When President Jimmy Carter lost his bid for reëlection, in November, 1980, he had lots of unfinished business that he did not intend to leave that way. Carter’s Administration spent the next several weeks generating regulations at an unprecedented rate, until, in its last month in office, it published more than ten thousand pages of new rules. These rules, which, like most issued by federal agencies, needed no congressional approval, touched on everything from crash tests for cars to access to medical records, and a phrase was coined to describe them. They became known as ‘midnight regulations, after the ‘midnight judges appointed by John Adams in the final hours of his Presidency. Since Jimmy Carter, every President has complained about midnight regulations and, four or eight years later, every President has issued them. On a percentage basis, George Bush senior holds the record: his Administration issued a greater proportion of its rules during the midnight period-generally defined as the last three months in office-than any other President’s. In absolute terms, though, Bill Clinton takes the gold: his Administration, during its midnight phase, published more than twenty-six thousand pages’ worth of rules in the Federal Register. (According to the National […]
MOSCOW — Russia will complete Iran’s first nuclear power plant in 2009, Itar-Tass news agency quoted the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation as saying on Thursday. The launch of the Bushehr plant’s nuclear reactor has frequently been delayed. Russian and Iranian officials have given different dates for the start-up. Iran’s foreign minister said last year the plant would launch in mid-2008. Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel under a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran. Russia has blamed previous delays on problems with receiving payment from Iran. ‘Work is ongoing and certain difficulties which arose, including those connected with timely financing, are being resolved due to joint efforts between the Iranian purchaser and the Russian contractor,’ Tass quoted Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear corporation, as saying. ‘Next year we should conclude all the work,’ Kiriyenko was quoted as saying. Kiriyenko was in Caracas, Venezuela, accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev on a visit. Russia agreed in 1995 to build the plant on the site of an earlier project begun in the 1970s by German firm Siemens. The Siemens project was disrupted by Iran’s 1979 […]
BAGHDAD — In a country where agreements are hard to reach, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki built a broad political coalition to muscle through a divisive U.S.-Iraq security pact that could set his place in his nation’s history as the man who ended the American occupation. He took the mantle of a nationalist in televised remarks Thursday night after the pact he helped broker passed parliament by a landslide 149-35 vote. ‘We have gotten an important achievement by signing the withdrawal agreement for the foreign troops from Iraq and bringing back its sovereignty,’ he said. That’s a major role change for Maliki, who came to power in 2006 as a sectarian Shiite lawmaker propped up by a tenuous coalition of political blocs. He has taken an increasingly assertive role as Iraq’s leader since March, when he launched a military offensive in Basra against Shiite militias loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr. Maliki put his fingerprints all over the U.S. security agreement, condemning early drafts as unsatisfactory to telegraph his toughness to the Iraqi people in the spring and summer. He changed course and endorsed the deal only two weeks ago, when he said the […]
Surgeons of the future may have to learn welding rather than sewing, now that a team of applied physicists at Tel Aviv University have developed an efficient and safe way to close incisions in the skin that they say could also be used on cuts inside the body. The team was led by Prof. Abraham Katzir, who found a way to maintain laser heat at the correct temperature so that the incision is sealed to minimize the risk of infection and scars and speed healing. Katzir says the development is ‘a groundbreaking medical technology’ and could also be used quickly and easily by medics on the battlefield and at road accidents, as well as by plastic surgeons and other surgical specialists. Katzir is the son of the late Prof. Aharon Katzir, the world-famous biophysicist who was murdered in the 1972 Japanese Red Army terror attack at Lod Airport; he is the nephew of Israel’s fourth president, 92-year-old Prof. Ephraim Katzir. The Health Ministry, which studied the technology carefully, gave permission for the first clinical trials in 10 gall-bladder surgery patients a few months ago. The test procedures were performed by Dr. Doron Kopelman, head of […]
VATICAN CITY — And then there was light — and it was powered by the sun. The Vatican on Wednesday activated a new solar energy system and announced an ambitious plan that could one day make it an alternative energy exporter. The massive roof of the ‘Nervi Hall’ where popes hold general audiences and concerts are performed, has been covered with 2,400 photovoltaic panels to provide energy for lighting, heat and air conditioning. After weeks of tests, the system went on line at full throttle hours before Pope Benedict held what officials called the ‘first ecological general audience in the Vatican.’ The new system on the 5,000 square meter roof will produce 300 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy a year for the audience hall and surrounding buildings. The 1.2 million euro ($1.6 million) system, devised and donated by German companies SolarWorld and SMA Solar Technology, will allow the 108-acre city-state to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by about 225 tons and save the equivalent of 80 tons of oil each year. ‘This is a very courageous initiative,’ said Carlo Rubbia, the Italian who won the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics and attended the unveiling […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
