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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @10:09PM
from the you're-not-in-kansas-anymore! dept.
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OUT OF SEASON: Storms of this magnitude are rare this time of year, and this could be the first
typhoon to hit the nation in December in meteorological
history
By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Dec 03, 2004,Page 1
http://www.taipeitimes.com
 Taiwan is expected to be hit by Typhoon Nanmadol today, an unusual storm in
wintertime, and heavy rainfall might occur in the northern, northeastern and
eastern parts of the country, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).
Forecasters said yesterday that southern Taiwan would be affected by the
storm early today.
If so, Nanmadol will be the first typhoon striking Taiwan in December in
meteorological history.
more...
more images...
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| War: Rebels return to 'cleared' areas (Fallujah) |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @09:33PM
from the stalingrad dept.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1203/p06s02-woiq.html
In Fallujah, US forces are going through 50,000 houses one by one. But Iraqi insurgents are coming back.
< snip >
Iraqi
civilians are not expected to be permitted to begin returning to the
badly damaged city until mid-December, and extensive damage to
virtually every house and building across Fallujah means that detailed
US and Iraqi government plans for rebuilding will take months, at
least, to realize.
But the original problem persists: US forces
sweep through one neighborhood after another, only to find insurgents
popping up in "cleared" areas.
The battle Monday killed one
marine and wounded three others - a high cost against three insurgents,
who had moved into a house 50 feet across the street from a newly
established marine position at a Fallujah fire station. That house and
several others nearby had been cleared just two days earlier.
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| International: Chavez calls for the creation of a world defense network |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @09:21PM
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I thought * said the world was SAFER?!
http://www.granma.cu
A call to intellectuals and progressive artists to create a world
defense network was made in Caracas by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
at the inauguration of the In Defense of Humanity World Conference.
Chávez offered the Venezuelan capital as the headquarters for such an
initiative when addressing some 400 participants from more than 50
countries who responded to the broadbased call from Cuba and Venezuela
to take part in this event to find new alternatives in the battle
against neoliberal thinking.
What takes places in Latin
America over the next few years could have powerful repercussions for
the rest of the planet, affirmed the president, according to a report
from the Prensa Latina news agency.
He stated that the network
of intellectuals could be linked with the project for Standing Congress
of the Peoples in order to form a joint response to the challenges
currently facing humanity.
In that respect, he specified that
throughout the continent the resurgence of a growing force can be seen
among the youth, the landless, indigenous peoples and intellectuals. He
elaborated on the fact that international problems today do not have national solutions and for that reason there is a need for a world movement.
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| Economy: Top Economist Says Tax Switch Simple, Fair (From Income to Consumption) |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @08:15PM
from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dept.
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WASHINGTON -- Basing the government's tax system on consumption rather
than income is not as radical a change as it seems, President Bush's
chief economic adviser said Thursday.
Bush's goals are tax
laws that are simple, fair, promote growth and create jobs, said N.
Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic
Advisers.
Bush has said that he will make overhauling those
laws a priority in his second term and will appoint a commission to
make recommendations.
Mankiw, reviewing some of the options
Bush will consider, said many economists believe that tax laws
discourage saving and investment and that changing that could free up
money for business investment.
Under a consumption tax, Mankiw
said, "The result would be greater saving, increased capital
accumulation and higher growth in productivity and wages."
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| Oil: Officials expanding probe of tanker spill (1/2 million gl) |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @08:02PM
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If a tanker dumps it's load in the deleware and nobody reports it, does that mean there's NOTHING to clean up? Back to your lives consumers'
The search for what caused a Greek tanker to hemorrhage tens, and
possibly hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the
Delaware River will extend south to the Commodore Barry Bridge, Coast
Guard officials said Wednesday.
"Since we have not found the
cause, we are extending the search another six miles to the Commodore
Barry and instituting draft restrictions," said Coast Guard Captain
Jonathan D. Sarubbi, the officer in charge of the Port of Philadelphia.
Until further notice, ships which draw more than 34 feet of water will
not be allowed to travel the river during low tide. By comparison, the
Greek tanker, which leaked the oil Friday night, Athos I, draws 36.5
feet of water.
The restrictions will remain in place while the
Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers continue their search for what
gashed the tanker, which may have discharged as much as 473,000 gallons
of Venezuelan crude into the river. Initial reports put the spill at
30,000 gallons. The actual amount will not be known until whatever oil
remains in the ship is pumped out.
By midday Wednesday, remnants
of the spill covered a 55-mile stretch of the river, from the
Tacony-Palmyra Bridge to six miles south of the Delaware Memorial
Bridge. Approximately 600 contractors assisted 250 federal and state
workers with the cleanup and investigation.
