Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday January 30 2007 - (813)

Tuesday January 30 2007 edition
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U.S. Policy Blamed For Iran's Regional Rise 2007-01-30 02:29:55 Kuwait rarely rebuffs its ally, the United States, partly out of gratitude for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but in October it reneged on a pledge to send three military observers to an American-led naval exercise in the Gulf, according to U.S. officials and Kuwaiti analysts. "We understood," said a State Department official. "The Kuwaitis were being careful not to antagonize the Iranians." Four years after the United States invaded Iraq, in part to transform the Middle East, Iran is ascendant, many in the region view the Americans in retreat, and Arab countries, their own feelings of weakness accentuated, are awash in sharpening sectarian currents that many blame the United States for exacerbating. Iran has deepened its relationship with Palestinian Islamic groups, assuming a financial role once filled by Gulf Arab states, in moves it sees as defensive and the United States views as aggressive. In Lebanon and Iraq, Iran is fighting proxy battles against the United States with funds, arms and ideology. And in the vacuum created by the U.S. overthrow of Iranian foes in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is exerting a power and prestige that recalls the heady days of the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Iranian clerics led the toppling of a U.S.-backed government. Read The Full Story Bush Directive Increases White House Sway On Regulation 2007-01-30 02:29:08 President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy. In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities. This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats. Read The Full Story Virus Warnings As Microsoft Launches Vista 2007-01-30 02:28:17 Microsoft launches its long-awaited new version of Windows Tuesday with the promise of next-generation computing power, but experts have warned that the system may suffer from the same security problems as its predecessors. Windows Vista, which has been beset by delays, is finally going on sale to the public with the backing of a huge advertising campaign and widespread support from the computer industry. The system - promoted with the tagline "The wow starts now" - is intended to bring huge advances to computer users worldwide, offering detailed 3D graphics, better performance and improved protection from viruses and other online threats. Some security experts, however, are already concerned that the system may not be as secure as users have been led to expect. Webroot Software, one of the plethora of security companies that helps protect Windows users from attacks, said that buyers should be aware of the potential holes in Vista. "We want to make sure that users understand the system's limitations," said Gerhard Eschelbeck, a spokesman for Webroot, "and caution them that Microsoft's anti-virus programs may not fully protect them." In testing, the company said, the new Windows Defender program failed to block 84% of viruses - including 15 of the most common pieces of malicious code. Read The Full Story Analysis: Bush's Big Afghanistan Push Comes To Shove 2007-01-30 02:27:16 Overshadowed by President George Bush's controversial, last-chance bid to salvage American honor in Iraq, the U.S. is mounting a parallel military and reconstruction "surge" in Afghanistan ahead of an anticipated Taliban spring offensive. Washington is also encountering some familiar Iraq-style obstacles: reluctant allies, meddlesome neighbors, a weak central government and the realization that time is not on its side. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice underscored the administration's newfound sense of urgency at a hastily convened NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels last Friday. "Every one of us must take a hard look at what more we can do to help the Afghan people and to support one another," said Rice. "We need greater commitments to reconstruction, to development, to fight the poppy economy. We need additional forces on the ground - ready to fight. And we need to provide greater support for the development of Afghan institutions, especially security forces ... If there is to be a spring offensive, it must be our offensive," said  Rice. Read The Full Story Ari Fleischer: Libby Discussed CIA Officer At Lunch 2007-01-29 14:41:49 Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday that then-colleague I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told him over lunch that the wife of a prominent war critic worked at the CIA. Fleischer said the conversation happened June 7, 2003, days before Libby told investigators he was surprised to learn about the CIA operative from a reporter. That discrepancy is at the heart of Libby's perjury and obstruction trial. Fleischer, who was the chief White House spokesman for the first 2 1/2 years of President Bush's first term, said Monday that Libby invited him to lunch to discuss Fleischer's planned departure from the White House. He said it was the first time he and Libby had eaten lunch together. They talked about Fleischer's career plans and their shared interest in the Miami Dolphins football team, Fleischer testified. He can't remember who brought it up but he said the conversation then turned to the growing controversy over former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the White House of ignoring prewar intelligence on Iraq. Read The Full Story Italy's Ex-Intelligence Chief Testifies At Rendition Trial 2007-01-29 14:41:07 Nicolo Pollari, former Italian intelligence chief who faces possible indictment over the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, said Monday he never took part in illegal activity. Pollari said at a hearing that he was unable to defend himself properly, claiming documents that would clarify his position had been excluded from the proceedings because they contained state secrets, according to his lawyers. He is one of five Italian intelligence officials facing possible indictment in the alleged abduction of cleric and terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors say Pollari and other officials of the military intelligence agency SISMI worked with the Americans to abduct the cleric. Read The Full Story U.S., Iraqi Forces Claim 250 Islamist Insurgents Dead In Najaf 2007-01-29 03:39:22 Iraqi troops backed by U.S. helicopters and F-16 jets fought one of the fiercest battles since the end of the 2003 war Sunday, as they attacked insurgents supposedly plotting to wreak carnage at a Shia commemoration. Iraqi