Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday November 13 2006 - (813)

Monday November 13 2006 edition
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Pelosi Backs Murtha For House Majority Leader 2006-11-12 20:39:47 U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in line to become speaker of the House, stepped into a postelection power struggle among fellow Democrats on Sunday with a letter of support for Rep. Jack Murtha in the race to pick a majority leader. "Your presence in the leadership of our party would add a knowledgeable and respected voice to our Democratic team," Pelosi, D-California, wrote to Murtha. The Pennsylvania lawmaker is widely viewed as an underdog in a two-man race with Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer in this week's leadership elections. Murtha issued a statement saying, "I am deeply gratified to receive the support of Speaker Pelosi, a tireless advocate for change and a true leader for our party and our country." Read The Full Story Saudi Arabia: Iraq A Major Terror Base 2006-11-12 20:37:32 Saudi Arabia's interior minister on Sunday called Iraq a major base for terrorism, a sign of growing alarm over the neighboring country where U.S. forces are struggling to prevent Sunni-Shiite violence from escalating into full-scale civil war. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif said the situation in Iraq is deteriorating daily and the country has become a threat to the whole region. "There is no doubt that Iraq now forms a main base for terrorism," he told the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya television station in the capital Riyadh. Read The Full Story Poll: Bush Approval Rating Drops, Democrats' Goals Backed 2006-11-12 20:36:40 Just days after Democrats took over Congress, Americans embraced their top goals and President George W. Bush's job approval rating slid to 31 percent, according to a Newsweek poll issued on Saturday. Huge majorities of those polled said they approved of the legislative priorities cited by Democratic leaders after their party seized control of the Senate and the House of Representatives from Republicans, said the magazine. They also expressed concerns that Democrats might seek to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq too quickly or hamper the administration's efforts to combat terrorism, it said. Read The Full Story 3 Million Kenya Herdsmen Face Extinction From Global Warming 2006-11-12 11:56:23 They are dubbed the "climate canaries" - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at this weekend's United Nations Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations. Those people, according to research commissioned by the charity Christian Aid, will be the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, whose way of life has sustained them for thousands of years but who now face eradication. Hundreds of thousands of these seasonal herders have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kenya's north eastern province following consecutive droughts that have decimated their livestock in recent years. Earlier this year the charity commissioned livestock specialist Dr David Kimenye to examine how the herders are coping with the recent drought, uncovering a disastrous story. Over two months, Dr. Kimenye talked to pastoralists in five areas across the Mandera district, home to 1.5 million people. Read The Full Story 75 Bodies Found In Baghdad, Baquba 2006-11-12 11:55:08 A pair of suicide bombs ripped through a crowd of would-be police recruits in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 35, and authorities found 75 bodies in the capital and Baqouba, an unusually high number even by Iraq's grim standards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rebuked lawmakers for putting party and sectarian loyalty ahead of Iraq's stability, and said he was planning a sweeping Cabinet reshuffle. The spiraling sectarian violence has put al-Maliki under intense pressure. Responding to questions from lawmakers during a more-than one-hour closed session, he ordered them to stop criticizing his government and declare their loyalty to a unified Iraq - not their religious sects or political parties, two members of parliament told the Associated Press. Read The Full Story Bill Gates Heralds The Next Computer Revolution 2006-11-12 11:53:26 You can tell Bill Gates is a man used to counting in billions. Asked about Microsoft's new multi-million-dollar deal with Universal Music for downloads to play on its new MP3 player, the company founder and chairman looks blank, then says: "I have to admit I don't know our deal with Universal at all. It wasn't even in the newspapers I read." Someone gently intervenes: "It was in the New York Times this morning and you're paying Universal more than one dollar per Zune [Microsoft's MP3 player set to take on the mighty iPod]." Gates, as one might expect of the world's wealthiest man, is unruffled. "We must have got some great exclusive rights for that," he half-jokes. "I sure hope so." The multi-billionaire, computer visionary, philanthropist and most influential new media player in the world is in Brussels, Belgium, to oversee Microsoft's "Innovations Day" show of the latest technological fireworks from its labs. Read The Full Story	Tests For U.S., Israeli Friendship In New Middle East 