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TOKYO, July 31 (Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd , Japan's biggest electronics maker, said on Tuesday it is considering entering the potentially lucrative Chinese mobile handset market by setting up a joint venture later this year. A spokesman for Hitachi said his company was in talks with Hisense Group of China over setting up a joint venture to produce mobile handsets in a country where mobile phone penetration is low and growth potential high. The move followed news earlier this month that Japanese mobile handset makers, hit by a slowdown in the global handset market, are doubling production in China. ``We ...

Board urges FDA to waive parental consent for some medical experiments The Associated Press 7/31/01 4:20 PM WASHINGTON (AP) -- A government panel is recommending that the Food and Drug Administration let certain teen-agers participate in medical experiments without their parents' consent. The FDA regulates all testing of drugs and medical devices. FDA attorneys say federal law governing the agency mandates that only adults can consent to medical experiments and that such consent can be waived only in a medical emergency. However, the Department of Health and Human Services has rules allowing some teens with certain conditions, such as pregnancy ...

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is praising the Game Show Network for removing a "Match Game" episode from the mid-'70s that first aired July 18 on GSN. In the episode of the often-racy, fill-in-the-blank show, host Gene Rayburn asked the panel, "Doris just got married and found out that her husband was a ‘blank.' " Guests Dick Gautier (Hymie from "Get Smart") and his wife, Barbara, answered with: "Fag." "Game Show Network is to be congratulated for removing gratuitously bigoted remarks, even from an old TV show, that aren't worth repeating," says GLAAD spokesman Scott Seomin. ...

Firefighters struggling to contain a blaze in central Washington State that ultimately killed four of their own were hampered in their efforts by a federal policy to protect endangered fish, Fox News has learned. Firefighters were unable to douse the deadly fire in Okanogan National Forest in Winthrop, Wash., in July because of delays in granting permission for fire-fighting helicopters to use water from nearby streams and rivers protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to sources close to the fire. Firefighters Tom L. Craven, 30, Karen L. Fitzpatrick, 18, Devin A Weaver, 21, and Jessica L. Johnson, 19, burned ...

LIVINGSTON, Texas — Death row inmate Napoleon Beazley has come to terms with the fact that he only has a few weeks left to live. "Death is inevitable," said Beazley, who was sentenced to die for murdering a 63-year-old man during a carjacking he committed when he was 17. "It's not like it's my adversary." Beazley's case may have left him resigned to his fate, but it has been seized by death penalty critics as the focus of a renewed criticism of the execution of teenagers. Amnesty International, in a new report highlighting Beazley's case, objects to the execution of teen ...

Away from public eye, Bill Clinton is a violent, profane man who wants to "kill" his enemies By DOUG THOMPSON Away from the public eye and the vaunted White House spin machine, President Bill Clinton is a vulgar, vengeful man who believes in "killing" people try to hurt him, those who know Clinton best say. White House staffers, Clinton confidants and others describe Clinton as "incredibly profane" and "an angry man who wants to inflict as much pain as possible on his enemies." Former White House senior staff member George Stephanopoulos in his book, All Too Human, writes about Clinton's ...

The Roots of Racial Profiling Why are police targeting minorities for traffic stops? By Gene Callahan and William Anderson It is early in the morning, and the well-dressed young African-American man driving his Ford Explorer on I-75 sees the blue lights of the Georgia State Patrol car behind him. The officer pulls behind the sport utility vehicle and the young man’s heart begins to sink. He is on his way to Atlanta for a job interview. The stop, ostensibly for speeding, should not take long, he reasons, as the highway patrol officer walks cautiously toward the Explorer. But instead of ...

SINGAPORE, July 31 (Reuters) - Sinopec Corp and Royal Dutch/Shell are expected to complete negotiations to build a chain of retail gasoline stations in the east of China by end 2001, industry sources said on Tuesday. Sources said the companies were still ironing out a series of joint venture agreements to form the chain that will service the eastern province of Jiangsu. The joint venture, which was originally slated to be established by July, should now be up and running by the end of the year, they said. ``Sinopec aims to have an official launching ceremony in early September, but ...

Karl Rove's moronic strategy for wooing the Hispanic vote The August 6 issue of Newsweek carries an article on the bidding war going on between the Republicans and Democrats for Hispanic support. The chief strategist for the Republicans is Bush advisor Karl (Carlos) Rove who is touting his boss's Spanish ability, friendship with Mexican President Fox and his plans to offer some form of amnesty to illegal Mexican residents. The article notes that the Democrats are now unfettered by organized labor in competing with the Republicans, because labor is doing its own courting of illegal workers. FAIR's Dan Stein ...

