Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday November 30 2006 - (813)

Thursday November 30 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Analysis: Al-Sadr Casts Shadow Over Bush-Maliki Talks 2006-11-30 03:24:23 When President Bush meets Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan, on Thursday, it will be clear that the real power in Iraq rests with radical cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. In one swift maneuver Wednesday, Sadr cast a shadow over the diplomacy in Amman and issued a reminder of his growing influence in Iraq when a bloc of his party's lawmakers and cabinet members suspended their participation in the government to protest Maliki's decision to meet with Bush in Jordan. The move raises concerns about the ability of Maliki and Iraq's fragile unity government - beset by political paralysis, feuding rivalries and corruption - to survive. If Sadr decides to prolong his departure from government, it could lead to deeper crisis in a nation already divided by sectarian strife. Read The Full Story EPA Backtracks On Easing Toxin Rule 2006-11-30 03:22:55 Under pressure from Democratic senators, the Bush administration has modified its proposal to ease public reporting requirements for companies that handle or release toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules for the Toxics Release Inventory, an annual accounting of more than 650 chemicals that industry releases into the air, land and water. The changes would raise the threshold for reporting releases of toxic chemicals in detail from 500 to 5,000 pounds and would allow companies to report every other year instead of annually. In response, New Jersey Democratic senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez in July blocked confirmation of Bush's nominee to head the EPA's Office of Environmental Information, Molly O'Neill. Read The Full Story U.S. Will Pay $2 Million To Lawyer Wrongly Jailed 2006-11-30 03:21:17 The federal government agreed to pay $2 million Wednesday to an Oregon lawyer wrongly jailed in connection with the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid, Spain, and it issued a formal apology to him and his family. The unusual settlement caps a two-and-a-half-year ordeal that saw the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, go from being a suspected terrorist operative to a symbol, in the eyes of his supporters, of government overzealousness in the war on terrorism. “The United States of America apologizes to Mr. Brandon Mayfield and his family for the suffering caused” by his mistaken arrest, the government’s apology began. It added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which erroneously linked him to the Madrid bombs through a fingerprinting mistake, had taken steps “to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield and the Mayfield family does not happen again”. Read The Full Story Judge Orders FEMA To Resume Housing Payments To Katrina Victims 2006-11-29 21:37:07 The Bush administration must immediately resume housing payments for thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, a federal judge said Wednesday, heaping more criticism on the government's handling of the 2005 disaster. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon's ruling sharply criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for illegally cutting housing funding and subjecting storm victims to a convoluted application process he called "Kafkaesque". It is the second court victory for Katrina victims this week. A federal judge in Louisiana said Monday that many homeowners might be entitled to more insurance money for flood damage. Read The Full Story Ancient Astonmical Computer Surprises Scientists 2006-11-29 21:35:08 A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone. But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C. The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.” Read The Full Story Halliburton's KBR Unit To Pay $8 Million To Settle Overbilling - In Kosovo 2006-11-29 21:33:13 A Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay the government $8 million to resolve accusations of overbilling related to the firm's work for the Army in the Balkans, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The allegations against KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, stemmed from orders placed with 10 foreign subcontractors that were working for KBR on military logistics support in 1999 and 2000. The accusations, made under the federal False Claims Act, included double-billing, inflating prices and providing products that didn't fit the Army's needs during the construction of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. "The Department of Justice remains committed to vigorously pursuing allegations of procurement abuses affecting the military," Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler said in a written statement. Read The Full Story Radioactive Material Found On Two British Airways Planes 2006-11-29 20:04:15 The investigation into the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko gathered pace dramatically Wednesday as it emerged that a number of British Airways aircraft that fly between Moscow and London have been contaminated with radioactive material. Two BA Boeing 767s were grounded at Heathrow following tests ordered by Scotland Yard, and a third aircraft was being tested in Moscow after its pilot was warned not to take off. Last night the airline appealed to around 800 passengers to come forward. They flew on four flights between London and Moscow in the days either side of Litvinenko's poisoning on November 1. However, the Guardian understands that the airline is scrambling to contact up to 33,000 passengers and 3,000 of its own staff who flew on the aircraft, on 10 different routes, since October 25. The aircraft are known to have been used for a total of 220 flights. The airline said that only "very low traces" of the substance had been discovered on the Boeing 767s and the risk to public health was low. Passengers concerned about their health should call NHS Direct, it said. Read The Full Story Bush Postpones Maliki Summit After Memo Leak 2006-11-29 20:03:06 George Bush Wednesday postponed a meeting in Jordan with Iraq's embattled prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, after a leaked White House memo revealed deep U.S. misgivings about Maliki's willingness or ability to curb sectarian violence. The 12-hour delay was officially to allow Bush the chance to have a bilateral meeting with the host, Jordan's King Abdullah, but White House officials were forced to assure Maliki that he still had the U.S.  president's confidence. The memo - leaked to the New York Times (Editor: see related article on the memo elsewhere on Free Internet Press' mainpage today.) and confirmed as accurate by administration officials - exposed a relationship of mutual dependence clouded by distrust and strained by the steadily escalating civil war inside Iraq. A bipartisan U.S. commission, the Iraq Study Group, said it would deliver a report on America's remaining options next Wednesday, but the Bush administration is looking for even more immediate answers as it struggles to contain a dire situation that it is getting worse by the day. Read The Full Story Cracks Showing In Three Of U.S. Economy's Pillars 2006-11-29 02:47:09 Three pillars of the economy - consumer confidence, orders for manufactured goods and home prices - showed surprising cracks on Tuesday, flashing signals that growth may slow more heading into the important holiday shopping season. The New York-based Conference Board said its widely watched consumer confidence index fell to 102.9 in November from a revised reading of 105.1 in October. November’s figure was the lowest since August’s 100.2 and well below economists’ expectations of a 106 reading. That news arrived on the heels of a government report on durable goods that showed orders for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged 8.3 percent in October - the largest drop in more than six years. Read The Full Story 'Step Away From The Constitution, Mr. Gingrich, And Put Your Hands Where We Can See Them' 2006-11-29 02:45:20 Intellpuke: The following opinion column is written by Bob Cesca and was posted on the Huffington Post website on Tuesday, November 28, 2006. As you may have guessed, Mr. Cesca's column deals with Freedom of Speech, specifically Newt Gingrich's suggestion that America needs to curtail it. Mr. Cesca's column begins here: I don't think it can be said more clearly: we should be willing to die at the hands of a thousand terrorist attacks before giving up our liberties. Actually, it can be said more clearly - by Patrick Henry. But at no time in present memory has that declaration been more applicable. You, me and every human being who calls him- or herself an American ought to be willing to sacrifice ourselves before acquiescing to the tyranny of those who advocate such unconstitutional laws as the USA Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other yet-to-be-proposed ideas put forth by reactionary Republican cowards. And "reactionary Republican cowards" includes Newt Gingrich who said, according to the Union Leader, we need to "reexamine freedom of speech" in order to "get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade." The irony is that he said this at an event honoring the First Amendment. The scary