Yahoo - June 30th, 2005

SAVANNAH, Ga. - A quarter-century after they were taken captive in Iran, five former American hostages say they got an unexpected reminder of their 444-day ordeal in the bearded face of Iran's new president-elect. Watching coverage of Iran's presidential election on television dredged up 25-year-old memories that prompted four of the former hostages to exchange e-mails. And those four realized they shared the same conclusion — the firm belief that President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been one of their Iranian captors.

"This is the guy. There's no question about it," said former hostage Chuck Scott, a retired Army colonel who lives in Jonesboro, Ga. "You could make him a blond and shave his whiskers, put him in a zoot suit and I'd still spot him."

Scott and former hostages David Roeder, William J. Daugherty and Don A. Sharer told The Associated Press on Wednesday they have no doubt Ahmadinejad, 49, was one of the hostage-takers. A fifth ex-hostage, Kevin Hermening, said he reached the same conclusion after looking at photos.

Roeder said he's sure Ahmadinejad was present during one of his interrogations when the hostage-takers threatened to kidnap his son in the United States and "start sending pieces — toes and fingers of my son — to my wife."

Full story here.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's parliament on Wednesday approved on second reading a raft of amendments to election rules, which critics say would further tighten the Kremlin's grip on power if implemented. If introduced, the changes, proposed by President Vladimir Putin, would ban political parties merging into blocs to stand in elections and scrap the ``against all'' option, used as a protest vote, on ballot papers in regional polls.

Putin has been accused by opponents and some Western governments of endangering democracy through sweeping political reforms he said were needed after last year's deadly Beslan school siege carried out by Chechen rebels. ``From June 29 any elections held in Russia can only be called elections in quotation marks,'' said opposition deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov. ``Election law has been rewritten to suit the needs of the authorities,'' he said.

The changes to the election law follow Putin's abolition of gubernatorial elections to make regional leaders Kremlin appointees instead.

New rules on elections to the State Duma lower house of parliament and on forming political parties -- which effectively bar small parties and independent candidates from the chamber -- have already been passed by legislators.

Putin says reform is needed to create more effective instruments for governing his sprawling country which stretches across 11 time zones.

The latest amendments to the election law must pass a third reading before being sent for approval to the Federation Council upper house of parliament, after which Putin must sign them into law.

The Kremlin-controlled United Russia party holds two thirds of seats in the Duma, enough to pass legislation single-handedly.

LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday defended Britain's deportation of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers -- a policy that has triggered a refugee hunger strike.

Blair called President Robert Mugabe's regime appalling but said his government would continue to assess asylum claims on a case-by-case basis.

More than 15,000 Zimbabweans fled to Britain between 2000 and 2004, though only a few hundred have been granted asylum.

In November, the government lifted a ban that had blocked them from being deported against their will, and in the first three months of this year 95 Zimbabweans were forcibly removed.

The Home Office says 116 Zimbabwean asylum seekers are in detention now awaiting possible deportation.

Some 57 asylum seekers are on hunger strike, Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the House of Commons on Monday. The strike, in its sixth day, is under way in several British immigration detention centers.

''We abhor what is happening in Zimbabwe today,'' Blair said at his monthly news conference. ''Everything we have said about Mugabe's regime has been shown to be true. The question of how we respond to deportation is a difficult one.''

Mugabe's government has destroyed the homes of thousands of people, arrested street vendors and torn up gardens in what it says is an urban cleanup operation. The operation has left between 200,000 and 1.5 million Zimbabweans without homes or livelihoods.

Mugabe's political opposition says the monthlong campaign is meant to punish its supporters for voting against the ruling party in recent parliamentary elections.

Many Zimbabwean asylum seekers say their lives would be in danger if they returned to their home country, which has been wracked by political violence for several years.

Blair insisted Britain deported only refugees whose claim for asylum was ''false or unfounded or unjustified.''

''None of us want to have a situation where we are returning people to torture or mistreatment,'' Blair said.

Editor's commentary: Just read Zimbabwe News section and make your own decision on how safe is for asylum seekers to be deported to Zimbabwe.

