Global Warming

"I like Al Gore, he is a smart guy, but he sees things that don't exist."
- President Clinton to an aide about Gore badgering him on global warming during their first term.

"A tree is a tree, how many do you need to look at?"
- Ronal Reagan.

















In The News

The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers Foreign Affairs the post-Cold War rise of economically successful -- and nondemocratic -- China and Russia may represent a viable alternative path to modernity that leaves liberal democracy's ultimate victory and future dominance in doubt ....... Today's global liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam -- the societies from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant. ........ nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes ...... Authoritarian capitalist states, today exemplified by China and Russia, may represent a viable alternative path to modernity, which in turn suggests that there is nothing inevitable about liberal democracy's ultimate victory -- or future dominance. ........ The liberal democratic camp defeated its authoritarian, fascist, and communist rivals alike in all of the three major great-power struggles of the twentieth century -- the two world wars and the Cold War. ..... a greater ability to elicit international cooperation through the bonds and discipline of the global market system
A New Deal for Globalization earnings for most U.S. workers -- even those with college degrees -- have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years ..... Less than four percent of workers were in educational groups that enjoyed increases in mean real money earnings from 2000 to 2005; mean real money earnings rose for workers with doctorates and professional graduate degrees and fell for all others. ...... the two most commonly proposed responses -- more investment in education and more trade adjustment assistance for dislocated workers -- are nowhere near adequate. ...... instituting a New Deal for globalization -- one that links engagement with the world economy to a substantial redistribution of income. ..... This protectionist drift extends to much of the world. The Doha Development Round of trade negotiations, the centerpiece of global trade liberalization, is years behind schedule and now on the brink of collapse. ...... The economic gains from globalization are immense. .... trade and investment liberalization over the past decades has added between $500 billion and $1 trillion in annual income -- between $1,650 and $3,300 a year for every American. ....... information technology (IT) -- one of the United States' most globally engaged industries ..... Gains from globalization have been similarly large in the rest of the world. China and India have achieved stupendous rates of productivity growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Central to this success has been the introduction of market forces, in particular international market forces related to trade and FDI. ....... previous rounds of trade negotiations had treated poor nations unfairly by failing to open the very sectors -- such as agriculture -- whose openness would most likely help the world's poor. ....... globalization is good for both the U.S. economy and U.S. security interests ..... special-interest protectionists are facing a more receptive audience ...... its enjoyment of relatively affordable toys, DVD players, and other products depends on globalization. ..... security concerns strengthen rather than weaken the case for further trade and investment liberalization, as long as such liberalization is viewed as fair to the developing world. ...... the public is becoming more protectionist because incomes are stagnating or falling ...... from 1966 to 2001, the median pretax inflation-adjusted wage and salary income grew just 11 percent -- versus 58 percent for incomes in the 90th percentile and 121 percent for those in the 99th percentile ....... the many benefits of open borders -- lower prices, greater product diversity, a competitive spur to firms ..... What seems to matter most is what kind of worker you are in terms of skill level, rather than what industry you work in. ...... seven educational categories -- high school dropout, high school graduate, some college, college graduate, nonprofessional master's, Ph.D., and M.B.A./J.D./M.D. -- only those in the last two categories, with doctorates or professional graduate degrees, experienced any growth in mean real money earnings between 2000 and 2005. Workers in these two categories comprised only 3.4 percent of the labor force in 2005 ....... since 2000 even college graduates and those with nonprofessional master's degrees -- 29 percent of workers in 2005 -- suffered declines in mean real money earnings. ....... the share of national income accounted for by the top one percent of earners reached 21.8 percent in 2005 -- a level not seen since 1928 ...... the benefits of strong productivity growth in the past several years have gone largely to a small set of highly skilled, highly compensated workers. ..... upgrading skills is a process that takes generations ...... It took 60 years for the United States to boost the share of college graduates in the labor force from six percent (where it was at the end of World War II) to about 33 percent (where it is today). ....... Since 1988, 74 percent of American students at the 146 top U.S. colleges have come from the highest socioeconomic quartile, compared with just 3 percent from the lowest quartile. ........ At $760 billion in 2005, the regressive payroll tax was nearly as big as the progressive income tax ($1.1 trillion). ..... striking a delicate balance -- between allowing globally engaged companies to continue to generate large overall gains for the United States and using well-targeted fiscal mechanisms to spread the gains more widely
What Next For Palestine? Read Martin Indyk's new update Read 2003 essay unless an antidote was found to the fundamental weakness of Palestinian governing institutions .... Bush went back to his default position of disengagement from any serious effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with predictable results. ... a territory now teeming with armed gangs, warlords, and a well-equipped Hamas militia
Overhauling Intelligence crisis-driven necessity .... rationalized decision-making and integrated the intelligence and military establishments ..... a "stovepiping" of intelligence, arrested the growth of information sharing, collaboration, and integration -- patterns that still linger. .... an ever larger number of nonstate actors moving at increasing speeds across geographic and organizational boundaries ..... blur the traditional distinctions between foreign and domestic, intelligence-related and operational, strategic and tactical ...... the United States' 16 intelligence agencies .... integrate intelligence and law enforcement ..... enemies who seek to acquire and detonate weapons of mass destruction on U.S. soil ..... unique mandates and competencies. They also have their own cultures and mythologies ..... Greater collaboration is vital because no single agency has the capacity to survey all the available information. The U.S. intelligence community collects more than one billion pieces of information every day.
A False Choice in Pakistan
Better and Better
Grand Strategy for a Divided America

