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Netanyahu quits over Israel's pullout plan Israeli Finance Minster Benjamin Netanyahu has resigned from the cabinet Sunday to protest against the upcoming Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank according to a ministry spokesman. Israeli Prime Mister Ariel Sharon named the Vice Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, as the new finance minister. Space Shuttle Discovery STS-114 landing postponed for weather NASA has cancelled today's planned landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Officials initially delayed the landing, but finally cancelled any attempts for today citing the reason as being "unstable, unacceptable cloud cover [with the] potential for showers in vicinity of landing site." There will be two more opportunities tomorrow morning.

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ABC News anchor, Peter Jennings dies at 67 ABC's World News Tonight anchor, Peter Jennings, died Sunday after a four month fight with lung cancer. From the anchor desk or from the field, Jennings covered more than 40 years of national and international news. It is unknown who will fill Jennings' now vacant position.

Wikipedia Current Events
Iran resumes its nuclear programme at its uranium facility near the city of Isfahan.
Wikipedia Current Events
The top legislative body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is set to take key votes this week on ordaining gays and blessing same-sex unions. Conflicts over what the Bible says about homosexuality have been tearing at Protestant denominations for years. Cleveland Plain Dealer AP feed in Guardian UK A suicide bombing kills 1 and injures 32 in Fuzhou, provincial capital of Southeastern China's Fujian Province. STS-114: The Shuttle Discovery was waved off by Mission Control in Houston for a landing at Kennedy Space Center due to bad weather. NASA has said they will land the Orbiter in 24 hours time, with Six opportunities available — the first two at Kennedy Space Center and the second two at Edwards Air Force Base and the final two at the White Sands Missile Range (a.k.a the White Sounds Spaceport). Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has dissolved the Japanese House of Representatives and will call a snap election for September 11. The move came after rebel lawmakers from his own Liberal Democratic Party voted down postal reform legislation on which he had staked the party's mandate. The postal reform would have led to privatization of the country's postal service. It is thought that the move will plunge normally staid Japanese politics into great uncertainty. In Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia airline pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto goes on trial for poisoning human rights activist Munir Said Thalib Benon Sevan, head of the United Nation's oil-for-food program, resigns before the publication of a report that is expected to accuse him. He blames Kofi Annan of "sacrificing" him and denies all charges Chile plans to limit migration to Easter Island

Space Shuttle Discovery STS-114 landing postponed for weather

Discovery landing at the end of STS-92 in 2000.

NASA has postponed the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-114, planned for today.

Officials initially delayed the landing, but finally cancelled any attempts for today citing the reason as "unstable, unacceptable cloud cover [with the] potential for showers in vicinity of landing site."

Landing the space shuttle craft has been likened to landing a "brick". The approach to the landing field is at a steep pitch and descending at a high rate of speed. The shuttle is not very manuverable and has one shot at the correct landing approach. Pilots cannot re-fire the engines to circle around for another approach, which is why low cloud cover is of such concern.

Discovery has spent twelve days in orbit. On Tuesday, there will be six landing opportunities: two each at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Edwards Air Force Base, California, and White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. Shuttle managers prefer a landing at Kennedy, but will consider the alternate sites if bad weather in Florida rules out landing there tomorrow. NASA administrators insist that the shuttle will land tomorrow at one of the three sites, rather than spending yet another day in orbit.

The flight marked the first time a shuttle was inspected in orbit. The crew made two space walks to effect minor repairs to the Orbiter's thermal protection system as a result.

Reports indicate Bush appointing friend to lead Plame inquiry

Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff reported that the U.S. leak probe into revealing the CIA status of Valerie Plame is likely to soon be under the oversight of one of Bush's fellow Skull and Bones members. A man, Isikoff writes, who is an "old friend" of the president.

The investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leak is on a time-table to conclude this October 2005, so the probe is nearing its final stages. Fitzgerald's current boss, Deputy Attorney General James Comey gave Fitzgerald broad leeway to prosecute the case. Comey is leaving the government post to accept a position as general counsel at Lockheed Martin.

A possible candidate to replace Comey, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, was in the Bush 1968 Skull and Bones class, which consisted of 15 Yalesmen. McCallum was in the news headlines in June for his involvement with coming in at the last moment to push through a 90% reduction ($120 Billion) in the penalties asked for against big tobacco companies.

In latest developments of the Fitzgerald investigation, Karl Rove's secretary and Rove's former top aide are being asked why a recorded phone conversation between TIME reporter Matt Cooper and Rove was not available when the call went through the White House switchboard.

How the possible appointment of McCallum to oversee the investigation could effect it, is unknown, and contoversial. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused himself from involvement with the investigation.

One of Bush's very first meetings after being installed as President in the White House was a Skull and Bones reunion. "I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society," Bush wrote in his autobiography, "so secret, I can't say anything more."

Slovenian alpinist in rescue on Nanga Parbat

Pakistani military agreed to help in the rescue mission of Slovenian alpinist Tomaž Humar.

Humar was on his paramount course mission on the 4700 meter high south rock wall of the 8125 meter high Nanga Parbat mountain (the utmost west of the mountain chain) in the Himalaya mountains, being trapped in the ice-hole at an approximate height of 5900 meters for five days. The rescue mission with the military helicopter is planned for Monday morning local time, August 8, 2005.

