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[However, Kennedy adjusted the numbers to account for undecided black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, and said the runoff election currently stands in Blanco's favor. With that adjustment, Blanco would get 53 percent of the vote, compared to Jindal's 47 percent]
Republican Primary Trial Heat (among Republican voters): Cecil Underwood 30% Robin Capehart 8% Sarah Minear 8% Dan Moore 3% Monty Warner 3% Doug McKinney 2% Other 3% Undecided 43%
Democratic Primary Trial Heat (among Democratic voters): Joe Manchin 46% Darrell McGraw 11% John Perdue 5% Jim Humphreys 4% Lloyd Jackson 3% Jim Lees 3% Spike Maynard 2% Robin Davis 2% Other 1% Undecided 25%
The prime minister knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction ready for use within 45 minutes, former foreign secretary Robin Cook has claimed. He said that before the war started Mr Blair privately admitted that Saddam Hussein had no weapons posing a "real and present danger".
Mr Cook - who resigned as Leader of the Commons in protest at the conflict - makes his claims in a book based on his diaries, being serialised in the Sunday Times.
Downing Street has dismissed the allegations as "absurd".
Cabinet 'mutiny'
But the Liberal Democrats and a former Labour minister have both predicted the publication of Mr Cook's diaries will spell another tough period for the prime minister.
Mr Cook said it became clear that the prime minister did not consider Iraq's weapons an imminent threat when they spoke two weeks before war started.
He added that Mr Blair had appeared prepared to go to war regardless of any progress made by UN weapons inspectors.
Mr Cook's new book is based on diaries kept during the tense period in the run-up to the conflict.
In extracts published on Sunday, Mr Cook also says the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, "assented" when he suggested Iraq had no WMD which could target large cities.
And he claims that a "large number of ministers" spoke up in cabinet against British involvement in the US-led military action.
It was the nearest thing to a "mutiny" he had seen since Mr Blair took office, said Mr Cook, who quit his cabinet post in March in protest at the prospect of military intervention.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The idea that the prime minister ever said that Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction is absurd.
"His views have been consistent throughout, both publicly and privately, as his cabinet colleagues know.
"Robin Cook's views are well known and have been expressed many times before."
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said a full inquiry should now look into whether Britain went to war on a "flawed prospectus".
"If these allegations are true they are explosive," he said.
"Robin Cook's comments, the failure of the Iraq Survey Group to find any weapons, and the likely conclusions of Lord Hutton's Inquiry will all make for a torrid autumn for the prime minister."
Former Culture Secretary Chris Smith, who led opposition to war in the Commons, said the diaries backed up his belief that Mr Blair was primarily motivated by the desire to remain close to the US administration.
"If he keeps on insisting, without any sort of qualification at all, that he was right all along and we did the right thing and we haven't learnt any lessons from what we now know, then I fear that the electoral water is going to continue to be very choppy for him," he said.
But Work and Pensions Secretary Andrew Smith said that Mr Cook's description of near-mutiny in the Cabinet was "unrecognisable" from the meetings he attended.
He told Sky News: "When the prime minister said there was a serious threat, that Saddam threatened his region and world security as well as imposing bloody, brutal and murderous tyranny on the Iraqi people, the prime minister was right."
'Troubled' by response
In further extracts from the book, Point of Departure, Mr Cook says he spoke to Mr Scarlett on 20 February, a month before hostilities began.
After receiving a detailed briefing on the latest intelligence on Saddam's weapons capabilities, he concluded that the Iraqi dictator "probably does not have weapons of mass destruction in the sense of weapons that could be use against large-scale civilian targets".
In a meeting on 5 March, he told Mr Blair he believed Iraq's WMD capability was limited to battlefield chemical munitions which could be used against British troops, but could not otherwise threaten British interests.
When he asked whether Mr Blair was not troubled by the prospect of the weapons being used against British troops, he said he received the reply: "Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use."
Mr Cook said he was "deeply troubled" by the prime minister's response.
"Tony made no attempt to pretend that what Hans Blix might report would make any difference to the countdown to invasion," he said. - Source
On the eve of the California gubernatorial recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger is embroiled in a love child scandal!
According to an article in the London paper, The Daily Mail, a Californian woman, Tammy Baker-Tousignant, has told pals that Arnold secretly fathered her son while he was already married to Maria Shriver.
