Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday December 14 2006 - (813)

Thursday December 14 2006 edition
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Sen. Tim Johnson Undersgoes Surgery, Outcome Could Affect U.S. Senate Majority 2006-12-14 03:36:07 U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) was in surgery last night after falling ill at the Capitol, introducing a note of uncertainty over control of the Senate just weeks before Democrats are to take over with a one-vote margin. Johnson, 59, was taken to George Washington University Hospital shortly after noon, where he underwent "a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team," his office said. Aides later said he had not suffered a stroke or heart attack, but they offered no further comment or details of the surgery. The two-term senator's illness - which sent Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nevada) rushing to the hospital to check on Johnson - underscored the fragility of Democrats' hold on the next Senate, which they won by the narrowest of margins in the Nov. 7 elections. Should Johnson be unable to complete his term, South Dakota's Republican governor, Michael Rounds, would name a replacement for the next two years. With Johnson in office, Democrats would hold a 51-to-49 edge in the Senate that convenes Jan. 4 as part of the 110th Congress. (The two independents have said they will caucus with the Democrats.) But if he is to leave office before then and Rounds replaces him with a Republican, the GOP would control the chamber. In a 50-50 Senate, Vice President Cheney could break tie votes in the GOP's favor; but a Senate that becomes evenly split after it is in session would not necessarily fall to Republicans, said Senate historians. Rules and precedents could leave a party in charge of the chamber even after its membership falls below that of the other party. Read The Full Story Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk By Half 2006-12-14 03:34:48 Circumcision appears to reduce a man’s risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by half, United States government health officials said yesterday, and the directors of the two largest funds for fighting the disease said they would consider paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries. The announcement was made by officials of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as they halted two clinical trials, in Kenya and Uganda, on the ground that not offering circumcision to all the men taking part would be unethical. The success of the trials confirmed a study done last year in South Africa. AIDS experts immediately hailed the finding. “This is very exciting news,” said Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist at the HarvardCenter for Population and Development, who has argued that circumcision slows the spread of AIDS in the parts of Africa where it is common. Read The Full Story Regional War Looms In Africa 2006-12-14 03:33:21 With the Ethiopian government saying it is technically at war with Somalia's Islamic Courts movement, and the movement having declared holy war against Ethiopia, there is fear that an all-out conflict in the Horn of Africa may be unavoidable. In the past week, several skirmishes have broken out between militias loyal to Ethiopia and those loyal to the Council of Islamic Courts, the movement that has taken control of the southern region of the country, including Mogadishu, the capital. The fighting has occurred around the southern town of Baidoa, seat of Somalia's fragile but internationally recognized transitional government. Ethiopia considers the interim government a buffer against Islamic Courts leaders who have long expressed desire to create a "Greater Somalia," including ethnically Somali portions of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Read The Full Story U.S. Warns Of Threat To Satellites 2006-12-13 17:16:23 The Bush administration warned Wednesday against threats by terrorist groups and other nations against U.S. commercial and military satellites, and discounted the need for a treaty aimed at preventing an arms race in space. Undersecretary of State Robert G. Joseph also reasserted U.S. policy that it has a right to use force against hostile nations or terror groups that might try to attack American satellites or ground installations that support space programs. President Bush adopted a new U.S. space policy earlier this year. "We reserve the right to defend ourselves against hostile attacks and interference with our space assets," Joseph said in prepared remarks to the George C. Marshall Institute. Joseph, the senior arms control official at the State Department, said nations cannot all be counted on to use space purely for peaceful purposes. Read The Full Story Swift Boat Veterans, MoveOn.org To Pay $450,000 In Fines 2006-12-13 17:15:21 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org Voter Fund, two outside groups that played key roles in the 2004 presidential election, reached an agreement with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to pay nearly $450,000 for various violations. The two groups, along with the League of Conservation Voters, settled charges that they failed "to register and file disclosure reports as federal political committees and accepted contributions in violation