Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday February 6 2007 - (813)

Tuesday February 6 2007 edition
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Earth's Space Junk Reaches 'Critical Density', Threatens Space Exploration 2007-02-06 03:07:04 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests. Now, experts say, China’s test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars’ worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity’s reach for the stars. Read The Full Story Iranian Diplomat Kidnapped In Baghdad By Iraqis With Official I.D. 2007-02-06 03:06:20 An Iranian diplomat was abducted Sunday evening when his convoy was stopped by men with official Defense Ministry identification in the Karrada neighborhood here, senior Iraqi and American officials said Monday. Iraqi security forces captured several suspects after pursuing their vehicles through the streets of Baghdad, said  two of the Iraqi officials. The vehicle with the diplomat was not caught, though. Read The Full Story Fitzgerald Targets Cheney In Libby Tapes 2007-02-06 00:30:07 Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, in tapes played Monday in the CIA leak trial, pressed Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff on whether Cheney had directed him to leak the identity of a CIA operative to reporters. The audiotapes showed that Fitzgerald, just two months into his leak investigation, was asking pointed questions about the highest levels of government. The first 90 minutes of audiotapes, recorded during the 2003 grand jury testimony of top Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were played for jurors in Libby's perjury and obstruction trial. More than six hours of additional tapes were to be played Tuesday. Fitzgerald began his questioning by determining what he already knew to be true - that Libby was not the source of syndicated columnist Robert Novak's story revealing that the wife of an outspoken Bush administration critic worked for the CIA. Read The Full Story Female Astronaut Sets Space Walking Record 2007-02-06 00:29:29 U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams has now spent more time in space than any other woman, setting the record on Sunday as she and a crew mate upgraded the international space station's cooling system. Williams broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours when she and Michael Lopez-Alegria completed the second of what could be a precedent-setting three spacewalks in nine days. The new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes. Read The Full Story Fears Of New Civil War In Lebanon Increase 2007-02-06 00:28:53 Gun sales in Lebanon have tripled since the current standoff between the government and the Hezbollah-led opposition began, prompting concern that political factions are rearming. The increased presence of gunmen on the streets of the capital, Beirut, and reports of fighters loyal to the Sunni-dominated government being trained overseas has heightened fears of a return to civil war, which ravaged Lebanon from 1975 to 1990. Gunfights last month, some involving the army, left six civilians dead and more than 150 wounded. "There is a reappearance of arms in the hands of almost every political group; we are sitting on a powder keg, tension is increasing every day," said a prominent security analyst. "They don't know what they are doing, they are going to destroy this country." Read The Full Story Temperatures In Beijing Hit 30-Year High 2007-02-06 00:28:12 The weather in China's capital has been unseasonably warm with temperatures hitting a 30-year high, state media said Tuesday amid concern over the country's soaring greenhouse-gas emissions. China, already the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, is expected to surpass the United States as the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter in the next decade. The China Daily newspaper said Beijing's temperature hit 12.8 degrees Celsius on Saturday - a 30-year high for the date - prompting an early spring, with frozen lakes melting and trees blooming. Read The Full Story Audiotapes Of Libby's Grand Jury Testimony To Be Made Public 2007-02-05 15:44:37 The federal judge presiding over the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby ruled this morning that the public is entitled to hear audiotapes of Libby's testimony before the grand jury that investigated the 2003 leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity. Statements by Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff are at the core of his perjury trial. Prosecutors allege that he deliberately lied to grand jurors, and separately to FBI agents, to obscure his role in disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, the CIA officer married to an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies. Defense attorneys argued that Libby's right to a fair trial would be jeopardized if the public heard his voice from two appearances before the grand jury in March 2004. A consortium of news organizations, including the Washington Post, sought the tapes, arguing that they were no different than any other evidence in the trial, which is being released publicly the day it is introduced. The tapes are scheduled to be played for the jury later Monday. Read The Full Story Bush