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Campaigne 06 - The Tipping Point Races

Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.

Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)

After a bruising final spate of campaigning that included half a dozen debates, a major push by both parties to court women and rural voters, and ads by Michael J. Fox for McCaskill and a host of celebrities for Talent, the Missouri Senate race remains deadlocked.

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Inside the President's Strategy, Win or Lose

chambers. But Bush's aides have begun signaling his plans to deal with a Congress that, regardless of the midterm outcome, is certain to include fewer Republicans.

Reporters keep asking White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about President George W. Bush's "contingency plans" if Democrats were to win the House and/or Senate in today's midterm elections. Snow has been patiently explaining for weeks that no such formal plans are being made, since the President expects Republicans to defy the pundits and win both. Another top aide said, "If you

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Today in history - Nov. 7

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 7, the 311th day of 2006. There are 54 days left in the year. This is Election Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 7, 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

On this date:

In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in "Harper's Weekly."

In 1893, the state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote.

In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.

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The Case For Dividing Iraq

PETER W. GALBRAITH

With the country descending into civil war, a noted diplomat and author argues why partition may be the U.S.'s only exit strategy.

Iraq is broken.

Iraq's national-unity government is not united and does not govern. Iraqi security forces, the centerpiece of the U.S.'s efforts for stability, are ineffective or, even worse, combatants in the country's escalating civil war. President George W. Bush says the U.S.'s goal is a unified and democratic Iraq, but we have no way to get there. As Americans search for answers, there is one obvious alternative: split Iraq into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite states.

The case for the partition of Iraq is straightforward: It has already happened. The Kurds, a non-Arab people who live in the country's north, enjoy the independence they long dreamed about. The Iraqi flag does not fly in Kurdistan, which has a democratically elected government and its own army. In southern Iraq, Shi'ite religious parties have carved out theocratic fiefdoms, using militias that now number in the tens of thousands to enforce an Iranian-style Islamic rule. To the west, Iraq's Sunni provinces have become chaotic no-go zones, with Islamic insurgents controlling Anbar province while Baathists and Islamic radicals operate barely below the surface in Salahaddin and Nineveh. And Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, is now partitioned between the Shi'ite east and the Sunni west. The Mahdi Army, the most radical of the Shi'ite militias, controls almost all the Shi'ite neighborhoods, and al-Qaeda has a large role in Sunni areas. Once a melting pot, Baghdad has become the front line of Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite war, which is claiming at least 100 lives every day.

Most Iraqis do not want civil war. But they have rejected the idea of a unified Iraq. In the December 2005 national elections, Shi'ites voted overwhelmingly for Shi'ite religious parties, Sunni Arabs for Sunni religious or nationalist parties, and the Kurds for Kurdish nationalist parties. Fewer than 10% of Iraq's Arabs crossed sectarian lines. The Kurds voted 98.7% for independence in a nonbinding referendum.

Iraq's new constitution, approved by 80% of Iraq's voters, is a road map to partition. The constitution allows Iraq's three main groups to establish powerful regions, each with its own government, substantial control over the oil resources in its territory and even its own regional army. Regional law supersedes federal law on almost all matters. The central government is so powerless that, under the constitution, it cannot even impose a tax.

American leaders seem to be in denial about these facts. President Bush continually asserts that the Iraqi people have voted for unity, while Condoleezza Rice once told me how impressed she was by the commitment of the Iraqi Kurds to building a new Iraq. James A. Baker III, co-chairman of a congressionally mandated commission tasked with formulating new policy options, has ruled out the idea of dividing Iraq. The most prominent American politician to endorse anything resembling partition is Senator Joseph Biden, who, along with former Council on Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, proposes dividing Iraq into three regions while maintaining a "central government in charge of common interests."

U.S. officials are now asking that Iraqis agree to a program of national reconciliation, changes in the constitution to protect Sunni interests, and an oil law that would share revenues equitably. It's instructive that this initiative aimed at unifying Iraq comes from Americans and not the country's elected leaders. A U.S. effort to put Iraq back together would involve endless micromanagement of Iraqi affairs and an open-ended presence of large numbers of U.S. troops. Breaking up Iraq, on the other hand, could provide an exit strategy for U.S. troops, mitigate the worst effects of civil war and give all Iraqis a greater stake in shaping their future. Few Americans imagined that 3 1/2 years after "liberating" Iraq, the U.S. would be presiding over the country's demise. But in a war in which there have never been good options, partition is the best we have left.

Iraq has never been a voluntary union of its peoples. Winston Churchill, as Britain's Colonial Secretary, created Iraq from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, installing a Sunni Arab King to rule over the Shi'ite majority and a rebellious Kurdish minority. Churchill later described Iraq's forced unity as one of his biggest mistakes. In 2003 the U.S. not only unseated the last and most brutal of Iraq's tyrants but also destroyed the institutions--notably the army and the Baath Party--that held Iraq together. The sectarian slaughter that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra accelerated Iraq's disintegration.

Nonetheless, the U.S. continues to cling to the illusion of Iraqi unity. President Bush's hopes for success in Iraq depend on two pillars: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's national-unity government and the establishment of security forces that are trusted and respected by all Iraqis. But both are shams. Al-Maliki leads a religious Shi'ite coalition that includes parties that operate the death squads that kill scores of Sunnis each day. While he says illegal militias should be disbanded, he has vigorously resisted every U.S. operation against them. The Sunnis in Iraq's government are, if anything, even more extreme. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the Speaker of the Council of Representatives and Iraq's highest-ranking Sunni, has been closely associated with Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that has targeted Shi'ites and secular Iraqis. He has blamed Iraq's problems on the Jews and has said statues should be erected to those who kill American troops. President Bush has lavishly praised both al-Mashhadani and al-Maliki, but flattery has not produced statesmanship. The real problem is that they reflect the views of their respective communities, which voted overwhelmingly for them.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials speak of Iraq's army and police as if they were neutral guarantors of public safety. Iraqis see them for what they are: Shi'ites or Sunnis who are active combatants in Iraq's civil war. Shi'ite police units have kidnapped, tortured and executed thousands of Sunnis since the Samarra bombing. Sunni policemen are often insurgents or sympathizers. The army, while marginally better than the police, is divided along sectarian lines and is largely ineffective. Whole battalions do not show up for combat duties they don't like. It is not possible to build a national army or police force when there is no nation to begin with.

So what can be done? The most realistic option is for the U.S. to abandon the idea of creating a new, united Iraq and instead allow the country to break apart, enabling each of the country's three groups to choose its own government and provide for its own security. It is possible that Sunni and Shi'ite regions would remain together in a loose confederation, but Kurdistan's full independence is almost certainly a matter of time.

Partition is an Iraqi solution. The U.S. could help make it go more smoothly, but it mostly needs to get out of the way. The Kurds already have their region. Last month Iraq's parliament approved a law to allow the Shi'ites to merge Iraq's nine southern provinces into a single state. The one group that resists dividing Iraq is the Sunnis, some out of nostalgia for the days when they ran the country and others because they reject all that has happened since Saddam's overthrow. But with the Kurds and Shi'ites having their regions, partition becomes an accomplished fact. It is hard to see any alternative for the Sunnis except to do the same.

