Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday December 31 2006 - (813)

Sunday December 31 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Family Clues May Lead To Iraq's Missing Oil Billions 2006-12-31 02:04:49 Intellpuke: Saddam Hussein is dead and now the hunt for his illicit fortune is intensifying. Officials from the FBI and the U.S. Treasury are focusing their investigation on $4.4 billion in illegal oil profits, according to the following report by Jason Burke, reporting for The Observer. Mr. Burke's article follows: American and Iraqi government investigators tracing hundreds of millions of dollars missing from Saddam Hussein's illicit fortune are hoping to question members of the former dictator's close family. Officials from the FBI, the American Treasury and the State Department particularly want to find £2.2 billion ($4.4 billion) in illegal profits that Saddam's regime is alleged to have earned from 2000-2003 from an oil-for-trade pact signed with Syria that was outside the official United Nations administered oil-for-food program, according to official documents released to a U.S. congressional sub-committee. State Department and Treasury officials claim that Syria has failed to account properly for more than $500 million  in Iraqi oil profits. The cash, deposited in Syria's central bank, was paid to Syrian "businessmen" after Saddam's fall, say sources. Syrian officials deny the allegations, saying that visits by American officials to Damascus in the autumn of 2003 failed to uncover any evidence of the missing cash apart from $300 million that has already been frozen. Read The Full Story China Chokes On A Coal-Fired Boom 2006-12-31 02:03:30 A great coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century. Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung. Nonetheless, the Chinese plan to build no fewer than 500 new coal-fired power stations, adding to some 2,000, most of them unmodernized, that spew smoke, carbon dioxide and sulphur diocide into the atmosphere. It is the political fallout of that decision that is likely to challenge the foundations on which Britain and other developed nations have built their climate change policy - even as there are signs that ordinary Chinese citizens are at last rebelling against lives spent in poisonous conditions. Read The Full Story Hundreds Die In Indonesian Ferry Disaster 2006-12-31 02:02:23 Survivors of an Indonesian ferry disaster told Saturday night how they had fought each other for life jackets as the vessel broke apart and sank, drowning up to 500 passengers. The Senopati ran into trouble off Mandalika island, about 300 kilometers northeast of the capital, Jakarta, amid heavy storms. Huge waves crashed over the bows as the ship was travelling across the Java Sea from Borneo to the port of Semarang, central Java. In the last radio contact, the captain said that the ferry was damaged and capsizing. "We all just prayed as waves got higher," said Cholid, a passenger who survived by clinging to wooden planks, but lost his daughter. "The ship broke up after turning upside down." Read The Full Story Arab Critics See Saddam's Death As Vengence Over Justice, Failure of Bush Policies In Region 2006-12-30 17:37:53 As daylight broke over the Arab world and news of Saddam Hussein's hanging spread over the airwaves and the Internet, the execution proved just as profound for what it did not change as for what it did. Hezbollah's protesters in Beirut woke up on Saturday morning ready for another day of protests aimed at bringing down the United States-backed government of Fouad Siniora. In Damascus, Syria, President Bashar al-Assad  continued to exert influence in Lebanon in defiance of the United States, even as he gave indications that he was willing to discuss peace with Israel. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stuck to his goal of developing nuclear power, having just recently denounced the "unjust relations" that "require the cooperation of different religions to remedy them," in a letter to Pope Benedict XVI. Throughout the Arab world, opposition movements are still on the run, many pro-democracy activists are either imprisoned or have simply given up and the very targets of the American campaign to transform the Middle East, like Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, are more emboldened than ever. Almost four years after United States troops entered Iraq with a broader foreign policy goal of ushering in a "new" Middle East, one built on democracy and rule of law, the execution of Hussein on one of the holiest days in Islam marked the unceremonious demise of that strategy, said many Arab analysts. Read The Full Story 1 Dead, At Least 12 In Hospitals As Tornadoes Move Across Texas 2006-12-30 05:39:36 Tornadoes sweeping across Texas Friday killed one person, sent at least a dozen people to the hospital and caused widespread damage in rural counties around Waco, said officials. One person was killed when a tornado struck a home in Limestone County, said Sheriff Dennis Wilson. He did not have any details about the victim, or whether others were injured. "We're just trying to button down and do an assessment," he said. More than a dozen people were admitted to Limestone Medical Center in Groesbeck with injuries ranging from minor to trauma-type wounds, said hospital spokeswoman Sherald Wood. Read The Full Story Australia Drying Up - Fast! 2006-12-30 05:39:00 Satellites have been used to map all of Australia's fresh water for the first time, and the picture is bleak. In just three years, the continent has suffered a net loss of 46 cubic kilometers of fresh water - enough to fill Sydney Harbor more than 90 times. Initial results of an extraordinary international satellite project provide yet another indication that Australia is drying out. Based on current consumption patterns of about 1.5 billion liters a day, the water lost could have quenched Sydney's thirst for more than 80 years. The discovery has been made using two U.S. and German satellites designed to map all the world's water stocks - a task never before possible. Read The Full Story Saddam Hussein Executed Before Dawn 2006-12-30 02:22:51 Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged in the predawn hours of Saturday for crimes against humanity in the mass murder of Shiite men and boys in the 1980s, sent to the gallows by a government backed by the United States and led by Shiite Muslims who had been oppressed during his rule, Iraqi and American officials said. In the early morning, Hussein, 69, was escorted from his U.S. military prison cell at Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, and handed over to Iraqi officials. He was executed on the day Sunni Muslims, of which Hussein was one, begin celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Earlier, on Thursday, he had met with his two maternal half brothers in his prison cell and handed them personal messages, according to Iraqi officials. On Friday, his attorneys said, U.S. military officials asked that they take his personal belongings. Read The Full Story Arab Newspapers: Executing Saddam Hussein A Mistake 2006-12-30 02:22:15 Intellpuke: Editorials and commentaries in a number of Middel East newspapers warned against executing former Iraq president Saddam Hussein. Many of these comments were printed before pre-dawn Saddam's execution on Saturday. The following compilation of editorial comments was assembled and translated by BBC Monitoring, a service of BBC News: Comment In Pan Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi:  He will go to the gallows with his head held high because he built a strong, united and non-sectarian Iraq. We urge honourable people such as [President Jalal] Talabani and [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki and all those who practised all sorts of deceits against the people of Iraq to apologise and face the national courts of Iraq on charges of participating and legalising the killing of 665,000 and wounding five-fold this number. We also call for their prosecution for igniting the fire of civil war, sectarianism and ethnic cleansing. Hassan Sharbal In Pan Arab Al-Hayat: Executing Saddam is worse than the crimes he committed against his opponents... It is impossible to defend Saddam and to find reasons to be lenient with him. His crimes against his citizens were outrageous. He was a cruel and harsh dictator. He deserves to be punished. His fate as a person is not important. We hoped that he would be prosecuted in an Iraq with democracy and the rule of law. Editorial In Pan Arab Al-Guds Al-Arabi: U.S. officials are making a new mistake more dangerous than any in the past. They think executing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will lead to calm in Iraq, but the exact opposite is likely to happen. The US Administration may gain more by keeping Saddam alive behind bars and using him as a bargaining card... to negotiate with the Baath party for the sake of calm. Read The Full Story Iraq Expels 2 Iranians Detained By U.S. Forces 2006-12-30 02:20:27 Two senior Iranian operatives who were detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and were strongly suspected of planning attacks against American military forces and Iraqi targets were expelled to IranFriday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The decision to free the men was made by the Iraqi government and has angered U.S. military officials who say the operatives were seeking to foment instability here. "These are really serious people," said one U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were the target of a very focused raid based on intelligence, and it would be hard for one to believe that their activities weren't endorsed by the Iranian government. It's a situation that is obviously troubling." Read The Full Story Ship Carrying 850 People Sinks In Storm Off Java 2006-12-30 02:19:44 A ship carrying around 850 passengers sank in a storm off Central Java, an Indonesian commander said Saturday, adding that he feared many people had died. Navy Commander Col. Yan Simamora said the "Senopati" went down at around midnight Friday while en route from Sumarang on Central Java to the port of Kumai on Central Kalimantan province. Rescue workers had found only nine survivors. Read The Full Story	Now, You Have To Believe That A Man Can Fly - At 187 MPH - Without A Plane! 