WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Thursday rebuffed criticism about potential security risks of a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports. Lawmakers asked the White House to reconsider its earlier approval of the deal. The sale to state-owned Dubai Ports World was “rigorously reviewed” by a U.S. committee that considers security threats when foreign companies seek to buy or invest in American industry, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, run by the Treasury Department, reviewed an assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies. The committee’s 12 members agreed unanimously the sale did not present any problems, the department said. “We wanted to look at this one quite closely because it relates to ports,” Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary in the Homeland Security Department, told The Associated Press. “It is important to focus on this partner as opposed to just what part of the world they come from. We came to the conclusion that the transaction should not be halted.” The unusual defense of the secretive committee, which reviews hundreds of such deals […]
The amount of ice flowing into the sea from large glaciers in southern Greenland has almost doubled in the last 10 years, possibly requiring scientists to increase estimates of how much the world’s oceans could rise under the influence of global warming, according to a study being published today in the journal Science. The study said there was evidence that the rise in flows would soon spread to glaciers farther north in Greenland, which is covered with an ancient ice sheet nearly two miles thick in places, and which holds enough water to raise global sea levels 20 feet or more should it all flow into the ocean. The study compared various satellite measurements of the creeping ice in 1996, 2000 and 2005, and was done by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Kansas. Glaciers are creeping rivers of ice that accelerate or slow and grow thicker or shrink depending on the interplay of a variety of conditions including rates of snowfall and temperature and whether water lubricates the interface between ice and the rock below. Sometimes the rate of movement in a particular glacier can change abruptly, but […]
The Bush administration on Thursday conceded that key sectors of the Iraqi economy had fallen below pre-war levels because of the insurgency, but insisted it was making enough progress on the political and security fronts to press ahead with reductions in US forces. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, told the Senate budget committee that production of crude oil and electricity was down from three years ago. Attacks had also hit oil exports. According to latest statistics – which Ms Rice did not mention – crude oil production this month is running at 1.7m barrels a day, down from a post-invasion peak of 2.5m in September 2004 that was close to prewar levels. Ms Rice initially asserted that many more Iraqis were now getting potable water and sewerage services. However, under intense questioning from Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, she conceded that although capacity had increased, fewer Iraqis were actually receiving those services. Senator Conrad, citing the special inspector general, said almost all economic indices showed Iraq was better off before the US had invaded. Republicans, too, are sceptical of administration claims of progress. Senator Chuck Hagel told Ms Rice on Wednesday he believed the […]
On a day when The New York Times reported that the US and Israel were in cahoots, intending to destabilize the newly elected Hamas-led Palestinian government by cutting off funding, Hamas chief in exile Khaled Mashaal attacked the policies of Western governments and Israel on Tuesday saying Hamas would never recognize Israel, and calling for the “liberation of Jerusalem.” “Our goal is to free Jerusalem and to purify Al-Aksa Mosque,” said the Damascus-based leader, according to Hamas’s Web site. “Islam is strong,” he reportedly said in a speech to a crowd in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, “because its strength is from God, and it will continue to go forward despite those who oppose it. Don’t fear, we will not recognize Israel.” With the possibility of foreign funding being cut off, Mashaal began a tour of Muslim countries last week in order to drum up financial support. But he told his audience that “we are a nation which is ready to starve and die.” His words echoed the goal of a plan described by the Times, which said that Israeli and US officials would try to “starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some […]
Tibetans are setting fire to tiger skins and other exotic furs after the Dalai Lama personally called on his people to stop the trade in endangered animal pelts. Tibet has become the world’s leading market for the contraband, as Justin Huggler reports Published: 15 February 2006 A rich and unusual smoke has been drifting into the Tibetan skies. People have been emerging from their homes and burning furs and animal skins. Onlookers have gathered to watch as Tibetans burned tiger skins worth as much as £6,000 in the streets. Many have given up their chubas, traditional robes adorned with tiger skins that can cost the equivalent of two years’ wages for the average Tibetan, and watched happily as they went up in smoke. In one town, it is said you can see the smoking ruins of tiger skins and other furs along the roadside. These scenes are not part of some exotic ritual. They are part of a major new environmental drive among Tibetans that could prove decisive in whether the tiger survives in the wild, or is driven to extinction. They come after the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, personally intervened and called […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