In fact, the Sunnis may have the most to gain from partition. The Sunni insurgency feeds on popular hostility not just to the Americans but to a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government. Most Sunnis don't support al-Qaeda and its imitators, but they often prefer them to Iraqi security forces, which are seen as complicit in the killings of Sunnis. If the Sunnis were to establish their own region, they could have an army and provide for their own security. Since Iraq's known oil fields are in the Shi'ite south and the Kurdish north, the Sunnis do have reason to fear being stuck in the middle with no resources of their own. So, for partition to work, the Kurds and Shi'ites would have to guarantee the Sunnis a proportionate share of Iraq's oil revenues for a period of time, as they have already agreed to do. Over the long term, exploration for oil in the largely unexplored Sunni areas provides the region its best prospect for revenues.

We should have no illusions: partitioning Iraq would not be easy. Some groups would resist bloodily. But the adverse consequences of partition have already occurred. There's no reason to believe that formalizing Iraq's breakup would make anything worse--in fact, it might even help contain the violence. It's useful to outline the three main arguments raised against partition and explain why none are as convincing as their proponents portray them to be:

The sectarian bloodbath will get worse. Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite civil war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and forced Sunnis and Shi'ites to abandon coexistence. This is tragic and certainly not what most Iraqi Shi'ites or Sunnis want. But once under way, civil wars tend to empower the most extreme elements. Civil wars do not end because the parties get tired of fighting. Rather, they end because of outside intervention or, more often, because one side wins. Partition will not stop the sectarian cleansing in mixed areas, but by giving Shi'ites and Sunnis their own regions, it can avoid an outcome in which Iraq's more numerous Shi'ites completely crush the Sunnis.

Iran will dominate the Shi'ite south. Iran's Iraqi allies already dominate Shi'ite southern Iraq. If the U.S. were serious about countering Iran's influence, U.S. troops would have to forcefully disarm the Shi'ite militias and dismantle the southern theocracies. But this would mean taking on a whole new enemy in Iraq and also require committing more troops. The Bush Administration has no intention of doing either. Right now, Iran's allies control both the central government in Baghdad and the south. Partition would limit Iran's influence to the southern half of Iraq.

A divided Iraq will be destabilizing to Iraq's neighbors. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors all fear the destabilizing consequences of partition. But they fear an Iran-dominated Iraq even more. Turkey, Iraq's other powerful neighbor, has a population that includes at least 14 million Turkish Kurds. The Turkish nightmare has been the emergence of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq. But now that it is actually happening, Turkey has responded pragmatically: it is by far the largest source of investment in Iraqi Kurdistan and has cultivated close relations with its leaders. As Turkey's more sophisticated strategic thinkers understand, Turkey and an independent Kurdistan have a lot in common. Both are secular, pro-Western, democratic and non-Arab. Not only will Kurdistan depend on Turkey economically, but it can serve as a useful buffer to an Iran-dominated Islamic Iraq.

For many Americans, the biggest appeal of partition is that it makes possible a relatively rapid U.S. exit from much of Iraq. If U.S. goals no longer include preserving national unity or establishing Western-style democracy, there is no need for U.S. troops in the Shi'ite south or Baghdad. We would leave behind a civil war and an Iran-dominated south, but that outcome would be no different if we were to stay with the current force levels and mission. One overriding interest in Iraq, however, is still achievable: that Iraq's Sunni areas not become a base from which al-Qaeda and its allies might attack the West. With the security that comes from having their own region, the Sunnis might deal more effectively with the terrorist threat, since continuing violence would prevent economic progress in the Sunni areas. While local leaders are now unwilling to fight the most radical elements of the insurgency when the beneficiary is Iraq's Shi'ites, they may be more willing to do so when it benefits them.

The U.S. will still need an insurance policy against the threat of al-Qaeda in western Iraq. This could be accomplished by deploying a small force to Kurdistan, from which the U.S. could readily move back into the adjacent Sunni areas if necessary to disrupt al-Qaeda operations. This force would discharge a moral debt to the Kurds who fought on our side and could help consolidate democracy in the one part of Iraq that turned out as we hoped.

American administrations are instinctively committed to existing lines on the map. But not all breakups are a disaster. Although President Bush's father tried to hold the Soviet Union together, few mourned its ultimate demise. Trying to put back together Iraq, a state that has brought nonstop misery to most of its people for its entire 80-year history and is not desired by a substantial part of its citizens, will only bring about more pain and blood for Americans and Iraqis. If the country's people are to be saved, the only choice is to end Iraq. [This article contains maps and diagrams. Please see hardcopy of magazine.] THE GREAT DIVIDE

Iraq is checkered by different religions and ethnicities, its history marked by forced relocations and bloody conflict. The current Sunni-Shi'ite war has once again changed the demographic map of Iraq, leading some to call for the country to be split into three states. But carving up Iraq could displace millions, provoke struggles for the control of territory and make the bloodshed even worse. Shi'ite Arabs 60% Sunni Arabs 20% Kurds 17% Others 3%

Area by ethnic and religious groups

Kurd Sh'ite Arab Sunni Arab Shi'ite/Sunni-Arab mix Sunni Arab/Kurd mix Sunni Turkoman Christian Mixed area Sparsely populated Population density

0 10 1,000 100,000 Per sq. mi. (2.6 sq km) 5 miles 5 km BAGHDAD AIRPORT RASHEED AIR BASE SADR CITY ADHAMIYA WASHASH MANSUR Green Zone Tigris River IRAQ Turkey • Neighboring Turkey worries that an Iraqi Kurdistan would incite its Kurdish population and that access to the area's oil would be lost. Along with Iran and Syria, Turkey might be tempted to exploit internal Kurdish divisions Baghdad With Sunni and Shi'ite living cheek by jowl, partition could lead to widespread sectarian cleansing and more violence for its 6 million residents

Kurdistan • The Kurdish-dominated north already enjoys wide autonomy and relative peace, but Kurds want oil-rich Kirkuk to be part of an independent Kurdistan--something the country's Arabs fiercely oppose

Central Iraq • Iraq's Sunni Arabs have resisted partition. With no significant oil fields and thus no real oil revenues, Sunnis might try to fight for oil-rich areas like Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul

Southern Iraq • The Shi'ite-dominated south would probably form a government based on Islamic law and modeled on Iran's. It has the lion's share of the country's oil resources Oil Supergiant oil field (5 billion bbl. in reserve) Other oil field Pipeline

60 miles 60 km

DAHUK NINEVEH ARBIL SULAYMANIYAH TA'MIM NAJAF WASIT DIYALA MUTHANNA SALAHADDIN ANBAR QADISYAH KARBALA BABIL MAYSAN DHIQAR BASRA Kirkuk Mosul Arbil Nasiriyah Baqubah Najaf Sulaymaniyah Karbala Hillah Samarra Diwaniyah Fallujah Ramadi Tikrit Tall 'Afar Kut Samawah Faisaliya Basra Amarah

