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Scenario for impeachment of Lula raised in Brazil Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Workers' Party are the target of several serious accusations of corruption. With news media heavily covering the situation, popular support for the President is eroding. Canadian House of Commons approves same-sex marriage In a 158 to 133 vote, the House of Commons MPs have approved the legalization of same-sex weddings in Canada. United States President George W. Bush makes speech to rally support for war in Iraq Speaking before an audience of 750 soldiers and airmen on Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US President Bush began an effort to shore up waning support for military actions in Iraq

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The United States Capitol in Washington D.C. was briefly evacuated due to an aircraft that entered restricted airspace. New York officials release the design for the signature building of the World Trade Center. The building will be called "The Freedom Tower" and shine a ray of light from its spire. In Spain, Manuel Fraga, the last politician from the era of Francisco Franco, loses in elections in Galicia. A Belgian jury finds two Rwandans, Etienne Nzabonimana and Samuel Ndashyikirwa, guilty of involvement in the Rwandan genocide.

Wikipedia Current Events
Hezbollah shells Israeli positions with mortars and rockets in the disputed Shebaa farms, wounding 5 soldiers and killing one, The Israeli military shelled areas around several villages in southern Lebanon and planes launched missiles. Israel intends to file a complaint against Lebanon and UNIFIL for failing to prevent agression by Hezbollah. Garda Siochána (Irish police) dig up a garden in a Dublin suburb to search for the remains of a baby murdered in the 1970s. The child's mother states that she became pregnant twice, aged 11 and 15, as a result of incest. On both occasions her family murdered her newborn child. One of the two murdered children was found dumped on a Dun Laoghaire street in 1973.

US helicopter with 17 on board believed to have been shot down in Afghanistan
The US military has confirmed that 17 servicemen were onboard a CH-47 Chinook helicopter that has crashed near Asadabad, Afghanistan, on June 28.

The fate of the men who were in the aircraft is unknown. The crash occured in high in mountainous terrain, and is believed to have been the result of hostile fire. The Taleban have claimed that they shot the helicopter down.

Coalition and Afghan troops moved into the area to secure the site and other coalition aircraft have been sent to assist.

The helicopter was transporting forces into the area as part of ongoing operations to fight militants who operate in the area, who have recently been escalating their attacks.

At least 29 service men have died in Afghanistan this year, while at least 450 people have been killed in the last three months, mostly militants. A Chinook which crashed in April with the loss of 18 lives was brought down by a sandstorm.
Many still believe myths associated with cancer, reports American Cancer Society study
A recent survey conducted by the American Cancer Society has turned up some surprising results: Americans generally hold false beliefs about the nature of cancer and its treatment, even though many believe they are well informed.

Health experts say this ignorance could be dangerous: People may be making poor health decisions -- avoiding cancer screenings or rejecting potentially life-saving treatments -- based on their incorrect notions.

The most common misconception is that surgery causes cancer to spread. Decades ago, cancer often was not discovered until it was very advanced. At that stage, surgical efforts were rarely successful, and many patients died soon after procedures were performed. This may have given rise to the mistaken belief that the surgeries caused the disease to worsen.

Another commonly held myth is that there is a cure for cancer, but the medical industry is withholding it in order to continue profiting from the sale of less effective treatments and medications.

Believers in this "conspiracy theory" may not be guided by it in making their personal health decisions, though. The American Cancer Society says that even though many people are suspicious of the medical industry in general, they have a trusting relationship with their own physicians and are likely to follow their advice.

Almost 20 percent of the people surveyed felt that medications for cancer pain were ineffective.

About 10 percent expressed the belief that cancer could be cured with a positive attitude alone, while a similar number felt that there was no effective treatment for cancer.

The fact is, cancer survival and treatments -- including pain management -- have vastly improved in the last thirty years.

Results of the survey appear in the August 1 issue of Cancer, a journal published by the American Cancer Society.

Maciej Zurawski accepts Celtic's offer
Forward Maciej Żurawski, one of the most famous Polish footballers, accepted a contract offer from Celtic yesterday. He is now waiting for agreement between Celtic and his former club, Wisla Krakow, where he played for nearly 6 years.

Wisła wants to receive a lump sum payment at once, but the Celtics would like to pay circa 3 millions euro in installments.

Żurawski, the star of Polish national football team, rejected an offer from Trabzonspor. Turks had offered approximately 100 thousands euro more for him. If he had accepted this offer, he would play alongside former Wisła's player, Mirosław Szymkowiak.

Many people, including Dariusz Wdowczyk, former Celtic star, believe he made the right decision. He will play for a club with a long history of international presence, and with chances of appearing in the Champions League this year, something Żurawski's expressed as his dream.

Celtics will be Żurawski's fourth club in his career. He has played for Warta Poznan, Lech Poznan, and for Wisla. He will earn over €700 thousands per year.

Witnesses expose big corruption scheme of the Brazilian ruling party
The government of the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his party are the target of several serious accusations of corruption. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr./ABr
São Paulo, Brazil – Several witnesses are doing denunciations against the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the ruling Workers' Party (PT). Below are some of the main denunciations and witnesses.