2006-12-31 02:04:05 For those who are bored with hang-gliding or find skydiving just too dull, a Swiss airline captain has devised the ultimate aerial thrill: flying like a bird. Thanks to high technology and nerve, Yves Rossy has come closer than anyone to realizing the ancient dream of soaring free, flitting through the sky, guided only by the body. As well as a crash helpet he wears a small pair of wings and four tiny jet engines. As he skims the Alps at up to 187 m.p.h. (300 km/h), the only thing that the former fighter pilot has come up against so far is the Swiss law. "They were totally confused," said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story". "The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a license. I told them, 'No. To fly, you need wings'." Read The Full Story Hundreds Of U.S. Drivers Rescued In Massive Winter Storm 2006-12-31 02:03:01 A winter storm stretching nearly from Canada to Mexico rolled out of the Rockies on Saturday, sparing Denver, Colorado, another round of heavy snow but trapping drivers farther east in 10-foot drifts. Denver had expected a foot or more of additional snow through Sunday, but the storm trudged northeast from New Mexico into the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. Parts of eastern Colorado still expected up to 2 feet, along with high winds. "It's still a very powerful storm," said meteorologist Jim Kalina of the National Weather Service. Winds exceeding 50 mph produced whiteout conditions. National Guard troops in tracked vehicles crawled through the blizzard to rescue hundreds of motorists who became stranded in the region's second blizzard during the busy holiday travel season. Read The Full Story FIP 2006 Year In Review 2006-12-30 18:19:19   As we come to the close of another year, lets take a moment to look over the biggest stories of the year.  There have been stories on war, elections, war, Presidential bashing, war, sex scandals in Washington, among others.  Here are our top 20 stories for 2006.   #1 Stephen Colbert White House Correspondents Dinner Speech .    I'm not terribly surprised that it was so popular, he is funny.  Well, Mr. Bush may not have felt quite the same way, but hey.   #2 Bill Gates For - You'd Better Sit Down For This - President .    Most likely this was a hoax.  It's easier to be one of the richest people on the planet, than to run the largest superpower on the planet.   #3 U.S. Terrorism Watch List Now Has 325,000 Names .   It's little things like this that make all of us nervous.  Is my name on the list?  My girlfriend, kids, parents, or neighbors?  When will the black vans come pulling up, and what if they get the wrong house?  Unfortunately, this wasn't the only story like it. Read The Full Story Guantanamo Military Review Panels Add To Kafkaesque Quality Of Detainees' Lives 2006-12-30 17:37:30 At one end of a converted trailer in the American military detention center here (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba), a graying Pakistani businessman sat shackled before a review board of uniformed officers, pleading for his freedom. The prisoner had seen only a brief summary of what officials said was a thick dossier of intelligence linking him to al-Qaeda. He had not seen his own legal papers since they were taken away in an unrelated investigation. He has lawyers working on his behalf in Washington, London and Pakistan, but here his only assistance came from an Army lieutenant colonel, who stumbled as he read the prisoner's handwritten statement. As the hearing concluded, the detainee, who cannot be identified publicly under military rules, had one question. He is a citizen of Pakistan, he noted. He was arrested on a business trip to Thailand. On what authority or charges was he even being held? "That question," a Marine colonel presiding over the panel answered, "is outside the limits of what this board is permitted to consider." Read The Full Story UPDATE: At Least 500 Missing After Ferry Sinks Of Indonesia 2006-12-30 05:39:21 More than 500 people are missing after an Indonesian ferry capsized off the coast of Central Java. Efforts to find survivors are being hampered by strong winds and high waves. The ferry, which was travelling between the port of Kumai in Central Kalimantan province and Semarang in Central Java, sank at around midnight (0400 Australian Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday) in the Java Sea, near Mandalika island off the Java coast. Slamet Bustam, an official at the Semarang port, said waves of up to five meters had crashed over the ferry's deck around midnight. He said the ferry had been carrying 850 people. Read The Full Story Nuclear Power Economics Do Not Add Up 2006-12-30 05:38:33 Nuclear power will do nothing to protect the Australian economy and environment from climate change, says the Australian Labor party's treasury spokesman Wayne Swan. Prime Minister John Howard Friday released the final report of the government's Uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy Task Force, saying nuclear energy could help stem the rise in electricity prices as the nation attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Swan, however, says the economics of nuclear energy do not add up. "The Howard government's fixation on nuclear energy is a massive distraction from the main game of protecting our economy and environment from the dangerous effects of climate change," he said in a statement Saturday. Read The Full Story Saddam Hussein's Record Of Infamy Ends 2006-12-30 02:22:33 Over more than two decades of authoritarian rule, Saddam Hussein led his nation toward modernity and then to ruin by invading two neighboring countries, attacking his own citizens with chemical munitions and brutally repressing all who opposed him. He defied United Nations weapons inspectors, presided over the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, pitted his Sunni Muslim Arab minority against the country's majority Shiites and demanded the cultish celebration of his own image. It was a record of infamy that ended today with his execution by hanging for crimes against humanity - a punishment carried out by Iraq's U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government after a lengthy trial. Read The Full Story Apple Admits Wrongdoing But Rallies Around Steve Jobs 2006-12-30 02:20:48 Apple Computer disclosed Friday that it had falsified approval of 7.5 million stock options for its chief executive and innovative co-founder, Steve Jobs, raising new questions about the role he may have played in a scandal that has swirled around the dynamic technology company for months. Apple said in a pair of overdue earnings filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had recorded a fictitious meeting at which Jobs' options were ratified and that he may have recommended the dates for some of the stock options issued to company employees. The company repeated Friday that Jobs did not benefit from the options. Apple's board, which includes former vice president Al Gore, gave Jobs its full support. "The board of directors is confident that the Company has corrected the problems that led to the restatement, and it has complete confidence in Steve Jobs and the senior management team," said the statement by Gore and Jerome York, who heads Apple's audit and finance committee. Read The Full Story FCC Approves AT&T Takeover Of BellSouth 2006-12-30 02:20:01 The Federal Communications Commission yesterday overcame a seven-month deadlock and approved AT&T's $85 billion purchase of  BellSouth, creating a new corporate giant that will stand astride the telecommunications industry like none other in the generation since the old AT&T empire was broken up in 1984. The acquisition, which closed yesterday, reunites large parts of AT&T's former domain by folding BellSouth's nine-state territory into AT&T's existing operations spanning the Midwest, Southwest and West Coast. It gives AT&T complete control of Cingular Wireless, the country's largest mobile-telephone provider, at a time when wireless is the newest frontier for reaching the Internet. Cingular is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth. Unequaled in capital and geographic reach, the new AT&T could be a tough adversary for cable companies by offering television service over the Internet, possibly lowering rates for customers in its service area. Several conditions imposed on the acquisition to protect consumers could encourage the availability of affordable broadband. Read The Full Story Saddam Hussein Executed 2006-12-30 01:24:11 Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday, US -backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra and Arabic satellite channel Arabiya said. ‘I believe so, yes. He has been executed. It has been officially announced that he has been executed,’ Abbawi said, speaking by telephone to BBC News 24. The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a U.S.-led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982. 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 - Saturday December 30 2006 - (813)

Saturday December 30 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Saddam Hussein Executed Before Dawn 2006-12-30 02:22:51 Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged in the predawn hours of Saturday for crimes against humanity in the mass murder of Shiite men and boys in the 1980s, sent to the gallows by a government backed by the United States and led by Shiite Muslims who had been oppressed during his rule, Iraqi and American officials said. In the early morning, Hussein, 69, was escorted from his U.S. military prison cell at Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, and handed over to Iraqi officials. He was executed on the day Sunni Muslims, of which Hussein was one, begin celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Earlier, on Thursday, he had met with his two maternal half brothers in his prison cell and handed them personal messages, according to Iraqi officials. On Friday, his attorneys said, U.S. military officials asked that they take his personal belongings. Read The Full Story Arab Newspapers: Executing Saddam Hussein A Mistake 2006-12-30 02:22:15 Intellpuke: Editorials and commentaries in a number of Middel East newspapers warned against executing former Iraq president Saddam Hussein. Many of these comments were printed before pre-dawn Saddam's execution on Saturday. The following compilation of editorial comments was assembled and translated by BBC Monitoring, a service of BBC News: Comment In Pan Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi:  He will go to the gallows with his head held high because he built a strong, united and non-sectarian Iraq. We urge honourable people such as [President Jalal] Talabani and [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki and all those who practised all sorts of deceits against the people of Iraq to apologise and face the national courts of Iraq on charges of participating and legalising the killing of 665,000 