Tigris River Euphrates River

SAUDI ARABIA IRAN SYRIA TURKEY JORDAN KUWAIT

BEFORE IT WAS IRAQ

• Under Ottoman rule Until WW I, Iraq was a region divided into three provinces (vilayets), with Shi'ite Basra in the south, Baghdad in the center and a largely Kurdish Mosul in the north OTTOMAN EMPIRE Persia Syrian Desert Vilayet of Mosul Vilayet of Baghdad Vilayet of Basra British controlled

• Under British rule In the postwar division of Ottoman territory, the provinces came under British control, forming the borders for Iraq. It was granted independence in 1932

Persia Turkey Protectorate of Kuwait British mandate of Iraq French mandate of Syria

OIL RICHES Total known oil reserves by province Oil reserves in millions of bbl. 65,810 10,000 1,000 100

Sources: Brookings Institution Iraq Index; GlobalSecurity.org HealingIraq.blogspot.com Iraq Revenue Watch; NASA; DigitalGlobe; LandScan/UT-Battelle TIME Map by Kathleen Adams and Joe Lertola

Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia who has advised the Kurds on constitutional issues, is the author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End

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Will a Divided Congress Mean Gridlock?

PERRY BACON JR.

The conventional wisdom is that nothing gets done when the White House and Congress are controlled by different parties. Not so.

As the fall campaign nears its end, there's much fear and loathing about what would happen if Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the House. The Republicans claim it would result in higher taxes, weakened national security and slower economic growth, all charges the Democrats dispute. But observers on both sides of the political aisle seem to agree on one thing: an era of unprecedented gridlock could soon descend upon Washington. With partisan Democrats in control of at least one chamber of Congress and the Bush Administration riding out its last two years in the White House, the thinking goes, the nation's capitol would descend into endless hearings, investigations and political scoresettling — and no legislation would get through.

But it's not necessarily so, and here's why: historically, there is actually little difference in the legislative productivity of Washington under divided government versus one-party rule. David Mayhew, a political science professor and congressional expert at Yale University (full disclosure, I took one of his courses several years ago) found that from 1947 to 1990, an average of 13 major laws were passed when one party controlled all the levers of power, compared to 12 when the President had to deal with either one or both houses of Congress being controlled by the opposition. (He counts all laws that were included in articles by the New York Times wrapping up each congressional session, http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dmayhew/data3.html)

And as Mayhew argues, this pattern has held true since then — even as countless pundits have bemoaned how much more poisonously partisan our nation's politics has become. Two of the most productive legislative sessions over the last 16 years were in 1995-1996 — when a GOP-controlled Congress and President Clinton passed 13 major laws, including a massive deregulation of the telecommunications industry and a welfare reform bill that drastically reshaped how the federal government and states supported low-income people — and 2001- 2002, when President Bush joined a Democrat-dominated Senate in authorizing two wars and passing the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind education law. Neither the 2003-04 norr the 05-06 congressional sessions, when Republicans have had control of the House, Senate and the presidency, eclipsed the first two Bush years in terms of major legislation. In fact, perhaps the most important domestic policy achievement of the last decade — and one both Democrats and Republicans remain proud of — was that 1996 welfare bill that has helped spur dramatic decreases in the welfare rolls and the number of children living in poverty.

One of the major reasons that divided government can also be productive government, Mayhew notes, is that Congress doesn't just pass things in a vacuum. After 9/11, both parties felt a need to take steps to protect the country, leading to passage of the Patriot Act, creation of the Homeland Security Department and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also Presidents tend to overreach more when one party controls both the executive and legislative branches of government. Think of President Clinton's failed campaign to create universal health care in 1993 and President Bush's brief flirtation with radically restructuring Social Security in 2005; in both cases the Senate derailed legislation with the threat of a filibuster. It's also possible that when power is shared in Washington, individual members feel less secure and are more focused on the first priority of every office-holder in Washington: relection. "Sometimes it's in the interest of both parties to put something on the books," says Mayhew.

So what does this mean for 2007 and 2008, if Democrats do win one or both houses of Congress? Certain kinds of legislation that the GOP has passed over the last four years over Democratic opposition, such as tort reform and and limits to late-term abortions, probably wouldn't be put on the floor for votes if Democrats ran the House. And Mayhew's research does show that hearings and investigations increase dramatically with divided government, as one party seeks to embarrass the executive branch of the other. So expect to see lots of subpoenas flying from the offices of Democrats Henry Waxman and John Conyers, who would head the Government Reform and Judiciary committees, respectively.

On the other hand, it's easy to imagine the passage of an immigration reform bill that includes some kind of guest worker program, which the GOP-controlled House has opposed. Congress is due to reexamine the No Child Left Behind law next year; concerns about how it works, along with support for its goal of measuring student progress through test scores and boosting minority student achievement, are shared by both parties. And members of both parties have long talked about expanding health care coverage to make sure no children go without insurance.

If the Democrats win one house of Congress, this situation won't be that unusual. The title of Mayhew's book on this subject is Divided We Govern and that's become increasingly true. Twenty out of the last 30 years, the government has been divided. The conventional wisdom has always been that voters actually prefer the wheels of power paralyzed so that politicians can't do anything too stupid. But maybe it's quite the opposite, and voters know exactly what they are doing.

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Get Ready for the Glitches

MICHAEL DUFFY
Voters will face new hurdles when it comes to getting ballots, casting them — and getting all the results by midnight.

Even before it starts tomorrow morning, the 2006 election is already shaping up as one massive lab experiment in how we cast and count 80 million votes or more. When you figure that most of us will have the chance to make anywhere from 20 to 25 choices at polling stations — on statewide races, local elections, constitutional amendments, local options and your county library and community college board elections — we are talking about tracking and tallying upwards of 2 billion different decisions. It's a wonder we can do it at all.

But it's not the sheer numbers that make 2006 unlike any election in the past. There are new legal and technical requirements this year, which could stretch some parts of this count well into the week. Here are three:

New Voter ID Rules: About a dozen states have enacted stricter voter ID laws in the last few years, and these laws usually require voters to produce a photo ID before obtaining a ballot. Since not every potential voter has a photo ID, many of these measures have been contested in state and federal courts by plaintiffs charging the state's with voter suppression, and several have been modified even in the last week. Ohio, for example, was forced by court ruling just last Wednesday to loosen its new ID requirements. A similar walk-back occurred in Georgia, where voters can now produce one of 17 different forms of ID or swear an affidavit of identity — far easier than producing a photo ID. Other states haven't backed down on their new rules. Check your Secretary of State's website if you aren't sure what to bring. But be prepared for challenges.

