Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday January 6 2007 - (813)

Saturday January 6 2007 edition
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Meningitis Death Spurs Search For 80 Contacts 2007-01-06 03:18:20 More than 80 people in three states may be at risk for meningitis after coming into contact with a University of New Hampshire student who died of the illness this week, said health officials. The warning came amid another meningitis scare that shut down schools Thursday and Friday in three towns in Rhode Island. The student, Danielle Thompson, 21, had been in her home state of Maine, as well as in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in the 10 days before she was admitted to a Dover, New Hampshire., hospital. She died Wednesday of bacterial meningitis. Health and Human Services Commissioner John A. Stephen said the state has identified 29 people in New Hampshire and 55 in Maine who should receive antibiotics. Officials were tracking down how many people Thompson visited in Massachusetts. Read The Full Story Third Snowstorm Blows Into Colorado Plains 2007-01-06 03:17:36 The third snowstorm in as many weeks barreled into Colorado on Friday, blanketing the Denver area with up to 8 inches of new snow and further hampering efforts to rescue thousands of cattle stranded by last week's blizzard. Crews worked around the clock to clear roads so residents could get to stores for food and medicine. Several school districts canceled classes because winds gusts up to 30 mph had reduced visibility. In Kansas, an estimated 60,000 people were still without power after more than a week, and the new storm was headed their way after dumping nearly a foot of snow in the foothills west of Denver. An estimated 6,000 to 10,000 utility customers were without power Friday night in Nebraska, said the utility company. Read The Full Story Nuclear Energy Resurgent - For The Moment 2007-01-06 03:16:27 Sixty miles outside Buenos Aires, construction crews soon will be swarming over a partially built concrete dome abandoned 12 years ago, resuming work on Argentina's long-delayed Atucha II nuclear power plant. They will be in the vanguard of surging interest in nuclear power worldwide. Faced with evidence that coal- and oil-fired electric plants are overheating the planet, and alarmed by soaring demand for electricity, governments from South America to Asia are turning once again to a power source mostly shunned for two decades as too dangerous and too costly. Globally, 29 nuclear power plants are being built. Well over 100 more have been written into the development plans of governments for the next three decades. India and China each are rushing to build dozens of reactors. The United States and the countries of Western Europe, led by new nuclear champions, are reconsidering their cooled romance with atomic power. International agencies have come on board; even the Persian Gulf oil states have announced plans for nuclear generators. Read The Full Story Tornado Alerts Across Southeast U.S. As Twister Kills 2 In Louisiana 2007-01-05 18:41:07 Powerful storms that killed at least two people and ripped apart mobile homes in Louisiana headed into Alabama on Friday, where tornado watches were posted across the state. In Liberty, South Carolina, the National Weather Service said 15 people received minor injuries Friday when high winds piled cars on top of each other outside Liberty Elementary School. At least two people were taken to area hospitals. A flash flood watch was still in effect Friday morning for parts of southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi after the heavy rain. Some of the worst damage from Thursday's storms was in Louisiana's Iberia Parish after what appeared to be a tornado hit in the New Iberia area just before 4 p.m. Read The Full Story White House Gears Up For Legal Battles With New Congress 2007-01-05 18:40:31 President Bush accepted the resignation of White House counsel Harriet Miers yesterday as he remakes his legal team to prepare for what aides expect to be a sustained struggle with a new Democratic Congress eager to investigate various aspects of his administration. Miers, a longtime Bush loyalist whose nomination to the Supreme Court was withdrawn in 2005 as a result of conservative opposition, led an office that will oversee legal clashes that could erupt if Democrats aggressively use their new subpoena power. Bush advisers inside and outside the White House concluded that she is not equipped for such a battle and that the president needs someone who can strongly defend his prerogatives. The White House did not announce a replacement but has settled on someone to take on the assignment, according to several advisers who did not disclose the name. Four other lawyers have been hired as associate counsels in recent weeks to fill vacancies, and White House officials have discussed expanding the office, which - with a dozen lawyers - is far smaller than it was under President Bill Clinton, who faced legal battles on multiple fronts. Read The Full Story U.S. House Approves Changes To Budget Rules 2007-01-05 18:39:12 The House of Representatives Friday passed budget rule changes to rein in pork-barrel spending and reinstitute pay-as-you-go guidelines, requiring tax cuts or spending increases on entitlement programs to be offset