Now on a new server. Please update your "Favorites." Redirect disabled to make archives still available.

For all new posts since January 19, 2005 please click HERE.

Nino Ramirez, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, says that after nearly ten years spent unraveling the secrets of mouse nerve cells called pacemaker neurons he may have found the missing link that explains why some babies fall to SIDS. Ramirez and his team differentiated between two types of pacemaker cells active in the mouse brainstem that appear to control breathing—one group depends on calcium channels to operate and the other on sodium channels regulated by serotonin, a brain chemical known to influence mood.

The latter held particular interest for Ramirez since prior research showed that babies who died of SIDS had serotonin deficits in brain areas that controlled breathing. "The idea with the serotonin is as follows," he explains. "It's present within the nervous system and these nerve cells are sitting in a soup of this serotonin. They need this…in order to generate this intrinsic ability to burst." That bursting triggers the respiratory system to gasp, which resets breathing.

The federal government wants to change its current rules to permit convicted arsonists to get special licenses so they can drive gasoline tankers and trucks loaded with explosives and hazardous materials.

But murderers and convicted racketeers will no longer be permitted to drive hazardous materials on the nation's interstates.

"Arson is not always an act of terrorism," the Transportation Security Administration declared in proposing the new regulations that would permit the agency to review on a case-by-case basis whether convicted arsonists should get the special licenses allowing them to drive gasoline trucks, or other vehicles carrying hazardous materials.

Under the Patriot Act, the TSA - a branch of the new Department of Homeland Security - was directed to issue special federal certifications to the commercial licenses held by truck drivers who haul hazardous chemicals, gasoline tankers and explosives.

The ArabicBBC site put up a forum for the readers to discuss the subject of some of the "militant groups" that distributed leaflets threatening the Iraqis who decide to participate in the elections, whether voters or candidates.
The total number of commentators was 141; the Iraqis were 104 and 37 were Arabs from other countries till the post was prepared.
89 of the participating Iraqis were strongly with the elections and determined to go to the boxes on the elections day in spite of the threats.
15 were against the elections, for different reasons.

13 of the Arab participants were also against the elections while the rest of them (24) were supportive of the Iraqis in holding the elections on time.

I will not try to offer my optimistic comments and views about the situation in Iraq, instead I will shut up and let my fellow Iraqis speak for themselves and let you then decide what you think about it.

"What you're looking for are the standards of decency of American society," Scalia said. "What does an opinion of a wise Zimbabwe judge have to do with what Americans believe?

"Doesn't it seem arrogant to think I can decide moral views for penology, death penalty and abortion?" he said, arguing that elected legislatures should make those decisions.

Breyer responded that international opinion can be relevant in determining fundamental freedoms in a more global society.

"U.S. law is not handed down from on high even at the U.S. Supreme Court," he [Breyer] said. "The law emerges from a conversation with judges, lawyers, professors and law students. ... It's what I call opening your eyes as to what's going on elsewhere."

Demonstrators said they would mount nearly a dozen rallies and marches in Washington along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route and throughout downtown. The events, planned and sponsored separately, involve a mix of activists embracing causes that include opposition to the Iraq war, women's rights and the environment. A band of self-styled anarchists also plans to demonstrate.

"This is a people's uprising," said Shahid Buttar, 30, a Washington lawyer involved in the D.C. Cluster Spokescouncil, a coordinating body for about 50 local and out-of-town protest groups.

Anti-Bush demonstrators said they plan a mix of tactics. Some said they hope to provide a left-leaning response to the celebratory pageantry; others said they wanted to disrupt the festivities.

Anarchist Resistance said it will stage a "festive and rowdy march" from Franklin Square. A message posted on its Web site says: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down."

Some less-radical protesters plan to turn their backs on the president as the motorcade passes as part of a Turn Your Back on Bush event. Critical Mass bicyclists are planning two rides, from Union Station and Dupont Circle.

William Fried told eighth-graders at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School that stripping and exotic dancing could be lucrative career moves for girls, offering as much as $250,000 or more per year, depending on their bust size.

[...]

But on Tuesday, some students asked Fried to expand on why he included "exotic dancing" on the list.