Submits $2.9 Trillion Budget To Congress, Includes Dramatic Increase For Defense 2007-02-05 15:43:16 President Bush sent to Congress a $2.9 trillion budget plan that would dramatically increase military spending - including an extra $245 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - but squeeze federal health care programs and most domestic agencies to achieve his goal of eliminating the deficit by 2012. The proposal seeks to make permanent tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 at a cost of $374 billion over five years. And it would slice nearly $96 billion over five years from Medicare and Medicaid, the government's health care programs for the poor and the elderly. The proposal would also cut spending at eight federal agencies - including the education, environment and interior departments - to below fiscal 2006 levels. Bush said his budget proposal "shows we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes." The budget is "realistic, it's achievable and it's got good reforms in it," he said. Read The Full Story Missing Maryland Teens Found Dead, Grim Ending Stirs Quest For Answers 2007-02-05 15:42:05 They were found side by side, two teenage girls in a Subaru station wagon parked on a remote trail near the West Virginia border. The ground was frozen when police arrived. It was starting to snow. A search that had gone on for almost two weeks to find the two Montgomery County girls ended Friday. It had been an anxious time for their parents, their neighbors, their friends at Wootton High School - even for people who had never met them and who, through e-mails and Web sites, had worried and prayed and called for them to come home. "These people just wanted desperately to help," said Cathy Hodin, who organized search and assistance efforts from her North Potomac home. Read The Full Story Gorbachev To Bill Gates: Show Mercy To Software 'Pirate' 2007-02-05 15:40:46 Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Monday asked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to intercede on behalf of a Russian teacher accused of using pirated software in his classroom. In an open letter, Nobel Peace Prize winner Gorbachev said the teacher, Alexander Ponosov, from a remote village in the Urals, should be shown mercy because he did not know he was committing a crime. "A teacher, who has dedicated his life to the education of children and who receives a modest salary that does not bear comparison with the salaries of even regular staff in your company, is threatened with detention in Siberian prison camps," read the letter, posted on the Internet site of Gorbachev's charitable foundation www.gorby.ru. Read The Full Story U.S. States Challenge National Driver's License Law 2007-02-05 01:19:10 A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states. The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real I.D. Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real I.D. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network. "It's the whole privacy thing," said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "A lot of legislators are concerned about privacy issues and the cost. It's an estimated $11 billion implementation cost." Read The Full Story Gen. Petraeus Deploys His Ph.D. Corps 2007-02-05 01:17:37 Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals - including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders - in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war. Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys". They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq. Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way. Read The Full Story Commentary: Obsessed By Personalities, U.S. News Media Has Forgotten What Democracy Is For 2007-02-05 01:15:14 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Gary Younge and appears in the Guardian edition for Monday, February 5, 2007. Mr. Younge, writing from Washington, D.C., writes that the U.S. media is gripped by election fever but discusses the candidates' highs and lows rather than the real social issues. Mr. Younge's column follows: "You want to run for president?" asked Frank Bruni in his book "Ambling into History". "Here's what you need to do: Have someone write you a lovely speech that stakes out popular positions in unwavering language and less popular positions in fuzzier terms. Better yet, if it bows to God and country at every turn - that's called uplift. Make it rife with optimism, a trumpet blast not just about morning in America but about a perpetual dazzling dawn. Avoid talk of hard choices and daunting challenges; nobody wants those. Nod to people on all points of the political spectrum ... Add a soupcon of alliteration. Sprinkle with a few personal observations or stories - it humanizes you. Stir with enthusiasm." Watching the contenders for the Democratic party nomination at the Washington Hilton this weekend during the party's winter meeting was to see Bruni's formula applied with precision (though he might have added: "Have millionaire backers, be tall, married and able-bodied" - it is unlikely the wheelchair user FDR would have been elected in the era of mass television). The candidates were each allowed seven minutes, 30 seconds of theme music, and 100 poster-waving fans, to lay out their