side of this statement isn't the idea of losing a city but rather the notion that Mr. Gingrich wants to be our next president. Read The Full Story NYC Mayor Bloomberg Meets With Groom's Family In NYPD Slaying 2006-11-29 02:44:09 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with the family of a black man who was killed on his wedding day in a barrage of police gunfire as he and two of his friends left his bachelor party. All three men were unarmed. Three days after the fatal encounter, it remained unclear Tuesday why four detectives and one police officer opened fire while conducting an undercover operation at a strip club. Police also questioned an unidentified witness who was on a darkened block in Queens when five police officers killed 23-year-old Sean Bell and injured two friends as the three sat inside a car, said officials. There are two other civilian witnesses: One woman on the street who says she saw officers firing their weapons, and a second woman who from her window spotted a man running away from the area around the time of the shooting. Investigators tried to determine if that man had been with the three who were shot. Read The Full Story Fight Breaks Out In Mexico's Congress 2006-11-29 02:42:30 Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon named a hard-line conservative as interior minister Tuesday, and lawmakers slapped and pushed one another in a deepening political crisis three days before Calderon takes power. Francisco Ramirez Acuna was chosen to spearhead the new government's handling of unrest, with Mexico reeling from leftist street protests over Calderon's election, violence in the popular tourist city of Oaxaca and a spate of bombings in the capital. Ramirez Acuna, a close ally of the president-elect from the right wing of the ruling National Action Party, also will play a key role in trying to win support in Congress for tax, energy and labor reforms. Read The Full Story	Iraq Study Group To Call For Major Troop Withdrawal 2006-11-30 03:23:39 The Iraq Study Group, which wrapped up eight months of deliberations yesterday, has reached a consensus and will call for a major withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, shifting the U.S. role from combat to support and advising, according to a source familiar with the deliberations. The recommendation includes a series of conditions and qualifications that would govern any drawdown of forces, said the source. "It describes a process by which combat brigades could be pulled out, but there wasn't a specific timetable on it," he said. The source demanded anonymity because members of the bipartisan panel have been pledged to secrecy until the report is officially issued Dec. 6. The issue of a timeline for drawing down troops - both a specific date to begin a withdrawal and the pace - had been major points of contention within the panel. The Bush administration has firmly rejected specifying a date for withdrawal, but Democrats have favored setting a time frame as a way to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Read The Full Story U.S. State Dept. Official: Tony Blair's U.S. Influence A 'Myth' 2006-11-30 03:22:04 In a devastating verdict on Tony Blair's decision to back war in Iraq and his "totally one-sided" relationship with President Bush, a U.S. State Department official has said that Britain's role as a bridge between America and Europe is now "disappearing before our eyes". Kendall Myers, a senior State Department analyst, disclosed that for all Britain's attempts to influence U.S. policy in recent years, "we typically ignore them and take no notice - it's a sad business". He added that he felt "a little ashamed" at Bush's treatment of the Prime Minister, who had invested so much of his political capital in standing shoulder to shoulder with America after 9/11. Read The Full Story Turkey Furious As E.U. Suspends Portion Of Talks On Membership 2006-11-30 03:20:31 Turkey reacted furiously yesterday to the proposed suspension of a large section of its talks on joining the European Union as a punishment for its refusal to open trade with Cyprus. Eight of 34 areas of negotiation will be frozen under the European Commission's plan until Ankara fulfils an agreement signed last year to open its ports to Cyprus, an E.U. member that it does not recognize. The Commission’s move was criticised by Britain, Sweden and Spain, but - in a sign of the faultlines within the Community over Turkish accession - was applauded by France and Germany. Turkey was defiant, insisting that it was not prepared to make any further concessions. “We have set out the framework [for progress on Cyprus],” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, said. “If they are approaching the issue with the idea that they might grab a new concession, then we have no concession to make.” Read The Full Story Ahmadinejad Urges Americans To Reject Bush Policies 2006-11-29 21:36:38 Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the American people on Wednesday that he was certain they detested President Bush’s policies - his support for Israel, war in Iraq and curtailed civil liberties - and he offered to work with them to reverse those policies. The call came in the form of a six-page letter in English addressed to “noble Americans” that discussed “the many wars and calamities caused by the U.S. administration.” It suggested that Americans had been fooled into accepting their government’s policies, especially toward Israel. “What have the Zionists done for the American people that the U.S. administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?” Ahmadinejad wrote. “Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?” Read The Full Story Panel Urges Overhaul Of Wall Street Regulations 2006-11-29 21:34:26 Saying it is concerned about a loss of American competitiveness, an independent committee will call on Thursday for a sweeping overhaul of securities market regulations. It recommends making it harder for companies to be indicted by the government or sued by private lawyers, and urges policies to keep the Securities and Exchange Commission from adopting rules that impose high costs on business. The committee, formed with the endorsement of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., said the S.E.C. should be required to perform cost-benefit analyses on all rules before they are adopted. It said the S.E.C. should also take steps to rein in private securities litigation and adopt policies to shield corporate directors and auditors from some lawsuits. Read The Full Story 38,000 Unionized Employees Take Ford Buyouts 2006-11-29 21:32:19 Almost half of Ford Motor's hourly production workers - 38,000 of them - have accepted buyouts or early retirement offers this year as the nation's second-biggest automaker shrinks in the face of multibillion-dollar losses and competition from Asian carmakers. The figure includes about 30,000 employees who took buyouts during the open sign-up period that concluded Monday, and about 8,000 who took deals offered at individual plants this year. The automaker also said Wednesday that it expected to post cumulative cash outflows of about $17 billion from 2007 to 2009. Ford had hoped that 25,000 to 30,000 workers would accept the latest buyout offer. Read The Full Story Bush Aide's Memo Doubts Iraqi Leader 2006-11-29 20:03:41 A classified memorandum by President Bush’s national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iran and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position. The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Bush and his top deputies by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after a trip by Hadley to Baghdad. The memo suggests that if Maliki fails to carry out a series of specified steps, it may ultimately be necessary to press him to reconfigure his parliamentary bloc, a step the United States could support by providing “monetary support to moderate groups,” and by sending thousands of additional American troops to Baghdad to make up for what the document suggests is a current shortage of Iraqi forces. (You can read the text of Hadley's memo here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/middleeast/29mtext.html .) The memo presents an unvarnished portrait of Maliki and notes that he relies for some of his political support on leaders of more extreme Shiite groups. The five-page document, classified secret, is based in part on a one-on-one meeting between Hadley and Maliki on Oct. 30. Read The Full Story Analysis: As Iraq Deteriorates, Officials Blame Iraqis 2006-11-29 02:47:54 From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis. Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties. This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement. Read The Full Story 5 Years After Enron, Big Business Wants Less Regulation 2006-11-29 02:46:40 Business interests, seizing on concerns that a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal has overreached, are advancing a broad agenda to limit government oversight of private industry, including making it tougher for investors to sue companies and auditors for fraud. A group that has drawn support from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., plans to issue a report Thursday that argues that the United States may be losing its preeminent position in global capital markets to foreign stock exchanges because of costly regulations and nettlesome private lawsuits. Interest groups are trying to build political support to review long-standing rules that govern companies, as well as parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, which imposed stringent responsibilities on accountants, boards of directors and corporate executives. Some key members of Congress have recently expressed concern that U.S. companies may be over-regulated. Read The Full Story Opinion: Freedom Of Speech - Non-Negotiable 2006-11-29 02:44:48 Intellpuke: The following opinion column is written by Mark Jeffrey and appeared on the Huffington Post (HuffPo) website on Tuesday, November 28, 2006. It deals, as the headline states, with Freedom of Speech. Mr. Jeffrey's column follows: As regular readers of HuffPo no doubt have seen today, former Speaker and presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich recently made the interesting assertion that we "need to re-examine freedom of speech" in this post 9/11 world. Well, listen up, Newt: Freedom of speech is non-negotiable. It is a core American value. It is a core value of free societies in every time and place. It's bad enough that expression in the US and A has been recently restricted to "free speech zones" (I had previously been under the impression that in the Land of the Free, the whole place from Sea to Shining Sea was one big honkin' free speech zone). Read The Full Story Mexico Shocked By Surge In Violence 2006-11-29 02:43:24 Andres Sauzo collects newspapers, astoundingly grisly newspapers. There's the one with the close-up shot of a severed human head. There's the one with the wide-angle of a man hacked to death with a machete. But the worst in his bulky archive of drug-war gore rolled off the presses the day after someone found pieces of what used to be Sauzo's 24-year-old namesake. A hit man had decapitated Sauzo's son, then chopped off his arms and legs. The killer was so unconcerned about being brought to justice that he scrawled his own name and nickname - "El Barby" - on a note left with the mutilated corpse. Still, Sauzo's mother, Cristina Gomez, didn't bother to go to the police. "Why waste my time?" she said in an interview. "This is the way it is in a town without laws." Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday November 29 2006 - (813)

Wednesday November 29 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Analysis: As Iraq Deteriorates, Officials Blame Iraqis 2006-11-29 02:47:54 From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis. Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties. This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement. Read The Full Story 5 Years After Enron, Big Business Wants Less Regulation 2006-11-29 02:46:40 Business interests, seizing on concerns that a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal has overreached, are advancing a broad agenda to limit government oversight of private industry, including making it tougher for investors to sue companies and auditors for fraud. A group that has drawn support from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., plans to issue a report Thursday that argues that the United States may be losing its preeminent position in global capital markets to foreign stock exchanges because of costly regulations and nettlesome private lawsuits. Interest groups are trying to build political support to review long-standing rules that govern companies, as well as parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, which imposed stringent responsibilities on accountants, boards of directors and corporate executives. Some key members of Congress have recently expressed concern that U.S. companies may be over-regulated. Read The Full Story Opinion: Freedom Of Speech - Non-Negotiable 2006-11-29 02:44:48 Intellpuke: The following opinion column is written by Mark Jeffrey and appeared on the Huffington Post (HuffPo) website on Tuesday, November 28, 2006. It deals, as the headline states, with Freedom of Speech. Mr. Jeffrey's column follows: As regular readers of HuffPo no doubt have seen today, former Speaker and presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich recently made the interesting assertion that we "need to re-examine freedom of speech" in this post 9/11 world. Well, listen up, Newt: Freedom of speech is non-negotiable. It is a core American value. It is a core value of free societies in every time and place. It's bad enough that expression in the US and A has been recently restricted to "free speech zones" (I had previously been under the impression that in the Land of the Free, the whole place from Sea to Shining Sea was one big honkin' free speech zone). Read The Full Story Mexico Shocked By Surge In Violence 2006-11-29 02:43:24 Andres Sauzo collects newspapers, astoundingly grisly newspapers. There's the one with the close-up shot of a severed human head. There's the one with the wide-angle of a man hacked to death with a machete. But the worst in his bulky archive of drug-war gore rolled off the presses the day after someone found pieces of what used to be Sauzo's 24-year-old namesake. A hit man had decapitated Sauzo's son, then chopped off his arms and legs. The killer was so unconcerned about being brought to justice that he scrawled his own name and nickname - "El Barby" - on a note left with the mutilated corpse. Still, Sauzo's mother, Cristina Gomez, didn't bother to go to the police. "Why waste my time?" she said in an interview. "This is the way it is in a town without laws." Read The Full Story Slaughter In The Mosque: A New Terror For Iraqis 2006-11-28 15:42:47 Hassan Mahmoud has the build of a bouncer, but as he sits on a couch and talks about Iraq’s secret religious prisons his broad frame shakes, he clutches himself and weeps. “It hurts me when I remember what happened,” he says, recalling his brush with death inside a Shia prayer room where he witnessed the beheading of a fellow kidnap victim. In the war for Baghdad, mosques serve as garrisons. Sunnis use religious sanctuaries as strongholds to fight for mixed neighborhoods. Shia extremists convert their mosques and prayer rooms, called husseiniyas, into execution chambers. As Iraq falls apart, people like Mahmoud are now terrified by Baghdad’s places of worship, which they regard as potential gulags and gallows in the Sunni-Shia war. Read The Full Story Pope Seeks Brotherhood In Hostile Turkey 2006-11-28 15:41:32 "No red carpet for the Pope" said one Turkish headline today - and indeed there were no banners, portraits or flag waving crowds of the kind you normally see on papal trips abroad as Pope Benedict XVI arrived for the most hazardous and delicate trip of his pontificate so far. But equally, despite noisy protests against the Pope's visit over the past few days and threats of violence, the streets of Ankara were also devoid of demonstrators, partly because of a ferocious security clampdown by Turkish police. The Pope stepped from his Alitalia plane to meet Tayyip Erdogan, the pro-Islamic Prime Minister, wearing a heavy white topcoat which may or may not conceal a bullet proof vest. Vatican officials admit the question of whether he should wear one was raised, but that the pontiff was reluctant to do so. Read The Full Story Bush Blames Al-Qaeda For Iraq Violence 2006-11-28 15:40:18 U.S. President George Bush Tuesday denied that Iraq is descending into civil war and said al-Qaeda was behind the violence sweeping the country. Speaking in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, prior to a two-day NATO meeting in neighboring Latvia, Bush also appeared to indicate his resistance to involving Iran in efforts to stabilize Iraq, ruling out direct talks with Tehran unless it suspended its program of uranium enrichment. At the same time, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed unspecified "U.S. agents" for creating insecurity in Iraq. Addressing a news conference with the Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Bush rejected the idea that the recent scale of violence in Iraq, which saw more than 200 people killed in a series of bombings in Baghdad last week, represented a new and perilous period. Read The Full Story Polonium Detected At Berezovsky's London Offices 2006-11-28 03:29:33 Detectives have found traces of polonium 210 at the London offices of the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, it was revealed Monday night. Officers were searching 7 Down Street, Mayfair, after the discovery of the radioactive substance that killed Berezovsky's friend and former employee, Alexander Litvinenko. A uniformed officer and at least one plain clothes policeman were stationed inside the lobby of the property last night. Outside another 15 officers were on standby in two marked police vans and the area was cordoned off. Sources confirmed that traces of polonium 210 had been found at the address. Berezovsky, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, refused to comment Monday on the revelations. "I don't want to comment anything about it," he told the Guardian. "I don't know anything about police at my office." Read The Full Story Marine Corps Report: No Way To Defeat Insurgency, Al-Qaeda's Rising Popularity In West Iraq 2006-11-28 03:28:33 The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province. The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, said the official. The Marines' August memo, a copy of which was shared with the Washington