in the budget to avoid swelling deficits. On the second day of the new congressional session under Democratic control, the House voted 280-154 to approve the rule changes - part of an ambitious campaign by new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) to enact a series of reforms in the term's first 100 hours. The changes were contained in a resolution governing lawmakers' pet projects, known as "earmarks," and setting requirements for spending bills. They were among the first acts promoted by House Democrats, who took control of Congress yesterday for the first time in a dozen years as a result of their gains in November's midterm elections. Read The Full Story Bush Nominates McConnell As U.S. Intelligence Czar 2007-01-05 18:37:47 President Bush on Friday nominated retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell to replace John Negroponte as national intelligence director, while Negroponte was to become deputy secretary of state in a reshuffle made easier by an earlier resignation: that of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary. "Each of them will do good work in their new positions and it is vital that they take up their new responsibilities promptly," said Bush of McConnell and Negroponte. Negoponte called his new job "an opportunity of a lifetime". McConnell said the threats of today "are moving at increasing speed" and said he looked forward to returning to the intelligence community. Read The Full Story Bush Says New Postal Law Allows Government To Open Americans' Mail 2007-01-05 03:34:31 President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News reported. The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions. That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise. "Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill. Read The Full Story Bush Revamping His Iraq Team 2007-01-05 03:33:56 President Bush is overhauling his top diplomatic and military team in Iraq, as the White House scrambles to complete its new war policy package in time for the president to unveil it in a speech to the nation next week, officials said. The White House is struggling to overcome deep differences among advisers over both the deployment of additional U.S. troops and whether the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki can deliver long-delayed political and military actions, according to officials familiar with the debate. With significant policy details left to be worked out this weekend, the administration is nonetheless moving ahead on several personnel changes. It is set to announce that Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who gained fame for his early success in training Iraqi troops and securing a volatile city in northern Iraq, will replace Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., as commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, say officials. Read The Full Story Bill Gates: Day Of Home-Help Robot Is Near 2007-01-05 03:33:01 An office worker checks her home-gadget webpage from her work computer. The tasks she set for her home robots in the morning have all been completed: washing and ironing, vacuuming the lounge and mowing the lawn. She orders dinner from the kitchen chefbot - sushi today, using a recipe from a Japanese website - then checks her elderly mother's house. The companionbot has given mum her medicine and helped her out of bed and into a chair. This is the vision of the future offered by Bill Gates who, in the latest issue of Scientific American, argues that the robotics industry is on the cusp of a big expansion. He likens the current state of robotic technology to the situation in the fledgling computer industry when he and his fellow entrepreneur Paul Allen launched Microsoft in the mid-1970s. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Urges Somali Islamists To Attack Ethiopians, Be 'Martyrs' 2007-01-05 03:31:58 A purported audio tape by al-Qaeda's deputy leader urged Somali Islamists on Friday to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign of suicide and other forms of attacks against Ethiopian forces in Somalia. Ethiopian forces helped Somalia's interim government rout Islamists in a two-week war. The United States and Ethiopia have portrayed the Somalia Islamic Courts Council as linked to and even run by al-Qaeda, a charge the Islamists have denied. "You must ambush, mine, raid and (carry out) martyrdom campaigns so that you can wipe them out," Ayman al-Zawahri, deputy to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said in his message to Somali Islamists. "As happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the world's strongest power was defeated by the campaigns of the mujahideen troops going to heaven, so its slaves shall be defeated on the Muslim lands of Somalia," he said. Read The Full Story Report: Israel's Olmert Wants Coalition Partner To Quit As Defense Minister 2007-01-05 03:30:35 Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, will ask his defense minister to quit his post or leave the government, Israeli television reported Thursday night. Olmert and Amir Peretz, the leader of the Labor party, have had a fractious relationship since they went into a coalition partnership last year, but senior officials were quick to deny the reports. The anonymous briefing of journalists is evidence of