Today's Photo slide show + thanksgiving: Nov. 27 2006

Al Jazeera: Turkish PM to meet Pope in Ankara

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has agreed to meet Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, reversing an earlier decision.

Erdogan had said he was unable to meet the pope due to his attendance at a Nato summit.

He will now meet Benedict on the pontiff's arrival at Ankara airport before leaving for Latvia, said a Vatican spokesman.
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Benedict's trip to Turkey - which begins on Tuesday - will be one of the most delicate trips ever made by a pope.

The visit was intended to be a primarily Christian event centred around a meeting with the head of the Orthodox Christians, but it has been overshadowed by protests against his visit.
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Hundreds of Turks have already demonstrated to show their anger over his comments on Islam and European opposition to Ankara's bid to join the EU.

Religion of peace

The pope angered many Muslims in September when he gave a lecture that was widely interpreted as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

In response, thousands of Muslims around the world held protests and demanded an apology from him.

In the wake of the protests, a Christian priest was shot dead in Turkey and several churches were attacked in the Palestinian territories.

An Italian nun was also shot dead in Somalia by two men who wanted to protest against the pope's remarks. A Christian priest was beheaded in Mosul in Iraq by men who also demanded an apology from Pope Benedict.

Members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba movement in Pakistan called for the pope to be killed unless he recognised that Islam was a religion of peace.

Benedict later expressed regret over the pain his remarks caused, but stopped short of a full apology.

Turks hope for apology

Many Turks hope that the pope will use his visit to Turkey to apologise for his September speech.

Ali Bardakoglu, who heads Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, which controls Turkish imams and writes their sermons, said: "I think the attitude the Pope should take is that neither Islam nor Christianity is a source of violence."

One possible gesture of reconciliation will come on Thursday, when the pope will make a visit to Istanbul's Blue Mosque.

He already plans to visit the nearby Hagia Sofia, a Byzantine building that was one of the world's greatest churches before being converted to a mosque following the city's conquest by a Muslim army in 1453.

Serious reservations

Before his 2005 election as Pope, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed serious reservations about Turkey's bid to be a member of the European Union, citing religious and cultural differences.

The Vatican now says it is not opposed to EU membership for Turkey and the pope has shied away from the topic since his election but he is expected to get an earful during the visit.

Patriarch Bartholomew, head of the world's Orthodox Christians, has said he would tell the pope that the EU must not be a "Christian club" and that Turkey must be allowed to join.

Turkey began its EU entry talks last year but is not expected to join the bloc for many years, if ever.

Germany: AFGHANISTAN OVERSHADOWS NATO MEETING

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Allies Deeply Divided on Eve of Summit

As western leaders prepare to gather in Riga for the NATO summit, the alliance is deeply divided on Afghanistan. While the Americans and British want a military solution, the Germans are lobbying for their brand of development aid backed by armed troops.

The United States president was connected by secure video line to the situation room of the German chancellery. Only a handful of senior staff were allowed to attend as George W. Bush and Angela Merkel discussed the state of the world.
The situation in Iraq, the nuclear dispute with Iran, the crisis in Lebanon -- they left out none of the issues that Western leaders are grappling with. Finally the chancellor turned to the most sensitive issue on her mind.
Yes, the situation in Afghanistan was difficult, but the German army was doing an important job in the north. That's where 40 percent of the Afghan population lives. With almost 3,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, she reminded the president, Germany was one of the biggest troop contributors and was making a major contribution to civil reconstruction and had already trained 16,000 police officers.
The chancellor explained Germany's policy of combining security with reconstruction. Military involvement was important but at the end of the day the West needed to fight for the Afghans' hearts and minds, she said. The president listened intently -- and changed the subject.
Massive pressure on Germany
Among allies, arguments among the top decision-makers are frowned upon and avoided. Rows usually take place among the mid-level government officials. It's here that Washington has been exerting massive pressure on Germany even in the two weeks since the video conference. Germany should start taking part in the often lethal fighting in Afghanistan. The Americans are being backed in their call by their most obedient allies -- the British. It has emerged that there have been several requests below the official NATO level for the German army, the Bundeswehr, to deploy in the south. They were rejected.
Merkel's government has now gone on the offensive. Last Thursday, Germany's ambassador to NATO in Brussels sent a confidential message back to Berlin saying that he had, "as instructed," strongly represented Germany's position in the NATO council the previous day and had rejected the view taken by the Americans. Afterwards several ambassadors had praised him for standing up to the Americans, he reported.

