Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday January 10 2007 - (813)

Wednesday January 10 2007 edition
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With Iraq Speech, Bush Breaks With His Generals 2007-01-10 03:45:39 When President Bush goes before the American people Wednesday night to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against. Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. "It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," he told the Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure." Over the past two months, as the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated and U.S. public support for the war has dropped, Bush has pushed back against his top military advisers and the commanders in Iraq: He has fashioned a plan to add up to 20,000 troops to the 132,000 U.S. service members already on the ground. As Bush plans it, the military will soon be "surging" in Iraq two months after an election that many Democrats interpreted as a mandate to begin withdrawing troops. Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the outgoing head of Central Command, said less than two months ago that adding U.S. troops was not the answer for Iraq. Read The Full Story Climate Experts Worry As 2006 Is Hottest Year On Record In U.S. 2007-01-10 03:44:52 Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years - capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported Tuesday. According to the government's National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth - which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year's Day - was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there's a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change." The center said there are indications that the rate at which global temperatures are rising is speeding up. Read The Full Story Chinese Police Kill 18, Capture 17 In Raid On Terrorist Training Camp 2007-01-10 03:44:13 China revealed the depth of its fear of Islamic-linked violence Tuesday when police disclosed that they had killed 18 terrorists and captured another 17 after a fierce battle at a secret training camp in a remote northwestern region. It is the first time that China had announced the discovery of such a camp in its territory. Officials said that they had uncovered links between the activists and international terrorist groups, hinting at connections to al-Qaeda. The clash in the Pamir mountains on Friday was one of the deadliest for years in the restive Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, where 8.5 million Muslims make up most of the population. One policeman was killed and a second wounded. Police said that the camp, in Akto county, was run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). It is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S., at China's insistence, despite concerns among Beijing-based diplomats over lack of evidence. Read The Full Story U.S. Aircraft Launch 2nd Wave Of Somalia Attacks 2007-01-10 03:43:01 Helicopter gunships resumed attacks Tuesday against suspected terrorist holdouts in southern Somalia following U.S. airstrikes in the area Monday, said Somali officials. The attacks against suspected al-Qaeda members believed to be hiding in Somalia marked the first overt American military intervention in the Horn of Africa nation since the U.S. withdrew its troops from a peacekeeping operation in 1994 after the deaths of 18 American servicemen. A Pentagon spokesman would only confirm today that U.S. forces were involved in an attack Monday after receiving "credible intelligence". State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment on details about the strikes, but defended the U.S. interest for intervening in Somalia's conflict. Read The Full Story U.S. House Passes Anti-Terror Legislation 2007-01-09 21:41:28 In a lopsided vote that masked underlying divisions, House Democrats approved legislation Tuesday to implement many of the remaining recommendations suggested by the Sept. 11 commission even as portions of the sprawling package faced immediate problems in the Senate. Voting 299 to 128, congressional Democrats, backed by scores of Republicans, delivered on a key part of their "100 hours" agenda. The nearly 300-page anti-terrorism measure sets new mandates to scrutinize air- and ship-borne cargo, send more federal aid to areas at the greatest risk of terrorism, improve emergency communications, fight nuclear proliferation overseas and strengthen a civil liberties watchdog board. Critics questioned the cost and feasibility of new cargo requirements - raising issues that helped stall action by the previous, Republican-controlled Congress - and industry and the Homeland Security Department added their opposition. The greatest skepticism focused on requirements in the House bill that airlines be able to physically inspect 100 percent of cargo put aboard passenger planes within three years and that shippers scan 100 percent of U.S.