New Voting Machines: For the first time this year, nearly 40% of Americans will vote by electronic device; nearly all of us will have our votes counted that way. That alone will cause some delays: voters won't all know how to operate them, poll workers will not be all fully trained, and, if recent primary voting is any indication, there are going to be technical problems. As states and counties certified their new devices in October — and its not uncommon for multiple types of machines to be used in almost every state — there were reports of glitches, ballot errors, machines communicating in the wrong languages with voters, and continued doubts about chain of custody in the wake of multiple reports that most of the machines can be easily hacked. More than 26 states have adopted some kind of verifiable audit trail so voters can check their choices against the machine, but many states lack a paper trail of any kind, contending that it's not necessary or the printers are too expensive. Guam, at least, isn't taking chances: On Saturday, the American protectorate's governor signed a bill suspending the use of the electronic devices next week. There will almost certainly be dozens of real-time reports from polling places of machine malfunctions; each one will have to be run down and checked. Let the recount begin.

Alternative Voting:A number of states have gone to what is called "no fault" absentee voting this year, which means voters no longer need an excuse to obtain an absentee ballot. Applications for the absentee option have exploded partly because of worries about the paperless-machines, and partly because both parties have mailed applications to millions of voters whether they requested them or not. That could shorten lines at the polls on election day but lengthen the count on election night. All around the U.S., the percentage of absentee balloting is exploding: most jurisdictions are seeing a jump in the ballots going out and coming back in by mail. More than 50% of the total turnout in the states of Washington and Nevada will be by absentee ballot; in California, the estimate is 44% of turnout. In San Diego last week, officials ran out of absentee ballots and had to send out photocopies. In Cleveland, more than 100,000 people are expected to vote absentee. Cuyahoga County officials can't start counting those until midnight on Election Day morning; they have to stop counting when the regular votes arrive. The upshot? It's going to be a long night in Ohio. And probably a few other places as well.

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Campaigne 06 - The Tipping Point Races

PERRY BACON JR., MASSIMO CALABRESI AND KAREN TUMULTY

Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.

Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)

After a bruising final spate of campaigning that included half a dozen debates, a major push by both parties to court women and rural voters, and ads by Michael J. Fox for McCaskill and a host of celebrities for Talent, the Missouri Senate race remains deadlocked. It has now become a test of the two parties Get Out The Vote operations, with the GOP pouring volunteers into neighborhoods and drawing on the party's vaunted voter list, while the Dems scramble to mobilize urban voters in St. Louis and Kansas City. Democrats have to hope that two ballot initiatives — one for increasing the minimum wage, and another supporting stem cell research — will make up for the admitted advantage Republicans hold in targeting likely voters. Virtually every poll for the last six months has put the race in a dead heat, and in 2002, Talent won by all of 21,000 votes, so the final push will likely be the determining factor.

Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester (D)

Dogged by connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a series of campaign gaffes that included attacking some firefighters for doing "a poor job" containing a blaze in the state, Republican Conrad Burns is in danger of losing in Montana, where President Bush won by 20 points two years ago. Polls are virtually even in his race against Jon Tester, the Democrat who is president of the state Senate there.

To inoculate himself against attacks from Burns and national Republicans about the national Democratic Party's liberalism, Tester highlights his biography as a third-generation Montana family farmer with a flat-top haircut who lost three of his fingers in a meat grinder accident. He's also closely linking himself with Brian Schweitzer, the state's popular Democratic governor. Burns, meanwhile, is emphasizing his longtime efforts to bring back federal money to the state.

New Jersey: Robert Menendez (D) v. Thomas Kean, Jr. (R)

The Senate race here has been close, even though the state's voters lean Democratic, strongly oppose President Bush and the war in Iraq and the incumbent is a Democrat himself. The Republican challenger has moved to the left on some key issues, even calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign, but his success has mostly stemmed from having the right last name. Thomas Kean, Jr., is the son of Thomas Kean, who was governor of New Jersey for much of the 1980s, more recently the co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission and remains a revered figure by voters in both parties.

The race has become a bit of a proxy war, as Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez seeks to link Kean to President Bush and the Republican Congress, while Kean has relentlessly portrayed Menendez as part of a Democratic Party in the state that has been involved in numerous corruption scandals. Menendez, a longtime member of the House who was appointed to this Senate seat earlier this year after his predecessor Jon Corzine became New Jersey Governor, has also tried to cast the boyish-looking Kean, who has been in New Jersey state legislature since 2001, as too inexperienced for the job. If Kean wins, it will be very difficult for the Democrats to win control of the Senate.

Tennessee: Harold Ford (D) v. Bob Corker (R)

In the contest to replace retiring Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, House Democrat Harold Ford has waged a surprisingly strong campaign against Bob Corker, the Republican candidate who used to be the mayor of Chattanooga. Ford was considered an underdog, both because a Democrat hasn't won a Senate race in the state since Al Gore in 1990 and because of the political baggage from his family, which is active in state politics but known for a spate of corruption scandals. His father, former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr., was charged with federal bank fraud and acquitted in 1993 and his uncle, a former state Senator, was indicted for bribery earlier this year.

Ford has emphasized his credentials as pro-gun, anti-tax, church-going politician to win in this conservative state, while Corker and the Republicans have sought to portray him as a rich, urbane liberal who wears fancy suits, stays in lavish hotels and has never held a real job other than being in Congress. Corker, who won an intensely fought primary over two more conservative G.O.P. rivals, has highlighted his success as a businessman in starting and developing a construction company that has earned him millions, much of which he pumped into his campaign.

A win by Ford would be historic, as he would be the first black Senator elected in the South in more than a century. Racial politics became a subject in the race last month when Republicans ran an ad attacking Ford for his attendance at a Playboy Superbowl party that included a blond white woman saying "Harold, call me' — which some Democrats said was an attempt to play on concerns about interracial dating. Corker himself denounced the ad, but the campaign has only gotten nastier and more heated as Election Day has approached.

Virginia: George Allen (R) v. Jim Webb (D)

Back in June, when former Secretary of the Navy and Republican-turned-Democrat Jim Webb won his party's nomination to take on Virginia Senator George Allen, it seemed he had no chance to win. Webb, who had never run for office before and had almost no money, was taking on a popular, well-funded incumbent in Allen, who had already been elected as both governor and senator in the state. Allen was in fact starting to prepare for a run for the G.O.P. presidential nomination in 2008.

But then Allen, at a campaign rally in August, referred to a South Asian supporter of Webb's as "macaca," a term considered by many to be a racial slur. That helped lead to accusations that Allen had used racial slurs to describe blacks in the 1970's and put his campaign in a downward spiral that eventually put the race into a dead heat. It's been a bizarre campaign: Allen learned in the midst of it that his mother was Jewish, while Webb has become dogged by accusations that's he's a sexist, brought on by a 1979 article in which he called the Naval Academy's co-ed dorms a "horny woman's dream." Democrats have suggested, without any evidence, that Allen may have been arrested for domestic violence in the 1970's, while Republicans have attacked Webb for sexual scenes in his novels. These character attacks and odd controversies have detracted from the biggest difference between the two candidates on the issues, namely that Webb has long opposed the Iraq War, which Allen voted for in the Senate.