tension within the government. Both Olmert, who leads the centrist Kadima party, and Peretz are unpopular within their own parties. Britain's Channel 2 and Israel TV said that sources in the prime minister's office told them Peretz would be asked to resign and take another cabinet position, and would be fired if he refused. Read The Full Story	Mercury Contamination 'Hot Spots' Indentified In U.S., Canada 2007-01-06 03:18:00 Two newly published scientific reports suggest that mercury contamination has created at least five "hot spots" in New England and Canada, places where the neurotoxin has accumulated in fish and wildlife to such an extent that it could harm human health and local ecosystems. The 11 scientists, who work at institutions including Syracuse University and Vermont's Department of Environmental Conservation, analyzed how mercury has accumulated in two indicator species in the northern United States and southern Canada. In both cases, they were able to identify several regions where mercury in yellow perch and common loons is above acceptable levels. David C. Evans, who heads a Maine-based nonprofit group called the BioDiversity Research Institute and is one of the papers' lead authors, said the study shows that some areas of the country are more susceptible to mercury pollution than others. Read The Full Story Louisiana's Mayor's Death Sparks Controversy 2007-01-06 03:17:02 In the hours before his death on the evening of Dec. 30, the first black mayor of this overwhelmingly white town started learning his new job. About noon, he set City Hall's alarm system for the first time. He got instructions on how to raise and lower the U.S. flag. He had already ordered a new mayoral letterhead with his name on it and a button-down shirt embroidered "Gerald Washington, Mayor." A few hours later he indulged in a hobby, placing a $4 bet at a nearby horse racing track. By 10 p.m. Gerald "Wash" Washington was dead in the deserted parking lot of a former high school, a bullet wound in his chest. His gun was found by the body. Read The Full Story New Details Emerge In Haditha Deaths Report 2007-01-06 03:16:00 U.S. Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a lengthy investigative report obtained by the Washington Post. Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the squad's leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi in the moments following the explosion, which killed one Marine and injured two others, witnesses told investigators. Another Marine fired rounds into their bodies as they lay on the ground. "The taxi's five occupants exited the vehicle and according to U.S. and Iraqi witnesses, were shot by Wuterich as they stood, unarmed, next to the vehicle approximately ten feet in front of him," said a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on the incident that runs thousands of pages. Read The Full Story News Blog: In An Instant, 401(k) Savings Vanish 2007-01-05 18:40:52 One moment Dave DeSmidt had $179,000 in his 401(k) retirement account, the next he had nothing. In an instant, 25 years of savings had disappeared. With a few clicks, someone raided DeSmidt's retirement account with J.P. Morgan & Co and ordered a full disbursement to a private checking account. Then came the really bad news. While credit card and online banking accounts are legally protected in the event of fraud, DeSmidt's brokerage account came with no such insurance. Two months after the theft, his balance still read $0. With hacking of brokerage accounts increasing, the legal gap facing DeSmidt and other victims has regulators and critics debating the need for new consumer protections. Read The Full Story Democrats Urge Bush Not To Increase Troops In Iraq 2007-01-05 18:40:09 A day after Democrats took control of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today urged President Bush not to prolong the 46-month-old Iraq war by increasing the number of U.S. troops in the country. "Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain," the top two Democrats wrote in a letter to Bush. "Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror." The letter from Reid (Nevada) and Pelosi (California) came as Bush prepares to address the nation Wednesday on the administration's new war policy package, which could include a deployment of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, where 140,000 Americans already serve. Read The Full Story Bush Warned About 'Authority' To Open Americans' Mail 2007-01-05 18:38:23 President Bush signed a little-noticed statement last month asserting the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases, prompting warnings yesterday from Democrats and privacy advocates that the administration is attempting to circumvent legal restrictions on its powers. A "signing statement" attached to a postal reform bill on Dec. 20 says the Bush administration "shall construe" a section of that law to allow the opening of sealed mail to protect life, guard against hazardous materials or conduct "physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection." White House and U.S. Postal Service officials said the statement was not intended to expand the powers of the executive branch but merely to clarify existing ones for extreme cases. Read The Full Story French President Chirac Blasts U.S.