-bound cargo for radiation at overseas ports in five years. Read The Full Story Commentary: Like A Deluded Compulsive Gambler, Bush Is Fueling A New Cold War 2007-01-09 21:40:54 Intellpuke: The following opinion column was written by Jonathan Freedland and posted in the Guardian Unlimited's online edition for Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007. In his column, Mr. Freedland writes that with air strikes on Somalia and a surge of troops in Iraq, Bush is staking everything on a finale he can call victory. The column follows: Say what you like about George Bush, but no one can accuse him of following the crowd. When everyone from the American electorate to the U.S. military brass, along with a rare consensus of world opinion, cries out with one voice to say "enough" of the war in Iraq, Bush heads in the opposite direction - and decides to escalate. When his army chiefs complain of desperate overstretch in the war on terror, he takes that as his cue to open up another front. And that's just this week. On Sunday night the U.S. military launched an air strike - not on Iraq or Afghanistan, but on southern Somalia. Some reports last night claimed that the bombing has continued ever since. If you didn't know that Somalia was on the enemies' list - if you're finding it hard, what with Syria and Iran and North Korea, to keep track of Washington's foes, don't blame yourself. These days the axis of evil is expanding faster than the European Union, with a couple of new members added every January. Not that we should mock. At first blush, the Somalia raid (or raids) looks like just the kind of action that a global war on terror should entail, had it not been diverted by the unrelated nonsense about WMD and Iraq. After all, the Americans say they aimed their fire on Sunday at al-Qaeda bigwigs, thought to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Zapping bad guys like them is exactly what the war on terror was supposed to be about. Read The Full Story DOH! Bias Found In Food Studies Financed By Food Industry 2007-01-09 21:40:07 Research studies financed by the food industry are much more likely to produce favorable results than independently financed research, according to a report to be published Tuesday. The report, in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS Medicine, is the first systematic study of bias in nutrition research. Of 24 studies of soft drinks, milk and juices financed by the industry, 21 had results favorable or neutral to the industry, and 3 were unfavorable, according to the research led by Dr. David S. Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School. Of 52 studies with no industry financing, 32 were favorable or neutral to the industry and 20 were unfavorable. The biases are similar to findings for pharmaceuticals. Read The Full Story Apple Introduces Wireless Phone 2007-01-09 21:39:03 Steven P. Jobs introduced an Apple wireless phone Tuesday that he said would lead to a new synthesis of communications, video, music and computing. In an exclusive partnership with Cingular, the nation’s largest cellular phone carrier, Jobs brought his legendary product design sense to bear on one of the world’s most ubiquitous products. He said Apple had set the goal of taking 1 percent of the world market for cell phones, or 10 million phones per year, by the end of 2008. Underscoring the transformation of a quirky computer maker that during the past half decade has come to dominate the world of digital music, and signaling his ambition to become a force in new markets, Jobs announced that the Apple was dropping the “computer” from its name and would henceforth become Apple Inc. Read The Full Story 2006 Warmest Year On Record In U.S. 2007-01-09 16:12:47 Last year was the warmest on record in the continental United States, the federal government reported Tuesday, attributing the temperatures to the natural El Nino cycle as well as to long-term warming linked to human emissions of greenhouse gases. The findings are preliminary, and a final review later this year could still put 2006 just below the previous record set in 1998, the National Climatic Data Center reported. In any case, the two years are pretty much a tie in terms of hot ones since recordkeeping began in 1880. Both years averaged around 55 degrees Fahrenheit - 2.2 degrees above the 20th century mean. In a statement, the center said the last nine years have all been "among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record". Read The Full Story Gunman Shoots 2 Students At Las Vegas High School 2007-01-09 16:12:19 Two students were wounded and a gunman was sought off-campus following a shooting before classes Tuesday in a high school parking lot, authorities said. Police were seeking a man in a blue Mustang after the teens were wounded as they sat in a car in the parking lot at Western High School. School police Sgt. Ken Young said gunfire was reported about 6:40 a.m. at the campus, which is about three miles west of downtown Las Vegas. Read The Full Story Considerable Extinction Risk For Beluga Whale Group 2007-01-09 16:11:35 The beluga whales swimming off Alaska's largest city are at considerable risk of going extinct unless something changes, a federal study says. The study by the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle says if the Cook Inlet belugas go extinct, another group of the white whales probably won't come in to swim the silty waters off Anchorage. "The population is discrete and unique with respect to the species, and if it should fail to survive, it is highly unlikely that Cook Inlet would be repopulated with belugas," according to the study. The study found there is a 26 percent chance the Cook Inlet belugas will be extinct in 100 years and a 68 percent chance they'll be gone in 300 years. Read The Full Story U.S. Justice Department Pushing For Your Internet Records 2007-01-09 03:11:29 The federal government wants your Internet provider to keep track of every Web site you visit. For more than a year, the U.S. Justice Department has been in discussions with Internet companies and privacy rights advocates, trying to come up with a plan that would make it easier for investigators to check records of Web traffic. The idea is to help law enforcement track down child pornographers, but some see it as another step toward total surveillance of citizens, joining warrantless wiretapping, secret scrutiny of library records and unfettered access to e-mail as another power that could be abused. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush's Rush To Armaggedon 2007-01-09 03:10:46 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written for the Consortium News by journalist Robert Perry. Mr. Perry broke many of the Inran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book is  "Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty From Watergate to Iraq". In his commentary, Mr. Perry argues that George W. Bush has purged senior military and intelligence officials who were obstacles to a wider war in the Middle East, broadening his options for both escalating the conflic in Iraq and expanding the fighting to Iran and Syria with Israel's help. His commentary follows: On Jan. 4, Bush ousted the top two commanders in the Middle East, Generals John Abizaid and George Casey, who had opposed a military escalation in Iraq, and removed Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who had stood by intelligence estimates downplaying the near-term threat from Iran's nuclear program. Most Washington observers have treated Bush's shake-up as either routine or part of his desire for a new team to handle his planned "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq. But intelligence sources say the personnel changes also fit with a scenario for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities and seeking violent regime change in Syria. Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon as the new chief of Central Command for the Middle East despite the fact that Fallon, a former Navy fighter pilot and currently head of the Pacific Command, will oversee two ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read The Full Story U.S. Expected To Impose Sanctions On Iranian Bank 2007-01-09 03:09:48 The United States is expected to announce sanctions against Bank Sepah, a major Iranian commercial bank, under a presidential order aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, several U.S. officials and diplomats said on Monday. The action is expected to be announced soon, the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey, who leads U.S. efforts to combat terrorist financing and money laundering, has called a news conference for Tuesday to make an announcement on Iran, but his office declined to disclose details. Read The Full Story EPA Rejects Carcinogenic Wood Preservative For Home Use 2007-01-09 03:08:01 Federal officials Monday rejected an industry bid to use a known carcinogen as a preservative in lumber for backyard decks, picnic tables, playgrounds and other household uses. Industry groups had petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)three years ago to use acid copper chromate (ACC), which contains the carcinogen hexavalent chromium, featured in the film "Erin Brockovich" to treat wood sold in hardware and home improvement stores. EPA Assistant Administrator James B. Gulliford said the agency concluded that the dangers associated with the preservative, which include an increased cancer risk for plant workers and skin irritation among consumers, "outweigh the product's minimal benefits". Among workers handling the preservative, the cancer rate can vary between 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 100,000, according to the EPA. The federally accepted standard is one in a million. Consumers using the product can experience skin irritation that can worsen over time. Read The Full Story Katrina Insurance Trial Begins Tuesday 2007-01-09 03:06:51 Even as the Mississippi attorney general negotiates a potential settlement with State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., an eight-person jury will begin hearing opening statements Tuesday in one of hundreds of insurance lawsuits filed by policyholders after Hurricane Katrina. By seating the jury of four women and four men to hear the lawsuit brought against State Farm by Norman and Genevieve Broussard,U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter, Jr., rejected the insurer's bid to move the proceedings to Oxford, Mississippi, 300 miles from the Gulf Coast. In court papers filed earlier, State Farm claimed it could not receive a fair trial in south Mississippi because the jury pool has been tainted by "media propaganda" about the insurance industry's handling of claims after Katrina. Lawyers for the Broussards have argued that State Farm hasn't met the legal burden for showing that the case must be moved. Read The Full Story For Military Veterans, Alaska Is An Attraction 2007-01-09 03:05:35 As a boy in Upstate New York, Bill McCue spent