Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday November 20 2006 - (813)

Monday November 20 2006 edition
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Chilly Reception Precedes Bush's Indonesia Visit 2006-11-20 00:25:38 President Bush paid tribute to new symbols of capitalism in this struggling communist country Monday and offered encouragement for Vietnam’s battle against bird flu and other public health challenges. The president quickly toured this city, once known as Saigon, before flying to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, where thousands angrily protested America’s policy in the Middle East and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House said it was confident about security precautions for Bush’s visit despite police warnings of an increased threat of attack by al-Qaeda-linked groups. Read The Full Story Pentagon Review Sees Three Options In Iraq 2006-11-20 00:24:39 The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials. Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home". The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, said the officials. The military's study, commissioned by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, comes at a time when escalating violence is causing Iraq policy to be reconsidered by both the White House and the congressionally chartered, bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Pace's effort will feed into the White House review, but military officials have made it clear they are operating independently. Read The Full Story Hezbollah Threatens Protests To Topple Lebanese Government 2006-11-20 00:23:19 In a deepening crisis that has paralyzed Lebanese politics, the leader of Hezbollah urged his well-organized followers to prepare for mass protests aimed at toppling the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. The order by Hasan Nasrallah, given in a speech Saturday that was broadcast Sunday, was the latest in a test of wills between Hezbollah and a government that Nasrallah dismissed as more representative of the U.S. ambassador than Siniora. More than a simple political standoff in an always fractious country, many see the escalating struggle as perhaps the most decisive in Lebanon in a generation. It may determine which forces guide the country for years ahead: the coalition around Siniora that draws its strength from the country's Sunni Muslims, Druze and some Christians and has aligned itself with the United States and Europe, or Hezbollah's Shiite Muslim constituency, backed by Iran  and Syria, and its Christian allies represented by a former Lebanese general. Read The Full Story British Saudi Arms Deal Investigation Closes In On Secret Papers 2006-11-20 00:22:03 Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is on the brink of obtaining information from Swiss banks which may implicate the Saudi royal family in secret arms-deal commissions of more than £100 million (about $195 million), sources close to the attorney general's office confirmed Sunday. The SFO has been inquiring for three years, in some secrecy, into allegations of systematic corruption in international deals arranged by Britain's biggest arms company, BAE Systems. It was only this autumn that the Saudis, along with BAE executives and officials of the Ministry of Defense's (MoD) arms sales department, DESO, became aware of how much progress the SFO has made. Sources close to the Swiss say the authorities there notified two middlemen that access to their bank accounts is being sought. Read The Full Story Kissinger: Victory In Iraq No Longer Possible 2006-11-19 12:19:10 Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who regularly advises President Bush on Iraq, said Sunday that a full military victory was no longer possible there. He thus joined a growing number of leading conservatives openly challenging the administration’s conduct of the war and positive forecasts for it. “If you mean, by ‘military victory,’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” Kissinger told BBC News. In Washington, a leading Republican supporter of the war, Senator John McCain, of Arizona, said American troops in Iraq were “fighting and dying for a failed policy”. Read The Full Story Attacks Across Iraq Leave Dozens Dead 2006-11-19 12:18:18 Syria's foreign minister arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, the highest ranking official from his country to visit since the U.S.-led war began in 2003, at a time when Syria is increasingly seen as key to helping stem the insurgency. The sectarian violence continued Sunday, with the deadliest attack in the southern Shiite city of Hillah, where a suicide bomber in a minivan lured day laborers to his vehicle with promises of a job then blew it up, killing 22 people, police said. Police later announced the arrest of three insurgents who had planned the attack - two Egyptians and an Iraqi - and said the suspects claimed the bomber was Syrian. