Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday December 18 2006 - (813)

Monday December 18 2006 edition
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Colin Powell Says U.S. Is Losing In Iraq, Calls For Troop Drawdown By Mid-2007 2006-12-18 02:49:26 Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said Sunday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraqand that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year. Powell's comments broke his long public silence on the issue and placed him at odds with the administration. President Bush is considering options for a new military strategy - among them a "surge" of 15,000 to 30,000 troops added to the current 140,000 in Iraq, to secure Baghdad and to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, as Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and others have proposed; or a redirection of the U.S. military away from the insurgency to focus mainly on hunting al-Qaeda terrorists, as the nation's top military leaders proposed last week in a meeting with the president. Bush has rejected the dire conclusions of the Iraq Study Group and its recommendations to set parameters for a phased withdrawal to begin next year, and he has insisted that the violence in Iraq is not a civil war. "I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton," said Powell, referring to the study group's leaders, former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D). The situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around." Read The Full Story Drug Files Show Eli Lilly Promoted Unapproved Use Of Zyprexa 2006-12-18 02:48:53 Eli Lilly encouraged primary care physicians to use Zyprexa, a powerful drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in patients who did not have either condition, according to internal Lilly marketing materials. The marketing documents, given to the New York Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, detail a multiyear promotional campaign that Lilly began in Orlando, Florida, in late 2000. In the campaign, called Viva Zyprexa, Lilly told its sales representatives to suggest that doctors prescribe Zyprexa to older patients with symptoms of dementia. A Lilly executive said that she could not comment on specific documents but that the company had never promoted Zyprexa for off-label uses and that it always showed the marketing materials used by its sales representatives to the Food and Drug Administration, as required by law. Read The Full Story Iranian Vote Results Seen As Setback For Ahmadinejad 2006-12-18 02:47:50 Allies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad failed to dominate elections for a powerful Iranian clerical body and local councils, according to early results Sunday, in what analysts said was a setback to the hard-line leader's standing. Friday's elections for the clerical Assembly of Experts and for local councils, the first nationwide vote since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, will not directly impact policy. A turnout of about 60 percent and Ahmadinejad's close identification with some candidates, particularly in Tehran, suggested a voter shift toward more moderate policies and away from the president's often-confrontational positions. Read The Full Story France To Pull Special Forces Unit From Afghanistan 2006-12-18 02:46:52 France on Sunday announced the withdrawal of its 200-member contingent of elite special forces from Afghanistan - all of its ground forces directly engaged in anti-terrorism operations in the country. The elite troops have been deployed in Afghanistan since July 2003 to help bolster the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban militia. A contingent of 1,100 French troops deployed under NATO command will remain in the capital, Kabul, Capt. Sebastien Caron, press officer for the French Defense Ministry, said in Paris. Read The Full Story Hundreds Of Russian Activists Detained Before Planned Protest In Moscow 2006-12-17 15:36:23 Russian authorities pulled hundreds of opposition activists off buses and trains and detained them along with scores of others on Saturday ahead of a rare anti-government rally in Moscow, said organizers. The police action did not prevent more than 2,000 people from gathering in a central square, where leftist and liberal groups demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin stop what they called Russia's retreat from democracy. "In 15 months, political power will be changed," said Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who is now an opposition leader, referring to the March 2008 presidential election. "Next year, everyone should make a personal decision about what to do with our country - whether we allow these people to continue their illegal undertakings ... or we finally make our main goal to build a democratic and socially oriented state," Kasyanov told demonstrators. Read The Full Story Update Your Resume, You're Officially Time Magazine's 'Person Of The Year - 2006' 2006-12-17 15:35:49 Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year." The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals - citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content online. "If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone." Time did cite 26 "People Who Mattered," including North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Pope Benedict XVI, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Read The Full Story Abbas Threatens To Dismiss Hamas-Led Government 2006-12-17 03:36:43 The increasingly violent power struggle in the Occupied Territories edged closer to civil war Saturday as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he would call fresh presidential and legislative elections and insisted he had the right to fire the Hamas-led government. After days of fighting between Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas's aides said a date for new elections could be set within a week and the vote take place within three and six months. The latest escalation came ahead of the arrival of Tony Blair in Israel today as part of a tour of Turkey and the Middle East which the Prime Minister hopes can help breathe fresh life into a moribund peace process. Saturday Blair visited Cairo, Egypt, for talks with President Hosni Mubarak. His arrival in Egypt drew no red carpet, no high-ranking reception committee, and a three-strong honour guard. Read The Full Story Iraq Opens Army To Hussein Loyalists Who 'Aren't Tainted With Blood' 2006-12-17 03:36:03 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government reached out to former members of Saddam Hussein's regime Saturday, inviting them to claim government pensions and rejoin the army in a gesture meant to calm the country's sectarian passions. "The Iraqi army opens its doors to officers and soldiers from the former army who wish to serve the country," Maliki said at a national reconciliation conference of politicians and sectarian leaders in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Maliki has been under increasing U.S. pressure to improve security forces. But, exposing fissures that have plagued his struggling government as the country descended into civil war, several Shiite and Sunni Arab groups rejected the proposal, saying it would reward insurgents and stalwarts of Hussein's regime. Read The Full Story	U.S. Energy Secretary OKs China Purchase Of 4 Nuclear Reactors 2006-12-18 02:49:11 China will buy four Westinghouse nuclear reactors in a deal that shows the continued attractiveness of American technology, but may also stir worries in Washington that the United States is selling its competitive advantage one industry at a time. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman of the United States and Ma Kai, the minister of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, signed a memorandum of understanding for the reactors in Beijing on Saturday. The deal calls for the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation to buy the reactors from Westinghouse Electric, which the Toshiba Corporation, based in Tokyo, bought earlier this year. Neither side announced a value for the reactors, but outside analysts have suggested the total price tag may be $5 billion to $8 billion. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Plans To Cut Medicaid's Payments To Pharmacies 2006-12-18 02:48:20 The Bush administration on Monday will propose sweeping reductions in payments to pharmacies as a way to save money for Medicaid, the health program for more than 50 million low-income people. The goal is to ensure that Medicaid can get drug discounts similar to those provided to large customers in the private market, including companies like Caremark Rx and Medco Health Solutions that manage drug benefits for people who have health insurance through an employer. Congressional investigators have found that Medicaid pays 35 percent more than the lowest price available in the private market for some commonly used brand-name drugs. States, which share the cost of Medicaid with the federal government, make the final decision on what pharmacies are paid, subject to federal limits. The proposed rule would provide new data for states to use in their calculations, redefining the “average manufacturer price” for brand-name and generic drugs. Read The Full Story 7 Episcopal Parishes In Virginia Split From U.S. Episcopal Church 2006-12-18 02:47:16 At least seven Virginia Episcopal parishes, opposed to the consecration of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions, have voted overwhelmingly to break from the U.S. church in a dramatic demonstration of widening rifts within the denomination. Two of the congregations are among the state's largest and most historic: Truro Church in Fairfax City and The Falls Church in Falls Church, which have roots in the 1700s. Their leaders have been in the vanguard of a national effort to establish a conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. The result of the week-long vote, announced Sunday, sets up the possibility of a lengthy ecclesiastical and legal battle for property worth tens of millions of dollars. Buildings and land at Truro and The Falls Church are valued at about $25 million, according to Fairfax County records. Read The Full Story U.S. Worries About Attacks On Space Satellites 2006-12-17 15:36:39 For a U.S. military increasingly dependent on sophisticated satellites for communicating, gathering intelligence and guiding missiles, the possibility that those space-based systems could come under attack has become a growing worry - and the perceived need to defend them ever more urgent. And that, in turn, is reviving fears in some quarters that humanity's conflicts could soon spread beyond Earth's boundaries. In a speech last week, a senior Bush administration official warned that other nations, and possibly terrorist groups, are "acquiring capabilities to counter, attack and defeat U.S. space systems." As a result, he said, the United States must increase its ability to protect vital space equipment with new technologies and policies. Elaborating publicly for the first time since the October release of a new national space policy, Undersecretary of State Robert G. Joseph made clear that the administration would react forcefully to any attempt to interfere with U.S. space technology - whether used by the military or by businesses ranging from paging services and automated teller machines to radio and television providers. Read The Full Story 28 Kidnapped From Aid Office In Baghdad 2006-12-17 15:36:07 Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices on Sunday and kidnapped more than two dozen people at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Iraq on his sixth visit since the 2003 invasion, appealed for international support for Iraq's fragile government, saying the bloodshed was being carried out "by the very forces worldwide who are trying to prevent moderation". Blair and his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki, discussed preparations by British military units in Basra, the main city in southern Iraq, to turn over security to Iraqi forces. Britain expects to withdraw several thousand troops from Iraq next year, despite concerns that Iraqi forces are not ready to keep order on their own. Read The Full Story Lawmakers' Inaction Puts Some Federal Programs In Peril 2006-12-17 03:37:01 The Republican-controlled Congress's decision to adjourn a week ago before completing many of the spending bills that finance the federal government will reverberate in ways large and small, such as understaffed U.S. attorney's offices, delayed renovations at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and a scuttled global nuclear energy exchange. Republican leaders left behind just enough spending authority to keep the government operating through mid-February, less than halfway through the 2007 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Democrats have signaled that when they take control of Congress in January they will extend that funding authority for the remainder of the year based largely on the previous year's spending levels, which will result in many cuts in programs. The Democrats also will do something that is certain to anger many lawmakers but cheer critics of excessive government spending: They will wipe out thousands of lawmakers' pet projects, or earmarks, that have been a source of great controversy on Capitol Hill. In the past, lawmakers have peppered individual spending bills with earmarks benefiting special interests. But the funding resolution the Democrats intend to pass in lieu of spending bills will be devoid of earmarks. Read The Full Story High-Dose Fertility Drugs Put Mothers And Babies At Risk 2006-12-17 03:36:26 Thousands of infertile women who undergo IVF treatment are risking themselves and their embryos because they are receiving too many strong hormonal drugs, new research reveals. More than 10,000 children - around 1.5 per cent of all live births - are born in the U.K. each year using the treatments. For years, clinics have chosen to place several embryos in the womb to give the best possible chance of a pregnancy, often leading to multiple pregnancies that are dangerous in themselves because they can lead to premature delivery. Now two studies discussed at a conference in London last week show that women who receive high doses of drugs to stimulate their ovaries into producing lots of eggs - so that the best possible ones can be picked once the egg has been fertilised by sperm in the laboratory - are more likely to produce embryos with genetic defects and suffer harmful changes to their womb lining. Read The Full Story
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