Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday October 18 2006 - (813)

Wednesday October 18 2006 edition
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Bush Asserts Right To Deny Outer Space To Anyone Hostile To U.S. Interests 2006-10-18 00:34:57 President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests". The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy. "Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction. Read The Full Story GAO: Radiation Monitors For Ports, Border Crossings Unreliable 2006-10-18 00:33:38 The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) plan to spend $1.2 billion deploying next-generation nuclear-detection equipment at U.S. ports and border crossings cannot be justified, given test results that showed the devices are unreliable, congressional investigators warned Tuesday. The department ignored its own tests showing the new monitors could not meet a standard of detecting enriched uranium 95 percent of the time, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm. When the nuclear material was shielded, detection rates ranged from 17 percent to 53 percent. DHS also understated the project's costs by up to $181 million, GAO officials wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. The department's cost-benefit "analysis does not justify its recent decision to spend $1.2 billion to purchase and deploy" the new radiation portal monitors, the GAO reported. Homeland Security "relied on potential future performance to justify the purchase," said the agency. Read The Full Story Iraq Removes 2 Senior Leaders From Special Police 2006-10-18 00:31:09 The Iraqi government removed the country's two most senior police commanders from their posts on Tuesday, in the first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq's unruly special police forces. The two generals had led Iraq's special police commandos and its public order brigade, both widely criticized as being heavily infiltrated by Shiite militias. Their removal comes at a crucial time for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has come under intense American pressure to purge Iraq's security forces of the militias and death squads that operate within their ranks. Iraqi politicians, both Shiite and Sunni, have grown increasingly anxious in recent weeks that eroding public and Congressional support for the war in the United States might prompt a major shift in American policy, particularly if the November midterm elections bring gains for the Democrats. Read The Full Story Federal Judge Revokes Lay Conviction From Enron Scandal 2006-10-18 00:29:54 A federal judge in Houston yesterday wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his family. The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy-trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came more than a week after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to seize millions of dollars in investments and other assets that Lay controlled. With the judge's order, Lay's conviction on 10 criminal charges will be erased from the record. "The indictment against Kenneth L. Lay is dismissed," U.S. District Judge Simeon T. Lake III wrote in a spare, 13-page order. Read The Full Story Concern Over Cancer Group Links To Drug Firm 2006-10-17 18:56:56 A pan-European cancer campaign was under intense scrutiny last night over the scale of involvement of the world's leading maker of cancer drugs. Cancer United, which is due to be launched with a fanfare in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, is being presented as a pioneering effort by a coalition of doctors, nurses and patients to push for equal access to cancer care across the European Union. However, the campaign is being entirely funded by Roche, the maker of Herceptin and Avastin. A senior company executive sits on the board. The company's PR firm Weber Shandwick is the secretariat and has been heavily promoting it to clinicians and journalists. And the principal study on which it is based has been hotly contested - and was also funded by Roche. MEPs and the head of the European Cancer Patients Coalition have already withdrawn from Cancer United's executive board, amid concerns over the funding and lack of transparency. Read The Full Story Fuel Prices Down, But Inflation Worries Persist 2006-10-17 11:32:34 The U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday that the falling cost of motor fuels helped sharply reduce the wholesale prices that businesses charge one another in September. But that bit of good news masked some unexpected signs of higher inflation in the report. When the volatile prices of energy and food are omitted, the "core" index of producer prices - the inflation measure watched closely by economists and the Federal Reserve - increased more than expected in September, pushed up mainly by rising automobile prices. The surprisingly high 0.6 percent rise in the core index, which was the largest month-to-month jump in nearly two years, helped sour what had looked to be a record-setting day in the stock market. On Monday the Dow Jones industrial average came within less than 20 points of hitting 12,000. But today, stocks fell as the mixed report on producer prices overshadowed news of strong corporate profits from Merrill Lynch, Johnson & Johnson and others. Read The Full Story Homes Raided In U.S. Rep. Weldon Influence Probe 2006-10-17 00:46:57 Federal agents raided the homes of U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter and one of his closest political supporters Monday as part of an investigation into whether the veteran Republican congressman used his influence to benefit himself and his daughter's lobbying