On May, the Brazilian deputy Roberto Jefferson was involved in an alleged corruption scheme that involved the Brazilian Postal Service. Jefferson said that he was unfairly being abandoned and sacrificed. In addition he said that he would not take the fall alone.

On June 6, Roberto Jefferson told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo that the ruling Workers' Party (PT) has been paying Brazilian deputies 30 thousand Brazilian Reais (USD 12 thousand) each, every month, in return for support. Jefferson later confirmed to a Congressional special commission what he had previously stated to the newspaper. Also he added that he had informed the Minister José Dirceu about the payments and that no action was taken. Dirceu denied Jefferson's allegations.

According to Jefferson the payments only stopped after he informed the President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also said that the Minister José Dirceu should leave the government, otherwise President Lula would get involved. Two days later, the Minister José Dirceu announced his resignation from his post.

Jefferson denied involvement in the Brazilian Postal Service scandal. Jefferson told the commission that the Brazilian Agency of Intelligence (Abin) was controled by the former Brazilian Minister of Civil Affairs José Dirceu and it recorded the tape which shows the former Brazilian Postal Service Chief Maurício Marinho during a supposed bribery negotiation with a businessman.

However Jefferson admitted that he received R$ 4 million from the Workers' Party (PT). According to Jefferson, during a meeting with him and the PTB treasurer Émerson Palmieri, the Workers' Party treasurer Delúbio Soares and the Workers' Party President José Genoíno, they decided that PTB should received R$ 20 million. Jefferson said he received only R$ 4 million and the money was delivered by the businessman Marcos Valério Fernandes de Souza, owner of publicity enterprises.

On June 14, Fernanda Karina Ramos Somaggio denounced his former boss Marcos Valério and told the Brazilian magazine "IstoÉ - Dinheiro" that she saw suitcases full of money leaving the enterprise during the time she worked for him as secretary (IstoÉ article). Also she said that Marcos Valério encountered Workers' Party members several times, including Delúbio Soares. On June 15, the secretary denied everything what she said to "IstoÉ - Dinheiro" to police. However, on June 20, Karina Somaggio said that she lied to the police because she and her family were threatened. In a new testimony to the Brazilian police, Karina Somaggio confirmed the interview to the magazine and the accusations against her former boss, Marcos Valério. Karina Somaggio is now under police protection.

Marcos Valério denied the allegations of Karina Somaggio. He has initiated court proceedings against his former secretary.

Some days later the magazine "IstoÉ" revealed documents from the Council for Control of Financial Activities (Coaf). According to the documents around R$ 20.9 millions left SMP&B and DNA enterprises, which belong to Marcos Valério (IstoÉ article). The Coaf is a Brazilian public agency which monitors irregular financial activities. The enterprises of Marcos Valério have millionaire contracts with the Brazilian government.

On June 21 and 22, parliamentarians listened to the former Brazilian Postal Service Chief Maurício Marinho, accused of involvement in the Brazilian Postal Service scandal. At first Marinho refused talking about any illegality in the Brazilian Postal Service. However, on June 22, after his lawyers admitted that he was not telling the whole truth and that they would leave him, Marinho demanded protection for himself and his family, then started to talk. He said the Workers’ Party general-secretary Sílvio Pereira and the Minister Luiz Gushiken had some influence in the Brazilian Postal Service. He said that the biggest Brazilian Postal Service contracts should be investigated and he mentioned big contracts to the Brazilian bank Bradesco.

This article contains first-hand journalism by a Wikinews Reporter.
Shelby Foote, 88, noted historian and author, dies
Shelby Foote, author of the acclaimed three volume history of the American Civil War, The Civil War: A Narrative, died in Memphis on June 27 at age 88. Foote also wrote historical fiction, including Follow Me Down and Shiloh. He may be best known for his appearance in filmmaker Ken Burns' PBS documentary, The Civil War.

The Modern Library ranked Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative as number 15 on its list of 100 best non-fiction books. He was commissioned to write a short history of the Civil War by Random House and spent more than 20 years on the work eventually producing the three volumes.

Foote was commisioned a captain in the United States Army during World War II and lost his commission after visiting a female friend in an army vehicle without permission. He returned to the United States and joined the Marines in whose service he spent the remainder of the war.

Following the war he was briefly a reporter for the Associated Press.

Pulitzer Prize winning author and friend, Richard Ford said of Foote, "He was a Southerner of great intellect who took up the issue of the Civil War as a writer with huge sanity and sympathy."

AMD files antitrust lawsuit against Intel in US federal district court
AMD filed an antitrust complaint against Intel Corporation yesterday in U.S. federal district court for the district of Delaware under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Sections 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act, and the California Business and Professions Code.

According to the complaint, Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly by, among other things:

Forcing major customers such as Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Gateway, and Hitachi into Intel-exclusive deals in return for outright cash payments, discriminatory pricing or marketing subsidies conditioned on the exclusion of AMD;

According to industry reports, and as confirmed by the JFTC in Japan, Intel has paid Dell and Toshiba huge sums not to do business with AMD.

