Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops

NOVEMBER 27, 2006
COVER STORY
Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops
American importers have long answered criticism of conditions at their Chinese suppliers with labor rules and inspections. But many factories have just gotten better at concealing abuses




Tang Yinghong was caught in an impossible squeeze. For years, his employer, Ningbo Beifa Group, had prospered as a top supplier of pens, mechanical pencils, and highlighters to Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ) and other major retailers. But late last year, Tang learned that auditors from Wal-Mart, Beifa's biggest customer, were about to inspect labor conditions at the factory in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo where he worked as an administrator. Wal-Mart had already on three occasions caught Beifa paying its 3,000 workers less than China's minimum wage and violating overtime rules, Tang says. Under the U.S. chain's labor rules, a fourth offense would end the relationship.

Help arrived suddenly in the form of an unexpected phone call from a man calling himself Lai Mingwei. The caller said he was with Shanghai Corporate Responsibility Management & Consulting Co., and for a $5,000 fee, he'd take care of Tang's Wal-Mart problem. "He promised us he could definitely get us a pass for the audit," Tang says.

Lai provided advice on how to create fake but authentic-looking records and suggested that Beifa hustle any workers with grievances out of the factory on the day of the audit, Tang recounts. The consultant also coached Beifa managers on what questions they could expect from Wal-Mart's inspectors, says Tang. After following much of Lai's advice, the Beifa factory in Ningbo passed the audit earlier this year, Tang says, even though the company didn't change any of its practices.

For more than a decade, major American retailers and name brands have answered accusations that they exploit "sweatshop" labor with elaborate codes of conduct and on-site monitoring. But in China many factories have just gotten better at concealing abuses. Internal industry documents reviewed by BusinessWeek reveal that numerous Chinese factories keep double sets of books to fool auditors and distribute scripts for employees to recite if they are questioned. And a new breed of Chinese consultant has sprung up to assist companies like Beifa in evading audits. "Tutoring and helping factories deal with audits has become an industry in China," says Tang, 34, who recently left Beifa of his own volition to start a Web site for workers.

A lawyer for Beifa, Zhou Jie, confirms that the company employed the Shanghai consulting firm but denies any dishonesty related to wages, hours, or outside monitoring. Past audits had "disclosed some problems, and we took necessary measures correspondingly," he explains in a letter responding to questions. The lawyer adds that Beifa has "become the target of accusations" by former employees "whose unreasonable demands have not been satisfied." Reached by cell phone, a man identifying himself as Lai says that the Shanghai consulting firm helps suppliers pass audits, but he declines to comment on his work for Beifa.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Wyatt says the giant retailer will investigate the allegations about Beifa brought to its attention by BusinessWeek. Wal-Mart has stepped up factory inspections, she adds, but it acknowledges that some suppliers are trying to undermine monitoring: "We recognize there is a problem. There are always improvements that need to be made, but we are confident that new procedures are improving conditions."

CHINESE EXPORT manufacturing is rife with tales of deception. The largest single source of American imports, China's factories this year are expected to ship goods to the U.S. worth $280 billion. American companies continually demand lower prices from their Chinese suppliers, allowing American consumers to enjoy inexpensive clothes, sneakers, and electronics. But factory managers in China complain in interviews that U.S. price pressure creates a powerful incentive to cheat on labor standards that American companies promote as a badge of responsible capitalism. These standards generally incorporate the official minimum wage, which is set by local or provincial governments and ranges from $45 to $101 a month. American companies also typically say they hew to the government-mandated workweek of 40 to 44 hours, beyond which higher overtime pay is required. These figures can be misleading, however, as the Beijing government has had only limited success in pushing local authorities to enforce Chinese labor laws. That's another reason abuses persist and factory oversight frequently fails.

Some American companies now concede that the cheating is far more pervasive than they had imagined. "We've come to realize that, while monitoring is crucial to measuring the performance of our suppliers, it doesn't per se lead to sustainable improvements," says Hannah Jones, Nike Inc.'s (NKE ) vice-president for corporate responsibility. "We still have the same core problems."

This raises disturbing questions. Guarantees by multi-nationals that offshore suppliers are meeting widely accepted codes of conduct have been important to maintaining political support in the U.S. for growing trade ties with China, especially in the wake of protests by unions and antiglobalization activists. "For many retailers, audits are a way of covering themselves," says Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the Fair Labor Assn., a coalition of 20 apparel and sporting goods makers and retailers, including Nike, Adidas Group, Eddie Bauer, and Nordstrom (JWN ). But can corporations successfully impose Western labor standards on a nation that lacks real unions and a meaningful rule of law?

Historically associated with sweatshop abuses but now trying to reform its suppliers, Nike says that one factory it caught falsifying records several years ago is the Zhi Qiao Garments Co. The dingy concrete-walled facility set near mango groves and rice paddies in the steamy southern city of Panyu employs 600 workers, most in their early 20s. They wear blue smocks and lean over stitching machines and large steam-blasting irons. Today the factory complies with labor-law requirements, Nike says, but Zhi Qiao's general manager, Peter Wang, says it's not easy. "Before, we all played the cat-and-mouse game," but that has ended, he claims. "Any improvement you make costs more money." Providing for overtime wages is his biggest challenge, he says. By law, he is supposed to provide time-and-a-half pay after eight hours on weekdays and between double and triple pay for Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. "The price [Nike pays] never increases one penny," Wang complains, "but compliance with labor codes definitely raises costs."

A Nike spokesman says in a written statement that the company, based in Beaverton, Ore., "believes wages are best set by the local marketplace in which a contract factory competes for its workforce." One way Nike and several other companies are seeking to improve labor conditions is teaching their suppliers more efficient production methods that reduce the need for overtime.

The problems in China aren't limited to garment factories, where labor activists have documented sweatshop conditions since the early 1990s. Widespread violations of Chinese labor laws are also surfacing in factories supplying everything from furniture and household appliances to electronics and computers. Hewlett-Packard, (HPQ ) Dell (DELL ), and other companies that rely heavily on contractors in China to supply notebook PCs, digital cameras, and handheld devices have formed an industry alliance to combat the abuses.

A compliance manager for a major multinational company who has overseen many factory audits says that the percentage of Chinese suppliers caught submitting false payroll records has risen from 46% to 75% in the past four years. This manager, who requested anonymity, estimates that only 20% of Chinese suppliers comply with wage rules, while just 5% obey hour limitations.

A RECENT VISIT by the compliance manager to a toy manufacturer in Shenzhen illustrated the crude ways that some suppliers conceal mistreatment. The manager recalls smelling strong paint fumes in the poorly ventilated and aging factory building. Young women employees were hunched over die-injection molds, using spray guns to paint storybook figurines. The compliance manager discovered a second workshop behind a locked door that a factory official initially refused to open but eventually did. In the back room, a young woman, who appeared to be under the legal working age of 16, tried to hide behind her co-workers on the production line, the visiting compliance manager says. The Chinese factory official admitted he was violating various work rules.

The situation in China is hard to keep in perspective. For all the shortcomings in factory conditions and oversight, even some critics say that workers' circumstances are improving overall. However compromised, pressure from multinationals has curbed some of the most egregious abuses by outside suppliers. Factories owned directly by such corporations as Motorola Inc (MOT ). and General Electric Co. (GE ) generally haven't been accused of mistreating their employees. And a booming economy and tightening labor supply in China have emboldened workers in some areas to demand better wages, frequently with success. Even so, many Chinese laborers, especially migrants from poor rural regions, still seek to work as many hours as possible, regardless of whether they are properly paid.

In this shifting, often murky environment, labor auditing has mushroomed into a multimillion-dollar industry. Internal corporate investigators and such global auditing agencies as Cal Safety Compliance, sgs of Switzerland, and Bureau Veritas of France operate a convoluted and uncoordinated oversight system. They follow varying corporate codes of conduct, resulting in some big Chinese factories having to post seven or eight different sets of rules. Some factories receive almost daily visits from inspection teams demanding payroll and production records, facility tours, and interviews with managers and workers. "McDonald's (MCD ), Walt Disney, (DIS ) and Wal-Mart are doing thousands of audits a year that are not harmonized," says van Heerden of Fair Labor. Among factory managers, "audit fatigue sets in," he says.