stall for the new American century. Each one spoke of how the nation's historic mission as a beacon of liberty, justice and opportunity throughout the globe, had been traduced by the Bush administration. There was nothing bad enough you could say about the Iraq war, the budget deficit or the state of healthcare. There was also nothing concrete that most of the candidates would say about what they would do to fix them. With little of substance on offer, delivery was everything. Barack Obama, who delivered beautifully, called for an end to cynicism in American politics. That's a lot of work for just seven minutes. Read The Full Story Britain's Labor Party Urged To Make Plans For Blair's Swift Departure If Charges Filed In Cash-For-Honors Investigation 2007-02-05 01:13:13 Senior figures in Britain's Labor Party want the party to develop contingency plans for Prime Minister Tony Blair's early departure if charges appear likely in the cash for honors investigation. Some ministers and Parliament members want Blair to announce the date of his departure now to mitigate the damage if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides to prosecute. Others want officials to hammer out a timetable for the resulting leadership election. Few want Blair to depart before the Scottish, Welsh and local elections in May - despite an ICM/Sunday Express poll suggesting 56% of the U.K. public want him to quit now - and allies believe the CPS will still be considering charges by the time he announces his exit. But there is concern that he has not committed himself to leaving immediately after the elections. Colleagues believe he would have little choice but to resign before then if Ruth Turner, his head of government relations, or even Lord Levy, his fundraiser, were prosecuted. Read The Full Story	Saudis Work Openly To Counter Iran In Middle East 2007-02-06 03:06:47 With the prospect of three civil wars looming over the Middle East - and Iran poised to gain from them all - Saudi Arabia has abandoned its behind-the-scenes checkbook diplomacy and taken on a central, aggressive role in reshaping the region’s conflicts. On Tuesday, the kingdom is playing host in Mecca to the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, the two feuding Palestinian factions, in what both sides say could lead to a national unity government and reduced bloodshed. Last fall, senior Saudi officials met secretly with Israeli leaders about how to establish a Palestinian state. In recent months, Saudi Arabia has also increased its public involvement in Iraq and its support of the Sunni-led government in Lebanon. The process is shaping up as a counteroffensive to efforts by Iran to establish itself as the regional superpower, according to diplomats, analysts and officials in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region. Some even say that the recent Saudi commitment to temper the price of oil is aimed at undermining Iran’s economy, although officials here deny that. “We realized that we have to wake up,” said a high-ranking Saudi diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. “Someone rang the bell, ‘Be careful, something is moving’.” Read The Full Story Children Of War: The Generation Traumatized By Violence In Iraq 2007-02-06 00:30:24 The car stopped at the makeshift checkpoint that cut across the muddy backstreet in western Baghdad. A sentry appeared. "Are you Sunni or Shia?" he barked, waving his Kalashnikov at the driver. "Are you with Zarqawi or the Mahdi army?" "The Mahdi army," said the driver. "Wrong answer," shouted the sentry, almost gleefully. "Get him!" The high metal gate of a nearby house was flung open and four gun-toting males rushed out. They dragged the driver from his vehicle and held a knife to his neck. Quickly and efficiently, the blade was run from ear to ear. "Now you're dead," said a triumphant voice, and their captive crumpled to the ground. Then a moment of stillness before the sound of a woman's voice. "Come inside boys! Your dinner is ready!" The gunmen groaned; the hapless driver picked himself up and trundled his yellow plastic car into the front yard; the toy guns and knives were tossed by the back door. Their murderous game of make-believe would have to resume in the morning. Abdul-Muhammad and his five younger brothers, aged between six and 12, should have been at school. But their mother, Sayeeda, like thousands of parents in Iraq's perilous capital city, now keeps her boys at home. Three weeks ago, armed men had intercepted their teacher's car at the school gates, then hauled him out and slit his throat. Just like in their game. Read The Full Story Commentary: These 'Moderates' Are In Fact Fanatics, Torturers And Killers 2007-02-06 00:29:48 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Mai Yamani, author of "Cradle of Islam" and "Change Identities: The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia". In his column, which appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Tuesday, February 6, 2007, Yamani writes that the longer the U.S. and Britain back dictatorial regimes in the Middle East the more explosive the region will become. Yamani's column follows: Politicians, especially in times of geopolitical deadlock, adopt a word or a concept to sell to the public. In 1973, at the peak of cold-war