Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday December 20 2006 - (813)

Wednesday December 20 2006 edition
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Bush: U.S. Not Winning In Iraq 2006-12-20 03:21:16 President Bush acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists. As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has now adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. "We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said in an interview with the Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, "Absolutely, we're winning." In another turnaround, Bush said he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to develop a plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps, heeding warnings from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the armed forces toward the breaking point. "We need to reset our military," said Bush, whose administration had opposed increasing force levels as recently as this summer. Read The Full Story Active Duty Soldiers Call For An End To The Occupation Of Iraq 2006-12-20 03:20:36 For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty U.S. military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq. After appearing only seven weeks ago on the Internet, the Appeal for Redress, brainchild of 29-year-old Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto, has already been signed by nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, including dozens of officers - most of whom are on active duty. Not since 1969, when some 1,300 active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of rising military dissent. Interviews with two dozen signers of the Appeal reveal a mix of motives for opposing the war: ideological, practical, strategic and moral. But all those interviewed agree that it is time to start withdrawing the troops. Coming from an all-volunteer military, the Appeal was called "unprecedented" by Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice. Read The Full Story U.S. Considers Naval Buildup In Gulf As Warning To Iran 2006-12-20 00:13:42 The Bush administration is weighing options for a naval build-up in the Gulf as a show of force and a warning to Iran on its nuclear program and its support for Shia militias in Iraq, it emerged Tuesday. Under the proposed build-up, first reported by CBS television, the Pentagon would send an aircraft carrier to join one already in the region. The proposed deployment was described as a message to Tehran not to take provocative steps, and was not preparation for an attack. The idea of sending a second aircraft carrier was raised this month by the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General John Abizaid. It also comes amid mounting pressure from Saudi Arabia against a withdrawal of U.S.  forces from Iraq. Read The Full Story Commentary: Carbon Trading Is A 'Red Herring' And Officials Know It 2006-12-20 00:13:00 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Professor George Monbiot and appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website for Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006.  Professor Monbiot's column begins here: I suppose I should be flattered. In a speech to fellow airline bosses a few days ago, Martin Broughton, the chief executive of British Airways, announced that the primary challenge for the industry is to "isolate the George Monbiots of this world". That shouldn't be difficult. For a terrifying spectre, I'm feeling pretty lonely. Almost everyone in politics appears to want to forget about aviation's impact on the environment. On Wednesday [Britain's] secretary of state for communities launched a bold plan to make new homes more energy efficient. She claims it will save 7 million tons of carbon. On Thursday Douglas Alexander, the [British] transport secretary, announced that he would allow airports to keep growing: by 2030 the number of passengers will increase from 228 million to 465 million. As a result, according to a report commissioned by the Department for Environment, carbon emissions will rise by between 22 million and 36 million tons. So much for joined-up government. The Blair government says it will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% between 1990 and 2050. Last month it promised to introduce a climate change bill, which will make this target legally binding. Douglas Alexander's decision ensures that the new law will be broken. Read The Full Story Blair Urged To Use 'Peace Tour' To Promote British Arms Industry 2006-12-20 00:12:10 Government officials urged Tony Blair to use the final leg of his Middle East peace tour to lobby on behalf of the British arms industry, The Times has learned. The Prime Minister flew to the United Arab Emirates Monday, visiting Abu Dhabi and Dubai, saying that he wanted to promote reconciliation and democracy in the Arab world. It is understood that before he arrived Blair was briefed that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is seeking to “update its fleet of training aircraft." BAE Systems, Britain’s largest arms company, was mentioned in the briefing document. Read The Full Story Foreign Business Acquisitions In U.K. Reach Record 2006-12-20 00:09:20 Foreign buyers snapped up more British companies in 2006 than in any previous year as volumes of European mergers soared to a record high boosted by strong markets and an ample supply of cheap debt, data