Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday November 15 2006 - (813)

Wednesday November 15 2006 edition
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Justice Dept.'s Brief On Detention Policy Draws Ire 2006-11-15 00:06:19 Critics of U.S. detention policies warned yesterday that a brief legal document filed by the Justice Department this week raises the possibility that any of the millions of immigrants living in the United States could be subject to indefinite detention if they are accused of ties to terrorist groups. In a six-page motion filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Justice Department lawyers argue that an anti-terrorism law approved by Congress last month allows the government to detain any foreign national declared to be an enemy combatant, even if he is arrested and imprisoned inside the United States. The government argues that a legal challenge by alleged al-Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri should be dismissed because the former Bradley University graduate student has no standing in regular civilian courts. Under the new law, the Military Commissions Act, the Pentagon plans to place Marri into its new military trial system as soon as his criminal case is dismissed, according to the filing. Read The Full Story Iraqi Report On Hostages Release Now Called False 2006-11-15 00:05:20 Intellpuke: On Tuesday, I posted a CNN article saying that most of the hostages taken from a Higher Education Ministry office in Baghdad, Iraq, had been released. The following Associated Press article now says that report, initially made by Iraqi officials and and Iraqi t.v. news site, was incorrect. Here's the A.P. report: Suspected Shiite militiamen dressed as Interior Ministry commandos stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Tuesday and kidnapped dozens of people after clearing the area under the guise of providing security for what they claimed would be a visit by the U.S. ambassador. A broadcast report that most hostages were freed appeared to be false. Witnesses and authorities said the gunmen raced through all four stories of the building, forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men and loaded them aboard about 20 pickup trucks. Read The Full Story Scientists Call For Ban On Deep Sea Trawling 2006-11-15 00:03:59 Scientists have called for a worldwide ban on deep-sea trawling following a major United Nations-backed report on the damage it is causing to vulnerable deep-sea corals. The study will provide ammunition for countries calling for a moratorium on the fishing practice on the high seas. The latest round of negotiations on the issue will begin at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday. Scientific evidence has been mounting that deep-sea bottom trawling, which involves dragging nets over the summits of submerged mountains called seamounts, can do long-lasting damage to the ecosystems. But countries such as Spain, Russia, Canada and South Korea have defended the practice, arguing that no one could be sure which areas to avoid. The U.K. government supports a moratorium. Read The Full Story Group Files Suit In Germany Against Rumsfeld For War Crimes 2006-11-14 15:37:52 Lawyers for inmates of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay filed a lawsuit in Germany Tuesday against outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, hoping his resignation and testimony from a former general will help prosecute him for war crimes. The suit, which also names a host of other U.S. officials, was sent to federal prosecutors under a German law that allows the prosecution of war crimes regardless of where they were committed. It alleges that Rumsfeld personally ordered and condoned torture. Former U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq, said she would testify against her superiors because only a handful of low-ranking soldiers have been convicted over the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail. Read The Full Story Police Arrested After 150 Kidnapped From Iraq Institute 2006-11-14 14:23:44 Armed men in Iraqi police uniforms and driving police vehicles kidnapped as many as 150 people from a government agency on Tuesday, and arrest warrants have been issued for several senior police commanders in connection with the abductions, Iraqi officials said today. The abductions were a well-orchestrated reminder of how challenging basic security remains in Iraq at a time when U.S. officials are pressing the local government to assert more control. News of the mass kidnapping was announced dramatically on the floor of the national Parliament, and within hours an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said on national television that orders had been issued for the apprehension of several police officials in charge of the area where the kidnappings occurred. Read The Full Story Vatican Official Criticizes U.S. Border Fence Plan As 'Inhuman' 2006-11-14 14:21:24 A top Vatican official called the Bush administration's plans for hundreds of miles of new security fences on the United States-Mexico border "inhuman." "Speaking of borders, I must unfortunately say that in a world that greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall with joy, new walls are being built between neighborhood and neighborhood, city and city, nation and nation," said Cardinal Renato Martino, according to news agency reports. Cardinal Martino, who heads the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, was presenting Pope Benedict XVI's  message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees at a news conference Tuesday. Read The Full Story Hamas Insists It Won't Recognize Israel 2006-11-14 14:16:21 Hamas insisted Tuesday it would not recognize Israel even after a unity government takes power in the Palestinian territories, complicating efforts to form a more moderate coalition that would clear the way for vital foreign aid. The militant Islamic group suggested, however, that the emerging coalition would be free to stake out a different position, apparently hoping the ambiguity in its statements will allow it to preserve its anti-Israel ideology but loosen international sanctions that have crippled the Palestinian economy. The tough talk came despite Hamas' promises to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it would refrain from incendiary public