Free Republic

BEIJING (AFP) Nov 18, 2003 China insisted Tuesday its nuclear energy cooperation with Pakistan was for peaceful purposes and adamantly denied that exchanges with Islamabad violated commitments on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "Cooperation between China and Pakistan regarding nuclear energy generation is purely for peaceful purposes and does not violate any non-proliferation obligations or China's export controls," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. He was responding to questions about a US Central Intelligence Agencyreport issued last week which alleged that Chinese firms may be aiding Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. "China is a party state to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation...

'18 years of lies' from Iran over its nuclear plans By Anton La Guardia in Vienna (Filed: 12/11/2003) Iran has systematically lied about its nuclear programme for 18 years, seeking to hide the development of key techniques needed to make fissile material for nuclear weapons, according to a report by the United Nations watchdog. The document, made available to The Telegraph, discloses that Iran successfully enriched uranium and extracted plutonium on a laboratory scale - providing two possible routes to a nuclear weapon. These admissions by Teheran were part of a series of violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty catalogued...

<p>North Korea has admitted reprocessing 8,000 fuel rods from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor to boost its nuclear capabilities in response to threats from the United States.</p> <p>In a rare interview, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon told CNN of the move, saying North Korea's nuclear deterrence was not intended to attack other countries, but as a means to safeguard the country's territory.</p>

Despite of the total collapse and economic degradation that the country is experiencing, Russia is still a super-power. There are just few people who know that Lieutenant-General Vladimir Grigorkin made a considerable contribution into Russia's might. Like hundreds of people of this kind, this man spent his best years in the Siberian woods and Central Asia deserts where the nuclear shield was being created for the country. The Energia-Buran project was the greatest one in which Vladimir Grigorkin participated. He still feels proud to speak about his participation in the project. "Now this well-known but still classified program is widely...

he computer program that helped NASA mistakenly decide that the shuttle Columbia had not been deeply harmed by a piece of falling foam would have predicted serious damage if used properly, said the retired Boeing engineer who developed the program. The engineer, Allen J. Richardson, said the program, known as Crater, was never intended to be used in a mission to predict damage, as it was in Columbia's fatal flight. Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which is expected to release its final report on the disaster tomorrow, have disparaged Crater as a flawed tool. But Mr. Richardson said...

AOPA and IAOPA reiterate opposition to deadly force against civilian aircraft. Aug. 19 — The White House announced today the resumption of the "Airbridge Denial Program" with Colombia, the U.S. drug interdiction program allowing the use of deadly force against civilian aircraft. This is the first of the "Airbridge" programs to resume after the tragic shoot-down of a missionary aircraft in Peru in 2001. While the White House said that Colombia now has "appropriate procedures to protect against loss of innocent life, AOPA and the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations reiterated opposition to the use of deadly...

Bush Prescription Drug Program Biggest Social Spending Plan In 40 Years June 16, 2003 The proposal to add a prescription drug Medicare benefit keeps growing. This leads me to an Associated Press story by Tom Raum, who writes that President Bush has a tradition going back to his days as Texas governor of taking a firm stand, holding fast - but eventually making crucial concessions to opponents and then claiming victory. This goes back to "The BIG Theory" I exposed in recent weeks, about Bush taking Democrat issues away from them by passing 20%, 30% or 40% of what they...

WASHINGTON - A new computer program can determine the sex of an author by detecting subtle differences in the words men and women prefer to use. For instance, female writers tend to choose grammatical terms that apply to personal relationships, such as "for" and "with," more frequently than men do. "Women have a more interactive style," said Shlomo Argamon, a computer scientist at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago who developed the program. "They want to create a relationship between the writer and the reader." Men, on the other hand, use more numbers, adjectives and determiners - words such...

A federal judge was kept in the dark about failures in a computer system created to help track royalty payments that were owed to Native Americans, a court-appointed investigator reported yesterday. Last September, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton had defrauded the court by making misleading statements about the department's efforts to fix management problems of oil, gas, mining, timber and other royalties from Indian lands. That included covering up failures of the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA's most prominent voice in the days following the Columbia accident announced Wednesday he is leaving the space agency at the conclusion of the investigation into the loss of the shuttle.</p> <p>Ron B. Dittemore, a 26-year veteran of NASA who served more than four years as head of the space shuttle program, said he plans to leave as soon as the agency appoints a new program chief and starts an orderly transition of leadership.</p>

The REAL REAL Reason France And Russia Opposed War With IraqBy Andrew L. Jaffee, 4/23/2003 I just recently wrote about how France and Russia benefited by selling arms to Saddam Hussein, and how they had a vested interest in keeping Saddam in power. Well, the plot has thickened even more. There are other ways that France and Russia have raked in cash through their involvement with the former Iraqi dictator. Now we find that the UN's "oil-for-food program is no ordinary relief effort. Not only does it involve astronomical amounts of money, it also operates with alarming secrecy," according...