tensions, the U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, coined the term "detente". Such words gain a currency and become useful political tools to escape policy quagmires. As the Middle East lurches from crisis to crisis, Tony Blair, George Bush and Condoleezza Rice compulsively repeat the word "moderates" to describe their allies in the region. But the concept of moderate is merely the latest attempt to market a failed policy, while offering a facile hedge against accusations of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic policies. Western leaders have simply chosen a few Arab rulers they believe are still saleable to western audiences. And, as the word moderate has been repeated by western leaders and echoed in the international media, these rulers have begun to believe their own billing. But who are they, and are they moderate? Their selection has been fluid at the periphery but solid at the core. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt clearly qualify, whereas Syria, an ally during the 1990-91 Gulf war, was once at the periphery but fell out of step with U.S. interests after 9/11. Likewise, after the death of Arafat and the victory of Hamas, Fatah became moderate, while Iran, moderate under the shah, became "radical" after the 1979 Islamic revolution. This minuet of political marketing may play well in the west, but not in the Arab world, where the double standards and manipulation are all too plain to see. The Saudi Wahhabis are, after all, fanatics; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is intolerant of dissent; and Jordan, the state closest to the western ideal, is a marginal player. These countries' appalling human rights records, lack of transparency and repression rank them among the world's least moderate. Is there such a thing as a "moderate public beheading"? For the U.S. and U.K. governments there clearly is, because all departures from the ideals of liberal democracy and social justice are rooted in "tradition". Hence bribes, beheadings and the oppression of women and minorities are traditional, and because whatever is traditional is not radical, it must be moderate. Read The Full Story U.S. Military: Iraq Lawmaker Is U.S. Embassy Bomber 2007-02-06 00:29:11 A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence. Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq. U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence". Repeated efforts by CNN to reach Jamal Jafaar Mohammed for comment through the parliament, through the ruling Shiite Muslim coalition and the Badr Organization - the Iranian-backed paramilitary organization he once led - have been unsuccessful. Read The Full Story 4 Deaths Linked To U.S. Cold Wave 2007-02-06 00:28:35 A bone-chilling cold wave with temperatures as low as 42 below zero shut down schools for thousands of youngsters Monday, sent homeless people into shelters and put car batteries on the disabled list from the northern Plains across the Great Lakes. At least four deaths were linked to the cold weather. The cold was accompanied by snow that was measured in feet in parts of upstate New York. "Anybody in their right mind wouldn't want to be out in weather like this," Lawrence Wiley, 57, said at Cincinnati's  crowded Drop Inn Center homeless shelter, where he has been living. Monday lows were in the single digits. Read The Full Story U.S. Astronaut Arrested On Attempted Kidnapping Charges 2007-02-06 00:27:58 A NASA astronaut was arrested Monday on battery and attempted kidnapping charges after allegedly trying to subdue a romantic rival with pepper spray and abduct her from a parking lot at Orlando International Airport, police said. Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak, who was a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery in July, and Colleen Shipman were both reported to be "in a relationship" with astronaut Bill Oefelein, a Navy commander, according to a police report of the incident. Nowak, 43, has been charged with battery, attempted kidnapping, attempted burglary to a vehicle and destruction of evidence. Police have recommended Nowak be held without bond. According to the report, she told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship." Read The Full Story U.S. Attorney Firings Set Stage For Congressional Battle 2007-02-05 15:44:22 H.E. "Bud" Cummins III had served for five years as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas - a job he obtained in large part because of his credentials as a longtime GOP lawyer and avid supporter of President Bush. So Cummins, 47, was more than a little surprised when he got a call from the Justice Department last year asking him to resign. He was told there was nothing wrong with his performance, but that officials in Washington wanted to give the job to another GOP loyalist. "I don't think many of us were aware that the administration might want to ask someone to step aside just to give someone else an opportunity," said Cummins, who left office in December and was replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove. "The precedent was that once you were appointed, assuming you were successful in office, you were there until there was a change in the White House." Read The Full Story Webb Telescope Can Help Offset Loss Of Hubble's Main Camera - And