Some companies that thought they were making dramatic progress are discovering otherwise. A study commissioned by Nike last year covered 569 factories it uses in China and around the world that employ more than 300,000 workers. It found labor-code violations in every single one. Some factories "hide their work practices by maintaining two or even three sets of books," by coaching workers to "mislead auditors about their work hours, and by sending portions of production to unauthorized contractors where we have no oversight," the Nike study found.

THE FAIR LABOR ASSN. released its own study last November based on unannounced audits of 88 of its members' supplier factories in 18 countries. It found an average of 18 violations per factory, including excessive hours, underpayment of wages, health and safety problems, and worker harassment. The actual violation rate is probably higher, the fla said, because "factory personnel have become sophisticated in concealing noncompliance related to wages. They often hide original documents and show monitors falsified books."

While recently auditing an apparel manufacturer in Dongguan that supplies American importers, the corporate compliance manager says he discussed wage levels with the factory's Hong Kong-based owner. The 2,000 employees who operate sewing and stitching machines in the multi-story complex often put in overtime but earn an average of only $125 a month, an amount the owner grudgingly acknowledged to the compliance manager doesn't meet Chinese overtime-pay requirements or corporate labor codes. "These goals are a fantasy," the owner said. "Maybe in two or three decades we can meet them."

Pinning down what Chinese production workers are paid can be tricky. Based on Chinese government figures, the average manufacturing wage in China is 64 cents an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and demographer Judith Banister of Javelin Investments, a consulting firm in Beijing. That rate assumes a 40-hour week. In fact, 60- to 100-hour weeks are common in China, meaning that the real manufacturing wage is far less. Based on his own calculations from plant inspections, the veteran compliance manager estimates that employees at garment, electronics, and other export factories typically work more than 80 hours a week and make only 42 cents an hour.

BusinessWeek reviewed summaries of 28 recent industry audits of Chinese factories serving U.S. customers. A few factories supplying Black & Decker, (BDK ) Williams-Sonoma, and other well-known brands turned up clean, the summaries show. But these facilities were the exceptions.

At most of the factories, auditors discovered records apparently meant to falsify payrolls and time sheets. One typical report concerns Zhongshan Tat Shing Toys Factory, which employs 650 people in the southern city of Zhongshan. The factory's main customers are Wal-Mart and Target. (TGT ) When an American-sponsored inspection team showed up this spring, factory managers produced time sheets showing each worker put in eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and was paid double the local minimum wage of 43 cents per hour for eight hours on Saturday, according to an audit report.

But when auditors interviewed workers in one section, some said that they were paid less than the minimum wage and that most of them were obliged to work an extra three to five hours a day, without overtime pay, the report shows. Most toiled an entire month without a day off. Workers told auditors that the factory had a different set of records showing actual overtime hours, the report says. Factory officials claimed that some of the papers had been destroyed by fire.

Wal-Mart's Wyatt doesn't dispute the discrepancies but stresses that the company is getting more aggressive overall in its monitoring. Wal-Mart says it does more audits than any other company--13,600 reviews of 7,200 factories last year alone--and permanently banned 141 factories in 2005 as a result of serious infractions, such as using child labor. In a written statement, Target doesn't respond to the allegations but says that it "takes very seriously" the fair treatment of factory workers. It adds that it "is committed to taking corrective action--up to and including termination of the relationship for vendors" that violate local labor law or Target's code of conduct. The Zhongshan factory didn't respond to repeated requests for comment.

An audit late last year of Young Sun Lighting Co., a maker of lamps for Home Depot, (HD ) Sears (SHLD ), and other retailers, highlighted similar inconsistencies. Every employee was on the job five days a week from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a lunch break and no overtime hours, according to interviews with managers, as well as time sheets and payroll records provided by the 300-worker factory in Dongguan, an industrial city in Guangdong Province. But other records auditors found at the site and elsewhere--backed up by auditor interviews with workers--revealed that laborers worked an extra three to five hours a day with only one or two days a month off during peak production periods. Workers said they received overtime pay, but the "auditor strongly felt that these workers were coached," the audit report states.

Young Sun denies ever violating the rules set by its Western customers. In written answers to questions, the lighting manufacturer says that it doesn't coach employees on how to respond to auditors and that "at present, there are no" workers who are putting in three to five extra hours a day and getting only one or two days off each month. Young Sun says that it follows all local Chinese overtime rules.

Home Depot doesn't contest the inconsistencies in the audit reports about Young Sun and three other factories in China. "There is no perfect factory, I can guarantee you," a company spokeswoman says. Instead of cutting off wayward suppliers, Home Depot says that it works with factories on corrective actions. If the retailer becomes aware of severe offenses, such as the use of child labor, it terminates the supplier. A Sears spokesman declined to comment.

Coaching of workers and midlevel managers to mislead auditors is widespread, the auditing reports and BusinessWeek interviews show. A document obtained last year during an inspection at one Chinese fabric export factory in the southern city of Guangzhou instructed administrators to take these actions when faced with a surprise audit: "First notify underage trainees, underage full-time workers, and workers without identification to leave the manufacturing workshop through the back door. Order them not to loiter near the dormitory area. Secondly, immediately order the receptionist to gather all relevant documents and papers." Other pointers include instructing all workers to put on necessary protective equipment such as earplugs and face masks.

SOME U.S. RETAILERS SAY this evidence isn't representative and that their auditing efforts are working. BusinessWeek asked J.C. Penney Co. (JCP ) about audit reports included among those the magazine reviewed that appear to show falsification of records to hide overtime and pay violations at two factories serving the large retailer. Penney spokeswoman Darcie M. Brossart says the company immediately investigated the factories, and its "auditors observed no evidence of any legal compliance issues."

In any case, the two factories are too small to be seen as typical, Penney executives argue. The chain has been consolidating its China supply base and says that 80% of its imports now come from factories with several thousand workers apiece, which are managed by large Hong Kong trading companies that employ their own auditors. Quality inspectors for Penney and other buyers are at their supplier sites constantly, so overtime violations are hard to hide, Brossart says.

Chinese factory officials say, however, that just because infractions are difficult to discern doesn't mean they're not occurring. "It's a challenge for us to meet these codes of conduct," says Ron Chang, the Taiwanese general manager of Nike supplier Shoetown Footwear Co., which employs 15,000 workers in Qingyuan, Guangdong. Given the fierce competition in China for foreign production work, "we can't ask Nike to increase our price," he says, so "how can we afford to pay the higher salary?" By reducing profit margins from 30% to 5% over the past 18 years, Shoetown has managed to stay in business and obey Nike's rules, he says.

But squeezing margins doesn't solve the larger social issue. Chang says he regularly loses skilled employees to rival factories that break the rules because many workers are eager to put in longer hours than he offers, regardless of whether they get paid overtime rates. Ultimately, the economics of global outsourcing may trump any system of oversight that Western companies attempt. And these harsh economic realities could make it exceedingly difficult to achieve both the low prices and the humane working conditions that U.S. consumers have been promised.









Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.

How Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes

How Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes
Wednesday, 22 November 2006, 12:21 pm
Opinion: Peter Rost M.D.





How Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Their Taxes

By Peter Rost, M.D.Drug companies and other multinational companies based in the U.S. systematically avoid paying tax in the U.S. on their profits. The companies elect to realize profits in low-tax countries and because of this the rest of us have to pay billions of unnecessary taxes to make up for the shortfall, writes Peter Rost, an ex-pharmaceutical executive.

The biggest tax scam on earth has a very innocent sounding name. It is called “transfer prices.” That almost sounds boring. It is, however, anything but boring. Abuse of transfer prices is a key tool multinational corporations use to fool the U.S. and other jurisdictions to think that they have virtually no profit; hence, they shouldn’t pay any taxes.

Corporations involved in this scam are “model corporate citizens,”or so they would like us to believe. The truth is that they rob us all blind. The money we lose can be estimated in the tens of billions, or possibly hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We all end up paying higher taxes because rich corporations make sure they don’t.