and wounding five-fold this number. We also call for their prosecution for igniting the fire of civil war, sectarianism and ethnic cleansing. Hassan Sharbal In Pan Arab Al-Hayat: Executing Saddam is worse than the crimes he committed against his opponents... It is impossible to defend Saddam and to find reasons to be lenient with him. His crimes against his citizens were outrageous. He was a cruel and harsh dictator. He deserves to be punished. His fate as a person is not important. We hoped that he would be prosecuted in an Iraq with democracy and the rule of law. Editorial In Pan Arab Al-Guds Al-Arabi: U.S. officials are making a new mistake more dangerous than any in the past. They think executing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will lead to calm in Iraq, but the exact opposite is likely to happen. The US Administration may gain more by keeping Saddam alive behind bars and using him as a bargaining card... to negotiate with the Baath party for the sake of calm. Read The Full Story Iraq Expels 2 Iranians Detained By U.S. Forces 2006-12-30 02:20:27 Two senior Iranian operatives who were detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and were strongly suspected of planning attacks against American military forces and Iraqi targets were expelled to IranFriday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The decision to free the men was made by the Iraqi government and has angered U.S. military officials who say the operatives were seeking to foment instability here. "These are really serious people," said one U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were the target of a very focused raid based on intelligence, and it would be hard for one to believe that their activities weren't endorsed by the Iranian government. It's a situation that is obviously troubling." Read The Full Story Ship Carrying 850 People Sinks In Storm Off Java 2006-12-30 02:19:44 A ship carrying around 850 passengers sank in a storm off Central Java, an Indonesian commander said Saturday, adding that he feared many people had died. Navy Commander Col. Yan Simamora said the "Senopati" went down at around midnight Friday while en route from Sumarang on Central Java to the port of Kumai on Central Kalimantan province. Rescue workers had found only nine survivors. Read The Full Story Ancient Ice Shelf Breaks Free In Canadian Arctic 2006-12-29 15:00:54 A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a "major" reason for the event. The Ayles Ice Shelf - all 41 square miles of it - broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic. Scientists discovered the event by using satellite imagery. Within one hour of breaking free, the shelf had formed as a new ice island, leaving a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and couldn’t believe what he saw. Read The Full Story 5 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq As December Edges Toward Deadliest Month In 2006 2006-12-29 03:40:18 The U.S. military death toll in Iraq this month continued to rise as officials reported Thursday that five more American service members had died. The latest deaths brought to 100 the number of service members killed in December, according to iCasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks military fatalities. Most were killed in Iraq's western Anbar province, where Sunni Arab insurgents are aggressively fighting U.S.-led forces, and most were killed by roadside bombs, according to a Washington Post analysis of data. The deadliest month this year has been October, with 105 American military fatalities, according to data provided by the U.S. Department of Defense. The number of service members who have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 is 2,979. Read The Full Story Bush Considers Economic Incentives For Iraq 2006-12-29 03:39:13 As he puts the finishing touches on his revised Iraq plan, President Bush is considering new economic initiatives to go along with a possible increase in troops to help stabilize the country, according to officials familiar with the administration's review. Among the steps being considered are short-term jobs and loan programs aimed at winning back the waning local support for the U.S. presence in Iraq, the officials said. They described the ideas as part of a classic effort to quell an insurgency through a combination of economic, political and military means. "The president is looking at a variety of ways to work with the Iraq government to provide new economic opportunities for Iraqis, which will be essential to sustaining security gains and draining the influence of extremists," said Gordon Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council. Read The Full Story	Saddam Hussein's Record Of Infamy Ends 2006-12-30 02:22:33 Over more than two decades of authoritarian rule, Saddam Hussein led his nation toward modernity and then to ruin by invading two neighboring countries, attacking his own citizens with chemical munitions and brutally repressing all who opposed him. He defied United Nations weapons inspectors, presided over the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, pitted his Sunni Muslim Arab minority against the country's majority Shiites and demanded the cultish celebration of his own image. It was a record of infamy that ended today with his execution by hanging for crimes against humanity - a punishment carried out by Iraq's U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government after a lengthy trial. Read The Full Story Apple Admits Wrongdoing But Rallies Around Steve Jobs 2006-12-30 02:20:48 Apple Computer disclosed Friday that it had falsified approval of 7.5 million stock options for its chief executive and innovative co-founder, Steve Jobs, raising new questions about the role he may have played in a scandal that has swirled around the dynamic technology company for months. Apple said in a pair of overdue earnings filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had recorded a fictitious meeting at which Jobs' options were ratified and that he may have recommended the dates for some of the stock options issued to company employees. The company repeated Friday that Jobs did not benefit from the options. Apple's board, which includes former vice president Al Gore, gave Jobs its full support. "The board of directors is confident that the Company has corrected the problems that led to the restatement, and it has complete confidence in Steve Jobs and the senior management team," said the statement by Gore and Jerome York, who heads Apple's audit and finance committee. Read The Full Story FCC Approves AT&T Takeover Of BellSouth 2006-12-30 02:20:01 The Federal Communications Commission yesterday overcame a seven-month deadlock and approved AT&T's $85 billion purchase of  BellSouth, creating a new corporate giant that will stand astride the telecommunications industry like none other in the generation since the old AT&T empire was broken up in 1984. The acquisition, which closed yesterday, reunites large parts of AT&T's former domain by folding BellSouth's nine-state territory into AT&T's existing operations spanning the Midwest, Southwest and West Coast. It gives AT&T complete control of Cingular Wireless, the country's largest mobile-telephone provider, at a time when wireless is the newest frontier for reaching the Internet. Cingular is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth. Unequaled in capital and geographic reach, the new AT&T could be a tough adversary for cable companies by offering television service over the Internet, possibly lowering rates for customers in its service area. Several conditions imposed on the acquisition to protect consumers could encourage the availability of affordable broadband. Read The Full Story Saddam Hussein Executed 2006-12-30 01:24:11 Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday, US -backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra and Arabic satellite channel Arabiya said. ‘I believe so, yes. He has been executed. It has been officially announced that he has been executed,’ Abbawi said, speaking by telephone to BBC News 24. The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a U.S.-led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982. Read The Full Story The 'Untouchables' Of U.S. Science 2006-12-29 03:40:38 A bridge next to Kevin Eggan's laboratory overlooks one of the most concentrated square miles of scientific fire power in the world: North Yard, the science hub of Harvard. The bridge, a recent construction in glass and steel, was intended to facilitate collaboration between two research teams. On one side is the lab run by Dr. Eggan, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology who specializes in human embryonic stem cell research; on the other is the Bauer Center for Genome Research, which focuses on genes. Working together, the teams started devising projects to analyse the genetics of human embryonic stem cells, with Dr. Eggan's team generating the cells on one side of the bridge and their DNA being analyzed on the other side. Then, on August 9, 2001, a metaphorical shutter came down that closed the bridge as effectively as if it had been bricked up. George Bush issued a presidential decree banning the use of federal funds for research on new human embryonic stem cell lines. Read The Full Story FDA Meat, Milk Cloning Ruling Damned By Food Safety Experts 2006-12-29 03:39:49 The sale of milk and meat from cloned animals moved a step closer Thursday after the U.S. government ruled that the products were safe to eat and could be sold in supermarkets without labelling. The landmark draft decision, taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was condemned by consumer groups and food safety experts, who gave warning of the implications for food consumption throughout the world. FDA officials said that they saw little problem with the controversial technology, which could result in cloned food being sold in the U.S. within months without any labels identifying its origins. They added that cloned food products, if approved, could also be exported. Read The Full Story Mystery Man Caught On Airport T.V. May Hold Key To Litvinenko Poison Plot 2006-12-29 03:38:32 Detectives investigating the murder of Alexander Litvinenko are trying to trace a Russian businessman who flew to Britain at the same time as a consignment of deadly polonium-210 was allegedly smuggled into London. The man was spotted on a flight from Hamburg sitting beside Dimtri Kovtun, another Russian whom German police are investigating for trafficking the radioactive material used to poison the former KGB spy. Officers have studied CCTV (closed-circuit t.v.) footage from airports at Hamburg, Germany, and London, England, and are understood to believe that the two men were travelling together. However, the mystery figure disappeared after leaving Heathrow with Kovtun. The name he used on the lfight and the passport presented to British immigration officials does not show up on any hotel register in London. It is believed that he met up again with Kovtun in London on Novembere 1, the Litvinenko fell ill. 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 - Friday December 29 2006 - (813)

