Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday October 15 2006 - (813)

Sunday October 15 2006 edition
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As Many As 40 More Nations Have Skill To Make Nuke Bombs 2006-10-15 00:36:29 The declaration last Monday by North Korea that it had conducted a successful atomic test brought to nine the number of nations believed to have nuclear arms. But atomic officials estimate that as many as 40 more countries have the technical skill, and in some cases the required material, to build a bomb. That ability, coupled with new nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East, risks a second nuclear age, officials and arms control specialists say, in which nations are more likely to abandon the old restraints against atomic weapons. The spread of nuclear technology is expected to accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on atomic power. That will give more countries the ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel - the hardest part of the arms equation. Signs of activity abound. Hundreds of companies are now prospecting for uranium where dozens did a few years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa are drawing up plans to begin enriching uranium, and other countries are considering doing the same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop nuclear power. Read The Full Story Commentary: Why Does Habeas Corpus Hate America? 2006-10-15 00:35:04 Intellpuke: The following opinion column is by Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown" program. Mr. Olbermann aired this opinion earlier this week but, as usual with his commentaries, I felt that it merited a broader audience because of it deals with an important constitutional issue and because Mr. Olbermann discusses it with intelligence and wit. Mr. Olbermann's commentary follows: Because the Mark Foley story began to break the night of September 28th, exploding the following day, many people may not have noticed a bill passed by the Senate that night. Our third story on the Countdown tonight, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and what it does to something called "habeas corpus." And before we reduce the very term "habeas corpus" to something vaguely recalled as sounding kinda like the cornerstone of freedom, or maybe kinda like a character from "Harry Potter," we thought a Countdown Special Investigation was in order. Congress passed The Military Commissions Act to give Mr. Bush the power to deal effectively with America's enemies - those who seek to harm this country. And he has been very clear about who that is: " for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America." Read The Full Story Good: U.S. Has Flu Vaccine Supply. Bad: It Cannot Get It To You 2006-10-15 00:33:27 Barely two weeks into the flu-shot season, the promise of a record supply of vaccine already is being tarnished by shipment delays that are causing sporadic shortages and forcing some doctors to postpone clinics or serve only high-risk patients. Some 26 million doses were distributed across the country in September, and federal officials expected that three times that many would be on their way by the end of this month. Yet having vaccine in the pipeline doesn't mean getting it to thousands of destinations on time. Immunizations at grocery and drug store chains are proceeding with few apparent difficulties, but physicians who can't meet demand are questioning the stability and fairness of the distribution. Read The Full Story Report: Global Warming Will Cost Trillions 2006-10-14 20:41:05 Failure to take action to combat climate change will cause environmental catastrophe and cost the global economy $20 trillion (£10.8 trillion) a year by the end of the century, the pressure group Friends of the Earth said Friday. In a report based on research from more than 100 scientific and economic papers, the group says allowing global warming to continue unchecked will mean a temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, causing economic damage worth up to 8% of global GDP (gross domestic product). The study coincides with research from the oil group Shell Thursday, which said the need to find solutions to climate change could create a £30 billion ($68 billion) market for British business over the coming decade. Shell's chairman, James Smith, said: "We do have to tackle climate change and that's a matter for government, companies and individuals as well, because the costs in the coming years from rising sea levels, from floods and extremes of climate will be too high. Read The Full Story Adoption Agencies Shun Britain, Say Safeguards Are Unsuitable 2006-10-14 20:40:09 Britons adopt fewer children from abroad than any other country because an increasing number of developing countries believe Britain is an unsuitable home, new research has revealed. The study, which shows many countries are automatically rejecting applications from British families, comes in the wake of the controversy sparked by Madonna over her decision to adopt a child, 14-month-old David Banda, from Malawi. She had been granted an interim order by an African court allowing her to take David out of Malawi but, after being told his passport had yet to be