Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday December 30 2006 - (813)

Saturday December 30 2006 edition
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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
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