many hours poring over articles in Field and Stream magazine about moose and grizzlies and dreaming about adventures in the Alaska wilderness. Later, as a military man, he was stationed in Alaska, and "it was like a dream come true," said McCue, a Vietnam  veteran who served at the Navy base on Kodiak Island in the early 1960s. "It's like no other place I'd ever been to." McCue is one of nearly 70,000 veterans who have chosen to make their home in Alaska, which, according to the Census Bureau, has the country's highest [per capita] concentration of former military personnel. The high number reflects, in part, that veterans tend to cluster near military bases. Alaska's two biggest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks,have one Army and one Air Force base apiece. Read The Full Story	Bush Lifts Oil Drilling Ban In Bristol Bay, World's Most Productive Salmon Fishery 2007-01-10 03:45:17 President Bush on Tuesday lifted the drilling ban for Alaska's Bristol Bay, clearing the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development. Alaska officials as well as some local communities had asked for the ban to be lifted, but environmentalists and some fishermen have warned against drilling in the bay, which is the gateway for the largest wild salmon runs in the world as well as a major source for crab and cod. "Bristol Bay is one the most important fisheries in America and in the world," said Sierra Club director Carl Pope in a statement. "It's incredibly reckless to risk such an outstanding natural resource just to satisfy Big Oil." Read The Full Story NOAA Affirms Human Influence On Climate 2007-01-10 03:44:36 President Bush has said it. A lot of government scientists have said it. But, until Tuesday, it appeared that no news release on annual climate trends out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Bush White House had said unequivocally that a buildup of greenhouse gases was helping warm the climate. The statement came in a release that said 2006 was the warmest year for the 48 contiguous states since regular temperature records began in 1895. It surpassed the previous champion, 1998, a year heated up by a powerful episode of the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean by El Nino. Last year, another El Nino developed, but this time a long-term warming trend from human activities was said to be involved as well. "A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases," the release said, emphasizing that the relative contributions of El Nino and the human influence were not known. Read The Full Story Venezuelan Plan Gives Investors The Jitters 2007-01-10 03:43:42 Verizon Communications had been looking to lighten its exposure to Latin America for some time when it struck a deal in April to sell investments in three properties in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Now, it probably wishes it had disconnected its Latin lines even sooner. The company could possibly lose up to several hundred million dollars, thanks to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who threatened to nationalize the country's main telephone and electricity companies. Investors reacted with alarm here and in markets in the United States and throughout Latin America on Tuesday as they measured the impact of the plan by Chavez to nationalize crucial areas of the economy. Memories of past nationalizations during another turbulent era, in places like Cuba and Chile, helped drive down the Caracas stock exchange's main index by almost 19 percent. Read The Full Story Bush Drops Plans To Renominate Three Judges 2007-01-10 03:42:00 In an apparent effort to lower the temperature in the fierce battle over federal judges - and in a concession to political reality - President Bush said Tuesday that he was dropping plans to nominate three of his choices for the federal appeals courts who have been vigorously opposed by Senate Democrats. The White House announced that the three candidates, all conservatives, had themselves asked for their names to be withdrawn, but the announcement was widely taken to mean that the president had decided that renominating them would be a needlessly provocative act, one that would anger Democrats without sufficient political payoff from conservatives for sticking by the nominees. Days after the November election that gave the Democrats control of Congress, Bush pledged to renominate the three. His words prompted denunciations from Democrats that he had not taken any lessons from the election and that he was not, as he had claimed, prepared to engage them in a bipartisan way. Read The Full Story U.S. Moves Against Iranian Bank For Weapons Ties 2007-01-09 21:41:10 The United States, moving to raise pressure on Iran, today barred American financial institutions from doing any business with a major Iranian bank after concluding that it had been involved in illicit weapons programs. The move against Bank Sepah, announced by the Treasury Department, also affected North Korea. American officials said Iran had used the bank to transfer payments to North Korea in return for missile technology. The Treasury announcement was the second time within the last year that a major Iranian bank had been barred from the American financial system. It was also the first specific move against an Iranian bank following impositions of