Reports: FBI Investigating Countrywide

LOS ANGELES — Federal authorities are investigating Countrywide Financial Corp. for securities fraud, according to media reports.

The FBI is in the early stages of an inquiry into whether company officials misrepresented its financial position and the quality of its mortgage loans, The Wall Street Journal first reported Saturday, citing law enforcement officials and finance executives with knowledge of the development.

The Justice Department is also involved in the investigation into the nation's largest mortgage lender, said the New York Times, which also cited anonymous sources who said they were not authorized to discuss ongoing criminal matters.

"We are not aware of any such investigation," Countrywide spokeswoman Susan Martin told the Times.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko declined to confirm for the Times that an investigation had been opened.

Investigators are looking at evidence that may suggest that company executives knew their mortgage securities would see many more defaults than predicted in its public documents, one source told the Journal.

The inquiry is part of a larger probe involving as many as 15 companies and comes in the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Bank of America Corp. is in the process of acquiring California-based Countrywide for about $4 billion in stock. Bank of America agreed to the acquisition in January, and the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter. A spokesman for Bank of America declined to comment.

Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo was one of three mortgage industry executives brought before a Congressional committee Friday to defend their exorbitant pay at a time the industry was reeling.

Congressional figures showed that Countrywide lost $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2007 and another $422 million in the fourth quarter. The company's stock fell 80 percent between February and the end of the year.

During the same period, Mozilo received a $1.9 million salary, $20 million in stock awards contingent upon performance and sold $121 million in stock.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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How This Economy Is Going To Play Out

Marian Spiral Fractal by Bryan Evans

Back in November, I wrote a brief article describing how I expected the financial meltdown underway to continue, and how I expected it to impact the real economy. Below I'm reprinting the 10 predictions I made and I've put in italics those which have already occurred.

1) Housing prices and sales will continue to decline. Expect 3 years before the bottom, as a very optimistic best case scenario.

2) Commerical real-estate will suffer a steep decline as well.

3) Consumer demand will drop. Unemployment will rise.

4) The US will go into a recession at best, a depression at worst. Expect first stagflation (high inflation and high unemployment), both because of the increased price of imports and deliberate pump priming by the Fed, then deflation, as asset prices collapse so hard they take everything else with them. The other likely scenario is stagflation followed by hyperinflation. Formal inflation numbers put out will become not just a joke amongst market-watchers, but amongst the actual population. Same thing with unemployment numbers.

5) The Asian economies are not going to "decouple", they are going to have their own financial crises and recessions. Yes, this includes China.

6) China's stock market will collapse some time next year. China will go into a recession. There will be huge amounts of violence and the Chinese government will redirect anger towards the US and Japan.

7) Multiple banks will probably go insolvent. They are simply holding too much crap paper. There will be an extreme tightening of consumer debt of all kinds, including consumer loans, credit cards and mortgages (this is already beginning, but you ain't seen nothing yet). Even people with good credit will start having difficulty getting loans.

8) Protectionism is going to get stronger. Even if Clinton, a free trader, is put in power, by the time the 2010 Congressional elections are over no "free trade" bill will be able to pass Congress and in fact actual tariffs are likely to be put in place.
9) I wouldn't be surprised, at some point, to see capital controls put in place to stop money-flight from the US.

10) When the full extent of how bad things are hits Joe Public, expect a move for reregulation of Wall Street and to reinstitute something similiar to Glass-Steagall.

Bonus Predictions:

11) The government will have to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they are insolvent. Minimum 500 billion dollars. Possibly much more.

12) Large waves of government layoffs at the municipal and state levels as the inability to raise money cheaply and the reduced property taxes cascade through the system. (Yes, this is already starting to happen, so it's kind of a safe prediction. But it's going to get magnitudes worse. Many many municipalities are going to go bankrupt, and many states will be unable to maintain any but the barest of services.)

13) The price of oil will actually drop as there is an actual demand reduction for oil. Don't expect this to necessarily be reflected in pump prices, which are constrained by refinery capacity.

14) The federal government will become the largest holder of mortgages, and in effect, owner of houses, in the country. By far. The Fed, which has been accepting sub-prime paper already, is going to wind up stuck with a lot of it, because some of the banks using it as "collateral" are not going to survive absent huge government bailouts.

15) A serious collapse of the US stock market, probably by September at the latest. Maybe within a couple months.

The important thing to know about all of these predictions is that they aren't new. They aren't even, really, from November. Myself, Stirling, the late Oldman and others were writing about how current policies lead to stagflation, for example, as far back as 2004. Stirling and I were talking about the Housing Bubble as far back as 2002 when it became clear that Greenspan had dropped rates so far he was bound to create one.

This is not to say that we were particularly bright (and lord knows I got the timing wrong), rather it is to say that for the last 6 odd years, nothing has changed. The basic pattern of the Bush years was set in stone after 9/11, the policies of the Presidency, the Fed and Congress haven't changed. So the events unfolding now are just the logical consequences of decisions made years ago such as:

• to invade Iraq;
• to make tax cuts for the rich in order to bail them out from the dotcom crash;
• to drop interest rates through the floor;
• to allow a telecom oligopoly to form;
• to condone Chinese mercantilist policies which subsidized Chinese exports with a low Yuan;
• to tolerate the Yen carry trade, and
• to refuse to regulate the creation of money in the form of securitization and exotic derivatives.

In 2002 and 2004 the American people voted to continue these policies, including the war in Iraq. In 2006 they voted to end at least some of these policies, but Congress and the President decided to kick the ball down the field, pass some pork bills and wait till 2009 to do anything about any of it. Their bet was they could hold the meltdown off till after the election. They were wrong.