processed, she returned to London last Friday without him. Her hopes of bringing him to England soon were further undermined by the announcement that the country's main children's rights group, Eye of the Child, has asked the government to delay the order until a new law is passed giving adopted children formal legal rights. The difficulties faced by many Britons trying to adopt from abroad is causing them to turn to countries whose approach to the process is less rigorous, such as Guatemala and Bulgaria, raising questions about whether the children are being freely given up by their parents. Read The Full Story Fossilized Embryos Give Insight Into First Complex Life 2006-10-14 20:38:44 Fossilized embryos dating back more than half a billion years have revealed that complex life emerged on Earth at least 10 million years before the "Cambrian explosion", a momentous event which saw a sudden mass diversification of animal forms. Scientists plucked 162 "pristine" embryo fossils from the Doushantuo Formation in south-central China that has been dated to between 550 million and 635 million years ago. Analysis of the embryos found they contained minute, highly-specialized structures, suggesting the intricate cellular machinery found in modern organisms was already beginning to evolve. The fragile fossils are extremely rare, but precious for the wealth of information they hold on evolutionary changes that have shaped embryos from the earliest days of life on Earth. Read The Full Story N. Korea Resolution Adopted By U.N. Security Council 2006-10-14 12:34:05 The U.N. Security Council agreed today on a resolution that would impose sanctions on North Korea for its reported nuclear test. Until this morning questions from China and Russia had cast the timing of the document into doubt. "I think we have some concern about what this resolution might lead to, especially peace and stability in the region," Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador, said before entering a Saturday morning meeting of Japan and the five permanent Council members, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. He said that China was insisting on terms that were "firm" but also "appropriate," a reference to Beijing's worry that punishing steps could produce a backlash from North Korea. Read The Full Story Editorial: Science Ignored Again 2006-10-14 12:33:18 Intellpuke: The following editorial, dealing with the issue of clean air, appears in today's New York Times. The Bush administration loves to talk about the virtues of "sound science," by which it usually means science that buttresses its own political agenda. But when some truly independent science comes along to threaten that agenda, the administration often ignores or minimizes it. The latest example involves the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to reject the recommendations of experts inside and outside the government who had urged a significant tightening of federal standards regulating the amount of soot in the air. At issue were so-called fine particles, tiny specks of soot that are less than one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair. They penetrate deep into the lungs and circulatory system and have been implicated in tens of thousands of deaths annually from both respiratory and coronary disease. The E.P.A., obliged under the Clean Air Act to set new exposure levels every five years, tightened the daily standard. But it left unchanged the annual standard, which affects chronic exposure and which the medical community regards as more important. Read The Full Story Insurance Company Earnings Are Soaring 2006-10-14 00:53:34 Insurance companies are expecting record profits in 2006 after predictions of another year of devastating hurricanes have so far come to naught. Industry experts are estimating that profits may reach $60 billion, on a combination of higher premiums along the coasts, no major payouts for natural disasters and strong investment returns. The insurers also had high profits on other lines of coverage like auto insurance, workers compensation and general liability. The record profits expected this year come after a terrible 2005, when insurers paid out $61 billion for damage from Hurricane Katrina and other storms. Even so, the insurers ended up with a profit of $43 billion for the year because of exceptionally good results on investments, declining claims on policies on homes away from the coast and profits on other lines of coverage. Read The Full Story U.S. Detects Signs Of Radiation Consistent With N. Korea Test - Maybe 2006-10-14 00:52:48 Initial environmental samples collected by a U.S. military aircraft detected signs of radiation over the Sea of Japan, possibly confirming North Korea's nuclear test, intelligence officials said yesterday. Officials said the positive radiation result was consistent with an atomic test and would make it possible to rule out the possibility that Monday's test had been conducted with conventional explosives alone, but intelligence and administration officials were cautious about reaching a conclusion before reviewing all incoming data. "The intelligence community continues to analyze the data," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the National