Africa 3, Asia 7, South America 1, News & Politics 5, Business 4, Science 5, Health 2, Sports 2, Blogline 2
Stories collected from 6 pm to 8 pm
So I think this proves for sure that the material is out there to do this. This is 80 stories today.
World-
Africa
1 Ban discussing U.N. help for Zimbabwe re-run
By Louis Charbonneau, Reuters
Mon May 5, 3:41 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he was talking to African states about how the world body could help ensure an election run-off in Zimbabwe is credible and voiced concern at growing violence.
Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC has yet to say whether its leader Morgan Tsvangirai would contest a second round against President Robert Mugabe, but has said one condition for doing so might be a U.N.-led observer mission.
The opposition rejects results showing Tsvangirai failed to beat Mugabe by a big enough margin in the March 29 vote to avoid a run-off and accuses his supporters of a campaign of violence.
2 14 Darfur civilians killed in government air raids
AFP
Mon May 5, 12:33 PM ET
KHARTOUM (AFP) – Sudanese government air strikes killed at least 14 civilians in three days of bombardment in North Darfur, including a raid on a busy market, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement said on Monday.
“There has been continuous bombardment by Antonov aircraft for three days,” London-based JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam told AFP by telephone.
“Yesterday (Sunday) morning they bombarded a village in the area of Al-Ain and killed three children of the local leader Sheikh Mahmud Bakr and injured one. They also destroyed wells and other water resources,” he said.
3 Mugabe’s Strategy for Victory
By ALEX PERRY, Time Magazine
Mon May 5, 12:00 PM ET
More than a month after Zimbabwe went to the polls, electoral authorities on Friday finally announced a result in the presidential race: a do-over. The Zimbabwe Election Commission said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 47.9% of the vote to President Robert Mugabe’s 43.2%. That means that, officially, no candidate has won an outright victory of more than 50%, a scenario which, under Zimbabwean electoral law, mandates a second round run-off within three weeks. “Since no candidate has received the majority of the valid vote cast… a second election shall be held on a date to be advised by the commission,” chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi told reporters in Harare.
Asia
4 U.S. says Iran will get incentives “very quickly”
By Sue Pleming, Reuters
Mon May 5, 2:22 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – World powers very soon will present Iran with a revised package of incentives to give up its sensitive nuclear work, U.S. officials said on Monday, but expectations for a positive response are low.
“I think this will move very quickly,” said a senior U.S. official, when asked when the incentives package agreed on by major powers in London last Friday would be formally offered to the Iranians.
Top government officials in China, Russia, the United States, France, Britain — the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — and Germany are now reviewing the decision made in London and an approach would be made soon to Tehran, the official said. France has said it could be within days.
5 Iran rejects nuclear inspections unless Israel allows them
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 32 minutes ago
GENEVA – An Iranian envoy said Monday his government will not submit to extensive nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global treaty to curb the spread of atomic weapons.
“The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states,” Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told a meeting of the 190 countries that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Nuclear safeguards are far from universal, he said, adding that more than 30 countries are still without a comprehensive safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure full cooperation with that U.N. body.
6 Baghdad park is an oasis from conflict
By Shashank Bengali and Laith Hammoudi, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon May 5, 3:43 PM ET
BAGHDAD – There’s a place in this city, amid the snarled checkpoints and mazes of blast walls and general anxiety, where families still gather for picnics, teenage boys kick around soccer balls, young couples canoodle furtively under trees and children bury their faces in cotton candy.
Zawra Park , a sprawling, 250-acre public park in central Baghdad , is one of the few open spaces left in the capital. It’s seeing a resurgence of visitors, thanks to improved security in central Baghdad , even as car bombings and mortar attacks continue to strike just a few blocks away.
“I come to Zawra because it’s the only place we have in Baghdad ,” said Anas Abo Yousif , a 27-year-old taxi driver who brought his wife and two children to the park on a recent, sun-baked Saturday afternoon.
7 2 more U.S. soldiers’ deaths in Iraq raise doubts about MRAP vehicle
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The deaths of two U.S. soldiers in western Baghdad last week have sparked concerns that Iraqi insurgents have developed a new weapon capable of striking what the U.S. military considers its most explosive-resistant vehicle.
The soldiers were riding in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicle, known as an MRAP, when an explosion sent a blast of super-heated metal through the MRAP’s armor and into the vehicle, killing them both.
Their deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed while riding in an MRAP, which was developed and deployed to Iraq last year after years of acrimony over light armor on the Army’s workhorse vehicle, the Humvee.