Confronted by The ENQUIRER in front of her suburban home in Brea, Calif. -- where she lives with her husband, Tammy would only say: "I don't want to talk about this." Tammy previously denied the claim to the British press, and Arnold insists The Daily Mail story is not true.
But an inside source told The ENQUIRER that Tammy and Arnold were very close a decade ago.
"She was in her mid-20s when she and Arnold first met and struck up a friendship," said the source.
"She was a flight attendant aboard a private aircraft that Arnold frequently chartered.
"While Arnold was married, he was smitten by her bubbly personality.
"She was equally smitten by his celebrity status.
"A pal of Tammy's said that not only was there was an affair between Arnold and the Tammy but that Tammy claimed that her son was fathered by Arnold.
"When I contacted Tammy to ask about her pal's allegation, she denied that her son is Arnold's child.
"But when I pulled her son's birth certificate, I found that the father's name was blank!
"And even the woman herself admits that over the years many people have commented to her on how much her son bears a physical resemblance to Arnold."
The Schwarzenegger love child claim has also been made by several other women who knew Tammy at the time, according to the inside source.
A number of years ago rumors of Arnold's affair with Tammy began to leak out publicly. Several people knew about the rumors and word was getting out.
By the late 1990s, Maria Shriver got wind of it and arranged for Tammy to lose her job.
Reporter Wendy Leigh investigated the love child story for the London paper The Daily Mail and told The ENQUIRER: "Despite Tammy's denials, I researched this story for two months and I think it's right on."
But the inside source declared: "Although Tammy dismisses the allegations that Arnold is the father of her oldest son, she hasn't come forward yet with the DNA test that proves it isn't true.
"Until she does, the verdict is out on whether California's Republican candidate for governor fathered a love child." - Source
State Senator Tom McClintock called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to withdraw from the race for governor if allegations of improper sexual advances prove to be true.
Asked by reporters what he would tell Schwarzenegger, McClintock said, "If those allegations are true, you should drop out of the race."
McClintock was careful not to condemn Schwarzenegger out of hand, but made his feelings on the issue clear. "If the allegations are true, and again coming as late as they are, I believe they need to be treated with great skepticism, that conduct is reprehensible," he said.
He went on to tell reporters that if the charges are proven, Schwarzenegger does not deserve to occupy the governor's office. "As the father of a 13-year-old daughter, I would have a great deal of trouble accepting that that kind of conduct has been elevated to the highest office in the state," he said.
The potential scandal hovering over Schwarzenegger could provide an unexpected boost for McClintock's campaign. The conservative state senator is current lagging well behind both Schwarzenegger and Democrat Cruz Bustamante in the polls. - Source
Gov. Gray Davis, spending the final days of the recall campaign surrounded by women and prominent Democrats, suggested Saturday that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger committed a crime of sexual battery and should be investigated by law enforcement.
The governor's comments were a significant escalation of his rhetoric against his chief Republican rival in Tuesday's recall campaign. The allegations about Schwarzenegger's conduct with women, and statements he is reported to have made about Adolf Hitler, provided the Davis campaign with a dose of optimism -- mixed with astonishment at the extraordinary events over the past couple of days.
Davis aides insist that internal polls show support for the recall has dropped dramatically since the allegations surfaced three days ago, and they are using the events to their fullest without trying to sound gleeful. They said a forum Saturday highlighting Davis' support for women was planned well before the Schwarzenegger controversy erupted, but it clearly fit into the governor's urgent need to mobilize women and Democrats to vote against the recall.
Standing in front of a video screen with the words, "Respecting Women's Rights," and surrounded by Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and his wife, Sharon Davis, the governor offered his harshest comments to date about Schwarzenegger.
"Some of those events are clearly a crime," Davis told an audience of mostly women. "Electing a governor who might have committed a crime is obviously going to distract the state from the work it has to do."
Later, when asked what crimes Schwarzenegger may have committed, the governor suggested "sexual battery" and implied that police, Attorney General Bill Lockyer or local prosecutors should investigate the actor. It should be up to them to determine if the statute of limitations expired on the alleged incidents, the campaign said.
"Authorities have all the authority they need to review any matter that they might deem to constitute a crime," Davis said. "I believe authorities should do their jobs. They should review the fact. On the completion of that review, they should follow their own laws."
Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman responded to statement by saying: "Davis' desperation continues to escalate in the final hours of his political career."
ASHTRAY INCIDENT Schwarzenegger supporters also raised issues about Davis' volatile temper, including an incident in which he allegedly threw an ashtray at a staff worker who later had to take a stress leave. Davis called the longtime employee and apologized on her answering machine, according to news reports of the incident.
Peter Ragone, spokesman for the governor, said comparing an incident in which Davis "may have thrown an ashtray to conduct Arnold Schwarzenegger already has admitted to shows their campaign is in a free fall."
Davis began a three-day blitz of the state that took him by a chartered 737 jet Saturday from Burbank to Oakland to Fresno to San Diego. Independent candidate Arianna Huffington traveled on one leg with the governor, chatting amiably with her former rival. The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke in Oakland, which took place at a union hall where dozens of Davis supporters were mobilizing to work the phones in the final days of the campaign.
The Davis campaign said they would begin a series of paid telephone messages to the homes of hundreds of thousands of Californians, featuring former President Bill Clinton, actress Barbra Streisand, Jackson and actor Martin Sheen asking people to vote against the recall.
But the events in Oakland were all about women, and about Schwarzenegger. The Davis campaign now is completely fixated on challenging the Republican candidate -- and they believe their change of strategy three weeks ago to highlight the recall as a two-person race between the governor and Schwarzenegger will pay off now that the actor is under attack.
Brought together for a staged town hall forum with easy questions -- such as "What does it mean to you to be a pro-choice leader?" -- several women at the event expressed shock at Schwarzenegger's comments. Nearly every speaker mentioned the allegations, including Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, who called Schwarzenegger the "gropinator."
"I'm Jewish and I'm a woman and the combination right in the middle of the (Jewish) high holidays, to have the revelations come forward really have weighed on my consciousness," said Tracy Salkowitz of San Francisco, a women's rights activist who attended the forum. "I'm feeling scared and dispirited."
FEINSTEIN COMMENTS Feinstein also offered her strongest comments to date against Schwarzenegger, questioning why any "decent American" would ever say they admired Hitler. She said the women who have accused Schwarzenegger said he did things that "really denigrate and deprecate women." She asked women to think twice before voting for the recall.
"Do we really want this man to be governor of our state?" Feinstein asked. "Do we really want him to be the role model for our children?"
After the day's developments, Democratic strategists said Davis is simply doing the smart thing politically by stepping up his attack. He is using the scandals over Schwarzenegger's treatment of women and his alleged admiration of Hitler to raise question about the actor's character and his ability to lead -- the same questions Schwarzenegger has asked about Davis.
"In this type of atmosphere, where you have several major scandal stories, it's important to focus voters on what is the key, core, underlying issue here, and the real issue is: Is Arnold fit to be governor?" said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who is working against the recall.
Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, who isn't working for any of the campaigns, said Davis must tread a fine line: He has to remind voters of the seriousness of the charges without alienating them by telling them how they should react to the scandal.
"It's appropriate to express concern and outrage because the behavior is outrageous and arguably is criminal behavior," Sragow said. "But the critical factor is that voters will have to make up their own minds."
Democrats say their polling is showing the race tightening in the final days. Overnight polling by the state Democratic Party pegged support for the recall at 48 percent to 47 percent -- a dead heat -- while Davis' pollster Paul Maslin showed the recall with a minuscule edge, 50 percent to 48 percent, Maslin and Davis campaign officials said.
Pelosi said the new numbers show Davis still has a good chance to survive.
"The people had their fling in California," Pelosi said. "Now they are coming home." - Source
In his quest to set up a new liberal-leaning broadcaster in the United States, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and a group of investors could end up buying Newsworld International, a cable company originally started by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994.
According to a source close to the negotiations, Mr. Gore and his financial partners hope to re-focus the channel -- which was sold to USA Networks in 2000, and then to Vivendi Universal -- as a left-leaning rival to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. Mr. Gore would become the company's fifth owner if the deal goes through.
"Yes, there were talks," said the source, adding they were put on hold in May or June because most of Vivendi Universal's television and entertainment assets were put up for auction to reduce the company's debt.
