Does the fed government need to know whether you aced Aristotelian ethics but had to repeat introductory biology? Does it need to know your family's financial profile, how much aid you received & whether you took off a semester to help out at home? The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education thinks so. In its first draft report, released in late June, the commission called for creation of a tracking system to collect sensitive information about our nation's college students. Its second draft, made public last week, softens the name of the plan, but the essence of the proposal remains unchanged.Whether you call it a ``national unit records database'' (the first name) or a ``consumer-friendly information database'' (the second), it is in fact a mandatory federal registry of all American students throughout their collegiate careers every course, every step, every misstep. Once established, it could easily be linked to existing K-12 & workforce databases ...
http://www.mercurynews.com
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Editor - 12:58:00 07-26-06
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 Saddam 'forced' back to his trial |
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who had been on hunger strike, says he was taken to court from his hospital bed against his will. He was taken to hospital on Sunday because of his hunger strike, which he reportedly began on 7 July in protest at the killing of three of his lawyers. He said if he was found guilty and faced death, he would like to be shot, not hanged "like a common criminal". The trial resumed on Monday without him as he was being treated in hospital. On Wednesday, Saddam Hussein appeared in front of the court, looking slightly thinner and said: "I was brought against my will directly from the hospital... The Americans insisted that I come against my will. This is not fair. "Three days ago I was taken to hospital and today I was brought here forcibly from the hospital. I was fed intravenously," he said. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5215866.stm
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Editor - 12:48:00 07-26-06
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| Liberia switches on street lights |
Liberian leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has switched on generator-powered street lights in the capital, which has been without electricity for 15 years. She had promised to bring electricity to the whole of Monrovia within six months of assuming office in January. "When I made this commitment... I was an outsider looking in," she said. As Liberia celebrates 159 years of independence, every effort is being made to ensure visible signs that life in the capital is improving. On Tuesday, tapped water became available in the war-torn capital. But after decades of misrule, Liberia's road network is still in ruins, an there is no national telephone network and no national electricity grid. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5216010.stm
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Editor - 12:29:00 07-26-06
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| Coalition troops killed 22 "suspected" Taliban in south NATO to take command of troops in southern Afghanistan from U.S. |
Fighting in a volatile southern province killed 22 suspected Taliban militants, officials said Wed, as the top European envoy in Afghanistan warned that a new NATO mission to pacify and help rebuild the region must not fail. Taliban fighters have stepped up attacks this year, triggering the worst violence since the hard-line regime's ouster in late 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden. The bloodshed has raised new fears for Afghanistan's fragile democracy. The latest clashes, involving Afghan and US led coalition troops and air power, took place on Tue and Wed in 2 districts of Helmand province, also the hub of Afghanistan's huge trade in opium and heroin. Militants attacked a coalition patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in Garmser district on Tue, but suffered 7 dead, a coalition statement said. On Wed, another 5 militants were killed and 11 wounded in a battle in Garmser with 200 Afghan police, ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14025377/
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Editor - 12:27:00 07-26-06
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| California Fires Approach San Diego Firefighters Hope Cooler Weather Will Help Combat 25-Square-Mile Blaze |
Firefighters tried to make progress against a 25-square-mile wildfire creeping toward rural communities east of San Diego, while a blaze threatening expensive canyon homes in Los Angeles was contained. Firefighters hoped cooler weather Wednesday would help them combat the blaze, which has burned 16,400 acres over four days through Cleveland National Forest east of San Diego. The blaze was about 15 percent contained, officials said. The fire triggered an evacuation of the small community of Carveacre, and a half-dozen other little clusters of homes were on notice they might be next. Officials said homes in and around Lake Morena Dam, Pine Valley, Potrero and Guatay remain threatened. The National Weather Service predicted high temperatures in southern California would dip below triple digits Wednesday for the first time in 10 days. Highs were forecast to be in the low 90s near the San Diego County fire lines. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/26/national/main1836730.shtml?source=RSS&attr=U.S._1836730
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Editor - 12:20:00 07-26-06
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| Canada offer over blood scandal |
Canada's new government has announced a C$1bn ($875m) compensation package for thousands of people infected with hepatitis C from tainted blood. The package will include thousands of people left out of a previous compensation agreement. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it is for the forgotten victims of the tainted blood scandal. More than 20,000 people were infected in the 1980s and 1990s when Canada did not use up-to-date blood screening. The Liberal government had been criticised over the past nine years by Mr Harper's conservatives and by some of the hepatitis sufferers for only compensating those people who got the disease between 1986 and 1990. In those years a comprehensive blood screening system was used in the US and could have been applied in Canada - but was not. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5215332.stm
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Editor - 12:18:00 07-26-06
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