Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday December 12 2006 - (813)

Tuesday December 12 2006 edition
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Experts Advise Bush Not To Reduce Troops In Iraq 2006-12-12 03:52:05 President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said. The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria, according to sources familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private. The White House gathering was part of a series of high-profile meetings Bush is holding to search for "a new way forward" amid the increasing chaos and carnage in Iraq. Earlier in the day, Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other high-ranking officials at the State Department, where he was briefed on reconstruction and regional diplomatic efforts in Iraq. Read The Full Story 'Don't Go Out Alone' Women In British Town Are Told Over Fear Of Serial Killer 2006-12-12 03:51:03 Police investigating the murders by a suspected serial killer of three prostitutes in Ipswich, Suffolk, last night revealed that they were concerned for the safety of two other women. Annette Nicholls, 29, also a prostitute in the town, has not been seen for more than week. She was reported missing by her family Monday afternoon. There was also confusion Monday over the whereabouts of Paula Clennell, 24, another prostitute, who was last seen in the town's red light district on Saturday night. Police said last night that a friend had reported that Ms.  Clennell had been in contact late on Sunday, but officers said they were still concerned for her welfare and were urgently trying to locate her. Read The Full Story Russia Seizes Control Of $20 Billion Gas Project, Forces Shell Out 2006-12-12 03:49:13 Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon. After months of relentless pressure from Moscow, the Anglo-Dutch company has to cut its stake in the $20 billion Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia in favor of the state-owned energy group Gazprom. The Russian authorities are also threatening BP over alleged environmental violations on a Siberian field in what is seen as a wider attempt to seize back assets handed over to foreign companies when energy prices were low. The moves will alarm many investors in the city of London as Shell and other share prices are hit, but the news will also increase government ministers' concerns about Britain's energy security. Read The Full Story 2 Car Bombs Kill At Least 57 In Baghdad, Wound More Than 150 Others 2006-12-12 03:47:56 Two car bombs targeting day laborers looking for work exploded within seconds of each other Tuesday on a main square in central Baghdad, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 150, said police. The coordinated attack in Tayaran Square involved a bomb in a parked car and a suicide attacker who drove up to day laborers, pretended to want to hire them, then set off his explosives as they got into his minibus, said Lt. Bilal Ali. The blasts went off nearly simultaneously about 7 a.m., setting fire to at least 10 other cars, Ali said. Gunfire -  possibly from insurgent snipers - erupted as people fled the scene. He said at least 57 Iraqis, including seven policemen, were killed and 151 people were wounded. Read The Full Story FDA Proposes Broadening Access To Experimental Drugs 2006-12-11 15:28:52 Greater numbers of seriously ill patients could get experimental medicines under proposed federal guidelines released Monday that also would clarify when drug companies could charge for the medicines. The revised guidelines lay out in greater detail when unapproved drugs would be available to patients with no other options to treat a life-threatening or serious disease or condition, the Food and Drug Administration said. The FDA would have to be satisfied that the potential benefit of the treatment justifies its potential risks. If adopted, the guidelines would spell out that drugs could be available during all stages of drug development, including during initial, phase-one testing. During that step, experimental drugs are tested in as few as 20 people. Just 10 percent to 15 percent of phase-one drugs ultimately win FDA approval. Read The Full Story Kofi Annan Criticizes Bush Administration In Farewell Speech 2006-12-11 15:27:34 U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his farewell address, criticized the Bush administration, warning that America must not sacrifice its Democratic ideals while waging war against terrorism. In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Annan also said the Security Council should be expanded. "Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity," said Annan's text. When the U.S. "appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said. Annan, who leaves the United Nations on Dec. 31 after 10 years as secretary-general, has become an increasingly vocal critic of the war in Iraq. Read The Full Story 3 Children Killed, 2 Wounded In Gaza Assassination Attempt 2006-12-11 15:26:17 Gunmen in Gaza City opened fire Monday on the car of a senior Palestinian intelligence official, killing three of his children and the driver as he was dropping them off at school. The intelligence officer, Baha Balousha, was not in the car during the morning attack. He is closely identified with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, and participated in a crackdown in the 1990s