On the river,
multi-beam sonar, magnetometers and divers have been utilized to locate
the object which struck the hull of the Athos I, which docked in
Paulsboro, N.J.
"There are old anchors, anchor chains, even cars, in the river," Sarubbi said.
more...
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| War: Judge Questions Sweep of Bush's War on Terrorism |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @07:39PM
from the can't-touch-this dept.
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uh, oh... who deigns to question the authority of our LEADER?!
Pentagon Says 550 'Enemy Combatants' Are Confined Properly, Seeks Benefit of Doubt on Detentions
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2004; Page A04
A
federal judge yesterday questioned the Bush administration's broad
definition of its powers to indefinitely imprison alleged Taliban and
al Qaeda fighters at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
especially those who have never taken up arms against the United
States.
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green's questions came
as the Defense Department argued during a hearing that it has properly
imprisoned 550 people as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, based on
at least some evidence that they were Taliban or al Qaeda members or
assisted or supported terrorist groups.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
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| Republicans: Bush Adviser Warns of Social Security Cuts |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @06:25PM
from the Who's-your-daddy? dept.
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If your daddy didn't set you up with a trust fund DON'T WORRY! BIG bro will make
it MANDATORY to 'invest' your money on WALL STREET and I'm sure they'll help
you cull the winners from the herd... you just WATCH, our money will be much better off there, they're 100% sure ;->
December 3, 2004
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
 ASHINGTON,
Dec. 2 - Calling the current system of Social Security benefits unsustainable,
a top economic adviser to President Bush on
Thursday strongly implied that any overhaul of the system would have
to include major cuts in guaranteed benefits for future retirees.
"Let me state clearly that there are
no free lunches here," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisers, at a conference on tax policy here.
"The benefits now scheduled for future generations under current law
are not sustainable given the projected path of payroll tax revenue," he
added. "They are empty promises."
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| War: You call this liberation |
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posted by admin
on Thursday December 02, @10:41AM
from the guardian.co.uk dept.
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Pentagon experts have made a discovery: Muslims do not hate America's freedoms, but its policiesSidney Blumenthal
Thursday December 2, 2004
The Guardian Who wrote this - a pop sociologist, obscure blogger or anti-war playwright? "Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is ... heightened by election-year atmospherics, but none the less sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims, they are talking to themselves." Actually, this is the conclusion of the report of the defence science board taskforce on strategic communication - the product of a Pentagon advisory panel - delivered in September. Its 102 pages were not made public in the presidential campaign, but, barely noticed by the US press, silently slipped on to a Pentagon website on Thanksgiving eve. The taskforce of military, diplomatic, academic and business experts, assigned to develop strategy for communications in the "global war on terrorism", had unfettered access, denied to journalists, to the inner workings of the national security apparatus. There was no intent to contribute to public debate, much less political controversy; the report was for internal consumption only.
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| War: (UK) Embassy sounds alarm over growing dangers in Iraq |
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posted by admin
on Tuesday November 30, @01:21AM
from the independent.co.uk dept.
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By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad http://news.independent.co.uk30 November 2004 Disintegrating
security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from
the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane
out of Iraq. The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22
November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the
stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff
have been advised against taking commercial planes.
The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from
US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have
spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency".
The embassy says that the road between Baghdad and the international
airport, perhaps the most important highway in the country, is now too
dangerous to use. The advice says starkly: "With effect from 28
November, the British embassy ceased all movements on the Baghdad
International airport road."
The airport road is littered with evidence of previous attacks: the
twisted cars used by suicide bombers and craters from roadside bombs.
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<
Today's News | December 2
>
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| Corp. |
$now |
$year |
$cap |
| Dow |
10592.21 |
9708.4-10753.6 |
n/a |
| Nasdaq |
2147.96 |
1750.8-2156.1 |
n/a |
| S&P; 500 |
1191.17 |
1053.4-1194.8 |
n/a |
| VA Linux |
2.35 |
1.6-4.8 |
144M |
| Red Hat |
15.19 |
11.2-29.1 |
3B |
| IBM |
97.08 |
81.9-100.4 |
162B |
| Microsoft |
27.23 |
24.0-30.2 |
296B |
| G.E. |
35.83 |
28.9-36.9 |
379B |
Last update:
03:49 GMT (15+ min delay). For informational purposes
only. Not intended for trading purposes. If you're silly enough to do
something based on this data, we're not liable.
Data courtesy
Finance::Quote.
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]
