Its my own design
Its my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
For Airlines, Runways Are the Danger Zone
WASHINGTON – The recent groundings of thousands of flights have raised flags about skipped airplane inspections and botched repairs to wiring.
But what really worries aviation specialists? Runway collisions.“Where we are most vulnerable at this moment is on the ground,” the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mark V. Rosenker, said. “To me, this is the most dangerous aspect of flying.”
For the six-month period that ended March 30, there were 15 serious “runway incursions,” compared with 8 in the period a year earlier. Another occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on April 6 when a tug operator pulling a Boeing 777 along a taxiway failed to stop at a runway as another plane was landing, missing the tug by about 25 feet.
USA
Bush Plan To Contract Federal Jobs Falls Short
Scope and Savings Have Not Met Goals
Joseph Wassmann thought he had a secure position producing videos for the U.S. Military Academy, but not long ago he found his job on the line because of a Bush administration plan to inject more efficiency into the federal bureaucracy.Wassmann, 40, was among a group of information management employees at West Point who had to prove that they could do their jobs better and more cheaply than a private contractor. If they could not, they were told, the work would be outsourced. It was all part of President Bush’s government-wide plan to reduce costs by inviting contractors to bid on about 425,000 federal jobs that could be considered “commercial” in nature.
More GOP ads target Obama
Recent criticisms of him provide fodder — and raise concerns for some Democrats about his electability.
WASHINGTON — As they promote their candidates and try to pave the way for GOP victories this year, Republicans have begun making their case to voters in advertisements featuring a new star: Barack Obama.In North Carolina, a TV ad shows Obama’s former pastor making racially charged comments. An Internet ad attacks a Pennsylvania congressman for endorsing Obama’s presidential bid. A New Mexico radio ad says Obama disrespects “the American way of life.
In Louisiana, a TV ad attacking Obama’s healthcare agenda as “radical” proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday, issuing a stern statement saying that he “has not endorsed any national politician.”The flurry of attacks underscores how Republicans and their allies are sensing opportunity in the increasingly battered image of Obama, whom many Democrats have viewed as their best hope for appealing across ideological lines and helping their party win in conservative areas.
Middle East
Syria ‘had covert nuclear scheme’
The United States has accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that “was not intended for peaceful purposes”.
The site, said to be like one in North Korea, was bombed by Israel in 2007.Syria must “come clean” about its secret nuclear programme, the White House said in a statement after CIA officials briefed members of Congress.
Syria has repeated denials that it has any nuclear weapons programme, or any such agreement with North Korea.
Syrian officials have said the site that was bombed by Israel was an unused military facility under construction where building had stopped some time before the air strike.
But the White House said the “cover-up” operation that Syria carried out after the Israeli air strike reinforced its belief that the alleged reactor “was not intended for peaceful activities”.
Gaza fuel crisis forces UN to stop food aid deliveries
By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Friday, 25 April 2008The United Nations has suspended food aid to 650,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip after it ran out of fuel for its delivery vehicles. At the request of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), distributors sent an emergency tanker to the Nahal Oz terminal through which Israel transfers petrol and diesel, but it was turned back by 1,500 farmers protesting that they needed fuel just as urgently. The driver was held for three hours, and then forced to return empty.
Palestinian distributors have been on strike for the past four weeks, demanding that Israel step up supplies and guarantee a steady flow. Both sides agree that storage tanks on the Gaza side of the terminal are full, with stocks of up to 1 million litres of fuel. But Mahmoud Khozendar, the distributors’ vice-chairman, said that was only enough to meet three or four hours’ demand.
Europe
Thousands queue to see corpse of Padre Pio
By Peter Popham in Rome
Friday, 25 April 2008Twenty thousand pilgrims queued for hours for a glimpse of the body of St Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, with a mask ordered from the company that supplies Madame Tussauds covering the skull.
The body of the most popular and controversial saint of modern times was put on public display yesterday, 40 years after his death, at the centre of his cult in San Giovanni Rotondo.
At a mass held in the town before the unveiling, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, the head of the Vatican’s sainthood office, said: “Today we venerate his body… Padre Pio is not only a corpse.
Historians call for Mein Kampf reprint as time runs out in fight against far Right
One of the great publishing taboos of modern Germany is beginning to buckle:
historians are pressing the authorities to bring out a new edition of Adolf Hitler’s poisonously anti-Semitic manifesto, Mein Kampf.Sales of the rambling 700-page book have been outlawed in Germany since the author killed himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945. It was the book that made Hitler into a millionaire, paid for his chauffeur-driven Mercedes and, according to some historians, should have tipped off the world that the Nazi leader was planning genocide on the Jews.
Asia
Pakistan claims impending deal with militants
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: U.S. and Afghan officials have expressed skepticism about news that Pakistan is close to reaching a deal to end hostilities with the most militant tribes in its turbulent border area, whose main leader is accused of orchestrating most of the suicide bombings of recent months and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister.The officials have blamed past accords for allowing Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to regroup, fortify their ties and use Pakistan as a base to plot attacks here and abroad. Previously, members of Pakistan’s new coalition government had said they considered the militants’ leader, Baitullah Mehsud, irretrievably hostile.
Beijing to meet Dalai Lama’s representative
China’s government will meet a representative of the Dalai Lama in coming days, Chinese state media announced today.The Xinhua news agency said it had learned of the development “from official sources” after repeated requests made by “the Dalai’s side for resuming talks”.
But a spokesman for the Dalai Lama said China had not yet been in contact.
China has been under international pressure to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who China blames for a wave of unrest after anti-government riots began in Tibet in mid-March.
China condemns the spiritual leader, who fled into exile after a failed 1959 uprising against Communist rule.
The Olympic torch, the focus for pro-Tibet demonstrations in recent weeks, today arrived in Japan.
Africa
Winners and losers in land of starving billionaires
While having a job can mean being out of pocket, Zanu-PF elite find rich pickings
Each day, Edwin Makotore’s wife and children hit the streets to earn cash so he can pay for the privilege of working.The 38-year-old father-of-two is the only one in the family with a full-time job, but by the time he has met the soaring cost of travelling to work in a small Harare supermarket, paid out of wages wildly out of step with the 165,000% inflation rate, Makotore is out of pocket.
But with only one-in-five adults in employment, a job is a far more precious commodity than money in Zimbabwe, and Makotore is not going to let it go.
“My wife gives me the money to go to work each day,” he said. “We can’t afford to send the children to school so they go with her to the streets. She sells some small things, fruit, things like that.
Senegal’s Wade says India to fully supply rice needs
DAKAR (AFP) – Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said India would furnish the west African nation, where there have been protests against rising food prices, with its full supply of rice needs for the next six years.
Despite India restricting exports to premium long grain basmati rice on April 1, Wade said on national television that he had got New Delhi’s assurance of a supply of 600,000 tonnes annually for the next six years.“I have received a message from India’s prime minister, following my request for rice supply to meet the full needs of national consumption,” Wade said.
“Having consulted with his government, he told me that India will supply all Senegal’s rice requirements, in other words 600,000 tonnes annually for six years.”
Latin America
Applying Capitalism to Protect Dwindling Brazilian Forestland
AGUA BOA, Brazil — Driving a farm truck across the mud roads of the eastern Amazon region is agony on axles, a careful slalom around slippery ruts and yawning craters. The scenery is unromantic: mostly cattle pasture and soybean fields, with the occasional stand of naked tree trunks charred by last year’s fires.Farmers have an incentive to keep traveling these roads, though: money. The world’s soaring demand for beef and grains has turned this frontier into a ripe business opportunity, even as the forest has paid the price.
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