Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday February 18 2007 - (813)

Sunday February 18 2007 edition
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6 Of 7 Dismissed U.S. Attorneys Had Positive Job Evaluations 2007-02-18 01:26:31 All but one of the U.S. attorneys recently fired by the Justice Department had positive job reviews before they were dismissed, but many ran into political trouble with Washington over issues ranging from immigration to the death penalty, according to prosecutors, congressional aides and others familiar with the cases. Two months after the firings first began to make waves on Capitol Hill, it has also become clear that most of the prosecutors were overseeing significant public-corruption investigations at the time they were asked to leave. Four of the probes target Republican politicians or their supporters, said prosecutors and other officials. The emerging details stand in contrast to repeated statements from the Justice Department that six of the Republican-appointed prosecutors were dismissed because of poor performance. In one of the most prominent examples, agency officials pointed to widely known management and morale problems surrounding then-U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, California. The assertions enraged the rest of the group, some of whom feel betrayed after staying silent about the way they have been shoved from office. Read The Full Story Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility 2007-02-18 01:25:49 Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses. This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely - a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them - the majority soldiers, with some Marines - have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty. Read The Full Story Pentagon Accused Of Blocking Investigation Into Accident Involving 3 British Troops 2007-02-18 01:24:44 The Pentagon has been accused of obstructing an investigation into how three British soldiers almost died when an American tank transporter rammed them off a road in Iraq. Lawyers for the U.K. troops claim that the U.S. authorities tried to "dump" their inquiry in a move to block a compensation claim. The American military also said it had no record of the incident, but it has emerged that the collision was officially recorded at the time. The allegations risk creating fresh tensions between the U.K. and U.S. coalition forces and arrive amid the ongoing inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matty Hull, who was killed by American pilots after they mistakenly fired on his convoy. U.S. army officials are due in London this week to interview Corporal Jane McLaughlan, Staff Sergeant James Rogerson, Corporal Stephen Smith and their interpreter, Khalid Allahou, almost four years after all were seriously injured when their Land Rover was struck twice from behind by the U.S. transporter. McLaughlan, who was driving, was unable to keep control and the Land Rover crashed off the road. All four passengers were thrown from the vehicle. Read The Full Story Backlash Over Rush To Require Cervical Cancer Vaccine 2007-02-17 15:56:14 Racing to embrace a new vaccine, at least 20 states are considering mandatory inoculation of young girls against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. But a roaring backlash has some health experts worried that the proponents, including the vaccine’s maker, Merck, have pushed too far too fast, potentially undermining eventual prospects for the broadest possible  Immunization. Groups wary of drug industry motives find themselves on the same side of the anti-vaccination debate with unexpected political allies: religious and cultural conservatives who oppose mandatory use of the vaccine because they say it would encourage sexual activity by young girls. Read The Full Story Putin Hands Chechnya Control To Militia Leader 2007-02-17 01:40:26 Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel fighter accused of widespread human rights abuses, took control of Chechnya Friday after being elevated from prime minister to president of the war-ravaged Russian republic. Kadyrov, 30, who controls a militia of thousands, owns a pet tiger and is said to have tortured one opponent with a blow torch, was promoted by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, late on Thursday. Kadyrov's predecessor and long-time competitor, Alu Alkhanov, was ushered aside to a job the federal justice ministry. The promotion marked a coup for a young tough who has transformed Grozny into a shrine to himself with his portrait gazing down from billboards on street corners. It followed months of rumors, and intense speculation in the past two weeks, but Kadyrov's rise to acting president still provoked outrage among critics who accuse his armed units of beating, kidnapping and murdering suspected militants. Read The Full Story Tiny Frog In Amber May Be 25 Million Years Old 2007-02-17 01:39:55 A miner in the state of Chiapas found a tiny tree frog that has been preserved in amber for 25 million years, a researcher said. If authenticated, the preserved frog would be the first of its kind found in Mexico, according to David Grimaldi, a biologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the find. The chunk of amber containing the frog, less than half an inch long, was uncovered by a miner in Mexico's southern Chiapas state in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. A few other preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas appears to be of the genus Craugastor, whose descendants still inhabit the region, said biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute. Carbot announced the discovery this week. The scientist said the frog lived about 25 million years ago, based on the geological strata where the amber was found. Read The Full Story Italy Idicts 26 Americans, Many From CIA, In '03 Rendition Abduction 2007-02-17 01:39:03 An Italian judge indicted 26 Americans on Friday, most of them C.I.A. officers, in what will become the first trial of the American program of secretly whisking away terror suspects. Italy'sformer top spy was also indicted. Despite the indictment, issued by a judge in Milan, it is unlikely that any of the Americans, one of whom is an Air Force colonel, will ever face trial here. The trial is expected to take place in June. The indictments came in connection with the case of a radical Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, disappeared near his mosque in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, and said he was kidnapped. He was freed this week from jail in