statements during the delicate coalition talks. Read The Full Story French Researchers Find Potent Painkiller In Human Saliva 2006-11-14 14:15:23 French researchers say they've discovered a natural painkiller in human saliva that's several times more potent than morphine used in animal studies. The researchers have named the pain inhibitor opiorphin, because it acts on the same pathways as morphine and other opiate painkillers. The finding could lead to improved pain medications because opiorphin is a naturally occurring molecule that is quickly metabolized, according to a report by researchers at the Pasteur Institute, in Paris, France. Not much is known as yet about opiorphin, said study author Dr. Catherine Rougeot, director of the institute's Laboratory of Pharmacology of Neuroendocrine Regulation. Read The Full Story Mom Says She Wasn't Allowed To Nurse Infant On Plane 2006-11-14 14:13:57 A woman who claims she was kicked off an airplane because she was breast-feeding her baby has filed a complaint against two airlines, said her attorney. Emily Gillette, 27, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, filed the complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission late last week against Delta Air Lines and Freedom Airlines, said her attorney, Elizabeth Boepple. Freedom was operating the Delta flight between Burlington and New York City. Gillette said she was discreetly breast-feeding her 22-month-old daughter on Oct. 13 as their flight prepared to leave Burlington International Airport. She said she was seated by the window in the next-to-last row, her husband was seated between her and the aisle and no part of her breast was showing. Read The Full Story British Intelligence Officials Warn Al-Qaeda Plotting Nuclear Attack On U.K. 2006-11-14 00:40:01 British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaeda is determined to attack the U.K. with a nuclear weapon, it emerged Monday. The announcement, from an officially organized British Foreign Office counter-terrorism briefing for the media, was the latest in a series of bleak assessments by senior officials and ministers about the terrorist threat facing Britain. U.K. officials have detected "an awful lot of chatter" on jihadi websites expressing the desire to acquire chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. Asked whether there was any doubt that al-Qaeda is trying to gain the technology to attack the west, including the U.K., with a nuclear weapon, a senior Foreign Office counter-terrorism official said: "No doubt at all." Read The Full Story Rich Countries 'Blocking Cheap Drugs For Developing World' 2006-11-14 00:38:59 Poor people are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines, according to a report issued Tuesday. Five years to the day after the Doha declaration - a groundbreaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs - was signed at the World Trade Organization, Oxfam says things are worse. The charity accuses the U.S., which champions the interests of its giant pharmaceutical companies, of bullying developing countries into not using the measures in the Doha declaration and the European Union of standing by and doing nothing. Doha technically allows poor countries to buy cheap copies of desperately needed drugs but the U.S. is accused of trying to prevent countries such as Thailand and India, which have manufacturing capacity, making and selling cheap generic versions so as to preserve the monopolies of the drug giants. Read The Full Story Bush Faces New Pressures To Alter Policies In The Middle East 2006-11-14 00:37:46 President Bush came under new pressure yesterday at home and abroad to alter his policies in the Middle East. British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed for a broader Arab-Israeli peace initiative to help stabilize Iraq, while the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee pledged to take a hard line on seeking early troop withdrawals. Bush offered little indication that he is planning to adjust his approach, telling reporters gathered in the Oval Office that "the best military options depend upon the conditions on the ground" in Iraq. The president also met for more than an hour with former secretary of state James A. Baker III, former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana) and other members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which is looking to chart a new course in the war. Asked about calls for dialogue with Iran and Syria to help curb violence in Iraq, Bush said there was no change in his position that Iran must first suspend uranium enrichment. "Our focus of this administration is to convince the Iranians to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions," Bush said after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "That focus is based upon our strong desire for there to be peace in the Middle East. And an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a destabilizing influence." Read The Full Story Report: Climate Efforts Falling Short 2006-11-14 00:36:27 Sweden, Britain and Denmark are doing the most to protect against climate change, but their efforts are not nearly enough, according to a report released Monday by environmental groups. The United States - the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases - ranked 53rd, with only China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia doing worse. "We don't have any winners, we only have countries that are better compared to others," said Matthias Duwe, of Climate Action Network Europe, which released the data at the U.N. climate conference. "We don't have big shining stars." Read The Full Story Pope Warns Of Alien Attack 2006-11-14 00:35:20 The Earth is wide open to alien attack, a former British government advisor has warned. Nick Pope said the department that formally investigated UFO sightings had closed down, meaning unexplained phenomena are not being investigated. Pope, who ran Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD) UFO project from 1991 to 1994, said there had been a series of "highly credible" alien sightings and landings in the U.K. "The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said. "If you reported a UFO sighting now, I am absolutely sure that you would just get back a standard letter telling you not to worry. Read The Full Story	'Nightline's Dave Marash Becomes Al