Fried spent about a minute answering questions, defining strippers and exotic dancers synonymously. He told students, "For every two inches up there, you should get another $50,000 on your salary," student Jason Garcia, 14, said.

Reporter: "Write the check yet, Randy?"

Moss: "When you're rich you don't write checks."

Reporter: "If you don't write checks, how do you pay these guys?"

Moss: "Straight cash, homey."

Reporter: "Randy, are you upset about the fine?"

Moss: "No, cause it ain't [expletive]. Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me? Ain't [expletive] … Next time I might shake my [expletive]."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington could consider sanctions against Moscow if it went through with reported plans to sell Syria its SS-26 Iskander missile.

Secretary of State Colin Powell also raised the reported sale in talks here Wednesday with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, according to a State Department official speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The US policy on this is very clear," Boucher said. "We're against the sale of weaponry to Syria, against the sale of lethal military equipment to Syria, which is a state sponsor of terrorism."

He said the United States was aware of reports a deal was brewing and "we think those kinds of sales are not appropriate. ... The Russians know about this policy. They know about our views."

The Russian media carried reports of the planned sale as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad prepared to visit Russia on January 24 for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom did not confirm details but told Reuters: "We held discussions on this here among ourselves a few days ago. We hope to reach the necessary understandings with the Russian government."

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said he had no knowledge of a Russian-Syrian arms deal in the works.

The researchers say cutting down on the burning of coal and oil, one of the main goals of international environmental agreements, will drastically heat rather than cool climate.

"When the cooling affect goes away -- and it must do because particles like sulfur dioxide are damaging to humans -- global warming will be much stronger," climate change scientist Dr Peter Cox told Reuters on Wednesday.

Take away fossil fuel by-products like sulfur dioxide without tackling greenhouse gas emissions, and the extra heat will speed warming, irreversibly melting ice sheets and rendering rain forests unsustainable within decades, Dr Cox said.

"We are suspicious of the presence of foreign soldiers and their show of force and the minimum publicity given to assistance from Arab states," said Fauzan Al Anshari, a spokesman for Bashir's militant Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia group.

"It's dangerous, this idea by Acehnese that US and Australian forces are their guardian angels - more popular than the TNI [Indonesian Armed Forces]."

Mr Anshari quoted Bashir as warning against any long-term hidden agenda in the deployment of Australian and US troops, saying he feared their presence in Aceh was like that of colonial invaders.

"If they establish a permanent base there, it will lead to trouble," he said.

Downplaying the mercy role of troops working to rebuild where more than a 100,000 people were lost when the tsunami struck on Boxing Day, Mr Anshari warned that they would promote prostitution and the consumption of alcohol in the devoutly Muslim region.

A recently released 90-page report by Murray Feshbach and Cristina Galvin of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars urged Russian authorities to take aggressive steps to fight the epidemic. The study was sponsored by U.S. Agency for International Development.


According to official statistics, Russia has some 300,000 HIV-positive people. But Feshbach, as well as Russian experts, said the true number is closer to 1 million. The study estimated the number of AIDS deaths in Russia at 13,000, almost three times the official figure of 4,800.


If officials ignore the problem, "the consequences will be devastating to the society, family formation, to the military, labor productivity" within two to three years, Feshbach said by telephone from Washington.


Local experts say authorities are not getting the message.

I agree with the current governor that every vote should be counted, but with an important distinction: Every legal vote should be counted, and every vote should have a voter. I don’t think that’s too high of a standard to ask for

The number of votes now unaccounted for is "somewhere around 1,800," county Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens said yesterday.

It's impossible to come up with a precise number, Huennekens said, because workers are adding and deleting names of registered voters as they update the list in preparation for a Feb. 8 special election.

Huennekens said the numbers released Friday were wrong because the names of 1,003 voters appeared twice on the voter list. Not all of them voted in the November election. Computer experts are trying to figure out why some names were on the list twice.

Huennekens' boss, county Elections Director Dean Logan, said Friday many of the unexplained ballots probably were cast by registered voters who failed to sign in when they went to polling places.