Connecticut: Chris Shays (R) v. Dianne Farrell (D)

This is the second time these two have faced each other; G.O.P. incumbent Chris Shays defeated former Westport First Selectwoman Dianne Farrell 52% to 48% in 2004. This time Shays, who has held this seat since 1987, has a major problem: Iraq. The moderate Congressman has become closely associated with his support for the war, as he has visited Iraq more than a dozen times since the invasion.

Farrell opposed the war from the beginning, and Shays' position has become increasingly unpopular in this blue state. In August, Shays became one of the few Republicans to call for a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, while Farrell has called for creating benchmarks that determine when troops return home. Farrell's challenge is to convince voters to dump a well-liked congressman because they disagree with him on Iraq and want Democrats to control Congress as a check on President Bush.

North Carolina: Charles Taylor (R) v. Heath Shuler (D)

Democrats have for the last decade struggled to win in the South, but they think Heath Shuler may be the candidate to start a new tradition in this western North Carolina district. Shuler not only was a football star, both in North Carolina in high school and then at the University of Tennessee, but he's also anti-abortion and frequently talks about his hunting, which has helped him appeal to conservative and rural voters in this area. Taylor, an eight-term incumbent, says he would be much more influential for the district than Shuler, because he sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which determines where much of the federal budget is spent. And he never fails to argue that Shuler doesn't have enough experience for the job

New Mexico: Heather Wilson (R) v. Patricia Madrid (D)

A battle between two tough public servants, this race has followed the party playbooks to the letter. Wilson, a centrist Rhodes scholar and former National Security Council member, has run a non-stop stream of ads calling her opponent weak on law enforcement and national security and a liberal who will raise taxes. Madrid, New Mexico's attorney general and a former district judge, has relentlessly tied Wilson to President George W. Bush in ads and campaign events, finishing off the season with a TV spot with the tagline, "Heather Wilson and George Bush: Desperate to Hide the Truth." The district, which includes Albuquerque, has always been closely divided. An election-eve poll found Madrid surging to a four-point lead, though still within the margin of error. Wilson released her own poll showing herself up by two points. Both showed 6% of voters still making up their minds just a week before the election.

Ohio: Deborah Pryce (R) v. Mary Jo Kilroy (D)

No race better demonstrates the difficulties that Republicans are up against this year than the re-election battle of Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House leadership. Pryce has not faced a serious challenge since her first election in 1992, despite the fact that her Columbus, Ohio, district has otherwise trended more Democrat. But as election day has approached this year, the moderate Republican has been considered the underdog against liberal Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy.

Though Kilroy is a stronger opponent than Pryce has faced in the past, the incumbent's difficulties come largely as the result of a lagging state economy, a G.O.P. scandal in the statehouse and opposition to the Iraq war. As if all that weren't enough, in a local magazine interview published just a month before the Mark Foley scandal broke in Washington, Pryce named the Florida Congressman as one of her closest friends in the House. Kilroy seized upon that connection in an ad she placed on Christian radio stations, in which the announcer intoned: "Deborah Pryce's friend Mark Foley is caught using his position to take advantage of 16-year-old pages."

Kilroy has largely hammered on national Democratic themes. Her mantra: "We need a change in Washington. We need a new direction." Pryce has portrayed herself as a moderate counterweight to the rest of the GOP House leadership, and to the Republican Party nationally. She also has stressed the amount of federal money that she has been able to bring back to her district by virtue of her seniority and her leadership position. Both sides agree that this race will ultimately be a test of which candidate has the better turnout operation.

Pennsylvania: Jim Gerlach (R) v. Lois Murphy (D)

The suburbs outside of Philadelphia have become one of the key battlegrounds of 2006, with three close House races, and the contest between Democrat Lois Murphy and incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach is perhaps the tightest of them all. Gerlach eked out a victory in 2004 against Murphy, collecting 51% of the vote. To hold his seat, he is trying to focus the race on local issues like the federal money for local roads he's brought home, and at the same time trying to link Murphy with Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco lawmaker likely to become Speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Gerlach says Pelosi and the Democrats would raise taxes and oppose measures like the Patriot Act that he says keep the country safe. Murphy, like Democrats across the country, is trying to unseat the incumbent by highlighting his support of President Bush, particularly on the Iraq War. Gerlach has tried hard to show how often he disagrees with Bush, such as his support for expanding embryonic stem cell research.

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The Tipping Point Races

PERRY BACON JR., MASSIMO CALABRESI AND KAREN TUMULTY

Ten very tight House and Senate contests could determine which party controls Congress next year.

Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill (D)

Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester (D)

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Inside the President's Strategy, Win or Lose

MIKE ALLEN

The White House is vigorously predicting Republicans will hold both chambers. But Bush's aides have begun signaling his plans to deal with a Congress that, regardless of the midterm outcome, is certain to include fewer Republicans.

Reporters keep asking White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about President George W. Bush's "contingency plans" if Democrats were to win the House and/or Senate in today's midterm elections. Snow has been patiently explaining for weeks that no such formal plans are being made, since the President expects Republicans to defy the pundits and win both. Another top aide said, "If you think Karl Rove is spending any time thinking about losing, you're crazy."

However, the President and his aides have begun signalling a legislative strategy that they can pursue, win or lose: challenge Congress to go after big goals, including debating an overhaul of Social Security and the other two big entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Bush has spoken increasingly frankly about his plans to run up the hill on Social Security again, and sources say Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will use his Wall Street cachet to promote discussion of an issue that had Republicans running for the doors last year.

As Air Force One flew to Pensacola, Fla., on Monday for one of the President's final rallies, Snow gave a preview of the language you can expect to hear him using on television as he talks about the coming legislative season, beginning with the breakfast shows on Wednesday. "There's the thing that you do need to know," he said, "which is that the President plans for a very active final two years of his presidency. And there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed that everybody knows need to be addressed. One is winning the war on terror. The second is continuing to build economic strength. You have No Child Left Behind, you have an interest in creating better educational opportunities; you've got energy, which is a shared interest. So the President is going to be very aggressive, and he's not going to play small ball."

Snow told Rush Limbaugh on Monday that Republicans have "got a lot of I-told-you-so moments right now because polls are tightening." But if voters wind up choosing divided government today, a big wave of news coverage will focus on whether the President can become a uniter, working with Democrats as he did when he was Texas governor. Snow caused a stir online and in the White House press corps last month when he told Powerlineblog.com that one of the administration's goals for the next two years -- the final quarter of Bush's presidency—is to "maybe to de-toxify American politics a little bit."

