One (Especially) Sad Death in Iraq

thenation.com
One (Especially) Sad Death in Iraq
by David Corn

Marla Ruzicka deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Unlike Paul Wolfowitz or George Tenet, she shouldn't get it for botching the job in Iraq. No, she ought to receive it for trying damn hard to make America live up to its ideals in Iraq and elsewhere. But the medal would have to be awarded posthumously--because on Saturday, Marla, an irrepressible 28-year-old from California, was killed by a bomb when a suicide bomber, who was apparently trying to strike a US convoy on the highway to Baghdad International Airport, pulled up alongside her car pulled and detonated the explosives. Faiz Ali Salaam, her 43-year-old associate and the father of a two-month-old daughter, was also killed.

I met Marla several years ago. During the early months of the (still unfinished) war in Afghanistan, I became obsessed with the idea of providing compensation for the civilians killed or injured in Afghanistan as the result of the US military action. Few others--in the media, on Capitol Hill, in the foreign policy community--shared my concern, which rose from both a humanitarian sentiment and a sense of national self-interest. If the United States was killing and maiming civilians in Afghanistan to protect ourselves--even if inadvertently--it seemed to me Washington should do whatever it could not to piss off further the people in Afghanistan (and other countries) by ignoring the plight of the noncombatants. Soon after writing about this, I was contacted by Marla. She had been in Kabul, where she had conducted surveys to assess the extent of civilian casualties, and she was now in Washington pressing for US assistance to the families harmed. She had been doing the hard--and dangerous--on-the-ground work.

I was much impressed by her, as were others in Washington. She was a passionate, facts-driven advocate who cared about the individual lives of victims so often kept out of our collective conscience by being described as "collateral damage." No, she urged, they count, too. As much as our fallen neighbors struck down on September 11. And she meant that quite literally. She argued that these people ought to be counted; their deaths should be recorded by someone, especially since the Bush administration showed a particular disinterest in mounting such calculations or even acknowledging the damage done to civilians. Marla wanted to chronicle the truth and aid the afflicted. She was brave. She was concerned. She was a hero.

During one of our conversations after the major fighting was done in Afghanistan, we discussed her future. She was not finished with her Afghanistan work, but she sensed there was a bigger issue afoot: the general attitude toward civilian victims of war. She was right. We both saw that a war in Iraq was on its way. There will be antiwar activists raising hell, I told her, and Marla easily could be one of their leaders. But she had identified and filled a crucial need overlooked by so many others in the antiwar movement. She had made herself indispensable to the cause of social justice, and she had, in a way, transcended the typical ideological and policy disputes. I encouraged her to continue and expand her efforts.

Marla did engage in organizing against the war in Iraq, but once Bush launched the invasion, she created a small, nonprofit outfit called the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). Shortly after the invasion, she quickly organized a team of 160 Iraqis to conduct a survey. These researchers interviewed thousands and documented nearly 2,000 civilian deaths from the start of the invasion to May 1, 2003--the day Bush prematurely declared the end of major military operations in Iraq. "The purpose of the survey is not to quantify the total humanitarian impact of the war in Iraq, but rather to identify victims and families of those in need of recognition and assistance," CIVIC later noted. "... Each death, injury and house that was destroyed represents a story and a need." After her death, Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, told the Associated Press that it had been Ruzicka's idea to create a special fund in last year's multibillion-dollar foreign aid bill to help Iraqis whose businesses had been damaged by US bombs.

The innocent casualties of war were too real for Marla. In November 2003, she sent an email to Alternet in which she described one small tragedy in Iraq:

Friends:

As terrorists wreak havoc on life in Baghdad, innocent families are getting caught in the crossfire.

On the 24th of October, former teacher Mohammad Kadhum Mansoor, 59, and his wife, Hamdia Radhi Kadhum, 45, were traveling with their three daughters -- Beraa, 21, Fatima, 8, and Ayat, 5 years old -- when they were tragically run over by an American tank.

A small grenade was thrown at the tank, causing it to loose control and veer onto the highway, over the family's small Volkswagen. Mohammad and Hamdia were killed instantly, orphaning the three girls in the backseat. The girls survived, but with broken and fractured bodies. We are not sure of Ayat's fate; her backbone is broken.