So, what had to be, now is. The performance with the stimulus bill, which was about the worst bill one could create if the actual purpose was to, oh, stimulate the economy, plus the various other futzing around by Congress indicates that no serious changes will be made before 2009. Occasionally something smart may be done, some good idea may go through on the margins, but overall we're in a gray zone where the train trundles on towards that light in the tunnel, and nothing is going to turn it around until a new Congress and new President are sworn in.

And when they do get in, what are they going to do? The truth is that even they don't really know. There are no easy answers because the US (and the world, in a sense) has dug itself into a hole that is bigger than the pile of dirt on the side. More damage will be done than there is free money hanging around to fix. The miracle of leverage in reverse is going to remind everyone why "over-leverage" is something old style brokers considered the greatest mistake anyone could make.

The old, oil based, suburban sprawl economy based on forever rising house prices, on easy credit, on subdivision after subdivision--on running up credit cards and on leverage piled on leverage piled on arbitrage, is in the middle of cracking up, spectacularly. While there will be a short term reduction in the price of oil, in the long term oil is still going up and the America of the sprawl economy; the economic geography of America, looks entirely different at $4/gallon gasoline than it does at $2/gallon gasoline. Huge swathes of exurbia and suburbia become simply economically unviable. Zombie Burbs.

Since I've been contributing here at FDL, a big part of what I've been writing has been an attempt to give readers a basic toolset with which to understand the intersection of politics and economics (and, at the macro level, they always intersect). Over the next few months I'm going to start writing less about what has happened than about what can happen. Not just about how we can "fix" things, but what sort of future the status quo path leads to, what other types of futures are available to us and what the tradeoffs are for various futures (and there are always tradeoffs. Never agree to a plan without knowing who's paying, and what, because if you don't, it's probably you.)

The past is not the future, and the trendline is never inevitable. Hope may not be a plan, but there is always at least a chance to make a change, and make that change for the better. As the American economy collapses around us so too will a lot of the American power and policy apparatus which has made the status quo, a status quo which has served so few so well, and so many badly, so hard for anyone to change. And in the shadow of the collapse there will be a time when we are freer to make choices about what sort of society we want to live in than we have been for a long time.

But only if we're ready for it. Only if we have thought about what sort of world we want. If we don't know, others will know for us, decide for us.

FDR wasn't just a man. FDR was a movement.

So let's start making an FDR.

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Track Price Drops at any Site with Price!pinx

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AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water

A vast array of pharmaceuticals (AP) -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas - from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies - which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public - have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

-Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

-Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

-Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

-A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.

-The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

-Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.

The AP's investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed by the AP, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.

Yet officials in six of those 28 metropolitan areas said they did not go on to test their drinking water - Fairfax, Va.; Montgomery County in Maryland; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Santa Clara, Calif., and New York City.

The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer.

City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, they insisted that "New York City's drinking water continues to meet all federal and state regulations regarding drinking water quality in the watershed and the distribution system" - regulations that do not address trace pharmaceuticals.

In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers told the AP that pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but the AP obtained the results of tests conducted by independent researchers that showed otherwise. For example, water department officials in New Orleans said their water had not been tested for pharmaceuticals, but a Tulane University researcher and his students have published a study that found the pain reliever naproxen, the sex hormone estrone and the anti-cholesterol drug byproduct clofibric acid in treated drinking water.

Of the 28 major metropolitan areas where tests were performed on drinking water supplies, only Albuquerque; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Va.; said tests were negative. The drinking water in Dallas has been tested, but officials are awaiting results. Arlington, Texas, acknowledged that traces of a pharmaceutical were detected in its drinking water but cited post-9/11 security concerns in refusing to identify the drug.

The AP also contacted 52 small water providers - one in each state, and two each in Missouri and Texas - that serve communities with populations around 25,000. All but one said their drinking water had not been screened for pharmaceuticals; officials in Emporia, Kan., refused to answer AP's questions, also citing post-9/11 issues.

Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.

The Stroud Water Research Center, in Avondale, Pa., has measured water samples from New York City's upstate watershed for caffeine, a common contaminant that scientists often look for as a possible signal for the presence of other pharmaceuticals. Though more caffeine was detected at suburban sites, researcher Anthony Aufdenkampe was struck by the relatively high levels even in less populated areas.

He suspects it escapes from failed septic tanks, maybe with other drugs. "Septic systems are essentially small treatment plants that are essentially unmanaged and therefore tend to fail," Aufdenkampe said.

Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.

Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe - even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

For example, in Canada, a study of 20 Ontario drinking water treatment plants by a national research institute found nine different drugs in water samples. Japanese health officials in December called for human health impact studies after detecting prescription drugs in drinking water at seven different sites.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs - and flushing them unmetabolized or unused - in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.

Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.

Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.

Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Other veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and even obesity - sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no. "Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby - director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. - said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life - such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.

"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson told the AP. "It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven't gotten far enough along."

With limited research funds, said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a greater emphasis should be put on studying the effects of drugs in water.

"I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health," said Snyder. "They need to just accept that these things are everywhere - every chemical and pharmaceutical could be there. It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental."

To the degree that the EPA is focused on the issue, it appears to be looking at detection. Grumbles acknowledged that just late last year the agency developed three new methods to "detect and quantify pharmaceuticals" in wastewater. "We realize that we have a limited amount of data on the concentrations," he said. "We're going to be able to learn a lot more."

While Grumbles said the EPA had analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for possible inclusion on a draft list of candidates for regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, he said only one, nitroglycerin, was on the list. Nitroglycerin can be used as a drug for heart problems, but the key reason it's being considered is its widespread use in making explosives.

So much is unknown. Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations will ultimately prove to be harmful to humans. Confidence about human safety is based largely on studies that poison lab animals with much higher amounts.

There's growing concern in the scientific community, meanwhile, that certain drugs - or combinations of drugs - may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.

For several decades, federal environmental officials and nonprofit watchdog environmental groups have focused on regulated contaminants - pesticides, lead, PCBs - which are present in higher concentrations and clearly pose a health risk.

