Morning News Roundup (22 Mar)

• President Bush once again lays blame at the feet of the media for the country's declining support for the Iraq War [WaPo]:
  

  "I understand people being disheartened when they turn on their TV screen," Bush said, adding that "nobody likes beheadings" and other grim images.

  
  


• The rebel action in the Niger delta has slowed oil production and cost the country's government about $1 billion "with no signs of quick resolution of the crisis in place, even as the militants threaten to escalate the violence." [AllAfrica] Blogger Soj notes: "Considering the entire federal budget is just 15 billion dollars, this is a huge loss."
  
  


• Most Katrina evacuees “have not found a permanent place to live, have depleted their savings and consider their life worse than before the hurricane.” The evacuees “believed that the rest of the nation, and politicians in Washington, have moved on.” [NYTimes]
  
  


• From the Why Is This Not Surprising Department: Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.
  
  Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the African American and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush's presidential campaigns. [WaPo]
  
  


• Arab and US officials are growing nervous at the prospect of a second congressional uprising against the acquisition of American assets by a Middle Eastern-controlled company in the wake of the Dubai Ports World debacle. There is concern that the pending investigation of Dubai International Capital’s £700m ($1.2m) purchase of Doncasters, a privately-held British aerospace manufacturer that works on sensitive US weapons programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter, could provoke a similar backlash and further damage the relationship between the two countries. [Financial Times]
  
  


• In a related story, the head of the United Arab Emirates central bank, Sultan Nasser Al Suweidi, said the bank was considering converting 10 per cent of its reserves from dollars to euros. The Commercial Bank of Syria has already switched the state’s foreign currency transactions from dollars to euros. And the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US governmnet's treatment of Dubai Ports World. [Middle East Forex News]
  
  


• The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the American Episcopal Church), opposes teaching creationism in school and believes that portraying the Bible as just another theory devalues it. "Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said, 'Well, how am I going to explain all this?'" [NYTimes]
  
  


• Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants all the electricity used by state agencies to come from brand-new renewable sources such as wind and sun power -- and he wants that done in an ambitious four years. "I want to shorten our timetable by 15 years. I want to do it by 2010, and I think we can do this if we set the bar and say we are going to move toward this target." [Oregonian]
  
  
• Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to our Treasury Secretary) Gordon Brown (heir to Tony Blair) laid out the new UK budget, which included some interesting green measures (via the Guardian):
  

  Mr Brown also pledged a consultation on the controversial "carbon capture" technology, and more help with insulating homes and a £50m budget for kickstarting "microgeneration" of power at homes and schools. From tomorrow vehicle excise duties rates will be zero, £40 and then £100, £125, £150, £190 and a new band of £210 for new cars that are the most polluting.

  Duties on spirits and beer went up, but "Mr Brown joked that duty on champagne was frozen in anticipation of World Cup success this summer."
  
  


• In techy news, the new Windows operating system (Vista) has been delayed until January, 2007 after recently announcing that it would be dropping by the end of the year. [BBC]
  
  And in France, the National Assembly has approved a bill that could force Apple and other companies to open the DRM [digital rights management] used by their online music stores to other companies. Currently, if you buy music files from the Apple iTunes Music Store (iTMS), the only portable player that supports these protected files is the iPod. This law would give consumers the ability to play iTMS files on other players (such as from Samsung or Creative, which currently focus only on Windows DRM files). See more at CBSNews, but the MoJo blog notes the problem facing Apple:
  

  If this French law is adopted, it could effectively weaken Apple's global dominance. Even if the law doesn't pass, it should cause a commotion among users, all of whom would rather have the ability to share their music with more playing devices. Undoubtedly, the media will latch on to the story, opening Apple up to scrutiny for being user unfriendly.
  
  In the long run, Apple may have no choice but to share the secrets of their format. By choosing to keep their designs compatible only with other Mac products, users likely will perceive Apple as a bully, a similar image problem facing computer conglomerate Microsoft.