CIVIC staff member Faiz Al Salaam monitors the girls' condition each day. Nobody in the military or the U.S. Army has visited them, nor has anyone offered to help this very poor family.

The only assistance from U.S. forces in Iraq is via the neighborhood Central Military Operations Center (CMOC). If the girls can get to their offices, their case will be filed and heard via a town council. This offers little hope for these girls, who are faced with immediate needs and a broken future.

The U.S. needs to have a clear procedure to respond to cases like Ayat's. CIVIC is working to try to establish such a system of assistance, but for now, the very least we can do to show our sympathy is to help Ayat and her sisters ourselves.

Thank you, and let's hope and pray for a peaceful Iraq.

--Marla

The task that Marla had assumed for herself was to make America better--even when she disagreed with the government. She opposed the war in Iraq. But once the United States began killing people in Iraq, she wanted this mission conducted with true concern for those errantly harmed. In December 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle published an accurate profile of her. It noted:

Marla Ruzicka's life is driven by numbers. The numbers of Iraqi civilians dead, the numbers of the wounded. How many of their homes have been destroyed?

As founder of CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict), Ruzicka works 15-hour days in the thick of the war zone, going door to door to assess the harm done to innocent Iraqis caught in the line of fire. Ruzicka then uses that information to lobby the U.S. government for assistance....

While the Defense Department keeps official records of U.S. troops killed and wounded (440 and 2,470 as of Dec. 1), no one has stepped forward to do the same for Iraqi civilians but Ruzicka, the self-appointed watchdog of civilians harmed in recent Middle East conflicts....

An unofficial survey she undertook in Afghanistan confirmed 824 dead. Returning to the United States, she lobbied Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to insert language in an appropriations bill that would provide $3.75 million to help victims. In July, the money started trickling in to the devastated country....

"Marla is an exceptionally determined, energetic and brave young woman who has traveled to the front lines to focus attention on an issue that too often gets ignored," he said. "Civilians bear the brunt of the suffering in wars today, but there is no policy to help them. Marla and her organization have helped put a human face on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by identifying the victims and their needs, and by lobbying for assistance."

...Would she ever consider doing something a little ... safer?

"To have a job where you can make things better for people? That's a blessing," she said. "Why would I do anything else?"

Author Peter Bergen, a friend of hers, noted yesterday,

One really interesting thing is that Marla was very opposed to the Iraq war before it began, but once the war started I never heard her express any opinion about the war itself. Once the war started she just wanted to help people who were hurt, not engage in a debate about the merits of the war. Beneath her Californian happy-go-luck demeanor Marla was a very hardheaded realist about what needed to be done. The war happened. People were hurt. She wanted to help them. And an example of her realistic approach is how she worked in Afghanistan and Iraq compensating the families who died. Marla had no patience for people who demonstrated against the war, and did nothing else.

Marla told one interviewer, "My long-term goal is to get a desk at the State Department that looks at civilian casualties." It seems like that would be a natural. Shouldn't a nation keep track of and be concerned about the damage done to civilians when it engages in military actions? Yet what a dream that was--and remains.

There will be memorials for Marla Ruzicka. Senators Patrick Leahy and Barbara Boxer have said they will offer tributes to her on the Senate floor. Last night after I heard the news of her death, I looked in on my two daughters--age four and five-and-a-half. Thinking of Marla's parents, Nancy and Clifford Ruzicka, I imagined how proud I will be if my children grow up to be women who have the sort of strength and conviction Marla possessed. And how scared I will be.

CIVIC was the brainchild of one helluva woman. But the idea, the simple idea--that we care about the innocent people killed in our name--was much larger than one person. Or it should be. Unlike the leaders of the US government, Marla knew that America--for humanitarian and security reasons--had an obligation to help noncombatants injured by US forces. Marla deserved many more years. And the people she helped and tried to help deserved more assistance from this idealistic American.

She will, of course, not be receiving the Medal of Freedom from a president who leads an administration that has said it does not bother to collect data on civilians killed or injured by its military and that has been tremendously slow to compensate the innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians who have lost loved ones, limbs, homes and businesses due to US military actions. In fact, according to an article in The Washington Post, Marla had "stayed in Baghdad longer than she had planned because she believed she had found the key to establishing that the U.S. military kept records of its civilian victims, despite its official statements otherwise, colleagues said."