released today show. From BAA and ScottishPower to BOC Group and the London Stock Exchange, foreign companies have raided the U.K. this year, pulling off $339 billion (£170 billion) of deals. In the past few weeks, CSN, of Brazil, and India’s Tata have made bids for U.K. steel company Corus, while Japan Tobacco has agreed an $18.8 billion deal to swallow Gallaher, the maker of Silk Cut and B&H. “If you look at the consolidators in 2006 there have been bigger or more aggressive companies abroad prepared to take out U.K. companies and the U.K. is a much more level playing field than elsewhere,” said Kevin Smith, head of U.K. M&A, at Merrill Lynch. Read The Full Story Cheney To Be Defense Witness In CIA Leak Trial 2006-12-19 16:55:26 Vice President Dick Cheney will be called as a defense witness in the CIA leak case, an attorney for Cheney's former chief of staff told a federal judge Tuesday. "We're calling the vice president," attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction. Early last week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he did not expect the White House to resist if Cheney or other administration officials are called to testify in Libby's trial, expected to begin in January. Read The Full Story Pentagon Report: Mahdi Army Biggest Threat To Iraq Security 2006-12-19 16:29:08 Shia militias linked to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr pose the greatest threat to Iraq's stability, a Pentagon report concluded Monday. The said the Mahdi Army had eclipsed al-Qaeda in Iraq in presenting "the greatest negative effect on the security situation". (Editor: You can read the Pentagon's full report, in PDF format, here: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/9010Quarterly-Report-20061216.pdf ). Despite U.S. pressure, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has been reluctant to confront Sadr because he relies on the backing of the cleric's supporters in parliament and government. Read The Full Story Pentagon: Iraq Violence At All-Time High 2006-12-19 03:51:04 The Pentagon said Monday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a "strategic success" by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions. In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and "little progress" toward political reconciliation. "The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence. ... That is the premier challenge facing us now." Read The Full Story NASA To Collaborate With Google On Images From Space 2006-12-19 03:50:17 NASA, seeking to give the public easy access to its massive trove of images and data about Earth and outer space, has entered into a formal agreement with Google to post material from the agency's many missions on the Internet. As the technology improves and the collaboration grows, officials said, viewers could one day be treated to live video from the moon, Mars and elsewhere. "This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars," NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said in a statement. He called the effort one "to make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone." The agreement was announced at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. Google had previously announced plans to build a 1 million-square-foot facility at the research park. While Google will be the first major online collaborator with NASA, the agency said that the images are not exclusive and that it is working on similar projects with other Internet portals. Read The Full Story Federal Regulators Sue Ex-Fannie Mae Officials For Pay 2006-12-19 03:49:33 Federal regulators Monday sued three former Fannie Mae executives, including former chairman and chief executive Franklin D. Raines, to recoup more than $115 million in pay they received while the company's earnings were misstated. In an administrative complaint, regulators said Raines and the others engaged in a variety of ruses to meet profit goals and boost their compensation. For example, they delayed booking $200 million of expenses one year and used transactions with no economic purpose in other periods simply to shift income into the future, the complaint alleged. The regulators' discovery of accounting problems in 2004 ultimately led Fannie Mae to pay a $400 million penalty and correct years of financial results, erasing $6.3 billion of previously reported profit. Read The Full Story Joseph Barbera, Half Of Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Team, Dies At 95 2006-12-19 03:48:11 Joseph Barbera, an innovator of animation who teamed with William Hanna to give generations of young television viewers a pantheon of beloved characters, including Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and the Flintstones, died Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95. A spokesman for Warner Brothers said he died of natural causes, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Barbera and the studio he founded with Mr. Hanna, Hanna-Barbera Productions, became synonymous with television animation, yielding more than 100 cartoon series over four decades, including “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?,” “Jonny Quest” and “The Smurfs.” On signature televisions shows like “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons,” the two men developed a cartoon style that combined colorful, simply drawn characters (often based on other recognizable pop-culture