of federal limits and source prohibitions," the FEC said in a statement Wednesday. The commission approved the three settlements on a vote of 6-0. The FEC's unanimous decision to approve the agreements goes to the heart of campaign tactics that reached full bloom in the 2004 presidential campaign. At issue was the emergence of nonprofit political groups, called 527 organizations based on the section of the Internal Revenue Service code that government their activities, that operated as independent campaigns attacking Kerry or Bush. Read The Full Story Abrupt Ice Retreat Cold Provide Ice-Free Arctic Summers By 2040 2006-12-13 17:14:06 The recent retreat of Arctic sea ice is likely to accelerate so rapidly that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly devoid of ice during summertime as early as 2040, according to new research published in the December 12 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The study, by a team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, analyzes the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic. Scenarios run on supercomputers show that the extent of sea ice each September could be reduced so abruptly that, within about 20 years, it may begin retreating four times faster than at any time in the observed record. "We have already witnessed major losses in sea ice, but our research suggests that the decrease over the next few decades could be far more dramatic than anything that has happened so far," says NCAR scientist Marika Holland, the study's lead author. "These changes are surprisingly rapid." Read The Full Story New Rules Make It Harder To Prosecute Businesses 2006-12-13 17:13:08 The Justice Department announced new rules Wednesday that will make it harder for prosecutors to bring criminal charges against companies, bending to intense pressure from business groups that claim the government has overreached in its pursuit of financial malfeasance. In presenting the revised rules, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty called the changes a substantial and direct response to a lobbying drive by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, among others. Since devastating bankruptcies at Enron and WorldCom prompted Congress to pass a stringent corporate accountability law four years ago, business interests increasingly have pushed back on efforts to police their operations, arguing that the government has imposed too many costs on companies with too few benefits for investors. Read The Full Story Palestinians Kill Hamas-Linked Judge 2006-12-13 05:11:22 Palestinian gunmen fatally ambushed a Hamas-linked Islamic judge and militant commander outside of a courthouse early Wednesday, escalating factional tensions in the Gaza Strip. The drive-by shooting came two days after the killing of the three young children of a Fatah-allied Palestinian intelligence officer, which sparked fresh conflict between the rival Hamas and Fatah factions. The violence has reduced chances for a unity government and pushed the two sides closer to civil war. Palestinian security officials said the slain man was Bassam al-Fara, 30, a jurist at the Islamic court and a Hamas "field commander" who belongs to the largest clan in the southern town of Khan Younis. Read The Full Story Ex-Aides To GOP Congressman Allege Abuse Of Power 2006-12-13 04:03:54 With community activists packed into California's Monrovia Community Center one winter night in 2000, U.S. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar, California) implored City Council members to purchase 165 acres he owned in the foothills and turn the land into a wilderness preserve. Earlier that day, according to interviews with former Miller staff members and official correspondence reviewed by The Times, Miller asked one staffer to find a way to place one of the councilmen - a pawnshop owner with no parks experience - on the prestigious National Park System Advisory Board. The aide said he was told to "make it a priority." Miller then continued to push for the councilman's appointment even after staff members warned him that trying to secure the park board seat for the councilman could appear to be a bribe, internal memos show. Read The Full Story FDA Panel To Debate Increasing Warnings For Antidepressants 2006-12-13 04:02:59 Public health officials, psychiatrists, grieving parents and outraged former patients will fill a hotel ballroom in Silver Spring, Maryland, Wednesday morning to argue the most bitterly divisive question in psychiatry: do the drugs that doctors prescribe to relieve depression make some people more likely to attempt suicide? The hearing, called by the Food and Drug Administration, will be the first time a government panel has addressed the question since 2004, when impassioned testimony resulted in the agency requiring antidepressant drugs to carry strong warnings that they could increase suicidal thinking or behavior in some children and adolescents. Today's hearing is expected to be even more contentious. The panel will hear testimony on whether to recommend that the F.D.A. require labels carrying similar warnings for adult patients. Read The Full Story Karzai: Pakistan's Support For Taliban, Militants Threatens Region 2006-12-13 04:02:12 In strikingly strong language, President Hamid Karzai warned Tuesday that a failure to bring peace to