Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday February 11 2007 - (813)

Sunday February 11 2007 edition
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McCain Taps Cash He Once Sought To Limit 2007-02-11 03:18:56 Just about a year-and-a-half ago, Sen. John McCain went to court to try to curtail the influence of a group to which A. Jerrold Perenchio gave $9 million, saying it was trying to "evade and violate" new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections. As McCain launches his own presidential campaign, however, he is counting on Perenchio, the founder of the Univision Spanish-language media empire, to raise millions of dollars as co-chairman of the Arizona Republican's national finance committee. In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries. Read The Full Story Commentary: In Iraq, Victory Is Not An Option 2007-02-11 03:15:30 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by William E. Odom and appears in the Washington Post edition for Sunday, February 11, 2007. Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general, was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan. He served on the National Security Council staff under Jimmy Carter. A West Point graduate with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Odom teaches at Yale and is a fellow of the Hudson Institute. His commentary follows: The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat. Its gloomy implications - hedged, as intelligence agencies prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its impact  - put the intelligence community and the American public on the same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in Iraq last year and turned the Republicans out of control of Congress to wake it up. But a majority of its members are still asleep, or only half-awake to their new writ to end the war soon. Perhaps this is not surprising. Americans do not warm to defeat or failure, and our politicians are famously reluctant to admit their own responsibility for anything resembling those un-American outcomes. So they beat around the bush, wringing hands and debating "nonbinding resolutions" that oppose the president's plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. For the moment, the collision of the public's clarity of mind, the president's relentless pursuit of defeat and Congress's anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two more years of chasing the mirage of democracy in Iraq and possibly widening the war to Iran. But this is not inevitable. A Congress, or a president, prepared to quit the game of "who gets the blame" could begin to alter American strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a more stable Middle East. Read The Full Story Australian Prime Minister John Howard: Al-Qaeda Wants Obama 2007-02-10 23:49:59 Australia's conservative prime minister slammed Barack Obama on Sunday over his opposition to the Iraq war, a day after the first-term U.S. senator announced his intention to run for the White House in 2008. Obama said Saturday at his campaign kickoff in Springfield, Illinois, that one of the country's first priorities should be ending the war in Iraq. He has also introduced a bill in the Senate to prevent President Bush from increasing American troop levels in Iraq and to remove U.S. combat forces from the country by March 31, 2008. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch Bush ally who has sent troops to Iraq and faces his own re-election bid later this year, said Obama's proposals would spell disaster for the Middle East. "I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," said Howard on Nine Network television. Read The Full Story Germany Braces For Release Of Terrorist 2007-02-10 23:48:43 A divided Germany will know Monday whether a former Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist is to be granted freedom after 24 years behind bars. Stuttgart's highest court said it would make its decision public - via the internet - at 11 a.m., ending weeks of speculation over the fate of Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, who is serving five life sentences plus 15 years for her involvement in the murders of a banker, a prosecutor and the president of the employers' federation. The arguments for and against her early release have split the country, creating a debate of the scale and passion that surrounded the case of Moors murderer Myra Hindley. Unlike other RAF prisoners, Mohnhaupt, who is serving her sentence in Aichach, Bavaria, has never spoken to the press, never applied for clemency and has never expressed remorse for her crimes.Once described as Germany's "most evil and dangerous woman", who deployed tactics such as presenting a bouquet of roses to the chief executive of a bank before shooting him five times through the flowers, her parole application has been backed by prosecutors who now say she no longer poses a threat to society. Read The Full Story Obama Makes It Official: He's In The Hunt For The White House 2007-02-10 15:28:51 Illinois Sen. Barack Obama formally launched his candidacy for the White House in Springfield, Illinois, this morning, invoking memories of Abraham Lincoln and challenging a new generation of Americans to help bridge political divisions and transform the nation. Standing on the grounds of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln delivered his famous "house divided" anti-slavery speech in 1858, Obama opened what he described as an audacious campaign for president, one that barely seemed likely only six months ago - and one that could make him the first African American ever to reach the White House. Obama spoke on a sunny, frigid morning on the Illinois prairie, frankly acknowledging his limited experience on the national stage. "I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness - a certain audacity - to this announcement," he said. "I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." Read The Full Story Russia's President Putin: U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability 2007-02-10 15:28:22 Russian President Vladimir V. Putin accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions, making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war and trying to divide modern Europe. In an address to an international security conference Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration. Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence. “The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance,” said Putin. “We have the right to ask, against whom is this expansion directed.” He said that the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends international monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, “into a vulgar instrument of insuring the foreign policy interests of one country”. Read The Full Story 2 Italian Women Stoned To Death On Resort Island, 3rd Woman Injured 2007-02-10 15:27:28 Three Italian women were brutally attacked while vacationing on a Cape Verde resort island, dragged into the woods, and left for dead at the bottom of a hole, according to the single survivor who recounted the tragedy on Saturday. When she eventually came to, the teenager said, she crawled out of the hole and went for help. The two women with her, aged 28 and 33, had been stoned to death. The story of the attack, which occurred Friday, has shocked Italians, many of whom consider the islands of the west coast of Africa to be a holiday paradise for beachgoers and windsurfers. Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he was "stunned, aghast," according to the Italian news agency Apcom, reporting from India where Prodi was on a government trip. Read The Full Story U.S. Officials Worry Sanctions Could Cause Iran To Release Al-Qaeda Suspects 2007-02-10 03:07:52 Last week, the CIA sent an urgent report to President Bush's National Security Council: Iranian authorities had arrested two al-Qaeda operatives traveling through Iran on their way from Pakistan to Iraq. The suspects were caught along a well-worn, if little-noticed, route for militants determined to fight U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, according to a senior intelligence official. The arrests were presented to Bush's senior policy advisers as evidence that Iran appears committed to stopping al-Qaeda foot traffic across its borders, said the intelligence official. That assessment comes at a time when the Bush administration, in an effort to push for further U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic, is preparing to publicly accuse Tehran of cooperating with and harboring al-Qaeda suspects. The strategy has sparked a growing debate within the administration and the intelligence community, according to U.S. intelligence and government officials. One faction is pressing for more economic embargoes against Iran, including asset freezes and travel bans for the country's top leaders. But several senior intelligence and counterterrorism officials worry that a public push regarding the al-Qaeda suspects held in Iran could jeopardize U.S. intelligence-gathering and prompt the Iranians to free some of the most wanted individuals. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Kill Several Kurds, Wound 9 In Mosul 2007-02-10 03:07:15 U.S. forces killed eight Kurdish soldiers and wounded nine others at an established checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday, said Kurdish officials. A U.S. military statement offered a differing account of the incident, saying that U.S. troops killed five Kurdish police officers after the men ignored orders to lay down their weapons and exhibited "hostile intention". "What the American statement said is not true," said Kabir Goran, deputy director of the Mosul office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish political party. "They are trying to cover the massacre that they carried out at that military point," he said in a telephone interview. "It is impossible that we attack the Americans," he said. "Their patrols are passing by that point every day, and we never attack them." Read The Full Story 5-Day Blizzard Buries Western New York 2007-02-10 03:06:18 New York's governor has declared a state disaster emergency in Oswego County, where five straight days of lake-effect squalls have dumped nearly 100 inches of snow. Even more snow was forecast through the weekend. The heavy snow started sweeping in off Lake Ontario late Sunday and has pounded the area relentlessly since. "At certain periods of the day, the wind just keeps it right over us. Dumping and dumping," said Oswego Mayor Randy Bateman. "You know, it was neat when it started because we hadn't gotten any snow in December or January. It's getting old now." Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) on Thursday authorized all state agencies to help assist municipalities and residents in the storm-wracked region. The cities of Oswego and Mexico had already declared their own emergencies, kept schools closed most of the week and restricted all nonessential travel. Read The Full Story European Union Considers Strong Penalties For Environamental Crimes 2007-02-10 03:05:23 The executive arm of the European Union proposed legislation Friday that would make companies and individuals subject to criminal penalties for environmental disasters anywhere within the 27-nation bloc. If enacted, the proposal would create some of the most comprehensive environmental penalties in the world. The measure would allow European courts to shut down companies found responsible for environmental disasters, imprison corporate executives for up to five years and levy fines of nearly $1 million. The legislation faces tough scrutiny from individual governments and the European Parliament before any version could be enacted, and it is expected to be the target of powerful industrial lobby groups in Brussels, Belgium, the headquarters of the European Commission, which proposed the measure. E.U. Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said the proposed law is "crucial to avoid criminals profiting from the existing discrepancies in member states' criminal law systems". He added, "We cannot allow safe havens of environmental crime inside the E.U." Read The Full Story Britain's Chief Science Adviser: Mass Recall Of Turkey Meat From Stores May Be Necessary 2007-02-10 03:04:06 The British government's chief scientist said Friday that packaged turkey meat might have to be removed from supermarket shelves in a mass product recall, as the official inquiry into a bird flu outbreak at a Suffolk farm widened. The frank admission by Sir David King came as the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed it is looking at the possibility that bird flu has entered the human food chain in the U.K. The FSA is examining how the disease infected turkeys at the Bernard Matthews plant in Holton, Suffolk. It also emerged last night that two loads of meat had arrived at the plant this week from Hungary, where the strain of H5N1 involved is believed to have originated. Sir David's comments appeared to be at odds with the FSA's insistence that it has no plans at present to recall turkey products, but it became clear Friday that some supermarkets are already on standby to react to such an emergency. Read The Full Story	Threats Sent To Offices Of Financial Companies 2007-02-11 03:15:58 Two pipe bombs delivered late last month to Kansas City addresses appear to be linked to a suspect who has been sending increasingly threatening letters to financial institutions since at least 2005, a corporate counterterrorism expert said Saturday. Officials have suggested in both cases that the devices were not working bombs that could have exploded. Instead, the devices appear to be a sign that the suspect, calling himself "the Bishop," may be closer to sending live bombs, said Fred Burton. FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said Saturday that the case is being investigated by multiple FBI field offices and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, but he declined to comment on a report Burton issued on the case Wednesday. Burton is vice president of counterterrorism for Stratfor, an Austin-based security and intelligence firm. He writes a weekly terrorism report for clients and said he has many sources within law enforcement. Read The Full Story New York Sees 110 Inches Of Snow In 7 Days 2007-02-10 23:50:14 With more than 8 feet of snow already coating the ground, it wasn't good news for this winter-weary region when the blue sky turned gray Saturday, signaling another intense snow squall was about to dump some more. "This is bad," said 67-year-old Dave DeGrau, who has operated an auto repair shop on Parish, New York's Main Street for 45 years. "We had a very easy winter until now. Last fall during hunting season it rained every time I went out. I kept saying 'I'm glad this isn't snow.' Now, it's snow." Persistent bands of lake-effect snow squalls fed by moisture from Lake Ontario have been swinging up and down this part of central New York along the lake's eastern shore since last Sunday. The National Weather Service said Parish - about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse - reached a milestone early Saturday with 100 inches of snow during the past seven days. Late Saturday, the total had risen to 110 inches. Unofficial reports pegged totals at 123 inches in Orwell and 131 in Redfield, but those measurements include snow from another storm a couple of days before the current weather system. All three towns are in Oswego County. Read The Full Story Commentary: Britain Needs A Declaration Of Independence From America 2007-02-10 23:49:16 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Andrew Rawnsley, an associate editor (politics) at The Observer, a British Sunday newspaper magazine, writes that Tony Blair's successors will have to fashion a foreign policy less obsessed with the U.S. and more concerned with the rest of the world. His column follows: "This sucks," says the American pilot of an A10 Thunderbolt tank buster when he realizes that he has just unleashed a devastating cannon burst on a British armored patrol. "We're in jail dude," chokes his wingman as they return to base, streaming expletives about their deadly mistake. Jail is not where these dudes landed after they fatally strafed their British allies in Iraq in a tragic case of blue-on-blue just after the invasion. The senior officer was subsequently promoted to colonel, awarded the bronze star and now trains other American pilots in ground-attack. The recording is chilling. Gung-ho American reservists on their first combat mission are misled into thinking that there are no "friendlies" in the area. Eager for action, they talk themselves into thinking that the orange panels marking the tanks as their British allies are enemy rocket launchers. They retch and curse when they are told that they have made a horrific blunder. The incident itself was terrible enough, but this is not what has done most damage to Anglo-American relations. The Pentagon obstructed the inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matty Hull. His widow has had to wait four years until someone leaked the cockpit recording to find out how her husband was killed. The [British] Ministry of Defense appeared unwilling to stand up to its American counterparts and dissembled about whether video footage of the attack existed. Not for the first time, Britain is made to look like a subservient satellite taken wretchedly for granted by the country that is supposed to be its closest ally. Read The Full Story Reports Cite Cover-Up In China Mine Blast 2007-02-10 23:48:13 Officials and mining executives in central China have been accused of concealing the severity of an accident last week that killed 24 coal miners, not seven as initially reported, state media said Sunday. Police have arrested five people, including the owner and manager of the Xing'an coal mine, and four officials have been dismissed for trying to conceal