Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday January 19 2007 - (813)

Friday January 19 2007 edition
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Surge In Carbon Levels Raises Fears Of Runaway Warming 2007-01-19 03:37:10 Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought. New figures from dozens of measuring stations across the world reveal that concentrations of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, rose at record levels during 2006 - the fourth year in the last five to show a sharp increase. Experts are puzzled because the spike, which follows decades of more modest annual rises, does not appear to match the pattern of steady increases in human emissions. At its most far reaching, the finding could indicate that global temperatures are making forests, soils and oceans less able to absorb carbon dioxide - a shift that would make it harder to tackle global warming. Such a shift would worsen even the gloomy predictions of the Stern Review which warned that we had little over a decade to tackle rising emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Read The Full Story Cool: Scientists Find Way To Store Images In Light Waves 2007-01-19 03:35:17 Scientists said Thursday that they had achieved a long-sought goal of slowing waves of light to a relatively leisurely pace and using those harnessed pulses to store an image. Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era in which computers and other devices will process information on optical beams instead of with electricity, which for all its spark is still cumbersome compared with light. Even the best fiber-optical systems today rely on intervening electrical signal processors, because no one has figured out a practical means of putting the brakes on light at critical junctions. The new experiments bring scientists closer to that goal. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Pass Ethics, Lobbying Legislation 2007-01-19 03:34:18 Senate Democrats and Republicans broke a difficult stalemate last night and approved 96 to 2 expansive legislation to curtail the influence of lobbyists, tighten congressional ethics rules and prevent the spouses of senators from lobbying senators and their staffs. The Senate legislation, hailed by proponents as the most significant ethics reform since Watergate, would ban gifts, meals and travel funded by lobbyists, and would force lawmakers to attach their names to special-interest provisions and pet projects that they slip into bills. Lawmakers would have to pay charter rates on corporate jets, not the far-cheaper first-class rates they pay now. The House earlier this month approved similar language as part of an internal rules change, but other portions of the Senate-passed measure would carry the weight of law and would have impacts far beyond the Capitol. The House would have to pass comparable legislation for those provisions to take effect. Read The Full Story Storm Kills 27 In Northern Europe 2007-01-19 03:33:31 Hurricane-force winds and heavy downpours hammered northern Europe on Thursday, killing 27 people and disrupting travel for tens of thousands - including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose plane circled for 15 minutes before landing amid winds gusting to 77 mph. The storms were among the fiercest in years, ripping off part of the roof at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, toppling a crane in the Netherlands and upending trucks on Europe's busiest highway. By evening, weather-related accidents had killed 27 people, including a 2-year-old boy hit by falling brick from a toppled wall in London. Read The Full Story GSA Chief Scrutinized For Contract Deal With Friend 2007-01-19 03:32:44 The chief of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) attempted to give a no-bid contract to a company founded and operated by a long-time friend, sidestepping federal laws and regulations, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Washington Post. Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a former government contractor appointed by President Bush, personally signed the deal to pay a division of her friend's public relations firm $20,000 for a 24-page report promoting the GSA's use of minority- and woman-owned businesses, the documents show. The contract was terminated last summer after GSA lawyers and other agency officials pointed out possible procurement violations, including the failure to adequately justify the no-bid deal or have it reviewed in advance by trained procurement officers, said officials. Read The Full Story Judge's Footnote On Adultery Stirs Tempest In Michigan 2007-01-19 03:30:05 People who cheat on their spouses know there can be a steep price to pay if they get caught. But life in prison? It's possible in Michigan, though unlikely. In a footnote to a ruling involving a drugs-for-sex case, a Michigan appeals court said that if state law were enforced as written, adulterers could be put away for life. The ruling has generated a little unwanted publicity for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who acknowledged an extramarital affair in 2005. Read The Full Story Retired Generals Call Bush's Iraq Plan 'Too Little, Too Late' And 'Fool's Errand' 2007-01-18 18:17:40 A panel of retired generals told a United States Senate committee Thursday that sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq will do little to solve the underlying political problems in the country. “Too little and too late,” is the way Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former chief of the Central Command, described the effort to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The additional troops are intended to help pacify Baghdad and a restive province, but General Hoar said American leaders had failed to understand the political forces at work in the country. “The solution is political, not military,” he said. “A fool’s errand,” was the judgment of Gen.Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded troops in the first Gulf War. He said other countries had concluded that the effort in Iraq was not succeeding, noting that “our allies are leaving us and will be gone by summer”. Read The Full Story At Least 7 Dead As Gale-Force Storm Hits Europe 2007-01-18 18:17:11 A howling winter gale churned through the British Isles and Northern Europe Thursday, killing at least seven people, snapping tree branches, flooding beaches and forcing the cancellation of several hundred flights at airports from London to Frankfurt. The storm, dubbed "Cyril" by German meteorologists, generated gale-force winds and pelting rain in Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The fierce weather hampered efforts to rescue 26 sailors from a container ship after it began sinking in the English Channel. It also prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cut short a visit to Berlin, where she conferred with Chancellor Angela Merkel about the Middle East. Rice left an hour early for London to beat the weather, and her plane made a bumpy landing there amid gusts of 80 miles per hour. Read The Full Story Ex-Red Cross Official Charged With Fraud 2007-01-18 18:16:42 A former California accounting executive at the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross was indicted Wednesday on federal embezzling charges, adding to concerns raised by watchdogs over the financial management of the Red Cross and some of its chapters. The official, Karen Shuerger, 58, who was the assistant director of accounting, was charged with misappropriating more than $100,000 over the final five years of a 17-year career at the chapter. The investigation, however, is continuing to determine if the misdeeds were broader, said officials in the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which is prosecuting the case. Ms. Shuerger, said the indictment, used the chapter’s traveler’s checks and a credit card issued by the organization to make purchases for herself at places that included a gambling hall in Nevada, a beach resort in Hawaii and the San Diego Zoo. The embezzlement came to light, prosecutors said, after Ms. Shuerger, who had been in charge of monitoring money received by the chapter and preparing financial records, retired in the fall of 2005. Read The Full Story Nations Protest As China Tests Missile That Shoots Down Satellite 2007-01-18 16:49:10 The Chinese military used a ground-based missile to hit and destroy one of its aging satellites orbiting more than 500 miles in space last week, an apparent test of anti-satellite technology that raised concerns about a possible arms race in space and drew sharp protests from other space-faring nations. The satellite-destroying test is believed to be the first of its kind in two decades by any nation, and experts say it dramatically illustrates Chinese capabilities in space and their willingness to face the certainty of broad international criticism. "The U.S. believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Thursday. "We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese." Read The Full Story Political Writer, Humorist Art Buchwald Dies At 81 2007-01-18 16:48:40 Art Buchwald, 81, the newspaper humor columnist for more than a half-century who found new comic material in the issues that come up at the end of life, died of kidney failure last night at his son's home in Washington, D.C., his family announced Thursday. Buchwald, an owlish, cigar-chomping extrovert, zinged the high, mighty and humor-challenged. His column, syndicated to more than 550 newspapers at one point, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1982. He also published more than 30 books. Last year didn't start well for the writer. Kidney and vascular problems forced doctors to amputate one of his legs just below the knee in January, and Buchwald opted to not have dialysis. In February, he entered Washington Home and Community Hospices, which he described as "a place where you go when you want to go". Read The Full Story Half Of Names On U.S. No-Fly List To Be Removed 2007-01-18 03:32:11 The Bush administration is checking the accuracy of a watch list of suspected terrorists banned from traveling on airliners in the U.S. and will probably cut the list in half, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Wednesday. Kip Hawley told Congress that the more accurate list, combined with a new passenger screening system, should