YouTube emerges as star of Democrats' debate CTV.ca fuelled solely by questions uploaded to YouTube by ordinary people - neither members of the press nor the debate's audience. .... a groundbreaking event, the first debate of its kind to enlist the Web as a tool to open politics up to the public. .... The Washington Post headline reads "Public Voice Ads Edge to Debate." .... sharp and sometimes witty video questions ..... The New York Times is a little less charitable, with the headline "Novel Debate, Same Old Candidates." Even with the new format, "candidates frequently lapsed into their talking points, and there was little actual debate among them" ..... candidates being "pelted" with "unapologetically blunt queries." ...... "What did we really learn? (former Alaska Senator) Mike Gravel is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore ... (Connecticut Senator) Chris Dodd knows even his Senate salary won't pay for his kids college education ... (Illinois Senator) Barack Obama will make a wonderful ambassador ... of hope ... and (Delaware Senator) Joe Biden is a widower ...who knew? ...... Edwards questioned Clinton's fashion sensibilities -- she had opted for a bright pink jacket over the darker hues donned by her male counterparts. ....... Biden said the thing he liked best about Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich was his wife. .... the growing role citizen journalism is playing in shaping public debate. ..... selecting the 39 questions that made it to air out of about 3,000 that were submitted.
Clinton and YouTube win South Carolina debate Chicago Tribune the debate was another encounter of the candidates that didn't scramble the Democratic race's dynamics. .... put in another strong performance. She was smooth, informed, unflappable and with a touch of humor. Anytime the leader in the polls comes out of a debate unscathed, she or he is the winner by definition. ........ Clinton gave a nuanced answer that was exactly right, downright presidential. ..... If they had been playing tennis, she would have just scored on him with a passing shot that caught him moving in the wrong direction ..... CNN said some focus group in New Hampshire gave the debate to Obama ...... as a trial lawyer in an earlier life he fought the industries that have so much power in Washington—the big insurance and drug companies for instance—and won. .... blacks of all incomes in Charleston, S.C. pay more for their mortgages than similarly situated whites. ...... Sen. Chris Dodd's people sent an e-mail out following the debate saying he had won it. The Richardson people sent out an e-mail claiming their man won. ......... Mike Gravel, the former Alaska senator, still channeling the angry Peter Finch character from the classic film "Network" seems to have it in for Obama, accusing him of being beholden to big money by taking money from "bundlers." It was another missed opportunity for Obama. He could have said his campaign has collected more money from smaller donors than Clinton's, underscoring the grassroots excitement he has created as he benefits from the hunger for change. He didn't. ....... The biggest winner of the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate in the end was probably YouTube. .... the summer's best reality show.
Obama’s Bad Night National Review Online “Of course” the president should talk to Ahmadinejad and other such leaders,” Kucinich said. “You can get on a cell phone and call somebody on the other side of the world right now. To me, it is almost unbelievable that someone running for president of the United States would say that they wouldn’t pursue a meeting with another person in the cause of building peace.” .... “You’re referring to Sen. Clinton?” .... “Of course I am.” .... that he would “use the science of human relations and diplomacy,” along with “international agreements and treaties” to settle differences without fighting ..... YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley ..... “You don’t have to be in New Hampshire, you don’t have to be in Iowa, to present a question,” Chen said. “You’re not restricted by where you live.”
Cuomo: Spitzer aides used State Police to try to damage Bruno The Journal News / Lohud.com
British postman defies floods for Harry Potter fans (Extra) Monsters and Critics.com
Obama Targets Clinton At YouTube Debate U.S. News & World Report attempts by other candidates, particularly Sen. Barack Obama, to directly challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton ..... 'The time for us to ask how we're going to get out of Iraq was before we went in.' ..... Obama and Edwards "targeted" Clinton. .... 'Do you believe that compromise, triangulation, will bring about big change?' Edwards said ..... a more aggressive and sure-footed performance from Obama, accused of being flat and long-winded in previous debates. ... Obama, who is beating Clinton in fundraising but trailing by an average of 15 points in national polls, seemed much more at ease than in previous debates ....... the best debate yet. .... In New Hampshire, reporter Mary Snow said the CNN focus group found that Obama "got the most favorable [response] in terms of the best performance from the 24 people who are here tonight. ...... something much more akin to a game show - complete with commercial breaks - than anything Lincoln or Douglas might have imagined." ...... Obama asserting that he never has to explain how black he is when trying to catch a cab. Clinton said she wouldn't use the word 'liberal' to describe her politics but rather prefers the term 'progressive ...... Debates are 'no longer a province of the elite, or the press,' said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. 'After tonight, I think it's going to be hard to go back to debates how they were, without user-generated comments,' added CNN host Anderson Cooper." ...... Most of the video questions posed in last night's Democratic debate were more memorable than the answers ..... a budget of $2.9 trillion Obama and Clinton clash on YouTube ITV.com The format was designed to force candidates to drop their rehearsed answers and sound bites and sparked lively exchanges between all eight Democratic candidates on Iraq and diplomacy, and an extended discussion of race and gender involving Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton.

