A defiant Saddam pleads not guilty; court adjourns

Tom Lasseter and Nancy A. Youssef,… A defiant Saddam pleads not guilty; court adjourns

Tom Lasseter and Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Former dictator Saddam Hussein defiantly told an Iraqi court Wednesday that he was not guilty of the 1982 mass slaughter of Shiite Muslim villagers and then, clearly relishing his time on international television, questioned the court’s legitimacy.

The opening day of Saddam’s trial gave the new Iraqi government a platform to show its authority in the face of a defeated dictatorship, without obvious success. The process often was confused, as Saddam and the lead judge fought for control over the courtroom.

The case was adjourned until Nov. 28, after the defense lawyers said they needed more time – and more experienced lawyers – to prepare the case. In addition, the lead judge said the court needed time to convince more witnesses to testify.

If Saddam is convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Iraqi and American officials billed the proceedings as the beginning of a national reconciliation.

Chertoff says ex-FEMA director was ‘commander’ during Katrina

Alison Young, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who largely monitored Hurricane Katrina by phone as it churned toward the coast then flew to Atlanta as New Orleans flooded, faced pointed questions Wednesday about whether he was too detached in responding to the nation’s worst natural disaster.

In his first appearance before a congressional panel probing the disaster response, which left thousands of victims stranded without food, water and rescue from floodwaters, Chertoff sought to portray himself as both intensely engaged, yet not in charge.

While acknowledging during aggressive questioning that the National Response Plan and a presidential directive put him in charge of preparing for and managing catastrophic disasters, Chertoff said that in practical terms it was really former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown’s responsibility to manage Katrina. FEMA, once a stand-alone Cabinet-level agency, is a division within the Department of Homeland Security.

“Michael Brown was designated, for all intents and purposes, as the battlefield commander on the ground,” Chertoff said. He said he expected that Brown would understand that the priorities were to save lives, rescue people, get them food, water, medical assistance and shelter and would “execute those priorities in an urgent fashion.”

UC Berkeley receives 1,900-year-old Egyptian papyrus pieces

Matt Krupnick, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BERKELEY, Calif. – They may be unreadable to all but a handful of people, but a batch of University of California Berkeley’s priceless papers is back where it belongs.

UC Berkeley library officials this week unveiled papyrus pieces discovered in Egypt more than a century ago by two archaeologists contracted by university benefactor Phoebe Apperson Hearst. The papyri sat among the University of Oxford’s collection for decades before a researcher discovered them.

The three containers of approximately 1,900-year-old Egyptian paper arrived in Berkeley in August, and librarians and researchers said Tuesday that the new pieces will help fill several holes in UC Berkeley’s 36,000-piece papyrus collection.

“A collection like this that comes out of the ground is the closest you can get to listening to an ancient conversation,” said Elisabeth O’Connell, a graduate student who watched as librarians leafed through papyri sandwiched between pages of the Oxford University Gazette. “We all have our research projects we’ve been working on, and this fills in the gaps so much.”

Kodak looking for a new cash cow to replace sale of film

Crayton Harrison, The Dallas Morning News

NEW YORK – George Eastman, who in 1888 founded the company that would become Eastman Kodak Co., said his goal was to make photography “as convenient as the pencil.”

But thanks to digital technology, photography has become a little too convenient for Kodak’s own good.

Executives acknowledge that they repeatedly miscalculated how quickly the world would embrace digital cameras. Kodak let other companies take an early lead in a field that it could have pioneered in the same way its $1 Brownie camera brought film photography to the masses.

Now executives are trying to catch up, using the treasured Kodak brand name to hype a suite of cameras, printers and services. The question is whether they’ve waited too long.

“We knew from the beginning that film was going away. It is going away faster than we thought,” Kodak chief executive Antonio Perez said at a September meeting with institutional investors in New York.

In that meeting, Kodak lowered its projections for this year’s operating profit, citing a slowing economy and setbacks in the company’s health-imaging unit. That marked the fourth time in a year the company has lowered its financial forecasts.

The company has also announced up to 25,000 layoffs since 2004, leaving it with a workforce of about 50,000.