Post, is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq's Sunni minority as "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fearful of "pogroms" by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital. Read The Full Story Commentary: Europe Must Shoulder Its Share Of The NATO Burden 2006-11-28 03:27:39 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by French President Jacques Chirac. In it, Mr. Chirac argues that NATO has relied on its U.S. allies for far too long, that Europe must strengthen it national contributions to NATO and for a larger role in NATO for the European Union. Mr. Chirac's column, which appears in the Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006, edition of the Guardian newspaper, follows: Peace can never be taken for granted, and the first responsibility of any government is security. That is why France wishes to contribute to a political structuring of the world that averts perils. It wishes to help in the exercise of shared responsibility within the framework of strong, legitimate and accepted international institutions, particularly through reforms of the U.N. and the security council. It is working to build a political Europe capable of meeting its international responsibilities in the service of peace. The Atlantic alliance has a central place in this project. For 10 years France has been involved in the effort to adapt it to the new realities while preserving its original mission. That is why, at tomorrow's summit in Riga, I shall reaffirm the pre-eminent role of NATO, a military organization, guarantor of the collective security of the allies, and a forum where Europeans and Americans can combine their efforts to further peace. The threat of generalized war in Europe has disappeared; NATO has been profoundly adapted and enlarged to include the new democracies. It is building a trusting relationship with Russia, one we must constantly strengthen because preserving peace means first avoiding the creation of new fault lines. In this same spirit, we want a partnership between NATO and Ukraine, and we hope that NATO will welcome candidate states from the western Balkans once they are ready. Read The Full Story U.S. Justice Department To Probe Wiretaps ... Sort Of 2006-11-28 03:25:16 The Justice Department's inspector general Monday announced an investigation into the department's connections to the government's controversial warrantless surveillance program, but officials said the probe will not examine whether the National Security Agency (NSA) is violating the Constitution or federal statutes. In a letter to House lawmakers, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office decided to open the probe after conducting "initial inquiries" into the program. Under the initiative, the NSA monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and others overseas without court oversight if one of the targets is suspected of ties to terrorism. The "program review" will examine how the Justice Department has used information obtained from the NSA program, as well as whether Justice lawyers complied with the "legal requirements" that govern it, according to Fine's letter. Officials said the review will not examine whether the program itself is legal. Read The Full Story Canadian Parliament Recognizes Quebec As A Nation Within Canada 2006-11-28 03:23:55 The Canadian Parliament formally recognized the French-speaking people of Quebec as a nation within Canada, a seemingly symbolic gesture that has led to a Cabinet resignation and ignited concerns over a renewed push for the province's sovereignty. The motion presented by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday, which says the Quebecois form a nation within a united Canada, is largely symbolic in that it requires no constitutional amendment or change of law. The opposition Liberals and New Democrats supported the motion, so it passed easily through the House of Commons. It was devised by Harper to pre-empt a similar attempt by the Bloc Quebecois, the party in Parliament that represents Quebec, whose members also reluctantly backed the resolution once they realized they had been outflanked by Harper. Read The Full Story	Cracks Showing In Three Of U.S. Economy's Pillars 2006-11-29 02:47:09 Three pillars of the economy - consumer confidence, orders for manufactured goods and home prices - showed surprising cracks on Tuesday, flashing signals that growth may slow more heading into the important holiday shopping season. The New York-based Conference Board said its widely watched consumer confidence index fell to 102.9 in November from a revised reading of 105.1 in October. November’s figure was the lowest since August’s 100.2 and well below economists’ expectations of a 106 reading. That news arrived on the heels of a government report on durable goods that showed orders for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged 8.3 percent in October - the largest drop in more than six years. Read The Full Story 'Step Away From The Constitution, Mr. Gingrich, And Put Your Hands Where We Can See Them' 2006-11-29 02:45:20 Intellpuke: The following opinion column is written by Bob Cesca and was posted on the Huffington Post website on Tuesday, November 28, 2006. As you may have guessed, Mr. Cesca's column deals with Freedom of Speech, specifically Newt Gingrich's suggestion that America needs to curtail it. Mr. Cesca's column begins here: I don't think it can be said more clearly: we should be willing to die at the hands of a thousand terrorist attacks before giving up our liberties. Actually, it can be said more clearly - by Patrick Henry. But at no time in present memory has that declaration been more applicable. You, me and every human being who calls him- or herself an American ought to be willing to sacrifice ourselves before acquiescing to the tyranny of those who advocate such unconstitutional laws as the USA Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other yet-to-be-proposed ideas put forth by reactionary Republican cowards. And "reactionary Republican cowards" includes Newt Gingrich who said, according to the Union Leader, we need to "reexamine freedom of speech" in order to "get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade." The irony is that he said this at an event honoring the First Amendment. The scary side of this statement isn't the idea of losing a city but rather the notion that Mr. Gingrich wants to be our next president. Read The Full Story NYC Mayor Bloomberg Meets With Groom's Family In NYPD Slaying 2006-11-29 02:44:09 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with the family of a black man who was killed on his wedding day in a barrage of police gunfire as he and two of his friends left his bachelor party. All three men were unarmed. Three days after the fatal encounter, it remained unclear Tuesday why four detectives and one police officer opened fire while conducting an undercover operation at a strip club. Police also questioned an unidentified witness who was on a darkened block in Queens when five police officers killed 23-year-old Sean Bell and injured two friends as the three sat inside a car, said officials. There are two other civilian witnesses: One woman on the street who says she saw officers firing their weapons, and a second woman who from her window spotted a man running away from the area around the time of the shooting. Investigators tried to determine if that man had been with the three who were shot. Read The Full Story Fight Breaks Out In Mexico's Congress 2006-11-29 02:42:30 Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon named a hard-line conservative as interior minister Tuesday, and lawmakers slapped and pushed one another in a deepening political crisis three days before Calderon takes power. Francisco Ramirez Acuna was chosen to spearhead the new government's handling of unrest, with Mexico reeling from leftist street protests over Calderon's election, violence in the popular tourist city of Oaxaca and a spate of bombings in the capital. Ramirez Acuna, a close ally of the president-elect from the right wing of the ruling National Action Party, also will play a key role in trying to win support in Congress for tax, energy and labor reforms. Read The Full Story News Blog: The Quiet Death Of Malachi Ritscher 2006-11-28 15:42:16 Intellpuke: The following news blog is written by Matthew Weaver and asks why Malachi Ritscher's public suicide over the war in Iraq went largely unnoticed by the U.S. news media. Good question. Mr. Weaver's news blog appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006. It begins here: Before burning himself to death, Malachi Ritscher wrote in a suicide note that his fellow Americans had become "more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cellphones than the future of the world". He didn't realize how prophetic his words would turn out to be. His self-immolation on Chicago's Kennedy expressway was intended as a high-profile anti-war protest that could not be ignored. He set up a sign saying "Thou shalt not kill" and he explained on his website: "If I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world." But at the time of his gruesome protest, which occurred on November 3, no one (with the odd exception) paid much attention to the story. Read The Full Story Blair Vows Nothing Will Hamper Spy Murder Investigation 2006-11-28 15:40:57 Tony Blair vowed today that "no diplomatic or political barrier" would