Afghanistan would destroy the whole region, and laid the blame squarely on neighboring Pakistan. As if to underscore Karzai’s warning, as he arrived here, a suicide bomber blew himself up in neighboring Helmand Province, narrowly missing the provincial governor but killing eight civilians and bodyguards in his office. “Afghanistan either has to be fixed and be peaceful, or the whole region will run into hell with us,” Karzai told a small group of journalists during a visit to this southern city, his hometown, which has been reeling from almost daily suicide bombings in the last 10 days. “It’s not going to be like the past, that only we suffer. Those who cause us to suffer will burn in hell with us. And I hope NATO recognizes this.” Read The Full Story	Lawmakers: Coast Guard Withheld Flaws In Cutter Design 2006-12-14 03:35:27 The U.S. Coast Guard withheld from Congress warnings raised more than two years ago by its chief engineer about structural design flaws in its new National Security Cutter, a $564 million ship now near completion in Mississippi, Democrats and Republicans said in interviews this week. The lack of full disclosure about that and other problems in the Coast Guard’s $24 billion modernization effort, known as Deepwater, has created a credibility gap that some members of Congress say now jeopardizes the endeavor. “The Coast Guard clearly does not understand that transparency and accountability are essential to a program of this magnitude,” said Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, the chairwoman of the Senate panel that oversees the service’s operations. Read The Full Story U.S. Subpoena Is Seen As Bid To Stop Leaks 2006-12-14 03:34:09 Federal prosecutors are trying to force the American Civil Liberties Union to turn over copies of a classified document it received from a source, using what legal experts called a new extension of the Bush administration’s efforts to protect national-security secrets. The novelty in the government’s approach is in its broad use of a grand jury subpoena, which is typically a way to gather evidence, rather than to confiscate all traces of it. But the subpoena issued to the A.C.L.U. seeks “any and all copies” of a document e-mailed to it unsolicited in October, indicating that the government also wants to prevent further dissemination of the information in the document. The subpoena was revealed in court papers unsealed in federal court in Manhattan yesterday. The subject of the grand jury’s investigation is not known, but the A.C.L.U. said that it had been told it was not a target of the investigation. The subpoena, however, raised the possibility that the government had found a new tool to stop the dissemination of secrets, one that could avoid the all but absolute constitutional prohibition on prior restraints on publication. Read The Full Story Scientists: 2006 Will Be Britain's Warmest Year Since Records Began 2006-12-14 03:32:25 Britain is on course for the warmest year since records began, according to figures from the Metropolitan Office and the University of East Anglia Wednesday. Temperatures logged by weather stations across England reveal 2006 to have been unusually mild, with a mean temperature of 10.84 degrees Celsius (over 50 degrees Fahrenheit). The record beats the previous two joint hottest years of 1999 and 1990 by 0.21C. Temperatures in central England have been recorded since 1659, the world's longest climate record, and they indicate the trend towards warming weather across Britain as a whole. Experts are convinced that the warming can only be explained by rising greenhouse gases from human activity and rule out the impact of natural variations, such as the sun's intensity. "Our climate models show we should be getting warmer and drier weather in the summer, and warmer and wetter in the winter, and that's exactly what we're seeing," said Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. "I cannot see how else this can be explained." Read The Full Story Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight 2006-12-13 17:15:52 The annual Geminid meteor shower is expected to produce a reliable shooting star show when it peaks on Wednesday. The Geminid event is known for producing one or two meteors every minute during the peak for viewers with dark skies willing to brave chilly nights. If the Geminid Meteor Shower occurred during a warmer month, it would be as familiar to most people as the famous August Perseids. Indeed, a night all snuggled-up in a sleeping bag under the stars is an attractive proposition in summer. But it's hard to imagine anything more bone chilling than lying on the ground in mid-December for several hours at night. Read The Full Story Newsblog: The Arctic - Here Today, Gone In 34 Years 2006-12-13 17:14:37 A new 10-second animation, provides a scary illustration of the possible impact of climate change over the next 40 years. Produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, it shows the possible fate of the Arctic ice cap, based on new computer modelling. At first, the size of summer ice fluctuates as you might expect, but after about 2025 it disappears faster than a snowball in hell. The scientists explain that after 2025 a "positive feedback loop" kicks in, with very negative consequences for the Arctic. "As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice," says