firm, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The investigation focuses on actions the Pennsylvania congressman took that may have aided clients of the business created by his daughter, Karen Weldon, and longtime Pennsylvania political ally Charles Sexton, according to three of the sources. A grand jury, impaneled in Washington, D.C., in May, has obtained evidence gathered over at least four months through wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers and has scrutinized whether Weldon received anything of value, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. The investigation focuses on Weldon's support of the Russian-managed Itera International Energy Corp., one of the world's largest oil and gas firms, while that company paid fees to Solutions North America, the company that Karen Weldon and Sexton operate. Read The Full Story Families Flee Iraqi Towns As Sectarian Violence Claims 100 Victims A Day 2006-10-17 00:45:54 Families fled in search of safety Monday as open warfare raged for a fourth day between Shiite militias and armed Sunni men in Tigris River towns north of Baghdad. Militias allied with Iraq's Shiite-led government held sway in Balad city, forcing out Sunni families and leaving the bodies of slain Sunni men to rot in the streets, according to police, residents and hospital officials. The Iraqi government deployed still more reinforcements to try to calm the embattled towns and hold open the main roads, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Kareem al-Kinani said in the capital. But local police officers accused Shiite-dominated government police forces of working alongside Shiite militias in executing Sunnis and appealed for more help. The escalating violence in the Tigris River towns in many ways serves as a microcosm of the daily violence roiling Iraq. Sectarian attacks have increased more than tenfold since the start of the year and now claim more than 100 victims a day, according to the Iraqi government. Read The Full Story Losing Faith In The President 2006-10-17 00:44:31 White House officials realized they had a problem, former staffer David Kuo writes in his new book, "Tempting Faith," when they saw how a panel rated the first applications for grants under the "faith-based initiative," President Bush's vaunted effort to help religious charities. On a scale of 1 to 100, respected national organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America scored in the mid-70s to mid-80s, "while something called Jesus and Friends Ministry from California, a group with little more than a post office box," scored 89 and Pat Robertson's overseas aid organization, Operation Blessing, scored 95, according to Kuo. "It was obvious that the ratings were a farce," he writes, adding that he and other White House aides feared that if the list became public, "it would show once and for all that the initiative was purely about paying off political friends for their support." Read The Full Story	Secret Service Hauls Girl, 14, From Class For Calling Bush An Idiot On MySpace 2006-10-18 00:34:17 A U.S. girl of 14 was dragged out of class by Secret Service agents for calling President Bush an idiot on her MySpace page. Julia Wilson's internet page, called "So Bush is an idiot but hey what else is new?", infuriated security experts, reports the Mirror. She also posted the words "Kill Bush" and ran a cartoon of a knife stabbing the hand of the president. Two federal agents went searching for Julia at her home before finding the teenager at school in Sacramento, California. Read The Full Story Rep. Weldon Ties To Serbian Businessman Part Of Investigation 2006-10-18 00:32:46 Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade were surprised three years ago to be invited to a luncheon in honor of visiting U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon(R-Pennsylvania), hosted by Bogoljub Karic, a wealthy Serbian businessman who had been barred from visiting or trading with the United States because of his close ties to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. Weldon "was visiting solely because of Karic," whom he was trying to get off the U.S. blacklist, a former senior embassy official familiar with the visit concluded. "It seemed odd" at the time, because Karic had no obvious tie to Weldon's district outside Philadelphia, and Weldon should have known the embassy was shunning contacts with him, said the official. What the embassy apparently did not know is that the Karic family that year signed a contract with Weldon's daughter, Karen, and a business partner that called for monthly payments of $20,000 for "management, government and public relations," according to a copy of the March 2003 contract. In all, the family paid Karen Weldon's firm $133,858 that year for efforts she undertook to set up a foundation for it. Read The Full Story Poll: Alarm Bells Sound For GOP In Ohio 2006-10-18 00:30:33 The bellwether state of Ohio appears to have become hostile terrain for Republicans this year, with voters there overwhelmingly saying Democrats are more likely to help create jobs and concluding by a wide margin that Republicans in the state are more prone to political corruption than are Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Home this year to closely watched races for governor, United States Senate and a growing roster of competitive U.S. House seats, Ohio is one of the most contested battlegrounds of 2006, and one in which voters at this point are strongly favoring Democrats on many issues. The Democratic candidates for governor and Senate hold commanding double-digit leads over their Republican opponents in the poll, and respondents said they intended to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district