Stocks Rebound After Fed Adds Liquidity

Stocks Pare Losses After Fed Adds Liquidity, Indexes at Times Move Into Positive Territory

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street pared its losses Friday after the Federal Reserve said it would do all it can to "facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets" and twice injected liquidity into the banking system.

The stock market, which has been gyrating for weeks over fears that credit is drying up, began to pare its losses several hours after the Fed's latest injection of cash into the system Friday. The day's declines, however, showed the depths of fear that have investors yanking money out of stocks.

The Fed added $16 billion in liquidity to the market at midmorning Friday, supplementing the $19 billion added earlier in the day.

Federal Reserve policy makers "are trying to do everything they can short of cutting the federal funds rate" to try to calm the markets, said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research in Great Neck, N.Y.

But, he said, "I think they probably have to cut rates, and probably before their scheduled September meeting."

He noted that it was Fed rate cuts that calmed the market after the 1998 Russian debt crisis and the implosion of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrials fell 37.48, or 0.28 percent, to 13,233.20, after being down as much as 212 points and briefly moving into positive territory. On Thursday, the Dow fell 387 points and extended a series of triple-digit moves that began in late July.

Friday's moves were typical of the zigzag trading and triple-digit moves in the Dow since the index closed at a record 14,000.41 on July 19. As of Thursday's close, the Dow was down about 730 points, or 5.2 percent, from its record close.

Broader stock indicators also pared their losses from earlier in the session. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 0.22, or 0.02 percent, to 1,452.87, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 8.74, or 0.34 percent, to 2,547.75.

On Friday, the New York Fed, which carries out the central bank's market operation, announced a three-day repurchase agreement and then a second "repo" to inject liquidity into the market. The Fed said Friday it would accept $19 billion and then $16 billion in mortgage backed securities. The move came after the fed funds rate, the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans, ticked above 6 percent again Friday -- well above the Fed's target of 5.25 percent and a sign that credit was becoming harder to obtain.

The Fed stepped in after the same occurrence Thursday, injecting a larger-than-normal $24 billion in temporary reserves to the U.S. banking system. In a repo, the Fed arranges to buy securities from dealers, who then deposit the money the Fed has paid them into commercial banks.

"It's encouraging because it's a proactive step and they're not just focused on the inflation numbers and not ignoring turmoil in the credit market," said John Miller, head of the fixed income funds at Nuveen Asset Management.

The Fed's moves Thursday and Friday follow its August meeting Tuesday at which it left short-term interest rates unchanged at 5.25 percent, as it has done for more than a year. In its statement following the meeting, the bank said its primary concern remains inflation.

But the tumultuousness of the final two sessions of the week, which followed a sharp run-up in the week's first three sessions, has some market observers wondering whether the Fed will step in and douse some of the credit fears that have gripped the markets. So while some are now calling for a rate cut at the Fed's September meeting or even sooner, others contend investors will in any case first need to gather some confidence that the subprime woes and the credit market tightening aren't lethal for the economy and the markets.

"The confidence will be restored over time if the economy and the financial markets are resilient enough to overcome these kinds of announcements and view them in isolation," Miller said. "I think it's premature to forecast a recession, particularly if the Fed is responsive. There is no reason why we couldn't work our way out of this fairly quickly."

However, he thinks subprime unease is likely to continue, particularly this fall as a big batch of subprime mortgages written in 2005 and 2006 begin to reset their rates.

"I think other shoes will drop simply because of the size of the lending that went on in the subprime sector, the upcoming resets and the tightening of credit standards."

But regardless of how quickly it might be restored, investor confidence worldwide has been shaken. In Asia, stocks fell Friday after regulators including the Bank of Japan added liquidity. The European Central Bank for the second day added cash to its money markets.

These banks and others around the world haven't worked together to inject liquidity into the markets since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the measures, intended to keep financial markets well-oiled, also seemed to confirm investor fears of a larger problem in the credit markets that will stall corporate growth -- including the burst of takeover activity that powered stocks higher this year.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 2.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 2.9 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 3.71 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 1.48 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 3.13 percent.

Bonds rose again Friday as investors again sought the relative safety of Treasurys. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.77 percent from 4.79 percent late Thursday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

The concerns about credit and the effect of subprime loans, those made to borrowers with weak credit, were undiminished Friday, perhaps in part because of comments from Countrywide Financial Corp.

The nation's biggest mortgage lender fell $1.64, or 5.7 percent, to $27.02 after saying in a regulatory filing Thursday that disruptions in credit and secondary mortgage markets pose a risk to the company and could hurt its financial standing in the short-term. Earlier in the week, Countrywide said it still has access to capital despite the credit crunch.

Credit concerns unnerved investors not only for the deals that such difficulties could prevent but also for deals in the works that could be derailed.

ABN Amro Holding NV had been down sharply early and was recently off 58 cents at $46.54 amid worries that one or both of two competing bids for the company might fall apart. ABN fell as investors appeared to re-evaluate risk that a bid from Fortis NV, part of a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, could lose out to a bid from Barclays PLC, or that both could fail. However, Fortis' chief executive said he was "very confident" about financing the ABN deal, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

In economic news, the Commerce Department said U.S. import prices rose for a fifth consecutive month in July, increasing 1.5 percent. Prices rose in part amid increased energy costs. The figures could stir concern among the Fed about inflationary prices.

Light, sweet crude fell 85 cents to $70.74 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.33 billion shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies turned positive, rising 6.99, or 0.89 percent, to 791.86.

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

Fed Adds $35 Bln in Funds, Most Since September 2001 (Update6)

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve added $35 billion in temporary funds to the banking system through the purchase of securities including mortgage-backed debt to meet demand for cash amid a rout in bonds backed by home loans to riskier borrowers.

The Fed's additions totaled the most since September 2001. They came in two weekend repurchase agreements, of $19 billion and $16 billion, for which the Fed accepted securities including mortgage-backed debt, so-called agency debt and Treasuries as collateral. Losses in U.S. subprime mortgages have been rippling through credit markets, driving interest rates higher and sinking stocks. The Fed added $24 billion yesterday.

The New York Fed's actions lowered the Federal funds rate to 5.25 percent, matching the bank's benchmark overnight rate, according to ICAP Plc. The rate began trading today at 6 percent, the highest open since January 2001. Treasuries fell after the additions, stocks rebounded and the dollar rose against the yen.

``They've been very aggressive and they want to make sure there's sufficient liquidity in the financial market,'' said Ward McCarthy, principal at Stone & McCarthy Research in Skillman, New Jersey. ``It looks like they succeeded.''

2001 Record

The Fed's benchmark was 6 percent the last time fed funds opened at today's level. On average, the Fed has added about $9 billion in temporary funds daily this year through yesterday.

In the week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Fed added a daily average of $75.3 billion in reserves through repos. The record was $81.25 billion on Sept. 14, 2001.

Stocks dropped worldwide earlier on speculation losses in mortgage debt will hurt economic growth and earnings. European benchmark indexes fell 1 percent or more.