But don’t take my word for this.

A few weeks ago U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that GSK will pay $3.4 billion to the IRS to settle a transfer pricing dispute dating back 17 years. The IRS alleges that GSK improperly shifted profits from their U.S. to the U.K. entity.

And U.K. pharmaceutical companies are not alone with these kinds of problems. Merck, one of the largest U.S. drug companies, also this month disclosed that they face four separate tax disputes in the U.S. and Canada with potential liabilities of $5.6 billion. Out of that amount, Merck disclosed that the Canada Revenue Agency issued the company a notice for $1.8 billion in back taxes and interest “related to certain inter-company pricing matters.” And according to the IRS, one of the schemes Merck used to cheat American tax payers was by setting up a subsidiary in tax-friendly Bermuda. Merck then quietly transferred patents for several blockbuster drugs to the new subsidiary and then paid the subsidiary for use of the patents. The arrangement in effect allowed some of the profits to disappear into Merck’s own “Bermuda triangle.”

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I have described many more ways the global drug industry cheats and defrauds our government in my recent book, “The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.” In this article, however, I’m going to focus on how they, and other rich multinationals, use the tax system to defraud us.

So what’s going on here, how have multinational drug companies been able to gouge us for years selling expensive drugs and then avoid paying tax on their astronomical profits?

The answer is simple. For companies in certain businesses, such as pharmaceuticals, it is very easy to simply “invent” the price a company charges their U.S. business for buying the company’s product which they manufacture in another country. And if they charge enough, poof; all the profit vanishes from the US, or Canada, or any other regular jurisdiction and end up in a corporate tax-haven. And that means American and Canadian tax payers don’t get their fair share.

Many multinational corporations essentially have two sets of bookkeeping. One set, with artificially inflated transfer prices is what they use to prepare local tax returns, and show auditors in high-tax jurisdictions, and another set of books, in which management can see the true profit and lost statement, based on real cost of goods, are used for the executives to determine the actual performance of their various operations.

Of course, not every multinational industry can do this as easily as the drug industry. It would be difficult to motivate $6,000 toilet seats. But the drug industry, where real cost of goods to manufacture drugs is usually around 5% of selling price, has a lot of room to artificially increase that cost of goods to 50% or 75% of selling price. This money is then accumulated in corporate tax-havens where the drugs are manufactured, such as Puerto Rico and Ireland. Puerto Rico has for many years attracted lots of pharmaceutical plants and Ireland is the new destination for such facilities, not because of the skilled labor or the beautiful scenery or the great beer—but because of the low taxes. Ireland has, in fact, one of the world’s lowest corporate tax rates with a maximum rate of 12.5 percent.

In Puerto Rico, over a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product already comes from pharmaceutical manufacturing. That shouldn’t be surprising. According to the U.S. Federal Tax Reform Act of 1976, manufacturers are permitted to repatriate profits from Puerto Rico to the U.S. free of U.S. federal taxes. And by the way, the Puerto Rico withholding tax is only 10%.

Of course, no company should have to pay more tax than they are legally obligated to, and they are entitled to locate to any low-tax jurisdiction. The problem starts when they use fraudulent transfer pricing and other tricks to artificially shift their income from the U.S. to a tax-haven. According to current OECD guidelines transfer prices should be based upon the arm’s length principle – that means the transfer price should be the same as if the two companies involved were indeed two independents, not part of the same corporate structure. Reality is that standard operating procedure for multinationals is to consistently violate this rule. And why shouldn’t they? After all, it takes 17 years for them to pay up, per the GSK example above, even when they get caught.

Another industry which successfully exploits overseas tax strategies to cheat us all is the hi-tech industry. In fact, Microsoft Corp. recently shaved at least $500 million from its annual tax bill using a similar strategy to the one the drug industry has used for so many years. Microsoft has set up a subsidiary in Ireland, called Round Island One Ltd. This company pays more than $300 million in taxes to this small island country with only 4 million inhabitants, and most of this comes from licensing fees for copyrighted software, originally developed in the U.S. Interesting thing is, at the same time, Round Island paid a total of just under $17 million in taxes to about 20 other countries, with more than 300 million people. The result of this was that Microsoft's world-wide tax rate plunged to 26 percent in 2004, from 33 percent the year before. Almost half of the drop was due to “foreign earnings taxed at lower rates,” according to a Microsoft financial filing. And this is how Microsoft has radically reduced its corporate taxes in much of Europe and been able to shield billions of dollars from U.S. taxation.

But remember, this is only one example. Most of the other tech companies are doing the same thing. Google recently also set up an Irish operation that the firm credited in a SEC filing with reducing its tax rate.

Here’s how this is done in the software industry and any other industry with valuable intellectual property. A company takes a great, patented, American product and then develops a new generation. Then, of course, the old product disappears. Some, or all, of the cost and development work for the new product takes place in Ireland, or at least, so the company claims. The ownership of the new generation product and all income from licensing can then legally be shared between the U.S. parent company and the offshore corporation or transferred outright to the tax-haven. The deal, to pass IRS scrutiny, has to be made using the “arms-length principle.” Reality is that the IRS has no way of controlling all these transactions.

Unfortunately those of us working and paying tax in the U.S. can’t relocate our jobs and our income to Ireland or another tax haven. So we have to make up the income shortfall. In the U.S. we have a highly educated society with a very qualified workforce, partly supported by our tax payers. This helps us generate breakthrough products. But once a company has a successful product, they have every incentive to move the second generation of a successful product overseas, to Ireland and a few other corporate tax havens.

There is only one problem for U.S. companies with this strategy, and that is that if they repatriate this money to the U.S. they have to pay full corporate taxes. In fact, according to BusinessWeek, U.S. multinational corporations have built up profits of as much as $750 billion overseas, much of it in tax havens such as the Ireland, Bahamas, and Singapore to avoid the stiff 35% levy they'd face if they repatriated the funds back into the U.S.

But of course, Congress, which is basically paid for by our multinational corporations, generously provided for a one-time provision in the corporate tax code, so that they could repatriate profits earned before 2003, and held in foreign subsidiaries, at an effective 5.25% tax rate.

And so the game goes on.

In the end, multinational corporations live in a global world which allows them to pretty much send their money to corporate tax havens at will, and then repatriate this money almost tax free, with the help of the U.S. Congress.

The people left holding the bag are you and me. If you want to know learn more about the corruption in the drug industry, read my new book, "The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman."





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Peter Rost, M.D., is a former Vice President of Pfizer. He became well known in 2004 when he emerged as the first drug company executive to speak out in favor of reimportation of drugs. He is the author of "The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman." See: http://the-whistleblower-by-peter-rost.blogspot.com/

'Bush doesn't think America should be an actual place'

Sunday, November 19, 2006
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
'Bush doesn't think America should be an actual place'
Tancredo says president believes nation should be merely 'idea' without borders
Posted: November 19, 2006
4:19 p.m. Eastern
By Joe Kovacs



© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Bush believes America should be more of an idea than an actual place, a Republican congressman told WND in an exclusive interview.

"People have to understand what we're talking about here. The president of the United States is an internationalist," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. "He is going to do what he can to create a place where the idea of America is just that – it's an idea. It's not an actual place defined by borders. I mean this is where this guy is really going."

Tancredo lashed out at the White House's lack of action in securing U.S. borders, and said efforts to merge the U.S. with both Mexico and Canada is not a fantasy.

"I know this is dramatic – or maybe somebody would say overly dramatic – but I'm telling you, that everything I see leads me to believe that this whole idea of the North American Union, it's not something that just is written about by right-wing fringe kooks. It is something in the head of the president of the United States, the president of Mexico, I think the prime minister of Canada buys into it. ...

"And they would just tell you, 'Well, sure, it's a natural thing. It's part of the great globalization ... of the economy.' They assume it's a natural, evolutionary event that's going to occur here. I hope they're wrong and I'm going to try my best to make sure they're wrong. But I'm telling you the tide is great. The tide is moving in their direction. We have to say that."

Tancredo was in South Florida joining the likes of media giants Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter at a four-day event called "Restoration Weekend" which concluded today. The gathering was hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Tancredo pointed to Florida's largest city as an example of how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration.