However, some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why - aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies - pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water.

"We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.

Original here

AP: Water makes US troops in Iraq sick

WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."

The report said KBR took corrective steps and was providing adequate water quality by November 2006. But military units at the two sites they controlled were still failing to perform required quality control tests and maintain appropriate records by that time.

"Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water," at the military sites by late 2006, the report said.

The problems did not extend to troops' drinking water, but rather to water used for washing, bathing, shaving and cleaning. Water used for hygiene and laundry must meet minimum safety standards under military regulations because of the potential for harmful exposure through the eyes, nose, mouth, cuts and wounds.

The KBR sites were Camp Ar Ramadi, Camp Q-West and Camp Victory. The military sites were Logistics Support Area Anaconda and Camp Ali.

The inspector general's study confirmed AP reports on the contaminated water in early 2006 and provided additional details on the scope of the problem at the Iraq bases. In January that year, interviews and internal company documents disclosed the problems at Ar Ramadi and showed that KBR employees could not get the company to inform base residents.

Halliburton Co., then KBR's parent company, disputed the allegations even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails. In March 2006, the AP obtained an internal Halliburton report that, in one instance, the company missed contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death" at Ar Ramadi.

The report said the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's reverse osmosis units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities.

Halliburton is the oil services conglomerate that Cheney once led. Congressional Democrats long have complained that KBR has benefited from its former ties to Cheney.

KBR, responding to the inspector general's report, said its water treatment "has met or exceeded all applicable military and contract standards." The company took exception to many of the inspector general's assertions. "KBR's commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering," the company said in a statement to the AP.

KBR provided water treatment to U.S. troops under a large-scale defense contract that also included housing and food to soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Djbouti and Georgia.

The military has "taken the appropriate measures to correct the problem and ensure we provide the appropriate oversight of the system," said Navy Capt. James Graybeal of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. troops in the Middle East.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, who has led Democratic inquiries into contracting abuses in Iraq, said the inspector general has backed up what those earlier hearings uncovered. "KBR was not doing its job" and U.S. forces had water that did not meet Army standards, Dorgan said.

"I think it's outrageous that KBR tried to deny that there was a problem, especially when it turned out that there were dozens of U.S. troops reporting water-related illnesses," he said.

The inspector general investigated the 2006 reports at Dorgan's request.

The inspector general's report said some troops noticed problems with the water. Between October 2004 and May 2005, troops at Camp Ar Ramadi said bathwater was discolored and had an unusual odor. The report said KBR failed to treat the nonpotable water and monitor water quality during the same period.

At Camp Q-West, KBR inappropriately delivered chlorinated wastewater for showers and latrines without informing military preventive medicine officials, the report said. "KBR did not monitor or record the quality of water at point-of-use containers before April 2006, even though the ... contract required the company to do so," the report added.

Medical records for troops at Camp Q-West indicated 38 cases of illnesses commonly attributed to problem water. These include skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections and diarrhea. Doctors diagnosed 24 of the cases in January and February 2006, the same period when medical officials warned of a rise in bacterial infections at the base.

In addition, military medical records — tied to no particular base in Iraq — showed 26 cases of food and waterborne diseases, including hepatitis, giardiasis and typhoid fever.

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Ten worst countries for women

n spite of real progress around the globe, the bedrock problems that have dogged women for centuries remain

The image of the 21st century woman is confident, prosperous, glowing with health and beauty.

But for many of the 3.3 billion female occupants of our planet, the perks of the cyber age never arrived. As International Women's Day is celebrated today, they continue to feel the age-old lash of violence, repression, isolation, enforced ignorance and discrimination.

"These things are universal," says Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of New York-based Equality Now. "There is not one single country where women can feel absolutely safe."

In spite of real progress in women's rights around the globe – better laws, political participation, education and income – the bedrock problems that have dogged women for centuries remain. Even in wealthy countries, there are pockets of private pain where women are unprotected and under attack.

Some countries, often the poorest and most conflict-ridden, have a level of violence that makes life unbearable for women. Richer ones may burden them with repressive laws, or sweep the problems of the least advantaged under the carpet. In any country, refugee women are among the most vulnerable.

So widespread are the disadvantages that it's hard to pinpoint the worst places in the world for women. Some surveys rate their problems by quality of life, others by health indicators. Human rights groups point to countries where violations are so severe that even murder is routine.

Literacy is one of the best indicators of women's status in their countries. But Amnesty International Canada's women's rights campaigner Cheryl Hotchkiss says building schools alone doesn't solve the problem of equal education.

"There's a huge range of barriers women face to getting an education," she says. "It may be free and available, but parents won't send their daughters out to school if they can be kidnapped and raped."

Health is another key indicator, including the care of pregnant women, who are sometimes forced into disastrous early marriage and childbearing, as well as infection with HIV/AIDS. But again, statistics fail to show the whole, complex story.

"On a rural lake in Zambia, I met a woman who had not told her husband she was HIV-positive," says David Morley, CEO of Save the Children Canada. "She was already living on the edge because she had no children. If she told him, she would be kicked off the island and sent alone to the mainland. She felt she had no choice, because she had no power at all."

Putting power in women's hands is the biggest challenge for improving their lives in every country, advocates agree. Whether in the poorest countries of Africa, or the most repressive of the Middle East or Asia, lack of control over their own destinies blights women's lives from early childhood.

Here are 10 of the worst countries in the world to be a woman today:

• Afghanistan: The average Afghan girl will live to only 45 – one year less than an Afghan male. After three decades of war and religion-based repression, an overwhelming number of women are illiterate. More than half of all brides are under 16, and one woman dies in childbirth every half hour. Domestic violence is so common that 87 per cent of women admit to experiencing it. But more than one million widows are on the streets, often forced into prostitution. Afghanistan is the only country in which the female suicide rate is higher than that of males.