The European Central Bank today loaned 61.05 billion euros ($83.6 billion), pumping funds into the banking system for a second day. The ECB added an unprecedented 94.8 billion euros yesterday.

Some banks may experience ``unusual funding needs,'' the Fed said in a statement from Washington. The Fed's discount window is open and the central bank pledges to provide liquidity, the Fed said.

As of yesterday, interest-rate futures for August showed investors saw more than a 50 percent chance the Fed will cut the key rate a quarter-point on any day from Aug. 16, Merrill Lynch & Co. said in a report yesterday. An August rate cut is a ``genuine possibility,'' JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a report today.

``Because of today's operations, the probability of an August cut has gone down,'' said Dominic Konstam, head of interest-rate strategy in New York at Credit Suisse Group. ``The Fed is going out of its way not to cut rates to resolve the liquidity issue.''

`Special Demand'

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, said it faces ``unprecedented disruptions'' that may reduce profit, suggesting a credit crunch that started with the U.S. subprime market will spread. BNP Paribas SA, France's biggest bank, helped spark financial market turmoil yesterday by halting withdrawals from three investment funds because it couldn't value their holdings.

The New York Fed accepted $19 billion of securities in today's first repurchase agreement, of $31.2 billion submitted. In the second, it took $16 billion of $40.95 billion submitted.

The central bank probably received only mortgage-backed debt in today's operations, said Louis Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. The central bank likely wanted to avoid taking Treasury debt at a time when government securities are in demand as a safe haven, he said.

``The Street has special demand for the highest-quality Treasury collateral right now, so the Fed chose to leave Treasury collateral,'' Crandall said. ``It should not be taken as a sign that basic Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage pools are difficult to finance.''

Overnight Rates

The Fed typically only accepts so-called agency mortgage- backed securities, such as those guaranteed by government- chartered Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, rather than non-agency home- loan bonds from other financial institutions. Issuance and trading of non-agency bonds, including securities backed by subprime mortgages, has ground to a near-halt the past month.

Overnight euro rates again rose to as high as 4.27 percent today, compared with the ECB's benchmark rate of 4 percent.

Fed funds, the U.S. overnight interbank lending rate, closed at 4 15/16 percent yesterday, after trading between 4 3/4 percent and 5 3/4 percent, and averaging 5.38 percent, according to ICAP Plc, the world's largest inter-dealer broker.

In repos, the Fed buys U.S. Treasury, mortgage-backed and so-called agency debt from its 21 primary dealers for a set period, temporarily raising the amount of money available in the banking system. At maturity, the securities are returned to the dealers, and the cash to the Fed.

Repos help maintain enough money in the system to keep overnight interest rates close to the central bank's target. They don't signal a policy shift.

How Bush Gained the Power to Spy on You without Security Justifications

Aziz Huq
TheNation.com
Friday Aug 10, 2007

The Bush Administration has successfully forced on Congress a law that largely authorizes open-ended surveillance of Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mails. How did they do it?

After enduring weeks of blistering criticism for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's inartful elisions about the National Security Agency (NSA) spying activities, the Bush Administration has successfully forced on Congress a law that largely authorizes open-ended surveillance of Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mails. How did they do it?

The Protect America Act of 2007 -- the title alone ought to be warning that unsavory motives are at work -- is the most recent example of the national security waltz, a three-step Administration maneuver for taking defeat and turning it into victory.

The waltz starts with a defeat in the courts for Administration actions -- for example, the Supreme Court's extension of the rule of law to the US military prison at Guantánamo in the 2004 case of Rasul v. Bush, or its striking down of the military commissions in 2006 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The second step does not follow immediately. Rather, some months later, the Administration suddenly announces that the ruling has created a security crisis and cries out for urgent remedial legislation. Then (and here's the coup de grâce) the Administration rams legislation through Congress -- the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, or the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- that not only undoes the good court decision but also inflicts substantial damage to the infrastructure of accountability.

This time, the sordid dance began with a bad ruling for the government, a ruling that demands some context to be understood.

In January the Administration suddenly announced that it was submitting the secretive NSA "terrorist surveillance program" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, a closed judicial process established by the 1978 FISA law to handle search warrants for foreign intelligence purposes. The move came as federal appellate courts in Ohio and California seemed on the cusp of ruling the NSA's domestic surveillance efforts illegal as violations of FISA and possibly the Fourth Amendment. It seemed a way to forestall defeat in those cases.

But in early summer, a FISC judge declined to approve part of the NSA's activities. While the ruling remains classified, it apparently focused on communication that originated overseas but passed through telecom switches in the United States.

Modern telecommunications work by breaking communications into packets of data and routing them through a network of connected computers. Messages do not travel in a linear fashion: A message from Murmansk to Mali might be routed through California. Many of the largest switches routing international data are located in the United States. As USA Today reported in May 2006, the NSA is already tapping those switches. And since January, the government appears to have obtained "basket warrants," allowing it to trawl this data freely, without any judicial or Congressional oversight.

It seems likely that the judge objected because the NSA was collecting calls that originated overseas but ended in the United States. The NSA can generally get a warrant for such communications -- unless there is no evidence that the person under scrutiny is a terrorist. A broad-brush NSA surveillance program, especially one that generates its leads through data-mining, the science of extracting information from large databases, might have exactly this problem.

The second step in the waltz came several months later, with Administration allies such as House minority leader John Boehner invoking the FISC ruling on Fox News as justification for a new law. As usual, the Administration and its allies had no compunction about using classified information -- such as the ruling -- when it helped them politically. And as usual, the Administration artfully concealed the full details of the ruling even while insisting on it as a spur to immediate action. By waiting for the last week of the Congressional session, the Administration in effect cut off the possibility of meaningful debate.

The third step of the waltz has a grim familiarity about it: enactment of a law that is in no way limited to addressing the narrow "problem" created by the FISC ruling. Rather, the Protect America Act is a dramatic, across-the-board expansion of government authority to collect information without judicial oversight. Even though Democrats negotiated a deal with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell that addressed solely the foreign-to-foreign "problem" created by the FISC ruling, the White House torpedoed that deal and won a far broader law.

To those who have followed this Administration's legal strategy closely, the outcome should be no surprise. The law's most important effect is arguably not its expansion of raw surveillance power but the sloughing away of judicial or Congressional oversight. In the words of former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, the law provides "unlimited access to currently protected personal information that is already accessible through an oversight procedure."

Like the Constitution's Framers, this Administration understands that power is accrued through the evisceration of checks and balances. Unlike that of the Framers, its mission is the transformation of limited government into a government that is not accountable to anyone.

On Monday, the Administration defended the Protect America Act as a "narrow" fix and rejected accusations that it authorized a "driftnet." To see how disingenuous these claims are requires some attention to the details of the legislation.

The key term in the Protect America Act is its licensing of "surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." This language has a superficial reasonableness, since domestic surveillance has long been understood to raise the most troubling abuse concerns.

