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Ignoring the Chinese Tiger Do you ever watch nature documentaries ? Remember this one ? There’s a herd of red deer , and it’s mating season, so all of the herd bucks start squabbling over who is going to have first dibs at the does. They lock horns and scuffle – with everybody trying to drive off the reigning buck , while the does watch, and cheer on their favorites. Meanwhile , in the trees , a little bird sees something, and starts squawking : “Tiger ! Tiger ! Tiger ! “ The herd ignores the warning cries. “Stupid bird...

Wary and slightly nervous, and yet stoic and phlegmatic, London continued to operate as though nothing much had happened, as another set of "incidents" paralyzed the city-center's transport network yesterday. Fortunately, there were no deaths this time, to add to the 56 who died in coordinated bomb blasts exactly two weeks ago. Britain has responded the way it has at least partly because an attack on Britain had been widely expected. What wasn't expected was that it would be from within. There has already been some backlash against Muslims, particularly after it became known that the four suicide bombers of...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Former President Clinton sounded a warning Tuesday against the dangers of climate change as he met with young South Africans, and had lunch with anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Clinton was mobbed at a youth event hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg. Young volunteers and their suited sponsors crowded around Clinton to take photographs and asked for autographs. "Not very far from you in the South Pole in the last 10 years, 12 chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island have broken off," Clinton told the volunteers with City Year South Africa, a youth...

I have been thinking about what the United States Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld has said in an interview with British television personality Sir David Frost about the dangers of al Jazeera Television and web magazine. The fundamental problem is that in the USA nobody, not even the most erudite and highly placed, understands that it is NOT just al Jazeera that is affecting world and Muslim opinion but the British and European news media, who powerfully influence the 15-odd million highly literate Muslims living in the UK and continental Europe. What, one may ask, does an irate columnist in...

Next week marks the thirty-eighth anniversary of the launch pad fire of Apollo 1, which took the lives of Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. In a grim irony, that same week also marks the nineteenth anniversary of the Challenger disaster, as well as the second anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Though memorials are certainly in order, a closer examination of the nature and cause of each catastrophe reveals much about the nation throughout the past four decades. Particularly in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and its ensuing investigations, disturbing trends in NASA...

I usually write my own column, but recent events in the Middle East call for voices from that region to be heard among the mainstream media din. Some Muslims promote Jihad while others support democratic reform. It has long been my contention that --contrary to the caterwauling of the American and European left--the forces of the current Islamist Jihad are limited by their preferred method of combat and by one of their main tenets; opposition to democratic institutions. The first is a fact of nature: A movement whose main weapon of choice is the martyrdom of an entire generation of...

"I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future." So spoke President Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking Yasser Arafat's demise.The combination of Mr. Bush's stunning new mandate and Mr. Arafat's near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of relative doldrums and to massive dangers to Israel.The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Mr. Arafat as the...

Tragic Trip Newton Theresa Freed Video Included Saturday, Oct. 2, 2004 After a fall of more than 40-feet, Mexican medical teams refuse to help a Kansas man. It was a trip to discover his heritage but instead turns tragic. The 23-year-old was going to Mexico to meet his birth father for the first time. He had been living with his adopted parents his entire life in Newton. Many people take for granted the quality of emergency medical care in the United States. It’s one mistake a Newton family will never make again. It’s a lesson about health care that 21-year-old...

Terror War: The Peril of Ignorance By Christopher G. Adamo | September 9, 2004 Against the horrific backdrop of 9-11, relatively little discussion occurred in regards to the jubilant celebrations occurring among Palestinians on the streets of Gaza... Russia's past efforts to undermine the United States in its war on terror, .. to have spared it. Despite the disingenuous platitudes of "political correctness".. of Islamists as anything other than a religious war, that reality remains unchanged. Now Russia knows it is no exception. But those celebrations took place nonetheless. In this country as well, every effort has been made ever...

JERUSALEM [MENL] -- Israel has become increasingly concerned over the growing strength of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A report asserted that Israel cannot ignore the growing military strength of Cairo and Riyad. The two Arab countries were said to have been building their forces with advanced U.S. platforms and technology. "The last decade has seen a very sharp rise in military expenditures in Egypt, beyond the amounts that poor country gets from the United States annually," the report by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Contemporary Affairs, said. "Up to now, Egypt has received more than $30 billion in military aid from...

Does bin Laden have US Army medical files? Asheville woman blows whistle; MedQuist denies story Could Osama bin Laden and other terrorists have access to the medical records of thousands of retired and active duty American military personnel? That's one possibility according to a story of overseas outsourcing, broken promises, corporate intimidation and massive technological failure told by Susan Purdue, a former employee of the MedQuist medical transcription company. (A full interview will air Sunday afternoon from 1 until 4 p.m.on WWNC-AM 570.) Purdue said MedQuist, had contracted with the Veterans Administration to transcribe voice dictation from doctors at Veterans...

Boffins highlight dangers of your aquarium November 04 2003 at 02:45PM Paris - France's health watchdog said on Tuesday it had recorded a surge in cases of a rare type of skin infection among aquarium lovers after they had changed tank water or handled fish with their bare hands. The condition, sometimes called "fish tuberculosis", is caused by a bug called Mycobacterium marinum that is often found in aquarium water as well as in ponds and seawater or in under-chlorinated swimming pools, they said. Sixty-three cases of the infection were recorded in France between 1996 and 1998, the Institute of...

<p>The Alameda County coroner's office is investigating the case of an 18- year-old East Bay woman who died Wednesday, days after reportedly taking the abortion pill RU-486.</p> <p>The victim's father told The Chronicle that his 18-year-old daughter had gotten a prescription for RU-486 at a Planned Parenthood office in Hayward on Sept. 10 to end her seven-week pregnancy.</p>