WASHINGTON - It's home to Big Bird, Arthur, Bill Moyers and Jim Lehrer — and not normally a source of great controversy. But these days, PBS finds itself at the center of a political uproar over whether public television promotes a liberal agenda.

The man alleging the bias is Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican who heads the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB provides federal funding to public broadcasters including the Public Broadcasting Service, which receives about 15 percent of its operating budget, or $48.5 million, from the corporation.

PBS has denied the charges of a liberal slant. But following the criticism, it moved this month to hire an ombudsman to review its programs and announced a revision of its editorial practices. Among them: a requirement that commentary and opinion be labeled as such.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: How about stop hiding behind "Sesame Street" and stop broadcasting garbage, lies, hallucinations and spread religious hatred. Just one episode of 60 minutes illustrates what certain shady elements inside PBS are trying to push on the air and then cover it under freedom of speech. "Secrets of the Dead: The Great Fire of Rome" is the title of utter nonsense and insult to all Christians around the world. The whole series "Secrets of the Dead" is quite good with exception of few episodes and this particular one represents a huge black stain on PBS and it is questionable if it is even criminal and punishable by the law. If someone dared to air this with Muslims being accused of burning Rome then it would be quickly removed from the air and producers would end up fired and in hiding. Thanks to "liberal" views in America this is perfectly OK. Just read detailed description of episode in question as posted on PBS own web site:

Professor Gerhard Baudy of the University of Konstanz in Germany has spent fifteen years studying ancient apocalyptic prophecies. His studies have shown that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would to reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied," Baudy explains. "That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome."

Moreover, the Book of Revelations, written a mere 30 years later, seems to equate evil with Rome. The Whore of Babylon, the source of this evil according to Revelations, is described as having seven heads. "The seven heads are seven mountains," Revelations says. Rome, of course, is famously known as the city of seven hills. What's more, an ancient Egyptian prophesy that would have been well-known in the Christian quarters of Rome foretold the fall of the great evil city on the day that the dog star, Sirius, rises. In 64 AD, Sirius rose on July 19, the very day the great fire of Rome began. Baudy believes that, bearing this prophetic date in mind, some of the Christians, maltreated and embittered, may have started the fire -- or perhaps lit additional fires, adding fuel to the larger conflagration -- in hopes of realizing their prophesies.

According to this "genius" Christians are bunch of terrorists and arsonists who write their prophecies to scare people and commit terrorist acts. Any fool knows that Nero was responsible for the great fire of Rome but as some "liberals" are shedding tears today for Saddam they also decided to twist historic facts and start rehabilitation of Nero, one of the most ruthless tyrants of all time. And the worst of all is that Christian taxpayers pay for this garbage since PBS is sponsored by the government.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Scuffles and heckling broke out in Brazil's Congress on Wednesday when the former head of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Cabinet tried to defend the scandal-hit government, forcing a temporary suspension of the session.

Shouts of ``terrorist'' and ``kidnapper'' greeted Jose Dirceu as he tried to address Congress in his first speech there since he resigned from the Cabinet last week amid allegations that he was involved in an illegal vote-buying operation.

The insults referred to his past as leftist militant under Brazil's 1964-1985 dictatorship.

Dirceu, who was Lula's right-hand man until his resignation, was unable to finish his speech.

Legislators from the government coalition shoved one another as two members tried to hold up money and a bag of trash to represent a ``big check'' lawmakers are alleged to have received each month to support government legislation.

Loyalists of the ruling Workers' Party shouted ``fascists'' at the hecklers. The house president shouted for ``respect'' but calm returned only after the session was suspended.

``I'm not ashamed of the alliance policies and the support base the government organized,'' said Dirceu, who has been given the task of rebuilding government support in Congress.

Dirceu was the first major victim of allegations of bribery in the ruling party and in state companies that have rattled financial markets and hurt Lula's popularity before a presidential election set for October 2006.

Lula and Workers' Party officials have denied any wrongdoing and Roberto Jefferson, the politician behind the bribery allegations, has presented no evidence.

SCANDAL WIDENS

The government is already fighting a Congressional inquiry into allegations of widespread bribery at state firms.

A postal service manager accused of taking bribes told the inquiry that contracts with the country's biggest private bank, Bradesco, and over 20 other companies should be investigated for irregularities.