Egypt, where he says he was taken and tortured. Read The Full Story	2 Antarctic Studies Give Clues On Global Warming 2007-02-18 01:26:13 When researchers think about the effects of global warming, and especially about how much ocean levels will rise along with temperatures, they inevitably turn their attention to Antarctica. Almost 90 percent of the planet's ice is frozen in the glaciers and ice sheets of the continent, so conditions there will in large part determine whether sea level rise will be manageable - or catastrophic. Unfortunately, Antarctica's climate has proven very difficult to understand or predict, and it has given off seemingly contradictory signals. Both temperatures and snowfall have remained relatively constant for the continent as a whole over the past 50 years, but the Antarctic Peninsula - which reaches northward toward South America - has been losing ice rapidly and is among the most quickly warming places on Earth. Now, two new research efforts have tackled the subject - producing new insights into the systems that control and change Antarctica, as well into the worrisome limits to our knowledge about the suddenly crucial continent. The first project revealed that a previously unknown system of seemingly connected lakes lies under the massive streams of ice that move Antarctica's frozen water from the center of the continent to its coasts. It is a system that might work to moderate climate change, the researchers said, or alternatively might speed it up if a tipping point is reached. Read The Full Story Planning Seen In Iraqi Attacks On U.S. Copters 2007-02-18 01:25:13 Documents captured from Iraqi insurgents indicate that some of the recent fatal attacks against American helicopters are a result of a carefully planned strategy to focus on downing coalition aircraft, one that American officials say has been carried out by mounting coordinated assaults with machine guns, rockets and surface-to-air missiles. The documents, said to have been drafted by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, show that the militants were preparing to “concentrate on the air force.” The contents of the documents are described in an American intelligence report that was reviewed by the New York Times. Seized near Baghdad, the documents reflect the insurgents’ military preparations from late last year, including plans for attacking aircraft using a variety of weapons. Officials say they are a fresh indication that the United States is facing an array of “adaptive” adversaries in Iraq,  enemies who are likely to step up their attacks as American forces expand their efforts to secure Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Read The Full Story Senate Republicans Block Floor Vote On Iraq Resolution 2007-02-17 15:56:26 Senate Republicans today blocked a floor vote on a House-passed resolution that expresses disapproval of President Bush's plan to send thousands of additional U.S. troops to Iraq, as a procedural motion to cut off debate on the measure fell short of the 60 votes needed. It was the second time this month that minority Republicans successfully filibustered a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop buildup. Senators voted 56-34 to invoke cloture and proceed to a floor vote on the resolution, with seven Republicans joining all the chamber's Democrats in calling for an end to the debate. But the motion fell four votes short of the threshold needed under Senate rules. Most Republicans objected to a rule barring amendments to the resolution and demanded a vote on a separate measure that pledges not to cut off funding for troops in the field. Read The Full Story Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells Of Abuse By Americans 2007-02-17 15:55:52 In the early hours of Jan. 6, Laith al-Ani stood in a jail near the Baghdad airport waiting to be released by the American military after two years and three months in captivity. He struggled to quell his hope. Other prisoners had gotten as far as the gate only to be brought back inside, he said, and he feared that would happen to him as punishment for letting his family discuss his case with a reporter. But as the morning light grew, the American guards moved Ani, a 31-year-old father of two young children, methodically toward freedom. They swapped his yellow prison suit for street clothes, he said. They snipped off his white plastic identification bracelet. They scanned his irises into their database. Then, shortly before 9 a.m., said Ani said, he was brought to a table for one last step. He was handed a form and asked to place a check mark next to the sentence that best described how he had been treated: Read The Full Story Rice Grilled On $6 Billion Funding Request For Iraq, Afghanistan 2007-02-17 01:40:10 Skeptical lawmakers Friday demanded a detailed accounting of how Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to spend $6 billion in supplemental funds that the administration has asked for the State Department this year, much of it for Iraq and Afghanistan. "I think you've got a lot of explaining to do," Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wisconsin) told Rice at a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations. "A huge majority of the funds in the supplemental are for military, not political or economic or reconstructive, purposes." Both Republicans and Democrats asked pointed questions about the rising cost of efforts that seem to be failing, despite newly announced U.S. strategies for both countries. Even as the administration has asked for more money, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Virginia) told Rice, it ought to increase its diplomatic engagement with Iraq's neighbors in the Middle East. "I plead with you, I beg of you," said Wolf, "if we're going to ask a young man or woman in our military to go to Iraq three different times, it's not asking too much ... to send somebody to engage with regard to the Syrians." Read The Full Story 13 Injured In Texas Refinery Blaze 2007-02-17 01:39:35 An explosion rocked a west Texas refinery Friday, injuring at least 13 people and sparking a blaze that sent a huge black cloud billowing into the sky. Three people with burns were in critical condition Friday night, a nursing supervisor said. Ten others were hospitalized, mostly for smoke inhalation, a hospital official said. No fatalities were reported and all employees at the Valero McKee Refinery were accounted for, said Valero Energy Corp. More than 400 workers were evacuated from the Valero McKee Refinery after the explosion, authorities said. Read The Full Story
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