In every speech and every interview they give, Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier try to tell the public that Germany is beyond any reproach in Afghanistan. Steinmeier told British members of parliament visiting Berlin, "I don't want to let myself be berated" for the reconstruction work Germany is doing in Afghanistan. On the face of it, the offensive has been successful. Last Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer -- who had been among the most vocal critics of Germany's position -- backtracked in a telephone conversation with Merkel. He later said in public remarks in Brussels that the Germans weren't the first port of call when it came to providing more troops for southern Afghanistan. "That could have come sooner," a disgruntled Steinmeier said in Berlin.
Desperate show of unity
De Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman, desperately wants to prevent the row over Afghanistan from overshadowing the NATO summit in Riga. Every two years the leaders of the world's mightiest military alliance meet to present themselves as a club of friends. This year is to be no different. Bush and Merkel, Britain's Tony Blair and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan want to spread confidence and demonstrate unity when they gather for the group photo in Latvia's capital on Wednesday.
But such displays have rarely been as false as they appear this year. NATO's leaders are deeply divided and at a loss. The fall of the Soviet Union 15 years ago deprived the alliance of a common enemy and of a purpose, and has confronted them with a lot of key questions.
Is NATO predominantly a political alliance or a classic defense alliance? Who is the enemy? Radical Islamists, aspiring nuclear powers like Iran, or even Russia? What should Washington's influence be, how can the burdens be balanced between America and Europe? Is there a division of labor under which one side is responsible for war and the other for armed development aid? Where should NATO end -- at the European Union's eastern frontier, in Georgia or possibly in Australia, Japan or New Zealand?
The governments have stashed away this crisis of purpose in files marked "Confidential" and "Secret". The final communiqué has of course already been completed, apart from minor details. It has already been decided that the summit will be a success. But this success comes at a high price -- and the deep divisions aren't being tackled.
Afghanistan a test case
That applies in particular to the alliance's most pressing problem. Afghanistan has become a test case. If the alliance fails there, "NATO will be finished," says former US presidential advisor Brent Scowcroft. But it's precisely Afghanistan that is highlighting how differently the partners view the role of the alliance.
The Germans in the north are trying to demonstrate how it's possible to rebuild a small developing nation through painstaking, armed development aid. In the south, by contrast, the British, Americans, Dutch and Canadians are incurring losses in a bloody campaign against the Taliban and their allies.
The war in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 350 US soldiers, 42 Canadians and 41 British troops. The alliance tends to maintain a shamed silence about the number of civilian casualties of its battles. But the Americans' own allies are starting to criticize US military tactics, saying the bombing raids and violent house searches are mobilizing the civilian population against the NATO troops.

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Guatemala: Fue inaugurada la primera feria industrial de Centroamérica y República Dominicana

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En el parque De La Industria, de la ciudad capital, fue inaugurada la primera feria industrial de los cinco países centroamericanos y República Dominicana, denominada Induexpo 2005.
Los seis países firmaron un tratado de comercio con Estados Unidos. Sólo Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras han ratificado el tratado. Asistieron al acto inaugural los presidentes Oscar Berger, de Guatemala; Ricardo Maduro, de Honduras; Enrique Bolaños, de Nicaragua, y Abel Pacheco, de Costa Rica. La Cámara de Industria de Guatemala fue condecorada con la Orden del Quetzal.

China growth to slow - to 9.25%

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Beijing -- A think tank at People's University has forecast China's economic growth will slow to about 9.25 percent in 2007 and remain near that rate through 2010, the Beijing News reported on Sunday.

In its first macroeconomic report, the university's Economic Research Institute predicted China's gross domestic product (GDP) would pull back from projected annual growth of about 10.48 percent this year in response to government cooling measures.

The estimates for 2006 and 2007 were roughly in line with a range of recent economic forecasts from various economists polled by Reuters.
"Judging from the medium and long-term views, the macro-economy of China will end its prosperity stage of this economic cycle, but there will be no deflation or stagnancy," said Liu Yuanchun, an analyst at the institute who prepared the report.
The researchers predicted consumer inflation would be 1.5 percent in 2006 while annual fixed-asset investment growth would hold near 27 percent.
At a briefing to release the report on Saturday, Wu Xiaoling, vice governor of China's central bank, praised the report for its "high quality," the newspaper said.
Liu predicted that annual GDP growth in the fourth quarter will be 9.62 percent, down from 10.4 percent in the third quarter and 11.3 percent in the second quarter.
"If the current stable financial and monetary policies can be maintained and the government adopts some selective contraction policies, then the national economic growth will keep the trends of the second half of this year, and the GDP growth rate next year will drop to 9.25 percent," he said.
The report projected annual GDP growth would remain slightly higher than 9 percent through 2010.