In addition to the approximately 1,800 votes county officials can't account for, Logan said up to 348 voters improperly put provisional ballots into counting machines at polling places before their signatures or eligibility had been verified.

Provisional ballots, which are identical to regular poll ballots, can't be separated from poll ballots after they are inserted into a tabulator. Provisional ballots are used when a voter goes to the wrong polling place or there is a question about his or her eligibility.

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance yesterday called the unexplained votes and improperly cast provisional ballots "unconscionable. ... When the election is decided by 129 votes and in King County you've got 2,000 more votes than voters, this election is invalid on its face."

Democratic Party spokeswoman Lisa Cohen said the results of the hand recount were valid and should stand, despite King County's difficulty in accounting for all votes.

"My attitude is once we assure the seniors who receive Social Security today that everything is fine I think we've got a shot to get something done," Bush said.

Social Security is projected to start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2018, according to Social Security trustees, and can pay full promised benefits only until 2042. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the program will be solvent until 2052.

"I think two of the things that are going to be important for the members to understand, once they've come to the realization there is a problem, is that no longer can they frighten seniors by saying, if we do this, seniors aren't going to get their checks," he said. "I think it's become pretty clear in people's minds that the issue ... does not revolve around those who have retired or those who are near retirement.

"The issue, really, is about younger workers and most younger workers believe that they're not going to see a dime unless something is done. And most younger workers, as far as I can tell, like the idea of being able to take some of their own money and managing for their own retirement, in order to more likely have the promise of Social Security fulfilled."

In my opinion everyone in congress knows that the Social Security system is broke. Could it be that the ones that oppose Bush's partial privatization are more worried about the loss of fast cash from the six percent or so that would go into private accounts? Cash that congress spends now at their whim, and doesn't save for Social Security.

Yes, it is going to be expensive to fix with any form of the privatization plan, but it will be a whole lot more expensive to fix it later when it is bankrupt.

"This whole area was littered with commercialism," said the 43-year-old [Greg Ferrando] from Maui, Hawaii. "There were hundreds of beach chairs out here. I prefer the sand."

The beauty of Thai beaches is the stuff of folklore: pristine, clean and untouched. That was 10 or 20 years ago. More recently, they have been swamped by development.

"Everyone is talking about it. It looks much better now," he said. "This looks a lot more like Hawaii now, where vendors aren't allowed on the beach."

Phanomphon Thammachartniyom, president of the Phuket Professional Guide Association, said when tourists return to Thailand for their second or third visits, he has to recommend new beaches.

"They will complain, 'Why has this place changed so much? I don't like it anymore. I want it to be like it once was,'" Phanomphon said.

Phanomphon fears politicians and organized crime will steer development in the wrong direction and hopes care will be taken when the area is rebuilt. "Nature has returned nature to us. I want it to be this way forever," he said.

"You talk to anyone in the general public and ask them: Which is more dangerous in their opinion, boating or hunting -- and 99 percent of them will say hunting because of the firearms."

And they'd be wrong.

"When you're looking at how dangerous is hunting ... well, a lot safer than boating," says Madonna Luers, an information specialist with the WDFW. "A good measure is 2001."

That year, the state had virtually the same number of hunters (250,000) as recreational boaters (260,000).

According to U.S. Coast Guard statistics, Washington had 33 fatalities and 99 non-fatal injury accidents involving recreational boaters in Washington's inland or coastal waters.

The hunters? One fatal hunting accident and 10 non-fatal injuries.

Granted, 2001 was a worse-than-usual year for boating fatalities in Washington; the previous four years, the state's average number of boating deaths had been just about 26.

Which is two more fatal hunting incidents than Washington has had -- total -- since 1987.

"These guys always come up to me and say, 'I quit hunting a few years ago, it's too dangerous.' Ah, baloney," says Chuck Kohls, a captain with the WDFW's enforcement division.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says he needs $1 billion in cash — now! — to cover the first six months of relief efforts for survivors of the South Asia tsunami.
Does he, now?

But does he really expect the nations of the world to fork over that much hard cash to the UN?

The same UN whose cash-based relief efforts in Iraq may have resulted in the largest embezzlement in history?

Good luck, Kofi.