But the trouble with this language is that it permits freewheeling surveillance of Americans' international calls and e-mails. The problem lies in the words "directed at." Under this language, the NSA could decide to "direct" its surveillance at Peshawar, Pakistan -- and seize all US calls going to and from there. It could focus on Amman, or Cairo, or London, or Paris, or Toronto... Simply put, the law is an open-ended invitation to collect Americans' international calls and e-mails.

Further, the law does not limit the collection of international calls to security purposes: Rather, it seems the government can seize any international call or e-mail for any reason -- even if it's unrelated to security. Indeed, another provision of the law confirms that national security can be merely one of several purposes of an intelligence collection program. This point alone should sink the Administration's claim to be doing no more than technical fiddling. While the FISA law limited warrantless surveillance absolutely, this law licenses it, not only for national security purposes but also for whatever purpose the government sees fit.

Of further concern is the "reasonably believe" caveat. This means that so long as the NSA "reasonably" believes its antennas are trained overseas, wholly domestic calls can sometimes be collected. And since the NSA uses a filter to separate international calls from wholly domestic calls, it need only "reasonably believe" that it's getting this right. It's this new latitude for error that is troubling, especially because this isn't an Administration known for its care when the rights and lives of others are at stake. It remains deeply unclear how much domestic surveillance this allows.

The problems created by this loosening of standards are compounded by the risibly weak oversight procedures contained in the law. Rather than issuing individualized warrants, now the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General can certify yearlong programs for collecting international calls. The program as a whole is placed before the FISA court, which can only invalidate those procedures and claims that are "clearly erroneous." The government thus has to meet an extraordinarily low standard, in a one-sided judicial procedure in which the court has no access to details of the program's actual operation.

Congressional oversight is even more laughable. Attorney General Gonzales, that paragon of probity and full disclosure, is required to report not on the program's overall operations but solely on "incidents of noncompliance." Of course, given how weak the constraints imposed by the law are, self-reported noncompliance is likely to be minimal.

Finally, some advocates and legislators have taken comfort in the law's six-month sunset provision. But this means that the act will be up for authorization in the middle of the presidential campaign, an environment in which the pressures to accede to Administration demands will be even higher than usual. And the law doesn't really sunset after six months: The provision is artfully drafted to allow the NSA to continue wielding its new surveillance powers for up to a year afterward.

The Protect America Act, in short, does not live up to its name: It does not enhance security-related surveillance powers. Rather, it allows the government to spy when there is no security justification. And it abandons all but the pretense of oversight. The result, as with so many of this Administration's ill-advised policies, is power without responsibility -- and it is by now all too clear how wisely and carefully this Administration wields power in the absence of accountability.

One coda to this story is worth adding. The Justice Department is unlikely to take action against Representative Boehner for his partisan invocation of classified information on network news. Newsweek reported this week that former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm is being investigated apparently in connection to leaks of information about the NSA's domestic surveillance. So goes Gonzales Justice: Politicized manipulation of classified information gets the green light, while hardworking career officials become targets for speaking out when they see the law being violated.

Is Economy Facing Widening Credit Squeeze?

Is Economy Facing Widening Credit Squeeze?

With the home-mortgage crunch roiling stock markets, economists are beginning to worry about America’s credit-card debt.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Susanna Schrobsdorff

Newsweek

Updated: 4:03 p.m. ET Aug 9, 2007

Aug. 9, 2007 - Kristin Schantz, a 26-year-old manager for a human-resources company in Kenosha, Wis., got some unpleasant news in the mail last week. In a form letter, Capital One told her the interest rate on her credit card was about to almost double—she’d been bumped up from a fixed 8.9 percent rate to a "variable rate that equals the prime rate plus 6.9 percent"—or about 15.8 percent. Schantz, who says she’s “never late with payments,” is irate. The letter blamed rising interest rates across the economy for the decision.

Schantz isn’t the only American who has lately received Capital One’s letter. Blogs are teeming with postings from people complaining about sudden rate increases by the company. In a statement to NEWSWEEK, the McLean, Va.-based Capital One acknowledged that it had raised rates for “some” customers, citing “business and economic factors (a core one being rising interest rates)” and changes in the lending market.

For now, consumers can dump Capital One and move their balances to other credit cards with better rates—as Schantz has done. But because Capital One is the largest independent issuer of credit cards, its move may signal that similar rate increases are on the way from other credit-card providers. “It could definitely be a harbinger of things to come,” says Aaron Smith, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “They may have assumed more risk than other companies—but I would be very surprised if it was an isolated move.”

That raises an important question: is Cap One’s rate increase the start of a widening credit squeeze? If so, it would be a direct result of the home-mortgage crunch, currently roiling financial markets worldwide. “We’re not in the same world as we were five or six months ago,” says Keith Leggett, senior economist at the American Bankers Association. “There is a growing risk aversion among market participants.”

As home prices across the United States have stagnated or fallen and consumers have tapped out the equity in their homes, banks have gotten more cautious about lending and have tightened their standards for new mortgages and home-equity loans. As a result, more Americans are shifting debt onto credit cards. This week, the Federal Reserve said non-real estate consumer-credit usage rose at about twice the rate than economists had predicted for June. And revolving credit usage (which includes credit-card debt) was up by 8.7 percent at an annual rate for the month. That boost helped bring total consumer credit, both revolving and not revolving (like auto loans), to a record $2.459 trillion.

Meanwhile, continued concerns about a credit crunch in the stock markets may be putting pressure on credit-card companies to tighten standards and raise rates. (Wall Street fell sharply again on Thursday after a French bank said it was freezing three funds that invested in U.S. subprime mortgages because it was unable to properly value their assets.) The market “has changed the psychology of the situation,” says Smith. “Now they’re saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to get into the same trouble these mortgage companies are getting into, we’d better tighten standards too’.” He predicts that evidence of tightening—and a resulting increase in consumer interest rates—could show up as soon as next week, when the Federal Reserve releases its quarterly survey of loan officers.

A credit-card squeeze carries real risks for the U.S. economy overall. “The shift from home-equity borrowing to credit cards is quite costly,” says Smith. Not only are mortgage interest rates about half that of credit-card interest rates, but the interest paid on credit cards isn’t tax-deductible. Smith believes that already-strapped households with little or no savings to rely on will be faced with increased financial obligations that will eventually lead to slower growth in consumer spending. And with consumer spending accounting for about 72 percent of gross domestic product, any slowdown could have a big impact.

Americans are so tapped out financially that they may not be able to stop using plastic no matter how high rates get, says Christian Weller, an economist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progess. “I think credit-card usage could still go up even if rates go up,” says Weller. “The credit market right now is like a balloon that’s being squeezed on the mortgage side and expanding on the credit cards side,” he says.

Weller says he’s concerned that credit-card debt has risen dramatically over the past few months, even as growth in consumer spending has slowed. This, he says, is a sign that credit-card borrowing is being used to close a widening household budget gap—that cards are being used to fund housing, transportation and medical care. “I believe what we’re seeing is that consumers are borrowing out of necessity—we’re not talking about a flat-screen TV or iPods here.”