SEN. OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this: That the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous. (Applause.) Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to the Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them, they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we have the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward. And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We've been talking about Iraq. One of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria, because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses. They have been acting irresponsibly up until this point. But if we tell them that we are not going to be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that they are going to have to carry some weight in terms of stabilizing the region. SEN. CLINTON: While I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these during my first year, I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort, because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration. And I will pursue very vigorous diplomacy, and I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be. (Applause.)

Elton John stands behind Nepal's gay community Hindustan Times
Elton John AIDS Foundation Takes On Nepalese Politicos Queerty
Flood situation in Bihar grim Hindu Nearly two million population spread over eight districts in Bihar continued to reel under the impact of floods as the overall situation remained unchanged with major rivers, including Punpun, Bagmati and Kosi in spate. ..... Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Saharsa, Madhubani, besides East Champaran and West Champaran .... In Sitamarhi, swollen Rato river breached the embankment in a stretch of 100 feet at Srikhandi under Sursand block in the district, inundating more than 200 villages.
Bihar flood situation gets grim Hindustan Times
Flood fury in Bihar The Statesman
Analysis: Blair the believer Jerusalem Post Blair will be able to count himself lucky and probably pick up a Nobel Prize in the process .... What Rice didn't say, of course is that, no matter how close an ally Blair has been to the Bush administration, the real business of getting the two sides to talk to each other is still an American monopoly. ..... Wolfensohn explained that it's impossible to improve the Palestinians' financial situation and to promote internal political stability outside of the wider context of the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. .... really believes that he can pull off something of the scale of the peace agreement his government brought about in Northern Ireland. ....... Israeli diplomatic sources might have said that he still has a lot to learn on the issues, but you can be sure that a policy wonk such as Blair has already put in the hours of study. ...... prepared to give a week out of every month of his valuable retirement time
UN Rejects Taiwan's Bid to Join, Citing `One China' Principle Bloomberg
Illinois Bans Smoking in Public Places Washington Post
Google Hits Back in Spectrum Battle (Again) PC Magazine
Don't go gaga over Google CNNMoney.com It has created more investor wealth in less time than any company in history. ( ....... only three companies have created more wealth: General Electric (Charts, Fortune 500), Exxon MobilCharts, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). ....... Google has created all that staggering wealth using only $9 billion of capital. This is the info-based economy at its most dramatic and amazing. ...... When you buy a stock, after all, what you're paying for is the future. ..... But you can't invest $5.1 billion every year at 52.5 percent. .... Four years ago its return was 111 percent; the following year it was 82 percent. ..... it has been brilliantly run. .... Google is a terrific company that may one day deserve to sit beside GE, Exxon and Microsoft. But not yet.
Quanta mum on reported iPhone, Dell smartphone deals InfoWorld Quanta Computer, the world's largest contract laptop PC maker, is reportedly gearing up to make iPhones for Apple and a new smartphone for Dell, but the company isn't talking. ...... Hon Hai, which operates under the name Foxconn, is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer. There has been speculation of a tie-up with Quanta for some time because pundits believe Hon Hai wants to enter the laptop PC manufacturing business
Wireless USB finds its way to Dell and Lenovo laptops engadget
Dell, ThinkPad laptops first on official Wireless USB kit list Reg Hardware
New Cable-Free Laptops Announced by Dell and Lenovo AHN
No safe haven: Diet sodas linked with health risks Reuters
Kids’ Health Gets Political New York Times
• Disable Fly-out Newsweek they're all pros who stayed reliably on message. .... the control was in Anderson Cooper's hands—a fact which rankled many dedicated YouTubers, who would have preferred that CNN air the most popular videos submitted ........ A pair of hammy hillbillies from Tennessee asked if all the will-he-or-won't-he over former vice president Al Gore's intention to run hurts the candidates' feelings ....... and then gazed longingly (and a little comically) into each others' eyes ...... In "every single question we've heard," Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said toward the end of the debate, "you see cynicism about the capacity to change this country." ...... In the spirit of the evening, we watched the debate streaming live on CNN.com. ...... Hillary further polishing her front runner posture .... Mike Gravel grew ever grumpier, complaining whenever he spoke that he was not getting enough time to talk. When asked to defend a previous statement he had made about Vietnam, he answered: "I like the question; I don't get many of them, thank you." Then he asked the audience, losing his cool, "Has it been fair?" ........ Edwards, who was slick throughout, apparently contracted foot-in-mouth disease immediately before the last question was asked. All the candidates were told to say one thing they like and one thing they dislike about the person standing to his or her left. Edwards looked at Clinton and said, "I don't know about your coat." Maybe it wasn't just the YouTube submitters who needed a filter last night.
Assessing the CNN-YouTube Debate

Iraq, Energy, Global Warming: All Interlinked

Withdrawing From Iraq

The idea is not to withdraw from Iraq and let that new state collapse. The idea is to withdraw in a way that every inch of military withdrawal is replaced by two inches of fervent political activity.