TIME asked Snow what he meant by that, and his answer served as a preview of points he can be expected to make frequently in the days ahead. "What've you've had is a very toxic atmosphere," he said. "Democrats have decided, and Nancy Pelosi has said as much, that the strategy is to tear down the President. While that may be effective as a political strategy, and I have questions about that, it's not good for the country and people are bored with it. When you have a war on terror that's not going to go away, when you have an economy that needs constant care and attention, when you've got an entitlement crunch that is not going to go away, when you have challenges on the energy and education fronts, when you have immigration, where we have started to deal with a comprehensive solution but have much further to go, you want people to stop calling each other names and do the people's business. It is not only possible but it is desirable that people on both sides of the political divide be able to call each other friends and to be able to disagree amicably without waging World War III. We expect that of our kids. We ought to expect it of our lawmakers. The President has always tried to extend a hand to people on both sides of the aisle and he'll continue to do it."

The President's public schedule for Wednesday is blank so far, but he has a Cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday. When he meets the cameras, his message is likely to include similar points. He'll be a uniter, his aides say, if Democrats will reciprocate. The question is whether they have an incentive to do so, and the answer to that will be able to be read in tonight's results.

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Today in history - Nov. 7

The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 7, the 311th day of 2006. There are 54 days left in the year. This is Election Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 7, 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.

On this date:

In 1874, the Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in "Harper's Weekly."

In 1893, the state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote.

In 1916, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.

In 1940, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state collapsed during a windstorm.

In 1944, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1962, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt died in New York City.

In 1962, Richard M. Nixon, having lost California's gubernatorial race, held what he called his "last press conference," telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."

In 1972, President Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

In 1973, Congress overrode President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive's power to wage war without congressional approval.

In 1998, John Glenn returned to Earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery, visibly weak but elated after a nine-day mission.

Ten years ago: The U.S. liquor industry voted to drop its decades-old voluntary ban on broadcast advertising. Thousands of Communists marched through Moscow to mark the 79th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. A Nigerian Boeing 727 jetliner crashed en route to Lagos, killing 142 people. NASA's Mars Global Surveyor blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a mission to map the surface of the Red Planet. (It went into orbit around Mars the next year.)

Five years ago: The Bush administration targeted Osama bin Laden's multimillion-dollar financial networks, closing businesses in four states, detaining U.S. suspects and urging allies to help choke off money supplies in 40 nations. At the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, allies in the war on terrorism, confidently offered back-to-back pledges of victory, no matter how long it took. More than 15 months after a Concorde crashed outside Paris, two of the world's only supersonic jetliners returned to the skies.

One year ago: President Bush, in Panama, defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful, saying, "We do not torture." A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing four American soldiers.

Today's Birthdays: Evangelist Billy Graham is 88. Opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland is 80. Actor Barry Newman is 68. Singer Johnny Rivers is 64. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 63. Singer Nick Gilder is 55. Actor Christopher Knight ("The Brady Bunch") is 49. Actor Christopher Daniel Barnes is 34. Actors Jeremy and Jason London are 34. Actress Yunjin Kim ("Lost") is 33.

Thought for Today: "It's not the voting that's democracy — it's the counting." — Tom Stoppard, Czechoslovak-born British author and dramatist.

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Today in history - Nov. 4

Today is Saturday, Nov. 4, the 308th day of 2006. There are 57 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 4, 1979, the Iranian hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, seizing its occupants. For some of the hostages, it was the start of 444 days of captivity.

On this date:

In 1879, humorist Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Okla.

In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine.

In 1922, the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered in Egypt.

In 1924, Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was elected the nation's first female governor to serve out the remaining term of her late husband, William B. Ross.

In 1942, during World War II, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

In 1956, Soviet troops moved in to crush the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the White House as he defeated President Carter by a strong margin.

source

NowPublic

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Today in history - Nov. 4

The Associated Press

Today is Saturday, Nov. 4, the 308th day of 2006. There are 57 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 4, 1979, the Iranian hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, seizing its occupants. For some of the hostages, it was the start of 444 days of captivity.

On this date:

In 1879, humorist Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Okla.

In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine.

In 1922, the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered in Egypt.

In 1924, Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was elected the nation's first female governor to serve out the remaining term of her late husband, William B. Ross.

In 1942, during World War II, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

In 1956, Soviet troops moved in to crush the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the White House as he defeated President Carter by a strong margin.

In 1991, Ronald Reagan opened his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., with a dedication attended by President Bush and former Presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon — the first gathering of five U.S. chief executives.

In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli minutes after attending a festive peace rally.

Ten years ago: On the last day of campaigning before Election Day, President Clinton appealed for a second term by taking credit for a revived economy, while Republican Bob Dole warned of mounting Clinton ethical questions.

Five years ago: Hurricane Michelle roared across Cuba, forcing the government to shut down power for much of the communist island and evacuate 750,000 people. The Arizona Diamondbacks won their first World Series by beating the New York Yankees 3-2 in Game 7. Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia and Margaret Okayo of Kenya won the New York Marathon. NBC's "The West Wing" took eight honors at the twice-delayed Emmy Awards, including best dramatic series; HBO's "Sex and the City" won best comedy series.

One year ago: Violent anti-U.S. protests broke out in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, where President Bush was promoting free trade at the Summit of the Americas. Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel, imprisoned for his role in a bomb plot, died after being assaulted in a federal prison in Phoenix; he was 62.

Today's Birthdays: Former CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite is 90. Actress Doris Roberts is 76. Actress Loretta Swit is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer Harry Elston (Friends of Distinction) is 68. Blues singer Delbert McClinton is 66. First Lady Laura Bush is 60. Actress Markie Post is 56. Rock singer-musician Chris Difford (Squeeze) is 52. Country singer Kim Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 46. Actor Ralph Macchio is 45. "Survivor" host Jeff Probst is 45. Actor Matthew McConaughey is 37. Rapper-producer Sean "Diddy" Combs is 37. Rhythm-and-blues singer Shawn Rivera (Az Yet) is 35. Actress Heather Tom is 31. Rhythm-and-blues/gospel singer George Huff is 26.

Thought for Today: "The line of least resistance was always the most difficult line in the long run." — Peter Cheyney, English author (1896-1951).

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Blonde Ukrainan Greenpeace activist faces deportation over nude posters

A Greenpeace activist in Ukraine faces deportation after she posed naked for a series of environmental awareness posters.

Oksana Golubova, a beautiful blonde and head of the local Greenpeace office in Ukraine's largest seaside resort area of Crimea, was attempting to protect the peninsula's nature from careless tourist attitude.

The girl posed as a model for a series of posters together with dead animals and birds. The message she intended to send to the world was human holidays are a threat to nature, the Express Gazeta newspaper reports.

However instead of feeling guilty, the authorities and residents of the peninsula, where tourism is the only source of income, cracked down on the activist herself. She was accused of being immoral, unpatriotic and of trying to ruin the region's economy.

If Golubova continues her agitation, Crimea's Prime Minister Viktor Plakida has said, he will personally see that she gets deported from the peninsula.

Oksana, who did not expect such an emotional reaction, tries to leave house as rarely as possible.

"I just wanted to make people who come to spend their holidays in the Crimea treat its nature with more consideration," Oksana says.

"I wanted to stop the authorities from pouring sewage into the sea. But unfortunately people care more about drawing money from tourists than about leaving a clean sea to their children."