For customers who need access to credit but get knocked out of the prime credit-card market due to tightening standards, the only alternative to meet their expenses may be the subprime credit- card market, says Ellen Cannon, assistant managing editor at the financial research group Bankrate.com. And that could put them even deeper into trouble, she says. “What happens with the subprimes is that they’ll give you a $200 credit limit and then they charge you $59 initiation fee and an annual fee of $45. So by signing up, you can be $150 in the hole and your interest rate is 32 percent. It’s highway robbery.”

How long will it take Americans to dig themselves out of their credit hole? Years. “Debt will increase and consumption will weaken in the next year,” says Smith. “But there will come a point when people will either have maxed out their credit or they’ll see their credit rating starting to suffer, and that’s when many of them will decide to get their household balance sheets back in order—probably by sometime in early 2009.” Smith warns, however, that reversing a borrowing trend is “a slow process.” And that’s something anyone who’s ever tried to pay down a big credit-card bill knows firsthand.

With Katie Connolly

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201030/site/newsweek/page/0/

Is this a real-life 'light saber?'

Is this a real-life 'light saber?'

By Mimi Hall and Eric Moreno, USA TODAY

The Homeland Security Department is aiming to arm federal agents with a light-saber-type weapon that emits a dazzling strobe capable of subduing criminals, terrorists and even unruly airline passengers.

It's the latest government effort to develop a non-lethal weapon — in this case, a powerful beam of light that temporarily blinds anyone who looks into it.

"The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the cuffs, all while sparing the lives of passersby, hostages or airline passengers," according to a description of the device from the Homeland Security Department's science and technology division.

Program manager Gerald Kirwin says Homeland Security has invested $1 million for testing of the LED (light-emitting diode) Incapacitator. It is being developed by a Torrance, Calif., company, Intelligent Optical Systems, and it will be tested on volunteers at Pennsylvania State University's Institute of Non-Lethal Defense Technologies this fall.

If all goes well, the Homeland Security Department says it "could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents and National Guardsmen" by 2010. Kirwin says it also would be used by air marshals, border patrol agents, other officers with the Transportation Security Administration and customs officers.

The device works by temporarily blinding and disorienting a person, says Bob Lieberman, president of Intelligent Optical. Once aimed at someone's eyes, a series of light pulses and colors can be triggered and the subject's eyes can't adjust quickly enough to see.

"It's like someone shooting off a flashbulb in your face every few seconds," Lieberman says. "Because of the wavelengths and frequencies we use, there are psychophysical effects — a real disorientation. The reaction can range through vertigo to nausea."

That's why The Register, an irreverent online publication that covers the information technology industry, dubbed it the "puke-ray."

What the flashlight-size device doesn't do, however, is use lasers or permanently blind people, Lieberman says. In 1995, the United States signed on to a United Nations agreement that banned blinding weapons.

"We're taking great care to make sure the intensities we're using fall within eye-safe limit," Lieberman says. "We're doing medically supervised tests."

But some immigration and human rights groups say they're still concerned, particularly with the idea that the devices might be used on illegal immigrants.

"It gives me pause, particularly in regards to Mexico. Mexico is a very important economic partner of ours," says Deborah Notkin, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"I would imagine that Mexico wouldn't be particularly happy with us using a device that would be more appropriate for criminals, not just for people trying to get across the border who are looking for better opportunities."

Peter Herby, head of the mines-arms unit's legal division at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, says he's not familiar with Homeland Security's new weapon. But he says many of the same issues are likely to crop up as with more dangerous, laser-based blinding weapons — called "dazzlers" because they blind people with intense light.

Among the issues: If the devices are mass-produced and fairly inexpensive, they're likely to be sold on the black market.

"Once they're in the hands of bad guys," Herby asks, "are the police going to have to wear protective gear to prevent them(selves) from being dazzled?"

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-07-lightsaber_N.htm

Longtime spy decides to unmask

Longtime spy decides to unmask

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the CIA's top spooks has come out of the shadows.

With little fanfare, Jose Rodriguez, who heads the National Clandestine Service, had his cover lifted about a month ago. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the driving factor was his interest in publicly participating in minority recruitment events. He's also retiring later this year after more than three decades with the agency.

Rodriguez is the most important man in the U.S. spy game whose name you probably never knew. When he was mentioned publicly before now, he was referred to only as "Jose."

Rodriguez became head of the CIA's clandestine service in November 2004. With the creation of the National Clandestine Service the following year as part of an intelligence reorganization, Rodriguez rose to be chief of "human intelligence" operations, overseeing the classic spycraft that takes place at a variety of U.S. spy agencies.

Unlike his recent predecessors, Rodriguez elected to stay undercover as he ordered some of the CIA's most sensitive cloak-and-dagger operations that get little if any public oversight. He believed the head of the clandestine service shouldn't have a high profile.

In national security circles, however, Rodriguez's identity wasn't a well-kept secret. Wikipedia users even created an entry about him last year, although the page contains inaccuracies.

This much is known: Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, spent much of his career in Latin America, including in Mexico.

Some officials, who spoke on condition that they not be identified while discussing Rodriguez's past, have said he got into trouble during the 1990s while trying to help a friend who was arrested for narcotics in the Dominican Republic. The Justice Department looked into Rodriguez's actions, but never brought charges.

Although the incident led to his removal as head of the CIA's Latin America Division, his espionage career continued. He served overseas and took over as head of the CIA's counterterror center less than a year after Sept. 11, 2001.

"Jose built a reputation for leadership in the field and here at headquarters, and he guided some of the agency's greatest counterterror victories," CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a statement.

"He has done much to protect our country by strengthening its Clandestine Service," Hayden added.

Next week, Rodriguez will make his first public appearance when he speaks about diversity at a border security conference in El Paso — the hometown of the gathering's Democratic host, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes.

Rodriguez has not set a firm date for his retirement, and a replacement has not yet been announced.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-08-spy_N.htm

U.S. to unveil new anti-drug strategy for Afghanistan

Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:50PM EDT

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans on Thursday to unveil a strategy to fight Afghanistan's drug trade by giving provincial governors more money to eradicate poppy crops and pursue economic development, U.S. officials said.

The effort also aims to better coordinate counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency work in Afghanistan, which in the past 18 months has seen its bloodiest fighting since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban movement in 2001.

U.S. officials said the new strategy for Afghanistan, which is the source of about 90 percent of the world's opium, would include a public education campaign against growing opium poppies, the key ingredient for heroin.

A State Department official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because the strategy is not yet public, said the new approach seeks to grapple with the fact that the insurgency and the drug trade are increasingly intertwined.

It also reflects the belief that provincial governors are often better at cracking down on poppy cultivation than the federal government and should be given incentives to do more.

"In provinces where the governor has established effective control, poppy is going down ... Much of the decline in provinces where there is good governance has been through governor-led eradication," the official said.