Egypt: Mubarak's most controversial speech

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President Hosni Mubarak has promised more competitive presidential elections but also seen by critics as intending to remain in power for possibly yet another term, reports Gamal Essam El-Din

"The constitution as a whole cannot be a subject to change or amendment every few years," President Mubarak said in his keynote speech before a combined session of the People's Assembly and Shura Council on Sunday.
He went on to add, though, that the 2006/2007 parliamentary session would witness "the widest range of constitutional amendments since 1980". Although he did not enumerate the constitutional articles that would be amended, he did say Article 76 would be included in the package.
"I will submit a request to parliament to amend Article 76, as well as other articles, with the objective of securing a new round of political reform," he said. All of these amendments, he revealed, will be aimed at curtailing presidential prerogatives, reinforcing the supervisory role of parliament as well as the decision-making powers of the cabinet. A quota of seats for women in parliament would also be allocated, power decentralised to local councils, the electoral system revamped and anti-terror laws introduced. Yet other amendments, he said, would be in line with the economic reforms that have swept Egypt since 1980.
"There will also be changes to legislation regulating construction codes, real estate tax, teachers' salaries, economic courts and the civil service."
Although Mubarak's 40-minute speech was applauded at length by National Democratic Party MPs, it was greeted with scepticism by opposition groups.
Amr Hashem Rabie, an analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, found the speech frustratingly vague. "It was frustrating because Mubarak stuck to his position that the time for changing the constitution has not yet come."
The president, he added, still believes in what he calls gradual reform, largely, Rabie believes, because he is aware any meaningful overhaul of the constitution would involve a curtailing of the draconian powers of the office and restricting the number of terms a president can serve.
The speech, argued Hashem, contained only suggestions for cosmetic change. "The proposed amendment [curtailing presidential prerogatives] would make it obligatory for the president to consult with the prime minister and the parliamentary speaker before using any of his sweeping powers. But the prime minister and the speaker -- both NDP members -- would never say no to Mubarak."
And although, Rabie added, he said he will ask parliament to amend Article 76 to make it easier for parties to run in presidential elections, he emphasised at the same time that he hopes to stay in office for the rest of his life.
"I will continue with you on the path of crossing into the future, bearing the responsibility and burdens of it, as long as there is in my chest a heart that beats and I draw breath," Mubarak told his audience.
"As far as I understand," says Rabie, "this means that President Mubarak plans to contest the 2011 presidential elections, at which time he will be 83 years old."
The corollary of the president's intention, says Rabie, is that however Article 76 is amended it will remain impossible for any opposition or independent candidate to succeed.
Mubarak's hint that he aims to stay in office for as long as he is alive drew so much applause that he was obliged to repeat it again. The rapturous reception given to the announcement suggests, think analysts like Rabie, that even NDP MPs object to Mubarak's son, Gamal, inheriting power.
Muslim Brotherhood MP Hamdi Hassan has a different take on matters: "Mubarak's emphasis on staying in office as long as his heart beats only means he is seeking more time to engineer the appointment of his son as the next president," says Hassan.
NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif had indicated a week ago that Mubarak's request to parliament to discuss a raft of constitutional amendments was imminent.
"These articles could be discussed and approved by parliament before the end of April," said El-Sherif.
Such a timetable would mean the request has to be submitted next by early January at the latest.
NDP insiders expect that the amendments will cover from between 20 to 30 articles. The NDP's Policies Committee, led by Gamal Mubarak, was last week expanded to include Ramzi El-Shaer, an appointed MP and former president of Zagazig University's faculty of law, and Amal Othman, current chair of parliament's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee.
In coordination with the People's Assembly and Shura Council's constitutional law professors, it is the NDP Policies Committee that will be entrusted with re-amending Article 76.
The expectation is that restrictions placed on opposition party candidates from running in presidential elections -- the support of five per cent of seats in each house -- will be eliminated, and those placed on independent candidates made less severe. Neither of which, Hassan points out, will enable the Muslim Brotherhood to field a candidate.
Mubarak also drew applause when he announced that Egypt was not "in need of anyone's authorisation to develop peaceful nuclear energy".
"I do not think he was directing any implicit criticisms at the US given most American officials say they support Egypt having nuclear power for peaceful purposes," says Rabie. Instead the message, he suggests, was a warning to Israel that it should not stand in the way of Egypt's nuclear ambitions.
The People's Assembly on Tuesday began debating the Industry Committee's 268-page report on the potentials of nuclear energy in Egypt, in which Israeli attempts to undermine any Arab nuclear project since the 50s are itemised. During the debate leftist MP Hamdin Sabahi warned against any plans to build a nuclear reactor in Sinai as a way of normalising relations with Israel.