And the disclosure by the U.N.'s hand-picked "investigator" into the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, that he won't be producing any "smoking guns" won't help matters, that's for sure.

It was never clear that Volcker would be able to deliver an honest product on the scandal. His report was meant from the start to be submitted directly to Annan personally — to be made public only "in a form that will take into account the rights of staff members" and protect their confidentiality.

It was a prescription for a cover-up, in other words.

Which no doubt is why Annan has instructed his staff not to cooperate with U.S. congressional investigators, at least until Volcker releases his preliminary report — which Volcker himself now admits may be seen as a "whitewash" by the U.N.'s critics.

He's delivering the prescription, in other words.

Meanwhile, upwards of $20 billion disappeared down all manner of rat-holes — even Annan's son seems to have gotten a cut — while very little of the food, hospital supplies and other goods meant to be purchased for suffering Iraqis ever were.

A week before thanksgiving Professor Woolcock assigned us a take home final exam. The final exam consisted solely of one required essay: “Dye and Zeigler contend that the Constitution of the United States was not ‘ordained and established’ by ‘the people’ as we have so often been led to believe. They contend instead that it was written by a small educated and wealthy elite in America who were representative of powerful economic and political interests. Analyze the US constitution (original document), and show how its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America's elite interest.”

When I read the assignment I remembered back to my high school in Kuwait. Many of my teachers were Palestinian; they hated America, they hated my worldview, and they did their best to brainwash me. I did not leave my country and my family to come to the United States to receive further brainwashing. I disagreed completely with Dye and Zeigler’s thesis. I wrote an essay defending America’s Founding Fathers and upholding the US constitution as a pioneering document, which has contributed to extraordinary freedoms in America and other corners of the world - including my corner, the Middle East.

Professor Woolcock didn’t grade my essay. Instead he told me to come to see him in his office the following morning. I was surprised the next morning when instead of giving me a grade, Professor Woolcock verbally attacked me and my essay. He told me, “Your views are irrational.” He called me naïve for believing in the greatness of this country, and told me "America is not God's gift to the world." Then he upped the stakes and said "You need regular psychotherapy." Apparently, if you are an Arab Muslim who loves America you must be deranged. Professor Woolcock went as far as to threaten me by stating that he would visit the Dean of International Admissions (who has the power to take away student visas) to make sure I received regular psychological treatment.

This scared me. I didn’t want to be deported for having written a pro-American essay, so as soon as I left his office I made an appointment with the school psychologist. She let me go with a comment that I don’t need regular therapy. As I left her office, I couldn’t help thinking that even my Palestinian high school teachers had never tried to silence me or put me in therapy.

My name is Michael Wiesner and I am a former student at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California. I am writing this article in the wake of an incident in which a teacher at the college recommended psychological therapy to an Arab student who had praised the U.S. Constitution.

In the Winter of 2002 I took an Ethics course taught by Professor Dave Peterson. Throughout the course, Professor Peterson was not only biased in his presentation of ethics, but also indoctrinated us with his conservative agenda, and was purposefully offensive toward liberal views and beliefs.

I recall the first time Professor Peterson discussed the 'ethical' position of being pro-life. Professor Peterson equated abortion with the then-popular Andrea Yates case, and stated there was no difference between “a mother who orders a doctor to murder her babies and a mother who drowns her children in a bathtub.” I, along with a number of students, challenged his analogy, and we were told that we were simply wrong and did not understand ethics. He then continued his tirade against abortion, singling out and ridiculing some women in the class, and using them as characters in his examples. On this occasion and many others, several people were so sickened by his explicit examples they had to leave the room. He reduced one woman to tears in the middle of class. (The day of the final, he told this student that it didn't matter what grade she received on the exam, she would receive an F.) His anti-abortion examples were repeated over and over. As students began to feel personally targeted, enrollment dropped to a fraction of the original enlistment. Those who remained realized that to disagree was to be targeted, and remained silent. He once deducted significants points on an essay from a female student because her essay discussed a film from the perspective of feminism. Despite him having suggested that film in writing, he wrote on her paper that she was “not qualified to discuss the matter.”

