Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday July 14 2007 - (813)

Saturday July 14 2007 edition
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U.S. Midwest Towns Sour On Iraq War As Their Tolls Mount 2007-07-14 02:29:08 The farming town of Tipton in Cedar County, Iowa, buried Army Spec. Aaron Sissel during the Iraq war's ninth month. It buried Army Spec. David W. Behrle during the 51st. Along the way, as a peaceable community's heart sank, its attitude toward President Bush and his Iraq strategy turned more personal and more negative. Sissel and Behrle were popular young sons of Tipton, a community of 3,100 where anonymity is an impossibility. Sissel bagged groceries at the supermarket and often bowled at Cedar Lanes. Behrle served, just two years ago, as Tipton High's senior class president and commencement speaker. The town, by all accounts, once gave Bush the benefit of the doubt for a war he said would make America safer and a mission he said was accomplished four years before Behrle died. But funeral by funeral, faith in the president and his project to remake Iraq is ebbing away. Deep into a battle with no visible end, many Republican and Democratic voters here say the cause is no longer clear, the war no longer seems winnable and the costs are too high. After mourning Behrle, 20, and Sissel, 22, Tipton lost its heart for the fight and the president who is vowing to press on. Read The Full Story Editorial: No Logic 2007-07-14 02:28:38 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Riyadh, Saudia Arabia-based Arab News' edition for Saturday, July 14, 2007. President Bush believes that, given time, the war in Iraq can be won. He believes it because he needs to. He will be judged on Iraq and with just 18 months left to his presidency he does not want to go down in history as a failure, a president who led the country into a war it lost. There is no logical basis for his bullishness. No amount of military muscle and billions of dollars thrown at Iraq are going to make for peace and stability there. Thanks to four years of grossly mishandled occupation, it is too late to even think about victories. The U.S.-led military presence is now part of the problem, not the answer. The battle is no longer a military one, it is one for hearts and minds - and it is a battle long lost. The longer U.S. troops stay, the greater the resentment. It is all very well saying that this is a war that has to be won. That is a wish, not a cold assessment of fact. Wishful thinking does not win wars. There comes a point when facts have to be faced and decisions taken, no matter how uncomfortable. That is the politician’s job. The argument that Iraq will be in a far worse situation if the U.S. forces pull out may be true but it cannot be the determining factor in deciding whether they stay or go; to stand by it is to deliver the White House into the hands of Iraqi politicians who use the American presence as both a safety net and an excuse for not making their own uncomfortable decisions. The only others who gain from a continued American presence are those who have been helping themselves to the treasure troves of U.S. dollars that have poured so ineffectively into the country and who will be the first to head off to wealthy exile when U.S. troops finally leave. Read The Full Story Editorial: Red And 'Green' Makes Sense 2007-07-14 02:27:52 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Indian Country Today's edition for Friday, July 13, 2007. As inheritors of indigenous knowledge and original instructions regarding the proper care for our Mother the Earth and all our relations in the natural world, Indian people seem the most likely of messengers for conservationism and ''green'' practices. On this we can agree. But Indian people tend not to use the popular terminology associated with the current movement to fight global warming. As a result, the critical messages delivered by our elders continue to go unheard amid the voices of hipper, younger darlings of pop culture. So it appeared for those not actually present at the Mother Earth concert, sponsored by the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., July 7. The event kicked off the United States' leg of the 24-hour Live Earth concerts to rally global action on climate change. The surprise appearance by former vice president Al Gore, chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection and a partner of Live Earth, brought international attention to the museum's excellent program of Native elders, scholars and musicians that otherwise would not have garnered such substantial media play. Kudos to NMAI for landing Gore. We offer gratitude to the speakers, including Dr. Henrietta Mann, Katsi Cook, Dr. Daniel Wildcat and Tim Johnson, who delivered to the world messages of love and Thanksgiving on behalf of Native America. We hope those critical words did not fall on deaf ears. If the movement toward a sustainable future does not emphasize the traditional lifeways of the world's indigenous peoples, it will become about little more than fashionably ''green,'' eco-friendly consumerism. There is still much work to be done by Indian peoples to ensure our message