Australia: WA locusts bypass brown crops, attack green town lawns

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Locust swarms spent last week often flying past brown paddocks ready for harvesting and swooping on unsprayed council green lawns in WA's wheatbelt.
WA Agriculture Department entomologist, Kevin Walden, said large swarms of locusts had gathered momentum in many areas.
The possibility of more swarms developing rose this week after recent rains in some parts of the wheatbelt.
This has boosted green feed available in the towns, and better chances of locusts' survival.
Locust eggs have been hatching across the state since early September and have entered the adult stage.
Mr Walden said the locusts had ignored many crops and pastures which were too brown and dry to feed on.
Corrigin Bowling Club was forced to implement a major clean-up operation on its home green last week after locusts swooped on its lush surface - the bowling green had not been sprayed before the locusts arrived.
Wickepin Shire chief executive Alan Leeson said his town's cricket ground was still green after it was sprayed recently to protect it from locusts.
The town's bowling green, however, was not so fortunate.
Mr Waldron said, "Sporting bodies invest a lot of time and money into taking care of their facilities, and the people who are responsible for the running of those clubs should do everything they can to prevent any damage or unnecessary cost.
"Even if they have to spray the cricket field or the bowling green or the tennis court and lose play for an initial period of time, it is far better than incurring any long-term damage.
Despite the bad news for community facilities, CBH grain technology manager David Capper said that, with harvest in full swing, the threat of locust contamination had not yet been a major problem.
SOURCE: Extract from report in Farm Weekly, WA, November 23. Top stories.

http://nwtasmania.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=national%20news&subclass=general&story_id=534738&category=General&m=11&y=2006

Thailand: BMA to promote production of bio-diesel from oil vegetable oil

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The Department of Public Cleansing under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is hastily pushing forward the project of producing bio-diesel from old vegetable oil. Once this project has been approved by the BMA executives, the department believes that the fuel consumption would be decreased, and the chance for people to have cancer would also be reduced as old vegetable oil is one of the causes of this disease.Mr. Nikom Waiyaratpanich, the Director of the Department of Public Cleansing, said this project is being experimented in Prachaniwet School in Chatuchak. He said the plan to produce bio-diesel from old vegetable oil is waiting for the endorsement from the BMA executives.Mr. Nikom said his department has allocated a budget to procure machines to examine the cancer-causing chemicals, and these machines will be available in every district of Bangkok to suppress food operators who are using old vegetable oil.Mr. Nikom said this project had been carried out earlier but experienced a difficulty in storing old vegetable oil in households and establishments. However, he said the BMA will ask the business operators to help monitor the companies that buy old vegetable oil, in order to prevent them to be reused or resold. The BMA will also ask residents to install oil clarifiers so that they do not have to dispose old vegetable oil in canals.

http://farang.pai-nai.com/article.php/BMAtopromoteproductionofbio-diesel

Jamaica steps up war on AIDS

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Dr. Peter Figueroa, chief of epidemiology and AIDS in the Ministry of Health, said he believes Jamaica has made several strides in the past year in combating HIV/AIDS.
Speaking shortly after the launch of an official week of activities leading up to World AIDS Day this Friday at a service at Christ Church on Antrim Road in Vineyard Town, yesterday, Dr. Figueroa told The Gleaner that more sectors of society are recognising the challenge of the disease and are coming on board.
He also cited the current campaign in the media to reduce stigma and discrimination against HIV/AIDS and persons living with it as a positive one.
"We have made a very big step forward in relation to trying to reduce the stigma and discrimi-nation associated with HIV," he said. "One of the challenges we face is too many people are still fearful of doing an HIV test. Maybe they fear they have had some risky behaviour, so that is a big challenge and that is why it is important we reduce the stigma and discrimination."
Risky behaviour
Dr. Figueroa believes that, while Jamaica has made advances in the fight against the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, much more needs to be done. He said the social and economic challenges some Jamai-cans have to face often lead to risky behaviour, which then results in a greater possibility of contrac-ting the disease.
In delivering the sermon at yesterday's service, the Reverend Gary Harriot, general secretary of the Jamaica Council of Churches, called for the Church to play a more active role in the prevention of AIDS and the caring for persons who live with the disease.
He said the Church should demonstrate its doctrine of love through action.

New Caledonia --- Une fillette retrouvée saine et sauve après une nuit dans la chaîne

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Après une journée et une nuit perdue dans la montagne humide et ventée, une fillette de Houaïlou, âgée de huit ans, a été retrouvée en bonne santé par les gendarmes avec le concours des habitants de la tribu de Thu. « Je me suis retrouvée seule pendant que je jouais avec d’autres enfants et je me...
http://www.info.lnc.nc/caledonie/20061127.LNC0580.html