Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday October 25 2006 - (813)

Wednesday October 25 2006 edition
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Report: Potential Voting Problems In 10 States 2006-10-24 23:08:39 Two weeks before the midterm elections, at least 10 states, including Maryland, remain ripe for voting problems, according to a study released Tuesday by a nonpartisan clearinghouse that tracks electoral reforms across the United States. The report by Electionline.org says those states, and possibly others, could encounter trouble on Election Day because they have a combustible mix of fledgling voting-machine technology, confusion over voting procedures or recent litigation over election rules - and close races. The report cautions that the Nov. 7 elections, which will determine which political party controls the House and Senate, promise "to bring more of what voters have come to expect since the 2000 elections - a divided body politic, an election system in flux and the possibility - if not certainty - of problems at polls nationwide." Read The Full Story Humans Exhausting Natural Resources At Unprecedented Rate 2006-10-24 23:06:35 Humans are living well beyond their ecological means and are now exhausting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. In so doing, says World Wildlife Fund's bi-annual report, we are threatening ourselves and all other species with extinction. New calculations on the decline in the planet's capacity to provide food, fiber and timber, and absorb carbon dioxide, suggest we are using 25% more resources than are renewed naturally in a year. This ecological "overshoot", which has been growing steadily for nearly 40 years, will on present trends be 100% by 2050, making the likelihood of large-scale ecosystem collapse likely, and conflict and political tension certain, says the environmental group's report. Read The Full Story Military Analysis: Iraq Realities Undermine Pentagon Predictions 2006-10-24 23:05:01 In trying to build support for the American strategy in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., said Tuesday that the Iraqi military could be expected to take over the primary responsibility for securing the country within 12 to 18 months. But that laudable goal seems far removed from the violence-plagued streets of Iraq's capital, where American forces have taken the lead in trying to protect the city and American soldiers substantially outnumber Iraqi ones. Given the rise in sectarian killings, a Sunni-based insurgency that appears to be as potent as ever and an Iraqi security establishment that continues to have difficulties deploying sufficient numbers of motivated and proficient forces in Baghdad, General Casey's target seems to be an increasingly heroic assumption. Read The Full Story Khamenei Urges Arabs To Stay United In Face Of U.S. Plots 2006-10-24 23:03:40 Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei Tuesday urged Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinians to remain united in the face of what he said were U.S. plots to destabilize the region. "Everybody should be alert in the region. All the Arab nations in the region - Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine and other Muslim nations should be alert," he told thousands of worshippers gathered in Tehran for Eid Al-Fitr prayers. "They should be careful not to make any move that allows a new betrayal from the plans of the Zionists and the United States to be realized." He warned Palestinians in particular to keep their unity amid deadly factional bickering between the mainstream Fatah faction and the Islamists of Hamas. Read The Full Story General May Call For More Troops In Baghdad 2006-10-24 16:30:16 The top American military commander in Iraq said Tuesday that he might call for an increase in American troop levels in Baghdad as part of efforts to recapture the capital from insurgents and death squads that have pushed killings in the city to some of the highest levels of the war. Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., declined to specify steps to be taken to adjust the Baghdad security plan, which the American command said last week had failed to achieve targets for lowering violence when 7,000 additional American troops, roughly double the number previously deployed here, were assigned to Baghdad in August. At that time, American commanders described the stepped-up bid to regain control of the capital as a critical moment in the war, one that would likely determine its outcome. "We're not going to telegraph what we're going to do to the enemy," General Casey said Tuesday. Read The Full Story House Speaker Hastert Testifies Before Ethics Committee On Foley 2006-10-24 12:22:47 House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Tuesday sat down with ethics investigators trying to pin down when he and his staff learned about ex-Rep. Mark Foley'sex come-ons to former male pages and what they did to stop it. The timeline that Hastert and his staff have given conflicts with the accounts of others. Hastert, R-Illinois, has said that he didn't find out about Foley until late September, when Foley's approaches to the former pages became public. Hastert's appearance followed that of Rep. Tom Reynolds, of New York, the House GOP campaign chairman, who said he warned the speaker about Foley last spring. Read The Full Story Report: Freedom Of Press Declines In U.S. 2006-10-24 12:21:44 Some poor countries, such as Mauritania and Haiti, improved their record in a global press freedom index this year, while France, the United States and Japan slipped farther down the scale of 168 countries rated, the group Reporters Without Borders said Monday. The news media advocacy organization said the most repressive countries in terms of journalistic freedom - such as North Korea, Cuba, Burma and China- made no advances at all. The organization's fifth annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index tracks actions against news media through the end of September. The group noted its concern over the declining rankings of some Western democracies as well as the persistence of other countries in imposing harsh punishments on media that criticize political leaders. Read The Full Story Bush To Sign Bill To Build US-Mexico Wall 2006-10-24 08:20:37 Congress yesterday sent the bill to build 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border to President Bush, who will sign it in a ceremony Thursday morning in the White House Roosevelt Room.     