China News Blog @newzblogz.com

WASHINGTON - Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels."

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SHANGHAI, China - Chinese automaker FAW Group Corp. refused comment Tuesday on a report it is considering bidding for a stake in DaimlerChrysler AG's ailing Chrysler Group.

Meanwhile, the Detroit News reported that Chrysler was seeking permission from its parent company to begin building small cars with China's Chery Automobile Co. for export to overseas markets.

The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post said FAW had sent representatives to the United States to negotiate a deal for a unspecified stake in Chrysler, citing an unnamed person familiar with the situation.

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DALLAS - The online dating service Match.com has decided to look overseas for some new corporate love interests.

The company planned to announce Tuesday that it had finalized acquisitions of two foreign Internet services - the online dating site Netclub in France and the eDodo social networking site in China. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Match.com, which was established a decade ago and now has about 15 million users, is already the world's largest online dating and personals service, according to comScore Media Metrix. The addition of eDodo and Netclub would add more than 4 million subscribers.

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SEOUL, South Korea - North and South Korea resumed high-level meetings Tuesday for the first time since the North tested a nuclear bomb in October, paving the way for a resumption of aid to impoverished Pyongyang after it pledged to start dismantling its atomic weapons program.

As South Korean officials arrived Tuesday afternoon in the North Korean capital, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said in Seoul that it was important to show North Korea that it would get more for abandoning its nuclear weapons than keeping them.

"We have to keep sending signals (to the North) that their security will be guaranteed and they could get profits through reform and openness," Roh told a news conference.

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SHANGHAI, China - Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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WASHINGTON - The State Department has been lacking a diplomatic heavyweight to handle China issues since last summer, and President Bush's choice to fill that role plans to travel to Beijing this week as part of a three-nation East Asia tour.

John Negroponte, newly installed as the State Department's No. 2 official, is scheduled to visit South Korea and Japan, in addition to China.

Negroponte, 67, began his career as an Asia hand more than 40 years ago and has worked on regional issues periodically since then, including a stint as ambassador to the Philippines. He was director of national intelligence for the past two years, and issues relating to China crossed his desk frequently, including the country's military buildup.

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SHANGHAI, China - Shanghai's benchmark stock index plunged nearly 9 percent on Tuesday, its biggest drop in more than 10 years, as investors unloaded stocks to lock in profits after recent gains.

The Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 8.8 percent to close at 2.771.79, its largest single-day decline since it fell 9.4 percent on Feb. 18, 1997, just after the death of Communist Party elder Deng Xiaoping.

The Shanghai index had gained 1.4 percent on Monday to 3,040.60, extending a spate of record high closes.

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WASHINGTON (AP) The State Department has been lacking a diplomatic heavyweight to handle China issues since last summer, and President Bush's choice to fill that role plans to travel to Beijing this week as part of a three-nation East Asia tour.

John Negroponte, newly installed as the State Department's No. 2 official, is scheduled to visit South Korea and Japan, in addition to China.

Negroponte, 67, began his career as an Asia hand more than 40 years ago and has worked on regional issues periodically since then, including a stint as ambassador to the Philippines. He was director of national intelligence for the past two years, and issues relating to China crossed his desk frequently, including the country's military buildup.

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BEIJING - Communist leaders have no plans to allow democracy in the near future because they must focus on economic development before political reform, China's No. 3 leader said in comments published Tuesday.

Democracy will emerge once a "mature socialist system" develops but that might not happen for up to 100 years, Premier Wen Jiabao wrote in an article in the People's Daily, the main Communist Party newspaper.

For now, China must focus on "sustained rapid growth of productive forces ... to finally secure fairness and social justice that lies within the essence of socialism," Wen wrote.

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ATLANTA (AP) - Word that salmonella-tainted peanut butter from Georgia was sent to more than 60 countries comes at an awkward time for the state.

Governor is pushing to boost the state's trade ties around the globe. He's set to spend an unprecedented four weeks abroad later this year drumming up international business.

Experts say they don't expect the state to suffer much from the peanut butter scare.

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NEW YORK (AP) The Metropolitan Opera hopes to tour China for the first time, negotiating to perform Tan Dun's "The First Emperor" there with tenor Placido Domingo to coincide with the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

As part of a late change to the 2007-8 schedule, which is to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, Met general manager Peter Gelb substituted a revival of "The First Emperor" in place of a revival of Tobias Picker's "An American Tragedy" for the spring part of the season.