"Talks maybe have warmed up again" now that General Electric Co.'s New-York based NBC has a deal to buy Vivendi Universal's U.S. entertainment division for US$3.8-billion in cash and a 20% stake in a new entertainment company valued at more than US$40-billion, said the source. "It's going to be considered but not until that deal is consummated."
The Vivendi-NBC deal could be concluded within the next week, but it is expected to take a further four to six months to get the blessing of regulators, including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the European Commission in Brussels.
Newsworld International, a 24-hour news channel which airs the CBC's flagship newscast The National alongside programs such as ITV's Evening News -- billed as the most popular dinner hour newscast in Britain -- is programmed in Canada by a staff of 58 CBC employees, said Ruth-Ellen Soles, a spokeswoman for the public broadcaster.
Newscasts come from Japan, Germany and the European Community, with some broadcast in their original language as well as in English. The channel's Web site also boasts business and sports news, weather and entertainment.
The channel cannot be seen in Canada, Ms. Soles said.
The CBC has a supply contract with Vivendi Universal's television group to program Newsworld International. Any changes to the schedule or countries of origin that would be requested by a new owner would have to be negotiated, she said. She declined to say how much the CBC is paid, or when the contract expires. "We don't discuss the terms of our contracts publicly."
Changes to CBC programs would be one area that would not be open to negotiation, she said.
"If they say 'I don't want that item in The National, that's not on," she said. "We won't tailor The National to an American sensibility."
Mr. Gore's investor group -- which, according to a report in the New York Daily News,, includes investment banker Steve Rattner and Joel Hyatt, a former Democratic fundraiser -- is contemplating paying US$70-million for Newsworld International.
CBC and Montreal-based Power Corp., the original partners in Newsworld International, received US$155-million for Newsworld and eclectic specialty channel Trio when they were sold to Barry Diller's USA Networks in May, 2000. Mr. Diller sold out to Vivendi Universal in late 2001.
Mr. Gore ran for U.S. president in 2000 and lost a very close and hotly contested race to George W. Bush.
In recent months, broadcast industry sources say, he has had his eye on Newsworld International as a platform to present a rival agenda to the right-wing views aired on Mr. Murdoch's Fox News.
"He feels CNN is not doing it -- CNN is more in the middle [of the political road]," one media source said.
Others expressed skepticism about Mr. Gore's ability to compete in the U.S. market.
"My big question is how much of a market is there for a liberal broadcaster in the United States?" asked Vince Carlin, chairman of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. "One wonders how much of a dent this could make in a market dominated by CNN and Fox News."
If Mr. Gore buys Newsworld International, he will face a tough competitive landscape. With 20 million subscribers, the channel is dwarfed by the more than 80 million U.S. households that receive CNN and Fox. Even CNBC and MSNBC, two specialty news services backed and heavily promoted by NBC, have more than 60 million viewers apiece.
"My guess is that they are probably planning to turn it mainstream," said Derek Baine, a senior analyst at Kagan World Media, a media research firm in California.
"If that's the case, it is going to be very difficult because Newsworld International is not very well known in the United States and is primarily carried on satellite."
In Canada, some media critics were surprised by the talks.
"I guess [Al Gore] considers himself a journalist," said a Toronto-based media analyst, who did not want to be identified. "This is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time."
Before launching his political career, Mr. Gore worked as a reporter for the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1969-71. He then returned to his native Tennessee, where he worked for the Nashville paper The Tennessean for three years.
After losing his bid for president in 2000, Mr. Gore became a visiting professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, where he taught "a non-credit seminar" entitled "Covering National Affairs in the Information Age." - Source
Thailand is going to use mice to test food for poison before it is served to U.S. President George W. Bush and 20 other Asia Pacific leaders at a regional summit in Bangkok this month, a top health official says.
Department of Medical Sciences chief Somsong Rugpao said samples of dishes served during the October 20-21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit would be injected into mice.
"We'll have a result within a minute. If it's safe, we'll tell the waiters to start serving," he told Reuters.
Somsong did not how many mice he would use, but the Bangkok Post reported on Friday at least 20,000 health workers would be on hand during the summit to ensure the leaders and their delegations remained in good health. - Source
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Sun Tzu Files 
and 
indicate whether the poll numbers are up or down from the previous poll. Incumbents are in italics. (prior results in '()')