• Democratic Republic of Congo: In the eastern DRC, a war that claimed more than 3 million lives has ignited again, with women on the front line. Rapes are so brutal and systematic that UN investigators have called them unprecedented. Many victims die; others are infected with HIV and left to look after children alone. Foraging for food and water exposes women to yet more violence. Without money, transport or connections, they have no way of escape.

• Iraq: The U.S.-led invasion to "liberate" Iraq from Saddam Hussein has imprisoned women in an inferno of sectarian violence that targets women and girls. The literacy rate, once the highest in the Arab world, is now among the lowest as families fear risking kidnapping and rape by sending girls to school. Women who once went out to work stay home. Meanwhile, more than 1 million women have been displaced from their homes, and millions more are unable to earn enough to eat.

• Nepal: Early marriage and childbirth exhaust the country's malnourished women, and one in 24 will die in pregnancy or childbirth. Daughters who aren't married off may be sold to traffickers before they reach their teens. Widows face extreme abuse and discrimination if they're labelled bokshi, meaning witches. A low-level civil war between government and Maoist rebels has forced rural women into guerrilla groups.

• Sudan: While Sudanese women have made strides under reformed laws, the plight of those in Darfur, in western Sudan, has worsened. Abduction, rape or forced displacement have destroyed more than 1 million women's lives since 2003. The janjaweed militias have used systematic rape as a demographic weapon, but access to justice is almost impossible for the female victims of violence.

• Other countries in which women's lives are significantly worse than men's include Guatemala, where an impoverished female underclass faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages.

In Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, few women escape the torture of genital mutilation, many are forced into early marriages, and one in 10 dies in pregnancy or childbirth.

In the tribal border areas of Pakistan, women are gang-raped as punishment for men's crimes. But honour killing is more widespread, and a renewed wave of religious extremism is targeting female politicians, human rights workers and lawyers.

In oil-rich Saudi Arabia, women are treated as lifelong dependents, under the guardianship of a male relative. Deprived of the right to drive a car or mix with men publicly, they are confined to strictly segregated lives on pain of severe punishment.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a vicious civil war has put women, who were the traditional mainstay of the family, under attack. In a society that has broken down, women are exposed daily to rape, dangerously poor health care for pregnancy, and attack by armed gangs.

"While the potential of women is recognized at the international level," says World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan, "this potential will not be realized until conditions improve – often dramatically – in countries and communities. Too many complex factors, often rooted in social and cultural norms, continue to hinder the ability of women and girls to achieve their potential and benefit from social advances."

Original here

Tourist tangles with killer lion

THIS was the moment that a British teacher was savaged by a lion - coming within millimetres of death.

The big cat pounced on Kate Drew from behind and dragged her to the ground, sinking its teeth into the back of her neck.

As wardens on a Zimbabwe game reserve rushed to help, the 180kg lion kept the 28-year-old tourist firmly in its grip.

But, mercifully, its powerful jaws just missed her brain stem. Seconds later, she was rescued, dripping with blood.

The bite wounds on her head left her needing 13 stitches.

See more pictures of the lion attack here

Recalling the attack just over a month ago, Miss Drew, from Essex, said she had assumed she was a "goner'' after the lion pounced on her.

As it held her down, she was even more terrified to glance up and see two more lions coming her way.

She was saved only when the wardens rushed in with sticks and wrestled the animal away.
It is thought the lion intended only to "play'' with her after being attracted by her mane-like long blonde hair.

The closeness of her brush with death sank in only after Miss Drew saw these photographs of the attack, taken by a fellow traveller.

"It brings back just what a crazy experience it was,' she said.

"It's quite shocking to see a picture of it.''

The primary school headmistress had been working as a volunteer teacher in Tanzania since last September, and was spending a few weeks travelling across Africa on a bus with other backpackers.

As part of the trip, they visited a project where lions are bred to be released back into the wild.

Tourists can pay $50 to walk with several of the big cats, which are considered tame enough to be allowed contact with humans.

Miss Drew, who is now helping at an orphanage in Peru, said: "I was a bit apprehensive, but we were just leaving and everything seemed to have gone well - until one jumped at me from behind.

"I was scared enough when he pinned me to the ground, but when I looked up and saw the other two, I thought I'd had it.''

Last year a young Australian diplomat was mauled by lions during a posting to Zimbabwe.

Gemma Huggins, 27, was saved by her boyfriend, who managed to scare the animals away and drag her to safety.


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3,000 women a year forced into marriage in UK, study finds

At least 3,000 young women in Britain are the victims of forced marriages each year, with the scale of the problem far bigger than originally thought, according to a groundbreaking report out this week.

The first study ever conducted in the UK into the prevalence of the custom shows that there are far more victims, spread across different ethnic minority communities, than official figures suggest.

Teachers should be given a key role in talking confidentially to young girls whom they believe may be at risk of being coerced into marriages, particularly if there is suspicion that an older sister has been married off against her will, the report recommends.

But there also needs to be more determined effort within communities to end the practice, so that forced marriages become a matter of shame and humiliation for parents, instead of being a matter of pride.

The Home Office-funded study calls on authorities to take the institution more seriously, so that it is treated as an issue of illegality, domestic violence and bullying.

The study, which looked at cases in Luton, a town with a large south Asian community, found at least 300 cases where victims had contacted community organisations. Yet the government's forced marriage unit, set up to tackle the problem three years ago, handles only 300 cases a year nationwide.

The report concludes that at least 10 times that number, and possibly far more that, are taking place, without any agencies ever finding out, although forced marriages are illegal under British law.

The government has ordered a national count of missing schoolgirls amid fears that hundreds have been forced into marriage, or are living in fear of so-called "honour" violence.

Researcher Nazia Khanum, who carried out the study, said: "There is this wall of silence around forced marriages.

"Of course, there are thousands of arranged marriages happening in Britain each year but that is very different, as both partners in these are willing participants.

