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TAORMINA, Italy, Feb. 10, 2006 – The challenges facing NATO today bring to mind words spoken by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his last televised address to the nation as president 45 years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here today. The secretary took part in two days of informal meetings with his NATO counterparts, as well as meetings of the NATO-Russia Council and the alliance's Mediterranean Dialogue countries. In his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961, Eisenhower spoke of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. "As we think about the important role that NATO can play in the...

NASA is drawing up plans for six new Centennial Challenges as part of the agency’s series of contests that offers cash prizes for technological achievements. The space agency is seeking comments from potential competitors and partners on draft rules for each of the proposed new Centennial Challenges. The contests range from the development of affordable spacesuits to launching fuel pods into orbit or flying a controllable vehicle driven by a solar sail. Prizes for the planned challenges, which are not yet finalized, could range from $500,000 for the spacesuit contest to $5 million for the fuel pod contest, according to...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2006 – Through challenging the status quo and questioning old assumptions, the Defense Department is becoming a more capable force ready to face changing conflicts, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here yesterday. All the military services have made changes in equipment, practice, attitude and culture to make them more relevant to today's battlefield culture, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news briefing. "There's a clear awareness that our military must be ready for unforeseen eventualities while incorporating lessons learned from previous and current conflicts," he said. The Navy is a prime example of the benefits of these...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 13, 2006 – U.S. officials writing the rules for military commissions to try accused war criminals here believe the need for a detainee to have competent legal representation trumps his right to self-representation. A defendant's right to choose his own attorney has become a legal sticking point in the case of an accused al Qaeda propagandist being held here since early 2002. Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, a Yemeni believed to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden, has asked to represent himself and has refused to speak to his appointed military...

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 12, 2006 – Special operations commanders know what is needed to meet the ever-changing challenges facing their forces fighting in the global war on terrorism, a panel of special operations leaders said here yesterday. "We've got to field a warrior or technician that is culturally attuned (and) linguistically capable," Navy Capt. Sean Pybus, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group 1, said. "Those are key requirements in the years to come." The panel spoke at WEST 2006, a technology, communication and national security conference co-sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and the U.S. Naval Institute....

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1, 2006 – The U.S. armed forces are prepared to handle whatever challenges arise in 2006, the nation's top general vowed today in an interview from Iraq. He also thanked troops and their families for sacrifices in the global war on terrorism. "We'll assess the situation and do the best we can with what we have at hand and be successful the way our nation needs us to be." Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on ABC's "This Week" program. Pace said the U.S. goal is to ensure Iraqi armed forces and...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2005 – The Iraqi people won't have an easy time setting up a new national government, but they are resolved to surmount all difficulties, a senior Defense Department official said here today. "One of the big challenges that's in front of the Iraqi people is seating a government that reflects and respects the views of all the Iraqi people, and doing it in a way in which all Iraqis can feel included in the political process," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. Whitman had responded to a reporter's question about alleged discord among some of Iraq's...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2005 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld heralded 2005 as a year of extraordinary contributions by the U.S. military and looked toward the new year as an opportunity to continue building on those efforts and transforming the military into a 21st-century force. During a recent interview with the Pentagon Channel and the American Forces Press Service, Rumsfeld cited the array of missions the military carried out during an exceptionally busy year. These include humanitarian efforts following the tsunami in South Asia on Dec. 26, 2004, the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake in Pakistan and hurricanes Katrina and Rita...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 12, 2005 – The highest-ranking military officer in Iraq said over the past year his country's armed forces have accomplished "almost a miracle." Speaking through a translator, Army Gen. Babakir Shawkat Zebari said only one battalion was capable of operating with coalition forces when he became the Iraqi military's chief of staff. Now dozens are taking the lead in the counterinsurgency fight, and many more are operating with coalition forces. In the west, he said, Iraqi forces now allow the coalition to hold areas. In the past, coalition forces would move into an area, clear out the terrorists...

Masten Space Systems announced Wednesday that it strongly supported the recent agreement between NASA and the X Prize Foundation to develop two suborbital Centennial Challenges and that, pending announcements on rules, it looked forward to participating. While the two new Challenges are restricted to suborbital ranges, they represent increases in altitude and technology that push the marketplace forward. The Suborbital Payload Challenge is a prize for the first team to achieve altitudes useful to scientific research payloads, such as astronomical and atmospheric research instruments and longer-duration micro-gravity experiments. These altitudes are typically in excess of 200 kilometers and as high...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Attorneys for a man who has written books on how to grow marijuana and avoid getting caught asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to overturn his drug convictions. Ed Rosenthal, the self-described "Guru of Ganja," was convicted two years ago of growing and distributing hundreds of marijuana plants. He says he was authorized to do so by the city of Oakland under a 1996 California medical marijuana law. After U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer refused to allow a jury to hear that defense, Rosenthal was convicted of being a major drug supplier. Breyer sentenced him to...

