it would have made such a huge difference," Reed says.

Former Columbine art teacher Barbara Hirokawa Gal, whose work to tout the healing power of the arts has grown since 1999, agreed.

"They're really lucky in a way," she says of the Minnesota tribe. "They had total control of the situation. We had absolutely no control."

Klebold and Harris opened fire at 11:19 a.m. and killed themselves 49 minutes later after fatally wounding teacher Dave Sanders and 12 classmates, including 10 in the bullet-riddled library. While Higgins and his students were filing out, English teacher Paula Reed was helping students get over a fence and away from the school near suburban Littleton.

Afterward, Reed suffered from headaches, hives and having her hair fall out. She says she felt uncharacteristically withdrawn, angry and depressed.

"Right afterward, I looked back at who I was before the shootings. It feels like a stranger," Reed says.

"I will never be the person I was on April 19 and before, but I'm closer now than I thought I would be," she says. "I truly thought, `I will never be happy again.' I don't feel that way anymore."

Douglas Craft, who retired from Columbine in 2001, wishes he could teach again. The day of the shootings, the biology teacher gathered eight students in his classroom, locked the doors and waited four hours for help to arrive. He tried to divert students' attention from the sounds of gunfire by saying things to make them laugh.

Craft had five of the slain students in his classes.

"I think about those kids all the time," Craft says. "I remember their names, I remember their faces, I remember where they sat in my classroom. I review their names in my mind quite frequently."

He taught in Denver Public Schools for a few years after leaving Columbine, realizing he wasn't ready to quit, but he now sells cars in Golden. The attacks reinforced his understanding of a teacher's purpose.

"It just reaffirmed the notion that teachers are there for more than just to teach their subject matter, which I knew all along, but to be part of the overall school community," Craft says. "That means to be a good listener and a good watcher and to be involved with our students."

Former librarian Mary Swanson confronts memories of the shootings each day as she works on a book some teachers asked her to write to record their memories. Swanson might have been in the library when Harris and Klebold opened fire if she hadn't returned home to make sure she had turned off a television.

"I lived with a lot of guilt that I wasn't in there with the kids for a long, long time," Swanson says. "I decided the reason I wasn't in there was I needed to do this book."

The book, which has not yet found a publisher, will be dedicated to Theresa Miller, who was with Sanders before he died and helped keep students calm amid the gunfire. Miller died of cancer a few years ago.

"These are stories of typical teachers. Your kids come first when you're in the classroom, no matter if gunshots are going off," Swanson says. "None of them thought they were heroes."

Gal has spent her retirement from Columbine telling others about art as therapy for healing. She says the shootings changed her perspective on teaching.

"It made me realize even more how important I was for the kids. The next two years we spent using art to recover from the trauma. I am so passionate about that now," she says.

Gal and other artists encouraged students to pour their hearts into their journals and artwork, expressing feelings that regular "talk therapy" couldn't unleash. It was all part of helping traumatized teachers, parents, students and community members deal with the pain.

"I tell people I will never do anything that difficult again in my life," Gal says. "I know I won't. I hope I won't."

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19 Bodies Left in Iraqi Soccer Stadium

ABC News

Iraqis: 19 Bodies Left in Soccer Stadium

Iraqi Reporter, Residents Say Bodies of 19 Men Left in Soccer Stadium Northwest of Baghdad

The Associated Press

Apr. 20, 2005 - The bodies of 19 Iraqis were left Wednesday in a soccer stadium in this town 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, an Iraqi reporter and residents said.

Taxi driver Usama Rauf said he heard gunshots and rushed to the stadium where he saw the bodies lined up against a bloodstained wall. The reporter and other residents counted 19 bodies and said all appeared to have been shot.

Residents said they believed the victims all men in civilian clothes were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed home for the holiday Thursday marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.

The reporter did not see any military identification documents on the bodies and it was not immediately possible to confirm the claim. U.S. and Iraqi military officials had no immediate information on the incident.

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Bodies of 50 Hostages Found in Iraq

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Reuters
Bodies of 50 Hostages Found in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bodies of 50 people, believed to be those of hostages held in a town near Baghdad earlier this week, have been found in the Tigris river south of Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday.

"More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris and we have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," Talabani told reporters.

"We will give you details in the coming days ... terrorists committed crimes there. It is not true that there were no hostages. There were, but they were killed and they threw the bodies into the Tigris," he said.

Shi'ite officials said last Saturday that around 50 people had been taken hostage by Sunni militants in the town of Madaen, south of Baghdad, and were threatened with death.