"We are talking about girls being very much coerced into those marriages, often not knowing beforehand who their husbands will be, and then having little or no rights once they are married. Most of them feel there is simply no one they can turn to.'

Labour MP Margaret Moran, who helped set up the study in her constituency of Luton South, said she was shocked by the scale of abuse which they had uncovered. "It's uncomfortable for people to think about, but it can't remain this hidden any longer.

"It's not simply about Muslim families; we also found that it happens among Chinese and African communities too, such as the Somali families. Nor is it something that comes across with new immigrants.

"Many of these women were third-generation British and it is just a custom that is being handed down between the ages. It is something that causes enormous grief and now has to be seen for what it is: a form of bullying, often resulting in violence and great damage."

The report has discovered that sometimes brides are being forced into marriages with men who are severely disabled, and whom they have never met before. There are particular concerns about the women who are brought up outside the UK, are married overseas and then brought into the country as brides.

Many women then find themselves "subjugated into the in-laws' family culture" which can be a traumatic experience.

Some girls are married off when they are just 16, and even if they want to go into higher education, it almost certainly means the end of their schooling.

Shaminder Ubhi, the director of the Ashiana Project, which provides refuge to south Asian, Turkish and Iranian women, said in response to the report: "Certainly we agree that forced marriage, at a basic level, is an abuse of human rights. It can affect girls as young as 14, 15 and 16 years old and can involve emotional coercion, forced imprisonment, violence and in the extreme, murder.

"It is an abuse of women."

Original here

IRS spending $42 million on rebate reminders

WASHINGTON (AP) -- At a cost of nearly $42 million, the IRS wants you to know: Your check is almost in the mail.

President Bush signs the economic stimulus plan at a ceremony last month.

The Internal Revenue Service is spending the money on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan.

The notices are going out this month to an estimated 130 million households who filed returns for the 2006 tax year, at a cost $41.8 million, IRS spokesman John Lipold confirmed.

That works out to about 32 cents to print, process and mail each letter. It doesn't include the tab for another round of mailings planned for those who didn't file tax returns last year but may still qualify for a rebate.

Democrats accused the Bush administration of wasting time and postage.

"There are countless better uses for $42 million than a self-congratulatory mailer that gives the president a pat on the back for an idea that wasn't even his," Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday, arguing the IRS could more effectively spend the money to catch tax cheats.

Keith Hennessey, director of the president's National Economic Council, said the letters are being sent to explain how the tax rebates will work.

"Any time you do something as a government tens of millions of times, there is ample room for people to get confused. And so if you're going to have tens of millions of taxpayers getting checks, you want to get the information out so that you have as few people as possible confused about what's happening, they understand what's coming, and it reduces the number of incoming requests that IRS and Treasury have to figure out how to deal with it," said Hennessey.

"Dear Taxpayer," the letters will begin, going on to say the IRS is pleased to inform the recipient that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law a plan that will provide payments of up to $600 for individuals who qualify or $1,200 for married couples filing jointly. The rebates are the centerpiece of a $168 billion economic stimulus package.

The actual rebate checks are scheduled to go out starting in May, after the IRS has finished separately mailing out routine refunds for the 2007 tax year.

The letters will be a reminder that people need to file a 2007 tax return so they will receive the rebate if they are eligible for it.

Similar notices will go out later to some Social Security recipients and those who receive veterans benefits -- groups that often do not file tax returns.

For those people to get a rebate check, they will need to file a tax return if they received at least $3,000 from a combination of certain Social Security benefits, veterans benefits and earned income. The minimum payment for this group will be $300 for an individual and $600 for a couple filing jointly.

Not everyone will be eligible. Singles with income of more than $75,000 and couples with more than $150,000 get only partial rebates, if any.

People who earn less than $3,000, illegal immigrants and anyone who does not file a tax return will miss out. Singles with incomes exceeding $87,000 and couples with incomes exceeding $174,000 also won't qualify, although those caps rise by $6,000 per child.

Original here

And I'm Supposed To Feel Sorry For You Because...?

Third In A Series: Victim 3

By Linda Keenan

The current economic crisis has many victims, and one of them is the wall next to my couch, where I literally fling the paper or magazine in disgust as I read yet another sad-sack story of average Americans who have finally figured out they can't afford that vast manse on the hill, the tricked-out home theater, the his-n-her Hummers. My poor, abused wall, that Money Magazine really lands with a bracing thud.

So this is my own occasional series that I call "And I'm Supposed To Feel Sorry For You Because....?" in which I pluck a tale out of the paper, and fricassee the latest "victim"* of the great American overspending horror show. If I sound like a lemon-sucking shrew, well, on this topic, I am.

Today's Victim: Don Doyle, come on down! Featured recently in the New York Times**.

Don Doyle, a computer engineer at Lockheed Martin {engineer, hmmm, rational, exacting, good with Excel, riiight? Wrong!} makes a six-figure income and had a stellar credit score in 2004, when he refinanced his home to take cash out to pay for his daughter's college tuition {OK, daughter, college, good Dad, sounds noble. So far, so good}.

Mr. Doyle, 52, is now worried that he will have to file for bankruptcy, because he cannot afford to make the higher variable payments on his mortgage, and he cannot sell his home for more than his $740,000 mortgage {Don, that's a whole lot of college you've borrowed. Did your daughter attend 3 times?}.

"The whole plan was to get out" before the rate reset. {Who'd a thunk rates could go higher? Don wouldn't remember the ‘70's. Oh wait. He's 52. I bet he remembers Saturday Night Fever...How about ... Stagflation?}

"Now I am caught. I can't sell my house. I'm having a hard time refinancing. I've avoided bankruptcy for months trying to pull this out of my savings."

In refinancing their home in 2004, Mr. Doyle and his wife were doing what millions of other homeowners did -- tapping into the rising value of their homes for home improvements, paying off credit card debt {taking on debt, to pay off other debt...ah the awesome, terrible beauty of financial innovation!}, college tuition and for other spending.

