Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday January 26 2007 - (813)

Friday January 26 2007 edition
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Bush Administration Authorizes U.S. Troops To Kill Or Capture Iranian Operatives In Iraq 2007-01-26 02:58:43 The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort. For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go. Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq. Read The Full Story Bush To Pump Another $8 Billion Into Afghanistan 2007-01-26 02:58:02 The White House announced a major shift in its strategy towards Afghanistan Thursday that will see more aid and military help for the country after four years in which it has suffered from Washington's overwhelming focus on Iraq. Facing failure in Iraq, where violence is worsening, the U.S. is anxious to avoid a similar catastrophe in Afghanistan. Billions of dollars are to be pumped into Afghanistan to help build up the army and for reconstruction projects such as roads, water, schools and clinics. About 3,200 U.S. troops in Afghanistan from the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, who were due to return home, are to remain for a further 120 days to help NATO counter an expected Taliban spring offensive. Read The Full Story U.K. Wants To Try Russian Businessman For Litvinenko Murder But ... 2007-01-26 02:57:10 The British government is preparing to demand the extradition of a Russian businessman to stand trial for the poisoning with polonium-210 of the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. Senior Whitehall officials have told the Guardian that a Scotland Yard file on the murder which is about to be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service alleges that there is sufficient evidence against Andrei Lugovoi for the CPS to decide whether he should face prosecution. The government is already bracing itself for the cooling of relations with Moscow, which it believes will be an inevitable consequence of an extradition request. The request could be made as early as next month and government officials are convinced the Kremlin will demand, in return, the extradition of Boris Berezovsky, the Russian millionaire oligarch who was granted asylum in the U.K. Lugovoi, 41, a former bodyguard with the KGB, was one of several people interviewed by detectives from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command in Moscow last month. The Yard is declining to comment on the case and details of the alleged evidence against Lugovoi remain unclear. Read The Full Story Israel Tries To Cut Iran Off From World Markets 2007-01-26 02:56:12 Israel is launching a campaign to isolate Iran economically and to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment program. Pressure will be applied to major U.S. pension funds to stop investment in about 70 companies that trade directly with Iran, and to international banks that trade with its oil sector, cutting off the country's access to hard currency. The aim is to isolate Tehran from the world markets in a campaign similar to that against South Africa at the height of apartheid. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be pursued in international courts for calling the Holocaust a myth, and saying Israel should be wiped off the map. The case will be launched under the 1948 United Nations  convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which outlaws "direct and public incitement to genocide". Read The Full Story Ex-NBC Treasurer Charged With Embezzling $800,000 From TV Firm 2007-01-26 02:55:08 A former treasurer of the American entertainment empire NBC Universal has been charged with embezzling $800,000 (£400,000) from the company and using the money to splash out on private jets, prawn cocktails and Veuve Cliquot champagne. The FBI arrested Victor Jung Thursday. Until last year he was in charge of cash management at NBC Universal - the company behind hit television shows such as "Law & Order", "The Biggest Loser" and the U.S. version of "The Apprentice". Jung faces two counts of wire fraud, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. An indictment released by New York's federal prosecutor, Michael Garcia, accuses Jung, 34, of creating a false entity called NBCU Media Productions - a company with a name very similar to a genuine subsidiary, NBC Media Productions. Read The Full Story Former Cheney Staffer Testifies In CIA Leak Trial 2007-01-25 15:48:03 Vice President Cheney's former public affairs director testified Thursday morning that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby directed her to ask the CIA which journalists were working on stories about a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa, then personally telephoned at least one of them in an attempt to influence the broadcast. Cathie Martin's testimony, on the third morning of Libby's perjury trial, again made clear that Libby was deeply involved in the effort to gather information about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who went to the African nation of Niger at the CIA's request to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material there. Wilson later publicly accused the administration of twisting his conclusions to justify the invasion. Martin's testimony also showed how deeply Cheney himself was enmeshed in the effort in the early summer of 2003 to deflect blame from his office about Wilson's trip, which found no basis for President Bush's claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program. Read The Full Story U.S. Military Demonstrates New Heat-Ray Weapon For News Media 2007-01-25 15:47:29 The military's new weapon is a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they will catch fire. The technology is supposed to be harmless - a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons. Military officials say it