MOSCOW, April 22 (AFP) - Russia is concerned that Iran may be enriching uranium with a view to developing nuclear weapons, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said on Tuesday, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency. Rumyantsev referred to US press reports that Tehran had equipped a nuclear complex with the capacity to enrich its recently-disclosed uranium deposits, sparking fears that the country may be stepping up a covert weapons program. "Such centrifuges are capable of enriching uranium to a high enough concentration for developing weapons," he said. "If the media reports are accurate, the situation is alarming." "Iran must acknowledge...

<p>STRAFFORD, Vt. -Stuart and Susan Rogers wear beepers because the toxic waste dump two miles from their home might collapse and let loose a toxic mudslide.</p> <p>Acid waste from the nearby Elizabeth copper mine was killing part of the Ompompanoosuc River, so the Environmental Protection Agency drafted a $15 million cleanup plan under the Superfund program. The EPA, however, provided no money for the work.</p>

Commercial Manned Space Program Unveiled by Scaled Composites Scaled Composites today unveiled the existence of a commercial manned space program. This previously hidden, active research program has been in the works at its facility for two years. This program includes an airborne launcher (the White Knight), a space ship (SpaceShipOne), rocket propulsion, avionics, simulator and ground support elements. Master of Ceremonies, Cliff Robertson, introduced Burt Rutan who explained the history and the components of the program. Other dignitaries who attended the event were Dr. Maxim Faget (pioneer configuratioin designer of the early NASA space program from the Mercury through...

<p>A statewide public service campaign to promote a law that allows undocumented immigrant college students to pay lower in-state tuition, was launched Monday.</p> <p>The radio and television campaign by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is hoping to reach between 10,000 to 12,000 college students who qualify statewide, said Maria Lucero Ortiz, director of MALDEF's program that does outreach to immigrants on higher education issues.</p>

Got milk? If so, you've got higher prices, bureaucratic meddling, billions of pounds of surplus dairy products, and complicated mathematical formulas that define how much farmers can charge for the nutritious white beverage. That's because the production and sale of milk has been regulated by the federal and state governments since the 1930s. And 70 years of regulation has created a bigger mess than 10 gallons of spilt milk on a shag carpet. Take Massachusetts, for example. In October 2002, the Bay State's Department of Food and Agriculture launched an investigation of Midland Farms, a small chain of grocery stores....

<p>LOS ANGELES(AP) - Hundreds of people, many with youngsters in tow, rallied Monday to demand that Gov. Gray Davis spare child care programs from the state budget ax.</p> <p>Day care operators, former welfare mothers and urban activists waved paper cutouts of children, some dressed in baby clothes, at the downtown protest.</p>

Feb. 9, 2003, 1:18AMSpace plane, new launch vehicle years awayBy ERIC BERGERCopyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Science Writer SPACE EXPLORATION A view of Earth from Columbia six days before it disintegrated. WHAT THEY SAID• President Bush:"The cause in which they died will continue." -Feb. 1 | Audio | Text • Crew's families:"The bold exploration of space must go on." -Feb. 2Text Despite the loss of Columbia, NASA's three remaining space shuttles, based on a design three decades old, will probably remain the agency's workhorses for another 20 years. In the immediate future, NASA simply has no other option. Even if a proposed space...

Co-Founder of Designated Driver Program Charged With DUI FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A co-founder of a designated driver program is facing DUI charges. Marcel Beaumont, 49, of Delray Beach, was charged early Sunday after police said he fell asleep behind the wheel of his BMW while at an intersection. Beaumont was awakened by police, who said they found him to be slurring his speech. Beaumont declined comment Tuesday. Beaumont is a co-founder of Smashed Inc., a program in which individuals can purchase $30 memberships which let them call a toll-free number and obtain a ride home from any Delray...

<p>Norwegian prosecutors will appeal the acquittal of a Norwegian teenager charged with digital burglary for creating and circulating a program online that cracks the security codes on DVDs.</p> <p>Rune Floisbonn, a prosecutor with Norway's economic crimes police, told the NTB news agency Monday that an appeal would be filed. He did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press.</p>