"The First Emperor" had its world premiere in December at the Met. While most reviews were mixed to negative, the run sold out.

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SHANGHAI, China - Wal-Mart is buying a 35 percent stake in a company that operates Trust-Mart, a major Chinese discount chain, as international competitors jostle for position in China's rapidly growing retail market.

Wal-Mart may eventually take managerial control of Taiwan-based Bounteous Co., which operates 101 Trust-Mart stores in 34 major cities in China, the U.S. retail giant said in a statement Tuesday.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Newspapers last year speculated a takeover of Trust-Mart would cost Wal-Mart about $1 billion.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Archeologists said Monday that porcelain plates and other artifacts found along the Baja California coast could be from the wreckage of a Spanish galleon that sailed between the Philippines and Mexico hundreds of years ago. Seals and other markings on some of the estimated 1,000 fragments of porcelain plates found at the site indicate they were made in China in the late 1500s, said archaeologist Luz Maria Mejia of the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The si...

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DALLAS The online dating service Match.com plans to announce Tuesday that it has finalized acquisitions of two foreign Internet services.The companies are the French online dating site Netclub and the eDodo social networking site in China. Financial terms haven't been disclosed.According to comScore Media Metrix, Match.com is already the world's largest online dating and personals service. It was established a decade ago and now has about 15 (m) million users. The addition of eDodo and Netclub w...

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DALLAS -- The online dating service Match.com plans to announce Tuesday that it has finalized acquisitions of two foreign Internet services.

The companies are the French online dating site Netclub and the eDodo social networking site in China. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

According to comScore Media Metrix, Match.com is already the world's largest online dating and personals service. It was established a decade ago and now has about 15 million users.

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TEHRAN, IRAN: Iran resists widespread calls to stop nuclear program

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday his nation's nuclear program was like a train without brakes or a reverse gear. He also repeated his call for further negotiations over the issue, saying the time for "bullying" had expired.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded that Iran needs "a stop button."

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It's an early spring for Berkeley composer John Adams. He has put aside the memoir he's writing and postponed the premiere of a symphony based on his opera "Doctor Atomic," which had been set for Carnegie Hall.

This week, the aura is sweetness and light as he conducts the first American performances of "A Flowering Tree," his opera based on an Indian folk tale and inspired by Mozart's "The Magic Flute."

"This piece is a fairy tale," Adams says, his eyes lighting up as he leans across the dining table of his Craftsman-style hillside home. "I have never entered into that kind of magical garden in my music."

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In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

More than 30 years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be an energy source that can help save our planet from another potential disaster: the serious negative impacts of climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

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TURBOTVILLE ? Three Warrior Run High School seniors are learning how the stock market works by playing the Stock Market Game.

Michael Adams, 18, said he got into the game to better understand the New York Stock Exchange.

Team member Eric Kramer, 17, spent two days researching stocks before deciding what stocks to buy. Michael said they tried to pick stocks of mid-sized companies.

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Facing escalating concerns about the potential vulnerability of U.S. space assets to terrorists and hostile governments, Boeing Co. for the first time is offering to install advanced antijamming technology on some future commercial satellites.

Military and spy satellites use such hardware and other techniques to help prevent disruption of their signals. Now efforts are under way to expand at least some of the same protective devices to commercial space, which includes more than 250 large satellites in high-Earth orbits. Boeing's effort to provide sophisticated antennas designed to counteract jamming is part of a broader push -- supported by both industry and the Pentagon -- to safeguard commercial fleets in orbit.

"Some of our customers are looking for technology to potentially reduce the threat" of jamming, said Craig Cooning, deputy general manager of Boeing's Space and Intelligence Systems unit, which builds commercial and government satellites. Mr. Cooning said down the road, such safeguards "could become a differentiator" in the commercial marketplace.

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BEIJING - An 80-year-old AIDS activist whom Chinese authorities have repeatedly blocked from going abroad left Monday for the United States to receive an award from a group supported by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gao Yaojie, a retired gynecologist, said she was still constrained by fears of reprisals when she returns home if she speaks too critically about China's AIDS epidemic while visiting the United States.

"I feel confused and I am in a dilemma," Gao said at Beijing International Airport before boarding a flight to Newark, N.J. "If I don't tell the truth, I lie to the people in the whole world. If I tell the truth I am worried that I will be detained."

