Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday September 26 2006 - (813)

Tuesday September 26 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Army Chief Tells Bush Not Enough Money To Run Iraq War 2006-09-26 00:25:12 George Bush suffered a serious rebuke of his wartime leadership Monday when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq. Six weeks before midterm elections in which the war is a crucial issue, the protest from the army head, General Peter Schoomaker, exposes concerns within the U.S. military about the strain of the war on Iraq, and growing tensions between uniformed personnel and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Three retired senior military officers Monday accused Rumsfeld of bungling the war on Iraq, and said the Pentagon was "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically". Major General Paul Eaton, a retired officer who was in charge of training Iraq troops, said: "Mr Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making." Read The Full Story Rover Set To Examine Mars History 2006-09-26 00:23:16 When the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit reached their distant destination in early 2004, NASA scientists hoped the vehicles would probe the planet's frigid landscape for 90 days before they pooped out or were undone by the harsh Martian environment. More than 900 days later, however, both robotic explorers are going strong - and Opportunity is literally on the cusp of what is likely to be its greatest accomplishment. After enduring an 18-month trek through rugged terrain, dust devils and daily temperature swings approaching 200 degrees, the rover is scheduled to arrive Tuesday within easy lens view of a deep and geologically revealing crater. By tomorrow, if all goes well, the little robot that could will be right at Victoria Crater's edge and in position to peer inside and send back images like none seen before. "Exploring Victoria is something we joked and fantasized about but never really thought we could realistically get to it," said Steven Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments. "This is the absolutely highest-priority destination we could have reached." Read The Full Story Detainee Legislation To Have Fewer Restrictions 2006-09-26 00:22:04 Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the United States to detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than an earlier version of the bill permitted, according to government sources. Lawmakers and administration officials announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the detention and military trials of suspected terrorists, and it is scheduled for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants," the sources said Monday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill. The government has maintained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that, based on its reading of the laws of war, anyone it labels an unlawful enemy combatant can be held indefinitely at military or CIA prisons. Congress has not yet expressed its view on who is an unlawful combatant, and the Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the matter. As a result, human rights experts expressed concern Monday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its military allies. Read The Full Story Iran Vice President In Russia To Talk Nuclear Deal 2006-09-25 14:12:52 Iran's vice president will arrive in the Russian capital Monday to discuss the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant with Russia's nuclear chief, a source said Sunday. Russia is helping Iran build the plant at Bushehr, 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran. The Bushehr NPP (nuclear power plant), which is being built under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was previously scheduled to become operational by the end of 2006. The source said Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who is also the president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, will meet with Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency, to consider the final terms of the Bushehr first unit's commissioning and of Russian nuclear fuel supplies to Iran. Read The Full Story Saudi Arabia Denies Bin Laden Death 2006-09-25 14:12:10 Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, walked into the celebration of Saudi Arabia's National Day in Washington, D.C., on Saturday evening and immediately was asked the question of the day. "Is it true?" a Time reporter asked. "Nope," Hayden shot back, adding to the accumulating denials that Osama bin Laden is dead. About an hour before, the Saudi Embassy here had issued a statement saying it had "no evidence to support recent media reports that Osama bin Laden is dead. Information that has been reported otherwise is purely speculative and cannot be independently verified." Adding weight to the rebuttal was Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki Al-Faisal, known for his intimate ties to Saudi Arabia's intelligence service, which he headed for 24 years before embarking on a diplomatic career in 2002. During the Kingdom's best-attended National Day celebration in Washington in years, Prince Turki Al-Faisal told reporters, "My understanding is that he (Bin Laden) is alive and kicking. But I may be wrong." The Saudi denials capped a day of intense speculation as politicians and counterterrorism experts expressed doubt that Bin Laden, who has eluded capture for more than five years, had met his end. Read The Full Story Thanks To Our Readers! 2006-09-25 12:54:51   Sometimes I'll go looking around on the Internet to see what people are saying about us.  