In the years I have written this column I don't think I have ever asked a reader to make a donation to an organization. But please consider contributing to CIVIC. You can do so by clicking here:
https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/civic/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=284
It won't be just for Marla. It will be for the people she lived and died for--and for a principle that all Americans ought to consider seriously: when we fight a war, we are responsible for the triumphs and for the costs.

Originally published 04/18/2005

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Ethics Chairman Proposes Probe of Delay

ABC News
Ethics Chairman Proposes Probe of Delay
Ethics Chairman Proposes Investigation of DeLay; Hastert Says Democrats Face Scrutiny
By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press

Apr. 21, 2005 - In an ethics stalemate that is rivaling the most partisan legislative struggles, House Republicans are proposing an investigation of Majority Leader Tom DeLay while threatening to put several Democrats under scrutiny as well.

Republicans made their second attempt in two weeks Wednesday to get a deadlocked House ethics committee functioning again, adding the new proposal to blunt Democratic demands for an investigation of DeLay. Some House Republicans have acknowledged the steady Democratic attacks have made them nervous.

Democrats gave no ground. They said they wouldn't allow the evenly divided committee to conduct investigations unless Republicans reversed a rule providing for automatic dismissal of cases.

The ethics committee's Republican chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, made the surprising offer to investigate DeLay, R-Texas. The proposal will go nowhere unless the Democrats provide votes to allow the committee to conduct business.

Democrats have criticized DeLay for taking foreign trips that may have been financed by clients of a lobbyist.

Lawmakers cannot accept trips from lobbyists, but DeLay has said he believed a nonprofit organization financed the travel as permitted under House rules.

Hastings proposed the DeLay investigation at a news conference flanked by three of the four other Republicans on the ethics panel. The 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 unless a bipartisan task force was appointed to write new rules for investigating lawmakers.

"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 is "totally independent from any specific case."

Democrats want to revert to a rule in effect until last January, which provided for an automatic investigation if no action was taken on a complaint of wrongdoing. The new rules provide for automatic dismissal if the committee doesn't act within 45 days a period that can be doubled if necessary.

While Democrats have kept up a stream of accusations of unethical conduct against DeLay, they also have attempted to gain political mileage by attacking the Republican rules.

While Mollohan and Hastings spoke at dueling news conferences, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., warned Democrats 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.

DeLay has offered to appear before the committee to defend himself and repeated his request after Hastings' announcement.

"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."

The second-ranking House Democrat, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, called Hastings' offer "an absolute nonstarter with Democrats" and an "attempt to divert attention from the fact that the Republican majority has neutered the ethics committee in the House by imposing partisan rules." Democratic leaders have said the automatic dismissal rule was designed to protect DeLay.

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 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 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.

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."

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Sexual Abuse Allegations Against a Top Catholic Re-examined

ABC News

Sexual Abuse Allegations Against a Top Catholic Re-examined
Seven Years of Silence May Come to an End

Apr. 21, 2005 - An investigation into the sexual abuse allegations against a high-ranking priest of the Roman Catholic Church has been reopened, seven years after the formal complaint was first filed with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, according to people familiar with the case.

Ratzinger's office ordered the case against the Rev. Marcial Maciel reopened in December, around the time there was growing speculation Ratzinger was a leading candidate to be the next pope. In fact, a Vatican investigator began taking sworn statements from the alleged victims just two weeks ago in New York, the day Pope John Paul II died, according to sources close to the case.

The men who brought the allegations against Maciel had thought their case was dead, having heard nothing but silence in the seven years since they brought the allegations to the attention of Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

"They knelt and kissed his ring, filing these charges in his tribunal, and after that it was simply stuffed, it was shelved," said Jason Berry, co-author with Gerald Renner of a book on the case, "Vows of Silence."

"This pope is at a crossroads. He has to resolve the Maciel case or it will stalk him like a shadow in the sun."

The charges against Maciel, the founder of a well-connected and well-financed order called the Legion of Christ, a conservative sect of the Catholic Church, date back to the 1950s. Eight men allege that Maciel sexually abused them as young seminarians in Rome, something Maciel has always strongly denied.

Unspoken Truths?

Juan Vaca, now a college professor in New York, told ABC News in 2002 that he reluctantly brought the charges as a way to get over the trauma he says he suffered.