The Doyles took advantage of the housing boom by refinancing their home nearly every year since they bought it in 1995 for $275,000 {Didn't the 90's ROCK? OK, time for a recap. House cost 275K in ‘95. Don now owes nearly 800K. For college tuition? To quote noted philosopher Dr. Phil, get real, Don!}

Until their most recent loan they never had a problem making their payments. They invested much of the money in shares of companies that subsequently went bankrupt {D'oh! That little dot com bust thing-y wing-y happened in the 90's too. Major bummer.} But borrowers like Mr. Doyle say they are victims of their circumstances.

Still, Mr. Doyle does not regret refinancing in 2004 {or 1996, or 1997, or 1998, or, oh remember that one in 2000, hon? When we got the ATV?} "My goal was clear: I wanted to help my daughter go through college," Doyle said. "It wasn't like it was for us."

*Editor's Note: For Linda's pieces on Victim #1 and Victim #2, see: Victim 1 & Victim 2. Linda introduced this theme -- her frustration with certain people not taking personal responsibility for their financial problems -- here: Look In The Mirror!

**For clarity's sake, I've condensed these stories and quotes without the proper punctuation. Click here for the full story.

Linda Keenan is a contributing writer at Burbia. Linda worked 7 years as a head writer/senior producer for various programs on CNN. Before that she worked as a writer/producer for Bloomberg TV. She now writes satire, primarily about parenting culture, at Thoroughly Modern Mommy. ...read more rants

Original here

Photo of Times Square bombing suspect released

NEW YORK, New York (CNN) -- The New York Police Department has released photos of a bicycle and a suspect in Thursday's Times Square recruitment center bombing.

Police released this surveillance image of a bicyclist believed linked to the Times Square bombing.

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The photo of the suspect, extracted from surveillance footage and released on Friday, shows someone riding a bicycle away from the scene shortly after the explosion. The second photo shows a metallic blue bicycle that was found abandoned in trash nearby.

Authorities are offering a $12,000 reward for information in that leads to an arrest in the case.

The explosion, which caused no injuries, went off about 3:45 a.m. Thursday at an Armed Forces Recruitment center in Times Square.

Authorities were re-examining an incident that happened last month at the U.S.-Canadian border, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told CNN Friday.

A car with three people was halted as it crossed from New York into Canada, a senior U.S. government official told CNN, and the car was searched as a matter of routine, the official said.

Anarchist-type material was found, the official said, and in a backpack, agents found pictures of New York, including ones of Times Square, at least one of which showed the recruiting station.

The people told authorities that they had been visiting New York City for a week. At some point, two of the three -- both men -- ran off.

The Canadians then forwarded the information to the New York police liaison officer in Canada, who alerted police. However, it was eventually determined by the Canadians and NYPD that the incident posed no threat.

The official said he strongly doubts a connection will be found between the information garnered from that incident and the Times Square bombing.

On Friday, Kelly acknowledged the incident.

"That stop did take place in Canada," he said. "Some pictures of Times Square, including the recruiting, station were found. Our liaison officer in Montreal was notified."

He said, "Our teams of detectives that go around and talk to businesses did go out and speak to the people in the recruiting station and told them about the fact that these pictures were found. So federal officials are going back to take another look and attempting to speak to Canadian officials about that stop."

Asked whether the attack could be linked to two other unsolved blasts in New York -- one at the British consulate in 2005 and the other at Mexican consulate in 2007, Kelly said, "There is certainly a possibility."

"The times are very similar," he said. "All three incidents took place with an individual on a bike, leaving a bomb. So, that's a possibility."

Meanwhile, a person who was questioned in Los Angeles about letters that members of Congress received after the explosion in Times Square were "not involved" in the bombing, the law enforcement source told CNN.

"It's an ugly coincidence," the source said, referring to the timing of the bombing and the appearance of the letters. "He is not the bomber."

On Thursday afternoon, just a few hours after the blast, authorities in Washington said several members of Congress had received letters that raised concern.

The letters contained photos of a man standing in front of the recruiting center along with the statement "We did it," according to an e-mail from a senator's office.

Fewer than 10 letters were received by members of Congress, a law-enforcement source said. All the letters were received by Democrats, another law enforcement source said.

Original here

Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

President Bush waits to speak to the Heritage Foundation about waterboarding and terrorism in November 2007.

"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month.

"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," the president said.

Supporters of the legislation say it would preserve the United States' ability to collect critical intelligence while also providing a much-needed boost to country's moral standing abroad.

"Torture is a black mark against the United States," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. "We will not stop until [the ban] becomes law."

The bill would limit CIA interrogators to the 19 techniques allowed for use by military questioners. The Army field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners.

Bush said the CIA must retain use of "specialized interrogation procedures" that the military doesn't need. The military methods are designed for questioning "lawful combatants captured on the battlefield," while intelligence professionals are dealing with "hardened terrorists" who have been trained to resist the techniques in the Army manual, the president said.

"We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland," Bush said. "If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives."

The legislation's backers say the military's approved methods are sufficient to any need.

Those 19 interrogation techniques to which the bill would have restricted CIA personnel include the "good cop/bad cop" routine, making prisoners think they are in another country's custody and separating a prisoner from others for up to 30 days.

Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes, stripping them naked, forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts, or beating, electrocuting, burning or otherwise physically hurting them.

They may not be subjected to hypothermia or mock executions. It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.

But waterboarding is the most high-profile and controversial of the interrogation methods in question.

It involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his or her cloth-covered face to simulate and create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years to the Spanish Inquisition and is condemned by nations around the world and human rights organizations as torture.

Some argue it must be banned because, if torture, it is illegal under international and U.S. law. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 includes a provision barring cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in U.S. custody, including CIA prisoners, and many believe that covers waterboarding.