be allowed to hamper the police investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who died of radiation poisoning last week. Speaking in Copenhagen, before he travelled to Riga, Latvia, for a NATO summit, the Prime Minister described the case as "very serious". If necessary, he said that he would take up the matter with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I have not spoken to President Putin but I will do so at any time that is appropriate," said Blair."There is no diplomatic or political barrier in the way of (the) investigation going wherever it needs to go." Read The Full Story Meteor 'Fireball' Lights Up Australian Sky 2006-11-28 03:41:31 People in the western Australia state of Victoria and the state of South Australia have deluged police and media with reports of a spectacular meteor sighting. Police in South Australia said they took calls from just after 8 p.m. local time (8.30 p.m. AEDT) Monday from Renmark and Loxton in the Riverland, most Adelaide suburbs and then from people living south of the city, with reports of something looking like a fireball in the sky. In Victoria, callers to Australia Broadcast Company (ABC) radio, from Bendigo to Horsham in the state's northwest down to Colac in the southwest, reported seeing a bright green colored object shooting westward in the sky. One caller, Jeff, said he saw what he thought was a comet as he was driving into Horsham. "It was green like a meteorite or shooting star," he said on ABC radio. Read The Full Story Editorial: Global Warming Goes To Court 2006-11-28 03:29:00 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, November 28, 2006: The Bush administration has been on a six-year campaign to expand its powers, often beyond what the Constitution allows. So it is odd to hear it claim that it lacks the power to slow global warming by limiting the emission of harmful gases. But that is just what it will argue to the Supreme Court tomorrow, in what may be the most important environmental case in many years. A group of 12 states, including New York and Massachusetts, is suing the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to properly do its job. These states, backed by environmental groups and scientists, say that the Clean Air Act requires the E.P.A. to impose limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by new cars. These gases are a major contributor to the “greenhouse effect” that is dangerously heating up the planet. The Bush administration insists that the E.P.A. does not have the power to limit these gases. It argues that they are not “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act. Alternatively, it contends that the court should dismiss the case because the states do not have “standing,” since they cannot show that they will be specifically harmed by the agency’s failure to regulate greenhouse gases. Read The Full Story Annan Urges Action To Avert Imminent Civil War In Iraq 2006-11-28 03:28:01 United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday that Iraq was on the brink of a civil war that would ignite unless something was done "drastically and urgently" to stop it. He issued his warning on a day marked by a flurry of efforts around the world to stem the violence. Asked Monday if he thought a civil war had begun, Annan said: "Given the developments on the ground, unless something is done drastically and urgently to arrest the deteriorating situation, we could be there. We are almost there." Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, arrived in Tehran, Iran, to talk to Iranian leaders about what role they might play in stabilizing the situation. President George Bush left on a foreign trip that is due to include a meeting with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, Wednesday in Jordan. Read The Full Story Israel Offers Prisoner Exchange To Palestinians 2006-11-28 03:26:37 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held out the rare possibility of a return to Middle East peace talks Monday when he offered for the first time to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the return of a captured soldier. In his most important policy speech since the Lebanon war, Olmert said if the Palestinians halted violence and recognized Israel, there could be negotiations that culminated in the creation of a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal from some of the occupied West Bank. His comments came on the second day of a ceasefire in Gaza. Within hours of the ceasefire, Palestinian militants fired two rockets from Gaza into Israel, underlining the fragility of the agreement, which went into effect on Sunday at dawn and only covers Gaza. Earlier in the day, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in Qabatiya, in the West Bank, at least one of whom was a militant. Read The Full Story U.S. Retail Fears And Weak Dollar Send Stock Markets Sliding 2006-11-28 03:24:28 Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic lurched downward yesterday as retail anxieties clouded the American economy and the US currency slipped closer to a rate of $2 against the pound. In London, the FTSE 100 index dropped to its lowest close in seven weeks, losing 72 points to 6,050 in spite of upbeat UK housing data. A more dramatic sell-off took place in America. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 158 points to 12,121, its biggest fall for four months. The broader S&P 500 fell by 1.3% and the technology-dominated Nasdaq index lost 2.2%, hit by a sudden downturn in Google's shares. Read The Full Story Philip Zelikow, Senior Aide To Rice, Resigns 2006-11-28 03:23:10 Two months ago, the State Department's counselor, Philip D. Zelikow, offered an oblique criticism of the administration's failure to push strongly for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in the Middle East. In a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Zelikow, an intellectual known for peppering his statements with historical references, said progress on the Arab-Israeli dispute was a “sine qua non” (Editor: an indispensable thing) in order to get moderate Arabs “to cooperate actively with the United States on a lot of other things that we care about”. A State Department spokesman was quick to distance the department officially from Zelikow's remarks, which ruffled the feathers of American Jewish groups and Israeli officials. But the administration may soon be doing what Zelikow advised, starting a renewed push for a Middle East peace initiative, in part to shore up support in the Arab world for providing help in Iraq. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday November 28 2006 - (813)

Tuesday November 28 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
More Radioactive Traces Found In London 2006-11-27 20:46:40 Traces of radiation linked to the poisoning death of a former KGB agent turned up Monday at two more sites in London, and three people who showed symptoms of contamination were being tested for the deadly toxin. The government has ordered a formal inquest into the death. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, died of heart failure Thursday after falling ill from what doctors said was polonium-210 poisoning. The substance is deadly if ingested or inhaled. Six sites showed traces of radiation linked to the poisoning, including a bar in London’s Millennium Hotel, a branch of Itsu Sushi near Piccadilly Circus, Litvinenko’s house in North London and a section of the hospital where he was treated when he fell ill on Nov. 1. Two other sites - an office block in London’s west end and an address in the posh neighborhood of Mayfair - also showed traces of radiation, according to residents. All the locations except Litvinenko’s home are in west London, separated by about a mile. Read The Full Story Stocks Fall Sharply On Weak Dollar, Economic Slowdown Concerns 2006-11-27 20:45:42 Stocks suffered their biggest drop in four months Monday, as concerns about a weak holiday shopping season fed into broader anxiety about the slowing economy. It was a day with little for investors to cheer, with the dollar continuing its slide against the euro and the price of a barrel of oil rising. The decline on Wall Street spoiled what had been a steady run-up in stock prices in recent weeks. In the past month and a half, the Dow Jones industrial average broke through 12,000 for the first time, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose to its highest point in six years. Read The Full Story N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg Says Police Shooting 'Excessive', 'Unacceptable' 2006-11-27 20:44:35 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg convened an extraordinary summit meeting of black religious leaders and elected officials at City Hall today to calm frayed tempers over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Queens, a killing he called “inexplicable” and “unacceptable”. “It sounds to me like excessive force was used,” the mayor said of the conduct of the officers, who fired 50 shots outside a Queens nightclub early Saturday, killing Sean Bell, 23, hours before he was to be wed and injuring two others. “I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired.” Bloomberg made the remarks after meeting with some of the city’s most influential black politicians and community leaders, including U.S. Representative Charles B. Rangel, the Rev. Al Sharpton and dozens of others. The