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It's called the Alameda Corridor, a $2.4-billion 20-mile rail expressway linking the ports to the big train yards near downtown Los Angeles. From there, trains continue their long journey deep into America's heartland, while trucks pick up much of the short-haul cargo. With half of the corridor set into a 35-foot-deep trench, its three tracks now shoot 50 trains a day eastward, and in the process remove8,500 containers that otherwise would have been trucked from the ports along already congested highways.

Like the Capitol Corridor, the Alameda Corridor is another train tale that underscores the promises and perils of an overworked transportation grid, in this case the ports, railroads and communities in Southern California that shoulder 40 percent of the nation's cargo traveling by ship.

While America once relied on rail to move its goods, usually from Eastern ports out West, trains from the 1930s on began losing market share to trucks, thanks to bigger rigs and better highways. The 1980 deregulation of the trucking industry was a further blow. But by the mid-'80s, as the railroad industry got legislative Advertisementbreaks of its own and carriers figured out a system to move two containers on one flatcar, Port of Long Beach spokesman Art Wong says "almost overnight the railroads came back to life."

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One of my favorite photographs of India shows a sadhu right out of central casting -- naked body, long matted hair and beard, ash-smeared forehead -- chatting away on a mobile phone.

The contrast says so much about today's India, a country that manages to live in several centuries at the same time.

There are other photographs I have seen over the years that illustrate the same phenomenon -- laborers carrying TV sets on their heads, a bullock-cart transporting rocket parts, a car overtaking an elephant, and so on. But there's something particularly special about the sadhu and his cell phone.

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WHITTIER - Music has always been her passion, but trying to coax young people into appreciating the classics and opera is Olivia Tsui's specialty.

"The challenge, in terms of keeping classical music alive, is that we need a new audience," Tsui said. "Most of the time when you go to a concert hall to hear classical music, you see most of the audience has gray or white hair.

"I want them to bring their children, their grandchildren. That's the future."

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Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small is living a lifestyle more like a corporate CEO than the steward of a charity funded by donors and taxpayer dollars, according to a watchdog Senator after an independent audit and an Inspector General's report, both obtained by CBS News.

While Smithsonian museums suffer leaky roofs and wait for funding for repairs and restorations, the reports find possibly "lavish and extravagant" expenditures by and for Secretary Small.

The disclosure comes after a recent GAO report indicated that the institution's facilities would require $255 million a year for the next 9 years (or $2.3 billion in total) for repairs and maintenance.

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LONDON ? The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany likely will consider restrictions on trade and arms for Iran when they meet Monday to discuss new ways to pressure Tehran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.

Senior representatives of the six nations were to meet at midday at London's Foreign Office to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment ? a possible pathway to nuclear arms ? and had instead expanded its program.

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As the National People's Congress prepares to meet in early March for its annual policy-setting meeting, economic and social issues are looming large in China, and one overshadows the rest: the mainland's widening income gap. In both the state press and the independent blogosphere, the media are abuzz with reports on just how serious the problem has become.

Several recent reports add fuel to the fire. At the end of December a survey came out showing that 90% of Chinese believe the gap between rich and poor is "serious," while 80% agree that the government must take action to redress the inequity.

The survey hardly focused on the disadvantaged -- one would presume they are more sensitive to the issue. The Beijing-based China Youth Daily and Internet portal Sina.com questioned 10,250 people, ages 20 to 30, all of them with a college education and a job.

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BEIJING - China's first panda cub of the year has survived the crucial first three days of her life, state media reported Monday.

The female cub weighed just 3.2 ounces at birth, but has grown to 3.4 ounces in the three days, increasing her chances of survival, Xinhua News Agency said.

The panda was being cared for by the China Panda Protection and Research Center in Sichuan province.

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LONDON - The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany likely will consider restrictions on trade and arms for Iran when they meet Monday to discuss new ways to pressure Tehran to suspend parts of its nuclear program.

Senior representatives of the six nations were to meet at midday at London's Foreign Office to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment - a possible pathway to nuclear arms - and had instead expanded its program.

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TOKYO - A group of South Koreans filed a lawsuit Monday against a Tokyo war shrine criticized for glorifying Japan's militaristic past, demanding it remove relatives' names from the list of war dead honored there.

The suit, filed at the Tokyo District Court, is the first ever filed by South Koreans against Yasukuni Shrine, their Japanese supporter Naoyoshi Yamamoto said Monday.

The 11 plaintiffs, including a former soldier and 10 others whose fathers were impressed into the Japanese military during World War II, said their names have been enshrined against their will.