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," he said. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

He said quickly changing demographics can cause big problems, and specifically cited the "Islamization of Europe" in recent years which has led to conflict across the continent.

Tancredo isn't the only congressman warning about plans to integrate the three nations of this continent.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, denounced plans for the proposed "NAFTA superhighway" in his state as part of a larger plot for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union.

As WND reported this month, Enrique Berruga, Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations, came right out and said a North American Union is needed – and even provided a deadline.

Berruga said the merger must be complete in the next eight years before the U.S. baby boomer retirement wave hits full force.

Tancredo – a heavyweight champion of the border-security issue, and whose new book on how to solve that vexing problem, titled "In Mortal Danger," became an immediate best seller – just may be elected president, Fox News's Neil Cavuto said recently.

"Illegals coming into America are sure to be front and center in the next presidential election here," Cavuto said on a June broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto," "and Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo certainly knows it. He owns this issue. And straw polls show that, if he were to run for president, he just might well be president."

School dance turns teen away

School dance turns teen away
By EDDY RAMIREZ
Published November 19, 2006




INVERNESS - Steven Goforth says he spent $140 in clothes and tickets to the homecoming dance. His friend, Samantha Kelley, a freshman at Citrus High School, had invited him to come along.

The dance, held in the school's cafeteria on Oct. 13, was supposed to be a semiformal event. The theme was "Disco Like a Hurricane."

Steven bought new boots and a pair of blue jeans. He couldn't make up his mind on a dress shirt so he bought two. He filled the gas tank on his Buick. Everything was set and ready to go.

But the night before the dance, Samantha's mom, Theresa, got a call from the school.

Her daughter was not allowed to take Steven to the dance because he was not a student at Citrus High. Steven, who is 16, is homeschooled.

"I was upset," 15-year-old Samantha Kelley said. "It doesn't make any sense why he can't go. He hasn't done anything wrong.

"It was like the school was saying, 'How dare you want to have fun at a high school dance?' "

Now, the Goforths are demanding an apology from the school. They want to know why their son was turned away when other kids who are not students at the school were allowed in. Samantha wound up taking her cousin, who was let inside - no questions asked - even though at the time, she was a student in Michigan.

Terry Goforth, Steven's father, told the School Board last week that he's considering taking legal action against the district if he doesn't get answers.

Citrus High principal Leigh Ann Bradshaw declined to discuss the case in detail, citing student privacy rules. But she said the school tries to discourage students from bringing outside guests for safety reasons as well as a lack of space.

She raised the possibility of implementing a hard and fast rule that would bar any outside guests from school dances.

"We are just so crowded that some of our own students can't get tickets to a school dance sometimes," Bradshaw said, adding that the chief concern is safety. "We have no background information on who some of these people are."

But Terry Goforth said he gave the school more than enough information about his son.

The day of the dance he brought letters from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office and the Crystal River Police Department attesting that his son had no criminal record.

Goforth even brought a letter from the Withlacoochee Technical Institute, where Steven is a standout student in the welding program, saying that the boy had perfect attendance.

"This is bogus," Goforth said in an interview. "Why can't homeschoolers go to a school dance if I'm paying taxes here in Citrus County?"

Rich Hilgert, the district's director of student services, said homeschooled students can participate in high school sports and other extracurricular activities. But school dances are different.

"The dances are a school function," Hilgert said. "Principals get nervous when you have someone in the dance that you don't know any background information on."

Steven said he went to the school weeks before the dance to buy tickets. But, he said, he was turned away when assistant principal Jack Brady learned he was not enrolled at the school.

He was told that he would be arrested for trespassing if he tried to come on campus again, the boy said.

Having heard that students could invite outside guests, Samantha decided to get them both tickets instead. A few days before the dance, Steven gave her $20 for the tickets and, thinking that would be the end of it, he went on a homecoming shopping spree.

"I bought a new outfit," said Steven, who has a shaved head and wears jeans with a cowboy belt buckle.

The couple's plans were shot when Brady called Samantha's mom the night before the dance to say Steven was not allowed at the dance. Brady did not offer a reason.

"My daughter and Steven have been friend since they were toddlers," Theresa Kelley said in an interview. "(Brady) said her cousin was welcome but he didn't know whether my daughter's cousin was male, female or a criminal who could have been a child molester. He didn't ask."

Brady could not be reached for comment.

Steven said he still doesn't understand why Citrus High turned him away. He said he has been to several other school dances, including the homecoming dance at Lecanto High School a few years ago.

He is aware of the stereotypes against homeschooled children. But a recluse he is not, he said.

He only wishes he would have had a chance to show that at the homecoming dance.

"A bunch of my friends, who are like family to me, were going to be there," he said. "I really wanted to go."

Eddy Ramirez can be reached at eramirez@sptimes.com or 860-7305.

[Last modified November 19, 2006, 01:44:36]









© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

STUDENT BUSTED FOR TAKING COP PICTURES

STUDENT BUSTED FOR TAKING COP PICTURES
Friday, July 28, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com




A Penn State college senior was arrested after he pointed his camera cell phone at police activity in his neighborhood. A Philadelphia NBC News Channel 10 report says the family of Neftaly Cruz, 21, is claiming the cops had "no right to come onto their property and arrest their 21-year-old son simply because he was using his cell phone's camera."

Cruz had heard a commotion outside his parents' home and walked out the door to investigate it. When he saw the street lined with police, he flipped his phone open to take a picture. Within moments, an officer came to his back gate, put him into a police car, cuffed him and took him to jail. According to a neighbor's report, the cop spoke only once during this process, allegedly saying, "You should have just went [sic] in the house and minded your own business instead of trying to take pictures off your picture phone."

The charge against Cruz was based on a new law, allegedly prohibiting people from taking pictures of police officers with cell phones. Cruz is quoted as saying, "They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an investigation, obstruction of a investigation..." Larry Frankel of the local ACLU chapter, reportedly said, "There is no law that prevents people from taking pictures of what anybody can see on the street," adding that, "it's rather scary that in this country you could actually be taken down to police headquarters for taking a picture on your cell phone of activities that are clearly visible on the street." - ST

Staff Reports - Free-Market News Network








Free-Market News Network does not represent, warrant, or endorse the accuracy, reliability, completeness or timeliness of any of the information, content, views, opinions, recommendations or advertisements contained on, distributed through, or linked, downloaded or accessed from any of the information contained in this News Story.

ABC News Girl Dismissed From Lifting Class Sues

ABC News Girl Dismissed From Lifting Class Sues
Tennessee Girl Dismissed From H.S. Weightlifting Class Over Rape Fears Sues




KNOXVILLE, Tenn. Nov 18, 2006 (AP)— An Anderson County teenager has filed a lawsuit over her temporary dismissal from a weightlifting class by a principal who feared male students might try to rape her.

Anderson County High School has asked a federal magistrate to dismiss the $1 million sex discrimination suit by student Ambrea Phillips and her father.

"There's no dispute she was removed," school attorney Arthur F. Knight said at a hearing Thursday. He contended Phillips was reinstated within days and suffered "no academic detriment whatsoever."

Phillips' attorney, Roger L. Ridenour, said stress from the incident caused the student to become physically ill. He said the handling of the situation by then-principal Bob McCracken is part of a pattern of mishandled sex issues at the high school.

Phillips was an honor student and a track team member when she signed up for the class, where she eventually earned an A. She has since graduated and is in college.

McCracken said in a deposition that he was afraid Phillips might be sexually assaulted in the class.

"Having a female with 35 or so male students in an isolated area from the school, it sets a very liable situation in my opinion," McCracken said in the deposition.

Three days after kicking Phillips out of the class, McCracken changed his mind and reinstated her.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley asked Knight if the principal was wrong in removing Phillips from the class.

"She is up there with a bunch of football players, a 24- to 25-year-old coach, the only girl there is a safety issue there. It was a hard call for the principal to make," Knight answered.

When the judge again asked Knight if McCracken made the right decision, the attorney said he hadn't found another court case that would have given McCracken good guidance on what to do.