Intel paid Sony millions for exclusivity. AMD’s share of Sony’s business went from 23 percent in ‘02 to 8% in ‘03, to 0%, where it remains today.

Forcing other major customers such as NEC, Acer, and Fujitsu into partial exclusivity agreements by conditioning rebates, allowances and market development funds (MDF) on customers’ agreement to severely limit or forego entirely purchases from AMD;

Intel paid NEC several million dollars for caps on NEC’s purchases from AMD. Those caps assured Intel at least 90% of NEC’s business in Japan and imposed a worldwide cap on the amount of AMD business NEC could do.

Establishing a system of discriminatory and retroactive incentives triggered by purchases at such high levels as to have the intended effect of denying customers the freedom to purchase any significant volume of processors from AMD;

When AMD succeeded in getting on the HP retail roadmap for mobile computers, and its products sold well, Intel responded by withholding HP’s fourth quarter 2004 rebate check and refusing to waive HP’s failure to achieve its targeted rebate goal; it allowed HP to make up the shortfall in succeeding quarters by promising Intel at least 90% of HP’s mainstream retail business.

Threatening retaliation against customers for introducing AMD computer platforms, particularly in strategic market segments such as commercial desktop;

Then-Compaq CEO Michael Capellas said in 2000 that because of the volume of business given to AMD, Intel withheld delivery of critical server chips. Saying "he had a gun to his head," he told AMD he had to stop buying.

According to Gateway executives, their company has paid a high price for even its limited AMD dealings. They claim that Intel has "beaten them into ‘guacamole’" in retaliation.

Establishing and enforcing quotas among key retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City, effectively requiring them to stock overwhelmingly or exclusively, Intel computers, artificially limiting consumer choice;

AMD has been entirely shut out from Media Markt, Europe’s largest computer retailer, which accounts for 35 percent of Germany’s retail sales.

Office Depot declined to stock AMD-powered notebooks regardless of the amount of financial support AMD offered, citing the risk of retaliation.

Forcing PC makers and tech partners to boycott AMD product launches or promotions;

Then-Intel CEO Craig Barrett threatened Acer’s Chairman with "severe consequences" for supporting the AMD Athlon 64 launch. This coincided with an unexplained delay by Intel in providing $15-20M in market development funds owed to Acer. Acer withdrew from the launch in September 2003.

Abusing its market power by forcing on the industry technical standards and products that have as their main purpose the handicapping of AMD in the marketplace.

Intel denied AMD access to the highest level of membership for the Advanced DRAM technology consortium to limit AMD’s participation in critical industry standard decisions that would affect its business.

Intel designed its compilers, which translate software programs into machine-readable language, to degrade a program’s performance if operated on a computer powered by an AMD microprocessor.

United States President George W. Bush makes speech to rally support for war in Iraq
Soldiers wait to greet the President after his 28 minute speech. Photo by Eric Draper
Speaking before an audience of 750 soldiers and airmen on Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US President Bush began an effort to shore up waning support for military actions in Iraq.

In his speech, Bush discussed the question of setting a timeline for withdrawal of troops, or sending more troops. "Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job," Bush said. US Commanders have previously commented on the problems caused by lack of coverage at the Syrian border.

The president linked the September 11, 2001 attacks right from the opening of his speech, and mentioned the attacks on four other occasions. (Democrats, along with most other administration opponents, regard Iraq and 9-11 as unrelated.) During the speech, Bush did not refer to the now-relinquished hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. The U.S. has failed to provide any convincing evidence for the existence of a WMD, even though this was one of the chief reasons President Bush cited to justify the invasion of Iraq.)

Democrats criticized the president for trying to link 9/11 with the war in Iraq;"The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments," Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader, said. "He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."

Opinion polling conducted this week by USA Today, CNN and Gallup found for the first time that a majority of Americans, 50% to 47%, see the Iraqi war as something separate from what Bush is calling the "global war against terrorism."

The speech comes as more bad news regarding the Iraq War, with rising Iraq War casualties, damaging testimony to Congress about Halliburton fraud in Iraq, and the Downing Street Memo. In addition, vice-president Dick Cheney's claim that the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes" was contradicted in Senate testimony by General John Abizaid, who said "In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago."

The president sought to position the war effort as a two-pronged strategy using military and political pressure to install, "a free, representative government [in Iraq] that is an ally in the war on terror." The U.S. and Iraqi military coalition's goal is an offensive operation that is to take the fight to terrorists and insurgents in the region. With the elimination of Saddam Hussien, the political work has begun to build, "the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and equal justice under law." Bush cited the free national elections held in January and the establishment of Transitional National Assembly, and now calls for the drafting of a constitution with the involvement of Shia, Kurds and Sunni groups.

Today in History
1864 - U.S. National Parks: Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public ... recreation".

1905 - Albert Einstein introduced the theory of special relativity.

1908 - The Tunguska impact event occurred in Siberia.

1934 - The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.

1971 - The crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft died when their Soyuz reentry capsule depressurised during reentry.

Quote of the Day

"It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing— a somewhat unfamilar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E = mc², in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa." ~ Albert Einstein

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