"The first step is to provide more incentives and support for provinces -- for governors -- that take effective action ... and to give them money to spend on (economic development)."

A congressional aide said the plan would include the implicit threat that governors who did not take on the drug trade would get less money for development.

"They are going to roll out a plan that's heavy on carrots and sticks," said the aide, saying the message boiled down to "you have got to do less opium if you want more projects."

UNREALISTIC GOALS?

A report by the State Department's inspector general last week said U.S. goals for eradicating Afghan opium poppies were unrealistic and that this year's crop may exceed last year's. According to a U.N. estimate, opium production in Afghanistan rose by as much as 50 percent in 2006.

The report found "no realistic possibility of outspending economic incentives in the narcotics industry" and said the $420 million spent by the United States on eradication in Afghanistan last year was dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion "street value" if the poppy crop were converted to heroin.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan under strict principles of Islamic law, drastically reduced poppy growing throughout the country before it was ousted in 2001.

But in recent years poppy growth has increased dramatically, especially in southern provinces where the Taliban has encouraged it.

Afghanistan has seen a rise in Taliban suicide bombings, roadside bombs and attacks in recent months. More than 6,500 people have been killed in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

One aspect of the new U.S. strategy is to better coordinate counter-narcotics work with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

This could include closer cooperation on intelligence sharing as well as better coordination on efforts to eradicate poppy crops and to interdict drug shipments.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0838601520070808?pageNumber=2

Pakistan 'may declare emergency'

Pakistan 'may declare emergency'

President Musharraf has pulled out of a meeting in Afghanistan

Pakistan's government is considering imposing emergency rule, the country's information minister has said.

Tariq Azeem conceded that the issue was being discussed, as Pakistani TV channels reported that a declaration state of emergency was imminent.

An emergency would limit the role of the courts, restrict civil liberties and curb freedom of expression.

Earlier, Pakistan's president said he would not attend a tribal council in Afghanistan on combating the Taleban.

General Pervez Musharraf pulled out of the three-day council, or jirga, citing commitments in Islamabad.

Gen Musharraf faces a volatile political and security situation after a siege at a radical Islamabad mosque and protests by lawyers angry at the sacking of the country's chief justice.

Opposition to Mr Musharraf's rule has also increased.

"The possibility of the enforcement of emergency, like other possibilities, is under discussion," Information Minster Tariq Azeem said, although he said an emergency might not eventually be declared.

He admitted US threats to launch an operation in the tribal areas and the recent targeting of Chinese nationals had played a role in the issue being discussed.

"In addition, the situation on the borders and the suicide attacks are also a concern," Mr Azeem added.

Hostile judiciary

A meeting of senior government officials headed by President Musharraf was expected to be held on Thursday to decide the issue.

The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it, Benazir Bhutto Opposition leader

Under an emergency, powers to detain citizens would be extended and parliament could extend its tenure by a year.

Observers believe if Gen Musharraf opts for emergency rule it would primarily affect the powers of the increasingly hostile judiciary.

Additionally, it would allow the president to postpone national elections due to be held later in 2007.

This could enable him to continue in his role as chief of Pakistan's powerful military.

Opposition political parties, like Pakistan's largest party, the PPP, want Gen Musharraf to give up the role.

"The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it," says former Prime Minister and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

"I hope such a drastic step will not take place.

"It will be a retrogressive step taking the country backwards."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6937907.stm

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
London Telegraph
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.

The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decicions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".

She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.

Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.

"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.

The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.

Henry Paulson, the US Tresury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".

Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.

New EU treaty is old constitution in disguise, warns Hague

KIRSTY WALKER
UK Daily Mail
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

Gordon Brown faced fresh Tory pressure for a referendum on the new EU treaty yesterday after William Hague described it as 'overwhelmingly' similar to the old constitution.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary published research showing that only ten out of the 250 proposals contained in the document rejected by French and Dutch voters had changed.

He suggested the 'unreadable' treaty had been designed to confuse the public and accused the Prime Minister of trying to push it through on the 'quiet'.

Mr Hague warned that once MPs return from Parliament's summer recess they will have only nine working days to debate the treaty before it is signed off by Mr Brown in October.

His party boosted its campaign for a referendum by publishing a pamphlet entitled The EU Treaty in Plain English.

Mr Hague accused Labour of handing sovereignty to Brussels as the treaty creates a powerful EU president and foreign minister.

He said Britain is losing vetoes in some 60 policy areas including transport, energy and migration and warned that new powers are being handed to the European Commission, Court of Justice and Parliament.

Mr Hague added that a little-noticed 'ratchet clause' in the treaty would allow the EU to abolish vetoes in almost all other areas. Member states would simply have to 'notify' MPs of what was happening.

He said: "There has been limited public debate about this issue and it is important for people to have a clear understanding of it. The plan all along has been to keep the substance and change the presentation.

"The EU treaty is overwhelmingly the same as the EU constitution. It is in large measure and predominantly the same thing with the same effect. I think in a way Gordon Brown wants to get this out of the way with as little public

Attacking the document's complicated language, Mr Hague cited a passage which says: "As far as the content of the amendments to the existing treaties is concerned, the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC will be integrated into the TEU and the Treaty on the functioning of the Union, as specified in this mandate.

"Modifications to these innovations introduced as a result of the consultations held with member states over the past six months are indicated below."

Mr Hague explained: "That is really taking everything that was agreed in the European constitution and using it as a starting base for the treaty."

In another passage, the treaty says: "Articles 29 to 39 of Title VI of the EU Treaty, which related to judicial cooperation in criminal matters and to police cooperation, shall be replaced by Articles (111-257 to 111-264 and 111-270 to 111-277) of the Treaty on the function of the union."

The Tory pamphlet paraphrases this as: "EU judges will now be able to rule on EU agreements over criminal justice and policing."

In Labour's 2005 general election manifesto, Tony Blair had promised voters a referendum on the EU constitution that was eventually shelved that year.

Mr Brown has refused to hold one on the new treaty after insisting that the Government had protected its four 'red lines' on tax, human and social rights, foreign policy and benefits.

However, Mr Hague pointed to a stream of remarks from prominent EU leaders admitting that the new treaty is the constitution by a different name. Spanish foreign minister-Miguel Angel Moratinos has said that '98 per cent of the content' of the old constitution has survived.

Mr Hague denied that the Tories are returning to an 'old agenda' or playing to the party's disaffected Right-wing by focusing on Europe.

"This cannot be the Conservative Party returning to an old agenda when a referendum was promised in the last Labour manifesto," he said.

He added that an EU treaty referendum would be key to the Conservatives' general election campaign if an early poll was called by Mr Brown.

Investigators Probe Whether Government Lab Deliberately Released Virus

Foot and mouth outbreak another act of biological terrorism against British farming community?

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Investigators are seriously probing whether a British government lab and an American pharmaceutical company colluded to deliberately release the foot and mouth virus in an act of biological terrorism against the farming community.