Friday December 29 2006 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
The 'Untouchables' Of U.S. Science 2006-12-29 03:40:38 A bridge next to Kevin Eggan's laboratory overlooks one of the most concentrated square miles of scientific fire power in the world: North Yard, the science hub of Harvard. The bridge, a recent construction in glass and steel, was intended to facilitate collaboration between two research teams. On one side is the lab run by Dr. Eggan, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology who specializes in human embryonic stem cell research; on the other is the Bauer Center for Genome Research, which focuses on genes. Working together, the teams started devising projects to analyse the genetics of human embryonic stem cells, with Dr. Eggan's team generating the cells on one side of the bridge and their DNA being analyzed on the other side. Then, on August 9, 2001, a metaphorical shutter came down that closed the bridge as effectively as if it had been bricked up. George Bush issued a presidential decree banning the use of federal funds for research on new human embryonic stem cell lines. Read The Full Story FDA Meat, Milk Cloning Ruling Damned By Food Safety Experts 2006-12-29 03:39:49 The sale of milk and meat from cloned animals moved a step closer Thursday after the U.S. government ruled that the products were safe to eat and could be sold in supermarkets without labelling. The landmark draft decision, taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was condemned by consumer groups and food safety experts, who gave warning of the implications for food consumption throughout the world. FDA officials said that they saw little problem with the controversial technology, which could result in cloned food being sold in the U.S. within months without any labels identifying its origins. They added that cloned food products, if approved, could also be exported. Read The Full Story Mystery Man Caught On Airport T.V. May Hold Key To Litvinenko Poison Plot 2006-12-29 03:38:32 Detectives investigating the murder of Alexander Litvinenko are trying to trace a Russian businessman who flew to Britain at the same time as a consignment of deadly polonium-210 was allegedly smuggled into London. The man was spotted on a flight from Hamburg sitting beside Dimtri Kovtun, another Russian whom German police are investigating for trafficking the radioactive material used to poison the former KGB spy. Officers have studied CCTV (closed-circuit t.v.) footage from airports at Hamburg, Germany, and London, England, and are understood to believe that the two men were travelling together. However, the mystery figure disappeared after leaving Heathrow with Kovtun. The name he used on the lfight and the passport presented to British immigration officials does not show up on any hotel register in London. It is believed that he met up again with Kovtun in London on Novembere 1, the Litvinenko fell ill. Read The Full Story Ethiopian And Somali Government Forces Seize Mogadishu 2006-12-28 16:00:32 Just hours after the Islamist forces abandoned Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, militias loyal to the transitional government seized the city today in a stunning reversal of fortunes. According to residents, troops from the transitional government, along with Ethiopian soldiers who had been backing them up, poured into the capital from the outskirts of the city while militiamen within Mogadishu occupied key positions, like the port, airport and dilapidated presidential palace. "The government has taken over Mogadishu," a transitional government leader, Jama Fuuruh, told Reuters by telephone from Mogadishu's port. "We are now in charge." Read The Full Story Israel Confirms Arms Shipment To Abbas 2006-12-28 15:59:25 After coordination with Israel and the United States, Egypt has sent a shipment of weapons and ammunition into the Gaza Strip to forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, Israeli officials said Thursday. Senior Palestinian officials denied the report, including the spokesman for Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, calling the story "Israeli propaganda aimed at aggravating the situation between Fatah and Hamas." Israeli officials confirmed a report in the Haaretz newspaper that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the shipment in his meeting Saturday evening with Abbas. Four trucks with some 2,000 automatic rifles, 20,000 ammo clips and some 2 million bullets passed from Egypt through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, they confirmed, and were handed to Abbas' Presidential Guard at the Karni crossing. Read The Full Story Former President Ford 'Very Strongly' Disagreed With Bush Iraq Strategy 2006-12-28 03:47:45 Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney - Ford's White House chief of staff - and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief. "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," said Ford. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do." Read The Full Story Ethiopian Troops Take Key Somali Town Of Jowhar 2006-12-28 03:46:53 Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's interim government took control of the key Somali town of Jowhar on Wednesday and were on the verge of overrunning Balad, a village just 18 miles from the dusty, battered capital, Mogadishu. With Ethiopian troops, tanks and helicopters closing in and military planes buzzing overhead, the situation in Mogadishu appeared confused, with witnesses reporting thousands of Somalis - who have known little besides fighting for the past 15 years - fleeing the capital, and those who remained unsure who might next control the city. Militias loyal to Somalia's Islamic Courts movement, having retreated in recent days from most of the towns they had taken earlier this year, were spotted Wednesday shedding uniforms and fleeing the capital they have controlled since the summer, while other witnesses reported young men signing up with Islamic militias at several mosques around the city. Read The Full Story Sadr Adviser Dies In Najaf Raid 2006-12-28 03:45:33 A top deputy of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was killed Wednesday during a raid by U.S. and Iraqi troops in the southern holy city of Najaf, sparking protests from Sadr's followers and complicating an already tense relationship with the powerful anti-American leader. Hurling rocks and shouting expletives, thousands of angry Sadr loyalists marched through the streets of Najaf after Sahib al-Amiri was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier during an early morning raid. "Agents and stooges!" protesters shouted at Iraqi soldiers and local authorities. U.S. military officials declined to confirm that Amiri was a Sadr aide, saying only that he had provided explosives for use against Iraqi and U.S. forces. Sadr officials said Amiri was an aide and a lawyer who ran an educational organization that helped orphans and impoverished children. They said he had no connections to illegal activity. Read The Full Story Commander Of British Troops In Iraq Says British Government Is Failing Them 2006-12-28 03:44:54 The commander of British troops in southern Iraq Wednesday called for more support for his soldiers and warned that the covenant between the U.K. and its service personnel was "seriously out of kilter". Major General Richard Shirreff warned that generations of underfunding and political neglect had taken its toll, adding it was the duty of the nation to support the armed forces. Defending the army's Christmas Day attack on Basra's Jameat police compound, he said soldiers needed to be valued by those at home. "The nation needs to understand that the quality work done by these courageous men and women out here only happens and can only continue if these people, our soldiers, are properly supported back home in terms of training, infrastructure, barracks, accommodation. Read The Full Story	5 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq As December Edges Toward Deadliest Month In 2006 2006-12-29 03:40:18 The U.S. military death toll in Iraq this month continued to rise as officials reported Thursday that five more American service members had died. The latest deaths brought to 100 the number of service members killed in December, according to iCasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks military fatalities. Most were killed in Iraq's western Anbar province, where Sunni Arab insurgents are aggressively fighting U.S.-led forces, and most were killed by roadside bombs, according to a Washington Post analysis of data. The deadliest month this year has been October, with 105 American military fatalities, according to data provided by the U.S. Department of Defense. The number of service members who have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 is 2,979. Read The Full Story Bush Considers Economic Incentives For Iraq 2006-12-29 03:39:13 As he puts the finishing touches on his revised Iraq plan, President Bush is considering new economic initiatives to go along with a possible increase in troops to help stabilize the country, according to officials familiar with the administration's review. Among the steps being considered are short-term jobs and loan programs aimed at winning back the waning local support for the U.S. presence in Iraq, the officials said. They described the ideas as part of a classic effort to quell an insurgency through a combination of economic, political and military means. "The president is looking at a variety of ways to work with the Iraq government to provide new economic opportunities for Iraqis, which will be essential to sustaining security gains and draining the influence of extremists," said Gordon Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council. Read The Full Story Happy New Year - NOT! Medicare Premiums Surge For Elderly 2006-12-28 16:01:11 When new income-based premiums for Medicare's Part B program go into effect next month, some seniors will get an unwelcome surprise: Their monthly costs will be going up considerably more than expected because of the government's method of counting their income. In addition to income from