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Today in history - Nov. 3

The Associated Press

Today is Friday, Nov. 3, the 307th day of 2006. There are 58 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

Twenty years ago, on Nov. 3, 1986, the Iran-Contra affair began to come to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.

On this date:

In 1839, the first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.

In 1868, Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the presidential election over Democrat Horatio Seymour.

In 1896, Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency.

In 1903, Panama proclaimed its independence from Colombia.

In 1908, Republican William Howard Taft was elected president, outpolling William Jennings Bryan.

In 1936, President Roosevelt won a landslide election victory over Republican challenger Alfred M. "Alf" Landon.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, the second manmade satellite, into orbit; on board was a dog named "Laika" who was sacrificed in the experiment.

In 1964, President Johnson soundly defeated Republican challenger Barry Goldwater to win a White House term in his own right.

In 1970, Salvador Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile.

In 1979, five radicals were killed when gunfire erupted during an anti-Ku Klux Klan demonstration in Greensboro, N.C., after a caravan of Klansmen and neo-Nazis had driven into the area.

Ten years ago: American entrepreneur Paul Tatum was shot to death on the steps of a Moscow subway station in what his relatives suspected was a contract slaying by the Russian mafia; the case remains unsolved.

Five years ago: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with his Russian counterpart in Moscow to discuss nuclear arsenal cuts, American plans for a missile defense system, and U.S.-Russian cooperation in the campaign against terror. The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the New York Yankees 15-2 to tie the World Series at three games apiece.

One year ago: Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, pleaded not guilty to a five-count felony indictment in the CIA leak case. The European Union said it would investigate reports the CIA had set up secret jails in Eastern Europe to interrogate terror suspects. Merck & Co. won its first court battle over its Vioxx painkiller when a New Jersey state jury found the drug maker had properly warned consumers about the risks of the medication.

Today's Birthdays: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Bob Feller is 88. Actress Lois Smith is 76. Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis is 73. Actor-dancer Ken Berry is 73. Movie composer John Barry is 73. Actor Shadoe Stevens is 60. Singer Lulu is 58. Actor Mike Evans is 57. Comedian-actress Roseanne Barr is 54. Actress Kate Capshaw is 53. Comedian Dennis Miller is 53. Actress Kathy Kinney is 53. Singer Adam Ant is 52.

Thought for Today: "Among these things but one thing seems certain — that nothing certain exists, and that nothing is more pitiable or more presumptuous than man." — Pliny the Elder, Roman scholar (A.D. 23-A.D. 79).

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Today in history - Nov. 2

The Associated Press

Today is Thursday, Nov. 2, the 306th day of 2006. There are 59 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 2, 1947, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden flying boat, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (popularly known as the "Spruce Goose"), on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California.

On this date:

In 1783, Gen. George Washington issued his Farewell Address to the Continental Army near Princeton, N.J.

In 1795, the 11th president of the United States, James Knox Polk, was born in Mecklenburg County, N.C.

In 1865, the 29th president of the United States, Warren Gamaliel Harding, was born near Corsica, Ohio.

In 1889, North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states.

In 1906, Italian movie director Luchino Visconti was born in Milan.

In 1936, the British Broadcasting Corp. inaugurated "high-definition" television service from Alexandra Palace in London.

In 1948, President Truman surprised the experts by being re-elected in a narrow upset over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey.

In 1959, game show contestant Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he'd been given questions and answers in advance when he appeared on the NBC TV program "Twenty-One."

In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became the first candidate from the Deep South since the Civil War to be elected president as he defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford.

In 1986, kidnappers in Lebanon released American hospital administrator David Jacobsen after holding him for 17 months.

Ten years ago: A tentative labor contract was reached between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers, averting a national strike.

Five years ago: President Bush, saying the war in Afghanistan was unraveling Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, chided critics for clamoring for more action, and said the U.S. military campaign would not pause for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. The government reported that the nation's unemployment rate had shot up to 5.4 percent in October.

One year ago: The Bush administration released details of its potential flu pandemic strategy, saying a pandemic that hit the United States would force cities to ration scarce drugs and vaccine and house the sick in hotels or schools if hospitals were to overflow. A Detroit church packed with 4,000 mourners celebrated the life of Rosa Parks in an impassioned, song-filled funeral.

Today's Birthdays: Country singer Charlie Walker is 80. Rhythm-and-blues singer Earl "Speedo" Carroll (The Cadillacs; The Coasters) is 69. Singer Jay Black (Jay and the Americans) is 68. Commentator Patrick J. Buchanan is 68. Actress Stefanie Powers is 64. Author Shere Hite is 64. Rock musician Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) is 62. Rock musician Carter Beauford (The Dave Matthews Band) is 49. Singer-songwriter k.d. lang is 45. Rock musician Bobby Dall (Poison) is 43. Actor David Schwimmer is 40. Rhythm-and-blues singer Alvin Chea (Take 6) is 39. Rock singer-musician John Hampson (Nine Days) is 35. Rapper Nelly is 32. Prodigy (Mobb Deep) is 32. Actor Danny Cooksey is 31. Country singer Erika Jo ("Nashville Star") is 20.

Thought for Today: "The amount of sleep required by the average person is just five minutes more." — Anonymous.

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Traffickers turn to northeast India for sex trade

Biswajyoti Das

Human traffickers are increasingly turning to India's poor and insurgency-wracked northeastern states in their search for young girls to work in big city brothels, police and activists say.

Over the past five years there has been a rise in reports of missing girls from the remote region of eight states, an increase which authorities believe is due to trafficking.

Police say at least 700 girls from the region have been reported missing over the last five years, 300 of whom disappeared in 2005 alone.

But activists estimate thousands of northeastern girls disappear every year - most of whom are not reported by families due to the stigma associated with being part of the sex trade.

"Substantial trafficking of girls is taking place from the region. People in the northeast have recently realised what human trafficking is," said Ajit Joy of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in New Delhi.

Traffickers are mostly women, often well-known in their respective villages, who promise poor, rural families good jobs for their daughters, most of whom are between 12 and 16.

But in reality, they sell the girls to brothel owners in towns and cities like New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata, earning between 20,000 ($440) and 40,000 rupees for each girl.

Police estimate that around 20 percent of the girls in India's big city brothels come from the northeast.

At least one million Indian girls and women work in India's sex industry which is estimated to be worth around 400 billion rupees ($9 billion) annually, according to the UNODC.

The rise in the number of girls disappearing from states like Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh is partly due to tighter surveillance on India's northeastern border with Nepal, where most girls were being trafficked from before.

Authorities say increased security along the border to curb Maoist insurgencies in both countries has deterred many traffickers, and the number of Nepali girls being brought into India annually has halved from around 10,000 three or four years ago.

Police, who are more used to fighting rebels in the troubled region, are now receiving training on issues ranging from dealing with traumatised victims to the legal complexities of investigating the crime.