-Led Invasion Of Iraq 2007-01-05 18:37:29 President Jacques Chirac gave a tough critique Friday of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its fallout, saying the war destabilized the entire Middle East and allowed terrorism to spread. In a speech to ambassadors, Chirac also renewed his call for an international conference on the Middle East, saying he was deeply concerned by the growing number of crises there. "At Europe's gate, the Middle East has become an epicenter of international tensions," said Chirac. "Crises are building up and spreading." On Iraq, Chirac suggested the problems there today justified France's strong opposition to the invasion in 2003. Read The Full Story Editorial: Protecting Internet Democracy 2007-01-05 03:34:11 Intellpuke: The following editorial on one of my favorite issues, Internet democracy, appeared in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, January 3, 2007. The editorial follows: One of the big winners in the last election may turn out to be the principle, known as net neutrality, that Internet service providers should not be able to favor some content over others. Democrats who are moving into the majority in Congress - led by Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House - say they plan to fight hard to pass a net neutrality bill, and we hope that they do. It is vital to preserve the Internet’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and free expression. Internet users now get access to any Web site on an equal basis. Foreign and domestic sites, big corporate home pages and little-guy blogs all show up on a user's screen in the same way when their addresses are typed into a browser. Anyone who puts up a Web page can broadcast it to the world. Cable and telephone companies are talking, however, about creating a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane and a slow lane. Companies that pay hefty fees would have their Web pages delivered to Internet users in the current speedy fashion. Companies and individuals that do not would be relegated to the slow lane. Creating these sorts of tiers would destroy the democratic quality of the Internet. Big, wealthy voices would start to overpower the smaller, poorer ones. Innovation would be threatened if start-ups and small companies could not afford the new fees. The next eBay or Google might never be born. Read The Full Story Sen. Biden: White House Postponing Loss Of Iraq 2007-01-05 03:33:40 U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., (D-Delaware), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam. "I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," said Biden. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy - literally, not figuratively." Read The Full Story British Scientists: Part Animal-Part Human Embryo Research Important To Fighting Diseases 2007-01-05 03:32:25 Important research into human diseases could be jeopardized if permission to create part animal-part human embryos is withheld, leading British scientists have warned. In a plea to the government and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), five experts have called for greater understanding of what they are trying to achieve. The HFEA, which regulates embryo research, will meet on Wednesday to discuss applications for licenses to create the embryos. A Government White Paper published last month proposes outlawing the creation of such embryos - at least initially. The researchers want to extract stem cells from embryos that can be studied for their potential to treat human diseases. Read The Full Story Search By Land, Air And Sea Finds No Trace Of Missing Indonesia Airliner 2007-01-05 03:31:26 An hour after Adam Air Flight KI-574 took off on New Year's Day with 102 passengers and crew for what should have been a short hop between islands, the pilot reported heavy winds. Then the plane disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Thousands of soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies and ships scoured the sea for a third day Thursday in a search of an area roughly the size of California. By nightfall, there was still no trace of the missing Boeing 737, its six crew members and 96 passengers - including an Oregon man and his two daughters. "It is kind of strange," said Febrizal Lubis, a pilot with another Indonesian airline. "The plane was going along at 35,000 feet, and then with no Mayday or distress signal, it disappeared like that." Read The Full Story Investigation Underway Into Toxic Leak At BASF U.K. Plant 2007-01-05 03:29:56 A British chemical worker is in a critical condition following a leak at a plant which left 37 people needing medical treatment. An investigation has been launched into the release of a corrosive and hazardous substance at the BASF plant at Seal Sands, Billingham, Teesside, in the U.K., which emergency services treated as a "major incident". It is the third safety scare that the manufacturer has suffered at Teesside, following a huge fire in 1995 and the death of an employee who was overcome by fumes four years later. BASF said one employee was being treated at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary following the leak at the nylon intermediates plant. "We understand that he remains critical but stable," said a BASF spokesman. Read The Full Story
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