The judge said he would rule later on whether the lawsuit can continue.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.











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Admiral downplays China sub incident

Admiral downplays China sub incident
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 19 minutes ago




BEIJING - An incident where a Chinese submarine surfaced close to a U.S. carrier group was not threatening but highlighted the need for more communication and transparency between the two militaries, a top U.S. naval commander said Friday.

The potentially volatile incident came to light as Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, began a visit to China to coordinate a Nov. 19 joint search-and-rescue exercise aimed at strengthening ties between the two navies.

Roughead said Chinese military officials he met told him the submarine was in international waters, indicating that it was not encroaching on any territorial rights.

The submarine "was operating in a manner that did not hazard any vessel or cause any problems for any vessel," Roughead said in an interview.

"I do believe ... that the openness and transparency and the ability to communicate when our forces are operating in proximity with one another is very important," said Roughead. "That's why we are doing this series of exercises."

China has denied a report by The Washington Times that the submarine had followed a U.S. carrier group in the Pacific Ocean and surfaced within torpedo firing range.

The Times report said the Chinese submarine "stalked" the Kitty Hawk and surfaced within 5 miles of the carrier group, which had been operating near the southern Japanese island of Okinawa at the time of the incident.

Adm. William Fallon, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said this week that the carrier group was not engaged in anti-submarine exercises. But if it had, "and if this Chinese sub came in the middle of this, then it could have escalated into something that could have been very unforeseen," said Fallon, who was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for a defense meeting.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Thursday that the Times report was "not in line with fact" but did not elaborate.

Visits between the Chinese and American militaries dropped off after the collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet off China's coast in 2001.

Relations have been improving recently as U.S. leaders cautiously seek to increase exchanges and better understand China's rapidly modernizing People's Liberation Army, the world's largest.

In September, two Chinese navy ships stopped in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii — the first at a U.S. state in six years. After Pearl Harbor, the ships went to San Diego in southern California for the first part of the search-and-rescue exercise that will end Sunday off the island province of Hainan.

Roughead said about 400 Navy personnel from the USS Juneau will participate in the exercise, which will last several hours.




Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved

Administration: Detainees have no rights

Administration: Detainees have no rights
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 13, 6:53 PM ET




WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Monday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts and that lawsuits by hundreds of detainees should be dismissed.

In court documents filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department defended the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without access to courts.

It's the first time that argument has been spelled out since President Bush signed a law last month setting up military commissions for the thousands of foreigners being held in U.S. prisons abroad.

Bush hailed the law as a crucial tool in the war on terrorism and said it would allow prosecution of several high-level terror suspects.

Human rights groups and attorneys for the detainees say the law is unconstitutional. Prisoners normally have the right to challenge their imprisonment.

The Justice Department said Monday that the detainees have no constitutional rights because they are being held overseas. Giving military detainees access to civilian courts "would severely impair the military's ability to defend this country," government attorneys wrote.

"Congress could have simply withdrawn jurisdiction over these matters and left the decision of whether to detain enemy aliens held abroad to the military," the Justice Department wrote.

Instead, Congress set up a military commission structure establishing "unprecedented" levels of review for detainees, the attorneys wrote.

On the Net:

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov







Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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China sub stalked U.S. fleet

China sub stalked U.S. fleet
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 13, 2006



A Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times has learned.

The surprise encounter highlights China's continuing efforts to prepare for a future conflict with the U.S., despite Pentagon efforts to try to boost relations with Beijing's communist-ruled military.

The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying warships also is an embarrassment to the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China aimed at improving relations between the two nations' militaries.

Disclosure of the incident comes as Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, is making his first visit to China. The four-star admiral was scheduled to meet senior Chinese military leaders during the weeklong visit, which began over the weekend.

According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.

The surfaced submarine was spotted by a routine surveillance flight by one of the carrier group's planes.

The Kitty Hawk battle group includes an attack submarine and anti-submarine helicopters that are charged with protecting the warships from submarine attack.
According to the officials, the submarine is equipped with Russian-made wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Kitty Hawk and several other warships were deployed in ocean waters near Okinawa at the time, as part of a routine fall deployment program. The officials said Chinese submarines rarely have operated in deep water far from Chinese shores or shadowed U.S. vessels.

A Pacific Command spokesman declined to comment on the incident, saying details were classified. Pentagon spokesmen also declined to comment.

The incident is a setback for the aggressive U.S.-China military exchange program being promoted by Adm. Fallon, who has made several visits to China in recent months in an attempt to develop closer ties.

However, critics of the program in the Pentagon say China has not reciprocated and continues to deny U.S. military visitors access to key facilities, including a Beijing command center.

In contrast, Chinese military visitors have been invited to military exercises and sensitive U.S. facilities. Additionally, military intelligence officials said Adm. Fallon has restricted U.S. intelligence-gathering activities against China, fearing that disclosure of the activities would upset relations with Beijing.

The restrictions are hindering efforts to know more about China's military buildup, the officials said. "This is a harbinger of a stronger Chinese reaction to America's military presence in East Asia," said Richard Fisher, a Chinese military specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, who called the submarine incident alarming.

"Given the long range of new Chinese sub-launched anti-ship missiles and those purchased from Russia, this incident is very serious," he said. "It will likely happen again, only because Chinese submarine captains of 40 to 50 new modern submarines entering their navy will want to test their mettle against the 7th Fleet."


Pentagon intelligence officials say China's military buildup in recent years has produced large numbers of submarines and surface ships, seeking to control larger portions of international waters in Asia, a move U.S. officials fear could restrict the flow of oil from the Middle East to Asia in the future.

Between 2002 and last year, China built 14 new submarines, including new Song-class vessels and several other types, both diesel- and nuclear-powered.

Since 1996, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in a show of force, Beijing also has bought and built weapons designed specifically to attack U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships. "The Chinese have made it clear that they understand the importance of the submarine in any kind of offensive or defensive strategy to deal with a military conflict," an intelligence official said recently.

In late 2004, China dispatched a Han-class submarine to waters near Guam, Taiwan and Japan. Japan's military went on emergency alert after the submarine surfaced in Japanese waters.

Beijing apologized for the incursion. The Pentagon's latest annual report on Chinese military power stated that China is investing heavily in weapons designed "to interdict, at long ranges, aircraft carrier and expeditionary strike groups that might deploy to the western Pacific."

It could not be learned whether the U.S. government lodged a protest with China's government over the incident or otherwise raised the matter in official channels.






Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Kids Ingest Cocaine; Couple Charged

Kids Ingest Cocaine; Couple Charged
POSTED: 5:14 pm EST November 10, 2006
UPDATED: 5:38 pm EST November 10, 2006





ATLANTA -- Police in Sandy Springs tells Channel 2 Action News a couple there forced three children to live in a drug house in unimaginable conditions.

Officers say they arrived at Michael and Dorothy Negron’s apartment on Roswell Road and found drugs, a gun and two of the children with cocaine in their systems.

The smell inside the Roswell Road apartment – according to two maintenance men who were there to check out the damage – was terrible.

Sandy Springs officials responded to a domestic call and say they ended up seeing something they could not believe.

Officials say when they entered the home of the Negron’s there were 2 small children inside as well as an 11-year-old girl. Authorities say the children’s diapers had not been changed in a while and needles from past drug use were on the floor and all over the apartment. Officials also found cocaine, meth and marijuana in the apartment.

Police say the children are the Negron’s children and grandchildren.

Authorities also found a loaded gun on the floor of the bedroom – within easy access of the children.

Two of the children tested positive for having cocaine in their systems – they were immediately taken to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital and were taken into protective custody.

Officials say in their report that it was evident the children had been living in the conditions for a while.

A police report of the incident indicated that every surface was covered with some type of meth residue or needle and that the small children probably were exposed since they are so young – and would probably pick up and chew on anything they could.



Copyright 2006 by WSBTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.









© 2006, WSBTV.

