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LatelineNews: 2001-9-8] WASHINGTON - Russian, North Korean and Chinese "entities" supplied fresh ballistic missile-related equipment and know-how to Iran last year, moving it toward self-sufficiency in long-range missile production, CIA Director George Tenet told Congress on Friday. In an unclassified version of a report on deadly weapons mandated by law, Tenet said Iran remained one of the most active seekers of foreign technology for developing and delivering weapons of mass destruction, Reuters reported. During the period covered by the report -- July 1 to Dec. 31, 2000 -- Tehran was described as pressing ahead with an effort to develop a ...

WorldNetDaily: Walk away from U.N. now, while we still can                                 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8 2001                   Page 1 News   Page 2 News   LocalNetDaily   Commentary   Classified Ads   Live Chat   Letters   TalkNetDaily   SportsNetDaily   Health   Weather   TV Guide   Movies   TravelNetDaily   Business   Stocks   ShopNetDaily //-->   ShopNetDaily     Walk away from U.N. now, while we still can © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com The United States walked away from the United Nations Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa last week, which, along with the U.S. ...

European intransigence forced African states to back down yesterday on virtually every demand over an apology and reparations for trans-Atlantic slavery in order to save the United Nations anti-racism conference in Durban from total collapse. Last-minute wording on the Middle East crisis was also agreed after Arab countries bowed to pressure from the South African hosts and dropped their demand that Israel be called a 'racist state'. As the conference belatedly closed after a week of often bitter negotiations, the final agreement reveals a fudged text that carefully skirts all direct reference to European culpability. South African Cabinet Minister Geraldine ...

IMF-Security Concerns About Meetings Not OverstatedWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) said on Friday that security concerns surrounding the annual meetings which it shares with the World Bank (news - web sites) are not overstated. An IMF spokesman said that some of the protest organizers have indicated that their protests during the September 29-30 meetings will not be peaceful. ``For those who think that security concerns are perhaps overstated, there really are quite a few indications that people are planning activities that do not fit in the peaceful category,'' Tom Dawson, External Relations Director told ...

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2 ALL PREVIOUS THREADS LABOR DAY EDITION In light of the Daffodil Principle where individual efforts over time add up to a mammoth contribution, we are looking at ways to use this lesson as we seek to promote conservatism, the Republican Party and the administration of George Bush. We are currently involved in a letter-writing campaign - Project Daffodil-Letters. Some of us have been involved in the Klamath Falls Petition, and the People First petition to defund the Endangered Species ...

Some witnesses said the fighting began when a Christian woman tried to cross a road filled with Muslims engaged in their Friday evening prayers.        OBASANJO APPEALED for peace in an emotional broadcast on state radio. Authorities imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew to try to stem the bloodletting, which broke out Friday evening at the time of Muslim prayers.        Terrified residents said the fighting persisted unabated Saturday.        “Put us in your prayers!” said Mary Dung, a Christian resident of a neighborhood in southern Jos. By telephone, Dung described smoke rising from burning ...

Beijing's sub rosa efforts to punish investment banks which do prominent promotion for Taiwanese corporate fundraisers has just been escalated to the level of diplomatic complaint by the United States Government. It is a dispute which China should not have allowed to happen in the first place. The problem began with efforts by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) to publicise Taiwanese financial deals planned for the coming months. This included staging investment conferences in Hong Kong and Europe attended by Taiwanese officials, including Finance Minister Yen Ching-chang. These are common events, designed to convince other bankers to help raise funds ...

LatelineNews: 2001-9-9] WASHINGTON - Following months of increasing interest in immigration and a three-day state visit by Mexican President Vicente Fox, Democrats asked on Saturday that Americans set aside their fears of change and loosen regulations on immigration. Rep. Ed Pastor of Arizona used the Democrats' weekly radio address to emphasize the party's support of a revamped immigration policy in response to the nation's changing needs. ''Attracting ambitious workers from all over the globe is a sign of our national strength, not a weakness,'' he said. The focus of the issue should be redirected ''to take advantage of, rather than ...

Chain saw alley They call it "chain saw alley," a White House hallway devoted to pictures of President Bush working at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. And we're not talking about those staged pictures splashed in newspapers. One shows him perched on a treacherous overhang, saw in hand, at the end of a human chain of two Secret Service agents. We're told that Bush really digs manual labor in the hot sun. In fact, he's the charter member of what he calls the "100-degree club." What's more, when coupled with his fruit diet, he lost 10 pounds on vacation. That's the ...