Obama Gameplan: Stable, Democratic Iraq

If withdrawal leads to some kind of a breakdown, that means going right back in, not abandoning. But I don't think there will be a breakdown. The US military leaving will mean the Al Qaeda's number one gripe will have disappeared. They will have lost wind.

Iraq will do just fine. Iraq will do better once the US military has left.

Energy Solution: Go Nuclear

Before the steam engine, we had wind energy: we called them sails. Steam became diesel. And now there is talk to go back to wind. Makes no sense. There is no going back, there is only going forward.

All countries on earth deserve to grow their economies. Imagine a 7% growth rate per year for every country on earth, especially the poor countries. And do the math on how much energy consumption that will mean. You very quickly realize the only option is nuclear.

The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy

The Apollo project is not to set up wind farms across the country so that we can no longer see the sun during the day. The Apollo project is to speed up research so as to find ways to make good with the waste generated from the nuclear energy plants.

Global Warming Is Also Energy Solution

No one country can tackle global warming. That also happens to be true of the energy crisis. There is a need for a global effort, a global collaboration, global ground rules.

For example, you can not have 10,000 nuclear weapons, and keep doing research to build new ones and then go around the world telling others they may not have it. That is nuclear apartheid. The long term goal has to be total disarmament. Only within that clear commitment to that long term goal can the short term goal of nonproliferation be achieved.

The International Atomic Agency will have to be given much more teeth. All nuclear energy plants all over the world will have to come under the strict regime of that agency. The strictest safety regulations must be designed and enforced. And then peaceful use of nuclear energy must be encouraged across the world.

Economic growth is a legitimate goal of any sovereign country. Energy needs will dramatically rise over the next few decades as they should. And they have to be met with nuclear energy.