Marika Holland, one of the scientists who conducted the research. Read The Full Story European Ski Resorts Feel The Heat Of Global Warming 2006-12-13 17:13:39 Some of Europe's best-known ski resorts could be ruined by global warming, a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, warned Thursday. In what is claimed to be the first study of its kind, the study estimated that a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperatures by 2050 would reduce by 40% the number of slopes with enough snow to ski. If temperatures rise by 4C, resorts where you can ski for more than 100 days of the year would decrease from 600 to just 200. Some of the most vulnerable slopes include Schladming and Kitzbuhel in Austria, and the report warns that most of the skiing slopes in Bavaria, Germany, are also likely to go. Read The Full Story Actor Peter Boyle Dies At 71 2006-12-13 17:12:17 Peter Boyle, 71, a prolific film and television actor who was a working-class bigot in "Joe," the tap-dancing monster in Mel Brooks' horror spoof "Young Frankenstein" and the crotchety father on the long-running sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," died Dec. 12 at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had multiple myeloma and heart disease. After abandoning an early career as a monk, Mr. Boyle became a member of the Second City improvisational acting troupe in Chicago before he started winning film and television roles. His bald pate, rubbery face and hulking physique all-but-guaranteed his career as a character actor, but he managed to dazzle critics in two extraordinarily different early roles: as the hippie-hating factory worker in John G. Avildsen's "Joe" (1970) and the zipper-necked, loveable monster in "Young Frankenstein" (1974). Read The Full Story U.S. Army, Marine Corps To Ask For More Troops 2006-12-13 04:04:20 The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources. In addition, the Army will press hard for "full access" to the 346,000-strong Army National Guard and the 196,000-strong Army Reserves by asking Gates to take the politically sensitive step of easing the Pentagon restrictions on the frequency and duration of involuntary call-ups for reservists, according to two senior Army officials. The push for more ground troops comes as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sharply decreased the readiness of Army and Marine Corps units rotating back to the United States, compromising the ability of U.S. ground forces to respond to other potential conflicts around the world. Read The Full Story Democrats Considering Independent Ethics Panel 2006-12-13 04:03:19 U.S. House Democrats are seriously exploring the creation of an independent ethics arm to enforce new rules on travel, lobbying, gifts and other issues that Democrats intend to put in place on taking power next month. Senior party officials said Tuesday that Representative Nancy Pelosi, of California, the incoming speaker, had consulted with Representative John A. Boehner, of Ohio, the minority leader, on forming a bipartisan group to examine outside enforcement. The goal would be to have the group report back in the spring. An independent Congressional watchdog, if approved, would be a major break with tradition. Some lawmakers say House and Senate members have sole responsibility for policing themselves when it comes to internal rules. Some lawmakers have said an independent entity could be unconstitutional. Read The Full Story Saudis Warn They May Back Sunnis If U.S. Pulls Out Of Iraq 2006-12-13 04:02:33 Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia conveyed that message to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during  Cheney's whirlwind visit to Riyadh, the officials said. During the visit, King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and pushed for Washington to encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, senior Bush administration officials said. The Saudi warning reflects fears among America's Sunni Arab allies about Iran’s rising influence in Iraq, coupled with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Jordan's King Abdullah II has also expressed concern about rising Shiite influence, and about the prospect that the Shiite-dominated government would use Iraqi troops against the Sunni population. Read The Full Story Two Figures In Russian Radiation Probe Are Old Friends 2006-12-13 04:01:48 At a closed hospital run by the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, two Russian men, friends since they were 12-year-olds, lie removed from the world and at the center of an international poisoning drama. Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, who visited with former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill, have declared their innocence, as the investigation narrows to this city and to at least one of the men, Kovtun. Each discovery of a trace of polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko, acts like a carelessly left fingerprint. British and German investigators say a trail of positive readings matches the movements of Kovtun from Moscow to Hamburg on Oct. 28 and then on to London, where he met with Litvinenko at the bar of the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1. Read The Full Story
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