8 Is Beijing Softening on Tibet?
By SIMON ELEGANT/BEIJING, Time Magazine
1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Monday yielded one clear clue when Chinese media carried stories on the meeting the previous day between representatives of the Dalai Lama and envoys from Beijing. Although the talks have been going on since 2002, this was the first time the Chinese public had heard about them, a sign for many analysts that Beijing was softening its previously hardline stance regarding the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. It was also noted that President Hu Jintao had said he expected “positive results” from the talks, another first. Other analyses dwelled on the language used in the official media reports, some of which spoke of the “Dalai Lama group” rather than using phrases such as the “Dalai clique” or “splittist clique” that are usually employed.
9 Japan’s Butter Meltdown
By COCO MASTERS/TOKYO, Time Magazine
1 hour, 36 minutes ago
The world’s second largest economy is now crying over spilled milk – and its delicious by-product, butter. Japan, insulated from rice shortages that plague other parts of Asia, is experiencing an unprecedented shortage of the household staple – and discovering that it is not as immune from the growing global food crisis as it wants to be.
10 Iraqi alleges Abu Ghraib torture, sues US contractors
By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 42 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES – An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors Monday, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.
Emad al-Janabi’s federal lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, claims that employees of CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.
Also named as a defendant is CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, known as “Big Steve.” The suit claims he directed some of the torture tactics.
South America
11 Official results confirm Bolivian province’s autonomy win
By Boris Heger and Jack Chang, McClatchy Newspapers
30 minutes ago
SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA , Bolivia – Official election results released Monday showed a controversial statute that would grant autonomy to this country’s richest province had built an overwhelming lead in Sunday’s violence-marred referendum and was on its way to victory.
The results thrilled leaders in the eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz , who had defied President Evo Morales by putting the statute up for a vote. If implemented, the statute would give the province powers equivalent to that of a U.S. state, such as the right to form its own police, set tax and land-use policies and elect a governor and legislature. Most state functions are now centralized in Bolivia’s federal government.
Morales, who’s a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez , has called the statute separatist and illegal and warned Santa Cruz leaders not to implement it. His spokesman, Ivan Canelas , however, took a softer approach Monday by inviting Santa Cruz’s prefect, who’s the equivalent of a governor, and other prefects from the country’s nine provinces to discuss the idea of provincial autonomies.
U.S.
News & Politics
12 AP IMPACT: More than 3.5 million new voters, AP survey finds
By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer
54 minutes ago
DURHAM, N.C. – Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year – with more than 3.5 million people rushing to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.
Figures are up for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North.
Overall, the AP found that nearly one in 65 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year. And in the 21 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared about 64 percent from the same three months in the 2004 campaign.
13 UN kicks off long-delayed headquarters renovation
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations kicked off the long-delayed renovation of its landmark headquarters complex Monday led by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wearing a hard hat and wielding a shovel to break ground for a temporary conference building.
Ban was joined by 16 others with shovels who represented the U.N.’s many constituencies for the ceremony on the U.N.’s north lawn.
“Today we turn the soil which the United Nations stands on to mark the rebirth, or renovation, of our headquarters,” the secretary-general said before lining up for the groundbreaking. “Over the next five years, we will make our facilities safer, greener, and more modern and efficient.”
14 Soldier suicides could trump war tolls: US health official
AFP
Mon May 5, 1:11 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Suicides and “psychological mortality” among US soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan could exceed battlefield deaths if their mental scars are left untreated, the head of the US Institute of Mental Health warned Monday.
Of the 1.6 million US soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 18-20 percent — or around 300,000 — show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or both, said Thomas Insel, head of the National Institute of Mental Health.
An estimated 70 percent of those at-risk soldiers do not seek help from the Department of Defense or the Veterans Administration, he told a news conference launching the American Psychiatric Association’s 161st annual meeting here.
15 Republican evangelical support has peaked: analyst
By Ed Stoddard, Reuters
24 minutes ago
KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain will almost certainly garner less of the evangelical vote in November than the almost 80 percent that President George W. Bush took in 2004, a former top Bush aide said on Monday.
Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter and adviser who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations, predicted at a conference on religion and politics in Key West, Florida, that Bush’s 2004 totals among this key voting bloc won’t be matched by the Republican Party for a long time.
He pointed among other factors to “a candidate like John McCain who doesn’t have a specifically religious appeal.”
16 U.S. moving ahead on urgent student loan programs
By Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters
34 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration said on Monday it will be ready to accept requests for emergency student loans from state guaranty agencies by June 1 under a program to stabilize the $85 billion student loan industry.
With fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis threatening to trigger a student loan shortage this summer, an official of the U.S. Education Department said it is moving to implement the stabilization plan approved last week by Congress.
“Millions of students could potentially benefit from this legislation,” David Dunn, the department’s chief of staff, told reporters on a conference call.