Others say that, even if legal, there are practical arguments against waterboarding: that its use would undermine the U.S. when arguing overseas for human rights and on other moral issues and would place Americans at greater risk of being tortured when captured.

"President Bush's veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his presidency," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said in a statement Friday. "Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world."

He noted that the Army field manual contends that harsh interrogation is a "poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the (interrogator) wants to hear."

The U.S. military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006, and says it has not been used since three prisoners encountered it in 2003.

But while some Bush administration officials have questioned the current legality of waterboarding, the administration has refused to rule definitively on whether it is torture. Bush has said many times that his administration does not torture.

The White House says waterboarding remains among the interrogation methods potentially available to the CIA. Its use would have to be approved, on a case-by-case basis, by the president after consultation with the attorney general and the intelligence community. Among the acceptable situations for approving it could be belief of imminent attack, according to the White House.

"Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," Bush said.

Original here

Pedophile goes nuts at reporter on Australian News

Dr Evil's guide to whaling 'research'

AN official scientific review of Japan's bizarre experiments with test-tube minke babies and attempts at cross-breeding cows with whales has exploded the claim whale slaughter is "research".

Scientists have analysed the 43 research papers produced by Japan after 18 years of killing whales and concluded they are useless, strange and esoteric.

Some of the experiments involved injecting dead minke sperm into cow eggs, others attempt to produce test-tube whale babies and thawing frozen whale sperm to see if it remained fertile.

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research also injected cow and pig egg cells with minke cells as part of its whaling program.

Australian delegates to this weekend's London meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will argue the "scientific research" loophole in the world-wide ban on commercial whaling that allows Japan to hunt the sea giants should be closed.

The head of Australia's scientific delegation to the IWC, Dr Nick Gales, said the research not only lacks credibility - it is downright strange.

"(The research involves) really bizarre and very strange experiments with sheep and pigs and eggs. It's totally esoteric, very strange research," he said from London.

Dr Gales also said the number of papers the lethal "research" produced - a mere 43 over 18 years - was incredibly small for a government-funded organisation.

"It was an incredibly low publication rate," he said.

More than half of the papers were dedicated to establishing whale mortality rates, but failed to do so.

"The amount of variability on these estimates means that the mortality rate remains unknown," Dr Gales said.

The findings of Australia's review show research objectives for the second phase of Japan's scientific whaling program, known as JARPA II, were unachievable, he said.

"They haven't changed any of the methodologies, Dr Gales said.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the scrutiny of Japan's research proved its whale hunt was about money.

"I challenge anyone to look at this sort of research and say it's necessary, to say it requires killing over 7000 whales," he said.

"This is why we say what is happening is not science, it's not necessary - it's commercial whaling."

This will form part of Australia's argument at the main IWC meeting in Chile later this year that killing whales is not generating any useful science.

Japan has slaughtered more than 7000 whales over the life of 18-year "research" program.

Original here

Chinese hackers: No site is safe

ZHOUSHAN, China (CNN) -- They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.

The leader of these Chinese hackers says there "is always a weakness" on networks that allows cyber break-ins.

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In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government -- a claim the Beijing government denies.

"No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness," says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group.

"Xiao Chen" is his online name. Along with his two colleagues, he does not want to reveal his true identity. The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world. Watch hackers' clandestine Chinese operation »

If there is a profile of a cyber hacker, these three are straight from central casting -- young and thin, with skin pale from spending too many long nights in front of a computer.

One hacker says he is a former computer operator in the People's Liberation Army; another is a marketing graduate; and Xiao Chen says he is a self-taught programmer.

"First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must know what program it is written with," says Xiao Chen. "There is a saying, 'Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.'"

CNN decided to withhold the address of these hackers' Web site, but Xiao Chen says it has been operating for more than three years, with 10,000 registered users. The site offers tools, articles, news and flash tutorials about hacking.

Private computer experts in the United States from iDefense Security Intelligence, which provides cybersecurity advice to governments and Fortune 500 companies, say the group's site "appears to be an important site in the broader Chinese hacking community."

Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks of on-again, off-again e-mail exchanges. When they finally agreed, CNN was told to meet them on the island of Zhoushan, just south of Shanghai and a major port for China's navy.

The apartment has cement floors and almost no furniture. What they do have are three of the latest computers. They are cautious when it comes to naming the Web sites they have hacked.

But eventually Xiao Chen claims two of his colleagues -- not the ones with him in the room -- have hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information, although he wouldn't specify what was gleaned. CNN has no way to confirm if his claim is true.

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"They would not publicize this," he says of someone who hacks the U.S. Defense Department. "It is very sensitive."

This week, the Pentagon said computer networks in the United States, Germany, Britain and France were hit last year by what they call "multiple intrusions," many of them originating from China.

At a congressional hearing in Washington last week, administration officials testified that the government's cyber initiative has fallen far short of what is required. Most alarming, the officials said, there has never been a full damage assessment of federal agency networks. Watch Pentagon bans Google from bases »

"We are here today because we must do more," said Robert Jamison, a top official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Defending the federal system in its current configuration is a significant challenge."

U.S. officials have been cautious not to directly accuse the Chinese military or its government of hacking into its network.

But David Sedney, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, says, "The way these intrusions are conducted are certainly consistent with what you would need if you were going to actually carry out cyber warfare."

Beijing hit back at that, denying such an allegation and calling on the United States to provide proof. "If they have any evidence, I hope they would provide it. Then, we can cooperate on this issue," Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a regular press briefing this week.

But Xiao Chen says after the alleged Pentagon attack, his colleagues were paid by the Chinese government. Again, CNN has no way to independently confirm if that is true.

His allegations brought strenuous denials from Beijing. "I am telling you honestly, the Chinese government does not do such a thing," Qin said.