against members of the rival Hamas movement in Gaza. The incident followed a day after gunmen fired on the convoy of Interior Minister Saed Siyam, a powerful Hamas official who was not injured in the shooting. Read The Full Story Taliban And Allies Tighten Grip In North Pakistan 2006-12-11 03:57:19 Islamic militants are using a recent peace deal with the government to consolidate their hold in northern Pakistan, vastly expanding their training of suicide bombers and other recruits and fortifying alliances with al-Qaeda and foreign fighters, diplomats and intelligence officials from several nations say. The result, they say, is virtually a Taliban mini-state. The militants, the officials say, are openly flouting the terms of the September accord in North Waziristan, under which they agreed to end cross-border help for the Taliban insurgency that revived in Afghanistan with new force this year. The area is becoming a magnet for an influx of foreign fighters, who not only challenge government authority in the area, but are even wresting control from local tribes and spreading their influence to neighboring areas, according to several American and NATO officials and Pakistani and Afghan intelligence officials. Read The Full Story Inquiry Sought Over Military Officers Appearing In Evangelical Video 2006-12-11 03:53:31 A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization. In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military. "I found a wonderful opportunity as a director on the joint staff, as I meet the people that come into my directorate," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton, Jr., says in the video. "And I tell them right up front who Jack Catton is, and I start with the fact that I'm an old-fashioned American, and my first priority is my faith in God, then my family and then country. I share my faith because it describes who I am." Read The Full Story Darfur Civilians Burned Alive After Gunmen Attack Aid Truck 2006-12-11 03:51:12 Gunmen on horseback attacked a truck carrying medicine and aid in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region and killed around 30 civilians, some of whom were burned alive, the United Nations said Sunday. The African Union had earlier put the death toll at 22 and said 10 others were wounded on Saturday when gunmen attacked the vehicle near Sirba, 30 miles north of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state and close to the Sudan-Chad border. "The gunmen were riding on horseback. The exact number of civilian casualties is not yet established but it is estimated that around 30 people were killed," said Radhia Achouri, a U.N. spokeswoman in Sudan. "Some people were shot, others were burned to death," she said. The vehicle was carrying medicine and relief items and transporting people, she added. Read The Full Story Hundreds Of Thousands Protest In Lebanon 2006-12-11 03:49:44 Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah members and their allies flooded central Beirut on Sunday demanding changes in the government's makeup as soldiers strung more barbed wire around the offices of the Western-backed premier. Buoyed by the big turnout after a week of street protests, the pro-Syria opposition gave Prime Minister Fuad Saniora an ultimatum of a ''few days'' to accept its demand to form a national unity government with a big role for Hezbollah or face an escalating campaign to oust him. Saniora, who has been holed up in his fortified office downtown, rejected the demand and urged his foes to resume negotiations. The opposition should ''return to the constitutional institutions to discuss differences and reach real solutions,'' he said in a written statement. Read The Full Story Kirk Douglas Calls On Youth To Stand Up And Be Counted 2006-12-11 03:47:44 The cleft chin may be familiar to some. But others may have difficulty placing the ageing Hollywood star. "You may know me," he writes in an open letter published last Saturday. "If you don't ... Google me. I was a movie star and I'm Michael Douglas's dad, Catherine Zeta-Jones's father-in-law, and the grandparent of their two children. Today I celebrate my 90th birthday." But Kirk Douglas has loftier things on his mind than summoning up the wind to blow out 90 candles. The man who led the slaves to revolt as "Spartacus", the man who embodied the suffering of Van Gogh's art in "Lust For Life" is turning his attention to the fate of the planet. "Let's face it," he writes to "America's young people", "THE WORLD IS IN A MESS and you are inheriting it. Read The Full Story	Financial Institutions Also Making Money Off Identity Theft 2006-12-12 03:51:37 Melody Millett was shocked when her car loan company asked her if she was the wife of Abundio Perez, who had applied for 26 credit cards, financed several cars and taken out a home mortgage using a Social Security number belonging to her actual husband. Beyond her shock, Mrs. Millett was angry. Five months earlier, the Milletts had subscribed to a $79.99-a-year service from Equifax, a big financial data warehouse, that promised to monitor any access to her credit records. But it never reported the credit activity that might have signaled that they were victims of identity theft. “I feel like the whole thing is a sham,” said Mrs. Millett, a 37-year-old information-technology manager from Overland Park, Kansas. “You feel completely violated because here are the