take care of most incidents of people wrongly being prevented from boarding a flight or frequently being picked out for additional scrutiny. A "no-fly" list of suspected terrorists and criminals considered too dangerous to travel on commercial airliners in this country has existed for decades. But since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the list expanded. Tightened security procedures have led to closer scrutiny of air travelers and resulted in many complaints. Read The Full Story Disaster Fund On Verge Of Running Out Of Money 2007-01-18 03:30:39 The federal government’s biggest program to help people rebuild after natural disasters is on the verge of running out of operating money because of budgeting problems at the agency that runs it, the Small Business Administration. If Congress does not intervene in the next month or so to cover the administrative costs of the program, it will have to shut down, according to an internal agency memorandum given to the New York Times by a critic of the agency. Agency officials say, and Congressional leaders agree, that the legislature will almost certainly act to keep the program running. “It would be very surprising to us if they wouldn’t address this,” said Steven C. Preston, the administrator of the S.B.A. Read The Full Story Storms Leave Texas, Plains States Under Blanket Of Ice 2007-01-18 03:29:38 A series of winter storms blanketed most of Texas and the south-central Plains on Wednesday, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and causing as many as 60 weather-related deaths in nine states. The fronts - a fast-moving mass of dry arctic air from Canada and a lumbering line of warm, moist air coming off the Gulf of Mexico - collided on the meteorological battlefield between California and Missouri, spewing sleet, snow and ice and leaving destruction in their wake. "Looks like the cold air won this one," said Walt Zaleski, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service's Southern Region Headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. "And it will have the upper edge for the next seven to 10 days." Read The Full Story Lawyers Resignations At Federal Elections Commission Raise Concerns 2007-01-18 03:28:29 The announcement Wednesday that the top two lawyers for the Federal Election Commission (FEC) had resigned helped spread an undercurrent of concern about the diminishing role of a once-prominent public voice on the intersection of money and politics. The stated reasons for the departures of FEC General Counsel Lawrence H. Norton and Deputy General Counsel James A. Kahl was that the two men had landed private-sector jobs at a large firm with offices in six states. Norton and Kahl, reached Wednesday, said their resignations were not intended to send any broader message. Those who monitor campaign finance law with some dedication said the departures coincided with a perceived shift in the way the commissioners have worked with the general counsel. Read The Full Story	U.S. House Repeals Tax Break For Big Oil 2007-01-19 03:35:32 House Democrats capped their "100 hours" agenda with the passage of an energy bill Thursday, the sixth piece of legislation approved in two weeks, and Democratic leaders said the package marked "a beginning, not an end" to their legislative ambitions. Though the six measures still face battles in the Senate and possible veto by the White House, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Illinois), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, boasted that "we made promises and we kept our promises". Though Republicans complained that they were not given enough opportunities to amend the six bills, an average of 62 GOP lawmakers voted in favor of the measures. Thirty-six Republicans voted for the energy bill adopted Thursday in a 264-163 vote. Read The Full Story A Third Of Fish Species Killed In China's Yellow River 2007-01-19 03:34:39 Dams, pollution and overfishing have wiped out a third of the fish species in the Yellow River, China's second longest waterway, state media reported Thursday. The news heightens fears that the country's big rivers are losing their ability to support life as rapid and poorly regulated economic growth takes an increasingly heavy toll on the environment. Winding almost 3,400 miles from Tibet to the Bohai Sea, the Yellow River is often described as the cradle of Chinese civilisation. It was traditionally known as China's Sorrow because of its flooding. But its water flow has fallen in recent years as it has become synonymous with over-exploitation of natural resources. As well as providing water for millions of people and 15% of China's farmland, it has been heavily dammed to generate power. The strains are increasingly evident. Read The Full Story Toyota To Recall 533,000 Tundras, Sequoias Over Steering Component 2007-01-19 03:33:45 Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it is recalling 533,000 Tundra pickup trucks and Sequoia sport utility vehicles because of potential steering problems. Toyota said the recall involved 2004-2006 Tundra trucks and 2004-2007 Sequoia full-size SUVs. The automaker has received reports of 11 accidents and six injuries connected to the