Story via Wired News (Wired Magazine) by Brad Stone

Motors whine, barbells groan, and gearheads sweat in the battle to become the robo-powerlifting champion of the world.

Dan Danknick, is the managing editor of Servo - a spinoff of the amateur engineering mag Nuts & Volts. While watching a "Worlds Strongest Man" contest on TV he was struck with an inspiration. That exoskeleton weight lifting would make great television, plus help advance the field.

His problem was, no one wanted to compete. Homayoon Kazerooni, the head of the Bleex project told Danknick that he though there would never be a need for full-body exoskeletons to do the work of a forklift. We have forklifts for that. When most balked at the deadline and the difficulty, Danknick relaxed his rules.

In Santa Clara, California, convention center the competition finally came off, but not without problems, setbacks and dissapointments. Certainly it would be a reach to call them "Iron Men," but maybe in light the the dismal performace, in spite of the impressive look of their projects, we should just call them "geek wannabes."


Click to enlarge

Rupert stoops and grasps the bar. He begins to straighten, the screw drive hissing. Man and machine together hoist the weight. But something's wrong. Rupert feels it almost immediately: a slight imbalance, a tiny wobble that his partner, engineer Don Engh, can see from the wings. As Rupert lifts the bar higher, Technotrousers starts to tilt forward. Halfway through the lift, just about every spectator lets out a gasp … and man and machine together tumble forward into a heap at the foot of the stage. "Even as I was toppling over, I had my hands on the triggers," Rupert says later, nursing a minor cut on his arm. "We were lifting right up until the end."

At the start of competition, the crowd-pleaser was a 1,000-pound behemoth built by Scott and Jascha Little, a father and son from Austin, Texas. The Littles - both over 6'5" - rolled out a classic exoskeleton design. Team Mechanicus, as they called themselves, spent more than $10,000 and took four months to build their machine. Its hydraulically actuated hips, ankles, arms, and knees all moved independently, giving the suit the flexibility of a person - in theory, at least. The Littles hadn't actually finished the control system in time to test it. "If that thing falls on me, it would almost certainly be fatal," Jascha mused. It took nine guys a full hour just to lug the contraption onto the stage. After a series of limited trial lifts that hinted at scary coordination problems, the Littles decided not to push their luck. The armor was barely more than a museum piece.

That left room for Alex Sulkowski, a credit card consultant from New Canaan, Connecticut, to jump into the lead. He had a more pragmatic strategy. Tetsujin's scoring formula rewarded not just weight but also the speed and height of the lift, and the mass of the suit and its operator. So Sulkowski bought some steel at Home Depot and built Xela, a fast, tall, and light pneumatic lifter. You could argue that Xela was really more of a homebuilt frontend loader than a posthuman augmentation of muscle power. But that didn't matter in the glow of the spotlight. In his best lift, Sulkowski hoisted 250 pounds 3 feet off the floor in less than half a second.

The cheering audience didn't seem to care. Pitzer's scribbled notes suggested a new approach: He'd sacrifice speed and score points with one massive amount of weight. In his final lift of the contest, Raptor attempted to heave 1,050 pounds for first place. With the Olympic-rated weight-lifting bar sagging under its load, Pitzer flicked the switches on his remote control to move the suit's arms - but the barbell rose only a couple of inches. Raptor froze with an electromechanical groan. Unruffled, Pitzer turned to face his suit and lifted its arms with his own, nudging Raptor's limbs to full extension. The suit was actually enhancing Pitzer's strength - or vice versa. Pitzer turned to face the roaring crowd and pumped his fists in triumph - forgetting to turn off Raptor's hydraulic valves. Behind him, oil flashed off the motors and smoke billowed out.