mayor’s decision to meet with Sharpton and other black leaders was a stark turnabout from the days of  Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who did not reach out to black leaders in the immediate aftermath of the fatal 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant who died in a hail of 41 police bullets. Read The Full Story Lincoln Memorial Reopens After Security Scare 2006-11-27 20:43:05 Authorities briefly closed the Lincoln Memorial Monday after receiving a report of a suspicious liquid and a threatening note on the grounds, officials said. The liquid was found to be harmless. D.C. firefighters received a call at about 12:40 p.m. about a Gatorade bottle containing liquid found in the ladies' room in the basement of the memorial, according to officials at the Washington, D.C., fire department and the Department of Homeland Security. While the hazardous-materials unit was en route, police also found a letter in the main chamber of the memorial, near the Lincoln statue, saying "Do you know what anthrax is?" and "Do you know what a bomb is?" said officials. Police also discovered a thermos on the steps to the memorial that was considered suspicious, said the officials. Read The Full Story Iraq President Talabani In Iran For Talks 2006-11-27 15:49:26 Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Tehran on Monday to meet with his Iranian counterpart amid increasing calls for Washington to enlist Iran's help in calming the escalating violence in neighboring Iraq. "Talabani arrived in Tehran minutes ago as the head of a high-level delegation," Iran's state-run television reported. Iran has been trying to organize a summit joining President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Talabani and Syrian President Bashar Assad in a bid to assert its role as the top regional powerbroker. Read The Full Story U.S. Air Force F-16CG Crashes In Iraq 2006-11-27 15:47:24 A U.S. Air Force jet carrying one pilot crashed in Iraq on Monday, the military said. The F-16CG was supporting coalition ground forces when it went down at about 1:35 p.m., about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad in Anbar province, the military said in a brief statement that contained no information about the cause of the crash or the fate of the pilot. Mohammed Al-Obeidi, an Iraqi who lives in the nearby town of Karmah, said he saw the jet flying up and down erratically before it nose-dived and exploded in a farm field. Read The Full Story Mahdi Army Provides Aid To Iraqi Victims 2006-11-27 14:32:54 In the chaos, Ayad al-Fartoosi thrived. Against a backdrop of death and panic in Sadr City last Thursday, he strode confidently through streets littered with burning cars and charred bodies. At one moment, he was guiding an ambulance carrying bomb victims through traffic. At another, he was searching cars at a checkpoint. By evening, he had helped to seize a would-be car bomber and to retrieve corpses. By nightfall, he was patrolling the streets of his neighborhood. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Fartoosi has been a militiaman with the Shiite Muslim Mahdi Army of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Last week, he also served as a relief worker, a policeman, a traffic controller and a guard. So did thousands of his militia comrades who mobilized to assist victims of the deadliest attack on Iraqis since the invasion, highlighting the power associated with the Mahdi Army's less-publicized roles in Iraqi society. Read The Full Story New York On Edge As Police Kill Unarmed Man On His Wedding Day 2006-11-27 14:31:02 The New York authorities were scrambling to contain an angry backlash Sunday after police shot a group of three unarmed black men, killing one of them on his wedding day. The shooting took place after a stag party at a strip club in Queens, a few hours before Sean Bell, 23, was due to marry the mother of his two small daughters. He was struck in the neck and arm and was dead on arrival at hospital. One of his friends, Joseph Guzman, was in a critical condition after being hit 11 times, and another, Trent Benefield, was in a stable condition with wounds to his leg and buttocks. Outrage at the shooting was compounded when it emerged that Mr Guzman and Mr Benefield had been shackled to their beds. New Yorkers have also been startled at the apparent wildness of the fusillade. The police claim to have overheard one of three men mention a gun, but no weapon was found. Read The Full Story	Ford Motor Co. Mortgages Assets To Pay For Overhaul 2006-11-27 20:46:14 For the first time in its 103-year history, the Ford Motor Company is mortgaging its assets, including factories, equipment, office buildings, patents and trademarks, and stakes in subsidiaries like Volvo, in order to raise $18 billion to overhaul itself. The amount Ford is borrowing exceeds the total market value of all its outstanding stock by more than $2 billion. Although other auto companies have put up manufacturing equipment and other types of collateral over the years to secure loan, Ford has never done so before. For many decades, its credit was so good that it could easily borrow without pledging assets. Read The Full Story At Least 10 Killed In 'Suspicious' Fire At Missouri Home For The Disabled 2006-11-27 20:45:12 An early morning fire broke out in an Anderson, Missouri, group home for the elderly and mentally ill Monday, killing 10 people and injuring two dozen others in a blaze that the governor said was being treated as a crime. The blaze reduced the privately run Anderson Guest House to a skeleton of cinder blocks and stunned this rural community of about 1,800 people tucked in the Ozark hills about 35 miles south of Joplin. Gov. Matt Blunt said investigators were treating the fire as suspicious. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against N.Y. Times In Leak Case 2006-11-27 20:43:50 The Supreme Court ruled against the New York Times on Monday, refusing to block the government from reviewing telephone records of two Times reporters in a leak investigation concerning a terrorism-funding probe. The one-sentence order came in a First Amendment battle that involves stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. The stories revealed the government’s plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to track down the reporters’ confidential sources for the stories. Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment on the Supreme Court’s order. Read The Full Story Bush To Meet With NATO Leaders On Afghanistan For First Time In Two Years 2006-11-27 15:49:55 President Bush will seek fresh troops and equipment for the fight in Afghanistan and fewer restrictions on how they can be used when he sits down this week with NATO allies to review the state of the dangerous mission there, according to senior U.S. officials. Bush was flying Monday to this scenic capital of Estonia, on his way to a summit of NATO's leaders in Riga, Latvia, beginning Tuesday. U.S. officials are hoping for a re-commitment to the long-term success of the mission in Afghanistan, where a stepped-up insurgency from the Taliban militia is posing stiff new challenges for some 33,000 NATO troops seeking to pacify the country. Following the summit Bush will fly from Riga to Amman, Jordan, Wednesday for meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about how to arrest the deteriorating conditions in the other country in which the United States made a dramatic post-9/11 intervention. Read The Full Story At least Three People Tested For Radiation Exposure In Spy Death Case 2006-11-27 15:48:21 The British government "should be able to expect cooperation" from the Russian authorities over the death of the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, Britain's home secretary said Monday. Three people have been tested so far for exposure to polonium 210, the radioactive substance that killed  Litvinenko. The Russian ambassador was "called in" to the Foreign Office last Friday over the incident, John Reid revealed, as the government made its first official statement on the mystery death. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Sides With Philip Morris - OK For Company To Lie 2006-11-27 15:46:41 The Supreme Court on Monday sided with Philip Morris USA, refusing to disturb a court ruling that threw out a $10.1 billion verdict over the company's "light" cigarettes. The court issued its order without comment. Last year, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the massive fraud judgment against Philip Morris, a unit of the Altria Group Inc., in a class-action lawsuit involving "light" cigarettes. Because the Federal Trade Commission allowed companies to characterize their cigarettes as "light" and "low tar," Philip Morris could not be held liable under state law even if the terms it used could be found false or misleading, said the state court. Read The Full Story Rift Over Afghan Mission Looms For NATO 2006-11-27 14:31:52 NATO is bigger than ever, and it is reaching further than ever before, by taking the lead in the war in Afghanistan,  but the Afghan mission threatens a rift within the Atlantic alliance between those nations willing and able to participate fully in combat operations in Afghanistan and those nations that are not. The challenge represents a third generational test for the allies - one fraught with argument and angst like the others were. The first test was how best to face off against the Soviet threat, a challenge that gave birth to NATO in 1949. The second was whether to move beyond the boundaries of NATO’s members in the 1990s to halt ethnic bloodshed in the Balkans. NATO’s 26 members and 11 non-alliance partners have committed 32,000 troops to Afghanistan, with 12,000 Americans assigned to the NATO portion of the mission. (Another 8,000 American troops are in Afghanistan carrying out counterterrorism missions solely under American command.) Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday November 27 2006 - (813)