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, right, and Terje Larsen, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process meet at Arafat's office in Gaza City, Thursday Sept. 6, 2001. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday night that he will meet with Arafat next week, part of his drive to end nearly a year of deadly fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. Photo by Omer Rashedi (AP)

Slumping Asian economies have called on China to toss them a lifeline, but Beijing says it can do little to take up the slack from a U.S. slowdown. With demand from the United States drying up, many Asian countries have looked to China's vast market to bail them out. "It's one of the few economies that is growing strongly so I think that's very helpful," Singapore's Minister of Finance Richard Hu said at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation finance ministers meeting, which ends on Sunday. "China will try to continue to grow as strongly as possible to give confidence to ...

The biggest economic boom in history is bearing down on us. It's heresy to say such things these days. Most of the world is hunkered down, just trying to survive the fallout. Companies are still laying off people. The economic indicators are still pointing in every direction. So announcing another great era of prosperity risks public humiliation. But the fact is that all the signs of a massive turnaround are in place. It will be across the board, from chips to wireless to information technology to a Great Global Grid, providing a wealth of opportunities for entrepreneurs, consumers, and investors. ...

I. One of the standard questions hovering about the intellectual world since the crisis of Marxism has been, "where does the intellectual left go next, especially if it refuses to consider orthodoxy?" The obvious, most likely answer, I think, is that it goes in the direction of ecology and environmentalism insofar as these all-embracing systems provide an apparently plausible, natural justification to reduce the relative importance of man's individual dignity in the name of a planetary or worldly, if not cosmic, "good". This postulated inner-worldly transcendent good is proposed in the name of the on-going cycles of nature and of ...

BEIJING, Sept 9 (AFP) - Twenty-nine-year-old physical education teacher Chen Donglin considers Mao Zedong a hero, despite the fact his grandfather was persecuted during the Mao-orchestrated Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. "I rather worship him," Chen said as he ate dinner at McDonald's last week. "He was really an exceptional person. China was in quite a bad shape at the time, but he was able to unify the country and fend off foreign powers." Mao is blamed for some of the darkest periods in modern China -- including the Great Leap Forward which resulted in a famine which killed at ...

It will be very easy for you to say, "Well, I will do something, some day. When I can afford it, I am going to." But would you let an old "grad" tell you one thing now? Giving is a habit. Get into the habit now, because you will never be able to afford to give and contribute, thus to repay the obligation you owe to those people who made this college possible, if you wait until you think you can afford it. Start now regardless of how small, and in the days to come when you are confronted ...

The United Nations has another September problem now, smaller but in many ways more interesting than the race-conference disaster in Durban, South Africa. At this writing, the U.N. is wondering whether it should tinker with some abortion language to keep President Bush from boycotting the September 19 conference in New York on the rights of children. A roomful of diplomats stayed up half the night last Thursday scratching their heads about whether to fudge or clarify the code phrase "reproductive health services" in the text of the final declaration of the meeting. They did neither, though the Bush administration wants ...

"I hate to say I told you so, but we told you so," crowed Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., when it became clear that President Bush will dip into the Social Security and Medicare surpluses to pay for his programs. Democrats are indeed salivating. The budget surplus is evaporating, a victim of the slowing economy and Bush's tax cut. The administration is using budget tricks to avoid admitting that Bush broke his pledge not to raid the Social Security surplus. "This could be junior's `read-my-lips,' " predicts Democratic adviser Paul Begala. Only two problems with this Democratic offensive: It's ...

ROLLA, Mo. (AP) - Sen. Jean Carnahan's house caught fire Saturday night after an apparent lightning strike while she was inside, but no one was injured, authorities said. The fire broke out at about 9 p.m. on Saturday at the Democratic senator's home just southwest of Rolla, the Phelps County Sheriff's Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol said. Three fire departments were helping douse the blaze, officials said. A sheriff's dispatcher said initial reports indicate that a lightning strike triggered the blaze. It's not known who else was inside the house. The patrol said the extent of the damage was ...

The room was packed, the dessert divine—and the social politics fierce. Backstage at the Bushes’ first state bash Roland Mesnier, the artistic pastry chef at the White House, understands the geopolitics of cuisine. He has learned from painful experience. A few years ago he made dessert for a visiting Mexican head of state: he created a charming—to him—scene of a Mexican boy in a sombrero, dozing off against his mud hut. Not quite the image that President Carlos Salinas had in mind when he came to Washington to promote his nation’s drive for business and industry. Horrified, a White House ...

By CHRIS KAHN Associated Press Writer ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — For generations, state agents have chased moonshiners in rural parts of Virginia, raiding chicken coops, tobacco barns and old warehouses for the illegal brew. The strong country whiskey, synonymous with Appalachian culture, has made millionaires of families who've quietly produced hooch in these hills, shipping it north to shot houses in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. But with guilty pleas from some of the region's biggest bootleggers, police now are claiming a major victory against the industry. On Monday, seven more alleged moonshiners will be in federal court, facing ...