could save the lives of civilians and service members in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The weapon is not expected to go into production until at least 2010, but all branches of the military have expressed interest in it, said officials. Read The Full Story Ford Motor Co. Loses Record $12.6 Billion In 2006 2007-01-25 15:46:07 The Ford Motor Company had the worst year in its history in 2006, losing $12.7 billion and suffering sharp erosion of its share of the United States auto market. Ford lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone, the company reported today. In the same period a year earlier, it lost a comparatively trivial $74 million. The company took in $160.1 billion in revenue in 2006, 9 percent less than in 2005. Ford’s full-year loss, equivalent to $6.79 per share, far exceeded the $7.39 billion it lost in 1992, the worst previous year in its 103-year history, and it even surpassed the $10.6 billion loss posted by General Motors in 2005, but it is still short of the $23.5 billion that G.M. lost in its worst year, 1992. Read The Full Story U.S. Soldiers Admits Murdering Iraqi Detainees 2007-01-25 15:45:07 A 101st Airborne Division soldier pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering three detainees in Iraq last year, saying he went along with a plan to make it look like they were escaping. Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, 21, was one of four soldiers from the division's 3rd Brigade "Rakkasans" who were accused in the detainees' deaths during a May 9 raid on the Muthana chemical complex in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. In an agreement with prosecutors, Clagett, of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, pleaded guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Prosecutors dropped a second obstruction charge and charges of disrespecting an officer and threatening. Read The Full Story Worldwide View Of U.S. Drops Sharply In Opinion Poll 2007-01-25 03:03:07 Global opinion of U.S. foreign policy has sharply deteriorated in the past two years, according to a BBC poll released on the eve of President Bush's annual State of the Union address. Nearly three-quarters of those polled in 25 countries disapprove of U.S. policies toward Iraq, and more than two-thirds said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East does more harm than good. Nearly half of those polled in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East said the United States is now playing a mainly negative role in the world. More than 26,000 people were questioned for the survey. "It's been a horrible slide," said Doug Miller, president of GlobeScan, an international polling company that conducted the BBC survey with the Program on International Policy Attitudes, an affiliate of the University of Maryland. He said views of U.S. policy have steadily declined since the annual poll began two years ago. Read The Full Story Experts Examine Bush's Health Plan, Clear Winners, Losers Evident 2007-01-25 03:02:20 Economists are still sorting out the implications of the broad health-care proposals President Bush unveiled this week, but already some clear winners and losers are emerging. Families with generous employer-sponsored coverage would be worse off, while those who buy insurance on the individual market, or whose health plan costs less than $15,000 annually, would come out ahead; but some of the winners will probably become losers over time, said analysts. Moreover, while Bush's plan would alter a historic imbalance in the tax code that favors generally better-off consumers who get insurance through their jobs, it also could undermine coverage for some sicker, older people and erode the employer-sponsored system that still provides coverage to more than half of all Americans. Some experts questioned whether the plan would have any impact on holding down spiraling health costs or extending health coverage to some of the 47 million people in the nation who have none. "It's not solving the uninsured problem and it's not solving the cost problem, so it's not really advancing what we need to have happen," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health policy research organization. "What it does is favor individual insurance. ... The question is, should you try to undermine employer coverage? Employer coverage has lower administrative costs and it covers everybody in a firm, not just those who are healthy enough to pass a medical exam." Read The Full Story Sen. Kerry Rules Out Second Presidential Bid In 2008 2007-01-25 03:01:15 Sen. John F. Kerry, of Massachusetts, ruled out a second presidential bid Wednesday, asserting that he could do more to change the course of Iraq policy in the Senate than by campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. "I've concluded this isn't the time for me to mount a presidential campaign," said the former Democratic nominee. "I intend to work here to change a policy in Iraq that threatens all that I have worked for and cared about since I came home from Vietnam." Since his loss to President Bush in 2004, Kerry had left open the possibility of a return run. He had emerged as one of the most vociferous voices in opposition to the war in Iraq and spent much of the 2006 campaign season traveling the country in support of Democratic candidates. Much of that work was forgotten when, a little more than a week before Election Day, Kerry made a remark that Republicans said was disparaging to American troops in Iraq. He insisted that it was nothing more than a botched joke, but he quickly issued an apology. Read The Full Story U.S., Iraqi Troops Kill 30 Militants In Baghdad 2007-01-25 00:12:41 U.S. and Iraqi troops battled Sunni insurgents hiding in high-rise buildings on Haifa Street in the heart of Baghdad Wednesday, with snipers on roofs taking aim at gunmen