personalities) with the narrative structures and joke-telling techniques of traditional live-action sitcoms. They were television’s first animated comedy programs. Read The Full Story	Anthrax Vaccine Order Voided, Thrwarting Bush Administration 2006-12-20 03:20:57 Federal health officials Tuesday scuttled the largest piece of the Bush administration's two-year program to counter bioterrorism, canceling an $877.5 million contract with VaxGen to develop an anthrax vaccine after the company missed a deadline to begin human testing. The decision, delivered in a one-page letter, ends a troubled effort by the small California firm that has come to symbolize the failures of the government's ambitious $5.6 billion Project BioShield. The termination occurred on the same day President Bush signed legislation attempting to salvage the program by reorganizing its management and pumping more money into firms doing the work. "It's very disappointing that they took such aggressive and dramatic action without engaging in a discussion with us about potential ways for salvaging all the work that has gone into this program," said Lance Ignon, VaxGen's vice president of corporate affairs. "We believe there is a high probability that this technology would lead to a modern anthrax vaccine." Read The Full Story Iraq Prime Minister Wants U.S. To Target Sunni Insurgents 2006-12-20 03:20:13 Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has created a two-pronged security plan for Baghdad in which U.S. forces would aggressively target Sunni Arab insurgents instead of Shiite militias. At the same time, Maliki would intensify his efforts to weaken Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and contain his Mahdi Army militia, Iraqi officials said Tuesday. Under these conditions, Maliki would accept a surge in U.S. troops in Baghdad, according to two Maliki advisers with knowledge of the plan. Maliki plans to discuss his proposal with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and senior U.S. commanders during a meeting in Baghdad on Thursday, the officials said. The Bush administration is contemplating a temporary increase in troops to help stem the highest levels of violence since 2003. The plan calls for U.S. troops to combat Sunni Arab insurgents for four to eight weeks in outer Baghdad neighborhoods, which Maliki believes are the source of the sectarian violence afflicting the capital, his aides said. Iraqi forces would take over primary responsibility for patrolling inner Baghdad from U.S. forces. Read The Full Story A Winter Wonderland In Meltdown 2006-12-20 00:13:23 Christmas is coming in a new colour across much of northern Europe this year - green. Traditional scenes of pristine snow and ice have given way to rain and muddy grass from Reykjavik to Moscow as unseasonably warm weather puts a damper on festivities. Russians normally revel in the bitter harshnes of thier winters, but the warmest December since 1879, when records began, has left Moscovites despairing about a lack of snow to see in the new year. Staff at the Yakhroma Park resort, 30 miles north of Moscow, have turned to artificial snow machines to try to open at least one ski run in what should be the peak season. Natalia Silinskaya, the park’s commercial director, said that attendance was down 70 per cent on last year. Skiing has been possible on only two weekends so far this winter. Read The Full Story FBI Releases 'Controversial' Files On John Lennon 2006-12-20 00:12:32 The FBI agreed Tuesday to make public the final 10 documents about the surveillance of John Lennon that it had withheld for 25 years from a University of California, Irvine historian on the grounds that releasing them could cause "military retaliation against the United States." Despite the fierce battle the government waged to keep the documents secret, the files contain information that is hardly shocking, just new details about Lennon's ties to New Left leaders and antiwar groups in London in the early 1970s, said the historian, Jon Wiener. For example, in one memo, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to H.R. Haldeman, President Nixon's chief aide, that "Lennon had taken an interest in `extreme left-wing activities in Britain' and is known to be a sympathizer of Trotskyist communists in England." Read The Full Story Stardust May Be The Basis Of Life On Earth 2006-12-20 00:11:24 Comets could have brought the basic ingredients of life to Earth, scientists revealed. The first analysis of samples that NASA's Stardust mission brought back to Earth from a comet earlier this year has revealed that comets contain a richer range of ingredients than previously thought, including the complex molecules needed to kick-start biology. The findings will force a re-evaluation of the traditional thinking on comet formation. "We think we know what these things are made of and then suddenly we find that, no, we don't," said Monica Grady, an astronomer at the Open University who worked on the Stardust samples. NASA launched Stardust to test the standard concept that comets are just dirty balls of snow left over from the early solar system. It was sent to examine the comet Wild 2 in February 1999. Read The Full Story Product Recalls In The U.S. 2006-12-20 00:08:39 The following recalls have been announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: -- About 70,300 Holiday Time brand Christmas Mug Gift Sets, imported