Iraqi security forces raided the town earlier this week, but said they had found next to no evidence that anyone had been taken hostage or that there were any gunmen in the town.

Later, Shi'ite officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madaen, but residents and police in the area who spoke to Reuters said they hadn't seen any bodies.

Talabani made his announcement at a news conference shortly after a meeting with Iraq's new prime minister and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Shi'ite political party SCIRI, one of the sources for the information on the Madaen hostages.

Talabani said details of the number of people who had been killed and their names would be announced in the coming days.

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Bush to Sign Rewrite of Bankruptcy Code

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AP
Bush to Sign Rewrite of Bankruptcy Code

Wed Apr 20, 7:20 AM ET

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans weighed down by credit card bills and other financial obligations will have a harder time wiping out their debt under a bankruptcy bill President Bush is poised to sign.

Many debtors will have to work out repayment plans instead of having their obligations erased in bankruptcy court under the law, which will go into effect six months after Bush signs it Wednesday. The legislation is the biggest rewrite of the bankruptcy code in a quarter-century and was pushed for eight years by banks and credit card companies.

The measure would require people with incomes above a certain level to pay some or all of their credit-card charges, medical bills and other obligations under a court-ordered bankruptcy plan.

Those who fought the bill's passage said the change will fall especially hard on low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face crushing medical bills.

The financial services industry argued that bankruptcy frequently is the last refuge of gamblers, impulsive shoppers, divorced or separated fathers avoiding child support, and multimillionaires who buy mansions in states with liberal homestead exemptions to shelter assets from creditors.

The bill got final congressional approval last Thursday, and Bush said he was eager to sign it. "These commonsense reforms will make the system stronger and better so that more Americans — especially lower-income Americans — have greater access to credit," he said.

New personal bankruptcy filings edged down from 1,613,097 in the year ending June 30, 2003, to 1,599,986 in the year ending last June 30, breaking an upward trend of recent years.

Between 30,000 and 210,000 people — from 3.5 percent to 20 percent of those who dissolve their debts in bankruptcy each year in exchange for forfeiting some assets — would be disqualified from doing so under the legislation, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Those people have six months until the law takes effect to escape the tougher guidelines. Bankruptcy attorneys have said they anticipate a rush to the courthouse.

Under the current system, a federal bankruptcy judge determines whether individuals must repay some or all of their debt.

Under the new law, those with insufficient assets or income could still file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which, if approved by a judge, erases debts entirely after certain assets are forfeited. Those with income above their state's median income who can pay at least $6,000 over five years — $100 a month — would be forced into Chapter 13, where a judge would then order a repayment plan.

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On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

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DeLay Continues Attacks on Federal Courts

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AP
DeLay Continues Attacks on Federal Courts

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's work from the bench has been "incredibly outrageous," his latest salvo at the federal judiciary in the weeks following the courts' refusal to stop Terri Schiavo's death.

DeLay also labeled a lot of the courts' Republican appointees as "judicial activists," a term applied by conservatives to judges they dislike for not following what they call strict interpretations of the Constitution.

The No. 2 Republican in the House has been openly critical of the federal courts since they refused to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube. And he pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme Court who were activist and isolated.

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

A spokeswoman for the court, Kathy Arberg, said Kennedy could not be reached for comment.

Although Kennedy was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Reagan, a conservative icon, he has aroused conservatives' ire by sometimes agreeing with the court's more liberal members. Nevertheless, it is unusual for a congressional leader to single out a Supreme Court justice for criticism.

Dan Allen, a DeLay spokesman, declined comment on the interview.

Democrats jumped on DeLay's comments Wednesday morning.

"Has the Internet become the devil's workshop?" said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. "Is it some infernal machine now that needs to be avoided by all right-thinking Americans? What is Mr. DeLay trying to say, as he is stretching to lash out at judges who happen to disagree with his political point of view."

Sen. Larry Craig (news, bio, voting record), R-Idaho, retorted: "Doesn't the other side have anything to talk about nowadays?"

DeLay also has been criticized for his comments following Schiavo's death, which came despite Congress' passage of a law giving the federal courts jurisdiction to review her case. They declined to intervene.

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said in a statement.

He apologized last week, saying he had spoken in an "inartful" way.

Conservatives have been pushing to get the Senate to confirm President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees, which Senate Democrats are blocking. The House has no power over which judges are given lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

However, DeLay has called repeatedly for the House to find a way to hold the federal judiciary accountable for its decisions. "The judiciary has become so activist and so isolated from the American people that it's our job to do that," he said.

