“Pakistan outsources part of terror war to militia - Boston Globe” plus 4 more |
- Pakistan outsources part of terror war to militia - Boston Globe
- Dad Arrested for Kissing His Daughter - AOL
- British Foreign Office denies ‘secret’ Libya deal - MSNBC
- Layoffs lead to fewer corporate blood donors in US - BusinessWeek
- Indiana team seeks lunar rover prize - Indianapolis Star
| Pakistan outsources part of terror war to militia - Boston Globe Posted: 13 Sep 2009 10:02 AM PDT Mohammed claimed his militia has between 3,000 and 4,000 men, spread out over Waziristan and bordering regions. Even if accurate, that is much less than the approximately 15,000 men the Pakistani Taliban are believed to have in the area.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Dad Arrested for Kissing His Daughter - AOL Posted: 13 Sep 2009 09:55 AM PDT Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks attend a memorial ceremony on Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center site in New York. More than 2,700 died in the attacks eight years ago. Chip East, AFP / Getty Images Guests attend a memorial ceremony on Sept. 11 at the temporary memorial of the crash of Flight 93 during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in Shanksville, Pa. Jeff Swensen, Getty Images Port Authority Police Officer Kim Bonsanti plays "Taps" at the World Trade Center site in New York on Sept. 11. More than 2,700 died in the attacks eight years ago.
Swans swim past a sculpture entitled "La Fourchette Geante" (The giant fork) during its unveiling, in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, on Sept. 11. Jean-Christophe Bott, AP Members of the 3rd Platoon, Able Company, 3-509th Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 4th BDE -25th Infantry Division patrol an area damaged during a Taliban assault on July 4th in Zerok, Afghanistan, on Sept. 11. Dima Gavrysh, AP Workers squeegee the main court in Arthur Ashe Stadium prior to the start of play at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, on Sept. 11. Charles Krupa, AP People cross a flooded street by boat in Ghatal, India, on Sept. 11. Nine people died in flood-related incidents in India as heavy rains struck the country. AP The first-ever women recruits for the Indian Border Security Force patrol the India-Pakistan border fence near Amritsar, India, Sept. 11. A total of 178 women recruits were inducted into the force. Most will patrol the 343-mile-long border, while 60 will be posted on the India-Bangladesh border, officials said. Altaf Qadri, AP Japan's H-IIB rocket launches from the Tanegashima Space Center on the southern island of Kyushu on Sept. 11. Japan sent its first cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, aiming for a share of space transport after the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet next year. Jiji Press / AFP / Getty Images British ice sculptor Duncan Hamilton carves a replica of Big Ben in Covent Garden, London, on Sept. 11. His sculpture of London's iconic skyline features Canary Wharf, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the London Eye, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Gherkin. Shaun Curry, AFP / Getty Images  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| British Foreign Office denies ‘secret’ Libya deal - MSNBC Posted: 13 Sep 2009 09:55 AM PDT LONDON - Britain's complicated relations with Libya returned to center stage Sunday as Foreign Office diplomats took the unusual step of denying a newspaper report about a secret deal with Moammar Gaddafi's regime. The officials said there was no truth to a front-page Sunday Times article alleging that British diplomats had made a secret deal with Libya three years ago that would prevent the killer of a British policewoman from going on trial in Britain. The newspaper said British officials seeking to make trade and oil deals with Libya secretly agreed that the person responsible for killing policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London 25 years ago would not be brought to trial in Britain. The report said even her family had been kept in the dark. Intense security "It is entirely misleading and simply wrong to suggest that there was a 'secret deal' over the treatment of any suspect in relation to the murder of Yvonne Fletcher," said a Foreign Office spokesman, who asked not to be identified in line with government policy. He said the exchange of letters cited by the newspaper did not outline a secret deal but simply established that under Libyan law in effect at the time there was no way for a Libyan to be extradited to face trial abroad. That meant any suspect in the Fletcher murder could only be tried inside Libya, the spokesman said, adding that the British government is pressing the Libyan government to allow Scotland Yard investigators to travel to Libya to pursue leads in the case. Libya suspended its cooperation with the British police after reports surfaced of a British-led plot to kill Gaddafi, but British officials hope this can be reversed since there has been a significant thaw in ties between the two countries since Gaddafi renounced terrorism and abandoned his program to develop weapons of mass destruction. No visible progress Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in 1984. No one has been convicted for her killing, though the Libyan government has accepted that its agents were responsible. The British government says Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised the matter with Gaddafi when the two met in July at a summit in Italy. Brown's government has been criticized in recent weeks for making too many concessions to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi because of its desire for more trade and oil-related contracts, and the Sunday Times article fueled this sentiment. William Hague, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said an independent inquiry is needed to evaluate the entire range of the government's dealings with Libya. "They once again stand accused of lack of candor and double dealing," Hague said of the government. "The Foreign Secretary will need to give a full and transparent account of how ministers have conducted themselves." Liberal Democrat spokesman Ed Davey said the Times article is consistent with other reports about British diplomats cozying up to Libya for trade reasons. "It increasingly seems as if ministers were prepared to give Colonel Gaddafi anything he wanted in return for oil, gas and arms contracts," he said. "It's not surprising that they tried to keep this shoddy behavior secret and failed to inform Parliament, the public and even the parents of Yvonne Fletcher."  