Security Council. "When the intelligence community has a determination to present, we will make that public." Earlier detection attempts by the United States, China and South Korea did not pick up any radiation. An intelligence official said additional samples are being collected, and analysts are also taking a harder look at seismic data, satellite photos and communications intercepts. Read The Full Story	Analysis: N. Korea Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots 2006-10-15 00:35:39 Democrats and Republicans have been quick to use North Korea's apparent nuclear test to benefit their own party in these final weeks of the congressional campaign, but a review of history shows that both sides have contributed to the current situation. There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang's attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the Korean War. In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, "That includes every weapon we have." Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would "remove all restraints in our use of weapons" if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war. Read The Full Story TSA Screener Faces Theft Charge 2006-10-15 00:34:06 A screener with the Transportation Security Administration was arrested after a passenger reported that she took money from the passenger's wallet. The screener, a 26-year-old woman, was taken to jail Saturday awaiting a charge of theft and was being held on $200 bail, according to the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department. Her name was not released. The passenger, from Genoa City, Wisconsin, was waiting to go through screening at General Mitchell International Airport when the incident occurred, sheriff's officials said. The passenger reported losing $20. But officials eventually recovered $235 after the screener's co-worker told authorities he saw her storing items behind a magazine rack. Read The Full Story U.K. Military: Afghan Mission Means Pulling Troops From Iraq 2006-10-14 20:41:26 U.K. military planners have been urging senior commanders to seek the pullout of up to half their troops from Iraq in order to bolster the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, The Observer has learned. Their hope is for a withdrawal of "between one-third and one-half" of the 7,000 British troops in Iraq by May next year, and reflects a growing concern over the pressures on an increasingly stretched army. The call reportedly emerged from a major planning review earlier this year, shortly before the then Defense Secretary, John Reid, sent the first major part of a currently 5,500-strong army contingent to Afghanistan. Read The Full Story Human Rights Concerns Fail To Staunch Flow Of U.K. Arms 2006-10-14 20:40:37 The British government is exporting record levels of military equipment to 19 of the 20 states its own ministers and officials have just identified as "major countries of concern" for human rights abuses. The 20 countries were listed in the Foreign Office's annual Human Rights Report, which was launched by the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, last week. They include China, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. But the government's arms export records reveal that concerns over human rights appear not to have prevented ministers from approving tens of millions of pounds of military sales to those same regimes. For instance, on China the report stated: "The Chinese authorities continue to violate a range of basic human rights. The use of the death penalty remains extensive and non-transparent; torture is widespread." Yet, despite the existence of a European Union arms embargo, ministers approved strategic export licenses - which are needed to sell military items abroad - for China worth almost £70 million (about $130 million) between July 2005 and June 2006. Read The Full Story British Exec Fighting U.S. Extradition On Price Fixing 2006-10-14 20:39:35 Ian Norris, former boss of engineering group Morgan Crucible, is to appear in the High Court in London this week to appeal against a government decision that would allow him to be extradited to the U.S. to face price fixing charges. If convicted, Norris would almost certainly be imprisoned. The case has enormous implications for scores of other British businessmen who could be extradited and jailed in the States for alleged offenses committed before price-fixing became a criminal offence in Britain under the 2002 enterprise act. Norris's case echoes the campaign fought by the NatWest Three, who were extradited via a fast-track process put in place by U.K. legislation in 2003 that was designed to speed the transfer of suspected terrorists to the U.S. Read The Full Story Kerry Blasts Bush Administration At Democrat Fundraiser 2006-10-14 20:38:04 Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) barely said hello to the New Hampshire Democrats who filled a banquet room here Friday night before unloading on President Bush. "This war in Iraq is a disgrace," he said in the second sentence of his speech at a party fundraising dinner. Thirty-two minutes and 14 standing ovations later, the man who lost the 2004 presidential campaign left little doubt that if he runs again in 