WASHINGTON — Private security guards working for Blackwater USA participated in clandestine CIA raids against suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Thursday. Blackwater’s role points to a much deeper connection between the company and the spy agency than has been previously disclosed and raises concerns over the legalities of involving contractors in the most sensitive operations conducted by the U.S. government. The “snatch and grab” raids took place regularly between 2004 and 2006, the Times reported, when the insurgency in Iraq was escalating and security throughout the country was deteriorating.
Florida: Hurricane season
Hurricane analysts William Gray and Phil Klotzbach call for an above-average hurricane season next year. They predict 11 to 16 named storms, including six to eight hurricanes. They forecast three to five of the hurricanes will be major, with sustained winds greater than 110 mph. An average season sees 11 named storms, including six hurricanes, two major. The main reasons behind their projections: El Nino, the atmospheric condition that suppresses storm formation, is expected to dissipate before the season starts; and sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic should be warm.
Hawaii: New solar telescope
The National Science Foundation has picked Maui’s Haleakala mountaintop as the site for the world’s largest solar optical telescope. The federal agency picked the dormant volcano last week and announced the choice Tuesday in the Federal Register. The $300 million project is due to be built on a half-acre among a cluster of observatories near Haleakala’s summit. It will enable scientists to observe sunspots, flares and other phenomena too small to be seen with current equipment.
Texas: Breast cancer results
New results from a landmark women’s health study raise the exciting possibility that bone-building drugs such as Fosamax and Actonel may help prevent breast cancer. Women who already were using these medicines when the study began were about one-third less likely to develop invasive breast cancer over the next seven years than women not taking such pills, doctors reported Thursday. The study is not enough to prove that these drugs, called bisphosphonates, prevent cancer. More definitive studies should give a clearer answer in a year or two.
Maryland: Bats vs. windmills
In a rare green vs. green court case, a federal judge in Maryland has halted expansion of a West Virginia wind farm, saying its massive turbines would kill endangered Indiana bats. The U.S. District judge ruled that Chicago-based Invenergy can complete 40 windmills it has begun to install on an Appalachian ridge in Greenbrier County. But he said the company cannot move forward on the $300 million project — slated to have 122 turbines along a 23-mile stretch — without a special permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
China: New gas pipeline
A natural gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan and China is nearly operational and President Hu Jintao will attend an inauguration ceremony, a senior Chinese diplomat said Thursday. The 1,139-mile Turkmenistan-China pipeline cuts through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into China’s far western Xinjiang region. It will eventually be able to bring 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from gas-rich Turkmenistan, undercutting Russia’s near-lock on gas supplies in that former Soviet region.
Greece: Firm pays ransom
A shipowning company said it had paid a ransom to Somali pirates holding one of its freighters for the past seven months, and the ship’s release was expected later Thursday. Athens-based Alloceans Shipping declined to specify the sum paid, but a man claiming to be speaking for the pirates said it was $2.8 million. The Maltese-flagged Ariana was seized May 1 southwest of the Seychelles islands, carrying a cargo of soya from Brazil to Iran.
Ireland: Gay dad can visit
The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that a gay man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple should be permitted to see his 3-year-old son regularly — in part because Ireland’s constitution doesn’t recognize the lesbians as a valid family unit. Thursday’s ruling was a first in Ireland, where homosexuality was outlawed until 1993 and gay couples are denied many rights given to married couples. A proposed law being debated this month in Irish parliament would give gay couples many marriage-style rights, but offers no legal recognition of their right to be parents.
From Herald news services
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