I've found thousands of blogs quoting us and linking us, which is great!  We really appreciate it.  It reminds us that we are doing this for a reason.   Here's one of the comments I found, from "TheGreatDivide" on MacMinute Freeinternetpress.com amazes me again.   Whomever is compiling the data is cool w/me. Metorite hits Norway HUGE! Autstrailia's drinks kill ya with benzine, give ya lukemia? And what else, all kinds of stuff you'll NEVER hear of or read of on many sites. http://freeinternetpress.com Anyhow, have a good one folks and like we all do these dark age days watch your back. Read The Full Story Existing Home Sales Fall For 5th Consecutive Month 2006-09-25 12:37:07 Sales of existing homes fell for the fifth consecutive month in August as the once-booming housing market slowed further. The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that existing home sales slipped by 0.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.30 million units. The slowdown in sales was weighing on home prices, with the median price of an existing home sold in August dropping to $225,000, 1.7 percent below August 2005. It marked the first year-over-year price decline in more than 11 years. The weakness in existing home sales followed a report last week that construction of new homes and apartments plunged by 6 percent in August, pushing building activity to the lowest level since early 2003. Read The Full Story Judge Allows Class Action Lawsuite Against Tobacco Companies 2006-09-25 12:36:24 In a blow to Big Tobacco, a federal judge on Monday granted class action status to tens of millions of "light cigarette" smokers for a potential $200 billion lawsuit against cigarette makers. U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn made the ruling on a 2004 lawsuit that alleges Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco Co. and other defendants duped smokers, and responded to consumers' mounting health concerns with a campaign of deception designed to preserve revenue. The class is anyone who purchased cigarettes that were labeled "light" or "lights" after they were put on the market, beginning in the early 1970s. The judge set a trial date of Jan. 22, 2007. Read The Full Story Pirate Radio Stations Challenge Feds 2006-09-25 01:37:44 To Stephen Dunifer, it was yet another revolutionary moment. But to the untrained eye, it looked more like a geek fest. Over four days, a dozen men and women shyly bumped shoulders as they studied schematics and tinkered with romex connectors, resistors, microphone cords, meters, sockets and capacitors - the stuff of illegal radio stations. In the corner of this cluttered electronics lab, hunched over a computer, sat Dunifer, their teacher, "the patron saint of pirate radio." Part rock star, part Johnny Appleseed and fully the bane of the FCC Dunifer has long, gray hair, large, clear glasses and a deep commitment to what he calls "Free Radio." Read The Full Story 5 Years Later, FBI Is Casting Wider Net In Anthrax Attacks 2006-09-25 00:17:13 Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in a frustratingly slow investigation. The finding, which resulted from countless scientific tests at numerous laboratories, appears to undermine the widely held belief that the attack was carried out by a government scientist or someone with access to a U.S. biodefense lab. What was initially described as a near-military-grade biological weapon was ultimately found to have had a more ordinary pedigree, containing no additives and no signs of special processing to make the anthrax bacteria more deadly, law enforcement officials confirmed. In addition, the strain of anthrax used in the attacks has turned out to be more common than was initially believed, said the officials. Read The Full Story Some Israelis Talk Reinstating West Bank Settlements 2006-09-25 00:15:37 The movement to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which only a few months ago appeared to be a divided, waning political force, is experiencing a revival after a summer of war that caused many Israelis to question the wisdom of abandoning more territory. Little more than a year ago, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew all Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. After Sharon's debilitating stroke in January, his deputy, Ehud Olmert, won national elections in March on a promise to evacuate dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and to uproot the smaller, unauthorized communities known as outposts in a bid to define Israel's final borders. After a month-long war in southern Lebanon and as sporadic fighting continues in Gaza, a highly unpopular Olmert has put his West Bank withdrawal plan on hold. His government has stepped up construction in the large settlement blocs, including areas the Bush administration has warned Israel against developing, and the West Bank settlement population of a quarter-million people is growing. Read The Full Story	U.S. Extends Iraq Tour For Another Army Unit 2006-09-26 00:24:06 The Pentagon Monday delayed for six weeks the return home of about 4,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq's volatile Anbar province - the second extension of U.S. forces in the country in two months - as the insurgency and rising sectarian violence exert heavier demands on a stretched American ground force. A brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division, operating in Anbar's contested capital of Ramadi, has been ordered to stay on for 46 more days. Another brigade - from the 1st Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas - will depart a month early, in late October, for a year of combat duty in