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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
A new Rand Corporation report comprehensively surveys the ways that terrorist groups have been disbanded in the past: “Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended.” Instead, historic wars on terror have been won with policing and settlements. Rand’s conclusion? To defeat Al Qaeda, we need to end the war on terror.
“A recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.”
Kate Hudson and Lance Armstrong called it quits this weekend, according to reports.
“There was no drama or ugliness — they just decided to end things,” a source close to the couple tells Usmagazine.com. “There is no hatred, just sadness.”
The 29-year-old actress was seen with the 36-year-old cyclist at many of his races and events, including his three-day Lance Armstrong Livestrong Summit in Columbus, Ohio, this past weekend.
It was at the conference that Hudson and Armstrong decided to go their separate ways, a source tells Us.
A rep for Armstrong had no comment for Us Weekly.
Sources also told the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column that the couple tried to make it work, but the constant bickering and their travel schedules drove them apart.
The way bumblebees search for food could help detectives hunt down serial killers, scientists believe.
Just as bees forage some distance away from their hives, so murderers avoid killing near their homes, says the University of London team.
This “geographic profiling” works so well in bees, the scientists say future experiments on the animals could now be fed back to improve crime-solving.
The team’s work is reported in the Royal Society journal Interface.
“We’re really hopeful that we can improve the model for criminology,” Dr Nigel Raine, from Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), told BBC News.
WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.
The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.
The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.
The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
GENEVA — World trade talks collapsed here on Tuesday after seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations, in the latest sign of India’s and China’s growing might on the world stage and the decreasing ability of the United States to impose its will globally.
Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, could not bridge differences between a group of newly confident developing nations and established Western economic powers. In the end, too few of the real power brokers proved committed enough to make compromises necessary to deliver a deal.
The failure appeared to end, for the near term at least, any hopes of a global deal to further open markets, cut farm subsidies and strengthen the international trading system.
Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington on charges of hiding hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he received.
Stevens, 84, was charged with seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms from 1999 to 2006 by failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and renovations on his house.
Stevens “knowingly and willfully engaged in a scheme to conceal” gifts he got from Veco Corp., an Anchorage oil-services contractor, and its chief executive officer, today’s indictment said.
Stevens’s indictment boosts Democratic chances of winning an Alaska Senate seat for the first time in almost three decades if he remains a candidate, said Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report. “If Stevens is on the ballot, I would expect Democrats to win the seat,” he said.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The International Olympic Committee ruled Tuesday that Iraq could participate in the Beijing games, reversing itself after Baghdad pledged to ensure the independence of its national Olympics panel.
The decision followed last-minute talks between Iraqi officials and the IOC ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to submit competitors’ names for track and field events. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.
Iraq’s National Olympic Committee was dissolved by the Baghdad government in May, prompting the IOC to suspend the Mideast country from the Olympics for political interference.
The IOC had insisted the old committee be reinstated even though four members were kidnapped two years ago. Their fates remain unknown.
A compromise was worked out after mediators from Germany and China became involved in talks, and Iraq pledged to hold free elections for its national Olympic committee under international observation.
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a low-income area of the city.
The moratorium unanimously approved Tuesday is a bid to attract restaurants that offer healthier food choices to residents in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles.
Councilwoman Jan Perry says residents at five public meetings expressed concern with the proliferation of fast-food outlets in the community plagued by above-average rates of obesity.
Nearly three-quarters of the restaurants in South L.A. are fast-food outlets. That’s a higher percentage than other parts of the city but the restaurant industry says the moratorium won’t help bring in alternatives.
LOS ANGELES — A moderate earthquake struck east of Los Angeles on Tuesday and was felt hundreds of miles south to the Mexican border and east to Las Vegas, but there were no reports of injuries, major damage or power outages.
The earthquake struck at 11:42 a.m. local time (1842 GMT) about 30 miles (48 km) east of Los Angeles in the community of Chino Hills, where it was felt strongly. The quake was followed in the next hour by at least two dozen aftershocks.
The temblor was initially measured by the U.S Geological Survey at magnitude 5.8 but was later downgraded to 5.4, which is considered a moderate quake by the agency.
Denise Cattern, spokeswoman for Chino Hills, said the city received no reports of any damage or injuries.
“Most people agreed it was the biggest earthquake they ever felt,” she said.
Shia LaBeouf may not have been at fault in a crash that flipped his truck early Sunday morning in West Hollywood, according to authorities.
“It appears he was not at fault,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday. “We have strong evidence that the other driver ran a red light.”
After the accident, LaBeouf, 22, was booked on suspicion of DUI at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where he received extensive surgery on injuries to his left hand.