people who know the industry. They hold all the data.” The services, she contends, are oversold. It is not just criminals who are profiting from identity theft; financial institutions are making money, too. Fear of identity theft has helped give rise to a nearly billion-dollar business in credit-monitoring services sold by the major credit bureaus - companies like Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - as well as direct marketers and banks. Read The Full Story In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens Its Web Of Influence 2006-12-12 03:50:28 On Nov. 15, the Russian Interior Ministry and Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant, announced three new senior appointments. Oleg Safonov was named a deputy head of the ministry. Yevgeny Shkolov became head of its economic security department. And Valery Golubev was appointed a deputy chief executive at Gazprom. All three men had something important in common beyond the timing of their promotions: backgrounds as KGB officers and experience working directly with President Vladimir Putin when he was a KGB operative himself in Germany or later, when he was a rising presence in the local government of St. Petersburg, his home town. Russia's intertwined political and business elites are increasingly populated with people like them, former intelligence agents who have personally proved themselves to the president. At the same time, Putin has spearheaded the regrouping and strengthening of the country's security services, which had splintered into a host of agencies after the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. Read The Full Story Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington, D.C. 2006-12-12 03:48:31 Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, flew out of Washington Monday after informing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his staff that he would be leaving the post after only 15 months on the job, according to U.S. officials and foreign envoys. There has been no formal announcement from the kingdom. The abrupt departure is particularly striking because his predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, spent 22 years on the job. The Saudi ambassador is one of the most influential diplomatic positions in Washington and is arguably the most important overseas post for the oil-rich desert kingdom. Turki, a long-serving former intelligence chief, told his staff yesterday afternoon that he wanted to spend more time with his family, according to Arab diplomats. Colleagues said they were shocked at the decision. Read The Full Story Federal Tests Find No E. Coli In Green Onions 2006-12-12 03:47:27 Maybe the green onions were not the culprit after all. As the number of confirmed or suspected cases of E. coli infection rose to 400 yesterday, federal officials said that their testing had failed to confirm preliminary findings by Taco Bell that some green onions in its restaurants were contaminated. The chain removed green onions from its restaurants last week. “There’s nothing to implicate green onions right now,” said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for food safety at the federal Food and Drug Administration. “We have not ruled out any food ingredient. We haven’t ruled any in, and we haven’t ruled any out, and that includes green onions.” Read The Full Story Oil For Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommend Privatization 2006-12-11 15:28:27 Intellpuke: The following article by Antonia Juhasz was posted on AlterNet's website Dec. 7, 2006. In it, Ms. Juhasz says the Iraq Study Group may not know how to end the war, but it does have a way for its corporate friends to make money: by privatizing Iraq's huge oil resources. And isn't that what the Iraq war has been about? Ms. Juhasz is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time," and a contributing author, with John Perkins and others, of "A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption." Ms. Juhasz's article follows: In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals. The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government. President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth. Read The Full Story Commentary: How George W. Bush Ruined The Family Franchise 2006-12-11 15:26:54 Intellpuke: The following column, written by Eleanor Clift, appared in the Dec. 8, 2006, edition of Newsweek. Ms. Clift's column follows: On the eve of a report that repudiates his son's leadership, former president George H.W. Bush broke down crying when he recalled how his other son, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost an election a dozen years ago and then came back to serve two successful terms. The elder Bush has always been a softie, but this display of emotion was so over the top that it had to be about something other than Jeb's long-ago loss. The setting was a leadership summit Monday in Tallahassee, where the elder Bush had come to lecture and to pay homage to Jeb, who is leaving office with a 53 percent approval rating, putting him ninth among the 50 governors in popularity. The former president was reflecting on how well Jeb handled defeat in 1994 when he lost his composure. "He didn't whine about it," he said, putting a handkerchief to his face in an effort to stifle his sobbing. That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family's grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They'd go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won. Read The Full Story Experts Puzzle Over Halt Of Bird Flu 2006-12-11 15:25:25 Earlier this year, bird flu panic was in full swing: The French feared for their foie gras, the Swiss locked their chickens indoors, and Americans enlisted prison inmates in Alaska to help spot infected wild birds. The H5N1 virus - previously confined to Southeast Asia - was striking birds in places as diverse as Germany, Egypt, and Nigeria, and a flu pandemic seemed inevitable. Then the virus went quiet. Except for a steady stream of human cases in Indonesia, the current flu epicenter, the past year's worries about a catastrophic global outbreak largely disappeared. Read The Full Story Outbreaks Reveal Holes In U.S. Food Safety Net 2006-12-11 03:54:07 First it was spinach. Then tomatoes. Now possibly green onions. Over the past three months, fresh produce has been the culprit in one episode of food-borne illness after another, the latest an E. coli outbreak that appears to be linked to green onions served at Taco Bell restaurants in the Northeast. More than 60 people have been sickened in that outbreak. The patchwork of federal and state regulations that is supposed to ensure food safety has become less effective as the nation's produce supply has grown increasingly industrial. Three months after the spinach scare, there is no agreement on what should be done to reduce health risks from the nation's fruits and vegetables even as each episode of illness has heightened a sense of urgency. The number of produce-related outbreaks of food-borne illness has increased from about 40 in 1999 to 86 in 2004, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Americans are now more likely to get sick from eating contaminated produce than from any other food item, said the center. Read The Full Story Commentary: America Understands The Notion Of Cultural Difference 2006-12-11 03:52:37 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Gary Younge, a correspondent in the U.S. for the Guardian newspaper based in Manchester, England. In his column, filed from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mr. Younge maintains that, while the U.S. is not free of Islamaphobes, it is not a monolithic, culturally static state like Tony Blair's Britain. Mr. Younge's column follows: A few weeks ago, Washington-based radio host Jerry Klein announced his own very radical plan to assuage public fears of terrorism. All Muslims, he suggested, should be branded with a crescent-shaped tattoo or be forced to wear a red armband. The phones rang off the hook. The first caller said Klein was "off his rocker". The next thought he was a genius. "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country," the caller said. "They are here to kill us." And so it went on, with Klein being praised or pilloried, until he finally confessed that the whole thing was a hoax to see how deep the rivers of American Islamophobia ran. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his listeners. "It's beyond disgusting." When it comes to popular prejudice and state repression, the Muslim experience in the U.S. does not seem to have differed much from the rest of the western world since September 11. Klein was pushing at an open door. A Gallup poll this summer showed that 39% of Americans supported requiring Muslims in the U.S., including American citizens, to carry special identification. In 2005 the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) recorded a 30% increase in the number of complaints received about Islamophobic treatment. Read The Full Story U.S. Is Googling For Iran Intelligence 2006-12-11 03:50:25 When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft. Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way - by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as "Iran and nucler", three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations. Policymakers and intelligence officials have always struggled when it comes to deciding how and when to disclose secret information, such as names of Iranians with suspected ties to nuclear weapons. In some internal debates, policymakers win out and intelligence is made public to further political or diplomatic goals. In other cases, such as this one, the intelligence community successfully argues that protecting information outweighs the desires of some to share it with the world. Read The Full Story Hundreds Of Thousands Protest In Lebanon 2006-12-11 03:49:34 Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah members and their allies flooded central Beirut on Sunday demanding changes in the government's makeup as soldiers strung more barbed wire around the offices of the Western-backed premier. Buoyed by the big turnout after a week of street protests, the pro-Syria opposition gave Prime Minister Fuad Saniora an ultimatum of a ''few days'' to accept its demand to form a national unity government with a big role for Hezbollah or face an escalating campaign to oust him. Saniora, who has been holed up in his fortified office downtown, rejected the demand and urged his foes to resume negotiations. The opposition should ''return to the constitutional institutions to discuss differences and reach real solutions,'' he said in a written statement. Read The Full Story
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