some of the deaths from the Feb. 2 mine explosion in Henan province, the Beijing Morning Post and other newspapers said. The newspapers said Xing'an reported that seven miners had died in the blast, and mine owner Fu Faming ordered miners back into the shaft to seal it with earth in an attempt to bury evidence of the deaths. "The number of deaths is 24, not seven, as announced previously by the local authorities. The deaths of 17 miners were deliberately concealed," a Xinhua News Agency report carried by newspapers quoted Li Jiucheng, director of Henan's mine safety bureau, as saying. Read The Full Story Congress Finds Ways To Avoid Putting Limits On Lobbyists 2007-02-10 15:28:36 The 110th Congress opened with the passage of sweeping new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets. It didn’t take lawmakers long to find ways to keep having fun at the expense of corporate lobbyists. In just the last two months, lawmakers invited corporate lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ( $1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000), parties in South Beach in Miami ($5,000), concerts by the Who or Bob Seger ($2,500 for two seats), and even Broadway shows like “Mary Poppins” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (also $2,500 for two). The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules. Read The Full Story Update: 3, Maybe 4, Men Now Claim They Could Be Smith Baby's Father 2007-02-10 15:27:43 The husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor said Friday that he had a decade-long affair with Anna Nicole Smith and may be her infant daughter's father. The claim by Prince Frederic von Anhalt comes amid a paternity suit over Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. The birth certificate lists Dannielynn's father as attorney Howard K. Stern, but former Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead is waging a legal challenge, saying he is the father. "If you go back from September, she wasn't with one of those guys, she was with me," von Anhalt told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. Read The Full Story Target Iran: U.S. Able To Strike By Spring 2007-02-10 03:08:17 U.S. preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington, D.C. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the U.S. to mount an attack by the spring, but the sources said that if there was an attack, it is more likely to be next year, just before Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), are urging Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons program and abandon ambitions for regional expansion. Read The Full Story Senate Inquiry On Intelligence Gaps May Reach To White House 2007-02-10 03:07:33 The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday that he would ask current and former White House aides to testify about a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general that criticizes the Pentagon for compiling “alternative intelligence” that made the case for invading Iraq.  The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said that among those called to testify could be Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and I. Lewis Libby,a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Both received a briefing from the defense secretary’s policy office in 2002 on possible links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein'sgovernment. In its report on Thursday, the acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, found that the work done by the Pentagon team, which was assembled by Douglas J. Feith, a former under secretary of defense for policy, was “not fully supported by the available intelligence”. It was not clear whether Hadley and Libby would testify. The White House normally resists having top aides testify before Congress. Read The Full Story Nobel Laureate, Author Elie Wiesel Accosted At Peace Conference 2007-02-10 03:06:37 Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughed up during a peace conference at a San Francisco, California, hotel last week, police said Friday. The author was not injured. The assailant approached Wiesel in an elevator Feb. 1 at the Argent Hotel and requested an interview, said police Sgt. Neville Gittens. When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, said Gittens. The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police. Read The Full Story Activists Rescued After Clash With Whalers 2007-02-10 03:05:47 Two anti-whaling protesters were rescued from the freezing waters of the Antarctic after angry clashes at sea between environmentalists and the crew of a Japanese whaling ship. One of the men, part of a group of activists trying to stop Japan's annual whale hunt, described their ordeal as "pretty hairy" and said they had lassoed an iceberg for protection from icy winds and to stop themselves drifting away. John Gravois said he and Karl Neilsen huddled in their damaged inflatable craft for eight hours in freezing fog, snow and sleet after the confrontation on Friday before being hauled to safety aboard the flagship boat Farley Mowat, which belongs to the Sea Shepherd conservation group. "When they found us it was a feeling of the most extreme relief that you can imagine," said Gravois. Read The Full Story Court: BP C.E.O. Must Give Deposition 2007-02-10 03:04:54 Outgoing BP PLC chief executive Lord John Browne was ordered Friday to answer questions about the company's deadly Texas City plant explosion in 2005 that killed 15 people and injured hundreds more. Browne was previously ordered to give a deposition, but it was put on hold by the court when attorneys for Eva Rowe, whose parents were killed by the blast, settled with BP in November. Attorney Brent Coon, who represented Rowe, said his firm still has 150 other lawsuits pending against BP and that Browne's deposition is important to them. The company said it is considering its options, including an appeal. Read The Full Story
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