Then of course, they had the tampons. When he brought this up my imagination was just running wild, but I let him continue. My son said they had to go on a mission and Marine X wanted the chapstick and lotion for the trip. He grabbed a bunch of the items out of his care package and got in the humvee. As luck would have it he grabbed the tampons, and My son said everyone was teasing him about "not forgetting his feminine hygiene products". My son said things were going well, and then the convoy was ambushed. He said a Marine in the convoy was shot. He said the wound was pretty clean, but it was deep. He said they were administering first aid but couldn't get the bleeding to slow down, and someone said, "Hey use Marine X’s tampons". My son said they put the tampon in the wound. At this point my son profoundly told me, "Mom did you know that tampons expand?" ) "Well, yeah!". They successfully slowed the bleeding and got the guy medical attention. When they went to check on him later the surgeon told them, "You guys saved his life". If you hadn't stopped that bleeding he would have bled to death. My son said, "Mom, the tampons sent by the Marine Moms by mistake saved a Marines life." At this point I asked him, "Well what did you do with the rest of the tampons?" He said, "Oh, we divided them up and we all have them in our flak jackets, and I kept two for our first aid kit".

Their decision surprised other aid groups and drew criticism that it could undercut an unprecedented wave of private giving to provide relief to the region devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami which has killed at least 150,000 people.

[...]

"What shocks me is that you are taking the risk of pulling the carpet under the feet of other aid organizations. Many groups still need more money," said Jean-Christope Rufin, head of the French aid group Action Contre la Faim (Action against Hunger).

"It's a bit irresponsible. We're all in the same boat in humanitarian aid," Rufin told France 2 television.

Some German agencies said they had no plans to follow suit and privately several said they were shocked by MSF's decision.

[...]

"If a person calls us to make a donation, we will tell them that these programs are already financed and that they can make a donation for a different crisis," a MSF spokeswoman said.

DUBAI: The Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main armed groups fighting US forces in the war-torn country, has threatened to carry out attacks inside the United States, according to a statement posted on a website on Monday.

This year "will bring woes on America. The Mujahideen have prepared big surprises for your sons outside America and a big surprise for you inside America," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed.

I am writing this letter partly in frustration. I have been deployed in Iraq since February. I will be there at least another five months. Right now I am home on a two-week R&R.

I am bothered by the feeling I am getting from the general public about Operation Iraqi Freedom. What news I have heard has been slanted in a derogatory way. I will be the first to say that being in Iraq is frustrating, but it is time well-spent. I have witnessed firsthand the way of life that the Iraqi people were forced to live and the wonderful improvements that have been made for them.

There is not a war in Iraq, there is a battle in Iraq. We are not fighting the Iraqi people, we are protecting them and lifting them up.

I publicly thank the leadership of this country and of the military, also my brothers and sisters in arms, for their open-mindedness and their willing sacrifice.

We will always be there for you and for anybody who is in need, wherever they live.

Sgt. Jake Thomas
Payson

"Look at that, look at that. It's so big," shouted a 6-year-old girl, Khairunisa, as a U.S. Hercules cargo plane roared over Banda Aceh, the capital of Sumatra island's devastated Aceh province and the base of the aid operation in Indonesia.

Many of the 60 victims picked up in more than two dozen missions yesterday were too weak from eight days with little food or water to speak or move. The victims included children, the elderly and two pregnant women.

Doctors said they suffered from pneumonia, broken bones, infected wounds and tetanus. Many appeared deeply traumatized. At least 25 were in critical condition.

The American pilots ferried the survivors to a medical field station in Banda Aceh. The ones not rushed on stretchers were placed on a blue plastic sheet, among them a young girl holding a stuffed Snoopy. Some cried, and aid workers stroked their arms and backs to comfort them. They were given chocolate wafers, water, sweaters and T-shirts.

Two helicopters dropped off 1,800 pounds of soup and biscuits donated by schools in Singapore. At one point, the copters flew low over what appeared to be a fishing flotilla off the coast. There were no signs of life.

The U.S. pilots said the damage was stunning. The five-vessel U.S. carrier group and much of the crew, which moved into position on Saturday, served in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq conflict.

"In my 17 years of service, I have never seen such devastation, and I hope that I'll never see such again in my life," said Senior Chief Jesse Cash of Albuquerque, N.M., who has served in Somalia and Liberia.

DUBAI, January 4 (Itar-Tass) - Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, whom the US occupation authorities declared to be the "target number one" in Iraq, has been arrested in the city of Baakuba, the Emirate newspaper al-Bayane reported on Tuesday referring to Kurdish sources. Al-Zarqawi, leader of the terrorist group Al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad, was recently appointed the director of the Al-Qaeda organisation in Iraq.