But if Xiao Chen is telling the truth, it appears his colleagues launched a freelance attack -- not initiated by Beijing, but paid for after the fact. "These hacker groups in my opinion are not agents of the Chinese state," says James Mulvenon from the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, which works with the U.S. intelligence community.

"They are sort of useful idiots for the Beijing regime."

He adds, "These young hackers are tolerated by the regime provided that they do not conduct attacks inside of China."

One of the biggest problems experts say is trying to prove where a cyber attack originates from, and that they say allows hackers like Xiao Chen to operate in a virtual world of deniability.

And across China, there could be thousands just like him, all trying to prove themselves against some of the most secure Web sites in the world.

Original here

At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay

Zeke M. Vanderhoek, creator of a charter school opening in 2009.

Would six-figure salaries attract better teachers?

A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools.

The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance. That is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, roughly two and a half times the national average teacher salary and higher than the base salary of all but the most senior teachers in the most generous districts nationwide.

The school’s creator and first principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, contends that high salaries will lure the best teachers. He says he wants to put into practice the conclusion reached by a growing body of research: that teacher quality — not star principals, laptop computers or abundant electives — is the crucial ingredient for success.

“I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of students and give them all the technology in the world,” said Mr. Vanderhoek, 31, a Yale graduate and former middle school teacher who built a test preparation company that pays its tutors far more than the competition.

In exchange for their high salaries, teachers at the new school, the Equity Project, will work a longer day and year and assume responsibilities that usually fall to other staff members, like attendance coordinators and discipline deans. To make ends meet, the school, which will use only public money and charter school grants for all but its building, will scrimp elsewhere.

The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students. In an inversion of the traditional school hierarchy that is raising eyebrows among school administrators, the principal will start off earning just $90,000. In place of a menu of electives to round out the core curriculum, all students will take music and Latin. Period.

While the notion of raising teacher pay to attract better candidates may seem simple, the issue is at the crux of policy debates rippling through school systems nationwide, over how teachers should be selected, compensated and judged, and whether teacher quality matters more than, say, class size.

Mr. Vanderhoek’s school, which was approved by the city’s Education Department and the State Board of Regents, is poised to be one of the country’s most closely watched educational experiments, one that could pressure the city and its teachers’ union to rethink the pay for teachers in traditional schools.

“This is an approach that has not been tried in this way in American education, and it opens up a slew of fascinating opportunities,” said Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “That $125,000 figure could have a catalytic effect.”

Yet the model is raising questions. Will two social workers be enough? Will even the most skillful teachers be able to handle classes of 30, several students more than the city average?

“I think they’ll have their hands full,” said Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton professor who studies the economics of education. “Paying teachers above market rate for hard-to-staff schools makes sense, don’t get me wrong. The question is, ‘How much do you want to tilt in that direction?’ ”

Michael Thomas Duffy, the city’s executive director for charter schools, said that even some Education Department staff members were skeptical, wondering, “If you’re putting all of your resources into teachers in the classroom, are you shorting some of the other aspects of what a good school requires?”

Mr. Vanderhoek won approval for the school after presenting city and state officials with a detailed proposal and budget. Mr. Duffy said the school could have a “tremendous impact” throughout the country. “If the department and the chancellor didn’t feel that this had a likelihood of success, we wouldn’t have approved it.”

The school’s students will be selected through a lottery weighted toward underperforming children and those who live nearby. It has generated so much buzz with its e-mail blasts and postings on education and employment Web sites that its voicemail message now implores prospective hires to please, make inquiries by e-mail.

“People are sort of stunned,” Mr. Vanderhoek said.

Ernest A. Logan, president of the city principals’ union, called the notion of paying the principal less than the teachers “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s nice to have a first violinist, a first tuba, but you’ve got to have someone who brings them all together,” Mr. Logan said. “If you cheapen the role of the school leader, you’re going to have anarchy and chaos.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, called the hefty salaries “a good experiment.” But she said that when teachers were not unionized, and most charter school teachers are not, their performance can be hampered by a lack of power in dealing with the principal. “What happens the first time a teacher says something like, ‘I don’t agree with you?’ ”

Mr. Vanderhoek spent three years teaching at Intermediate School 90 in Washington Heights through Teach for America, which places recent college graduates in challenging schools. He started tutoring to supplement his salary and created a test preparation company called Manhattan GMAT in 2000.

The secret to the company’s success, he said, was to pay tutors $100 an hour as well as bonuses, compensation that was several times more than other companies paid.

Mr. Vanderhoek is trying to raise money to lease space in the neighborhood and build a permanent building. But he has made a strategic decision to cover other expenses with city, state and federal money, plus a few grants. “We’re saying, ‘Look, we can do it on public funding, and we want to inspire other people to do it on public funding.’ ”

The school’s teachers will be selected through a rigorous application process outlined on its Web site, www.tepcharter.org, and run by Mr. Vanderhoek. There will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three live teaching auditions.

Among those who have applied are a candidate who began teaching in the 1960s, founded a residential school for troubled adolescents, has a Ph.D in Latin and is working on a scholarly translation; and a would-be science teacher who has taught for more than a dozen years at some of the country’s top private schools.

Claudia Taylor, 29, applied to the Equity Project even though, she said, the thought of leaving the Harlem Village Academy, the charter school where she teaches reading, “breaks my heart.”

“I’m tired of making decisions about whether or not I can afford to go to a movie on a Friday night when I work literally 55 hours a week,” Ms. Taylor said. “It’s very frustrating. I’m feeling like I either have to leave New York City or leave teaching, because I don’t want to have a roommate at 30 years old.”

Ms. Taylor hesitated before applying, because the salary “almost doesn’t seem real.” Then she thought back on her three years teaching in the traditional public schools and determined that it could be, saying, “There is definitely a lot of money that you saw being wasted.”

Mr. Vanderhoek said he planned to be principal for at least four years. After that, who knows? He could be promoted to teacher.

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