Charges dropped against Marine in Haditha case

Mar 28 02:11 PM US/Eastern

Charges against a US Marine allegedly involved in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha were dropped on Friday ahead of his trial, the military said in a statement.
A court martial for lance corporal Stephen Tatum had been due to start on Friday on charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

However in a statement released from the Marines Camp Pendleton base outside San Diego, the military said the charges had been dismissed "in order to continue to pursue the truth seeking process into the Haditha incident."

It was not immediately clear if fresh charges could be laid against Tatum at a later date or whether the soldier may now cooperate with prosecutors.

Tatum had been accused of shooting dead two unarmed children as Marines cleared houses near the scene of a deadly roadside bombing in Haditha, 260 kilometers west of Baghdad, on November 19, 2005.

The deaths were part of a grim civilian toll from the Marines' actions in Haditha. Four soldiers were initially charged with murder and four officers accused of staging a cover-up.

However, since charges against the soldiers were first announced in late 2006, prosecutors have struggled to make the allegations stick.

Four of the eight have had charges against them dropped, while charges of murder were replaced by the lesser offence of manslaughter in the cases of Tatum and his squad leader Sergeant Frank Wuterich.

The military investigator overseeing Tatum's pre-trial hearing had recommended all charges against the soldier be dismissed.

The killings in Haditha are the most serious allegations of war crimes leveled at US forces since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080329/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_cell_phones&printer=1;_ylt=AmHJCZWfOZ.lUARlbWoe1kq9IxIF

Raul Castro: Cubans can have cell phones
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago
First microwaves, now cell phones. Is this the new Cuba? Raul Castro is revolutionizing his brother's island in small but significant ways — the latest in a decree Friday allowing ordinary Cubans to have cell phone service, a luxury previously reserved for the select few. The new president could be betting greater access to such modern gadgets will quell demand for deeper change.

Many Cubans hope cell phones and new appliances are only the beginning for a post-Fidel Castro government that will improve their lives. Communist bureaucracy currently limits everything from Internet access to home ownership.

Could cellular phones in dissidents' hands give state security forces an edge in monitoring their conversations or tracking their movements by satellite? Perhaps, but government opponents — including the few who have cell phones — already assume someone's always listening.

Until now, the only people legally allowed to have a cell plan were foreigners, Cubans working for foreign companies and top government officials. Thousands more illegally use phones registered to foreign friends or relatives.

"Finally. We have waited too long for this," said Elizabeth, a middle-aged housewife waiting in line to pay her home telephone bill. She wouldn't give her last name because she already has a cell phone through a foreign co-worker of her husband.

The new program could put phones in the hands of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, especially those with relatives abroad who send them hard currency. But they will remain out of reach for most on the island because minutes are billed in convertible pesos — which cost Cubans 24 times the regular pesos they are paid in.

"I'd love one!" said Juan Quiala, a retiree living on a $10 monthly pension. "But how am I going to pay for it?"

The government controls over 90 percent of the economy, and while the communist system ensures most Cubans have free housing, education and health care and receive ration cards that cover basic food needs, the average monthly state salary is less than $20.

Nobody should expect to see iPhones for sale in Havana anytime soon. Although visitors who bring their Internet-equipped phones to Cuba can use them through Cuba's network, Cuba's cellular phone company offers such phones to only a limited number of corporate clients.

And despite cell-phone images from Tibet and Myanmar that gave the world a glimpse of repression in those closed societies, Cuba has made no attempt to ban phones with photo or video technology. In fact, some models are sold in government-run stores, and Cubans with illegally registered phones already use them to send snapshots off the island after uploading them onto a computer.

Of course, if unrest were to develop, Cuba's phone monopoly could close down such transmissions with the flick of a switch.

Friday's announcement came in a small black box on page 2 of the Communist Party newspaper Granma, which said details would be announced in the coming days. It was signed by the state-controlled telecommunications monopoly, a joint venture of Cuba's government and Italy's Telecom Italia.

Limited cell phone service has been available in Cuba since 1991. Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., or ETECSA, has invested heavily in Cuba's fiber optic network in recent years and clearly believes it is ready to handle heavier traffic.

It also expects a nice profit — enough to let it offer cellular lines in regular Cuban pesos at some point in the future.

It's unclear which manufacturers will be tapped to provide cell phones to an expanded Cuban market. For now, very basic phones bought in bulk from Nokia Corp. or Motorola Inc. are sold. A few phones on sale Friday offered basic camera functions, but those retailed for as much as $280.

The decree came a week after a resolution promising consumer goods including PCs, DVD players, car alarms and televisions of all sizes will go on sale in state-run stores Tuesday. Those goods previously could be purchased only by foreigners and companies.

And in December, the government distributed about 3,000 microwaves made by South Korea's Daewoo Electronics. Local authorities say the pilot program, in a town outside Havana, could lead to a nationwide offering of microwaves on long-term credit.

"We are progressing with the world," said Havana resident Jorge Chavez. "Progress had to reach us, too."

The small steps could help push back demands for greater change that many Cubans have made since an ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro stepped down from the presidency last month.

His 76-year-old brother has repeatedly said there will be no major changes in the island's economic and political systems, but has also made clear he understands that Cubans' salaries barely cover their most basic needs.

Some of the measures he has promoted appear designed to make life more pleasant without requiring any major systemic reforms. The younger Castro has pushed for an overhaul of the dilapidated public transportation system with thousands of new buses, and for increased agricultural production to ensure everyone has plenty to eat.