JFK, Obama Parallels: Catholic, Black

In The News

Al Qaeda Strikes Back Foreign Affairs Decisively defeating al Qaeda will be more difficult now than it would have been a few years ago. ...... it will only be a matter of time before al Qaeda strikes the U.S. homeland again. ...... up to 60,000 Pakistani volunteers had served in the Taliban militia before 9/11, alongside dozens of active-duty Pakistani army advisers and even small Pakistani army commando units ......... For the next two years, al Qaeda focused on surviving -- and, with the Taliban, on building a new base of operations around Quetta, in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan. ....... Iraq, where it had little or no presence before 9/11. ....... al Qaeda in Iraq has continued to orchestrate massacres against Shiites in Baghdad. ...... suicide bombings and the use of improvised explosive devices, became commonplace in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in 2006, according to the U.S. military, and suicide operations grew from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. ....... Al Qaeda has also developed closer ties to Kashmiri terrorist groups, such as and Lashkar-e-TaibaJaish-e-Muhammad. ....... the hijacking of an Indian airliner by Kashmiri terrorists -- an operation .... since correctly described as the "dress rehearsal" for 9/11. ....... the spectacular multiple bombings that rocked Mumbai last July had the marks of al Qaeda's modus operandi ........ beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq ..... al Qaeda records most of its operations and transmits the gruesome coverage to jihadi Web sites all over the world ........ promising to bankrupt Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq ..... some 4,500 overtly jihadi Web sites ..... the growing breadth of its ambitions and its increasing reach throughout the Middle East ....... Muriel Degauque, a Belgian woman and a convert to Islam, who blew herself up in a car-bomb attack against a U.S. convoy in Iraq in November 2005 ...... Pakistan received 400,000 visits from British residents in 2004 ...... the United Kingdom has become a focal point of al Qaeda's activities in the West. ...... some 200 networks of Muslims of South Asian descent were being monitored in the United Kingdom ....... terrorist plots in the United Kingdom "often have links back to al Qaeda in Pakistan ....... Since 2001, these foot soldiers are suspected of having plotted 30 or so attacks on targets in the United Kingdom or aircraft leaving for the United States. ....... independent, copycat operation ..... Al Qaeda's growing connections to Europe have made the United States more vulnerable ....... the plot last August to destroy ten commercial airliners en route from the United Kingdom to the United States ...... cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe .... expanding reach in Europe. Its leadership is intact. .... al Qaeda is well placed to threaten global security in the near future. .. thrives on failed and failing states ...... The Jihad Movement in Bangladesh was one of the original signatories of bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war on the West. ...... Somalia has been a failed state for almost two decades ..... In Algeria, meanwhile, al Qaeda is trying to revive the civil war that killed over 100,000 people in the 1990s. The Algerian Islamist movement the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, swore allegiance to bin Laden last year, and he ordered that the group be renamed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It has since attacked oil targets and police stations, hoping that a spectacular series of assaults, especially on Western targets, could reignite the civil war. ......... he was eagerly looking forward to an American nuclear attack on Iran. ..... Al Qaeda would especially