officials said 250 members of a messianic Islamic group had been killed in a day of fighting during which a U.S. helicopter was shot down, killing two U.S. servicemen. The high death toll could not be verified last night with the fighting still raging but if confirmed it would represent the highest number of casualties in a single battle since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile in Baghdad at least four mortar shells struck a girls' secondary school Sunday, killing five pupils and wounding 20. Witnesses at al-Khaloud school said the shells thudded into the school's yard at about 11 a.m., when many pupils were gathered for a break. Four girls died instantly and a fifth died later in a hospital. Read The Full Story Commentary: Xenophobes Are Uniting Across Europe 2007-01-29 03:38:19 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Yudit Kiss, a Hungarian economist based in Geneva, Switzerland. The column appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website for Monday, January 29, 2007. Kiss writes that opening European Union membership to Eastern European countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, has brought with it the undesired side-effect of racists groups a larger voice and a larger political role. Kiss' column follows: The long awaited and welcome accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union has already had a nasty side-effect. It has made it possible for the extreme right to form its own group in the European parliament - giving its parties extra time and money - Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty. Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, formerly a vociferous opponent of the E.U.'s enlargement, has delegated Bruno Gollnisch, a recidivist Holocaust denier, to head the group. He has received with open arms the five representatives of the Greater Romania party and Dimitar Stoyanov of the Bulgarian Ataka party, who had already made his debut in the European parliament commenting on the bodies and purchase price of Gypsy women. The newcomers will certainly feel at home in the company of Alessandra Mussolini ("proud to be a fascist"), Ashley Mote (formerly of the British Ukip), and the MEPs (European Parliament members) of the migrant-bashing Belgian Vlaams Belang, and the Austrian FPO, formerly headed by Jorg Haider. The proletarians of the world seem to be so disoriented by the blows of industrial change and deregulation that they are rather slow to move. So it is the xenophobes of Europe that are uniting - and demonstrating a great deal of mutual tolerance, despite not so long ago having depicted each other as dangerous aliens. Read The Full Story Starbucks Stirred By Free-Trade Film 2007-01-29 03:37:39 A campaign by Ethiopia to get a fair price for its coffee - some of the world's finest - kicks off in London Monday as a spokesman for the east African country's impoverished coffee growers meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The meeting will be accompanied by a screening of the film "Black Gold" - an expose of the global coffee industry - to Parliament members at Westminster, who will also be addressed by the Ethiopian ambassador to Britain. The spokesman, Tadesse Meskela, who is the subject of "Black Gold", together with the film's English makers, brothers Nick and Marc Francis, are a serious irritant to some of the world's coffee giants - in particular Seattle-based Starbucks, whose annual turnover of $7.8 billion (£4 billion) is not much lower than Ethiopia's entire gross domestic product. Read The Full Story Disks Of Hardened Oil Wash Up On Frence Beaches 2007-01-29 03:36:40 Disks of hardened oil have been washing up on beaches in northwestern France, officials said Sunday, and tests will determine if they came from a cargo ship across the English Channel that leaked oil after it was damaged in a storm. The disks range in size from that of a plate to about 11 square feet, officials from the office for the Cotes-d'Armor region said. They began to wash up Friday on beaches in Brittany, which includes Cotes-d'Armor, said officials, adding that the bodies of several birds, covered in oil, also washed up over the weekend. The British cargo ship MSC Napoli was deliberately run aground across the English Channel from Brittany after it was stricken in a storm Jan. 17. The ship was believed to have spilled between 17,000 and 30,000 gallons of oil. Read The Full Story	Commentary: Bush's Conversion On Climate Change Is Illusory 2007-01-30 02:29:28 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by George Monbiot and appears in the Guardian newspaper's edition for Tusday, January 30, 2007. In his commentary, Professor Monbiot writes that President Bush's avowed conversion on climate change is illusory and that he is just drumming up new business for his "chums".  Prof. Monbiot's commentary follows: George Bush proposes to deal with climate change by means of smoke and mirrors. So what's new? Only that it is no longer just a metaphor. After six years of obfuscation and denial, the U.S. now insists that we find ways to block some of the sunlight reaching the earth. This means launching either mirrors or clouds of small particles into the atmosphere. The demand appears in a recent U.S. memo to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It describes "modifying solar radiance" as "important insurance" against the threat of climate change. A more accurate description might be important insurance against the need to cut emissions. Every scheme that could give us a chance of preventing runaway climate change should be considered on its merits. But the proposals for building a global parasol don't have very many. A group of nuclear weapons scientists at the Lawrence Livermore laboratory in California, apparently bored of experimenting with only one kind of mass death, have proposed launching into the atmosphere a million tons of tiny aluminium balloons, filled with hydrogen, every year. One unfortunate side-effect would be to eliminate the ozone layer. Read The Full Story Europe Resists U.S. On Reducing Ties With Iran 2007-01-30 02:28:45 European governments are resisting Bush administration demands that they curtail support for exports to Iran and that they block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies, say officials on both sides. The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran. Administration officials say a new American drive to reduce exports to Iran and cut off its financial transactions is intended to further isolate Iran commercially amid the first signs that global pressure has hurt Iran’s oil production and its economy. There are also reports of rising political dissent in