2006-11-12 20:39:23 Even before the American elections, a certain wariness had crept into the intimate friendship between Israel and the United States. The summer war in Lebanon produced questions in Washington about the competence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In Jerusalem, there were worries about the American approach to Iranand the Palestinians. In theory, the two countries share a vision for a modern Middle East in which a thriving Israel would be accepted by its neighbors, but the Israelis balk at President Bush’s embrace of regional change through promotion of Arab democracy. They view his effort as naïve and counterproductive, since it brings Islamists and Iranian clients to power. Although Israel was grateful to see Saddam Hussein overthrown, officials here have long focused on what they consider a much bigger concern: preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. They say the American policies that have empowered Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have been counterproductive to Israel’s interests. Read The Full Story Four U.K. Soldiers Die In Boat Bomb Attack 2006-11-12 20:37:02 Four British servicemen were killed in a bomb attack on their patrol boat in Basra Sunday, intensifying pressure on the government to set a clear timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Three of their colleagues were also severely injured by the improvised explosive device, as they patrolled the Shatt Al Arab waterway, a vital supply line bordering Iran. The attack took place just over an hour before the Queen led a two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday in honor of Britain's war dead. The casualties took the total British military death toll in Iraq to 125 since 2003, and came on a day in which the bodies of almost 100 Iraqi civilians were recovered and three U.S. soldiers were killed. Read The Full Story Iraq Panel May Have Few Good Options To Offer 2006-11-12 11:56:58 After meeting with President Bush tomorrow, a panel of prestigious Americans will begin deliberations to chart a new course on Iraq,with the goal of stabilizing the country with a different U.S. strategy and possibly the withdrawal of troops. Tuesday's dramatic election results, widely seen as a repudiation of the Bush Iraq policy, has thrust the 10-member, bipartisan Iraq Study Group into the kind of special role played by the Sept. 11 commission. This panel, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D), might play a decisive role in reshaping the U.S. position in Iraq, according to lawmakers and administration officials. Those familiar with the panel's work predict that the ultimate recommendations will not appear novel and that there are few, if any, good options left facing the country. Many of the ideas reportedly being considered - more aggressive regional diplomacy with Syria and Iran, greater emphasis on training Iraqi troops, or focusing on a new political deal between warring Shiites and Sunni - have either been tried or have limited chances of success, in the view of many experts on Iraq. Baker is also exploring whether a broader U.S. initiative in tackling the Arab-Israeli conflict is needed to help stabilize the region. Read The Full Story How Israel Put Gaza Civilians In The Line Of Fire 2006-11-12 11:55:44 Israeli military commanders drastically reduced the "safety" margins that separate artillery targets from the built-up civilian areas of Gaza earlier this year, despite being warned that the new policy risked increasing Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries, The Observer can reveal. The warning, delivered in Israel's high court by six human rights groups, came after the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reduced the so-called "safety range" in Gaza from a 300-meter separation from built-up areas to just 100 meters - within the kill radius of its 155mm high-explosive shells, generally regarded as being between 50 and 150 meters. Disclosure of the new shelling policy, which went largely unnoted at the time, has emerged in international outcry over the latest artillery incident by Israeli gunners shelling Gaza - the killing of 19 members of an extended family in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It was the highest Palestinian civilian toll in a single incident since the current conflict erupted in September 2000. The deaths were caused when what witnesses described as a volley of tank shells hit a built-up civilian area. Read The Full Story More Than 30 Killed In Multiple Blasts In Baghdad 2006-11-12 11:54:01 Two suicide bombers detonated themselves Sunday as a crowd of new police recruits were gathering in front of a police-recruiting center in central Baghdad, killing at least 33 and wounding 56, in one of the deadliest suicide attacks in Iraq this year. Minutes later, at least two mortars fell upon the fleeing crowd, said witnesses. Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, put the death toll at 33, while another ministry spokesman said the death toll was 42. Ministry officials said they expect the death toll to rise. At Baghdad's Yarmuk Hospital on Sunday, many of the wounded were treated for critical injuries. Interior Ministry officials said they expected the death toll to rise. Read The Full Story
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