like a full-scale U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran, which would presumably oust the Shiite regime in Tehran, further antagonize Muslims worldwide, and expand al Qaeda's battlefield against the United States so that it extends from Anbar Province in the west to the Khyber Pass in the east. It understands that the U.S. military is already too overstretched to invade Iran, but it expects Washington to use nuclear weapons. ......... al Qaeda will deliberately provoke a war with a "false-flag" operation ...... it should not consider a military operation against Iran, as doing so would only strengthen al Qaeda's hand -- much as the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have. ........ The organization is more diffuse, and its components operate more independently. Bin Laden continues to influence its direction and provide general guidance and, on occasion, specific instructions. But overall the movement is more loosely structured, which leaves more room for independent and copycat terrorist operations. .......... target al Qaeda's leaders ...... NATO should reach out to India as well: New Delhi has already provided half a billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan, and, having long been a target of Islamist terrorism, India has a national interest in defeating it. ...... Since 2001, the international community has delivered far less aid per capita to Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, than it has to recovering states such as Bosnia. ....... Musharraf .. his government has tolerated those who harbor bin Laden and his lieutenants, Taliban fighters and their Afghan fellow travelers, and Kashmiri terrorists. .... Many senior Pakistani politicians say privately that they believe Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) still has extensive links to bin Laden; some even claim it harbors him. ...... a systematic crackdown on all terrorists -- Arab, Afghan, and Kashmiri -- is critical ....... Pakistan should no longer be rewarded for its selective counterterrorism efforts. (Washington has already given it some $10 billion in aid since 9/11.) ....... If it makes sense to bring democracy to Afghanistan, then surely it makes sense to bring it to Pakistan. The prevailing theory that strongmen such as Musharraf make for better counterterrorism partners is a canard; Musharraf, for one, has not delivered the goods. ...... disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal ..... Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure ......... the war of ideas. Washington must learn to develop more compelling narratives for its actions. ...... bring peace to Palestine and Kashmir ...... The president of the United States must get personally involved in brokering peace in both instances. ........ a failure to adjust U.S. strategy would increase the risk that al Qaeda will launch another "raid" on the United States, this time perhaps with a weapon of mass destruction. ....... According to Saudi officials, these public messages came with secret orders from bin Laden instructing cells to attack soft targets in Saudi Arabia. ....... The al Qaeda apparatus in the kingdom, which had been quiescent, exploded into action between 2003 and 2006 -- triggering the most serious and sustained domestic violence since the creation of modern Saudi Arabia in the early twentieth century. ........ The backbone of the al Qaeda movement in the kingdom was apparently broken. ..... (Zarqawi took credit for the plot but claimed that the Jordanian authorities fabricated the presence of chemical weapons; as he put it, if his group possessed such a device, "we would not hesitate one second to use it on Israeli cities.") ..... al Qaeda is still too weak to overthrow established governments equipped with effective security services; it needs failed states to thrive.