by 50 percent to 32 percent. Read The Full Story U.K. Brigadier: Iraq War Cost Years Of Progress In Afghanistan 2006-10-17 18:57:23 The invasion of Iraq prevented British forces from helping to secure Afghanistan much sooner and has left a dangerous vacuum in the country for four years, the commander who has led the attack against the Taliban made clear Tuesday. Brigadier Ed Butler, commander of 3 Para battlegroup just returned from southern Afghanistan, said the delay in deploying NATO troops after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002 meant British soldiers faced a much tougher task now. Asked whether the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath had led to Britain and the U.S. taking their eye off the ball, Brig. Butler said the question was "probably best answered by politicians". Read The Full Story Is North Korea Preparing For 2nd Nuclear Test? 2006-10-17 11:32:59 North Korea may be preparing for a second nuclear test, South Korean and Japanese officials said today, as the Communist state threatened "merciless blows" against any country imposing the sanctions just adopted by the United Nations Security Council. A spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry called the sanctions a "declaration of war" and said that the regime in Pyongyang was more confident in its ability to deter attacks now that it had joined the nuclear club. American officials on Monday confirmed for the first time that North Korea did set off a nuclear explosion on Oct. 9, as it claimed, and that the blast was far smaller than would normally be expected, suggesting that the test may have misfired. That could give North Korea two motives for a second test, nuclear scientists and security analysts said: To proclaim defiance of the sanctions and to show that it is capable of a successful nuclear detonation. Read The Full Story British Troops Pull Out Of Afghan District 2006-10-17 11:32:07 British troops pulled out of a once restive district in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday after reaching an agreement with tribal elders for Afghan forces to take over security duties. NATO also announced a new countrywide military operation with Afghan troops designed to maintain pressure on Taliban fighters during the fall and winter and pave the way for long-promised development after the most bitter fighting in five years. Officials said fighting across Afghanistan killed 44 suspected Taliban militants. Mark Laity, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said the decision to withdraw British soldiers from Helmand province's Musa Qala district followed an agreement with tribal elders and the provincial governor and was supported by President Hamid Karzai. Read The Full Story Allies Criticize Guantanamo, But Block Return Of Prisoners 2006-10-17 00:46:31 British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett last week issued the latest European demand to close down the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The existence of the prison is "unacceptable" and fuels Islamic radicalism around the world, she said, echoing a recent chorus of complaints from Europe about U.S. counterterrorism policy. Behind the scenes, however, the British government has repeatedly blocked efforts to let some prisoners leave Guantanamo and return home. According to documents made public this month in London, officials there recently rejected a U.S. offer to transfer 10 former British residents from Guantanamo to the United Kingdom, arguing that it would be too expensive to keep them under surveillance. Britain has also staved off a legal challenge by the relatives of some prisoners who sued to require the British government to seek their release. Read The Full Story Former F.D.A. Chief Is Charged With Conflict Of Interest, Lying 2006-10-17 00:45:19 Lester M. Crawford, former chief of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was charged Monday with conflict of interest and lying about stock he and his wife owned in companies the agency regulates. Dr. Crawford, who resigned abruptly in September 2005, just two months after his nomination had been approved by the Senate, is expected to plead guilty in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, said his lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder. Each of the two charges filed against Dr. Crawford, 68, is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, but Van Gelder said she expected him to be fined and placed on probation. "It's his responsibility," she said, "and he accepts it." Read The Full Story Scientists Announce Creation Of Heaviest Atomic Element Yet 2006-10-17 00:43:44 Scientists in California and Russia announced Monday that they have created the heaviest atomic element ever made, adding a new item to the universal menu of matter known as the periodic table and revealing fresh secrets about the nature of atoms, the fundamental units of physical stuff. The new, radioactive element, which has not yet been formally named but is being referred to variously as ununoctium (Latin for "one-one-eight"), eka-radon (beneath radon on the periodic table) or simply element 118, did not linger long. Indeed, as with most "super-heavy" elements - which are not known to exist in nature but have been synthesized by slamming smaller atoms together - the three atoms of ununoctium created in the latest experiments came and went in a literal flash. But during their brief tenures of about nine ten-thousandths of a second each in a laboratory on Russia's Volga River, those three atoms revealed much about the laws that govern the behavior of matter, said scientists. Read The Full Story
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