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, in his first visit since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, promised to cooperate with Iraqi authorities struggling to control chaos that threatens the country with civil war. But Moallem called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Read The Full Story U.N. Leader Urges Biotech Safeguards 2006-11-19 12:17:30 United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warned Saturday that the potential for danger from the rapidly growing biotechnology industry was increasing exponentially and urged creating global safeguards. Annan, in a speech in the Swiss university town of St. Gallen, warned of “catastrophic” results if recent advances in biotechnology, including gene manipulation and work with viruses, fell into the wrong hands. “As biological research expands, and technologies become increasingly accessible, this potential for accidental or intentional harm grows exponentially,” he said, according to the text of his speech. “Even novices working in small laboratories will be able to carry out gene manipulation.” Read The Full Story Former Russian Spy Poisoned In London Plot 2006-11-19 11:11:24 Scotland Yard is investigating a suspected plot to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain by poisoning him with thallium, the deadly metal. Aleksander Litvinenko, who defected to Britain six years ago, is fighting for his life in a London hospital. A toxicology test at Guy’s hospital last Thursday confirmed the presence of the odorless, tasteless poison. A medical report obtained by the Sunday Times shows that he has three times the maximum limit in his body, a potentially fatal dose. It is as yet unclear how the poison was administered, but on the day he became ill his family says he had a meal with a mysterious Italian contact. Read The Full Story Allawi Shapes Up As Iron Man In Iraq 2006-11-19 11:10:14 A former Iraqi prime minister who is tipped to return as a “strongman” leader if Baghdad’s faltering government falls has challenged the American-led coalition’s objective of creating a western-style democracy even though the country is in turmoil. Iyad Allawi, an ally of the United States and Britain who ran the first Iraqi government after the fall of Saddam Hussein, said that elections were no solution when the overriding problem was a security crisis caused by militias who had infiltrated the police and were killing with impunity. The slaughter has triggered an exodus of middle-class professionals. \\\\\\\"Iraq was not and is not ready for elections,\\\\\\\" Allawi said in an interview last week. Read The Full Story Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush 2006-11-19 10:14:47 The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney\'s residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the \"cakewalk\" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. \"It was a euphoric moment,\" Adelman recalled. Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that \"the president is ultimately responsible\" for what Adelman now calls \"the debacle that was Iraq\". Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress. Read The Full Story Padilla Case Raises Questions About U.S. Anti-Terror Tactics 2006-11-19 10:01:41 After he was arrested in 2002, Jose Padilla was considered so dangerous that he was held without charges in a military prison for more than three years - accused first of plotting a radiological \"dirty bomb\" attack and later of conspiring with al-Qaeda to blow up apartment buildings with natural gas. Now, nearly a year after his abrupt transfer into a regular criminal court, the Justice Department\'s prosecution of the former Chicago gang member is running into trouble. A Republican-appointed federal judge in Miami, Florida, has already dumped the most serious conspiracy count against Padilla, removing for now the possibility of a life sentence. The same judge has also disparaged the government\'s case as \"light on facts\", while defense lawyers have made detailed allegations that Padilla was illegally tortured, threatened and perhaps even drugged during his detention at a Navy brig in South Carolina. Read The Full Story Analysis: Netherlands Split Over Burqa Ban 2006-11-19 09:49:33 A bitter debate about multiculturalism was raging in the Netherlands Saturday following Friday\'s pledge by the leading party in the coalition government to introduce legislation banning the wearing of burqas in public if it is re-elected on Wednesday. The pledge by the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party to outlaw the full-length veils has caused uproar among the Muslim community and civil rights groups. It has also shone a light on the shifting politics of a country long considered one of Europe\'s most welcoming for immigrants. However, since the murder in 2004 of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fundamentalist, the country has become increasingly polarized on racial and religious issues. Integration and Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk justified the move on security grounds. \"People should always be recognizable, and from the standpoint of integration we think people should be able to communicate with one another,\" she said. \"The Cabinet finds it undesirable that face-covering clothing - including the burqa - is worn in public places for reasons of public order, security and protection of citizens.