Republican White House Hopefuls Distance Themselves From Bush FOX News
Rudy Giuliani Plans to Skip Important Republican Iowa Straw Poll LifeNews.com
Just One-Third of US Adults Would Vote for Barack Obama if He was ... PR Newswire (press release)
Obama on 'quiet riot' among black poor Chicago Tribune a "quiet riot" of despair simmering in impoverished black neighborhoods across the country ...... one of the oldest and largest annual gatherings of African-American ministers. ...... an ominous portrait of hopelessness pervading many inner-city neighborhoods and its potential to erupt into uncontrolled violence ..... pockets of endemic poverty. ..... the street corners of ghettos around the country as gathering places for "young men and women without hope, without miracles and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge -- the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities." ...... violence is "inexcusable and self-defeating." ....... many of the same frustrations continue to build in black America, stoked by poor schools, bad housing, and inadequate job opportunities. ...... when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people ... believe that things are never going to get any better ...... an expansion of programs for visiting nurses to teach parenting skills to new and expectant low-income mothers, jobs programs for disadvantaged youths, more support for ex-offenders in finding employment after prison and better public transportation for residents of low-income areas.
Is US Safer Since 9/11? Clinton and Rivals Spar New York Times Mrs. Clinton also thought the war in Iraq had been a distraction from the fight against terrorism ..... three-quarters believed that the United States was losing the war on terror. ...... “It was an important distinction that emerged at the debate. Senator Obama has often made the point that as a result of the war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism has increased.”
Brazil, India Aim To Boost Trade Fourfold By 2010 Forbes
US agents thwart planned Laos coup plot Christian Science Monitor
India, Brazil blame developed countries for climate change Gulf Times
‘The century of opportunity for India and Brazil’ Financial Express
Bush Says Russia Won't Attack Europe Forbes
Gorbachev to US: Let's not repeat the Cold War CNN International
Blair promises to tackle Putin at G8 summit Times Online
Strong Cyclone Heading for Southern Iran New York Times
'Deranged' man tries to grab hold of Pope Benedict's vehicle International Herald Tribune
China: Looming Beijing Olympics Cause Strains In Host Country RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
US Navy fires on Somalia pirates NEWS.com.au
Google, Salesforce Deepen Ties MSNBC citing its ultrafast development and simple design as paragons of Internet software ...... Salesforce's success--the company expects to grow 45% this year to at least $722 million in revenues--it isn't mature enough to absorb substantial acquisitions itself. ....... strengthen each company's hand as they prepare to battle Microsoft (MSFT), which is developing online versions of its sales management and other software ...... The companies have combined Salesforce.com with Google Maps to help sales staff find meetings. ....... Google's OneBox appliance server lets companies search data inside Salesforce's program. ...... Salesforce sells Google's Docs & Spreadsheets software through its AppExchange online store. ....... "We have a goal to make every Salesforce user an AdWords entrepreneur." ...... "Google's entry into the business software market could radically alter the competitive environment and make growth very difficult for incumbents like Microsoft" ...... a glut of venture capital-backed on-demand software companies, and the buyout wave sweeping the business software market could soon extend to them ...... Innovation Advisors, a technology-focused investment bank ....... Workday, the on-demand HR software startup founded by PeopleSoft founder David Duffield, which has raised $35 million in funding from Duffield and Greylock Partners ...... Salesforce earned $730,000 on $162.4 million in revenue and added 2,500 customers
Amitabh Bachchan challenges decision to quash transfer of land Apun Ka Choice
Bachchans had a blast at Roland Garros! Times of India
Dell follows HP's lead, delves more into services Blogging Stocks
Dell Sets Goal Of Becoming Greenest Technology Company Media Newswire (press release)
Harvard, MIT scientists report embryonic stem cell advances Boston Globe
Paris Hilton Reports to the Big House New York Times Paris Hilton, the hotel heiress everyone loves to hate and obsessively follow ....... separated from the general population but possibly sharing a cell with one other person ....... She’ll be allowed to leave the 12-by-8 foot room for at least an hour a day to shower, watch TV, take a stroll in the yard or make phone calls.