“He was showing obvious signs of intoxication from the smell of alcohol coming from his breath,” Sgt. Scott Wolf told PEOPLE.
LOS ANGELES, California — The AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in some parts of the United States is as severe as in parts of Africa, according to a report out Tuesday.
“Left Behind - Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS” is intended to raise awareness and remind the public that the “AIDS epidemic is not over in America, especially not in Black America,” says the report, published by the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on African-Americans.
“AIDS in America today is a black disease,” says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute and himself HIV-positive for 20 years. “2006 CDC data tell us that about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black.”
Although black people represent only about one in eight Americans, one in every two people living with HIV in the United States is black, the report notes.
The sixth Harry Potter movie is continuing to creep toward its Nov. 21 opening.
The trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrives today online and makes its debut in theaters Friday before The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Film editing is complete, says director David Yates, and studio officials will soon see the finished product.
Then next month, test audiences will get a sneak peek — something that doesn’t seem to faze Yates in the least. “That’s an incredibly useful process,” he says.
The big reveal in the trailer (and in this exclusive photo from it): a glimpse of the young Tom Riddle, who grows up to become the wizarding world’s most malevolent force, Lord Voldemort.
Supporters of Proposition 8, the proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, said they would file suit today to block a change made by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to the language of the measure’s ballot title and summary.
Petitions circulated to qualify the initiative for the ballot said the measure would amend the state Constitution “to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
In a move made public last week and applauded by same-sex marriage proponents, the attorney general’s office changed the language to say that Proposition 8 seeks to “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.”
Jennifer Kerns, spokeswoman for the Protect Marriage coalition, called the new language “inherently argumentative” and said it could “prejudice voters against the initiative.”
SEBOKENG, South Africa — A former dormitory matron at Oprah Winfrey’s school for poor South African girls pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges that she indecently assaulted and otherwise abused six teenagers and a fellow matron at the academy.
Tiny Virginia Makopo, 28, looked nervous and sullen at the start of her trial, and she and her lawyer gave no indication what her defense would be.
Judge Thelma Simpson granted a prosecution request for the rest of the proceedings, expected to last all week, to be closed to the public. She also is allowing the teenagers to testify through close-circuit TV to save them the trauma of confronting their alleged attacker in court.
Prosecutor Etienne Venter described the girls as “very scared and very, very emotional.”
Winfrey has been deeply embarrassed by the scandal, especially since she had told the girls she was the “momma bear” who would protect them. The talk-show host has spoken in the past of being raped by a distant cousin at age 9 and then abused by three other men, trusted family friends. She has campaigned for laws in the United States to protect children from abusers.
Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals.
Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.
It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan. A consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International is seeking rights to drill there, the documents say. Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan, according to individuals involved.
AK’s chief executive is Aydan Kodaloglu, who, like Mr. Perle, has been involved with the American Turkish Council, an advocacy group in Washington. She didn’t respond to requests for comment. Phyllis Kaminsky, who identified herself as the U.S. contact for Ms. Kodaloglu, said she herself was aware of the drilling plan but referred questions about it to Mr. Perle.
“Richard would know the most,” Ms. Kaminsky said. “He is involved, I know that.”
Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of toxins found in children’s products, handing a major victory to parents and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove harmful chemicals from toys.
The ban, which would take effect in six months, would have significant implications for U.S. consumers, whose homes are filled with hundreds of plastic products designed for children that may be causing dangerous health effects.
The rare action by Congress reflects a growing body of scientific research showing that children ingest the toxins by acts as simple as chewing on a rubber duck. Used for decades in plastic production, the chemicals are now thought to act as hormones and cause reproductive problems, especially in boys.
It also signals an important crack in the chemical industry’s ability to fend off federal regulation and suggests that the landscape may be shifting to favor consumers. The movement to ban the toxins accelerated last year when California prohibited their use in children’s produ
Citing “brutal crimes,” President Bush on Monday authorized the execution of an Army private convicted of a spree of rapes and murders in North Carolina in the 1980s.
It was the first time a commander in chief has affirmed a military death sentence since 1957, half a century ago.
The solider, Ronald A. Gray, committed the crimes in the Fayetteville area while stationed at Fort Bragg. Gray has been on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for 20 years.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement on Monday evening:
“President Bush this morning accepted the recommendation of the Secretary of the Army to approve a sentence of death for Army Private Ronald A. Gray, affirming the sentence that resulted from a general court martial for multiple charges of murder and rape committed while serving as a member of the Armed Services. While approving a sentence of death for a member of our Armed Services is a serious and difficult decision for a Commander-in-Chief, the President believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted. Private Gray was convicted of committing brutal crimes, including two murders, an attempted murder, and three rapes. The victims included a civilian and two members of the Army. Because additional legal challenges are expected in this case, we will decline to comment further. The President’s thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous crimes and their families and all others affected.”
