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China's Electric Vehicle Test Facility A January 1999 report from U.S. Embassy Beijing Summary: During a recent visit to Shantou, a city in Guangdong Province, Embassy Beijing Environment, Science and Technology Counselor (ESTCOUNS) toured China's recently established test facility set up to study and evaluate different types of electric vehicles and, at some later point, alternative fuel vehicles. The center, opened in June 1998, covers 7.59 acres, including buildings, parking areas, and a small test track, with 3000 square meters of office and garage space in a multi-story building. The original plan called for thirty vehicles, fifteen from foreign ...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Fighter jets roared low over the capital of Kabul Sunday heading north to the front lines where Taliban and opposition forces were engaged in a bitter battle. Opposition soldiers, led by ousted defense chief Ahmed Shah Massood, said throughout the night Taliban fighter jets pounded their positions about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul. Several Taliban soldiers were apparently arrested, according to opposition spokesman, Bismillah Khan. Among those arrested was a fighter from Sudan, identified as Abdul Tuwab, he said. The northern-based opposition controls pockets of the country -- roughly 5 percent and the ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Beware, for the champions of Canadian-style health care are sniffing around the halls of the Senate. The ascension of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to the chairmanship of the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, where Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) sits as his closest ally on the issue, means that the backdoor drift toward "Clintoncare" will continue. For years, Kennedy has labored to bring socialized medicine to America. Hillary, sadder but wiser since her first effort on the issue failed miserably, is seeking an opportunity for vindication. Unfortunately they, along with ...

Bush Team Weighs New Cut To Rev Up Flagging Economy The Bush administration is edging toward supporting a cut in the capital gains tax as a way to stimulate the flagging economy that Republicans fear could lead to big Democratic gains in House elections next year, administration officials said yesterday. The officials said the administration is debating whether to support the new tax cut as a preemptive strike against further deterioration of the economy or wait until mid-October to see whether economic indicators are still dropping. Continued economic weakness would make a rate reduction less vulnerable to likely Democratic attacks, ...

ETROIT — As long as Americans could count on stable prices for gasoline, they did not have much interest in vehicles that ran on anything else. But unpredictable fuel prices have helped to spur demand in a small assortment of cars and trucks that are available with diesel engines and for hybrid vehicles that run on a combination electric motor and gasoline engine. "It's always great to go 500 miles on less than $20 in gas," said Jim Alden of Hollywood, who recently sold his 1994 Honda Accord and bought a $22,000 silver 2001 Toyota (news/quote) Prius, one of two ...

MIAMI (AP) - Three former bodyguards sued television talk show host Rosie O'Donnell this week, saying she recorded their conversations without their knowledge in her Star Island mansion. Bodyguards Steven Rubino, Chris Delia and Ted Van Rijn said they were fired when they confronted O'Donnell about the monitoring of the room they used as an office. They filed a lawsuit Thursday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Florida law prohibits audio recording of people without their consent. But the law may apply differently to homesteads, where it is common to monitor nurseries and nannies, said Michael Fischl, a law professor at the ...

The DNC Card, 2001/09/08

More than four months after Chandra Levy vanished, frustrated investigators have interviewed hundreds of people who worked with, exercised with or lived near the missing intern, gone back to talk to about two dozen people and retraced their steps in the probe – but are no closer to solving her mysterious disappearance. Click here for the rest of the story Washington Post so I will summarize. The Police have squat. The Post interviewed the chief and he refuses to rule Condit out as a suspect, but basically says they are not able to do anything until they find blood, trace ...

BOSTON (AP) - The decision to tell his family he was gay didn't go well for one Bridgewater State student. His father threatened to cut him off financially and left the junior feeling "like a piece of trash." "There's no way I could support myself," said the 22-year-old, who asked that his name not be used. "I was very, very scared." A new scholarship offered by the school could make it easier for gay and lesbian students to break unwelcome news by helping gay students whose families refuse to support them financially. The school says it's the only program of ...

Click on source for full text article in the WP.

