Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday June 7 2008 - (813)

Saturday June 7 2008 edition
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In Money Race, Obama Has The Advantage 2008-06-07 03:35:38 Sen. Barack Obama will head into the general election with the ability to raise significantly more money than his Republican opponent, an extremely rare position for a Democrat and one that could give him a huge advantage in mobilizing supporters, reaching voters and competing across the country. Party leaders say they expect Obama to surpass the more than quarter-billion dollars he amassed during the primaries, buoyed by a fundraising list with more than 1.5 million names, an uncommon knack for attracting money online and the expected addition of scores of established bundlers who helped bankroll Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. Obama's advantage, which could stretch into the tens of millions over Republican Sen. John McCain, would allow the senator from Illinois to build a far more robust field operation and let him drench radio and television airwaves in a much broader array of states, including those where Democrats do not traditionally compete. He would also have enough money to enjoy the luxury of making mistakes, whereas any poor choices McCain makes would be felt much more acutely. "From my vantage point, the enthusiasm is there, and for the first time we're seeing the [Internet] fundraising and the traditional fundraising both pulling the rope the same way," said Mitchell Berger, a Florida lawyer who helped oversee fundraising for President Bill Clinton in 1996 and for Vice President Al Gore in 2000, and who is raising money for Obama. "More than any time in my memory, Democrats are ready to go." Read The Full Story Water-Starved California Slows Development 2008-06-07 03:35:12 As California faces one of its worst droughts in two decades, building projects are being curtailed for the first time under state law by the inability of developers to find long-term water supplies. Water authorities and other government agencies scattered throughout the state, including here in sprawling Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, have begun denying, delaying or challenging authorization for dozens of housing tracts and other developments under a state law that requires a 20-year water supply as a condition for building. California officials suggested that the actions were only the beginning, and they worry about the impact on a state that has grown into an economic powerhouse over the last several decades. The state law was enacted in 2001, but until statewide water shortages, it had not been invoked to hold up projects. While previous droughts and supply problems have led to severe water cutbacks and rationing, water officials said the outright refusal to sign off on projects over water scarcity had until now been virtually unheard of on a statewide scale. “Businesses are telling us that they can’t get things done because of water,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said in a telephone interview. Read The Full Story Zimbabwe Detains Mugabe Rival Tsvangirai Twice In Three Days 2008-06-07 03:34:11 The opposition's presidential candidate was briefly detained Friday for the second time this week as Zimbabwean authorities intensified a crackdown on political opponents and what they consider outside meddling. Police arrested Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, while he was campaigning for the June 27 runoff election in a rural area about 400 miles south of Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. He was released two hours later without being charged. "Tsvangirai and other party leaders were today detained again in Umzingwane," said opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa. "He was later released and instructed to go back to Bulawayo instead of proceeding with his campaign." Tsvangirai was detained in the same province for several hours Wednesday. Tsvangirai's second arrest came a day after supporters of President Robert Mugabe attacked a convoy carrying several U.S. and British diplomats and authorities suspended all work by aid organizations operating in the country. Read The Full Story Israeli Deputy Prime Minister: Attack On Iran Nuclear Facilities 'Unavoidable' 2008-06-06 18:41:34 An Israeli minister has said an attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses to halt its alleged weapons program. In the most explicit threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "would disappear before Israel does". "If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Mofaz, who is also Israel's transport minister, said in comments published Friday by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "Attacking Iran in order to stop its nuclear plans will be unavoidable." Iranian-born Mofaz is a former army chief and defense minister. He is a member of Olmert's security cabinet and leads regular strategic coordination talks with the U.S. State Department. Read The Full Story Tainted Cheese Fuels TB Rise In California 2008-06-06 18:41:14 A rare form of tuberculosis caused by illegal, unpasteurized dairy products, including the popular queso fresco cheese, is rising among Hispanic immigrants in Southern California and raising fears about a resurgence of a strain all but eradicated in the U.S. Cases of the Mycobacterium bovis strain of TB have increased in San Diego county, particularly among children who drink or eat dairy foods made from the milk of infected cattle, a study in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases shows. The germ can infect anyone who eats contaminated fresh cheeses sold by street vendors, smuggled across the Mexican border or produced by families who try to make a living selling so-called “bathtub cheese” made in home tubs and backyard troughs. Scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine are warning that improved screening, treatment and public education are necessary to prevent the spread of the disease that now accounts for about 10 percent of all new cases of TB in that border region - and, perhaps, others. Read The Full Story Oil Prices Take Biggest Jump Ever 2008-06-06 17:43:46 Oil prices had their biggest gains ever on Friday, jumping nearly $11 to a new record above $138 a barrel, after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell sharply against the euro. The unprecedented gains on Friday capped a second day of strong gains on energy markets, and fueled suspicions that commodities might be caught in a speculative bubble. Oil futures surged $10.75, or 8 percent, to $138.