How the Bush Family Makes a Killing from George's Presidency

How the Bush Family Makes a Killing from George's Presidency





Halliburton scored almost $1.2 billion in revenue from contracts related to Iraq in the third quarter of 2006, leading one analyst to comment: "Iraq was better than expected... Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

Very good indeed. An estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead coalition troops, billions stolen from Iraq's coffers, a country battered by civil war - but Halliburton turned a profit, so the results are very good.

Very good certainly for Vice President Dick Cheney, who resigned from Halliburton in 2000 with a $33.7 million retirement package (not bad for roughly four years of work). In a stunning conflict of interest, Cheney still holds 50,000 stock options in the company. Why pursue diplomacy when you can rake in a personal fortune from war?

Yet Cheney isn't the only one who has benefited from the Bush administration's destructive policies. The Bush family has done quite nicely too. Just a few examples:

Bush Sr.

Bush's dad has strong connections to the Carlyle Group, a massive private equity investment firm whose Chairman Emeritus is Frank Carlucci, a former college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld's and former Defense Secretary under Ronald Reagan. Imagine the pull Carlucci has with today's White House...

But Carlucci has another secret weapon - Bush Sr. Amid conflict-of-interest allegations, the elder Bush resigned from the Carlyle Group in 2003, but reportedly remains on retainer, opening doors to lucrative profits in the Middle East and elsewhere. Bush Sr.'s specialty is Saudi Arabia; in fact, he was at a Carlyle investment conference with Osama bin Laden's estranged brother, Shafiq bin Laden, when the 9/11 attacks took place.

Carlyle specializes in military and security investments, and with Bush Jr. in office, the company's profits have soared; it received $677 million in contracts in 2002, then a whopping $2.1 billion in 2003. Carlyle's investors currently enjoy an equity capital pool of over 44 billion dollars.

In January 2006, Bush Sr. wrote China's Foreign Affairs Ministry that it would be "beneficial to the comprehensive development of Sino-US relations" if Beijing approved the sale of a Chinese bank to a consortium which included Carlyle. Bluntly put, Bush Sr. asked China to grant Carlyle a lucrative business deal or risk his son's wrath.

William H. T. "Bucky" Bush

George's "Uncle Bucky" joined the board of military contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc. (ESSI) in 2000 and perhaps not surprisingly, the value of the company's governmental contracts has strongly increased with Bush Jr. in office. Uncle Bucky earns monthly consulting fees as well as options to buy stock at favorable prices, and considering that ESSI's stock tripled two weeks after 9/11 then settled into comfy territory, it's safe to say that George's uncle is doing quite well. In fact, Bucky cashed out on 8,438 stock options in January 2005, earning himself a cool $450,000 in the process. As of 2005, he still owned options on 45,000 more shares of the company's stock and accrues more each year.

War is profitable for ESSI, or as an executive explained: "The increasing likelihood for a prolonged military involvement in Southwest Asia by U.S. forces well into 2006 has created a fertile environment for the type of support ... products and services that we offer."

But lest anyone conclude that Bucky has opened doors for the company, ESSI's vice-president of investor relations explained in 2005, "The fact his nephew is in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with Mr Bush being on our board or with our stock having gone up 1000 per cent in the past five years." Absolutely nothing at all.

Neil Mallon Bush

Neil rose to infamy in the 1980s as director of the Colorado-based Silverado Savings and Loan; after Silverado collapsed due to mismanagement and corruption, US taxpayers were stuck with the billion-dollar bailout, yet Neil managed to escape the crisis with a small fine and no jail time. It helps to have a dad as Vice President.

In 1993, Neil joined Bush Sr. in Kuwait to drum up business in the Middle East, and today, he makes a profit by helping companies cash in on the occupation of Iraq. For example, in late 2003, The Financial Times reported that Neil earned $60,000 per year through the Crest Investment Company, a private firm generating contracts in Iraq. Crest was headed by Jamal Daniel, a longtime Bush family contact, who was also on the advisory board of New Bridge Strategies, a company specifically set up "with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq."

In 2003, Neil's messy divorce proceedings revealed that he was to get $2 million in stock options from a Chinese semiconductor firm despite having limited education or business experience in that area; critics complained that the Chinese company was buying access to his brother, the president. Neil later testified that on repeated business trips to Asia, he'd had sex with women who showed up at his hotel rooms, presumably prostitutes hired by companies trying to curry favor with the White House.

Neil has also profited from George's disastrous No Child Left Behind educational policy. His company, Ignite! (partially owned by Bush Sr. and funded by Crest Investment) has been awarded with lucrative federal contracts to place its educational products in school districts across the country.

Marvin Pierce Bush

Marvin joined Bush Sr. and Neil on their Middle Eastern sales trip in 1993 and then made a mint in the investment banking business. He is a co-founder of Winston Partners, a private investment firm whose investments in military and security firms profit from Bush's "war on terror."

Having a sibling as president has helped Marvin in other ways, too. He is on the board of HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., which had insured parts of the World Trade Center; HCC benefited from the 9/11 insurance bailout legislation pushed through by brother George.

Marvin was also on the board of Securacom, a company which provided electronic security for both Dulles International Airport and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Marvin stepped down in 2000, but how intriguing that Bush's brother was so well connected to the security of two critical locations on that fateful day.

In short, the "results are very good" for the Bush dynasty, perhaps even "better than expected," thanks to George's stint in the Oval Office. Dad's still setting up international deals. Uncle Bucky's cashing in his stock options. Brothers Neil and Marvin are laughing all the way to the bank.

It's just the American people who have paid the ultimate price.

Action Ideas:

1. For more on war profiteering, head over to Halliburton Watch (www.halliburtonwatch.org) and Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org). Catch a screening of the new Robert Greenwald film titled: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.

2. If you're searching for information on contemporary foreign policy issues, coupled with an opportunity to take positive action, check out Women's Action for New Directions (www.wand.org). The site offers in-depth coverage of Hot Topics, such as war and nuclear weapons, as well as fact sheets and other resources. Visit WAND's Take Action! center for petitions to sign and opportunities to contact Congress, the White House and the media about the peace and security issues you care about most.

Note: Originally published: October 25, 2006


Correction: The original version of this article stated that Cheney currently holds “more than 400,000 stock options” in Halliburton,
but he actually currently holds 50,000.We apologize for the error.










©Heather Wokusch 2002-2006 • All Rights Reserved • Disclaimer

Gardiner man faces cruelty to animals charges

Gardiner man faces cruelty to animals charges
The Associated Press




A former Gardiner resident faces 22 counts of cruelty to animals for allegedly abandoning more than 30 cats in a dark trailer house with no food, water or litter boxes, forcing them to survive by eating their young.

Roy E. Wiedenmeyer Jr., 57, who now lives in Stevensville, also faces a criminal mischief charge. His initial appearance in District Court is scheduled for Nov. 20.

Court records say Wiedenmeyer rented a trailer from Gardiner resident Peter Dahn for more than a year, then abandoned the cats there in early October.

All of the cats had to be euthanized because of poor health, inbreeding and aggression, said Vicki Blakeman, director of the Stafford Animal Shelter in Livingston.

“The cats were not provided with any cat boxes, so the scat was at least 6 inches deep,” court documents state. “The cats that lived had to survive by eating the kittens.”

Dahn discovered that the cats had been abandoned when he went to serve Wiedenmeyer with eviction papers on Oct. 4, court records said. Between 30 and 40 cats were in the trailer at the time, he said.

Dahn said this week he wasn’t sure if Wiedenmeyer had been living in the trailer with the cats or in his car, adding that the trailer’s windows were covered with tinfoil and curtains.

Dahn called the Park County Sheriff’s Department, Justice of the Peace Deanna Egeland signed a search warrant, and most of the cats were captured and taken to the Stafford Animal Shelter, where they were examined and euthanized.

The cats damaged the trailer with their waste and scratching on the cabinets and walls “to the extent that the trailer must be destroyed to eliminate any future health risks,” court documents said.

Blakeman estimated an original four cats “ballooned into a great many more.”









Copyright ©2006 The Great Falls Tribune.
All rights reserved.

Cheney endorses simulated drowning

Cheney endorses simulated drowning
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Updated: 12:42 a.m. ET Oct 27, 2006



Dick Cheney, US vice-president, has endorsed the use of "water boarding" for terror suspects and confirmed that the controversial interrogation technique was used on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior al-Qaeda operative now being held at Guantánamo Bay.

