Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday September 27 2006 - (813)

Wednesday September 27 2006 edition
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Big California Fire Moves Toward Homes Again 2006-09-27 00:43:48 Fire trucks, bulldozers and water tankers guarded homes within sight of a massive wildfire Tuesday as officials urged rural residents of Southern California mountain communities to evacuate. Thick smoke turned the sky gray and purplish as flames rolled through pines and juniper trees on slopes of Los Padres National Forest, where more than 3,500 firefighters have battled the blaze since it started on Labor Day. No homes had been lost to the fire, one of the largest and longest-burning wildfires in state history, burning some 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Overall, containment was just 43 percent. Six unoccupied buildings were destroyed, including a modular home, a cabin, barns and camp trailers, said fire spokesman Dan Bastion. Read The Full Story Failed Attempt At Artificial Reef May Be Retrieved 2006-09-26 23:28:55 A Virginia-based salvage unit, whose divers are trained to clear harbors and raise sunken ships, probed the ocean off Sunrise Boulevard in a project that offers hope of solving one of South Florida's most bizarre and intractable environmental problems. More than 30 years ago, with government approval, recreational fishing groups dumped an estimated 1 million to 2 million tires off Broward County to create a huge artificial reef. On a single day in 1972, as the Goodyear blimp flew overhead, more than 100 boats headed off shore to heave tires into the water. Like similar efforts around the country, the project was intended to build structures that would attract fish by providing hiding places and vertical formations in the ocean. Read The Full Story Musharraf: Iraq War Makes World More Dangerous 2006-09-26 19:17:40 The war in Iraq has not made the world safer from terror, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told CNN, saying he stands by statements on the subject he makes in his new book, "In the Line of Fire." In the book, Musharraf - a key ally who is often portrayed as being in complete agreement with U.S. President George W. Bush on the war on terror and other issues - writes he never supported the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. "I stand by it, absolutely," Musharraf told CNN's "The Situation Room." Asked whether he disagreed with Bush, he said, "I've stated whatever I had to ... it [the war] has made the world a more dangerous place." He also addressed allegations that Pakistan was a less-than-enthusiastic recruit into the war on terror and that former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a Pakistani official that the United States would bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if it did not cooperate with Washington after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Read The Full Story No Compromise On Wiretap Bill 2006-09-26 19:16:45 A high-profile Republican effort to clarify the legality of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program will almost certainly not pass before Congress recesses at week's end for the fall campaign, leaving the legislation in deep trouble, congressional leaders conceded Tuesday. Efforts to reach agreement on a single version of the bill that could be brought before the Senate and House this week foundered Tuesday on the insistence of key House members that they vote on a House version that they say is significantly tougher than the Senate's. House Republican leaders are deferring to the House bill's primary author, Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-New Mexico), who is locked in one of the tightest House election contests of the season. "I don't think that's possible," Wilson said of the House and Senate reaching agreement on a compromise bill. "Our focus has to be on passing the House bill." House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said GOP leaders would still like to pass a bill this week "but that may be a bit of a stretch." Read The Full Story British Lawyer: Officer At Guantanamo Threatened Me 2006-09-26 19:15:26 A British lawyer who represents detainees at Guantánamo Bay yesterday claimed he was threatened with internment at the notorious camp by a U.S. military officer. Clive Stafford-Smith told the Guardian that the U.S. military claimed he had incited inmates to commit suicide and go on hunger strike. Stafford-Smith says the U.S. has been repeatedly interrogating one of his clients to try to get him to implicate him in three suicides. Stafford-Smith has made at least eight visits to the camp, situated on Cuban land occupied by the U.S., to consult with several detainees he represents. He said the alleged intimidation reached a peak last summer during a mass hunger strike. In August 2005, he said, "a military lawyer took me into a cell and said it would be for me, as he alleged I was behind the hunger strike. They have been making stuff up about the clients and now they are making it up about me." Read The Full Story Opinion: A Textbook Definition Of Cowardice 2006-09-26 12:41:55 Intellpuke: The following opinion column was written by Keith Olbermann, anchor of MSNBC's "Countdown" program. In the column, Olbermann writes about the recent sandbagging of former President Clinton on a t.v. program - and much more that I found not only interesting, but also perceptive and important, which is why I decided to post it. Mr. Olbermann's column follows: The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong. It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back. It is not important that the current President's portable public chorus has described his predecessor's tone as "crazed." Our tone should be crazed. The nation's freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al-Qaeda; the nation's marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit. Read The Full Story E.U. Panel Questions Legality Of U.S. Sifting Bank Data 2006-09-26 12:40:45 A European Union panel has serious doubts about the legality of a Bush administration program that monitors international financial transactions, the group's leader said Monday, and plans to recommend tighter controls to prevent privacy abuses. "We don't see the legal basis under the European law, and we see the need for some changes," said Peter Schaar, a German official who leads the panel, in a telephone interview. The group is to deliver a final report this week in Brussels, and Schaar said he expected it to conclude that the program might violate European law restricting government access to confidential banking records. The program, started by the Bush administration weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, allows analysts from the Central Intelligence Agencyand other American intelligence agencies to search for possible terrorist financing activity among millions of