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The record gain followed a jump of 5.5 percent on Thursday, bringing total two-day gains to $16 a barrel. Stocks fell sharply. The Dow Jones industrials fell 323.97 points, or 2.53 percent, in midday trading. Chevron Corp.  was the only stock that rose on the blue-chip index. “This market is going to shoot itself in the foot,” said Adam Robinson, an analyst at Lehman Brothers. “It is searching for a price that will build a safety cushion in the system - either as inventories or as spare capacity. But this takes time. The market has gotten extremely impatient and is not willing to wait.” Read The Full Story U.S. Unemployment Rate Soars In May 2008-06-06 13:32:50 The nation's unemployment rate took a sharp turn for the worse in May, jumping to 5.5% from 5% a month earlier -- the largest one-month increase in more than two decades and a further sign that the ailing economy is not yet on the mend. Altogether, the economy lost 49,000 jobs in May and 324,000 jobs since the beginning of the year -- five straight months of contraction, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The economy must create about 100,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland, said the report was "the strongest evidence yet that the economic expansion has slipped into a recession of uncertain depth and duration." "The situation is even worse than this jump indicates," Morici said. "A large number of adults have left the labor force in recent years. Factoring in the decline in the number of adults participating in the labor force, the unemployment rate is closer to 7%." Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at forecasting firm MFR Inc., in New York, said the unemployment rate may have been affected by graduation season. Read The Full Story Stocks Fall Sharply On Jobs Data, Surge In Oil Price 2008-06-06 13:32:26 Stock prices sank this morning as a big jump in unemployment and a spike in oil prices caused investors to reassess their recent optimism about the economy. The Dow industrials tumbled nearly 300 points and bond yields retreated as investors were staggered by the double whammy of rising joblessness and surging oil prices. The mood on Wall Street was the mirror opposite of Thursday, when benign economic data and impressive retail sales left investors feeling that the economy could be on the mend. That optimism may have set investors up for disappointment Friday. Read The Full Story Thousands Of Darfur Child Refugees Being Sold To Militants 2008-06-06 03:16:19 Thousands of child refugees from Darfur, some as young as nine, are being abducted and sold to warring militias as child soldiers, a British human rights group reported Friday. The organization, Waging Peace, has filmed testimony in refugee camps in eastern Chad, describing how children, mostly boys between nine and 15, have been forcibly taken from their families by camp leaders, who are then trafficking them to militias. The report singles out the Darfur rebel group fighting the Khartoum government, the Justice and Equality Movement, as the main offender; but it says a variety of groups, including the Chadian army and opposing rebels, are also involved. "This recruitment is taking place every day, in full view of the CNAR [Chadian government body in charge of refugees] and Chadian armed forces, who turn a blind eye to what is going on, and despite the presence of European Union troops," the report says. Read The Full Story Editorial: The Truth About The War 2008-06-06 03:15:39 Intellpuke: This editorial appeared in the New York Times edition for Friday, June 6, 2008. It took just a few months after the United States’ invasion of Iraq for the world to find out that Saddam Hussein had long abandoned his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. He was not training terrorists or colluding with al-Qaeda. The only real threat he posed was to his own countrymen. It has taken five years to finally come to a reckoning over how much the Bush administration knowingly twisted and hyped intelligence to justify that invasion. On Thursday - after years of Republican stonewalling - a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee gave us as good a set of answers as we’re likely to get. The report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports. In other cases, he could have learned the truth if he had asked better questions or encouraged more honest answers. The report confirms one serious intelligence failure: President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials were told that Iraq still had chemical and biological weapons and did not learn that these reports were wrong until after the invasion. But Mr. Bush and his team made even that intelligence seem more solid, more recent and more dangerous than it was. The report shows that there was no intelligence to support the two most frightening claims Mr. Bush and his vice president used to sell the war: that Iraq was actively developing nuclear weapons and had longstanding ties to terrorist groups. It seems clear that the president and his team knew that that was not true, or should have known it - if they had not ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for. Read The Full Story Lawmakers Grill V.A. Officials Over Veterans' Mental Health Care 2008-06-06 03:13:45 U.S. senators on Wednesday grilled Veterans Affairs Administration (V.A.) officials over an email that urged staff to make fewer diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and branded troubled soldiers seeking help as "compensation-seekers". "Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out," read the electronic message, signed by mental health specialist Norma Perez. The e-mail, was sent in March to staff at the V.A. medical center in Texas, where Perez was a coordinator of the PTSD clinical team. Agence France-Presse was shown a copy of the e-mail. "Additionally, we really don't have the time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD," read the message. Read The Full Story Climate Plan Heads For Make Or Break U.S. Senate Vote 2008-06-06 03:12:26 A landmark plan to fight climate change will face a make-or-break vote in the U.S. Senate this week, with John McCain poised to oppose moving forward even as he touts his green credentials on the campaign trail. Democratic leaders have moved to end debate on the climate change bill by Friday, angered by Republican delaying tactics that forced congressional clerks to mount an eight-hour reading of the entire 492-page plan to cut carbon emissions. McCain, unlike many in his party, backs emissions limits and acknowledges the reality of climate change. As recently as 2005, he served as the chief sponsor of congressional global warming proposals. Yet the Republican presidential nominee has signaled he would oppose this year's bill because it does too little promote nuclear power. McCain's sponsorship role is now filled by Virginia Republican senator John Warner. Although the motion to end debate is considered unlikely to succeed, failure would heighten the political pressure on McCain and allow Democrats to accuse him of double-talk on climate change. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both support the measure, though they may not show up for the vote unless the outcome is in doubt. Read The Full Story From Across Washington, D.C., Region, 10,000 Rally For Obama 2008-06-06 03:11:43 Sen. Barack Obama launched his general election campaign for president in Virginia Thursday, rolling up his sleeves and rallying families, college students and people playing hooky from work to help him "win this election and change the course of history." The presumptive Democratic nominee drew more than 10,000 people to a late afternoon rally at Nissan Pavilion and spent the morning courting voters in coal country at a town hall meeting in southwest Virginia. Thursday night, Obama delayed a trip home to Chicago in order to meet with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.  In Virginia, Obama delivered his standard stump speech at both campaign stops, but the events were weighted with significance, a reminder of one of his biggest primary wins and his determination to compete in Virginia and other traditional Republican strongholds in November. The senator from Illinois noted the symbolism of the first African American presidential nominee appealing for support in a former Confederate state. "This crowd reflects what was done 40 years ago to perfect this union," Obama told the Nissan crowd, referring to achievements of the civil rights movement. "And now, 40 years later, that same sense of urgency is demanded." Read The Full Story	Pentagon Investigates At Least 7 Defense Contracts For Charities 2008-06-07 03:35:27 The federal investigation of contracting arrangements between the Pentagon and tax-exempt defense firms in Pennsylvania includes multiple deals that go as far back as 2002 and involve more money than was previously known, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.  The FBI and the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service issued subpoenas two months ago seeking information about a small intelligence firm called Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, and its parent company, Concurrent Technologies. Both firms are registered nonprofit charities based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Concurrent was established two decades ago and has almost $250 million a year in revenue. Most of its research, program management and other work is for the Pentagon. It also has received more than $226 million in congressionally directed funding known as earmarks in recent years. CRI is a little-known subsidiary with a handful of employees, several of them working as intelligence consultants to the military. One focus of the investigation is the Air Force's office for security, counterintelligence and special program oversight, which used CRI to hire help for technical studies and research support. Investigators retrieved computers and contracting records from that office to see whether work was properly awarded, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. The federal subpoenas demanded information about at least seven contracts, according to documents and those sources. Contracting documents obtained by the Washington Post show that four of the contracts, worth up to $130 million, were awarded to Concurrent over several weeks in May and June 2002. Investigators also are examining a Concurrent deal in 2006 that was worth up to $45 million. Read The Full Story Ex-Treasurer Embezzled $500,000 From Republican National Congressional Committee 2008-06-07 03:34:50 The former treasurer of a key Republican campaign committee embezzled more than $500,000 over a five-year period, using it to fund mortgage payments and a six-figure remodeling of his Bethesda, Maryland, home, according to court documents filed Friday. The papers were filed by federal prosecutors in an attempt to force the former treasurer, Christopher J. Ward, to forfeit his home to the government. The government alleges that Ward, who had worked for National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) since the 1990s, made numerous unauthorized diversions of funds from its accounts and joint accounts set up with Senate Republicans. He often shifted money into his personal account just as payments for his