in open windows as Apache attack helicopters hovered overhead. Iraq said 30 militants were killed and 27 captured. New details also emerged about the downing of a private U.S. security company helicopter on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iraqi officials saying four of five Americans who died in the incident were shot execution-style. Violence was unrelenting in Iraq on Wednesday, with at least 69 people killed or found dead, including 33 tortured bodies found in separate locations in Baghdad. Read The Full Story Senate Committee Rejects Bush Appeal, Says Iraq Plan 'Not In National Interest' 2007-01-25 00:11:48 Democrats and Republican senators Wednesday rebuffed George Bush's state of the union appeal to be given more time on Iraq, and pressed ahead with a resolution condemning his proposed 21,500 US troop increase. After a debate, the Senate foreign affairs committee gave the go-ahead to the resolution, saying the increase is "not in the national interest", a rare repudiation of a president in wartime. The rejection mirrored widespread indifference in the U.S. and beyond towards the speech, which was delivered less than 24 hours earlier. The Senate foreign relations committee voted 12 to 9 in favor of adopting the anti-war resolution, which is scheduled to go before the whole Senate next week. At that time, at least nine Republican senators intend to back the resolution, though they will negotiate with Democrats over the next few days to change the language. The Democrats are likely to agree in an effort to win as many votes as possible. Read The Full Story Prison Release For Former Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega Set For Sept. 9 2007-01-25 00:11:13 Former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega hopes to immediately board a plane for Panama when he is released from prison on Sept. 9, and he plans to fight his conviction back home in the slayings of two political opponents, said his attorney. Noriega's eight-year rule over Panama ended after the United States invaded the county on Dec. 20, 1989, to force him from power. He is being held in the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida, on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Noriega was sentenced to a 30-year term for protecting Colombian cocaine shipments through Panama in the 1980s but received deductions in his punishment for good behavior. Noriega's release in 2007 was first scheduled more than three years ago. The exact date, Sept. 9, was posted on the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Web site more than a year ago. Read The Full Story	Iran's Influence Grows In Iraq 2007-01-26 02:58:24 When Fadhil Abbas determined that his mother's astigmatism required surgery, they did not consider treatment in his home town of Najaf, in southern Iraq. Instead they joined a four-taxi convoy of ailing Iraqis headed to Iran.  For more than two weeks last fall, Abbas, his sister and his mother were treated to free hotels, trips to the zoo and religious shrines, and his mother's $1,300 eye surgery at a hospital in Tehran, all courtesy of the offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's ascendant Shiite Muslim cleric. Abbas returned to Najaf glowing over the technical prowess of Iran. "When you look at this hospital, it is like something imaginary - you wouldn't believe such a hospital like this exists," said Abbas, a 22-year-old college student. "Iran wants to help the patients in Iraq. Other countries don't want to let Iraqis in." The increasingly common arrangement for sick or wounded Iraqis to receive treatment in Iran is just one strand in a burgeoning relationship between these two Persian Gulf countries. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq each year. Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura. Yet when President Bush and top U.S. officials speak of Iran's role in Iraq, their focus is more limited. U.S. officials accuse Iranian security forces, particularly the al-Quds Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, of funneling sophisticated explosives to Iraqi guerrillas. Read The Full Story U.S. Justice Department Seeks Dismissal Of Lawsuit Against NSA's Warrantless Wiretaps 2007-01-26 02:57:44 A lawsuit challenging the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program should be thrown out because the government is now conducting the wiretaps under the authority of a secret intelligence court, according to court papers filed by the Justice Department Thursday. In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Justice Department lawyers said the lawsuit of the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs - which received a favorable ruling from a federal judge in Detroit, Michigan - should be considered moot because the case "no longer has any live significance". The ACLU called the government's arguments implausible and said it plans to file its response Friday. The brief is the latest volley in the legal battle over the controversial spying effort, dubbed by the administration as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," or TSP. Under the program, the NSA monitored, without obtaining warrants, telephone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas if the government determined that one of the parties was linked to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. Read The Full Story Candidate Obama Attacks Madrasa Smear 2007-01-26 02:56:34 The Democratic senator, Barack Obama, has launched an aggressive counter-attack against rumors that he is a Muslim and was educated at a madrasa in Indonesia. In an interview with a Chicago television station, Obama denounced what he called a "climate of smear", intended to scupper his run for the White House in 2008. "When I was six, I attended an Indonesian public school where a bunch of the kids were