Mr Cheney was responding to a conservative radio interviewer who asked whether water boarding, which involves simulated drowning, was a "no-brainer" if the information it yielded would save American lives. "It's a no-brainer for me," Mr Cheney replied.

The comments by the vice-president, who has been one of the leading advocates of reducing limitations on what interrogation techniques can be used in the war on terror, are the first public confirmation that water boarding has been used on suspects held in US custody.

A spokeswoman for Mr Cheney denied that he had endorsed or confirmed the use of water-boarding.

"The VP was talking about the interrogation programme, clearly noting that we do not torture and we live up to our international treaty obligations. He does not discuss any techniques or methods that may or may not be used in questioning," said Lea Anne McBride.

Mr Cheney said recent legislation passed by Congress allowed the White House to continue its aggressive interrogation programme.

But his remarks appear to stand at odds with the views of three key Republican senators who helped draft the recently passed Military Commission Act, and who argue that water boarding is not permitted according to that law.

"[It's] a direct affront to the primary authors of the Military Commission Act in the Senate – John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner – all of whom have publicly stated that the legislation signed by the president last week makes water boarding a war crime," said Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "This is Cheney ignoring the consensus of his own Pentagon," she said, referring to comments by senior officials that harsh interrogation techniques do not produce reliable intelligence.

John Bellinger, the State Department legal adviser, last week declined to answer specific questions on water boarding, saying Congress would have to determine whether specific interrogation techniques were permissible under the Geneva ­conventions.

The Bush administration was forced to work with Congress to pass the Military Commissions Act after the Supreme Court ruled that al-Qaeda suspects were entitled to some protections under the Geneva convention. "Any procedures goingforward would have to comply with the standardsof Common Article 3 [of the Geneva conventions], including the prohibition oncruel, inhuman and degrading treatment...," Mr Bellinger said. "Congress would have to agree that they are permitted under the law."

Asked in the radio interview whether he would agree that the debate over terrorist interrogations and water boarding was "a little silly", Mr Cheney responded: "I do agree".

"I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation," he said.

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.









© 2006 MSNBC.com

© 2006 Microsoft

Wall Street's wild windfall

Wall Street's wild windfall
Earnings help NYC cut estimated deficit as brokerages' $36B in bonuses prime pump for luxury-goods sales
BLOOMBERG NEWS
November 7, 2006




Never in the history of Wall Street have so many earned so much in so little time.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. are about to reward their 173,000 employees with $36 billion in bonuses. That's a 30 percent increase from last year's record, and it doesn't include the billions more that will be paid by Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the three largest U.S. banks, as well as the hundreds of hedge funds and private-equity firms that constitute the financial industry.

Enriched by the unprecedented value of takeovers, equity trading and credit derivatives, "this year will be the best ever for the major brokerage firms," said Brad Hintz, an analyst at Manhattan-based Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

The average windfall for each individual at the five largest U.S. securities firms will be enough to buy a $165,000 Bentley Continental GT, the two-door coupe favored by Paris Hilton and Cher. They'll have plenty of change for a box of Romeo y Julieta cigars and a case of Pol Roger champagne - the stuff enjoyed by Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister in the 1940s and 1950s.

Credit-default swap specialists, who speculate on companies' ability to repay debt, won't be the only winners this year.

New York City cut the estimate for its budget deficit by 87 percent last week, in part because of the investment banks' better-than-expected earnings. The state comptroller's office said Oct. 17 that tax receipts from the financial industry's wages will rise 14 percent, to $2.4 billion in fiscal 2006.

Dolly Lenz, Manhattan's doyenne of high-end properties, is timing some of her best listings to coincide with bonus season. Ever since the 1970s, the UJA-Federation of New York has held its annual bankers' fundraiser on the first Wednesday in December, the date when Bear Stearns told employees what their bonuses would be.

"When Wall Street does well, we do well," said Richard Koppelman, owner of Greenwich, Conn.-based Miller Motorcars. Koppelman is readying a $150,000 red 2005 Ferrari 360 Modena F1 convertible for a customer who will be getting his first bonus since graduating two years ago from business school.

Leveraged-buyout firms attracted more than $170 billion in new money this year, helping to drive $2.9 trillion in takeovers and a surge in loans, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and London-based Private Equity Intelligence Ltd. More than $110 billion poured into hedge funds in the first nine months, beating the last annual peak in 2002 and fueling demand for stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives, which are used to hedge risks and for speculation.

Combined, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman and Bear Stearns earned $21.3billion in the first nine months of 2006, surpassing 2005's full-year record of $20.4 billion.

Year-end rewards at top-5 firms

The following table shows the calculations for total and average bonuses for each of the five biggest U.S. securities firms, based on estimated revenue, compensation and benefits, and number of employees.

Firm Total Total Bonus Average Average

revenue* compen pool* Employees Compensation Bonus

sation*

Goldman $35.7 $16.9 $10.2 25,647 $658,946 $397,707

Morgan $33.6 $14.0 $8.4 54,349 $257,594 $154,556

Merrill $32.5 $16.1 $9.7 55,300 $291,139 $174,683

Lehman $17.4 $8.7 $5.2 24,775 $351,160 $210,696

Bear $9.0 $4.4 $2.6 13,000 $338,462 $203,077

*(in billions)

How the figures were calculated:Total revenue: Average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Total compensation: Estimated revenue multiplied by the average ratio of compensation to revenue.

Bonus pool: 60 percent of estimated total compensation.

Employees: Total number of full-time employees reported at the end of the third quarter.

Average compensation: Estimated compensation divided by total number of employees.

Average bonus: Estimated bonus pool divided by total employees.



SOURCE: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

China foreign exchange reserves top ONE TRILLION U.S. DOLLARS

AFX News Limited
China foreign exchange reserves top 1 trln usd - state TV - UPDATE2
11.06.2006, 07:58 AM





BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's foreign exchange reserves have topped the 1.0 trln usd level, state television CCTV said.

The report cited the latest figures from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), although it did not specify when reserves had reached the 1.0 trln usd level.

The announcement had been long expected, particularly as SAFE said that reserves hit 987.9 bln usdat the end of September.

China had already surpassed Japan earlier this year as the world's top holder of foreign exchange reserves. Japan had reserves of 881.27 bln usd at the end of September against 878.75 bln in August.

China's reserves have swelled on the back of surging foreign direct investment inflows, bets on currency appreciation and a ballooning trade surplus.

The nation had a trade surplus of 108.9 bln usd as of the end of September, surging past the 102 bln usd recorded during the whole of last year.

China's trade surplus is expected to hit 140 bln usd for all of this year, the official Shanghai Securities News reported today, citing assistant to the commerce minister Fu Ziying.

Foreign direct investment reached 42.59 bln usd in the first nine months of this year and is expected to hit 60 bln usd for all of 2006, according to official forecasts.

The report of reserves hitting 1 trln usd is widely expected to renew the debate over the value of China's currency, the yuan, which many of the nation's trading partners contend is deeply undervalued.

A coalition of US industry and labor has repeatedly called for Beijing to allow the yuan to appreciate faster but authorities here have taken a go-slow approach since the currency was revalued by 2.1 pct against the dollar in July last year.

'This puts lots of pressure on the government and makes it a more urgent issue to control the increase in foreign exchange reserves,' said Zhao Qingming, a China Construction Bank economist and former central bank researcher.

But some Chinese economists -- as well as government officials -- contend that a steep appreciation would not be in China's interest.

Fan Gang, a Beijing-based economist and a non-government representative on the monetary policy committee under the central bank, said in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal today that large fluctuations in the yuan's value could only lead to further inflows of speculative capital betting on further moves.

A sharp move to revalue the yuan could have 'catastrophic' consequences for the domestic economy, he said, blaming an overvalued dollar on the world's monetary imbalances.

China's central bank has also been struggling with the mounting pile of foreign reserves, which have been adding to the nation's money supply.