mortgage or home remodeling were due, according to the court filing. Ward, who was fired earlier this year, has not been charged with a crime, but the civil action filed yesterday seeks to seize his home in the 6300 block of Massachusetts Avenue. Such efforts prevent subjects of investigations from selling properties that were allegedly part of their crimes and hiding the proceeds. Read The Full Story Burma Junta Begins Evicting Cyclone Victims From Shelters 2008-06-07 03:34:00 Within a week of the storm that flooded the delta here last month with waves as high as 20 feet, the monasteries in this village were swarming with 14,000 people who had lost their families, homes and livelihoods. Now those refugees are all but gone. A week ago, Myanmar’s state-run media were comparing the visits of the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, to government-run refugee camps, like the neat rows of blue tents outside Labutta, to “parents’ loving kindness and good will toward their offspring.” The junta promised the United Nations that tight restrictions on aid workers - which were worsening the effects of a storm that left 134,000 dead or missing - would be eased. A visit to villages here in the Irrawaddy Delta, hit hardest by the May 3 cyclone, suggests that the reality has been different - and that the story of the death and destruction, compounded by the junta’s actions, has been neither fully told nor even fully seen. Even as the junta publicly praised its own largess, it more quietly began evicting destitute families from monasteries and sending them back to their villages for “reconstruction” and a life of isolation. It then began shutting down its own refugee camps. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Republicans Block Bill To Reduce Carbon Emissions 2008-06-06 18:41:24 A landmark plan to fight climate change was defeated Friday in the U.S Senate, likely postponing action on carbon emissions limits until after this autumn's presidential election.. Neither Democrat Barack Obama nor Republican John McCain cast votes on the climate bill but indicated that they would have supported moving forward on it. McCain had indicated previously that he would oppose the bill if more incentives for nuclear power were not added. "I believe this legislation needs to be debated, amended, improved and ultimately enacted," McCain said in a statement. "That does not mean I believe the pending bill is perfect, and in fact, it is far from it." The climate bill was defeated, 48-36, with 60 votes needed to end Republican obstruction. Democrats had hoped that summer would be an opportune time to debate emissions caps. But Republicans seized an opening to claim that the bill - which requires emissions reductions by more than 60% on 2005 levels by 2050 - would increase gas prices. Read The Full Story Oil Hits $138.54 A Barrel, Dow Drops Near 400 Points 2008-06-06 17:43:56 The markets opened lower on Friday and then just kept falling, hit by remarkable rise in the price of crude oil and a spike in the unemployment rate. Wall Street suffered its worst losses in more than two months. The Dow Jones industrials plunged more than 400 points on fears about high energy prices and a continued economic slowdown, raw nerves that have pestered investors for months. Oil prices surged almost 8 percent, to $138.54 a barrel after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell against the euro. “As soon as that news hit the tape, oil spiked about $6,” said David Kovacs, an investment strategist at Turner Investment Partners. “The market is meeting its worst fears right now,” said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford, a financial services firm. Read The Full Story Intel Facing Antitrust Investigation By FTC 2008-06-06 17:43:14 The Federal Trade Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation of Intel, the world’s largest maker of computer microprocessors, for anticompetitive conduct, government officials and lawyers involved in the proceeding said Friday. The officials and lawyers said that in recent days Intel, its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices, and several of the world’s largest personal computer makers that buy semiconductors from the two companies have begun to receive subpoenas from the commission. The investigation into accusations that Intel’s pricing policies have been designed to maintain a near-monopoly on the microprocessor market was authorized by William E. Kovacic, the new chairman of the trade commission, and has the support of the agency’s other commissioners. It reversed a decision by his predecessor, Deborah P. Majoras, who had been blocking the formal inquiry for many months, frustrating other senior commission officials and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Majoras is a former senior official in the antitrust division at the Justice Department who was an architect of the Bush administration’s antitrust settlement with Microsoft in 2001. She stepped down two months ago to become the general counsel at Procter & Gamble.  Read The Full Story California, Florida Lead U.S. In Big Foreclosure Surge 2008-06-06 13:32:39 Rapidly declining property values touched off a new wave of home-loan delinquencies in Florida during the first three months of the year and pushed 77,000 homeowners into foreclosure, a signal that turmoil in the housing market is far from over. The state ranked second in the country in failing loans, according to a report released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association. California led the nation with 109,000 foreclosures. The states with the next highest numbers - Texas, Michigan and Ohio - saw no more than 24,000 foreclosures during the same period. "The problems in California and Florida are extraordinary," said Jay Brinkmann, vice president for research and economics with the MBA. "They are the main drivers of the national trend." Falling values forced investor J.V. Crouch, II, to walk away from a $1.4 million home he began constructing