Iran. In December, Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program led the United Nations Security Council to impose economic sanctions. Iran’s rebuff is based on its contention that its nuclear program is civilian in nature, while the United States and other countries believe Iran plans to make weapons. Read The Full Story Main Camera Shutdown 'A Great Loss' For Hubble 2007-01-30 02:27:32 The primary camera on the Hubble Space Telescope has shut down and is likely to be only marginally restored, NASA said Monday, a collapse one astronomer called "a great loss". While other scientific work can still be done by the aging telescope, the unit that failed, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), is the one most scientists depend upon. NASA scientists said that they expect to be able to restore one-third of its observation ability, probably by mid-February. "We're not optimistic at all" about returning it to full function, said Hubble scientist David Leckrone. Read The Full Story U.S.: Air Defense At Nuclear Reactors Impractical 2007-01-29 14:42:03 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded Monday that it is impractical for nuclear power plant operators to try to stop terrorists from crashing an airliner into a reactor. Plant operators instead should focus on limiting radioactive release from any such airborne attack, the agency said in a revised defense plan for America's 103 commercial nuclear plants. The agency approved the new defense plan, most of which is secret, by a 5-0 vote at a brief hearing in which it was not discussed in any detail. The new plan spells out what the operators of the nation's commercial nuclear power plants must be capable of defending against. It assumes that a terrorist attack force would be relatively small - and that its weapons would be limited. Read The Full Story Radioactive Isotope Patients Setting Off Dirty Bomb Alarms 2007-01-29 14:41:30 When 75,000 football fans pack into Dolphin Stadium in Miami for the Super Bowl on Feb. 4, at least a few may want to carry notes from their doctors explaining why they're radioactive enough to set off "dirty bomb" alarms. With the rising use of radioisotopes in medicine and the growing use of radiation detectors in a security-conscious nation, patients are triggering alarms in places where they may not even realize they're being scanned, said doctors and security officials. Nearly 60,000 people a day in the United States undergo treatment or tests that leave tiny amounts of radioactive material in their bodies, according to the Society of Nuclear Medicine. It is not enough to hurt them or anyone else, but it is enough to trigger radiation alarms for up to three months. Read The Full Story Iranian Ambassador Reveals Plan To Expand Role In Iraq 2007-01-29 03:41:12 Iran's ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq - including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital - just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs. Iran's plan, as outlined by the ambassador, carries the potential to bring Iran into further conflict in Iraq with the United States, which has detained a number of Iranian operatives in recent weeks and says it has proof of Iranian complicity in attacks on American and Iraqi forces. The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called "the security fight". In the economic area, said Qumi, Iran is ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction, an area of failure on the part of the United States since American-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago. "We have experience of reconstruction after war," said Qumi, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. "We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis." Read The Full Story 'We've Got No Choice', Drought Causes Australian State To Recycle Sewage For Drinking Water 2007-01-29 03:39:03 The Australian state of Queensland plans to introduce recycled sewage to its drinking water as a record drought threatens water supplies around the nation, a state leader said Monday. Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie said falling dam levels have left his government with no choice but to introduce recycled water next year in the state's southeast - one of Australia's fastest growing urban areas. "We're not getting rain; we've got no choice," Beattie, who said his government had scrapped a referendum planned for March on the issue, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. Australian farms and most cities are in the grip of the nation's worst drought in a century, with some areas receiving below average rainfall for a decade. Read The Full Story National Parks Case Could Affect Public's Access 2007-01-29 03:37:59 The plunging waterfalls and soaring crags chiseled by the Merced River draw millions of visitors each year, but the crowds are precisely what threatens the waterway and the park. Efforts to safeguard the Merced have spawned a court battle over the future of development in Yosemite National Park's most popular stretch. The case may come down to the challenge facing all of America's parks: Should they remain open to everyone, or should access be limited in the interest of protecting them? In November, a federal judge barred crews from finishing $60 million in construction projects in Yosemite Valley, siding with a small group of environmentalists who sued the federal government, saying further commercial development would bring greater numbers of visitors, thus threatening the Merced's fragile ecosystem. "The park's plans for commercialization could damage Yosemite for future generations," said Bridget Kerr, a member of Friends of Yosemite Valley, one of two local environmental groups that filed the suit. Read The Full Story Body Found In Airplane Wheel Well At Los Angeles International Airport 2007-01-29 03:36:59 The body of a male stowaway was found Sunday in the wheel well of a British Airways jet at Los Angeles International Airport, said officials. A pilot discovered the body of the young man in the front right wheel well of the 747-400 during a routine inspection shortly before it was to return to London, said airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles. The FBI determined the stowaway likely died in the wheel well, said Castles. Autopsy results won't be available until later this week. Authorities had not identified the victim late Sunday. The aircraft, British Airways Flight 283, had arrived from London Heathrow Airport at 3:15 p.m. and was scheduled to depart at 5:20 p.m. The airline notified officials of the discovery just before 4:30 p.m., said Castles. Read The Full Story
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