The source of the recent foot and mouth outbreak is highly suspected to have originated from the government's Pirbright research facility, which is shared by American vaccine maker Merial Animal Health.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that the release of the virus came after an "international drill" last month that was held at Pirbright Laboratory, in which live virus was used. Real attacks are always shadowed by drills to provide culpable deniability.

"A PROBE into Britain's new foot and mouth disease outbreak has focused on whether staff at an animal vaccine firm may have spread the virus, possibly deliberately," reports the Herald Sun.

"A preliminary report into the outbreak said yesterday it was a "real possibility'' that human movement spread the disease to two nearby farms, with Merial coming increasingly under suspicion."

The motive of Merial Animal Health Limited is clear - providing they remained undetected as having been the culprits for the outbreak - another mass foot and mouth scare would result in record purchases of their vaccine from panic stricken farmers across the country.

The British government also has a deeply ingrained political agenda to sabotage the stability of a rural power bloc - The Countryside Alliance - that forms its most influential foe and brought half a million people to London in 2002 to protest the government's wide-ranging abuse and abandonment of the middle class.

The Labour government, now led by Blair clone Gordon Brown, has a deep disdain for the farming community and has sought to debase the agricultural industry at every turn in the last ten years, as well as outlawing traditional countryside pursuits such as shooting and hunting.

All 102 of farmer John Gunner's Charolais and Sussex cows were culled after his farm became the second site to register positive for foot-and-mouth disease.

"It was a Leitmotif of the Blair government that it hated the countryside," writes Simon Heffer in today's London Telegraph, "There could be no other explanation for much of its behaviour. John Prescott, when he still held office, saw power as a vehicle for the propagation of class hatred: and, in his profound ignorance, he saw rural England especially as a place populated and exploited solely by his class enemies."

"Just after the last outbreak, when the Government was trying (in another helpful pro-countryside measure) to limit the legal use of shotguns for sporting purposes, an MP asked how many fatalities or woundings had been caused by legally held weapons. The answer was that all, or almost all, such incidents appeared to have been farmers shooting themselves amid the wreckage of their livelihoods."

The latest outbreak has already cost the farming industry tens of millions of pounds, heaped on top of the misery wrought by recent flooding, which many also accuse the government of deliberately botching the recovery efforts.

As we have previously reported, the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, which completely devastated the farming industry nationwide, began after a vial of the virus was "stolen" from the government's Porton Down bio-weapons laboratory.

Coupled with reports of the government making inquiries to timber merchants and sign makers (before closing public footpaths), it is inconceivable that an animal rights activist, as we are led to believe, could have penetrated a level 4 bio-weapons facility that also houses anthrax and ebola and is protected by armed guards of the Ministry of Defence Police and the Military Provost Guard Service. The individual who stole the vial must have had full security clearance to enter the facility. Why would an animal rights activist release a virus that would kill four million animals?

Patricia Doyle, PhD also reported that Foot and Mouth exercises, mirroring the drills in the current case, were being run by the British government immediately before the outbreak was made public.

With all the evidence beginning to strongly suggest a criminal plot was formulated by the American vaccine company, possibly in collusion with the government lab, to engage in a deliberate act of bio-terrorism directed against the farming community, it's probably time for the government to call in their chief whitewasher Lord Stevens or another establishment puppet to sweep the entire mess under the carpet.

Change Confronts Mayor Bloomberg on Subway

Mike Knarr
WeAreChange.org News
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

Related: Revised Rules Coming on Filmmaking and Photography, After Uproar

Related: Bloomberg Confronted as Camera Ban Set for Enforcement

Related: Protesters Turn Lens on Mayor's Office Over NY Film Ban

Bloomberg Takes the Ride of His Life.

Mayor Bloomberg takes the subway periodically, about once a month according to his staff, so that he can be with the people. Unfortunately he picked the day when WeAreChange.org and Infowars.com reporters were outside City Hall. The ride lasted about 15 minutes and Luke, Tom, Nate and several other concerned citizens used every minute to bring up questions from parking tickets to 9/11.

Luke started in with an attack on the Ground Zero Memorial. Why are you disrespecting the family members by moving the memorial off the grounds of the World Trade Center? Read a great article about this and the massive money spent by Pataki and Bloomberg after 9/11 here by Debra Burlingame. www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008478

Debra Burlingame is the sister of Captain Charles “Chic” Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. He participated in the very pentagon drill which envisioned just such an attack and his daughter Wendy died under mysterious circumstances in a fire later. It’s all just a coincidence.

Luke moved on by adding that 45% of the remains have not been found, why do you want to build on holy ground? By the way family members this year are just asking to go down the ramp but Bloomberg said in an earlier interview ,“It doesn't work. And you know we just have to get used to the fact that there's a lot of construction going on there.” I guess everyone is supposed to move on and stop bugging the government about trivial issues like this. Why are you ignoring the rescue workers who are sick and dieing? How did building 7 come down? The EPAs lies are causing the deaths of thousands of first responders. Still no response from the Mayor.

With the film ban going into effect there was plenty of questions about the constitutionality of it all. Even Keith Olbermann said it was the worst constitutional attack he could think of. Questions came fast and furious like, why do you want to destroy the constitution? You want to run for President, aren't you concerned with destroying the constitution? Nate was right on the mark when he added, "If it's unconstitutional it's null and void, you know we will win in court don't you?" Luke reminded Mayor Bloomberg that he has money invested in a media company and doesn't he see the conflict of interest, "you want to ban filming?"

Other points were made like, your just trying to put fear into us hoping we won't film, we will continue to film even if you declare martial law. Your making criminals out of ordinary citizens by arresting bicycle riders (See the Critical Mass Video by WeAreChange) and now people with cameras. Stop selling out to the corporate banks, sir. There's lots of questions, It's you opportunity as mayor to actually address these questions.

The Mayor’s goons make a big deal about the fact that our reporters do not have official New York City issued press passes. However this does not excuse the Mayor from not answering the questions put forth even if they are from his constituency. However this just shows that the media is controlled and if they were to ask these questions they might fear having their passes revoked.

Tom Foti said it best when he said "Until we get answers, this is how it’s going to be"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7442487916618413779&hl=en
Watch what happens at the end with an NYPD officer. You have to see it to believe it!

Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

Microbes locked in Antarctic ice for as much as eight million years have been "resuscitated" in a laboratory.

Researchers melted five samples of ice from the debris-covered glaciers of Antarctica which range in age from 100,000 years to eight million years.

When given nutrients and warmth, the microbes resumed their activity - although younger microorganisms grew more successfully than the older ones.

Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings raise the possibility that ancient bugs, long frozen in ice, will return to life as climate change causes the glaciers to melt, flushing their genetic material into the oceans.

However, experts say this process has been going on for billions of years, and is unlikely to cause human disease.

Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and colleagues extracted bacteria from ice found between three and five metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica.

"The ice sheets are continually undergoing accumulation, so they are flowing outward and the ice is lost through sublimation or calving into the ocean," explained co-author David Marchant of Boston University, US.