is at the forefront, informing the entire movement on indigenous concepts of consciousness. Take one blogger's description of the Mother Earth show as an illustration: ''... judging by its sub-spiritual name and the American Indian museum location, we expect we'll be in for an hour or two of interminable chanting of some kind.'' To paraphrase Wildcat's ''Red Alert'' speech, the stereotypes of Indian people must be discarded before our ancient prophecies and teachings can be appreciated. Read The Full Story Pakistan Beefs Up Security Amid Protests Over Mosque Assault 2007-07-14 02:27:06 Protests were staged in all major cities of Pakistan Friday over the government’s assault on the Red Mosque in Islamabad that left more than 100 dead as security was tightened to foil possible revenge attacks. More than 1,200 demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing President Gen. Pervez Musharraf after emerging from mosques following Friday prayers in Karachi, the country’s largest city. “Musharraf is going an extra mile to implement the agenda of America in this part of the world,” a religious leader, Syed Munawwar Hasan, told the crowd. Smaller rallies were held in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad and elsewhere a day after a six-member coalition of religious parties endorsed a call by 13,000 madrasas for a nationwide protest against the attack on the mosque. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have urged attacks, including suicide bombings, against government targets. The brother of a cleric killed in the eight-day mosque siege called for an “Islamic revolution.” Two suicide attacks were reported Thursday, a day after the siege ended in a hail of bullets and explosions that wiped out well-armed militants inside the sprawling mosque compound. Read The Full Story Editorial: No Progress Report 2007-07-13 20:00:09 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Friday, July 13, 2007. With the American public in despair over the Iraq war and key members of his own party deserting him, President Bush is still trying to twist reality to claim that his failed effort is worth sticking with. Yesterday, the White House issued a report card claiming that Iraq’s government had made limited progress on some political and security goals. And Mr. Bush insisted that not only was it not the time to talk about withdrawing American troops, but that he still believes that “the fight can be won.” That’s been the spin for months. But Bob Woodward reported Thursday in the Washington Post that Mr. Bush’s director of Central Intelligence, Gen. Michael Hayden, warned the bipartisan Iraq Study Group last fall that the “the inability” of the Iraqi government to govern “seems irreversible” and he could not point to “any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around.” A closer look at Mr. Bush’s hyped report card leads to that same grim conclusion. Eight months after General Hayden issued his warning, the United States still has no effective Iraqi government partner committed to an effective program of national reconciliation and no effective Iraqi military capable of acting independently in the absence of American troops. Read The Full Story Commentary: Cheney - The Darksider 2007-07-13 19:59:30 Intellpuke: The following commentary by Hendrik Hertzberg was printed in The New Yorker magazine's edition for Monday, July 9, 2007. Mr. Hertzberg's commentary follows: It took thirty years for "Frost / Nixon" to reach Broadway. Assuming that civilization survives and the Great White Way remains above water, we can expect "Cheney / Bush" to mount the boards sometime in the late twenty-thirties or early twenty-forties. The playwright and the actors, whoever they are, will have plenty to work with. The story of the scowling, scheming, domineering, silently sinister Vice-President and the spoiled, petted prince who becomes his plaything is irresistible - set in a pristine White House, played against an ominous, unseen background of violence and catastrophe, like distant thunder, and packed with drama, palace intrigue, and black comedy. A thick sheaf of new material has lately been added to the Cheney folder. For four days last week, the front page of the Washington Post was dominated by a remarkable series of articles slugged "ANGLER: THE CHENEY VICE PRESIDENCY." ("Angler," Cheney's metaphorically apt Secret Service code name, refers to one of his two favorite outdoor pastimes, the one less hazardous to elderly lawyers.) The series, by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, occupied sixteen broadsheet pages and topped out at twenty thousand words. The headline over last Monday's installment encapsulates the burden of the whole: "The Unseen Path to Cruelty." Some of the Post's findings have been foreshadowed elsewhere, notably in Jane Mayer's dispatches in this magazine. (See, especially, Letter from Washington, "The Hidden Power," July 3, 2006.) But many of the details and incidents that Gellman and Becker document are as new as they are appalling. More important, the pattern that emerges from the accumulated weight of the reporting is, as the lawyers say, dispositive. Given the ontological authority