Free Republic

Pope's apology fails to halt Islamic uproar By Michael Hirst and Nick Pisa in Rome (Filed: 17/09/2006) Muslims leaders around the world demanded a more personal apology from the Pope last night after the Vatican said he "sincerely regrets" the offence caused by remarks which they claimed had insulted Islam. Senior Vatican officials tried to damp down fury over the speech in which the Pope quoted from a medieval text saying that the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "only evil and inhuman" things. Activists from the Daughters of Faith protest against the Pope Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary...

Bush doctrine on terror fails to convince public · Poll shows rising anxiety in both US and Europe· Iran now seen as country posing the gravest threat Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Thursday September 7, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The Bush administration's claim that Americans are now safer from terrorism has been undermined by a poll yesterday showing a significant jump in the number of Americans and Europeans concerned about Islamist extremism and other global threats. The survey, published days before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, is at odds with a Bush administration document on terrorism on Tuesday that insisted: "America...

Just when you thought California's 20-year prison construction boom was over, here comes another election season. Gubernatorial candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides are falling over each other to launch a new era of prison construction. This is bipartisan, equal opportunity pandering and fear mongering, with an obvious impetus. The prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), has $10 million to spend to help or defeat a candidate for governor. How obvious is this link? Schwarzenegger recently told The Bee editorial board that Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez, a card-carrying member of the CCPOA, would be handling his prison...

Enormous new dam fails in Brazil 10 July 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. GIANT cracks have opened in one of the world's tallest dams, just months after completion. The cracks appeared after a tunnel collapsed on 20 June beneath the 200-metre-high Campos Novos dam in southern Brazil, and the reservoir rapidly emptied. At one point, 4000 cubic metres of water (more than enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool) were rushing downstream every second towards a second dam on the river Canoas. "If this had happened during the rainy season, and the two reservoirs had been full, water would...

Happiness lies in misery as UN war on hunger fails to progress By David Blair in Dar-es-Salaam (Filed: 17/05/2006) Wrapped in the tatty sheets of a hospital bed, Happiness Kitomari raised her emaciated arms and clasped her distraught mother with tiny fingers. She stared with bewildered eyes at the tangled drip-feed keeping her alive. Emergency treatment will probably save this malnourished young girl from the slums of Tanzania's capital, Dar-es-Salaam. But her mother, Anna, must struggle every day to feed her children. "Life is very hard and sometimes I want to die," said Mrs Kitomari. "It is better to die...

The International Space Station (ISS) failed to reach a higher orbit Wednesday during a test of two long-dormant engines mounted near a Russian-built docking port. Russian ISS flight controllers hoped to test two engines along the aft end of the station's Zvezda service module during a 14-second burn planned for 3:49 p.m. EDT (1949 GMT), NASA officials said. The engines have not been fired since Zvezda docked at the ISS in July 2000, they added. "We were all set for it but the engines never fired," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias told SPACE.com. The two dormant Zvezda engines are located at...

Rap music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight failed to appear at a court-ordered debtor hearing Saturday, triggering legal actions which a judge had warned would place his Death Row Records in receivership. In addition, lawyers suing him plan to ask that he be held in contempt and jailed until he participates in the debtor hearing that requires him to disclose all of his assets. At issue is an unpaid judgment against Knight for $107 million that was awarded to Lydia Harris, the former Knight associate who claimed she helped start the rap record empire with her former husband, Michael Harris. Harris,...

WASHINGTON - A key provision in the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, allowing them to live and work legally in the United States -- but without offering them a clear path to citizenship. The legislation, which calls for dramatic increases in the number of legal immigrants, is meant to placate those who want illegal immigrants sent back to their home countries and those who want them to become legal, permanent residents. The problem is both sides oppose it. "It says, 'We want your labor. Yes we think you're...

Bush Fails To Prevent East Coast Blizzard Minorities Hit Hardest by Brian Williams NBC 02/12/06 As President Bush and his staff cowered in the White House, the snow continued to pile up on the many poor and African American victims who could not afford to get out of town or to safety in Florida. Crucial supplies of blankets, hot cocoa, popcorn and dark rum, so essential to surviving the stress of any major snowstorm, lay in stores undelivered. "Where is the government? I need my sidewalk shoveled so I can get out to buy my danged lottery tickets!" said one...

