Wednesday, December 06, 2006

A NEW TRAGEDY FOR 9/11 FAMILY

Boyfriend led way to safety, but pilot's daughter didn't escape high-rise blaze

Witnesses reported hearing loud noises coming from the apartment prior to the fire, according to investigators who said they will examine whether an argument preceded the blaze.

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sounds like somebody had to get silenced...

Iraq Study Group report: Excerpts

The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating...

If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe...

Our recommended course has shortcomings, but we firmly believe that it includes the best strategies and tactics to positively influence the outcome in Iraq and the region.

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Full report

*Yawn*

NASA plans a city on the moon

From the Earth to the moon and beyond. NASA announced plans to establish a base on the moon and make it into a permanent city by 2024. Crews of four astronauts are expected to work on the base, a week at a time, beginning around 2020.

To cover the costs, NASA is planning to keep its current budget of $17 billion and use the money saved by scrapping the space shuttle program. The space agency plans to coordinate commercial and international assistance with the program. It consulted 13 space agencies from different countries while formulating the initial plan.

One of the main goals of the project is to establish a stepping-off point for human exploration and colonization of Mars.

An artist's illustration shows one of the first structures landing on the moon.

CNET

Dissenting voices in Iraq gov't rising

Al-Hashemi, the vice president due to visit the White House next month, said he did not see the point of categorizing the violence raging in Iraq _ the U.N. says an average of 100 Iraqis are killed every day at present _ as a civil war.

"But I want to say in all honesty that Iraq is undergoing a very huge calamity," he said in an interview aired Tuesday on Baghdad, the television station of his Iraqi Islamic Party.

"All this suffering has placed Iraq way beyond what happened in Lebanon's civil war," he said.

The analogy between Iraq's violence and Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war was used by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week, who also told the British Broadcasting Corp., that Iraqis may have reason to think their life now is worse than it was under ousted leader Saddam Hussein.

"The situation is difficult. Iraq is going through an unprecedented predicament," said al-Hashemi.

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