Its revealed in a post that a Democrat Virginia Delegate, James F. Almand used State money to print a brochure (Richmond Report) which essentially says that abolishing the Virginia Car tax spells doom and gloom for Virginia. Is this ethical. A copy of his opening letter from the brochure is posted at Capitol Grilling at: http://www.capitolgrilling.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001293

There is a delightful vignette in the 1967 film Guide for the Married Man, in which a middle-aged woman discovers her husband in flagrante delicto with a young woman. As she screams hysterically, her husband and the young woman get out of bed and put their clothes on without saying a word. The young woman leaves, and the man puts on his smoking jacket, calmly lights his pipe, and sits down in his easy chair. He continues to ignore her screams. Eventually, she quiets down, and, as the vignette ends, the woman is wondering whether she had actually seen her ...

This is an invitation for interested FReepers to share their experience and preferences with regard to selecting a small business website hosting provider. I have developed the site file and would look to upload it through FTP. While I can use the company that currently provides my web access, this provider seems to charge rates higher ($30.00/month and $25 setup fee) than others I've seen (after doing a brief Google search). If you have gone through this process and can recommend a provider with which you are satisfied, please respond. I welcome any comments anyone may wish to provide. I ...

And how. Forty percent of vacationers are in daily—yes, daily—contact with their offices Washington’s conventional wisdom, which often is the wishful thinking in its media culture, is that George W. Bush’s presidency is floundering. But as he passes the six-month mark, only one eighth of the way through his term, his serenity seems grounded in some favorable developments. THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT votes Congress will cast this year have gone as Bush wished and the media did not. One passed his tax cut. The other killed campaign-finance reform—the plan for government rationing of the political speech of everyone except the ...

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Arab Delegations Consider U.N. Wording by ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) -- Arab delegations insisted Tuesday that a U.N. document on racism criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians even if language equating Zionism with racism is dropped under pressure from Washington and the United Nations. Negotiators from Arab countries met to discuss strategy after the top U.N. rights official agreed with the United States that the Zionism wording could wreck the World Conference Against Racism, starting Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa. The Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said it was ''shocked'' by the position taken by ...

What they were really thinking.....

Cornpone Texan Molly Ivins is one the country's more deranged journalists–along with her buddy Jim Hightower–but I did get a kick out of her August 6 Time column about President Bush. She wrote: "For years I have been trying to persuade people that George W. Bush, although no Einstein, is not stupid. Now comes word he is returning to Texas for most of August. He could have gone to Kennebunkport, Maine, instead. I give up. If you put his brain in a duck, it would fly north for the winter." I like ducks; watching them in the water and served ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Gray Davis' press secretary said Tuesday he won't resign for recently buying stock in the same energy company as five state consultants who were fired for possible conflict of interest. Steve Maviglio confirmed Monday that on June 20 he bought 300 shares of stock in Calpine Corp., a San Jose-based power generator that has received about $13 billion in state contracts to supply electricity for up to 20 years. Secretary of State Bill Jones called for Maviglio's firing. Jones is a candidate for the Republican nomination to challenge Davis in November 2002. Gubernatorial spokeswoman ...

TULSA -- A University of Tulsa chemistry professor says stale beer could be used to clean the contaminated water of Tar Creek, one of the nation's worst Superfund sites. Study to investigate solutions More Coverage Tar Creek is a former zinc mining area in northeastern Oklahoma that was placed on the original Superfund list almost 20 years ago. When the mining ended, chat -- mine waste with dangerous levels of lead -- zinc and cadmium were left behind. The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions to clean up the area. A task force appointed by Gov. Frank Keating has ...

ABA to debate ethics changes for lawyers By AL SWANSON CHICAGO, July 31 (UPI) -- The American Bar Association's policy-making House of Delegates plans to consider changes in ethics rules for lawyers next week that could limit the secrets lawyers are required to keep after hearing confidential disclosures by clients. Another controversial amendment to the rules for professional conduct would bar lawyers from having sex with clients unless the sexual relationship predated the client-lawyer relationship. The 500-member ABA House of Delegates has scheduled four hours of debate on ethics Monday and Tuesday at the association's 2001 annual meeting, which ...