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GAUHATI, India - Security forces searched the heavily forested mountain areas of northeastern India's troubled Manipur state Sunday, a day after 16 policemen were killed in a rebel ambush, an official said.

Army, police and paramilitary soldiers are searching the area where the attack took place and have recovered a cache of weapons, the state's police chief A.K. Parashar said. He did not give details about the kind of weapons found.

The attack involved 40 to 50 heavily armed rebels, Parashar added.

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BEIJING - China is recalling U.S. peanut butter following the manufacturer's announcement that certain batches had been tainted with salmonella, state media said Sunday.

ConAgra Foods Inc. last week recalled all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made at its Sylvester, Ga. plant after health officials linked the product to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 329 people in the United States since August.

China imported three batches of the two peanut butter brands in September and December of 2006 and January of 2007, totaling 742 cases, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

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SYDNEY — Vice President Dick Cheney, in a series of blunt and sometimes biting statements during a visit to Asia, defended the Iraq war, attacked administration critics at home and warned that the U.S. would confront potential adversaries abroad.

His visit was meant to thank Australia and Japan for their support in Iraq. But in a series of public appearances and media interviews, Cheney's tone was typically feisty.

Answering growing criticism in the U.S. and Australia, he defended the Iraq war as a "remarkable achievement" in one speech, and dismissed suggestions his influence in Washington is waning.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China has set up a top-level task force to clamp down on illegal activities in the securities market, a government report said on Sunday.

China's cabinet, the State Council, approved the body, to include the vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the industry's watchdog, the deputy central bank governor and the deputy head of the Supreme Court, according to the report on the central government's Web site (www.gov.cn).

The committee will formulate and interpret rules to crack down on illicit activities in the industry and help related agencies pursue suspected crimes, the report said.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - A 79-year-old prominent Chinese AIDS activist is to fly to the United States as early as Sunday to receive a human rights award after she was freed from house arrest thanks to U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gao Yaojie is to receive the Vital Voices Global Women's Leadership Award for Human Rights in Washington in March for helping bring to light official complicity in the spread of AIDS in her home province Henan in central China, where thousands of poor farmers sold blood in the 1990s and have been infected.

To prevent her from going and embarrassing China, police in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan, placed Gao under house arrest on February 1. The move sparked an international outcry.

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Public policy is all about trade-offs. Economists understand this better than politicians because voters want to have their cake and eat it too, and politicians think whatever is popular must also be true.

Economists understand that if we put a chicken in every pot, it might cost us an aircraft carrier or a hospital. We can build a hospital, but it might come at the expense of a little patch of forest. We can protect a wetland, but that will make a new school more expensive.

You get it already. But in the history of trade-offs, never has there been a better one than trading a tiny amount of global warming for a massive amount of global prosperity. Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800 percent, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800 percent is unknowable, but let's stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious).

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My first reaction upon hearing that North Korea had agreed to take steps toward nuclear disarmament was: not again! Hadn't Pyongyang promised Jimmy Carter, during his ill-advised 1994 "peace" mission, that it would freeze its nuclear weapons program and dismantle existing nuclear facilities? Didn't North Korea break that promise? In 2000, hadn't Secretary of State Madeleine Albright toasted the "dear leader" Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang only to be disappointed later when his duplicity was again revealed? When will these people realize that communists lie?

Now comes the Bush administration's announcement of what appears - appears - to be a breakthrough. This time things might - might - be different, especially because the initial agreement does not rely solely on Kim's word or on U.S. pressure.

As outlined to me in a telephone conversation with Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch, this agreement is the result of pressure exerted by five countries -- the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- something critics said would never happen. Critics said that Kim would never agree to six-party talks and that the Bush administration was making a big mistake in not accepting Kim's demand for bilateral negotiations. President Bush held out and, so far, his strategy seems to be working.

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It seems to me that our language is getting more and more jumbled up by the all the alphabet soup we encounter every day. This kinda came home recently when we were watching a crime show where one of the characters said that he had "bolo'd" a suspect. I couldn't figure out why he would put a "bolo", a type of Western string tie which uses a sliding clasp, on the culprit. Then again he surely wouldn't use a "bolo", a large knife similar to a machete, or the South American throwing rope device whi...

An acronym, according to the purists on the subject, is a pronounceable word formed from each of the first letters of a series of words that describe an object, process, system, or organization. I don't think this is followed very carefully because additional letters from within a word are sometimes used and some words may be omitted. Radar, for example, is an acronym for "RAdio Detection And Ranging" and sonar comes from SOund Navigation And Ranging. We have gotten so used to some acronyms that...