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Layoffs lead to fewer corporate blood donors in US - BusinessWeek Posted: 13 Sep 2009 09:48 AM PDT JACKSONVILLE, Florida Before the recession hit, Jacksonville's blood bank would pull its buses up to the Anheuser-Busch brewery and pump 300 units of blood from employees. Then came buyouts, retirements and layoffs. During the company's last blood drive, the Blood Alliance only collected about 45 units. Which is why, on a recent day, the organization's bloodmobile was parked in a driving rainstorm outside a small law firm. With the smell of latex gloves in the air, donors read the paper and listened to soft rock on the radio as workers pricked their arms with needles. "We have to do smaller blood drives," explained John Helgren, a spokesman for the Blood Alliance. "We have to work harder to get blood these days." In some hard-hit pockets of the United States, from Florida to Michigan to Southern California, blood centers are noticing a pattern: corporate drives are attracting fewer donors, likely because of the economy. America's overall blood supply is adequate to cover local shortages, but in some areas a majority of blood is donated during workplace drives because people tend to give where it's convenient. When workers are laid off or aren't replaced after retirements and buyouts, there are fewer donors. The employees who are left don't feel like they can take the time to give, or don't feel like it. That leaves blood banks scrambling. "We are seeing a direct effect of the recession," said Toni Gould, spokeswoman for Michigan Community Blood Centers, which has seen a 15 percent to 20 percent drop this summer. Michigan's unemployment rate of 15.6 percent is the highest in the U.S. "So many businesses and factories are closing, and they accounted for a large share of mobile drives." It's a similar story in Wisconsin, where a spokeswoman from the Badger-Hawkeye Red Cross says 33 corporate drives were canceled from June through August, resulting in 1,700 fewer units collected. The state's unemployment rate of 8.7 percent has doubled in the last year. And Florida Blood Services in Tampa -- where the unemployment rate is 11.3 percent -- had to import several thousand units of blood to cover an August shortfall. Spokesman Dan Eberts said employees at some companies are also working from home -- or traveling to countries like India, where new headquarters have been set up. That makes them temporarily ineligible to donate because it's possible they were exposed to a blood-borne disease. And the workers who survive layoffs often aren't in a giving mood. "Some people were like, 'And now you want my blood?'" Eberts said. While certain areas report a decline in donations, the American Red Cross says there hasn't yet been a significant drop overall -- but that might be changing. Many businesses are canceling blood drives, and the Red Cross is starting to see fewer donors than in previous months, said Stephanie Millian, the organization's director of biomedical communication. But she noted that it's too soon to tell if it's a seasonal shift, or one caused by the poor economy. The decline in blood donation in some areas coincides with an overall decline in corporate charity. For example, United Way spokeswoman Sally Fabens said that in 2008, workplace campaigns declined 4.5 percent from the previous year -- and corporate gifts to the organization declined 3.9 percent. Some blood centers say summer donations are always down because of vacations and closed high schools, where drives are often held. Also, the eligible donor population keeps shrinking as people visit exotic, malaria-ridden locales or get tattoos -- people who get inked often can't give blood for a year because of possible infections. In general, the Red Cross has tightened its criteria for donors in the past 10 years or so. The Red Cross of Southern California saw its corporate donations dip earlier in the year, and suspected it was because layoffs. So the group started using a machine that collects twice as many red blood cells from donors and changed how it schedules blood drives. "I don't want to say were in a fabulous situation," spokesman Nick Samaniego said. "We're not in a crisis situation -- but we're not exactly where we want to be." Many locations say the drop in donations correlates with a drop in usage -- if people move away it generally means there are fewer people left in the community who might need blood. But in Jacksonville, blood usage is up, said the Blood Alliance's Helgren. On the recent day outside of the law firm -- in a building with a dozen other small businesses -- about 15 people had signed up. "There's some peer pressure to donate in our firm, because everybody knows the partners always donate," said lawyer Heath Brockwell, as he squeezed a red rubber ball to get his vein primed for donating. Despite the incentive to be entered into a raffle for tickets to the Florida-Georgia football game, the Blood Alliance collected just seven pints of blood in three hours from the building's employees. The Alliance provides blood to hospitals -- and Helgren says officials are struggling to fill a critical shortage of rare O negative blood, which can be transfused into anyone. "And we can't always rely on other blood banks to help us out," he said. The increased unemployment has helped one segment of the blood industry, though: For-profit plasma centers, which pay up to $200 a month if a person sells plasma twice a week, have seen a jump in business. There were 15 million plasma donations in 2007, and that jumped to 18.8 million in 2008, according to their trade group. Plasma, the fluid part of blood, is generally used to treat burn victims and to create prescription drugs.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Indiana team seeks lunar rover prize - Indianapolis Star Posted: 13 Sep 2009 09:41 AM PDT ANDERSON, Ind. A dozen people representing aerospace programs around the country are working in Anderson in an effort to win millions by designing a rover to land on the moon. The Google Lunar X PRIZE carries awards of up to $20 million for first prize and $5 million for second. State roundup: Click here for the latest headlines from around Indiana. Teams robots must land on the moon and then successfully travel 500 meters, or about 540 yards, over the lunar surface and send images and data back to Earth. The team based out of Anderson Municipal Airport includes representatives from Purdue University, the University of Dayton, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and other universities and aerospace institutions. The final deadline for winning the prize is Dec. 31, 2014.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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