Muslim, because the country is 90% Muslim," he said. "The notion that somehow, at the age of six or seven, I was being trained for something other than math, science and reading, is ludicrous." Read The Full Story British Airways Grounds Planes After Union Talks Collapse 2007-01-26 02:55:48 British Airways will be brought to a near-standstill next week after the collapse of talks to avert a walkout by cabin crew. The airline will ground 1,300 flights at Heathrow and Gatwick on Tuesday and Wednesday, forcing 154,000 passengers to make alternative plans and costing B.A. up to £30 million ($60 million). Analysts warned that the losses could mount as customers stay away from Europe's third largest carrier until the dispute over pay and conditions is resolved. Willie Walsh, B.A. chief executive, and Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport & General Workers' Union, met Thursday night in an attempt to revive peace talks. Negotiations between B.A. and union officials representing nearly 11,000 flight attendants collapsed in confused circumstances Thursday morning, with B.A.  believing it had a deal within its grasp on sick leave - the biggest grievance among cabin crew. The T&G said B.A.'s "incomprehensible" behavior was responsible for the breakdown, while the airline labelled the strikes "unjustified". Read The Full Story British Critics Angered At Light Sentence In Child Pornography Case 2007-01-26 02:54:31 Britain's Home Secretary John Reid was under renewed pressure Thursday night after a judge gave a man who downloaded child pornography a suspended prison sentence, citing overcrowded prisons and the home secretary's appeal to the courts to spare less serious offenders a jail term. Judge John Rogers Queen's Cousel, sitting at Mold crown court, in North Wales, gave Derek Williams, 46, a six-month sentence suspended for two years, saying he had to consider the current sentencing climate. "As of yesterday I have to bear in mind a communication from the home secretary," he said, referring to Reid's appeal to the courts not to jail less serious and non-dangerous offenders because the prisons were "very close to capacity". Williams from Penygwdwn, North Wales, last night admitted that he was "lucky to be out", but said the judge was "only doing his job". He told BBC News: "You cannot blame the judge for what he has done. His hands are tied." David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said last night: "We now have a situation where sentences are being dictated by the prison capacity and not the severity of the crime." Read The Full Story Russia's Putin Offers To Build 4 New Nuclear Reactors For India 2007-01-25 15:47:48 Russian President Vladimir Putin offered on Thursday to build four new nuclear reactors for energy starved India,  cementing his country's traditional role as India's main nuclear benefactor. A memorandum of understanding on the plants was signed by the heads of the Russian and Indian nuclear agencies after a meeting between Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Putin arrived in India on Thursday, hoping to use the two nations' decades-long friendship to push for deals in civilian nuclear cooperation, military hardware and trade expansion. Russia has been eager to reassert its traditional role as the chief supplier of nuclear technology and know-how to India in the wake of a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal between New Delhi and Washington last year that appeared to give U.S. companies a strong position in India's nuclear market. Read The Full Story U.S. Existing Home Sales For December Drop 0.8 Percent, Signal Slowing Market 2007-01-25 15:47:04 Sales of existing homes declined 0.8 percent in December, according to the National Association of Realtors, a sign of further slowing in the nation’s once-effervescent housing market. For the full year, sales fell 8.4 percent, the largest decline in 24 years, after five years of boom times. Despite the falling sales volume, prices have largely held their ground. The median price of a house sold in 2006 rose 1.1 percent, far short of the double-digit increases of the five previous years. The median price rose 12.4 percent in 2005. Read The Full Story Violence Leads To Curfew In Beirut 2007-01-25 15:45:24 The Lebanese army imposed a curfew on the capital Thursday after hundreds of government supporters and foes fought street battles that dragged past nightfall, leaving at least one person dead and others wounded, said officials. Across the divide, leaders urged their followers to exercise restraint or retreat from the streets, some of which were cloaked in gray smoke from burning cars, as the city descended into war-like scenes that marked the worst sectarian violence since the Hezbollah-led opposition began a campaign in December to topple the government. The army and security forces deployed in force after the clashes erupted, but often stood helplessly as Sunni Muslim supporters of the government and Shiite Muslim followers of Hezbollah fought with rocks, sticks and, occasionally, guns along the airport road. The government's performance through the day called into question its ability to enforce a curfew that it said would begin at 8:30 p.m. and extend until dawn. Read The Full Story Plot Highlights Fears About Weapons-Grade Uranium Smuggling 2007-01-25 03:03:27 Last January, a Russian man with sunken cheeks and a wispy mustache crossed into Georgia and traveled to Tbilisi by car along a high mountain road. In two plastic bags in his leather jacket, Georgian authorities say, he carried 100 grams of uranium so refined that it could help fuel an atom bomb. The Russian, Oleg Khinsagov, had come to meet a buyer who he believed would pay him $1 million and deliver the material to a Muslim man from “a serious organization,” say the authorities. The uranium was a sample, just under