that the Post shares only with the New York Times, it is now, so to speak, official: for the past six years, Dick Cheney, the occupant of what John Adams called "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived," has been the most influential public official in the country, not necessarily excluding President Bush, and his influence has been entirely malign. He is pathologically (but purposefully) secretive; treacherous toward colleagues; coldly manipulative of the callow, lazy, and ignorant President he serves; contemptuous of public opinion; and dismissive not only of international law (a fairly standard attitude for conservatives of his stripe) but also of the very idea that the Constitution and laws of the United States, including laws signed by his nominal superior, can be construed to limit the power of the executive to take any action that can plausibly be classified as part of an endless, endlessly expandable "war on terror." Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Battle Iraqi Police, Gunmen 2007-07-13 11:57:37 U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured a police lieutenant accused of leading an Iranian-backed militia cell, said the military. Seven gunmen also died in the fight, a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Washington has demanded the government purge its police force of militants, and U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested officers in the past for militia links, but the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday that progress on that front was "unsatisfactory." The lieutenant was captured before dawn in eastern Baghdad, but the soldiers came under "heavy and accurate fire" from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense fire from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement. As the Americans fired back, U.S. warplanes struck in front of the police position, without hitting it directly, "to prevent further escalation" of the battle, it said. There were no casualties among the U.S. troops, but seven gunmen and six of the policemen firing on the Americans were killed, said the statement. Read The Full Story GE Reports 2nd Quarter Profit Of $5.4 Billion, PlansTo Sell Mortgage Business 2007-07-13 11:57:00 General Electric Co., the industrial, finance and media conglomerate, reported Friday its second-quarter profit rose 9.6 percent and said it was getting out of the U.S. mortgage business. Its shares rose more than 2 percent, briefly reaching a new 52-week high. The parent of the NBC TV network earned $5.42 billion, or 53 cents a share, in the three months ended June 30, up from $4.95 billion, or 48 cents a share, a year ago. The rise was led by its oil and gas, aviation, energy and commercial finance businesses. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial has been expecting earnings per share of 52 cents. The estimates typically exclude one-time items. Read The Full Story U.K. Prime Minister Brown's Message To Bush: Time To Build, Not Destroy 2007-07-13 00:56:11 The first clear signs that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will reorder Britain's foreign policy emerged Thursday night when one of his closest cabinet allies urged the U.S. to change its priorities and said a country's strength should no longer be measured by its destructive military power. Douglas Alexander, the trade and development secretary, made his remarks in a speech in America, the first by a cabinet minister abroad since Brown took power a fortnight (two weeks) ago. The speech represents a call for the U.S. to rethink its foreign policy, and recognize the virtues of so-called "soft power" and acting through international institutions including the United Nations. In what will be seen as an assertion of the importance of multilateralism in Brown's foreign policy, Alexander said: "In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st century strength should be measured by what we can build together. And so we must form new alliances, based on common values, ones not just to protect us from the world, but ones which reach out to the world." He described this as "a new alliance of opportunity". Read The Full Story U.S. House OKs Troop Withdrawal Bill 2007-07-13 00:55:39 Hours after President Bush credited the recent troop buildup with "measurable progress" in the Iraq war, the House Thursday voted 223 to 201 to bring most of the troops home by April 1. If the House measure should clear the Senate, Bush would almost certainly veto it, as he threatened to with an earlier troop withdrawal provision. Despite that outlook, the Democratic-controlled House seemed determined to turn up the heat on Bush and his Republican congressional allies. "We were reassured that progress was being made in Iraq 500 deaths ago, 1,000 deaths ago, 2,000 deaths ago, and 3,000 deaths ago," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said. "Like the boy who cried wolf, this President cries 'progress.' What progress?" Read The Full Story Islamic Revolution Will Come In Pakistan, Warns Cleric, As Militants Bury Their Dead 2007-07-13 00:54:51 President Pervez Musharraf vowed Thursday to step up the fight against gun-toting