According to the folks who catalogue them, acronyms can often have more than one meaning. "Laser" comes from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, but can also mean Lots of Applied Scientists Eat Regularly. Then, too, one might well find CRAP (Cheap Redundant Assorted Products) in a CRAP (Central Receiving And Processing) facility. (These are actual acronyms.)

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Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano is asking the state legislature to create a tax-free zone at Cobo Center to attract more trade shows and conventions. The proposal is part of Ficano's continuing efforts toward renovating and expanding the convention center in downtown Detroit.

Ficano made his proposal Thursday night during his annual State of the County address before several hundred people at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn.

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Watching George W. Bush struggle with foreign policy is like watching a rerun of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." You never know which personality, the good guy or the bad guy, is going to prevail.

The problem is, neither does he. Like the protagonist in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic clash of dual personalities, George Bush is capable of doing both good and evil, often at the same time. Look at the contrast between Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

From the beginning, Bush's policy in Iraq was pure Mr. Hyde: Bomb first, ask questions later. No time for diplomacy. No time for U.N. inspectors to finish their job. No time to discover the truth about WMD or Saddam Hussein's connection to Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11 (none). Bush insisted we had to hurry up and invade Iraq in order to teach other unfriendly regimes in the Arab world a lesson.

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WASHINGTON -- After years of haranguing over their competitive disadvantage caused by a weak Japanese yen, Detroit automakers say their arguments are finally being heard in Washington -- but Washington may not have much power to flex.

That's because global currency markets have bet big on the yen remaining weak for the immediate future, a self-reinforcing trend that some experts say can only be reversed by careful moves in Japan, not dictates from Capitol Hill.

Advertisement

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Edina, EP women involved in new rehab center in China

BY LYN JERDE - SUN NEWSPAPERS

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Suzie Gianikas finished decorating her Green Hills home in 2004. For two years, she reveled in lovely surroundings and the knowledge that everything was complete. Recently, she looked around the perfect rooms and thought, "I don't have anything to decorate."Luckily, Gianikas' business partner, Jason Parker Counce, is an interior designer with a creative eye for redecorating on the cheap. Counce said two things: Let's bring new color schemes into the den and kitchen, and let's do it with what you already have.

With a fresh eye on existing decor and a day's work, Gianikas' house was brightened up for spring.To give both rooms an update, they simply switched the rooms' accessories. The kitchen's warm coppers and pinks went to the den, and the den's fresh greens moved to the kitchen."We pulled out some of Suzie's green plates, added bamboo placemats and succulent plants for a long-lasting centerpiece," Counce says. In the den, everything from rugs to lampshades got an update. "We even changed out the pic...

Go bold, colorful

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There's a chance to enjoy a free Dr. Seuss party from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday at the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center. There will be a reading of The Cat in the Hat at precisely 2:36 p.m. in recognition of the 236 words in Dr. Seuss' beloved Cat book, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In addition to the reading, there will be snacks, games, crafts and free toothbrushes and oral screenings all around. Flashy the Fire Dog will also be on hand to provide some fire safety information. ...

Admission is usually $5 for anyone over 2 years old, so a free day like this is good, especially since there's a new interactive exhibit, Monkey King: A Journey to China, which has a cave home and waterfall as part of its "journey.'' Plus, there will be lots of extras like art activities, performances by local performing arts groups, puppet shows by Linebaugh Library and cooking activities related to children's books. The Discovery Center is at 502 S.E. Broad in Murfreesboro. 890-2300.• Th...

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KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii – Sun-washed days and gentle breezes. Calm waters crowded with tropical fish, spinner dolphins and humpback whales on winter vacation. Magnificent sunsets framed by coconut palms.

There is a lot to like about Hawaii's Kona Coast, which enjoys this friendly climate because it shelters in the lee of the Mauna Loa and Hualalai volcanos on the west side of the Big Island. But unfortunately – and not surprisingly – there are a lot of people doing the liking these days.

This is a standard stop for Hawaii's burgeoning cruise industry, such that the town of Kailua-Kona, once an unpretentious little burg of rich history and slightly scruffy charm, has descended into cruise-port blight, clogged with souvenir stands selling cheap shell jewelry, T-shirts and Kona coffee gift packs. Up the mountain slope, residential housing is sprouting at an astonishing rate. And the hotels and vacation-rental condos along the water's edge – long a value-priced alternative to ...