"The police were not aware of such things earlier, they are still a little raw in dealing in dealing with such cases," said T Pachuau, director of the Northeast Police Academy. "We are training them to get better and investigate with full authority." Twenty-year-old Jaya Basumatary from the northern Assam district of Udalguri, was rescued after a raid on a Delhi brothel last year.

At the age of 16, she was taken by traffickers who promised her impoverished family that they would get her a job as a domestic maid.

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Taiwan busts 11 suspected of smuggling Chinese women

Taiwan authorities have detained 11 people, including a senior immigration clerk, on suspicion of collaborating with gangs that smuggle Chinese women to the island for prostitution, local media reported.

The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office detained immigration clerk Lee Jo-ling and 10 other suspects, including a gang boss, on Saturday (local time) after a night of questioning, the China Times reported.

Taiwan's Central News Agency said that clerk Lee Jo-ling is accused of taking bribes from a snakehead ring to let about 80 Chinese women into Taiwan by having them pretend to be local men's pregnant wives. They were apparently smuggled for prostitution.

Lee allegedly received $T30,000 ($NZ1389.81) to $T80,000 per case, Central News Agency said, and she has been fired.

On Friday, the prosecutor's office ordered a search of Lee's office, her home and 17 brothels run by the smuggling ring, the news agency reported. She faces five years in prison if convicted of corruption charges.

Taiwan seldom allows Chinese people to live on the island for any reason, as relations with China are strained by deep political issues and Beijing's occasional threats to use miliary force. But for humanitarian reasons, Taiwan sometimes fast-tracks residency processing for pregnant Chinese wives of Taiwan men.

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China: Draft bill details sexual harassment

Cao Li and Mark South

Shanghai - Telling sexist jokes, emailing porn to colleagues or sexually-salacious texting are all set to be outlawed under a draft bill currently under review by the city authorities.

Once approved by the Standing Committee of the Shanghai People's Congress, the Shanghai Supplement to the Women's Protection Law will become the first law in China's history to clearly define sexual harassment.

Ge, an official with the Shanghai Women's Association, said the group had received few complaints about sexual harassment but the subject is a hot topic in the media and stories of "groping" in public transport abound on the Internet.

"A major problem is that we just don't know how widespread sexual harassment is because so few women speak out many women who suffer harassment are too embarrassed to take the matter further," Ge explained.

Shanghai lawyer Si Weijiang told China Daily that despite their high profile, there are currently very few cases brought for sexual harassment. The lack of a clear definition of the offence and the difficulty in proving a case which often boils down to one person's word against another's, have made pursuing such cases difficult, Si said.

Last year, Shanghai Xuhui District People's Court heard the city's first ever suit for sex harassment. A young woman sued her doctor for unnecessarily touching her private parts during an examination. The first court ruling went against the woman, but she has since appealed to the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court to review the decision.

Commenting on the new law, Xu Yuzhou, lawyer for the woman who claims to have been groped by her doctor, said there was still much work to be done since sex harassment became an offence enshrined in law for the first time last year.

"The Shanghai Supplement helps give a much clearer definition of what the law means by sexual harassment," he said.

Jiang Qin, a 33-year-old designer, said she fully supported the law, adding that in the past she had received sexual text messages from men which she considered to be harassment.

Ida Relsted, from Denmark, said it was good to have a law, which might make men think twice before sending sexist or harassing messages.

"It's still not enough though and more needs to be done, both in terms of the law and in educating people what is and isn't acceptable," she said.

According to Xu, evidence is the most important but problematic area of such cases. "At the moment there is no law which specifies what kind of evidence is admissible and how much evidence is needed.

"The draft also does not include definition about damages."

The revision stipulates that words, pictures and electronic information insinuating sex or bodily contact that "injures" a woman is sexual harassment. It does not, however, define the extent of the "injury."

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Today in history - Nov. 1

The Associated Press

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 1, the 305th day of 2006. There are 60 days left in the year. This is All Saints Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 1, 1765, the Stamp Act went into effect, prompting stiff resistance from American colonists.

On this date:

In 1512, Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public.

In 1861, Gen. George B. McClellan was made General-in-Chief of the Union armies, succeeding Winfield Scott.

In 1870, the United States Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations.

In 1936, in a speech in Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between his country and Nazi Germany as an "axis" running between Rome and Berlin.

In 1944, "Harvey," a comedy by Mary Chase about a man and his friend, an invisible 6-foot-tall rabbit, opened on Broadway.

In 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington to assassinate President Truman. The attempt failed, and one of the pair was killed.

In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, code-named "Mike," at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In 1954, Algerian nationalists began their successful eight-year rebellion against French rule.

In 1973, following the "Saturday Night Massacre," Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski to be the new Watergate special prosecutor, succeeding Archibald Cox.

In 1991, Clarence Thomas took his place as the newest justice on the Supreme Court.

Ten years ago: Accused of peddling access to the Oval Office, President Clinton demanded an end to what he called the "escalating arms race" for political money. Bob Dole countered with his own solutions to what he called "a growing scandal" of Democratic financial sins.

Five years ago: President Bush issued an order allowing past presidents, beginning with Ronald Reagan, to have as much say as incumbent presidents in keeping some of their White House papers private. The New York Yankees took a 3-2 lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks as they won Game 5 of the World Series 3-2 in a contest that ended after midnight.

One year ago: Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session, questioning intelligence President Bush had used in the run-up to the war in Iraq; Republicans derided the move as a political stunt. The Federal Reserve increased a key interest rate by a quarter-point to 4 percent, the highest level in more than four years. Musical conductor Skitch Henderson died in New Milford, Conn., at age 87.

Today's Birthdays: Newspaper columnist James J. Kilpatrick is 86. Golfer Gary Player is 71. Country singer Bill Anderson is 69. Actress Barbara Bosson is 67. Actor Robert Foxworth is 65. Actress Marcia Wallace is 64. Magazine publisher Larry Flynt is 64. Actress Jeannie Berlin is 57. Pop singer-musician Dan Peek is 56. Rhythm-and-blues musician Khalis Bayyan (aka Ronald Bell) (Kool and the Gang) is 55. Country singer-songwriter-producer Keith Stegall is 52. Country singer Lyle Lovett is 49. Actress Rachel Ticotin is 48. Rock musician Eddie MacDonald (The Alarm) is 47. Rock singer Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers) is 44. Pop singer-musician Mags Furuholmen (a-ha) is 44. Rock musician Rick Allen (Def Leppard) is 43. Country singer "Big Kenny" Alphin (Big and Rich) is 43. Rapper Willie D (Geto Boys) is 40. Singer Sophie B. Hawkins is 39. Country musician Dale Wallace (Emerson Drive) is 37. Actress Toni Collette is 34. Actress Jenny McCarthy is 34. Rock musician Andrew Gonzales is 34. Actress Aishwarya Rai is 33. Rock singer Bo Bice ("American Idol") is 31. Actor Penn Badgley is 20.

Thought for Today: "It is easier to admire hard work if you don't do it." — Anonymous.

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