The rescue team managed to locate Humar on face on Sunday, but said they need a better helicopter for the actual rescue mission. Swiss Air Zermatt rescue pilots offered their help in the effort.

Koizumi has dissolved the Japanese Diet in response to rejection of postal services commercialization bill

The House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet of Japan, voted on the controversial bill that would have privatized the Japanese Postal Service at around 1pm (JST, UTC +8) on Monday, August 8. The bill was rejected by a slim margin – 108 for, 125 against, 1 abstention and 2 intentional absences – after a rebellion within the ruling Liberal Democractic Party (LDP).

The Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, had promised that the privatization of the Postal Service, which is also Japan's largest savings bank, would "revitalize" the Japanese economy. He has also stated that the commercialization of the Postal Services was at the core of his policies, and threatened to dissolve the houses and call for an immediate election in case of a defeat.

As promised, the rejection led to an immediate call of the cabinet ministers at 3pm to dissolve the House of Representatives. For the dissolution to be valid all cabinet ministers must jointly sign an edict issued in the name of the Emperor. Cabinet minister Shimamura Yoshinobu, the Minister of Agriculture and Fishery, refused to sign the edict, and resigned. The dissolution was officially announced by Chair Kono at the Diet later in the evening.

The election is reported to be held on September 11.

India, Pakistan begin next round of talks

India and Pakistan began another round of confidence building talks in the capital today.

The focus of the talks is on improving contact and communication between the militaries of the two countries.

The two sides had reached an agreement over the weekend to share information with each other before any ballistic missile tests.

These talks will also review the progress made after the 2003 ceasefire at the borders.

Already there is an agreement for the two sides to inform each other before military exercises and violations of air space.

There is also talk of upgrading those lines between Director General's Military Operations.

Wikimedia Foundation's first Wikimania convention held in Germany

Jimbo Wales being interviewed by Stephanie Keppler of 3sat television, one of several journalist teams at wikimania

On Thursday, August 4 Wikimedia opened its doors to the first ever Wikimania Conference, a 5 day event put together by the Wikimedia Foundation.

The event, held in the the Haus der Jugend in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, featured discussion and interaction on all Wikimedia projects, including its well known Wikipedia project, an online encyclopedia which touts figures of millions of articles in over 70 languages.

Wikimania expressed that its purpose as a conference was to get wikimedians to meet each other face to face, to provide several workshops and talks on all aspects of Wikimedia sites, and to introduce Wikimedia and its projects to the press.

Wikimania, with a core organisation team of 8 people and a staff of 23, drew in more than 100 members of press and 70 speakers, and at least 350 delegates were at the conference on Saturday, August 6.

Users not directly at the conference were encouraged to listen in through Freematrix Radio's online broadcasts, which at the highest point drew 37 concurrent listeners. Users could also connect with the conference via Internet Relay Chat, and interact with people physically present.

One of Sundays's speakers was Richard Stallman, one of the leading lights of the Free Software movement. Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki, held a keynote about the past and future of wikis on Saturday morning. On Friday evening there was a keynote speech on wikis and politics as well as a panel discussion with the Foundation Board.

Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, was himself present, and gave a speech based on his concept of Ten Things That Want To Be Free. Wales found himself swamped by press attention on the Saturday after a misquote in a Reuters article seemed to sugget that he believed Wikipedia may need to be locked from editing. Wales later issued a statement clarifying that this is not the case.

The conference was described by many as a professional, occasionally "laid back", but worthwhile event.

This article contains first-hand journalism by a Wikinews Reporter.

ABC News anchor, Peter Jennings dies at 67

Peter Jennings, longtime anchor of ABC's World News Tonight died Sunday in Manhattan after a four month fight with lung cancer. From the anchor desk or from the field, Jennings covered more than 40 years of national and international news including the erection and destruction of the Berlin Wall, the fall of apartheid, the demise of communism in Europe, the millennium, and the September 11 attacks.

Jennings conducting an interview.

Jennings was honored with numerous awards for journalism, including 16 Emmys, two George Foster Peabody Awards, several Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and several Overseas Press Club Awards.

Jennings told viewers back in April in a taped message that he had lung cancer and was going to start chemotherapy treatment for it. He stated he would continue to host World News Tonight when it was possible, although he never again appeared on the broadcast. During his absence, Charles Gibson and Elizabeth Vargas filled in for Jennings. It is unknown who will replace Jennings at this time.

Jennings first broadcast experience came at age 9, when he hosted his own radio show for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Following many years of reporting from the Middle East, Jennings began appearing on World News Tonight in 1978, and became its sole anchor in 1983. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the broadcast became the most popular network news program in the US, surpassing the CBS Evening News in 1986. Jennings followed in his father's footsteps: Charles Jennings served as Canada's first network news anchorman on the CBC.

A native of Canada, Jennings became a U.S. citizen in 2003. He is survived by his wife, Kayce, his daughter, Elizabeth, and his son, Christopher.

Today in History
1876 - Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph machine.

1929 - German airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin embarked on a flight to circumnavigate the world.

1930 - Betty Boop made her first appearance as an animated cartoon character in Max Fleischer's Talkartoon.

1938 - Holocaust: The Mauthausen concentration camp was opened.

1967 - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

August 09 is Father's Day in Taiwan

Quote of the Day

"TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others." ~ Jon Postel

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