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other “big powers” for global ills such as nuclear proliferation and AIDS, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. for their own gain and the developing world’s loss.
But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries’ side.
“The big powers are going down,” Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. “They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era.”
AS much as the Bush family is going to hate “W.,” Oliver Stone’s biopic - which depicts the young Dubya boozing, brawling and getting locked up before he makes it to the White House - the Kennedy clan won’t like it, either.
The first teaser for the flick - being rushed into theaters 18 days before the presidential election - begins with George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”
Amy Winehouse has been discharged from the hospital 12 hours after she was rushed to an emergency room, PEOPLE has confirmed.
“Amy is fine and she is on her way home,” says her U.K. rep, Chris Goodman.
Winehouse, 24, was taken by ambulance from her home in north London to the University College Hospital on Monday night after suffering what was believed to be a seizure. Wrapped in a red blanket, she was taken to the vehicle in a wheelchair while her dad Mitch looked on.
The setback was part of her struggle to get clean, the rep insists. (Both the singer and her incarcerated husband Blake Fielder-Civil, 26, have a history of drug problems.)
ON the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, pilots and airport employees at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago saw a disc-like object hovering over the tarmac for several minutes. Because nothing was tracked on radar, the Federal Aviation Administration did not investigate. Yet radar is not a reliable detector of all aircraft. Stealth planes are designed to be invisible to radar, and many radar systems filter out signals not matching the normal characteristics of aircraft. Did it really make sense to entirely ignore the observations of several witnesses?
A healthy skepticism about extraterrestrial space travelers leads people to disregard U.F.O. sightings without a moment’s thought. But in the United States, this translates into overdependence on radar data and indifference to all kinds of unidentified aircraft â€â€� a weakness that could be exploited by terrorists or anyone seeking to engage in espionage against the United States.
The American government has not investigated U.F.O. sightings since 1969, when the Air Force ended Project Blue Book, an effort to scientifically analyze all sightings to see if any posed a threat to national security. Britain and France, in contrast, continue to investigate U.F.O. sightings, because of concerns that some sightings might be attributable to foreign military aircraft breaching their airspace, or to foreign space-based systems of interest to the intelligence community.
MANILA (AFP)—Police in Manila are looking to convert their patrol cars to run on a mixture of diesel and used cooking oil from McDonald’s (MCD), officials and the company said Tuesday.
With oil prices at crippling highs, the project would convert cars in the Makati financial district to run on a combination of 40 percent diesel and 60 percent cooking oil, said police Senior Superintendent Gilbert Cruz.
Used cooking oil will be donated by Makati outlets of the U.S. fast food giant, said McDonald’s franchising manager Buth Salaya.
Other restaurants are also considering donating their used cooking oil, Cruz said.
One police car has been converted to use the mixture and is already in use, and the government is studying the viability of converting more.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey’s military says its warplanes have bombed 12 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
The military says in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that the planes attacked rebel targets on Mount Qandil, on the Iraqi-Iranian border, where the rebel leadership is believed to be based.
All planes returned to their bases safely, according to the statement.
There has been no immediate comment from the rebel group.
Turkey has conducted frequent air raids on suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in northern Iraq. Earlier this year, it launched a weeklong ground offensive.
The rebels have been fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The violence has killed tens of thousands of people since then.
WASHINGTON — The next president will inherit a record budget deficit of $482 billion, according to a new Bush administration estimate released Monday. The administration said the deficit was being driven to an all-time high by the sagging economy and the stimulus payments being made to 130 million households in an effort to keep the country from falling into a deep recession.
But the numbers could go even higher if the economy performs worse than the White House predicts.
The budget office predicts the economy will grow at a rate of 1.6 percent this year and will rebound to a 2.2 percent growth rate next year. That’s a half percentage point more than predicted by the widely cited “blue chip” consensus of leading economists. The administration also sees inflation averaging 3.8 percent this year, but easing to 2.3 percent next year — better than the 3.0 percent seen by the blue chip panel.
“The nation’s economy has continued to expand and remains fundamentally resilient,” said the budget office report.
Playoff managers are letting their starting pitchers stay in and get thrashed while huge, rested, effective bullpens watch.
Lawyer and author Mahvish Khan discusses her experiences at Guantánamo.
Are Democrats headed for a landslide in November? McClatchy thinks so, and Republicans are going on the record with their worries about John McCain’s campaign.
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