Then Some 2007-02-05 15:42:56 Last week's news that the orbiting Hubble observatory's most productive and far-seeing camera may be irreparably damaged sent a chill through the world of astronomy. Even if astronauts return to the Hubble next year as planned to repair and replace several instruments, fixing the electrical malfunction in the Advanced Camera for Surveys is not expected to be on the schedule. Though the renovated Hubble should still provide important information about distant galaxies for years to come, the loss of the deep-space camera inevitably has astronomers looking ahead to what NASA and other space agencies might have coming in the star-gazing future. NASA has a small fleet of space-based observatories already in orbit or in the pipeline, but for many scientists, it is the James Webb Space Telescope - the largest, most complex and potentially most groundbreaking space probe ever created - that sets off the keenest anticipation. Read The Full Story Bitter Cold Grips U.S. Northeast And Midwest 2007-02-05 15:41:10 The Northeast and Midwest regions of the U.S. were gripped by bitter cold today, with wind chill factors prompting school closings for tens of thousands of children and disruptions of transportation. Temperatures dipped as low as 38 below zero early today at Hallock, in northwestern Minnesota, and 30 below at Grand Forks, N.Dakota. In northern New York state, lake-effect snow and winds created whiteout conditions, which led authorities to close sections of the Thruway on Sunday night and led Amtrak to cancel all passenger train service west of Albany Monday. Read The Full Story Russia Charges Khodorkovsky With Money Laundering 2007-02-05 15:40:31 Russian prosecutors on Monday brought new charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a move likely to bury the politically ambitious tycoon's hopes of release from jail before 2008 presidential elections. Khodorkovksy, the founder of the YUKOS oil major who is already serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion, will now be tried on money-laundering charges, said his lawyer. Money laundering is punishable in Russia by up to 10 years in prison. If the charges are proved in court, some of the new sentence could be added to Khodorkovsky's existing term. "One thing all lawyers agree on is that the new charges are absurd," Khodorkovsky's lawyer Karina Moskalenko said by telephone. "They are crazy from start to end." Read The Full Story Attacking Iran Would Be Disastrous, Warns Coalition Of Opinion Led By Retired Officers 2007-02-05 01:18:00 Warnings of the dire consequences of military confrontation with Iran, and calls for a renewed diplomatic effort, are being issued on both sides of the Atlantic in a sign of the growing anxiety over the prospect of U.S. or Israeli action. A coalition of foreign policy thinktanks, humanitarian organizations and peace groups are scheduled to issue a report Monday arguing that an attack on Iran, reportedly being contemplated by the U.S. and Israel as a means of slowing down Iran's nuclear program, would backfire disastrously. Three former high-ranking U.S. officers echoed the report's conclusions and urged Tony Blair to slow the march to war by making it clear to Washington that he would oppose a military attack on Iran. In a letter in yesterday's Sunday Times, the retired officers - General Joseph Hoar, a former head of U.S. central command, Lieutenant General Robert Gard and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan - said a strike against Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions". Read The Full Story Iraqi Insurgents May Have New Anti-Aircraft Weapon 2007-02-05 01:17:03 American military commanders in Iraq have been forced to adopt new security tactics in the wake of a fresh threat from insurgents after it was confirmed that all four U.S. helicopters that have crashed there in the past two weeks were brought down by ground fire. The crashes raise concerns that insurgents, who have proved highly innovative in warfare, have acquired new weaponry. Twenty Americans, including 16 soldiers and four civilians working for a security company, died in the crashes. In the deadliest incident 12 soldiers died on January 20 when their Black Hawk came down near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. In each case, reports from witnesses suggested that the craft were shot down. Sunday this was confirmed by Major General William Caldwell, the senior U.S. military spokesman. Read The Full Story Saudi Arabia Jails Foreigners For Party Where Alcoholic Drinks Served 2007-02-05 01:13:44 A Saudi Arabian court has convicted and sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison for attending a party where alcoholic drinks were served and men and women danced, a Saudi newspaper reported Sunday. The kingdom's religious police arrested 433 foreigners, including more than 240 women, for attending the "impudent" party in Jiddah, reported the state-guided newspaper Okaz. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place. Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to three to four months in prison and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes. They have the right to appeal, said the newspaper. Read The Full Story
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