But some said the latest measure was less than revolutionary.

"Suddenly, there will be a lot more people talking on the phone," said Quiala, the retiree. "But not much else will change."

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRISTIANITY VS. ISLAM
Dr. Jack Wheeler  
Behind The Lines
Friday, 28 March 2008

This past Sunday, March 23, 2008, was the most extraordinary Easter we may see in our lives.  To begin with, we'll never see an earlier one.

Because Easter is dated via the ancient Hebrews' lunar calendar used to identify Passover, it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox of March 20th.  This year, the moon reached full one day later, March 21st, which happened to be a Saturday.  Thus Easter was the next day.

You can't have an Easter much earlier than March 23rd.  One day earlier, in fact, March 22nd.  The last time Easter fell then was 1818; the next time in 2285.  The last time Easter fell on March 23rd was in 1913, and the next time will be in 2228.

So unless you are at least 95 years old, you've never seen an Easter as early as last Sunday, and unless some Durk Pearson life extension technology keeps you around for another 220 years, you'll never see another.

So this Easter was chronologically special - but it was also special for a far deeper reason than that.  In fact, it is the combination of two specific events taking place during this Easter Week that may well signify the resurrection of a dormant Christianity and its resultant defeat of militant Islam

Personal income rises, inflation moderates
Friday March 28, 9:09 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. personal income rose more than expected in February as the economy teetered on the brink of a recession, while both personal spending and a key price measure increased only slightly, a government report showed on Friday.
The Commerce Department reported that February personal income rose 0.5 percent, exceeding a forecast of a 0.3 percent gain made by analysts polled before the report.

Stock index futures briefly added to gains after the report, while the dollar and U.S. government debt prices rose.

The department said personal spending increased 0.1 percent in February, in line with expectations, after a 0.4 percent gain in January.

The personal consumption expenditure price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.1 percent in February after a downwardly revised increase of 0.3 percent in January. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the personal consumption expenditure index also rose just 0.1 percent, in line with analyst expectations.

On a year-over-year basis, this core index rose 2 percent, matching the prior months' gain, which was downwardly revised from 2.2 percent.

"The decline in the year-over-year core PCE is important in that it supports the notion the Fed is making the right decision in cutting rates aggressively and not threaten long-term price stability. It argues that the Fed can lower rates in the months ahead," said Zach Pandl, an economist with Lehman Brothers in New York.

Many officials at the Federal Reserve, which has cut interest rates by 3 percentage points since mid-September in a bid to combat recession risks, have said they prefer to keep the core price gauge in a 1 percent to 2 percent range.

Earlier this week, the presidents of both the Dallas and Chicago Federal Reserve banks warned the central bank needs to be wary of a rise in inflation even as it navigates the United States through an economic slowdown.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer, Editing by Neil Stempleman

Dr. Emanual Tanay is a well known and well respected
psychiastrist. 

This is a German's point of view on Islam.  

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to
World War ll  owned a number of large industries and
estates.  When asked how many  German people were true
Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude 
toward fanaticism. 

"Very few people were true Nazis," he  said, "but many
enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more 
were too busy to care.  I was one of those who just
thought the Nazis  were a bunch of fools.  So,  the
majority just sat back and let  it all happen.  Then,
before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost
control, and the end of the world had come.  My family
lost everything, I ended up in a concentration camp
and the Allies  destroyed my factories." 

We are told again and again by "experts"  and "talking
heads" that Islam is the religion of peace, and that
the vast  majority of Muslims just want to live in
peace.  Although this  unqualified assertion may be
true, it is entirely irrelevant.  It is  meaningless
fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to
somehow  diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging
across the globe in the 
name of  Islam.  The fact is that the fanatics rule
Islam at this moment in history. 

It is the fanatics who march.  It is the fanatics  who
wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.  It is the
fanatics  who systematically slaughter Christian or
tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually
taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. 
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor
killing.  It is the fanatics who take over mosque
after mosque.  It is the fanatics who zealously spread
the stoning and hanging of rape victims and
homosexuals.  The hard  
quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority," the
"silent majority,"  is cowed and extraneous. 

Communist Russia was comprised of  Russians who just
wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists
were  responsible for the murder of about 20 million
people.  The peaceful  majority were irrelevant. 
China's huge population 
was peaceful as  well, but C hinese Communists managed
to kill a staggering 70 million  people. 

The average Japanese individual prior to World War ll
was  not a warmongering sadist.  Yet, Japan murdered 
and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an
orgy of killing that  included the systematic murder
of 12 million Chinese civilians; most  killed by
sword, shovel, and bayonet. 

And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into 
butchery.  Could it not be said that the majority of
Rwandans were "peace loving"? 

History lessons are often incredibly simple  and
blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss
the most basic  and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made  irrelevant by
their silence.  Peace-loving Muslims will  become our
enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend
from  Germany , they will awaken one day and find that
the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will
have begun. 

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, 
Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians,
Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have
died because the peaceful majority did not  speak up
until it was too late. 

As for us who watch it all unfold,  we must pay
attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics
who  threaten our way of life. 

Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone  who doubts
that the issue is serious and just deletes this email
without  sending it on, is contributing to the
passiveness that allows the problems  to expand.  

So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on  and
on!  Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this
- think  about it - and send it on.