investments, pensions and wages, seniors will find that big but unusual windfalls - from house sales, for instance, or from taking cash from an individual retirement account - will also be included in government calculations. As a result, an advocacy group for seniors says, tens of thousands of people will be counted as wealthy even though their continuing yearly income is modest. Some will be paying as much as $800 more a year for Part B coverage because they are deemed to be "higher income beneficiaries." This will be on top of the $93.50 a month standard premium that all recipients will pay. Read The Full Story Edwards Announces He's Running For President 2006-12-28 15:59:49 Former North Carolina senator John Edwards this morning declared his candidacy for president in 2008, sounding a populist call for citizen action to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, combat poverty and global warming and help restore America's moral leadership in the world. Using a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina as his backdrop, Edwards said New Orleans symbolizes not only the theme of two Americas - haves and have-nots - that was the underpinning of his 2004 presidential campaign but also the power of ordinary citizens to take responsibility for their own futures. Edwards said restoration of America's leadership in the world must begin with Iraq. He said he favors withdrawing 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq as the first step toward turning responsibility for the conflict over to the Iraqi government. Read The Full Story 18 Dead In Wave Of Gang Violence In Rio de Janeiro 2006-12-28 15:58:48 Heavily-armed drug gangs unleashed a wave of attacks on police stations and public roadways in Rio de Janeiro early Thursday, and at least 18 people were killed in the confrontations. Seven victims died in a single incident, a pre-dawn assault on an interstate bus bound for Sao Paulo. Survivors said that about 8 armed men stopped and boarded the bus, robbed those aboard and then set fire to the vehicle before the 28 passengers could get off. At least eight police stations and street posts were also reported to have been attacked by gangs armed with grenades and machine guns. The dead in those episodes included not only criminals and police officers involved in the shootouts, but also street vendors, pedestrians and ordinary citizens filing complaints at police stations. Read The Full Story Washington Gets Ready To Gossip As D.C. Sex Blogger Goes To Court 2006-12-28 03:47:10 The Washington Post described Jessica Cutler as "our blog slut". The National Enquirer opined that she was "beautiful, untalented and morally corrupted". Now the blogger who wrote about her attempts to juggle affairs with six men while keeping a job as an aide to a U.S. senator has a new role: as the star defendant in a case that could help define what can and cannot be published in a blog. Writing under the pseudonym Washingtonienne, Cutler described in detail the sexual intricacies of her life on the Hill. The blog, which Cutler claimed was intended to keep her friends up to date on her social life in Washington DC, achieved notoriety, and its author fame and a book contract, after it was brought to a wider public by another blog, Wonkette. Almost immediately, Washingtonienne shut down, but not before millions had read about "X = Married man who pays me for sex", "K = A sugar daddy" and "YZ = The current favorite". But YZ - aka Robert Steinbuch, a legal counsel working for the same senator - objected to the revelations about his private life. Read The Full Story Islamists Seem To Have Suddenly Vanished From Mogadishu 2006-12-28 03:46:28 The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away. In the past few days, Ethiopian-backed forces, with tacit approval from the United States, have unleashed tanks, helicopter gunships and jet fighters on the Islamists, decimating their military and paving the way for the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia to assert control. Even so, the Islamists, who have been regarded as a regional menace by Ethiopia and the United States, had repeatedly vowed to fight to the death for their religion and their land, making their disappearance that much more unexpected. Read The Full Story U.S. Army Brigade Headed To Kuwait 2006-12-28 03:45:10 A brigade of U.S. Army troops is scheduled to deploy to Kuwait early next month to take over as the U.S. Central Command's theater reserve force, which means more than 3,000 additional U.S. troops will move into the region and could be used to support combat in Iraq, Pentagon officials announced Wednesday. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates approved sending the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division overseas after Gen. John P. Abizaid, who leads Central Command, requested the forces to replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was sent into the western province of Anbar this fall. Abizaid requested a brigade - which is significantly larger than the Marine unit - to allow for greater flexibility in the region. While defense officials have said the move is not part of an orchestrated "surge" of forces into Iraq, should such a surge become part of U.S. strategy for the war, the Army brigade could be used as the leading edge of a troop increase. Read The Full Story British Food Agency Takes On Industry Over Junk Food Labels 2006-12-28 03:44:25 British consumers are to be presented with two rival new year advertising campaigns as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) goes public in its battle with the industry over the labelling of unhealthy foods. The Guardian has learned that the FSA will launch a series of 10-second television ads in January telling shoppers how to follow a red, amber and green traffic light labelling system on the front of food packs, which is designed to tackle Britain's obesity epidemic. The FSA campaign is a direct response to a concerted attempt by leading food manufacturers and retailers, including Kellogg's and Tesco, to derail the system. The industry fears that traffic lights would demonize entire categories of foods and could seriously damage the market for those that are fatty, salty or high in sugar. 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 - Thursday December 28 2006 - (813)

Thursday December 28 2006 edition
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Former President Ford 'Very Strongly' Disagreed With Bush Iraq Strategy 2006-12-28 03:47:45 Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney - Ford's White House chief of staff - and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief. "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," said Ford. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do." Read The Full Story Ethiopian Troops Take Key Somali Town Of Jowhar 2006-12-28 03:46:53 Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's interim government took control of the key Somali town of Jowhar on Wednesday and were on the verge of overrunning Balad, a village just 18 miles from the dusty, battered capital, Mogadishu. With Ethiopian troops, tanks and helicopters closing in and military planes buzzing overhead, the situation in Mogadishu appeared confused, with witnesses reporting thousands of Somalis - who have known little besides fighting for the past 15 years - fleeing the capital, and those who remained unsure who might next control the city. Militias loyal to Somalia's Islamic Courts movement, having retreated in recent days from most of the towns they had taken earlier this year, were spotted Wednesday shedding uniforms and fleeing the capital they have controlled since the summer, while other witnesses reported young men signing up with Islamic militias at several mosques around the city. Read The Full Story Sadr Adviser Dies In Najaf Raid 2006-12-28 03:45:33 A top deputy of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was killed Wednesday during a raid by U.S. and Iraqi troops in the southern holy city of Najaf, sparking protests from Sadr's followers and complicating an already tense relationship with the powerful anti-American leader. Hurling rocks and shouting expletives, thousands of angry Sadr loyalists marched through the streets of Najaf after Sahib al-Amiri was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier during an early morning raid. "Agents and stooges!" protesters shouted at Iraqi soldiers and local authorities. U.S. military officials declined to confirm that Amiri was a Sadr aide, saying only that he had provided explosives for use against Iraqi and U.S. forces. Sadr officials said Amiri was an aide and a lawyer who ran an educational organization that helped orphans and impoverished children. They said he had no connections to illegal activity. Read The Full Story Commander Of British Troops In Iraq Says British Government Is Failing Them 2006-12-28 03:44:54 The commander of British troops in southern Iraq Wednesday called for more support for his soldiers and warned that the covenant between the U.K. and its service personnel was "seriously out of kilter". Major General Richard Shirreff warned that generations of underfunding and political neglect had taken its toll, adding it was the duty of the nation to support the armed forces. Defending the army's Christmas Day attack on Basra's Jameat police compound, he said soldiers needed to be valued by those at home. "The nation needs to understand that the quality work done by these courageous men and women out here only happens and can only continue if these people, our soldiers, are properly supported back home in terms of training, infrastructure, barracks, accommodation. Read The Full Story U.S. Government Watchdogs Under Attack From Their Bosses 2006-12-27 14:49:11 The inspectors general entrusted to unearth waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies are increasingly under attack, as top government officials they scrutinize try to erode the watchdogs' independence and authority. During 2006, several inspectors general felt the wrath of government bosses or their supporters in Congress after investigations cited agencies for poor performance, excessive spending or wasted money. For instance: -- The top official of the government's property and supply agency compared its inspector general to a terrorist, hoping to chill audits of General Service Administration regional offices and private businesses. -- Directors of the government's legal aid program discussed firing their inspector general, who investigated how top officials lavishly spent tax dollars for limousine services, ritzy hotels and $14 ''Death by Chocolate'' desserts. -- Administration-friendly Republicans in Congress tried to do away with the special inspector general for Iraq, who repeatedly exposed examples of administration waste that cost billions of dollars. Among the contractors criticized was Halliburton Corp., once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. -- The Pentagon has been making its inspector general use lawyers picked by the defense secretary instead of independently hired attorneys. Read The Full Story Saddam Hussein Letter Urges Iraqis Not To Hate U.S.