KATRINA-ORDERS Sep-2-2005 (1,040 words) xxxn Hurricane devastation challenges religious orders, Catholic colleges By Jerry FilteauCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Gulf Coast devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in late August posed major challenges to some Catholic religious orders with headquarters or educational institutions in the hurricane's path. With the entire city of New Orleans being evacuated and shut down for months, the fall semester appeared to be entirely lost for the three Catholic colleges and universities there. The Jesuits' Loyola University of New Orleans has about 6,000 students. Xavier University of Louisiana, run by the Sisters of the Blessed...

Calling on Los Angeles to renew its dreams and work with him to meet the challenges of making the streets safer, the schools better and the air cleaner, Antonio Ramo Villaraigosa was sworn in Friday as the city's 41st mayor and the first Latino mayor since 1872. With more than 5,000 officials and residents packed onto the South Lawn of City Hall, Villaraigosa promised to work to bring the city together and urged the public to think big about how the city can become a world leader. "Let's swear a common oath today. Let's make Los Angeles a city of...

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of inmates doing federal time in the West won a chance to challenge their sentences under a federal appellate court's ruling Wednesday. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest appeals court, which covers nine Western states, mirrors and conflicts with other federal circuits across the country. In the end, the Supreme Court might settle the ongoing dispute over federal sentencing guidelines adopted in 1984. The case decided Wednesday concerned the fallout of a Supreme Court ruling in January, when the justices struck down part of the federal sentencing system. About 60,000...

NEW YORK (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the federal government has improperly used taxpayer dollars to fund Christian religious activities in a nationwide program called the Silver Ring Thing that uses music and comedy skits to promote premarital abstinence among teens. The Silver Ring Thing - which has held events in dozens of cities over the past five years - is an offshoot of the John Guest Evangelistic Team, a Christian ministry based in Sewickley, Pa. Since 2003, the program has received more than $1 million from the Department of Health and...

New evidence challenges hypothesis of modern human origins www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-27 17:00:01 WUHAN, April 27 (Xinhuanet) - - Chinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale excavation launched in the Qingjiang River...

Pope Benedict XVI Faces Huge Challenges   By Roger WilkisonRome21 April 2005 Wilkison report - Download 835K  Wilkison report   Pope Benedict XVI faces a Roman Catholic Church that is deeply divided on many issues, including his own background as the guardian of church dogma. From Rome, VOA's Roger Wilkison looks at the new pontiff and the many challenges he will face in the years ahead. Pope Benedict XVI He was known for the past 24 years as the Vatican's enforcer. But the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has now become the spiritual leader of more than one billion Catholics....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Attorneys for Katrina Leung, who was accused of using her romantic ties with a retired FBI agent to gain access to classified documents, asked a federal judge Wednesday to reject the government's bid to reinstate the case. U.S. District Judge Florence Marie Cooper dismissed all charges against Leung last month, saying prosecutors deliberately tried to keep defense attorneys from preparing properly for trial. A motion asking the judge to reconsider was filed this month. On Wednesday, Leung's attorneys submitted a 35-page response that called the motion "procedurally impermissible and substantively wrong." "The court's dismissal order was...

Iran challenges US over nuclear programme By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 07/02/2005) Iran dared America to attack it yesterday as the senior hawks in President George W Bush's administration all but admitted that Washington faced a dilemma in trying to prevent Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In a rare interview, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, stressed repeatedly that Washington was backing a European diplomatic initiative to persuade Teheran to freeze permanently its nuclear ambitions - even though it is Washington's worst-kept secret that the administration believes the attempt is doomed to fail. "[The Iranians] know very well that we do...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Facing a $2 billion hit next year in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget, a coalition of the state's largest education groups plans to meet Tuesday to consider a strategy for challenging the popular governor and his much disliked spending plan. Once considered a major ally of schools, Schwarzenegger has emerged in recent weeks as perhaps its biggest enemy. The governor not only wants to shift money from schools to fill other gaps next year but has also proposed a constitutional spending cap that could hurt schools in the future. Educators said they are preparing for political war. "We're...