Monday November 27 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Bush To Meet With NATO Leaders On Afghanistan For First Time In Two Years 2006-11-27 15:49:55 President Bush will seek fresh troops and equipment for the fight in Afghanistan and fewer restrictions on how they can be used when he sits down this week with NATO allies to review the state of the dangerous mission there, according to senior U.S. officials. Bush was flying Monday to this scenic capital of Estonia, on his way to a summit of NATO's leaders in Riga, Latvia, beginning Tuesday. U.S. officials are hoping for a re-commitment to the long-term success of the mission in Afghanistan, where a stepped-up insurgency from the Taliban militia is posing stiff new challenges for some 33,000 NATO troops seeking to pacify the country. Following the summit Bush will fly from Riga to Amman, Jordan, Wednesday for meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about how to arrest the deteriorating conditions in the other country in which the United States made a dramatic post-9/11 intervention. Read The Full Story At least Three People Tested For Radiation Exposure In Spy Death Case 2006-11-27 15:48:21 The British government "should be able to expect cooperation" from the Russian authorities over the death of the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, Britain's home secretary said Monday. Three people have been tested so far for exposure to polonium 210, the radioactive substance that killed  Litvinenko. The Russian ambassador was "called in" to the Foreign Office last Friday over the incident, John Reid revealed, as the government made its first official statement on the mystery death. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Sides With Philip Morris - OK For Company To Lie 2006-11-27 15:46:41 The Supreme Court on Monday sided with Philip Morris USA, refusing to disturb a court ruling that threw out a $10.1 billion verdict over the company's "light" cigarettes. The court issued its order without comment. Last year, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the massive fraud judgment against Philip Morris, a unit of the Altria Group Inc., in a class-action lawsuit involving "light" cigarettes. Because the Federal Trade Commission allowed companies to characterize their cigarettes as "light" and "low tar," Philip Morris could not be held liable under state law even if the terms it used could be found false or misleading, said the state court. Read The Full Story Rift Over Afghan Mission Looms For NATO 2006-11-27 14:31:52 NATO is bigger than ever, and it is reaching further than ever before, by taking the lead in the war in Afghanistan,  but the Afghan mission threatens a rift within the Atlantic alliance between those nations willing and able to participate fully in combat operations in Afghanistan and those nations that are not. The challenge represents a third generational test for the allies - one fraught with argument and angst like the others were. The first test was how best to face off against the Soviet threat, a challenge that gave birth to NATO in 1949. The second was whether to move beyond the boundaries of NATO’s members in the 1990s to halt ethnic bloodshed in the Balkans. NATO’s 26 members and 11 non-alliance partners have committed 32,000 troops to Afghanistan, with 12,000 Americans assigned to the NATO portion of the mission. (Another 8,000 American troops are in Afghanistan carrying out counterterrorism missions solely under American command.) Read The Full Story Democrats Vow Investigations Into Medicare, Halliburton and Cheney's Energy Task Force 2006-11-26 23:56:17 The incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is promising an array of oversight investigations that could provoke sharp disagreement with Republicans and the White House. Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, pledged that Democrats, swept to power in the Nov. 7 elections, would govern “in the middle” next year, but the veteran lawmaker has a reputation as one who has never avoided a fight and he did not back away from that reputation on Sunday. Among the investigations he said he wants the committee to undertake: -- The new Medicare drug benefit. “There are lots and lots and lots of scandals,” he said, without citing specifics. -- Spending on government contractors in Iraq, including Halliburton Co., the Texas-based oil services conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney. -- An energy task force overseen by Cheney. It “was carefully cooked to provide only participation by oil companies and energy companies,” said Dingell. Read The Full Story Jordan's King Paints Grim Picture Of Middle East, Sees Civil Wars Erupting 2006-11-26 23:54:57 Jordan’s King Abdullah said Sunday the problems in the Middle East go beyond the war in Iraq and that much of the region soon could become engulfed in violence unless the central issues are addressed quickly. “We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands,” he said, citing conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon and the decades-long strife between the Palestinians and Israelis. “Therefore, it is time that we really take a strong step forward as part of the international community and make sure we avert the Middle East from a tremendous crisis that I fear, and I see could possibly happen in 2007,” he said. Read The Full Story Iraqi Leader Says Political Conflicts Caused Violence 2006-11-26 23:53:27 Days ahead of his meeting with President Bush to discuss security in Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq said Sunday that last week’s surge in violence in the central part of the country had been ignited by political conflicts and that Iraq’s leaders would work to resolve those differences. “These actions are at most the reflection of political backgrounds and wills and sometimes the reflection of dogmatic, perverted backgrounds and wills,” Maliki said at a news conference. “The crisis is political and they who can stop the cycle of aggravation and bloodletting of innocents are the politicians.” Maliki’s comments were an acknowledgment of the political nature of the war here and they placed responsibility for achieving any sort of peace on the shoulders of Iraq’s politicians. The civil strife is generally driven by Sunni and Shiite militias vying for dominance and has spiraled into a pattern of revenge killings and sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods. Read The Full Story Long Stints In Iraq Fracture Military Families 2006-11-26 14:47:34 As a gray dawn broke, hundreds of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers gathered on a Georgia marching ground this month and listened to a long list of names of fallen comrades. Taps rose mournfully above rows of young redbud trees planted for each of the division's 317 soldiers who have died in Iraq.  Col. John Charlton, commander of the division's 1st Brigade, which next month begins its third Iraq tour in four years, stepped forward. "Be thankful for your families, your health, and for every day that you're alive," he advised. The brigade's mission, he said, is to bring peace to Iraq's volatile western Anbar province and its capital, Ramadi, which he said despite progress remain "a dangerous area, a very dangerous area." "Take this time ... to be thinking about those soldiers represented behind or in front of you," he said, "and as you'll notice, there's still some space on the sidewalk there for more trees." This week, U.S. troops will have been fighting in Iraq longer than they did in World War II, with no relief in sight. Soldiers from 1st Brigade preparing at Fort Stewart for their third Iraq tour have been spending as much time in Iraq as at home. The rotations - a year in Iraq followed by a year at home - dictate soldiers' most intimate decisions: They mandate when troops can marry and have children. They sever relationships that cannot sustain the stress of absence or danger. And they lead some couples to pray for the war to end. Read The Full Story Spy Death Linked To Nuclear Thefts 2006-11-26 14:45:23 An investigation was under way Saturday night into Russia's black market trade in radioactive materials amid concern that significant quantities of polonium 210, the substance that killed former spy Alexander Litvinenko, are being stolen from poorly protected Russian nuclear sites. As British police drew up a list of witnesses for questioning over the death, experts warned that thefts from nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union were a major problem. A senior source at the United Nations nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Observer he had no doubt that the killing of Litvinenko was an "organized operation" which bore all the hallmarks of a foreign intelligence agency. The expert in radioactive materials said the ability to obtain polonium 210 and the knowledge needed to use it to kill Litvinenko meant that the attack could not have been carried out by a "lone assassin". Read The Full Story U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds To Sustain Itself 2006-11-26 14:44:05 The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded. The report, obtained by the New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials. As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid for hundreds of kidnap victims, the report says. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments - previously identified by American officials as including France and Italy - paid $30 million in ransom last year. Read The Full Story Deadly Pipeline Blast In East Java Linked To Volcanic Eruptions 2006-11-26 14:41:52 A gas pipeline explosion that killed at least seven people in East Java was a consequence of the volcanic mud eruptions that began in the area several months ago, government officials and drilling experts said Thursday. The accident occurred because the earth had subsided considerably as a result of the heavy outflows of mud and water, and a dike that had been built to contain the mud then collapsed on to the pipeline causing it to rupture, said officials. “The land subsided two meters,” the minister for energy and mineral resources, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, said at a news conference in Surabaya after inspecting the explosion site about 23 miles to the south. It was the kind of catastrophe that had been feared, and predicted, since the mud eruptions, which resulted from faulty mine drilling practices, began and have continued unabated for nearly six months. Nearly 126,000 cubic meters of mud and water a day are now spouting from underground. About a square mile is now inundated. Read The Full Story	Iraq President Talabani In Iran For Talks 2006-11-27 15:49:26 Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Tehran on Monday to meet with his Iranian counterpart amid increasing calls for Washington to enlist Iran's help in calming the escalating violence in neighboring Iraq. "Talabani arrived in Tehran minutes ago as the head of a high-level delegation," Iran's state-run television reported. Iran has been trying to organize a summit joining President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Talabani and Syrian President Bashar Assad in a bid to assert its role as the top regional powerbroker. Read The Full Story U.S. Air Force F-16CG Crashes In Iraq 2006-11-27 15:47:24 A U.S. Air Force jet carrying one pilot crashed in Iraq on Monday, the military said. The F-16CG was supporting coalition ground forces when it went down at about 1:35 p.m., about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad in Anbar province, the military said in a brief statement that contained no information about the cause of the crash or the fate of the pilot. Mohammed Al-Obeidi, an Iraqi who lives in the nearby town of Karmah, said he saw the jet flying up and down erratically before it nose-dived and exploded in a farm field. Read The Full Story Mahdi Army Provides Aid To Iraqi Victims 2006-11-27 14:32:54 In the chaos, Ayad al-Fartoosi thrived. Against a backdrop of death and panic in Sadr City last Thursday, he strode confidently through streets littered with burning cars and charred bodies. At one moment, he was guiding an ambulance carrying bomb victims through traffic. At another, he was searching cars at a checkpoint. By evening, he had helped to seize a would-be car bomber and to retrieve corpses. By nightfall, he was patrolling the streets of his neighborhood. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Fartoosi has been a militiaman with the Shiite Muslim Mahdi Army of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Last week, he also served as a relief worker, a policeman, a traffic controller and a guard. So did thousands of his militia comrades who mobilized to assist victims of the deadliest attack on Iraqis since the invasion, highlighting the power associated with the Mahdi Army's less-publicized roles in Iraqi society. Read The Full Story New York On Edge As Police Kill Unarmed Man On His Wedding Day 2006-11-27 14:31:02 The New York authorities were scrambling to contain an angry backlash Sunday after police shot a group of three unarmed black men, killing one of them on his wedding day. The shooting took place after a stag party at a strip club in Queens, a few hours before Sean Bell, 23, was due to marry the mother of his two small daughters. He was struck in the neck and arm and was dead on arrival at hospital. One of his friends, Joseph Guzman, was in a critical condition after being hit 11 times, and another, Trent Benefield, was in a stable condition with wounds to his leg and buttocks. Outrage at the shooting was compounded when it emerged that Mr Guzman and Mr Benefield had been shackled to their beds. New Yorkers have also been startled at the apparent wildness of the fusillade. The police claim to have overheard one of three men mention a gun, but no weapon was found. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Pivotal Global Warming Case 2006-11-26 23:55:42 The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming. A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles. Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. It is the principal "greenhouse" gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to a warming of the earth and widespread ecological changes. One way to reduce those emissions is to have cleaner-burning cars. Read The Full Story Tens Of Thousands In Turkey Protest Pope's Upcoming Visit 2006-11-26 23:54:13 Tens of thousands of protesters chanted "No to the pope!" and waved anti-Vatican banners Sunday in a defiant display of the pro-Islamic anger that could await the pontiff on his first papal trip to a mostly Muslim nation. About 25,000 people filled a square in a working-class district of Istanbul at a rally organized by an Islamist political party whose leaders have denounced the pope's remarks in September that linked violence and Islam. "The pope is not wanted here," said Kubra Yigitoglu, a 20-year-old protester in a head scarf, ankle-length coat and cowboy boots who called Turkey "an Islamic republic". The demonstration highlighted the deep strains in Turkey ahead of the pope's four-day visit beginning Tuesday. Read The Full Story Free Internet Press - Distress Update and Thank You 2006-11-26 22:08:55   First, I'd like to thank everyone for all your support.  I'm sorry I couldn't reply to every one of you directly.  We've been reading your mail from all over the world.  Thanks for all your kind words and advice.   PayPal Donations:   B.L.   $50   T.R.   $20   C.C.&n! bsp;  $20   Somewhere.com $25   G.L.  $10   Hardware Donation:   Anonymous: Dual Opteron 240 Server w/ 1Gb RAM and 325Gb RAID5   Colocation Services:   Energenesis - Bandwidth and rack space Read The Full Story Cellphones And Web Spread Threats And Fear In Iraq 2006-11-26 14:46:05 In the aftermath of one of the deadliest spasms of violence, a new level of fear and foreboding has gripped Baghdad, fueled in part by sectarian text messages and Internet sites, deepening tensions in an already divided capital. In interviews across Baghdad on Saturday, Sunnis and Shiites said they were preparing themselves for upheaval, both violent and psychological. They viewed the bombings that killed more than 200 people Thursday in the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community of Sadr City as a trigger for more reprisal killings. "We feel our world has become narrow, and we are being squeezed," said Karar al-Zuheari, 31, a Shiite taxi driver. "We have no place to run." Read The Full Story Dying Spy Accused Kremlin Agent 2006-11-26 14:44:47 The former Russian spy who died last week from radiation poisoning named a senior Kremlin agent as the man he believed responsible for targeting him. Alexander Litvinenko, who died after mysteriously absorbing polonium210, a rare and highly toxic radioactive material, said in his last full interview from hospital that he knew he was an “active case” for Russian intelligence. He named the agent in charge of monitoring him as "Viktor Kirov". A mand called Anatoly V. Kirov worked at the Russian embassy in London, where he was listed as a diplomat, until late last yeare. He is believed to have left the diplomatic service in October 2005 and returned to Russia. But Litvinenko claimed just days before he died that Kirov was an intelligence agent who continued to target him. Read The Full Story IAEA Freezes Iran Reactor Aid Over Plutonium 2006-11-26 14:42:16 The U.N. nuclear watchdog's board of governors on Thursday indefinitely blocked Iran's bid for technical aid for a reactor project over concerns it could be secretly used to yield bomb-grade plutonium. But diplomats said the ruling, which the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board adopted by consensus after days of haggling between industrialized and developing nations, left a theoretical possibility of revisiting Iran's request in future. In a compromise hammered out in negotiations ahead of the board meeting, Iranian requests for IAEA technical assistance on seven other nuclear energy projects judged not to pose a risk of being diverted to bomb-making were approved by the board. Read The Full Story test story 2006-11-26 03:02:47 test main text Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php