Jazeera's American News Anchor 2006-11-15 00:05:54 The moment Dave Marash told friends and colleagues about his new job, the questions began flying. Who? listeners asked skeptically. And why? Nearly nine months later, he's still hearing those questions - and it turns out answering the first one is simpler. In February, Marash, a lifelong broadcast newsman, became the Washington-based anchor of Al Jazeera English (AJE), the English-language spinoff of the Arabic TV news network. When AJE begins its first globe-spanning broadcast today (Wednesday), Marash will be its most prominent American face. Read The Full Story U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters 2006-11-15 00:04:32 More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and -  through its patrons Iran and Syria - weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds. The report, which was disclosed by Reuters on Monday, appears to be the first indication that foreign fighters assisted Hezbollah during the 34-day conflict, when Israel maintained a tight blockade on Lebanon. The report also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded. Read The Full Story E.U. Commissioner Gives Microsoft Until Thanksgiving To Hand Over Software Secrets 2006-11-15 00:03:17 Brussels, Belgium, gave Microsoft a nine-day deadline Tuesday to provide its rivals with outstanding details of its software systems or face fresh fines. Neelie Kroes, the European Union's competition commissioner, gave the world's largest software group until next Thursday - Thanksgiving Day in America - to hand over all relevant information about the secret protocols behind its Windows operating system. Ms. Kroes fined Microsoft €280.5 million (£190 million or about $350 million) in July for failing to comply with commission rulings and could now fine it up to €3 million a day. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, she made plain that her patience had run out, saying: "I don't have eternal life." Microsoft, which is launching its upgraded Vista operating system this month, had promised to deliver all the details - to allow its systems to operate fully with rival networks - by July 19. Read The Full Story Iraq Official: Most Hostages Freed After Mass Kidnapping 2006-11-14 15:37:19 Most of those kidnapped Tuesday from a Baghdad research institute have been freed, said an Iraqi Interior Ministry official. It is unclear whether those released represented all of those abducted, as the ministry did not know how many were kidnapped, the official told CNN. No one was killed and no one was tortured, he said. Al-Iraqiya state television was also reporting most of the hostages had been released. Dozens of gunmen clad in old and new Iraqi National Police uniforms kidnapped the people at a government research institute in Baghdad. The Iraqi interior minister ordered the arrests and interrogations of several high-ranking police officers over their handling of security in the area. Read The Full Story IAEA: Plutonium Found In Iran Waste Facility 2006-11-14 14:22:28 International Atomic Energy experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for an explanation, an IAEA report said Tuesday. The report, prepared for next week's meeting of the 35-nation IAEA, also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the agency's attempts to investigate suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program that have lead to fears it might be interested in developing nuclear arms. And it said it could not confirm Iranian claims that its nuclear activities were exclusively nonmilitary unless Tehran increased its openness. Read The Full Story Study: Late Use Of Heart Stents May Not Help 2006-11-14 14:20:23 Opening a blocked artery with balloons and stents can be lifesaving in the early hours after a heart attack, but a new study concludes that it often does no good if the heart attack occurred more than 25 hours ago. The findings should change medical practice, researchers say, and may affect as many as 50,000 patients a year in the United States. The researchers say that doctors should stop trying to open arteries in people who had heart attacks days or weeks ago and who are stable and free of chest pain. Currently, the balloon procedure, called angioplasty, is often used in those patients, along with stents, devices that are implanted to prop an artery open. The new study “should change practice, and I believe it will,” said Dr. Judith S. Hochman, director of the cardiovascular clinical research center at New York University medical school, and leader of the study, which included 2,166 patients at 217 hospitals in the United States and other countries. Read The Full Story Japan's Abe Aims To Redraft Constitution, Allowing For Stronger Military 2006-11-14 14:15:47 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday said he would push during his term to redraft Japan's pacifist constitution, which strictly limits the nation's right to use military force. In a wide-ranging interview in Tokyo with the Washington Post, Abe, who succeeded the long-serving Junichiro Koizumi in September and has a maximum term limit of six years, outlined a vision for a stronger Japan, and he vowed to fortify the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance during his first official meeting with President Bush at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi this weekend. A cornerstone of his plan, he said, would be the creation of new constitution to replace the one drafted by the United States during its occupation of Japan after World War II. That constitution, which went into effect in 1947, says that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." Saying he hoped it would foster a "new spirit" in Japan, Abe asserted that he would seek a new constitution within six years - referring to the maximum of two consecutive three-year terms allotted to Japanese prime ministers. Read The Full Story Nevada's Reid To Be New U.S. Senate Majority Leader 2006-11-14 14:14:51 U.S. Senator Harry Reid, of Nevada, a moderate Democrat who favors a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, was elected by colleagues Tuesday as the new Senate majority leader for the 110th Congress that will be seated in January. After his expected, unchallenged election, Reid told reporters he plans to work with the Republican minority "with open arms because we