The decision to have a public ceremony is a reversal for the Bush administration, which had appeared reluctant to tie itself so publicly to the enforcement-only measure. Although Mr. Bush had committed to signing the bill, aides had said consistently over the past few weeks there would not be a signing ceremony. Read The Full Story	Drug Raid May Have Netted Secret Nuclear Documents 2006-10-24 23:07:37 A drug raid on the home of a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the facility, the FBI said Tuesday. Police discovered the documents at the scientist's home while making an arrest in a methamphetamine investigation, according to an FBI official in Washington, D.C., who spoke on condition of anonymity. The police alerted the FBI to the documents, prompting a federal search of the unidentified female scientist's home. The official would not describe the documents except to say that they appeared to contain classified material. Read The Full Story Latino And Black Voters Reassessing Ties To GOP 2006-10-24 23:05:57 A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services. President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it. "There is a fissure, and I doubt it will be closed in this election," said the Rev. Luis Cortes, Jr., a Republican who founded the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast that has featured Bush every year since 2002. His Philadelphia-based Esperanza USA boasts a national affiliate network of more than 10,000 churches. Read The Full Story Shiite Leader Calls For Southern Iraq Autonomy 2006-10-24 23:04:32 The leader of Iraq's largest Shiite bloc called Tuesday for the country to be divided into federal zones, to the dismay of minority Sunnis who fear losing out on Iraq's vast oil wealth. Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), told hundreds of supporters that a federal system with only loose central control would prevent the return of dictatorship. "Federalism will guarantee that the injustice of the past will not revisit our children nor our grandchildren," Hakim said in a speech for the Eid Al-Fitr holidays marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Hakim and his supporters argue that in order to prevent a resurgence of Sunni dominance of Iraq, such as that which prevailed under Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, the Shiites of south and central Iraq must have self-rule. Read The Full Story Israeli Prosecutors Look Into Bribery Allegations Against Olmert 2006-10-24 23:03:05 Israeli authorities are looking into whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accepted bribes during a major bank privatization deal last year, justice ministry officials said Tuesday. The country's attorney general has asked prosecutors to investigate the matter after receiving information from the state comptroller, a government watchdog agency, said ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen. He said the investigation is in its early stages. "At this stage, no decisions have been made, no criminal process whatsoever is under way, and the Israeli police are not involved," he said. There was no comment from Olmert's office on Tuesday. Read The Full Story Overhead Costs Consume Over Half The Budget For Iraq Reconstruction 2006-10-24 16:29:37 A federal oversight agency said today that the cost of things like housing employees, processing paperwork and providing security has consumed as much as 55 percent of the entire budget for some reconstruction projects in Iraq, vastly reducing the amount of money available for actual construction. In fact, according to a report by the agency, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, those administrative and overhead costs, as they are known, may be claiming an even larger share of the money - but the government does not keep proper track of how the $18.4 billion of American taxpayer-financed reconstruction money approved by Congress two years ago is being spent. Administration and overhead costs rarely claim more than a few percent of the budget for comparable construction projects in the United States. Read The Full Story Debt Keeps Troops From Overseas Duty 2006-10-24 12:22:17 Thousands of U.S. troops are being barred from overseas duty because they are so deep in debt they are considered security risks, according to an Associated Press review of military records. The number of troops held back has climbed dramatically in the past few years. While they appear to represent a very small percentage of all U.S. military personnel, the increase is occurring at a time when the armed forces are stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We are seeing an alarming trend in degrading financial health," said Capt. Mark D. Patton, commanding officer at San Diego's Naval Base Point Loma. The Pentagon contends that financial problems can distract personnel from their duties or make them vulnerable to bribery and treason. As a result, those who fall heavily into debt can be stripped of the security clearances they need to go overseas. Read The Full Story U.S. Officials Claim Iraq Security Could Be Ready In 12-18 Months 2006-10-24 12:21:01 Top U.S. officials in Iraq Tuesday predicted that Iraqi security forces could be largely self-sufficient within 12 to 18 months and said the Iraqi government is building a timetable for disarming militias, quieting insurgents and solving ongoing struggles for economic and political power. Acknowledging that weeks of escalating bloodshed have had a demoralizing effect on American perceptions of the conflict, Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad spoke bluntly about the growing civil strife in and around Baghdad and the challenges it poses. Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said it was possible that the number of U.S. troops there would need to grow in coming months, before Iraqi security forces can begin to take control. But the military commander and the diplomat also emphasized that they do not view the U.S. campaign as never-ending and praised a call yesterday by Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikifor a crackdown on armed militias. Read The Full Story
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