-Led Forces 2006-12-27 14:48:17 Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis not to hate the U.S.-led forces that invaded Iraq in 2003 in a farewell letter posted on a Web site Wednesday, a day after an appeals court upheld the former dictator's death sentence and ordered him to be hanged within one month. One of Saddam's attorneys, Issam Ghazzawi, confirmed to the Associated Press in Jordan that the letter was authentic, saying it was written by Saddam on Nov. 5 - the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal for ordering the killings of scores of Shiite Muslims in the city of Dujail in 1982. ''I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking,'' said the letter. Read The Full Story Fears For Machu Picchu As Mayor Builds Bridge 2006-12-27 03:24:44 A Peruvian mayor has built a bridge leading to Machu Picchu, Peru's Inca citadel, despite warnings it will wreck the archaeological gem and open a route for drug smugglers. The 80-meter (260-feet) long bridge over the Vilcanota river is due to open this week in defiance of a court order and protests from the government, which fears hordes of backpackers will swamp the site. The United Nations conservation agency UNESCO is due in February to inspect the mountaintop ruins, a world heritage site deep in the Andean jungle, amid concern that there are already too many visitors. Yet Fedia Castro, mayor of Convencion province, said the bridge would end her community's isolation and give tourists a cheaper option than a train which, until now, had a monopoly on transport through the Sacred Valley. "It's almost ready, so they can't stop it," she said. Locals have welcomed the bridge for opening their remote province to commerce and tourism. Instead of a treacherous 15-hour drive over mountain passes farmers can truck coffee and fruit to Cusco in just three hours. Read The Full Story S.E.C. Changes Reporting Rules On Bosses' Pay To Make Them Seem Lower 2006-12-27 03:23:19 The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a move announced late on the last business day before Christmas, reversed a decision it had made in July and adopted a rule that would allow many companies to report significantly lower total compensation for top executives. The change in the way grants of stock options are to be explained to investors is a victory for corporations that had opposed the rule when it was issued in July, and a defeat for institutional investors that had backed the S.E.C.’s original rule. “It was a holiday present to corporate America,” Ann Yerger, the executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, said Tuesday. “It will certainly make the numbers look smaller in 2007 than they would otherwise have looked.” Read The Full Story Former President Gerald R. Ford Dies At 93 2006-12-27 03:22:09 Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., 93, who became the 38th president of the United States as a result of some of the most extraordinary events in U.S. history and sought to restore the nation's confidence in the basic institutions of government, has died. His wife, Betty, reported the death in a statement. "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country." The statement, released by the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, did not say where Ford died or give a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January and underwent two heart treatments - including an angioplasty - in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the Presidency," President Bush said last night in a statement. Ford was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. Read The Full Story	Washington Gets Ready To Gossip As D.C. Sex Blogger Goes To Court 2006-12-28 03:47:10 The Washington Post described Jessica Cutler as "our blog slut". The National Enquirer opined that she was "beautiful, untalented and morally corrupted". Now the blogger who wrote about her attempts to juggle affairs with six men while keeping a job as an aide to a U.S. senator has a new role: as the star defendant in a case that could help define what can and cannot be published in a blog. Writing under the pseudonym Washingtonienne, Cutler described in detail the sexual intricacies of her life on the Hill. The blog, which Cutler claimed was intended to keep her friends up to date on her social life in Washington DC, achieved notoriety, and its author fame and a book contract, after it was brought to a wider public by another blog, Wonkette. Almost immediately, Washingtonienne shut down, but not before millions had read about "X = Married man who pays me for sex", "K = A sugar daddy" and "YZ = The current favorite". But YZ - aka Robert Steinbuch, a legal counsel working for the same senator - objected to the revelations about his private life. Read The Full Story Islamists Seem To Have Suddenly Vanished From Mogadishu 2006-12-28 03:46:28 The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away. In the past few days, Ethiopian-backed forces, with tacit approval from the United States, have unleashed tanks, helicopter gunships and jet fighters on the Islamists, decimating their military and paving the way for the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia to assert control. Even so, the Islamists, who have been regarded as a regional menace by Ethiopia and the United States, had repeatedly vowed to fight to the death for their religion and their land, making their disappearance that much more unexpected. Read The Full Story U.S. Army Brigade Headed To Kuwait 2006-12-28 03:45:10 A brigade of U.S. Army troops is scheduled to deploy to Kuwait early next month to take over as the U.S. Central Command's theater reserve force, which means more than 3,000 additional U.S. troops will move into the region and could be used to support combat in Iraq, Pentagon officials announced Wednesday. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates approved sending the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division overseas after Gen. John P. Abizaid, who leads Central Command, requested the forces to replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was sent into the western province of Anbar this fall. Abizaid requested a brigade - which is significantly larger than the Marine unit - to allow for greater flexibility in the region. While defense officials have said the move is not part of an orchestrated "surge" of forces into Iraq, should such a surge become part of U.S. strategy for the war, the Army brigade could be used as the leading edge of a troop increase. Read The Full Story British Food Agency Takes On Industry Over Junk Food Labels 2006-12-28 03:44:25 British consumers are to be presented with two rival new year advertising campaigns as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) goes public in its battle with the industry over the labelling of unhealthy foods. The Guardian has learned that the FSA will launch a series of 10-second television ads in January telling shoppers how to follow a red, amber and green traffic light labelling system on the front of food packs, which is designed to tackle Britain's obesity epidemic. The FSA campaign is a direct response to a concerted attempt by leading food manufacturers and retailers, including Kellogg's and Tesco, to derail the system. The industry fears that traffic lights would demonize entire categories of foods and could seriously damage the market for those that are fatty, salty or high in sugar. Read The Full Story Ethiopian Forces Closing In On Somalia Capital 2006-12-27 14:48:51 Ethiopian troops fought their way closer to the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Tuesday, pushing back militias loyal to the Islamic Courts movement that has until now controlled much of the country and has vowed to wage a guerrilla war against Ethiopia lasting "years and years and years." Aid workers said the number of injured had surpassed 800, as thousands of civilians battered by drought, floods and now rockets and mortars continued to flee villages in droves. U.N. officials warned of a humanitarian crisis in Somalia, while fears remained high that Ethiopia's aggressive military campaign could have disastrous consequences not only for Somalia but across the Horn of Africa. "I find it perplexing what the Ethiopians are up to," said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia. "Over the long term, I don't see where this gets them. And one wonders how long they can hang on in this situation, because eventually it's going to turn into a nasty guerrilla war, and I don't think the Ethiopians have the stomach to carry on with that kind of campaign." Read The Full Story Report: China Will Use Huge Foreign Exchange Reserves On Resources 2006-12-27 03:25:06 China will take advantage of its massive foreign exchange reserves to expand its stock of strategic resources such as oil and minerals, state media reported Wednesday, citing a top economic official. Vice Prime Minister Zeng Peiyan told leaders of the national legislature that the government plans to step up exploration for key resources such as oil, gas and coal. It also intends to use the opportunity afforded by the country's more than $1 trillion in foreign reserves to improve strategic resource bases, the state-run newspaper China Business News and other reports said. The reports did not provide details on exactly how the government would use funds backed by the foreign exchange reserves, which cannot directly be used for such purposes because they belong to the central bank. Zeng, who is a top economic planner, decried China's relatively weak resource base compared with its huge population of 1.3 billion people. Read The Full Story U.S. Wants Polar Bears Listed As Threatened Species 2006-12-27 03:24:19 The Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world's most recognizable animals out of existence. The administration's proposal - which was described by an Interior Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity - stems from the fact that rising temperatures in the Arctic are shrinking the sea ice that polar bears need for hunting. The official insisted on anonymity because the department will submit the proposal today for publication in the Federal Register, after which it will be subject to public comment for 90 days. Identifying polar bears as threatened with extinction could have an enormous political and practical impact. As the world's largest bear and as an object of children's affection as well as Christmastime Coca-Cola commercials, the polar bear occupies an important place in the American psyche. Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from power-plant and vehicle emissions is helping drive climate change worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the legal question of whether the government would be required to compel U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output. Read The Full Story Commentary: Iraq, Long A Catastrophic Tragedy, Now A Horrific Farce 2006-12-27 03:22:44 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Roy Hattersley writes that the attack by British forces in Basra on the police force it trained confirms that Iraq is a worse disaster than the Suez crisis in 1956. Mr. Hattersley's column appears at the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Wednesday, December 27, 2006. The column follows: Iraq - which for years has been an unmitigated tragedy - has turned into Grand Guignol, and, true to the traditions of that genre, horror and farce combine in equal measure. No doubt we should rejoice that al-Jamiat police station in Basra has been destroyed and its prisoners taken to the relative security of a compound in which detainees are hopefully not routinely tortured. But if a sick satire on an obscure television channel included a sketch about British troops attacking a unit of the police that they established and with whom they had been theoretically working for nearly four years, the outcry would not have been limited to complaints about undermining the morale of our troops under fire. We would have been told that the whole idea was too fantastical to sustain the lampoon. Yet that is what really happened on Monday, and although the sound of the exploding bar-mines should presumably be music to the ears of everyone who supports the rule of law, a number of important questions lie unanswered in the rubble of what was, until Christmas morning, the headquarters of the Basra serious crimes unit. A witty military press officer suggested that the name related to what the 400 associated police officers did rather than what they prevented. But he did not make clear how long the British authorities have known that, among their regular activities, they crushed prisoners' hands and feet, electrocuted them and burned them with cigarettes. You will recall that one of the reasons given to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the obligation to save the people from that sort of atrocity. It now appears that, at least in al-Jamiat police station, the arrival of what is bravely described as democracy has not made much difference. Read The Full Story In Iraq, December Second Deadliest Month For U.S. Soldiers 2006-12-27 03:21:27 Seven more American service members have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. military reported Tuesday. It is the second deadliest month of the year for troops. With five days left in December, 87 service members have died, according to figures provided by the military and news releases of combat deaths. The deadliest month this year was October, when attacks in Baghdad and the western Iraqi province of Anbar killed 105 U.S. troops. The total number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war announced by the Pentagon is 2,961. Military officials and analysts have attributed the rise in U.S. casualties in recent months to the larger number and greater visibility of American troops in Baghdad, plus the intensity of the Sunni insurgency in Anbar. 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 December 27 2006 - (813)

Wednesday December 27 2006 edition
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Report: China Will Use Huge Foreign Exchange Reserves On Resources 2006-12-27 03:25:06 China will take advantage of its massive foreign exchange reserves to expand its stock of strategic resources such as oil and minerals, state media reported Wednesday, citing a top economic official. Vice Prime Minister Zeng Peiyan told leaders of the national legislature that the government plans to step up exploration for key resources such as oil, gas and coal. It also intends to use the opportunity afforded by the country's more than $1 trillion in foreign reserves to improve strategic resource bases, the state-run newspaper China Business News and other reports said. The reports did not provide details on exactly how the government would use funds backed by the foreign exchange reserves, which cannot directly be used for such purposes because they belong to the central bank. Zeng, who is a top economic planner, decried China's relatively weak resource base compared with its huge population of 1.3 billion people. Read The Full Story U.S. Wants Polar Bears Listed As Threatened Species 2006-12-27 03:24:19 The Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world's most recognizable animals out of existence. The administration's proposal - which was described by an Interior Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity - stems from the fact that rising temperatures in the Arctic are shrinking the sea ice that polar bears need for hunting. The official insisted on anonymity because the department will submit the proposal today for publication in the Federal Register, after which it will be subject to public comment for 90 days. Identifying polar bears as threatened with extinction could have an enormous political and practical impact. As the world's largest bear and as an object of children's affection as well as Christmastime Coca-Cola commercials, the polar bear occupies an important place in the American psyche. Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from power-plant and vehicle emissions is helping drive climate change worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the legal question of whether the government would be required to compel U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output. Read The Full Story Commentary: Iraq, Long A Catastrophic Tragedy, Now A Horrific Farce 2006-12-27 03:22:44 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Roy Hattersley writes that the attack by British forces in Basra on the police force it trained confirms that Iraq is a worse disaster than the Suez crisis in 1956. Mr. Hattersley's column appears at the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Wednesday, December 27, 2006. The column follows: Iraq - which for years has been an unmitigated tragedy - has turned into Grand Guignol, and, true to the traditions of that genre, horror and farce combine in equal measure. No doubt we should rejoice that al-Jamiat police station in Basra has been destroyed and its prisoners taken to the relative security of a compound in which detainees are hopefully not routinely tortured. But if a sick satire on an obscure television channel included a sketch about British troops attacking a unit of the police that they established and with whom they had been theoretically working for nearly four years, the outcry would not have been limited to complaints about undermining the morale of our troops under fire. We would have been told that the whole idea was too fantastical to sustain the lampoon. Yet that is what really happened on Monday, and although the sound of the exploding bar-mines should presumably be music to the ears of everyone who supports the rule of law, a number of important questions lie unanswered in the rubble of what was, until Christmas morning, the headquarters of the Basra serious crimes unit. A witty military press officer suggested that the name related to what the 400 associated police officers did rather than what they prevented. But he did not make clear how long the British authorities have known that, among their regular activities, they crushed prisoners' hands and feet, electrocuted them and burned them with cigarettes. You will recall that one of the reasons given to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the obligation to save the people from that sort of atrocity. It now appears that, at least in al-Jamiat police station, the arrival of what is bravely described as democracy has not made much difference. Read The Full Story In Iraq, December Second Deadliest Month For U.S. Soldiers 2006-12-27 03:21:27 Seven more American service members have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. military reported Tuesday. It is the second deadliest month of the year for troops. With five days left in December, 87 service members have died, according to figures provided by the military and news releases of combat deaths. The deadliest month this year was October, when attacks in Baghdad and the western Iraqi province of Anbar killed 105 U.S. troops. The total number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war announced by the Pentagon is 2,961. Military officials and analysts have attributed the rise in U.S. casualties in recent months to the larger number and greater visibility of American troops in Baghdad, plus the intensity of the Sunni insurgency in Anbar. Read The Full Story U.S. Death Toll In Iraq For December Hits 90 2006-12-26 16:50:13 At least 54 Iraqis died Tuesday in bombings, officials said, including a coordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad. Separately, the U.S. military announced the deaths of seven American soldiers, raising the death toll significantly in one of the bloodiest months for the military this year. The three coordinated car bombs in western Baghdad injured at least 55 people, a doctor at Yarmouk hospital, where the victims were taken, said on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. The attacks occurred in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood. In other attacks, a car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad at the beginning of the evening rush hour, killing 17 people and wounding 35, a doctor at Al-Nuaman hospital said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. A bomb also exploded in a central Baghdad market, killing four people and wounding 15, police said. Two roadside bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol in an eastern neighborhood of the capital, killing four policemen and injuring 12 people. Read The Full Story Ethiopian Forces Near Seizing Somalian Capital Of Mogadishu 2006-12-26 16:49:17 Ethiopia Tuesday pressed on with its offensive against Somali Islamists and threatened to seize the Somali capital, Mogadishu. At least