"I was the one who called them from their bedrooms to go to see Maciel," he said. "In some instances, two were together with him, myself and another one."

The men making the allegations have been told they cannot talk about the case now that it has been reopened.

Maciel, now 84, resigned as head of the legion in January. But as recently as late last year, he was praised by Pope John Paul II for his "intense, generous and fruitful priestly ministry" during the 60th anniversary celebration of Maciel's ordination.

Ratzinger repeatedly refused to discuss what happened to the Maciel case, and when ABC News attempted to ask him about the allegations outside the Vatican three years ago, he became upset and slapped the hand of the ABC News correspondent on scene.

"You come to me when the moment is given," Ratzinger said. "Not yet."

'Temptation Is Natural, Even for the Priest'

As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was put in charge of dealing with the church's worldwide sexual abuse scandal. But he was at first slow to act and downplayed the scandal as part of a campaign to discredit the church.

"In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type," Ratzinger said in a rare interview in 2002. "The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church."

Ratzinger was also surprisingly forgiving of priests guilty of sexual abuse.

"Never will it end," he said. "Temptation is natural, even for the priest. So we have to accept that."

Berry said that Ratzinger made grave mistakes in his treatment of the Catholic church's sexual abuse scandal.

"He made a series of terrible blunders in the 1990s and well into 2002," Berry said. "He made statements that were inaccurate and terribly misleading."

But some, including Berry, see the reopened Maciel case as a hopeful sign. "If he removes Maciel, he makes a statement that he is serious about a crackdown on this world abuse scandal," Berry said of Ratzinger. "If he doesn't remove Maciel, then the pope himself is part of the problem."

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1 in 5 Teens Abused Prescription Drugs

Yahoo! News
AP

1 in 5 Teens Abused Prescription Drugs

Thu Apr 21, 7:00 AM ET

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - The nation's teenagers are increasingly trying prescription drugs such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the pill-popping members of "Generation Rx" often raiding their parents' medicine cabinets, according to the latest national study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The 17th annual study on teen drug abuse, released Thursday morning, found that about one in five teenagers has abused a prescription painkiller — more than have experimented with either Ecstasy, cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter products such as cough medicine, the study reported.

"For the first time, our national study finds that today's teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a variety of illegal drugs," said partnership Chairman Roy Bostock. "In other words, Generation Rx has arrived."

According to the survey, the most popular prescription drug abused by teens was Vicodin, with 18 percent — or about 4.3 million youths — reporting they had used it to get high. OxyContin and drugs for attention-deficit disorder such as Ritalin/Adderall followed with one in 10 teens reporting they had tried them.

Fewer than half the teens — 48 percent — said they saw "great risk" in experimenting with prescription medicines. "Ease of access" was cited as a major factor in trying the medications, with medicine cabinets at home or at friends' homes a likely source, the survey found.

It was only the second year that the survey had studied abuse of legal drugs. For the first time, the survey included a question about the use of over-the-counter products to get high. Nine percent, or about 2.2 million teens, had experimented with cough syrup and other such products, the survey reported.

The number of teens reporting marijuana use declined to 37 percent last year, compared with 42 percent a half-dozen years earlier. Over the same amount of time, ecstasy use declined from 12 percent to 9 percent, while methamphetamine trial dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent.

The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study surveyed more than 7,300 teens, the largest ongoing analysis of teen drug-related attitudes toward drugs in the country. Its margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percent.

The nonprofit Partnership for a Drug-Free America, launched in 1987, is a coalition of communications professionals aimed at reducing the demand for illegal drugs.

___

On the Net:

Partnership for Drug Free America: http://www.drugfree.org

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U.N. Rejects Bid to Probe Gitmo Treatment

Yahoo! News
AP

U.N. Rejects Bid to Probe Gitmo Treatment

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA - The U.N. Human Rights Commission rejected Cuba's attempt Thursday to force an investigation into the treatment of detainees at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

The vote on Cuba's resolution was 22-8, with 23 other nations abstaining. The other nations supporting the failed effort by Cuba were China, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico.

The resolution, which noted the "serious concern" expressed by U.N. experts about the conditions for terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo, would have asked the United States "to authorize an impartial and independent fact-finding mission" to the center.