Last Friday, the central bank raised the reserve requirement on bank deposits by 0.5 percentage point, citing a build-up of liquidity in the banking system from the nation's growing trade surplus. It was the third such increase this year.

juan.chen@xfn.com













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Army Funding Short Under Budget Plan

Army Funding Short Under Budget Plan
Associated Press October 27, 2006




WASHINGTON - The Army, which has borne much of the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would get $121 billion for the 2008 budget year under a preliminary spending plan that is nearly $18 billion short of the amount Army officials say they need.

According to a senior defense official, guidelines sketched out in a memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England would add about $7 billion to the planned Army budget of $114 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2007. The Army requested a $25 billion increase.

The official requested anonymity because the budget request has not been released.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not confirm the numbers Thursday and said any budget discussions are not final. He suggested that some money for the Army could come from supplemental budget requests.

"It is very difficult to know what ought to go in the budget and what ought to go in the supplemental," Rumsfeld said.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, had pressed for $138 billion for 2008. He has told administration officials and Congress the Army needs the money to replace and repair equipment used in Iraq and to pay for other costs of the war, while still covering the day-to-day expenses to run the Army.

He said in July it will cost the Army up to $13 billion per year over the course of the war and several years beyond to repair or replace worn equipment, and that the Army is using up equipment at four times the rate for which it was designed.

The budget outlined in England's memo suggests the Army will have to settle for billions of dollars less than what Schoomaker spelled out. It was unclear how the Army would make up for the shortfall.

Earlier this year, Army officials struggling to find money to pay war costs cut back for travel, civilian hiring and other expenses not essential to the war mission.

Rumsfeld said Thursday there have been discussions with the White House Office of Management and Budget about the spending needs and "those numbers are still moving around quite a bit."

"We've been working very hard to try to get reset money for the Army," Rumsfeld said. "The Army needs it. So does the Marine Corps. So do some of the other services."

He added, "I think we have some reasonable understandings with OMB about the coming year and the supplementals and the importance of not having a two- or three-year lag in getting the reset taken place."

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

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Exxon Posts $10.49B Profit; Shares Up

AP
Exxon Posts $10.49B Profit; Shares Up
Thursday October 26, 1:00 pm ET
By Steve Quinn, AP Business Writer
Exxon Mobil 3rd-Quarter Profit Climbs to $10.49 Billion, 2nd Biggest Ever




DALLAS (AP) -- Oil industry behemoth Exxon Mobil's earnings rose to $10.49 billion in the third quarter, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company. Its shares briefly rose to a 52-week high.


The report Thursday comes as high crude prices this year have fueled record profits in the oil industry, triggering an outcry from consumers who were being asked to pay about $3 a gallon for gasoline in early August.

The largest quarterly profit ever was Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $10.71 billion profit in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The company may beat that next quarter, said Howard Silverblatt Standard & Poor's Senior Index Analyst. "Then in all likelihood they will be at that $40 billion mark for the year."

That would put the company on track for the highest annual profit ever by a U.S. company. Exxon Mobil holds that record with a 2005 profit of $36.1 billion.

Although crude oil prices began to decline toward the end of the third quarter, the average market price for crude held at around $70 a barrel in the period after peaking above $78 per barrel in July. Oil futures prices have recently traded near $61 a barrel, and gasoline prices have dropped to an average of about $2.43 a gallon.

Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, said its net income amounted to $1.77 per share for the July-September period, up from $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, a year ago.

The results surpassed the expectations of Wall Street analysts. On average, analysts expected the company to earn $1.59 per share in the quarter.

Exxon Mobil shares rose 46 cents to $71.47 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange after rising to a new 52-week high of $72.33 earlier in the session.

Revenue fell to $99.59 billion from $100.72 billion from a year ago, which saw then-record oil prices because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Still, Exxon's revenue for the three-month period was greater than the annual gross domestic product of some major oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates ($98.1 billion) and Kuwait ($52.76 billion), according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

More than two-thirds of Exxon Mobil's profits come from oil and natural-gas production outside the U.S., with rising production in Africa, the Middle East and Russia consistently offsetting declining output in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Exxon Mobil said it pumped 7 percent more oil and natural gas than it did during the same quarter a year earlier. At the beginning of the year, some analysts had forecast a 5 percent growth.

Another major international oil company, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said its third-quarter profit fell 34 percent to $5.94 billion even as revenues rose 10 percent to $84.3 billion. But the Anglo-Dutch company's operating profit rose as higher oil prices outweighed worsening refining margins.

Earlier this week, ConocoPhillips reported its profit rose 2 percent to $3.88 billion in the third quarter while another major oil company, BP PLC, said its earnings fell 3.6 percent to $6.23 billion.

A fifth major oil company, Chevron Corp., is expected to report its results Friday.

High oil prices helped Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil realize earnings from its oil and gas drilling activities of $6.49 billion, up 13 percent from the prior year. The company also saw stronger earnings from its refining operations and gas stations, and profits at its chemicals segment more than doubled.

The company said its average sale price for crude oil in the U.S. during the quarter was $62.07 a barrel, compared to $56.97 a year earlier. Internationally, however, Exxon said the average sale price for oil was $65.64 compared to $58.24 a year ago. Natural gas sales in the U.S. were slightly lower in the U.S. but higher around the world.

AP Business Writer Lauren Villagran in New York contributed to this report.











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Stealth jet quietly slips into history

Stealth jet quietly slips into history
F-117A fighter retired after 25 years
Cutting-edge design cloaked in mystery
Nov. 2, 2006. 12:54 PM
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER




Almost as furtively as it flew above war zones from Bosnia to Baghdad, America's F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter has retired from active duty.

The years had snuck up on it. Though it remained cutting-edge contemporary in many people's minds, the Nighthawk had hit the quarter-century mark. At a discreet "Silver Stealth" ceremony at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico this week, some of the people who built, serviced and flew the plane marked the end of its 25-year career.

Much of the F-117A's innermost workings remain top-secret but it was outstripped by newer, even more space-age technology. All that remained was its public image. Its successor, the F-22 Raptor, appeared on the last day of the Canadian International Air Show in Toronto in September, its first foray outside the United States. The Raptor looks more like a conventional jet than the F-117A and didn't cause much excitement, other than among hard-core aviation buffs. When the Nighthawk made its Toronto debut in 1993, as it whispered over Ontario Place the crowd went crazy, pointing and yelling, "Stealth! Stealth!"

With its odd shape — awkward angles calculated to baffle enemy radar — the Nighthawk hardly looked like a plane at all; more like a prop from a sci-fi TV show or something you'd fold from paper and then complain because it didn't fly.

But fly it most certainly did. Gen. Lloyd "Fig" Newton, one of the first F-117A pilots, said it had "capabilities that had never been known before," American Forces Press Service reported. "If we needed the door kicked in, the stealth was the one to do it."

The Nighthawk entered service in 1982. It could slither through the most sophisticated radar on bombing missions that left survivors literally not knowing what had hit them. It flew over Bosnia, Panama, Iraq — the only plane to attack downtown Baghdad — and Afghanistan and "reshaped how the air force looked at strategic warfare," said Lt.-Col. Chris Knehans, commander of the 7th Fighter Squadron at Holloman.

It was a "decapitation strike" by stealth fighters on Baghdad in March 2003 that began the war on Iraq.

The F-117A was referred to as a fighter, though its main roles were bombing and reconnaissance. It wasn't particularly fast, not quite able to break the sound barrier.

The twin-engine plane was rushed into being. It made its first flight June 18, 1981, after only 31 months in development. There were reportedly 55 built, the last being delivered in 1990. In 1992, Nighthawks flew non-stop from Holloman to Kuwait, an 18-hour flight that remains a record for single-seat fighters.

Paul Cabot, curator of the Toronto Aerospace Museum, said the fact that the F-117A has lasted 25 years shows how combat aviation has changed from the 1960s, when aircraft designs had a much shorter shelf life.

"Planes now are designed to be the deliverer of weapons and not the weapon itself," he said. "They can stand off and deliver a weapon from a distance so they don't see all that much of battle. There have been developments in radar so maybe the F-117A had started showing up. That's something we won't be told."







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