2008, he intends to be the chief prosecutor of the record of the Bush presidency. "A lie, a lie, a lie and a lie," he said after recounting Republican claims that Iraq is not in a civil war, that North Korea's nuclear advancement is former president Bill Clinton's fault and that Democrats were behind the release of salacious e-mails that Mark Foley sent to former House pages. Read The Full Story Police Identify Family Of Four Slain Off Florida Highway 2006-10-14 12:33:41 A family of four found shot to death along an isolated stretch of highway had moved to Florida from Texas four months ago, authorities said Saturday. The family, including two boys ages 3 and 4, was found Friday, fatally shot along Florida's Turnpike in Port St. Lucie, about 100 miles north of Miami. Investigators believe their vehicle, a 1998 four-door Jeep Cherokee, had pulled to the side of Florida's Turnpike before someone else in the vehicle shot them and drove away sometime between 1:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. No one has been arrested, but authorities were searching for clues Saturday into the deaths, said Sheriff Ken Mascara. A search warrant was issued for the family's home in Greenacres in Palm Beach County, where they had moved in June from the Brownsville, Texas, area. Authorities also were looking for the family's black Jeep Cherokee, which had a Florida temporary license plate, Mascara said. The mother, identified as Yessica Guerrero Escobedo, 25, was found clutching her two sons in an apparent effort to protect them. The body of the father, Jose Luis Escobedo, who would have turned 29 on Saturday, was found nearby. The victims appeared to be lying down or kneeling when they were shot, said Mascara. Read The Full Story Despite Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Proliferation Well Underway 2006-10-14 12:32:51 The declaration last Monday by North Korea that it had conducted a successful atomic test brought to nine the number of nations believed to have nuclear arms, but atomic officials estimate that as many as 40 more countries have the technical skill, and in some cases the required material, to build a bomb. That ability, coupled with new nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East, risks a second nuclear age, officials and arms control specialists say, in which nations are more likely to abandon the old restraints against atomic weapons. The spread of nuclear technology is expected to accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on atomic power. That will give more countries the ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel - the hardest part of the arms equation. Signs of activity abound. Hundreds of companies are now prospecting for uranium where dozens did a few years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa are drawing up plans to begin enriching uranium, and other countries are considering doing the same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop nuclear power. Read The Full Story Iraqi Colonel Who Bridged Sectarian Divide Is Killed 2006-10-14 00:53:12 Operating between the insurgent Sunni Arab suburbs of Baghdad and the Shiite militia-dominated south, Col. Salam al-Mamuri and his Scorpion commando team were a rarity among Iraqi security forces, American and Iraqi colleagues said: a police unit fighting on both sides of the country's sectarian divide. On Friday, a bomb blew apart Mamuri and an aide at the Scorpions' headquarters in the southern city of Hilla. The attack ended the life of a broadly respected commander who had been one of the longest-serving and longest-surviving men in a cadre of Iraqi army veterans struggling to restore law and order after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Mamuri's comparative evenhandedness enforcing the law may have earned him an enemy within his own sect, the Shiites. Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani in Baghdad called it a "possibility and a probability" that the assassination was at least in part an inside job, because the killer was able to gain access to Mamuri's office to plant the bomb. Read The Full Story Attachment To New Port Security Bill Cripples Internet Gambling 2006-10-14 00:52:28 Placing bets over the Internet was effectively criminalized by the federal government yesterday, as lawmakers work to eliminate an activity enjoyed by as many as 23 million Americans who wagered an estimated $6 billion last year. Attached to a port-security bill signed by President Bush yesterday was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits online gamblers from using credit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers to place and settle bets. The law puts enforcement on the shoulders of banks and other U.S. financial institutions, some of which fought the legislation. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Virginia), said he opposes all gambling, citing its "ill effects on society," but particularly Internet gambling, which led him to draft the legislation in the summer. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) attached Goodlatte's bill to the port-security measure to ensure its passage and Bush's signature. Read The Full Story
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