Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday February 28 2007 - (813)

Wednesday February 28 2007 edition
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Gen. Pace: U.S. Military Capability Eroding 2007-02-27 22:31:12 Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress. The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate. The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels." Pace's report comes as the U.S. is increasing its forces in Iraq to quell escalating violence in Baghdad. And top military officials have consistently acknowledged that the repeated and lengthy deployments are straining the Army, Marine Corps and reserve forces and taking a heavy toll on critical warfighting equipment. Read The Full Story Women's Health Office Funds Cut 2007-02-27 22:29:37 When is $4 million really $2.8 million? One answer is "When you're a woman," as the Labor Department has repeatedly found that women earn about 75 cents for every dollar that men earn for the same work. But this week's answer is "When you are the Office of Women's Health" within the Food and Drug Administration. That office, which was at the center of a politically damaging storm over the emergency contraceptive "Plan B," just had more than one-quarter of this year's $4 million operating budget quietly removed, insiders say. The office funds research on male-female biological differences to ensure that women receive the most appropriate drug doses and treatments. It also produces heavily requested health information about menopause, pregnancy, birth control, osteoporosis and other topics. The administration had requested - and Congress had budgeted - $4 million for the office in fiscal 2007, just as they have for several years running. Last week, however, word came down that the FDA intends to withhold $1.2 million of that, apparently for use elsewhere in the agency. Because the remaining $2.8 million has already been spent or allocated for salaries and started projects, the office must effectively halt further operations for the rest of the year, according to a high-level agency official with knowledge of the budget plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak publicly. Read The Full Story India's Missing Girls - Over 10 Million In Two Decades 2007-02-27 22:28:35 Bhavia is sleeping swaddled in a woolly peach cardigan amid the wailing and flailing limbs of 20 other babies. Nurses in lilac saris and face masks scoop the bundles from rockers and jig them under the wintry Delhi sun. Two days ago, the baby girl became the newest arrival at Palna, an orphanage in the capital's Civil Lines district. But Bhavia is not an orphan. She is what used to be known as "a foundling", abandoned by her mother in a local hospital. When Bhavia came to Palna she was nameless, with no date of birth. What is certain, from a cursory glance at the line of babies, is that an orphanage is one of the few places in India where males are outnumbered. For every boy lying in the sunny courtyard, there are four girls. Some have been dumped outside police stations, some in railway toilets, crowded fairgrounds, or the dark corners of bus stations. Others were left outside the orphanage in a wicker cradle, in a specially built alcove by a busy road. The weight of a child here will set off an alarm, alerting Palna's staff to a new arrival. Almost always, it is girls who are left in the cradle. Healthy boys are only deserted in India if born to single mothers; boys left by a married couple are the disabled ones. Not all abandoned girls come from families too poor to feed them, however. Some have been found with a neatly packed bag containing a change of clothes, milk formula and disposable nappies. Girls such as Bhavia are survivors in an India where it has never been more dangerous to be conceived female. A preference for boys, who carry on the family bloodline and inherit wealth, has always existed in Indian society. But what has made being a girl so risky now, is the lethal cocktail of new money mixed with medical technology that makes it possible to tell the sex of a baby while it is still in the womb. Read The Full Story Hillary Clinton Forgets To Declare $5 Million Family Charity 2007-02-27 22:27:47 Hillary Clinton suffered an embarrassment in her campaign for the Democratic nomination yesterday after it was reported that she did not fully disclose her finances in her annual Senate ethics report. The Washington Post reported that Ms. Clinton had failed to include a family charity she operates with Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, in her report to the Senate for the last five years. The Clintons established the charity in 2001 and have donated more than $5 million (£2.54 million) over the years, deducted from their taxable income. The foundation, which lists Hillary Clinton as treasurer and secretary, has given $1.25 million to their church, universities, the Unicef tsunami fund, charities in the memory of Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, and a women's development organization. The family charity is separate from the Clinton Foundation which has helped raise more than $10 billion to fight AIDS. Read The Full Story An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore's Household Utilities 20 Times National Average 2007-02-27 22:26:03 Al Gore knows a thing or two about the vicissitudes of public life. Six years ago he was virtually written off as a has-been vice-president after he won the popular vote only to lose the 2000 race for the White House. On Sunday night his rehabilitation was completed as he was crowned the moral mouthpiece of Hollywood, receiving an Oscar for his global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". In front of the cream of the movie industry and the world's cameras, he stood alongside fellow eco-warrior Leonardo DiCaprio and proclaimed the ceremony the first in the Academy Awards' history to be run on "environmentally intelligent" lines. "And you know what?" he told the adoring crowd. "It's not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference." Twenty four hours is a long time in green politics. By Monday night Gore found himself back in that all-too familiar place - the eye of the storm. A little-known group based in his home state, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, had the idea of looking up Gore's energy bills for his large home in the Belle Meade area of Nashville to see whether he practised what he preached. Read The Full Story Oil Finishes At $61.46 A Barrel After Volatile Day 2007-02-27 16:37:33 Oil prices finished slightly higher Tuesday, after a volatile day that saw prices fall by more than $1 per barrel and then rebound to a 2007 high. Light, sweet crude for April delivery added 7 cents to settle at $61.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. During morning trading, fears about weakening oil demand from China helped prices drop as low as $60.06. By afternoon, traders instead focused on expectations of declining petroleum product inventories, and prices crossed the $62 threshold for the first time this year to climb as high as $62.25. Brent crude for April rose 3 cents to settle at $61.36 a barrel Tuesday on the ICE Futures exchange. Read The Full Story Honey Bees Vanish, Leaving Keepers In Peril 2007-02-27 16:37:00 David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable. “I have never seen anything like it,” said Bradshaw, 50, from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.” The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Read The Full Story Commentary: Resurgent Insurgents 2007-02-27 03:18:38 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall who writes on the Guardian Unlimited's edition for Tuesday, February 27, 2007, that experts across the political spectrum agree that al-Qaeda is enjoying a renaissance. Mr. Tisdall's column follows: Fears that a revitalized al-Qaeda is planning a stepped-up offensive against "soft" western targets are driving an intensifying debate both inside and outside the Bush administration over how to counter the threat. But terrorism experts say the deepening quagmire in Iraq is fatally hampering U.S. efforts while simultaneously fuelling a sevenfold increase in fatal jihadist attacks. George Bush and his officials have maintained until relatively recently that the al-Qaeda organization and leadership had been severely degraded since 9/11. "Absolutely we're winning. Al-Qaeda is on the run," Mr. Bush declared last October. But as Peter Bergen, a leading, non-government terrorism expert and New York University research fellow noted last month, the administration's assessment is now increasingly open to question. "In Washington the consensus view is that while Bush's foreign policy has been an overall disaster, he can still lay claim to one key achievement: severely weakening al-Qaeda in the five years since September 11," Mr. Bergen wrote in The New Republic. "But today, from Algeria to Afghanistan, and from Britain to Baghdad, the organization once believed to be on the verge of impotence is again ascendant. Read The Full Story Iraq's Cabinet Backs Contentious Oil Measure 2007-02-27 03:18:08 Iraq's cabinet approved draft legislation Monday that would enable the government to manage the country's vast oil resources and distribute revenue throughout the country, a step toward meeting a U.S. demand that the country's parliament pass such a law. In a reminder of Iraq's continuing instability, Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of the country's two vice presidents, narrowly avoided assassination Monday morning when a bomb exploded inside a crowded third-floor conference room at a government ministry in Baghdad's Mansour district. Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's most influential Shiite politicians, was walking toward the podium at an awards ceremony at the Public Works Ministry when explosives detonated beneath the seats, striking him with shrapnel but causing only minor wounds, according to Zuhair Hamadi, an adviser to the vice president. The harrowing security breach, in which at least five people were killed and more than 15 wounded, police said, illustrated the perils of political life in Iraq even as U.S. and Iraqi forces attempt to pacify the capital. Abdul Mahdi's brother was killed in 2005, and last year a bomb exploded outside his house in Baghdad. Read The Full Story Cheney Uninjured In Blast Outside U.S. Base In Afghanistan 2007-02-27 03:17:23 An explosion outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan killed at least two people Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, though the vice president was apparently not in danger, officials said. The blast happened near the first security gate outside the base at Bagram, killing two people and wounding 12, said Kabir Ahmad, the district chief of the Bagram region. Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. "He wasn't near the site of the explosion," said Mitchell. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."  Read The Full Story	Dow Plummets More Than 416 Points 2007-02-27 22:29:49 U.S. stocks fell sharply Tuesday, with all three major indexes falling more than 3 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average plummeting more than 416 points. These losses followed an overnight sell-off that began in Asian markets and continued through Europe. Recent increases in oil prices, edginess about the standoff over Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology, and expectations of a slowing U.S. economy added to a string of losses that have pushed the Dow down steadily since last week. The Dow opened down about 130 points and then fell close to 200 by mid-day. Shortly before 3 p.m., stocks took a sharp decline, falling at one point 546 points, more than 4 percent. The index righted itself briefly, regaining more than 200 points but then began falling again. Officials later said the precipitous fall was caused by a technical problem that caused a backlog of sales orders to come through suddenly. Read The Full Story Launch Postponed As Hail Damages Fuel Tank On Space Shuttle 2007-02-27 22:29:22 A brief hailstorm at the Kennedy Space Center significantly damaged the external fuel tank of the space shuttle Atlantis on Monday, and NASA officials said yesterday that a mid-March launch of the spaceship will have to be postponed as a result. The golf-ball-size pieces of ice, which fell only in a small area around the Cape Canaveral launchpad, left hundreds of "dings and divots" that officials said will require repair. Shuttle program manager N. Wayne Hale, Jr., said he hoped the work could be finished in time for a launch in April or May, although it could take longer. The shuttle will be rolled back to the center's assembly building for a detailed inspection that will determine how long the repairs will take. Hale said that for now, NASA's ambitious plan to launch five shuttle missions to the space station this year remains unchanged. The delay came on the same day that a congressionally mandated review of the international space station program warned that NASA will face a major problem in resupplying the station after 2010. That is when the space shuttles are scheduled to be retired and assembly of the space station completed. Read The Full Story Mississippi Jury Refuses To Indict For Civil Rights Era Murder 2007-02-27 22:28:19 A last hope of justice over one of the most painful episodes in the racial history of the U.S. was apparently lost Tuesday when a Mississippi grand jury refused to issue an indictment for the killing of Emmett Till, the teenager whose murder 50 years ago galvanized the civil rights movement. Fifty-two years after Till's kidnap and murder, and two years after his remains were exhumed from his grave by federal investigators, a jury declined to issue charges against one of the few people left alive and implicated in his death. The prosecution had sought manslaughter charges against Carolyn Bryant, now 73, the widow of one of the two white men who confessed to Till's killing after their earlier acquittal by an all-white jury. Read The Full Story Israeli Army Pulls Out Of Nablus, West Bank 2007-02-27 22:26:33 The Israeli army pulled its troops and armored vehicles out of Nablus on Tuesday after a three-day operation targeting Palestinian militants that brought life in the West Bank city to a standstill, said Palestinians. An estimated 50,000 people were confined to their homes in Nablus, the West Bank's commercial center, as troops combed houses and alleys for wanted men. One Palestinian man was killed, and the army said five militants were arrested and three weapons laboratories found. At dawn, no Israeli forces were visible in Nablus. The army said it had lifted the curfew that shut down large parts of the city in recent days. But it would not confirm the