Iraq. "There's no question but that any time there's a war, the forces of the countries involved are asked to do a great deal," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said when asked about the troop decisions at the Pentagon yesterday. According to a Pentagon announcement, the shift is necessary to "maintain the current force structure in Iraq into the spring of next year." That confirms an assessment last week by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, that no cuts in the more than 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are likely before next spring. Read The Full Story Opinion: Covert Lobbying Sets Back Efforts To Fight Global Warming 2006-09-26 00:22:43 Intellpuke: The following column on global warming by George Monbiot appears in Tuesday's edition of the Guardian newspaper. Mr. Monbiot's column follows: On the letters page of the Guardian last week, a Dr. Alan Kendall attacked the Royal Society for "smearing" its opponents. The society had sent an official letter to Exxon, complaining about the oil company's "inaccurate and misleading" portrayal of the science of climate change and about its funding of lobby groups that deny global warming is taking place. The letter, Kendall argued, was an attempt to "stifle legitimate discussion". Perhaps he is unaware of what has been happening. The campaign of dissuasion funded by Exxon and the tobacco company Philip Morris has been devastatingly effective. By insisting that man-made global warming is either a "myth" or not worth tackling, it has given the media and politicians the excuses for inaction they wanted. Partly as a result, in the U.S. at least, these companies have helped to delay attempts to tackle the world's most important problem by a decade or more. Should we not confront this? If, as Kendall seems to suggest, we should refrain from exposing and criticizing these groups, would that not be to "stifle legitimate discussion"? There is still much more to discover. It is unclear how much covert corporate lobbying has been taking place in the U.K. But the little I have been able to find so far suggests that here, as in the U.S., there seems to be some overlap between Exxon and the groups it has funded and the operations of the tobacco industry. Read The Full Story Abe Elected Japanese Prime Minister 2006-09-26 00:20:48 Japanese nationalist Shinzo Abe, a proponent of a tight alliance with the United States and a more assertive military, won election as Japan's new prime minister Tuesday, scoring comfortable majorities in both houses. Abe won 339 votes out of 475 counted in the powerful lower house, and 136 ballots out of 240 in the upper house, reflecting the dominance of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party in parliament. Abe, 52, has pushed for a tight alliance with the United States, revision of the pacifist constitution, a more assertive foreign policy and patriotic teaching in public schools. Read The Full Story Editorial: Promoting Terror 2006-09-25 14:12:34 Intellpuke: The following editorial is about the recently leaked U.S. intelligence report which found that the war in Iraq is making the global terrorism threat worse. The editorial appears in today's Arab News, which is based in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The editorial follows: A classified U.S. intelligence examination of the effects of the Iraq war indicates that it is making the threat of terror worse. Such a finding surely did not require a famous intelligence body; any layman in any country could have told the world that the war in Iraq has definitely increased the threat of terrorism and has helped fuel radicalism everywhere in the world. By stating that the Iraq war has triggered more, not less, terrorism, the 30-page document known as the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is stating the obvious. The document's conclusion is that al-Qaeda has now mutated into a global franchise of semi-autonomous cells. Rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the war in Iraq has made Iraq and its immediate vicinity - as well as the world - a more dangerous place than before the war began. The invasion of Iraq and the insurgency that has followed have inspired new and old extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. Although the United States has seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qaeda, branches have spread and decentralized. They spread the message that the Iraq war is a Western attempt to conquer Islam by first occupying Iraq and establishing a permanent presence in the Middle East. Read The Full Story Putin: Russia May Redirect Natural Gas Resources To Europe 2006-09-25 14:11:41 Russian energy giant Gazprom may in the foreseeable future decide to redirect a part of resources from the Shtokman gas field to European markets, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday. The Shtokman deposit holds an estimated 3.