Cuba introduced the resolution after the commission approved a resolution to continue reporting on the human rights situation in the communist island nation.

The European Union already said it planned to oppose the Cuban bid, which effectively would have been a reprimand to the United States.

Juan Antonio Fernandez, the Cuban delegate who presented the resolution, expressed disappointment in the EU members.

"Not even one of them dared to challenge the threat of the hegemonic superpower," Fernandez said.

Former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, head of the U.S. delegation, welcomed the vote.

"Many of our friends here recognized that the United States is a leader in human rights," Boschwitz said. "We were very satisfied that those who supported our position talked about our judiciary and the independence of our judiciary."

Peruvian Ambassador Elizabeth Astete Rodriguez said she thought the resolution was not needed because actions by the U.S. courts and others had led to "measures to improve the situation."

"The case is already being addressed," she said, adding that the improvements were not reflected in the Cuban proposal.

Supporters of the United States also noted it has been regularly permitting visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross to check on the condition of the detainees.

___

Associated Press writer Bradley S. Klapper contributed to this report.

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Passenger Lists Sought For Flights Over U.S.

Yahoo! News

Passenger Lists Sought For Flights Over U.S.

By Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post Staff Writer

The U.S. government plans to force foreign airlines flying over American soil to turn over the names of passengers on board or check the names against U.S. government watch lists in an effort to prevent terrorists from entering U.S. airspace.

Under current rules, overseas carriers are required to provide passenger manifests to U.S. officials within 15 minutes of takeoff if they are to land in the United States, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Officials have been concerned that terrorists may try to hijack a plane over the United States and crash it into a building, as occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Officials acknowledge, however, that no credible intelligence exists indicating such a plot.

"We are currently considering a measure that would require foreign carriers to vet their passenger manifests against the 'no-fly' list and 'selectee' lists on overflights," said TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark. The no-fly list is a secret list of thousands of names of known or suspected terrorists who may pose a threat to U.S. aviation. The selectee list contains the names of individuals who are not known terrorists but present a possible threat to the airplane.

The proposal has angered European, Mexican and Canadian airlines, which operate most of the 500 estimated daily overflights. If foreign airlines do not comply with the order, which is expected to be issued in coming weeks, they could have to reroute flights, adding time and cost to the journeys. At least one carrier, Aeromexico, claims the rule would violate international aviation agreements.

The TSA's proposal, discussed in recent days with foreign leaders, was prompted by a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Mexico on April 8 that was prohibited from flying over American airspace because two passengers were found to be on the U.S. government's no-fly list.

The KLM flight, a specially configured 747 with 278 passengers and 15 horses on board, was five hours into its journey when Mexican authorities alerted U.S. officials about two Saudi passengers on board. TSA officials decided not to allow the plane to continue on its usual route over the United States.

The Canadian government offered the plane an option to land on its territory if the aircraft did not have enough fuel for a return trip, a Canadian official said. But KLM decided to turn the plane around for the five-hour flight back to Amsterdam out "of interest to the passengers and animals," KLM spokesman Hugo Baas said in an e-mail. "The assigned airport was not suitable for handling a 747 in this configuration." KLM is a leading air transporter of horses and operates an animal hospital at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

The two Saudi passengers on the KLM flight were men who trained at the same Arizona flight school as Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour, according a law enforcement source. The men, according to aviation sources, were questioned by Dutch officials and eventually allowed to fly back to Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials did not interview the men, according to law enforcement and Homeland Security sources.

A Homeland Security official familiar with the proposed rules said U.S. and foreign officials are negotiating over whether airlines or the U.S. government would check passenger names against the watch lists. If any names match those on the lists, airlines would have to undertake new security measures.

For example, if a flight from Canada to Mexico were to have a passenger whose name matched one on the no-fly list, the flight would not be allowed into U.S. airspace. The passenger would have to be removed from the flight, or if the plane happened to already be in the air, it would have to fly around the United States to reach its destination, according to officials familiar with the plans. Similarly, if a passenger's name were to match one on the selectee list, the passenger would have to undergo more thorough security screening before boarding the plane, the sourcesaid.

Aeromexico, which has 18 weekly flights from Mexico City that cross U.S. airspace on their way to Europe, said that the U.S. proposal might violate international transit agreements and that it is consulting with the Mexican transportation department to "present our legal position for this potential requirement."

