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US Secretary of State Colin Powell achieved a two-pronged diplomatic victory during his 24-hour visit to Beijing last week. The former four-star general not only persuaded Chinese leaders to accommodate US concerns but also convinced the administration of President George W. Bush to return to a policy of engagement with China. With his conciliatory tone and style, Mr Powell appears to have put the China-US relationship on a better footing after months of open hostility stemming from the Hainan spy plane incident, the Bush administration's "strategic competitor" approach to China and arms sales to Taiwan. Mr Powell called Chinese leaders ...

China appliance maker Haier seeks cool U.S. image NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - For most American shoppers, ``Made in China'' may still suggest cheap toys, but China's largest household appliance maker has ambitious plans to change that with its sales of a growing range of sleek minibars and refrigerated wine cases. Haier Group Co., which according to some industry estimates is the world's second-biggest maker of refrigerators, is seeking to outflank America's three major appliance makers by competing on image rather than price, and by targeting students in the hope that they will remain loyal as they get older. ...

Government Study Estimates That 850,000 Children Are Home-Schooled Thursday, August 02, 2001 About 1.7 percent of America's children are being taught at home, most of them by well-educated parents, according to a new government study. The Education Department's research says that around 850,000 of America's 50 million children are homeschooled. The figures come from a telephone survey of 57,278 households conducted in the first five months of 1999. Officials say the numbers show homeschooling is on the rise. "The number of parents taking direct responsibility for teaching their children through homeschooling is approaching a million, and we expect the next ...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources confirmed Wednesday that a second U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived in the Persian Gulf in what Navy officials describe as a routine rotation. The second U.S. aircraft carrier doubles, at least briefly, the available sea-based firepower at a time when the Pentagon is contemplating airstrikes against Iraq's air defenses. Sources told CNN the USS Enterprise arrived in the southern Gulf on Wednesday and will soon join the USS Constellation, which is about to end its scheduled tour of duty. The rotation of the two carriers is expected to take about a week, according to Navy ...

Hunt for Oil on Caspian Sea Stokes Border Feuds and Arcane Theories By STEVE LEVINE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BAKU, Azerbaijan -- On a hot day last week, scientists working for oil giant BP PLC looked out from their aging research vessel, the Geofizik-3, to a disturbing sight coming across the Caspian Sea: an Iranian patrol boat, with machine guns mounted on its deck. While no shots were fired, the Geofizik-3 and a sister ship were quickly shooed out of what Iran considers its own territorial waters. The trouble is, BP reckons those waters belong to Azerbaijan, ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his merry minions of global statecraft have done it again! Last month, they offered to sacrifice the Second Amendment on the altar of "International Cooperation" at their "United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects." Having failed in their efforts to relieve Americans of their right to self-defense, the nice folks at the big blue building on the East River in New York are now poised to strip us of our self-respect. Kofi and his cronies are calling for a "World Conference Against ...

Larry Kudlow (back to story)August 3, 2001A gross domestic situation NEW YORK -- It's a recession. The headlines don't tell the story, but it's the real story. Stock-market investors have known it for over a year. People in business know it, as inventories and jobs have been slashed. The latest government report on the nation's gross domestic product for the April-June quarter revealed that the heart of the U.S. economy has indeed slipped into recession. It's the second consecutive quarterly decline for the private sector economy. Although the official figures cited a tiny 0.7 percent annual rise in overall real ...

Chinese government-owned firms would be denied access to US stock and bond markets under legislation due to be introduced yesterday by a powerful US senator and frequent China critic, Republican Jesse Helms. The United States "cannot and should not subsidise the barbarous, Communist Chinese Government when China tortures, imprisons, and murders its own people", Senator Helms said. The measure - dubbed the China Free Enterprise Act of 2001 - would prohibit any Chinese state-owned firm from listing stocks or issuing bonds on US capital markets, including the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. The senator's statement specifically ...

The latest political spin is that we should shift our focus away from Congressman Gary Condit and concentrate on finding Chandra Levy. But what we really need to do -- and urgently -- is begin to shift our focus away from Chandra Levy and look much more closely and thoughtfully at Congressman Condit. Realistically, after all this time, there is very little chance of finding Chandra Levy alive. Even finding her body becomes less and less likely, after massive searches have failed to turn up anything. Whatever Gary Condit's past role in the life of Chandra Levy, he has a ...

Senator Says Democrats Have Dropped 'So Help Me God' From Witness Oaths Sen. Jeff Sessions wants witnesses before Senate committees to know that their testimonies are going before God, too. The Alabama Republican is angry with Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., for leaving out the customary "so help me God" when swearing in those who testify before the committee. Leahy says he reads the oath from a card and did not realize the phrase was not written there. The previous Judiciary Committee chairman, Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, swore in witnesses by asking: "Do you swear the testimony you are about to ...