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's failure to wake up from a coma nine days after suffering a massive stroke does not bode well for his recovery, some doctors said Friday. With extensive brain damage looking likely, Israelis have begun to look ahead to life without Sharon. Sharon, 77, remained in "critical but stable" condition Friday, showing no change from the previous day, said Hadassah Hospital spokesman Ron Krumer. Israel's Channel 10 TV and Army Radio cited Hadassah officials as saying they were worried Sharon has shown no signs of awakening, even though doctors have begun weaning him off heavy...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Victor Edward Willis, the original policeman in the 1970s music group the Village People, was being sought on arrest warrants after failing to show up for a sentencing in a drug case Thursday, authorities said. Willis, who co-wrote disco hits such as "Macho Man" and "In the Navy" before leaving the Village People in the late 1970s, was arrested July 11 after a Daly City police officer found a gun and what was believed to be crack cocaine in his car after a traffic stop. Willis was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday morning in San Mateo...

SACRAMENTO - It's like a credit card bill that California lawmakers can't seem to get under control - the state budget deficit born of a perpetual imbalance between what the state spends and what it takes in. The gap stood at $17 billion last year, had been projected to be almost $9 billion this year and is likely to be about $5 billion in the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Despite a balanced-budget agreement struck this week, economists and fiscal analysts warn that future shortfalls are likely to continue until a long-term fix is found. "We haven't come to grips with the...

CAPE CANAVERAL - A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August. Kylie Clem,...

Kenyan first lady fails in assault on press freedom By Adrian Blomfield in Nairobi (Filed: 04/05/2005) Kenya's first lady stormed into a newspaper's newsroom yesterday and demanded the arrest of journalists in a protest over allegedly snide coverage of her behaviour. Lucy Kibaki's bizarre actions, captured on video, were later televised to astonished Kenyans, some of who have nicknamed her "Stormin' Lucy" because of her temper fits. She had earlier called on the police in Nairobi to detain the World Bank's representative in Kenya, accusing him of playing loud music. Mrs Kibaki, wife of President Mwai Kibaki, was furious at...

Zimbabwe famine red alert as harvest fails By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 30/04/2005) A famine watch group issued a red alert for Zimbabwe yesterday, saying that most people were no longer able to buy enough food. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network said the harvest was "insufficient to satisfy consumption needs" for the next year. The maize harvest has been the worst in memory It issued its warning the day after the head of the country's grain marketing board admitted to a state-run newspaper that it was planning to import 1.2 million tons of maize, a staple food which...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - For the second time in just under a year, a circuit breaker failed on the international space station Wednesday, shutting down one of the gyroscopes needed to keep the orbiting outpost steady and pointed in the right position. The circuit breaker was a new one put in by spacewalking astronauts last summer. In a repeat from one year ago, the latest failure left the space station with only two functioning gyroscopes, the bare minimum needed for control, NASA (news - web sites) said. This time, though, the problem could affect NASA's plans to launch Discovery to...

San Diego's pension system has issued a report on how it handles payments once a retiree dies, but some City Council members say it raises more questions than it answers. The report states that since 1996 the pension system inadvertently has paid 36 individuals after they died. Those 36 are among 114 cases in which payments to deceased retirees might have occurred and are under review. The report does not mention the 114 number. "I view that as a material fact that should have been included in the report," Councilman Brian Maienschein said. Maienschein is a member of the council's...

U.S. Fails to Make List of World's Freest Economies The United States is missing for the first time from an annual ranking of the world's 10 freest economies. Story Continues Below The Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal since 1995, finds that the United States is letting Big Brother grow obese as other countries get lean and fit. Chile, Australia and Iceland improved enough to leave the U.S. in a tie with Switzerland for 12th place. "The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing...

Women who are overweight or obese have a much higher chance of becoming pregnant because their Pill has failed, researchers have found. Overweight women were 60% more likely to fall pregnant while on the Pill. Obese women were 70% more likely, found a study in Obstetrics and Gynaecology by a team from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. It suggested that of 100 women on the Pill, an extra two to four would fall pregnant due to being overweight. The Pill is usually estimated to be over 99% effective. This means that less than one woman in 100...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California air pollution regulators, frustrated with the failure of a voluntary plan promoted by the trucking industry, instituted mandatory requirements Thursday to clean up illegal diesel engines. Air quality groups hope California's decision once again ripples across the country, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency struggles with the same nationwide enforcement problem. The decision applies to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles licensed in other states that drive through California, as well as 58,000 California-licensed trucks. But the Engine Manufacturers Association suggested it will sue on behalf of its members, who believe they shouldn't have to pay...