One way would be for the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the clause in the Constitution that says "judges can serve as long as they serve with good behavior," he said. "We want to define what good behavior means. And that's where you have to start."

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On the Net:

DeLay: http://www.majorityleader.gov

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Energy Bill Includes $2 Billion Incentive for Gulf Drilling

The New York Times
April 20, 2005
Energy Bill Includes $2 Billion Incentive for Gulf Drilling
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 19 - Backers of energy legislation that the House plans to take up Wednesday like to emphasize its potential benefits for consumers. It has substantial rewards for energy producers as well.

A little-noted provision backed by Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority leader and an ally of the oil industry, would bypass Congress's normal spending process to funnel up to $2 billion over 10 years into research for recovering oil and gas from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Supporters of what some lawmakers refer to as the "DeLay ultra-deep-water provision" say it is crucial to developing new technology to prevent the nation from becoming as dependent on foreign sources of natural gas as it is now for oil. The only way to undertake research of that magnitude, they said, is with a guaranteed flow of money over the long term.

Mr. DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, defended the move, saying, "American consumers will ultimately benefit from this provision because it will reduce our dependence on foreign energy and, more importantly, reduce personal energy costs."

But the direct spending on behalf of oil and gas companies, coming at a time when Congress is trying to tighten its belt and energy profits are up, strikes some as unjustified.

"It is really outrageous," said Jill Lancelot, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group. "As the cost of oil is going up to consumers, the handouts to the industry are gushing forth."

The money for the research is just one of the benefits to energy companies that opponents of the measure are zeroing in on. The measure includes about $8 billion in tax breaks, most of which goes to oil and gas companies to encourage traditional domestic energy production. The United States Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy organization that opposes the energy bill, estimates that only about 5 percent of the tax advantages apply to renewable resources or energy efficiency.

Opponents intend to try to strip out some of the provisions during two days of House debate, but the energy measure is expected to pass, propelled in part by worry about rising gasoline prices.

Similar legislation has been stalled in Congress for four years despite volatile gas prices and a major power blackout along the East Coast, leaving prospects for a final legislative deal again uncertain.

Some of those following the legislation closely say the House measure has become so industry-friendly that they expect it to encounter trouble in the Senate, where a version of the legislation is developing more slowly and could be held up by a looming procedural fight over judicial nominations.

Mr. DeLay figures prominently in another potential sticking point between the House and Senate, a proposal to protect manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE from lawsuits over pollution. That provision was the chief reason the measure was blocked in the last session of Congress, and Mr. DeLay and Representative Joe L. Barton, another Texas Republican and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, have kept the liability waiver in the new bill.

Opponents of the legislation are also trying to tie Mr. DeLay's close involvement with elements of the energy bill to heightened scrutiny of his ethical conduct. An advertisement underwritten by conservation groups that is scheduled to run Wednesday in a Capitol Hill newsletter urges a vote against what it portrays as the "MTBE-Tom DeLay bill."

Lawmakers and others say Mr. DeLay's influence clearly helped advance the deep-water research money, which has been proposed at lower amounts and which would have been subject to annual review by the appropriations committee. But the majority leader has gotten strongly behind the initiative as a potential boon to the Gulf of Mexico drilling business and as a way to increase domestic natural gas production and cut rising costs.

The energy industry has been a mainstay of Mr. DeLay's political support during his Congressional career, contributing more than $900,000 to his election campaigns since 1984, according to the organization Political MoneyLine, which monitors political fund-raising.

Under the deep-water proposal, a research consortium would receive up to $200 million a year in oil royalties over the next decade to develop new approaches to recovering gas and oil in waters deeper than 1,500 meters, or about 5,000 feet, in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, waters that oil companies believe hold huge reserves of natural gas.

C. Kyle Simpson, a former Clinton administration energy official who is a leading lobbyist on the provision, said federal help with the research was essential because smaller oil companies lacked the wherewithal to undertake it and the big companies would go in search of more accessible gas reserves overseas rather than devote resources to new research.

"If we want to maximize the use of our own domestic reserves, the government has to have some sort of incentive to get the companies to develop the technology to produce it," said Mr. Simpson, who represents the Gas Technology Institute, a research arm of the industry.

The guaranteed federal aid over 10 years is needed to attract interest in the type of long-term research that will be necessary, he said, adding that the electrical power industry and others also received direct aid in the House measure.