"This potential directive will restrict our privilege to fly across U.S. territory without landing, and to land for non-traffic purposes," said Fernando Ceballos, Aeromexico's assistant director for airport operations, in an e-mailed statement. If the TSA issues the requirement, he said, it would not be practical to fly around the U.S. coast. "Flying over water along the coast is not an option for Aeromexico as increased flight times would be prohibitive given the type of aircraft we use, our slots and crew requirements."

TSA's spokesman Clark said, "We are working with our international partners to give thoughtful consideration to all aspects of the impact of this measure."

The rule change would affect many of Canada's estimated 1,000 weekly overflights, including domestic flights such as Montreal to Toronto, which fly over the United States because of geography and weather patterns. "We're currently gathering information from air carriers to evaluate the impact that the proposed amendment would have," said Vanessa Vermette, spokeswoman for Transport Canada.

KLM said that it is now checking its passenger lists against U.S. watch lists for its overflights, following the recent incident.

"It is not up to an airline to judge the security measures of individual countries," KLM spokesman Baas said. "However, it is up to the responsible authorities of each country to safeguard that measures do not have negative counter effects on the daily operation of the airlines."

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Greenspan Warns Deficits Endanger Economy

Yahoo! News
Reuters
Greenspan Warns Deficits Endanger Economy

By Glenn Somerville

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday that unless lawmakers come to grips with spiraling U.S. deficits, the economy was at risk of stagnation "or worse."

"Under existing tax rates and reasonable assumptions about other spending ... projections make clear that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, in which large deficits result in rising interest rates and ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years," Greenspan said in testimony prepared for a Senate Budget Committee hearing.

He said the danger was that deficits would keep rising as a percentage of total national output.

"Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse."

Much of Greenspan's testimony echoed prior cautions he has made to Capitol Hill lawmakers and he stressed that steps to fix the problem were essential.

"As the latest projections from the (Bush) administration and the Congressional Budget Office suggest, our budget position is unlikely to improve substantially in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing actions are taken," the Fed chief said.

Greenspan reiterated his call for some type of automatic government spending controls.

"In my judgment, the necessary choices will be especially difficult to implement without the restoration of a set of procedural restraints on the budget-making process," he said.

Bush has pledged to cut the budget gap in half by 2009. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the 2005 budget shortfall will be around $400 billion, including funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Fed chief has long urged renewing so-called pay-go provisions that compel lawmakers to show how they will fund any spending initiatives or tax cuts.

Greenspan said the approaching surge of American retirees was adding urgency to the need to deal with budget constraints in light of uncertainty about the scale of looming medical and retirement costs.

"These uncertainties -- especially our inability to identify the upper bound of future demands for medical care -- counsel significant prudence in policy-making," Greenspan said, adding that policy-makers "need to err on the side of prudence when considering new budget initiatives."

He repeated that the United States may already be in a position where it cannot meet commitments made to the baby boom generation and urged benefit cuts, if needed, be made as soon as possible.

"If existing promises need to be changed, those changes should be made sooner rather than later," he said.

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Judge to allow 9/11 guilty plea

BBC NEWS
Judge to allow 9/11 guilty plea
A judge has ruled that Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the US charged over the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, can plead guilty.

Judge Leonie Brinkema has scheduled a Friday hearing at Alexandria district court, in the state of Virginia, a statement by the court said.

Judge Brinkema apparently made the decision after meeting Mr Moussaoui and his lawyers on Wednesday.

Mr Moussaoui faces a number of charges relating to the attacks.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The judge's ruling was said to hinge on whether the accused was considered competent to make the plea.

However, it is not clear to which charges he will plead guilty.

Trial delays

Mr Moussaoui - a French citizen of Moroccan origin - tried to plead guilty in 2002 but retracted the plea a week later.

The US government says he was a full member of the original team involved in the 2001 attacks when hijackers took over four passenger planes and deliberately crashed them.

Mr Moussaoui has also accused his court-appointed lawyers of wanting to have him executed and fired them.

But Judge Brinkema revoked Mr Moussaoui's right to defend himself.

His lawyers have argued against the death penalty, and are likely to oppose the guilty plea, if it means he could be sentenced to death.

The trial has been beset by delays.