by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., because the buttons on the stuffed characters sold with the sets can detach, posing a choking hazard for young children. No injuries have been reported. The recalled gift sets include a decorated ceramic mug and a stuffed Santa, snowman or reindeer. The characters are 7 inches tall and made of fleece-like material. Each has two red and green buttons sewn on its front. UPC numbers included in the recall are 0 47475 45419 8 for Santa characters, 0 47475 45429 7 for snowman characters and 0 47475 45439 6 for reindeer characters. The UPC numbers are printed on the characters' sewn-in labels. The 6-inch-tall mugs feature three designs including a Santa with a green background, a snowman with a blue background and a Christmas tree with a green background. Wal-Mart stores nationwide sold the product from October 2006 through December 2006. Consumers should return the stuffed characters to a Wal-Mart store for a full refund. For more information, call the company at 800-925-6278 or visit http://www.walmartstores.com or http://www.cpsc.gov. Read The Full Story Suffolk Police Hold 2nd 'Significant' Suspect In Prostitute Murders 2006-12-19 16:29:27 A second suspect was arrested Tuesday by police investigating the murders of five women working as prostitutes in Ipswich. The 48-year-old man was arrested at his home at around 5 a.m., Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull announced. "He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women," said Gull. "The man is currently at a police station in Suffolk, where he will be interviewed about the deaths later today." There was a large police presence at a residential address on London Road, west of Ipswich town center, this morning. Local people said the road is part of the red light district. Read The Full Story White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds On More Troops 2006-12-19 03:51:23 The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate. Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, said the officials. The Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public. Read The Full Story Former National Security Council Official Says White House Blocking His Criticism Of Iran Policy 2006-12-19 03:50:48 A former top White House official accused the Bush administration Monday of trying to muzzle his criticism of its Iran policy and of falsely alleging that his writings contained classified material to prevent them from being published. Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who became a senior director for Middle East policy for the National Security Council before leaving the administration in 2003, said the White House decided that substantial passages of an opinion article he had written for the New York Times involved classified information. Leverett said the article was only a summary of a longer paper he had written a few weeks earlier - which had been cleared by the CIA as containing no classified information. He said no fact in the proposed Times article differed from the earlier paper, which he wrote for the Century Foundation. The assertion that the Times article contained classified information "is false," Leverett said Monday in a speech about his policy proposals at the New America Foundation. "Indeed, I would say that claim is fraudulent. The people making that claim know it is not true." Read The Full Story Paying Health Care From Pension Funds Proves Costly For Local Governments 2006-12-19 03:50:00 Many local governments began turning to their pension funds to help pay for health care for retired public workers in the 1990s. Some are now regretting it. When the financial markets were producing soaring returns, governments sought to use the gains in their pension funds to help cover rising health costs. Then came years of investment losses and double-digit increases in health care costs. Now, in some places, money for retiree health care is running out, and money for pensions is dwindling fast, too. Rising medical costs are particularly wreaking havoc on public pension funds in Chicago, Illinois; Battle Creek, Michigan; and the state of Alaska. They threaten longer-term harm in Cincinnati, Ohio. “The numbers are frightening to anyone who really looks,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research group in Chicago, where three separate pension funds for public workers have been paying for health benefits along with the usual retirement stipends. Read The Full Story Astronauts Fix Jammed Solar Array On International Space Station 2006-12-19 03:48:33 Two spacewalking astronauts finished folding up a stubborn accordion-like solar array Monday, resolving the only complication in the space shuttle Discovery's otherwise smooth mission to the international space station. Robert L. Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang managed to get the last section of the 115-foot array folded into a box about five hours into the spacewalk. It was the fourth venture outside for Discovery's astronauts during their visit to the orbiting outpost. Workers in Mission Control applauded when the final section fell into the box. Curbeam radioed back that a wire was still loose, and he continued trying to fold it up. "You have a magic touch, Christer," Discovery commander Mark L. Polansky told Fuglesang. Read The Full Story
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