end of the raid, the largest military operation in the West Bank in months, raising the possibility that troops might return. Read The Full Story Wall Street Plummets After Chinese Stocks Take Big Hit 2007-02-27 16:37:46 Stocks plunged in New York Tuesday after a sell-off in China rattled markets worldwide and surprisingly weak economic data fanned fears that the economy may be more vulnerable to a downturn than widely thought. A wide sell-off had pushed the benchmark Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average down around 1 percent for most of the trading day. But minutes before 3 p.m., stock prices plummeted, sending the Dow briefly down more than 500 points, or 4 percent. The S&P also fell about 4 percent at the same time. Both indexes later regained some of their value but remained down about 3 percent from Monday’s close. After reaching record highs on Monday, China’s stock markets reversed course drastically Tuesday, plummeting in one of the biggest sell-offs in their history. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Trying To Launch New Talks With Iran and Syria On Iraq 2007-02-27 16:37:22 The United States and the Iraqi government are launching a new diplomatic initiative to invite Iran and Syria to a ''neighbors meeting'' on stabilizing Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday. ''We hope that all governments seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region,'' Rice said in remarks prepared for delivery to a Senate committee. Excerpts were released in advance by the State Department. The move reflects a change of approach by the Bush administration, which previously had resisted calls by members of Congress and by a bipartisan Iraq review group to include Iran and Syria in diplomatic talks on stabilizing Iraq. Read The Full Story Is This Really The Last Resting Place Of Jesus, His Wife, Mary, And Son? 2007-02-27 03:18:52 If it really were the most important archaeological discovery in history, the point of truth came with very little song or dance. There was no drum roll or fanfare, just the sweeping aside of black felt drapes to reveal a pair of simple stone boxes sitting side by side. But for the panel of film-makers, theologians and statisticians at New York's public library Monday, this really was the moment. As James Cameron, the director of the film "Titanic" who has lent his name to the project, said: "It doesn't get bigger than this". The claim that was being presented to the world's media and which will be aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday was that the two boxes once contained the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his wife Mary Magdalene. Another box, not present at Monday's event but coincidentally on display in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contained, so the theory goes, the bones of their son, Judah. The boxes, which housed human bones and are known as ossuaries, are made out of Jerusalem limestone with its distinctive colour of clotted cream. The smaller of the two bears the inscription Jesus, son of Joseph, while the larger and more lavishly decorated is marked in the name of Mariamene e Mara. According to the Canadian documentary-maker, Simcha Jacobovici, the inscription translates as Mary Magdalene the Master. It is his contention that he and his team of advisers have conclusively found the tomb of Jesus and his family. Read The Full Story Grand Slam! Honus Wagner Card Sells For $2.35 Million 2007-02-27 03:18:24 The "Holy Grail of baseball cards," the famous 1909 Honus Wagner tobacco card once owned by hockey great Wayne Gretzky, has sold for a record-setting $2,350,000, the seller of the card said Monday. The anonymous buyer has only been identified as a Southern California collector. SCP Auctions Inc., a company that holds sports memorabilia auctions, said it bought a small share of the card. It is scheduled to be shown at a news conference at Dodger Stadium Tuesday. There are about 60 of the tobacco cards in existence featuring the Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop, one of the first five players to be inducted in Baseball's Hall of Fame. The seller, Brian Seigel, paid a then-record $1,265,000 in 2000 for the prize card, which is in much better shape than the others. Read The Full Story Egyptian Blogger Appeals Prison Sentence 2007-02-27 03:17:39 Lawyers filed an appeal Monday on behalf of a blogger who was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt's president. Abdel Kareem Nabil, a former law student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, used his blog to advocate secularism and criticize conservative Muslims. He accused Al-Azhar, Egypt's foremost Islamic institute, of encouraging extremism, calling it "the university of terrorism". One of Nabil's lawyers, Rawda Ahmed, said an appeal was filed Monday and a court hearing was set for March 12. Read The Full Story
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