Mauricio Marinho, who was caught on video apparently taking a bribe for a procurement contract, mentioned deals with technology and transport firms and publicity company SMP&B.

Bradesco declined to comment.

Marinho also suggested ruling party Secretary General Silvio Pereira and government communications minister Luiz Gushiken should be investigated over irregular postal contracts.

Marinho's testimony followed allegations by the former secretary of SMP&B, Marcos Valerio, that he ran the ruling party's graft scheme by passing suitcases of cash to officials.

Lula, a former union leader, came to power pledging to end the corruption that is endemic in the world's fourth-largest democracy. But the scandal has plunged his government into its worst crisis in its two-and-a-half-years in office.

Investors fear economic reforms will be paralyzed and fiscal controls will suffer if Lula is weakened.

Dirceu was a political prisoner under the dictatorship and in 1969 was freed by the regime in exchange for the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Charles Elbrick, who was kidnapped by army opponents. In exile in Cuba, Dirceu trained as a guerrilla.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Uncertainty over what happens when President Vladimir Putin's final term ends is one of Russia's biggest investment risks, a top pundit said on Monday as critics began a 1,000-day countdown to Putin's exit date.

Russia's constitution requires Putin to leave the Kremlin when his current, second term ends in 2008 but few people expect the 52-year-old former KGB spy, popular among voters and with a vice-like grip on power, will simply walk away.

The question troubling many investors though, is how the Kremlin plans to manage the transition in a country where immense power is vested in the president.

Will Putin change the constitution to stay in power, will he use his influence to install a hand-picked successor and pull levers from behind the scenes, or will he confound his critics and bow out of politics altogether?

``You will not hear an answer to this question from any of the (government) speakers here,'' former Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov told a conference in Moscow organized by investment bank Renaissance Capital.

``It is a factor of uncertainty and I think it will continue to be a factor of uncertainty up to 2008,'' he said.

``For an investor, whether Russian or foreign, it is well known that there is nothing worse than uncertainty,'' said Zadornov, now an opposition member of parliament recently named to head a unit of state-owned Vneshtorgbank.

Putin has strenuously denied any plans to manipulate the transition to keep power. He has said explicitly he will abide by the two-term limit in the constitution.

COUNTDOWN

About 40 protesters keen to hold Putin to his word unveiled a calendar in Russia's second city, St Petersburg, which they said will count down his remaining 1,000 days in office.

``The clock is ticking on Putin,'' said opposition activist Grigory Pashukevich.

Protesters attached the calendar to a building next door to the apartment block where Putin lived as a child. Police tore the calendar down about 30 minutes later.

Russian history has few examples of leaders willingly leaving office. Most have died, been killed, ousted, or like Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, forced by illness to quit.no serious political challengers and an opinion poll last month gave him a 69 percent approval rating.

Russian voters credit him with ending the chaos of the Yeltsin years and overseeing vigorous economic growth, though some economists say this is running out of steam.

Putin's opponents say he has accumulated enough power to -- if he wants -- railroad through a change to the constitution and even massage the result of a presidential election.

Reuters - June 17th, 2005

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Belgrade said he found ``deeply disturbing'' the Serbian parliament's failure to adopt a resolution acknowledging the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of thousands of Muslims by Serbs.

Michael Polt told Friday's liberal daily Danas that acknowledgement of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II was necessary as its 10th anniversary approaches.

``The absence of real action in the Serbian parliament regarding the tragedy in Srebrenica is not only regretful but also deeply disturbing,'' he was quoted as saying.

The slaughter of up to 8,000 unarmed men and boys taken by the Bosnian Serb Army from the U.N. protected area at Srebrenica began on July 11 and continued for several days. The bodies were bulldozed into pits.

Serbian denial of responsibility for war crimes is an obstacle to cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Such cooperation is a condition for Serbia to be considered as a candidate for European Union and NATO membership.

``This is about human beings, a specific date and a specific incident that must be mentioned ... It is not enough to make generalized statements against war crimes committed in the history of mankind,'' Polt said.

Parliament's bid to adopt a resolution before the July 11 anniversary of the massacre collapsed because parties could not agree on a text. The majority wanted to mention Srebrenica only if balanced by condemnation of war crimes against Serbs.

