Bird flu experts meeting in Beijing warned on Tuesday that time was of the essence in battling a disease that has killed almost 80 people since 2003 and has now arrived at the gates of Europe and the Middle East. The World Bank hopes the meeting will raise $1.2 billion to help improve health and veterinary services in developing countries grappling with outbreaks, and to strengthen surveillance in areas not yet affected by the H5N1 flu virus. "H5N1 is primarily an animal disease. However, given its expanding geographical scope and that H5N1 is endemic in some countries, our assessment is that the risk of pandemic is great," Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation's top pandemic expert, said. "Timing is unpredictable and the severity is uncertain," she told the conference. ...
http://abcnews.go.com
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Editor - 22:20:00 01-16-06
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 U.S. Rejects Philippine Request to Hand Over Marines Accused of Rape |
The United States has formally rejected a Philippine request that it hand over four Marines charged with rape. In a letter to the Philippine government, the U.S. Embassy invoked a bilateral agreement that grants the United States custody of the suspects during legal proceedings. Some Philippine lawmakers have called for abrogating the Visiting Forces Agreement if their government fails to get custody of the Marines. Prosecutors allege that Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith raped a 22-year-old woman Nov. 1 in a van at Subic Bay, a former U.S. Naval base northwest of Manila, as fellow Marines cheered him on. Smith claims he only had consensual sex. Also charged were Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, Lance Cpl. Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sgt. Chad Carpentier, part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Force stationed in Okinawa, Japan. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1512414
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Editor - 21:46:00 01-16-06
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| Spy agency post-9/11 data sidetracked FBI: NY Time |
In the months following the September 11 attacks, the National Security Agency sent a torrent of names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses to the FBI that swamped the agency but led in virtually every case to dead ends or innocent Americans, The New York Times reported on Monday.FBI officials complained repeatedly to the secretive spy agency, which was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on the international phone and Internet communications of targeted Americans. The unfiltered data swamped FBI investigators, the newspaper reported on its Web site in an article written for its Tuesday editions. Some FBI officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on the privacy of law-abiding Americans. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1512398
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Editor - 21:40:00 01-16-06
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| Former Vice President Says Legislators From Both Parties Did Not Do Enough To Stop Secret Activities |
In an impassioned speech about President Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping program, former Vice President Al Gore said in Washington, DC, on Monday that "the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently." Citing Bush Administration policies on torture, rendition and detentions, the winner of the 2000 popular vote said the President's "unlawful" eavesdropping program was part of a "larger pattern" of "seeming indifference to the Constitution." Lets not forget this spying was going on all the time the Democrats were in office also, but that’s a different story that’s not talked about. Both parties need removing, preferably to the nearest jail to await trial for treason and or corruption...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1511599&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
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Editor - 21:26:00 01-16-06
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| U.N. staffers put on leave in purchasing fraud probe |
The United Nations on Monday ordered eight staff members to take paid leave as part of its expanding investigation of fraud and mismanagement in U.N. purchasing for the world body's far-flung peacekeeping operations. One company, which was not identified, has also been suspended from doing business with the United Nations, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Dujarric said the administrative leave was ordered as a result of an internal audit of the U.N. peacekeeping department's management and purchasing practices. "It is not at all a disciplinary action, as this audit is not yet been finalized," he said. The United Nations did not identify the staff members, but two U.N. officials said they included Assistant Secretary-General Andrew Toh, who headed the division responsible for procurement. ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-01-16-un-investigation_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 20:39:00 01-16-06
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| Aging California Inmate to Be Executed |
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a 76-year-old convicted killer who argued that he was too old and feeble to be executed. The ruling cleared the way for Clarence Ray Allen — legally blind, nearly deaf and in a wheelchair — to be executed by injection early Tuesday for a triple murder he ordered from behind bars to silence witnesses to another killing.Allen, whose birthday was Monday, stood to become the oldest person executed in California — and the second-oldest put to death nationally — since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.He raised two claims never before endorsed by the high court: that executing a frail old man would violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel as well....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181801,00.html
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Editor - 20:28:00 01-16-06
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| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
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