on a waterfront lot in Miami Beach in 2004. He went into foreclosure in April and is negotiating a short sale, in which a lender settles for a partial payment of the loan. Read The Full Story Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps 2008-06-06 03:16:32 A top adviser to Senator John McCain says McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants is lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team. In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said McCain believed that the Constitution gave Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance. McCain believes that “neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the A.C.L.U. and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” wrote Holtz-Eakin. If McCain is elected president, Holtz-Eakin added, he would do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks, “including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.” Read The Full Story Investors Use Of Trading Loophole Blamed For Oil Prices 2008-06-06 03:16:08 Hedge funds and big Wall Street banks are taking advantage of loopholes in federal trading limits to buy massive amounts of oil contracts, according to a growing number of lawmakers and prominent investors, who blame the practice for helping to push oil prices to record highs. The federal agency that oversees oil trading, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has exempted these firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a prerogative traditionally reserved for airlines and trucking companies that need to lock in future fuel costs. The CFTC has also waived regulations over the past decade on U.S. investors who trade commodities on some overseas markets, freeing those investors to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges. Over the past five years, investors have become such a force on commodity markets that their appetite for oil contracts has been equal to China's increase in demand over the same period, said Michael Masters, a hedge fund manager who testified before Congress on the subject last month. The commodity markets, he added, were never intended for such large financial players. Read The Full Story Commentary: Secret Plan To Keep Iraq Under U.S. Control 2008-06-06 03:15:21 Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Patrick Cockburn and appeared in The Independent newspaper's edition for Thursday, June 5, 2008. A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November. The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which U.S. troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilize Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country. The accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the U.S. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated; but by perpetuating the U.S. presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw U.S. troops if he is elected president in November. The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq - a victory that he says Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal. Read The Full Story U.S. Environmental Groups Warn of Oilsands 'Poison' 2008-06-06 03:12:55 Environmental activists are warning U.S. lawmakers and consumers that the Canadian oilsands sector is an environmental disaster that is poisoning U.S refineries. "The environmental costs of tarsand development are staggering," says a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based group, in the latest salvo in a pitched public relations battle over Western Canada's resource riches. The report, "Tar Sands: Feeding U.S. Refinery Expansions with Dirty Fuel", warned that much of the oil being processed in the United States would soon get dirtier since most refineries were being expanded to handle oil from Western Canada and meet Americans' growing appetite for fossil fuels. "As the rising price of oil has made extraction from Canadian tarsands profitable, U.S. oil refinery expansions to process the extra heavy sour crude from tarsands have come to dominate the refinery landscape," says the analysis. It notes that more than two-thirds of the expansion of U.S. refining capacity is being tailored to handle the dirtier crude oil from Alberta, as opposed to conventional oil. The analysis also estimates that tarsands capacity in the U.S. will increase by 1.9 million barrels per day, while the cleaner conventional oil refining will decrease by about 300,000 barrels per day. Read The Full Story U.N. Food Crisis Meeting Ends With Call For 'Urgent Action' 2008-06-06 03:12:00 A three-day United Nations conference on spiraling food costs concluded late on Thursday with the delegates calling on countries and financial institutions to provide more food for the world’s poor and increase agriculture production to ensure adequate supplies in the future. The final declaration, completed Thursday, sought “urgent and coordinated action” to address the problems associated with higher food prices, to raise food production, to lower trade barriers and to increase research in agriculture. The draft declaration largely sidestepped the issue of biofuels, which had emerged as the most contentious matter at the conference. Some developing countries argued that food crops should not be used for fuel, but the declaration simply urged more research on the subject. The draft also made no mention of biotechnology, despite arguments by United States officials that genetically modified crops were crucial to improving yields worldwide. Instead, it suggested more investment in “science and technology for food and agriculture.” Read The Full Story Archaeologists Find 'Missing Pyramid' 2008-06-06 03:10:45 Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. Zahi Hawass said the pyramid, of which only the base remains, is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, said Hawass. The desert sands covered Lepsius' discovery, and no archaeologist since was able to find it. Read The Full Story
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