But Anna Aurilio, legislative director for the Public Interest Research Group, said the plan was a way for oil companies to get back part of the payments they were obligated to make for drilling on taxpayer-owned federal land.

"This is really an end-run around paying their fair share," Ms. Aurilio said. "These companies can and should do this on their own. They are laughing all the way to the bank."

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Senate Panel Postpones Vote on U.N. Nominee

The New York Times
April 20, 2005
Senate Panel Postpones Vote on U.N. Nominee
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, April 19 - A surprise last-minute defection by an Ohio Republican forced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone a vote that had been scheduled for Tuesday on the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

The chairman of the panel, Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, reluctantly agreed to put off any vote until next month to allow a review of what Democrats portrayed as troubling new accusations that cast doubt on Mr. Bolton's temperament and credibility.

Until the defection, by Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, the panel had appeared prepared to send the nomination to the Senate floor on a strict party-line vote. But Mr. Voinovich stunned other senators by announcing that more time was needed to explore accusations against Mr. Bolton.

"My conscience got me," he said after the stormy two-hour session. He said he had gone to the meeting planning to vote for Mr. Bolton, but changed his mind after hearing the case against the nominee made by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, both Democrats.

"I wanted more information about this individual, and I didn't feel comfortable voting for him," Mr. Voinovich said.

The Democrats called the delay a significant setback to Mr. Bolton's prospects, providing opponents with time to seek corroboration for the accusations made since he appeared before the committee a week ago.

Among those highlighted by Mr. Biden was a statement from Melody Townsel of Dallas, a former contract worker for the Agency for International Development who wrote in an "open letter" to the committee that Mr. Bolton, as a private lawyer, routinely visited her hotel room "to pound on the door and shout threats" over two weeks in 1994 in Moscow because she had complained about inefficiency by Mr. Bolton's client, the prime contractor in a foreign aid program.

Ms. Townsel actively opposed President Bush's re-election. Mr. Biden said that her accusations remained unsubstantiated but that there was some independent corroboration.

Mr. Bolton has not addressed the accusations since they became known late last week. His aides have said that he will not respond to reporters' inquiries during the confirmation process and that any statement will be in response to questions from the committee.

Among the 10 Republicans on the panel, two in addition to Mr. Voinovich expressed concerns on Tuesday about the nomination. One senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said that he was ready to vote to send the nomination to the full Senate, but that he would not guarantee that he would vote in favor of the nomination on the floor.

"I think the charges are serious enough that they demand, or cry out, for further examination," Mr. Hagel said at the committee meeting.

The second Republican, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, did not make his views known at the hearing, but told reporters later that he was glad that the vote had been postponed.

"I don't know if I've ever seen, in a setting like this, a senator changing his mind as a result of what other senators said," Mr. Chafee said. "The process worked. It's kind of refreshing."

Until Mr. Voinovich spoke up near the end of the session, he had not figured in speculation about wavering among Republicans. Mr. Voinovich had not attended either of the committee hearings last week on the Bolton nomination, citing the press of other Senate business. The only doubts expressed in public by Republicans on the panel had come from Mr. Chafee and Mr. Hagel.

Mr. Lugar had pushed throughout the session for a vote, saying President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deserved a swift decision on the nomination.

Asked to comment on the decision, a spokesman for the State Department, Adam Ereli, said: "Our only comment is that we believe that Mr. Bolton's nomination is a good one. He'll be a strong candidate, and we hope for him to be in New York so he can begin the important work he has there."

At one point, Mr. Lugar asked that the roll be called for a vote.

But Mr. Voinovich spoke up to say, "I have heard enough today that it gives me some concern about Mr. Bolton."

After some hasty discussion, Republicans and Democrats agreed unanimously to put off any decision until the first week of May, when the Senate returns from a weeklong recess.

The parties agreed to ask the committee staff to investigate the accusations against Mr. Bolton and seek further information from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency about reports that he sought to intimidate intelligence analysts. The committee held out the possibility that Mr. Bolton, who appeared before the panel last Monday in a daylong session, could be called again.

To date, just one former official, Carl W. Ford Jr., a former assistant secretary of state, has testified in public against him.

The testimony of other officials, including Christian W. Westermann, the top biological weapons expert in the State Department, and Fulton T. Armstrong, a former intelligence officer for Latin America, has been placed on the public record.