\" She said the ban would also apply to headgear such as ski masks and full-faced helmets. Read The Full Story	Drug Puts Wounded U.S. Troops At Risk For Blood Clots, Strokes, Heart Attacks 2006-11-20 00:25:11 A blood-coagulating drug designed to treat rare forms of hemophilia is being used on critically wounded U.S. troops in Iraq despite evidence it can cause clots that lead to strokes, heart attacks and death in other patients, The (Baltimore) Sun reported for Sunday’s editions. Recombinant Activated Factor VII, which is made by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, is approved in the United States for treating forms of hemophilia that affect fewer than 3,000 Americans. It costs $6,000 a dose. The Food and Drug Administration said in a warning last December that giving Factor VII to patients who don’t have the blood disorder could cause strokes and heart attacks. Its researchers published a study in January blaming 43 deaths on clots that developed after injections of Factor VII. Read The Full Story In The Beginning: Scientists Get Ready To Hunt For 'God Particle' 2006-11-20 00:23:50 At security posts dotted around the fields between the Jura mountains and Lake Geneva scientists are installing hi-tech retina scans above shafts descending 80 meters down - and leading to the largest scientific instrument ever built. The machine is being bolted together inside a tunnel 17 miles (27 kilometers) long, and when the power is thrown on next year it will recreate conditions unknown for 14 billion years since the extraordinary fireball that marked the beginning of the universe - the big bang which blasted time and space into existence. In the coming months engineers using cranes will lower sections of detectors weighing several thousand tons into caverns carved within the tunnel. They will wire in some of the world's largest magnets and test run the machine's computer, built to handle a torrent of data equivalent to 150 times the content of the world wide web each year. Read The Full Story Rapid Growth In Solar, Wind And Biofuel Energy Shows Promise 2006-11-20 00:22:43 The top of a large steel vat gently swings open, and a slab of silicon, cut into pieces the size of large bricks, is lifted onto a conveyor belt. On a mezzanine above the warehouse-style floor of the factory in Frederick, Bill Good is monitoring the six-foot furnaces that melt the silicon that goes into bricks, which are later sliced into wafers and turned into solar panels in a building next door. Good, 53, used to work in a landscaping business, but like many people around the country he has found work in the alternative-energy industry. After two years, he said, "I could retire here." That's the sort of job certainty many workers would envy. Growth in the solar, wind power and biofuel sectors has been fast and promises to be enduring. Last Thursday, BP PLC's solar division announced a $70 million plan to double the capacity of the Frederick factory and hire 70 more people. Read The Full Story Rep. Rangel Will Seek To Reinstate Draft 2006-11-19 12:24:17 Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars and to bolster U.S. troop levels insufficient to cover potential future action in Iran, North Korea and Iraq. "There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said. Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose a measure early next year. In 2003, he proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress. Read The Full Story California To Restrict Ocean Fishing 2006-11-19 12:18:46 Flying over California's rugged Central Coast, Mike Sutton pointed to kelp forests and rocky reefs just below the water's surface that will soon be off-limits to fishing under one of the nation's most ambitious plans to protect marine life. ''We're trying to make sure our oceans are protected as our land,'' said Sutton, a marine expert at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Despite intense opposition from many fishermen, California wildlife regulators are creating the nation's most extensive network of ''marine protected areas'' - stretches of ocean where fishing will be banned or severely restricted. Read The Full Story Palestinian Protests Force Israel To Halt Air Strikes 2006-11-19 12:17:56 Hundreds of Palestinians serving as human shields guarded the homes of two top militants Sunday, a new tactic that forced Israelto call off missile strikes on the buildings and re-evaluate a mainstay of its aerial campaign in Gaza. In recent months, the Israeli air force has repeatedly struck the homes of militants after warning residents by phone to clear out. Israeli security officials said they did not know how to respond to the human shield tactic, but pressed ahead with other airstrikes Sunday. In Gaza City, an aircraft fired a missile at a car, killing one man and wounding nine, including two Hamas militants. Four of the wounded were children, ages 5 to 16, who suffered shrapnel injuries, hospital officials said. Read The Full Story Democrats Probe Billions Lost To Baghdad Corruption 2006-11-19 11:12:24 When an American adventurer and arms dealer was gunned down in his black BMW near the banks of the Tigris river in 2004, his murder was blamed