recall, said Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong. The automaker said there was a possibility of excessive wear to a front suspension lower ball joint that could make it difficult to steer the vehicle and stay in the center of the lane. Drivers may also notice more noise coming from the front suspension, said Kwong. Read The Full Story At Least 12 Dead In Britain As 100 MPH Storm Winds Ripped Through Country 2007-01-19 03:33:17 A two-year-old boy was one of at least 12 people killed as winds gusting up to 100 mph ripped through Britain Thursday. The boy died when a two-meter wall collapsed on him and his childminder as they walked in north London. Three truck drivers were killed in separate accidents, one of them when her vehicle was blown off the road and ended up partly in a canal. A man died when his car collided with a fire engine responding to an emergency and an airport executive died when his car was hit by a tree branch. The crew of a British container ship was lifted out of lifeboats after abandoning the vessel off Cornwall. Salvage experts were last night trying to stop the ship, feared to contain chemicals including pesticides, from sinking in mountainous seas. Read The Full Story Iraq's Mahdi Army Expressing Siege Mentality 2007-01-19 03:32:15 Two Shiite militia commanders said Thursday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Madhi Army under pressure from Washington, D.C., while the fighters described themselves as under seige in their Sadr City stronghold. Their account of an organization now fighting for its very existence could represent a tactical and propaganda feint, but there was mounting evidence the militia is increasingly off balance and has ordered its gunmen to melt back into the population. To avoid capture, commanders report no longer using cell phones and fighters are removing their black uniforms and hiding their weapons during the day. During much of his nearly eight months in office, al-Maliki, who relies on al-Sadr's political backing, has blocked or ordered an end to many U.S.-led operations against the Mahdi Army. Read The Full Story Breaking News: Key Aide To Al-Sadr Captured In Baghdad 2007-01-19 03:29:50 U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested a top aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday in Baghdad, said an official in his office. Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, al-Sadr’s media director in Baghdad, was captured in the eastern neighborhood of Baladiyat, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. The U.S. military said special Iraqi army forces captured a high-level, illegal armed group leader during a raid in eastern Baghdad, but it did not identify the detainee. Read The Full Story Ahmadinejad Criticized On Nuclear Program By Iranian Authorities 2007-01-18 18:17:28 Iran’s outspoken president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appears to be under pressure from the highest authorities in Iran to end his involvement in the country’s nuclear program, a sign that his political capital is declining as his country comes under increasing international pressure. Less than a month after the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear program, two hard-line newspapers, including one owned by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on the president to stay out of all matters nuclear. In the hazy world of Iranian politics, such a public rebuke was seen as a sign that the Supreme Leader - who has final say on all matters of state - may no longer support the president as the public face of defiance to the West. It is the first sign that the president has lost any degree of confidence from the leader, a potentially damaging reality for a president who has rallied his nation and defined his administration by declaring nuclear power to be Iran’s “inalienable right”. Read The Full Story Oil Prices Drop To Lowest Level In 18 Months 2007-01-18 18:16:53 Crude oil prices fell sharply Thursday to their lowest levels since May 2005, and briefly fell below the psychologically important $50-a-barrel level, after the United States government reported a significant rise in crude stockpiles. A slide in oil prices has been gaining speed since the beginning of the year, as supplies remain ample and producing countries show little inclination to agree on production cuts. The Energy Information Administration reported this morning that inventories rose by almost 6.8 million barrels last week, with more imports reaching American ports and refinery utilization falling slightly. Analysts said Thursday’s slide was precipitated by the report. Read The Full Story Time Inc. Lays Off 300 Employees 2007-01-18 18:16:30 Time Inc. said Thursday it will cut nearly 300 jobs at its top magazines, including its most profitable title, People, which is shutting down its bureaus in Washington, D.C.; Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; and Austin, Texas. People will lose 44 editorial employees, though it is also creating 7 new jobs, for a net loss of 37. Time, the company’s flagship magazine, is also cutting more than 40 people, and is shutting down bureaus in Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illiniois;  