fundamentalists, as the first funerals were held for militants killed in the Red Mosque siege and a defiant captured cleric predicted an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. "Extremism is not finished in this country. We have to fight it and we have to finish it," said the general, promising new weapons and training for security forces along the Afghan border. Wearing a dark suit and a sombre expression, Gen. Musharraf appealed to a sense of unity among a nation still reeling from an eight-day siege that left at least 108 people dead. "The goal was not to kill people, it was to rescue children," he said. Article continues But questions lingered about whether the government was masking the true extent of civilian casualties. Read The Full Story Reports Of Negative Side Effects From Avandia Triple 2007-07-13 00:52:22 In the month after a surprising analysis revealed possible heart risks from the blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia, reports of side effects to federal regulators tripled. The sudden spike is a sign that doctors probably were unaware of the drug's possible role in their patients' heart problems and therefore may not have reported many such cases in the past, said several experts. It also shows the flaws of the safety tracking system and suggests that a better one might have detected a potential problem before the drug had been on the market for eight years. Avandia is used to control blood sugar, helping more than 6 million people worldwide manage Type 2 diabetes, the kind that is linked to obesity. These people already are at higher risk for heart attacks, so news that the drug might raise this risk by 43 percent was especially disturbing. Read The Full Story	Commentary: An Iraq Uppercut For Bush 2007-07-14 02:28:53 Intellpuke: The following commentary appears in Berlin, Germany-based Der Spiegel International's column "The World From Berlin" written by Charles Hawley. The column takes a look at how the German press is reacting to the latest events concerning George W. Bush's war in Iraq. A resurgent al-Qaeda. A continuing lack of success in Iraq. Not much is going right for George W. Bush. The American president, German commentators argue on Friday, has no options left when it comes to the failure of Iraq. Europeans have never been terribly impressed with United States President George W. Bush's grasp on reality. Indeed, it has long been accepted by many on the continent that Bush's War on Terror is a farce and his invasion of Iraq a failure. Two announcements that hit the headlines on Thursday merely served to reinforce that anti-Bush image. The first was an assessment by U.S. counter-terrorism analysts saying that the terror group al-Qaeda is "considerably operationally stronger than a year ago" and has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001." In other words, despite the years of hunting down the group in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere, al-Qaeda is back. President Bush, not surprisingly, used the report as evidence in support of his anti-terror strategy. Read The Full Story White House Denies Congress' Request For Documents On Tillman Death 2007-07-14 02:28:20 The White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred F. Fieldingsaying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting "implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests." Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-California) and Thomas M. Davis III (R-Virginia), the leading members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, objected to the refusal yesterday in letters to the White House and the Defense Department.  White House and Pentagon officials have turned over about 10,000 pages of material, but Waxman and Davis said those papers do not include critical documents that would show communications between senior administration officials and top military officers shortly after Tillman was killed in Afghanistan in 2004. Tillman's celebrity, as one who gave up a professional football contract to join the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, made his death major news. The military at first concocted a heroic story about how Tillman, a specialist posthumously promoted to corporal, had been killed in a fierce firefight with the enemy, despite obvious evidence that he had been shot by his own men at close range. More than a month later, a military investigation reported publicly that the death was not linked to enemy fire. Read The Full Story Key U.S. Governors Join To Oppose Bush On Environment 2007-07-14 02:27:39 California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger brought his star power and the state's vanguard environmental policies to a climate conference in Miami, Florida, Friday, at which Florida joined the ranks of U.S. states and cities committed to fighting global warming. The two-day meeting, hosted by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, reinforced a growing public and corporate determination to confront the climate change that threatens Florida's 1,200-mile coastline and $7 billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry. Crist signed executive orders requiring