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Several dozen workers at Wheatland Tube Co. have been told they would be laid off effective Monday.

Vice President Bill Kerins said Thursday that 45 hourly workers from the plant in Wheatland and 10 from the Sharon plant will be laid off, along with about 30 salaried employees.

The salaried employees were let go permanently, while the hourly workers might be recalled if business improves, he said.

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UNITED NATIONS - Iran accused the United States, Britain and Israel of making "baseless allegations" about its nuclear ambitions, insisting that it has always considered weapons of mass destruction to be "inhumane, immoral and illegal."

Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador Mehdi Danesh Yazdi told the U.N. Security Council Friday that his country has an "inalienable right" to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and would not "give in to the pressures emanating from groundless and unsubstantiated allegations and ulterior political motives."

Iran was a last-minute addition to the list of countries speaking at a daylong council meeting on implementation of a 2004 resolution requiring all U.N. member states to pass laws to keep nuclear, chemical and biological weapons out of the hands of terrorists and black marketeers.

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The foils for the stock market this week were many, but the damage was relatively minimal.

Whether traders focused on the carnage in the subprime mortgage market, a Bank of Japan rate hike, the Federal Reserve and inflation fears, or Iran missing its deadline to halt uranium enrichment, the result was just drama, drama, drama. Still, major averages remained supported by their long-term foundation of abundant liquidity.

After hitting an all-time high on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week down 0.9% at 12,647.48. The Dow Jones Transportation Average marched to another all-time high on Wednesday, and ended the week up 1%. The Nasdaq Composite also ended the week on an up note, gaining 0.8% to close at 2515.10. And, the S&P 500 ended the week down only 0.3% to close at 1451.19.

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LONDON - Israel opened negotiations to fly through U.S. controlled airspace in Iraq to carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a British newspaper reported Saturday. Israel's deputy defense minister denied the claim.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli defense official as saying the talks were aimed at planning for all scenarios, including any future decision to target Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli bombers would need a corridor through U.S.-administered airspace in Iraq to carry out any strikes, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

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TOKYO - Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's view.

The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority's intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists and war criminals, historians say.

In addition to Tsuji, who escaped Allied prosecution and was elected to parliament in the 1950s, conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded operations included mob boss and war profiteer Yoshio Kodama, and Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948.

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Today is Sunday, Feb. 25, the 56th day of 2007. There are 309 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Feb. 25, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox.

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Failed to see a ball mark. Missed a tiny indentation on the green, because his vision and his thoughts were locked into how the ball would roll. And thus he missed the putt.

And thus we will miss Tiger in the Accenture world match play championships.

By all rights, Woods shouldn't even have been standing there on the first extra hole Friday, needing only that kick-in 4-footer to win the third-round match against Nick O'Hern, to keep alive his winning streak, whether that streak were legitimate or not.

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ALHAMBRA, Calif. (AP) - An Andy Warhol-style painting of Mao Zedong was removed from City Hall after a complaint that it romanticized the communist dictator - a move that has sparked debate in Southern California's huge Chinese community.

The artwork was displayed Feb. 1 as part of a city festival of events leading up to a planned Saturday parade celebrating the Chinese New Year. However, it was removed on Feb. 16 after an objection from Kai Chen, an immigrant and former player for China's national basketball team whose family was exiled to Manchuria in the 1960s.

"This is a moral issue. You cannot commercialize Mao," he said. "They will repress Mao's true image to save face and for national pride. This is a perversion."

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DECATUR, Ala. - A piece of driftwood sits atop a glamorous mirrored dresser next to a hot pink lamp in Jill Bronaugh's home furnishing store on Bank Street.

Customers have asked how much the piece of driftwood costs, and the Decatur interior designer and owner of Bungalow Home home furnishings has to laugh.

"I couldn't sleep at night if I charged someone for that," she said. "I mean, I found it behind the store."

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BEIJING ? Li Jinsong and Li Jianqiang are Chinese trial lawyers who take on difficult political cases, tangle with the police and seek solace in the same religion, Christianity.

But like many who devote themselves to expanding freedoms and the rule of law in China, the two spend as much time clashing over tactics and principles as they do challenging the ruling Communist Party.

The two Mr. Lis are part of a momentous struggle over the rule of law in China. Young, well educated and idealistic, they and other members of the so-calle