sanctions on Iran by the United Nations Security Council in December. Read The Full Story Descent Into Hell 2007-01-09 21:40:30 Intellpuke: Film-makers in Iraq are going where news teams no longer dare - with shocking results. Could one of them really win an Oscar? Guardian correspondent Ed Pilkington takes a look at some of these film-makers and the documentaries they are producing. Mr. Pilkington's article follows: There is a scene towards the end of the documentary "The War Tapes" in which a U.S. soldier reads from the diary he kept of his year's tour of duty to Iraq in 2004. "Today is the first time I shook a man's hand," Sergeant Steve Pink recites in a deadpan voice, "that wasn't attached to his arm." In another sequence, the soldier and his fellow National Guardsmen spend off-duty time discussing in earnest whether the feel of a severed limb most resembles that of a raw roast or sausage meat. Almost four years into the Iraq war, and countless suicide bombings, ambushes, military raids and Bush speeches later, scenes such as these still have the power to mesmerise. Remarkably so, given the numbing effect of so much time, so many news articles, so much bloodshed. When headlines such as "77 dead in Iraq bomb carnage" (December 31) no longer generate outrage or any kind of reaction at all, a new approach is called for - one that can re-open emotional pathways long cauterized. In the last year, there has been a sudden ripple of powerful documentaries about Iraq, films that go beyond the death tallies and rekindle a sense of fear and horror as urgently as in the war's first days. Read The Full Story Mills Corp. Accounting Errors Could Lead To Bankruptcy 2007-01-09 21:39:37 Widespread accounting errors at Mills Corp., owner of 38 U.S. shopping malls including the popular Northern Virginia discount mall Potomac Mills, were caused by possible misconduct by company executives and could force the company into bankruptcy, the mega-mall developer acknowledged today in a federal filing. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating the company, the Chevy Chase, Maryland.-based developer, owner and manager of retail destinations said the errors will cost it as much as $352 million. It said it will restate results for 2001 to 2004 and for the first quarter of 2005. Read The Full Story 50 Insurgents Killed, 21 Captured In Baghdad 2007-01-09 16:13:02 Fierce street fighting broke out in a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad Tuesday between the Iraqi army, supported by U.S. troops, and insurgents firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. At least 50 insurgents were killed and 21 others captured in the fighting, according to Brig. Gen. Abdul Sattar Jawad of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. As U.S. helicopters flew overhead, a joint operation began in the morning, with coalition and Iraqi troops raiding and capturing "multiple targets" on North Haifa Street, along the west bank of the Tigris River, said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a U.S. military spokesman. Read The Full Story Sirius Gives Howard Stern $83 Million Bonus 2007-01-09 16:12:35 Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. paid Howard Stern an $83 million stock bonus Tuesday after the company beat a subscriber target set two years ago when it lured the star shock jock away from terrestrial radio. The bonus came one year after Stern started broadcasting his hugely popular and racy programming on satellite radio. The stock bonus is on top of Stern’s five-year, $500 million pay package that he signed in October 2004. Sirius said in a statement that it paid Stern slightly more than 22 million shares of stock after exceeding a year-end subscriber goal for 2006 by more than two million. Read The Full Story Germany's Merkel Condemns Russia Oil Cut-Off 2007-01-09 16:12:01 German Chancellor Angela Merkel forcefully condemned Russia Tuesday for failing to consult the European Union before it cut off part of its oil exports to Europe because of a deepening dispute between Russia and Belarus over subsidized energy. "Even during the Cold war, Russia was a stable energy supplier," said Merkel, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, she said Russia's failure to warn the union that it planned to shut down a pipeline that crosses Belarus and supplies Germany, Poland and other E.U. countries is "not acceptable". Russian officials say they feel deeply aggrieved by the tactics of Belarus, which they accuse of stealing crude oil destined for Western Europe, but the Kremlin is nonetheless getting another black eye over its reliability as an energy supplier. Read The Full Story Italian Lawyer In CIA Rendition Case Withdraws 2007-01-09 16:11:06 A lawyer for a CIA agent accused in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan withdrew from the case shortly after a court opened hearings Tuesday on whether to indict him and 25 other Americans. Five Italian secret service officials also are facing indictment in the case that highlights the CIA's alleged extraordinary rendition program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries where critics say they may face torture. Shortly after the proceedings began the lawyer for Robert Seldon Lady withdrew from the case, saying the former CIA station chief did not want to