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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (47768)	11/9/2005 12:30:56 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361217

Adios ............. Pennsylvania Voters Oust School Board By MARTHA RAFFAELE The Associated Press Wednesday, November 9, 2005; 2:39 AM DOVER, Pa. -- Voters came down hard Tuesday on school board members who backed a statement on intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept stripped from the science curriculum. The election unfolded amid a landmark federal trial involving the Dover public schools and the question of whether intelligent design promotes the Bible's view of creation. Eight Dover families sued, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Dover's school board adopted a policy in October 2004 that requires ninth-graders to hear a prepared statement about intelligent design before learning about evolution in biology class. Eight of the nine school board members were up for election Tuesday. They were challenged by a slate of Democrats who argued that science class was not the appropriate forum for teaching intelligent design. "My kids believe in God. I believe in God. But I don't think it belongs in the science curriculum the way the school district is presenting it," said Jill Reiter, 41, a bank teller who joined a group of high school students waving signs supporting the challengers Tuesday. A spokesman for the winning slate of candidates has said they wouldn't act hastily and would consider the outcome of the court case. The judge expects to rule by January; the new school board members will be sworn in Dec. 5. School board member David Napierskie, who lost Tuesday, said the vote wasn't just about ideology. "Some people felt intelligent design shouldn't be taught and others were concerned about having tax money spent on the lawsuit," he said. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some kind of higher force. The statement read to students says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." A similar controversy has erupted in Kansas, where the state Board of Education on Tuesday approved science standards for public schools that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards. ___

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (47768)	11/9/2005 12:34:52 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361217

UN casts record vote against US embargo on Cuba "Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands". It's good to have powerful friends like the Marshalls By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Nearly every country in the U.N. General Assembly told the United States on Tuesday to lift its four-decade old economic embargo against Cuba in a record vote of 182 to 4 with 1 abstention. The vote, held for the 14th consecutive year, was on a resolution calling for Washington to lift the U.S. trade, financial and travel embargo, particularly its provisions on penalising foreign firms. Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands. Micronesia abstained and El Salvador, Iraq, Nicaragua and Morocco did not vote. Last year the vote was 179 to 4, with several countries not voting at all. Cuba has been under a U.S. embargo since President Fidel Castro defeated a CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Friends of the United States, including the European Union also voted yes because of the penalties against foreign firms but also criticised Cuba's human rights records. And in South America and the Caribbean, support for ending the embargo was strong, particularly from Mexico and Jamaica. The measure is nonbinding and has had no impact on the United States, with the Bush administration having tightened restrictions against Cuba, including penalties against U.S. and foreign firms, visits from Cuban Americans, licensed travel and remittances to families. In Havana, where one of every seven Cubans have spent their lives under sanctions, Ignacio, a tattooed youth waiting for a bus said, "It is a moral victory, but nothing will change." Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque highlighted regulations tightening the use by Americans of Cuban products abroad, presumably smoking a Cuban cigar or drinking rum. "In terms of insanity, this draconian prohibition should go into the annals of the Guinness Book of Records," he said. The United States for the first time downplayed the debate. Its envoy, Ronald Godard, used a procedure allowing him to make a short speech from his seat. "If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo," Godard said. He said Cuba's claims of being barred from importing food and medicine is baseless because the United States since 1992 had licensed over $1.1 billion (631 million pounds) in medical related goods and $5 billion in agricultural commodities in the past five years. Nevertheless, U.S. agricultural exporters have complained that tougher payment procedures and letters of credit before shipments can leave U.S. ports have harmed their business. Perez Roque said the U.S. government in 2004, imposed fines on 316 citizens for breaching provisions of the embargo and the number rose to 537 this year, until October 12, 2005. "Never before, as in the last 18 months, was the blockade enforced with so much viciousness and brutality," he said. In 2004, he said 77 companies, banks and private groups were fined for breaking the embargo. Some 11 of them were foreign companies or subsidiaries of U.S. firm in Mexico, Canada, Panama, Italy, Britain Uruguay and the Bahamas. The U.S. action that had the most repercussion in 2004 was a $100 million fine the Federal Reserve imposed on the Swiss bank UBS for transferring new dollar bills to Cuba. In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "We are acting in response to a regime that represses its people and stands in the way of their progress and freedom. And I think we stand by our policy." Godard said Cuba knew what to do. "Fidel Castro know what it will take to end the embargo -- reforms that will benefit the Cuban people. He argued that the trade embargo "is a bilateral issue and did not belong before the assembly. (Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana) Reuters swissinfo.org