Florida to adopt the same tough pollution controls California has. The aim is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2025, require that 20 percent of state power needs come from renewable sources and compel civil servants to use fuel-efficient vehicles and "green" offices. But it was Schwarzenegger who stole the limelight Friday, taking swipes at what he called the Bush administration's neglect of environmental issues and at Detroit automakers for fighting tougher fuel-efficiency standards. Read The Full Story Reseachers Explore Siberia's Role In Climate Change 2007-07-14 02:26:46 German researchers have constructed a massive tower deep in the Siberian wilderness where, under the watchful eyes of the Russian intelligence service, the scientists are measuring levels of environmental toxins and greenhouse gases. Their goal is to determine if the forests are helping to slow global warming or if they are heating up the planet even further. From the top of the 300-meter steel tower, the surrounding countryside is a sea of green, stretching to the horizon in every direction. The uniform carpet of treetops is uninterrupted by roads or cities, with not even a single house in sight. The tower itself juts out of this vast carpet of green emptiness like a beacon. The red-and-white painted structure - 120 tons of steel welded together, piece by piece - is held in place by long wire cables. Ernst-Detlef Schulze, 65, is panting by the time he sets foot on the triangular platform at the top. He takes a quick, vertigo-inducing look down at the ground, snaps his safety belt to a metal ring and complains about a pain he has been having in his right knee for the past few days. Read The Full Story Commentary: All Hail The Prophetic Gut! 2007-07-13 19:59:51 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown" program. Mr. Olbermann's commentary follows: Explaining Michael Chertoff's counterterrorism stomach. You have by now heard the remark - instantly added to our through-the-looking-glass lexicon of the 21st century, a time when we suddenly started referring to this country as "the homeland," as if anybody here has used that term since Charles Lindbergh or the German-American Bund in 1940. Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling."  Which, he took pains to emphasize, was based on no specific nor even vague intelligence that we are entering a period of increased risk of terrorism here. He got as specific as saying that al-Qaeda seems to like the summer, but as to the rest of it, he is perfectly content to let us sit and wait and worry - and to contemplate his gut. His gut! We used to have John Ashcroft's major announcements. We used to have David Paulison's breathless advisories about how to use duct tape against radiation attacks. We used to have Tom Ridge's color-coded threat levels. Now we have Michael Chertoff's gut! Once, we thought we were tiptoeing along a Grand Canyon of possible and actual freedoms and civil liberties destroyed, as part of some kind of nauseating but ultimately necessary and intricately designed plan to stop future 9/11s or even future Glasgow car bombers who wind up having to get out and push their failed weapons. Now it turns out we are risking all of our rights and protections - and risking the anger and hatred of the rest of the world - for the sake of Michael Chertoff's gut. Read The Full Story Typhoon Hits Southern Japan, Injuring 27, Cutting Power, Snarling Transportation 2007-07-13 11:57:49 A powerful typhoon pounded Japan's southern Okinawa island chain Friday, injuring dozens of people, cutting power to tens of thousands of households and grounding hundreds of flights, said officials. Typhoon Man-Yi injured 27 people by late Friday (Thursday in the U.S.), many of them knocked down to the ground by the wind, Okinawa prefecture (state) government said in a statement. In Okinawa City, a gust of wind knocked one man in his 70s to the ground, seriously injuring his head, the prefecture said. In Ginowan, another man, also in his 70s, suffered arm and leg injuries as he fell from a roof while fixing tiles in the blowing wind. Man-Yi clocked sustained wind speeds of up to 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour as it stormed past Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa, and headed toward the southern main island of Kyushu, said Japan's  Meteorological Agency. Read The Full Story FCC Plans To Sell The Airwaves 2007-07-13 11:57:21 The airwaves that carry billions of calls, text messages and e-mails have become one of the hottest corporate properties. Not only are they in demand by a nation of 240 million mobile-phone users, they are also in short supply. Soon, one of the last available sections of airwaves - and one of the most attractive - will be sold, and the issue of how to manage that sale has become the focus of debate. The Federal Communications Commission is overseeing the auction of a portion of the radio frequency spectrum once used by television broadcasters, and this week drafted rules for the sale. The auction, scheduled for January, is expected to raise at least $15 billion, with bidders ranging from start-ups to established phone companies. Companies