Compelled by unrelenting Western pressure, the Bosnian Serb parliament earlier this year admitted the scale of the Srebrenica atrocity and Serb responsibility for it.

Failure to adopt a text came only a week after the United States resumed economic aid to Serbia to reward Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica for arranging the surrender of 12 war crimes suspects so far this year to the Hague tribunal.

The Bosnian Serb Army was armed, fueled, fed, financed and transported with the help of Milosevic's Serbia in the 1992-95 war and enjoyed vast superiority in heavy weapons over its adversaries.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food program announced Tuesday it will again investigate Secretary-General Kofi Annan after two e-mails suggested he may have known more than he claimed about a multimillion-dollar U.N. contract awarded to the company that employed his son.

One e-mail described an encounter between Annan and officials from Cotecna Inspection S.A. in late 1998 during which the Swiss company's bid for the contract was raised. The second from the same Cotecna executive expressed his confidence that the company would get the bid because of ''effective but quiet lobbying'' in New York diplomatic circles.

If accurate, the new details would cast doubt on a major finding the U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee made in March -- that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win the Iraq oil-for-food contract. The Associated Press obtained the e-mails Tuesday.

Through his spokesman, Annan said he didn't remember the late 1998 meeting. He repeatedly has insisted that he didn't know Cotecna was pursuing a contract with the oil-for-food program.

The $64 billion oil-for-food program was aimed at helping ordinary Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, but it has become the target of several corruption investigations since the Iraqi leader was ousted.

Annan appointed the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, in an effort to settle the issue for good.

A key issue has been whether Annan was guilty of a conflict of interest because the United Nations awarded the $10 million-a-year contract to Cotecna while Kojo Annan was a consultant for the company.

In an interim report in March, Volcker's committee accused Cotecna and Kojo Annan of trying to conceal their relationship after the firm won the contract. It said Kofi Annan didn't properly investigate possible conflicts of interest but cleared him of trying to influence the contract or violating U.N. rules.

In a statement, the committee said it was ''urgently reviewing'' the two e-mails, which it received from Cotecna on Monday night.

''Does this raise a question? Sure,'' said Reid Morden, executive director of the probe.

The previously unknown e-mails will be a new distraction for the U.N. secretary-general, who had claimed he was exonerated by the interim report and had hoped that the committee was finished investigating his personal involvement.

Morden said investigators had planned to interview Annan soon as part of its investigation into management of oil-for-food. ''This certainly adds another topic,'' he said of the Cotecna e-mails.

In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Cotecna again denied wrongdoing in getting the contract to certify deals for supplies Iraq imported under oil-for-food.

The first Dec. 4, 1998, e-mail from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna and a friend of both Kofi and Kojo Annan's, mentions brief discussions with the secretary-general ''and his entourage'' at a summit in Paris in 1998.

He wrote that Cotecna's bid was discussed and Cotecna was told it ''could count on their support.''

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. officials reviewed the records of Annan's Paris trip and found no record of any exchange with Michael Wilson. He said Annan also didn't recall talking to Wilson then.

Wilson's memo also refers to a ''KA'' who made courtesy calls to various African leaders at the Paris summit. That could be Kojo Annan, then a Cotecna consultant.

Eckhard said it would be reasonable to assume that Kofi and Kojo Annan would have met in Paris if Kojo Annan was there, though he knew of no record of it.

The contents of that e-mail were first reported by The New York Times.

The second e-mail from Wilson, sent minutes after the first, discussed a meeting that took place three days earlier with U.N. procurement officials to talk about the contract bid.

Under a section labeled ''conclusion,'' it said: ''With the active backing of the Swiss mission in New York and effective but quiet lobbying within the diplomatic circles in New York, we can expect a positive outcome to our efforts.''

Most telling about that e-mail, however, was a brief mention in which Wilson said Annan's approval of the bid was required. U.N. rules in fact did not require Annan to approve those decisions, something officials here have repeatedly stressed.

In that light, Wilson's belief that Annan's approval was necessary sheds light on his thinking at the time toward the secretary-general. Wilson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996-2003, has become a lightning rod for critics of the United Nations. Annan and the world body also have faced recent criticism over sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo and mismanagement of the world body.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU governments should rethink their policy toward Cuba and stop helping European companies support the island's Communist regime by skimping on labor rights, a leading Cuban opposition figure said on Thursday.