cooperate. "Robert Seldon Lady says that this case should have had a political solution and not a judicial solution," said lawyer Daria Pesce. "The Italian government could have decided it was a state secret - remember, this was a terror suspect. It would have been possible if the Italian government had had the courage to reach an agreement with the U.S. government." Read The Full Story U.S. Submarine, Japanese Ship Collide Near Straits Of Hormuz 2007-01-09 03:11:11 A U.S. nuclear-powered submarine and Japanese merchant ship collided near the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy and Japanese government said Tuesday. No one was seriously injured. Damage to the fast-attack USS Newport News submarine and the tanker was light and there was no resulting spill of oil or leakage of nuclear fuel, said officials from U.S. Navy, Japanese and Emirates government. Both ships remained able to navigate, said a Navy official in Japan who requested anonymity because the details of the incident had not yet been released. The bow of the nuclear-powered Newport News hit the stern of the oil tanker Mogamikawa as the vessels were passing just outside the Straits Monday night, causing minor damage to the Japanese vessel, said Japan's Foreign Ministry.  The Japanese government said it was informed of the crash by the Navy and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Read The Full Story U.S. Air Force Gunship Strikes Al-Qaeda Members In Somalia 2007-01-09 03:10:16 A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship attacked suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Somalia on Sunday, and U.S. sources said the operation may have hit a senior terrorist figure. The strike took place near the Kenyan border, according to a senior officer at the Pentagon. Other sources said it was launched at night from the U.S. military facility in neighboring Djibouti. It was based on joint military-CIA intelligence and on information provided by Ethiopian and Kenyan military forces operating in the border area. It was the first acknowledged U.S. military action inside Somalia since 1994, when President Bill Clinton withdrew U.S. troops after a failed operation in Mogadishu that led to the deaths of 18 Army Rangers and Delta Force special operations soldiers. Sources said Monday night that initial reports indicated the attack had been successful, although information was still scanty. Read The Full Story U.S. House Bill Backs More Reforms From 9/11 Comission Report 2007-01-09 03:08:52 U.S. House Democrats announced legislation Monday aimed at implementing many of the remaining reforms suggested by the Sept. 11 commission, including calls for more thorough cargo screening, better emergency communications and more money for cities at the highest risk of terrorist attack. Democratic leaders plan to push through votes this week on a long list of Sept. 11-related changes that were rejected by the previous Republican-controlled Congress. The proposals signal an early willingness on the part of House Democrats to pressure their colleagues in the Senate, where lawmakers from both parties are cooler to some of the ideas and where no similar package of legislation has been proposed. Democrats said that the House proposals would implement nearly all the remaining reforms recommended in 2004 by the bipartisan commission on the 2001 attacks, including ways to beef up funding and training for first responders as well as calls to rewrite many U.S. policies for controlling weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation. Read The Full Story Sprint Nextel Plans To Lay Off 5,000 Workers 2007-01-09 03:07:22 Sprint Nextel, still losing cellphone customers despite changes in management and operations, plans to lay off about 5,000 employees in the coming months, executives announced Monday. The Restion, Virginia-based company suffered a net loss of about 300,000 wireless subscribers in the last quarter of 2006, said company officials, who projected lower sales for 2007 than analysts had anticipated. Most of the planned layoffs will be completed by early April, they said, and will be spread throughout the company. Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless carrier, has about 64,600 employees. About 5,000 are in Reston, and more than 14,000 are in Kansas City. Read The Full Story Moroccan Journalists Face Five Years In Jail For Telling Jokes 2007-01-09 03:06:14 Retelling other people's jokes can have serious consequences, as two Moroccan journalists have found to their cost as they face charges of insulting Islam and offending public morality - and a possible prison sentence of up to five years. The case against the Arabic weekly Nichane has serious implications for press freedom and highlights tensions between hopes for liberalization and Islamist opinion outraged by what the magazine says was a harmless survey of the nation's sense of humor. Editor Driss Ksikes and journalist Sanaa al-Aji appeared in court in Casablanca Monday to insist they had not intended to insult anyone or anything. "We made no judgment on religion, politics or the monarchy," Ms. Aji told the judge, according to the Mideast Online news agency. "All I did is report to readers a phenomenon Moroccans are seeing in jokes and anecdotes." Read The Full Story
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