and policymakers have different ideas on how to allocate the airwaves. The battle pits software firms against traditional telecom carriers, Republican commissioners against Democratic, and phone companies against cable companies. To complicate matters, police and other public safety organizations also have a stake in the auction as they push for a national network that would allow all first responders to communicate with each other. Read The Full Story Bush Acknowledges Administration Role In CIA Leak 2007-07-13 00:56:23 President Bush acknowledged for the first time Thursday that "somebody" in his administration leaked the name of an undercover intelligence officer but declined to say whether he was disappointed in such an action and contended that it is time to move on. Asked during a news conference whether he was disappointed that his advisers revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media, the president did not answer directly, but he offered perhaps his fullest discussion of a case he has generally refused to address because it was in the courts. Bush described as "fair and balanced" his decision to commute the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheneywho was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for his role in the leak of Plame's identity. Bush went on to say that he had not spent "a lot of time" talking with people in his administration about court testimony in the Libby case, adding: "I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I've often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, 'I did it.' Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter?" Read The Full Story Bush Distorts Al-Qaeda Links, Critics Say 2007-07-13 00:56:01 In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.” It is an argument Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to al-Qaeda or its presence in Iraq. But his references to al-Qaeda in Iraq, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the al-Qaeda leadership. There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq, but Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the al-Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place. Read The Full Story Analysis: Expect A Summer Of Stalemate On Iraq War 2007-07-13 00:55:24 He lamented, in his own way, that he is unloved these days and reflected on the "war fatigue" that has gripped his country. He looked forward to the day, not so long from now, when he will retire to his Texas ranch and tell himself that he did the right thing. Yet no matter how battered he seems, no matter how unpopular he may be in the polls, President Bush still holds the commanding position in his showdown with Congress over Iraq. Even with Republican defections, as votes in both houses made clear this week, opponents do not have anywhere near the veto-proof majorities needed to wrest leadership of the war. The almost-certain result, according to strategists in both parties, will be at least two more months of anger and posturing but no change in direction. A weakened president is desperately playing for time while a Democratic opposition mounts its case against him and Republican lawmakers agonize over how long to stick with him. Bush will keep pressing his strategy in Iraq in hopes that it produces more than the meager results his White House  reported Thursday while his foes keep scoring political points and not much else. Read The Full Story World's Largest Telescope Starts Gazing 2007-07-13 00:54:15 The world's largest telescope starts using its complex structure of mirrors today to scour the outer reaches of the universe for planets similar to our own and to seek clues to help explain the origins of life. Set on a mountain on an Atlantic island, far enough from human habitation to get a clear view of the night sky, the Great Canary Telescope carries with it the hopes of scientists who believe clues to understanding our world can be found in as yet unseen parts of the universe. The telescope will, in effect, peer back in time as it picks up light emitted long ago in other parts of the universe. A powerful array of 36 separate mirrors form a single mirror that is 10.4 meters (34 feet) wide, 4% larger than the Keck telescopes at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The GTC's powerful eye will penetrate dense, cold molecular "clouds" to watch stars being born and will seek out the most distant galaxies and quasars. Read The Full Story Iran's Jews Reject Cash Offer To Move To Israel 2007-07-13 00:51:54 Iran's Jews have given the country a loyalty pledge in the face of cash offers aimed at encouraging them to move to Israel, the arch-enemy of its Islamic rulers. The incentives - ranging from £5,000 ($10,000) a person to £30,000 ($60,000) for families - were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel from among Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel's official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora. However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as "immature political enticements" and said their national identity was not for sale. Read The Full Story
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