Next week, EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg to decide whether to continue a policy of diplomatic dialogue with Cuban President Fidel Castro or reapply diplomatic sanctions over human rights abuses.

``We recognize that the EU has good intentions but words alone will not do it. Sanctions did not work but lifting them didn't work either,'' said Eduardo Perez Bengochea, traveling in Europe as the representative of three Cuban dissident groups.

``We think that the European Union should consider a complete 'no' policy toward Cuba -- proactive and socially responsible, not reacting to Castro's moods, wishes and actions,'' he said.

Perez said he represented economist Martha Beatriz Roque, 60, who has spent four of the last eight years in jail for criticizing Castro, and her Assembly to Promote Civil Society.

In January, the EU upgraded its relations with Cuba at the request of Spain's Socialist government -- lifting diplomatic sanctions and reverting to a policy of engagement.

It had earlier suspended high-level visits while Cuba froze contacts with EU diplomats after they began inviting dissidents to national day receptions in Havana in what was called ``the cocktail war.''

European diplomats say any rapprochement with Castro's government will depend on its willingness to make concessions on the human rights front.

As a start, Perez said European governments should stop helping companies set up business in Cuba if they knew that the human and labor rights of local employees might be flouted.

``(European) governments should not be giving loans, guarantees or promoting companies that knowingly, and in cooperation with the Cuban government, violate labor rights of Cuban workers,'' he told reporters in Brussels.

``This is the European taxpayer financing operations of unethical companies in Cuba. The worst example is probably the hotel industry,'' he said.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A second Chinese man has made a bid for political asylum in Australia and backed claims by a defecting Chinese diplomat that Beijing has up to 1,000 spies operating across the country.

Hao Fengjun told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television late on Tuesday that he had worked for China's security service, known as 610, in the northern port city of Tianjin.

Hao said he traveled to Australia as a tourist in February and then applied for political asylum.

Hao's comments came after Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old political affairs consul at China's consulate in Sydney, sought asylum saying spies were hunting him for aiding pro-democracy groups.

Hao said he supported claims made by Chen that Beijing operated a vast spy network.

``I worked in the police office in the Security Bureau and I believe that what Mr Chen says is true,'' Hao told Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s Lateline program through an interpreter.

``As far as I know, they have spies in the consulate, but they also have a network -- spies they've sent out. Like the National Security Bureau and the Public Security Bureau in China, they send out businessmen and students to overseas countries as spies. They also infiltrate the Falun Gong and other dissident groups.''

Falun Gong is an amalgam of religions, meditation and exercises that the Chinese government considers an evil cult.

Hao told Lateline he was currently in Australia on a temporary visa while he waited for his refugee application to be decided by the country's immigration department. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone was not immediately available for comment.

NO FEAR

Chen made his bid for political asylum public on Saturday when he told a Sydney rally to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that Beijing saw him as a threat because he offered help to democracy groups and Falun Gong.

Chen, who is in hiding with his wife, Jin Ping, 38, and six-year-old daughter, has written to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer asking for a rare ``territorial asylum visa'' and applied for a protection visa through the immigration department.

China's Ambassador to Australia, Madame Fu Ying, on Monday laughed off Chen's claims about a Chinese spy network and fears that he could be kidnapped and sent home. Fu said Chen had no reason to be afraid about returning to China.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Embassy said on Wednesday no further comment would be made on Hao's claims.

Both Hao and Chen said they would be persecuted by the Chinese government if they returned home.

``If I go back to China there's no doubt the Communist government will certainly persecute me. They know I have confidential information, some of it top secret, and I'll be severely punished,'' Hao said.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy told Reuters on Tuesday Chen had also contacted a U.S. consulate in Australia about his situation, but she was unable to comment further.

Local media said Chen had asked if he could defect to the United States.

LONDON (AP) -- In an attempt to unblock Britain's congested roads, the government is considering the world's first satellite-based system to charge motorists for every mile they drive. But the idea drew scorn from both motorists and environmentalists.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has proposed charging drivers the equivalent of up to $2.30 for every mile traveled on the nation's most congested highways. He said over the weekend that he would consider introducing national ''road pricing'' by 2014.