"What you have to do to get very old ice is go to secluded, very cold areas, where small alpine glaciers are covered by debris."

The combination of slow-moving glaciers with a debris covering that prevents ice from subliming - or evaporating - means that very ancient ice is preserved in these regions.

The ice gets older as it flows away from the headwall, where the snow and ice of the glacier first accumulates.

The researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and eight million years old and were able to extract DNA and microbes from them. More organisms were found in the young samples than in the old.

Radiation damage

"We tried to grow them in media, and the young stuff grew really fast," Dr Bidle explained.

"We recovered them easily; we could plate them and isolate colonies."

The cultures grown from organisms in the 100,000-year-old ice doubled in size every seven days on average.

By contrast, microbes from the eight million-year-old ice grew much more slowly, doubling every 30-70 days.

This suggested some microorganisms in this old ice were alive, but only just. Their DNA had been severely damaged by long exposure to cosmic radiation. This radiation is stronger at the poles, where the Earth's protective magnetic field is weakest.

The researchers were unable to identify them as they grew, because their DNA had degraded so much.

The researchers found that DNA in the five samples examined showed an exponential decline in quality after 1.1 million years.

'Gene popsicles'

In the younger samples, the team found evidence of some of the most common bacteria around today, including the firmicutes, proteobacteria and actinobacteria.

But the team also compared genetic sequences extracted from the ice to known genes of modern bacteria. Curiously, there were few matches, meaning the ancient microbes may have had genes that were new to science.

Dr Bidle and his colleagues describe the glaciers as "gene popsicles" containing DNA that can be acquired by existing organisms when it is thawed.

Eske Willerslev, of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who was not involved in the research, described the work as "very significant".

But he cautioned that, as with most claims of ancient microbes being revived, contamination of samples with genetic material from modern microbes was always a possibility.

"These results show patterns that you can't easily explain by contamination," he told ScienceNow, "But I would feel more comfortable with the results if they had been replicated in two independent labs."

Dr Marchant said temperatures in the Beacon and Mullins valleys were so cold that any liquid melting on the surface only penetrated about 5cm into the ice. Samples were retrieved from below this depth in all cases.

"There's really no chance for modern contamination," he explained.

The team suggests that because DNA in the old ice samples had degraded so much in response to exposure to cosmic radiation, life on Earth is unlikely to have hitched a ride on a comet or on debris from outside the Solar System - as some scientists have suggested.

"Given the extremely high cosmic radiation flux in space, our results suggest it is highly unlikely that life on Earth could have been seeded by genetic material external to this Solar System," they wrote in their scientific paper.

Dr Marchant added: "The other thing that's interesting about this is the connection to Mars. There's near-surface ice on Mars where the surface landform looks identical to what you'll see in Beacon Valley."

On Saturday, Nasa launched its Phoenix spacecraft on a nine-month journey to the Red Planet. It will dig below the surface of Mars' northern plains to collect samples of soil and near-surface ice for analysis.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6935146.stm

FEMA suspends use, sales of ‘toxic’ trailers

FEMA suspends use of 'toxic' trailers

Residents can get refund, new housing while agency tests for formaldehyde

By Alex Johnson

Reporter

MSNBC

Updated: 7:32 p.m. ET Aug 7, 2007

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done an about-face and will immediately stop using, buying and selling disaster-relief trailers because they could be contaminated with formaldehyde.

The order, which went into effect July 31, is an interim measure while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs test the air quality in the estimated 120,000 travel trailers FEMA provided to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.

The agency most recently sent about 40 of the trailers to Miami, Okla., where residents were forced out of their homes because of flooding.

CDC workers began collecting samples last week from FEMA trailers in Louisiana and Mississippi, where more than 56,000 trailers are still occupied. Residents will be offered assistance finding new housing anywhere in the country, FEMA said in an internal memo, while buyers of surplus FEMA trailers will be offered full refunds.

“Nothing is as important to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security as ensuring that disaster victims have a safe and healthy place to reside during their recovery,” the agency said in a statement.

Formaldehyde is the airborne form of a chemical used in a wide variety of products, including composite wood and plywood panels in the travel trailers FEMA purchased after Katrina. It is considered a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

MSNBC.com disclosed in July 2006 that many of the trailers harbored potentially harmful levels of formaldehyde, but testimony last month before a House subcommittee revealed that FEMA was aware of the problem several months earlier, after many of its own employees came forward with concerns.

As recently as late last month, FEMA said it would continue using the trailers, but congressional leaders were outraged after documents revealed that FEMA lawyers had advised the agency to downplay the concerns to “prevent ownership of the problem” and limit exposing the agency to liability issues.

Summer heat aggravates exposure
The congressional hearing was convened last month after Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Bobby Jindal, D-La., blasted FEMA for its seeming disregard of occupants’ complaints.

“This takes the cake,” Landrieu told NBC affiliate KPLC-TV of Lake Charles. “Now people living in the trailers have to worry if their children are breathing fumes that could cause cancer or some other disease.”

Many residents say that when they have complained about the risk, FEMA advised them to leave the windows open. But “the heat makes the formaldehyde very noticeable, and even though we’ve been here as long as we have, we still notice it,” said Nancy Sonnier, whose family has been living in one of the trailers in Vinton, La., since their home was destroyed by Hurricane Rita.

“My husband and I both have some health problems that we hadn’t had prior to the storm, and when they first started I really chalked it up to the stress,” Sonnier told KPLC, describing respiratory, sinus and intestinal problems, along with skin rashes, insomnia and headaches — all potential signs of formaldehyde poisoning.

“I usually spend my time outside,” said 7-year-old Mason Sonnier, “because of that stuff that my grandma talks about.” Evangeline Sonnier, 9, added: “It’s that toxic stuff. It can get you really sick.”

Trailers only, not mobile homes
FEMA Administrator David Paulison stressed in the memo that the directive applied only to recreational-style vehicles, such as trailers and larger park homes, which are designed for short-term housing, and not to mobile homes, which are regulated and tested by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Paulison said any occupant of a FEMA trailer could request replacement or alternative housing. The agency will refund the price of a trailer purchased within the past 12 months; authorize rental assistance, plus travel expenses, up to the fair market rate anywhere in the continental United States; offer residency in a mobile home, if available; or pay for hotels or motels until suitable housing can be found.

The order is likely to put a strain on FEMA, which said “additional temporary land will be immediately required within the Gulf Coast Recovery Office area of operation to meet ballooning capacity needs.”

The agency said that if necessary, it would exercise its authority under the 1988 Stafford Disaster Relief Act to take over as much as 1,300 acres of land to store 70,000 returned trailers in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, most likely by forcing the closing or downsizing of recreational vehicle sites.

NBC affiliate KPLC of Lake Charles, La., contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20165754/

Brown grows gray as siege drags on

DAN TUOHY
New Hampshire Union Leader
Monday Aug 6, 2007

Ed Brown's neighbors are growing anxious. Ed Brown is growing gray.