four ounces, and the deal a test: If all went smoothly, he boasted, he would sell a far larger cache stored in his apartment back in Vladikavkaz, two to three kilograms of the rare material, four and a half to six and a half pounds, which in expert hands is enough to make a small bomb. Read The Full Story Editorial: Energy Rhetoric, And Reality 2007-01-25 03:02:49 Intellpuke: The following editorial was posted at the New York Times' website on January 25, 2007. For six years, off and on, President Bush has been talking about the need for alternative fuels and conservation to make the country less beholden to unreliable sources of foreign oil. Yet all he has to show for it is a growing dependence on foreign oil, a growing climate problem and an increasingly cynical public. Mr. Bush talked the same game on Tuesday night, offering several impressively specific goals. But whether these new pledges turn out to be as empty as the old ones depends on his capacity for follow-through, and history is not encouraging. Mr. Bush was true to form on one subject. The White House had promised nothing on global warming, and he delivered nothing. He mentioned “global climate change” but showed no sense of urgency on the issue. Nor was there any sign that he had even heard the ever-louder entreaties from Congress - and from many of his friends in the business community - that he support a national program of mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases. At one point, he did suggest that his proposals for alternative fuels and more efficient automobiles could also help reduce greenhouse gases. But these gains would be marginal - passenger vehicles account for only one-fifth of these gases. And even these gains will greatly depend on what alternative fuels are chosen. Read The Full Story Former CIA Official Testifies About Libby's Calls 2007-01-25 03:01:39 A former high-ranking CIA official testified Wednesday that, when Vice President Cheney's agitated chief of staff called him out of the blue in June 2003 to ask what he knew about a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, he jumped to get answers. Summoned out of a meeting with the CIA director to take I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's urgent call later that same afternoon, then-Associate Deputy Director Robert Grenier said he relayed all he had learned about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the man behind news reports of the trip that had Libby so concerned. Yes, Wilson had gone on a CIA-sponsored mission to check out intelligence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons and had concluded that the tip was unfounded, Grenier testified he told Libby. And, he told Libby, it appeared that Wilson's wife, a CIA officer, had suggested Wilson for the trip. Read The Full Story Lockheed Chosen For TSA's Ports I.D. Program 2007-01-25 03:00:58 The Transportation Security Administration has decided to award a closely watched contract to supply high-tech identification cards at ports nationwide to Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Maryland, according to sources familiar with the choice. The initial value of the contract, which involves issuing I.D. cards to 850,000 maritime workers, was estimated at $70 million. The contract could prove far more valuable, however, if it leads to other, related deals for the firm: Identity technology is a fast-growing sector for government contractors, and the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, known as TWIC, is the first of many identity contracts slated to be announced in the next few years. The program, a key element of the government's attempts to secure the nation's ports, was initially supposed to provide transportation workers with I.D. cards embedded with microchips by the end of 2003, but it has been bogged down with technology glitches and privacy concerns, and now Lockheed will have 18 months to finish rolling out its cards. Read The Full Story Despite Censorship, China Soon To Be World's Biggest Internet User 2007-01-25 00:12:23 China could overtake the U.S. as the country with the most Internet users within two years, according to its government, which released figures showing that the nation's online population had increased to 137 million people in the last 12 months. Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center show that more than a 10th of the country's 1.3 billion people now use the internet, with the figure increasing by 23.4% last year. "We believe it will take two years at most for China to overtake the United States," the official China Daily newspaper quoted a center official, Wang Enhai, as saying. About 210 million out of 300 million Americans are online - a figure China will surpass in 24 months if it keeps up this pace. "The growth is now gaining much momentum. We are expecting even faster growth in 2007 and 2008," the official was quoted as telling reporters. Read The Full Story Olmert Urges Israeli President To Quit Over Rape Allegations 2007-01-25 00:11:29 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Wednesday night called on the country's president to resign after the attorney general said he would charge him with rape and other sexual offences. An hour earlier the president, Moshe Katsav, had given an emotional news conference broadcast live in which he insisted he was innocent. Katsav, 61, who has been under investigation since last summer, offered to stand aside for now but said he would only resign if he was formally indicted. However, Olmert began a keynote policy speech Wednesday night by calling on Katsav to go now. "Under these circumstances there is no doubt in my mind that the president cannot continue to fulfil his position and he must leave the president's residence," said Olmert. Read The Full Story
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