Darling said Britain had to decide in the next five years whether road pricing is feasible ''because if we don't do anything, then we will face gridlock in 20 to 30 years' time.''

The proposal would involve fitting cars with black boxes to record mileage and beam information back to authorities via satellite.

Motorist groups protested, saying the plan would favor the wealthy. Environmentalists complained charging for travel on congested highways could simply switch traffic to quieter country roads. Others said it would infringe on civil liberties.

Britain is becoming one of the most-monitored countries in the world -- many cities already bristle with closed-circuit TV cameras, and there are plans for a national identity card,

''The system takes the surveillance of an overwhelmingly law-abiding public to absurd lengths,'' David Sumner from Southwater in southern England wrote in a letter published Tuesday by The Times newspaper. ''The intrusion into civil liberties would ... result in widespread anger and loss of confidence in the police and government.''

Darling said a study found road pricing could cut congestion by almost half. He also said he would look for an area of the country to conduct a trial of the plan.

Last year a report commissioned by the Transport Department concluded road pricing would help unblock roads to the overall benefit of the economy and the environment.

The new charges to motorists would be offset by a cut in fuel taxes or possibly in the annual tax motorists already pay to use the roads. It is hoped that shifting some of the burden away from taxes to road pricing will target people driving in congested areas.

The Transport Department study found the plan would cost up to $5.4 billion a year to run, but would gross $16 billion annually. Fuel taxes now raise more than $40 billion a year, and scrapping them would leave a large hole in the government's finances.

But the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-wing think tank, says road pricing should be imposed on top of fuel taxes, or the number of miles driven in Britain would rise by 5 percent.

The number of cars on British roads has risen by a quarter over the past decade to 25 million and the rate of increase shows little sign of slowing.

The idea of road pricing is not new; a 1964 government report said that charging vehicles for every mile on congested roads would ''yield substantial benefits'' and envisaged fitting all vehicles with meters triggered by roadside scanners.

Governments have repeatedly rejected the idea because it was unpopular with voters and expensive to implement.

Some alternatives to road pricing include better public transport, fuel rationing, or stipulating an annual mileage allowance for each motorist, with charges for extra miles.

Editor's commentary: This is what you get when you keep Labour government in charge. There is no need for panic though because Labour will be out of power for good before 2014 and who would allow government to install black box in his car anyway but this is an excellent illustration on what Labour Party really stands for and what they truly want to do in UK. They want to create exact replica of Orwell's society from his novel 1984 and what we know must ask ourselves is whether his book was about Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany or it was just a warning about Labour Party in UK and what they might do in the future. Ultra lame explanation that this would help clear roads and make environment cleaner is completely moronic. If people stop driving their vehicles then they would have to sell them and not buy them anymore which would decimate already struggling UK car manufacturers. What are the alternatives to people to transport themselves around UK? Why these congested roads are not widened or why they do not build more roads? This is also a money scheme in addition to taxes that ravage living standard of Britons regardless of Labour lies about great economy. Since no one would want these boxes installed, government would probably have to force car manufacturers to install them making additional burden for them. People may entirely reject to buy new vehicles and use older cars instead not to mention imports from abroad. In order to prevent massive import of cars without these boxes government would have to ban import of vehicles completely which would be violation of free trade agreements with EU and the rest of the world. What about import cars manufactured abroad and sold in UK? Who would install and how black boxes in these cars? And as a last resort people could seek local mechanics to simply remove these boxes, disable them or even rig them. We all know about mod chips for PS2 and Xbox. This proposal is a lose lose situation for those who proposed it because neither would people endorse it nor it is possible to implement it. And finally, wouldn't be easier to just install toll ramps and charge desired amount which is common thing in the rest of the world?

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's ruling party was shaken Monday by accusations that it bribed lawmakers to maintain its coalition in Congress, raising fears of a scandal that could paralyze President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government as it seeks to pass key reforms.

In response to the allegations, investors sent stocks falling that 4 percent before recovering slightly to close down 3 percent. Brazil's currency initially fell more than 2 percent against the U.S. dollar and ended the day down 1 percent.