largely international financial transactions that are processed by a banking cooperative known as Swift, which is based in Belgium. Read The Full Story 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	Dozens Sickened By Noxious Gas Cloud In New Jersey 2006-09-27 00:43:27 A trucking company worker damaged a pressurized tank containing sulfur dioxide on Tuesday, releasing a cloud of gas that sickened dozens of people, said authorities. Fifty-two people were decontaminated and taken to area hospitals, said city fire director Onofrio Vitullo. Several, including a firefighter, reported trouble breathing, but none of the injuries appear to be serious, said Vitullo. Witnesses said people exposed to the gas began to vomit. Sulphur dioxide can irritate the eyes and lungs. The accident happened at about 3 p.m. as a worker was attempting to dismantle a pressurized tank similar to a welding tank at Full Circle Carriers, a trucking company. The worker snapped the neck off and the cloud was released, said Vitullo. Read The Full Story Excerpts Of Secret Intelligence Report Say Iraq War Fueled Terrorism 2006-09-26 19:18:09 The Bush administration released portions of a classified intelligence estimate Tuesday that says the global jihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent future attacks. The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, says the assessment. The growth in the number of potential terrorists is also being fed by corruption, slow-moving political reform in many Muslim countries and "pervasive" anti-American sentiment, according to the report. The document, which reflects the collective judgment of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, asserts that the jihadist movement is potentially limited by its ultra-conservative view of Islam and could be slowed by democratic reforms in the Muslim world. In addition, it says that if jihadists are perceived to be defeated in Iraq "fewer fighters would be inspired to carry on the fight". Still, terrorists with experience constructing roadside bombs and other deadly devices in Iraq "are a potential source" of leadership for attacks elsewhere, according to the intelligence report. Read The Full Story U.S. Blocked Report Linking Global Warming, Stronger Hurricanes 2006-09-26 19:17:13 The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - part of the Commerce Department - in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes. According to the reporting by Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect. Read The Full Story Suspected Bird Flu Case In Sydney, Australia 2006-09-26 19:16:15 An international traveller with suspected bird flu has been taken to a hospital from Sydney Airport. The New South Wales Health department issued a statement saying the patient arrived at the airport Wednesday  morning and was taken to the hospital for a routine medical check. "The person has a recent history of being in an area with chicken in Vietnam and of having a previous influenza-like illness," said the statement. While health experts believe it is very unlikely the diagnosis will be avian influenza, the man has still been quarantined for testing. He is believed to have been unconscious for most of the flight. Under Australian Quarantine laws all airlines are required to report ill passengers to the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service prior to landing. Read The Full Story Health Insurance Costs Rise At Twice The Inflation Rate 2006-09-26 12:42:20 Increases in health insurance premiums for working families slowed for the third straight year in 2006, but still rose at a rate more than double that of inflation and growth in workers' pay, an annual nationwide survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows. Premiums for workers rose 7.7 percent this year - the lowest increase since 2000 - down from 9.2 percent in 2005 and almost half the recent peak of 13.9 percent in 2003, according to the survey, which was released today and included more than 3,000 companies with 3 or more workers. At the end of April, when the survey was completed, wages had increased 3.8 percent from a year earlier and the rate of inflation had increased 3.5 percent, the survey said. "Nobody's celebrating, and nobody should be celebrating," said Drew E. Altman, head of the foundation, a non-profit organization that studies healthcare issues. "A modest reduction in an already high rate of increase hardly looks like salvation to working people and businesses, who have been getting hammered by high healthcare costs year after year." Read The Full Story Opinion: Fox Lamely Hides Behind Copyright Law 2006-09-26 12:41:25 Intellpuke: The following opinion column was written by the Rev. Bill McGinnis, who submitted it to Free Internet Press for publication. Like the preceding opinion column by Keith Olbermann, it deals with the Fox interview with former President Bill Clinton. Rev. McGinnis, however, looks at an interesting aspect of the emerging brouhaha over the Fox interview, but that aspect is just as relevant as those Mr. Olbermann raised in his column. Rev. McGinnis' column follows: The chicken-hawk Fox News Network has forced the Bill Clinton/Chris Wallace interview video off YouTube.com, claiming copyright violations. A few minutes ago I went to see for myself what all the fuss was about regarding Bill Clinton's interview last Sunday with Chris Wallace on Fox News. I had seen a few selected excerpts, and I had read that Clinton had finally stood up and blasted both Bush and Fox, and I wanted to see the whole thing for myself. But when I went to YouTube.com to see it, it got this notice: "This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Fox News Network, LLC because its content was used without permission." What a lame cop-out by Fox News! This Neo-Conservative/Bush-Whitehouse mouthpiece, pretending to be a fair and objective news source, is apparently so afraid that this video will make them look foolish, that they are willing to suppress the news in order to keep the truth from being widely revealed! Read The Full Story Afghanistan Suicide Bombing Kills At Least 18 2006-09-26 12:39:56 A suicide bomber struck outside the compound of a southern Afghan governor on Tuesday, killing 18 people, including several Muslim pilgrims seeking paperwork to travel to Mecca, said officials. The attacker detonated his suicide vest when Afghan soldiers stopped him at the compound's security gate, said Ghulam Muhiddin, spokesman for the Helmand provincial governor. The bomber had been walking toward a vehicle of the private military contractors who provide security for the governor, said Squadron Leader Jason Chalk, a NATO spokesman. Nine Afghan soldiers and nine civilians were killed, said Rahmatullah Mohammdi, director of the hospital in Lashkar Gah. Seventeen people were wounded, he said. 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
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