and Atlanta, Georgia. Seven positions in its Washington, D.C., bureau are being eliminated. Read The Full Story New Pentagon Manual Allows Detainees To Be Put To Death On Hearsay, Coerced Evidence 2007-01-18 16:48:56 The Pentagon Thursday issued rules for conducting trials of terrorist suspects before special military commissions, implementing a law enacted last year and enabling the prosecution of detainees at Guantanamo Naval Base to go forward. The rules, contained in a new Manual for Military Commissions, permit the admission of hearsay evidence, as well as coerced detainee statements that were obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, in accordance with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a law that was signed by President Bush in October. Pentagon officials insisted, however, that the procedures would guarantee fair trials for the accused. The new rules, along with the underlying law that they implement, are considered likely to be challenged in federal court. A leading Republican senator predicted last year that the military commissions law would be struck down by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds because it does not contain habeas corpus protections. Read The Full Story Fed Reserve Chairman Warns Of 'Fiscal Crisis' 2007-01-18 16:48:23 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Thursday of a "fiscal crisis" in coming years if the government does not act soon to curb federal retirement and health care entitlement programs, picking up a theme that his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, had pursued without success at the end of his term as head of the central bank. In prepared remarks delivered this morning to the Senate Budget Committee, Bernanke said that a dip this year in the annual federal budget deficit to $248 billion was "the calm before the storm," with ballooning entitlement payments looming over the next 20 years as the Baby Boomers retire and medical costs skyrocket. By 2030, he said, spending under current law on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid could consume as much as 15 percent of the nation's economic output, double the current rate. Underwriting that could lead to a "vicious cycle," he said, as the nation borrows more to meet its obligations and spends increasing amounts to service that debt, leaving less for investors and consumers and slowing economic growth. Read The Full Story Climate Change Legislation Moves To Center Stage In Congress 2007-01-18 03:31:53 The climate in Congress has definitely changed. Legislation to control global warming that once had a passionate but quixotic ring to it is now serious business. Congressional Democrats are increasingly determined to wrest control of the issue from the White House and impose the mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions that most smokestack industries have long opposed. Four major Democratic bills have been announced, with more expected. One of these measures, or a blend of them, stands an excellent chance of passage in this Congress or the next, industry and environmental lobbyists said in interviews. Many events have combined to create the new direction - forsythia blooming in lawmakers’ gardens in January, polar bears lacking the ice they need to hunt and Al Gore's movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” along with pragmatic executives seeking an idea of future costs and, especially, the arrival of a Democratic-controlled Congress. There was evidence of the changed mood all over Washington this week. Read The Full Story New Strain Of Bird Flu In Egypt Resistant To Antiviral Drug 2007-01-18 03:29:53 A strain of avian flu that is resistant to the antiviral drug oseltamivir has been isolated from two family members in Egypt, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The development is potentially dangerous because oseltamivir, commonly sold under the name Tamiflu, is the chief weapon against the flu strain, H5N1, which many worry could mutate into a strain that could set off a worldwide pandemic. The health organization emphasized that it was too early to tell whether the resistant strain had developed independently in the two patients, who were both under treatment with the drug, or whether they had picked it up from birds or from each other. The resistant strain did not spread to anyone else, including a third family member who also had avian flu. Read The Full Story Mexico Captures Dias Parada Drug Cartel Leader 2007-01-18 03:28:50 Mexico has captured the leader of one of its seven major drug cartels, the "Diaz Parada" gang, five weeks into an army crackdown on narco gangs, the attorney general's office said on Wednesday. Mexican soldiers and federal police arrested Pedro Diaz Parada, whose cartel operates across southern Mexico, on Tuesday in the southern city of Oaxaca, said a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office. The cartel, based in impoverished Oaxaca state, dominates narcotics trafficking in the south and is thought to deal with bigger smuggling gangs based in Mexico's violent northern border region. Read The Full Story
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