Congressman Roberto Jefferson told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that he first told top Silva advisers about the practice last year, but the payments stopped only after he personally informed Silva in January.

Silva, Brazil's first elected leftist president, did not mention the scandal during a speech in Sao Paulo on Monday, but his party denied the accusations. He then flew to Brasilia to meet with members of his Cabinet to discuss Jefferson's claims as a clamor emerged for a congressional investigation into the allegations.

''These declarations are very serious, and the government now has a first-class crisis on its hands,'' said congressional minority leader Jose Jorge. ''It will be very difficult for them to bar an investigation.''

''The government has been placed on a very uphill road. It will not be ease for it to overcome this crisis,'' said University of Brasilia political science professor David Fleischer.

Silva has never had a majority in Congress and depends on alliances with a patchwork of parties across the political spectrum to get legislation approved.

A congressional investigation would delay or derail Silva legislative initiatives like labor and tax reform and a proposal to grant the Central Bank more autonomy -- all important to investors.

While investors initially viewed Silva with skepticism after he took office in 2003, he has gained Wall Street's support for embracing orthodox economic policies.

Following the allegations, stocks initally plunged by more than 4 percent before closing the day 3 percent down. Brazil's currency, the real, also lost one percent of its value against the dollar.

The scandal also broke as Silva is beginning to lay the groundwork for his 2006 re-election campaign, and as polls are showing his popularity waning due to slower growth for South America's largest economy and concerns about corruption.

In the interview, Jefferson said the treasurer of the Workers Party ''has been giving a monthly allowance of 30,000 Brazilian reals ($12,500) to each allied congressman.'' That is more than double a congressman's monthly salary.

Jefferson did not say how many congressmen were bribed, and made the allegations as he and other members of his party are trying to fend off accusations they benefited from another scandal involving corruption in Brazil's postal service.

The national chairman of the Workers Party, Jose Genoino, denied that the Workers Party made payoffs to allies from other parties, stating in the party's web site that ''the practice simply does not exist.''

Russia's gas giant, Gazprom, has announced it has bought Izvestia - one of the country's oldest newspapers.

The Gazprom Media holding company bought more than 50% of Izvestia's shares from the media group controlled by Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin.

Gazprom controls several media outlets including the television station NTV.

Correspondents say Izvestia's takeover is likely to be seen as another step toward the Kremlin's control of Russia's privately-owned media.

Russia has more than 22,000 newspapers, but almost all are owned by pro-government or powerful business interests that constrain their reporting.

Last month, the Russian government announced plans to bring Gazprom directly under government control.

Full story here.

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Serbian police have arrested at least eight men they say are shown in a video killing a group of Bosnian Muslim prisoners from Srebrenica, a top Belgrade official said Thursday.

Up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica in 1995 -- Europe's worst carnage since World War II.

The arrests came after the footage was shown Wednesday at the U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands, said Rasim Ljajic, head of the Serbia-Montenegro government body in charge of cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The prosecution introduced the footage during the hearings in the trial of former President Slobodan Milosevic, indicted for his alleged role in atrocities during the Balkan wars, including the Srebrenica massacre.

The amateur footage, apparently made by Serb troops, showed six civilians taken from a truck, hands tied behind their backs and lined up on a hillside. Four were shot one by one in their backs. Two other prisoners were ordered to carry the bodies into a nearby barn where they too were killed.

U.N. prosecutors contend the killings were carried out by the Serb paramilitary unit known as the Scorpions somewhere on Mount Treskavica near the wartime Bosnian Serb capital Pale. The Scorpions were allegedly under orders from Serbian police in Belgrade and the link could directly tie Milosevic with the crimes committed in Bosnia.

The footage was broadcast late Wednesday by several television channels in Serbia and shocked the Balkan republic.

It also prompted the police sweep, Ljajic said. Those arrested were all identified as the executioners shown in the footage, he said.

Earlier Thursday, during a visit to Belgrade by U.N. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica announced that ''several suspects'' from the footage shown at The Hague court were detained.

Del Ponte praised the arrests as a ''brilliant operation.''

''The police will continue the sweep until all suspects are in custody,'' Ljajic said.