Saturday September 8 5:58 PM ET Egypt Mulls Status of Jewish Tomb By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Protecting an ancient Jewish tomb in the Nile Delta is a matter of history - not religion or politics, Egypt's top antiquities official said Saturday. He said he would appeal a court ruling striking the grave from a list of protected monuments. An administrative court in Alexandria ruled Thursday that a government decision in January to register the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hatzeira as a monument was a ``serious violation of the law.'' Gaballah Ali Gaballah, ...

LINDEN, Texas--A woman wanted on charges of fabricating evidence and giving false statements to investigators is expected to turn herself in to Cass County authorities over the weekend, according to a Dallas-area NAACP official. A Cass County Jail spokesman said late Friday that deputies had not been able to locate Camille Fulton, 32, of Bivins, Texas, since warrants were issued for her Thursday morning. "We have found her an attorney and arranged for her to meet with him," said Anthony Bond of the Irving, Texas, chapter of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. "The plans are for the ...

Ex-Vice President Al Gore is said to be readying a blistering attack on President Bush, set for public debut at the Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Iowa on Sept. 28. A Gore insider tells next week's U.S. News & World Report's "Washington Whispers" that, "He is focusing on Bush's economic stewardship, foreign policy, and the environment. He has been both sharp and sharp-tongued." Gore has already road tested his Bush-whack in smaller venues in San Francisco, New York and D.C. and is said to be happy with audience reaction. Backers are describing the upcoming Iowa speech as Gore's ...

otice the common thread running through these three tales? ¶The Starbucks Corporation (news/quote), responding to concerns that growing coffee caused rain-forest carnage, spends some $200,000 to help Mexican farmers improve the quality of beans grown under a forest canopy. "We weren't sure they'd ever grow beans we would sell," said Orin C. Smith, the company's chief executive. In fact, the premium-priced coffee produced by the Mexicans turns out to be so tasty, and is selling so well in the United States, that Starbucks is introducing it overseas and to institutional customers. It has increased its order for Mexican shade-grown beans ...

Book Says Clinton 'Incoherent' in Final Days Barbara Olson's explosive new book isn't out in bookstores yet and won't be available for several more weeks, but details of her "Final Days" are already starting to leak out. Olson is one of Washington's most well-connected attorneys. Her husband, Ted Olson, is Solicitor General of the U.S. Her "inside" White House sources will, no doubt, be impeccable. NewsMax hears that Olson will reveal that Clinton and his wife acted like fleeing dictators racing against a timeclock in losing their kingdom, trying to loot the presidential palace before they choppered out. Olson ...

Pittston Special Investigative Unit officers were given the chance Tuesday to test the latest weapons added to the police department's arsenal. The unit recently received a German Heckler & Koch, 40-caliber submachine gun. SIU officers are now preparing to undergo training to become certified to carry and use the firearm while on duty. "We waited a year to get this weapon," said James Sulima, detective/sergeant and coordinator for the SIU. Former police chief, Greg Policare, who retired from his position on Aug. 31, founded the unit. The SIU handles critical crime investigations within the city as well as working ...

Senator James M. Jeffords, who shook Washington's political foundations when he became an independent, won an ovation at the spiritual base of Vermont Republicanism when he told the annual Calvin Coolidge dinner that "one person can make a difference, and I did." Mr. Jeffords has been much the taciturn Yankee in the weeks since announcing his defection from the party of his ancestors on May 24, but he said on Friday night that the Senate Republican leadership was determined to "wipe out the moderates' influence." He became an independent, he said, to restore that influence and to emphasize the need ...

Welcome to FReeoples Bar & Grill This thread began in the summer of 2001 when a core group of aggrieved refugees set sail from their old home and washed ashore here at Free Republic, the Ellis Island of cyberspace for those who truly cherish the Constitution. But what began as a mere port-of-entry has since evolved, thanks to the hands extended by so many veteran FReepers, into a true FRiendship Society. Yet immigrants everywhere must soon find a niche from which to develop as citizens. And so it seemed only natural that we should delve into entrepreneurship by opening ...

Does anyone else find it ironic that the official symbol of the Democratic party is a donkey (JACKASS)? The donkey: stuborn and stupid! It's perfect. There must have been at least one honest Democrat in the party at one time. Does anyone know the history pertaining to this? Just curious.

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