Business
17 Gasoline price at new record, diesel falls: EIA
By Tom Doggett, Reuters
1 hour, 58 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. average retail price for gasoline rose a penny over the last week to a new high of $3.61 a gallon, while the price of diesel fuel fell, the federal Energy Information Administration said on Monday.
The national price for regular, self-service gasoline is up 56 cents from a year ago because of expensive crude oil prices. U.S. crude on Monday hit a record $120.36 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The price of crude oil accounts for about 72 percent of the cost for making gasoline.
18 Stocks end lower after Microsoft pulls Yahoo bid
By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer
9 minutes ago
NEW YORK – Wall Street pulled back Monday following Microsoft Corp.’s decision to withdraw its bid for Yahoo Inc. and as oil prices rose to a new record over $120 a barrel.
Microsoft had offered $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo Inc., but scrapped the bid late Saturday after the software maker and the Internet provider could not agree on a sale price. The failed deal came as a disappointment to Wall Street, as merger-and-acquisition activity tends to boost shareholder value, and also signals to the broader market that corporate America is optimistic about the future.
A jump in oil prices raised concerns that inflation could force consumers, who account for more than two-thirds of the economy, to cut their spending on discretionary items. Crude oil futures for June delivery surged to a new trading high of $120.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before pulling back to settle up $3.65 at a record $119.97. The jump followed worries over supply disruptions in areas such as Nigeria, Iran and Iraq.
19 Federal Reserve reports tighter bank lending standards
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
44 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve reported Monday that more banks are tightening lending standards on home mortgages, other types of consumer loans and business loans in response to a spreading credit crisis.
The Fed said t the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards was near historic highs for nearly all loan categories.
The survey, conducted in April, found that nearly two-thirds of banks surveyed had tightened lending standards on traditional home mortgages with 15 percent saying those standards had been tightened considerably.
20 Prosecutors in NY form subprime task force
By Martha Graybow, Reuters
Mon May 5, 3:22 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in New York have formed a task force together with other government agencies to examine the collapse of the market for risky home loans, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn said on Monday.
The group is being run out of the federal prosecutors’ office in Brooklyn, said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the office, formally known as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
The task force is working with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Nardoza said.
Science
21 Tropical insects risk extinction with global warming: study
by Jean-Louis Santini, AFP
1 hour, 48 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Global warming could pose a greater risk to tropical insects and other species sensitive to the slightest shifts in temperature than to creatures living in the world’s tundra, US scientists warned Monday.
While cold weather animals are used to huge temperature changes, tropical species live under a much smaller temperature range and face a bigger risk of extinction with an increase of just two or four degrees Celsius, according to a team led by University of Washington scientists.
“In the tropics many species appear to be living at or near their thermal optimum, a temperature that lets them thrive,” said Joshua Tewksbury, an assistant professor of biology at the Seattle, Washington university.
22 How to Fight Global Warming at Dinner
LiveScience Staff, LiveScience.com
Mon May 5, 12:10 PM ET
Substituting chicken, fish or vegetables for red meat can help combat climate change, a new study suggests.
In fact, putting these foods on the dinner table does more to reduce carbon emissions than eating locally grown food, researchers report in the May 15 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Environmental advocates and retailers urge customers to purchase goods from local sources to minimize environmental impacts. The idea is that food grown locally requires less fuel for shipping to the store. The new study does not argue that point. Yet few studies have compared greenhouse gas emissions from food production to those of transportation.
23 House Panel Second Guesses NASA’s Zero-G Contract Award
Brian Berger and Becky Iannotta, Space News Staff Writers
Mon May 5, 12:15 PM ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. congressional investigators are scrutinizing NASA’s decision to give Zero Gravity Corp. (Zero-G) a shot at conducting the type of weightless flights for researchers and astronauts the space agency traditionally has conducted aboard its own aircraft.
According to a congressional staffer involved in the investigation, lawmakers are questioning Zero-G’s commitment to NASA, and sources familiar with the matter said the committee is skeptical that commercial flights are cheaper than NASA continuing to use its own plane.
Zero-G, which has flown around 5,000 private citizens aboard a specially equipped Boeing 727 aircraft since launching its parabolic flight service in 2004, signed NASA as a customer in January following an open competition in which the Las Vegas-based company was the sole bidder.
24 How the Wealthy Medici Changed the World
Heather Whipps, LiveScience’s History Columnist
Mon May 5, 10:46 AM ET
Each Monday, this column turns a page in history to explore the discoveries, events and people that continue to affect the history being made today.
Like a medieval ATM, one family bankrolled the cultural movement that dragged Europe out of the Dark Ages and into modernity.
With their love for art, science and culture, the Medici of Florence catalyzed the Renaissance that began in the 14th century, making household names of da Vinci, Michelangelo and Galileo in the process.