The newspaper's correspondent in Baghdad points out that a report on the seizure of the terrorist, on whom the US put a bounty of 10 million dollars, was also reported by Iraqi Kurdistan radio, which at one time had been the first to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein.

Gunmen assassinated the governor of the Iraqi province that includes Baghdad, Ali al-Haidari, on Tuesday, police officials said.

Al-Haidari was shot dead while in his car in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Hurriyah, said the police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was a target of another assassination attempt last year.

The officials said al-Haidari left his house in the western al-Jama'a neighborhood and when he arrived in al-Hurriyah gunmen riddled his car with bullets. He died instantly, they said.

BAGHDAD, Jan. 1 -- The number of Iraqis making sure they are properly registered to vote has surged dramatically, officials said Saturday, calling the rise evidence of enthusiasm for the Jan. 30 elections despite continuing security concerns that have blocked the process in two provinces.

After a slow start to the six-week registration process that began Nov. 1, the number of voters making corrections to official voter lists more than doubled in the final week, according to a final tally quoted by election officials Saturday.

Officials said more than 2.1 million people went to local election offices to assure that eligible members of their households could vote. About 1.2 million forms were submitted to add names to the voter lists, an involved process that requires providing proof of identification and residence.

"That's a definite marker of voter interest," said an expert with the Independent Election Commission of Iraq who was not authorized to speak publicly.

In his rounds, he recognized three Marines from Fox Co. As he wrote: ''They had layers of dust on them, layers of clothes on them for protection from the cold, and the look of fatigue that is easily recognizable by warriors, the one that displays a need to sleep, but a greater need to finish the task at hand.''

Smith asked, '''How are things at Fox?'

''I got a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, and then one of them, a young handsome Devil Dog with broad shoulders and the kind of look that should be used as a recruiting poster, looked at me, took a deep breath that instantly let you know what he was about to say warranted undivided attention, and said:

'''You know, sir, it's amazing.'

'''I mean, when we seized that town (Yusufiyah) and it was a running gun battle day in and day out, that place was abandoned. Nobody came out of their houses.

'' 'But now,' the Marine continued, 'when we are out on patrol, and all the schools are back open, and people are living their lives, it feels good. But what really gets you, sir ... those little kids ... those little kids ... they come up to you, and in their broken English say, ''Look, we go to school'' with a wide smile and a thumbs up.

'''It gets to you, sir, it feels good. We are doing really good out there, aren't we, sir?' ''

Smith wrote that the Marine's answer put every hair on the back of his neck at the position of attention.

''And after the chills stopped going down my spine, I simply said, 'You have no idea, Devil Dog. You have no idea. You have done amazing. And one day, I will tell the world just how amazing.'''

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government is giving out a colorful new comic book with advice for migrants, but immigration-control advocates worry that some of the tips may encourage illegal border crossers.

The 32-page book, The Guide for the Mexican Migrant, was published in December by Mexico's Foreign Ministry. Using simple language, the book offers safety information for border crossers, a primer on their legal rights and advice on living unobtrusively in the United States.

Dramatic drawings show undocumented immigrants wading into a river, running from the U.S. Border Patrol and crouching near a hole in a border fence. On other pages, they hike through a desert with rock formations reminiscent of Arizona and are caught by a stern-faced Border Patrol agent.

"This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside your country," the book says.

"When you get guns out of people's homes and off the streets, it means that that gun is not going to be used in a shooting that kills someone, whether a murder or an accidental shooting," said Chris Daly, supervisor of San Francisco.

San Francisco officials are pushing a ballot measure to prohibit just about everyone who isn't a cop, security guard or member of the military from having a handgun in their home or office.

Opponents are already planning lawsuits, but argue that even if it does pass, this ban won't stop crime as law-abiding citizens give up their guns while the criminals flock to a city that ensures they won't be shot at by the people they're robbing.

"I don't feel like I need to own a gun to protect myself. Certainly, I am a high-profile elected official and now a lot of gun owners don't like me individually, but if I'm in a situation where I feel threatened, I'll call the police," Daly said.