on an obscure group of Islamic terrorists. As Baghdad’s body count rises, Dale Stoffel, 43, is barely remembered today but his name is certain to be revived as the Democrats prepare for a barrage of congressional investigations into corruption in Iraq. Stoffel, a former intelligence analyst, had hoped to make a fortune by selling ex-Soviet military parts to refit Saddam Hussein\'s abandoned tanks and armored vehicles for the new Iraqi army. But he was also an idealist who turned whistleblower when he learned that Iraqis in the defense ministry and arms industry expected huge kickbacks for their help. Read The Full Story Wounded Taliban Treated In Pakistan 2006-11-19 11:11:00 Pakistan is allowing Taliban fighters wounded in battles with British and other NATO forces in Afghanistan to be treated at safe houses. The Sunday Times found Taliban commanders and their fighters recuperating in the city of Quetta last week and moving freely around parts of the city. In a white-walled compound in the northern suburb of Pashtunabad, more than 30 Taliban were recovering from the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan since their regime was ousted five years ago. Read The Full Story Rice Warns Iraqis: \'Unite Or You Don\'t Have A Future\' 2006-11-19 10:18:36 Iraqis \"don\'t have a future\" if they give in to the sectarian tensions that are tearing apart their society, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to Vietnam Saturday in one of the starkest warnings on the present violent trajectory of the country. Her comments emerged amid a tranche of bleak prognoses for the region - including one by America\'s most senior military officer in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, who warned that if the world does not find a way to stem the rise of violent Islamic militancy, it will face a third world war. The sense of crisis engulfing U.S. and U.K. policy over Iraq came amid an increasingly desperate search in Washington and London for a meaningful strategy that would prevent the country fragmenting into a catastrophic civil war that neighbors now fear would destabilize the entire region. Read The Full Story 18 Killed In Major Battle In Baqouba, Iraq 2006-11-19 10:05:22 Iraqi and American forces fought Sunni insurgents in an hours-long street battle Saturday in the increasingly violent city of Baqouba, as residents fled indoors under the rattle of automatic weapons fire and the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades. City police said at least 18 people were killed and 19 wounded. Nationwide, police and morgue officials said the death toll was 53, including those killed in Baqouba. Read The Full Story Column: Is This An F-Word Too Far? 2006-11-19 09:57:33 Intellpuke: A new documentary can\'t be mentioned by name in some American publications. Why on Earth not? asks The Observer\'s Rowan Walker in the following column, which does include the uncensored version of the F-word so, if you don\'t like it, skip this column and go read one of the other articles on today\'s Free Internet Press mainpage. Here\'s Mr. Walker\'s column: The New York Times was a little nonplussed: \"Just to clear up any confusion: the four stars in the box accompanying this article do not represent a rave review, though I did quite enjoy the movie in question.\" The four stars were for another reason, because the review by the acclaimed critic Anthony Scott was for a film which had \"the big swearword\" in the title. And the Times does not print big swearwords, however commonly they are used. The F-word is still, despite its almost constant use, tricky. Rarely a day goes by when I don\'t hear it, see it, say it, or think it and those FCUK tops still catch my eye. So what is the appeal of this four-letter word, if it\'s not just about sex? One man in America is determined to find out. \"It all started as a joke,\" said director Steve Anderson, whose latest film, \"Fuck: A Fuckumentary\", has just been released in America to much chin-rubbing commentary. Scott described the effort to get the bottom of the word\'s unmistakable power as \"rowdy and contentious\". Read The Full Story Blair Stirs Up Hornets Nest For Agreeing That Iraq War Is \'Disaster\' 2006-11-19 09:46:08 British Prime Minister Tony Blair provoked a storm Saturday after apparently admitting that the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain was \"a disaster.\" Blair did not use the words himself, but appeared to agree with the assessment of the interviewer Sir David Frost on Al-Jazeera\'s new English-language channel. Blair\'s Downing Street office insisted that the British leader\'s views had been misrepresented and that it was \"disingenuous\" to portray it as an admission, reported the U.K.\'s Press Association. During the interview, Frost suggested that the West\'s intervention in Iraq had \"so far been pretty much of a disaster\". Blair replied: \"It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It\'s not difficult because of some accident in planning, it\'s difficult because there\'s a deliberate strategy - al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war.\" Read The Full Story
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