Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday October 2 2006 - (813)

Monday October 2 2006 edition
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FBI To Examine Emails Foley Sent To Pages 2006-10-02 00:34:30 The FBI announced Sunday night that it is looking into whether former representative Mark Foley (R-Florida) broke federal law by sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages. The announcement came hours after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked for a Justice Department investigation into not only Foley's actions but also Congress's handling of the matter once it learned of the contacts. In his letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Hastert (R-Illinois) acknowledged that some of Foley's most sexually explicit instant messages were sent to former House pages in 2003. That was two years before lawmakers say they learned of a more ambiguous 2005 e-mail that led only to a quiet warning to Foley to leave pages alone. Foley, 52, abruptly resigned Friday, and Democrats have since been hammering Hastert and other GOP leaders. They have accused Republicans of covering up the matter and allowing Foley to remain as co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus instead of launching an inquiry and possibly uncovering the raunchier communications. Read The Full Story Court Ruling Fuels Eminent Domain Dispute In Western U.S. 2006-10-02 00:33:40 Libertarians and land developers have found populist fodder in a contentious Supreme Court decision from last year that favors eminent domain over private property. This fall, they are trying to harness anger over the ruling in an effort to pass state initiatives in the West and federal legislation that could unravel a long-standing fabric of state and local land-use regulations. Among other things, the rules control growth, limit sprawl, ensure open space and protect the environment. The property-rights movement, as it is known, has a major new benefactor - Howard Rich, a wealthy libertarian real estate investor from Manhattan. He has spent millions - estimates run as high as $11 million - to support initiatives that will appear on ballots throughout much of the West. The initiatives - and legislation approved Friday in the House - have alarmed many city and state officials, along with environmental organizations, budget watchdog groups and smart-growth advocates. They complain about "bait-and-switch" tactics. "They bait you with eminent domain, but you end up voting to destroy all land-use regulation," said Elaine Clegg, a nonpartisan member of the city council in Boise, Idaho. Read The Full Story At Least 6 Die As Followers Of Hamas, Fatah Clash In Gaza 2006-10-02 00:32:38 The Palestinian security service controlled by Hamas moved forcefully in the Gaza Strip on Sunday to disperse demonstrators loyal to the rival Fatah movement who were demanding months of back pay from a nearly bankrupt government. At least six people were killed, including two teenage boys, and more than 100 were injured in day-long clashes that marked the most severe partisan violence between the two sides in months. The fighting, which erupted in downtown Gaza City and later flared in the West Bank, came after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' effort to form a power-sharing cabinet with Hamas collapsed in recent days. The apparent failure has brought mutual recriminations between the two main Palestinian political movements at a time of stifling economic crisis in the territories stemming from international sanctions against the Hamas-controlled government. Read The Full Story Yahoo Could Be Sued Over Chinese Journalist Arrest 2006-10-01 13:06:49 Lawyers are preparing to sue the internet giant Yahoo over the imprisonment in China of Shi Tao, a journalist convicted of "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities" after he sent an email to a pro-democracy website. Shi Tao's case was highlighted at the launch of The Observer and Amnesty International campaign for free speech on the web, Irrepressible.info, which has more than 40,000 pledges of support. Amnesty activists took to the streets yesterday to demonstrate outside the London embassies of countries that repress internet use. In 2004 Shi Tao sent an email to an American pro-democracy site about the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests. It was passed to the government by Yahoo's Chinese partner company, resulting in Shi Tao being given a 10-year sentence of forced labor. A lawsuit is now set to be filed on his behalf, according to PC Advisor magazine. Read The Full Story German Police Told To Target Scientologists 2006-10-01 13:06:08 Germans are being warned of the "danger" of Scientology amid growing concerns over the numbers of after-school tutoring programs springing up across the country. The government has told internal security forces to step up their scrutiny of the movement, claiming that the Scientologists, which they label a cult, are seeking to take advantage of Germany's ailing education system as a means to recruit children. It has prompted U.S. embassy officials to lobby the German government on the sect's behalf. Police and intelligence agencies have been closely following the activities of the group. State security and educational officials have issued warnings to schools and parents that seemingly innocuous tutoring programs may be fronts to recruit children and their families. Read The Full Story	Sept. 11 Panel Not Told Of Meeting Warning Of Al-Qaeda Attack 2006-10-02 00:34:02 Members of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a July 2001 White House meeting at which George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, about an imminent attack by al-Qaeda and failed to persuade her to take action. Details of the meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were first reported last week in a new book by Bob Woodward. The White House disputes his account. The final report from the Sept. 11 commission made no mention of the meeting, nor did it suggest that there had been such an encounter between Tenet and Rice, now secretary of state. Read The Full Story Global Sludge Ends In Tragedy For Ivory Coast 2006-10-02 00:33:10 It was his infant son's cries, gasping and insistent, that first woke Salif Oudrawogol one night last month. The smell hit him moments later, wafting into the family's hut, a noxious mélange reminiscent of rotten eggs, garlic and petroleum. Mr. Oudrawogol went outside to investigate. Beside the family's compound, near his manioc and corn fields, he saw a stinking slick of black sludge. "The smell was so bad we were afraid," said Oudrawogol. "It burned our noses and eyes." Over the next few days, the skin of his 6-month-old son, Salam, bloomed with blisters, which burst into weeping sores all over his body. The whole family suffered headaches, nosebleeds and stomach aches. How that slick, a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in Mr. Oudrawogol's backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost about $300,000, or even twice that, counting the cost of delays. Because of decisions and actions made not only here in Abidjan, but also in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world's poorest people. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Letter Indicates Problems With Zarqawi 2006-10-02 00:32:10 Six months before the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, a senior al-Qaeda figure warned him in a letter that he risked removal as al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq if he continued to alienate Sunni tribal and religious leaders and rival insurgent groups. The author of the Dec. 11 letter, who said he was writing from al-Qaeda headquarters in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, was a member of Osama bin Laden's high command who signed himself "Atiyah." The military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, which last week released a 15-page English translation of the Arabic document made public in Iraq, said his real identity is "unknown." Counterterrorism officials said they believe he is Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a 37-year-old Libyan who joined bin Laden in Afghanistanas a teenager during the 1980s. He has since gained considerable stature in al-Qaeda as an explosives expert and Islamic scholar. After becoming acquainted with Zarqawi in the western Afghan city of Herat in the late 1990s, he became al-Qaeda's main interlocutor with the fiery Jordanian. Atiyah's name does not appear on any published U.S. government list of known or suspected terrorists, but his biography, as described by counterterrorism officials who agreed to discuss him on the condition that they not be named, offers a rare glimpse into the cadre of loyal senior aides who escaped with bin Laden into the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border region in the fall of 2001. Read The Full Story Suspect Accused Of Shooting Deputies Was Shot 68 Times 2006-10-01 13:06:30 A fugitive gunman accused of killing a Florida sheriff's deputy was shot 68 times by SWAT team officers who found him hiding in the woods, according to autopsy results. Police fired 110 shots at Angilo Freeland, 27, the target of a massive manhunt in central Florida following the shooting death of Polk County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Williams Thursday. "That's all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. Judd said Williams was "executed" after Freeland was pulled over in a routine traffic stop on Thursday. Another deputy was wounded and a police dog killed. Read The Full Story
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