realize that the only way to accomplish anything is on a bipartisan basis." He said the incoming Democratic majority would "treat the minority as they did not treat us. They will be involved in decisions." He said his goal was to "reestablish the legislative branch of government." Read The Full Story Chinese Submarine Shadows US Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group 2006-11-14 08:37:37 The Navy did spot a Chinese submarine near the Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group last month in the East China Sea, the Navy said Monday afternoon, verifying parts of a Monday morning article in The Washington Times that said a Chinese submarine had come within “firing range” of the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk on Oct. 26. “While conducting operations, a Chinese navy Song-class submarine was sighted near the strike group by a U.S. Navy aircraft,” said Navy spokesman Lt. Sarah Self-Kyler, who would say only that the incident occurred in “late October” near Okinawa, Japan. Both ships were operating in international waters at the time, Self-Kyler said, and “there was no communication” between the submarine and any U.S. Navy vessels after the sub was spotted. The Kitty Hawk group was conducting routine carrier training at the time of the incident, Self-Kyler said, adding that the strike group was not conducting anti-submarine warfare operations during the exercise. The Washington Times report claimed that the submarine “shadowed” Kitty Hawk, surfacing within five miles of the carrier before it was finally spotted by an aircraft. Self-Kyler would confirm only that the sub was “in close proximity” of the strike group and could not say how long the submarine remained on the surface after being spotted. Read The Full Story Pakistan Link Seen In Afghan Suicide Attacks 2006-11-14 00:39:30 Afghan and NATO security forces have recently rounded up several men like Hafiz Daoud Shah, a 21-year-old unemployed Afghan refugee who says he drove across the border to Afghanistan in September in a taxi with three other would-be suicide bombers. Every case, Afghan security officials say, is similar to that of Shah, who repeated his story in a rare jailhouse interview with a reporter in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The trail of organizing, financing and recruiting the bombers who have carried out a rising number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan traces back to Pakistan, they say. “Every single bomber or I.E.D. in one way or another is linked to Pakistan,” a senior Afghan intelligence official said, referring to improvised explosive devices like roadside bombs. “Their reasons are to keep Afghanistan destabilized, to make us fail, and to keep us fragmented.” He would speak on the subject only if not identified. Read The Full Story Evangelicals: Supporting Israel Is 'God's Foreign Policy' 2006-11-14 00:38:26 As Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon for a second week last July, the Rev. John Hagee, of San Antonio, Texas,  arrived in Washington, D.C., with 3,500 evangelicals for the first annual conference of his newly founded organization, Christians United For Israel. At a dinner addressed by the Israeli ambassador, a handful of Republican senators and the chairman of the Republican Party, Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, said Hagee. He called the conflict “a battle between good and evil” and said support for Israel is “God’s foreign policy.” The next day he took the same message to the White House. Read The Full Story Britain Kills European Union Attempt To Regulate Internet Video Clips 2006-11-14 00:37:03 The British government is set to fight off proposed European rules that would make it responsible for overseeing taste and decency in video clips on sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Under a clause in the European media regulation directive "TV Without Frontiers", national governments would be responsible for regulating the internet for the first time. Britain's media watchdog, Ofcom, backed by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, argued that the plan was unworkable and would stifle creativity and investment in new media across Europe. Ofcom said internet users should be left to police themselves within the bounds of the law. Because internet technology does not respect borders, it argued, users would simply turn instead to websites in the U.S. and elsewhere. Read The Full Story Press Freedom Being Eaten Away, Says British Watchdog Chief 2006-11-14 00:35:53 Sir Christopher Meyer, chairman of Britain's Press Complaints Commission who sparked a political furore by lifting the lid on his time as ambassador to Washington, warned last night that freedom of the press is being gradually chipped away by the British government. He said the breakdown in communication between the government and newspapers is unhealthy for democracy. "I believe the boundaries of freedom of expression seem to be closing in a bit on newspapers and magazines in a way which may not be healthy," said Sir Christopher, who has been head of the self-regulatory body for almost four years and survived repeated calls for his resignation last November. "I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I don't believe in government plotting to curb freedom of expression," he said. "But when you read that after two years, there are proposals to make it more difficult to obtain information under the Freedom of Information Act, you have to worry." Read The Full Story U.S. General Confronts Iraqi Leader On Security 2006-11-14 00:34:01 The U.S. Central Command chief confronted Iraq's prime minister on Monday over how Iraqi forces would halt raging violence and signaled a possible prelude to shifts in American policy on engaging Iran and Syria. The meeting came as sectarian attacks killed at least 90 people throughout Iraq, 46 of them showing signs of torture. The U.S. military announced the deaths of four additional American soldiers. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, sternly warned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he must disband Shiite militias and give the United States proof that they were disarmed, according to senior Iraqi government officials with knowledge of what the two men discussed. Read The Full Story
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