In March, the US Supreme Court refused to examine an appeal by his team for access to US al-Qaeda suspects on security grounds.

Last year, federal judges barred Mr Moussaoui from calling people held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as witnesses.

The court said the accused could only use government-prepared summaries of the interrogation statements from al-Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo.

The three judges also overruled a lower court decision by deciding that the death penalty could be used if there was a guilty verdict.

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Bankruptcy bill signed by Bush

amNewYork

Bankruptcy bill signed by Bush

WASHINGTON President Bush signed a bill yesterday that will make it harder for debt-ridden people to wipe clean their financial slates by declaring bankruptcy. The legislation was strongly opposed by consumer rights activists who said it would prevent
vulnerable Americans from getting the fresh start they need. But Bush said the law was “restoring integrity to the bankruptcy process.”

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No Child Left Behind challenged

amNewYork

No Child Left Behind challenged

WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest teachers union and school districts in three states sued the Bush administration yesterday over the No Child Left Behind law, aiming to free schools from complying with any part not paid for by the federal government.

The lawsuit, filed in Michigan, is the first major challenge to President Bush’s education policy. The outcome would apply directly to the districts in the case, but it could affect how the law is enforced in schools across the country.

Leading the fight is the National Education Association, a union of 2.7 million members and a political adversary of the administration. The other plaintiffs are nine school districts in Michigan, Vermont and Texas, plus 10 NEA chapters in those states and seven other states. (AP)

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Gun law debated in Capitol

amNewYork

Gun law debated in Capitol

BY CHUCK BENNETT - amNewYork Staff Writer

Some members of Congress marked the sixth anniversary of the Columbine massacre by debating a bill that would shield the gun industry from lawsuits. “A total of 15 people died on that tragic day, including 13 students, yet today we’re here to debate a bill that immunizes those who help contribute to such acts,” said Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan), minority leader of the House Judiciary Committee. Called the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” the bill will forbid cities and individuals from suing gun manufacturers for marketing to criminals. New York City is presently suing the gun industry. “Congress is taking the side of the NRA against the victims of gun violence. It is a shame,” Rep. Anthony Weiner (DBrooklyn/ Queens) told amNewYork. The committee debated the bill yesterday but did not vote on it. Congressional staffers said the timing of the debate with the anniversary of the 1999 Colorado high school massacre was a coincidence. “The timing is in exceptionally bad taste,” said Michael Barnes, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. A committee vote is expected today or next week and the bill is expected to easily pass the Republican-controlled House.

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200,000 Ameritrade Client Files Lost

Yahoo! News
AP
200,000 Ameritrade Client Files Lost

Apr 20, 5:43 PM ET

By EMILY FREDRIX, Associated Press Writer

OMAHA, Neb. - Leading online discount broker Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Tuesday it has informed about 200,000 current and former customers that a backup computer tape containing their personal information has been lost.

The Omaha-based company mailed the notices to its clients last week, spokeswoman Donna Kush said.

The company realized the tape was missing in February, when the package it was in was damaged during shipping between vendors, Kush said. Of the four backup tapes in the package, three were found, but the fourth is still missing, she said.

Information on the tape was for people nationwide who may have been Ameritrade customers from 2000-2003, she said. The data was different for each client and may have included their Social Security numbers, among other information, Kush said.

The tapes were not marked and unless special equipment was used, the compressed data could not be extracted.

Kush said she has not heard of any misuse of the information.

"We are very confident that no harm has been done to any clients, to their accounts, to their information," Kush said.

Kush said Ameritrade did not lose the information, but rather, a third party vendor did.

The news comes as several companies have experienced their own database violations, and some thefts.

Database giant LexisNexis on Monday announced it had started alerting about 280,000 people that their personal information may have been accessed by unauthorized individuals who were using stolen passwords and IDs.

On Monday, Columbus, Ohio-based DSW Shoe Warehouse said that thieves had accessed a database with credit card records on about 1.4 million customers. The company said it has contact information for about half of those people and started sending letters notifying them of the thefts, which happened at 108 stores in 25 states between November and February.

Data broker ChoicePoint Inc., based in suburban Atlanta, said in February that information on some 145,000 consumers nationwide was taken by thieves who opened up dozens of accounts and went undetected for more than a year.

___

On the Net:

Ameritrade: http://www.ameritrade.com

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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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