25 Volcano in 1600 Caused Global Disruption, Study Suggests
Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer, LiveScience.com
Mon May 5, 10:46 AM ET
The effects of a massive volcanic eruption in Peru more than 400 years ago might have significantly impacted societies and agriculture world-wide, according to a new study of historic records.
Huaynaputina erupted in southern Peru on Feb. 19, 1600, driving volcanic mudflows that destroyed villages for many miles around and spewing a huge column of smoke and ash into the atmosphere.
The eruption of Huaynaputina represents the largest known eruption in South America in the past 500 years, said study leader Ken Verosub of the University of California, Davis.
Health
26 Hospital ERs overwhelmed, one-day study finds
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters
52 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A one-day snapshot of emergency room conditions at 34 U.S. hospitals shows they are all overwhelmed and none is prepared to handle a big event like a disaster or attack.
The report from the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released to coincide with a hearing on Monday, shows emergency rooms in Washington and Los Angeles operating over capacity on an ordinary day. None could have handled a surge of new patients.
Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who heads the committee, used the report to illustrate why he opposes President George W. Bush’s proposed cuts to the federal Medicaid program.
27 Needle-free device delivers pain-free analgesia
Reuters
19 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new needle-free device that delivers a local anesthetic to the skin promises to help make delivering drugs and drawing blood less painful for children.
The system involves a sterile, prefilled, disposable device that dispenses lidocaine powder into the epidermis, the cells that make up the outer layer of the skin, lead author Dr. William T. Kempsky, from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, and colleagues explain.
In the study, investigators randomly assigned a group of children to the powder lidocaine system or to a sham placebo system 1 to 3 minutes before a procedure known as venipuncture, during which a small needle is inserted into a vein in the back of the hand to collect blood, or a procedure called venous cannulation, which is used to drain blood or fluid or administer medications.
Sports
28 At Olympics, drug testers and athletes will square off over doping
By Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon May 5, 2:12 PM ET
BEIJING – When some 11,000 athletes arrive in Beijing for the Summer Olympic Games in August, a few will be playing cat-and-mouse games to avoid random anti-drug tests.
The organizers of the Beijing Games say they’ll test a record 4,500 athletes and operate 41 anti-doping stations at the Olympic Village and competition sites. Chaperones will ensure that athletes submit genuine blood and urine samples.
But drug testing is far from foolproof, and some athletes will get off the hook.
“You can still dope like mad, get the benefits, and go to the games and test clean,” said Peter H. Sonksen , a British endocrinologist and developer of a test to detect usage of human growth hormone.
29 China’s athletes test clean even as nation pumps out the steroids
By Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon May 5, 2:21 PM ET
CHANGCHUN, China – Barely a decade ago, allegations that China juiced its top athletes flourished. After all, dozens tested positive in the 1990s, and when new anti-doping procedures arrived before the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, China suddenly decided to leave 40 athletes at home.
The mood is different now. China pledges to host the cleanest Olympic Games ever this summer, and a state-of-the-art anti-doping lab is set up to enforce the pledge.
These days, China’s elite athletes don’t flinch at anti-doping tests. If there were a competition for cleaning up athletic programs, China could vie for a gold medal. Rarely has a national sports program appeared to turn around so dramatically.
Bloglines 5/5
Digby
30 The Thugs Are Out by dday
Read the whole thing. You’d think there was some kind of Nixon’s plumbers’ reunion tour or something.
…
You’ve got election theft, destruction of evidence (5 million emails), violation of subpoenas, perversion of the instruments of justice, railroading Democratic officials into jail, and now intimidation of witnesses, arson and burglary. It’s all wrapped up with a nice little bow if any Woodwards and Bernsteins want to take a whack at it. Even, you know, Woodward, or Bernstein.
31 Sexual Politics by digby
It’s not the first time I’ve heard this theory. In fact, several correspondents have shared with me the supposedly hilarious observation that Clinton is the “Joan of Arc of the dry pussy demographic” and her “neck looks like a badly folded quilt.” We are all familiar with Rush Limbaugh’s memorable statement that nobody wants to see a woman age before their eyes. (Those last weren’t explicitly sexual observations, but one can assume they refer in some way to the phenomenon that Wolf says he and his friends can’t stop talking about.)
…
It’s tiresome and, frankly, kind of jarring to have to deal with this. I yearn for the days (a few months ago) when I foolishly believed that even though I knew the culture was full of creepy sexual hypocrites, that we had gone beyond the point where this kind of thing was acceptable in the public discourse. I certainly didn’t think I’d read such things blithely bandied about in a mainstream magazine that, judging by the advertisements, is mainly aimed at women. I admit that I’m a little bit gobsmacked at the sheer casualness of the ageist misogyny that’s bubbled up in this campaign. My bad. I’m fairly sure I just wasn’t paying proper attention.