August 2, 2001 Captain Ray Lahr (ret) 18254 Coastline Drive Malibu, CA 90265 Ms. Carol J. Carmody Acting Chairman National Transportation Safety Board 490 L’Enfant Plaza East SW Washington, D.C. 20594 Dear Ms. Carmody: Your response dated July 27, 2001, to my FOIA request # 2001-0048 is sincerely appreciated. I would really like to meet with you and your staff to discuss the hypothetical climb of TWA 800. It is my impression that your staff may have given you some misinformation relating to stalls. Your staff is correct that TWA 800 experienced a high-speed stall immediately after the nose was ...

KUALA LUMPUR: The political unrest and economic turmoil in Indonesia are leading contributors to piracy in Southeast Asian waters reaching a 10-year high, an international watchdog said on Thursday. The Piracy Reporting Centre said worldwide actual or attempted piracy attacks from January to June hit a 10-year high for the period of 165. Indonesia accounted for 44 incidents and 14 occurred in the busy Malacca Strait separating Southeast Asia's biggest country from Malaysia, said the Kuala Lumpur-based centre in a half-yearly report. "It is common knowledge that attacks originate from Indonesia and have increased due to the breakdown in law ...

Top general is accused of sex bias By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES A Pentagon investigation of the U.S. Southern Command is centering on charges from one officer that the commanding general, who has been under consideration for a top position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tolerated anti-women attitudes. The officer's unsubstantiated written complaint, a copy of which was made available to The Washington Times, contends that Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace "knows of the behavior and tolerates it." Her charges are contained in an "open letter" and a hot-line complaint. They prompted an investigation by the Pentagon's inspector ...

WASHINGTON — Congress' summer recess is usually a time for lawmakers to return home, reconnect with constituents and relax before heading back here for more political combat. But for Rep. Gary Condit, the prospect of spending the next month back in Modesto, Calif., might be even more disconcerting than his past three months here, a period in which the disappearance of former government intern Chandra Levy exposed Condit's extramarital sex life and put his political career in jeopardy.Condit, 53, is accustomed to warm homecomings in his Northern California district, where his zealous devotion to constituent service and his support of ...

Review & Outlook Taste Oh Ye of Little Economics We all understand the Gospel's injunction to look out for the least of our brethren. But the political priorities that result sure can take curious forms. In Massachusetts, an activist affiliated with the Harvard Divinity School helped organize a protest against . . . SUVs. The Web page of the National Council of Churches opens with the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar attacking the recent Bush tax cut -- and then asking people to send their refunds to him. And the Catholic bishops interpret church teaching to require that government ...

L to R: Ricky, Samantha,Maria (holding) Isaiah, Carla, Estefan Christina and Breanna

The truth about the environment Aug 2nd 2001 From The Economist print edition Environmentalists tend to believe that, ecologically speaking, things are getting worse and worse. Bjorn Lomborg, once deep green himself, argues that they are wrong in almost every particular ECOLOGY and economics should push in the same direction. After all, the “eco” part of each word derives from the Greek word for “home”, and the protagonists of both claim to have humanity's welfare as their goal. Yet environmentalists and economists are often at loggerheads. For economists, the world seems to be getting better. For many environmentalists, it ...

Originally posted to the first thread. Aliska came up with the "Smile! You're on Komrade Kamera!" bit, which was an INCREDIBLE stroke of genius (I'da never thought of it ;-) The smaller pic is, ironically, a World War II-era U.S. propoganda poster... intended to warn Americans about Axis spy efforts. Anyhoo, here's the poster...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Results of a math test given periodically to students across the country show that fourth graders and eighth graders made modest, steady gains while the scores of 12th graders declined slightly. The test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the nation's report card, showed at all tested grade levels a growing gap between the numbers of black and white students who were proficient in math. The same held true between Latinos and whites. As lawmakers and the White House redraw federal standards for raising student achievement, the new scores offer a snapshot of progress ...

In perusing the Internet, I came across a few companies that may soon be recruiting for jobs. They perform dreaded oil drilling in Alaska. For anyone looking for a job, they may be looking for employees. NABORS ALASKA DRILLING, INC MAJOR ALASKA DRILLING INC. BP (ALASKA) EXPLORATION INC Does anyone have the background to be able to create a graphic (perhaps a map) with a 1/32 of an inch dot on an Alaska map to show how much land will actually be subject to drilling? Also, can someone put up a picture of the land in question. It does not ...