The two men have said Mr. Bolton sought their removal from their positions because he objected to their intelligence assessments of the biological weapons program in Cuba. Neither official reported to Mr. Bolton, but he has testified that he lost confidence in them and sought their transfers.

Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article.

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Government Issues 12 New Food Pyramids

Yahoo! News
AP
Government Issues 12 New Food Pyramids

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government flipped the 13-year-old food pyramid on its side Tuesday, added a staircase for exercise and offered a dozen different models, all aimed at helping Americans trim their waistlines.

Dubbed "MyPyramid," the new graphic interprets the food groups as rainbow-colored bands running vertically from the tip to the base: Orange for grains, green for vegetables, red for fruits, a yellow sliver for oils, blue for milk products and purple for meats and beans. Preferred foods such as grains, vegetables and milk products have wider bands.

To emphasize exercise, the image depicts a figure climbing steps to the top.

In the old pyramid-shaped guide to healthy eating, grains filled the bottom, fats and sweets were at the tip, and vegetables, fruits, dairy products were in the middle.

"It's become quite familiar, but few Americans follow the recommendations," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Tuesday as he unveiled the new pyramid.

The new one encourages people to figure out their calorie and exercise needs using a new government Web site www.mypyramid.com. There people can find 12 different models based on daily calorie needs — from the 1,000 calories for sedentary toddlers to 3,200 for teenage boys.

Improving the health of a nation that has only grown fatter since the first pyramid debuted in 1992 is the goal of the new government tools. Nearly two out of three Americans are overweight or obese, and a report last month in The New England Journal of Medicine contended that obesity, particularly in children, is trimming four to nine months off the average life expectancy.

"If we don't change these trends, our children may be the first generation that cannot look forward to a longer life span than their parents, something that should be very troubling to all of us," said Eric Bost, the Agriculture Department's under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.

Nonetheless, officials insisted that "MyPyramid" is not a weight-loss plan, which drew criticism from consumer advocates.

"They don't clearly say, `Eat less,'" said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "They acknowledge or hint at it with the wedge shape of the food groups. But it doesn't go far enough in making it clear which foods to eat more of and which foods to eat less of."

Nigel Holmes, a Connecticut-based author and lecturer who designs explanation graphics said the new pyramid doesn't provide much information and instead assumes people will do a lot of research.

"They've thrown away the useful part of the pyramid — less at the top, more at the bottom," Holmes said. "I think words and pictures together are very powerful. But just by itself, this isn't a substitute for what we had before."

Holmes called the stair-climbing figure an "inelegant" attempt to encourage exercise. "If you remember the pyramid at all, and you remember oil was at the top, you now have somebody marching steadfastly up towards the oils," he said.

The new pyramid recommends 30 minutes of daily physical activity, says 60 minutes is needed to prevent weight gain and 90 minutes may be needed to sustain weight loss.

To help promote the new emphasis on exercise, Johanns invited fitness expert Denise Austin to be a cheerleader for the recommended 30 minutes of daily physical activity.

Austin, a member of the president's Physical Fitness and Sports Council, goaded reporters like an exercise class instructor: "The more you move, the more you lose!" She gave an impromptu demonstration, gripping the arms of her chair like parallel bars and lifting her legs to work her abdominal muscles.

Criticism of the new pyramid stood in contrast to praise that greeted the more detailed "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005," released by the government in January. Developed by a panel of scientists and doctors using the latest research, the 70-page booklet served as the basis for the pyramid's makeover.

The guidelines' message was to choose foods packed with the most nutrition and the least calories; for example, bread made from whole-grain flour instead of white flour.

They also said the government should make its advice less confusing by switching from "serving" sizes to cups, ounces and other household measures, which it did.

In all, there were 23 general recommendations and 18 suggestions for special populations. Officials decided that was too much to cram into the symbol and put the information on the new MyPyramid Web site.

The department figured some would be less interested than others, so they created different types of tools. My Pyramid Plan gives a quick estimate of types and amounts of food people should eat based on age, gender and activity, while My Pyramid Tracker gives a more detailed assessment of an individual's actual diet and exercise habits.

Plenty of people don't use the Internet, and for them, the government is looking to educators, public health officials, dietitians and counselors for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, to help spread the word.

Food companies said through their trade association, Grocery Manufacturers of America, they will distribute posters and guides for teachers and parents next fall aimed at reaching 4 million students. Materials for students to take home will be in both English and Spanish and will include math, nutrition and science activities.

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Associated Press writer John Heilprin contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

New Pyramid: http://www.mypyramid.gov

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