The gun-toting tax dodger turned 65 on July 22, according to his "Oath of Allegiance to the New Hampshire Republic" filed in county tax records. He's now eligible for Medicare, an odd milestone since he hunkered down in his fortified home in Plainfield some seven months ago.

Other anniversaries may come and go: Ed and Elaine Brown say they will not leave without a fight and U.S. Marshal Stephen R. Monier insists federal forces will not storm their compound off Center of Town Road.

As the standoff continues without end in sight, the federal government is giving financial assistance to the town to defray the cost of extra police patrols and related details, Selectman Robert W. Taylor said.

"It's definitely been an added expense," said Taylor, who did not have an estimate last night. "It's pretty much a stalemate at this point."

Federal authorities have cut off power and telephone service to the Brown property, hoping to make life difficult for them and have them give up. Monier said Friday his team continues to reach out to the Browns and encourage them to end the conflict peacefully. "We do have open lines of communications with them and continue to encourage them to turn themselves in," he said. "A lot of good people are working on this."

Full article here

Google And The Personalized Search -- All's Well.. Or Orwell

Scott Buresh
Post Chronicle
Monday Aug 6, 2007

You go to Google and enter your search term. Big Brother, the totalitarian character from George Orwell's novel 1984, watches with detached interest. You see, to Big Brother, you are only a number - but he'd like to know as much about you as he can. Knowing you allows Big Brother to do many things - both good and evil.

Alright, enough of the "Big Brother" comparison - it's been done many times before (and done many times better). However, there is an important central point to be made about personalized search. Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all.

The basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over time. With this information, Google can understand more about your interests and serve up more relevant search results.

For instance, let's say that you have shown an interest in the topic of sport fishing in your search queries, while your neighbor has shown an interest in musical instruments in his search queries. Over time, as these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized search results for the term "bass" will largely be comprised of results that cover the fish while your neighbor's results for "bass" will be comprised of results that primarily cover the musical instrument.

At present, you need to have signed up for a Google service for your results to be personalized. Such services include Gmail, AdWords, Google Toolbar, and many others. By default, as long as you are signed in to one of these programs, your personal search data will be collected. The term "at present" is used because Google certainly could implement personalized search on any user of the engine, regardless of whether he or she has a Google account. Google already places a cookie, or unique identifier, on the machine of anyone who types in a search query on Google - it would not be hard for them to use that information, rather than the Google account, to collect individual user data and personalize results. It is quite possible that Google is testing the waters of personalized search with people who have opted in to one of its services, and will expand the system to all users if there is limited uproar or government intervention.

For search engine optimization firms, the major shift brought about by personalized search will be in how they report on Google ranking data to clients. When collecting this data, they will have to run from a "clean" machine - that is, one that has no Google programs or cookies on it. The baseline results that are reported to the client will essentially be a snapshot of what a search engine user would see if they had no Google software installed. The good news is that Google account holders who have shown an interest in certain products and services will likely have results more favorable to the client than the baseline results indicate since personalized search assures that their search histories will be reviewed and the results likely skewed toward the client's industry. The bad news is that the search engine optimization firm will be hard-pressed to demonstrate this - not to mention that the results that the client using a Google program has on its own personal machines will almost certainly not match up with the results that the firm is reporting (although the client machines should have better results, for the same reasons cited above).

Some people find the practice of storing information for personalized search purposes disturbing; others find the end result to be useful (still others find themselves experiencing an odd combination of both reactions). In defense of the engines, it is not as if they are building a dossier on individuals - again, you are only a number to them. However, the potential for misuse of the data is fairly high.

There are many advertising firms out there already that go through the cookies on your machine to figure out which ads will have the best effect on you. If you've ever been on a website and seen a banner ad that is directly related to something you have been doing research on lately, it is most likely not a coincidence. The ad platform simply browsed through the cookies on your machine to find out what topic held your interest, and dropped in a related ad once it determined what that topic was. Search engines have been buying firms with this technology lately; notable recent purchases include that of DoubleClick by Google and aQuantive by Microsoft. There seems to be little doubt that your search history will be combined with existing ad-serving technology to deliver even more relevant ads. Whether this constitutes misuse seems to be debatable - some people seem to have no problem with it, while it makes many others fairly uneasy.

Privacy issues that arise from personalized search are also a big question. The EU recently announced that it is probing into how long Google stores user information (this probe was subsequently extended to include all search engines). AOL recently committed a serious blunder when it released search data from 500,000 of its users, and it was discovered that it was fairly easy to identify many people by the search terms that they use (anybody ever "ego surf" - that is, type your own name into a search engine to see what comes up? If so, you wouldn't be hard to spot). In addition, since the IP address of the computer creating the query is also reportedly tracked, a court order forcing the engine and the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to provide specific search data on individuals is a distinct possibility - the technology required to deliver upon such a demand is already in use.

Unless the government intervenes, the question will probably be decided by personal preference. As it becomes more common knowledge that Google (and other engines) store this type of data to enable personalized search, many users will take measures to block its use.

Are the search engines that collect this data "Doing No Evil?" The answer, I believe, will depend on each individual's definition of evil. In the meantime, don't be surprised when you type in a search query, and the engine seems to be reading your mind. It isn't, really - it's merely parsing through your memories.

190,000 weapons 'missing in Iraq'

190,000 weapons 'missing in Iraq'

The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon cannot track about 30% of the weapons distributed in Iraq over the past three years.

The Pentagon did not dispute the figures, but said it was reviewing arms deliveries procedures.

About $19.2bn has been spent by the US since 2003 on Iraqi security forces.

GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said at least $2.8bn of this money was used to buy and deliver weapons and other equipment.

Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq.

Discrepancies

The GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005.

MISSING IN IRAQ AK-47 rifles: 110,000 Pistols: 80,000 Body armour pieces: 135,000 Helmets: 115,000

During this period, security training was led by Gen David Petraeus, who now commands all US forces in Iraq.

The GAO reached the estimate - 111,000 missing AK-47s and 80,000 missing pistols - by comparing the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq against records maintained by Gen Petraeus of the arms and equipment he ordered.

Deputy Assistant Defence Secretary Mark Kimmitt told AFP the Pentagon was "reviewing policies and procedures to ensure US-funded equipment reaches the intended Iraqi security forces under the Iraq program".

Weapons delay

The report comes as a political battle rages in Washington over the progress of the war in Iraq.

Gen Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are scheduled to report to Congress by mid-September on the success of efforts to halt sectarian violence and return Iraq to viable self-governance.

Meanwhile, at the end of July, the US Defence Department admitted that the US-led coalition in Iraq had failed to deliver nearly two-thirds of the equipment it promised to Iraq's army.

The Pentagon said only 14.5m of the nearly 40m items of equipment ordered by the Iraqi army had been provided.

The US military commander in charge of training in Iraq has asked for help in speeding up the transfer of equipment.

Iraq's ambassador to the US said the delays were hindering the fighting capacity of its armed forces.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6932710.stm

Published: 2007/08/06 09:35:40 GMT