eTruth.com -- The Truth Online Edition!

eTruth.com -- The Truth Online Edition!: "Amish couple given award
Health officials recognize service
Published: Friday, April 29, 2005 -- The Truth, A3
Last updated: 4/28/2005 11:15:30 PM
By Rick Meyer
Truth Staff
GOSHEN -- More than 2,000 children, mostly Amish, are immunized today because Howard and Lillian Miller opened their general store and house to the Elkhart County Health Department over the last six years.
Once a month, parents could bring their children to the Millers' property, where nurses in the health department's community immunization program would give vaccinations.
On Thursday night, health officer Dr. Aixsa P�rez and board of health president Dr. Max Mertz presented the Amish couple with a certificate and plaque as this year's winners of the Community Red Apple Award. Each year, the health department honors someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty to promote public health in the community.
'We didn't do it for that,' Howard said after the presentation. 'It was just a service to the community.'
First, Elkhart General Hospital officials asked the Millers if they would host a community site for CPR training. Then, the health department followed.
'It was to serve our people,' Lillian said. 'Anybody could come in, but it was mostly our people because of transportation.
'It was easier for them to come here than go to town somewhere,' she added. 'It was closer, and I think they were motivated to come because it was a place where they knew the people.'
If Amish parents took their children to Goshen for vaccinations, they probably would have had to rent a taxi, according to Howard.
The shot clinics started in an upstairs apartment above Miller's Country Store. When the apartment became rented after several years, the Mil"

Environment News Service (ENS)

Environment News Service (ENS): "Macedonia Constructs Nuclear Waste Dump in Secret
By Natasa Dokovska
SKOPJE, Macedonia, April 25, 2005 (ENS) - The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning is constructing a nuclear waste dump in the new community of Petrovec, near Skopje. Unannounced, the ministry is building the facility only three kilometers (two miles) from the Skopje airport, on the site of the Cojlija military airport.
The residents of this village and of 14 other local communities have made the existence of the dump public, and they say it is almost finished. These citizens and activists in environmental nongovernmental organizations say that the dump will be filled with radioactive waste imported from other countries.
While protesting the construction of the nuclear waste dump, the activists say it is not first such waste disposal facility in Macedonia. In the period of conflict in the late 1990s, they say, this kind of dump was constructed in several places where NATO soldiers were stationed.
British Chinook helicopters complete a refuelling run at Petrovec and move back to Kosovo with supplies. June 12, 1999 (Photo courtesy NATO KFOR)
The citizens who live near the dump are reacting against the facility and are joining environmental activists to organize a big demonstration in the front of the government buildings in Skopje.
The country's largest environmental nongovernmental organization, the Movement of Environmentalists of Macedonia (DEM), is strongly opposed to construction of the dump. The group accused the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning of failing to provide timely information about the project to the general public.
DEM is worried about the lack of transparency on the part of the ministry, as well as about the fact that no environmental impact st"

The Standard - Consul calls for more democracy - Metro Section

The Standard - Consul calls for more democracy - Metro Section: "Consul calls for more democracy


Doug Crets

April 26, 2005


American Consul General James Keith bid goodbye to Hong Kong on Monday with a thinly veiled call for greater democracy and an insistence that Hong Kong people deserve the trust of their government.
'If you look at a people with the wisdom and vision and the perseverance of the Hong Kong people ... how can you draw any other conclusion but that you ought to trust them, and help them to help you to lead the way,'' he said.
Looking back on three eventful years in Hong Kong, Keith gave his last formal speech Monday at an American Chamber of Commerce luncheon. During his time here Keith said he has come to believe that more change is bound to come in the long run but the secret to success lay in trust and community participation in both politics and economic restructuring.
``Whether it's Article 23 ... or the more current debates over the interpretation of the Basic Law, it really boils down to pretty clear and straightforward concepts,'' he said.
Keith said the American government maintained a continued dialogue with the government during his tenure over a core principle: ``all over the world, the aspirations of the people ought to be given consideration,'' he said.
Keith, who previously served as the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs at the US Department of State, is rumored to be taking on the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs within a few weeks.
Keith noted recent political developments spoke to the need to embrace change and progress leading the city towards 2047, the year Hong Kong becomes fully absorbed in China and would no longer need a mini constitution.
``Change is hard and we have t"

In war's name, public loses information :: from www.uruknet.info :: news from occupied Iraq - ch

In war's name, public loses information :: from www.uruknet.info :: news from occupied Iraq - ch: "In war's name, public loses information
Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2005 -- Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks.

No one is tracking the amount of unclassified information that is no longer accessible.

For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only,' meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy.

After a 1984 chemical plant accident killed 20,000 people in Bhopal, India, Congress in 1986 passed the Emergency Planning & Community Right to Know Act, giving Americans the right to know if they lived downwind from dangerous chemicals. Until 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency posted on its website each plant's plans for dealing with a disaster, leading to public pressure on the chemical industry to maintain safer conditions. The database has been removed from the website for security reasons.

For decades, the Defense Department's map office has made its topographic charts available to the public. Biologists use them to map species distribution, and airlines use them to create flight charts. But the administration has proposed removing the maps from public use this fall, in part to keep them away from ''those intending harm' to the United States.

In these c"