two Ethiopian jets fired missiles on retreating Islamist forces, prompting the interim Somali government to claim a partial victory. Hundreds of troops have been killed during a week of heavy artillery and mortar fighting amid fears that it could spark a wider regional conflict in the Horn of Africa. "Ethiopian forces are on their way to Mogadishu. They are about 40 miles away and it is possible they could capture it in the next 24 to 48 hours," Somalia's ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdikarin Farah, told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Read The Full Story Cleanup Begins After 2 Tornadoes Hit Florida On Christmas Day 2006-12-26 16:47:16 At least two Christmas Day tornadoes damaged hundreds of Florida homes, with one flipping airplanes at a flight school and tearing the roofs off three apartment buildings, officials confirmed Tuesday. ``It's all gone,'' said Estelle Hunter, 25, who left her home five minutes before the wind uprooted a tree and slammed it through the roof. ``All of my baby's Christmas presents are under water,'' she said as she tried to salvage what she could. The tornado that hit Daytona Beach on Monday was an F-2, with wind speeds between 113 mph and 157 mph. Its wind tore the roofs off three apartment buildings, extensively damaging many of the 240 units. At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, it hurled an airplane into a wall, sparking a fire, and snapped off wings or flipped about 50 others. Read The Full Story Saudi Arabia Frees 18 Ex-Gtimo Detainees 2006-12-26 16:46:04 The Saudi government said Tuesday it had released 18 men who were detained after returning to their homeland from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. The Saudis, who returned to the kingdom in May and June, were released after they finished their sentences, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said. His comments, which did not specify the men's alleged crimes, came in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. Read The Full Story Internet Cafes In Front Line Of New Gaza Violence 2006-12-26 03:29:11 Using political violence be-tween Hamas and Fatah as cover, radical Islamists are bombing internet cafés, pool halls and chemists in Gaza to impose their own brand of fundamentalism. Cybercafés have been singled out for allegedly allowing customers to download pornography. Chemists have been bombed for selling hallucinogens smuggled from Israel or through tunnels from Egypt, while pool halls are accused of encouraging immoral behaviour. A group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Righteousness is believed to have carried out more than a dozen attacks in recent weeks. The previously unknown group issued a warning letter late last month threatening to “execute the laws of God”. It claimed responsibility for “shooting rocket-propelled grenades and planting bombs at internet cafés in Gaza, which are trying to make a whole generation preoccupied with matters other than jihad and worship”. The group also claimed unverifiable attacks on unveiled women, music shops and motorists playing loud music. Read The Full Story	Fears For Machu Picchu As Mayor Builds Bridge 2006-12-27 03:24:44 A Peruvian mayor has built a bridge leading to Machu Picchu, Peru's Inca citadel, despite warnings it will wreck the archaeological gem and open a route for drug smugglers. The 80-meter (260-feet) long bridge over the Vilcanota river is due to open this week in defiance of a court order and protests from the government, which fears hordes of backpackers will swamp the site. The United Nations conservation agency UNESCO is due in February to inspect the mountaintop ruins, a world heritage site deep in the Andean jungle, amid concern that there are already too many visitors. Yet Fedia Castro, mayor of Convencion province, said the bridge would end her community's isolation and give tourists a cheaper option than a train which, until now, had a monopoly on transport through the Sacred Valley. "It's almost ready, so they can't stop it," she said. Locals have welcomed the bridge for opening their remote province to commerce and tourism. Instead of a treacherous 15-hour drive over mountain passes farmers can truck coffee and fruit to Cusco in just three hours. Read The Full Story S.E.C. Changes Reporting Rules On Bosses' Pay To Make Them Seem Lower 2006-12-27 03:23:19 The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a move announced late on the last business day before Christmas, reversed a decision it had made in July and adopted a rule that would allow many companies to report significantly lower total compensation for top executives. The change in the way grants of stock options are to be explained to investors is a victory for corporations that had opposed the rule when it was issued in July, and a defeat for institutional investors that had backed the S.E.C.’s original rule. “It was a holiday present to corporate America,” Ann Yerger, the executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, said Tuesday. “It will certainly make the numbers look smaller in 2007 than they would otherwise have looked.” Read The Full Story Former President Gerald R. Ford Dies At 93 2006-12-27 03:22:09 Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., 93, who became the 38th president of the United States as a result of some of the most extraordinary events in U.S. history and sought to restore the nation's confidence in the basic institutions of government, has died. His wife, Betty, reported the death in a statement. "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country." The statement, released by the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, did not say where Ford died or give a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January and underwent two heart treatments - including an angioplasty - in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the Presidency," President Bush said last night in a statement. Ford was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. Read The Full Story 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Off Taiwan, At Least 1 Person Killed 2006-12-26 16:50:30 A powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck off southwestern Taiwan on Tuesday, prompting fears of a potentially destructive tsunami on the second anniversary of the quake and deadly waves that killed thousands in south Asia. An official at Japan's Meteorological Agency said there was no longer any danger of a destructive tsunami headed for the Philippines, as had been predicted. "The expected waves did not materialize," said Hiroshi Koide of the agency's earthquake section. "The danger has passed." The quake was felt throughout Taiwan. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered magnitude 7.1, while Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau measured it at 6.7. It was followed eight minutes later by an aftershock registering 7.0, said the USGS. Read The Full Story Iraqi Court Upholds Hussein's Death Sentence 2006-12-26 16:49:41 An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling to execute deposed leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity and said he could hang within 30 days. "From tomorrow, any day could be the day of implementation," chief judge Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin said at a news conference in Baghdad. On Nov. 5, a five-judge panel unanimously sentenced Hussein and two of his seven co-defendants to death by hanging. Four other defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life, and an eighth was acquitted. The high court also upheld the death penalty of two of Hussein's co-defendants, Shahin said, but returned the case of another convicted man to the high tribunal after deciding his life sentence was too lenient. Read The Full Story At Least 260 Killed In Nigerian Pipeline Explosion 2006-12-26 16:48:06 At least 260 people were killed outside Lagos, Nigeria, when ruptured gasoline pipeline burst into flames Tuesday as scavengers in the impoverished neighborhood collected spilling fuel according to the Red Cross. Scores of bodies could be seen jumbled and fused together in the raging flames at the blast site. Intense heat kept rescue workers back as smoke billowed over the heavily populated Abule Egba neighborhood in Lagos. At least 60 others were injured with burns, said Nigerian Red Cross Secretary General Abiodun Orebiyi. Witnesses said thieves had broken into the pipeline after midnight and hundreds of men, women and children had been collecting leaking fuel in plastic buckets, cans and bags for hours before the explosion. It was unclear what ignited the gasoline. Read The Full Story 3.5 Earthquake Sets Scots' Kilts Aquivering 2006-12-26 16:46:52 An earthquake that has shaken a Scottish town is the biggest in the U.K. this year, according to experts. Hundreds of people in the Dumfries area reported their houses shaking violently at around 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Seismologists said the tremor, which lasted around 10 seconds, measured 3.5 on the Richter scale - the largest in the U.K. this year. Bennett Simpson, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, Scotland, said: "This was a significant earthquake. But we would expect one or two of this magnitude every year, however. Read The Full Story Justice Department Interagency Data Base Raises Privacy Fears 2006-12-26 03:29:30 The Justice Department is building a massive database that allows state and local police officers around the country to search millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to Justice officials. The system, known as "OneDOJ," already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple in size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets, officials said. The database is billed by its supporters as a much-needed step toward better information-sharing with local law enforcement agencies, which have long complained about a lack of cooperation from the federal government. Civil-liberties and privacy advocates say the scale and contents of such a database raise immediate privacy and civil rights concerns, in part because tens of thousands of local police officers could gain access to personal details about people who have not been arrested or charged with crimes. Read The Full Story Analysis: Iran Oil Revenue Quickly Drying Up 2006-12-26 03:28:50 Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Iran's economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview. Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved, and they could disappear by 2015, Stern predicted. Read The Full Story
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