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and 31 million metric tons of gas condensate in the Barents Sea. Some $12-14 billion will be invested in the project's first phase, and production will start in 2011. "Some time ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel posed the question about the possibility of reorienting a part of resources from one of Russia's largest oil and gas deposits - the Shtokman field - to European markets," said Putin. "Gazprom is now considering this possibility." He also said Russia had no intention to cut energy transit via traditional routes and pledged to honor all commitments in the energy sphere. Read The Full Story Ban On Taking Liquids On Airlines Eased In U.S. 2006-09-25 12:37:25 The U.S. government plans Tuesday to partially lift a six-week-old ban against passengers bringing liquids, aerosols and gels onto airliners, saying some items will be permitted if carried in small, travel-sized containers. In a news conference at Washington Reagan National Airport today, government officials also said beverages such as bottles of water, soft drinks and coffee will be allowed on board aircraft if they are purchased at shops in the secure areas of airports. On Aug. 10, the Transportation Security Administration banned passengers from carrying most gels and liquids on board airliners in response to an alleged terrorist plot foiled by British police. Items banned from passengers' carry-on bags ranged from toothpaste and shaving cream to expensive bottles of perfume and liquor, which had to be checked - or, in some cases, discarded - before passengers could board. Read The Full Story British Troops Kill A Top Al-Qaeda Figure In Iraq 2006-09-25 12:36:47 British troops in Iraq said on Monday they had killed a senior al-Qaeda figure who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in 2005. Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest during a pre-dawn raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq's second biggest city, Basra, said British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge. Burbridge called him a "very, very significant man," although he was believed to be hiding inside Iraq, not necessarily operating there. "The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra," said Burbridge. "Two companies (about 200 troops) launched the operation in the early hours of this morning. The troops returned to base without any multinational force casualties." Faruq, a Kuwaiti citizen who was captured in Indonesia in June, 2002, was described by Washington as the most senior al-Qaeda figure in southeast Asia, a key link between Osama bin Laden's followers and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiah militants. He was one of four men who escaped from the high-security U.S. detainee center at Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in June last year. The U.S. did not reveal that he had escaped until six months later, when defense lawyers demanded he be produced as a witness at the trial of an army sergeant accused of abusing prisoners in Bagram. U.S. officials were then forced to reveal that he could not testify because he had escaped. Intellpuke: This Reuters article was filed from Baghdad, Iraq. Read The Full Story Pope Benedict Meets With Muslim Diplomats 2006-09-25 12:36:03 Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim diplomats Monday that Christians and Muslims must work together to guard against intolerance and violence as he sought to soothe anger over his recent remarks about Islam. The pontiff also quoted from his predecessor, John Paul II, who had close relations with the Muslim world, calling for "reciprocity in all fields," including religious freedom. Benedict spoke in French to diplomats from 21 countries and the Arab League in his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome. "The circumstances which have given risen to our gathering are well known," Benedict said, referring to his remarks on Islam in a Sept. 12 speech at Regensburg University, Germany, which set off protests around the Muslim world. He did not dwell on the contested remarks, in which he had quoted the words of a Byzantine emperor thusly: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Read The Full Story Millions Of U.S. Seniors Enter Medicare Limbo 2006-09-25 00:22:36 Millions of older Americans are confronting a temporary break in their Medicare drug coverage this month that will require them to pay the full cost of their prescriptions or face the painful prospect of going without. This is the "doughnut hole" in the new Medicare drug benefit that began in January, and advocates for seniors say there is nothing sweet about it. Some seniors knew nothing of the coverage gap until they were hit with a bigger drug bill, say advocates. "Virtually everyone who calls to say they've been denied coverage, they're shocked," said Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a nonprofit that helps seniors navigate Medicare. "Trying to explain that this is the way the program was created by Congress angers folks who think it makes no sense. Many people feel blindsided." Read The Full Story British Defense Ministry Covered Up Hunt For UFOs 2006-09-25 00:16:07 Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD) went to extraordinary lengths to cover up its true involvement in investigating UFOs, according to secret documents revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. The files show that officials attempted to expunge information from documents released to the Public Records Office under the "30-year rule" that would have revealed the extent of the MoD's interest in UFO sightings. In particular, the ministry wanted to cover up the operation of a secret unit dedicated to UFO investigations within the Defense Intelligence Staff. UFO conspiracy theorists have likened the unit, called DI55, to a sort of "Men in Black" agency for defending the Earth against invasion but the released documents show this is far from the truth. One 1995 memo from DI55 to the MoD's public "UFO desk" said: "I have several books at home that describe our supposed role of 'defender of the Earth against the alien menace' - it is light years from the truth!" The files were made public following FOI requests by David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and his colleague Andy Roberts. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php